by H. A. Raynes
“I strongly suggest you watch yourself,” Satterwhite says. “Enough of this bullshit. You don’t expect us to believe that the President of the United States has been issuing direct orders to your group to carry out terrorist activities?”
“Direct orders? No, sir. We don’t meet with our commander. Not in person anyway. We have a handler who is given direct orders and relays them.”
“I object to this line of questioning.” Lydia slams her palm on the table.
“A ‘handler ’?” Renner repeats.
“He coordinates everything, ensures the details are in place. For the State House he put together the schedule. Arranged the costumes. Shipped us the chemicals.”
Renner’s eyes dart to the camera. Sebastian stands stock-still. What the hell is going on?
“We need a name,” Renner says.
“All I got is one. Name, that is.” O’Brien sits back in his chair. “Dash.”
“Dash?” Satterwhite says.
“That’s it,” O’Brien says.
“How does he make contact, or vice versa?” Renner asks.
“He dead-drops instructions and burners. Occasionally, I get a piece of mail that I memorize and then burn. Look, I don’t know who he is. Where he is. I just do what he tells me.”
“Not anymore,” Renner says.
Sebastian finds he’s been holding his breath. Dash. Prowar. Progovernment. Under President Clark’s command? Guy’s got to be full of shit. It’s impossible to gauge if there’s any truth in his story. Sebastian shakes it off, runs his hands over his face. He’d had high hopes for tonight. Instead, he wasted hours staring at a man responsible for changing his life, unable to face him, and unable to avenge Kate’s death.
Chapter 35
THE AUTONOMOUS RENTAL car transports Steven and Jonathan three hours northwest of Boston. Steven thought it best not to bring the Mercedes, lest his license plate—HUDSONS—give away their identity. Reclined in his seat, Jonathan has slept most of the way. They’re heading to one of many communities of outliers who eschew both society and technology while preaching nonviolence. This particular “town” he learned about from a client whose daughter moved here a few years ago. The people grow their own food, build their own homes, and rely on one another for all things. It’s like a hippie commune. Or the Amish. Steven wonders if they have toilet paper and other trivial, yet civilized luxuries.
It’s after dusk as the car steers down a long dirt road through the New Hampshire woods. The handgun stashed under his seat unnerves him, but he thought it best to bring it along. Despite their nonviolent beliefs, there could be survivalists among them that don’t look kindly on strangers. Beside him, Jonathan stirs.
“ ’Morning, sunshine.”
“You look ridiculous,” Jonathan says.
Steven glances at himself in the rearview mirror. For the occasion, he borrowed from his mortician’s arsenal and is wearing a strategically placed mole, glasses, and streaks of gray in his hair. With his advertisements everywhere, he can’t take the chance someone will recognize him.
“Are you gonna tell me what we’re doing here?” Jonathan asks. “Is someone dead?”
“Always.”
“What’s this for?” Jonathan holds a medical supply kit from the morgue.
“We’re diversifying.”
“You gonna kill someone?”
Steven coughs. “Let’s hope it won’t come to that.”
The members of Project Swap, as they’re calling the MedID effort, are eager but cautious. The MedID database is growing at a rate impossible to keep up with, on the recipient side, of course. Each of them—Cole, Karen, and Steven—already knew a handful of potential recipients. But the donor side is impossible to predict, and considerably slower to fill. While they all brainstorm how best to find donors, this is Steven’s first foray into Project Swap’s underground outreach. Donating Sarah’s MedID had gone flawlessly, thanks to Karen, who connected them with a former patient desperate to shed her medical history. Something about the transaction helped Steven sleep better at night, as though he’d finally put Sarah to rest. Or maybe it was the opposite—giving her a second chance at life. At any rate, in an effort to find more donors, he had the idea to seek out those who might need money more than MedIDs.
