Kindle Series 3-Book Bundle: A Genetic Engineering Science Fiction Thriller Series

by Orrin Jason Bradford

  “Is everything all right?” Mia asked. “You look like you had a rough night.”

  Alp groaned. How could she break the news to them? She’d let everyone down. Tabitha had been right all along. She had no business pretending to be a leader. She felt the tears well up from deep within her. She tried to stuff them back down. Crying wouldn’t help in this situation. Nothing would help.

  “I’ve done a terrible thing,” Alp said, feeling herself begin to shake. “A terrible, terrible thing.”

  Mia and Heather rushed over to her as the other sisters gathered around.

  “Now, now,” Heather said, hugging her and giving her a pat on the back. “It can’t be that bad.”

  “No, it’s worse than bad,” Alp replied. “I never should have brought us to this island. I have no business trying to lead you.”

  Tabitha stepped forward. “What did you do?” The accusatory tone was unmistakable.

  “Leave her alone,” Mia said, shooting Tabitha an angry look.

  “No, she’s right. I need to get this out,” Alp replied. “I heard from Jenko last night that Damba’s mother was very ill. So, I snuck out after everyone went to bed. I thought I could help her.” Alp paused to get her breath.

  “You thought you could help her by using your healing power after telling us not to use ours?” Tabitha asked.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “And what happened,” Mia prompted. “Everything’s okay, isn’t it. She’s feeling better?”

  “No,” Alp croaked. She could hold the tears back no longer. “She died. I tried to save her, but something went wrong. I killed her?”

  There was a deathly silence, marred only by a collective gasp, then “Oh shit,” Mia said as she joined Heather in giving Alp a hug.

  “Oh, shit? That’s all you can say,” Tabitha laughed. “That’s not the half of it? Our girl here screwed up…screwed it up for all of us. You know what this means, don’t you? There’s no way they’re going to let us stay here now. We’re done for on this island. Hell, they might do more than kick us out of here.”

  “You didn’t like it here anyway,” Mia said. “You should be happy to have it work out this way.”

  “Well, I was willing to go along with the rest of you,” Tabitha said. “And I was getting used to it. But that doesn’t matter now, not since our fearless leader here has screwed up and killed the wife of their leader and the mother of the one person who was standing between us and an entire village of superstitious heathens.”

  “What do you think we should do, Alp?” Connie asked. “Surely it wasn’t your fault. The woman was old and sick. She probably would have died anyway.”

  “Why are you asking her?” Kirstin shouted. “She’s the one that got us into this mess, using her powers after she told us we couldn’t. I think it’s time we had someone else lead us.”

  “Oh, not that again,” Heather said. “Just because Alp may have…”

  “No,” Alp interrupted. “I think Kirstin is right. I have no business trying to make decisions for all of us. I’m stepping down starting immediately.”

  She turned to Tabitha. “You’ve been saying you want it; it’s yours.”

  Tabitha face broke into a smile. She was just about to answer Alp when Damba and two of his friends entered the hut without knocking. His face was worn, and it was clear he too had slept little the night before. He wore a stern look that froze everyone to silence.

  “The council had been convened to determine your fate. When they finish, I will return to escort you to meet with them. Until then, you and your sisters are to remain here. Do not under any circumstances approach the village.”

  With that, he turned and walked out without so much as a glance at Alp.

  Entrapment

  It had taken quite a bit of persuasion to convince Chunk that Lucinda needed to be part of the plan, but eventually everyone agreed she was the best candidate to lure Mel into their trap. So the next day, Lucinda headed out to the grocery store once again, not for groceries but in the hopes of finding the young boy who’d frightened her so much the last time.

  But this time would be different, Lucinda thought as she pulled the Prius into a parking space and cut off the engine. Today’s trip was for her youngest daughter. She just needed to keep reminding herself of that, no matter what happened. Today she was on a mission. She took a final deep breath and opened the car door. As she stepped out, she scanned the almost full parking lot. So far, no sign of the boy in black. She walked into the crowded store to shop for a few groceries, throwing items into her cart more or less at random, biding her time, waiting for her stalker to reappear.

  She wasn’t disappointed. Within twenty minutes, she spied him over in the produce section, eyeing her with a devious smile on his face.

  Smile all you want, Lucinda thought. Your time is coming.

  Now to play her role, she looked alarmed at sighting him and backed away from the cart. She walked straight to the exit, glancing over her shoulder from time to time as she maintained a frightened look on her face.

  The boy followed her out of the grocery store, but this time Lucinda didn’t return to her car. Instead, she continued down the sidewalk passing several other places of business, still glancing behind her. Each time she did so, she picked up her pace just a little more until she was almost running as she turned down the alley. As she turned the corner, she sprinted to the end, threw open the door at its end and disappeared inside. Leaning against the door, she twisted the lock and waited. In less than a minute, she heard her husband’s voice on the other side of the door. She breathed a sigh of relief. The trap was sprung.

