by Nick Thacker
They always did.
Either from the drug or from the fear of it, they always cracked.
He eyed her from the side of the gym, from the blocked door where he liked to stand as the rest of his men worked. It was his perch, his standing throne, where he could direct and dictate what needed to be done. He could call out an order or talk directly to another man in the room using the personal comm system they each wore. It was efficient, effective, and it kept things moving toward their goals.
The woman was at the opposite door, the door Morrison was standing in front of. He switched to Morrison’s channel and gave the man instructions.
“Bring her in, Morrison. Let’s see if she’s going to be willing to cooperate.”
“I’ll make sure she’s willing to cooperate, sir.”
“Just bring her in. Don’t do anything rash, like you did back in the hotel room.”
Garza knew his second-in-command had roughed her up a bit, likely out of the man’s own frustration. Morrison may have been a good soldier, but he was horrible with the opposite sex. He’d seen how Morrison treated them on more than one occasion, and on more than one occasion he’d had to pull the man away from the girl he was ‘treating.’
The Hawk watched as Morrison and another of his men dragged Juliette through the open gym floor and forced her into the chair. She had a tight expression on her face, devoid of emotion. She wasn’t scared, or angry, or confused. She just was.
He allowed a slight grin to cross over his face as she stared at him. They always start out like this, he thought. Triumphant, as if they’d already beaten him.
He wasn’t surprised at her response to the men tying her to the chair. She sat, calmly, watching him. Staring at him. She knew he was in charge, and he wanted her to know.
He stared back.
She would keep that face as long as she could, but it wouldn’t last forever.
Eventually, his men would wipe that face clean and force her to wear a new one. A face that definitely showed her fear, her confusion, and her pain.
It was a beautiful face, and he’d be sure to have his men keep that face beautiful.
“Morrison,” he said.
“Sir?”
“Let them finish, and then have the men take a break.”
“But sir, we’re ready to begin —”
“They deserve a break, Morrison. She’s not going anywhere, and I want to make sure she knows that.”
Morrison looked from Juliette to him, then back again.
“Yes, sir. You got it.”
The Hawk crossed his arms, watching as his men finished tying the woman’s arms and legs to the chair. Finally, after the zip ties were all in place, they ran a rope around her neck and tightened it to the base of the chair’s back, ensuring that she had enough slack to breathe.
He thought he saw a slight gasp escape her lips when they tied her neck, and he wondered if she’d crack much sooner than he’d expected. But she closed her mouth again, raised her chin a bit, and continued staring.
Good, Juliette. Good.
She was now hog-tied to the chair, unable to lean forward without choking herself, and unable to move any of her appendages. It had proven to be an effective and inexpensive way to hold a prisoner, and it was portable as well. He’d been able to hold many prisoners this way for years, no matter what third-world country or hellhole he found himself in.
But here, in this makeshift gymnasium, with his men keeping a tight watch and nowhere for her to run, the chair was hardly needed just to keep the prisoner in one place.
The chair was overkill for restraint purposes alone, and The Hawk knew it.
The chair was designed to extract psychological effects from his prisoners, and it had never failed him.
Chapter FORTY-THREE
‘IT DOES SEEM AS THOUGH this has escalated quite a bit,’ Mr. E said. His face glowed from the screen of the iPad Joshua had placed on the chair in the middle of their circle. Reggie and Ben had slid their chairs over closer to Derrick’s and Joshua’s, so they could all see the screen.
“‘Escalated quite a bit?’” Ben asked, nearly yelling. “You’ve got to be — Julie’s gone. That’s all you have to offer?”
Reggie felt the tension in the room start to rise. They had called in to Mr. E, just as they had planned, and so far they had told their benefactor everything that had transpired.
‘No,’ E said. ‘Hopefully I have more to offer than that. My wife has contacted me as well, just an hour ago. She is with the pawn shop owner, and they are both safe. But there has been a development.’
Reggie’s eyebrows rose.
‘It appears the woman my wife went to find knows more than I initially thought.’
“Like what?”
‘I believe she is part of the American Philosophical Society, for starters.’
Reggie considered this a moment. The pawn shop owner who had flown to Australia to — ostensibly — attend a conference related to running a pawn shop, was part of the APS.
“I wonder if the woman who was murdered — Delacroix? — was also APS,” Joshua said.
Mr. E’s image nodded on the iPad’s screen. ‘That is what I believe as well. It makes sense that the two women would be willing to trade the item in question for such a high price in that case. Yet it doesn’t tell us what the item was, and my wife was unable to find anything in that regard.’
“I might be able to help with that,” Derrick said, stepping forward so Mr. E could see his face. “My name is Roger Derrick, and I’m with the FBI.”
‘Alone?’
“Unfortunately, yes. At least for the time being. But after today, I might be able to talk them into sending out a team.”
‘I do hope, for your safety and for Julie’s, that is true,’ Mr. E said. ‘But thank you for your protection and help thus far.’
