Flash Point

by Colby Marshall

  The room seemed to be getting smaller as she held Atticus’s gaze. What could she possibly say to this man, knowing what she did? He was a criminal – a murderer – but for whatever she might not understand about how it had seemed like the right action to take, she could no longer look at him like a puzzle to be fiddled with or a game to be played. However badly she still needed to get inside his mind, to get information to stop more people from getting hurt, this time, she couldn’t get in his head, use his own thoughts against him. She knew now those thoughts were a minefield, and tripping the wrong one would mean game over.

  What the fuck would Yancy do if he was here? Jenna broke Atticus’s gaze, stared down at her feet. Think.

  He’d make a leg joke. He’d be honest.

  Jenna looked up again and into Atticus’s intense, dark eyes. ‘Sir, I’m so sorry about your daughter.’

  Atticus blinked. His lips parted as if he might say something but then closed again. He nodded, his strong jaw set. ‘Thank you.’

  Jenna pulled out a chair, sat down across from him.

  ‘They keep asking me where the others are. What I’ve told them to do,’ he said slowly, his voice a low, scratchy growl. ‘I’ve tried to tell them I’m not who they think I am, but no one will listen.’

  Jenna clasped her hands in front of her. ‘I’m listening, Adam.’

  He smirked. Let out a mirthless laugh. ‘Not that I blame them, really. How could I? I’m the guy who’s been running around with a kukri and doing things … things I never in my worst nightmares imagined I was even capable of …’

  Jenna’s thoughts drifted to the file folder on the table: lobbied Congress to change employment laws after he lost his job due to budget cuts, the divorce papers that had inevitably come when his time spent fighting for fair employment outgrew his time spent with his wife. The way his inability to keep steady employment meant only visitation rights with his three-year-old daughter instead of the joint custody he’d sought. The criminal history detailing the bar fight that had sent him to anger management classes – a mistake he’d made without a drop of alcohol on his breath – and taken those visitation rights and made them only allowable under court supervision.

  The death certificate and autopsy report on his child after she died from choking on a marble – a game piece of a Chinese checkerboard set a daycare worker had allowed the children to play with without proper supervision.

  ‘A loss so deep …’

  ‘I don’t think many people can fathom what they’re capable of until something so horrifying comes right through their door.’

  Atticus shrugged. ‘Maybe we can’t,’ he said, ‘but other people can.’

  Jenna leaned forward. ‘What do you mean when you say that?’

  ‘You got played. Told I was the leader. But it was because we all got played. I got played. Maybe I can’t predict my own moves, but Ishmael could. Knew what I was about, all the buttons he’d need to push. Couldn’t go out himself, so he made me the figurehead. I thought I was a general leading the troops into battle. We’d change the world. Change it so smarter people were making decisions. Decisions like who was hired or fired, based on sense and intelligence and not who you know in HR. Changing things so the status quo didn’t mean all you needed was a high school diploma to be legally entrusted with children’s lives. Of course I was ready to lead the charge!’ Atticus shook his head. ‘But now I can see he just needed a fall guy. I was his fall guy. I guess we all were.’

  Dodd and Saleda’s mentions of all the UNSUBs talking about the mall like it was some weird family get-together popped to mind. ‘You think Ishmael set you up?’

  ‘Sure seems like it. We were told it was recon. Then we get there, a hundred cops show up and nab all of us, and only two happen to be MIA? I know our group is known for its propensity to be a bit up our own asses about our IQs, but it doesn’t take a genius to sort that one out.’

  But Jenna was too stuck on one phrase to laugh at the joke. Avocado green flashed in at the mention of the two MIA members. The color for triple, three. Another color tried to push through, but she forced it away, afraid of losing the nagging fragment of a thought teasing at the edge of her brain, not quite showing enough of itself. ‘So you’re saying two people knew the message was a trap. Or were in on it and knew it was just recon being used as a ruse. That’s what you’re thinking?’

  Atticus shook his head. ‘I’m not sure where we’re getting off the same page, but this message you keep talking about. You still seem to think … the message about meeting up. It was about recon.’

