Pointing the gun directly at Lisa, Dr. Death’s eyes closed to serpentine slits. An equally snake-like smile slithered across his face.
“Now if you’ll kindly cooperate, Mrs. Mendez, I will not have to shoot you.” Slowly the gunman redirected the pistol. As if panning the room with it, Dr. Death methodically pointed the gun at each member of her family, stopping for the blink of an eye as he reached each individual. When he finally left the gun pointed at Christina, he turned his attention back to Lisa.
“Or would you prefer, perhaps, I start with one of them?”
***
After they’d both had their redneck moments, Alex and Danny worked up the nerve to watch the rest of the tape. There wasn’t much left and most of it was just rambling and repeating the same threats.
The infidels would die. They’d all swim in the blood. It was as if the guy had one message and he played it over and over, ad nauseam.
They needed a plan but more than that they needed to know where to attack. You can’t attack an enemy that’s hidden. But then if he truly wanted to be found he’d make his location no big secret. Alex hoped he wouldn’t find the guy among the exploded remains of his dead wife and family.
Alex’s cell phone rang a couple of times but each time it turned out to be nothing important. “I’m a bit busy trying to find my kidnapped wife,” he told one rather persistent telemarketer just before breaking the connection.
“We need to get the video back to the station,” Danny said. “We’ll probably have to send it off to Dallas to get it analyzed but…”
“We can help with that,” Agent Sutton interrupted. Agent Parker was right by his side. “Captain Peterson, I hate to be a fuss budget but this psychotic jerk killed two of my men. If you’ll be so kind as to let us take charge here for a bit—unofficially of course—I assure you we can have him nailed to a cross by tomorrow morning.”
“Now wait just a second…”
Raising a hand, Agent Sutton continued, “No, now wait a second. I—uh, we don’t want the reins completely. Just, if you’ll follow my lead for a while and let me channel the evidence through FBI fingers— particularly that tape there—I think our resources might be able to find this guy a little quicker. What you do to him next is up to you. I just want one favor. Just leave enough for me to make it up to my men.”
His voice was eager, possessing a humorless, bitterly angered quality.
“Agent Sutton,” Alex said, “I’ve never met a Fed I liked, but I do
believe I’m beginning to love you.”
“There’s a first time for everything, Mr. Mendez.”
“Alex.”
“Marvin,” Agent Sutton extended his hand to Alex. “But you can call me Moe.”
Alex shook Moe Sutton’s hand. He had quite a firm, determined grip. Alex liked that about him.
“I’m Danny.”
“This is Tim Parker,” Agent Sutton said, pointing to his companion. “Now that we’re on a first name basis, how about we kick these guys’ butts all the way back to the desert they crawled out of.”
“There’s just one thing this investigation is missing,” Danny said.
“You mean besides Lisa?”
“No,” Danny said, “I mean exactly Lisa. I mean a woman’s touch. And since we can’t find Superwoman right now, we can settle for my superhero in training.”
Walking down the hallway, back the way they came, they stopped at a room near the edge of the central foyer area. Dr. Death motioned to one of his companions who in turn produced a set of keys and unlocked the door.
Even as the door opened, the room appeared barren of furniture.
Straight across the room, near the far wall knelt Eric, the young boy in whose car she’d managed to grasp a few precious moments of freedom.
Into whose life she’d managed to intrude. His arms folded in front of him as if cradling himself against an imagined blizzard, Eric was frightened. Bewildered. Slowly, he rocked back and forth. He was mumbling something to himself. Whatever it was, Lisa imagined it wouldn’t have been coherent even if she’d been sitting next to him, her ear nearby his trembling lips.
She couldn’t remember his last name. Couldn’t remember if he’d even told her his last name, but she remembered Eric all too well. She remembered her hero. The reason she was alive at that moment. She remembered and she acknowledged.
“Eric!”