  As Chunk hid behind the dumpster in the dingy alleyway a few blocks from the grocery store, he chronicled in his mind all the things that could go wrong with his plan. It was a habit of his that he’d developed over the years as an investigator. He knew no plan was ever perfect. Now, as he waited for Lucinda to come running down the alleyway, he’d convinced himself that, what had at first appeared to him to be a well laid out strategy, was now filled with holes.

  What if the kid didn’t show up? What if he’d already left town? What if he decided not to trail Lucinda? Worst of all, what if he caught her and hurt her before she reached the security of the alley?

  Okay, he argued with himself. In that case, if any of the first scenarios happened, no harm. He wouldn’t allow himself to dwell on that last one.

  Chunk was still counting the possible ways things could go wrong with the plan when he heard the sound of footsteps as someone ran down the alley towards him.

  He pressed the earpiece. “Get ready. Here they come.”

  “Roger that,” his two brothers replied simultaneously.

  Good plan or poor, he was about to find out.

  He heard the door at the end of the alley open and close and the click-click of the lock just before the sound of a second set of footsteps of another person entering the alleyway more slowly. Chunk breathed more easily. At least now Lucinda was out of danger. It was now up to him and his brothers to make this imperfect plan work.

  He waited until he heard the second set of footsteps pass by him and the person jiggle the door in an effort to open it. As he stepped from behind the dumpster, he spoke into his headset, “Here we go.”

  “Hello, Mel. It’s been too long since we’ve had a chance to chat.”

  The boy swung around at the sound of his voice. At first Chunk didn’t recognize him, and then realized it was indeed Mel, a bit older and now with a sizable burn scar on the side facing him.

  Chunk held up both hands to show that he meant no harm.

  “I just want to talk, Mel. I’m not armed, but you’ll notice if you look at your chest that those two red dots mean there are two high powered rifles trained on you.”

  Mel glanced down to see the two dancing red lasers and looked around to see if he could find their source.

  “If I feel so much as a case of indigestion or heartburn, I’ll give the
signal, and my two colleagues will open fire. You got that?”

  Mel nodded as his face twisted into a mixture of a sneer and a smile. “What can I do for you old man?”

  “I need you to help me find Alp,” Chunk replied. “My daughter, Misha, has been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, and Alp is my only hope of saving her life.”

  The news must have surprised Mel for his face suddenly changed to a look of shock. “Man, that’s tough news. Is she the older or younger girl?”

  “My youngest,” Chunk replied.

  “Cute girl…well, they both are. Sorry to hear about that.”

  Chunk nodded. Even this hoodlum had a heart, he thought. Maybe this would work out easier than he had thought. He should have known better.

  “But I’m sorry, man, I have no idea where Alp or any of my other sisters are. Last I heard they’d been killed off the coast of North Carolina, thanks in part to you if I’m not mistaken.” He spat these last words at Chunk as though he was pissing on his leg.

  “So you won’t help me find her?” As Chunk asked the question, he heard in his headset. “Okay, we got it.” He breathed a little more easily. The imperfect plan might just work after all.

  Mel shrugged. “I don’t know where to find her. I’m good, but even I can’t reach beyond the veil of death. Sounds like an ironic case of karma to me.”

  Now for the tricky part, Chunk thought as he stepped forward to threaten the boy. As he did so he blocked the two lasers for just a moment, just long enough for Mel to leap to one side, push Chunk hard against the dumpster and race down the alleyway.

  Chunk took his time picking himself up before running after Mel, but by the time he reached the other end of the alley, the boy had disappeared.

  Chunk looked around and smiled. “Our rabbit is off and running. Stage two begins now.”

  “No problem, bro,” Mitch replied. “As long as he keeps his cellphone with him, we’ll be able to track him with no problems. All we needed was the phone’s IP address. Well done. We might need to nominate you for an Oscar this year.”

  From her vantage point three floors above the streets below, Willow Carver watched the drama unfold below her. As she and her companion watched, she tapped the Bluetooth in her ear and waited for the connection to be completed.

  “You were right,” she said to the person on the other end. “Chunk led us directly to the young boy. It appears he’s been following Chunk’s wife around, and now Chunk has taken issue with it. Not sure exactly what happened, but the boy ran into an alley after the wife, then just now ran back out with Chunk behind him. Ned knows where the boy is staying, and I have Chunk. Which one do you want me to follow?”

  She listened to the answer on the other end before terminating the call. She turned to her companion. Ned was the larger half of a set of fraternal twins that made up half his team along with his shorter brother Ted. She’d selected them for her team on the off chance that they might shed some light on the other twins they were hunting. Also, they were both good soldiers who knew how to follow orders, gave almost no backtalk and who could be counted on in any conflict.

  “Here’s where we part company,” she said to Ned. “You follow the boy. I’ll tail the big black man. One or the other of them will lead us to our prize.”

  After Chunk and his brothers had placed a tracer on Mel’s phone, they were able to track him back to a ratty Motel Six where he was staying and to a restaurant down the street where he washed dishes and cleared tables. Mitch contacted the hotel manager and with a flash of his badge persuaded her to keep him updated on the kid. Two days later, she called to let him know that her youngest guest had just checked out.

