She encountered Martin at the front door and explained her state of health. “It’s probably some kind of twenty-four hour bug,” she suggested. “I’m going to lay down and stay out of everyone’s way. Don’t be surprised if I don’t make it tonight.”
“Are you sure it’s just a bug? The day nurse is still on duty, I can arrange for her to check you?”
“No, I’m certain I’ll be all right tomorrow. Just let me rest tonight. Enjoy your party.”
“Do you want me to check on you?”
“No, no. Just let me rest. If I feel okay, I’ll come and join you all. I need to lie down and let this bug do its worst.”
It took longer to climb the stairs than she expected. Eventually she reached her room and collapsed on her bed. The room was spinning and she felt as though a migraine-sized headache was already taking possession. A few minutes later two very small children entered her room.
“Anna,” whispered Gabrielle. “I’m not feeling very well. Niland says he’s unwell, too. Can we share your bed?”
Anna barely had the strength to raise her head. “Certainly. Can you close the blinds first? And lock the door; we don’t want to be disturbed.” She felt the bed move as two small bodies joined her under the duvet. She closed her eyes as she fought her growing debilitation.
It was hours later when she woke. Something, a loud noise, had disturbed her. The room was dark and she checked her watch; it was 8 p.m. The dinner celebration had been underway for an hour, perhaps the noise was from the party. The sound recurred, louder closer. She listened intently in case it happened again. The next time she thought she recognized what was causing the sound; someone was opening doors, slamming them with utmost force.
Gabrielle stirred, alert. “Anna, people are searching all the rooms.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes, Anna,” whispered Niland. “They’re looking for people not at the party. They’re dangerous; they don’t want us to survive.”
“Gabrielle, can you hide the three of us, if someone enters this room?”
“Yes, I think so. For a short while.”
“When you hear someone at my door, work your magic. We don’t want anyone to see us.”
The two smaller children huddled closer, and Anna wrapped an arm around each one. Perhaps, she thought, this is why she was so unwell; it was caused by some kind of premonition. The three of them lay still, scarcely breathing, listening to the progression of slamming doors as it moved closer.
The door handle rattled as someone tried to open the door. It was unlikely to be one of the children; they were very polite and would knock first. Suddenly the door crashed open. Anna hoped Gabrielle was working her magic. Two people entered the small room; men, she thought, their details indistinguishable in the dark. They had a brief discussion and one checked her small wardrobe while the second pushed into her bathroom. They both conferred briefly and left the room, Anna heard the door slam open in the next room. The pattern of noise moved slowly away. Without warning a short burst of gunfire echoed along the corridor, followed by silence. After a few minutes, the sequence of violent door slamming began again.
“They shot someone,” said Niland. “I think it was Roberto, he wasn’t feeling well, either.” The little boy sobbed. “He was my friend.”
Anna held him close. Gabrielle shared the hug. “I didn’t understand what they were saying,” she whispered in Anna’s ear.
“I didn’t either,” said Anna. “I think it might have been Mandarin.”
“Can we go and see if Roberto is OK?” asked Niland.
“Not yet. They might return and catch us where Gabrielle can’t hide us.”
They waited for over an hour until at last Anna surrendered to Niland’s urging to check his friend. Her headache still throbbed across her temples although her stomach pains had eased. With some trepidation she climbed off her bed and assisted the two young children to stand. Anna held their hands as they tiptoed out of the room and along the corridor to Roberto’s room.
~~~
Mark had finished screwing in a new blade to his scalpel-like cutter, and was about to commence building more cartons from the flat cardboard templates, when he heard a noise at his apartment door. He looked up as the door swung open with a crash. Two intruders entered with some caution. They were Asian, both in their twenties, Mark thought, and they moved with military precision. Each intruder held a hand weapon, poised, ready to use.
Without further thought, Mark threw the weighted cutter at the closer of the two intruders. It hit him in the left eye, blade first, and buried in deep. The man’s sudden scream choked off and he dropped his weapon. The blade had embedded fully into the intruder’s skull, piercing his eyeball and optical nerves, until eventually the point had entered his brain. His companion appeared both stunned at Mark’s sudden and vicious attack, and torn between caring for his companion or continuing his approach. Mark did not hesitate and stepped forward, scooping up the weapon dropped by the now dead intruder. Before he could fire at the second man, a shot was fired from outside, through the open doorway.
