The Complex (The Omega Protocol Chronicles Book 3)

by Courtney McPhail

  Jacob gave a clipped nod, his jaw still clenched tightly, and went to the door, knocking so Clay would open it. When they were all out in the hallway and the door was closed, Jacob rounded on them.

  “What is it you want to talk about?”

  “Physical pain doesn’t intimidate him,” Malcolm said. “He’s ready to stand up to it. I think we would be best served to try a different tactic.”

  “Meaning?”

  “We break him down mentally. Interrogation techniques don’t just involve torture and barking questions. If you use a little finesse, you can make the guy want to tell you the information you’re looking for.”

  “And how do you propose to do that?” Jacob asked squinting with suspicion.

  “Well, you’ve done well so far. I assume you haven’t given him any food and water, right?” Jacob nodded. “Good. So, right now, he’s hungry, thirsty and in a hell of a lot of pain. That makes him vulnerable. You let us go in there alone. We'll give him a show, make him think he can trust us, and I guarantee you, we’ll have him telling us his deepest, darkest secrets.”

  Malcolm could tell that Jacob wanted to refuse. He didn’t like the idea of them being alone with Sam which made Malcolm even more determined to make it happen.

  Malcolm didn’t trust Jacob one lick. He was hiding something. That meant Malcolm could no longer rely on Jacob’s promise to release them.

  “You heard him in there,” Malcolm said. “You’ve already beaten that guy half to death and he’s still keeping up the pretence of lying. He’s smart enough to try to make us suspicious of you. We’ve got to be smarter than him, trick him like he’s trying to trick us.”

  The relief that flashed in Jacob’s eyes told Malcolm that he had him convinced. Thinking that Malcolm bought Jacob’s story that Sam was a liar was enough for Jacob to trust him.

  “Let us go in there, tell him we’re on his side, that we believe that you’re the bad guy and we want to work with him to get out of here,” Malcolm said, playing the biggest gambit in his whole plan. If Jacob didn’t buy the double agent setup then the plan was toast. “If Sam thinks we’re working with him, he’ll start to trust us. Once he trusts us, he’ll start to let things slip.”

  It was a risk but Malcolm knew it was worth it. Sam knew this place. If they had any hope of fighting their way out of here, they needed Sam on their side. There would be no way Malcolm could interrogate Sam while secretly trying to convince him to help them betray Jacob. The only way he could talk to Sam would be if Jacob believed he was playing double agent.

  “Very well,” Jacob said, “But I also want to know how he got out of here. No one saw him leave so that means we have an unsecured exit. I want to know where it is.”

  “No problem,” Malcolm replied. “Nas and I will have him confessing everything in less than an hour.”

  Jacob waved at Clay to unlock the door. Sam was giving them a good one eyed glare as Clay locked the door behind them. Despite his split lip, Sam sneered at them, nothing but defiance.

  “Hey man, chill out with the evil eye there,” Malcolm said. “I don’t know what you did here but we’re in the same boat.”

  Sam coughed out a wheezing laugh. “Yeah, exact same boat, except I don’t see your chains.”

  “We’re just as much their prisoners as you,” Nas said, kneeling down so he was eye level with Sam. “They took us and two of our friends. None of us want to be here. You help us figure out a way to get out of here and we all go.”

  “He can hear you, you know,” Sam said, gesturing to the vent that was above them.

  “Not right now, he went up to his office,” Malcolm said. “Marsh had some issue and came for him. It’s just us here. We work together and we can all get out of there. You just have to trust us.”

  Sam gave him a suspicious look. “Why should I trust you? This place is evil. If you’re any part of it, you can’t be trusted.”

  “That’s what we’re telling you,” Malcolm said, going in for the kill. “We aren’t a part of this. They attacked us in a hospital and brought us here. Jacob offered us our freedom if we got the location of the fuel from you.”

  “I won’t tell you shit,” Sam spat at him, his voice dripping with loathing.

