by Roy Johansen
“That uncle of his kept telling him how much money he could make. Jesse wanted to buy his mother a house and make it so she wouldn't have to work so hard. That's the only reason he did all this, I guarantee it. He's a good boy.”
“It turned out to be very dangerous for him.”
“He'll be all right.”
“How do you know?”
“Faith. It's one kind of magic I do believe in.”
Jesse paced around the room, pounding the padded walls. If he didn't get out of there soon, he was going to go crazy.
Roland Ness had kept him awake all night with his weird talk about the Millennial Prophets. “You're the Child of Light, Jesse. Our new prophet. Our guide to a new age of enlightenment.”
He wanted to scream at the old man: I don't have any powers! Leave me alone!
But he didn't dare.
If they found out he was a faker, they might kill him. His tricks might be the only thing keeping him alive. What kind of test would they think up next?
He'd just wanted to help Mama. If he could've done that, he would have stopped doing those awful demonstrations.
He'd thought about telling the truth when Dr. Nelson was killed, but then he would never have gotten that house. He was going to tell only if the police arrested him.
Now he'd be lucky to stay alive.
The door opened, and Ness walked in with Myrna and Dunning. “Hello, Jesse,” Ness said. “I hope you've had time to think about what I told you.”
“What's to think about?”
“Your importance to all of us.”
“If I'm so important, why won't you listen to me? I want to go home.”
“I know you do, son, but there's a bigger picture to consider. We don't expect you to understand that right now, but you will.”
Jesse nodded at Myrna. “Why does she have to stay here? She didn't do anything to you.”
Myrna smiled. “Jesse, no one was forcing me to stay here. I'm a follower of the Millennial Prophets too.”
“You told me—”
“We told her to tell you that,” Dunning cut in. “We thought you might use your powers against us, so we gave you a friend you wouldn't hurt.”
Jesse looked at her in bewilderment. “You lied to me?”
Dunning continued before she could respond. “Charles volunteered to play the bad guy. It wasn't easy for him, because he cares for you, Jesse. It was a test—we wanted to give you someone to focus your anger against. We took every precaution, with the clothing, the padding in the room, everything. Considering what happened to Dr. Nelson, it was quite a risk for Charles.”
“Maybe it still is.” Jesse tried to sound threatening. “Maybe it's a risk for all of you.”
Ness recoiled slightly, but Dunning remained calm. “If you could have hurt any of us, you would have done it by now,” Dunning said. “You still need to harness your abilities, Jesse. We can help you with that.”
Dunning wasn't afraid of him, Jesse realized with despair.
Ness patted Jesse on the shoulder. “This isn't forever. It's just for now.”
Fear was no longer a weapon. He had to find another way to fight them.
He settled back on his cushions. “I'm having trouble breathing again.”
“Rest,” Ness said. “Treat this like an experiment. Concentrate and try to make yourself well. Myrna will stay with you.”
Jesse eyed her coldly. “No, thanks.”
Ness shrugged. “We'll be keeping an eye on you from the booth. If there's anything you need, just call out.”
“I won't need anything.”
“The sooner you decide to work with us and open your heart, Jesse, the easier this will be.”
“Then it's not gonna be easy.”
Ness stood, and Dunning and Myrna followed his lead. “We'll talk after you've had some rest. You've had a lot of information thrown at you today.”
Ness, Dunning, and Myrna walked out of the room.
“You never should have taken him,” Dunning said as he and Ness walked down the long corridor outside the containment area.
Ness pursed his lips. “Someone could have hurt him, Dunning. People are terrified of the boy.”
“They're in awe of him.”
“All it would have taken is one insane person.” Ness suddenly had a pained expression.
“You mean Lyles. He didn't hurt Jesse,” Dunning said. “The only one he hurt was you.”
“Expunging him was the hardest decision I ever had to make.”
“It was the right decision. He's dangerous. Psychotic.”
“That's exactly why I had to bring Jesse in.”
Dunning chose his words carefully. “But out there in the world, Jesse is an ambassador for our cause. Maybe that's how he will lead us into the new era, instead of being poked and prodded in this bunker of yours.”
“You're questioning my leadership?”
Dunning lowered his eyes. “No, Vicar, I am not. But you must admit—”
“What?”
“There's been a surge of interest in the Millennial Prophets since Jesse stepped forward. The news media was starting to pick up on it, and Alessandro's hundred-year-old writings suddenly have meaning for people all over the world. Isn't that what we wanted? If it ever got out that we kidnapped him—”
“It won't get out.”
“Your thugs killed a police officer, and you're pretty sure Lyles murdered the two men you sent after him. Is this what the Millennial Prophets are really about?”
“I know you disagree with my decision, but you must learn to trust me. I know what I'm doing.”
Dunning sighed. “For all of our sakes, I certainly hope so.”
Joe leaned into the doorway with his portable phone, trying to escape the sounds of the Pryor Street traffic behind him.
Suzanne answered. “Hello?”
“It's me. Joe.”
“It's a good thing I have a sense of my own worth. You sure rushed out of here in a hurry this morning.”