His face was not scarred. He bore no outward signs of having been beaten or abused. Yet his expression was marred with abuse. Tears welled, his eyes swollen. His hands covered in scratches He was in a similar orange jumpsuit to the one she was wearing.
Still hugging himself, he looked at her, but his gaze was vacant.
His eyes didn’t seem to make a connection. He wasn’t looking at her. More looking through her. It was almost as if she wasn’t there. Maybe that he wasn’t there.
Though he bore no physical signs of abuse, Lisa couldn’t help but wonder what had been done to him. As was her maternal instinct, she pondered the scars she couldn’t see.
“Eric, what’s wrong? What’d they do to you?” She took a step as if intending to rush to his side, but thought better of it as she stared at the gun still in Dr. Death’s hand.
He gave no reply. Merely continued his schizophrenic ritual.
Rocking and chanting.
Chanting and rocking.
“Eric?” she called again, hoping for any sign of life.
She felt herself being pushed into the room even as she stumbled forward. Inside the relatively vacant room, Lisa stared at the horrifying answer to her question. Near the back of the room, out in the open in perfect view were two headless bodies, lying in pools of their own blood. A video camera had been set up to catch the sickening ritual that
Eric had been forced to witness.
The bodies were dressed much the same as she and Eric, in the orange jumpsuits. Sticking out of one the bodies was a huge knife.
Something like a machete, but with a blade that curved upward several inches from the tip, forming what appeared to be a crescent moon shape.
The heads rested beside the bodies. Neither had been disposed of.
Neither face was covered. Each bore the expression of horror that filled their last violent moments of life. It looked as though the heads probably remained where they had fallen, as was the case with the bodies. Lisa was trying to take it all in. Trying to be policewoman.
Trying anything to hide her own frightened revulsion. Trying to turn off the maternal instinct that could likely get her killed if she let her mother’s righteous anger take shape.
She wondered to who they were. To whom had the innocent souls once belonged? Instinctively, perhaps subconsciously, she already knew the answer. His expression spoke volumes. Racked with grief,
Eric’s mind had splintered upon viewing these horrors. God only knew how long he’d been interred with the headless bodies of those near and dear to him. Friends perhaps, loved ones most likely; the two lifeless victims lying in this room had once belonged to Eric.
Without thinking, filled with an odd understanding, Lisa did the only thing that remained within her power to do.
She wept.
CHAPTER 30
Posse
Tisha Warner’s arrival completed the team as far as Alex was concerned. As well as it could be completed under these circumstances.
The part of the aggressive, headstrong and usually-right-about everything female officer would now be played by Tisha Warner.
Uniformed officer turned aide to Captain Danny Peterson.
A shower, change of clothes and the morning sun added an interesting sense of strength to the aura of Tisha Warner. A gentle summer breeze stirred a reminder that it had been days since Alex had afforded himself the luxury of a good shower, shave and a toothbrush.
With Agents Sutton and Parker on their side, Alex felt reasonably sure all bases had been covered. Several uniformed officers and detectives with which Alex had va
rying levels of familiarity roamed the area.
Opening the trunk of his car, Agent Sutton revealed an arsenal that would have made a small group of mercenaries foam at the mouth.
He handed bulletproof vests to each person.
“These vests are a special material. They’re lined with old faithful, Kevlar. But we’ve been testing new materials in conjunction and these vests right here have stopped a .357 slug five feet from point blank.”
“We have vests on,” Danny said.
“Speak for yourself, dude,” Alex interrupted. “I’m not a cop remember?”
“I don’t think that little pop gun’s going to do you much good either, Mr. Mendez,” Agent Sutton quipped, remarking at the small pistol sticking out of Alex’s waistband. Reaching into his trunk, Agent Sutton pulled out a huge handgun and a shotgun. He handed both to Alex.
“All these guns are great,” Danny remarked, “But we don’t even know they are yet.”
“We have agents out looking for them,” Agent Parker said.
“And in the meantime?” Danny asked.
