The Perfect Soldier

by B D Grant

  “Of course you are,” she coos. “I love you, Taylor, beyond anything I could ever describe in this life…”

  The moments leading to the last explosion play again. It stops at the nurses’ station with the two men at the counter, their faces in full display. She’s trying to get a good look at them. She goes back farther to when they exited the elevator, and I got a closer look of their profiles and heights. She exams each of the men closely, planning her vengeance.

  “Mom—” I start, wanting to tell her that I’m alright, but the thought refuses to materialize across our connection.

  “I’m here,” she says, “You don’t have to fight. I love you, my sweet child.”

  I want to tell her, “I love you too,” but nothing so much as a syllable escapes the murkiness that has now filled my mind. The thin thread connecting us snaps.

  Chapter 2

  With care, William McBride unfolds the small paper that took him over half an hour to locate. Cassidy had been the last to touch the paper. He had thought it was still in the day planner he’d had years ago, when he had first arrived at the newly-erected academy. He’d forgotten that Cassidy had placed it inside the largest drawer of his desk, hence the time it took him to hunt the paper down.

  Fondly, he remembers Cassidy taking the time to write the name and number down for him when she knew that he wouldn’t. She had wanted to cover all of his bases in case of an emergency, and she had done just that.

  It had been tucked away for precisely this situation, though William had never thought he’d find himself at the heart of it. How do you tell someone that you are the reason behind an estimated hundred or so deaths?

  He was the one who had organized the raid, knowing that there was a high probability of casualties on both sides. He never dreamed that the vast majority would be children. If the opposition was going to fight, though, William was determined that it was to be his people doing the raid who suffered, not the innocent bystanders caught in the middle.

  He wonders if he will be believed when he tells the detective that the raid was planned and executed with the best of intentions. The Intel he had received before the raid was solid. The school was a cover-up. It was using children as a mask for a much darker side of the Rogue organization. Still, he wonders, will that even matter?

  The booming town William and so many other Seraphim had once called home, Aurora, had been torn apart from the inside out when Rogues violently tried to take it over. In bringing down Aurora, they also burned down the prestigious Southern Academy that was outside its city limits. There were whispers that it had been teachers who started the fire, but William had never believed those poor attempts at covering up the truth. Rogues had manipulated, lied, and ultimately killed to push their agenda, determined to control the Seraphim population. They were striving to achieve some resemblance of total domination.

  Originally, Rogues had recruited Dynamar Seraphim to fill their ranks. Their strength appealed to the aggressive style of the Rogue organization. From what Will had witnessed in Aurora twenty years prior, Rogues also had an unspoken manta that was the younger the recruit the better.

  When Will had found out that his brother-in-law had been kidnapped, he had to act for his sister’s sake. His sister and her family had been in hiding since Aurora had fallen, and the more Will learned about the Rogue plot to misdirect students to their supposedly-legitimate school, the more he considered it his duty. His sister needed his help and he had his own students’ safety to be concerned with.

  As dean of The Southern Academy, he was aware that if Seraphim on the outside were once again being targeted by Rogues, it was only a matter of time before his students became targets as well. He had a responsibility to protect them.

  It turned out Will’s informants were correct. The Academy was being operated by Rogues, some of whom William had known about when he was still living in Aurora. At the time, Rogues referred to themselves as The Movement, a less hostile sounding term for the same beast. The school had been a facade for what it truly was: a training camp for predominantly Dynamar students. No surprise there. But that hadn’t prepared him for what lay underground.

  The facility beneath the school stretched out for miles. It housed countless cells, torture and interrogation rooms, as well as offices and living quarters for those working the facility. The laboratories were the worst. There was only one that remained intact after the explosions, and its contents had suffered a heady fire at the hands of its operators. When one of the Rogues caught during the raid heard how destroyed the labs were he bragged to William’s people about it being part of a larger wing of laboratories. Due to multiple explosives set off early on during the raid by escaping Rogues, none of William’s people had been able to reach it.

  The only solace he has is that the numbers of lives saved during the raid outnumber its casualties. The children and rescued prisoners are in good hands as they safely begin the healing process. Each of them has a renewed chance at life thanks to the many heroic Seraphim that risked their lives to save them.

  Feeling no need to wait any longer, Will dials the number. Three rings in and he wonders what he is going to do if there’s no answer. He doesn’t have a backup number, and this is the only Seraphim outside of his immediate circle that he knows he can trust. It’s been years since he was given the number; for all he knows, the detective could have retired.

  “Yes,” a sharp female voice answers, sounding out of breath.

  Will hesitates, then clears his throat. “Detective Doherty, please.”

  “He’s busy at the moment.”

  “It’s urgent. There’s been a death in the family.” This is the code Cassidy had given him if he were to ever have to use the number. Cassidy, his smart, strong Cassidy is by far his biggest loss from the raid. As far as he’s been told, she was last seen alive but firmly in the hands of Rogues. And if they know how important she is to him, he knows that they won’t be letting her go. He had received a few reports that she was colluding with the Rogues as well—those, he hadn’t even bothered to read all the way through.

