Chapter 21
Immediately after they landed, Paul felt more than heard the safe room being detached from the helicopter and the sound of the rotors fading into the distance. The safe room door opened and Steven and Rex quickly came inside and shut the door.
“Ok, here’s the deal,” announced Rex. “Until the sun sets, Steven and I are in charge, because your safety is our job. As such, you will defer to us in any matters that don’t involve sitting in this room and waiting for the sun to go down. Because I have seniority, my word takes precedence if there are any matters of dispute between now and Go-Time.”
Steven gave Paul a small nod indicating that this was standard procedure, nothing to worry about. Then they went through the same verbal lashing that Paul had already endured once, Hodge and Rex cautioning them both not to touch anything and just sit there and wait.
“Don’t you want to go over our mission?” Paul asked.
“No I don’t,” snipped Hodge in reply. “I know the mission. And besides, it ain’t our mission, it’s your mission.”
So Steven and Paul sat at the desks while Rex and Hodge lounged on their beds. Paul and Steven talked about the ride in. Steven described how the helicopter had been attached to the safe room by a single cable and hook, which Paul was glad he hadn’t been told about before he got in for the ride. Rex had been the one to secure the hook. It had taken him less than a minute and that had been all it had taken to get them air born. The safe room itself was paneled on the exterior with metal sheeting to make it look like a small cargo container from a train or boat to keep curiosity to a minimum.
Predictably, Rex had treated Steven with disdain, spending all but the takeoff and landing with the ear buds of his iPod jammed in his ears. Steven, true to his friendly nature, had jumped into the co-pilot seat and engaged the pilot in conversation the entire ride. “Dude, I got to wear the headphones and all.”
Just before sunset, Rex took out a plastic sheet and spread it out over the top of his bed.
“Really?” Paul asked.
“My bed. My rules. No need for me to have to sleep in your stink after we’re done.”
Crawling onto the crackling plastic, Paul looked up and rolled his eyes at Steven one last time before letting the dream pull him down into the drift.
He opened his eyes to the sound of a timer beeping. Rex opened the door to the room and announced, “Ninety seconds.”
Hodge immediately got up and walked past Rex, outside. Paul did the same, but paused on his way out, quickly focusing his energy to slap Steven on the ass, getting a little jump and a, “Hoo! Go team!” in response.
Less than a minute later, the door to the safe room was closed, leaving Paul and Hodge standing together outside. “Ready to go?” Paul asked.
“Lead on, big man,” Hodge replied.
Running through the directions one more time in his head, Paul turned and went to the fence, climbing up and over without hesitation and landing on the sidewalk on the other side.
Hodge followed, saying, “Sure you want to go this way, Golden Boy?”
“I know where I’m going.”
Heading off down the street, Paul didn’t wait or look back to see if Hodge was following. As he made their way through the town, Hodge tried to make Paul second-guess every turn, as if trying to persuade him to go the wrong way. If this was Hodge’s big plan to make Paul look incapable, it wasn’t going to work. Paul knew exactly where he was going.
They reached their destination in less than an hour, leaving plenty of time before the phone call. “Looks like it’s about 9:30,” Paul said, looking up at the night sky.
“Sounds about right,” Hodge said absently, not even bothering to look up.
“So what do we do now?”
“You tell me. This is your mission. I’m just here to babysit.”
“Well,” Paul said, annoyed, “I could probably open the door myself.”
The house was nondescript; it could have a house in any middle-class neighborhood in America. A brown Volvo station wagon was parked in the driveway.
They walked up to the front door, Hodge trailing behind. There were windows on both sides and a small one inset into the top part of the door itself. Paul sidled up to the window on the right side of the door, his back to the wall, and peeked in over his shoulder with just the side of his head.
Hodge made a sound of disgust and walked up to the window, bodily facing the interior. “They can’t see you, dumbass. What the hell are you hiding for?”
Embarrassed at his own stupidity, Paul turned and looked through the window. There was a very normal-looking living room with two couches and a television. A lamp sitting on an end table was on, as was the television, but there was no one to be seen. Looking through the window on the other side of the door, Paul could see nothing because there was no light on. He assumed it was probably a bedroom. Going back to the front door, he stood on his tip toes and peered in through the window at its top—no one there, just a set of stairs to the left and a hallway that led to what looked like the kitchen.
