by Mike Dagons
Ethan knew that there were at least a half dozen people that Melvin could trust to do it. He had nine of the best field agents in the world working for him, and they were more than his employees. They were his friends. He could trust every one of them with his life. He understood what Melvin was really saying was he’d feel better if he knew that he was safe from the danger, just like the women and children. And because he didn’t want to add stress to an already stressful situation, he agreed to leave the country with the rest of his family.
“Alright, I’ll call my pilot and have him to meet us at the airport. Isabel took the kids to the museum today, so they’re both here. We’ll pick up Samantha on our way out.”
Ryan and Bender made it back to the Genesis building, and because he intended to only run inside for a minute. He pulled his truck to the curb in front of the mini park across the street and stopped in a no parking zone.
“Don’t call your pilot, and don’t pack. Blue is already on his way to get Sam, and he’ll meet y’all at the airport. He’ll fly the plane. Contact me when you’re in the air,” he ended the call, and got out the truck.
Bender was running a satellite search on the van so he was waiting in the truck for him.
Before Ryan crossed the street, the violent concussive blast shook the earth, tossing the truck like a toy. Ryan was thrown ten feet into the air, and disappeared in a storm of debris.
The intense heat and licking flames sucked the moisture out the air, and Bender felt like he was in a microwave inside the truck. It landed on its roof, and he thanked God he hadn’t removed his seatbelt yet when the building blew.
Bender was deafened, and a deep gash above his eye was leaking blood down his cheek. The truck was armored, and it had helped to shield him from the rocketing debris, but Ryan had been outside when the bomb detonated. “Ryan!” he shouted.
Bender unbuckled his seatbelt, and dropped to the ceiling head first. He crawled out of the truck’s side window, and started looking for him.
He had taken a hard blow to his head, and it hurt, but his mind was clear. He didn’t know what kind of explosive device was used, or if it was on a timer or detonated remotely. The only thing he knew with absolute certainty was somebody was hitting them fast and hard, and he needed to coordinate their defenses quickly, or they were all going to die. But first he had to find Ryan, and he prayed he didn’t find him dead.
He looked at the smoldering pile of rubble that had once been their headquarters, and the destruction he saw killed any hope he had of finding anybody alive that was not in the reinforced security room behind the airtight blast doors when the place blew.
He couldn’t help them, but he could help Ryan, so he continued his search.
“Ryan!” he shouted again, and then he heard a quiet groan coming from the hedges somewhere further up the pebble stone walkway. Bender hurried off in the direction of the groans, and found Melvin face down in a cluster of bushes.
Bender ran to him, and then pulled him out the bushes, and turned him over onto his back. He was unconscious, but he still had a pulse, which was more than he could hope for the rest of their team if he didn’t get his ass in gear.
Bender removed his shoulder holster and his dragon skin vest, and started checking him for injuries. He felt he had at least two broken ribs. His breathing was ragged, and he hoped it wasn’t because he had a punctured lung.
There was a thick blade of twisted metal in his thigh. It was an ugly wound that probably hurt like hell, but the blood flow was minimal. He wanted to wait until he had time to medicate him and stitch it up before he attempted to remove it, just in case it was plugging a gusher.
Melvin’s blonde hair was matted with blood seeping from a gash in his scalp. He was covered with soot, and blood, and he had so many cuts and scratches he could barely make out his skin color.
He had to get him out of there and to someplace where he could safely get him the medical attention he needed. The truck was upside down and useless, so they were going to need another method of transportation.
Bender heard sirens in the distance, and immediately had an egress plan forming in his head.
He hurried back to their truck, and got his tablet PC. He keyed in a code to see how many ambulances had been dispatched and was happy to see three were in route.
