DARK HEARTED (The COIL Series)

by Telbat, D. I.

  There was a ramp instead of stairs at the end of this corridor. He limped upward and through a door that was ajar this night. Yes, he could feel the cold, fresh air on his sunken cheeks now. This was the right direction. At the top of the ramp, the floor leveled out to a bare hallway with one window on either side. Pulling his blanket tighter, Taath approached the left window. His trembling increased from the chill. The window, with no glass in its rock frame, faced a courtyard of a castle keep.

  Above, the sky sparkled with millions of diamonds. Taath saw a lit window above a garage across the keep and wondered what warmth flickered within. Two garage doors bordered the rock-layered ground. But then a shadow moved in front of the window—the silhouette of a big man. Shrinking away from his open window, Taath crossed the hallway to the other window and gazed at a tall forest that stood thirty meters from the castle wall. About ten centimeters of snow covered the ground there. The pine and birch trees creaked in the night breeze. It was the only sound until a scream from one of the other levels made Taath jump.

  Morning must be near, he figured. The screaming would be worse and he didn't want to bear another minute of it.

  Taath turned from the window as a vehicle zipped past below him. It was a man on a four-wheeler with a rifle on his back. Maybe they were already looking for him.

  As soon as the guard was out of sight, Taath climbed onto the windowsill. Dropping his blanket to the ground below, he then lowered his body out of the window until he hung by his fingertips.

  His feet stretched for the frozen ground below. He let go. The ground was farther than he thought. When he landed, he fell in the snow and rolled over to right himself. Brushing ice crystals from his shoulders, Taath picked up his blanket. He'd dropped the piece of cloth from his armpit as well, but he picked it up. Still, he wondered what strange message was written on the cloth. Maybe the man had been crazy, Taath pondered. There was nothing in their cells with which to write. But Taath tucked the cloth under his arm, anyway. In some small way, it gave him added purpose. The cloth represented the other lives for which he was escaping—not only his own.

  Barefoot, Taath ran across the snow into the forest. The forest floor was patched with snow. Under a birch tree, he paused on bare ground to look back at the castle. Shivering, he muffled a cough into his fist. He wasn't well at all, but he wouldn't ask the good doctor for help. Taath wouldn't miss this place. If he died in the forest, he hoped his body was never found so no one could see what horrid things they had done to him, the open sores he still had from a number of tests from injected chemicals.

  To the right of the castle, he could see an access road leading away from the complex. To the left, the castle wall continued into darkness. The four levels that made up the dungeon were below the ground in that direction. Beyond the wall, he noticed a number of towers, but their windows were dark at this hour. If it wasn't for the four-wheeler he'd seen, he could have imagined he'd been sent back to another century.

  Taath coughed again. Running deeper into the trees, he put his back to his past of terror. Where there was no snow, his feet crunched through pine needles and twigs that snapped, but he didn't consider the noises he made. He wished only to avoid the freezing patches of snow where the careless footstep might leave a trail for pursuers. His bare feet were calloused from months on the dungeon floor. But the rest of the skin on his body was sensitive to the winter's brutal elements, especially since his bones had no fat or muscle to insulate his walking corpse. With determination, he tried to tell himself that if he kept moving, he'd be okay. If he could only keep his body heat up, even from the single potato he'd been given the day before.

  Not far into the forest, he turned left in an attempt to parallel the access road to the castle, but Taath was not a woodsman. In the foreign surroundings, he was soon lost. Or maybe the road had curved away from him. Hopefully, he wasn't walking in circles, but he stubbornly pressed himself to continue.

  Much later, possibly two hours, his lips were numb and his body was in danger of complete exhaustion. He was past hypothermia; parts of him felt warm. Taath didn't notice as the sky began to brighten toward sunrise. At a crawling pace, he pushed onward.

  When he cracked his brow on a gully rock after tumbling down a gradual slope, it somehow registered in his mind that he was near death. Crawling out of the gully, but unable to gather the strength to stand again, he rolled under a bank of earth. Roots as thin as hair tickled his cheek as he rested on his side. Strangely, the dirt around him was not frozen.

