by Platt, Sean
Katya stood and stared at the fingers on her right hand, swollen and red, practically burned. She winced, looking at Abigail to see if she was also hurt. “Are you okay?” she asked again.
“I’m fine. Are you?”
“I don’t know.” Katya ran to the kitchen, probably to grab ice from the freezer. Abigail hopped up from the floor and followed, eager to make sure Katya was okay, and that the damage wasn’t spreading up her arm or into her body.
Abigail kept a safe distance as Katya dropped her hand into a bowl of ice-cold water. She stood in front of the sink, staring at Abigail with fear in her eyes.
“What happened?” Katya asked.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Why do you keep saying you’re sorry? You didn’t do anything.”
Something in Abigail’s eyes must have given her away — maybe the guilt. She stared at Katya as everything in her friend’s body started to shift, from her eyes to her mouth to her look of slowly dawning understanding.
Something was wrong with Abigail, and Katya knew it.
Thirty-Four
Hannah
Hannah was confused.
She’d been sitting in a county jail cell for a few hours, and yet nobody had said a word to her. The arresting officer escorted her to a cell, and that was that. No mug shot, no fingerprints, no anything. She’d been told to sit, then left alone.
Don’t they have to charge me with something? They can’t just hold me and not tell me what I’m being charged with!
Hannah decided to say something the second she saw someone. Problem was, her row of cells was empty of both prisoners and guards. It was as if the jail was a ghost town, too.
Something wasn’t right.
“I told you to run,” that other inner voice started to harp.
Not now.
It was easy to lose track of time in a tiny cell without any windows. Hannah was exhausted, and wanted to sleep on the cell’s only cot, but didn’t dare close her eyes.
She had to stay awake — had to see what was going to happen.
Sleep finally won, and Hannah nodded off while sitting up, and desperately trying to stay awake.
Hannah woke to the sound of her cell door opening. Greg stood beside another officer she’d not seen before, a stern looking man in his 50s.
Despite being afraid of Greg just hours before, she melted with relief as he stepped into her cell. “I’m so sorry, Greg,” she said, feeling ashamed and foolish.
He hugged her tight, and his hug felt good: comfort without judgment. “I don’t know what happened. I think it must be from the accident. I was confused and, I don’t … ”
“It’s okay,” he soothed, stroking her hair, “Everything’s fine now. Don’t worry.”
The officer asked, “Everything good here, Agent Overton?”
“Yes,” Greg said. “Thank you, Gene.”
“No problem, sir.”
Agent? Why is he calling him an agent? Why is he talking to Greg as though Greg is some sort of authority?
“I told you. He’s not who he says.”
Hannah kept her mouth shut as the officer escorted them out from the cell and handed Hannah the purse they’d confiscated during her arrest. Her heart pounded, confusion swirling through her head as she followed Greg outside the station and over to his car, waiting under the soft, early-morning light. Something inside Hannah screamed for her to run, but where in the hell could she go when her boyfriend was friendly with the cops? Might even be a cop, or something.
Agent? Who the hell is he?
He opened her door and said, “Get in.” Hannah wasn’t sure if she imagined the sharp edge in his voice, but sure didn’t think so.
She got inside, and Greg closed the door hard behind her.
Greg got in on his side, adjusted the seat, and put the car into drive. The doors autolocked as they left the county jail.
They drove in silence, Hannah wanting to ask him why the officer called him “agent,” what was going on, and even confront Greg about his phone call back at the cabin. She thought of the phone in her purse, and though she didn’t dare check to see if it was still there, Hannah wondered if the police had listened to the recording, and whether they’d played it for Greg.
Hannah stared out at the passing greenery, afraid to meet his eyes. He stared at the road with gritted teeth, angrier than she’d ever seen him.
When he finally spoke, it was so loud and abrupt that Hannah started in her seat. “What the hell did you think you were doing? You really fucked things up. You know that, don’t you?”
Hannah’s heart was in her throat, her body trembling through his verbal assault. Greg had never been so rude. Had never said fuck, even in bed. His new words were a punch to her gut. If he was dropping all pretense of kindness, then anything might be possible.
“He’s going to kill you.”
“What’s happening, Greg?” Hannah finally asked, her voice cracking. “Why did that man call you agent?”
“Because I’m with the FBI.”
“What? I thought you were some kind of business analyst?” She couldn’t believe her ears. Hannah wanted to know why the FBI would be interested in her, but that meant admitting to recording his call, and she wasn’t ready for that. She’d play stupid — which didn’t seem too difficult considering how in the dark she felt.
“I’m with the FBI, and I’ve been assigned to you.”
“Assigned to me?” So, their whole relationship was a ruse from the beginning? He’d been lying to her for two years? She felt like she was going to puke, burst into tears, or melt down into nothing. “Why?”
“I’ve been assigned to protect you. But you just fucked things up for us both.
“What are you talking about? Protect me from what?”
“The man you’ve been dreaming of, John. Ring any bells?”
“No,” Hannah lied. Flashes of the dark-haired man raced through her mind.
