Pray for the Innocent

by Alan Orloff

  A fine spray of spittle flew from Locraft’s mouth and landed on Gosberg’s chin. He refrained from wiping it off, for fear of getting more to replace it. Gosberg slowly nodded. “Yep. That’s about right.”

  Locraft sighed loudly. “What are your assessments? How long until we corral this guy?”

  “I’m confident that we can apprehend the subject and get this experiment back on track within a few days,” Slattery said.

  Locraft’s eyes narrowed until they were merely slits. “You’re confident, are you? Based on what’s happened so far, I think that confidence is misplaced. We should probably terminate this thing ASAP. Cut our losses.”

  “Sir, with all due respect. We’ve accomplished something extraordinary here. We can’t give up now. This is too important. This is a once-in-a-lifetime achievement.”

  Locraft snorted once, then the room fell into silence. The thumping of Gosberg’s pulse in his temples was deafening, and a few drops of perspiration trickled down the back of his neck. Next to him, Slattery’s lips were pressed together so hard they were white.

  Finally, Locraft spoke. “Despite this glitch, I still have high hopes for this technology. I suppose putting up with a few brown lumps in the drawers is worth it.” He pointed his finger at Gosberg, then at Slattery. “But if you fuck this up, your next project will consist of cleaning out the soft-serve machine at the Dairy Queen in Topeka, so help me God.”

  Chapter Eight

  After poking around in Amanda’s attic for a while after dinner, King said his goodbyes and drove home. He pushed open his front door, then wiggled the key out of the lock. The dead bolt needed adjusting, right along with a score of other household ailments. Ever since his second wife, Barbara, had died two years earlier, the house had followed her into a slow but very steady decline.

  The carpets needed steam cleaning, the walls needed a fresh coat of paint, a dozen cabinet handles needed tightening. Nothing too major, and all within his range of competence, but he just didn’t care. As long as the roof didn’t crash down on him in his sleep, King was satisfied with the status quo.

  Unfortunately, Amanda wasn’t. She came over at least once a week and gave him an earful. Clean this, fix that, throw these things away. King knew she was only trying to be helpful, but all the nagging gave him a headache. He almost wished she would just take care of it all without trying to involve him in the decisions. Some people showed their affection in decidedly irritating ways.

  King dropped his messenger bag, now full of notes he’d taken from Amanda’s, right by the door, the dull thud swallowed up by the silence in the empty house. He removed his shoes and padded over to check the answering machine. Those who didn’t know him very well would often leave messages on his cell phone—messages that could go unanswered for days. Those who wanted him to actually get the message in a timely fashion were forced to use the antiquated technology. King wasn’t exactly a technophobe, but why mess with something that’s working well? If it ain’t broke . . .

  A red number two blinked at him. He hit the play button with his knuckle, and a second later the nasal voice of his agent Lanny Rogers filled the air. “Mathias. Lanny here. Got an interesting proposition today. One I think you should seriously consider. If you’re there, pick up the phone. Mathias?”

  Eight seconds ticked by.

  “Mathias? Come on. Pick up for once.”

  More silence.

  “Okay. Call me when you can. It’s urgent.” King hit the stop button on his message machine.

  Everything was urgent to Lanny. King tried to parse his agent’s words. What could an “interesting proposition” mean? King hadn’t written anything in years. Curiosity piqued, King called Lanny’s cell, knowing his agent took his phone everywhere and checked it constantly, no matter what time of day or night.

  “Lanny. Mathias here. What’s so damn urgent?”

  “Ah, Mathias. Thanks for calling me back.”

  He knew Lanny wanted to add “this time” to the end of the sentence but was holding his tongue to keep his client in a good—and pliable—frame of mind. “Don’t I always?”

  “Sure you do. Two things. First, I didn’t want to leave this on voice mail, but . . . Fred Feinbaum is dead.”

