Pray for the Innocent

by Alan Orloff

  He grabbed the handle of the safe and opened the door. Then he depressed a small button on the side and slid out a false panel, revealing a hidden chamber. He reached inside and withdrew four large vials of Bivex-N14, enough to kill thousands. Hundreds of thousands, in the right conditions.

  He tucked the containers of nerve agent into a specially padded pouch he’d brought for this explicit purpose.

  Mission accomplished, Dragunov was about to close the safe when something else caught his eye. A small black box. He removed it and set it on the desk, thinking he should know what it was. He stared at it for a moment, then flipped open the top.

  A Distinguished Service Cross.

  Established by President Woodrow Wilson on January 2, 1918, and first awarded in World War I, the Distinguished Service Cross is the second-highest military award that can be given to a member of the United States Army for extreme gallantry and risk of life in actual combat with an armed enemy force. The bronze cross is 2 inches high and 1 13/16 inches wide, with an eagle on the center of the cross and a scroll beneath, bearing the inscription “FOR VALOR.” On the reverse side of the cross, a wreath circles a space in the center, where the recipient’s name can be engraved.

  Dragunov yanked the cross out of its box and turned it over. The inscription read: Cole Tanner.

  He stuffed it into his pocket and dropped the box on the floor.

  On his way out, Dragunov glanced at the body of the man named Peter. Dead familiar eyes stared back at him, and a momentary pang of doubt once again rippled through his core.

  Cole Tanner?

  Then the doubt was gone.

  #

  Locraft stared at the video wall, now in split-screen mode. On the left-hand side was an infrared image of the woods next to the gravel “privacy” road, which some wag had long ago dubbed Lust Lane. The glowing image, prone on the forest floor, was Mathias King.

  Locraft spoke into his headset, and his gravelly voice was broadcast to two men in the jeep, as well as throughout the Op Center. “Keep shining the halogen around, but don’t light him up directly. After another five minutes, continue along the path, then circle along the perimeter back to base.”

  “Roger.”

  The right side of the video wall contained a map of the grounds and the surrounding countryside. A blinking red K was in the center, stationary. Another representation of their subject, King.

  Locraft removed the headset, sat heavily in his command chair. He was getting too old for this kind of shit. He turned to Slattery, who was following everything like the obedient suck-up he was. “Do you think King suspects anything?”

  Slattery pursed his lips for a moment, formulating his answer. Locraft sometimes wished Slattery would speak more off the cuff rather than measuring every word. Locraft felt he’d get truer opinions that way. Finally, Slattery answered. “I don’t think he suspects we let him ‘escape’ and are following him. Certainly not after this.” He pointed at the IR image on the screen. “He’ll think he barely made it out, thanks to his and Peter’s ingenuity.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Locraft said.

  Slattery continued. “Nor do I think he suspects we know about Gosberg’s call. Not in the least. I do think he suspects we would never let him trade himself for his daughter. After PAM’s analysis, I’d think he’d have to be an idiot not to.” When King had taken a shower, they’d bugged his phone. They did it so they’d be sure to hear Dragunov’s call the next day at noon, in case King opted to “go for a long walk.” It was lucky they had.

  When Gosberg’s call had come in, they heard every word and had a couple of hours to devise their own plan. It had taken only fifteen minutes to decide to let King escape and lead them right to Dragunov.

  “We don’t trade hostages, period,” Locraft said. “This had better work, Will. Letting King go is quite a risk.”

  “A calculated risk. We now believe Bivex-N14’s amnesiac effects are wearing off and certain aspects of Cole Tanner’s personality are surfacing, fighting with Dragunov’s for dominance. He’s exhibited traits of both men, if you want to consider the fictional Dragunov as a man. Once we accept that assumption, then the team of Peter and King is ideal. Peter knows Tanner’s tendencies, and King is Dragunov’s creator. Who better to intuit what he might do next? We’ve got both dueling halves of his personality covered.”

  “Any idea who this Hemingway is?”