  Taath reached up to the earthen ceiling and clawed loose clumps of dirt to cover his body. Lifting a leg, he weakly kicked more soil free to bury his legs. In minutes, Taath's body was covered by rich soil. Only a circle for his face was exposed to the winter morning air.

  He didn't remember falling asleep, but he woke with a start. The sun was up, but not visible behind the clouds that dropped fluffy whiteness.

  That was odd, Taath mused. It was snowing in his dungeon cell.

  As he lay there watching it snow, his escape gradually came back to him, but he couldn't remember all of it. The animal within him had pushed him. Delirium had overwhelmed him and he couldn't remember finding his earthen shelter that was so warm.

  After shaking his right hand free of dirt, Taath grabbed at the fresh snow and stuffed some into his mouth. Fresh snow. It tasted so good. Maybe he could live the rest of his life right here in this paradise.

  Falling back to sleep, he woke again in what he thought was a few minutes later to the sound of voices. It couldn't be voices, he told himself. Had he not escaped the mean voices, the cold steel, and the numbing medication? But there were voices coming from the forest, and the sound of dogs, as well. Hunting hounds were tracking him. For an instant, Taath considered emerging from his den and running down the gully through the snow, but how far would he really get? They had dogs. He didn't even have shoes. And he was so warm where he was.

  Taath didn't move. Closing his eyes, he tried to focus on a happier time, before he'd been kidnapped from the campus, before the months of shivering in the empty cell, before his body had become foreign to him. His mother. She was icing a cake. Was it his cake? No. It was his sister's birthday. He stabbed a finger into the icing when his mother wasn't looking. But his father had seen him sample the creamy sweetness. His father winked, said nothing, and continued reading his paper.

  A tear rolled from Taath's eye and was soaked up by the thirsty soil packed next to his ear. Crying wasn't safe, he knew, not when he needed to retain his body's moisture. He'd learned that months ago when he realized he was given only two cups of water a day. Preserve the moisture. No crying. But he had snow now, he remembered, so he cried.

  He turned his head and watched four men stride into the gully. Two hounds on long leashes led one of the men. Stopping at the bottom of the gully, the hounds sniffed in Taath's direction not ten meters away.

  "There's no way he came this far," one man said. They had rifles and sidearms. "Your dogs are worthless in this snow. We're probably on the scent of some deer! We'll double back."

  "My dogs can track through a quarter of a meter," the canine owner defended. "It makes sense he came this way. The town's only two kilometers away."

  "The longer we stand here talking, the deeper this snow gets! We're going back. Those dogs were a waste. We should've never waited for you to get here! Dr. Stashinsky said as much."

  The men tromped back up the gully, pulling the dogs along. Taath didn't cheer or even smile at his good fortune. He was thinking too clearly to believe his hardships were over. If he was two kilometers from some town, which way was it? Unless he found something for his feet, he'd never be able to travel barefoot over so much snow. But then he remembered the snow would be in patches under the trees. As much as he hated to leave his shelter, he knew that he should travel while it was snowing so the few tracks he had to leave would be covered. And the day would be warmer than the night.

  It was time to move, but two kil
ometers in which direction? That wasn't too far; he'd find the town. Taath ate more snow. He'd leave soon. Just a few more minutes in the warmth.

  **~~~**

  Chapter Five

  Corban and his wife, Janice, strolled hand in hand down the Atlantic City boardwalk on the coast of New Jersey. The surf across the sand was splashing gently onto the beach. Twenty kite fliers twisted and pulled on their airborne machines far above.

  It was a relaxing, carefree scene to everyone except Corban and Janice. There was the saltwater taffy vendor who kept badgering the boardwalk's visitors—everyone except the Dowlers. The vendor drifted along with them or behind them. And there was the civil servant with the tool belt, tapping on the planks, yet he had a habit of glancing over his shoulder and moving away every time Corban came too close.