“I know you remember him.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, her voice at the edge of a whine. While she was lying about not remembering John, Hannah had little more than a few scraps of scattered memory, nothing other than Sergei’s conversation, which suggested the man was real.
“Whatever,” Greg said, returning his gaze to the road.
Hannah stared back out the window, wanting to speak, but at the same time, pissed at Greg for being so rude. “Who is he?” she finally said.
“He’s trying to kill you. That’s all you need to know.”
Kill me? What? Sergei said we were in love.
“Why is he trying to kill me?”
“I said that was all you needed to know. Now sit back, shut up, and don’t make this any more difficult than it needs to be.”
“Make what difficult?”
“This. THIS!” Greg waved his hands as if she was supposed to understand what in the hell he was talking about.
“What?” Hannah repeated, trying not to cry. She hated crying almost as much as she hated whining.
Greg didn’t respond.
What’s he planning to do?
Hannah looked down at the door, remembering that it locked when they started driving. She wondered if she could open the door, jump out, and survive the fall, let alone escape into the woods alongside the highway. She looked at the speedometer. Greg was driving more than 80 mph.
Why’s he in such a rush? Where are we going?
“Greg, tell me what the hell is happening. You’re scaring me.” Hannah finally found some force in her voice.
“I’m protecting you.”
“From what?” she screamed.
Greg turned to her, his eyes wild, like he might reach out from the steering wheel and strike her at any second. Instead, he lowered his voice to one breath above a whisper and asked, “You really don’t remember any of it?”
“No,” she whispered back.
“You were the victim of a serial killer. He tried to kill you more
than 10 years ago. You told me all of this when we met.”
She stared at Greg as if he’d just told her the sky was purple and would be dropping flying saucers by sundown.
“What?” was all she could manage.
“When we met, you told me that you changed your identity, and said you were in hiding because he was still out there. So I’ve been investigating the killer and trying to keep you safe. And no, I didn’t tell you I was FBI because I’m part of a secret division. Most people think I’m an analyst, and while I wanted to tell you the truth, I couldn’t.”
“Why don’t I remember any of this, the stuff about the serial killer?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Maybe the amnesia from your accident runs deeper than the doctors thought.”
“This doesn’t make any sense. I would remember something like that. And I don’t have amnesia. I remember my family, my friends, and … ”
“You sure?”
Hannah tried to remember her mother, or her college friends, but again she came up fuzzy, and more confused than before. She could remember something, but wasn’t sure if it was honest memory, or fabrication.
She shook her head, waiting for her other voice to chime in with some sort of direction. Unfortunately, the silence said she was on her own, alone with her confusion.
“I don’t know,” Hannah said, swallowing her rising fear. It was one thing to be uncertain of Greg and his motives, another to suspect her memory’s candor.
Greg moved his hand from the steering wheel and opened his fingers, waiting for Hannah to take his hand as it hovered above the center console. She did, shivering as his fingers wrapped hers. She swallowed her climbing knot while trying to bury tears she didn’t want to lose.
Hannah fought a growing urge to ask Greg about the phone call. She wanted to know who he was talking to and what he was trying to do to her. Now she could barely remember what he’d said. Everything felt fuzzy, like a blur.
“Don’t ask him. You need to play dumb until you can get another chance to run.”
Another chance to run? Run to where? He’s working with the FBI! He’s trying to protect me.
“No, he’s not, Hope. Don’t trust him. He lied — John wasn’t trying to kill you. Don’t you think Sergei would’ve said something?”
Maybe Sergei didn’t know. Or — what if the man who answered the phone was John, pretending to be someone else so he can find me now?
“You would know if it was John. Trust me, Hope. Trust yourself.”
Hope. There’s that name again.
“Hannah’s not my real name is it?”
“No, your name was Hope Barnett. Like I said, you changed your name about 10 years ago, but no one else knows. It doesn’t matter now, anyway. We have to put you in hiding. I’ve gotten word that he’s looking for you, and that he’s in town.”
“The killer?”
“Yes. His name is John Sullivan. Does that name sound familiar?”
“No,” Hannah lied.
Greg got off an exit roughly halfway between the vineyard and home, then pulled into an apartment building she’d never seen in a city whose name she didn’t know.
“What is this place?”
“Somewhere safe,” he said, as if it was. “We’re going to stay here, ride things out until I hear something.”
“Something about what?”
“That John is dead.”
Thirty-Five
John And Larry
Larry raced to Mike Mathews’ apartment, wobbling the van with too much velocity the entire way. Neither spoke of Tiny’s death, not that either had to. They would grieve when the war was over. For now, they had to focus on finding Hope, which they’d only do if they found Mathews.
As the van hit a pothole hard, and seemed like it might rip in half, Larry looked over at John. “I really ought to get a fucking sports car, as much racing around as I’m doing for you. We got that in the budget? Maybe somethin’ like the Batmobile! That shit would be rad.”
“I left you a ton of money. Don’t even tell me you blew it all already.”
“Well, not all of it.” Larry grinned with a shrug.
