Dire Means

by Geoffrey Neil

  “Ready, Maury?” she said.

  “Yes,” the driver answered.

  “Hold for Bracks.” Morana put her phone to her ear and said, “We’re ready for drop fifteen. Do you have us? …Good.” She hung up her phone and opened a small compartment the size of a deck of playing cards on the wall of the truck. It blended in perfectly and Mark would never have seen it. Two switches were underneath it. She rested a finger on one of them.

  “Mark, please open the bay.”

  Mark got up and pulled back a mat that covered the truck’s chute and grabbed two handles. Last time he had seen a chute, he had been lowered into it to escape the city.

  He swung the doors open and felt a sudden rush of nausea at what he saw. Even though he knew what was under the doors, the sight still shook him. It was a woman in ragged clothing, lying face up, her eyes closed. Her pale face was not contorted, but was calm, and she had a DVD hung around her neck like a necklace.

  “Thanks,” Morana said. “There’s no need for you to do anything more. You can have a seat—you look sick.”

  “I don’t feel well.”

  Toward the front of the truck she said, “Forward, Maury.”

  The truck’s engine labored in first gear as Maury moved it as slowly as possible. Morana hit the switch and there was a hiss. The chute’s bottom tilted, creating a ramp, and the woman’s body began to slide. When her head touched the ground, her body slid gently from the chute and onto the pavement.

  Morana pressed the switch in the opposite direction and the chute’s bottom retracted back into place. Rather than having Mark close it again, she stood and did it herself, closing the chute’s doors and rolling the mat out on top of it again.

  As they drove away, Mark peered out the back window. He saw the woman lying face-up beside the road just as she had in the chute. Cars approached in the distance and would soon pass the body. Perhaps one of their drivers would see something and say something. But what was there, really, to say? The drop had been so quick and concealed that for anyone watching it, the dead woman would have practically materialized from thin air. The truck doors hadn’t opened. There was no struggle to remove a heavy body from a trunk. There was no mess. Just the flick of a button and slow acceleration until the body appeared.

  “I don’t suppose you are hungry,” Morana said.

  “No.”

  She reached into a small cooler and pulled out a sandwich. “We’ve got your favorite if you change your mind.”

  §

  Mark and Morana went to a new theater on the Third Street Promenade. Maury dropped them off at the curb after Mark had taken the time to pull his hat down snug and don sunglasses. He waited by the truck while Morana purchased their tickets. She waved Mark over and they entered the theater. The doorman paid no special attention to Mark as he ripped his ticket.

  Morana had chosen to see The Candle Basket, a sappy holiday film that had received lackluster reviews. Inside, the audience was scant—a few women and children sat in the middle of the theater. Mark and Morana found seats in the empty back row and waited for the lights to dim so they could get on with their wardrobe change.

  The theater went dark. Mark and Morana pulled their shirts off and draped them over the backs of their chairs before exiting. After Morana ensured that the hall was clear, they hurried to the adjacent theater.

  There were only a few more people in this movie than in The Candle Basket. As they settled into their seats in the back row, Mark blurted, “What is going on with Janne? Why is she at the Nest? Is she getting dropped into an oubliette—are you going to kill her?”

  “Mark, wait,” Morana said. She held up her hand to him.

  “Because she’s innocent—”

  A guy sitting a few rows ahead turned and said, “Shhh!”

  “And what about the threatening email to Jim Kourokina?” Mark tried to whisper, but their privacy had released his pent up emotion.

  Morana clapped her hand over his mouth. “You need to get a grip,” she said.

  “I had his cooperation. We didn’t talk about an email. You might have freaked Jim out enough to send him to the police.”

  “He won’t be going to the police,” Morana said.

  Mark’s eyes widened. “You didn’t…Did you obtain him?”

  “No. We have his dogs.”

  “What?”

