Then the Dark: A Technothriller (Markus Murphy Series Book 2)

by Mike McCrary

  “Nope.” Tinker raises his gun. “Do not trust you.”

  Hiro raises his weapon as well.

  Agent Irving raises his hands. “Guys, look—”

  “No,” Mr. Madness cuts in. “I think maybe he’s telling the truth. At least some truth.”

  “What?” Tinker’s face is a question mark.

  “I do.” Mr. Madness takes three measured steps back, moving away from Agent Irving. “But I do need to make sure.” Raises his gun. “Sorry, we need to make sure.”

  “You got this?” Tinker says to Mr. Madness.

  “I do.”

  “What?” Irving’s heart begins to pound. “Hold on a second.”

  “Hold still, Special Agent Irving.” Mr. Madness takes careful aim.

  “What do you want?”

  “Stillness. Like I said. Please.”

  Hiro and Tinker smile.

  Mr. Madness breathes in deeply through his nose, then fires three blasts as he exhales through his mouth.

  Chapter 14

  The countryside blurs past.

  The Porsche is speeding down a strap of road with nothing but open land for miles and miles around. Mother looks back through the rear window, catching a vague outline of the city behind them. She’s lived in, or within a few miles of, New York City her entire life. That concrete jungle is the center of her compass and she’s given little or no thought to what or who exists beyond its shadow.

  Murphy grips the wheel, lost inside the deep caverns of his own mind.

  A silent churning of folding ideas and crumbling memories.

  “This quiet brooding bit might work with the chicks, but not with me.” Mother presses a button in the door, rolling down the window. She still loves the old way of doing that.

  “Little cold for windows down.”

  “Waking you up.”

  She begins playing with the air, rolling her hand and arm like waves in the breeze.

  The sun warms her face as the chilly winds wraps around her, flows through her hair, and then rushes in, filling the car. Fresh, cool, clean air is something Mother didn’t realize she missed while in lockup. The freedom that can come from a deep pull of air into the lungs. Little things slip from your mind as time passes inside a prison cell. Most slips are some sort of mental self-preservation, she supposes.

  Murphy’s eyes narrow to straining slits as he searches for something up ahead.

  “Oh, I’m wide awake, Mother.” His eyes widen. Found it.

  Jerking the wheel hard to the right, he locks up the brakes.

  Crunching gravel skids under the tires before they catch the grooves of the road, bringing the car to a jolting stop. Mother’s seatbelt catches her hard across the chest and shoulder, throwing her back into the seat. She whips her head around, mouth open, milliseconds away from taking her son’s head off.

  Murphy gently presses her chin with his thumb, turning her head toward the right.

  “There.” He points to an open field next to where they are stopped.

  Unbuckling his seatbelt, he slides out from the car. Mother, still pissed, follows behind him.

  “Over there.” Murphy shows her the patches of churned-up dirt. Motions toward the deep tracks that have been plowed up in the field. “See them?”

  “Yeah. I see them. Not blind. Not yet.”

  “Good. That’s where we died.”

  Mother sucks in, about to speak, but stops herself.

  She looks over to him. Her son’s empty expression tells her everything, no need to offer comment or ask questions. It’s the drop in his eyes. How he looks lost, like he did sometimes when he was a boy. Like he did when the cops brought him home after a brutal brawl in the streets. After four kids jumped him. After Murphy put them in the hospital. This look he’s holding onto right now is similar but still different. It’s hard to place it.

  Even for Mother.

  Murphy steps toward the edge of the deepest cuts in the dirt. The land is working toward covering it all up. Nature performing its own cleanup of the evidence. But traces of the wreckage are still here. Murphy can’t believe Agent Thompson and his people didn’t do a better job of wiping this all away. That arrogant bastard probably didn’t think he needed to.

  Murphy touches the scar on his stomach.

  Brubaker gave it to him.

