Firstborn

by Carrigan Fox

  She also knew that she didn’t have much time. For one thing, Adam Holt was--at that very minute--probably torturing Will. Additionally, Aislin most certainly called Taryn, the police, or both. Within minutes, the one cavalry or another would be arriving.

  Drumming her phone against her knee while she hid in the bushes, she cursed herself. “Think, Jac. Come on.”

  ***

  “How long before you think your princess in shining armor arrives?” Holt taunted.

  Will applied the tip of his tongue to his split lip and winced when Holt tapped the barrel of his gun painfully against his shattered cheekbone.

  “Are you going to answer me? I would be willing to wager that she’s already here. I bet she’s outside working out a plan to get in here, grab you, and race out that door before I manage to put a couple of bullets in each of you.”

  “She’s waiting for her team, Holt. And there won’t be enough bullets for all of them,” Will challenged.

  The blond man laughed a bit too loudly, showing his bleached teeth in a manner that oddly reminded Will of a horse with obnoxiously white teeth. “I don’t care about the rest of them. They can fucking take me out for all I care. Don’t you get it? I will be a hero because the two of you will be dead. Or perhaps I should say the three of you.”

  Will acted confused. “Three?”

  Holt counted on his fingers impatiently. “You, her, baby makes three. The golden child.”

  “What baby?”

  He fumbled for only a moment before dismissing Will. “You may not know yet, but she’s pregnant.”

  Will widened his eyes, including the puffy one. “Pregnant. That would be interesting given that she had a hysterectomy when she was twenty.” He reminded himself to maintain eye contact as he told the lie he’d been cooking up even while Adam Holt repeatedly pistol-whipped him.

  “Hysterectomy?”

  “It’s when the uterus is--”

  “I know what a fucking hysterectomy is.”

  “She had a severe case of endometriosis. Do you know what that is?” Will asked with unconcealed disdain.

  Without pause, Holt slammed the butt of the gun against Will’s already shattered cheek. Will cried out in agony and then silenced himself with a reminder that he didn’t want to spook Jac into running in here unprepared. He prayed he was right. He prayed that she wouldn’t come racing into battle without her back-up.

  “My sources have told me that she’s the one. And my sources are never wrong.”

  “I’m not certain where they are getting their information, but in this case, they are wrong,” he warned, still holding his palm to the side of his face.

  “They are never wrong,” he repeated insistently.

  “Did they confirm with medical records? I assume they can get medical records. You should tell them to confirm the hysterectomy. You’ll see. Go ahead. I’ll wait here while you make the call.”

  “Don’t fuck with me, Archer.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. I am an intelligent man who knows a lost cause. I have a PhD, you know.”

  “You can wipe your ass with your PhD. Now shut the fuck up.”

  Will sat thoughtfully for a moment before saying, “I’m pretty sure I can’t wipe my ass with my PhD itself. I might use the paper from the certificate, but the degree itself is not actually a physical object with which I might wipe my ass.”

  Holt ignored him and Will wisely closed his mouth. He needed to give those seeds of doubt an opportunity to germinate. The two remained silent for a period of time, Holt considering the possibilities while Will attempted to connect telepathically with Jac to warn her to stay outside and wait for reinforcements. He didn’t feel any link and was fairly certain that it didn’t work, but he figured that he had to get points for trying. Perhaps someone or something in the universe would cut him a break.

  Finally, Will decided to spray some fertilizer on those seeds to give them a nudge. “The point is that there’s no point in going after Jaclyn MaCall. When you use that gun of yours on me, I promise to take all of my semen with me.”

  Holt nodded and grinned, raising his gun to press the barrel against Will’s temple. Then his cell phone rang.

  ***

  The other line quit ringing abruptly, suggesting that someone had picked up, but nobody was saying a word.

  “Adam,” Jac greeted.

  “Ms. MaCall, where are you? We’ve been waiting for you,” he replied with false enthusiasm.