  “I’m not asking you to,” Malcolm said. “I’m just looking for you to trust me when I say I’m on your side. What do you need from me for that?”

  Sam eyed him for a moment, defiant in his stance but whatever energy he had began to drain out of him. He’d tapped out his reserves facing off with him and the pain was finally catching up to him.

  “Water,” Sam said. “That would help the trust.”

  Got him. This was working out a hell of a lot better than he thought.

  “Alright, let me see what I can do,” Malcolm said and knocked on the door. When Clay let him out, Jacob was standing there, arms crossed over his chest, his big eyes narrowed behind his thick glasses.

  “That was quite the show you put on in there, I almost believed it myself.”

  “Well, you should, how else would we sell it to him?” Malcolm said. “He needs to think there’s a possibility of escape. What do you think he’ll tell us if we start planning an escape? Where we can find the mysterious exit he used. We’re also going to need a safe place to go once we get out of here, like wherever he went to hole up with the fuel the last two weeks.”

  A grin slowly spread across Jacob’s face. “Brilliant.”

  “Well, the CIA has good training,” Malcolm said, faking humility. “So, can I give him some water to earn that trust?”

  Jacob waved at Clay and he handed over his water bottle. “That is all he will get from us however. He owes us a debt and I intend to make sure he pays it.”

  “Understood,” Malcolm replied and stepped up to the door, waiting for Clay to unlock it.

  “Oh, and Malcolm,” Jacob called out, “If you are planning to go back on our deal, I will consider our debt unpaid and that means we will have a problem. I am a man of my word.”

  “I know.”

  Yeah, he was a man of his word. Except Malcolm wasn’t anywhere close to trusting that word.

  There was something very wrong about this place and before he got out of here, he was going to find out what the hell it was.

  Subject File #745

  Administrator: What did you think when you first met them?

  Subject: I knew they were bad news, even if they hadn’t taken Veronica. Woulda gotten us as far away from them if I didn’t think they had her.

  Administrator: How did you know they were bad news?

  Subject: They looked at the girls like they were pieces of meat.

  “This’ll do.”

  The paint store was small and situated on its own lot, set back from the intersection. There was nothing close that the fire could jump to and get out of control. The closest building was a house on the opposite side of the intersection, set back on its own large lawn. It had a wraparound porch that was lined with ivy covered trellises. It would act as a perfect cover for them as they waited for the fire to attract attention. Yes, it would definitely do.

  “You sure about this?” Mendez asked. “There’s no guarantee this will bring them out.”

  Jackson was sure. It was the only chance they had to draw people out. They’d searched Jamie’s house from top to bottom, looking for any mention of Paradise Court but they’d come up empty. Even the old book of yellow pages they’d found had nothing on it. It did however have a listing of the five hardware stores in town. At sunrise they had driven to all of them, searching them for anything they could use to start a fire. Two of them had been completely cleaned out, not even light bulbs left in the fixtures but the other three had provided for them. They’d found cans of lighter fluid, kerosene, and turpentine, more than enough to set a big fire.

  “Best chance we got,” Jackson said and headed towards the store. He made short work of the glass front door, using the crowbar to smash it open. There was no need to be car
eful now and besides, the fire would need oxygen once it burned up all the fuel.

  The front room was small, a couple display shelves filled with paint sample cards in the centre of the floor and texture samples hanging on the walls. There were also books and binders full of samples stacked on a counter at the back.

  Jackson set the cans of kerosene on the counter and checked the door behind it that was marked Employees Only. It was tight in the back room, shelves stocked with paint cans filling almost every inch of the space and he grinned at the sight. This fire would pour thick black smoke into the sky, the new world’s version of a blinking neon sign.

  “Let’s dump some of that turpentine back here to make sure it gets to the paint cans,” Jackson instructed Banks who handed him one of the cans he carried.

  “We’ll get the front,” Mendez said, popping a can of lighter fluid and handing it to Claudia.

