False Positive

by C. Ryan Bymaster

  Father Lance’s voice was firm when he asked, “Why do you think something nefarious is happening here?”

  “I don’t think. I know. The fact that you had no clue about the control room proves my point.”

  “No. It only proves that I don’t know what’s going on here. And tell me, Dent, when you find that this … this insane idea of yours is proven wrong, what will you do then? Will you allow me to find you the help you so deserve?”

  “You couldn’t help what’s wrong with me.”

  “All people can be helped.”

  Dent refrained from offering his opinion on that.

  They came upon a set of wide stairs leading down, and for lack of any better option, Dent forced Father Lance to descend. The stairs emptied into dark hallway, devoid of any religious motif. Only closed doors spaced twenty feet apart broke up the monotony in both directions.

  “Storage rooms,” Father Lance offered without any urging.

  “Which way?” Dent asked aloud, more to himself than Father Lance.

  “Does it matter? Either way will only dig you a deeper hole.”

  And that gave Dent an idea. If your prey bolted down a hole with too many tunnels to search, the best way to find which tunnel they were in is to force them back up.

  Finding the nearest camera, Dent dragged Father Lance before it and handed him the stolen phone.

  “Redial. Look into the camera. Tell Julius this is his last chance.”

  Looking from Dent to phone and back, Father Lance asked, “Last chance for what?”

  Dent lifted his Glock in reply.

  The line rang, Julius picked up.

  “Father, security is almost through the doors Dent jammed. They’ll be there in moments.”

  “I don’t think I have moments, Julius. Please, this man is not well.”

  “Help with be there soon, Father.”

  “I need you now, Julius. Please.”

  “I … I can’t leave my post, Father. I have my orders. I’m sorry.”

  “He can’t be down there alone,” Dent said.

  Father Lance swallowed. “Is there someone else, Julius?”

  Silence.

  “Julius! If there is someone else with you, please, I need their help!”

  Silence. Then, a heavy intake of breath.

  “I’m sorry, Father. Just hang on a little longer. Security will be there soon.”

  Dent yanked the phone from Father Lance’s hand, looked up into the camera, and pointed his gun down at his side. At Father Lance’s left foot.

  “Dent!” he heard Julius scream into the phone. “Don’t you—”

  The gunshot echoed throughout the hallway, the flash seeming to freeze time for that instant.

  When his hearing recovered and time marched on, Father Lance fell to the floor, screaming at the top of his lungs. His hands were wrapped around his ankle, as if that was as far as they would venture to the hole in his foot.

  A string of curses shot out from the phone and Dent had to point the still smoking Glock at Father’s Lance’s downturned head to quiet Julius enough so that Dent could put the phone back to his ear.

  “You son of a bitch, Dent! You didn’t have to do that!”

  “I did. And I will again.”

  Another string of curses and Dent heard what he was hoping for. Julius yelled at unseen comrades.

  “Get up there! Go! Now!”

  Satisfied, Dent hung up. He pulled Father Lance, still screaming and sobbing over his ruined foot, across the floor by the scruff of his shirt and leaned him against a wall near the stairs.

  Doing his best to ignore the distraction that was Father Lance, Dent withdrew his other gun.

  And waited for his prey to come up and out of their tunnel.

  XXVI

  They came from the right. Dent’s only warning was a muted chirp of either a two-way or a phone before he jumped back up the stairs.

  The wall to his left splintered as the roar of the single gunshot filled the hallway.

  Dent waited, unsure of how many hostiles there were.

  “Father Lance,” he said, drawing the man’s pain-scrunched face. The injured man still sat back against the wall down in the hallway, and therefore had a clear view. “How many are there?” Dent asked.

  The man refused to answer.

  Dent thought of putting another bullet in him but decided to try something different.

  “These men are using your church for an experiment on the people who come here to worship. Are you going to let them get away with that?”

  “Whatever you think is going on, at least they didn’t shoot me!”

