The Golden Chair

by A J Fontenot

  Click.

  Her heart flubbed and her hand stopped in mid-air.

  She knew the sound.

  And she knew the feeling. The same distinct feeling that you’re not alone. No longer alone, in her case.

  “Stand up slowly,” said a dark voice from behind her.

  Erin stood. She put her hands up instinctively and slowly turned around.

  “I was wondering,” said the man, “if we’d see you again.”

  Keeler.

  Erin had never stood this close to him before. He was easily a foot taller than her. And his shoulders were more than twice as broad as hers. He wore dark tactical gear, the kind with pockets all over. And he had a dirty smirk on his face. Like this was a game, and he was winning.

  Then, in the middle of his bulk was a black pistol, its dark hole aligned with Erin’s stomach.

  With his free hand, he reached for the door she’d been about to open a few seconds ago, and pulled it open. “Let me get that for you,” he said. Then, he flicked his gun. “In.”

  Erin turned and walked slowly inside. As she did, Keeler pushed her roughly.

  Inside it was a large warehouse, with an open floor and fluorescent strip-lighting high above her.

  “Over there,” he said, motioning to a stack of fifty-five-gallon drums. Someone was already there, sitting. Her heart jumped with recognition as she looked to where Keeler pointed.

  Ben.

  He was sitting, propped against a scratched fifty-five-gallon drum.

  Keeler grabbed a handful of her shirt from the back and walked her over to him. She couldn’t tell if Ben saw her yet. As she got closer, he looked like he might be unconscious.

  Keeler shoved her down next to him.

  Then, leaving them, he walked to the other side of the cavernous room.

  “Ben,” she said, moving to him.

  His face was badly bruised. And one of his eyes was swollen shut. But he was awake, and he looked at her.

  “I…thought, you were…,” she said.

  “Not yet,” he said, trying weakly for a smile, “but…we might both be soon.”

  “Are you okay?”

  He was having trouble keeping his head up, she noticed. He shifted his weight. But as he did, his face went rigid and he grabbed his ribs, groaning in pain.

  “Only when I don’t move,” he said, offering another weak smile.

  “What did they do to you?”

  “Nothing that won’t heal,” he said, not meeting her eye that time.

  She noticed he was having a hard time breathing. Probably broken ribs, she thought, and a concussion.

  He closed his eyes again.

  “Ben,” she said, “keep your eyes open. Okay?”

  “I’m more concerned,” he said, through a wince of pain, “with getting out of here.”

  “I’ll worry about that,” she said, looking around.

  Keeler was across the room talking to another man who’s back was to her. There were a lot of barrels, like the one Ben was propped against, stacked around the inside. And near them, they created a kind of false wall.

  Behind them, into the depths of the warehouse, were rows and rows of cargo stacked high. Erin couldn’t see the end of it. She imagined it must go on for a mile or so.

  She looked back at Ben. Any chance of getting out of here would require fast, agile movement. And Ben wasn’t in any shape for moving…much less ‘fast’ and ‘agile.’ Erin’s mind began searching, planning… If there was a way they could find a hiding place, she looked around, and then maybe create a diversion. It could appear they escaped, giving her time to actually move Ben—

  She saw something.

  Something she hadn’t seen before.

  No someone.

  A frigid shock leapt through her body.

  Behind the row of barrels Ben was propped against, a person was lying, face down. Not moving. She hadn’t noticed them before. And as she looked at the person now, they still seemed more like a flop of blankets than an actual person.

  Erin leaned forward on her hands, moving to get a closer look, to see the face. Her face…

  Short, dark hair, flung haphazardly, covering the face that lay statue still. Erin reached a hand forward to pull the hair back. But even as she did, she already knew who it was.

  Leaning forward, on one hand, she softly moved the hair out of Marisol’s eyes, seeing her vivacious face, now asleep. Forever.

  Erin sat back, closing her eyes tightly.

  She opened them again and looked at Ben. He was still struggling to stay awake.

  “She was already like that when I got here,” he said. He leaned his head back again the drum and closed the one eye that wasn’t already swollen shut.

  Erin looked at Marisol again, taking in the shape of her still body. Her shirt, stained. A small puddle under the side of her. Erin couldn’t stop looking at her. At the way one of her arms was folded unnaturally under her body, causing the middle of her back to bend up a little.

  Keeler must have dumped her here, she thought.

  After he’d killed her.

  She felt the same rage coming back, not far from the surface. But now it was tempered with something else. Something heavier and more stable. A kind of deep sadness.

  Erin reached to straighten Marisol’s shirt. A pointless act. The kind of reverent thing people do to dead bodies, and, as she did, she felt something solid. She lifted her shirt, and clipped in the small of her back was the tiny black pistol Marisol carried, still clipped to her. The whole thing was only a few inches long in total, and barely a half-inch thick. Easy to hide.

  It was ironic, she thought. The only one of them who actually carried some kind of protection, the only one of them who had the right view of the situation…was the only one of them who wound up dead.

  “HEY,” she jumped at the sound.

