Serpentine

by Peter Parken

  John wrapped his arm around her slender shoulders and squeezed her tight. “Don’t think about it, hon. Please. Let’s not be sad during the time I have left. Hey, a few months ago you suggested the ‘bucket list.’ I have some vacation coming—why don’t we take off for a while and go someplace nice? Whaddaya think, girl?”

  With her hands still covering her eyes, she nodded her head. John could still hear her sobbing. “Let’s go inside and plan it. Okay?”

  John got out and walked around to her side, opening the door for her. She kissed him as she got out of the car. “You and your planning—this time I’m not going to make fun of you. Yes, let’s go plan. How about Bora Bora?”

  Once inside the house, John said, with a sly smile on his face, “I think our best planning is done in bed, don’t you think? We’ll do our own little Bora Bora under the sheets!”

  Linda winked. “I’ll meet you upstairs, you devil.”

  He watched her as she negotiated the stairs, still a little bit tipsy from the wine. “Hold on tight to that railing, Lindy.”

  She turned her head, and called down to him in a singsong voice, “I love it when you call me ‘Lindy.’”

  John laughed. “I usually only do that when I’m horny!”

  “I know! That’s why I love it!”

  John walked back into the hallway and picked up the envelopes sitting on the phone desk. Flipped through them—nothing important, just a few bills. He heard Linda getting ready upstairs—toilet flushing, tap water running.

  He knew that in just a few minutes she’d be in bed. He liked to wait until she was nice and relaxed like that, kinda dozy—then he’d crawl in next to her and enjoy her gentle sighs and moans as his fingers began to roam over her body.

  Yes, a little vacation, just the two of them with none of their ‘couples friends’ along, would be really nice. They hadn’t done that in a long time and John regretted that. Especially now as the clock was ticking away on him with every precious day.

  And especially after that unsettling visit the NSA spook had paid him the other day. That guy knew—they’d recorded Linda talking from the phone booth, for God’s sake. John never even thought that was possible. So, now, unwittingly, he’d dragged Linda in on this strange affair. Hopefully, the way John had sent the guy slinking out of his office, he would leave John alone now.

  Despite his regret at them discovering what he, through Linda, did, he was glad that the Flying Machines executives managed to see the wreckage before it was dumped at sea. John knew he’d done the right thing; it helped a little bit with his guilty conscience over signing that phony report.

  Ah…the sound of the closet door in the bedroom creaking open. Linda was no doubt slipping into one of his favorite negligees right this very moment. John felt a familiar stiffness in his crotch as his imagination began to take over.

  *****

  The jet black Ford Explorer was parked across the street and five doors down from Fletcher’s house. The driver kept his eyes peeled—the main floor lights were still on, but the upstairs bedroom lights had just gone out. He saw the shadow of a lone figure moving around in the living room area.

  He reached his arm out of the window and aimed a tiny little remote control at Fletcher’s house. It was powerful—had a range of 300 meters. And it was configured for a sequence of two presses of the button. His superior had made it clear how this would work tonight, and he had to follow the instructions to the letter.

  The man turned to his partner sitting beside him. “Okay, now!”

  His partner jumped out of the car and raced towards the gold Lexus, a tire iron brandished in his right hand. He raised it and smashed it on top of the sunroof and then took a baseball swing at the front windshield. Then he raced back to the Explorer.

  The car alarm on the Lexus started blaring and the driver of the Explorer knew that Fletcher would be out the front door within about ten seconds.

  Once he saw the front door open, he would press once on the remote. That would cause a slight popping noise in the kitchen that no one in the house would notice. The gas valve on one of the stove burners would open by remote, allowing the gas to seep into the kitchen at a rapid flow.

  When he would press the remote a second time, a tiny little gadget hiding on the top of the Fletchers’ kitchen cabinets would come to life. A cute little thing—at a quick glance one would just think it was a bee or a hornet. But, in actual fact, it was a robot. The thing would gain liftoff from the top of the cabinets, and swoop down and around the kitchen in tight little circles.

  A nanorobot—slick, high tech, innocent looking, and very very tiny. In this case, it was also very very deadly.

  Nanorobots could be used in a variety of ways, for a myriad of missions—they could carry things, drop things, attack things, and be programmed and directed to do almost anything. They were the tiniest drones yet invented.

  For this mission, the thing was designed to do two things. The driver would wait a sufficient number of seconds before pressing the remote again; because he wanted there to be sufficient gas buildup before the drone did its work. If it was sent flying too early, it could get damaged in those close quarters and not have time to do its work at the exact right moment.

  And its work was to simply emit sparks as it flew. This little nanorobot was specifically designed as a “sparker.” Its nickname was, of course, ‘Sparky.’

  *****

  John finished looking through the mail and threw the envelopes back onto the desk. With an expectant smile on his face, he began his climb up the stairs, a randy bounce in each step.

  Suddenly, the screeching sound of a car alarm broke the night stillness. John headed back down the stairs, pulled back the curtains and peeked out the front window. Yep, it was his car. The head and tail lights of the Lexus were flashing.