  “It doesn’t matter. We’re tracking King, and he’s the one who counts.”

  “And you’re convinced he’ll lead us to Dragunov?”

  “Yes, I am. And King might not have, if he’d stayed here. According to the psychologist’s report, King harbors a deep mistrust of the government, and more specifically, the military machine. He may have even tried to blackmail us into allowing him to surrender to Dragunov. Trust me, we’re much better off letting him work with Peter and Hemingway to lead us to Dragunov.”

  “Why hasn’t Gosberg contacted us to let us know he’s alive?”

  Slattery stiffened. “I wish I knew for sure. My guess? He probably feels safer if Dragunov believes he’s dead.”

  “And he doesn’t trust us to keep that secret?”

  Slattery glanced around nervously. Locraft recognized it as one of many affectations Slattery used to convey his emotions and feelings without having to actually voice them. Probably considered that a sign of weakness. “I don’t know if I should say this, because there’s no evidence.”

  “This isn’t a court of law.”

  “Now that some of the old Cole Tanner is returning, I believe Peter might be out to protect him in some fashion. Shield him from us. From the law. From justice. Maybe go so far as to help him escape altogether. He’s still Gosberg’s brother-in-law, his sister’s husband, despite all the destruction he’s caused. And one could certainly argue that the destruction wasn’t his fault in the least—it was all Dragunov’s doing. Something along the lines of not guilty by reason of insanity.” Slattery paused and gave Locraft a slow, wistful smile. “And let’s not forget—he’s also arguably the greatest scientific achievement ever in the field of memory research. He’s Peter’s baby, if you will.”

  “What is this, some kind of twisted Frankenstein story?” Locraft snarled, wondering how someone could change his stripes like that. Gosberg had been a valuable member of the team, arguably the most valuable member. Hell, this whole project wouldn’t have gotten off the ground without Gosberg’s initiative and creativity. And to think he could be turning traitor.

  Locraft’s men had just completed their preliminary examination of the incident at Gosberg’s house. They hadn’t found his remains, but they’d been planning to go through the debris again, with more granularity. Now they had their answer—a live person didn’t leave behind remains.

  “If you’re right about Gosberg trying to save Dragunov-slash-Tanner, we need to devise an action plan to handle him,” Locraft said, feeling the fatigue of forty years in the service. “Gosberg can’t be allowed to compromise this mission. Too many lives are at stake.”

  “Yes, sir. Hopefully, he and King will lead us right to Dragunov and we can neutralize that threat before Peter even has a chance to rescue him. But I agree: from this point forward, Dr. Peter Gosberg needs to be treated as a hostile.” Slattery pointed to the video wall. “Colonel.”

  On the bank of screens, the infrared image was shrinking, getting farther away as the jeep left its position. Locraft hoped this ruse would allay any suspicions King might have about his escape being too easy. Maybe Locraft was being paranoid. Slattery was probably right; a civilian like King, when presented with an escape opportunity, wouldn’t even consider that it might be staged. A trap. His nerves would be jangling too loudly to even entertain the possibility.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  King resisted the urge to scratch his nose as he imagined giant insects crawling all over his face. Better to be stung by a bee than to be discovered trying to leave the compound. He heard voices,
but they were little more than unintelligible murmurs. They’d been aiming the searchlight all around him; he wasn’t sure what had tipped them off to this exact place rather than, say, forty yards away on the other side of the path, but it didn’t really matter.

  He had no intention of making it any easier for them to find him, so he stayed put. And he remained motionless for another five minutes after they’d pulled away, in case they were toying with him and were just waiting for him to blow cover.

  After he was reasonably sure they weren’t coming back, he got up, first to a sitting position, where he took a moment to clean off his face as best he could. He was heartened not to find any spiders or other creepy crawlers stuck to him—only some dirt and a few matted leaves.

  Still seated, he cupped a hand around his phone and checked the time. Five minutes until his rendezvous with Hemingway. Then a chilling thought struck him: what if Gosberg was in cahoots with Locraft, and this was some kind of loyalty test? He’d often written about characters not knowing whom to trust, especially when their lives were at stake. Now he knew how it really felt.