  It was Keeler.

  She slid back to where Ben was. Across the warehouse, she glanced in Keeler’s direction, and she could see him standing still, looking at her.

  He’d clearly overlooked Marisol’s little gun before. Did he suspect something now? Keeler looked at her for a moment longer before turning back to what he was doing.

  Her mind was on the gun. But until Keeler moved somewhere else, where he couldn’t look at any moment and see her, it would have to wait.

  She moved to sit next to Ben. Against the wall of barrels where he sat propped. From this angle, she couldn’t see Marisol’s body. But she could see Keeler. The two of them sat there, next to each other, for what felt like a long time.

  “I’m sorry,” she said after a while.

  “Sorry…” he said. “For what?”

  “I…,” she started but didn’t finish.

  The truth was, she didn’t know what she was sorry for. Only that she felt all of this was connected to her. Maybe if she hadn’t pushed to uncover what Lennox was doing. Maybe if she would have just stayed home and let things take their natural course…maybe it would have been better that way.

  “There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Ben said quietly. “You didn’t do this. They did,” he said, motioning with his head to Keeler and the other man, on the other end of the large room.

  Ben moved his hand, resting on the floor beside him, and put it on top of hers, wrapping his fingers around hers.

  She turned her head, looking at him. But his head was back against the barrel, eyes closed.

  “Don’t think about it,” he said, still with his eyes closed. “If you want to dwell on something, dwell on getting us out of this mess.”

  The two of them sat there like that, not talking.

  Keeler, she saw from a distance, looked out the windows on the far side. She hadn’t noticed it yet, but there was a third man. He was dressed like one of the port employees she’d run into earlier.

  But that other man…he was still sitting there, at that table, his back to her.

  “Ben,” she said.

  He breathed in sharply, open
ing his eyes and wincing as he did. He picked his hand up and held his ribs, breathing in carefully.

  “Yeah,” he said with some effort.

  “Who’s that guy over there, with Keeler?”

  He moved his head slightly in that direction.

  “I don’t know who the guy in the tan uniform is, but the other guy’s Lennox.”

  “Lennox…?” she said.

  It occurred to her for the first time…she’d never actually seen Jonah Lennox before.

  When he’d delivered the fabricated data to the SERA team, it was via Keeler. And when she and Marisol went to his lab, it was Keeler who found them. In all of the cases, she’d somehow missed him. She didn’t doubt he was real. But now, seeing him for the first time, in person…

  She stood to get a better look at him. The man who’d shown up in her mother’s notes 26 years ago. The man who’d mysteriously appeared just before she turned up dead. Now he was standing fifty feet away from her. Now…after all these years…he was this close to her.

  “Erin,” Ben said, with some effort, “where are you going?”

  76

  Move In

  Fifty yards ahead, Paul was watching their target. A nondescript warehouse building. He was leaning against the open door of the humvee, using it as cover. Bill stood on the other side, doing the same.

  “Sound off,” Bill said into his radio.

  They were in the port now, and two other teams were out of sight, getting ready.

  This was as close as they’d been able to get without risking being spotted.

  The radio scratched. “Unit two is in place,” it said.

  Unit two was the extraction team. They’d be the first ones in. They’d move in, blow the door, and take out any hostiles. Unit three, also on-site, was the outer perimeter. It consisted of two sets of snipers. One positioned on an adjacent warehouse building, and the other just above ground level around the corner.

  Bill — and now, Paul — consisted of unit one. Their primary role in this operation was to give direction. They stayed far enough back so that they could see everything, but were still close enough to interact if needed.

  And, for Paul, this was almost too much. He was good at strategy. But he was better at hands-dirty work. Something Bill moved out of as soon as he could.

  “Unit three,” the radio said, “we’ll be in place in one minute.”

  Though, if Paul were being honest, it had been a while since he’d been in the kind of situation where he needed tactical gear. He pulled at his vest, repositioning it. Either this stuff had gotten more uncomfortable over the years, or it really had been that long.

  Bill looked over him, “it’s been a while…you ready for this?”

  Paul didn’t take his eyes off the warehouse.

  “Do you have eyes inside yet?” Paul said.

  “Only thermal,” Bill said, “but we have a contact who’s been keeping tabs for us. He discretely tracked Lennox here. And they’ve been here for the last hour or so.”

  “They?” Paul said.

  “Three hostiles, including Lennox, and maybe another.”

  “Another…” Paul said, looking at Bill now, “you mean a hostage.”

  “We don’t know,” Bill said, not meeting his gaze. “Could be anyone.”

  Paul shook his head and looked back into his binoculars.

  “How well do you trust your informant?”

  “Let’s just say…,” Bill said, “it’s in his best interest to cooperate.”

  Paul understood the meaning. Bill, or somebody, leaned on this guy. Probably threatened him. Or maybe just bribed him. Didn’t matter, it was the same thing. Paul never liked coercion. It was a weak force. To break it, all the other side needed was greater coercion. It wasn’t like loyalty. Or aligning values. Working for the same thing. Those kinds of forces were strong. But…people like this never understood that.

