Bringer of Fire

by Jaz Primo

  “Don’t!” she shouted.

  I was so pissed that I barely heard her. Instead, I focused on the rifle-wielding man before me and held out my hand. With every fiber of my being, I reached out with my talent and pushed. The man flew backward against the car as if he’d been thrown against it. Immediately, pain shot through my head.

  Sanders stood up from behind the cover of our car and aimed her pistol, even as the man recovered, pointing his weapon downrange at us.

  I held up my hand in a shielding fashion and felt a hammering in my head that was ten-fold what I’d felt on the two prior occasions. The pain almost overwhelmed me.

  Through watering eyes, I saw, as well as felt, the small objects suspended before me. I heard Sanders’ weapon firing behind me, and watched the red-haired man twitch from the impacts before falling to his knees and doubling over.

  I let my talent ebb and heard the dull sounds of small metallic objects clanking before us against the pavement. Sanders edged past me with her weapon held before her as she tactically approached the prone man.

  Less than ten feet from him, he rose up with a pistol in his hand and pointed it at Sanders.

  “NO!” I shouted, initiating my talent.

  The man flew up over the police car and into the air, even as I half-blacked out from the pain in my head. I heard two shots, but couldn’t tell where they came from. Then I heard a heavy sounding thud, followed by the wail of sirens and screaming from all around me.

  I vaguely realized that I was on my hands and knees trying to crawl toward Sanders, still unable to see very well through the foggy half-darkness threatening to overcome me.

  I felt small hands grabbing at my shoulders, and then Sanders’ urgent voice say, “Bringer! Are you hit, Logan?”

  “Thank God you’re okay,” I half-choked. “What about Gibbons?”

  “They’re all dead,” Sanders lamented. “We didn’t stop him in time.”

  I felt a sense of time displacement as I sat down on the asphalt beneath me, struggling to refocus my vision. The attempt initiated a surge of pain in my head.

  “Just sit there,” Sanders insisted. “I’ll be back.”

  The sheer helplessness I felt wasn’t only infuriating, it felt humiliating. Admittedly, I was in no position to do anything more.

  By the time my head began to clear and my vision had fully returned, Agent Desmond was barking orders to other police officers in the area. Agent Sanders showed up with some variety of soda, which I gratefully took from her. I downed it in less than a minute, and felt a series of tingling sensations permeating through my body.

  My electrolytes were being replenished.

  “Where’s the gunman?” I asked a nearby police officer.

  He appeared completely puzzled. “Dunno. We haven’t found him yet.”

  Where the hell had he gone after I launched him airborne?

  Within the hour, Sanders and I sat in an oversized office down at the local FBI office in downtown Chicago. I noticed that she had a small bandage on her forehead.

  A perplexed-looking woman in business attire plopped a small jug of Gatorade onto the table next to me and then left the room. Sanders stared at me as I unscrewed the lid and took a big swig of the cold contents.

  “Feeling any better?” she asked with concern.

  “No,” I grunted. “What happened to that damned gunman out there?”

  Sanders appeared momentarily speechless before replying, “I honestly don’t know. I remember thinking that I was going to die, and then he just ‘flew’ into the air and disappeared. I know that I saw his body land on the street some thirty feet away from us. Then, I looked down at you and when I glanced back a moment later, he was gone.”

  “I can’t believe that,” I said. “Nobody should be able to just walk away from that. Hell, you even shot him, for Christ’s sake.”

  Sanders shook her head. “At least, I thought so. He must’ve been wearing body armor of some kind.”

  We sat in silence for a few minutes.

  “Two officers and Agent Harker are all dead. Our best lead is dead, too,” Sanders said acidly. “And Agent Cross is in the hospital, I’m told. This whole investigation is a complete cluster fuck!”

  I stopped mid-drink to stare over at her with surprise. It was the first time I’d heard Sanders use that tone or language.

