Psychic

by F. P. Dorchak

  “A friend of yours?” Kennedy asked, leaning forward and indicating out the port windows.

  Travis looked outside. A body lay unmoving on the tarmac, a short throw from burning vehicles. Another figure approached the unmoving, prone figure. In the distance, lights from approaching security vehicles flickered.

  “Yeah,” Travis said, “one of them’s a friend of mine. He bought us the time it took for you to get to us.” Travis looked to Kennedy. “How’d you know?”

  All of a sudden Lizzie grew agitated.

  “No… no!”

  Lizzie lurched forward and shot a look toward the window. Travis looked back as the jet passed the scene. From the glow of the burning vehicles, Travis and Lizzie watched as the upright silhouette extended an arm toward the prone figure.

  The prone body jerked once. Twice.

  The jet departed.

  But what no one else had seen was that as the Learjet cleared the runway, the figure had then directed that outstretched arm toward the aircraft… and fired several more rounds.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  1

  “I don’t even know where to begin, Mr. President,” Travis said, over the Learjet’s quietly hissing air handlers.

  Lizzie was out cold. They all remained belted into their seats, as they climbed through 20,000 feet at a steep angle.

  “Call me ‘Jack,’” Kennedy said. “Let me, ah, help you out — though I’m still a bit confused, myself,” Kennedy continued. “I’d originally bahrded this plane with the intent to visit your Centah’s directah, to discuss a project or two I’d, ah, had in mind… but as I entahed the plane, I was met by… children.”

  “Children?” Travis asked.

  Kennedy nodded. “Cabin full of them. And thereah was anothah… a Man With No Name. A man I seem to know — somehow — from my past. I do, ah, have little memory of him, but thereah’s something about the gentleman I just can’t put my fingah on.”

  “Interesting.” Travis studied Lizzie’s face, which was now quiet and serene. He said, “I get the feeling I’ve met these children. That man.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Yes, sir. But your story first.”

  Kennedy nodded, paused. “I was told my plans wereah about to change. That aside from another trip enroute, I was to meet you two, and that we wereah to then immediately take off. To take you two out of harm’s way, and that we couldn’t do it fast enough. That was heavily emphasized. I pray we’re able to accomplish that.”

  Kennedy unbuckled, got up, and crossed over to Lizzie and Travis. Gently, he extended the back of a hand to Lizzie’s face. Though still unconscious, her face occasionally contracted into grimaces, and her body twitched.

  “As for whatevah Black’s done to her… I am so very sorry… and feel pahrtly to blame.”

  Kennedy took a different seat, across from and facing them.

  “Some twenty years ago… I’d hired that man — Black — on my staff. Little did I know what I’d done. To make a long story short, and I’ll try to better clarify lateah, but… somehow… and I know this sounds insane, believe me, sir, but somehow… I’d gone back in time. Thereah, I said it. First time I’ve said it out loud, even to myself. But, I’d tried to change my actions — and thought I’d succeeded — in changing my decision to appoint this man. I’ve come to find out, howevah, that I’d been unsuccessful—”

  “Back in time?”

  Kennedy raised a hand. “It’s the only explanation—”

  “With all due respect, Mr. President, are you sure it wasn’t a dream? A hallucination?”

  Kennedy shook his head. “Damned if I know. Don’t really know what to believe any moreah. All I do know is that I’d felt I’d actually gone back to my days at The Center…”

  Kennedy’s gaze took on a momentary, far-away look.

  “… back to the time of our interview with him, Teddy, Evelyn, and me — all thereah. I’d felt my office, my clothes, my angah. All thereah. But, it seems, as this mystery Man With No Name explained to me, Black is fahr more resourceful than we’d anticipated. It’s a long story, but as a remote viewer, I’d have thought it wouldn’t be such a reach forah the likes of one of your persuasion—”

  “Again, with all due respect, sir, but it’s not so much a matter of it being a ‘reach’… as it is I’ve just never heard of anyone going back in time. Physically, I mean. And this mystery man — is he still onboard—”

  “Mr. President,” the cockpit intercom interrupted, “we have a situation.”