  “What? That’s terrible.” Ex-CIA, Feinbaum had been one of the people who’d helped King with his research for the Nick Nolan books. All it had taken was a few bottles of Lagavulin to get him to crack open his figurative Rolodex and feed King the names of high-ranking contacts in the Company, FBI, and half a dozen other alphabet agencies that infested the DC area.

  “Yeah, he sure was a wealth of information,” Lanny said.

  “What did he die from?”

  “Not sure. He was old.”

  “We’re old, too, Lanny.”

  “Don’t remind me.” Lanny cleared his throat. “Funeral’s tomorrow, if you’re so inclined.”

  “Tomorrow? When did he die?”

  “Last night. He’s Jewish.”

  “Okay, thanks for letting me know.” Dead air. “You said you had two things. What else?”

  “Here comes the good news part. I got a call from some people with an interesting proposition. One that I think might be fun and inject a little bit of excitement into your, uh, career. A little reinvention is good every once in a while, right? Keeps things fresh.”

  Fresh? Lanny hadn’t bought a new sport coat in the last twenty years. “I don’t have a writing career anymore, remember?”

  “I like to believe you’re just taking a long break between projects.”

  Always the optimist. “Just cut to the quick, okay? It’s getting late, and I need my beauty sleep.”

  “These guys want to turn one of your properties into a graphic novel series.” Lanny stopped talking abruptly, and King immediately knew which “property” was on the table.

  “No way. I’m done with that. How many times do I have to tell you?”

  “It’s my responsibility to inform you of all offers, isn’t it?”

  “I think you’re confusing yourself with an attorney. Attack on America as a comic book? Seriously? What’s next for America’s youth, a Jeffrey Dahmer pop-up book?”

  “They’re talking six figures.”

  King glanced around, taking in the stained carpets and dingy walls. Fifteen-year-old appliances. “I don’t care. Not for sale.”

  “It’s been a long time since you’ve sold something. What, some audio rights two years ago?” Lanny’s voice had softened, almost into funeral home range. “I know it’s not the money. It’s the . . . it’s getting back into the game.”

  “I’m not sure graphic novels count as the game. Besides, I’m done with writing. Now, I’m focused on molding impressionable minds.”

  Lanny snorted. “You still have lots of fans. Fans who would go bonkers reading about Nick Nolan throwing bad guys through twelfth-story windows. If you want to write another thriller, I’m pretty sure I can persuade Josh Henninger at Dutton to take a serious look.”

  “No. No. No. No more trash from me. This country’s in a bad enough place without that crap eroding their minds.”

  Lanny issued the longest sigh King had heard in ages. “Okay, Mathias. I’ll politely decline the graphic novel deal. I know you’ve been through a lot, but you have too much talent to let it go to waste. You should give yourself a second chance. Strive for greatness. Without people striving to make progress, our Founding Fathers would still be dueling things out with those funny-looking pistols. Will you think about what I’ve said?”

  “You know me. Mr. Open Mind.”

  “Please?”

  “Sure, sure.” King issued a sigh of his own. “Thanks for sticking with me, Lanny. I know my crazy career choices haven’t been easy for you to swallow. Say hi to Beth, will you?”

  “Goodbye, Mathias.”

  King hung up, feeling as he always did after talking with his agent. A little slimy, a little guilty, a lot depressed. And it wasn’t just hearing that Fred Fein
baum had died. King had practically bought Lanny his two homes and put his three kids through college, and even though it had been a good decade and a half since he’d hopped off the bestseller train, dragging Lanny with him, he still felt bad about dropping out of sight. He hoped Lanny had invested better than he had.

  Another message waited. King thought about going upstairs to bed and leaving it for tomorrow, but why not get all the bad news out of the way at once? He hit the button.

  Emily’s enthusiastic, rapid-fire voice was a contrast to Lanny’s. “Professor King, please call me. I’ve got the information about Dr. Gosberg that you wanted.”

  King glanced at his watch. A few minutes past eleven. Like any self-respecting twentysomething, Emily was sure to still be awake. He punched in her number and took the phone to the couch. She picked up after the first ring.

  “Hello, Emily.”