The second intruder fell, his skull shattered. A man stepped inside Mark’s apartment, a stranger. He wore an eye patch and had a badly scarred face. He regarded Mark and the two fallen intruders.
“That was the last thing I expected,” the stranger said. He looked down at his weapon, considered it a moment and then holstered it.
“Who are you?” Mark still held the intruder’s weapon, not yet confident he was safe.
“My name’s Scott, Scott Gilmore.”
“FBI?” questioned Mark.
“Yes. Well, ex-FBI.” He sat on one of the packed cartons. He touched one of the bodies with the toe of his shoe. “Any idea who these guys are?”
“No, none at all.”
“You can put the weapon down, I’m not dangerous now.”
Mark was intrigued at the qualifier. “So you were dangerous?”
“Oh, definitely. I was severely beaten because of you. I almost died. I did lose the sight of one eye. I wanted revenge.”
Mark put the handgun down on the top of one of the cartons. “I didn’t know any of this.”
“Yeah, I realize that, now. I was carrying a major grudge. But I just saved your life—how can I now shoot you?”
“Thank you. Should we talk to the police? Or the FBI? Someone will have reported the gunshots.”
Gilmore got out his cell phone. “The FBI, I think.” He dialed a number. “Frank? This is Gilmore. Yes. No time for discussion—I’ll brief you later. I just shot an intruder. There were two of them—home invasion, yes. The homeowner is Mark Midway. That’s correct. He killed the second intruder. It may not have been random—there’s a possibility Midway was the target. Can you get a team here, urgently? No, there’s no police presence, not yet. Good, thanks.” He gave Mark’s address and ended the call. He returned the cell phone to his jacket pocket and looked up at Mark. “There’ll be an FBI team here in minutes. You’re well known, that helps.”
“Now tell me why you’re here, at my apartment?”
“I said, I was beaten, tortured, because of you. Someone badly wanted you. At that time I had no idea who this Midway person was and of course couldn’t answer my questioner. Fortunately, eventually, I was rescued.”
“You’re Cerberus,” said Mark.
“Yes. You know?”
“Special Agent Freewell found files on your computer and Schmidt’s team broke the encryption. Your rescuers were Cerberus, as well.”
“Yes. So was my nurse. As you can see, the genetic stuff aided my recovery.”
The FBI team and the police arrived almost simultaneously, the FBI agents just seconds ahead of the police. There was a quick conversation and the responding police officer checked with his base and with his senior officer’s approval, agreed to let the FBI agents take control. Mark and Gilmore each provided their statements and after crime scene photographers had taken numerous photographs, the two b
odies were removed. The senior agent arranged a clean-up crew and within an hour, all signs of the invaders and their deaths had been cleared from the apartment. A locksmith made temporary repairs to the door; Mark thought he should arrange a more permanent repair with Sam or Evan.
Mark had stood back from the crime scene activities. He was not feeling well. It was close to eight p.m. by the time the FBI team departed and he thought perhaps he should eat, that he was suffering from low blood sugar. He ordered take-out pizzas for himself and Gilmore that were delivered within minutes from a local pizzeria. As they ate, Gilmore provided more details.
“This guy and his partner, I think they were both Russians, seemed to think I had some information they required, mainly your whereabouts. After doing some research, I now understand why. They wanted to beat Cerberus, to capture you before Cerberus could re-capture you. You’ve been leading an exciting life.”
Mark cleaned up the remnants of the pizzas. “Perhaps it sounds exciting. Not what I want, though.”
Gilmore laughed. “That’s often the way. I built up a hatred, I suppose. I blamed you for everything that had happened to me, when it was my own stupid fault. I forgot to watch my surroundings and the next thing I knew, I was being bundled into a vehicle at gun point.”
“So why were—” A wave of pain sent Mark to his knees. His vision blurred. He tried to stand and staggered into a stack of packed cartons.
