The Golden Chair

by A J Fontenot

  Keeler was pointing his gun down at Erin now.

  Seconds left, Ben thought.

  Ben looked around. He couldn’t see anything he could use. Anything he could throw or…

  He heard Keeler say something else and noticed the tone of surprise in his voice. But he couldn’t make out the words. To say he was having trouble focusing right now was a bit of an understatement.

  Ben was on both of his feet now.

  Keeler was ten feet away.

  Ben breathed deep, feeling the spidering pain as he did. He’d run, knock him over. It may only buy a second or two, but—

  BANG.

  The sound froze him to the spot. All of his thoughts were gone.

  Keeler had done it.

  He’d shot her.

  And Ben…

  …he was too late.

  Ben continued to stand there, staring at Keeler’s back. The scene in front of him, frozen in his mind, frozen for all of time.

  He didn’t think anymore.

  He didn’t fall down because of the pain. He didn’t even feel the pain. Ben just…stood there. Disbelieving.

  84

  Doubletap

  Erin lay there in disbelief.

  The loud sound took place in only a fraction of a second. But it filled the space around her, lingering like a stain.

  Keeler stood there, still hovering over her, not moving, and with a protruding look on his face.

  She watched him watching her, not quite sure what would happen next.

  And then, as if someone else had entered her, she felt her hand squeeze the trigger again. Another violent BANG. And just as it had before, the small gun recoiled, and she thought it might come out of her hand.

  Keeler, still standing over her, jerked slightly. A delayed reaction. As if his body were still deciding if it were really hit or not.

  And then, without any more words, he tumbled lifelessly forward.

  His two-hundred-something pounds landed squarely on her, smothering her and knocking the wind out of her. She tried to breathe, but his sweaty deadweight body covered her face.

  She pushed, and it was like he was tied down on top of her. She realized, with some dread, that she might not be able to push him off of her. Her body completely depleted of strength. She couldn’t get a proper breath in her lungs.

  And then…to her relief and horror, Keeler rolled off of her.

  She breathed deep, knowing it might now be her last. The little gun only had two bullets and she’d used them both. She really didn’t have any other plays at this point.

  Except, it wasn’t Keeler…

  He was as still and dead as ever.

  The strip-lighting on the warehouse ceiling shown down into her eyes. She blinked, trying to look, and then her eyes came into focus on Ben. He’d pulled Keeler’s body off of her.

  Without saying anything, he was down on his knees next to her, touching her, inspecting her.

  His face was tense.

  He put his hands on her middle. Pressing, looking. It was clinical, like an EMT responding to an accident.

  She looked down at herself and saw his cause for alarm. She was covered in dark, wet blood.

  “It’s not…,” she said, reaching for his hand, “it’s not mine.”

  He stopped inspecting her and looked up, meeting her eyes for the first time. And then he glanced over at Keeler, who was laying on his side. Dark, thick blood was draining out of a small hole at the edge of his torso.

  “You…,” Ben said, putting together for the first time what had happened.

  Erin looked at Keeler, and then down at Marisol’s small gun, still in her hand.

  She held it up, showing it to Ben.

  “It was Marisol’s,” she said. “She always carried it with her. And…I guess it was so small Keeler didn’t notice it when he dumped her over here.”

  Ben was still on his knees, next to her. His face a mixture of relief, more-questions, and awe.

  “I saw it on her earlier…but,” she said, “it never occurred to me to take it, that I’d be able to use it. I didn’t think I could ever do something like that,” she trailed off.

  Ben was silent, watching her and listening.

  “And then, now,” she said, motioning to Keeler, “it wasn’t even, really, a decision…,” she shrugged, “it just happened so fast.”

  Ben slumped back down.

  Erin put the gun down on the hard floor.

  After a moment, she leaned over on her knees, and reaching out to Keeler’s body, she unclipped the radio on his belt. The same one the man had brought him earlier. She pushed the button on the side of it, and said, in a tired voice, “Paul…” She pushed the button again, “Can you hear me, Paul?”

  And with that, she dropped the radio, feeling her own consciousness slipping. The day had finally taken all she had to give.

  85

  The Golden Chair

  Erin woke up to see Paul, crouching down next to her.

  She lifted her head but immediately regretted it. She dropped her head back and closed her eyes, to soothe the throbbing.

  “Take it easy,” Paul said.

  Her senses began filling her in on what was going on around her. The shuffle of people moving around them, voices casual. She opened her eyes again. Men in black field gear were in the warehouse now. She was still on the floor, but propped against someone’s jacket.

  The rest of her thoughts began coming back to her.