  Jenna’s heartbeat picked up. ‘The one through the e-reader reviews. We’re talking about that message system, right?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Jenna turned to face the windowless glass and spoke to Saleda, who she knew to be directly behind it. ‘Saleda, we need that e-reader from the apartment. Quick.’

  Once the reader was powered up, Jenna scrolled through until she found the book page for A Tale of Two Cities. She swiped the touchpad until she found a review written early that morning titled, ‘Don’t Wait Til de Winter, Read This Classic Right Now!’ She put the tablet on the table and pushed it toward Atticus.

  ‘Show me how it works,’ Jenna said, standing and rounding the table so she could look at the listing over his shoulder.

  Atticus nodded, zooming the screen in to make the writing larger. He frowned as he scrolled back to the top. ‘de Winter. He can’t help but get in just one more little inside joke even on something as serious as recon we’re scouting so we can …’ his voice trailed off as though he was too disgusted with himself to finish the thought.

  ‘OK, so what was the exact message?’ Jenna asked, hoping to keep Atticus from getting lost in his anger.

  He pointed to the star rating, which was a three. ‘This mean every three letters. You write the letters out, and it’ll form your message. Pretty simple if you know what you’re looking for.’

  Atticus took the dry erase marker Saleda had brought in for him to use and quickly jotted the letters on the white board she’d laid on the table. Jenna scanned back and forth from it to the tablet, double and triple checking that Atticus wasn’t making any mistakes. As the message began to materialize, though, the words were so coherent she knew it was impossible it was a mistake or even that Atticus was using the wrong method to decipher it. Though, at this point, she almost wished he was capable of pulling something like that out of his hat and was tricking her. With every word of the real message revealed on the white board, Jenna’s chest clenched tighter, her breathing picked up pace.

  This message wasn’t about an attack at all. It was just like Atticus said: the message was about recon, but it had nothing to do with the mall. It vaguely explained that two Black Shadow members had assignments off-site, and the only detail passed along in the message pertained to time slots and check in angles. The location of the mall wasn’t mentioned or even alluded to. The message assumed everyone reading it already knew the location. Had been told somehow at a separate time or in another format.

  That was it. Not a word about Flint, his family. A threat to them.

  Burnt orange of lying flashed in as Jenna’s pulse quickened, her anger spiking. If there was no mention of the mall, then the message hadn’t sent her to the mall. Sent her team to the mall.

  Sent Yancy to the mall.

  ‘That’s it. The two off-site were Scarlett—’

  ‘Knew it,’ Jenna blurted without meaning to.

  ‘—and Beo.’

  Goldenrod crashed in, and Jenna sucked in a sharp breath. The goldenrod. So many times in this case, the damned goldenrod!

  She stormed out the door and slammed it, muttering under her breath as she bustled through the room, gathering her things. ‘I saw it when Marius passed Ashlee on the bank video when he should’ve easily seen her. I should’ve known it was him when I saw it again!’

  Jenna imagined Grey poking her head out of the door just a while ago, wanting to disc
uss the ransom note. ‘I was wanting to just kind of verify that you knew that the letter writer is writing for the group member who is not in the group but is taken away from the group …’

  Grey had realized it even before she had.

  Jenna grabbed her keys, rapped on the window to alert Grey. She gestured for her ex-patient to come with her. There wasn’t any time to waste.

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Saleda asked, following her down the hall. ‘Where are you going?’

  Jenna wheeled to face her. ‘The goldenrod. When Flint revealed the whole e-book review trick to me, I asked if he ever checked the old one now and then, just to see if anything was happening. He said no. It seemed strange he wouldn’t, even if just because it was a normal human reaction. The goldenrod was intentional overlook.’

  ‘OK … so where are you going?’ Saleda asked again, following her and Grey into the parking lot and to Jenna’s Blazer.

  Jenna opened the door and climbed in. ‘If there wasn’t any message about the mall attack, then the person who led us to the mall had to know about it some other way. There’s only one person who led us to the mall, and if he wanted cops at the mall, it was because he’d planned it all perfectly – he’d throw all the loose ends under the bus and get the world watching for the real attack.’