Finally they pull into a clearing with a smattering of housing structures, built of wood with a roughness that brings colonial times to mind. Torchlight illuminates an area in the center with several long wooden tables. Adults are eating while children wander and play. Everyone turns and freezes in the headlights.
“This a family reunion?” Jonathan asks.
“There’s that wit. But this isn’t the time.” He takes the Medical Record Scanner out of the kit. “We’re here to run the MRS on these people. If they’ll let us.”
“Why?”
“Do you know your MedID number?” Steven asks.
“Yeah.”
“As I recall, it’s impressive.”
“Eighty-six.”
“Yes. You should live to be a hundred and ten.”
“Why the fuck would I want to do that?”
“Why indeed.” Frankly, he’s just trying to keep his stepson alive long enough to see thirty. He wants him to wake up. To understand what life is like outside the wrought-iron gates of their estate. Since Sarah died, Jonathan disappears even more, gone for hours at a time to this new job of his. Steven works so much he can’t keep tabs on him, and there has to be a level of trust between them. He hasn’t pressed him for information, for fear of pushing him away. Perhaps if he gives the boy just enough freedom, he’ll want to stay. Now that Jonathan is his sole responsibility, Steven has decided to try something drastic. Hopefully this plan works and Jonathan will start to understand the bigger picture.
“We’re here to find clean MedIDs,” he explains. “If we find anyone seventy-five or over, we can make an offer.”
“What kind of offer?”
“Just follow my lead.” He feels for the gun under his seat and retrieves it, tucking it into the back of his pants. Jonathan gapes. “At this point you listen. Ask questions later.”
The humid night, and his nerves, make Steven sweat. He should have changed out of his suit, dressed casually. Jonathan is wearing ripped jeans and a T-shirt, a better fit for the circumstances. The slam of the car doors is jarringly loud in the silence. In the flickering light, children look up and people stop eating. A few men stand from the table, their puffed out chests and furrowed brows causing Steven to stop several feet away.
“ ’Evening!” Steven holds up a hand in greeting and hopes they can’t see it shaking.
“What’s your business here?” One of the men leaves his table, approaches while keeping a hand tucked behind his back. He wears army fatigues and waves of dark hair brush his shoulders, blending in with a beard that could use a trim. He stops about ten feet away.
“I’m sorry to interrupt your dinner,” Steven says. “My name is Brandon Goodby and I’ve come to your community today with an opportunity.”
“We don’t need anything,” the man says.
“We all need something.”
“You’ve come to the wrong place. Move on.”
“Please. I’m not selling anything. I’m not here to convert you or to disrupt your lives.”
“Then what?” a middle-aged woman asks as she stands, hands on her hips.
He shifts on his feet, the metal against his back nudging him. He’s sure the man he’s speaking to is carrying a gun. Maybe they all are. Gravel crunches behind him. Jonathan. He shouldn’t have brought him. This is a dangerous, poorly-thought-through idea. Suddenly, he wants to turn and run. Instead he takes a deep breath and swallows. Make the offer and get out.
“Do any of you have clean MedIDs?”
“Fuck you, suit,” call
s a teenage boy. Kids around him laugh.
“What’re you after?” asks the man in army fatigues.
“Fair trade,” Steven says. “Clean MedIDs are a commodity. And I’m buying.”
Murmuring from the crowd.
“Why do you want clean chips?” Army Fatigues steps closer. “You from the government? The FBI?”
“No. Not even close.” Trying his best to look confident and relaxed, shoulders back, he approaches the man. “Listen, this isn’t about me. This is about you. About all of you.”
“As I’m sure you already know, we don’t use MedIDs here. Some of us have them, some don’t. Either way, it’s not part of our life.”
“Precisely. You don’t need them. So I’m here to ask if any of you would be willing to part with any clean chips you might have.”
“In exchange for what?”
“Five thousand dollars.”
Army Fatigues laughs, then turns to the rest of the pack, who laugh along. “You want a spotless medical history for your own? For five thousand dollars?”