“What’s wrong?” asked Gilmore, steadying Mark.
Mark held onto the edge of a carton as he tried to stand. “I—I don’t know.” Another wave of pain wracked his body.
***
Chapter 31
Anna released Gabrielle’s hand and cautiously pushed open the door to the room where five of the smaller children slept. She turned on the light. Four beds were undisturbed, ready for their occupants. The fifth bed was in disarray, the bed clothes in a tangled, chaotic mess.
“Stay here,” she whispered. She tiptoed to the bed. There, in the jumble of bed clothes was a tiny body, motionless. It was Roberto. He had been shot, twice, in the chest. The bottom sheet was blood-soaked, the child had bled to death. She tugged the top sheet across his body, hiding the results of an unthinking, callous murder. A wave of nausea spasmed through her body as she turned away. When she regained control, she spoke to the two children still standing by the door, “Stay there.” She did not know how she managed to walk the short distance back to her two young charges. She took their hands again.
“Come,” she said. “We can’t do anything for Roberto. We need to find out what’s been happening. I’m going to B building to get help.”
The two children almost screamed. Gabrielle expressed their fears. “Don’t leave us. We’ll come with you, we can’t stay here.”
“All right. I want to go to Martin’s room, first. He has some weapons stashed away, he told me they were for our protection. I laughed at him.” She now regretted her dismissal of her friend’s protective concerns although she had practiced with a similar hand gun in the Army’s firing range. “Come on. You’ll need to stay very quiet.”
Anna was surprised the exterior lights were not turned on. They were triggered by the onset of twilight, every night. She surmised someone had found and switched off the sensor. She carried one of the standard handguns issued to Alpha Company, a Beretta 9 mm. pistol. She had also taken two additional magazines, with ten rounds each; they were tucked into her jacket pockets. Both Gabrielle and Niland each wanted to take a pistol. However, she had decided they were too small to effectively use such a weapon, to their disappointment.
“You need to wait a couple or more years,” she explained. “When you fire one of these, the kickback could break your tiny wrists.”
~~~
MayAnn was straddling Schmidt’s body as he lay face down on the bed. She was rubbing his back, applying pressure to relieve stress pains. Schmidt was wearing only his shorts; his clothes were carefully arranged on the back of a large chair near to MayAnn’s bed. MayAnn still retained a wisp of lingerie, courtesy of Victoria’s Secret. She extended herself along his back, applying finger and elbow pressures to nerve points. She moved her hands along his body and ran a line of kisses across to his right shoulder. She wriggled distractingly and then bit his shoulder, hard.
Schmidt felt the sting, only because he had been forewarned and was expecting the slight prick of the needle as it pierced his skin. He heard a slight rattle as MayAnn dropped the now empty hypodermic to the floor. She eased herself off his body and sat on the edge of the bed and eyed Schmidt warily.
She said, “It causes paralysis in about thirty seconds. It also has a mild soporific effect. At some point—in about twenty minutes—your heart will fail. There is no antidote.”
Schmidt turned his head and looked into her eyes, surprised to see tears falling. “Oliver?” he asked.
“Yes,” MayAnn replied.
“Maeve said there was a 99 percent probability. She found your private text messages and the emails between Oliver and the politicians named on the Cerberus funding list I got from Pete, the Aussie.” He sat up on the edge of the bed. “You should have told me.”
Fear mixed with the tears on MayAnn’s face. “Wha—what do you mean?” She tried to move away, off the bed, but Schmidt held her back. His strength was far greater, she could not move away.
“Earlier this afternoon we replaced the poison Oliver gave you with a sterile saline solution. It stings.” He rubbed the injection point on his upper arm. “But that’s a lot better than the result you intended. Maeve arranged for two of her old contacts, specialists, to come and search your house. They found the hypodermic and the capsules, and fortunately, they were easy to replace.” He sat up, next to MayAnn and touched her abdomen. “Is it Oliver’s?”
MayAnn was sobbing. “How did you know?”
“An astute observer can detect changes in a female body, especially if he is very familiar with that body. I have suspected for two—three weeks. I knew it wasn’t mine. I had a vasectomy five years ago and I checked, it had not reversed.”