Bender opened the weapons drawer in the trunk and hauled out a duffle and filled it with automatic weapons and ammo. He took Melvin’s sniper rifle off the hook, and slid it in the duffle. Then he grabbed a handful of flex ties and pushed them into his pockets. Having cleaned out the weapons drawer, he went into a compartment under a side panel, and got the first aid duffle. Then he went back to Melvin carrying a duffle in each hand.
Melvin’s eyes were open, but he was in bad shape. “Hang in there, dude. I’m going to get you to safety.”
“What happened?” he croaked.
“They blew the building. Just lay still,” he ordered when Melvin tried to sit up, and then cried out in pain.
“My leg…it hurts like a muthafucka.”
“You got a piece of shrapnel in it. I’ll get it out as soon as I get us a bus.”
Melvin nodded, and then dropped his head back down on the ground and closed his eyes.
Bender searched for his phone, and when he couldn’t find it, he remembered it was still plugged in the truck. He strapped on Melvin’s Glock, and then left the duffle hid in the bushes, and rushed back to their truck to search for his phone.
He found it under the front seat which was bottom up, and made the call. “This is Bender,” he said when Ethan answered. “We got a situation. Has Blue made it to you yet?”
“Yes, we’re all onboard and ready to leave.”
“Don’t leave. They blew up Genesis, and Melvin is hurt. I need you to fly him out with you.”
“Sam, tell Blue to hold the plane, now!” he ordered. “How bad is he, and what you need me to do?” he asked.
“I don’t know. He’s conscious, but he’s definitely going to need a doctor, maybe a surgeon. Can you get the doctor onboard and secure the plane until we get there?”
“I damn guarantee it,” he answered gruffly.
“Ethan, tell Blue that the building is completely destroyed, and I don’t know how many of our people will come out of it alive. Contact everybody in the field and put them on alert.”
“Roger that…how far out are you?”
“Forty-five minutes, tops.”
“I’ll have what you need waiting,” he ended the transmission.
The fire trucks arrived first, and immediately went to work. The Evanston police blocked off streets, and when the first ambulance pulled up. Bender flagged it down. “There’s an injured man over here!” he shouted.
The driver stopped, and he and his partner took a gurney out the back, and followed Bender.
“You’re hurt, too. Let me look at that cut in your head.”
“No, I’m fine. My friend needs you, now.” He led them down the path over to where he had Ryan laid out in the grass.
He had slipped back into unconsciousness, and considering how much pain he had to be in, Bender thought that might be a good thing.
They took his vitals, announced them loudly, and then put his leg in a brace to immobilize it before they started a central line to pump fluids into him. “I need to ride with him,” Bender said when they prepared to move him.
Ryan’s eyes fluttered open again when they started to move him. “Goddammit, my fucking leg hurts,” he grimaced in pain.
“We don’t want to pull it out until you’re at the hospital. We’ll call in to see if we can give you pain meds when we get you inside the truck,” the medic said.
Bender quickly retrieved his duffle bags, and followed them to their ambulance.
“One of them got behind the wheel, and Bender got in the back with the other one and Ryan. “What’s that?” he asked when he saw the rifle barrel sticking out the duffle.
“We were going hunting,
and were just driving by when the building exploded,” he lied.
The medic accepted his explanation, and signaled for his partner to drive. He called the hospital and reported Melvin’s condition. Bender heard the doctor okay a pain shot that was mild enough for a newborn, and the medic busily started preparing the injection.
Bender sat quietly until they had cleared the police barricade, and then he pulled the Glock on them. He’s not going to need that shot,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you, but it’s not safe for us to go to the hospital. I need you to pull over here.”
The medic preparing the shot stopped, and then immediately lunged at him with the needle in a stabbing motion.
Moving swiftly, Bender blocked him with his forearm, while he twirled the Glock that was in his other hand, and caught it by the barrel. He clubbed the young man upside his head with the butt. Then faster than the driver could follow with his eyes, he twirled the Glock again and had it back in his hand and aimed at his head.