Derrick nodded. “It’s a passion project, really. Something I’ve been tracking down for years when the time permits. We’re close, now. I can feel it. And if your team is willing, I’d like them to —”
‘Say no more,’ Mr. E said. ‘My team is at your disposal. I understand the situation has grown more dire, and that Julie’s safety is now on the line. But helping you will help her, and vice versa.’
Derrick nodded again, then looked around the room, as if asking for their final permission.
Reggie gave him a stern look, but nodded. “This project of ours has gotten a little out of hand,” he said. “But we’re here to help. Give us your word you’ll help us find Julie when this is all over.”
“Of course,” Derrick said. “As I said, following this trail of Daris’ will bring us closer to Julie. They’re looking for the same thing, and they wanted her for a bargaining chip.”
Reggie watched as Ben’s face darkened, his jawline becoming exaggerated as he clenched his teeth together. Reggie had been there before, had felt that feeling.
Total loss. Helplessness.
It wasn’t a feeling he had ever welcomed, and it wasn’t a feeling he’d ever been able to overcome. He had trained his entire life to remove that feeling from his persona, to completely deny his mind the ability to feel it.
Ben was feeling it now, and he would be feeling it for some time.
But Reggie also knew that he’d be more alert, his mind in a state of heightened clarity, for the next few hours. Tomorrow he’d be dull, the throbbing sharpness of the pain he was feeling today pushed back to a constant tension. He would still be present, but he would be slipping away quickly.
It was important, if they wanted Ben’s help, to get him moving today. Keep him moving, keep him awake and talking, if possible. He would rail against any support or encouragement, but he would be on a high-adrenaline kick.
Reggie and Joshua needed to point him in the right direction and let him run before he started to crash.
Ben finally nodded, agreeing with the rest of them. He stood up, walking into the iPad camera’s view. “We need to get moving, then. We�
�re wasting time.”
“Ben,” Joshua said. “That’s why we called this meeting, remember? We don’t know where to go. That’s why we need to find the journal.”
Derrick sniffed quickly and looked away.
Reggie turned to him and stared.
“I — sorry, I didn’t mention this before…”
Reggie spoke through his teeth. “What did you not mention before?”
“We have — I mean I have — the journal.”
Joshua let out a sigh, and Reggie’s eyes closed. He clenched his fists.
“I wasn’t sure if I could trust you before, and I didn’t know why you were at the APS headquarters. I was watching Daris, and I was told I could move in whenever I felt comfortable with the situation, so I moved in quickly when I knew she wasn’t alone in there. I didn’t want things to get out of hand.”
“Well they did get out of hand, pal,” Reggie said. “Do you trust us, now?”
Derrick nodded. “I do. I’m sorry, I wasn’t going to keep it from you the entire time. I just had to make sure we were all fighting for the same side.”
“I’m fighting for Julie. That’s it. You get us closer to Julie, I guess that means we’re on the same side.”
Joshua’s hardened stare drilled into the larger, thicker Roger Derrick. Reggie had seen that stare before, and he knew it had weakened far stronger men than Derrick.
“Where’d you get the journal?”
Derrick looked at each man, then the iPad screen. Mr. E was staring back, stoic, his face an unmoving mask. If the video was frozen, they wouldn’t have been able to tell.
“I took it from the APS facility. I was the one who stole it from Daris.”
Chapter FORTY-FOUR
BEN WATCHED THE LARGE MAN’S expression. He seemed to be telling the truth, but Ben had been wrong before. He wanted to trust this man, wanted to believe him. He knew the story made sense, and he knew he might have done the same thing if he were in Derrick’s shoes.
But Julie was out there, and this man was willing to play ball with them. On their team. For now, at least, their interests were aligned.
But what happens when our interests are no longer aligned? Ben thought. Will he still play ball?
“Why?” Ben asked. “Why take it?”
“I told you, this has been a pet project of mine for some time. I’ve been following Daris, and her rise to power within the organization. When I found out about the journal a month ago, I knew it would be something worth getting my hands on”
“Because the journal seemed like an important piece of her struggle for power?”
Derrick nodded. “It did, and it is. It’s crucial to her campaign.”
“How?”
“It’s the map, Harvey. It has everything inside that she needs to find her treasure.”
“How do you know?”
“Because it’s been kept secret from the rest of the organization — and the rest of the world — at large. It’s something no one wanted to talk about, and only about seven living people at any given time in history has known about. Something that’s going to be important. It’s going to have the treasure map in there.”
“Then why hasn’t she found it yet?”
“She only found out about the journal recently, when it was bequeathed to her from the previous president. It’s part of the tradition, passed down from generation to generation, all the way back to Benjamin Franklin. There are more secrets, too — some small, some large, some deadly. They pass them down to keep them inside the organization, but they only pass them along to the leadership in the group. Not all the members know everything. So she only recently got her hands on this thing, but she’s anxious to figure out where it leads. Why no one else wanted to go searching for the treasure it’s concealing is anyone’s guess, but I’d say it’s because no one really thinks it’s what she says it is. More of a relic, a cool piece of history. But a treasure map? Hiding a conspiracy that goes all the way back to Jefferson and Lewis? I’m not sure anyone else believed it.”
“So the APS is a lot more like the Freemasons,” Joshua said.