  A not-so-subtle reminder of what happened here. Brubaker used the pain of jamming a knife into his stomach to jolt his mind back to the wreck that almost cut Mr. Nice Guy Noah in half that night. His broken brain had forgotten the car crash that, for all practical purposes, ended his and his wife’s lives. Hard to believe his mind would just let that slip away.

  This is where it all happened.

  Right here, inches from where he’s standing, two lives ended, and two new ones began. He’s sure their blood is mixed somewhere deep in the dirt here.

  Murphy squeezes his hands tight as they start to shake.

  Thoughts shift to how the steering wheel spun out from his grip. He lost control. If he had only been a little stronger that night. If he had been quicker to react. Deep inside, he knows there was nothing he could have done, even if he was Murphy that night. He also realizes both sides of his mind are trying to comfort one another. Comforting rationalizations firing back and forth like conversation between friends.

  Maybe that’s why he drove here.

  To try and find comfort for the most uncomfortable of minds. An attempt to find a way to shut the door on all this. To lid the thing, as the kids say. But he feels the complete opposite. There’s no feeling of closure here. Feels like that door is swinging wide open. A wide-open entrance leading into a house that’s constantly on fire.

  Mother keeps her distance.

  Gives him space to go through whatever he’s going through. She can’t imagine the thoughts that are raging inside his mind. Never been a five-star parent, but her hands-off approach is actually the right call at the moment.

  Murphy talks about the crash with her.

  His words are soft and low.

  Not the way her son normally chooses to communicate, if he chooses to speak to her at all. He tells her what happened that night. His carefully chosen words describe each moment with almost complete clarity. Every flip of the car. Every crunch of metal and bone. The searing fears. He describes how his wife was thrown out from the car. How Kate lay motionless in the field while he bled, helplessly trapped inside the twisted metal. The steel that pierced his body. Mother listens with an open heart, knowing he needs to talk it through. He has to walk it back inside his jumbled mind if he’s ever going to figure out how to move forward.

  A part of him wants to let it all out.

  Simply wants to be heard.

  He tells her what he remembers about Mr. Nice Guy Noah’s final moments.

  Murphy tells Mother about Mr. Nice Guy’s last thoughts. About how he wished his wife Kate was still there with him. How he misses her beyond words. Beyond reason.

  Mother carefully puts her arm around him and squeezes him tight. The first true moment between mother and child that she can ever remember.

  What she told Peyton was true.

  Murphy is different now.

  But, if she’s being honest, she’s a little different too.

  Chapter 15

  Mr. Madness was careful when he shot Agent Irving.

  All three times.

  The restraint he exhibited was almost too much to bear.

  He wanted to kill Irving so bad he could taste it, but Mr. Madness was intentional. Deliberate with where his bullets were placed. Took a measured, calculated risk in assuming Irving was wearing a tactical vest.

  Tinker and Hiro were thinking the same thing as they did their own mental math.

  Of course they did. They think the same way because Murphy thinks like this.

  The tech with these tactical vests has improved greatly over the years but a single, errant, close-range blast from a 9mm can still hurt like hell. Get the wrong angle—or the r
ight angle depending on your wants and needs—and you could still easily kill someone or put them into a vegetative state that would not be desirable.

  They need Agent Irving alive, though perhaps not completely well. They need answers only he can provide.

  There’s a shared memory between Tinker, Hiro, and Mr. Madness. They haven’t talked about it, but all three of them, at some point, have drawn on this memory in the last hour or so. It’s a flash of a scene, a quick cut like it was ripped free from a movie trailer and playing at three times speed.

  There’s a man bleeding out in a car during intense questioning.

  He’s an asset. No recollection of his name or the reason for his value.

  The asset’s hands are soaked in his own blood, trying to stop a seeping wound in his lower abdomen. A wound that the vest should have protected him from. Mr. Madness, Tinker, and Hiro accessed this memory as if it were their own.

  In a way, it is theirs now.

  But it had to be Murphy’s originally. No question. Nice, quiet Cody and his friends would never experience anything vaguely resembling that experience.