  It all came down to goals. And King’s goal was freeing Amanda. He knew if he’d stayed with Locraft that would never happen. Going with Gosberg couldn’t be any worse. He had no viable choice, so he simply had to assume Gosberg wasn’t jacking with him.

  King got to his feet and brushed dirt from his clothes. Then he took a moment to get his bearings, aligning himself with the gravel road once again before continuing. Twenty yards farther and the dark canopy above gave way to lighter sky. He retreated a few steps and ducked behind a thick tree trunk. He’d reached the end of the woods; the fence was ten yards away across a cleared area—a ring that must have circled the entire property to create a no-man’s-land separating the fence from the forest, for security reasons.

  There was no sign of the vehicle that had almost nailed him.

  There also was no sign of Hemingway. Had the men in the jeep discovered him? Captured him and taken him back to Locraft? King wondered what event could have happened that was serious enough to pit Gosberg against his former coworkers.

  King pulled out his phone and called the number Gosberg had given him for Hemingway.

  No greeting, just a terse, “Where are you?”

  “I’m at the fence. I think they’re on to me, though. I barely eluded a search party. They’re gone now.”

  “Let’s get to it. Stay hidden until I’ve made the hole.”

  King hung up, and within seconds, a lanky black-clad figure emerged from the woods on the other side of the fence and crossed the road, lugging a pair of bolt cutters. Working quickly, Hemingway cut a flap in the fence and peeled it back. The bending metal screeched and clanged, and in the still night, the sounds seemed amplified. King receded into the shadows, sure the jeep would hear the racket and return, scooping up both him and Hemingway, in effect sealing Amanda’s fate by PAM’s impersonal decree.

  But King worried for naught; no bogeymen returned to grab them.

  Hemingway motioned for King to come, and he bolted from the tree line for the impromptu gate. He ducked his head to avoid snagging it on the sharp metal edges, and Hemingway reached through the opening, gripping King’s wrist with one of his hands, holding King’s head down with the other.

  Once King was through, Hemingway pulled him across the road and into the bordering woods. A flashlight flickered on, and Hemingway shined it at his own face, reminding King of the scary faces he’d make to amuse Amanda at Halloween, during their trick-or-treat excursions, on those few occasions he’d been around to escort her. Hemingway held up a finger in front of his mouth, the universal sign of shut up!

  King nodded, and Hemingway turned and continued to lead him through the woods. Five minutes later, after stumbling through some dense woods and a patch of knee-high weeds, they broke free of the underbrush, ten paces from a parked car.

  Hemingway finally let go of King’s hand and jogged around to the driver’s side, while King took the passenger seat. Before they began, Hemingway reached into the back and found a scrap of paper. He pulled a pen from the center console and scratched out a note, then held it up so King could read it: No speaking. You might be bugged.

  Bugged? King mentally flogged himself for not even considering that possibility, for real. He’d written about spies and double agents and all manners of espionage for years, but now, when things got dire, his brain had shut down. He vowed to be more vigilant.

  He took a closer look at Hemingway’s face, with the sunken eyes and prominent Adam’s apple, and something seemed to click. He’d seen him before, at the team meeting, and then later, at the hacienda. Tall, creepy looking. He knew his name wasn’t really Hemingway, but if they’d been introduced, King had forgotten the man’s actual name. If King could use Samuel Clemens and Charles Dodgson as aliases, he supposed this man could use Hemingway, even if he looked more like an outcast from a horror movie than Papa H.

  Hemingway got the car moving, and they sped along the deserted country roads. They were hilly and full of switchbacks and tight turns, and King imagined them running smack into a roadblock around every bend. Ten minutes with no roadblocks, and King’s imagination shifted to snipers in the hills, just waiting to get a clear shot at them. In his fantasy, King wasn’t the one taken out cleanly with a single shot to the head. No, the sniper would nail Hemingway, and the car would careen out of control, flip over a few times, then erupt in a ball of fire.