“In that way, yes,” Derrick said. “But since its inception, the organization was meant for good, meant to keep the young nation in check, by providing the country’s leadership with ideas and solutions to problems.”
“The original idea behind Ben Franklin’s Junto.”
“Exactly. He was a patriot, as were the other members. It was always that way, and it still is. But there are obviously different sides to the same story, and Daris’ story — the one she’s telling herself — is that the APS needs to have a stronger handle on US politics, more control overall in the nation, and she’s willing to kill to get it.”
Reggie nodded, and Ben listened silently. He took in the words, fitting them against the description of Daris Derrick had given them previously, against the woman he’d met in the office at the APS, and the woman he’d seen on TV.
She was manipulative, he’d seen that personally. But that meant she was clever, too, able to work different angles at once. Able to work different people at once.
Suddenly it hit him.
“You’re APS, aren’t you?” he asked.
Derrick looked at him, and he felt Reggie and Joshua’s eyes on him as well. He couldn’t see the iPad screen, but he had a feeling Mr. E had leaned in to the camera, trying to hear better what Derrick would say next.
“You’re APS, and that’s why you stole the journal. You’re against Daris and her side, and you want to make sure she doesn’t get what she wants.”
Derrick chewed on nothing, his jaw tightening and loosening.
“Say it,” Ben said. “Tell us the truth.”
Finally, Derrick spoke. “Yes,” he said. “I am. I’m part of the American Philosophical Society. The Old World side. I want to protect the integrity of the nation I love. I want what’s best for its people, and I want what’s best for me.”
“You’re part of the leadership?”
“Sort of. I’m next in line to take their place. Not president, but one of the governing members. I’m close with them, though. I know what they’re vying for, and I know what they’re up against.”
“Mercenaries willing to kill anyone and everyone who’s against Daris?”
“Something like that, yeah,” Derrick said.
“Well.” Reggie said. “That’s that. It’s making a lot more sense now.”
Joshua frowned. “Are you not FBI?”
“No, I am. But it’s just like I said earlier. This is a pet project of mine, one I barely have any resources for. I had to beg for this assignment, since it’s pretty low-priority up there. I’m actually on vacation right now, and my boss nearly had a heart attack when he found out I’m working. Most of what I’ve put in I’ve done on my own time, with my own money. I don’t have the benefit of an entire team of guys helping out with the research and organization of it all for this assignment, so it’s pretty much whatever I can pull together.”
“And now we’re here, which is why you want our help.”
“Not want,” Derrick said. “Need. I really do need your help. Even if you don’t believe this crap, Daris is willing to sacrifice anything — and anyone — to get her way. She’ll make up a story if that’s what it takes. She has to be stopped.”
“She’s got Julie,” Ben said. “So she’s going to be stopped. You have my word on that.”
Derrick stood up, walked around the iPad sitting on the chair in the middle of the room, and stretched out a hand. Ben took it, squeezed, and felt the crushing strength of Roger Derrick return his own grasp.
“Thank you, all of you. I wish I could repay you, but —”
“Help us get Julie,” Joshua said. “That’s payment enough.”
“You got it.”
Reggie sat back down after the round of handshakes, then looked over at Derrick once more.
“Great. Now, about that journal. Can we see —”
A loud crash so
unded to Ben’s left, and the window shattered. Pieces of glass fell inward, the tiny sparks of crystal bouncing and flying up again as they hit the hard laminate floor.
Chapter FORTY-FIVE
BEN FELL SIDEWAYS, INSTINCTIVELY TRYING to dodge the shards of sharp glass. He had barely heard the first gunshot, but the second and third sounded — far away, but obviously aimed toward him.
“Shit!” Reggie yelled. “What is that?”
“Someone’s shooting at us,” Ben responded, from his position on the floor. “Again.”
Derrick crab-walked backwards toward the yogurt shop’s counter, sliding his briefcase and hard case along next to him as he went. Reggie and Joshua followed suit. None of them were armed, as The Hawk’s team had taken their weapons. Ben wondered if Derrick had another sidearm in his case and was trying to get to cover to get it loaded and ready.
“They’re back? Why didn’t they kill us the first time?”
Ben reached the counter just as the owner of the shop, the small Asian man, came running up to the front of the store.
“Get down!” Joshua yelled. “Now!”
The man, wide-eyed and trembling, dove to the floor, a grunt escaping his lips as a torrent of gunfire erupted over his head.
“Not sure if they're the same group or not,” Derrick said. “These guys don’t seem as careful. The Hawk’s guys had our room key and everything, remember?”
“Well, careful or not, these guys are shooting a lot more,” Reggie said. “And this is downtown Philadelphia, for crying out loud. They can’t possibly think they’re going to get away with it.”
Ben had his hands over his head, helpless to defend their position. He realized that they all were helpless, and he could see on Derrick’s face that he knew it, as well.
“We need to get out of here, guys,” Derrick said. “They’re not going to stop shooting until we’re all dead. And I doubt they’ll run out ammunition before that.”
“Back of the store,” the Asian man said. “Back of the store, exit door.”