  “I’m sure you have. It’s time to let Will go. I’m the pregnant one. It’s me and the baby that you want to destroy.”

  “You’re the pregnant one?” he repeated for Will’s benefit. “You might want to tell your boyfriend here.” She heard the sound of violence followed by Will crying out and cussing at Holt. Adam laughed in response. “Looks like the A-Team needs a Plan B.”

  “Seriously, let him go.”

  “Do you know why we need to destroy Will Archer and his spawn?”

  “Do you know who you’re talking to?” she questioned. “Of course I know. I’ve known for some time that I would bear his child and the child would save the nation. Do you also have visions, Mr. Holt?”

  “I don’t need to.”

  “I suppose not,” she replied dryly, thinking of Aislin alone at Triskele. Poor, naïve Aislin. “I want to explain something to you, something you probably can’t understand. Without getting into the physics behind the subconscious, let me tell you that these visions ALWAYS come true. One way or another, our destiny plays itself out as it’s intended. If you heard of a vision of a future where the firstborn child of Will Archer plays a hero and does something that pisses you off, that’s exactly what is going to happen. And nothing you do can prevent that.”

  “Not if we kill Archer and his unborn child.”

  “Can you be certain he doesn’t already have a child elsewhere with another woman?”

  “We ran dates and did our research. There is no other child.”

  “And is there no other Will Archer?”

  “What?”

  “Did you also run dates and do research to make sure that there is not another Will Archer anywhere in the world? Or the universe, for that matter. Or perhaps your visionary misunderstood and you were looking for Phil Karcher rather than Will Archer. Or maybe he’s a regular donor at the sperm bank. The point is that while there is some room for error, these visions show us the future as it will happen. You can’t undo fate.”

  “I don’t believe in fate.”

  “But you believe in premonitions. Where do you stand on gay marriage?” she asked sarcastically. “I have had premonitions consistently since I was thirteen, Mr. Holt. Would you like to guess how many of them did not come true?”

  He was silent while she closed her eyes and remembered that morning in front of the car. She had stopped that one from happening. She pushed it out of her mind. She had to believe this as much as he did. Because if it was true, that meant that she and the baby were fine. And Will would be, too. Aislin Kearney’s vision guaranteed it.

  “You can’t undo it. The firstborn child will be born and will change the nation. You can’t fix that, Mr. Holt.”

  “I can sure as hell try.”

  “Listen, there’s no sense in keeping Will. I’ve been in my father’s business long enough to know that hostage situations doesn’t typically work out well. Let me explain how this works. You are currently in the position of power, and you have two choices. You can kill your hostage or trade up. If you choose to kill the hostage, you are guaranteed to not get your ultimate goal. I will disappear with Will Archer’s child and you will never see or hear of me again. I will see to it that I’m never found. If, however, you choose to trade up, you get me and let Will go.”

  “So he can go and have a firstborn child with some other woman?”

  Jac shook her head. She hadn’t counted on him being so quick. “This child I’m carrying is the first child. There will be no other.”

  “
And you’ll sacrifice your baby to save him?” he suggested with disbelief.

  “Did you read my bio, or did you just look at the pictures?” she jeered.

  “No woman in her right mind would sacrifice her baby to save her man.”

  “Again, check the bio. I’m a math and science girl. I have no biological clock and no desire to procreate. This little situation was an accident. And I happen to be fond of Will Archer.”

  “You think you’ve got everything figured out? You don’t fucking know anything. I work with some extremely powerful people. They would find you in a heartbeat. They would be waiting for you to get off the plane once you got there.”

  “Two choices, Mr. Holt.”

  “I choose you, Ms. MaCall,” he answered suggestively.

  C

  hapter 17

  “I’m sure you have a plan, Ms. MaCall. How would you like to do this?”

  Jac smiled briefly into the phone. He was the one with the hostage, but he was willing to play it her way. That worked for her. Make it easy, you SOB, she thought. “Send Will out. Then I’ll come in.”

  “Try again,” he instructed wryly.

