by Heskett, Jim
The white guy sidled up to Gabe and put a hand on his back. He gave him a gentle nudge the other way, toward the break room. "No problem, guy. Let's get you back to the ground floor, where the guest bathrooms are."
Before he exited the hall, Gabe tossed a look back toward that personnel room. There had to be a way to get in there.
Chapter Eighteen
EMBER
DAY FOUR
Ember woke as the sunlight filtered in through the window. Day three of her captivity. Without a phone or a watch or even a calendar, it seemed important to at least keep a mental note of how many days had passed.
Not that the particular day mattered much. Ember still didn't know why she was alive. Sometime in the next three days, Ember would die. Veronica had told her nothing about why she was holding her, or when she planned to do the deed. She didn't tell her much at all, actually—only visits during meals and a smile that masked a sneer. The sneer would slip out at times, but Veronica was making an effort to seem cordial, at least.
Ember knew this tactic. As long as Veronica seemed polite and civil, it would give Ember hope there was a way she could talk her way out of the situation at best, or escape, at worst. Veronica wanted to keep her from getting desperate, from doing something rash like killing herself. That would be the ultimate failure for Veronica… if her hostage killed herself before Veronica had a chance to do the deed herself.
Ember didn’t even know how she would manage to off herself, though. The setup of this room was airtight.
She sat up and examined her wrists. The magnetic handcuffs had worn red spots on her flesh. She had no mirror to check out the ring around her neck, but it also felt sore. She had now grown accustomed to the weight, to the regular clinking as she moved around. But she could never forget that they were there.
Ember dropped her bare feet onto the cold concrete floor and walked over to the toilet. She stared at the wall, her eyes bleary as she tried to blink herself awake. For some reason, she did not wake up feeling rested here. She didn't think Veronica was drugging her food or drink, though. Maybe it was because Ember knew she would die sometime in the next few days, and there didn't seem to be a damn thing she could do to stop it. That tended to put a damper on restfulness.
Also, her dreams. She kept dreaming of people she knew, standing outside the window, banging on the glass to be let in. And in these dreams, Ember had no arms or legs, and she could only plead for help. Not a fun feeling to wake up to.
She had examined every square inch of this basement. The security down here seemed polished and complete in every way imaginable. Maybe if she had access to some sort of tool, she could work her way through the concrete of the walls, or dig the window out, but she didn't think even that would work. Although she didn't see any, she had to assume Veronica had cameras mounted throughout the room.
One press of that key fob button and Ember lost all motor function. Hard to game plan for that.
After splashing water on her face, she dropped to the hard floor for pushups and crunches. After a couple of minutes of rigorous exercise, she felt a little more awake—a little more alive.
During her last set of crunches, one of her wrist cuffs clinked against the neck cuff. It made a solid bang, and that gave her an idea.
The other day, when Veronica had triggered her key fob remote thingy and activated the magnets, the wrist cuffs and neck cuffs had pulled together. The attraction had been so strong; there had been nothing Ember could do to keep them apart.
So, she wondered, exactly how strong were they? For example, if she managed to wrap her hands around Veronica’s neck before the key fob activated, would the combined force of the collar magnet and wrist cuffs snap Veronica’s neck or choke her out?
Ember sat on the bed and examined the cuffs. It could work, maybe. There were a lot of variables. One, she had to slink close enough to Veronica to slide an arm around her neck before she had a chance to press the button. That would prove tricky. Veronica always kept it at hand.
Also, there were magnets in the floor, and Ember would have to fight the pull toward the ground.
But it could work.
Ember had two choices: placate Veronica with feigned obedience, cozy up to her, and then spring a trap. Or, she could bum-rush Veronica and hope it startled her captor enough; she wouldn't have the rapid reflexes to push the button in time.
Either way had risks. Either way had a high price for failure. Lulling Veronica into becoming lax with the button didn't seem realistic. She was too careful, too calculating. So, the full-front approach appeared to be the only way to go.