  2

  Mel lay broken and battered on the blinding white floor in the blinding white room. The only other colors he saw were that of his blood and vomit. He wanted to move, wanted so desperately to run and cry and kill that bastard, but was drained. Physically, mentally… spiritually.

  What did it all matter?

  His parents had been killed and, now, someone he didn’t even know was trying to do the same to him.

  What was the point?

  He just wanted to go home, drink iced tea, watch TV — and call and talk with Lizzie — Madame Nostradameus… whatever her name. Wanted his parents back. His old life. Whatever he remembered of it was far better than where he was, now, and he’d never, ever, again complain about anything.

  Mel jerked from another shooting stab of pain from his groin.

  He winced, gritted his teeth.

  He tried to move his left arm, which lay on the floor slightly ahead of and behind his head at a weird angle. His face was turned away from it and pressed into the floor. Any time he tried to move, he’d feel the pain shoot through his broken arm like a red-hot, twisting poker. He just couldn’t get any leverage and felt little inclination to try any other movement. He’d probably get his other arm broken, anyway, so, again… what was the point?

  Still the question haunted him: why? What had caused all this? What had brought this act of violence into his otherwise serene life? Who’d Black want him to admit knowing? Lizzie wasn’t a man — and he did continue to insist he was specifically looking for a male — and no other man came to mind.

  Except for his father.

  Mel felt the dark presence first.

  He looked up… or tried to. Dehydration, pain, and hopelessness pressed him into the floor as easily as any millstone.

  Black stood above him. He slowly bent down, deliberately worked his fingers into Mel’s hair, then yanked his head back, angling his beaten and sagging face upward.

  “Have you decided on your course of action, my little friend?”

  The tears came hard and fast. Mel squinted, blubbering through split lips, dried vomit, and snot.

  “I don’t know anyone…”

  “Wrong answer, my friend.”

  Black pulled out his weapon, placed its muzzle hard into Mel’s left temple…

  And pulled the trigger.

  3

  Ryan wearily wandered into the office after a much-longer-than-planned, impromptu tasking. He flicked on a bank of florescent lights, then reconsidering, flipped them off. He liked the peace and quiet of the night. The rest of the department was long gone, but other departments in the building still had people sporadically inhabiting offices. Making his way through the administrative desks, he paused.

  Something was different.

  And he felt a little weird… beside himself.

  He sat at Paula Harris’s desk and dropped his head into his hands, rubbing his eyes and forehead; wearily stared into the blackness of the empty computer screen before him.

  He reached out to the others.

  Nothing.

  Sighing, he again rubbed his eyes. If things were important enough, they’d contact him.

  Looked to his watch. Good God, the hours flew by!

  A handful of dark, face-blackened figures sprinted among the compound’s buildings, hugging shadows. They paused, checked the intersection, performed silent hand signals between each other, then again sprinted across the streets.

  Two buildi
ngs. One mission.

  Ryan got back to his feet and stretched. He’d briefly nodded off at Paula’s desk, but head-snapped wide awake to pictures of her daughter and her smiling at him from the Grand Canyon. Paula was great to work with, was cute in a freckled, “granola way,” and recently divorced. No doubt this job had heavily contributed to that.

  Parched, he dug into his pockets for change. Nothing. Pulling out his wallet, he found two singles, both rather worn, and one with a partial tear in it.

  Trying to smooth out the wrinkled currency, he left the office and headed toward the soda machine, about mid-way down the now dark corridor. The machine looked comfortingly eerie under its own illumination, the hallway lights shut down for the night. Mountain Dew — that’s what he wanted. Ryan approached the machine. The orange “empty” selection-indicator lights for his soda glowed steady for all of its regular and diet versions.

  “Crap! No Dew?”