  The question wasn't whether Corban was being watched or not; the question was, for whom were they working? A number of government agencies had kept tabs on the ex-spy since he had left the Agency. He knew if he could spot these two, there were probably others in relay, as well.

  Ever since the ambush in England, Corban had been carrying an NL-1 tranquilizer everywhere he went, even in the U.S. And though the non-lethal pistol only fired pellets, and was nothing against live rounds, it still gave him a sense of security. COIL and its workers were under siege.

  He wouldn't admit it to Janice, but Corban preferred COIL's enemies to focus on him rather than on other Christians in the field. Missionaries were easy targets. They stepped out in faith and risked their lives daily for Christ in whatever environment they were led. These servants truly carried their crosses daily. Trained to fight covert foes, Corban felt it was his responsibility to draw attention from the field workers.

  More than the attention, however, was the blatant attacks upon COIL in the last two years. Since COIL made every effort to protect the field servants of Christ, someone had been targeting COIL specifically. Corban was certain that the central enemy instigating and funding these attacks against his agency was the entity or person code-named Abaddon. His team also suspected Abaddon to be the demon mentioned in the Book of Revelation. Perhaps Abaddon's attacks on COIL were in preparation for the coming of the Antichrist.

  The unknowns about the attacker made Corban uneasy. He was used to having superior intel, and he hoped that solid information would give him grounds to act that day.

  Janice pulled Corban to a stop and laughed while pointing at the sky.

  "Look at that one! A shark with four fish streaming behind the tail!"

  Corban chuckled at the kite and pointed out something silly about the last fish's facial expression. But neither Janice nor Corban was truly interested in the decorative kites.

  This wasn't the first time Corban had brought his wife as cover on an operation. Once, she had been sent as a nurse overseas with the International Red Cross to deliver documents to him. Other times, she traveled to distant countries to check on missionaries, or even to pick up and smuggle back important packages. Janice loved fieldwork, though Corban tried to keep her out of the most dangerous operations. She was too inexperienced to handle tails or a hunter-tracer team, so Corban took special precautions to send her on only the most casual missions. Besides, Janice preferred to remain at home with their adopted, blind daughter, Jenna.

  If it were up to Corban, he would have had Luigi Putelli as his backup on the boardwalk that day. Every time Corban saw a gum wrapper in an ashtray or on the ground, he wondered if Luigi had been there.

  As the couple watched the shark swoop and dive after the fishes, the taffy vendor and boardwalk maintenance man didn't continue, either. One was behind them and one was in front. Corban was becoming annoyed at their performance; they were such amateurs. He guessed they were junior feds of some sort—information gatherers. Though Corban and Janice had switched cars twice before arriving in Atlantic City, it would've been easy enough to figure out where they were headed.

  "Should we get Jenna a souvenir?" Janice asked, and tugged him toward the gimmick and gadget store behind them.

  "Yeah, you pick something out." He kissed her hand. "I use the bathroom in the back."

  They entered the boardwalk store and browsed a rack of postcards for a minute together. The lighting was choked by the press of crowded shelves and racks of Atlantic City gizmos: water guns, stuffed animals, stationary, beach buckets and shovels, magic tricks, and clown noses.

  The cashier appeared to be a freckly-faced teenager, but Corban knew he was a trained agent. Corban caught the young man's eye, and there was a brief look of acknowledgement. His eyes glanced behind Janice at the plank worker who lingered outside the door. The taffy vendor was there, too, but neither tail was wearing the right costume to assume the ploy of a curious shopper or tourist.

  Giving Janice a kiss, Corban whispered for her to stay close to the cashier, and he made his way quietly to the back wall covered with stuffed animals. He paused before the wide wall. They always put the clown in a different place; that ugly clown that no one would think of purchasing. Where was it? After finding it on a low shelf to his right, he checked over his shoulder, and then squeezed the clown's left shoe three times. There was a whirring sound, then a click and a section of the shelves of merchandise popped loose. Corban reached down, gripped the bottom shelf, and heaved upward. The secret door was counter-balanced and swung up easily, the stuffed critters barely unsettled. Ducking inside, he used a steel handle to pull the door closed until it clicked again.