  And King would be trapped, slowly burning to death in extreme agony.

  He started to open his mouth to ask Hemingway what his plan was, then remembered their “radio silence.” Where would Locraft have planted a bug? There was only one logical place. His phone.

  King removed it from his pocket with two fingers, as if it were wired to explode at the slightest vibration. He realized he was being silly; his phone was the conduit Dragunov was using to communicate with them. Of course Locraft would have it bugged—he couldn’t afford to take any chances. King tapped Hemingway on the shoulder, and when he looked over, King held up the phone and mouthed the word, bugged?

  Hemingway nodded, and King gently placed the phone down in a cupholder on the dash.

  They drove on, now descending in altitude. The sky was getting lighter, and he detected a few twinkling lights shining through the trees, households waking up in a little valley.

  Finally, the road stopped curving, and they hit level ground. It wasn’t much of a valley, mostly because the hills surrounding them weren’t very high. But the trees seemed to fall away, and the sky opened up, and in any other circumstance, King would have enjoyed the peaceful feeling.

  Now, his entire insides were a churning, roiling mess.

  Hemingway drove, eyes straight ahead, concentrating on the road, but King sensed the road was the last thing on his mind. They passed a few houses, then the buildings became more commercial, until finally they were puttering down a main street lined with coffee shops, antique dealers, and quaint little boutiques. A few signs of life: a lady walking two dogs, a man sitting on a stoop smoking a cigarette, another man waiting outside a doughnut shop.

  King’s stomach growled, although he wasn’t sure he could keep anything down if he tried. They were through the commercial stretch in two minutes, and the speed limit rose, from twenty-five mph to thirty-five to forty-five. King wondered if Hemingway had a destination in mind or if he was simply driving around, thinking of possible plans, killing time until Dragunov called.

  King took Hemingway’s scrap of paper and wrote his own note. Gave it to Hemingway. Where are we going?

  Hemingway nodded at him, as if he knew where they were headed, and King took the note back, crumpled it up, and tossed it in the back seat. It was obvious he had no say in the matter, at least not yet.

  He did have the ultimate trump card, however, being the one in Dragunov’s crosshairs. At some point, King would be heard. Question was, would he have anything cogent to say?

  The
car traveled another mile or two down the road, neither speeding nor creeping, then Hemingway turned left. Another couple of miles and they came upon an outcropping of commerce. Gas stations, restaurants, a mall, and a few big-box stores. It had sprung out of nowhere, like an oasis in the desert.

  Hemingway turned down an access road under a gigantic sign proclaiming, “Super Sav-Mor—Lowest Prices Anywhere, Guaranteed! Open 24 hours, too!” He parked at the far end of the lot, near an RV that had seen a lot of miles go by.

  He cut the engine and motioned to King to get out. King went to grab his phone, but Hemingway put a hand on his arm and shook his head. The men got out, and King walked around the car to talk to Hemingway. Finally.

  Hemingway had moved away from the car about ten feet. “Okay. That should do it. We can still hear the phone ring if Dragunov calls, but we’re far enough away so Locraft can’t listen in. Sorry about all the cloak-and-dagger bullshit. I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “Just peachy,” King said. “You really think Locraft bugged my phone? I’ve had it on me the whole time.”

  “The whole time?”

  “Well, except for a short shower. But I had my door locked.” As soon as he heard his own words, he realized how ridiculous they sounded.

  Hemingway smiled, realizing the same thing. “He’s tracking us, too. Via the phone.”

  “Are you saying Locraft knew . . .” King tried to connect the dots in his head.

  “That you escaped? I think so.”

  “And those men searching for me?”

  “Probably all staged. Moreover, he probably allowed you to escape. Maybe he even encouraged it.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m just guessing here, of course, but we have to assume he heard your call with Peter. So he figured you’d be more willing to cooperate with us rather than him, especially if you thought we’d let you exchange yourself for Amanda.”