by Ramy Vance
She folded her arms across her chest for warmth. The wind blew her dark hair as she studied the sidewalk outside of the alley intently. A car of drunk partiers flew by them, and a young man hung out the passenger window. “Hey there baby, looking good!”
Aki shot him a look so withering, even Rueben felt like slinking away. She pulled out her phone.
“What are you doing?”
“We should call for backup. If the intel is as good as you say, we’re not going to be able to take him alone. We’ll need to follow protocol and get Sven—”
Sven Larson was the division director and their boss. If he got involved, it would become a formal operation, with accountability reaching the Pentagon and even to the president.
The last thing Rueben wanted was the president of the United States weighing in on his actions.
“Would you please trust me on this? I got us Pout.”
She turned back to face him. Her eyes burned with frustration before they softened. If only slightly. “Okay, but I need to know what’s going on. You can’t keep me in the dark.”
“I’m not. There’s just shit going on that—”
“You want me in the dark on. I get it. But without more to go on, we’re stuck.”
“We had less on Pout.”
“Are you kidding? We had a ton on Pout.”
“By the time I got you involved, yes. Before you got on board, it was only the three of us.”
She raised her eyebrows and studied the little band of three amigos. “Rueben, I’m a field agent.”
“So am I.”
“Yeah. Now. After Pout, you got promoted. But I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I’ve watched dozens of agents come and go. Look…” Her words trailed off, and she searched for more. “I know they leave this off the trainee pamphlet, but we’re expendable.”
“I know that.”
“No, you don’t. Not really. If we fuck this up—”
“I don’t think Sven would have us assassinated over—”
Aki shook her head. “I’m not saying that. Although…well, never mind. What I mean is that if we fuck up, there’s no ‘innocent until proven guilty’ for us. It’s more like ‘justice is blind.’ It would be a threat to national security to give us a fair trial.” She leaned against the fence and glanced over at Martha and Buzz. Neither were listening to her.
“What are you saying?”
She studied her fingernails and continued in a lowered tone. “I’ve seen things, Rueben. I know things. I’ve watched as the agency had to deny involvement with agents caught behind enemy lines. They’ve had to sit by and do nothing while agents have rotted in Chinese prisons. Right and wrong, good and bad in this industry, it isn’t always so clear. There was stuff they had Mike do…”
A motorcycle roared by, and the music in the bar next door quieted.
Aki spat out her words as if they tasted bad. “I’m saying you got lucky with Pout. But this isn’t a game. I get secrecy, and I get the virtue of not giving up your sources. But I need to know that you understand what you’re doing and that you take it seriously.”
Rueben nodded soberly. He thought about trying to tell her his secret, but there was anger in her expression that showed she still wasn’t ready. He simply said, “I get it. I’m asking you to trust me. Can you do that?”
She studied his face and finally answered, “Okay.”
He leaned against the fence with her, and she didn’t say anything else.
“Aki?”
“What?”
“The phone?”
She looked down and was still holding her phone. Division director Sven Larson’s number was ready to be dialed. She put the phone away. “Sorry, it’s been a long night for all of us.”
Even longer for me.
The discussion over, the four of them stared down the sidewalk, waiting for the guy who still hadn’t arrived.
The street was empty except for a drunken old man stumbling through the street wearing a sign reading, “The end is near,” and babbling about John 3:16. Rueben thought about Pout and mused that the guy had no idea how near the end had been for the people of NYC.
Buzz cleared his throat. “Dude, it’s been twelve minutes. I think you might be off about this one.”
Rueben kept his eyes on the Exit Bar. “No. He has to be here.”
Martha asked, “What if us being out here changed everything and he left?”
“Couldn’t be. He has to be here.”
They stood in the alleyway, and a couple from the bar stumbled past them in the heat of the moment. They found a dumpster about ten feet away and started to make out.
Just great, Rueben thought as he listened to their pre-coital bliss.
Martha stood against the wall, slipped off her heels, and massaged her feet one by one.