  “They’re fine. Don’t worry. They like liver. One of our actors is taking good care of them and will return them in exchange for the TellTale Jim is now encouraged to build.” Morana took out her phone and played some video footage for Mark of a truck that was familiar to him. It was the plumbing truck he had seen outside Jim’s house. The driver held up Walkie and Talkie by the napes of their necks; their legs hung folded in front of them in submission as if held by the jaws of their mama. The driver put them into one of the truck’s body cabinets and closed the door.

  “It’s ventilated and they have plenty of food,” Morana said.

  “What’s going on?” Mark said. “I thought you and I were the only ones involved in our plan.”

  “Some of the Trail Bladers obey me implicitly. They don’t know my feelings, nor do they question or discuss my orders. I have to gamble on their loyalty. We have no choice. We cannot do this alone. Jim Kourokina loves those dogs and will not risk them. We’ve insured that he’ll cooperate.”

  “Unbelievable,” Mark said. He slumped in his seat.

  “Mark, I have something much more important to tell you,” Morana said.

  “What now?”

  “It’s your mom. She’s landing at LAX in less than an hour.”

  “What? Why?” Mark sat up straight.

  “Aldred arranged it. He had Teddy call and convince her that you were secretly captured and are in protective custody. Teddy posed as your lawyer and told her she could visit you—provided that she keeps your detainment a secret. She took the bait and Teddy bought and arranged her flight from Miami.”

  Mark jumped up from his seat to run out and Morana grabbed him with both arms, pulling him back down. “Sit! You’ll fail! Sit! There’s nothing you can do right now.”

  “C’mon, take it outside!” the angry movie-watcher shouted.

  Mark breathed hard and his stomach knotted. Aldred was about to get his hands on his mom and Mark could do nothing about it..

  Morana pulled his head to her and whispered, “The only chance we have to save Janne, your mom, and the remaining fodder is to save them all at once—at the Nest. If we can only do a partial rescue, all those who remain will be killed within minutes—I promise you that; Aldred is not kidding. The only chance you have to help the victims is to cooperate—to remain on Pop’s side for a while longer. I know that feels wrong, but it will get the result you want.”

  Mark couldn’t process Morana’s words. “Can’t you divert my mom somewhere else?” he begged. “Morana, you’re in charge of all operations—I mean, can’t you order Teddy to take her somewhere safe and get word to her to hide?”

  “Yes, I can do that, but Janne and all the others will die and we will be on Aldred’s most wanted list—a list he always completes. You can’t panic. She will be safe if our plan works. If we interfere with her pickup, she will be dead and we will be dead shortly afterward. We must succeed.”

  “Let’s go back to the Nest now! We can overpower Pop. He’ll cooperate,” Mark pleaded.

  The thought gave Morana a visible chill. “Yes, we can. But I assure you that he would rather die than see one of those fodder released alive. The explosives in the Nest will detonate if he doesn’t interact with that computer—I don’t know how. That’s where you come in. If your device works well enough to see what he does and how he’s doing it, then you can change everything.”

  They paused to look at the movie screen. The movie was a comedy that wasn’t funny.

  Morana said, “We’re doing the pickup of your TellTale device any time now. A driver will text me when he retrieves it from your friend. In any case, w
e’ll be back at the Nest long before your mom arrives. How confident are you that your friend got it to work inside a pen?”

  “Kourokina is a genius. I have every confidence in him. But if he gives us an empty pen, we’re also screwed.”

  “He wants his dogs. I guarantee the pen will have something in it,” Morana said.

  Her phone beeped and Mark looked over as she clicked it on. A text message read, “Retrieved package. ETA 4 minutes. NE corner Pearl and Lincoln.”

  “The driver—Temur—has the package that contains your TellTale. Let’s do it,” she said.

  “Can’t Pop read that message?” Mark said, pointing to Morana’s phone.

  “He doesn’t read them all, but he could if he is watching. This message is vague enough for me to explain away. Now, are you ready to do this?”

  Mark swallowed hard and nodded. His mouth was dry. He leaned forward and rested his face in his hands for a moment. When he sat up, Morana put her hand on his shoulder and said, “The driver will wait. Do you need a few minutes?”

