by Sam Sisavath
“I saw the light… They want me to help you see it, too.”
Xiao didn’t have to think too hard about what “the light” was: It was whatever the Rhim wanted him to believe, and whatever the Rhim wanted had to be bullshit.
She glanced back through the open door at Porter. He hadn’t moved since the last time she checked, and even from the hallway, she could still make out that satisfied grin on his face.
Men, she thought, before heading toward the stairs.
She barely made any sounds as she moved between floors, but even a little noise was too much against a large but empty house. She kept expecting men with guns to rush her at any second, and the lack of activity with every step she took only increased her paranoia.
Was it possible Porter hadn’t lied, that she really had been “given” to him so he could convince her to come over to the other side?
Maybe the better question is: Do you want to believe it?
There was finally carpet on the first floor, which she was grateful for after walking around on polished wood tiles since waking up. The living room was massive, like the rest of the house, with the kind of decorations that screamed money. The only thing lacking was signs that someone actually lived here. Even the TV hanging above the fireplace was a large, lifeless black LED screen.
She concentrated on the door in front of her. Light poured in through two security windows, and she could make out a porch outside, but little else. Xiao hurried toward it, considered briefly about detouring to the kitchen to grab a knife (assuming there was even a knife in there) for a weapon, but decided to keep going straight.
The front door, like the bedroom’s, opened without resistance and she stepped outside.
There were four of them—three men and one woman—and they temporarily stopped what they were doing to look up and over as soon as she stepped out of the house.
The closest person was less than ten feet from her, in front of the porch. He straightened up from the bush he was trimming with a pair of clippers to tip his sunhat at her. “Good morning, ma’am.”
“Um, morning,” Xiao said.
“Did we wake you?”
“Huh?”
“Hope we didn’t wake you, ma’am.”
“You…didn’t.”
He smiled—it was a very genuine-looking smile—before going back to work.
Xiao looked past him at the other three. The other two men were raking leaves in the front yard, while the woman was crouched next to a flower bed. She was in her fifties at least, with gray hair that poked out from underneath a large brim hat.
They were all unarmed, as far as she could tell, not that she could see what they were hiding—if anything—under their clothes. The two men raking leaves were wearing very loose overalls while the third had on denim jeans. The woman was in a sundress and loose blouse, but that really was one big hat.
Maybe she’s hiding a gun in there…
Xiao glanced toward the winding driveway and beyond it at the large gate on the other side of the estate grounds. About fifty yards, give or take, which was closer than the distance to the woods behind the house she had seen from the second floor. She could make it easily, unless someone tried to stop her.
She looked back at the old man with the clippers. A bit oversize and very sharp-looking clippers—
“You realize you’re standing in front of the help in a very sheer nightgown,” a voice said behind her.
Xiao turned around.
Porter sat on the foot of the staircase. He wore pants, but was shirtless, and he smiled across the living room at her. “I’m just saying.”
She looked down at the silk nightgown, surprised she was still wearing it.
“Come back inside,” Porter said.
No, you should run instead, a voice said inside her head. You can make the front gates. Do it!
But she didn’t. Instead, she gave the front yard one last look before stepping back inside the house and closing the door after her.
“You okay?” Porter asked.
Xiao shook her head. “Where am I? What is this place?”
“Our house.”
“Our house?”
“I asked them for a place where I could spend some time with you, in order to convince you. They gave me this.” He stood up and walked over to her. “Like I keep telling you, Xiao, all of this is better than the alternative.”
“The chair…”
He nodded. “And Hofheinz.”
“What happened to him?”
“Nothing. I just took you away from him.”
“To save me.”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
“Yes.”
“It shouldn’t be.” He put his hands on her shoulders and squeezed. That very earnest smile again. “I’ve always wanted this, Xiao. I should have told you sooner. All those years, wasted.”
“This isn’t right.”
“Why not?”
“You’re…not you.”
“Is it the face?”
“No. I’m not talking about your face.”
“Then what?”
“You, you.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Don’t you?”
He pursed his lips, as if he were trying very hard to be patient with her. “Xiao, the Rhim wants to give us a new start. Us, Xiao. You and me.”
“With you…”
“Yes. Don’t you want that, too?”
No, she thought, but the words that came out of her mouth was, “Yes, I want that, too,” just before she kissed him and melted comfortably, naturally, back into his arms.
Chapter 20
Quinn
“He got off two shots—it would have been more if a woman sitting nearby hadn’t seen the gun when he made his move. He put the first .45 caliber round between the left lung and right side.”
“The heart,” Quinn said.
“Yes,” Sarah said. “He put it exactly where it would do the most damage. Fortunately for Taylor, he was wearing a bulletproof vest. Apparently, even the suit he had on that day had some extra protection.”
“How do you know all this? Are they releasing everything to the news already?”
“Not yet. The information comes from a friend. I guess you could say our very own Sons of Porter. He’s been able to see details from the investigation as they come in.”
“That’s one lucky bastard,” Owen was saying.
“Lucky or well-prepared bastard?” Aaron said.