He had stopped the truck, and was getting out of his seat to help his partner, but Bender had taken control so fast that he hadn’t had time to fully stand up. “Please don’t shoot,” he stammered.
“Pull over to the curb,” he ordered.
He sat back down and put the truck in gear, and then pulled it over to the curb. Then he raised his hands up high over his head.
“Put your fucking hands down. I said I didn’t want to hurt you. What the fuck is the matter with y’all?” he asked like he really expected an answer.
“I’m sorry,” he stammered.
“Get your ass back here, and put these on that fool.” He handed the driver a pair of flex cuffs. “I got a mind to mace you for doing some stupid shit like that,” he said to the man who had tried to jump him.
Bender was an olive complexion, lanky, nerdy looking, gay Italian, e-geek, but he was a trained killer, like the rest of the Genesis field team.
He couldn’t help thinking that they would have never tried to jump Valow like that. “Put your hands behind your back,” he told the driver.
Melvin opened his eyes again. “Stop fucking around, Bender, and give me something to knock me out,” he tried to smile.
“Be right there, Boss,” he said, and finished putting the ties on their wrists. “Sit on the floor with your backs to the pole,” he ordered.
They obeyed quickly, and he looped another set of ties around the ones on their wrists, and then fastened them to the pole.
“Now listen very carefully, boys,” he holstered the Glock, and then took a pressure syringe, prefilled with morphine, out his bag while he talked. “I will not kill you if you sit there quietly,” he gave Ryan a shot, and in seconds saw his face relax. “When I reach my destination, I promise to give you your truck back and let you go. But if I have to stop for any reason, I’m going to shoot both of you, and then continue on my journey. Do we have an understanding?” He waited for both of them to nod, yes, before he climbed into the front and got behind the wheel.
“Is my friend still stabilized?” he asked over his shoulder.
“Yes, his vitals are good.”
“Good, then let’s go.” He turned on the siren, and headed for the private airstrip.
Chapter 24
“Anakin, dinner is ready,” Chanay called out as she put the baby in his high chair at the table.
Anakin walked out of the lab and into the dining room. His girlfriend, Chanay, was already seated at the table helping Trevarid spoon up his peas.
The baby was two years old, and he was healthy, happy, and smart enough to pretend he couldn’t spoon up his own peas because he didn’t want to eat them.
Anakin’s best friend, Trevor, had been Chanay’s pimp when he met her. Trevor and Jade were Trevarid’s biological parents, and both of them were killed before they ever got the chance to hold him. Trevor had willed Anakin guardianship of the boy, and he and Chanay, although not his biological parents, were his parents in all the ways that mattered.
“Poppa,” the toddler squealed and clapped his hands when he saw him.
Anakin scooped him up out the chair and hugged him. “You like those peas, man?”
“No, hate them, but Chanay says they good for me, and I have to eat ‘em,” he rolled his big gray eyes.
He was a cute round face kid with smooth brown skin like Trevor’s had been, and mystical gray eyes that changed colors to reflect his mood, like Anakin’s. That particular anomaly was a side effect of the life giving serum they had both been injected with at birth.
“You do have to eat them,” she stifled a grin.
Chanay was a beautiful brown skinned woman who he had fell in love with easily. She was kind, and understanding, and ghetto as hell, which was part of her charm.
“Do I, poppa?”
“You want me to rescue you from the green pea monsters?”
“Yeah!” he shouted happily.
“Farid, you put him down, and sit down and eat your own peas, right now,” she ordered.
“Yes ma’am. Sorry man, but Chanay is the boss of nutrition. We have to eat whatever she tells us to eat. If we eat them all, maybe she’ll give us chocolate chunk ice cream for dessert.”
“Can you, mommy?” he cooed.
“How come you only call me mommy when you want something?” she turned her lips up and sniffed the air. “I smell something stank, nigga,” she made an ugly face.
The baby screamed in delight, and they all laughed.