  They began to spray it on the displays of paint cards as he and Banks went to work on the back room. Jackson used his Swiss army knife to pop open the cans, the fumes from the turpentine already start to sting his eyes.

  “Make sure ya coat the walls so it’ll climb,” Jackson instructed as he picked up one of the cans and began to pour it out over the floor.

  “You seem to know a lot about arson,” Banks said as he tossed some of the liquid on the walls. “You’ve done this before?”

  “Nah,” Jackson replied. “Did share a cell with an arsonist though. He liked to talk ‘bout it and I picked up a tip or two.”

  “It’s a smart idea,” Banks said. “All of this. Bring them to us instead of wasting time looking for them.”

  “S’all I could think of,” Jackson replied, upending the last of the turpentine under the shelves of oil paint cans.

  “Desperation breeds ingenuity.” Banks frowned. “Not sure if that’s the right saying. Ah, you get the point though, right?”

  Banks let out a laugh but when Jackson just stared at him stone faced, his smile turned into a frown. “Sorry. I laugh when I’m nervous. Bad habit when shit is serious, I know.”

  “S’alright,” Jackson said. “We’re done here, let’s get goin’.”

  Mendez and Claudia had been just as busy as them, the front room now coated and the fumes heavy in the air.

  “That’s the last of it,” Claudia said as she tossed the empty lighter fluid can on the floor.

  “Good, the fumes are killing me,” Mendez said, her watery eyes blinking rapidly. “Let’s get out of here.”

  They headed back outside and Banks handed over the Molotov cocktail they’d fashioned and a Zippo lighter. “You want to do the honours?”

  Jackson took the bottle, careful to hold it up so none of the gasoline dripped off the rag stuffed in the neck. He struck the flint on the lighter and put the flame to the rag, the gasoline soaked into it lighting up in a flash. Jackson aimed for the open front door and hurled the bottle through it. When it hit the floor, it exploded in a bright flash, flames spreading out quickly.

  “Alright, let’s fall back,” Mendez said as they heard the whoosh of the fire igniting the fuel they had spread in the store.

  Flames licked the windows, turning the glass a sooty black and dark smoke began to pour out of the entrance. Black smoke streaked up into the sky in steady plumes, the smell of it thick in the air but thankfully the wind was on their side, sending the smoke away from the house.

  Oh yeah, it was burning exactly like he wanted.

  They took their positions on the porch, the trellises offering the perfect cover for them as they watched the store turn into a raging inferno.

  Jackson kept glancing at his watch, counting down the minutes as they waited, the fire turning into an inferno. It was going to work. It better work or he wasn’t sure what else they were going to do.

  “Three o’clock,” Banks said in a low voice. Jackson saw the movement too. Three men sticking close to the front of a house on the north street, crouched low as they crept towards the intersection.

  “Got company over here,” Mendez whispered, nodding in the opposite direction of the store.

  Two figures had appeared around the far corner of the house next door. They were cautious as they crossed the lawn, ducking behind the large oak tree and giving Jackson a better view of them. A man and a woman, clothes dirty and torn, their exposed skin bright red where the sun had burned it. The man was bald but the woman had a filthy nest of blonde hair, ratted up in places with dead leaves stuck to it. They had no weapons and the woman was wearing only one shoe.

  The man turned around and Jackson spotted the white spittle covering the scraggly beard. Though he couldn’t see the colour of the man’s eyes at this distance, Jackson knew they were a milky white. These weren’t the people who had kidnapped Veronica.

  Jackson glanced back towards the north street where the three figures had emerged from the shadow of the house and stepped into the intersection.

  The three men were in the same shoddy state as the two next door, all of them bare foot on the asphalt. He couldn’t see their eyes and mouths but he knew they weren’t humans anymore.

  They’d known that drawing freaks to them would be a risk with the fire, but Jackson figured it was worth it. They hadn’t spotted any of them since they had gotten to town so there couldn’t be that many. Even as they had travelled north weeks ago, they had noticed that the large groups of freaks that had once filled towns and cities were getting smaller.

