Danger On the Run

by Wylder Stone

  “Who’s in our lobby, and how’d the bastard get in?” Owen asked.

  “He’s gotta be Watson,” James offered. “The system already found how he got in and shut him out. The system is secure.”

  “Who’s in our fucking lobby,” Owen asked again.

  “His hood’s up, so I can’t get a clear shot of his face. The only thing I’m pulling up is shots of Benson from before. Shit.” James paused, comparing the pics to the man in the lobby. “Black hoodie in all the pics.”

  “He just walked in our fucking door? That’s guts.” Derek laughed. “Let’s see what this bastard is all about. Race you down the stairs.”

  17

  The man in the black hoodie hadn’t moved when the brothers finally made it through the stairwell door to the lobby. They crept along the wall and rounded the corner in stealth-like movements. It was like any other tactical maneuver they’d engaged in. Only this time, it was literally at their front door.

  With weapons all around him, the cocking action made the man jump. “Bomb…” he cried. “Please. He said there’s a bomb.”

  The brothers looked at each other, then Owen spoke, “Who. Who said there’s a bomb? Where?”

  “I don’t know.” The man’s voice cracked, and he began to cry. “Some guy. At least, I think it was a guy. I couldn’t tell.”

  The man began to shake, sobbing uncontrollably when his pants quickly soaked all the way down the front of him.

  “Did you just piss yourself?” Derek asked in disgust.

  “There’s a bomb in my pocket, a psycho threatening to kill my family, and you all have big-ass guns pointed right at me. Yeah, I might have just pissed myself,” the man slobbered.

  “Who did this?” James yelled, his patience running thin. “Why? Fucking tell me, or that bomb is the least of your worries.”

  “I don’t know. I told you everything. I don’t know who.” The man’s sobs made him nearly inaudible. “I-I just got this phone up the street at the cell shop. When I left, I was just a block away when it rang. I didn’t answer because it was a blocked number, but it called right back. I thought maybe it was the store or cell service, but it was some guy. He sounded like a robot. His voice was disguised or something.”

  “Get to the part where you end up with a knife in my building?” James yelled, directing his aim back at the man.

  The brothers each looked at him, then at each other. James’s tone and demeanor were out of character. He felt backed into a corner, his anger justified, but they wouldn’t let him do anything he would later regret. That was their job.

  “I got this, man,” Jackson said, protecting his twin brother as he often did. “Talk or the person on that phone will no longer be your biggest problem.”

  “The guy or woman – whatever – knew who I was. They had my address and everything. They said I had a choice. Make $10k today or die after he makes me watch him kill my family.”

  “Shit,” James said, the rest of the guys shaking their heads in disbelief. Watson had taken things to a whole new level.

  “I hung up because I thought it was a scam or a prank. When the phone rang again, the voice started yelling at me and said my mom’s address, my girl’s name, and my daughter. They knew my daughter’s name. He said all I had to do to save them was walk in here with a sweatshirt on and the knife. He said nothing would happen to me, and when I was done, the money would be in my account. When I said what sweatshirt, a guy in a black hoodie and sunglasses bumped into me and socked me in the gut with this sweatshirt folded up. The knife was inside.”

  “And the bomb?” Jackson questioned.

  “Said it was in the phone I just bought and that he could blow my head off while I was on it. Said to keep it in my pocket because he was going to blow off some important limbs if I didn’t do what he said. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have a choice. He said he was outside my house and would get to my family before I could.”

  “Pat him down,” Jackson said to Troy.

  Troy looked at Jackson and then the guy before he leaned over and whispered, “The guy’s covered in piss.”

  “And?” Jackson questioned.

  Appalled that his brother charged him with the task when he was the bomb expert, Troy refused. “You fucking do it.”

  “Christ, Troy…grow up,” Jackson chided.

