by Dale Mayer
Griffin said, “Let’s get you a little more awake, Brandon. Kerrick is coming back with food any moment now.”
At that, Brandon hopped out of bed and ran to the bathroom. While he was gone, Amanda quickly made up his bed, picked up the clothes he had dumped on the side, walked over to the bathroom, and knocked. He opened the door, and she handed him his shorts, T-shirt, and socks. “Get fully dressed so that we can be ready to move if needed.”
His face was serious as he nodded, and she loved the fact that he understood. As she returned to join Griffin, he smiled. “You’ll enjoy being a mother.”
“Well, that’s an interesting issue because who knows if I’ll ever be a mom? It’s not like I’ve had much practice at it.”
“No other siblings?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No, none. Although I was married for six months, I never got pregnant during that time. Which turned out to be a good thing.”
When Brandon came out fully dressed, his face was washed, and the hair around the edges of his face was damp from his ablutions. She chuckled and motioned at the table. Kerrick was just coming up the stairs outside, and Griffin was already clearing off his work from the table.
“Go sit down,” Griffin told Brandon. “Food’s coming.”
Brandon raced to the edge of the table and sat, looking at the front door.
As soon as the door opened, and Kerrick stepped in, Brandon gave him a huge cheerful wave and said, “Good timing. I’m starved.”
Kerrick chuckled as he unloaded the multiple bags he carried. “Needed two people to haul this load,” he complained good-naturedly.
“Well, I offered to go with you,” Amanda said as she opened the first bag and took out a selection of items. “What did you get?”
“Four stacks of pancakes,” he said. “Hash browns, patties, scrambled eggs, sausages, breakfast sandwiches.” Then he shrugged. “I bought as much as I could reasonably carry in one load.”
She looked at him in astonishment. “Were you expecting us to eat it all?”
“I highly suspect that, what we as a group can’t eat, Brandon will finish off later,” he said. “Particularly if he’s anything like I was at his age.”
“Did you order the same for everybody?”
He nodded. “Check the other bags for more food. I ordered four of everything.”
Beside her, Brandon cried out a yes as he was handed a stack of pancakes. And then Amanda upended a massive baggie of small individual servings of syrup and butter. Brandon dug in without waiting for anybody else. Kerrick sat down, looked at Griffin, and asked, “Any changes or any updates?”
“No, nothing yet from our assistants. But Brandon says he was there for nine days, and Amanda found a master key to the prison rooms,” he said, holding it up from where he had it on the table. Kerrick looked from the key to Amanda and raised an eyebrow. She quickly explained.
He nodded and said, “Good thinking and lucky that you found it.”
“At that time, I have to admit I didn’t question it. But now I’m wondering if it wasn’t a setup.”
“Possibly,” he said. “But nobody came after us, so, if it was, and they expected to catch you, it doesn’t really matter now because you’re free.”
“But I want to make sure that nobody else was left behind and that some operation is overseeing the kidnappers taking off with their victims.”
“There was an operation in motion, yes. We’ll be told when we’re told.”
He could see she didn’t like that answer though. He seemed to be on a need-to-know basis as it was. If he asked the right question, he would get answers, but it was hard to imagine all the questions that he needed to ask. He wished his new boss was more forthcoming.
He bit into a big breakfast sandwich with sausage patties and eggs, as Brandon beside him dove into the pancakes. Kerrick loved to see the kid eat, especially since he had apparently gone without meals for a long time. Even one meal a day for nine days wasn’t enough for any growing child. The food on their table disappeared at a rate that Kerrick expected, but the look on Amanda’s face was surprise at Brandon’s appetite. Finally Kerrick reached out a hand and said to Brandon in a low voice, “It’s okay. There’ll be more food.”
He could see Brandon almost stopping, as if really understanding what Kerrick said, then the boy nodded slowly. “Meaning, I don’t have to eat it all right now, correct?”
“Exactly.”
Brandon nodded, put down his fork, and settled back. “Then I think I’m full.”
“Good,” Amanda said. “There will be some leftovers. Not too many though.”
“And we can get more food if we need to,” Griffin added with a wink to Brandon.
Brandon was all smiles.
“I’ll drop this in the garbage bin outside.” Kerrick rose and cleaned up the empty dishes and packaging. Not very much was left at all. One breakfast sandwich, a couple sausage patties, and a few hash browns. He put everything together in one of the containers and set it atop the table and then left the room and tossed their garbage into a big trash bin in the back of the motel. After that, he took a quick pass around the perimeter of the motel to make sure everything was clear.
Ever since he’d left this morning to go to the restaurant, he’d had that feeling of being followed. A sense of something not quite right. As he came around to the parking lot again, he saw a large suburban against the fence on the far side of the front parking area. It had smoked-out windows and looked government-issued. And that was disturbing because, as far as Kerrick understood, he was government, and his UK counterpart was to keep him in the loop.
Slipping around back, taking the external staircase to the second floor, he made half a lap around the building on the walkway that led to all the motel room doors. Now at the front of the motel, yet on the far corner from the suspect vehicle, he would be exposed on these exterior stairs and landings. So he crouched below the railing level and crept all the way across to the far side. Around this corner should be the SUV. He stood up and carefully peered around the edge to see if the vehicle was still there. It was. At least he knew where the interlopers were, but, not liking anything about this, Kerrick sent a text to Griffin.
