“No, no, it’s not that,” he said, almost smiling. “I mean, I appreciate the gift. I really do. What I meant was, I can’t take this one.” Reaching into the pile, he selected another that was similar in size. Seeing Julian still puzzled, he said, “Here, give me your hand.”
Putting the nugget into Julian’s hand, he clasped both their hands together. With his hand over Julian’s, Dugan closed his eyes and recalled his vision. Opening his eyes a moment later, he saw it was apparent that Julian was seeing it too.
“See?” Dugan said. “This is the first one. The very first one he found.” He paused before saying, “And the very first thing he thought of was you.”
A single tear streamed down Julian’s face. “I had forgotten what he looked like,” he said. “I had completely forgotten what he looked like. But how did you . . .” He stopped to compose himself before asking again. “How do you do that?”
“Oh, that?” Dugan replied. “I guess I’ve always been able to sorta . . . see things, is all. Not all the time, and it only seemed to start when I began to, you know. Become an adolescent. But if I try hard enough — and mostly it seems to happen if the object is imprinted with some kind of strong emotion — well. I just see things, is all.”
He looked Julian in the eye and held his hand tighter.
“Wanna see something else?” he asked.
Before giving him a chance to respond, he held Julian’s eye and brought him into his dark coffin beneath the ground. He smiled to see Julian wince. The two of them together felt a few moments of the pain and torment that Julian had inflicted upon Dugan during those long days and weeks. Julian moaned and tried moving his hand away. Dugan would have none of it. He brought Julian to that final moment when the air ran out, and only when Dugan himself could stand it no longer did he let Julian escape his grip.
The two sat in silence a while after that until Dugan stood. Julian followed his lead.
“Lucas has a car waiting outside,” he said, his voice tired. “I have directed all my resources be available to assist you. A plane is waiting to take you wherever you wish to go. A flight plan has already been filed for the most obvious destination.”
The two left the study and walked down the hallway to the fine marble entryway. Dugan picked up his bags, throwing the leather satchel over his shoulder. Outside, he saw Lucas already had the trunk open. Lucas took Dugan’s bags from him and opened the rear door. Dugan got in.
“You are welcome here any time, my boy,” Julian said. “I want you to know that. And I hope that, in time, your anger will fade and perhaps you can forgive me.”
Never gonna happen, Dugan thought. He flashed a wan smile anyway and waved once before Lucas slammed the door shut.
Halfway to the airport, Dugan knocked on the partition that separated him from Lucas. After it came down, Dugan asked his question.
“Why do you do it, Lucas?”
Lucas thought a moment before responding. “It’s a living,” he said.
Dugan pondered that a while before nodding once and leaning back in his seat. He supposed it was as good an answer as any. The partition went back up.
At the airport, the car pulled into a section dedicated to private aircraft. Dugan looked to the sky and saw it was still before midnight. Plenty of time to get there before dawn. Even then, he suspected that should anything happen to delay it, Julian’s plane would be more than suited for whatever came up. He walked along the tarmac then up the staircase leading into the sleek jet. Only then did it occur to him this was his first airplane ride.
Nobody greeted him when he got onboard, but that was okay with him. The interior was exquisitely appointed. Wooden fixtures and leather chairs and more of the artwork that Julian had collected throughout the years. When he sat down and buckled up, he noticed the local paper waiting beside him. The outer door slammed shut. The engines begin to whine. As the plane began to move, he reached beside him and picked up the paper. He used to love reading the paper.
Temperatures were bouncing back from record lows throughout the Midwest. The phone company had agreed to shed itself of its monopoly. Unemployment was on the rise throughout the country as the recession hit hard.
In local news, a woman named Lisa Scalabrini had announced she was running in a special election for a seat in the Colorado Assembly. She had recently become a community activist, the welfare of senior citizens her primary agenda. Dugan smiled to read that pundits were unanimously calling her candidacy a dark horse, all saying it was a long shot.