  After taking the knife from the guy’s hand and handing it over to one of his brothers as evidence, Jackson proceeded to pat the man down, finding only his cell phone on him in the front pocket of his jeans. He slowly removed it and carried it to a nearby table before gently setting it down.

  “He’s clear,” Jackson said. “Put your hands down, kid.”

  When the man let his arms fall to his side in relief, he wiped his face on the back of his sleeve.

  Disgusted by the piss and nasty sleeve, Troy said, “Don’t. Don’t sit on anything.”

  All attention went to Jackson as he pulled out a small tool kit from his cargo pants pocket and put on static-free gloves before he went to work dismantling the phone.

  “Are you sure you want to do that in here?” James questioned.

  “It’s fine,” Jackson replied, never taking his eye off the task at hand. “If there’s anything in here, it’s a low impact micro. A really small amount of micro, and it’d barely take my pinky off if detonated. This thing would serve as a better detonator than a bomb casing. Besides, the signal from this phone alone would have already detonated it.”

  “No,” the kid said, surprised by Jackson’s explanation. “No, they said it could kill me.”

  “He was fucking with you,” Jackson replied, still focused on the pieces of cell phone he was taking apart, little by little.

  “He knows his shit. He wouldn’t do that here if he thought it was going to do any damage or hurt anyone,” James added.

  Jackson pulled a plastic bag from another pocket and filled it with the pieces of phone laid out before him. “It’s all yours, James. Nothing here for me. Maybe you can find something, but I doubt it was any more than just a call.”

  “Wait, you’re keeping it?” the man’s attitude changed when his life was no longer on the line. “But it’s mine. I just got it.”

  “Kid, it doesn’t work,” Jackson said, tossing the bag to James.

  “Because you broke it.” Adrenaline was talking. If he was thinking right, the man would have remembered that half a dozen men with guns on him were a bigger threat than the damn phone.

  Jackson stepped up to the man, fast and angry. “It stopped working the minute you watered it down with a gallon of piss, all right?”

  James stepped in front of Jackson, now covering his ass by trying to defuse the situation. “Look, go home. I’ll see that you get another phone by the end of the day, delivered to your place. My brother here will walk you home.”

  “First,” James continued, handing over his own phone to the man, “I need you to check your bank account and see if the money was deposited.”

  The man reluctantly took the phone and confirmed that the deposit had indeed been made. “Should I take this to the police? Have you already called them?”

  “No cops,” James interrupted. “Keep it. You earned it. You left yourself wide open, though, so I’ll do you a solid and clean up your security, so he can’t get through to you or mess with your accounts. I’ll send you a message with the details when it’s done.”

  “I can keep it?” the man asked, and when the men each nodded, he smiled, and his shoulders relaxed. “You said increase my security. How will you reach me?”

  “I said he won’t be able to reach you, not me,” James assured, keeping his eye on the computer screen in the lobby as he typed away. “Sorry this happened to you. Keep it to yourself, though. It’s the only way we can ensure your safety. You start talking to the wrong people about this, or it gets around, and we can’t protect you from what comes next.”

  The security gates lifted, and the elevator began to move again while the p
ower flickered and came back on. James did a half-assed salute at the man like they had a secret before he went to the elevator and hit the button, calling it to the lobby. Derek tossed James an odd look and followed the kid out of the building.

  “Ensure his safety?” Owen laughed.

  James shrugged. “He’s scared shitless, so I’m playing off it. We don’t want him talking, at least, for now.”

  “What do you make of it? Why would he pull a stunt like that? Get someone in here and do nothing?” Troy asked.

  “The better question is how the hell did he get in?” Jackson was the protector, more so than the rest of his brothers, and the idea that anyone was that close to his family, in their homes, made him see red.

  “The loop.” James shrugged as if it were obvious. “I have the firewalls and code running on a loop, constantly changing to protect any back doors into our system. They’re impossible to keep shut forever because tech is always changing, hence the loop I’m running. To find a way in, he only has a matter of seconds, maybe a minute before the door shuts him out with another wall to break through.”