  Forming one of the singles into a rigid and flattened, elongated “V,” he considered his options. Pepsi, Pepsi, Slice, and diet Pepsi. He wasn’t a Pepsi fan, and Slice just didn’t do it for him. Smoothing out the bill, he inserted it into the slot. It didn’t give that accepting, internal grinding sound he was expecting, paused mid-action, then spat it back out. Ryan snatched the bill and again tried. Still no go. Jokingly giving it a psychic “mind meld” with a turn of his head and narrowed eyes, Ryan again tried. This time it took, but he hadn’t paid attention to which bill he’d inserted, and it’d been the one with the rip in it, and he didn’t release it quickly enough. The bill tore in half.

  “Shit!”

  Two-man teams were simultaneously deployed to residences.

  Dark SUVs quickly traveled to their destinations, turned off their lights, and quietly parked in dark, out-of-the-way shadows. Men silently ejected from vehicles, just as quietly hustled toward objectives.

  One objective was Dr. Richard Haywood. “Dick” to his friends and coworkers.

  Dick was The Center’s Operations Director, was intimately involved in nearly every aspect of The Center’s remote-viewing activities. Knew about both its covert and commercial applications. Created protocols and administered the projects with the apt assistance of Paula Harris, his head administrator. Dick had been watching a taped X-Files episode he’d missed, winding down from a long day, his family already in bed.

  Dr. Haywood got up and stretched, then headed into the kitchen for a glass of water when the team found him. Standing at the rear window over the sink, Dick caught his own reflection in the window as he drank his last glass of water. It was a reflection that normally didn’t have the silencered barrel of a .22 pointing in at him. The hissed round neatly punctured the window and Dr. Haywood’s forehead.

  His remaining family members were similarly dispatched in their sleep, then another dead body was brought in and placed in Dick’s wife-of-twenty-one-years bedroom: Emily Frazier, formerly an administrator in one of Dick’s many departments. A .22 handgun was placed in one of her bloodied hands, a crumpled note stuffed into the other. A note about how if she couldn’t have Dick, no one else would. Several vicious stab wounds were applied to Dick’s wife’s body, the knife was flicked over Emily’s body to create blood spatter, then tossed on the floor beside Emily, once her prints had been smeared all over it.

  Amy Craig, Bruce McNeal, and Randy Forz were all sleeping in their beds when they were similarly hunted down by the two-man teams. Remote viewers for other departments were also similarly neutralized.

  Ryan stood before the lit soda machine, silently cursing, holding one half of his ripped single. He fished out the remaining portion of the bill, as it was kicked back to him — but got it caught in the slot. Finally able to yank it free, he stuffed it into his pocket and paused.

  He looked down one end of the hallway. There was a subtle commotion that had caught his attention. He looked to the other end.

  Nothing.

  This was nothing unusual, with pockets of individuals continuing to work late throughout the place. He fished out the other bill, straightened it out, then fed it into the slot. It was immediately accepted. Of the available choices, Ryan pressed one of the regular Pepsi selectors — and to his amazement, out tumbled a green, white, and red Mountain Dew can.

  “Lucky day!” Ryan grabbed the can and popped it open.

  Collecting his change, he headed back to his office — when alarm bells went off in his head.

  Get out! Now! Move!

  His warning was from another remote viewer he didn’t know, from another department.

  Ryan was overcome with images of dark-clad figures rushing about, guns, and murder taking place. He was filled with a paramount sense of urgency. His entire body tingled.

  Get out now! the voice insisted.

  Ryan immediately about-faced and peeked around the corner, back out into the hallway.

  Again heard movement.

  Closer, louder, and hurried this time… definitely on his floor and coming closer.

  He tossed aside his soda and sprinted to the rear exit, putting his ear to the door. Muffled sounds quickly advanced up the stairwell.

  He rushed back to the office and sprinted to a window. There were no vehicles outside he could see, but when he closed his eyes and directed his senses to the situation, he found himself across to their sister building and was met with images of murder and dead bodies. Unknown teams were literally killing their way through the buildings.