He wouldn’t bet the farm on it.
5
While seated at his desk, Arthur picked up the ringing telephone and heard the voice of his father.
“It’s all been arranged,” he said. “The uncle is to be transferred into our custody. It’s taken this long only because they have held him outside the country. I am told he is not in very good shape, but he is alive. Capital idea you had in bringing that up, son. Scored some points for the home team. Anyway, it seemed to take the heat off. The Board of Directors has been informed of both your indiscretion and your dogged attempts to rectify it. You’ll be pleased to know that you continue to have their full support. At any rate, the man you seek will arrive at the base day after tomorrow. Please be ready to receive him.”
When the old man hung up, Arthur leaned back in his chair and began chewing the end of his glasses. This was not at all what he’d expected. He had assumed the man was already dead. Were they just calling his bluff? He thrust that paranoid thought aside.
Anyway, if the man really was in any condition to talk, Arthur wanted to hear his story, though he didn’t expect him to be any help at this late hour. The Dugan boy was dead. Arthur was convinced of that now. It was coming up on a year since he’d been transformed, more than eight months since he and the uncle had separated. None of them ever last that long. None of them. Indeed, the grid indicated the country was rather quiet. He was looking forward to a relaxing weekend.
6
It was just after eight-thirty on a Saturday evening. The boy was sitting at his desk in a dorm room he shared with two other boys. His roommates and other friends were down the hall in a common area watching television. Though it was a Saturday, math did not come easy for him. He’d been studying for hours working out quadratic equations when he began to hear a light tapping at his window. He ignored it for a while, thinking it was just the wind or maybe a light rain, before turning around and seeing nothing.
His mind began to drift. He pushed the book aside. Suddenly, he needed some air. Getting up from his desk, he walked to the door, where his jacket hung from a knob on the back. He put on his coat, then walked out of the room and started down the long hallway. He heard loud chattering and boyish laughter from the common area. For some reason, he thought it important nobody see him. He ducked around a corner when he saw one boy walk to the rest room. When that door closed, he scurried into the stairwell and went down three flights and then was out the door. Curiously, nobody saw him leave.
7
Dugan removed the now stained and wrinkled piece of paper from his bag. Though he didn’t need to anymore — he could now summon the image of his uncle any time he wanted — he looked at the picture once more before picking up the phone. Though it was late, after midnight, he dialed the number on the wanted poster anyway. He was certain someone on the other end would get him through. Still, even he was surprised it took only two transfers before John Arthur himself picked up the phone. Dugan dispensed with the pleasantries.
“You have my uncle. I have your son. The two of us are going to make a trade. Here’s how it’s going to happen, exact and to the letter.”
John Arthur did not interrupt.
8
The black helicopter landed about seven-thirty in the evening, a mile outside the small border town of Agua Prieta, Arizona. As arranged, only one man got off before it took off again in a dusty cloud. The man was left to stand alone in what looked like the middle of nowhere. On his rail thin b
ody he wore a khaki one-piece Air Force jumpsuit that had been stripped of insignia. It was the best Arthur could do on short notice.
His hair was mostly gray now. Beneath his eyes were deep hollows. He appeared more than a little stooped as he walked a few steps to get away from the still lingering dust. Most of it had dispersed by the time he saw the headlights of a vehicle approaching across the open desert. Raising his hands, he shielded his eyes from the intensity of this unfamiliar light. As the car drew nearer, he began to smile. Were anybody watching, they’d notice a few of his teeth had been chipped along the way. One or two had even fallen out. But all that could be fixed, he knew. As the car pulled up beside him, the first of his tears began to fall.
He had no idea how or why his life had turned upside-down in the last forty-eight hours. But if the steer horn hood ornament on the approaching Cadillac was any indication, things were looking up.