He couldn’t have missed it, right? Maybe Martha was right. Maybe he’d altered the entire event by having them wait outside. Maybe the gunman had returned and seen they weren’t there and left.
“All right, guys.” Rueben clapped his hands, ready to abort the mission.
A souped-up low rider blaring rap music pulled up to the bar, revved its engine, and blared its horn. Rueben grimaced from the blast.
“Damn you,” the drunk by the dumpster yelled at the car. He reached into the dumpster and threw an empty beer bottle at the vehicle, and in a clatter of footsteps, the couple took off for another not-private place to make out.
A couple of young women came out and joined the loud driver out looking for fun. The car left, and Rueben shook his head of the noise. He turned to face the rest of his group—only to see the man in the white hoodie standing behind them.
He had on his metallic nylon gauntlet and struck Aki in the back between the shoulders. The air around her distorted as she flew forward and collapsed on the alley pavement. Martha turned, saying, “Freeze—” but White Hoodie had already backhanded her across the shoulder, sending her crashing against the alley wall.
Buzz watched as Martha’s unconscious body rolled to a stop beside a dumpster. “Oh fuck.”
White Hoodie flicked one finger outward, connecting with Buzz’s temple. The genius slumped to the ground.
All this had happened within five seconds. Then White Hoodie turned to Rueben. “Too bad about your friends.” He harshly laughed as he surveyed his handiwork.
For some reason, his attacker had incapacitated his friends instead of killing them. Well, Aki and Martha had died in two of the previous encounters, but it seemed like White Hoodie was actively trying to avoid killing them. Why?
Rueben’s eyes narrowed on White Hoodie’s gauntlet. “What is that?”
“An amazing piece of tech.”
Yeah, like that was helpful. “Who the hell are you? Are you from the future or something?”
The hoodied man considered this. “Interesting concept. Not entirely correct.” He took a step closer to Rueben and Rueben recoiled the same amount.
Rueben stared hard at the man, his features illuminated only by a yellow streetlight out on the sidewalk. Then he understood something. “You’re here for me, aren’t you?” When the man smiled grimly, Rueben clenched his fist. Behind Hoodie Man, his friends were starting to move. “What do you want with me?”
The gunman chuckled. “You’re getting smarter.” He pursed his lips. “That’s what you’d like to know, isn’t it? Why I’m here. Why I’m targeting you?”
“Yeah, asshole. So why don’t you tell me?” Rueben hoped his voice didn’t betray his worry as he recalled his combat training.
White Hoodie didn’t seem to be in the mood for combat. At least not yet. He opened his mouth, his voice taking on a chilling tone. “There will be time…time for you and me…in the room the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo…”
Rueben narrowed his eyes. The refrain sounded oddly familiar. “T.S. Eliot.”
“Right-o,” the gunman said. “‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. I guess that Columbia educat
ion did you good after all.”
“What the hell?” Rueben’s eyes burned hot. “Who are you?”
“It doesn’t matter who I am,” he said. “What matters most is that I know who you are, Rueben Peet.”
Rueben’s stomach went ice-cold at the mention of his name from this man. How the hell…
Clambering to her feet, Aki sidestepped White Hoodie and stood by Rueben’s side. She wiped some bits of asphalt from her cheek with her palm. “You clearly want him to know that you know who he is. Why is that important to you? Tell me, what is it you’re after?”
He chuckled again. “Don’t try that terrorist negotiation bullshit on me, honey. It doesn’t work.”
“I’m not negotiating. I’m trying to work this out. We can help each other, you and me. Mutual goals. Let’s talk about them.”
“Your little girlfriend’s good,” he told Rueben. “The answer to your question, sweetheart, is far, far more complicated than you can understand.”
“Try me,” she said.
“No.” His tone was decisive. “I’d rather not. Thank you for the offer, though. It’s ever so sweet of you, but—”
“Then why?” she interrupted him. “Why all of this?”
“Silence!” he demanded. “I’ve had enough questions for one night. Don’t make me hurt you more than I have to. It’s not part of the plan.”