  “How about we meet at a back door for the exchange. We’re the ones taking all the risks, Mr. Holt. Remember that you have a gun.”

  “Based on what happened with my colleague, Ray Walker, I’m assuming that you have a gun, as well.”

  She neither confirmed nor denied. She didn’t have a chance to.

  Instead, a pair of strong hands encircled her shoulders, pinning her arms to her side. Before she could free herself, he clasped a damp cloth over her mouth and nose, a cloth that she had to assume had been soaked in chloroform.

  As she slumped to the ground, the young man with white blond hair used his phone to contact Holt. Within minutes, Holt held the door open for him as he carried the dead weight of Jaclyn MaCall into the rear entrance of the bank. Will became visibly agitated at the sight of his unconscious lover. His fingers turned white, clenching the arms of the chair to which he had been confined.

  As Holt’s associate put her on the floor beside Will, the bank manager barked orders at him, instructing him to get another chair to use to restrain the former MSC employee. The fact that Holt respected and even feared Jac’s training and strength brought only a slight satisfaction to Will, given that Jac was clearly unconscious on the floor. He reassured himself by examining her for signs of blood or serious injury.

  “Relax, Dr. Archer. We only used chloroform to knock her out.”

  “Do not touch her again.”

  “You’re not exactly in a position to bark orders, Dr. Archer.”

  “You have me here as well as her. What could I possibly have to lose? You’ll kill us faster? You really are an idiot, as well as an ass hole.”

  Before Holt could move back to Will’s side and smash the butt of his gun into his skull, Will continued his final effort.

  “What threat could my DNA possibly pose to you? You consider yourself to be vastly superior. Yet you are terrified of the prospect of an itty bitty infant. Do you realize how asinine that sounds?”

  Holt raised his gun, pressing the barrel against the bridge of Will’s nose until tears sprung to his eyes and blurred the image of the angry psycho in front of him. As a general rule and out of respect for those with mental illnesses, Will made a point of avoiding use of the word ‘psycho.’ In this case, however, he could think of no word that would be more apt.

  “It’s not the baby that is the threat. It’s what the baby will become later in life. This baby will inspire others to rise up against the authority in this nation. There will be another revolution and blood will be spilled. The balance of power will shift.”

  “And you’re a patriot?”

  Holt scoffed. “I could give a shit about this country. I have friends in high places, and it is not in my best interest for these friends to be removed from their positions.”

  “And you’ve brainwashed your militia to fight your battles for you?”

  He shook his head. “My militia doesn’t know shit. I left those assholes. Traded up.” He nodded at the empty doorway where the blond had disappeared. “I just took some dumbasses with me when I left. No sense in handling the dirty laundry if I can convince someone else to do it for me. And it’s a good thing I did, otherwise I might have been found dead on your living room floor instead of Walker.”

  Will watched the doorway intently, hoping the blond heard his boss’s comment and would rebel, helping Will and Jac escape. “You might have been found dead? Jac would have killed you with a look. She has strength and power that you can’t even imagine.”

  Sneering at Will and the whitened skin around the barrel of his gun, he jeered, “I don’t see her levitating and striking me dead with lightning shooting from her hands. I think I’m safe for now. And considering she won’t be awake before I kill her, I’m really not at all concerned with what Ms. MaCall can or cannot do to me.”

  “And that’s another thing,” Will countered. “She has a PhD. Her name is Doctor MaCall.”

  ***

  Taryn’s typically calm demeanor had gone out the window within minutes of Aislin’s call. She had known it. She knew her sister well enough to know that she would go all Rambo on her own to save Will. She always did have an overinflated ego when it came to her skills from MSC.

  “Sean, for the love of Pete! We’re never going to get there in time if you don’t hit the gas some time today. I could just kill her myself, you know. She tries me, Sean. She really does. It would serve her right if they put a bullet in her sugar cookies.”

