The Devil's Interval

by Kevin Tumlinson

  It could be only seconds now.

  “You got it set?” Denzel shouted over the din of helicopter noise echoing among the buildings.

  “Set!” Peters said.

  “I have looped the message we’re transmitting,” Patel shouted. “Once it is within range, it will be picked up and rebroadcast.”

  “Good!” Kotler shouted. “Let’s get this in the air, we’re out of time!”

  Peters nodded, and as everyone cleared away he moved the levers on the control he was holding. The drone buzzed to life, rising quickly into the air.

  “Come at him from above,” Denzel shouted. “He’s busy watching the street.”

  Peters nodded, and the drone continued to gain altitude, then tilted toward the AMSL roof.

  In moments, it was across the canyon, and began to hover downward toward the two men on the roof’s edge, its sound masked by the thrum of the helicopter.

  They watched things evolve from the drone’s point of view, as it got closer. Kotler realized that he had been holding his breath, and let it out.

  “Ok,” Kotler said. “We’re within range. Trigger it.”

  Peters was controlling the drone, holding it in a steady position, as Patel used a handheld control to activate the device by remote.

  There was no sound, no flash of light, nothing to indicate whether or not the signal had reached the device. Their only evidence came from across the way, and slightly above them. They saw Ross Miller’s demeanor change, as did that of Garrett Chandler.

  Both men suddenly took a big step back.

  Kotler let out the breath he’d been holding. “Ok,” he said, “I think we can safely breach the roof.”

  Peters nodded, lifted a radio from his belt, and issued the orders.

  From their vantage point, they couldn’t see beyond the roofline, but they had a clear view from the camera in the drone. The door to the roof was blown, and armed security and police rushed forward.

  Chandler stumbled, moving away from Ross, and shaking his head. Kotler realized, suddenly, that their step back had moved them just out of range of the 20-foot field of influence from the modified Devil’s Interval device. If its signal was still reaching the device planted on Miller, it wasn’t strong enough to prevent Chandler from shaking off its effects.

  Chandler turned, and sprinted away from Miller, headed straight for the helicopter.

  They couldn’t hear or see anything from across the way, but Peters was getting reports via radio. “Chandler has made it to the chopper! My team and the police are holding fire, to avoid hitting the pilot.”

  The helicopter rose swiftly into the air, then dipped low, following the corridor of buildings, turning out of sight a few blocks away.

  “Dammit!” Kotler shouted. He turned to Denzel. “Is there any way to track him?” he asked.

  Denzel was already on his phone, calling in the incident, requesting cameras, news helicopters, ground-level observers, and anything else he could think of.

  Kotler was breathing heavily, as if he’d just sprinted up a set of stairs to get here. He felt his heart pounding, and the anger raging within him. He was as angry with himself as he was with Garrett Chandler. How had he missed the clues? How had he been so wrong?

  A call came over Peters’ radio. “We have Ross Miller,” one of his men said. “He’s safe.”

  “Good work,” Peters replied. He issued more orders, informed his men to stand down and let the police and FBI do their work.

  Kotler wandered away from everyone, still feeling rage over the missed capture. He spotted Patel, who was standing away from everyone, near the roof’s edge, looking down.

  “You helped us save Ross Miller,” Kotler said.

  Patel looked at him, his eyes wild. “I caused all of this,” he said.

  Kotler regarded him for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, that’s true. But you also helped to stop it.”

  Comforting words. He wanted Patel to feel them, to know that he’d done some good. But Kotler himself wasn’t feeling quite as hopeful about things. Patel may have redeemed himself, somewhat. His career might have a chance again. But the technology he created was now out there, representing a dazzling new threat in the world. Chandler Ross was out there, prepared to use it or to sell it.

  What was his agenda? What was his motive for all of this? Kotler intended to find out. And then he intended to find Garrett Chandler, and put an end to Devil’s Interval.