  ‘So you’re going where?’ Saleda pushed.

  Goldenrod flashed in again, this time as a part of the image frozen in her mind of the cover of the classic copy of Beowulf she’d seen in Flint’s house set out in that strange way on that little shelf that didn’t belong.

  ‘To Flint Lewis’ house,’ Jenna said. ‘I don’t know where the real attack will be, but you better believe Beo does.’

  Forty-two

  As the chopper clipped through the air, the scenery of busy, trafficked streets and tall buildings below gave way to more green, rows of houses so similar in size and style they could’ve been sliced with the same cookie cutter. Any second, Flint’s split-level would come into view.

  ‘Grey, when we touch down, you and I need to get inside as quickly as possible. I’ll take you to the book where I saw it, but I’m going to need your help figuring out what the key is,’ Jenna said.

  Save for the two tiny nods she gave, Grey sat as still as a statue, belted into the chopper and clutching a tablet with the ransom note displayed on its screen.

  ‘You’re sure the ransom note’s a code?’ Saleda asked as the helicopter banked left toward Flint’s street.

  Jenna nodded. ‘It’s a bunch of rambling. Has to be. Just had no idea what the key to the code might be until now.’

  Saleda glanced toward Grey, who was staring straight in front of her, clutching the tablet and blinking rapidly for no reason. ‘And you’re positive the book you saw is the key to the crack? Because of a color? Jenna, you know I respect you. And you know that even though I don’t always ‘get’ the color stuff, that it works for you and has given us lots of leads, but if what Atticus said is right, there is an attack about to happen within the hour—’

  ‘It’s not just the color, Saleda. It was the message in the e-reader review. It said two Black Shadow operatives were on off-site assignments,’ Jenna said, reaching for the handle above her. She held on, her body thrown sideways as the helicopter made its descent. She yelled louder over the din. ‘It said, ‘Scarlett is on an off-site assignment, and Beo has it covered.’ On the surface, the other Black Shadow members thought it meant Beo was providing cover for Scarlett’s operation off-site, but it didn’t. If Flint is Beo, he’s off doing God-knows-what, pretending to be kidnapped. ‘Beo has it covered,’ was another one of Flint’s little Easter eggs for anyone worthy enough to find it. It meant Beo – Beowulf the book – “covers” the details of Scarlett’s assignment.’

  The chopper touched down, the blades loud in Jenna’s ears.

  Jenna nodded to Grey. ‘It’s time.’ She ushered Grey to the chopper door in front of her, followed behind, and hopped out the door as Grey cleared it. She ducked and ran toward Flint Lewis’s brick split-level, hair blowing everywhere, grass clippings seeming to rain up from the ground under the deafening clops of the helicopter blades.

  Finally, they were inside. Jenna led Grey and Dodd through the living room and toward the library while Saleda, who was the last one in, shut the door.

  Jenna stepped into the library – a place that suddenly seemed much more sinister than the last time she’d been here – her eyes trained on the strange shelf by the chair.

  Dodd stopped just inside the door as Jenna crossed the room, squatted next to the stack beside the chair she’d noticed last time because Gone with the Wind was at its base – the only book with its spine visible to the room. She lifted the book off the top and turned it over. A Tale of Two Cities. The origin of Black Shadow’s motto.

  Her theory solidifying, one by one she plucked the books off the stack, registering each in a mental tally as she re-stacked them in front of her: Moby Dick, Pride and Prejudice, To Kill a Mockingbird, Les Miserables, The Scarlet Letter, Johnny Tremain, a Sherlock Holmes mystery, The Three Musketeers, the gold copy of Beowulf, another Sherlock Holmes installment. Finally, she reached the bottom, lifting Gone with the Wind. ‘You son of a bitch,’ Jenna muttered. ‘You left the whole club right out in the open, hiding in plain sight.’

  Grey’s cough reminded her others were there, and Jenna looked to Dodd, who was standing quietly, scanning titles on other shelves without touching then, then toward where her thin, pale ex-patient stood in doorway.