Griffin stood, opened the door, and didn’t show his face. Kerrick dashed inside and looked at him. “This can’t be good,” he said.
Then the chat window pinged, followed by the ring of a weird little bell.
Griffin looked at the laptop screen and said, “Move now.”
The two men galvanized into action. While Amanda collected their few belongings, Kerrick raced to the back of the motel room and looked out the window at the fire escape. He opened up the window enough so that they could scramble out, but it would take precious minutes to get everybody outside. He quickly ordered Amanda out the window and got her into the fire escape with his help. Instead of going down, they went up to the rooftop, Kerrick explaining to her that Griffin had Brandon in his care. Then, from his rooftop perch, Kerrick chose another fire escape for them to take all the way down.
Meanwhile, Griffin brought up the last of the equipment, and he tossed Brandon on his back, and said, “Hang on.” He quickly landed in the fire escape, and, with Brandon still holding tight, Griffin raced up the fire escape, onto the rooftop, and then to the far side, taking another fire escape, meeting Kerrick and Amanda at the bottom. Griffin handed off the equipment, transferred Brandon to Kerrick’s back, and said, “I’ll be back in two.” He disappeared around the left of the motel.
With Amanda looking on with terror on her face, Kerrick knew Brandon was in the same fearful state because of the grip he had around his neck. He smiled at her reassuringly. “Griffin’s gone to get his wheels.”
She nodded slowly. “But won’t they know it’s him?”
“Maybe,” he said. “If they follow us, we will lose them again. It’s what we do.”
Just then a vehicle came around and headed right for them. Amanda, crying out a muffled surpris
e, dashed to the side. Kerrick reached out and caught her, then held her close and said, “It’s Griffin.”
“But it’s not our car.”
Griffin heard her. He opened the window and gave her a grim smile. “Ours had a tracker on it. Whether that’s factory original or a very new addition, not good for our purposes.”
With them stashed in the back seat, Kerrick quickly ran to the far side and hopped into the passenger’s seat as Griffin took off. Kerrick brought up his laptop, ready to access the chat box and get some safe house info. When they pulled out of the parking lot on the far side, he glanced behind to see if they were being followed. But, so far, he saw no sign of anybody. “Well,” he said, “I wish I knew who that vehicle belonged to.”
“Check their license plate number,” Griffin said, tossing him his phone. “I took a photo of it.”
Kerrick quickly grabbed the phone, typed in the license plate info into his laptop, and did a check. “It’s not coming up.”
“Interesting,” Griffin said.
Kerrick typed it into the chat window and asked for clarification.
The answer came back. British Secret Intelligence Service.
Legit?
Yes. But driver isn’t. Vehicle was stolen in the last forty-eight hours.
He swore softly.
BTW, Jimmy was found dead in his jail cell just an hour ago.
No surprise there. We’re on the move.
We have a safe house.
The address was typed into the bottom. He quickly brought it up on the GPS so that Griffin could follow the computer directions to get where they were going. Then he settled back to keep his eyes peeled on the roads around him. He didn’t know what had just happened, how they had been found, but any change at this point wasn’t good. Into the chat window, he asked for an update. Just then his phone rang. It was ID’d as Unknown Caller, and he answered it to hear the same tumblers clicking in his ear. After giving the preauthorized code word, a computerized voice came on, which sounded suspiciously like his friend Beta from the pub.
“The kidnappers’ initial location was searched at five o’clock this morning,” the computer said. “It’s completely empty. No patients were left behind. It appears that only about ten rooms were in use, based on the garbage left behind. We have tracked three of the ambulances to two different locations. We’re getting ready to do a sweep on those locations now.”
Kerrick asked, “What about the other patients on Brandon’s list?”
“No confirmation yet,” he said. “But, from the time when you arrived there, we have had eyes on the place. Potentially they were taken out before.”
“I can ask Brandon. He might have more to add.”
“Maybe, but don’t trust him too much. Also we don’t know if either Brandon or Amanda has been inserted with a subcutaneous tracking device. They need to be fully checked out.”
“Where will that happen?”
“At the safe house.”
And then his phone went dead. The thought of a tracking device didn’t thrill him. But it would have been an easy thing to do when they were unconscious, particularly with the child. It would also explain why they’d been allowed to escape because they could easily track Amanda and Brandon and find out who was helping them. He looked at Griffin and said, “Tracking devices, the injected kind.”
Griffin shot him a surprised look, contemplated it for a moment, and then nodded. “I presume a physical is in order?”
“Yes. At the safe house.” Kerrick settled back for the drive ahead.
Chapter 11
“Tracking? What the hell does that mean?” Amanda had watched her fair share of spy movies, but this sounded like a script gone bad. She glanced at Brandon, who was calmer and more relaxed this time. He stared out the car window, almost inhaling the information as it flew by. But a tracking device could have been injected into either of them. She understood what a safe house meant in theory, but anything that was different and unique right now didn’t make her feel any more confident. Sure, the men had taken them away from the motel when a threat had surfaced, and they’d had some good quality sleep there and had been fed, multiple times and in unending quantities. Now they were on the move but to where?
