THE SAVIOR FREQUENCY
By Shane Scollins
Chapter One
Jordan Callahan stepped into the lobby. The cool air was a welcome change. The bank was busy even for Friday afternoon. He blew out a long breath and gauged the length of the line. He would be waiting for a while.
It was this time every week, when he thought about filling out the papers for direct deposit. Ten minutes after leaving the bank, he would forget. He hated using the drive-through, because his little SUV had an exhaust leak and sounded like a freight train under the canopy.
To pass some time he began sending a text message to his mother. She didn’t usually have time for a phone call, so text was the best way to get in touch. He sent her a quick hello at least once a week to let her know he was still alive.
Jordan slid the phone into his pocket just as the first scream broke. He spun in time to see the flash-bang erupt from the pistol. The room exploded in panic and howls as a well-dressed woman crumpled to the floor at his feet.
Bullets continued to rape the air and chaos fractured out in every direction as people dove for cover behind desks or doors and to the floor. The gunman fired several more shots and then stopped. He stood in the center of the lobby, defiant.
Jordan knelt down beside the bleeding woman at his feet. Dark blood flowed from a chest wound that would be fatal in seconds. Her eyes moved wildly and seemed to search for comprehension but found none.
This was unexpected. It was too soon. It had only been one week since the last episode.
He reached out and took hold of the dying woman’s hand. Her pupils dilated. “I’m sorry,” he said, and after a few seconds, her soft brown eyes blinked out their last glimpse of life.
A swell of anger bolted into him. Jordan balled his hands into tight fists and stood to face the gunman, who was now on the other side of the lobby. The man trained his pistol on a young blonde girl cowering next to a stand filled with pamphlets about low mortgage rates.
There was movement near the manager’s office. The security guard was about to make a move. Jordan shook his head and mouthed the word no to the guard, but the man ignored him and advanced slowly on the gunner, who was preoccupied with the girl. The security man stealthily slid a long flashlight out of his belt and then rushed at the psycho, as did Jordan.
There was no plan at all. Jordan had no idea what he was doing. He wanted to yell and perhaps cause a secondary distraction that would cause the killer to lose focus, maybe giving the guard a second to close the gap.
The gunman saw the guard and shot him. The guard groaned and fell to the floor. The flashlight clattered out of his hand and spun away across the tiled surface.
The gunman turned his aim on Jordan who stopped in his tracks.
“No more!” the man yelled. “I don’t want to kill anyone else.”
Jordan raised his hands and sank to his knees.
“I don’t want to kill anyone…except her.” He wheeled back to focus on the girl. “Why did you do this to me?”
The girl did not reply. She only recoiled in fear.
“You bitch! Do you see what you made me do? I’m not going to prison for you.”
Jordan slowly got his feet back under him. He felt like there was precious little time to do anything. But he had to do something. There was no way he wanted to stand by and watch another person die today.
It would be the final chink in his armor, the last straw. He would have to start familiarizing himself with modern straightjacket designs and he had no taste for fashion. It was enough. He had been bitch-slapped by Death for the last time.
An anger unlike any before engorged every pour of his skin. He had to make a move. Jordan was quick, strong and in good shape. This gap could be closed in a split second.
With steely determination, he stood and charged at the gunman with as little noise as possible. The man turned his head and swung the gun around. Jordan reached out his arm just as the pistol let loose the projectile. The bullet whizzed by his head with a zing and punctured the smoked glass of the lobby.
He ran through the man and slammed him hard into the teller’s station. The gun went off again. Jordan expected to feel piercing pain, but he felt nothing.
They bounced hard off the counter and fell to the floor in a tangled heap, struggling for control of the gun. The other man tried to gain the upper hand, but Jordan slammed his forehead into the gunner’s nose, then he took hold of the man’s hair and drove his knee up into his face, knocking him back.
“Freeze, asshole!” someone yelled forcefully, and Jordan stopped. He looked up from his knees to see a short, stocky man had recovered the fallen weapon and was doing his best movie-cop impression.
Jordan nodded to the man. He took a few deep breaths and then got to his feet.
The stocky man nodded. “Nice work.”
“You too.”
Jordan walked over to the killer, the instrument of this latest destruction, and looked down. “Why?” He could think of nothing else to say, but the man didn’t answer.
Jordan glanced around the room. Several injured people writhed in pain. He went over to the security guard. The man looked up at Jordan before closing his eyes, gone.
Two more deaths…unacceptable…it had to stop.
Chapter Two
Jordan sat on a milk crate, enjoying the warm night and solitude of the porch. The soft glow of his living room light flooded the small front yard. The shadow from his mussed hair cast long spikes onto the gray wooden steps. Crickets emitted the only noise besides the occasional rumble of distant thunder still lingering from the storm.
He swirled the last inch of beer and placed the bottle on the floor at his feet. It had turned warm. The storms passed too quickly, not lingering long enough for his liking. The smell of ozone was still strong, but the lightning show was over. Storms soothed his mind and relaxed him.