  Chapter 27

  Ross Miller was being examined by paramedics in his own office, having refused to go to ground level, much less the hospital. Letting the paramedics look him over was the only compromise he was willing to make, and he was more than a bit annoyed for having to endure.

  He was also agitated and a bit skeptical over the news of his friend and fellow executive.

  "I'm just having a hard time wrapping my head around all of it," Miller said. "I've known Garrett for years. It was on my recommendation that Ashton made him part of the company. I just can't understand why he'd do this."

  "Money is the most likely motive," Denzel said.

  Miller looked at him, shaking his head. "Garrett had money. His annual salary is seven figures."

  "Not this kind of money," Denzel said. "He could buy his own country with this kind of money."

  "Maybe it was more than the money," Kotler said. "I've been reviewing his personnel file, plus anything I could find online. He was very passionate about equal rights, and I think he felt some sort of shame or stigma about being a transgender, hiding in plain sight."

  "I knew about it," Miller said, quietly. "We've talked about it. I … I may be the reason he kept it low profile." He looked around at each of them. "I thought it might be bad for the company, to have its COO come out as a transgender. I told him it might be best to keep his private life private. But I encouraged him to support anything he felt passionate about."

  "Judging by what I'm learning," Kotler said, "he may have resented you for that. There's this interview with him in Time." Kotler indicated his phone. "He goes on quite a bit about 'changing the minds of business leaders,' and 'imposing a new way of thinking on the world.' I may be just reading it as ominous, after the fact. But I think the idea of using mind control to further the cause of LGBT rights might have been tempting."

  Miller shook his head, still shocked. The EMTs pronounced him fit, and left the building. He got up from his office chair and wandered out into the hall, with Kotler, Denzel, and Peters following close behind. He went straight to Chandler’s office, which was currently taped off, as a forensics team swept it for anything they could find.

  “He was my friend,” Miller said quietly. “He tried to kill me.”

  “He sees himself as a warrior in a cause,” Kotler said. “You were a sacrifice for the greater good. It was also strategic. With Ashton and you both dead, AMSL would likely fall into a tailspin. He was planning to survive the ordeal, and would have moved to take over as CEO. From there, he’d be able to reallocate AMSL’s resources, to further this own agenda.”

  “But you figured it out,” Miller said. “Just in time.”

  Kotler started to respond, but shook his head slightly. “Excuse me,” he said, turning and walking away.

  Miller was safe. Patel might receive a pardon for his help in this. And they now knew who was behind it all. But it was a pyrrhic victory. They’d won, but Chandler had escaped, along with his knowledge of the Devil’s Interval technology.

  “At least we have the countermeasure,” Denzel said, catching up to Kotler at the bank of elevators.

  Kotler raised his eyebrows, smiling wryly. “They teach mind reading at Quantico?”

  Denzel smiled slightly, shaking his head. “You may be better at reading body language than anyone I know, Kotler, but you don’t own the table on it. Besides, I know you well enough to know this was too close. You’re kicking yourself.”

  “I had him, Roland. Just … too late. I was fooled. I let myself fall victim to cogni
tive bias. I was convinced I was talking to a woman, on the other side of that voice changer. Plus … well, I almost hate to admit it.”

  “Go ahead,” Denzel said. “The elevator is taking its time.”

  Kotler took a deep breath, and exhaled. “It’s Gail. She got in my head. Even before I knew it was her behind my abduction, I was already carrying around some baggage. It influenced me. It made me think the voice on the other end of that line had to be a woman, because lately women … well, I let my feelings for Gail cloud my judgement once before. I let my personal hang-ups color my perception this time, and it nearly cost Ross Miller his life. And it may have unleashed the most horrible weapon ever created on an unsuspecting world.”

  “First, I can think of plenty worse weapons. Losing your free will isn’t something new, Kotler. People have been brainwashed and forced to do things against their will since the dawn of time. This technology just makes it easier for the bad guys, that’s all. Second, it isn’t your job to catch these bad guys, it’s mine. Your job is to do exactly what you did. You put things together in a way I wouldn’t have. You solved it, before it was too late. It doesn’t matter how close to the wire you were.”

