Do Not Call

by Julian Folk

  Not a word about Ayelet’s fate, though.

  She’s alive. Connor Jr.’s alive. They’re out there. His family needs him.

  “Vincent DeSilva sounds like a dangerous dude,” Connor says.

  “DeSantis,” Williams says. “Your resemblance to the late Connor Yard is uncanny, sir. Jail might be the safest place for a man who looks like you. I wouldn’t release you onto the street even if I was ordered to. Besides, the nor’easter running up the coast might kill more people than Vincent DeSantis did.”

  Connor slurps.

  Williams tucks his file underneath her arm. Connor analyzes the detective’s movements. He’s not cuffed. No cop would leave herself defenseless like this if she believed the man she interrogated posed a threat.

  Williams knows he’s harmless to her; that’s something to build on.

  The door opens from the other side.

  A stocky ginger officer named McGurk says, “Get up, Black Eyes.”

  McGurk leads Connor on a short tour of the precinct. The cop ditches his weapon in a desk drawer. They turn the corner onto the Cage.

  Tattooed, pierced or scarred. Muscular, big-boned, or hulking. A dearth of pretty faces in the Cage.

  Life trained these men to thrive here.

  Connor’s blackened eyes and blood-tinted beard scare no one.

  A bald Irish arrestee wraps his fingers around the coils and asks him, “Will you be my black-eyed pea?”

  Toward the back, a man says, “Split-pea.”

  A uniformed woman cop springs up from a desk and intercedes. Connor reads the name. Alves. She monitors the Cage’s inhabitants. “McGurk, you’re not really gonna put this daffodil in there, are you?”

  “Course I am,” he says.

  Looking out upon the dozen-plus bruisers in the Cage, the prospect of facing Vincent one-on-one, especially when he’s off his game, entices. Against Vincent, but not these men, Connor’s raring to go.

  “What about the Other Cage?” Alves asks.

  McGurk giggles and fist bumps Alves.

  “Hell, why not?” he says and leads Connor along another corridor.

  He hears the bald Irish arrestee ask, “Where ya takin’ my black-eyed pea?”

  They turn a corner onto a desk and a door.

  On the desk, Connor’s earnings, minus the cup, in a Ziploc bag.

  They stole his cup!

  Another Ziploc bag containing his wallet and wedding band.

  His parka hangs on a hook, gloves in one pocket, hat in the other.

  Jasper called, ordered Connor’s release.

  He’s chum in the water…

  Connor scribbles his signature on documents. A chill is trapped in the bones of his fingers. The documents say his earnings amount to $401.91. Which means the cops must have stuffed extra cash in his cup. They’re rooting for him. “I needed a cup of coffee, dirtbag, or it would’ve been more,” the desk cop says.

  Connor steps outside, lingers on the corner in a daze and remembers:

  Now he’s responsible again. Responsible for his family. Responsible to free the world from a monster who was raised in his neighborhood. His personal monster.

  He hails cabs. Tens of them pass on him. Is it because of the black eyes? One finally stops. Young man in a turban.

  “Take me to North Berkshire for four hundred bucks.”

  “Snow coming,” the cabbie says.

  “Drive crazy.”

  Once the cab merges onto the Mass Pike, Connor’s eyes won’t open. Nausea churns his gut. Weakness waylays him. His wakefulness ceases, as if his body was unplugged from the electrical socket of the waking world.

  He hasn’t slept in thirtysomething hours.

  Chapter 31

  Rooftop inventory: pilot dead, chopper burning, attacker dead, FBI agent conked on the nose and bathed in blood, baby crying, mother clutching a bloody spike.

  Nikki’s nose swells and limits her vision. Her tears and Maisie’s blood blur it. She unholstered her gun in the crash-landing and the weapon spun away. Nikki re-enters the chopper to find it.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Ayelet asks.

  Afraid the burning chopper’s going to explode, looking like every muscle from her cheeks to her toes screams in agony, Ayelet busts it to the other side of the roof, where she sits against the wall, Connor Jr. in her arms.

  Gun in hand, Nikki joins her. If the chopper blew and they were standing, the force might propel them over the short wall. Sitting against it, maybe they won’t be carried over.