  What normal person would?

  There’s a sting from another memory that’s present. One of Murphy taking three shots in the chest. Spinning, turning, then tumbling off a building in Madrid. A tactical vest saved his life as he splash-landed into a body of water that they don’t recall the name of.

  A memory engulfed in fuzz, but it is there.

  Each of these recollections are like hands grasping at drifting smoke desperate to take hold of something that can’t be held. Everything in this strange highlight reel is segments of a much longer story, one they may never see or have complete access to, but the impact of the experiences is so clear at times.

  Mr. Madness drew from those lessons learned as he put three bullets into the vest Irving wore. He kept them in a tight cluster—the size of a baby’s fist—firing them into Irving’s abdomen while standing approximately six feet away. The assumptions he made was that Irving was in decent shape, early forties, and had some level of experience in the field, considering what Irving is involved in. All that lead Mr. Madness to take the action he took. Irving also has something valuable inside his mind.

  Irving said he knew where Brubaker is.

  Irving said there was another member of the CIA involved. A doctor named Ernesto. And it sounded like this doctor was the one truly pulling the strings. Not poor Agent Irving. He’s a messenger. A grunt. A dog. More than likely a disposable part not needed to operate the larger machinery, but he does hold information they can use. Tinker and Hiro agreed with all this as Irving lay on the barn floor twisting in pain.

  Mr. Madness needs to get Brubaker free.

  Tinker and Hiro want to help but value their freedom more.

  They all understand that Murphy’s time on this earth needs to end as well, but none of them have any desire to be attached to anyone’s strings. Not Agent Irving’s. Not Ernesto, and certainly not Markus Murphy. They have no interest in being a servant to anyone.

  That life was for nice, quiet Cody.

  The life of recovering alcoholic Tinker.

  The day-to-day of Hiro as the protector of the wealthy.

  This new life belongs to Mr. Madness and the two men Brubaker help set free. There’s an almost constant blur overlaid across their thoughts and memories. They were all sheep, each of them in their own way, before Murphy entered their minds. That much they know with absolute certainty. They were ordinary and simple, but there was an anger beneath it all. A biting rage suppressed. Swallowed. Pushed down.

  The acceptance of a wife screwing the neighbor.

  The daily struggle of fighting addiction.

  The absorption of the ego-fueled bullshit of big-money bosses.

  They took what scraps the world left them. They snatched them up with hateful gratitude and the listless, forced smiles of an undertaker.

  That was then.

  This is now. And now, they have the skills to push their own agenda.

  There was deep concern Mr. Madness took things too far. Maybe not as sharp with his aim as he thinks he is. He indeed has Murphy in his head, but he is still new to all this.

  They all are.

  Adjustment to the melding of minds can’t be something that magically happens at the push of a button. The physical manifestation of all Murphy knows is still being worked out. Mr. Madness knows he might have gotten lucky with that shot he made in Central Park.

  There have been headaches he has tried to ignore. Maybe nice, quiet Cody’s denial of pain is coming in handy. Occasionally blood will roll out from his eyes. Most of the time it’s fine, he doesn’t really even notice it, but at other times the pain almost puts him down on his knees. None of the three share their experiences with one another. They don’t discuss the struggles they’ve experienced during the transition of Murphy being jammed into their minds and lives. They suffer in silence, assuming each of them is experiencing the same level of hurt and confusion. No need to talk about it. It simply is.

  In the barn, after Mr. Madness shot Irving, Hiro checked the vest to make sure a bullet didn’t worm its way through to anything vital. Unlikely, but it has been known to happen. Once they realized he hadn’t killed the man, Hiro removed the vest and Tinker went to work on Irving, kicking and stomping the areas he felt needed his attention.

  Agent Irving’s flesh was red on its way to purple.

  Large, misshaped blotches of blood pooling under the skin. The bruising was severe. No doubt there was some nonlethal damage that could not be seen. The muscles will take some time to heal.