  "How'm I supposed to get any work done when you bring feds to my doorstep?" a voice asked behind Corban.

  Corban turned around to face a man at a desk. The desk was so tightly placed between the narrow inner and outer walls that the man must've climbed over the desk to access his cluttered office and chair. Beyond the first desk was another. They each had a computer on them, and both were running diagnostics and downloads. Above his head, two mainframes hung on cables. A high-resolution scanner and a filing cabinet completed the underground office.

  "Good to see you, Miles." Smiling, Corban shook the man's hand over the desk. "Staying in the Word?"

  "Can't live by computer chips alone," Miles replied as he settled into his chair again. "How long's it been, Corban?"

  Miles Grady was a young CIA contractor who ran his own research office. Since he was also a Christian, Corban had fellowshipped often with him when Corban had been in the Agency. As a contractor, Miles chose his own assignments, a luxury he preferred so that his faith wasn't compromised by ungodly strategies.

  Sitting on the edge of the first desk, Corban pointed at the next desktop screen which was split into four surveillance frames. Each frame showed a different angle of the gimmick shop and door.

  "Friends of yours or friends of mine?" Corban asked of the two tails outside on the boardwalk.

  Zooming in on the boardwalk maintenance man, Miles took a snapshot of his face. The computer flashed a personnel file onto the screen. He did the same with the taffy vendor.

  "National Security boys," Miles reported. "Friends of neither, but I've seen them before. We pretend we don't know the other exists. The NSA is always wondering what the CIA is sending me by way of national secrets."

  Corban studied their profiles and memorized their vital agency statistics.

  "Some feds followed me into the city, but these two look Atlantic City-based."

  "Whoever followed you into Atlantic City probably contacted these two locals to tail you since they know the area. I doubt they even know who you are, not really. Probably know your face only. Maybe an alias or two. They're small fries, monitoring me and my visitors, mainly. What brings you to my shack, anyway?"

  Pulling the manila package from under his shirt, Corban handed it to Miles. Miles donned a pair of rubber gloves before he dumped the three photographs onto the desk. This wasn't the first time Corban had brought him something to decipher. Since Corban had met Karol Ngolsk six months ago in Romania, she had sent him a number of cryptograms to assis
t in his investigation into the disappearance of COIL's three operatives.

  Picking up a magnifying glass, Miles studied the three photos for a few seconds.

  "I give up," Miles said. "What's the key this time?"

  "The sum of A-B-C. A transparent overlay should give you a fourth image."

  "Okay, we'll go high resolution. Hmmm…"

  Miles got to work, scanning each image in turn at over fourteen hundred dpi. He turned the primary graphics screen so Corban could watch him work.

  "Now, I transparentize them…" Miles stated.

  "Is that even a word?"

  Shrugging, Miles began the overlay, each frame upon the other, and then ran a compare and contrast algorithm on all three frames to expose their unique differences. A small box highlighted a portion of each frame and Miles zoomed in ten times in the frames before slight squiggle marks became visible. Then, he overlaid each contrast square on a clean spreadsheet. All three images contained a fraction of a microscopic message or code. Separate, they were mere squiggles. Merged, however, they became a six-letter word. On the screen was the word, "Xacsin."

  "That's everything?" Corban questioned.

  Neither of them would say the word aloud. Whatever it meant was so important that Karol had to slyly conceal its delivery. Men had risked their lives across Europe for that single word.

  "That's it." Miles highlighted all of his work, the frames and the word, yet unsaved, and held his finger over the delete button. "You got it?"

  "Got it. Thanks."

  Miles worked quickly to erase everything from his hard drive, then checked for any backup caches to be certain. Next, he cut the three photographs up with a pair of scissors, added a couple bogus photos, and burned them all in a tiny furnace the size of a shoebox.

  "Later, I sprinkle half of the ashes on the beach and half in the toilet," the technician confided, then glanced at the store's front screen view. "You'd better scoot on out of here before those two out front get too curious. Say, how's your daughter doing?"