“Either/or.”
“Not really. One means, well, he got lucky. The other means he was ready for it.”
Owen thought about it for a brief second or two before making a You got a point face.
“And your friend is sure it was a .45 caliber?” Quinn asked Sarah.
The other woman nodded. As far as Quinn knew, the other woman had been awake for hours before Quinn found the strength to crawl out of the cramped bunk bed in one of the rooms at the rear of the RV. Zoe, sitting across from her nursing a cheap paper cup of coffee, looked more of a mess this morning than she had been yesterday when Quinn pulled her out of the brown waters of Buffalo Bayou.
Owen and Aaron occupied the booth across the aisle from them while Rick stood guard somewhere outside. Quinn hadn’t seen Reiko all morning, so she assumed the young woman was still asleep in the other bedroom.
“Why a .45?” Quinn asked.
“What do you mean?” Zoe said. “Is that bad?”
“No, but it’s…accessible.”
“She means the Rhim have their hands on way better ammunition,” Owen said. “If this was them behind the assassination attempt, they could have taken out Taylor with far more efficient means.”
“Exactly,” Quinn said.
She remembered surviving Rhim assassins at Ben’s apartment, then later at Mary’s. They had been using a kind of handgun she had never seen before, loaded with ammo that didn’t even make any sounds when fired, which should have been impossibl
e. Even the best weapon with a built-in suppressor made some noise.
“Why not just blow him up?” Aaron said. “Take out the whole ballroom. Why muddle around with a lone gunman?”
“Because it has to look exactly like what everyone is saying it is—a lone nutcase,” Sarah said. “Anything besides the kind of weapon or ammo you could pick up in your local neighborhood Archers would raise questions.”
“That hasn’t stopped them before,” Quinn said. “They control the FBI crime lab. I know, because they’ve used it against me.”
“Setting you up isn’t the same as covering up the murder of a presidential candidate,” Sarah said. “It’s a much bigger task, even for the Rhim.”
“You’ve seen this before?”
“Orders like this one come from the very top. With the Old Men.”
“Did you say old men?” Zoe asked, looking up from her coffee.
“The Old Men,” Aaron said. “Capital O and M, or else it just doesn’t sound scary enough.”
“They run the Rhim,” Owen said. “They were there at the beginning. They are the Rhim.”
“Xiao told me about them,” Quinn said. “But she didn’t know who they were. Or even how many there were. She thought Porter might have known, but he never confirmed it to her.”
Quinn looked over at Sarah for confirmation, but the other woman shook her head. “I was never high enough in the chain of command to know who they were, just that they existed, and that something like this would have had to come straight from them.”
Next to Quinn, Zoe was staring into her coffee. Quinn couldn’t tell if the reporter was having difficulty believing the things she was hearing this morning, or it was just the bad coffee she was having trouble with. Probably a little of both.
“So he missed with the first shot,” Quinn said to Sarah.
“He didn’t miss,” Sarah said.
“Right. What about the second one?”
“The second round hit the lectern but found its target—right shoulder. The candidate was still falling from the first bullet.”
“Wait, he shot the guy through the lectern?” Owen asked.
“That’s what they’re saying,” Sarah said.
“That’s impressive.”
“Why’s that?” Zoe asked.
“The first shot, I can see—he had an open field of fire, and the target didn’t know it was coming,” Owen said. “But he would have had to rush the second one. Didn’t you say he also shot two more people through a door?”
Sarah nodded. “He got out of the ballroom through a side door—a hallway that connected to the lobby and kitchen. He shot two more bodyguards in the chest while the door was still closed. He murdered two more after that. He might have missed on Taylor, but he still left a hell of a bloody mess. Five bodies in all.”
“Shit,” Owen said. Then, as if he still couldn’t believe it, “Through the door?”
“Maybe he just got lucky,” Aaron said.
“Which time?”
“Both?”
“He didn’t get lucky,” Quinn said. “Not if it was Porter.”
“Are you sure it is him?” Aaron asked. She could hear the doubt in his voice. “It didn’t look like Porter.”
“Don’t believe everything you see,” Sarah said. “Altering a person’s face is child’s play for the Rhim.” Then, looking over at Quinn: “The question is: How sure are you that it is Porter?”
“I studied Porter for months before I ever met him,” Quinn said. “He’s burned into my mind’s eye. The face is different, but you can’t hide the eyes. You can’t disguise the soul behind them. That’s Porter.”
“Quinn,” Aaron said, “are you sure?”
“Yes, Aaron.”
“I mean, I’ve been with the guy for years, and that…” He shook his head. “That didn’t look like Porter. Granted, I never stared into those baby blues of his, but still…”
“It’s him, Aaron.”
“But are you sure?”
“I recognized Porter from across the room in a dark nightclub with about two hundred people sandwiched between us. I don’t know what you’d call it—maybe gut instinct, or maybe it’s something else that’s unexplainable. But I knew it was him when I first saw him then, and the man who was in Chicago trying to kill Robert Taylor is the same man. It’s Porter.”