Fred squealed to his usual stop, kicking up dirt and dust and small rocks in his path. The side and back doors of the car opened. Two burly young men got out. There was no doubt who they were. For their own sake, Dan was happy to see they did not suffer their father’s affliction. When they took him gently by the arms and escorted him into the backseat of the car, he wept openly.
“Howyadoin, friend!” Fred said. “Long time no see!”
Dan looked up. In the rear view mirror, he saw Fred’s eyes gleam with mirth from beneath his omnipresent Stetson.
“Hey, Fred,” Dan choked out. “Good to see you too.” It was the best he could do for now.
“Now y’all just hang in there,” Fred said, peeling out in a cloud of dust. “Not much further to go.” A moment later he added, “I brought ya some treats.” The young man in the seat to his right reached to the floor and handed Dan a paper bag. “Figured ya might be hungry, is all.”
Dan opened the bag and a familiar aroma wafted into his face. He’d recognize Maria’s cooking anywhere. He reached into the bag for a flauta and began eating ravenously.
“Maria sends her love, by the way,” Fred said. “Told me to tellya hello.”
Though he kept on eating, Dan broke down again. One of his many nagging regrets over the long months of captivity had been getting those wonderful strangers involved in his problem. Then again, that Maria would forgive him for bringing it all down upon her head should have come as no surprise. What else would you expect from folks who lived in a town called Mercy?
9
From a hill just above the small border crossing, through binoculars, Arthur watched the vehicle approach. There had been no time at all to talk with the uncle. In fact, when he saw the condition the man was in, his heart sank. His knees began to shake. Fear gripped his chest. A small voice inside whispered he wouldn’t at all blame the Dugan boy for reneging on the deal once he saw him. He shut that voice up quickly.
Just as the car pulled up to the sleepy border crossing, he heard the sound of a pistol cock near his right ear. He waited for it. When nothing came, he raised his hands and turned slowly. It was Agent Richards. As always, he was smiling.
10
Out of habit, Dan’s heart sank as the uniformed man walked up to the car window. Fred handed over some paperwork. After glancing at it a moment, the border guard waved them through. They were stopped again on the Mexican side, but the guard there merely bent over and glanced inside the car before waving them into town. Some sort of festival was going on in the town square just ahead of them. The sound of amplified guitar music from a band on a small stage wafted into their windows. Lanterns strung up on wires gave the town an orange glow. People smiled and waved as they drove past. The smell of Mexican cooking was in the air. Fred turned down a side street and pulled over. The four men got out of the car and stretched. Dan walked over to Fred and embraced him warmly, thanking him again.
“Don’t be thankin’ me, now,” he said. “But I think there’s someone in the trunk who might wanna say hello.”
11
“Are you going to kill me?” Arthur asked.
The smile always made Richards impossible to read. For a moment he feared that Richards just might.
None of what he was doing was authorized. Arthur had no idea how he was going to explain away the man’s escape, let alone that he had allowed one of . . . them to get across the border and into another country. Richards removed the gun from his ear and uncocked it, then put it back into his holster.
“Nah. Just messin’ with you, is all. No hard feelings?” he asked.
Arthur was stunned. Still, none of it made any sense: the CIA’s interest, the Stetson connection, the dead boy on the second floor. None of it had ever made any sense.
Turning, he watched the vehicle pass unmolested through the American side of the crossing. There would be no problem about that, he knew. In addition to fixing their crossing, he had provided legitimate passports and other documents for both the boy and his uncle. Arthur had kept up his end of the bargain. And in ten minutes — if the boy was as good as his word — Arthur would have his son. He glanced at his watch again.
With a few minutes left to kill, he turned to Richards and asked, “So what the HELL was this all about?”
12
While riding in the trunk, Dugan couldn’t help but be reminded of his time spent underground. Memories of those long days and weeks continued to haunt him, but he hadn’t yet had the time to fully contemplate what it all meant. He figured there’d be plenty of time for that now, a whole lifetime. And then some.
