by Steven James
“Yes.”
“And it has that agent’s number on it?”
“Yeah, but I—”
“Give it to me.”
There was a slight pause. Blake edged closer to the door and eased it open just a crack, just enough to see his brother in the room standing beside that second guy: dark hair. Early thirties. The man was wearing a hospital badge on his scrubs.
“Are you going to hurt me?” the man asked Dylan.
“‘Hurt’ isn’t exactly the right word.”
With that, Blake whipped out the 1911 MC Operator .45ACP that he carried and burst through the door, aiming the gun at his brother’s chest. “Dylan, this man won’t tell. Let him go.”
Dylan didn’t move. “Brother. I was wondering how long it would take you to find me. I thought at least another month.”
The man beside Dylan was trembling. “Yeah, like he said. I won’t tell.”
Dylan turned to him. “What did you say?”
“I promise. I won’t tell anyone. Just let me—”
Without another word, Dylan drew a SIG and fired one shot through the man’s left eye, and then, immediately, two more center mass. His body dropped backward, colliding awkwardly against one of the exam tables before smacking to the floor.
Blake did not shoot his brother.
Dylan turned his gun toward Blake, and the two men—the older brother and the younger one; the one who had taken the role of the father, the other, the son—stood still and quiet, aiming their guns directly at each other’s chests.
“Dylan, I’m going to need you to come with me.”
“That’s not going to happen, brother. I have unfinished business here.”
“I’m afraid it’ll have to remain unfinished.”
Behind Dylan, Blake saw a huge shadow move and realized that Mannie had found his way into the room through another door. Once again, Blake was impressed at how quietly someone Mannie’s size could cross through space.
“Since when do you carry a SIG?” Blake asked him.
“It was a gift to me from an FBI agent. Listen, brother, I want you to lower that gun. I don’t want to shoot you, but I will if I have to. And we both know you’re not going to shoot me.”
“You’re right. I’m not.”
Blake did lower his gun.
While nodding to his associate.
And with that, Mannie was on his brother.
Dylan put up a good fight—better than any of the black belts had. He even got a shot off, but it missed Mannie and ricocheted off the floor and into one of the metal shelving units nearby.
Blake had brought a sedative in a syringe with him, but Mannie used his fist instead.
“Sorry about that,” Mannie apologized as he stood over Dylan’s unconscious form. “I didn’t want to hurt him.”
“He’ll be alright,” Blake said. “Let’s get him out of here.”
He picked up the phone that Dylan and the man that he’d shot had been talking about, the one with the agent’s number on it, slipped it into his pocket, and opened the door so that Mannie could carry his little brother to the car.
59
After the tea party, Tessa played with Hannah for a while, fed Aja, did a little bit of the bouncy-walk-calmy-down-thing, changed another diaper—which seemed to be an entire sixty hours’ worth of poop—and got a snack for Hannah as a sort-of-maybe-partial excuse to get one for herself.
Then Tessa went through the bedtime routine with Hannah—helping her find her pajamas, brush her teeth, say her prayers, and then climb into bed.
Hannah nestled up to her, hugging Francesca in one arm and Toothy in the other.
“How did you end up with both of them?” Tessa asked her. “That’s not fair.”
“It is for me.” Hannah beamed. “Can you tell me a story?”
“Sure. Which book do you want me to read?”
“No, I mean tell me one. With your mouth.”
“You mean without a book?”
Hannah nodded and snuggled in closer.
“I don’t really know any good stories to tell. Most of the ones I know are pretty scary.”
“Uh-uh. Don’t tell me one you already know. Tell me one that isn’t there yet.”
“Isn’t where?”
“Anywhere.”
“A made-up one?”
“They’re the best.”
“Oh. Gotcha.”
Although Tessa loved to write—poetry especially—she’d never really tried to write a story for a little girl and wasn’t sure how to get started or make one up on the spot, so she launched into it with the old standby opening, then went on from there. “Once upon a time there was this place called, um, Upper Downmongo.”
“That’s a funny name.”
“It was a funny place. It was down in the Mongo Valley but way up high in the Peaks of the Eastern Realm. But it’s a special place too because all the animals there could talk and kings and queens ruled the land and princesses lived in beautiful, stately palaces.”
“What’s stately?”
“Means they were very pretty and very elegant.”
“Was one of the princesses named Hannah?”
“Yeah. Huh. How did you know that?”
Hannah smiled. “I don’t know.”
“Have you heard this story before?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Well, so near Hannah’s castle, dragons lurked in the hills.”
“Lurked?”
“It just means they lived there, hiding in their caves. But lurking is a sort of crawly and creepy kind of hiding.”
Tessa noticed Hannah hugging Francesca and Toothy a little more closely. “Were the dragons mean?”
“Um, no, but . . . well . . . they were lonely.”