The door at the top of the stairs opened, and Ember stood at attention. Now was the time. She could do this.
A few minutes to plan out the attack would have been preferred, but maybe it was better to go now. Every time Veronica descended those stairs, it could be with a gun in hand to kill Ember.
No more waiting. Ember had to seize her chance.
Veronica appeared around the bend in the stairs, carrying a tray with a glass of milk and a plate stacked high with pancakes. As usual, the key fob with the button dangled from a chain attached to a ring around her left pinky finger. Veronica looked up when she reached the bottom of the stairs, a flat smile on her face, the large prescription glasses perched on her nose reflecting the lights above. Today, her nail polish was pink to match her glittery lipstick.
“Morning,” Veronica said. “Sleep okay?”
Time to go.
From twenty feet away, Ember launched into a full-out sprint. Tired leg muscles groaned in anger. She focused her eyes on Veronica’s neck. It didn’t matter if her captor pressed the button or not. If Ember could get there first, she could choke the bitch to death, using these heavy cuffs to speed the process along.
Legs pounded the floor, the balls of her feet aching as they slammed against the concrete. Within a second, she had cut the distance in half.
Veronica reacted immediately. She released her grip on the tray, and it sank like a stone to the floor.
Ember was now within three steps. She started to raise her hand, eyes on Veronica’s throat.
Veronica pulled her hands together, trying to grasp the device in the left hand with the fingers from her right. She struggled to get control of the little plastic rectangle, and she missed on the first swipe at it.
Ember was now one step away. Hands up, fingers spread, ready to push her thumbs into Veronica’s windpipe.
Veronica gained control of the device and jabbed a finger on the button. Ember reached out, inches away from Veronica’s neck. But, before she could touch it, both hands snapped back with instant force, toward her own neck. The wrist cuffs sealed her hands to the cuff around her neck. The bond felt unbreakable, and the intensity of it shoved Ember’s knuckles back into her own neck, cutting off her air supply.
A vibrating hum coursed through her body as the floor magnetized, and Ember felt herself spiraling down toward it. Her knees bowed, but she struggled to stay on her feet. Her hips sank. Intense pressure on her ankles. With everything in her, she struggled to lift a knee, but it wouldn't budge. It felt as if the heels of her feet had been bolted to the concrete.
She crashed onto her knees, her head throbbing from the pressure.
Veronica kept her finger on the button, but she whipped her other hand back behind her. She drew something from her waistband. A baton, about eighteen inches long, black, heavy-looking. It wasn’t metal, obviously.
Veronica flicked her wrist, and the end of the baton telescoped out another twelve inches. She swung it down onto Ember's hip. Pain exploded throughout Ember's body. She sank to the floor, on her side, struggling to breathe. Another smack, this time in her ribs. And again, on one of her thighs. She could hear the whiff of the baton through the air with each hit.
“You ungrateful bitch,” Veronica shouted, spittle flying from her bubblegum pink lips. “You can eat table scraps from now on.”
She let up on the button, and Ember's arms relaxed as the
magnets released, and she heaved in a breath to fill her aching lungs. But now, pain rippled up and down one side of her body. Might be broken bones, but she was too full of adrenaline to tell right now.
“I’ve been nice to you,” Veronica said, no longer shouting, but nowhere close to calm. Her chest pumped up and down as she breathed through flared nostrils. “I gave you a comfortable space to live out your last few days. You think you can beat me, Ember? You can’t. This room is where you die, and you are never getting out of here. That was your last gasp. Try it again and see what happens.”
She kicked the plate of pancakes, sending fluffy round circles flying. Syrup shrapnel dotted the floor. “Enjoy your breakfast.”
She spun on her heels and stomped up the stairs. Ember, moaning, tried to turn over. Her eyes landed on the closet full of clothes, the one with the impenetrable metal box bolted to the floor. Ember could see muted lights blinking behind the surface; she could hear the fan inside it whirring like crazy. This box definitely had something to do with controlling the magnetic device. If Ember intended to get out of here, that box was the key to her salvation.