  “Professor King, I’ve got some info on Dr. Gosberg.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Brains. He likes ze brains,” Emily said, speaking as if she were a zombie in a Boris Karloff movie.

  “Are you saying that he does brain research?”

  “That’s what I said. Neuroscience. Biomedical engineering. That kind of thing. Graduated from Yale, then went to medical school at Harvard. Also managed to get a PhD from Stanford in Neuroscience. Worked with some heavy hitters in the memory-mapping field. Private sector and government contracting. Bounced around at a few start-ups. Most of his research focused on applying data storage and retention techniques from the world of computer science to the human brain. I tried to read a paper of his on organic memory data storage allocation algorithms, but, well, I’m just an English major.”

  “I bet you understood plenty, Emily.” King knew Emily liked to play the modesty card whenever possible.

  “His last published paper was a few years ago. Since then, nothing.”

  “What could that possibly have to do with Attack on America?”

  “I don’t know, but I’ll keep digging.”

  “Thanks for the offer, Emily, but you’ve given me what I need.”

  A pause.

  “Is there anything else?”

  “Um, no, I guess not. Bye, Professor.”

  King hung up and trudged upstairs. Brushing his teeth before turning in, King examined himself in the mirror. His face was a little pudgier these days. Hair a bit thinner and a lot grayer. He’d survived a lot during his adult life—wild success and wilder excess. The horrific tragedy of Rina’s murder, sending him into a tailspin. Rebirth. The loss of Barbara after a valiant battle with cancer. Now, all he had left were Amanda and his students.

  And the terrible legacy of violent cultural touchstones, in print and celluloid, that he’d introduced to the world.

  He set his toothbrush down and rinsed out his mouth. Shuffled to bed. Before turning off the light, he went through his ritual of saying goodnight to the three loves of his life as he looked at their pictures in silver frames on his nightstand. Rina, his first and deepest love. Barbara, his rock, the savior who’d turned his life around. And Amanda, his feisty daughter, so much like him, though their relationship had forever been damaged by the events of one night, decades ago. He knew he’d never fully regain her trust, no matter how hard he tried, and that was a burden by itself.

  King rolled over and let the exhaustion of the day transport him into slumber.

  Chapter Nine

  The interference in Dragunov’s head hadn’t abated; although intermittent, it had grown worse in both severity and frequency.

  But he wasn’t complaining. His superiors, during those long and harsh training sessions, had taught him that complaints were counterproductive. They’d implored him to turn negative energy into positive results, and that’s what he’d do.

  He pushed the turmoil to the far edges of his brain, blaming his confusion on the American scientists and their dastardly mind-altering poisons.

  From his position behind a tall hedge on a vacant lot, Dragunov had his sights set on the dark sedan parked five yards away at the curb. Inside were two men, two enemy agents. Waiting. For him, almost certainly.

  Dragunov hefted the .38 Special in his hand, caressing the steel in his loving fingers. A work of art, and functional. Deadly functional. He’d taken the weapon from a drug dealer in Anacostia, and there hadn’t been much of a struggle. Those dealers, full of swagger and attitude, were no match for actual skill and courage. He hadn’t killed the man, just broken his jaw and taken the money from his wallet. You never knew when you were going to actually have to pay for something.

  He analyzed the situation, and after a few moments weighing options and calculating the odds, he tucked the gun back into his pants, then pulled out two steel-barreled pens and a container of dental floss he’d bought at a 7-Eleven. Quietly, he twisted four lengths of floss around the pens, creating a lethal garrote.

  Death was death. The “how” didn’t matter so much to him—he was an expert at many methods, and each had its advantages and disadvantages. Adaptability was key in his business.

  It had been dark for hours, and neither man had left the vehicle. He knew it would only be a matter of time until one had to take a break to answer nature’s call, and he put himself in their heads. There was only one logical place to go, and with all the coffee they’d been drinking, he figured he wouldn’t have to wait much longer.