  “We’re not going to do her any good if we get there too far ahead of the rest of the team. Unless you know exactly how many militiamen we’re dealing with and how heavily armed they are. Do you have that information?”

  The feminist in her twitched, wanting to remind him that she was in charge. But he also had a point and had been a valued employee for years. Instead, she settled for insulting him. “Doofbag,” she muttered pettily with a hint of a pout.

  He grinned at her as he coasted to a stop two streets over from the bank. After consulting his radio, he confirmed that other teams had surrounded the bank within a block or two.

  “We’ll zero in with the word from the boss lady.”

  The boss lady tucked her device into her ear and tested it briefly. She nodded to Sean and climbed out of the car, firmly ordering, “Move in. Be discreet. Extricate Will Archer and Jac…at any cost.”

  The police had also been notified and were on the way. They preferred to handle these matters themselves, but Joe MaCall had some pull with the department he had served for twenty years. His former partner happened to be the current police captain, and he had offered his support with extracting Joe’s oldest daughter.

  She was walking briskly down the sidewalk with Sean when a horn honked behind her. Irritated with the noise on the almost deserted streets just before midnight, she glared at the driver for drawing unwanted attention. The window must have rolled down, emitting a fairly loud twang of country music while he coasted slowly beside her. Annoyed, she shot him another dirty look while putting a finger to her earpiece, to drown out the background noise.

  “I thought that was you,” the driver called out, finally turning down the music.

  With irritation at an all-time high, she stepped away from Sean and took a step toward the truck. “You have somewhere to be? Get there,” she snarled, barely able to see the driver inside.

  “MaCall?” a voice in her ear questioned.

  She again pressed a finger on the device in her ear. “Keep moving,” she told her team. “All systems are go.”

  The man in the truck was also confused. “All systems are go?” He wondered what games she was playing. “Damn you are a difficult woman,” he cursed when she walked away from him again, hustling after the man who had continued walking ahead of her when she had stopped. Personally, the truck driver thought that the man was an ass if he was g
oing to walk off all pissy and leave her alone on a fairly deserted street near midnight. He put the truck into park and ran around the front hood. “Hey, if you need a ride home, I can give you one.”

  “Get lost,” she called over her shoulder.

  “Did your car break down again?”

  With that, she knew exactly who she was dealing with and turned to see Gray Campbell standing in the streetlight. She turned on her heel and stormed to stand in front of him. She was wearing slacks this time with a dark blazer, but she still had on heels and could almost look him in the eye. Given that he was 6’2” it was rare to have a woman with that kind of height.

  “Seriously. Clearly that guy is an asshole to leave you running after him on this street at midnight. Let me drive you home.”

  Her face came close to his and was evidently outraged. “I don’t have time to stroke or shoot down your mother loving ego. So get out of here and go home.” Her eyes were sparking with fury and he noticed her fists were clenched at her side.

  “You don’t have to be a bitch about it.”

  “A what?”

  “We’re within a half block of ground zero, MaCall. Are we moving?”

  “Negative. Wait for my orders.”

  “Your orders?” Gray asked. Then he saw the device in her ear. “Who the hell are you?” And then he remembered her ordering him to send her bill to MaCall Securities.

  In an effort to get him to shut up and get back in his truck, she pulled her gun out of her holster and checked the safety. “I’m a woman who doesn’t have the flipping time. Get out of here.”

  This time, he went back to his truck and gunned the engine. She wasn’t an idiot. The man hadn’t fled in fear. A former Special Forces soldier doesn’t run like a fool when he sees a handgun. He had been angry. She was both flattered that he had taken the time to stop and furious with the way he assumed she had needed him to rescue her.

  Putting the mechanic out of her mind, she jogged to catch up with Sean. Outside of the bank, there was no sign of Jac. A quick search indicated that she had been in the bushes on the side of the bank, tucked in the shadows. And given the fact that her phone was lying on the ground and had last made a call to a cell number that the MSC had registered to Adam Holt, she thought it was likely that her sister was being held with Will inside the bank.