  “Which I will do again. I am not the enemy.”

  Father Lance’s eyes narrowed as Dent realized how incongruent his last statements were.

  “They’re using you and your church. They’re using someone from your orphanage to manipulate people’s emotions. Help me stop them.”

  When Father Lance shook his head, Dent said, “They have firearms. Why would they be armed if there was nothing going on here? What is so important that they would bring weapons to your church?”

  Again, Dent knew his words were contradictory to his own presence there.

  But it seemed Father Lance did reach a similar decision. He said, “If you promise not to hurt anyone else, I’ll try to help you. Help us all.”

  “No. No negotiations. Either you’re with them, or you’re not.” Dent raised both his guns, readying to turn the corner. “Either you care for the people and children of your parish, or you do not. Make your decision, before I make one of my own.”

  Eyes trained on Dent’s guns, Father Lance slowly but inevitably relented. His shoulders sagged and he whispered, “Two men.”

  “Where?”

  “One is crouching and walking this way on my side of the hallway. The other is ducked behind the corner still.”

  “When the one approaching reaches the third door out from the stairs, call out to him. Tell him I’ve gone back upstairs.” And to ensure the man did as ordered, Dent leveled his right barrel at his head.

  Father Lance took the hint. A few seconds later, he shouted down the hall, “He went upstairs!”

  Before the approaching gunman could respond, Dent spun around the corner. The gunman, coming out of a crouch, wasn’t expecting Dent and had let his firearm drop to his side in a fatal mistake. Dent went to work. Left index finger, crouching man’s left shoulder. Before the retort died, Dent squeezed the right trigger. The man stumbled back with a second gunshot wound, this one square in his chest.

  Unfortunately, the man around the corner had recovered quicker and fired three times in Dent’s direction. One shot tore into the wall at his right, another whistled down the hallway to his left, and the third plowed through the meat of his side, just above his left hip.

  Pain and survival instinct dropped Dent to the floor. He blindly sent two shots down the hall and scrambled ahead to the downed man in the hallway. Twisting the man’s body, unexpectedly drawing a gurgle and realizing the man wasn’t yet dead, Dent used the bulk of the body as shield.

  Back near the stairs, Father Lance called out for the gunfire to stop, that they could talk things out and nobody else had to get hurt. When the remaining gunman fired twice at Dent, one shot going high, the other slamming into his dying comrade’s back, Dent properly guessed that there would be no talking.

  The wound in his side was bleeding profusely and needed attention. He’d have to find the control room, determine if it was indeed a child like Fifth that was in the employ of the church, and get out to somewhere safe.

  With a deep, painful breath, Dent fired twice over the body and jumped up at a dead run for the corner of the hallway. Within twenty running strides he was there. Just before cresting the corner, the gunman turned the corner himself. There was a brief moment where their eyes met. The man, whose gun was aimed towards Dent’s midsection, began to adjust his aim, to bring his arm up, but Dent was already there.

&
nbsp; He kicked the raising gun aside with his right leg, but in doing so received a burning, grazing slice in his right thigh as the man pulled the trigger. Twisting with his kick, Dent spun, tucked his left arm in, and came fully around to throw his left hand back out, gun leading. The solid jolt as metal slammed into the gunman’s head told Dent that the man would likely be out of the fight.

  Even before the man dropped his weapon — and his knees — to the floor, Dent was there. One arm wrapped around the man’s neck while Dent spun himself around the man’s body. The man’s head lolled as Dent pulled him up into a standing position. Pain from the new wound in his thigh threatened to bring Dent down, but he grit his teeth and shook the semi-conscious man back into consciousness.

  Eyelid’s fluttering, the man mumbled and drooled onto Dent’s arm. He was coherent enough for what Dent planned.

  “Julius,” Dent said to the half-conscious man, turning the man so they faced down the way he and his partner had come.

  A word, or sound, poured out of the man’s lips and Dent shook him all the harder.

  “Julius’s location. Now.”