Chapter Nineteen
WELLNER
President Wellner sipped his coffee and stared out at the expanse behind the Denver Consolidated Holdings building. They didn’t have much of a view from here, and the back lot this morning swirled with frigid air.
But, he wasn’t out here for the view or the weather. He and his four bodyguards were waiting. They were hanging back, pressed up against the building, stoic and silent.
He’d told himself he would get to know them and their names so they could personalize him. The thought was that doing so would give them extra incentive to keep him safe. But, really, he hadn’t found it necessary. They were paid to protect him. And he liked a little bit of distance, actually. He didn’t want to humanize them, either. Wellner liked to think of them as tools, and that way, if any one of them were injured in the service of saving his life, it wouldn’t devastate him.
He often thought about the attempt on his life in the parking garage. The chill in the air, the sound of footsteps bouncing off the concrete surfaces. The eerie glow from the lights. The last few seconds before it began were cemented in his head.
What if, when Naomi had stepped in to pepper-spray Conner, she had taken a bullet instead? How awful would Wellner feel about that?
Maybe he should order a security detail for her, as well. Just to cover all his bases.
When the door opened behind him, Wellner breathed a sigh of relief. He’d had enough of waiting here in the shuddering cold. He turned to see young Kunjal Anand, the Club’s new Historian, hovering in a stiff posture. Tension on his face.
As the door slammed closed, the President waved him forward. “I won’t bite.”
“I have to be honest, sir,” Kunjal said. “This makes me uncomfortable.”
Kunjal stopped a couple of feet away, and Wellner closed the distance so he could put his free hand on Kunjal's shoulder and squeeze it. "Only a few days ago, we both stood right here, and you told me that you serve at my pleasure. Do you remember that?"
“I do, Mr. President.”
“Sometimes, my pleasure involves doing things that may not make sense to you or might seem like they live in the gray area. But know that everything I do, I do for the good of the Club. I do for the long-term health and sustainability of all of us. Jules Dunard is a cancer, and if she’s up to something, we need to excise that cancer. Make sense?”
Kunjal nodded, lips pursed.
“Good, good. Now, do you have it?”
Kunjal reluctantly pulled out his phone. Yesterday, moments after Wellner’s tense meeting with the scheming Jules, he had set Kunjal on a task. That task had been to comb through Club security footage to find instances of Conner, the Boulder Branch member who had tried to assassinate Wellner last week in the parking garage below the Holdings building. No easy feat, since there were hundreds of hours of footage over the last twelve months living on servers in the bowels of the building. But Wellner knew Kunjal could use the system’s facial recognition to isolate Conner and speed up the search.
“The computer found sixteen instances of Conner appearing on camera. Most of them were inconsequential. But there is one I think will interest you greatly, sir.”
“Let’s have it.”
Frowning, Kunjal swiped along his phone until he came to a black and white video, paused on the first frame. It showed a high vantage point, looking down on an alley. A crew of five people stood in a circle, but Wellner couldn’t tell who they were. Too grainy and too dark.
“What am I looking at here?”
Kunjal pointed at one figure. “That is Vice President Dunard. That is Conner. These two are members of Five Points, and this fifth person is in Westminster Branch. This video was taken outside of the Five Points Post Office, at a Branch meeting six weeks ago.”
“Jules was at a Five Points meeting? What for?”
Kunjal shrugged. “Afraid I don’t know, sir. I checked with her secretary, but there is no record in her appointment calendar of attending.”
“Off the books, huh?”
“It appears so.”
“Did you make sure the secretary understands this is presidential business, and not to report your question to Jules under any circumstances?”
Kunjal’s mouth dropped open, and he stammered. “I, uh, that did not occur to me to say, sir.”