After opening the satchel Julian had given him, he found among the books a number of other things that might come in handy someday. A list of people like himself and Julian who could be trusted with his secret, all of whom would help him in a pinch. Some names on the list surprised him: a Hollywood actor whose name he recognized. A hot young writer. An up and coming rock band. All of them shared their way of life.
Julian also included a list of people and places to be avoided. It seemed not all of those afflicted with their disease had taken to it as well as Julian. Dugan wasn’t surprised to see the name of a certain country whose dark dictator shared their affinity for blood, if not their desire to live in peace with humanity. Within the satchel he also found a bank account in his name that ought to keep him and his uncle comfortable for a while. It wasn’t enough for the rest of his life, but he smiled to think that it could never be.
He had not yet opened the envelope with his name on it. It looked like it might be a personal letter from Julian. Perhaps it was even an apology, or maybe just an explanation. Whatever it was, he wasn’t ready for it yet. He wondered if he ever would be. His rage and anger toward Julian had not dissipated one iota. If anything, it was only growing stronger. But there would be plenty of time for that too.
He was riding in the trunk because he thought it best to leave some doubt as to his whereabouts in case Arthur pulled a double-cross. He had told Arthur that he and his son were already across the border to throw him off the trail. But none of that mattered now. When the car stopped and the trunk opened a minute later, he saw his uncle again and burst into a smile. For old times sake, he disappeared for a moment and left the four men standing there scratching their heads while looking into a now empty trunk. He let out a whistle from behind. The men turned. Uncle Dan broke down as he approached. The two enjoyed a warm and long overdue embrace.
13
“The Stetson boy was alive when it all started,” Richards began. “I mean, it was his own heart beating and stuff. But he was brain dead. There was no doubt about that. You already know that was too much for Mrs. Stetson to bear. Her husband went on with the charade because he just didn’t know what to tell her. It was a tough blow for him too.” Richards looked at Arthur a moment. “I mean, he didn’t want to lose both his kid and his wife, you know?”
Arthur nodded, not sharing with Richards that at this very moment, he was praying he hadn’t already lost his. John Arthur was putting his trust in a vampire boy. It would be laughable if it weren�
�t so obscene. Richards went on.
“Anyway, the DCI and him went back a long way. Stetson had been the campaign chairman for the president in Virginia. There were lots of favors owed back and forth. Most importantly, the president himself had been charmed by her. He was heartbroken to hear the news and wanted everything possible done for them. It was only a coincidence the Dugan kid’s file crossed our desks when it did, and there was no denying the resemblance between the two. That’s when the plans started to take shape.”
Arthur braced himself for what was to come.
“At first, when Robbie Stetson was still alive, they thought they might use Dugan’s . . . you know, his abilities . . . to bring the kid back. Maybe not all the way back, mind you, but enough so that Mrs. Stetson could go on taking care of him and whatnot. After he died, those plans went by the wayside and we went to Plan B. We learned the Dugan kid didn’t remember much of anything about who he was or where he came from, and here we had a family with a kid who looked just like him, with school pictures and family photos, the whole nine yards. We figured it was win-win for everyone. The kid would have a home — granted, we all knew he had some special needs — and the Stetsons could continue being the perfect family they always were.”
Arthur puzzled over that a moment before it dawned on him. “You say you learned Scott didn’t remember who he was . . . the uncle? You mean the uncle talked?”
Richards stared at him with a bland smile on his face.
“Don’t kid yourself, Arthur,” he said. “Course he talked. Everybody talks. You would too. I would. Everybody talks.”
Arthur wondered about that before turning his attention toward the crossing. The car was about to pass through.
“You say he didn’t remember anything,” Arthur said, nodding in the direction of the crossing. “Then how do you explain this?”
Richards merely shrugged. “I guess something musta jogged his memory.”
The two turned in time to watch the car get waved through the second checkpoint. It was all over now. Arthur had just one last question.
Applewood (Book 2): Fledge Page 24