  Jackson tossed his head back and crossed his arms. “So he found a virtual door and walked the kid right through it.”

  “Yep. He knew he only had a small window, just like when he took control of my car on the bridge. I know I keep saying this, but he’s good, and I’m still better.”

  “Why didn’t he send the kid upstairs? Why just down here? What was the motivation there?”

  “He couldn’t get through anything but the front door, and it probably took him all week just to do that.” James laughed like the humor in Watson’s shortcoming was obvious. “He wants us to believe he’s getting closer – exploit our fears, create insecurities, panic. The truth of the matter is, he doesn’t know any more than he did that day on the bridge. Same tired trick, new shiny look. He’s sending a message, one where he wants us to think he can get to us.”

  “He wants us to move Genevieve and Ru. He knows that’s our one insecurity and the only thing that can make us panic.” Jackson said that as a statement, not as a question. He was understanding the game.

  “We have something he wants, and he’s willing to take down an entire city to get it. If he could have got on that elevator and got to them, he would have,” James admitted. “He’s got to be getting pretty pissed by now. May not seem like it, but we’re winning.”

  James didn’t find anything on the phone. It hadn’t been tampered with. Watson just got the guy’s number and exploited his fears. He had spent several hours improving his arsenal of programs and codes, making it harder for Watson to find those temporary windows into their lives.

  He practically high-fived himself and yelled checkmate, motherfucker when he finalized the code and saw his work in action. Where his brothers wore bulletproof armor and rivaled villains that box office action movies were made of through hand-to-hand combat and bloodshed, James did the same with his virtual armor and weapons just as threatening and lethal through his keyboard. He was the superhero who saved everyone in his world, one to be feared and the best at what he did, even if it meant he was king of total geekdom.

  He protected what he loved just as fiercely as his brothers. He could handle a gun like a pro and hold his own in a fight, but what made him more dangerous than that was his ability to hide in the innerwebs and radio waves, taking down any threat that came his way. His elusiveness and ability to hide in plain sight while watching his prey, undetected from miles and miles away, was his gift. His brothers couldn’t do that.

  “What else can we do?” Jackson asked, feeling antsy. He was used to gearing up with an arsenal of weapons and explosives and taking down an enemy. The fight from the keyboard thing was wearing on him.

  “This is a virtual chase. He wants the prize, and we have it,” James answered. “It’s a lot like moving in place.”

  “I want to hunt him down and kick his ass, then lock him up,” Aaron Markus added. He was back from whatever case he had been working for the feds and jumped right into the Force’s case. Not only would he do anything to help them because they were like family, but this Watson guy was a fugitive and wanted for federal crimes. It was Aaron’s job to prosecute him and see that he never saw daylight again.

  “We are hunting him down, just not the typical way.” James understood why this was hard for Aaron and his family to understand. It was a completely different world than they were accustomed to, and they didn’t like to sit still. “As long as Genevieve and Ruby are under our protection and can’t be used as a bargaining chip, he’s at a standstill.”

  “He’s got to be getting pissed. Like a lion standing outside the cage, trying to get in for a change,” Jackson added. “We have a big fat juicy steak inside too.”

  “Yeah, as weird as that analogy was…you’re right. I’m not letting him in,” James explained. “He can move around us all he wants, play with the city lights, but I’ll always be a step ahead.”

  “The gatekeeper,” Aaron joked.

  “Damn right.” James laughed, earning raised eyebrows for his choice of words.

  “His patience has got to be running thin. We’ve been going rounds with this guy for weeks now.” Jackson knew this to be true because his was wearing thin too.

  James nodded. “That’s what we want. He’ll fuck up, and we nail him. He thinks he can still get the upper hand.”

  Aaron cocked his head to one side. “So he’s battling his own ego right now, not us.”