“Not my own, per se.”
“This has been entertaining, but you need to go.”
“I understand the choice you’ve made to live here. It’s like one sane pocket of society while the rest of it has gone mad.” The laughter stops. All eyes are on him. “You have your own doctors, teachers, carpenters, gardeners. You communicate face-to-face instead of multitasking with machines. And you’re not doing anything illegal. It’s quite brilliant, actually.”
“But?”
“A lot of people can’t get out. They’re trapped, afraid to leave the only place they’ve known. And they have no hope because they’re stuck with subpar DNA. Remember when people used to get organ donations, before the 3D printers? This would be just like that. What if you could donate a priceless organ to someone who would die otherwise?”
The night noises grow suddenly loud in the quiet. An owl, crickets, wind in the leaves.
“But someone would have our identity,” the woman from earlier says softly.
“Your name,” Steven says. “A DNA number that isn’t really theirs. And if you truly have left the world in which all of that means something, do you really care?”
“For five thousand dollars?” Army Fatigues asks.
“Per MedID. Buys a lot in this economy,” he counters. “Clothes. Supplies. Medicine.”
The man looks up to the night sky. Steven chews the inside of his cheek. Finally Army Fatigues says, loudly enough for everyone to hear, “Everyone here is free to make his or her own decisions. But we’ve built our society on several rules. One of which involves material things and finances. Anything of personal value goes to the improvement and maintenance of our buildings, along with supplies for sustenance and anything else deemed necessary by majority vote.”
Steven matches the man’s volume, glances over his shoulder at the others. “So, ridding yourselves of your MedIDs would not only be a selfless act to help another in need, but it would also enable you to live here, longer and more comfortably.”
A ripple of whispers spreads throughout the group. The children have gone back to playing, while the adults have abandoned their dinners.
“I got rid of my chip years ago,” Army Fatigues says. “My wife, too. Kids never had them. But feel free to talk to the others.” He steps aside, clearing the way for Steven and Jonathan.
The next two hours pass quickly. Jonathan trails wordlessly behind as Steven makes his way down the line of donors. As he preps and cleans the MedID Extractor, Jonathan reads from a tablet, asking each person a litany of questions that ultimately decides whether someone is a candidate. An ideal donor has no relatives, no pension, and no debts. As though, other than the MedID, he or she doesn’t exist. Out of the hundred or so that live here, around thirty don’t have MedIDs, and out of the remaining people there are twenty-three clean chips. Better than he anticipated. Eighteen of them are willing to part with theirs. Together they’ve earned ninety thousand dollars. Good thing, since he only brought a hundred thousand, an investment that will be repaid once recipient matches are found. When the equipment is packed up and almost everyone has gone inside for the night, Steven hands Army Fatigues a duffel bag, heavy with cash. They shake hands.
“Good luck,” the man says.
“And to you,” Steven says. “Though it doesn’t seem like you need it. I have to tell you, I didn’t know what to expect coming here. But it looks like you’ve figured it out. How to live like there’s no war. No crumbling society. It’s tempting to join you.”
“The door is always open.”
“Thank you. Maybe when our lives get less complicated.”
“They are what you make them.”
Indeed. The images of the night stay with him on the ride home. Happy families, dining and playing under the moonlight, as natural as the forest that surrounds them. The car is quiet most of the way home, until finally Jonathan asks, “Why are you doing this?”
“Change of pace. Helping people live rather than burying them.”
“Is it the money? Are you making money on this?”
The words sting. After everything they’ve been through, the boy still thinks he cares for no one and nothing. “I’m tired, Jonathan. Tired of losing. You should understand that. And if there’s a way to give us a better future, I need to do something about it.”
This shuts him up, but the air is like a wall between them. Exhaustion settles into Steven’s bones and he craves his bed, where he can drift off to sleep, shutting out reality for at least a few hours. Perhaps dream of living under the stars.