  “I couldn’t see Maisie,” Nikki says. “I inhaled so much smoke.”

  “What if they send someone up to shoot us?” Ayelet asks. “Like the Strangler guy?”

  Ayelet seems okay, if not delighted, with the fact that she just took a life.

  Nikki replays the sequence:

  She called Jasper and told him the plan. Jasper agreed to it. He volunteered to sic the authorities on Vincent and Maisie once the chopper was in the air. It was technically off the roof but not really flying when the Programmers started firing. Either Jasper betrayed Nikki and Ayelet, or he screwed up.

  She recalls Hanlon’s Razor: “Don’t attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.” A good mental rule to live by. But not advisable to heed in this situation.

  “I don’t trust Jasper,” Nikki says. “He intended for those psychos to kill us. I’m sure he sent operatives to kill them, too.”

  “Why did Vincent abandon Maisie?” Ayelet asks.

  Ayelet already intuits the answer; she’s asking Nikki to confirm it.

  “Vincent must believe Connor survived his swim in the harbor,” Nikki says. “If he stayed up here and killed us and kidnapped the baby, he wouldn’t escape. Even now, escaping will be tough. But he’ll make it. And go where he thinks Connor will be.”

  Ayelet unties her gown. Connor Jr. latches. No tutorial necessary.

  The ligature marks on Ayelet’s wrists churn Nikki’s stomach.

  “You need a doctor,” Ayelet says.

  “Me? You gave birth in bondage, like, five minutes ago. And your five-minute-old infant is sucking your tit in frigid weather.”

  “The burning chopper’s a big fireplace,” Ayelet says.

  Nikki laughs and coughs up sooty phlegm.

  Police flood the rooftop. The survivors surrender. Paramedics pounce.

  They clean the blood off Nikki’s face, choke her arm with a blood pressure cuff and insert a disposable thermometer in her mouth. She answers questions, tells the truth, accepts the embarrassment of having been saved by a woman who gave birth five minutes ago.

  “At any point, did Vincent DeSantis tell you his destination?”

  A version of that question hammers Nikki no less than twenty times.

  “We didn’t get that far, officer.”

  This one hammers her half as many times:

  “What about his endgame?”

  “Vincent wants the Yard family wiped out, except maybe Melody and the boys.”

  Same answer, repeated past the point of delirium.

  Firefighters run their hoses and inundate the chopper.

  Nikki’s phone vibrates. Jasper. Her loathing of the man is at an all-time high. But these repetitious questions chafe, so she takes the call and tells Jasper, “Get these people off my back.” She passes the phone to a clean cut FBI man.

  The agent accepts the phone, listens to Jasper and clears Nikki’s space.

  A short reprieve.

  The ugliest man Nikki’s had the misfortune to set eyes upon ruins the reprieve. He approaches and crowds her. The ugly man wears a black parka, faded jeans and black boots. A dyed black beard masks the lower two-thirds of his face. His dirt-brown curly hair stinks. A morbid fascination with Nikki’s body enlivens his pervert eyes. The man’s nose has a bitten-off-and-reattached look to it.

  The FBI agent passes the phone back to Nikki.

  “Bud is my man,” Jasper says. “Sure, he strangled your boyfriend R
obert to keep his credibility, but he had no intention of killing him. Use Bud to terminate Vincent. Hatch a winning plan. I trust your judgment. I trust you, Nikki. In the event Bud misbehaves, utilize your training.”

  Jasper refers to her training in Japan, not Quantico. This grants Nikki permission to kill. No doubt Bud has the same permission, if not an outright order.

  Jasper pits one of his problems against another; she hates him but admires his ruthlessness.

  “Fuck you, prick,” Nikki says.

  “Don’t talk back, Nikki, when you have no voice,” Jasper says.

  Bud grins.

  Nikki interprets his facial expression as bestial delectation.

  “Bud has performed fabulously for me,” Jasper says. “How do you think I kept Vincent on a leash so long? Bud is one of those tigers I told you about. The ones outside the city walls. Unlike Vincent, Bud is a trainable tiger. I am his master. You’re a pretty tiger, Nikki. I’m your master, too. Your original task stands: kill DeSantis; use your claws and teeth. Or Bud will eat you. And make a meal of the author, her child and her husband. Accomplish this task, tiger, and I will set you free. The gift is conditional, of course, on your denial of the existence of the program we don’t speak of. Say ‘Yes’ for me, Nikki.”