  John cursed, opened the front door and ran down to the street. Right away, he saw that the sunroof and windshield had been smashed in. Vandals! Cursing again, he whirled his head around, looking in all directions. All he saw was a black SUV halfway down the block that was just finishing a U-turn and heading quickly in the opposite direction.

  John ran after it, waving his hands in the air and yelling. It kept going. It was dark, but the streetlights illuminated the license plate and the occupants for just a split second. John needed glasses for reading, but for distance he was pretty good. He locked the plate number in his brain. There were two people in that vehicle, who either saw who did this to his car—or, more likely, were the ones who did it.

  John walked back toward the house, looking sadly at his beloved Lexus as he passed. For the moment, he had to get his keys so he could shut off the alarm. Nothing else he could do—he’d phone the police in the morning, and give them the license plate number. Right now he had better things to do—although he had to admit, he was not as horny now as he had been just a few minutes ago.

  He heard the upstairs window slide open. Linda poked her head out. With panic in her voice, she called out, “John, I smell gas! Something’s…”

  Suddenly, there was a concussion—a blast that knocked him off his feet and several feet backwards in the air. John struggled to catch his breath, rolled from his back onto his knees and gasped. It was like the air had been knocked out of his lungs. As he struggled to his feet to a loud ringing in his ears, he called out, “Linda!” He couldn’t hear himself yell the word, but he knew he yelled it.

  Standing upright for just a few seconds, he could tell that most of the house was on fire, while parts of it had completely disappeared. He could see down the side of his house clear to the rear yard, through what used to be the garage and the kitchen. Flames were flickering through the front living room windows, or at least where the windows used to be.

  He took a couple of steps, calling out Linda’s name again, then staggered from the dizziness and fell straight forward onto his face. John struggled to his feet again, blood streaming, his nose hard to breathe through—probably broken.

/>   Forcing himself through sheer will to stay on his feet; he looked up at the window where he had last seen Linda’s pretty face pleading with him about…something.

  He called out her name again, and was vaguely aware of lights in the other houses coming on, neighbors filing out into the street.

  There were no flames coming out of the second floor window, but there was certainly lots of smoke. The main floor was hopeless—the fire was raging. John worked his way over to the tall elm tree that adorned their front lawn. He found the strength to grab onto the first low-hanging branch, and then swung himself up, straddling it. Then the same for the next few branches until he was up adjacent to the bedroom window.

  He was close enough that he could just make it. He stood on top of the branch he’d been straddling, holding onto the branch above for support. Then he hurled himself toward the windowsill, grabbing the edge with both hands and yanking himself up and in through the window.

  He crashed to the floor. The smoke was so dense in the room that he couldn’t see a thing. John’s eyes were tearing up from the acrid smoke and he was finding it impossible to breathe. So he just held whatever breath he still had and started feeling around on the floor with his hands.

  He found her right away, just back from the window that she’d been calling to him from. He didn’t check for a pulse—no time for that. They had to get out now or they’d both be dead in seconds. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw flames licking away under the bottom of the closed bedroom door. The fire was just a few feet away from them now.

  John swooped her up in his arms and staggered back to the window ledge. Now that he was standing, it was even harder to breathe—the smoke was much heavier, starting just a few inches off the floor. This gave him hope—she had been lying down on the floor, where the smoke wasn’t as thick.

  Cradled in his arms, he gently edged her out the window and stuck his own head out with her for a breath of fresher air. Drinking it in, he wondered, what the hell am I going to do now?

  Then he heard their voices. Three men standing on the lawn beneath the window, arms outstretched. His neighbors. “Drop her to us, John! We’ll catch her! Hurry!”

  He hesitated for just a second, but realized he had no choice. He couldn’t possibly carry her down the tree. If he just dropped her straight down, her body would miss the branches of the tree. She’d be okay—they’d catch her.

  Just before he let go of the love of his life, an unexpected thought crept into his brain: Linda will be pissed at me when she wakes up. Dressed in this sexy little negligee, she’ll be horrified when she finds out that our neighbors saw her this way.

  Amidst tears that he wasn’t sure were from the smoke or from sheer anguish, he allowed his arms to go slack and watched her body fall in slow motion to the waiting arms below.

  They caught her and all four went crashing to the ground—Linda safely on top, head cradled by one of the men.

  John crawled out onto the window ledge and threw himself toward the outreaching branch. Then he swung from limb to limb until finally tumbling to the ground from about ten feet up.

  He crawled over to his Linda, who was surrounded by their neighbors. He could hear sirens approaching. John pushed several people out of the way until he finally reached her side.

  John snuggled his face up against hers and then felt a gentle hand on his shoulder. He thought—hoped—for a second that it was her hand, but it was just one of the catchers.

  He looked up from Linda and stared into the eyes of his friend.

  The man’s head shaking, eyes saying it all, John didn’t need to hear his words. But he was forced to hear them anyway; those words that he’d never imagined he would hear in the short life he had left.

  “She’s gone, John.”

  Chapter 25

  Carl handed a sheet of paper to his assistant, Alex. “I want you to access the Inova Alexandria Hospital records and check on the condition of this man.”