  An arm lifted, a crooked finger pointed down the hall. Dent could have figured as much on his own. Pain coursing through his body, his breathing already becoming labored, Dent half-walked, half-dragged the man forward. At each intersection, Dent shook the man, received vague directions, and moved on.

  Two minutes in and the man’s two-way chirped. Julius’s voice echoed out of the man’s pocket, demanding that he stop leading Dent down to something called the Catacombs. Apparently Julius was tracking their progress.

  After another minute the dazed gunman led Dent to a small elevator. No buttons, but a palm ID scanner. After one last bit of help, Dent let the man drop, his limp hand sliding down the wall below the scanner.

  The elevator door slid open and another chirp sounded from the near-unconscious man’s pocket.

  “Dent, you don’t want to do this!”

  Dent stepped into the elevator, hit the only button available.

  “You’re signing your death warrant! You have no idea who you’re going up against. He will hunt you down—”

  The door slid closed, cutting off Julius’s tirade. Dent knew exactly who he was up against. It was Julius who had no idea who he was going up against. The elevator travelled perhaps two floors down and Dent put his back to small wall next to the opening doors.

  When no shots found their way into the elevator, Dent ducked out, finding an empty hallway. It was brightly lit, track lights running the entire length, and had metal doors and single windows spaced to either side. And at the end of the hall, a single metal door, painted blue with white lettering that read CR-5-3. The narrow windows to either side were backlit and a red light beckoned from just above the door frame.

  The pinpoint red diode seemed to stare at Dent as he stepped down the carpeted hall. He ignored the doors to either side, the dark windows next to each declaring the rooms to likely be empty of threats.

  His soft steps, slightly shuffled from the wound in his right thigh, slightly slowed from the loss of blood seeping from his left side, whispered down the empty hall. He’d expected more from Julius. He didn’t know the man personally, but after all they had been through, he’d expected some final stand. Some resistance.

  Perhaps Julius’s security detail was too small. Perhaps he’d never thought to come across someone like Dent. Perhaps he had become sedentary in his job beneath a church. Perhaps he’d grown wise and fled.

  Dent reached the door at the end, gave one last glance up to the camera, and managed to push the handle down with the butt of his left gun. Stepping back, he leveled his guns, kicked the door open fully and prepared to fire into the first thing that moved.

  Of all the scenarios, what he saw as the door swung inward was not one he’d anticipated.

  Julius, for Dent assumed it was he, sat against the far corner of the room, his empty hands raised just above the armrests of his chair. Nonthreatening.

  Quick assessment of the room showed no other doors. Security camera feeds glowed along the wall to the right. On one screen, he saw Father Lance being led back up through the west wing to the church proper. Another showed the hallway where Dent had dropped the first gunman, and another showed the one guard still lying unconscious in front of the elevator.

  The other side of the room was a third computers, a third shelving heavy with multicolored binders. In the third between, a large computer screen and work station. Stepping fully into the room, Dent leveled his left hand at Julius, who’d remained perfectly still, though sweat stains were beginning to darken his armpits. No weapons were visible about the man, but Dent didn’t lower his gun.

  “Julius.”

  “Dent.” The head of security’s voice sounded a bit higher than it had over the two-way.

  “Control room?”

  A nod.

  “You know why I’m here?”

  “Yes and no.”

  Dent tilted his head to the side, trying to figure out why the man wasn’t trying to kill him.

  Somehow, the man understood what Dent was thinking. He inclined his head to Dent’s side, indicating the wall behind the door. Dent glanced that way, saw a rack of firearms. Four AR-15s, two Mossberg 12 gauges, and one racked Beretta in a shelf designed for four. Julius had easy access to firearms.

  “I was ordered to stand down,” Julius said when Dent looked back at him.

  “Why? By who?”

  “Above my pay grade.” Though the way he took in Dent’s injuries, Dent surmised the man may be thinking of disobeying his orders.