“Oh.”
“They just wanted a friend, but whenever they went to meet the people in the villages, everyone got scared and ran away.”
“’Cause they thought they were gonna eat ’em?”
“How did you know that? You have heard this story before.”
“No!”
“Well, the princess’s name was Hannah. But I need to tell you about someone else for a second first. There was one girl dragon whose mommy dragon left her one day and didn’t tell her where she was going. And the girl dragon got worried and kinda mad because she didn’t want anything bad to happen to her mom and because she didn’t like her mom having a secret.”
“Did she love her?”
“You mean the girl or the mom?”
“Both.”
“Yeah, they loved each other.”
“So then the mommy will come back and things will be okay.”
“How do you know that?”
“When you love someone, you always come back for ’em. The girl dragon just needs to wait and trust her mommy.”
“What if the mother dragon doesn’t ever tell her the secret?”
Hannah’s answer was so quick that Tessa could tell it was something that just seemed self-evident to a five-year-old. “You can love someone even if you don’t tell ’em all your secrets.”
“Huh.”
“What happens then?”
“Oh, Princess Hannah goes out on an adventure and meets the girl dragon, whose name is Bernice.”
“Bernice?” She scrinkled up her face.
“It was a common name for dragons in that land,” Tessa said, holding back the fact that it was also her middle name. “So, at first, Hannah was scared of the dragon, and Bernice was kind of scared of the princess.”
Hannah seemed to find that hilarious. “Why would a dragon be scared of a princess?!”
“’Cause they didn’t know each other too well yet. But once they started to play hopscotch they became good friends. Princess Hannah would
scratch Bernice on the back of her neck, right where she liked it. And Bernice would help start campfires for Hannah so she could roast Meadomallows, which are kind of like marshmallows but don’t come from a marsh but instead, a flowery mountain meadow.”
Tessa hated marshmallows and justified telling Hannah they came from a marsh to keep her from ever trying them herself. Gross.
“They played catch,” Tessa said, “and tag and—”
“Did Bernice tag her with her fire?”
“Uh-uh. She was super careful not to. And she kept Hannah safe from porcupines and mean beavers, and Hannah taught Bernice how to have tea parties and use her fire to make the tea not too hot, not too cold, but just right.”
“Like Goldilocks!”
“Right.”
“Is that the end?”
“No. It’s really just the beginning. They had lots of adventures together.”
Hannah smiled. “Tell me about one of ’em.”
“Well, let’s see . . . The one with the giant rhino who liked to smash everything, or the one with the walrus who liked to frolic in the Southern Swamp?”
“Frolic?”
“To swim playfully and happily.”
“Both!”
“Both?”
“Both stories!”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me.”
Hannah leaned her head against Tessa’s chest. “I like you.”
Tessa found herself ruffling the girl’s hair and then realized it was the first time in her life she’d ever done anything like that.
It was a little weird.
But nice too.
“I like you too,” she said.
When the stories were over and Hannah had fallen asleep, Tessa didn’t want her to be scared or to wake up alone in the dark, so she stayed there by her side and listened to the little girl’s soft breathing and thought about secrets and love and what else might happen in Upper Downmongo and what other stories she might one day tell.
60
Even though I tried calling Christie three times on my way back to the motel, she didn’t pick up.
Traffic was light, but still, by the time I got there, it was nearly eleven thirty.
Back in my room, I texted her to call me in the morning. I also sent her an email with the same request and messaged her through every social networking app I could think of.
After getting ready for bed, I found a text from Lieutenant Sproul that the fingerprints on the plastic tips on one of the hoodies matched a third-year resident who was currently serving as the assistant medical examiner. He’d never been arrested but had been fingerprinted as one of the security measures and background checks at the hospital. They’d sent a car to his house, but he wasn’t there. They were currently looking for him.
I was thinking of watching the rest of Sanctuary, but with everything that was going on in regard to Christie and Sharyn, I wasn’t in the mood.
Instead, I reviewed the case files, checked my messages one more time, saw nothing from Christie, and then went to bed.
++++
When Dylan woke up, he was no longer in the morgue. For the most part, the room he was in was dark, but a hint of light seeped in from the city through a shattered window to his left.
His head ached, and he found himself rubbing his forehead and finding a tender lump.
The last thing he remembered was fighting the big guy who apparently worked with his brother.
Dylan tried to push himself to his feet but found that his left wrist was chained to a sturdy pipe running down the wall. He only had six feet or so of freedom.
He tried his hardest to pull free, but it didn’t take long for him to realize that the pipe wasn’t going to budge. Also, despite the strength he’d gained from his workouts in prison over the last fifteen years, he was not superhuman and would not be able to pop the links.
Well, they hadn’t killed him, so they weren’t done with him.