  “But Chandler escaped. We could have had him, but I didn’t solve this fast enough.”

  “He’s escaped for now. We haven’t stopped looking. I have people looking into where that helicopter ended up. We will find this guy, Kotler.”

  The elevator dinged, and the doors opened. Kotler and Denzel stepped inside, and Denzel punched the button for the lobby.

  They rode down in silence, and Kotler mulled over everything Denzel had said, wondering if he believed any of it.

  The streets were still barricaded as Kotler and Denzel made their way to Denzel’s car. Members of the Press were clamoring for any soundbite they could get, and Kotler cringed to think of the headlines. “Viking Researcher Foils CEO Suicide,” or some nonsense. It wouldn’t go unnoticed that he was departing in the company of the FBI, and that was sure to create some sort of buzz. He might even be named as a suspect—there wasn’t a lot of fact checking going on in the media these days

  They had slowly pushed through the crowd and were a few blocks away when Denzel’s phone rang. “This is Agent Denzel,” he answered.

  Kotler was staring out of the passenger side window, looking at the faces of everyone on the street. He wondered about all them—their lives, their families, their careers. Any one of them could be turned into a murderer in an instant, and all it would take was to plant a Devil’s Interval device on them.

  Denzel was right, of course. There were weapons that were far more horrible, in terms of their destructive power or the devastation they could generate. But to Kotler, who viewed free will as a divine gift, the idea of technology that could bypass it was abhorrent. He’d rather burn, rather watch his own flesh melt from his bones, than know he had been turned into a weapon.

  “We have a lead,” Denzel said. “The pilot of that chopper has been located. He put down just outside the city. He has no memory of when he took over, but there’s a GPS in the aircraft. We can track where it’s been.”

  Kotler nodded. Then shook himself a bit. This was good news. This was hope. “Let’s get him,” he said, smirking.

  They drove to the location of the helicopter, which took some time. Police and even military were already on the scene. “What’s the military doing here?” Kotler asked.

  “Maneuvers nearby, so they offered an assist. We’ve been sort of all over the place, so it was a welcome bit of help.”

  The pilot was sitting in the back of a squad car, his hands in cuffs. Kotler glanced at Denzel, who stepped forward and showed his badge to the officer closest to him. “Why is he in cuffs?” Denzel asked.

  “He has some story about mind control,” the cop said, scoffing. “But he was flying the chopper that you guys were after. We’re taking him in for questioning.”

  “I need to speak to him,” Denzel said.

  The officer looked hesitant at first, but shrugged and opened the squad car’s door.

  Denzel knelt, and chatted with the pilot for a while, asking for any details he could give.

  Kotler stepped away, wandering among the police and military. He had his ID out, and clipped to the front pocket of his shirt. It seemed to do the trick, and no one stopped him.

  He moved to the helicopter, where two technicians had plugged a tablet into the chopper’s systems, and were pulling up GPS data.

  “Find anything?” Kotler asked.

  The technicians glanced at him, then at the FBI Consultant ID. “You’re with the FBI?” they asked.

  “Consultant. Working with Agent Denzel,” he nodded to Denzel, who was standing now, dusting off and turning to look for Kotler.

  “The helicopter took a pretty winding route through the city,” one technician said. “But it did stop and hover in this location for a bit.” He showed Kotler the map on screen. “There’s a helipad on that roof. It’s a hospital.”

  Kotler looked at the screen and nodded. But something didn’t feel right.

  “How long did they hover there?” he asked.

  The technician checked some of the data. “Maybe three minutes. Long enough for your guy to disembark.”

  That was true. If the pilot took the stick, and hovered just above the helipad, Chandler could have exited in seconds. The pilot then continued his route to here.

  “Why here?” Kotler asked, looking around.

  “I’m sorry?” one of the technicians asked.