  Dragunov took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Patience was another key to his business, and he could wait for as long as he needed to. Although he was itching to get busy.

  When he’d escaped two nights ago, he’d grabbed a pair of pants from one of the personal effects lockers in the lab room. They’d fit perfectly. In the pants, he’d found a wallet. His wallet, judging by the picture on the driver’s license. Whatever the American scientists had done to his memory had been effective; they’d somehow wiped out all traces of his deep cover identity. The address on the license had led him there, and as he gazed at the house across the street, he knew, deep down, that this was the right place. The place where he’d been living, posing as an American. As Cole Tanner, according to the name on the license.

  At first, he hadn’t wanted to return to his home, afraid the Americans had set a trap for him. But he had something he needed for his greater mission, and he was willing to take the risk in order to get it.

  Besides, he was Dragunov, the most effective instrument of terror the world had ever seen. He could handle whatever the stupid Americans threw at him.

  An hour and half later, the car door opened with a groan. The enemy agents inside had turned off the courtesy light, but the light from a nearby streetlamp glinted off the doorframe as it squeaked open. Dragunov took a deep cleansing breath and pressed himself into the shadows.

  The hedge rustled to his left, then parted, and a man stepped into the relative privacy, hidden from the street. Intent on his immediate chore, he didn’t notice Dragunov. The agent unzipped his pants. As soon as he began relieving himself, Dragunov sprang forward, throwing his hands over the man’s head, then tightening the garrote around his neck. Tighter, tighter, tighter. The man clawed at his neck for a moment, twitched a few times, then fell limp. Dragunov eased him to the ground, a sack of potatoes.

  One down.

  Dragunov took up a position on the other side of the hedge opening where the agent had emerged, so he could get his partner from behind. He figured it would be about five minutes before his buddy came looking, but you never knew for sure.

  It was four minutes.

  The second man whispered through the bushes. “Hey, Brent. You okay?”

  Dragunov tensed, waiting.

  “Brent? What are you doing? Taking a dump?” Twenty seconds later, the second man pushed his way through the foliage, leading with his weapon. He stopped, crouched, and tried to get a closer look at Brent’s body, which was barely discernible on the ground in the darkness.

  Dragunov attacked. Garrote in place, squeeze like hell. A noise e
scaped from the man as he realized he was fucked, but he dropped his gun, and Dragunov threw the man to the ground, drove a knee between his shoulder blades, and kept working the garrote. When the man stopped moving, Dragunov stood and surveyed his handiwork.

  Clean, effective, efficient.

  Dragunov pocketed his garrote and passed through the hedge, crossing the street toward the house, keeping low, moving quickly. Not too much danger of being spotted this late, in this neighborhood, but there was no reason to draw attention to oneself. When he got to the driveway, he veered left toward the back of the house. Through the unlatched gate.

  He crossed the back lawn noiselessly, going directly to a thermometer in the shape of a palm tree hanging on the washed-out redbrick wall. Reaching behind it, he unhooked a spare key from a small brad. He couldn’t quite understand how he knew the key’s location; there was no conscious thought behind it. On some level, he knew this was his house, but there were large—and deep—gaps in memory, and they were disconcerting. He’d always prided himself on being completely in control, and to know things without remembering where he’d learned them seemed to imply the opposite.

  At the back door, he inserted the key into the lock, opened the door, then went directly to an alarm keypad and punched in the code to disarm the warning. If he knew where the spare key was, he knew the alarm codes, too. It made sense.

  Still, unnerving.

  He already knew the floor plan, so he didn’t turn on any lights, using a small pocket flashlight instead. Silently, he glided through the recreation room toward the main living area. He inhaled and smelled nothing, but a sharp memory sliced through his mind. Mitzi. He paused, trying to quell the interference in his skull. Here, Mitzi. Good dog.

  His arm shot out and grabbed the wall to steady himself. Through the chaos in his head, he pictured a small fluffy white dog, yipping and yapping. He shook his head, trying to dislodge whatever had possessed him, but the more he fought, the worse it got.