After seeing death, his mind always became sore, although that might not make sense to anyone else, that was the way he had to describe it. It was as if his brain actually hurt. For lack of a better term, he called it a headache. But it was not the typical headache. It was something else entirely. It was as if someone was blowing up a small balloon at the center of his brain and popping it every three minutes
Jordan thought he heard a voice, but it must have been an animal. There were no people out here in the country. His only neighbor was too far away to hear anything less then a scream. Living away from the city was his preference.
Again, he thought he heard a voice. A heavy whisper called in the night, “Help me…”
Jordan cocked his head, halted his breathing, listening again to what he hoped was the wind. In the darkness, somewhere at the edge of his sidewalk he heard it again, louder and clearer. “Help me…please.”
That was not an animal. He shot up to his feet and walked down the steps. He moved to the end of his yard, where a hedgerow defined the border to the street.
Looking to the right toward the main road and his only neighbor’s house, he took a step into the street. Nothing. Then he looked to the left, and there at the base of the hedges, an unfamiliar lump rested in the shadows.
“Hello?” Jordan peered into the blackness. Sliding his hand into his front pocket, he fished out his keys. He thumbed the rubber plunger on the end of the small LED keychain light and split the darkness with its beam.
A woman stared back at him, into the beam of light. She was wearing nothing but a black bra and matching underwear. Mud and grass covered her from blond hair to toenails. She looked more like the wife of Swamp Thing than a human.
Jordan used his free hand to dig his phone from his j
eans and started to dial 911.
“No, please don’t!” the woman mustered through obvious pain and effort. “They’ll kill me.”
“I’m getting some help.”
“No, don’t” She tried to leverage herself up. “You don’t understand. You make that call and I’m as good as dead.”
Jordan stopped the call. He leaned down to her. “Who are you?”
“Help me up.” She held her hand out to him. “I hurt my ankle.”
Jordan pulled her upright. They hitched up the stairs and into the house. As he walked her toward the couch, she stopped him.
She seemed to search for words with her eyes, then, “Please, can I wash up? You don’t need me getting mud all over your house.”
Jordan helped her into the stand-up shower, trying not to look at her in that way. But mud or no mud, this girl was hot. He stood with his back to her so she could use him as a stabilizer as she hobbled on one foot. He reached over his head and slid the green plastic curtain closed.
“Can you put these in the sink?” She handed him a ball of black undergarments.
Jordan looked at the black garments. “Are you sure you don’t need a doctor?” He tossed the underwear into the sink.
The water from the shower started to spit and rush. “No, I can’t take a chance.” Her voice was nice, feminine, but not high-pitched. “I’ll heal. I just need some rest, maybe some painkillers.”
“Just tell me one thing, am I aiding and abetting a felon?”
“No.”
“Okay, tell me one other thing. Is some six-foot-three inch psychotic MMA fighter going to bust in here and beat me into something resembling a broken tomato?”
“No”
“Good enough.” Jordan continued to allow her to use his shoulder to balance. He looked around the yellow-and-green bathroom, studying aspects he’d never bothered to look at before. The pale yellow walls were only slightly uglier than the pale green linoleum floor and sink. If he were going to be here much longer, this room would need a paintjob.
The water shut off.
“I’m going to get a towel.” Jordan waited for her to steady herself before moving quickly to the linen closet where he snatched a large white towel.
He went back to his post as a balance touchstone and held the towel over his head. She used him again, both her hands on his shoulders to step out of the shower.
He tried not to look at her in the mirror. But he could not help catching a few glimpses as she wrapped the towel around her body. Damn, she was a beautiful woman. Curves in all the right places, lean and strong, and she was only a few inches shorter than Jordan’s six-feet. She no doubt spent copious amounts of time at the gym, or she was just very fortunate in the DNA lottery.
“Wait here.” Jordan scurried to the hallway closet. He pulled out one of the crutches he’d found on the side of the road a couple months before. He’d planned to donate them at some point but kept forgetting. Jordan then dug through his dresser, pulled out a pair of old sweats and a button down white shirt emblazoned with the words Macho’s Café, a crappy food shack in Jersey City where he’d worked for a while. He used the shirt to paint a few times, so it had several splatters of color randomly spread about it.
He brought the clothes back to the bathroom and placed them on the sink. “Here, it’s the best I can do for you.”
“Thanks, this is fine.” She picked up the crutch and steadied herself. “I can take it from here.”
Jordan closed the bathroom door, let out a sigh, and wondered what he had gotten himself into this time.
Chapter Three
Kayci looked in the mirror and studied her face. They’d beaten her up pretty good. Her left eye was red and swollen. Her bottom lip was fat and split. Jumping from the car was not easy on the body, but had she waited another minute she would have missed the opportunity.
She raised her arm and examined her ribs. They were scratched, raw from the pavement. Examining her ankle, she could tell it was not broken. She cursed herself for letting them get the drop on her a second time.
Pulling up the stopper on the sink, she filled it with hot water and a few pumps of soap from the dispenser. Mindlessly she began sloshing her undergarments around in the water.
Of all the missions, this was the last one she’d expected to go wrong. She’d taken all the usual precautions. Nothing had seemed out of the ordinary. That’s what bothered her the most. Someone had gotten the better of her, and that never happened.