  A gruff male voice picks up the phone. “This is Doherty.”

  “This is William McBride. I can’t remember the last time we’ve spoken so I hate to be the one to tell you, but we need you to come home.” Will had rehearsed what he would say once he had gotten the detective on the phone. “There’s been a death and it’s going to be a big funeral. The family is relying on you to get us through this.”

  The long stretch of silence that follows causes Will to check his phone ensuring that he hasn’t been hung up on.

  “It will take a little time, but I can be there.”

  “We will be waiting,” Will says, relaxing against the phone.

  “Have everything you can ready for me so I can make sure the funeral meets expectations. Text me a good number to reach you at. I’ll be leaving shortly,” he says, ending the call before Will can respond.

  Will texts the number his information and saves it in his contacts. Now that the door has been opened, he supposes he will probably be hearing a lot from the detective. Will’s cell phone rings as he’s returning it to his pocket. He answers it quickly without looking at the screen, impressed that the detective called him so quickly. “Yes.”

  But it’s Mitchell Lanton’s voice that comes through the phone. “You need to get back here stat. Your niece is in ICU.”

  “What?” his voice reaches a high octave, and he’s thankful no one but Mitchell heard. “She was fine when I left.”

  “The hospital was hit,” Mitchell says, low and muffled, and Will suspects that his hand is shielding his mouth from onlookers.

  William grabs his keys from the desk before rushing out the door. “They wouldn’t dare. It’s a civilian hospital. Are you sure?” But thinking back to the raid, the monetary value of what was destroyed alone would surely piss more than one person off.

  “I didn’t say it was Rogues,” Mitchell says calmly, keeping his voice l
ow.

  William lets out an exasperated sigh. “Who else would it be?”

  Will can almost see Mitchell bearing his teeth as he says, “Rogues don’t spout hate speeches before blowing themselves up. I definitely didn’t get any Seraphim vibes from the one I tackled before he decided to light himself up.”

  “Are you telling me it was a suicide bomber?”

  “Bombers, plural. Get here and you can see it for yourself.”

  “On my way,” he says tearing a page from Detective Doherty’s book and hanging up before getting a response.

  He makes four more calls on his way out to check on the other sites where he sent uninjured students and Rogue captives. All locations report no problems, with the exception of a captured Rogue trying to slit his wrists with a ball point pen. Will had ensured that they check everyone for potential weapons, even the kids, but it seems nobody found the pen on the Rogue during the initial pat-down.

  Two knocks on the door alert Detective Doherty that his time with William McBride is over. He stands, back stiff, peering down at the man he has spent the past three hours questioning. His next scheduled interview is here.

  Doherty makes a mental note to find a different chair before his next interview, but other than the soreness, it was an unusually successful first interview. He’s had plenty of voluntary interviews before and even ones under similar conditions, but this interviewee is one of the very few who remained open and forthcoming despite the range of question Doherty had asked. He doesn’t doubt that McBride will accept any punishment given to him based on how guilt-ridden the man has seemed so far. With luck, Doherty won’t have to interrogate him later.

  Doherty had been on vacation with his wife in Colorado when the call came in. Normally his team specialized in identifying serial killers; the images of violence forever imprinted in him could make even the most devout question the difference between God and the devil. His part, however, doesn’t typically involve the leg work of capturing and prosecuting, and for good reason. He knows that if he hunted the bad apples himself, too few would be brought back alive. At least, too few to keep his superiors happy.

  His team of detectives, though, is comprised of those who make up for what he lacks: patience and enough composure to not harm their suspects. Still, none of them would have taken this job had it been normal people requesting the aid, but when the right people call he has no choice.

  The select, high profile cases which normally fall on his shoulders make this one look like a day of playing judge at a pie-eating contest. Anyone could do it, really, but why not go eat some pies? His team is overspecialized for what McBride requires, but they get to be around their own kind while weeding out the troublemakers. Besides, the detective figures, it could be therapeutic for some on his team who haven’t been immersed in Seraphim life since they moved away from home. He’ll also get to see how his newest recruit, handles the environment.

  Doherty looks back at the man in front of him. “You’re free to go,” he tells William McBride.

  “What happens after this?” McBride asks, staring up at him.

  Doherty walks to the door. “Your lawyer will explain that to you.”

  “I don’t have a —” but the door shuts behind Doherty, leaving William alone in the room.

  “Is he all that he appears to be?” Susan asks when Doherty joins the team in the large room they have converted into an operational headquarters.

  Doherty grabs the file from her desk, already looking at the profile for the next person they’ll need to question. He walks out of the room without so much as a glance in Susan’s direction.

  Susan scans the faces in the room. She can tell that they are watching and that they’ve noted Doherty’s lack of response. She doesn’t know if it’s because she’s the newest or because she’s the only one who’s not a Seraphim, but she’s pretty sure that the aloofness isn’t all in her head.