With that, their attacker flexed his fingers beneath his flexible metallic gauntlet.
Rueben rushed forward, but White Hoodie whirled him around and pinned his arm behind his back.
“Like a patient etherized on a table,” he continued to quote from Prufrock. Suddenly, Rueben recalled the syringe Hoodie Man had held up the first time around.
“Go ahead, kill me,” Rueben muttered as he fought to escape the hold on him. “See if I care.”
The gunman laughed, and Rueben’s heart froze in his throat. There was something familiar about that laugh. “You think I’d give you the satisfaction? Playtime is over. I have other plans for you.”
Why was the man’s laugh familiar? Think, Rueben, think.
Suddenly the gunman cried out. Aki had zapped him from behind with Buzz’s taser. She’d also inadvertently zapped Rueben in the process. He blinked back stars. Shit…
“Not so fast, asshole.” She pouted her lips and swished her hips. In that black dress with a taser in hand, Rueben couldn’t keep his heart from racing.
“Oh, sweetheart,” the gunman jeered. “You think you entice me with that charm? Not even close.”
She zapped him again. “I don’t give a shit.” The blast of electricity jolted Rueben again as well. Fuuuck…
The gunman dropped Rueben, and he fell hard onto the asphalt and scraped his forehead. He got back on his feet—his knees felt like rubber—and found Aki had already engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the man. She dodged his supersonic glove or whatever that gauntlet was but then, with an elbow swing, he knocked her to the ground and the taser from her hand.
He sneered. “Nice precision, huh? I’ve had a lot more practice than you will ever know.”
In the dark, Rueben couldn’t see White Hoodie’s face, but he swore he recognized that voice. He didn’t have much time to contemplate it as a speeding punch hurtled toward his face. He dodged it barely in time.
The gunman snorted. “Oh, you’re getting good. Daddy helping you, now?”
“I don’t know who the hell you are or who you think you are, but you have no idea who you’re messing with. You’re going down.”
“Oh, I think I know every bit of who I’m messing with. That’s the whole point.”
Rueben blocked a vicious kick, his combat training taking hold. He evaded a punch and crouched, landing two quick jabs to White Hoodie’s calf. White Hoodie barely grunted and kicked Rueben back onto his butt.
“What is it you want from me?”
The next thing he knew, a wooden broom handle snapped across White Hoodie’s shoulder, and Martha came forward, wielding the bottom half of the broom like a sword. Behind her, Buzz was back on his feet and digging through the trash for a weapon.
Martha put up a good fight while dodging the man’s metallic glove, but the man hardly seemed to tire. In all their combined efforts, they weren’t even slowing him down any. And they were wearing themselves out.
Rueben was aware that he had blood running down the side of his face, and he panted as he blocked a kick.
Without warning, White Hoodie’s gauntlet slugged him in the cheek. Rueben blinked and found himself on the ground in the alleyway. He was vaguely aware of the thumps and thuds of his friends continuing the fight behind him. With his body drained of energy, his eyelids closed as smells of the dirty pavement, and the nearby trash dumpster entered his nostrils.
A full minute seemed to have passed before the effects of the supersonic punch started to wear off. Rueben opened his eyes and stiffened at the sight of White Hoodie kneeling beside him now, a syringe in his upraised hand.
“Now…” The man flicked the syringe’s body before stabbing its needle into Rueben’s neck. “Three days, my friend. Three days. Sleep for three days.”
Before Rueben could think of something to say, the world went black.
Chapter Six
Monday, May 22, 6:47 p.m.
What the hell happened?
Rueben blinked, trying to figure out where he was. An unfamiliar room. Concrete floor. Exposed wires dangled from the unfinished walls and ceiling.
He was lying on a cot, his wrists tied to metal railings at each side. Across from him sat crates and buckets of nails and screws. Lying on one of the crates was a metallic nylon glove.
Where the hell am I?
Rueben’s mouth was parched. He was about to open his mouth and run his tongue over his lips, but then he saw him.