  She searches the roof for Ayelet, who’s right next to her, staring at Bud. Shaking her head.

  “Yes,” Nikki says and hangs up.

  “We’re good to go?” Bud asks.

  “Yes,” Nikki says.

  She accentuates the note of submission in her voice.

  Ayelet is a balloon about to pop itself.

  “We have no choice,” Nikki tells her.

  Bud proceeds:

  “Cops processed a panhandler. Precinct by the harbor. Scope the mug shot, sluts.”

  He flashes it on his phone.

  Ayelet winces and shields her infant’s eyes.

  Nikki double-takes.

  The outline of the face is the same. Battered eyes, purple and black skin, disfigured sockets. An odd mass to the side of the mouth. The beating altered Connor’s bone structure, at minimum.

  At first Nikki assumed Connor dyed his beard a rust color to disguise himself.

  “Pretty boy’s not so pretty anymore,” Bud says. “This grill is an 88 percent match for Swim Team Captain. Discrepancy’s due to swelling and infections and broken bones. Boston PD was supposed to release him into FBI custody. Jasper’s orders. A bitch detective, Williams, got her own ideas and dumped him back on the street, along with panhandled cash and coins—”

  Ayelet’s laughing fit hits like a sneeze.

  “Sorry,” she says, “the image of Connor panhandling…”

  “The bitch detective’s been detained. They’re interrogating her as we speak,” Bud says.

  She’s a braver woman than Nikki is, defying Jasper.

  Bud says, “Local surveillance lost Connor fast. He’ll avoid the grid, like fuckhead Vincent.”

  “Where was Vincent last seen?” Ayelet asks.

  “I fired a couple shots at him downstairs,” Bud says. “Didn’t have a good line of sight.”

  Something occurs to Bud.

  He faces Ayelet.

  “Oh yeah, Fuckhead executed your parents in a conference room,” he says. “Don’t worry, yo. They hated you ’til the last moment. Their hate drove Fuckhead batshit. Or, more batshitty than usual. He thinks family should be supportive and nurturing—”

  “So do I,” Ayelet says.

  “Anyway, sluts,” Bud says, “Fuckhead’s likely still in the building. Causing bullshit mayhem. Nobody knows shit. The question is, where’re Fuckhead and Pussyboy going?”

  “Connor’s headed home,” Ayelet says.

  “North Berkshire?” Bud asks. “That’s a three hour ride.”

  “He panhandled to pay a cab.”

  Bud acts inconvenienced.

  “Vincent knows Connor well enough to guess,” Nikki says.

  “But an epic nor’easter’s about to hit,” Bud says.

  “We only get one play,” Nikki says.

  Ayelet nods.

  “Don’t worry,” Bud says. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Fuckhead guns us down on the way to the car.”

  Chapter 32

  Vincent requested field training.

  Jasper said no.

  Vincent demanded field training.

  Jasper said, “Every minute you step away from your computer, Vincent, you place American lives at risk.”

  Years galloped by and Vincent broached the topic again.

  Jasper said, “The country can’t spare it.”

  When Maisie took charge of the pilot phase of the Program, Vincent asked once more.

  Jasper said, “You’re right. The time has come. Finish the pilot phase. We’ll dedicate a chunk of winter to your field training.”

  But Vincent understands Jasper never intended to let him live past the pilot phase. The old man hired him to build the ultimate weapon of the digital age. Vincent’s reward is a bullet to the head.

  Jasper’s almost worse than Connor.

  Armed idiots roam the hospital corridors, bearing Vincent’s reward.

  No thanks, guys.

  Hunkered in a utility closet, sitting on a lifeless custodian, dressed in the worker’s uniform, Vincent uses the man’s smart phone to hack the hospital’s system. Then he kills the lights, unlocks the doors, nukes cell service and stomps the phone.

  Jasper’s replacement team has just pinpointed his location.

  Responding to the newly unlocked door, a male doctor in blue scrubs edges out of the room:

  “Is it clear?”