  He leveled his barrel at Julius’s sweat-dappled forehead to halt any ideas from forming inside. Julius’s eyes flicked to his wrist then back up.

  “What is this place?” Dent asked him.

  “I’m sure you know. You came here for a reason.”

  “eTech.”

  Julius shrugged. Again, he looked to his wrist.

  Dent stepped closer. “Is it eTech? Or is it a child?”

  Julius’s eyes went wide for a moment, his brows raised.

  “A child, then?” Dent deduced.

  “How did you know?” Julius asked. But before Dent could answer, he went on to say, “Oh God, The Ranch? That really was you.”

  Dent ignored the accusation. He took another step closer. “Which child is it?”

  “It’s a blind study.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means I have no clue. None of us do. We simply monitor the effects. Keep records. Protect the facility.”

  Dent looked to the computer screen to his left. “What files are they saved under?”

  Julius laughed. “You’re looking in the wrong place.”

  He turned back. “What?”

  “Nothing is digital. All the records and data are printed up daily and the digital files erased. Nothing to be hacked into, nothing to be leaked. No trace of what this place is.”

  “Where, then?”

  Another laugh, another glance at his wrist. “You walked by our filing system on the way in.”

  Dent didn’t turn, but ran a quick calculation. The rooms he’d passed looked to have been at least eight feet wide, with no idea how deep. That would be a lot of information to sift through. And with his knees beginning to weaken where he stood, Dent didn’t have the time to go through it all. Another step forward and Dent pushed his gun into Julius’s shoulder.

  “Tell me where to find the name of the child.”

  A slow head shake. “I told you, it’s a blind study. We were only given the original list of ten kids way back then. Even if I knew which one it was, I wouldn’t tell you.”

  Dent’s finger teased the trigger until the significance of the man’s words settled in.

  “How long?” he asked. “How long has this study been going on?”

  “Over a decade. We’re one of the longest running tests.” Julius’s chest seemed to swell with the comment. Dent was tempte
d to deflate it, but kept his finger immobile on the trigger.

  “Is Jason Wilkens on that original list?”

  When Julius didn’t respond, Dent slid the barrel from the man’s shoulder to the base of his neck.

  Julius, it seemed, wasn’t really cut out for security detail. “Yes!” he blurted out. “Yes, he was. Won’t do you any good knowing. Like I said, it’s a blind study.”

  Which meant Jason had a ten-percent chance of being the target. Dent had been so certain that it would be Jason, but now, not so much. The implications settled in, bringing more questions than answers. If not Jason, then why did Otto send them to Lynn Wilkens? Was it someone Lynn knew? Someone Jason knew? Was it indeed Jason? The signs were there though. Fifth tried to hide it from him, but he knew her well enough to know she thought Jason was the target, as well.

  Ten percent in this instance could very well be one-hundred.

  Julius’s head moved slightly. Dent noticed his eyes flick down again, but the Glock was in Julius’s line on view to his wrist. To his wristwatch. Now that he was closer, Dent saw that the man had twisted the watch face so he could better see it without titling his wrist in an obvious manner.

  Dent turned, eyes going to the security monitors. A good dozen men in dark clothing and guns in hand were swarming the church and making their way down to the Catacombs. As Dent watched, the forerunners stopped to check on the dead man in the hallway just off of the stairs.

  Julius’s orders must have been to keep Dent occupied. That explained why the man made sure he was visibly unarmed when Dent came in. If Julius had so much as pointed a finger Dent’s way, Dent would have dropped him instantly and moved on, risking the chance of the back-up team missing their window of opportunity to take Dent by surprise.

  Surprise or not, they would be here in minutes.

  He turned on Julius, digging his gun deeper into the man’s neck. Julius let out a gasp as Dent pressed, “A way out.”

  Julius laughed.

  “There has to be another entrance.” Before Julius could offer up a denial, Dent stated, “Father Lance was oblivious to this place, which means you guys don’t use the normal entrance for fear of drawing attention to your operation.”