“I know. Sorry about that. The case is starting to break.”
A car honked behind him.
“Where are you?”
“In front of the Fulton County Government Center. Listen, are you free tonight?”
“I can be.”
“I need your help with something.”
“What?”
“I'll give you a call in a little while to explain, okay?”
“That's all you're going to tell me? I'm supposed to rearrange my evening for that?”
“It'll be worth it. I promise.”
Lyles squinted at the car in front of him as it turned off West Paces Ferry Road onto Piedmont. One of the keys to surveillance was knowing just how much one could get away with. For some people, it might mean hanging back a quarter mile and ripping off another car each time the guy stopped someplace. Charles, however, was clueless. Idiot. Anyone who'd just murdered a man and participated in a high-profile kidnapping should have been looking over his shoulder every moment of every day.
Lyles looked at the man's lightbulb-shaped head. He'd love to shatter the bastard's skull all over the front windshield.
Patience.
There would be a time for that later.
Bertram and Irene Setzer had tried to teach him the virtue of patience, but by that time he'd already lost respect for them. The complacent fools. Under their leadership, the Millennial Prophet movement in Great Britain had almost collapsed. He'd been in the U.S. for several months, serving Vicar Roland Ness, when Bertram and Irene had come to Atlanta for a summit meeting to discuss Jesse Randall. Millennial Prophet leaders from all over the world had come for the event, and only the Setzers refused to believe that Jesse Randall was the Child of Light. There were some similarities between Jesse and the prophecies of Alessandro, they admitted, but that was merely a coincidence.
The fools were afraid of the truth, and by then he'd had enough of their ignorance. He killed them on their way to the airport.
He thought Ness would have been happy to see them removed so cleanly, but instead he was enraged. He refused to listen to reason and excommunicated him from the sect. The old man probably would have had him arrested if it wouldn't have brought the secretive Millennial Prophets under such intense scrutiny.
That stupid bastard.
Lyles accelerated to keep Charles in sight. They were now near Ansley Mall, a large strip center, and traffic was thinning out.
The guy suddenly swerved into the parking lot of a four-story office building. Lyles drove past. He couldn't risk letting the guy see him.
He turned into a convenience store lot, parked, and ran back toward the building just in time to see the bearded man walking through the main entrance.
What was in there? Surely not Jesse; he couldn't be so lucky.
Lyles dashed to the entrance and peered inside. A set of elevator doors slid shut. He entered the lobby. There was something instantly familiar about it even though he was sure he had never been there before. It was in the architecture, the decoration, and even the gold and white rectangular ashtrays near the doors.
He stared at the digital readout over the elevator. It stopped only once, at the fourth floor, before heading down again.
He turned toward the building directory. This, too, was familiar; he remembered seeing that funky italicized lettering. The fourth floor had only one tenant: Paltak Innovations.
Of course.
He ran from the building.
Six thirty-one P.M.
Joe had called a meeting of the task force and feds, and they were crowded into the headquarters’ small conference room. It had been a long day for everyone, and Joe sensed an undercurrent of tension in the room.
“This had better be good, Bailey,” Fisher said.
“I think it'll be worth your time.” He addressed the group. “Thanks for coming. Most of you have seen the videos of Jesse Randall's test sessions. Those were recorded months after he first began to demonstrate his supposedly telekinetic powers, but this morning I was given a tape that was made just a day or two after they began.”
Joe inserted the tape into the conference room VCR and pushed play. Jesse appeared on the television monitor.
“You called us here to look at another Jesse Randall video?” Howe asked.
“You'll want to see this one. Notice the position of his head.”
Jesse tilted his head downward and stared at the objects. Joe froze the picture. “Shortly after this session, he changed his angle.”
“Why?” Fisher asked.
“See for yourself.”
Joe resumed the tape, and objects were now moving across the floor of Jesse's uncle's living room. The lens zoomed in for its close-up of Jesse.
Joe pointed at the screen. “Did you see that?”
No one had seen it.
Joe scanned the tape back and replayed it in slow motion. This time there was a response. Lieutenant Gerald stepped forward. “Did I just see that?”
“Look again.” Joe scanned the tape back again and replayed Jesse's close-up in slow motion.
Jesse's face and eyelids were perfectly still, but his left eyelash was flapping.
Joe froze the image. “In several of the Landwyn University tests, Jesse's nose and mouth were covered to make sure he wasn't merely blowing on the objects. But no one ever covered his eyes.”
“His eyes?” Fisher asked.
“Yes. Specifically, his left eye. That was his secret: Jesse was blowing on the objects through his eye socket.”
The group stared at him in astonishment. “That's impossible,” Howe said.
“Rare, but not impossible. It's called periorbital respiration. There's a perforation in the membrane behind his eyeball that allows him to expel air from the socket. I spoke to his doctor, and he had no idea Jesse had this condition. But he did say that Jesse has had respiratory problems his entire life. It might be related.”
Fisher shook his head. “How can this happen?”
“There's no way to tell. He could have been born with it, or it could have been caused by an infection.”
Howe stared at Jesse's face on the video monitor. “This is bizarre. It was almost easier to believe he had telekinetic powers.”