  “No. I’m going to need every second I can get at the Nest.”

  As they sneaked back into the showing of The Candle Basket they noticed a group of four police officers talking with the theater staff at the concession counter at the end of the hallway. They ducked into their original theater without being noticed and sidestepped down the seats of the back row where they had left their shirts, but the shirts were gone.

  Morana froze, staring down at the empty seats. She searched the seats ahead of them as if she may have accidentally entered the wrong row. It wasn’t a mistake—the shirts were gone. Mark grabbed his hat with both hands and grimaced. He helped her scour the floor and surrounding seats. When they both sat up after searching in vain, Morana mirrored Mark’s look of panic and then pointed to the emergency exit down in the front beside the movie screen.

  “But the alarm will sound!” Mark said.

  “Go now or we’re both dead.” She shoved Mark hard.

  They ran down the side aisle of the theater, slammed through the emergency exit and stumbled into an alley. The fire alarm sounded as they sprinted. They heard the alarm become muffled behind them when the theater’s emergency door closed. Morana led the way, turning at the corner as if she had a destination in mind. Mark struggled to keep up with her. They ducked into the open back door of a commercial building, almost colliding with a delivery person who had left it propped open.

  “Whoa, slow your roll,” the man said, lifting his clipboard in the air and pressing himself against the wall as they passed.

  “Sorry,” Mark gasped.

  Morana panted, too. She opened her phone and tried to key in a text for Temur, but her fingers trembled and she couldn’t type.

  “Give it to me,” Mark said.

  Morana handed over her phone and said, “Text him Broadway and Second, and end it with STAT.” She leaned on her knees to catch her breath while Mark typed.

  After he finished, he handed the phone back to her and said, “Someone in the theater could have taken the shirts.”

  “In the middle of a movie?”

  “Tourists—anybody could have snagged them.”

  “If we return to the Nest and it turns out our shirts were lifted by someone who wanted some Trail Bladers gear, then our plan is still good. But if Pop took the shirts, then we’ll be shredded in the Gullet as quickly as they can drag us there.”

  “What if we don’t go back?”

  “Your mom, Janne, and whoever else Pop has will die along with my…” Morana stopped short, blinking back tears.

  “Along with your what?”

  “My brother, my nephew, and others. Pop has shown me the access he has to them. They aren’t captive, but he can get to them, and I know he will if I become a problem. He’s shown me how and all his methods are foolproof.”

  Mark leaned against the wall. “So he has trapped you, too?”

  Morana nodded. “He’s covered his bases well. When you interest him, he researches you and uses anything and everything to control you. Captive loved ones are a favorite tool of his. Some of the Trail Bladers buy into his bullshit completely and are brainwashed—if he’s been able to crack them psychologically. But for others, his grip is coercive. It works. They are scared to death to cross him. He has no boundaries when it comes to reaching his goals—and results are all that matter to him.” Morana looked at her phone. “We have to get to 2nd Street.”

  They hurried the few blocks to the corner of Broadway and 2nd, and found a Trail Bladers truck waiting. Temur stood behind it in a Trail Bladers uniform holding the door open. They boarded and Temur locked them in.

  “To the Nest, and thanks for being fast. Where’s my delivery?”

  “No problem, ma’am. Here it is.” He handed a brown bag through the cab’s partition. Mark took it. “You should see the commotion at the theater, ma’am. Police are swarming it like there was a shooting.”

  “No kidding,” Morana replied.

  Mark opened the bag. He saw a red pen with no wires protruding or any other sign that it wasn’t a pen. He picked it up. It felt heavier than a pen. A note taped to it said, “Twist to activate. Adapter is magnetized.”

  Mark showed Morana the note. She nodded and crossed her fingers. He closed the bag and smiled at Morana, saying, “I love this candy. It’s my favorite.”

  Temur chauffeured them through Santa Monica’s grid of streets, most of which were now abandoned. As the truck approached the checkpoint exit to Santa Monica, Mark tapped Morana’s shoulder and pointed to his face. His hat and sunglasses were gone and he was still the most wanted person in the country.