  Still, she knows not to be sensitive to Doherty’s dismissiveness. His mind, she’s learned from experience, is either somewhere else or his answer isn’t one that he wants to share with the office. He isn’t a cruel boss, just hardened. Even though he’s seen it all—they all have by now—child victims still have the ability to tug on even the toughest of the team’s heart strings. So far, she’s only seen a few photographs sent over from their detectives, but Susan knows that if she is ever going to become desensitized to the loss of young lives, this will be the case to do it.

  For the first day on site, morale has been unusually low. She knows the sheer numbers of those involved—victim and perpetrator—has them overwhelmed, but come on! She reluctantly flips the folder shut and strides into Doherty’s office.

  “You’re not talking to me?” she asks as she pushes the door open.

  His office is set apart from the rest of the detectives’ workspace in the entire absurdly-large headquarters. The previous owner of the office must have wanted to keep his employees quite literally in an open environment while keeping a private office for himself. None of the more aged detectives have started complaining yet about not having their own space like their normal. Susan suspects it is due to them hoping that this job won’t last long enough to make it worth the effort to complain.

  Doherty doesn’t look up. “Were you not watching the interview?”

  “Ash took over viewing an hour into it,” she tells him, hoping he’ll be just as annoyed that Ash kicked her out mid-interview.

  Ash has never told their boss how royally he had screwed that up. Susan, as much as she would love to see Doherty pissed with him, isn’t going to be the one to inform him why he didn’t get the compatible duo he was expecting.

  “From what you did see, what was your take on McBride?” Doherty asks.

  Susan mulls over what little she observed before answering, “He was sincere. He wants the truth to come to light no matter how it may implicate him.”

  Doherty gives her a lazy grin. “You liked him.”

  “Genuine is what I like,” she clarifies, “He was open with you, from what I got to see. He didn’t have the pretense.” In her short career as a detective Susan has already had her fill of suspects telling her what they think she wants to hear or what they believe will keep them from going to jail.

  Doherty isn’t moved. “Seraphim have little choice but to be genuine when I am the one in front of them.”

  “Modesty is a virtue, boss,” she says.

  He pulls a single sticky note from the pad on his desk. He clicks his pen out. “Modesty…is a… virtue,” he repeats as he writes on the note.

  He slaps it on the wall behind him. It is the only sticky note on the bare wall behind his desk, but in a week or two—if they are here that long—the wall will be full of notes varying from the uplifting all the way to stupid quotes from people that Doherty comes in contact with over the course of the investigation.

  On their previous case, Susan’s favorite saying from Doherty’s wall was one that she had written down: “Be who you needed when you were younger.” She had seen it on the social media page of a teacher who they were investigating at the time. Afterwards, she added the note to her private stash of case memorabilia.

  Her stash had started as one quote from the first case she worked with Doherty that she found so amusing that she later found herself going back to it, so when the case was over she made a copy of it. She keeps the memorabilia in a large box that had once housed a pair of leather boots she bought while she was in a particularly angry mood. The boots were so expensive that she found herself happier to have them out of the box, sitting front and center in her closet than when she was actually wearing them. Still to this day, every time she opens the box to reveal the growing number of envelopes containing case snippets she gets the warm, leather smell.

  “Another thing I liked about him is that he isn’t one of those stupid boyfriends,” Susan says, thinking about the countless number of those she has had to interact with, “that withhold pertinent information to protect
a criminal significant other.”

  “We don’t know if Cassidy Sipe is a criminal,” Doherty states.

  “My bet is on the girlfriend,” she says confidently, then quickly adds, “Based on what I observed.”

  Doherty knows that she didn’t get to hear what William McBride said when questioned about his sister, Catherine McBride Jameson, who has been missing for the past 72 hours. Susan knows that he’ll get irritated if he has to recap all of it knowing that she’ll read his report on what William said about her later anyways. She would rather he focus any frustration or negative emotions on working the case and on Ash for pulling her out.

  She looks over at him inquisitively. “I do have one question.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You scratched your ear when he was talking about his parents. Did you really have an itch, or was he lying?”

  Not having a Veritatis ability like Doherty, over the past couple years Susan has come up with a series of signs for Doherty to tell her if a suspect isn’t being truthful. One of them being that he scratches his ear with his pointer finger. It helps her hone in on what’s being said when his ability alerts him to a lie.

  Doherty swipes to the front of his notepad where McBride’s parents were discussed. Susan crosses her arms in annoyance. Every page he flips past in his notebook is something she missed from the interview. While Doherty looks at his notes, Susan considers how she can get back at Ash without causing too much of a fuss.

  “I asked him if his parents are in any way involved, and he said no.”

  Susan’s eyebrows shoot up. That would be something, if he’s the one calling shots against these ‘Rogue’ Seraphim while his girlfriend AND his parents are part of the group. He could be a puppet and not know it; poor guy. Susan has seen it happen before on one of her first cases.

  Doherty finally says, “His parents are deceased.”