“In the meantime,” Agent Sutton replied, “we prepare for the battle we all know is coming. We’re going to have to take these guys out.”
“You haven’t seen how these guys work,” Danny said. “I was on the front line with these guys. I saw them march right into the police station in full body armor and withstand a barrage of bullets that should have taken this stuff out.” He motioned to the vest resting on the edge of the open trunk.
“These guys are connected,” Agent Sutton said. “I don’t know how but they got their hands on vests just like these. Body suits, I guess.
There are prototypes but nothing that’s been issued even to us. But tests have been done on full body suits of this stuff. Some space-age crap really. Rumor is that NASA wants dibs on the designs to help them create a suit that’s easier for astronauts to work in. Something not so bulky like the things they go up in now. But we’ve been working on keeping this thing a secret. There are very few agents in the bureau who actually know about the suits. I only know about it because my supervisor’s on the panel that reviews the reports. He trusts me so he shares a lot of data with me. Offered me a chance to be a test subject but I didn’t exactly like the idea of being a lab rat for a bunch of ballistics experts with bad aim.”
“No offense, Moe,” Danny said, “But why do I care if NASA or the military wants these things? My question was how do terrorists get their hands on something that only exists in theory? In prototype.”
“I think you missed the point,” Alex said. “What our rambling friend here was getting at is that the body suits these guys were wearing were not exactly stolen from a top secret FBI research lab, am I right?”
Moe nodded. “CIA research lab actually. This stuff’s multi-agency. Has been for years.”
“So these guys were Feds?” Danny asked. “No wait. They killed some agents didn’t they? Is that how they got their hands on the suits?”
“Not exactly,” Agent Sutton said. “But it is how they gained access to the facility. Agent Tucker, the real Agent Tucker, worked on this program. So did Agent Morgan I think. It’s been going on for years you understand. Once the Arab fella had his persona down, I imagine few people questioned his access. He had all the credentials so he was literally able to walk in and out of FBI or CIA headquarters with pretty much whatever he wanted, including the specs on the body suit. He didn’t need a suit. Merely the plans, schematics. The right access to the proper materials. Those you can come by easily if you know where to go. And someone smart enough to put it all together. Like I said, we don’t know how they got ‘em. All we know is they got ‘em.”
“Why haven’t we heard about this in the news? You’d think a theft of this magnitude would send up a red flag somewhere. Surely some eager journalist would get wind of the story.”
“If the media got hold of every hiccup in the agency, there wouldn’t be any time for any other news,” Moe offered. “Besides, we’re trying to keep this thing quiet. We don’t want the bad guys knowing what we’re doing. We lose the element of surprise. Might have already lost it.”
“Comforting,” Danny said. “Very comforting.”
“So why don’t you have body suits in your trunk? Why just the
vests? Don’t we want to be on some level ground here?” Alex asked.
“Because,” Moe said. “There are two, maybe three prototypes in existence right now. They aren’t being mass-produced. There aren’t enough to go around. These vests are already being used. It’s not common knowledge of course. Test cases mostly, but we want to try to stay ahead of the crack dealers, gang bangers and now terrorists.”
“What if they have body suits now?” Tisha asked. “That’s not exactly staying ahead. How are we supposed to penetrate them? I’m with Captain Peterson on this. You didn’t see these guys withstand shot after shot, bullet after bullet. I was right there. How do you stop them?”
“Young lady this is going to sound very crass and I apologize to you in advance, but there’s only one shot that can stop them,” Moe Sutton said. “You separate them from their family jewels.”
Silence and confused looks were all that interrupted Agent Moe Sutton.
“In designing these suits, “Agent Parker explained, “the material was found to be very… well… very sturdy. Like cardboard. Not restrictive. Just sturdy. Not much give. If nothing else, you learn quickly that one size doesn’t fit all. Now imagine encasing your manhood in cardboard then having the cardboard suddenly collapse on you, under the force of a speeding bullet.”