  Morana found a newspaper in the corner of the truck bed and opened it to an ink-heavy photo page. She wrapped it around her finger then smeared it again and again under Mark’s eye until it looked blackened. She opened a small tool box on the side wall and removed a rag. She ripped it into two pieces and threw half to Mark. He tied it to his head as a bandana. She folded the other piece to the size of a wallet. He pressed it over his other eye and sat back.

  The truck came to a stop, and after they heard Temur giving a series of standard answers, there was a knock at the back door. Morana palmed the console and it opened. An officer swung the door wide and rested his foot on the bumper.

  “Carrying any cargo today, folks?”

  “No, sir. We do want to hurry, though. My coworker got banged up pretty badly after a stairwell fall.”

  The officer unhitched a flashlight from his belt and shone it at Mark. “You okay, sir?”

  Mark nodded, keeping the majority of his face covered and down. The officer pointed his light toward the other sections of the sparse truck bed and then yelled, “Good to go,” and he closed the door and slapped it with his hand.

  They heard Temur’s phone beep, then Morana’s. After she read it, she said, “Did you get that, Temur?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Should be about twelve minutes and we’ll be docked.”

  Morana handed her phone to Mark. The screen read, “All Retreat, On Site, 911.”

  “It’s from Pop. All Retreat means that all Trail Bladers everywhere are to return to the Nest immediately.”

  “What about my mom?” Mark mouthed.

  Morana leaned to him and whispered, “I guarantee that Teddy left the airport without her if her plane hadn’t landed yet. All Retreat is serious. He’ll tell her to wait for him, but it could be quite some time before he returns.”

  As they pulled into the Nest’s garage, Morana held out her hand for the TellTale. Mark pointed to her and mouthed, “You?” She nodded.

  He removed the TellTale from the bag and put the computer adapter in his own pocket. The truck descended into the bunker. Mark didn’t know what to expect at the bottom, but none of the possibilities were comfortable to imagine. If one of Pop’s people had taken their shirts from the theater, Mark and Morana might be greeted with Tasers and hand trucks that would take them to available oubliettes. Or wor
se, they could be escorted directly to the Gullet. As the truck touched down, Morana squeezed her eyes shut as if in desperate prayer.

  She put her hand on the exit console, but the truck’s rear door would not open. Temur came around and opened it from the outside. He waited beside the truck while Mark and Morana exited.

  As they entered the foyer, they both stopped, shocked at what they saw. Morana covered her mouth and Mark’s mouth fell open.

  The massive mural of Mark was gone. It had been replaced with another one, showing Pop lying on the ground in the garb of a homeless person and amidst the tables of an outdoor café. His legs and arms were stiff and his head was pulled back with his chin high. A brown-haired woman, in her thirties, wearing hospital scrubs, knelt beside Pop. Her mouth was planted over his. Some of the onlookers in the photo’s background showed expressions of amazement while others showed disgust. At the bottom of the photograph in white lettering was the phrase, “They still exist.”

  Morana’s obvious surprise at seeing the new image fanned Mark’s panic. They both knew this development was apocalyptic.

  Mark touched Morana’s arm, but she would not look at him. “Let’s go,” she said.

  They went through the foyer to enter the Nest. Morana placed her hand on the console. It did not react. She lifted her hand and repositioned it on the console, but the cold glass remained dark and unresponsive.

  “Try,” she said, pointing to the console. Mark placed his hand on it, but it was unresponsive to Mark’s touch as well. When he lifted his hand, the steamed outline of his fingers faded from the glass.

  “Has it malfunctioned?” Mark said.

  “That would be a first,” Morana said. “Bracks doesn’t make mistakes.”

  Temur entered the foyer from the garage. As he neared them, he paused to look at the mural. “Boy, Pop knows how to find ‘em!” He palmed the console, it flashed and the door clicked open. There was nowhere for them to run or hide. Proceeding with their plan was the only option.