  “Hey, just how many times have you had a case like this?” I challenged. “I’m seeing shit happen out there that shouldn’t even be able to happen. I’ve been in friggin’ war zones where shit like that doesn’t even happen.”

  Sanders stared back at me with a blank expression.

  “Yeah, well, I suppose we’d be dead, too, if your shit hadn’t happened when it did,” she said with resignation.

  I had no response for that.

  Agents Desmond and Brinks walked into the office and wearily sunk into chairs next to us. Both had tired, half-shocked expressions on their faces.

  I’d definitely seen those expressions before in another time and place.

  “I can’t properly put this day into words,” Desmond began. “We’ve lost a fellow agent, in addition to the other lives lost. And I’ve got a wounded gunman running around the streets of Chicago somewhere. Not to mention, I saw something that defies not only logic, but sanity. I’ve also got witnesses saying that a man was mysteriously catapulted into the air today.”

  Desmond’s gaze bore into me like a man possessed.

  “Look, I can’t even begin to fully understand what you two are in the middle of,” he continued. “So you’ll pardon me for asking, but what in God’s name managed to launch that gunman into the air today? And just how did you do it?”

  “I’m afraid that we can’t speak to that in any detail at this time, Agent Desmond,” Sanders explained.

  “JFM, Agent Desmond,” I offered.

  Desmond looked from Sanders back to me. “JFM? What in the hell’s JFM?”

  “Just fuckin’ magic,” I said.

  Desmond and Brinks both looked at me with incredulous expressions as Sanders glared at me.

  * * *

  In no time at all, Agent Sanders and I were on a flight headed back to Nevis Corners. Before we left Chicago, we’d somehow survived a heated conference that included Sanders’ supervisor via phone, though I hardly blamed either Kip Desmond or Chuck Denton for being angry. As field office management, they had the dubious task of explaining to their superiors why recent affairs has gone so badly, although Desmond also had to account for the deaths of three good men.

  I was experienced at being under fire, but I never got accustomed to the casualties. One minute they’re alive, maybe standing shoulder-to-shoulder right next to you, and the next minute they’re not. The surreal nature of it remained forever stark in my mind.

  One serious problem was that nobody seemed to have any adequate explanations for what had happened. And worse yet, we were still no closer to divining the location, or fate, of Maria Edwards.

  To hell with fate; I was determined to find her.

  Failure wasn’t an option; there were two kids who desperately needed to have their mother back.

  I clenched my fists until my knuckles cracked, and Agent Sanders regarded me warily from her aisle seat next to me.

  “Getting upset’s not going to help our situation,” she admonished.

  I waited until a flight attendant passed by, before replying. “Neither is wasting time sitting on a flight headed back to Nevis Corners.”

  “Rough day at the office?” asked the fellow to my right who’d been lucky enough to command the window seat.

  His slicked-back hair and Cheshire cat grin reminded me of car salesmen and lawyers, neither of which I was particularly fond. I regarded him with a hard stare and he quickly returned to his iPad.

  Sanders gently nudged my left arm, and I turned to glare at her. She motioned to the steno pad that she’d been scribbling on.

  “Focus, please,” she whispered.

 
; I looked down at her notepad where she’d written The Facts and Leads at the top. Beneath that were the two names that Thomas Gibbons had rattled off in his head before his demise in the patrol car, as well as the other names we’d been provided by Clive Bernard. There were also a host of key players under a government and corporate heading, including state and local officials, and of course, key figures within Nuclegene Corporation, including Bernard.

  It was all very interesting. However, one final notation caught my eye in particular; one Sanders had circled twice.

  It succinctly stated: Hit man shows up at crime scene and investigation site. Inside leaks?

  Leaks. That bothered me. Not so much that there might be a leak, but that there might be more than one.

  I looked up at Sanders and frowned.

  She nodded sagely.

  I hoped she was mistaken, but recent events pointed in that direction.