Aaron leaned back in his seat and nodded. “Shit, after everything I’ve seen, I guess there are crazier things happening out there than Porter coming back from the dead with a new face.”
“It would make sense if it was him,” Sarah said.
“How so?” Owen asked.
“Porter’s officially dead.” She opened the same laptop they had been using to watch the news last night. The screen was frozen on the shooter’s face as it glanced back in the midst of the chaos. “Look at it: If it is Porter, they didn’t change very much. The nose, the chin… What else?” she asked Quinn.
“The cheeks,” Quinn said.
“So just superficial changes. Nothing a plastic surgeon couldn’t do in a weekend, and something the spew could do even faster and easier.”
Zoe turned to Quinn. “Did she just say spew?”
“It’s a long story,” Quinn said. To Sarah, “Could you do it? The things Porter did in Chicago?”
“I’m not the killer Porter is, but it’s not impossible,” Sarah said. “I would have to get lucky—more so than him—but yes. My chances are better than, say, Owen’s.”
“Oh, thanks a lot,” Owen said.
Sarah smiled at him. “You know what I mean.”
“Sure, sure…”
“Well, shit,” Aaron said. “If that is Porter, and he just killed those five people…”
“Even if it is him, it’s not Porter anymore,” Sarah said. “He might be technically responsible, but…”
“But what?” Zoe said. “He either tried to kill a presidential candidate and murdered those five people, or he didn’t. It can’t be both.”
“In this case? Yes, it can, actually.”
“It’s complicated,” Aaron said quietly.
“Right. Complicated,” Zoe said doubtfully.
“Anyway,” Aaron said, meeting Quinn’s eyes, “now that we know he’s still alive, we’ll be sure to ask him when we run into him again.”
“Among other things,” Quinn nodded. She turned to Sarah. “Do they have an ID on the shooter yet?”
“He officially doesn’t exist,” Sarah said.
“That’s impossible,” Zoe said. “Everyone exists. Photos, DNA, fingerprints…”
“They can change those, too.”
“How?”
“The spew.”
“What the hell is this spew thing?” And before Sarah could answer, “I know, I know, it’s a long story, right? But someone’s going to tell me eventually?”
“Eventually, when there’s time,” Sarah said. “Right now, we need to disappear and figure out our next move when we’re in a safer environment. Houston was already off limits, but it’s become even more toxic for us now. You especially, Quinn.”
Quinn stared at the laptop again, at the face on the screen. “You said that was in Chicago?”
“Quinn,” Sarah said. “It’s time to go.”
“Aaron’s right. We’ve been looking for Porter all this time, wondered if he’s dead or alive, and now there he is.”
“There he was,” Owen said. “Doesn’t mean he’s still in Chicago. It would be stupid for him to stay in the city after that stunt.”
Just like it’s stupid for me to come back to Houston…
“Porter’s not Porter anymore,” Sarah said. Her eyes were fixed on Quinn. “You have to know that by now.”
“They changed him, so we can change him back,” Aaron said.
Sarah shook her head. “Not without Rhim technology. I don’t know if you’ve looked around, Aaron, but we’re not exactly swimming in high-tech stuff right now.”
“Oh, is that all that’s stop
ping you?” Aaron reached into the backpack next to him and pulled out another laptop. “I found the Houston service center in here without even breaking a sweat. Trust me, I can find the others, too.”
“What are you saying, Aaron?” Quinn asked.
“I’m saying, if all it takes to get Porter back is to put him through the same process that they used to change him, then all we need to do is find another vat of spew to dump him in.”
“It’s not that easy,” Sarah said.
“The hell it’s not. He’s our friend.” The teenager turned to Quinn, and his voice rose slightly. “We’re not going to leave him behind. Not after everything that’s happened. Not after everything we’ve lost. Right, Quinn?”
Quinn nodded back at him before looking over at Sarah’s disapproving face. “He’s our friend, Sarah. He saved our lives. We can’t just abandon him now that we know he’s still out there.”
Sarah sighed, then exchanged a quick look with Owen, who gave her an amused smirk, as if to say, “What did you expect?”
“I’ll make the two of you a deal,” Sarah said, turning back to Quinn and Aaron. “First, we get the hell out of Houston. That’s number one.”
“And number two?” Quinn said.
“Once we’re safe, once there’s no danger of the Rhim kicking down our doors every second of every day, then we put all our focus, all our resources on finding Porter.”
“How long is number one going to take?” Aaron asked.
“As long as it takes, Aaron. You can’t rescue Porter by yourselves. You think you can, but even you know that’s not true. Not even with all those volunteer SOPs you find on the Internet. They don’t have the skills or the background to go toe-to-toe with the Rhim.” To Quinn, “You found that out the hard way at the Wilshire.”
Quinn pursed her lips but didn’t reply.
“But with our help,” Sarah continued, “your chances improve greatly. And you’re smart enough to know it.”
This time, it was Quinn and Aaron’s turn to exchange a quick glance.
“Okay?” Quinn said to the kid.
Aaron nodded grudgingly. “Number one first, then number two.”