  Denzel had walked up now, and had heard some of the discussion.

  “Why here?” Kotler asked him.

  “Why not here?” Denzel asked.

  “The pilot was … well, on autopilot. If Chandler exited at that hospital, why would he have the pilot fly all the way out here?”

  “Throw us off the trail?” Denzel asked. “Get him as far away from that hospital helipad as possible?”

  Kotler looked around. They were in an urban area. There was a large park nearby, and he could hear kids laughing and screaming as they chased each other. There were houses here—a neighborhood. And there were a few industrial buildings, small and squat, and lining the road running behind the park.

  “He’s here,” Kotler said.

  “What?” Denzel asked. “What makes you say that?”

  “He’s too smart. He wouldn’t have left the GPS running. He’d know about it. He’s flown this type of helicopter before. He didn’t get out of the helicopter at that hospital. He paused there long enough to throw us off the trail. His goal was to get here.”

  “Why?” Denzel asked.

  Kotler pulled out his phone and brought up a map of the area. “About ten miles from here, there’s a private airport,” Kotler said.

  Denzel nodded, then yelled for the police and military, showing his badge and issuing orders. There was very little hesitation, as the officers and soldiers had been gearing up to leave, the mission and the excitement over. This would be action. They were onboard.

  They were on the road and on their way to the airport, with sirens blaring. Denzel was calling ahead, making sure no planes left the ground.

  Kotler, again, couldn’t shake a feeling.

  He wandered toward the playground, and the sound of the kids.

  It was a pleasant day. The weather was a bit cool, but warm enough that many of the children were playing without jackets. Parents and nannies were seated and chatting with each other on the benches lining the edge of one of the playgrounds. Kotler smiled a bit. He thought of his nephew, Alex. He was a smart kid. Even had his own ‘boy detective’ agency, solving neighborhood crimes for a buck. Kotler talked to him often, and occasionally sent him something cool—a microscope or a replica of an ancient artifact, or anything that Alex might find interesting. Kotler’s brother, Jeffrey, wasn’t always keen on how well Kotler and his nephew got along, but at least he never tried to stop them from talking.

  Kotler wondered what i
t would be like, to be a parent. His relationship with Alex was as close as he’d come, but he doubted it even compared in the slightest to the real thing. For starters, though Kotler was always concerned that Alex was safe, he figured that was nowhere near the near-panic worry he’d feel, if he was raising a child in this world: A world where monsters were real, and they were using technology to control the minds of others, to turn housewives into murderers. Or worse. Kotler figured he’d watch his child like a hawk, at all times, probably being too overbearing and too overprotective.

  He paused.

  His gut was telling him that something wasn’t right, but his brain hadn’t completely caught up to it. What was it? What was he seeing, that wasn’t quite clicking?

  The parents.

  Most were casually talking to each other, keeping an eye on the kids without being too focused. This was just another casual day at the park for them.

  But some of the parents were sitting rigid. They stared at the playground, unmoving, not talking.

  One woman, off to herself with no one else sharing her bench, wasn’t watching the playground at all, but instead had her head down, her hair obscuring her face.

  Kotler moved closer, swinging around behind, and walked to the bench where the woman sat. She was staring at her hands, from what Kotler could tell.

  “Chandler,” he said.

  Chandler looked up, startled. He was wearing makeup and a wig, and if Kotler hadn’t known his face he would never have guessed this woman was AMSL’s COO.

  Chandler sprang from the bench and started running, and Kotler chased him, leapt, and tackled him to the ground.

  They struggled, and Chandler got at least one good punch in before Kotler managed to take hold of his wrists. He had a knee on Chandler’s stomach, pushing against his sternum. “Stop!” Kotler said. “It’s over!”

  “It’s not over,” Chandler hissed. He was smiling, and his mouth was bleeding, most likely from the fall. His teeth, straight and perfect, were stained pink with blood, making him look ghoulish. He laughed, and nodded toward the playground.