Anakin put Trevarid back in his high chair, and sat down at the table. “I thought we agreed that word was off limits in this house,” he spooned up some peas.
“No, we agreed that it was off limits to you. Me and Trevarid can use it, but only when we talking to each other or the stable.”
“Nigga not a bad word, poppa, you just can’t use it because you look white,” he pushed peas in his spoon like Anakin had done, and shoved them into his mouth. “They taste good, mommy.”
“Told you, nigga,” she grinned.
Anakin suppressed a smile. “You told him that I couldn’t use the word, didn’t you?”
“Why, I would never,” she tried to sound more suburban, and it made the baby laugh.
“Trevarid, poppa is not white. I’m mixed. My mommy was black, just like Chanay. My poppa was white.”
“I know, just like my mommy is black and my poppa is white.”
Anakin slapped a hand on his forehead in mocked exasperation, and they both laughed at him. “We just playing with you, poppa. I know you don’t like the word because you look white, and you can’t use it.”
“I can too, nigga,” he eyed him, and they laughed some more.
Some kid at the playground had called Chanay a nigga, and it hurt the baby’s feelings. He never cried, but he asked her about it later. She explained that it was negative to some people, but not to her because where she grew up, everybody used it. And it didn’t hurt her feelings, so he shouldn’t let it hurt his.
Anakin didn’t mind her using the word, really. His friend Trevor used it all the time. He was happy that Chanay was teaching Trevarid that it was impotent and could not hurt him, because as sure as he was black, somebody at some time was going to call him a nigga whether it was done out of love or hate.
Anakin loved having dinner with his family, and he never got too busy to sit down at the table with them to laugh and talk while they enjoyed a good meal.
He was about to take his last bite of chocolate chunk ice cream when he heard it, military trucks. Something you never heard in the quiet residential neighborhood.
“Chanay, I want you to take the baby and get out of here. Take the Mercedes…it’s stocked.”
She knew the drill, so she didn’t waste time asking questions. She grabbed the baby, and her purse, and went to the lab door. There was a secret passage in there that led to the underground parking garage.
She stopped at the door and looked back at him hoping it wasn’t going to be the last time she saw him. Reading he
r expression, he said, “I’ll meet you later, baby,” and smiled reassuringly. “Now go, and be safe.”
“I love you,” she said, and then closed the lab door.
Knowing that anybody brazen enough to break in on him would be coming with an army, Anakin prepared for a war.
Because he had a baby in the house, he kept his guns in a locked safe in his bedroom closet. He had another stash in the upstairs safe room, but there was no way he’d have time to get to it. So he grabbed the two steak knives they’d been using for dinner, and waited for them to enter.
The battering ram hit the double front doors with a thunderous bang, and they flew open.
Chanay entered the lockdown code for the lab’s reinforced steel door. It locked with a loud clunk; and she put the baby down, and rolled the medicine cabinet aside to expose the access door that led to the basement.
Chanay pulled the door open, and then stepped down into the hole. “Come on, baby,” she held her arms open to Trevarid, and he ran into them. “I need you to be real quiet, okay?” she said as she ran down the stairs carrying him.
“Yes,” he whispered quietly.
She still couldn’t believe how smart he was. Anakin had tried to explain how the serum worked, but she couldn’t understand it. All she knew was their baby was only two, and he was smarter than most five year olds.
She ran through the short tunnel to where the cars were parked. The Mercedes was Anakin’s ride. It had special hidden compartments where he kept a large money stash, extra clothes, and fake passports for all of them for emergencies.
The car had a push button starter, and since she kept the keys for both cars in her purse, when she pulled on the handle, the car door opened.
She put Trevarid in the backseat, and he climbed into his car seat and buckled it. Chanay got in behind the wheel and started the engine. She took her foot off the brake and allowed the car to roll down the ramp to the secret underground passage Anakin had constructed last year. The car would exit in the alley the next block over instead of in the alley behind their house.