  “We’ll blow the door first,” Bill said, “then smoke the inside and be ready to take them out before they know what hit them.”

  “Take them alive, you mean.”

  Bill was looking through his binoculars. “Uh huh, that’s…what I said.”

  “Bill, if this is what we think it is —”

  “We know, Paul,” he said curtly. “My men all know what’s at stake here.”

  “Because if this gets—”

  “Paul,” Bill said, putting down his binoculars and looking at him, “it’s beginning to sound like you don’t trust me.”

  Paul didn’t trust him.

  Which was exactly the point.

  But people like Bill had moved up, not by being good at their job, but by being political. And Paul would know, he and Bill started at the same time.

  “Bill, you know that better than anyone…we don’t trust anybody.”

  The radio scratched.

  “Unit three is in place, sir. All is clear.”

  Bill raised the radio and looked at Paul. “Remember what I said, Paul, you’re with me, and it’s my command out here.”

  Bill looked back at the warehouse and pushed the button on the radio.

  “Unit two,” he said, “move in.”

  77

  Villains

  “Lennox,” Erin yelled, with a volume that surprised herself.

  As she walked toward him, Keeler turned and began walking toward her, to intercept her.

  Lennox sat unmoving, with his back to her.

  “Get back over there,” Keeler said, pointing past her.

  “No,” she said. Her words sounded braver than she felt. “Not until he explains.”

  Keeler stepped forward.

  Lennox raised his hand, just slightly. Still sitting, still with his back to Erin.

  Keeler saw the motion and hesitated. He appeared to be conflicted by it, but in the end, he didn’t challenge it.

  Lennox stood and turned, looking at her directly for the first time.

  She felt, as he did, he was somehow channeling more energy than was possible for a single person. He was barreling into her, his pale green eyes, with their unblinking stare. Cutting all the way to the inside of her.

  “Who are you that I would owe you any kind of explanation?”

  His words were smooth, and measured. Not threatening in the way Keeler’s were.

  No…Lennox’s words were much worse.

  Erin felt a muscle in her leg spasm as she stood there. She’d forgotten Ben was behind her. She’d forgotten the entire world was still alive and moving outside the walls of this warehouse. In that moment, she’d even forgotten about Keeler, looming behind Lennox. Right then, she was his captive.

  “Well,” he said.

  “I know,” she said, pushing the word out of her mouth, “who you are.”

  “Oh?” he said, not interested, not bored, not…anything.

  “Somalia,” she continued, “1993.”

  Lennox looked at her, waiting. Or maybe he was thinking, she couldn’t tell.

  “Gillian Reed,” she said.

  At those two words, something in his expression changed. Something she wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t had locked her down with that stare.

  “She was my mother,” Erin said. “You wer—”

  “She was careless,” he said plainly.

  Erin stood, not knowing what to say next.

  “You don’t know why she died,” Lennox said. “You couldn’t know, because you’re the same as her. Coming in here, like you have some divine right to do so.”

  “But,” Erin said, “you killed those people. The loggers, and...”

  “I didn’t kill them, as if that matters. I used them to open a new way. A better way. Life is only as significant as the value it brings.”

  “You believe, like your mother, in a one-to-one world. Where there are good things, and there are bad things. But you have no concept of the aggregate,” he said, his voice almost medicinal as he spoke. “You don’t pull your head back far enough to see the bigger picture, because
you can’t. You’re incapable of understanding that the basic building blocks that we use to construct our world, the cement and brick, that these are the result of other, lesser things that were crushed. They were crushed so that something bigger could be made.”

  “That’s why you betrayed her?” Erin said.

  “You’re asking the wrong question,” he said in his placid, monotone voice. “I didn’t betray her. I was never beholden to her in the first place. She and I wanted different things.”

  “And she was too foolish to see that,” he said, turning away, as if he had merely been thinking out loud this entire time.

  He turned to Keeler, but didn’t look at him.

  “It’s time,” Lennox said. “Radio when you’re through.”

  With that, Lennox walked out the back door of the warehouse.

  Erin watched him go. She wanted to call out after him. She wanted to say all of the things she’d planned. But all of those things had dried up in her throat the moment he started talking. Part of her just wanted him to continue talking, as strange as that sounded. Not because she liked what he was saying. She didn’t. But because what he was saying was…somehow…singular. In a bizarre way, she felt a kind of lulling comfort around him. It wasn’t a feeling of safety. No. Quite the opposite. But when he was there…she felt insulated from everything else. Even…from Keeler. Like he was a drug.

  She didn’t say anything else. She just watched him disappear.

  Keeler walked up to her. And with some effort, she pulled her eyes from the door where Lennox disappeared.

  He was standing over her now, his large frame towering over her’s. Reality was here again. And it was hungry.

  “What are you going to do?” she said to him.

  He smiled. But even as he did, she couldn’t help comparing his presence to Lennox’s. Keeler was his own brand of evil.

  But he was different.