She closed her eyes and started taking some deep, healing breaths. Her ankle was throbbing. With any luck, the swelling would go down by morning enough to put some weight on it.
She couldn’t call her team. This was the first time she’d felt utterly alone since she was fourteen. She had to be careful. The next person she trusted might be the one who killed her.
She thought back to that last conversation with Nathan Pratt, her partner, and she couldn’t recall anything odd. But the fact remained Nathan was the only person who knew where she’d run to when she left Toronto. That one simple thought chilled her to the bone.
Chapter Four
Jordan reached for another beer, but then something more potent caught his eyes so he grabbed that instead. He took hold of the clear bottle. It was not like him to drink a lot, but sometimes he just had to. Today was already a brain shaker. This new development was a real poke in the ear.
He turned away from the counter and saw his wounded guest limping into the living room.
“Have a seat.” Jordan motioned toward the one short couch, coffee table, and old wooden rocking chair. A television stand with no television sat with a variety of plants on it. The television was on the wall above the plants. He did not decorate and lived a minimalist life. “Would you like some water, soda, tea, food of any kind?”
“Yes, a soda, water, food, all of it sounds great.” She eased onto the plush couch.
Jordan handed her a can of orange soda and sat across from her, in the rocking chair. “Well…are you going to tell me something?” he began. “Or do I just sit here like a moron?”
She took a long sip of the soda. “I’m sorry. I’m just trying to sort this all out.”
“Join the club.” He tilted his head back and gulped a double shot of Spearmint Schnapps.
“My name is Kayci. I work for the NSA,” she said flatly.
Jordan laughed. “Yeah, right, me too.” He poured another shot into his mouth, directly from the bottle. Then he joked, “Actually, I work for the DOD on loan from the FBI with special interest from the CIA.”
“I’m dead serious.” Her face did not flinch. “Technically, I worked for a subset of the NSA that people are not supposed to know exists. It’s called the Strategic Operational Reconnaissance Center, SORC for short.”
Jordan leveled his stare at her, narrowed his eyes. “That sounds made up. I’m not even sure it makes sense.” He was usually very good at knowing when people were lying. But this chick was cold as ice. Her face was glass. People always said how cool and calm Jordan was, but looking at her right now, he felt as much like a rabbit in the eyes of the wolf as he ever had.
“It’s purposely nondescript. That’s how the NSA works. No one is supposed to be able to understand what our acronyms stand for.”
“The NSA? Are you joking with me?”
“No, I’m not.”
Jordan could see the intensity in her light aqua eyes. The mood in the room had grown cold. “So what happened?”
He could see the hesitation in her face, the first tell.
“Jordan. My name is Jordan.” He sipped another shot.
“Jordan…Isn’t that a girl’s name?”
“Sometimes. Isn’t yours a guys’ name?”
“Sometimes. Mine’s Kayci with a K and an I. So no it’s not.”
“Well, mine is Jordan with a J, and an ordan.”
She looked at him oddly. “Well, Jordan, I need your help. I know this is all crazy, and I wish I could explain mor
e. But right now things are very complicated. I don’t want to get you involved in anything, but I might be safer here than anywhere else.” She shrugged, wincing in pain.
“Why can’t you just call the NSA?”
“Because someone in my unit is behind this” She let out a long sigh. “Three days ago in Toronto, two men came up to me, put a gun to my head, and drove me to Lake Ontario. They put me on a boat loaded with drugs, money, and enough C-4 to sink a cruise ship. I jumped into the water and escaped. Yesterday, they caught me in New York City, same two goons. Thing is, the only people who knew where I’d run to were my boss and my partner. Someone told them where I was, exactly where I was.” Her voice broke slightly, but she corrected it. “I don’t know if you understand anything about that world, Jordan, but that is a very bad sign when the people on your own team…” She trailed off, obviously fighting emotion, with a determined look to the ceiling.
Jordan did not know what to say. He could tell by the slight wetness in her eyes and the subtle quiver of her lips she was not lying to him. She also looked incredibly beautiful, but that was perhaps another story. Maybe it was the alcohol, but she took his breath away, literally. He’d heard the expression before but never experienced it.
He took a deep breath. “Well, how can I help? I’m just a guy who works at a tire store. Not sure what I can do.” He took another sip of Schnapps.
“I just need a place to heal until I figure this out.”
This was a complication he didn’t want or need. He had enough problems. “I don’t have much. I have a spare bedroom.”
Stormy, his all black Bombay cat, sauntered into the living room. The sleek black mini panther stopped in front of Kayci and regarded her with a long stare. Jordan could see the cat was making her uncomfortable.
“Stormy…” he admonished the cat, “stop staring at the stranger’s soul.”
Kayci shot him a puzzled look.
“That’s Stormy. Some jerk tied him in a plastic bag and tossed him into a storm culvert in Florida. I nearly drove past until I noticed the bag moving. I get out, opened the bag, and this little black kitten clings to me like Velcro. Four years later, here we are.”
Savior Frequency (Frequency Series Book 1) Page 1