  Chapter 11

  It was late in the evening by the time we arrived back at the Nevis Corners FBI office. Almost immediately, we ran another sweep of the list of names through the bureau and Homeland Security databases. In the end, we were no closer to divining the figures behind the partial names, Hadrian or Wenzel.

  “What if it’s not two, but one?” I asked as a group of us, including Chuck Denton, perched around Sanders’ desk area for a brainstorming session. “You know, like Hadrian Wenzel.”

  “Or Wenzel Hadrian,” added Agent Collins, her eyes meeting mine.

  I stared back at her, momentarily appreciating her engaging blue eyes. “A fair point,” I said.

  “Worth checking,” Sanders admitted, though when I glanced back at her she was staring at me with a hint of disapproval.

  “What?” I asked.

  Everyone exchanged looks at me and then back at Sanders.

  Denton cleared his throat. “Listen up, I know it’s damned late, but there’s no time to waste. Let’s get on it. Collins, on a hunch, try cross-checking our list of names against Immigration’s database. Foster, check Interpol.”

  Everyone quickly dispersed, leaving Sanders and me sitting at her desk. She typed away at her workstation keyboard with a terse set to her jaw.

  “Anything I can do to help?” I asked.

  “No,” she replied somewhat coolly.

  I was no dummy. I could tell something was bothering her.

  “You seem a little put out with me right now,” I said.

  She stopped typing and turned to stare into my eyes. Despite appearing angry, she still had beautiful hazel eyes; perhaps more so than Collins’ blue ones.

  “Put out? You think I’m put out, do you? Well, call me short-sighted, but maybe you could try Googling something useful instead of trading googly-eyes with Agent Collins.”

  “A little tension between you two?” I asked.

  “Between her and me?” she seethed in a whispered tone.

  She growled and returned to typing—no, rather hammering—on her keyboard.

  I started to say something, but thought better of it. Instead, I moved to a nearby unoccupied workstation with a copy of the notes that Sanders had made.

  “Could you sign me on here?” I asked.

  Sanders gave me a cold look, though she signed into the system for me before silently returning to her own keyboard.

  Saying nothing, I opened up Google, resigned that I’d probably never understand the depths of the feminine mystique.

  After a few minutes, Sanders looked up with a start.

  “I’ve got a hit.”

  I rolled my chair across the floor toward her as Agents Foster and Collins rushed over to her desk.

  “Whatcha’ got?” Foster asked.

  “I have municipal parking tickets for a Hadrian Wenzel in Henderson, Nevada,” Sanders blurted. “They’ve got his driver’s license info, which gives us an address. I’m cross-referencing with other databases now.”

  Agent Denton peeked out from his office.

  “Foster, get some plane tickets to Las Vegas for you, Sanders, and Bringer. I want you on the next plane out, and I don’t care if we have to bump a congressman to do it,” he ordered. “I’ll get on the phone with our local bureau office and make arrangements for tactical support.”

  Sanders nodded as she clicked her mouse like a madwoman on the screen options before her.

  “And Sanders,” Denton cautioned. “This time, you’d better secure whoever you nab out there. I want live people to interrogate this time.”

  Sanders looked up with a frown. “Yes, sir.”

  I snatched the plastic bottle of sports drink from the corner of her desk and upended it. I had to make sure that my brain was charged up this time.

  Then I recalled the syringes of vitamin supplements that I’d taken from Maria’s refrigerator. Yet another reason that I needed her back safely; I had no idea what the proper mixture was.

  I made my way to the small break room on the other side of the office. I’d stored one of the syringes containing my vitamin mixture inside a small thermos in the small employee refrigerator.

  I looked around to ensure I was alone.

  While rolling up my shirtsleeve, I belatedly realized that it was still stained with dirt and grime from the Chicago streets.

  I wasn’t about to contribute to another debacle like that, if I could help it. But then, what could I have done better to prevent what had happened?