  Grey pointed toward the stack of books. ‘Do you want me to inspect that Beowulf?’

  Jenna’s eyes narrowed as she looked to the stack of books. The goldenrod of its cover had made her think back to this stack of books, want to come back to it. But …

  She shifted her weight, turning to face the chair behind her. Chiefly, the other books she’d left there. Kneeling on her right knee, she scanned the titles she’d known would be there even before she’d turned: The Three Musketeers, Nicholas Nickelby, and Beowulf. The second copy with a powder blue cover.

  That powder blue connected in Jenna’s brain, matching something she’d seen multiple times with the same person, though she hadn’t been able to properly fix it in her mind before. For a moment, a second color tried to battle in, but Jenna forced it away. The powder blue was the important shade here. Most recently, it had appeared when she had searched the home of Flint Lewis, and noticed the disorganization of his bookshelf.

  The scene was staged. The players all in one stack there, these books here.

  ‘The key is in this copy,’ Jenna said, handing Grey the powder blue hardback.

  Grey flipped it over in her hands, scanned the back. ‘This is converted differently. The gold one and this one might not spell out the same. You sure?’

  Jenna nodded. Grey was right; the powder blue Beowulf was a different translation – a whole different version of the poem. But if Jenna knew Flint, he’d done that on purpose. Even if he’d expected someone to get as far as figuring out what book – and at his own home – to use to decipher the ransom letter’s hidden message, he’d leave one more little trick. One extra test that, if you weren’t smart enough, would mean you didn’t get the prize.

  Grey nodded, sat on the floor cross-legged. She put the book in front of her and, beside it, the tablet with the note. She stared at the two for a long moment as the quiet in the room seemed to grow around them.

  Saleda stepped into the room, looked to Jenna. ‘Anything?’

  ‘Shh,’ Dodd hissed calmly, finger to his lips.

  Jenna’s gaze, however, never left Grey. Grey wasn’t stumped. She might look like it to Saleda, but Jenna knew the twinkle in those otherwise glassy eyes staring down at everything and nothing. She was thinking, trying to pinpoint something flitting around in her mind’s eye.

  After a long moment, Grey seemed to jolt from a stupor, blinking fast and looking around. Her gaze finally landed on what she’d been looking for
, apparently, because she reached for the stack of books from where Jenna had stacked the ones all related to Black Shadow.

  ‘This blue one might pick the lock, but the gold edition had a place marker in it,’ Grey said, rifling through the stack until she came up with the gold Beowulf paperback.

  Turning the closed book up on it’s end so she could see the top pages, Grey dug her fingers in between pages, opening the book and laying it splayed open to show two random pages somewhere in the middle. Grey pointed to the corner.

  ‘I’ll be damned,’ Saleda muttered.

  The corner of the page on the right had been dog-eared, though only Grey had managed to notice it. But once the book was open to the page, sure enough, a single passage was underlined lightly in pencil:

  Wise sir, do not grieve. It is always better

  to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning.

  For every one of us, living in this world

  means waiting for our end. Let whoever can

  win glory before death. When a warrior is gone,

  that will be his best and only bulwark.

  ‘What do we do with it?’ Saleda asked.

  ‘Flint uses numbers for the codes. Like the e-reader reviews. It’s find the numbers, then they tell you which letters from the text to grab,’ Jenna said. ‘So …’

  ‘Lines 1384, 1385, 1386, 1387, 1388, and 1389,’ Grey said.

  ‘Well, I’d have probably just said 1384 through 1389, but yeah, let’s try them,’ Saleda said.

  Grey uncrumpled a piece of paper from her back pocket and took out a pen from another. Diligently, she used her finger to count through the words, writing down a letter every time she reached a letter within the ransom note that corresponded to the next number in the sequence of Beowulf lines.

  ‘You know,’ Jenna whispered to Saleda, ‘You gotta hand it to ’em, though. It had to take hours to write these codes. Tedious hours. I can hardly find time to count letters in a crossword puzzle answer, and even then I end up having to get up before I have a chance to actually try and think of the answer.’