As she sat back, Brandon slipped his fingers into hers. She squeezed his hand gently and just held his. She, as an adult, had to give at least the outward appearance of being confident. To her, however, just the unknown element and the newness of this experience made for a rather terrifying experience. She lived in her lab, especially since her divorce. She rarely went out. She rarely dated. Everything that had happened in the last few days was well out of her comfort zone.
As were her out-of-the-blue maternal instincts. She’d never put much thought into having a family of her own after her divorce, choosing to bury herself in her work, but, after connecting with Brandon, how could she not want a son? Especially if he turned out anything like Brandon.
But, in order to see that future, she had to deal with her current mess. Hinkleman was one of the bigger and more urgent mysteries to solve here. What purpose did kidnapping her do for him? He still had all her research regardless. Could promote it as his alone.
Okay, yeah, joining forces with two other idiots who wanted her out of the way had lined his pockets with money. Money to do even more research. But wasn’t that what Scion Labs was doing for him already? He was the chairman after all. A position that held a lot of prestige and power. How he got that position was a mystery for another day.
She couldn’t find the logic in any of this because the bad guys weren’t using logic as their metric. Theirs were more about money, power, greed. Again she shook her head.
Brandon squeezed her hand.
Very intuitive kid. She smiled down at him, squeezed his hand back, fighting another wave of anger at Mr. Coleman, Brandon’s father. His actions were unthinkable. Kidnapping any child and mistreating him this way was evil, but allowing his own child to suffer through this? That was evil on a massive level. What she wouldn’t do to get this sorry excuse for a father in a torture chamber and let her own rage take over.
But a tiny voice reminded her that she didn’t have all the information. Yet.
And these thoughts brought her to her own failed marriage, which made no more sense than Hinkleman or Mr. Coleman. She had been so unimpressed with the state of her marriage that she’d promptly dumped her cheating spouse. And fast. No man since had made her want to change her mind about the hallowed but flawed institution of marriage—until Kerrick.
Even with his ethics and honor and transparent communication evident for all to see, she wasn’t sure what she was feeling. Just … something. Heat. Curiosity. Gratitude … and damn more heat. Now here she was—on the run, out of a job, her most precious research in the hands of a greedy madman—wishing for some kind of true real-life romance. Stupid timing.
Frowning, she remembered Kerrick mentioning that her ex-husband was off-grid. She leaned forward and said, “My ex has a cabin in Wales. If he’s missing, he could very well be there. It’s part of his original family homestead.”
“Do you have an address?”
She frowned and shook her head. “No. I just remember him having grown up there and saying that he went back every year.”
Kerrick nodded and said, “Let me pass that along.” He pulled out his phone and sent some texts. “Do you know anything about his family?” he asked.
“Nothing that you can trust,” she said simply. “As I found out too late, he was a consummate liar. He did tell me that he supposedly had an older brother and that his parents were supposedly dead and that his brother and he used to meet up at the cabin every once in a while. I guess I believe that last part most of all. Take it all for what it’s worth, coming from a very unreliable narrator.”
“So, you don’t know if he has a brother or if his parents are dead is what you’re saying?”
“Exactly. But I do think the cabin was for real because he talked
about learning to fish there. And he always spoke with so much emotion tied to those memories.”
“That’s often a good indicator,” Griffin said. He pulled to an intersection, put on his blinker, and turned left. “We are only a couple blocks away from our destination.”
“Good,” she said, “but is it any safer than our last one?”
“We’ll have to see,” he said. “I’ve never been to this one.”
And that didn’t inspire confidence either. She stiffened as they came around to what looked like a common residential area and pulled into a home with a double garage door that opened automatically as they approached.
“And that’s not suspicious,” she murmured.
“Just means we’re expected,” Kerrick said cheerfully.
“Sure, but do we know by whom?” she asked.
“We’ll find out,” he said, sending a quick text. “Remember. We’re here to have your backs.”
At that, Brandon piped up and said, “It’s a safe house, so it’s government-run, by one faction or the other. What we don’t know at this point in time is which country. The governments like to keep it that way.”
“Maybe so but don’t you guys know which government?” Amanda asked Kerrick, then looked to Griffin.
“Good question,” Griffin said.
“Wish we knew the answer,” Kerrick added. Then his phone beeped, and he read the screen, smiling.
Amanda caught sight of that exchange and felt slightly more at ease. She turned to Brandon, hoping to distract him from the reality of his life right now. “I guess you’re a big fan of spy movies too, huh?”
He grinned and said, “Absolutely. Especially the Bond, James Bond series.”
“I like all those too,” she murmured with a chuckle, amused at Brandon’s attempt to sound like Sean Connery, and also very surprised someone his age was familiar with the actor who first played James Bond.
Griffin shut off the engine and, after a quick and silent exchange of hand signals, both men hopped out. She was much slower to get out, and Brandon slid over to her side and exited the vehicle with her. As soon as they were inside, the garage door came down, and they walked into the main part of the house.