  Alex studied it for a second and then asked, “Is he one of ours?”

  “No, he’s not.”

  “Is he currently an in-patient?”

  “As far as I know, yes. Why?”

  Alex wrote a couple of notes on the paper and then looked up. “It’s just a lot quicker if we know which database of records to hack into. I’ll get on it—should only take a few minutes.”

  Carl nodded. “Shut the door behind you.”

  He swiveled his chair around and gazed out the window at the Fort Meade landscape. Yes, all had gone well last night. All according to plan. He’d watched the news this morning and the explosion was featured as just a secondary story on the local news channel. Just another gas explosion. They happened so regularly now throughout American neighborhoods that most people just yawned and took another sip of their coffee.

  The initial investigation by the Washington fire marshal declared it a gas leak—all gas lines to the street were shut off as a precaution, and the site was still being surveyed. But there wasn’t much left to survey—Carl had seen the news footage. The destruction was so complete that it was hard to believe a house once stood there. After the initial explosion which took out the kitchen and the garage, the fire had moved rapidly throughout the rest of the main floor and up to the second floor. Within half an hour, the house had basically disappeared.

  Too bad about the Fletcher woman, but a message had to be sent. Carl had actually wished John Fletcher had been successful in saving his wife—she didn’t have to die to get John’s attention. The explosion, fire, and fear of losing her would have been enough to scare him—but in hindsight maybe this was better anyway. Her death would hit him much harder and should serve to convince him to keep his mouth shut.

  Carl knew that Fletcher was just a few years away from collecting a pension, so his job would be important to him—especially now with him being all alone. That job would be his entire life from now on. And by now Fletcher must be well aware of the influence that the NSA had on his employer, the NTSB—enough influence that Carl had been able to insert himself into the rollercoaster investigation and force Fletcher’s boss to agree to the phony accident report that Fletcher had been ordered to sign.

  Surely Fletcher would be thinking of those things as he mourned his wife—and wondering to himself also if the gas leak was truly an accident. That’s exactly what Carl wanted him to wonder. He wanted there to be some shadow of a doubt in his mind, enough to make him one very careful man.

  Carl spun around in his chair at the sound of knuckles rapping on his door. “Come in.”

  Alex came bounding in with several sheets of paper. “I have what you want.”

  “Boy, you guys are fast! Okay, tell me what I need to know.”

  Alex looked at his notes. “This John…Fletcher, yes, he was admitted last night for smoke inhalation and a few cuts and bruises. He also needed to be sedated due to shock. Sounds like he’s coming around now, lungs are still being monitored closely. One was in danger of collapsing, but on the mend. Some bad headaches reported on his chart, too, but those are from the brain tumor…”

  “What? Hold on—go back! Brain tumor?”

  Alex shuffled his pages and held one up for Carl to see. “Yes, this is his medical summary from radiation treatments he’s been having at the hospital. Prognosis terminal—looks like he has about twelve months left.”

  Carl rubbed his temples with both hands. “Leave those records with me. That’ll be all, Alex. Thanks.”

  Once again, Carl swiveled his chair towards the window. This was how he relaxed, looking out over the vast terrain that surrounded Fort Meade. He felt protected here; powerful, immune from the world. He decided to try to take his mind off the news he’d just heard. Got up, walked over to his wall safe and took out a file. He sat back down in front of the window and opened the folder. It was quite thick, containing about six inches of documents.

  He pulled one item out of a sleeve pocket. It was a map of Canada. Carl scanned the little black dots marked for
various locations on the map.

  Then he sighed, laid the folder on his lap and gazed out the window again. Not even this file could distract him from what he’d just learned.

  John Fletcher was dying. He was a man with nothing to lose and nothing to gain.

  *****

  Impatiently, she asked, “Where do I sign?”

  Dwayne Feinstein opened up the document.

  “All the signature pages are marked with paper clips. And I used pretty pink ones just for you.”

  Shelby looked up at him and scowled. “Just give me a pen so I can get the hell out of here. There’s a stink in this office.”

  Dwayne handed her his gold Cartier pen. “Now, no need to get snarly, Ms. Sutcliffe…actually, do you mind if I call you ‘Shelly?’”

  She tapped the pen hard on the desk. Dwayne winced.

  “I minded it the last time and I mind it just as much now! My name is ‘Shelby!’ Do you think you’ll be able to get that right in court? I don’t think the jury will find you too credible when you can’t even get the name straight for your only witness!”

  She began flipping the pages to each of the pretty pink paperclips and signed one page after another until she was done. She didn’t even bother reading what she was signing.

  Then she unceremoniously tossed the expensive pen onto the desk. “Are we done?”

  “Yes, for now. There will be a deposition of course. I’ll let you know about that and prepare you for it, coach you a bit on what to say, things like that.”

  “We already agreed upon what I would say.”

  Dwayne smiled. “Yes, we did. I’m glad your memory became clearer. It’s not unusual for memories to be confused right after a traumatic experience—it usually takes a few days for the accurate memories to show up. So, to be clear, you will testify that your lap bar became disengaged at the moment the train impacted with the edge of the broken track. Correct?”