“Which is why no one thought of it,” Joe said. “This afternoon I checked with my old mentor in the magic business, and he told me that there was a nineteenth-century sideshow performer who could blow up balloons through his eye. That would've taken the same kind of air pressure Jesse Randall needed for his tricks.”
He smiled grimly as he saw everyone's stunned expressions. “Watch it again.”
He scanned back the tape, and as the camera went in for its close-up, everyone saw the flapping eyelash. There were gasps and a few chuckles.
“Creepy,” Lieutenant Gerald murmured. “Why didn't you or anyone else notice this on any of the other tapes?”
“Because it was nowhere to be seen in the other sessions. By then Jesse had learned to open his eyes wide and position his head so that he was always blowing downward, away from his upper eyelash.”
“Someone had to have coached him,” Howe said.
“Someone did.” Joe told them about his conversation with Janey Clary.
Fisher nodded. “So she not only helped him refine his technique, she also taught him some new tricks to round out his repertoire.”
“You got it. But all of his telekinetic tricks were accomplished by forcing air through his eye socket. Periorbital respiration.”
“Sorry to burst your bubble,” one of the FBI agents said, “but Jesse Randall wears eyeglasses.”
“Except when he's about to cause objects to move. Then he takes them off. Check the tapes. It happens every single time. And you'll also notice that he likes to hear loud music in almost every session. That's to cover up the sound of him blowing.”
Lieutenant Gerald walked to the front of the room. “The question now, gentlemen, is whether we go public with this.”
Fisher ejected the videocassette. “If Jesse is still alive, this could help him. If he's being held by an extremist group who fear his powers, they may be more willing to let him go.”
“But if his abductors want to use his powers, this announcement could be a death sentence.”
“He may already be dead.”
Joe shook his head. “If that's what they wanted, they could have hired a sniper to pick him off. They wanted him alive, and he'll stay that way as long as they think he has these powers.”
“We'll see.”
“I want that tape.” Gerald reached for the video-cassette.
Fisher tossed the tape into his briefcase and closed the lid. “We need to analyze it.”
“That's police evidence.”
“The mayor promised the bureau total cooperation.”
Gerald held out his hand. “Now, Fisher.”
Everyone in the room suddenly tensed, and Joe noticed that the cops were on one side of the room, the feds on the other. It looked like a beer brawl waiting to erupt.
“You guys have enough to worry about,” Fisher said. “You still can't even tell us how Nelson was murdered.”
Joe stepped forward to face him. “I can.” If he didn't have everyone's attention before, he had it now.
“How?” Fisher asked.
“We'll go to Nelson's house right now and I'll show you.”
“Okay. Let's go.”
“After you give me the tape.”
“Jesus, Bailey …”
“Give it to me. It's my evidence, and it stays in police custody.”
Fisher glared at him. Finally he reached into his briefcase, pulled out the videocassette, and handed it to Joe. “Expensive show you're putting on.”
“Satisfaction guaranteed. Let's go to Nelson's.”
Charles paced in the narrow aisles of the Stone Mountain General Pharmacy, a mom-and-pop store in a small neighborhood strip center. It was taking forever to get that damned prescription filled.
He'd managed to have a doctor friend write it up for him. Ness had assured them that Jesse's condition was not life-threatening, and that he'd soon get an inhaler from one of his own discreet sources. Screw that. It was taking too damned long. The guy was a billionaire, for Christ's sake. Couldn't he just buy a pharmacy?
Charles and Myrna had discussed it and decided to get an inhaler of their own and keep it nearby. If Ness came through with one, fine, but at least they'd be prepared if Jesse had a sudden attack.
He admired Ness, but he'd seen his weaknesses as a leader in the past few weeks. Charles had never met Garrett Lyles, but he'd begun to wonder if the man was such a psycho after all; maybe he was merely rebelling against Ness's timidity.
In any case, it felt good to get away from Ness's estate for a while. Today was the first day he'd been away in almost a week. He'd been spending most of his time in the pit, his name for the elaborate holding facility Ness had built below his main house. It had been worth it for a chance to be near the Child of Light. And things would improve when the permanent facility was completed on Ness's island in the Caribbean.
He glanced toward the back of the store. The ancient pharmacist was in his long, narrow booth, apparently working on the prescription. Didn't those damned inhalers come ready made?
The electronic door chime sounded. Two police officers entered the store.
Charles's heart jumped. He slipped his hand into his pocket, feeling the handle of his revolver. Don't freak out, he told himself. The cops probably just came in for a soda from the vending machine.
Charles tried to appear interested in the laxatives in front of him. The cops were walking his way. Fuck.
They stopped next to him. “Can we have a word with you, sir?”
As Joe and the task force of cops and FBI agents walked into Nelson's foyer, they heard an eerie clanging echoing from down the hallway.
“What the hell is that?” Howe asked.
Joe pointed toward the kitchen, and the group walked in to find the hanging pots and pans swinging wildly and clattering into one another.
Howe walked around the island, gazing up at the rack. “They're moving just like Nelson's girlfriend said they were. How is that happening?”