  Vincent prefers scrubs to his custodial uniform, so he pistol whips the doctor, drags him to an office and steals them.

  He watches cops in the hallways, stalks them and evades suspicion. When he gets one of the right size alone, he pistol whips him to death, trades up for the police uniform and exits the building into armies of city and state cops, paramedics and Feds. The officer’s gun is on his belt.

  Uh-oh.

  Vincent bends and touches his ankle holster. Nothing there. He forgot his own weapon on the hospital bed, above the cop’s corpse.

  Absentmindedness kills.

  He overhears a cop say, “Fuckin’ governor’s closin’ the roads at eight.”

  The only people stupider than weathermen are the politicians who listen to them.

  Smiling smug, Vincent says, “Curfew means less mess to clean up, right?”

  Backstabbing and bad luck disadvantaged him today. Reality has forced him to play the games of inferior men. Obviously, Connor is not even a man. But that sissy-snitch has everything to lose. And he gains in cunning and endurance with each passing minute. Jasper is a born coward. But the geezer risks losing his legacy. And he’s a master chess player who has accrued tremendous power by virtue of his finesse and longevity.

  Beating one of these inferior men is easy.

  Beating both is a challenge.

  Connor’s not smart enough to think of anything better than going back to the Berkshires and setting a trap. Jasper knows that. If Ayelet, Nikki or Vincent Jr. survived, Jasper will send Bud with them back to the Berkshire house. Bud will kill the women, after he rapes them, and kill the infant and Connor and blame it on Vincent.

  So Vincent has come to a fork in the road.

  The Coward Path: Forget Connor, flee the country, sell Jasper out, work as an indentured servant for a pariah state like Iran or North Korea, build a life there.

  The Hero Path: Eliminate Connor, Ayelet, Nikki and Bud. Expose Jasper to the world. Negotiate a surrender. Turn state’s evidence. Accept a plea deal. Serve time. Build a good life in America upon release.

  Connor, Bud and Jasper must face accountability. To skip the country now would be to shirk duty. Dad would never forgive Vincent.

  He chooses the Hero’s Path.

  So he needs a ride. The vehicle must permit Vincent to travel in whiteout conditions and not
be subject to fines after curfew. I’m thinking snowplow or salt spreader. He’ll park the beast in the woods and enter North Berkshire that way. This time he’ll figure those woods out.

  Maybe he’ll take a hostage, hack a cable provider and tell his story tonight.

  Jasper will hang himself.

  Vincent will be regarded as a controversial patriot-type, like Oliver North.

  He flags down a monster orange snowplow on an empty street, jacks it when the goateed driver stops, but refuses to release him and orders him to serve as chauffeur: “Get me to 93 North.”

  The driver protests and Vincent pistol-whips him.

  The sky dumps its snow. Traffic snails along. Accidents abound. When police cars show up, Vincent points his gun at the driver and crumples his body in the footspace of the passenger seat. Nobody scrutinizes a plow on a highway during a storm, even if the driver’s forehead spills blood.

  Boston recedes into memory. Vincent shoots the driver in the head and holds the wheel steady as the truck slows. He pulls over, swaps seats with the corpse and plows snow.

  Chapter 33

  Central Mass/North Berkshire

  Eyes open…

  Snow falls like it was pushed from a ledge.

  Odors swirl under Connor’s nose. He takes weak sniffs. These odors fire up his memory. Images of Mom, Dad and Robert at the table. A family breakfast.

  Plastic tickles his lips. A straw. He sips Diet Coke.

  He’s not on Long Island anymore.

  The cab driver, Aatma, attempts to feed Connor a sausage, egg and cheese sandwich and Diet Coke.

  “Drink, sir.”

  Is this is a parting gift?

  “I used the bathroom and filled the tank,” Aatma says. “How about you?”

  “One second.”

  Connor devours the sandwich and sucks the soda in. Aatma starts the car. Connor ventures a few feet in the snow. The driver’s kindness impresses him. Paranoid ideas percolate: What if Jasper sent this man? What if Vincent did? Connor pisses. The stream bores a deep hole. Finished, he watches the blizzard bury the yellow and cover the surface of the pisshole in a matter of seconds.