  “Please take us to your friend. Dr. Ernesto, was it?” Mr. Madness asked in a smooth and steady tone as Irving’s bones crunched and cracked.

  All the air was robbed from Irving’s lungs as Tinker did his body work. The sound was dull and satisfying. Mr. Madness joined the work of beating their prisoner with a reserved form of glee surging through him. Irving’s face was red, his eyes vacant while desperately fighting to find air as Mr. Madness and Tinker kicked him again and again.

  “We’re not going to kill you.” Mr. Madness slicked his hair back using the sweat from his forehead. “But we will make you hurt. You know what we can do, correct?”

  Irving’s eyes became wide like dinner plates. His mouth opened just as wide as he finally was able to take in a breath of air. Mr. Madness and Tinker took a step back, letting him cough it out without any interference. Allowed Irving to roll around on the dirty barn floor like a wounded dog. They took a step back and took in the sight. Soaking in their ownership of him. Knowing Irving knew all about Murphy and what was streaming through their wild, unchecked minds.

  That was when Agent Irving passed out.

  That’s also when Hiro dragged him to the car. They scooped him up, then left the barn. They needed to take this show on the road.

  From the back seat of the car, Irving groans a slew of profane sentences as he tries to roll onto his side. Mr. Madness checks the rearview mirror, relived he’s moving at least. He took the driver’s seat even though no driver is needed.

  Hiro sits in the back next to Irving while Tinker rides shotgun. Irving closes his eyes and checks out for a bit. Passing out temporarily from the pain. Thankfully there was no blood lost.

  Irving groans again.

  “Shit, man.” He grunts.

  Hiro really wishes he’d stop with the noise. There’s no way they can travel with him carrying on like this.

  “You awake?” Mr. Madness looks to the back seat.

  “Beautiful day out,” Tinker says, sipping some coffee they stopped to pick up after the barn.

  “Where are you taking me?” Irving coughs hard, holding his ribs tight.

  “Hoping you would tell us,” Mr. Madness says. “Been waiting for some input from you.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I think we want similar things. Maybe we do, we’re not sure yet. Perhaps we don’t. I don’t know, bu
t I have a feeling our wants are more similar than different.”

  Irving sits up, discovering his hands have been zip-tied along with his ankles.

  “Is this completely necessary?”

  Hiro shrugs.

  “Yes, it is.” Tinker glances back. “Did you somehow think we wouldn’t?”

  Irving looks out the window, trying to unscramble his head.

  “Now.” Mr. Madness holds his hands together, staring out the front windshield. “Give me a destination, then we can discuss all that remains.”

  “That remains?”

  “Yes. What remains of your life and the value of it to us.”

  Irving swallows, trying hard not to show the fear that’s rocketing through him. A cold line of sweat runs down the middle of his back like a car racing down the highway of his spine.

  “Thought we might begin with how we get in touch with your man Ernesto.” Mr. Madness raises a knife for Irving to see.

  “Yeah.” Tinker turns around. “That sound reasonable, Agent Irving?”

  Chapter 16

  Murphy remembers.

  He remembers what it was like to be two different people.

  People who had separate thoughts and lives. One ended other people’s lives like it was his job, and it was until recently. The other lived a modest life with his wife and two children. It’s been a tug of war inside his mind ever since he woke up in that seedy motel room in New York.

  He remembers the blood that dripped and spilled.

  The hearts that stopped pumping because of him.

  He remembers the laugh the girls have. Not the giggles, he loves those too, but the laugh of when they truly found something funny. It was deep and rich. The sound of unfiltered emotion without an agenda. Without a care or thought to anything other than the joy that comes from laughter.

  He imagines the sound when they received the purple rubber ducks he sent them. They would tear open the paper with happy eyes, bouncing while holding their breath in anticipation. Waiting to release the greatest sound Murphy’s mind has ever known. A precious idea Mr. Nice Guy is showing Murphy as if they were two friends sharing something wonderful.