“I’m sorry,” MayAnn cried. “Oliver and I—”
“Shhh,” soothed Schmidt. “I understand. Now just relax, my dear.”
Schmidt’s calm demeanor increased MayAnn’s fear. She struggled again to get away. “What are you going to do?”
Schmidt lifted MayAnn into place on his lap. She was facing away from him, her back close to his chest. He held her tight so she could not move her arms. “Now don’t fight,” he commanded. He moved his right arm and wrapped it around her neck so that his elbow was just under her chin. MayAnn tried to object, to force his arm away. She tried to free her arms, imprisoned by his other hand. Schmidt was relentless. He had wrapped his right leg around her legs and she could not kick. He flexed the muscles of his arm around MayAnn’s neck and applied pressure. It was a classic exposition of the sleeper hold, which, by applying pressure to the carotid arteries, stopped the flow of blood to the brain and caused the victim to lose consciousness. Schmidt maintained the pressure for over a minute and then released his arm. MayAnn was unconscious. She was still breathing and Schmidt expected she would remain unconscious for up to an hour.
He carefully placed MayAnn on the bed. He looked forlorn, sad, disheartened. “We could have been such a couple,” he said.
He dressed quickly. Then he moved two large candles, heavy and scented, that MayAnn sometimes lit, and placed them near the curtains; they were about two feet away from the bed. He went to the kitchen and found a glass and a bottle of brandy. He returned to the bedroom, poured a small amount of alcohol into the glass and placed the bottle on the bedside table. He left the top off the bottle. He wiped his prints off both the glass and the bottle. He looked around, checking the room. He used a handkerchief to protect his hand as he wrapped MayAnn’s fingers around first the bottle and then the glass so that her prints were on both, in case the fire did not destroy everything. He arranged MayAnn’s arm so that her hand was
next to the brandy bottle and then used the back of her hand to tip the bottle over. Liquid gurgled to the floor, gradually soaking the carpet, spreading towards the candles. He tipped one candle over, towards the spreading patch of flammable alcohol, and the second towards the heavy curtain. It would take a few minutes for the arrangement to catch fire. He gave his handiwork a final inspection. Fatalistically, he thought it would either work or not. He rubbed his arm. It was still stinging. He picked up his jacket and left the bedroom. He would be nowhere near the house when the fire took hold and should be home within thirty minutes. He sighed. They could have been such a couple.
~~~
Anna and the two children crept from shadow to shadow across the square. There were vehicles parked near the entrance to the kitchen area, which she thought would be the caterers. The front door of the barracks was open and she led the children inside, still cautious. The building was eerily quiet. Nothing seemed to move, there were no sounds. She signaled the children to stay where they were and edged along to the doorway to the large dining room and peered in. She closed her eyes, willing her body not to collapse.
Anna staggered back, pushing the two children away from the doorway into the dining room. “Stay here,” she urged. “I need to check what’s happened. Don’t move, be very quiet.”
The children obeyed with obvious reluctance. They were shaking; they could not hide their fear. Anna moved back to the doorway and stepped into the dining room. Bodies lay everywhere. Children and soldiers, all dead. Some were slumped in their chairs. Others had fallen onto the floor. Some were face down on their tables. She thought some had bullet wounds. She had no idea what had killed them all. She held her pistol ready, although her hand was shaking. She was trembling with fear and horror.
She heard a noise from the kitchen area. She thought people were there, talking. She tiptoed along, trying not to alert anyone as she tried to comprehend what had happened. She peered around the branch of a large tree fern. There were five or six people in the kitchen, unconcerned that just yards away there were hundreds of dead people. One of the men looked up and saw her. He shouted a warning in the same language she had heard earlier. Another man jumped up and raised a weapon. Anna fired before he could complete his intention and he fell, presumably dead. Two other men raised weapons, one managing to fire a short burst. Anna shot both of them. She was uninjured. She stepped around the tree fern, moving closer to the kitchen. One man, presumably a chef, grabbed a heavy meat cleaver and threw it at her. His aim was off, and ignoring the spinning blade, fired another shot. The man fell, dead.
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