“Jesus, how much Mountain Dew do you drink?”
“Enough to piss green, but that could also be because of that stripper chick I was bangin.’”
John laughed.
It felt good to laugh before dealing with Mathews. With Duncan and Cromwell both dead, Mathews would be exactly the type of loose cannon they couldn’t risk working with. John had to get out from under Omega’s thumb while he still had a chance to save Hope. Unlike killing Cromwell, he had no compunctions about killing Mathews. The man was on a power trip and didn’t care whom he killed on the way to his finish.
Yet, even as John condemned Mathews, he realized his hypocrisy in judging the man. They were both killers. The difference, at least in John’s eyes, was that his goal in saving Hope was righteous and true. Mathews’ seemed like a blatant power grab.
No sense in beating myself up. We’re here.
They arrived at Mathews’ house at 12:16 a.m.
John was still in the van when disappointment slapped him hard in the face.
“Shit,” he said. “Mathews isn’t here.”
“You sure?” Larry asked.
“Nobody in there but a sleeping dog.”
“What now?”
“Now, Plan B.” John said.
“I fucking hate Plan B,” Larry said, even though he didn’t have a clue what Plan B was.
But Larry was right. John was certain he’d hate it.
Larry
“This is a terrible idea,” Larry repeated all the way to The Port Hole, a dive bar in the City’s seediest quarter.
“This is the only way,” John had said.
Larry waited in his van, idling in the parking lot, located in a large field between The Port Hole and a fairly popular seafood joint, meaning there were plenty of parked cars to blend with. Lightning flashed overhead, flickers accompanied by a deep roll of angry thunder.
A storm is coming — a shit storm.
The plan was for John to show up at the bar as if he’d just freed himself from Shadow and his men, and would call Mathews to request extraction. From there, John would attack as soon as he could and discover Hope’s location. Then they’d rescue her.
That was the plan, but as evidenced earlier at Cromwell’s, and Tiny’s subsequent death, plans were made for getting blown to shit. Larry waited for nearly 20 minutes before he saw an Agency van gliding black on black through the parking lot, followed by a second, and then a third.
Oh shit, Mathews didn’t come alone.
“Hey, boss, you got a fucking party pulling up outside,” Larry said into his mic.
“Who is it?”
“Men in black. I think they’re Omega, but fuck if the good guys and bad guys aren’t dressing the same these days. They’ve got guns, lots of ‘em.”
“Thanks,” John said. “Cutting radio now. Over.”
Larry kept his headset on, just in case, and trained his binoculars on the front door as the men stormed the bar. He wondered if any of the men were Mike Mathews. Moments later, several emerged, shoving a man in a black hood in front of them, out the door at gunpoint: John.
Shit, shit!
Larry watched them John into the back of a van and slam the doors. Then all the men returned to their vehicles.
Fuck, shit, fuck!
Larry keyed the ignition and peeled from the parking lot, chasing the vans as they headed off.
“I’m coming, John!” Larry screamed, hoping his friend could hear him, either through his earpiece or their mental connection.
Larry was driving fast, following the red lights as the sky opened and rain pelted the van in sheets.
“Really?” Larry said looking up at the invisible deity in the sky. “Really, G?”
Larry followed at a distance as the vans continued down the main avenue. There were three, their taillights the on
ly thing visible through the rain.
Larry sighed, forced to decelerate beneath the pounding rain. His windshield was a blanket of white, headlights bouncing straight into the rain and reflecting back.
The red lights ahead gained distance and sent Larry into a panic. There were too many side roads, and the vans could turn off at any moment. He’d be fucked if that happened.
Larry sped up, trying to make sure he didn’t lose Omega. The speedometer said he was going 65 in a 50 zone. That gave him two things to worry about: feds, and cops.
Come on, come on, where are you?
Larry leaned closer to the steering wheel, straining to see through the whipping sheets of blinding rain. Suddenly, he spotted red, both low and high — a red light, and three vans, one in each lane, all stopped. The road was too slick for Larry to slam on his brakes without flipping the van, but if he slammed into a van going as fast as he was, he probably wouldn’t walk away from the crash.
With only a second to think, Larry swerved into the opposite lanes, flying past the three vans and into the intersection, praying nobody was in the cross traffic as his van sped through, sliding.
Oh, God; oh, God; oh, God!
The van miraculously made it through without leaving the road. He hit the brake once he’d decelerated enough. His eyes looked to the rearview to see if he’d drawn the agents’ attention. Headlights from the vans on the right and left turned onto the cross street, one going east and the other west, while the third continued straight behind him.
Shit, which one is he in?
“Where you at, Johnny?” he asked to no response.
Larry watched as the van’s headlights approached in his rearview, following for sure. Larry smiled as the van drew closer.
“Come on, bitches, just a little, ah, there we go!”
Larry slammed on his brakes, causing the van to rear end him. Larry grabbed his gun, hopped out of the van, raced up to the black van behind him, saw the driver, and whoever was sitting in the front passenger seat, both struggling with their crash bags which were taking their sweet time to deflate.