  “Lennox,” she said, trying to get up. “He was…,” she paused as a wave of dizziness passed over her.

  “It’s okay,” Paul said, resting a hand on her, “we know all about it.”

  She looked at him.

  “We didn’t get him,” Paul said, “but we know where he’s going.”

  She rested her head back against her makeshift pillow before trying to sit up again, remembering Ben.

  “Where’s Ben?” she said.

  “He’ll be fine,” Paul said. “They’re looking at him now. A few broken ribs. Probably a concussion. But, he’s had worse.”

  There was a lot she wanted to fill Paul in on. A lot that had happened while he was away, while he was…in jail. She remembered that now. But as she saw him now, dressed like this, in those dark tactical clothes, she had the feeling he knew a bit more about what had happened than he’d let on.

  Paul looked over his shoulder at some men walking by. She looked in that direction. But it was just more people doing clean up. Keeler’s body was gone, too.

  “It’s good to see you, Paul,” she said. “What…happened to you?”

  “That’s a long story,” he said, sitting next to her. “Lee and I — the guy runs SERA’s head office in Ghana — we go way back. But Lee made some bad choices. And I needed to see how far those choices went. Sorry I kept you in the dark on all that.”

  “I called that number you gave me, after…,” her mind began to flood with thoughts of Marisol. She turned to look behind her…where Marisol was…

  Paul must have seen what she was thinking, his eyes looked down for a moment.

  “She was working for us,” he said.

  “Us?”

  “Yeah, that’s…another long story. She was a CIA recruit.”

  The letters almost didn’t register.

  “Wait…,” Erin said, “CIA?”

  Her thoughts were still swimming.

  “I’ve been on loan with them for some time,” Paul said. “Not full-time, though; my work with SERA was all legit. But the two were…working toward the same end. And Marisol, they’d recruited her about eighteen months ago. She was working undercover for them.”

  “Marisol…was…,” the ideas just seemed too far out…too bizarre. But at the same time, it didn’t. It explained some things, like how eager she was to help Erin find something on Lennox…and why she carried a gun with her…and even why she’d come up here on her own…

  Paul glanced at where her body had been. “She was a good one, but…,”
he said quietly, “it was too soon.”

  The two of them sat there for a while as the other men walked around, cleaning the scene.

  “Was there anyone else?” she said.

  “Anyone else?”

  “At SERA, who were…CIA?”

  “No,” he said.

  The two of them sat and talked more. Erin continued to have more questions, and Paul patiently answered them. Or, most of them. Kwami and Gavin, she learned, were safe. And SERA was probably done-for in Ghana for a while. The other offices in West Africa would lend a hand as needed. But there was one more thing she hadn’t heard about…

  “What happened to the chair?” she said.

  Paul looked at her for a long moment. She couldn’t quite place his hesitation. It didn’t look like distrust…almost as if he was trying to decide how much to tell her.

  “You want the truth?” he said finally.

  “Of course,” she said, wondering what he wouldn’t want to tell her at this point.

  “The artifact itself,” he said, “sailed. Officially, we did everything we could to stop it. But unofficially, we let it go.”

  “You let it go?”

  He looked at her again, with that look.

  “What,” she said.

  “We let it go, because we know where it’s going. And, more importantly…we know who it’s going to,” he said. “Sometimes you have to let little fish go to catch the big ones.”

  At this point, she was too tired to keep pressing. A medic was by her side now, helping her up, taking her out.

  “When you get back home, and settled,” Paul said, “we’ll talk more.”

  86

  Washington D.C.

  Erin’s doorbell rang again, just as she pulled the door open.

  “Paul,” she said, hugging him. “I didn’t expect you to actually drop by.”

  “I know,” he said. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m, pretty good,” she said. “Still officially on leave from R4 while they do the investigation. They’ve arrested Carl. Conspiracy to murder…me.”

  “So I heard. Think the company’s going to survive?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Speaking of which, I saw your article in The Post.”

  “Yeah, apparently everyone has. I’ve been getting calls almost nonstop.”

  “How’s Ben?”

  “He’s doing better. Been sleeping on my couch until he figures out what’s next. Come on in,” she said, turning to walk back to the living room.

  “I can’t,” he said. “Got a flight to catch.”

  “Where to?”

  “That’s why I stopped by.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” he said, his tone a touch more serious now than a moment before. “The golden chair, it’s heading to Cartagena. Colombia.”

  “Okay…”

  “I’ve got some contacts down there, from previous work I’ve done. They’ll be able to help us, so I’m going to be heading down there to lead one of the teams.”

  “For the CIA?”