  Everywhere.

  “Fuck!”

  The window!

  Ryan flicked open the latches, his hands shaking. This couldn’t be happening… it all had to be a figment of an overworked and tired mind…

  “Goddammit!” he said, trying to open the stuck, early-sixties vintage window, “open, for Chrissakes!” Suddenly, the window shot upward and slammed loudly into the upper casement. He froze. Great. He sensed the approaching team and that they’d also just paused, hearing his commotion. Quickly, he climbed up, making for the fire escape, but as he stepped through the window, felt a sharp pain in his upper left shoulder. It was accompanied by a low “pop.”

  Had he just dislocated his shoulder?

  He continued to climb through the window and glanced to his shoulder.

  Blood.

  Another hissing pop, and this time he lost all control of his body and fell backward.

  Twisting as he fell, he found himself looking up into the darkened face and cold-steel stare of a twenty-four-year-old assassin. For a moment, it looked as if those eyes had also paused, and in that instant Ryan knew his assassin’s name and life history, his training for this job.

  Whom he actually worked for.

  Then he looked back out the window toward the other building, but only saw blackness…

  As his life ebbed from him, he thought about the coworkers across the way… about how his parents had been so proud he’d gotten his dream job. How happy and supportive they’d been of his ability — and desire — to help Humanity. And there had been one last thought that screamed through his mind just before the killing round screamed through his brain.

  Why hadn’t he foreseen any of this?

  Why hadn’t any of them?

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  1

  Deep in thought, the Man With No Name maneuvered his riding mower across the lawn… in the darkness… headlights illuminating his way.

  He slammed on the brakes.

  No!

  This wasn’t supposed to happen! What was Black doing?

  The Man With No Name hopped off the mower, ran past his garden, and shot up onto the porch. He stopped and turned. Stared off into the darkness behind him.

  Muffled “popping” sounds. All around him.

  “My God… he just doesn’t… he just doesn’t get it…”

  Sadly, he shook his head, turned around, and continued inside.

  2

  The Man With No Name calmly walked into Victor Black’s low-lit and shadowy office. Bla
ck sat with his back to him, in a swivel chair behind an immaculately arranged desk. He was hunched over, working on something at a small safe. His SIG rested within arm’s reach.

  “I hear you’ve been looking for me,” the Man With No Name calmly announced, standing before the desk, hands in his pockets.

  Black whipped around.

  The initial look on his face was of abject fear — unmistakable, shocked, and primal — but was quickly replaced by his usual cold, hard stare. Black shot to his feet, grabbing his SIG.

  “How’d you—”

  “You’ve been looking for me, have you not?”

  “Don’t toy with me — how’d you—” Black leveled his nine mil at the Man With No Name, carefully eyeing him as he circled around from behind the desk. Looked to his closed door. “You alone?”

  “Is anybody — really?”

  “Answer the goddamned question.”

  The Man With No Name sighed. “Yes… I’m alone…” He turned around to face Black, as he came from around the back of the desk, then leaned against the desk.

  “Why now?,” Black asked, narrowing his gaze at him. “Why now, after all these years, do you waltz in here, unannounced, and just… hand yourself over?”

  “You mean besides the fact that you’ve gone crazy and killed off entire remote-viewing departments and their families?”

  “Answer the question.”

  “You’ve performed wholesale slaughter on those who — even in your terms — have nothing to do with your problem.”

  “‘Problem?’” Black repeated, standing with his back to a wall, his weapon still trained on the Man With No Name.

  “You’ve been after me for a long time. And you’re pissed you lost one… while the other simply never talked. So you just decided — hey, what the hell — why don’t I just kill them all and let God sort em out? Maybe if I slaughter enough, he’ll come to me.”

  “Was I not correct?”

  “Would appear.”

  “I’ve wanted you off my back a long time. Now, with you handing yourself over to me like this… I feel I should make you bleed for as long as possible.”