Chapter 36
SEBASTIAN HAS SUCCESSFULLY secured his alias, Will Anderson, a place within Mitchell’s world. He’s an active member of Patriot’s Church and is quickly becoming a friend to Taylor Hensley. They’ve had several easy conversations and trust between them is growing. She’s an easy subject to study, finished with pretending and pretenses, after a childhood and early adulthood filled with both. As far as he can tell, she has no criminal agenda and there are no ugly truths lying just below the surface. Sitting across from her isn’t difficult. She’s beautiful. But just the thought sends a pang of guilt through him, as though Kate is in the room.
After the evening service, the congregation funnels out into a large conference room for coffee hour. Rubbing his eyes, he activates the camera in his smart lenses that live-feeds to a tech at the Bureau. He scans the crowd, allowing the facial recognition software to hone in on anyone of interest, anyone that might be of use in this operation. Sebastian watches as Mitchell seeks Taylor out in the crowd. Before long they’re in a corner of the room talking, with Henry standing as a barrier. This “singling out” of Taylor by Mitchell has been going on since he arrived. Clearly Mitchell’s after her bloodline, eager to see how he might use her.
Although she’s vehemently opposed to her father and the government, Taylor doesn’t seem to have any concerns or reservations about Mitchell and the rumor that he was behind the Planes, along with other attacks. Whenever Sebastian tries to lead the subject in that direction, she shrugs it away, saying only that after a while in life you have to go with your gut. He understands. Unfortunately, her gut has led her down a dangerous path.
He checks his watch. In an hour he’s meeting with Renner. Taylor asked him for a ride home tonight after blowing a tire on her bike. Rather than intruding on their conversation, he waves to her. She sees him, nods. In ten minutes they’re in his beaten-up Honda Civic cruising through Boston’s South End, past endless abandoned brick town houses on their way to Milton. Their windows are open and Taylor swims her hand through the rushing air.
“The Reverend had you cornered tonight,” he says.
“He does like to talk,” she says.
“Did he share any earth-shattering revelations or gardening tips?”
/> “We were swapping recipes.” He can hear the smile in her voice.
“Can you imagine the Reverend in a kitchen?”
“He does have a personal chef,” she says. “But he’s pretty normal, you know. Down-to-earth.”
He glances at her. “Down-to-earth?”
She laughs. “I just mean he’s interested in normal things. Home life. Education. Things we all care about.”
“This is what you two talk about?”
“Yes.”
Of course. The closer he is to her, the closer he is to Richard Hensley. Invite a lonely woman to dinner, ask about her child. Suck her in, emotionally. So far the surveillance hasn’t revealed anything interesting or out of the ordinary either on Taylor or anyone in contact with her. She rarely uses her computer and isn’t tech savvy. Without noticing, she opened a virus that allows him to monitor her usage and correspondence. Listening to the banality of her phone conversations puts Sebastian nearly to sleep, but the more time that passes, the more he’s reassured that she’s naive to any game her father or Mitchell may be playing. Sometimes he feels less alone when he’s observing her. Momentarily, he’ll lose himself in her world. A grin will unconsciously form on his lips when she plays with Sienna, or when she’s singing to herself as though no one in the world can hear. He’s come to know the way her body moves, her habits, her comforts. They’re intimacies he’s only known with Kate. So he reminds himself that he’s doing this to avenge Kate, not to find her replacement.
“Does Reverend Mitchell ask you about your father?” he asks.
Taylor’s hand stops moving outside the window. “You know I don’t discuss him.”
They drive through a row of green lights as he considers what to say next. Time is wasting with this silence.
“He’s been hard to avoid, though,” she says finally. “Now that he’s running, he’s everywhere. I can’t walk outside my house without seeing his face or hearing his voice. And if he wins . . .”
“If he wins?”
“He’ll be one of the most powerful men in the world. How can I avoid him if he’s the President of the United States?”