  “Exactly. And when he sees that, he’ll lash out, and we’ll be ready for him to screw up.” James clapped as though this was a locker-room pep talk, and it was in a way. He needed to keep his team’s attention. They were getting bored and antsy.

  Jackson stroked his bearded chin. “He can’t hide forever…”

  18

  “You’re sure you want to go through with the party?” Genevieve asked James as they took a seat on the couch. “It’s not too late to cancel or postpone.”

  “No. She needs this. We need this. The boys and I agree it’s the safest place in town, and there’s no way he can touch those kids,” James assured Genevieve.

  Most people have a traumatic experience such as the bomb-wearing, knife-toting stranger in their lobby and have nightmares forever. The Forces were used to chaos and mayhem. It was second nature to them and common in their world. Where the guy from the lobby was still probably pissing himself, it was just another day for them. Ruby was off to sleep over at Owen and Trista’s on another floor in the Elite Building. The rest of the guys were doing whatever it was they did. And James and Vivi were having a movie night, sans the kid.

  “But he got stranger today. He threatened to kill a man’s family and planted him in our lobby with a faux bomb,” Genevieve defended. She was used to Elite Force business. It was dangerous on its best day, lethal on its worst. But this was different because it happened in their building.

  “It was only the front door, and that had to have taken him a week or better to burst through. Getting on the elevator, then off on any of the floors? A whole new ball game. He showed me all his cards. It’s the same hand he’s been playing. I outplayed him. He can’t get to anyone in this building.”

  “I know, and if you are confident, I am too.” She smiled. “Oh! Before I forget, Ruby brought this home the other day. I think she’s hesitating to give it to you.”

  James looked at the yellow sheet of paper. “Father-daughter dance?”

  “I know she’d love to go, but I think she’s afraid to ask.”

  “Afraid? Why?” The concern in James’s voice told her that he was afraid he wasn’t making the progress he thought he had.

  “Things…haven’t been easy. Last year, she threw the paper away and pretended to be sick that day so she’d have an excuse for her friends,” Genevieve said. “Things are so much better, but we’re all still adjusting. I think maybe if it came from you?”

  “She’d know we were okay,” he finished her thoug
ht. “How do you know she wants to go, though? What if she just doesn’t want to?”

  “She’s been looking at party dresses online.” Genevieve laughed.

  “She doesn’t wear dresses,” he argued.

  “That’s how I know she really wants to go with you. She has one picked out, James.”

  He leaned forward with his elbows to his knees and rested his head in his hands. “Man, I’ve really screwed things up. She should have gone last year. Should have done a lot of things.”

  “It’s not too late, James.”

  “I hope not. I don’t know how to make up for so many lost years.”

  Genevieve smiled and rested a hand on his shoulder. “You just learn from those years and move on. She loves you more than anything. You’re her hero.”

  “I think she loves you more than that,” he teased. “How did you get so good at this, anyway?”

  “Well, I adore her, so it makes it all easy.” Genevieve paused and searched his eyes for any hint that he was in a bad place. “I promised to always be there for her. I promised Hannah I would be there no matter what. I wasn’t able to protect Tasha, not the way I wanted to, so I guess Ruby is my second chance.”

  James reached for her hands. “How did we get so lucky? How did I get so damn lucky?”

  For a moment, they were still, quiet, reflecting on their words. They really were lucky. James recalled Hannah’s mention of getting a second chance with her health, and he understood that now. This was his second chance, and he was going to live it the way Hannah wanted him to. Happy.

  “So, how do I bring it up, or should I just ask her?” James broke the silence, looking for direction on how to get his daughter to the dance.

  “Get creative. You’ll think of something. But don’t do it if you think my crap with Watson will put anyone in harm’s way.”

  “I made that school a fortress, and they don’t even know it,” he replied, cupping her face in his hands and pulling her closer. “I won’t let anything happen to you or Ruby. I mean it, Genevieve. I will protect you both with everything I have.”