  “Sort of…in conjunction with the CIA. I’ll still have a cover, like before.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said. “And that’s what you wanted to stop by to tell me?”

  “Not exactly,” he said. He looked at a picture on the table in the hall. “That’s Gillian,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Erin said. “Paul? What’s up?”

  “The thing is, Erin. I…wanted you to hear it from me first…”

  “What is it.”

  “It’s... The person we’re looking at, the person who was the master-mind behind the golden chair — behind a lot of stuff really, he…,” Paul glanced around the room, before looking at her, “he’s your father.”

  The words almost didn’t register.

  Erin didn’t have a father. Well, she did…but he was long gone. A deadbeat who left when she was a baby. A guy who her mother had never talked about and who her aunt had always changed the subject about when she’d brought it up. And now…this. What Paul was saying — it couldn’t be right. Erin had tried to find him in college, but it was a dead-end. She found a guy who she was pretty sure was him, but he’d died some years back.

  Now…all she could do was look at Paul…who was looking at her…who was talking to her…

  “…been for it,” he’d said.

  “Wait…,” she said, not hearing any that, “you know my dad, and…he’s alive?”

  Even saying the words out loud was surreal. Like a weird trick her mind was playing on her, one she knew couldn’t be real, but still…a trick every one of her senses seemed to be confirming.

  “…he’s more than alive,” Paul said. “The Agency has had a file on him for several decades. But, he’s been careful. And they haven’t been able to touch him. Until now. That’s why I’m going down to Colombia. They’re pulling out all the stops.”

  “Paul,” she said, calmly, pushing all of the rest aside. “What’s his name?”

  He looked at her, this time with pity, a look she hated.

  “I can’t tell you that. Not yet. It’s still classified.” He sighed, as if he hated to say it. “But if what we do down there is successful, then you’ll know soon enough. I just didn’t want you to hear about it first in the news.”

  He looked at her. “You going to be okay?”

  She looked at him, barely registering the question. She nodded.

  “Listen,” he said, “I’ve got to go. Cab’s outside waiting.”

  He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, then he turned and left.

  She continued to stand there, not watching him, not watching…anything. The cold air from outside was coming in, but she didn’t feel it.

  “Was that Paul I heard?” said a voice from behind her.

  She turned and looked at him and turned away. For the briefest of moments, she’d forgotten she wasn’t the only one left in the world.

  “Yeah,” she said to Ben, “…that was Paul.”

  “What did he want? And, why didn’t he stay?”

  “He told me he was catching a flight to Colombia, because…my father is there,” she said, looking at him again.

  “Your father? I thought he was…”

  “I know, I…thought that, too,” she said.

  She leaned against the wall, letting herself slide down to the floor.

  Ben, with some effort — and a wince he did his best to hide from her — sat down beside her.

  “He said,” she stared at a spot on the floor in front of her, “my father was the one who stole the golden chair, and that the CIA had been on him for a long time…decades.”

  “I thought Jonah Lennox was behind that?”

  “I…dunno,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t really know much of anything.”

  “So, what are you going to do?”

  That thought hadn’t occurred to her until now. What was she going to do? Even more, that thought, as it began to blossom in her mind — as it began, like a hot sun, to burn away the fog that had been clinging to her thoughts — actually gave her…hope. Hope that, maybe this was the link she’d been waiting for.

  “I…,” she said, looking at him with a newfound clarity, “I’m going to go find him.”

  87

  The Century Man

  The story picks up again in the next book, The Century Man.

  Erin investigates the conspiracy her father is involved in… Ben has a secret… And Jonah Lennox has a plan that forces Erin and Ben to team up with him…

  The mysterious golden chair was only the beginning of something much more sinister, and bigger.

  Don’t miss The Century Man, the second part of the Erin Reed Trilogy! Sign up at ajfontenot.com so you don’t mis it when it comes out.

  And if you liked The Golden Chair, please leave a review for it wherever you bought it.

  Thanks! -Joe.

  Free Bonus Download

  Get the short story prequel of Erin Reed’
s backstory. You can read it before (or after) you read The Golden Chair. And it’s completely FREE. Get it at AJFontenot.com/trinidad-man.

  Acknowledgments

  To my early readers, Stacey (aka Mom), Marilyn Stewart, and Joe Waller, you were invaluable in helping me work through plot and structure. And to Kristin, for always keeping me from saying dumb things.

  Thanks to Elena at L1graphics for making a cover that makes me want to pick up my own book and read it. And thanks to Paige from RedPenEdits for all your editing.

  ________________

  Want to connect? Find me online and let me know what you thought of the book. twitter.com/aJoeFontenot.