  The three of them picked up Mel’s trail on Mitch’s laptop programmed to track the boy’s cellphone that allowed them to follow him to a car rental place a few blocks from the hotel. They sat in Mitch’s white Ford Econoline Wagon across from the rental place. In about fifteen minutes, Mel exited the building tossing a set of keys in the air.

  “I don’t understand,” Mitch said from the passenger seat. Even though it was his van, Chunk had insisted on driving so that his brother could man the laptop tracking system.

  “What’s that?” Chunk asked.

  “This kid would hardly pass for sixteen. He looks too young to be able to rent a car on his own.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Chunk replied. “He’s a special kid in more ways than one — dangerous ways. He can be very persuasive when he wants to be. I don’t know how he does it either, but don’t underestimate him just because of his age. He and his sisters have IQ’s off the chart.”

  Chunk decided not to elaborate on their other talents. His brothers were already concerned he might have suffered a nervous breakdown. No point in adding fuel to the fire.

  As Mel pulled out of the parking lot in a black Kia SUV, the car jerked into the morning traffic, narrowly avoiding a collision with a pickup truck.

  “Sure hope he’s a fast learner as well,” Mitch said. “Or this is going to be a very short trip.”

  “Yeah,” Capper agreed from the back of the van. “Right to the closest hospital.”

  Mel’s driving improved dramatically in the next few miles. By the time he’d driven onto I-95, his driving was no more erratic than the next person trying to make it to work in rush hour traffic.

  They followed from a safe distance as he drove south straight through Virginia and North Carolina, stopping only once for gas just outside of Fayetteville. Chunk pulled into the gas station across the street from the one Mel used and filled up the van. The last thing they needed was to run out of gas while trailing the boy.

  Mel continued driving south through North Carolina and into South Carolina eventually ending up in the historic city of Beaufort. The seaside town of Beaufort boasted to be one of the oldest towns in South Carolina, second only to Charleston. Like Charleston, it reeked of old southern charm with more antebellum homes per block than any other town in America. But Mel wasted no time taking in the sights of the historic architecture, but drove straight to the waterfront where he pulled into a parking lot near a line of boat docks.

  “He seems to know exactly where to go,” Mitch observed, glancing up from the laptop. He gazed out the window at the row of Spanish moss covered trees silhouetted against the growing darkness of the early evening sky.

  “Yes, I noticed the same thing,” Chunk said. “He must have been lying when he said he had no idea where his sisters were; not that I’m all that surprised. I also noticed he rented a much larger car than he needs just for himself. My guess is he’s planning on picking up some additional passengers.”

  Chunk drove by the parking lot where the Mel had parked the SUV. He pulled into a parking spot where he could still see Mel’s car. He watched as the boy stepped out of the car and walked over to a line of bushes where he took a wiz before returning to his car.

  “Looks like he’s settling in for the night,” Chunk said after about twenty minutes when there was no more activity. “We’ll take turns keeping a watch just in case.”

  He turned to Mitch. “Before you turn in, how about finding us a boat to rent? It looks like we’re going to need to take a cruise.”

  Mitch went online to look up boat rental services, and then made a few calls until he found one that was open. He described the kind of boat they were looking for and after a few minutes of negotiations gave Chunks a thumbs up sign.

  “Good job,” Chunk said when Mitch hung up. “You guys get some sleep. I’ll take the first watch.”

  Everyone settled in for a quiet night of surveillance.

  In the morning, after everyone was awake, Capper stepped out of the van to keep a closer eye on Mel, who appeared to be asleep still in his car. Chunk then moved the van to a new location so they wouldn’t attract Mel’s attention. Chunk and Mitch stayed in the parked van where they could still see the activity around the dock with Capper on foot.

  “I’ve a visual on him,” Chunk heard Capper say ove
r his cellphone. “He’s talking to an older black man. My guess is the guy he’s talking to owns one of the boats here. Guess you were right about taking a cruise.”

  “Well, I figured we’d end up on the water before it was over considering where the rest of the Kindred were last reported to be seen,” Chunk replied.

  As they watched the man and boy talk, it became apparent from the man’s facial expression and hand waving that they weren’t seeing eye-to-eye. After another minute or two, the man waved the boy away. He turned to leave, only to suddenly stop in his tracks, pause for a moment, and then slowly turn back around, a look of confusion on his face.

  “What the hell?” Mitch asked. “What’s going on?”

  “It appears that our boy is practicing the fine art of persuasion as only he’s able,” Chunk replied.

  He turned to Mitch. “Is that boat going to be ready for us?”

  “Uh, yeah, sure thing, Bro,” Mitch answered still distracted by the sight in front of him. “It’s just a block or two down from here, gassed up and waiting for us. You sure you don’t want to call in the Coast Guard or something? This trip could get hairy fast.”

  “No,” Chunk replied. “We’ll keep this a family matter, at least as long as we can. I want to avoid as much red tape as possible.”

  Truth was he didn’t know how much longer they’d be able to remain within the law. In fact, he suspected they’d already violated Mel’s privacy rights and no telling how much farther outside the law he might need to go to save his daughter. The less interference, the better.