“Ok, I’m going to try the door,” he whispered.
“You don’t have to whisper,” Hodge replied in a mocking singsong voice.
Reaching down, Paul focused on the doorknob, grasping hold and shutting out all doubt, shutting out Hodge, especially. Feeling the warmth course through him, he turned the knob quickly to the right and pushed, all in a single motion, and the door swung open with the suction of released air, creaking slightly as it did.
Moving quickly, he slid inside the house as soon as there was room enough to get past the door. Hodge followed more slowly, breathing heavily as he did. Paul gave him a worried look. “You ok, Hodge?”
Hodge’s only reply was to keep breathing, his eyes narrowing. Paul knew that look; it was the look that Hodge had when he was making himself heard in the dream.
“What are you doing?” Paul demanded. “We don’t want them to hear us, why would you…”
“Hellooooo!” Hodge bellowed. “Anybody hooooome?”
“You asshole!” Paul exclaimed. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”
A middle-aged, balding man dressed in rumpled business clothes came out of the kitchen, looking around in curiosity. “Hello? Who’s there?”
Hodge, now speaking normally so that the man couldn’t hear him said conversationally, “Just me and my good buddy Paul, here. We’re your local voyeur club come to watch all the nasty things you do when you’re alone.”
The man went to the door, peering out onto the street, looking right and left. “Hello?” he called out again.
“You’re such a prick,” Paul said.
Hodge shrugged and turned away, heading leisurely toward the kitchen.
The man carefully closed the door and looked around the living room. It looked like he was checking to see if anything was missing.
Looking toward the kitchen where Hodge had gone, Paul shook his head in disgust and headed up the stairs to find the master bedroom. To hell with Hodge. There was no way Paul was going to miss his first Target.
It turned out that the master bedroom was not hard to find, as all the doors on the upper level were open. The two other rooms on that level were clearly used as an office and a guest room.
Entering the room, Paul located the phone on a nightstand table. A digital alarm clock next to the phone showed the time as 9:53. Still almost two hours until his call would come. He had plenty of time to explore the house, the neighborhood, even the town if he wanted. The smart move, though, was to stay right where he was and stick it out for those two hours. Anything could happen between now and then and he knew it was best to stay put in the place he had to ultimately be.
Resigned to a wait, he was easing himself down on the bed when he heard clattering and Hodge’s voice screaming incoherently from downstairs.
“Son of a…” he said under his breath and ran down the steps just in time to see the balding man run out the front door like the devil was in pursuit. Ho
dge was right behind the man, cackling like a madman with a look of maniacal glee on his face. Hodge was throwing his voice at the man, scaring the hell out of him.
“Hodge!” Paul yelled as Hodge ran after the man, leaving the door wide open. Pausing in the doorway, knowing he shouldn’t leave the house for risk of losing access to the Target, he waited just long enough to see the man make a break for his car. Hodge was showing no intention of letting the man drive off alone. Hodge was going to get into the car with the guy!
Dashing down the sidewalk, Paul watched in dreaded slow motion as the man yanked open the door to his Volvo, giving Hodge just enough time to jump in with him before he slammed the door and hit the locks.
Paul ran to the window of the car, pounding on it and screaming at Hodge. The man didn’t hear Paul screaming, but from the way he jerked his head back, he definitely heard Paul pounding. Paul realized that although he hadn’t meant to focus his ability, his anger at Hodge had taken over.
Realizing his mistake too late, he watched as the man panicked even further and slammed the car in reverse, pulling out of the driveway with a screech. Hodge rode in the passenger seat, grinning and waving goodbye with four waggling fingers. The car lurched away, hitting garbage cans as it sped off down the road.
Putting his hands to either side of his head, Paul fumed over what had just happened. Obviously, Lisa had been telling him the truth about Hodge’s intentions tonight. He considered running after the car, but even with the ability to run without getting tired, there was no way he could run fast enough to catch up with them.
Hodge had really screwed him. What now? What was the right move? The way he saw it, he could try and find Hodge or he could wait at the house. Having no idea where the man may have driven off to, Paul figured the only real option that made sense was to stay at the house and hope the man came back. Besides, the poor guy had left the door wide open in his haste to get away. Anyone could come along and rob him blind.