Truthfully, he didn’t think his brother would ever be able to kill him, even if that act of mercy ended up costing him his own life.
But the other guy, well, Dylan wasn’t so sure about him.
It was too dark to see what assets might be in the room, and he wasn’t going to be able to get out of here until he could get a good look around.
So, for now, he decided he needed to wait things out.
If he could get some sleep, he would be refreshed and ready to address the issue of escaping in the morning.
++++
Sharyn processed everything that’d happened tonight. It was clear that Pat really did care about Christie. But it was also clear that there were trust issues between them.
Don’t get in the way. Let them work things out.
But what if they don’t work out?
Sharyn chided herself for her thoughts.
She needed to move forward with tracking down Dylan.
And right now, the best way to do that was through Hook’dup.
Through offering him bait.
Earlier, she’d started creating a profile and now she updated it.
She held her phone at arm’s length, tried out a couple of different smiles and poses, and eventually landed on one with her head tilted slightly to the side, a flirtatious look in her eyes, as she bit the end of a pen in a sultry way.
She listed her job as a model, her favorite animal as a rabbit, and her favorite movie as Sanctuary. If anything was going to attract Dylan’s attention, that should do it.
Username: Snowball4.
On the app you could list your status as “Busy,” “Interested,” “Available,” or “Hot and Ready.”
She went with “Available” for now.
If necessary, tomorrow, she would move on to “Hot and Ready.”
61
11:34 P.M.
Dispersal in 15 hours
On his drive up to Dearborn, Ali had found it necessary to stop numerous times to put ice on his eye to ease the swelling so he could see well enough to drive. He’d also needed to rest, since the broken rib—or ribs, he wasn’t sure—made it hard to sit for long periods of time. As a result the trip had taken longer than he anticipated.
Now, he finally arrived at the address he’d been given, went to the back door, knocked twice, waited, and then knocked again just as he’d been instructed to do.
As he stood there, he heard movement inside, but at first, no one came and for a second he thought about running, trying to escape what he had done, who he was. But there was no escaping it anymore.
He did not run.
He waited.
Just as he’d been taught while he was at that compound in Yemen.
Finally, a tall yet unimposing bearded man opened the door and assessed the bruises on Ali’s face.
To Ali, his eyes seemed to be filled with both curiosity and concern.
The man gazed past Ali, scanned the neighborhood, studying it for any movement or sign that Ali might have been followed, and then, without a word, gestured for him to come inside.
He put a finger to his closed lips and shook his head no. Ali wasn’t sure if it was because the man was unable to speak, or perhaps if he suspected that his home had been bugged and that someone might be listening in on them.
He took out a tablet computer and typed into it: I am Abdul.
Ali nodded.
The man wrote: You are hurt. What happened?
He handed the tablet to Ali and Ali wrote: At a rest area four men attacked me simply because I am a Muslim. They knew nothing of my reason for being here. They hate Muslims.
For the rest of their conversation, they handed the tablet back and forth, typing their responses to each other.
—But Ali, are you certain they did not know?
—Yes.
—Allah will have his
revenge. They will die in their rage.
—Is everything set for tomorrow?
—Yes, brother. But you are hurt.
—I am fine.
—You will be able to carry everything out as planned?
—I will.
Ali didn’t want him to know the extent of his injuries, so he tried to ignore the pain in his side that caused him a hitch with every breath.
Although he thought about asking for some medicine to relieve the pain, he decided to allow his suffering to be a way of acknowledging his devotion, and said nothing to Abdul about it. A small sacrifice.
Abdul showed Ali to a room at the top of the stairs, invited him to rest, and typed on the tablet that his wife would bring up breakfast at seven.
—We leave for the restaurant at ten thirty. There, we will meet the others. Then, we will be told what happens next.
—I am looking forward to it. Do you know if my sister is okay?
—Yes, brother. She is fine. Faatina is watching her. She can be trusted.
Ali calculated that he would be contagious tomorrow in the late afternoon. Though Fridays are days of worship for Muslims, this was holy work. Surely Allah would honor that.
He knew nothing of the length of the meeting and wondered briefly if it might be cutting it close, but then realized he must trust that all would occur in due time, just as it should, and that he simply needed to go to sleep and prepare to play his part tomorrow in the bigger scope of the plan.
++++
After showing Ali to his room, Abdul went to his car and headed south on I-94 toward the warehouse.
Ever since 1980, when the remaining smallpox samples were locked away, there’d been an ongoing debate in the scientific community about whether to destroy them, with some scientists claiming that it was necessary to keep the samples for research purposes, and others claiming that it could fall into the wrong hands and be weaponized and used as a bioweapon.
But postponing a decision is making a decision.
And of course, when you lock up a beast that does not die, eventually someone will leave the door open a crack and it will nudge its way out into the daylight.