  I popped the cap off the syringe and tried to decide the best self-injection method. All that I’d ever learned about injections was back in the army when they had demonstrated how to jam an atropine needle into my thigh in case of chemical agent exposure.

  “Are you a diabetic?” Sanders asked.

  I winced and gazed in her direction. I hadn’t even heard her enter the room. What was she, a trained ninja?

  “It’s a vitamin solution,” I replied.

  She frowned as she approached me.

  “Please tell me that’s not an illegal substance,” she prodded with a disapproving tone.

  I gave her a wan look. “Maria Edwards gave it to me. She said it would help with my abilities.”

  By the surprised look on her face, she hadn’t expected that response.

  “Give me that,” she said as she reached out for the syringe. “You’ll probably end up putting an air bubble into your bloodstream. That’s all we need is for you to have a massive coronary or a stroke.”

  I adopted a dubious expression. “So, you’re a nurse, too?”

  “For your information, I used to volunteer at my father’s neighborhood clinic as a teenager. I know my way around a needle and more.”

  Sanders was just full of surprises.

  “Well then, thanks, doc,” I chimed.

  She injected the solution in a practiced manner, though not quite as seamlessly as Maria had done.

  “For the time being, you’d better let me give these to you,” she suggested. “At least until someone can show you how to do it properly.”

  I handed her the needle cover and she dropped the empty syringe back into my thermos.

  “Rule number one—don’t reuse your needles,” she instructed.

  “There’s a few that Maria had already prepared back at my hotel room,” I said.

  “How frequently?”

  “Daily for now, if I recall correctly what Maria said,” I replied.

  “Our flight is in two hours. We’re each going to pack an overnight bag, just in case,” she said. “Bring one syringe with you, but put it in your jacket. We won’t have to deal with customs; I can get us past that easily enough.”

  “Thanks a lot, Sanders,” I said.

  “Well, you did sort of save my life again today,” she said. “So, I guess I owe you one.”

  She spared me a momentary look of complete sincerity before her visage returned to that of the consummate professional. She pressed the thermos into my hands.

  “Come on,” she said. “We don’t have time to waste. We’ll try to catch a nap on our flight.�
��

  On the way to the airport, Sanders went by her apartment and then stopped by my hotel so I could hastily pick up a change of clothes. We met Agent Ben Foster at the terminal and fortunately didn’t have to wait long before we boarded our flight.

  Once again, I was vexed over the sense of futility from waiting, as if precious time was progressively sifting through our fingers. Still, I was determined that this journey was going to be more successful than our last.

  Then I recalled that the road to hell was paved with good intentions.

  * * *

  I fell asleep sometime during the flight and dreamt that I was sitting on an airplane next to both Sanders and Foster. However, all of the other passengers had faces that were devoid of features. There were literally just pale white voids where their faces formerly resided.

  I looked to my left where Sanders was quietly talking to herself about a host of tasks and ideas. I looked to my right where Foster calmly recited a list of items that all sounded like articles one would pack for a trip. Then a din of voices slowly built around me and I found myself unable to pick out a single, lucid voice. The din grew to a cacophony until it was like dozens of men’s and women’s voices practically screaming in my head.

  “Shut up!” I yelled, clapping my hands over my ears.

  Then I jerked awake.

  Sanders stared at me with concern.

  “Bad dream?” she asked. “Your face is sweating.”

  I looked to my right, but Foster was leaned back into his seat with his eyes closed, seemingly at ease.

  “Nah, I’m fine,” I said evasively and excused myself to go to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face.

  The remainder of the flight was thankfully uneventful, but it was as if I could still subtly sense a host of voices in the back of my mind. Slowly, and quite thankfully, the sensation abated.

  By the time we landed at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas it was close to midnight. The field office supervisor from the Las Vegas bureau, Sid Prescott, and an agent named Letitia Hansen met us at the terminal. During the introductions, both agents considered me suspiciously. Either they hadn’t expected a “civilian” to be part of our little group, or they’d already heard about the debacle in Chicago.