Paul went back inside, focusing to push the door shut. That being done, he decided to go up to the master bedroom and do what he’d intended to do in the first place; wait it out.
The clock on nightstand now read 10:02. Only nine minutes had passed. Nine minutes was all it had taken for Hodge to blow his first mission for him.
He sat there, dejected, for over an hour, hoping to hear the Volvo pull back into the driveway. The digital display on the alarm clock silently ticked through the minutes.
Finally, at 11:41, he heard the sound of someone at the front door. Sprinting down the steps, he got to the closed door and looked out through the window.
“Yooooo-hoooo,” Hodge said in a high pitched voice. “I seeee you.”
Going to the living room window, Paul looked out at the driveway. No Volvo.
“Where’s the guy?” Paul asked through the door.
“Oh, I don’t think he’s gonna be able to make it for his call,” Hodge answered.
Paul cursed under his breath, trying to think.
“Hey little piggy,” Hodge said. “Why don’t you let me in?”
“Why don’t you kiss my ass? What did you do? You think Dr. Abrams and Dittrich aren’t going to find out what you did? You can bet your ass I’m going to tell them!”
“Oh no, please don’t tell on me!” Hodge cried out mockingly. “What you think’s gonna happen? You think they’d kick me out? You think they’d automatically believe you over me? Hell no.”
Maybe Hodge had a point. Hodge had been at Astralis a long time and was considered the best when it came to missions. Would they believe Paul over Hodge?
“You gonna let me in or not?” Hodge asked.
“Hell no, I’m not letting you in.”
“Seriously, New Guy, don’t be a turd. It was all part of the plan from the start. You were supposed to find a way to stop me from doing what I did. It isn’t your fault you failed. It’s just your first mission. Maybe you’ll do better next time.”
“That’s B.S., Hodge, and you know it.”
“No man, I’m serious. You’re a new thing for us so we tried something new. I couldn’t tell you what that was, of course, but now that the gig is done and you didn’t stop the guy, why don’t we go have some fun? Come on, open the door and let’s go see what this town’s like.”
Paul stood still, considering whether or not to believe Hodge. It was possible. It could all have been a set up right from the point when Lisa snuck into the bathroom to warn him. But why would she have been asked to do that? To test his loyalty? To see if he could determine the right path from the wrong one at a moment’s notice? That just didn’t make sense. It didn’t mesh with the things Astralis had trained him for and it didn’t mesh with the basic culture of the place.
“Sorry, Hodge, but…”
The phone upstairs began ringing.
“There it is, that’s the signal,” Hodge’s muffled voice said. “If the phone still rings even when the guy isn’t here, that’s our cue to pack it in. Come on, let’s get out of here. You’ll get it right next time.”
Paul still stood there, not moving.
“Look, man—you’re right,” Hodge continued. “We need to bury the hatchet. Let’s do that. Let’s work on that. I been rotten to you.”
The phone was on its third ring as Paul put his hand on the door knob. Hodge, peeking in through the door window, said, “Right on, man.”
Looking up into Hodge’s wide eyes, Paul realized that he still had one more option.
Turning, Hodge’s yelling voice followed him as he took the steps two at a time to the second floor. “New Guy! Open the door! Get back here!”
Ignoring Hodge, Paul went to the phone, concentrated, and landed a slap to the handset, knocking it to the floor. Lying down next to it, Paul put his ear to the receiver and listened.
“Hello?” came the unmistakable female voice of Lydia.
“Hello!” Paul called out hopelessly.
A slight pause and then Lydia spoke again, puzzled, “Is there anyone there? Mr. Glynhall?”
“No, it’s me…” Paul said helplessly, knowing she couldn’t hear him.
“Mr. Glynhall, if you’re there it is very important that you speak to me. Our arrangement is that you will answer a series of questions at this precise time of the evening. If you do not uphold your end of the bargain, we may be forced to find another arrangement. One that does not involve your services.”
The muted sound of speaking followed. Lydia’s hand must have been over her own handset, and then, “Mr. Glynhall? I’m hanging up now, sir.”
Another pause, a click, and then a dial tone.
Paul rolled over onto his back and let out a long breath, staring at the ceiling. Hodge really had been trying to sabotage his mission all along.
Watchers of the Night Page 50