All the men winced.
“It was seen as an acceptable risk,” Agent Sutton continued.
“Who’s gonna think about a nut shot in a gun fight? You’d think that’d be the first area a man would want protected.”
“There is one other shot that you can make,” Agent Parker offered.
“The foot,” Tisha said.
“That’s right,” Moe confirmed, offering a surprised glance at Tisha. “How’d you know?”
“Makes sense. It would call for either one complete covering, like footed baby PJ’s, or a separate pair of shoes designed of this material. You said you had a body suit. You didn’t say anything about shoes. The guys that blew up the police station didn’t have armored shoes. And they were not in Kevlar PJ’s.”
Looking at Danny, Agent Sutton said, “She’s good. Got good instincts.”
“She learned from the best,” he said, smiling with his characteristic playful arrogance.
“Yes I did,” Tisha said, “I’ve learned a lot from Lt. Mendez.”
What should have been even the briefest moment of levity was interrupted when Danny’s cell phone rang.
Alex wasn’t sure if it was just his heart that sank into his stomach but everyone went noticeably pale at the sound of the cell phone’s chirp.
“Peterson.” A look of confusion washing over him, Danny lowered the phone. Motioning with his other hand, he offered the phone to Alex. “He wants to talk to you.”
CHAPTER 31
Bracing
It had taken several minutes for Lisa to get Eric to speak to her. She’d held his face in her hands, directed his eyes toward her. She even tried snapping her fingers and lightly blowing in his face to get his attention. Reaching his mind, however, took impossible effort. Something she wasn’t sure she had left in her.
With each drop of blood oozing from the re-opened wound in her side, Lisa felt herself growing weaker. She might die. She knew it; and if she was going to die she was at least going to do her best to empower those left behind. They needed to get out. They needed to fight to stay alive. If she died today she at least wanted her death to mean something. At the very least she wanted her daughter to have a chance at life. Eric had been her hero. Now more than ever she needed him to be a hero once more. This time for a little girl whose mommy was the reason he was here to begin with.
Eric didn’t owe anythi
ng to Lisa. Lisa owed her very life to Eric. Yet here she sat fighting to bring him back to reality because, in the end, she needed him to rise to the occasion once more. Because she needed the favor. She needed him to find in himself what he’d found at the lake. Courage, bravery, impulsiveness, stupidity, carelessness or simply an abundance of testosterone. Whatever it was, Lisa needed Eric to tap into that strength again. To draw from that well if only long enough to ensure the safety of her daughter.
Somewhere inside was that knight-in-shining-pimples. If she had enough time, maybe she could reach him. In some ways, she thought, maybe being locked in a room with
Eric and his dead loved ones was an intended message to her. The shock value of dead people unknown to her was of little lasting value.
She was a cop. She had been trained to turn off her emotions when investigating a crime. The purpose of leaving her in the situation was to drive the point home. This can be your family too, she thought to herself. Your suffering can match Eric’s. Point taken. The message rang loud and clear. So long as she wasn’t around, Dr. Death had no reason to hurt Lisa’s family. Unless of course Alyson gave in to that Warner temper of hers. God help the whole family if Mrs. Mendez found the spirit to get riled up. Still, Lisa held to the hope that they were being strong for Christina. In the meantime she had to focus on the one who needed her right now. In truth, the one she needed.
“Eric,” she whispered quietly, still holding his face. “I need you to come back to me. It’s me, Lisa. Remember?” She paused to let him digest her words. She’d said it to him several times and gotten no response. This time was no different.
Turning slightly so that he could partially view the headless corpses, Lisa changed tactics slightly. She didn’t want to. She knew that such a drastic move might work to undo what little progress she might have made. It was a risk. But it was a risk she had to take. For her family, the living Mendez family, she had to do this. In the end, it was as much for Eric as for her family. He had to survive. If for no other reason than to honor the fallen.
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