Wellner tapped his lips together a few times, biting back a sigh. The kid should have thought of that. But, Wellner didn’t want to make him feel bad over an honest mistake. He needed Kunjal now, more than ever.
“It’s okay. I’ll take care of it.”
He motioned for Kunjal to continue, so he hit the play button. There was no sound, but Wellner could see the five of them engaged in a discussion. Lips moving, hands gesturing. After a few seconds, Jules passed something to Conner.
“There,” Wellner said, pointing at the phone. “Can you clean that up and zoom in so we can see what she handed him?”
“No, sir. This is the video we have. Enlarging it won’t do anything, I’m afraid.”
The video reached the end, and Wellner twirled a finger, signaling Kunjal to play it again. As he watched the second play-through, staring at Conner in grainy black and white, he thought about the moment he pulled the trigger and put a bullet in this man's head during the Review Board meeting. At the time, he had been fueled by anger and caffeine. Immediately after, he had wondered if he would be able to look himself in the mirror, if he would question himself and wonder if he had killed a human being for the wrong reasons. After all, Conner had claimed he was merely taking revenge for a lack of government action after the poisoning of the Boulder Branch. Not working as part of a scheme to get Wellner out of the way so Jules Dunard could assume power.
But, Wellner had felt no guilt after killing this Branch member. He had felt only certainty that he was on the right path. Maybe others had differing recollections or opinions about the event, but he couldn’t control that.
When the second viewing concluded, Wellner didn’t have any further clarity. “Those three others besides Conner and Jules. Do you have their names?”
“I do, sir.”
“I want all three of them brought in for questioning. Immediately. And I am going to question them personally. I don’t care if they’re in Mozambique or Germany or wherever. I want them in our holding cell in the basement. Tomorrow.”
Chapter Twenty
GABE
Gabe crossed the marble floor, with his eyes on the receptionist. Same one from yesterday. He hadn’t wanted to wait until this late in the afternoon to come by, but circumstances had kept him away. The hunt to locate Ember had taken him down many paths, but the need to find the person with the initials RHF stayed at the top of the list.
The only clue he had. He hoped it was the right clue, and not something leading him down a fruitless path.
He came to a sto
p in front of the android-like receptionist as she beamed at him.
“Afternoon, sir. Can I help you?”
"Do you remember me from yesterday?"
She frowned for a brief moment; then her eyes lit up. "Ahh, yes. Of course. One moment, sir, I will have someone come down to meet you." She picked up a phone and mumbled, "Mr. Handal. There's a Mr. Jackson here to see you."
After she put the phone back in its cradle, she flashed the smile again at Gabe. “Would you care for a beverage while you wait?”
“No, thank you, I’m fine.”
For a few seconds, they stood in awkward silence, with Gabe going to great lengths to avoid staring at her. Her eyes were down, typing on a tablet. He listened to the sounds of the room, shoes shuffling around on the pristine floor.
A door to the side opened, and in stepped a frumpy Arabic man in a suit, with round glasses and stooped shoulders. He waddled over to the reception desk and extended a hand. “Gabriel Jackson? I’m Yousef Handal.”
Gabe shook, studying the older man’s appearance. He wore a practiced smile that exuded diplomacy and care. The sort of person who would act as the “face” of something. In some ways, the guy reminded Gabe of his high school guidance counselor.
“Nice to meet you,” Gabe said.
“I am sorry we were unable to accommodate your visit yesterday. I was out, unfortunately. But, there is no time like the present, eh? How would you like a tour of the facility?”
“Sounds good. Quite an impressive place you have here.”
Yousef waved him over toward that same door. Once they were on the other side of it, Yousef said, “Let’s take you out to the courtyard first. Did you know we recently renovated it?”
“I heard something about that.”
Yousef pressed a keycard against a pad next to a different door, and it opened to the interior building courtyard. Gabe tried to sneak peeks at both the card and pad, but found his tour guide’s gaze to be thorough.