His attacker.
The muscular man in the white hoodie had his back to Rueben. He was sitting on a swivel chair facing a computer monitor, keyboard, and mouse setup sitting on a desk in front of him. At intervals, he typed out rapid commands, and Rueben noticed the scars on some of the man’s fingers.
Who the hell was this guy?
A TV screen next to the computer monitor showed a news program offering coverage of the upcoming World Leaders Summit at the U.N. building downtown. Rueben squinted. Why were there so many people gathered out front of it? It was like they’d gathered there for a celebration or something. Reporters. Spectators. Bodyguards wearing tuxes and earwigs.
White Hoodie glanced at the news coverage, then back at his computer monitor. It looked like a spreadsheet program with oversized cells labeled one through two hundred. When he clicked on one of them, the screen changed and complex lines of code scrolled upward. White Hoodie navigated the cursor to sections of the code and changed inputs.
Rueben could read and write code, but he couldn’t read the fine print. He stiffened as White Hoodie glanced back at the TV screen and back to his computer monitor. He cursed and started muttering. “Dammit. I should have capped his abilities here instead of back at that wretched bar.”
White Hoodie fell silent as he caught Rueben’s reflection on the computer screen. He grinned, and after completing his current coding sequence, he sighed and locked his computer. “Ah, you’re awake.”
“Where am I?”
White Hoodie spun his swivel chair around so that he was only a few feet from Rueben. He still wore his hood and sunglasses, but they did little to conceal the large scar running across the man’s cheek. Something about the contours of his face reminded Rueben of someone he knew. Who? He couldn’t say at the moment. His head hurt, and he was being held captive by a madman.
The man cleared his throat. “You’re in the basement of an empty skyscraper owned by one of Pout’s conglomerates. Only you and me in here.”
Rueben winced. “Why are you telling me this?”
White Hoodie shrugged. “Because it’s too late for you to stop me. What do I have to lose?”
Too
late for what? Rueben wondered.
As if reading his mind, White Hoodie motioned to the TV screen where a foreign dignitary was standing on a stage full of lights and waving to the reporters and spectators out front of the U.N. building. That’s when Rueben read the date and time at the corner of the news feed.
Monday, May 22, 6:45 p.m.
Rueben’s eyes contorted. “Is this some kind of joke?”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Monday? It’s Friday night.”
White Hoodie raised a finger. “It was Friday night. That was nearly three full days ago. Today is Monday—summit day.”
“But that—”
“I knocked you out with a sleep serum. The injection I gave you put you in an artificial coma while I fed you via IV.” White Hoodie nodded to the floor beside Rueben’s cot, and Rueben strained against his restraints to peer over the edge. Sure enough, a metal stand with several IV bags lay upon the floor. That explained his parched throat.
That meant that whatever his kidnapper was planning, it probably had something to do with the summit. Restrained as he was, Rueben was helpless to help stop it. What he needed to do was to die so that he could warp back in time before any of this happened. Unless White Hoodie was lying. Could this all be an elaborate setup? That made no sense.
Rueben’s brain tried to find a flaw in the man’s words. “Let’s say I believe you that today is Monday. If this is an abandoned building, where are you getting the electricity? Wouldn’t someone come to investigate an abandoned building?”
White Hoodie chuckled softly. “I spliced into the city’s electric grid. I only needed it for a few days. No one has noticed. I’m smarter than you think.”
Rueben considered this. His kidnapper did seem quite intelligent. Plus, he had that metal body armor and hi-tech glove sitting on the crate.
“You think I mean to hurt you,” the man said, “but the truth is, I’ve been taking care of you.”
On the TV screen, the camera footage played over the stage out front of the U.N. building as well as the people gathered. There was a big police presence and Rueben’s breath caught in his throat as his eyes locked in on Aki talking to a police officer. There was no way White Hoodie was faking that. Today really was Monday night. Rueben suddenly did a double-take as he realized Mike Fury was standing by Aki’s side as he surveyed the crowd for threats.