  But it was starting to look like this town had a lot more than they had anticipated. More freaks were appearing on the streets, moving cautiously towards the fire. A mixture of men and women, some in dirty clothing, others half naked and even two completely nude. As more of them appeared, their attention began to split between the burning building and the other freaks.

  The two that had been crouching behind the tree out front darted into the street, the female one letting out a hideous screech. They threw themselves onto two freaks that had come from the north side, tackling them to the ground. They began to fight, rolling around on the pavement, the occasional scream loud enough to be heard over the roar of the fire.

  The fighting drew the attention of more freaks and they surrounded the four like the audience for a boxing match. The crowd began to jostle one another and then more fights began to break out.

  “Sure are a touchy bunch,” Banks whispered.

  “Better they eat each other than us,” Mendez replied in a low voice, keeping her eyes and her gun on the gathered crowd.

  They were in a tight spot now. Any wrong move could draw the freaks attention and with the number growing, they would be hard pressed to get away. Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea after all.

  The giant truck seemed to come out of nowhere, even its diesel engine not loud enough to be heard over the fighting and the fire. It drove towards the gathered freaks, three men standing in the truck bed. They looked like typical good ol’ boys, white guys with tattoos covering the arms that their muscle shirts bared. One of them wore a backwards baseball cap and had a rifle propped on the top of the truck cab.

  Thankfully, he was aiming for the gathered freaks as were his friends and gunfire split the air as they began to thin out the freaks. They passed through the intersection and disappeared down one of the streets but, after a moment, they reappeared, making another pass and firing again.

  The freaks had gotten wise to their plan and spread out, but a few of the stupider ones started chasing the truck. The truck made a sharp U-turn and rammed into the freaks that were chasing them.

  The freaks were swept beneath the big wheels, crushing them as they bounced over the bodies. They drove through the remaining mob, gunshots popping off as the truck circled the middle of the intersection, giving them a chance to spray the freaks in a wide arc. The truck bounced over the fallen bodies again but this time, one of them was pulled up into the wheel well, jamming up the tire. The truck fishtailed as the driver punched the gas, the other tires squealing as rubber burned
against the pavement.

  The driver slammed on the brakes and leaned out the window, pale jowls flapping as he barked out orders to the men in the back. Two of them jumped out and began to yank the body from the wheel well. The freaks weren’t about to let an opportunity pass them by and ran for the disabled truck.

  The man in the back of the truck sprayed a wide arc of bullets into the approaching crowd, felling several of the first line but more freaks were emerging from behind the row of houses on the west street.

  “That’s Malcolm’s gun,” Claudia said. “The strap has the same green diamond pattern.”

  “Ya sure?”

  Claudia nodded. “All the firearms we picked up at the police station in Marysville had the same pattern on the straps.”

  It could be a coincidence but Jackson wasn’t about to write it off. They’d been waiting on a group to come and here they were.

  “Then we gotta help ‘em,” Jackson said. “They get taken out, we ain’t any closer to findin’ the others.”

  “He’s right,” Mendez said. “We help them, we’re their heroes. They’ll be more willing to take us to their camp.”

  Jackson didn’t wait to hear if the others agreed. He pulled up his mask and headed down the porch, already taking aim at the heads of the freaks closest to him and fired. He heard the others begin to shoot as they flanked him, the four of them a wall of death that advanced on the mob.

  Jackson picked off one of the freaks that had climbed into the back of the truck, sending him falling to the ground. The man standing in the back gave him a wave of thanks before getting back to thinning out the freaks.

  With their added firepower, it only took them a few minutes before the last freak dropped dead. There were a few that were struggling meekly on the ground among the dead. The man in the back of the truck fired a series of headshots in them, bringing the fight to an end.

  Jackson scanned around, making sure there weren’t any more sneaking up and when he looked back to the truck, the men had their guns trained on them.