Ransom X

by a b

  The short guard pulled a bandana out of his pocket and tied it onto her head, hiding her signature long auburn hair. She acquiesced nervously, looking at the door from which they just come, expecting it to open at any moment. She tucked the flaps of the bandana behind her ears. The arena was suddenly silent; the house lights had evidently knocked the wind out of the frenzied crowd. Finally her mind came to the question that it should have asked at first mention.

  “How will we be safer out in the crowd?”

  “I should have said “I’ll be safer”, darling.” Sabita felt the needle enter her neck and the drug quickly spread up the innominate artery. There was barely a second of confusion before falling forward into her father’s arms.

  The surprise on his face would quickly give way to a lifeless fixed gaze as Feely took advantage of the defenseless man, completely unwilling to drop his daughter to raise a hand to protect himself. He slipped behind him and pummeled the base of his neck with a flashlight handle. His legs buckled, and Feely let him hit the ground after cutting in on his daughter like he was in the middle of some kind of sick dance. She fell into his arms, ending up face to face with her attacker. Sabita’s lips moved but no sound came out. Her face was chalk white yet somehow she fought to keep the muscles in her face moving over and over, silently mouthing a message. He saw her anger, and pulled her closer whispering in her ear. “Wait ’til I get you home darlin’.” Her eyes rolled back into her head and she went limp in his arms.

  “I love the way their nipples get hard just before lights out.” Feely said, moving half of her weight onto Stones’ shoulder.

  Stones glared at him with a look that said he was all business until the job was done. He had already slipped on a shirt hiding the security polo beneath, and he waited with Sabita leaning on him as Feely did the same. The agents should be coming pretty soon, he thought, looking down the dark passage. “Let’s go.” He urged, pushing through the door and pulling his cargo along. The height difference and dead weight caused three of them to sway like they were in a drunken three-legged race. The crowd was streaming up the stairs of the amphitheater. Moths flew in the bright lights that filtered down onto the crowd. Stones avoided these hot spots like he might burn up if the white light touched him, finding a handicapped exit tucked in the darkness to the left of the stage. They were out of the building and walking in a sea of cars in minutes. Red break lights on station wagons filled with tweens courteously allowed them to pass. There wasn’t an agent in sight and about a hundred yards in the distance, the van sat parked on an outer wing of the lot. It was far enough out that other cars weren’t hemming it in, and it emptied onto a service road. They were a five-minute stumble to complete freedom.

  *****

  Wilkes took the news update well.

  An unfamiliar voice crackled in his ear. It was disturbing in every way imaginable.

  “We’re at the trailer, the father is out, we found two security guards stripped and unconscious. Do we have containment on the crowd?”

  Wilkes could barely contain a thunderous, almost out-of-body anger. “They saw us coming. Get into the crowd. The local police are on their way, we’ll have roadblocks up in ten minutes.”

  Legacy cut in through the radio chatter. “Ten minutes will be too late. Blue gave them a plan and he knows our playbook, you’re going to have to go off the page to bring these guys down.”

  It killed the career officer to countermand his own order, but he’d been wrong in a room in which Legacy was right before. He could credit his decision almost as much to protecting his dignity as agreeing with Legacy. “Legacy is right.” He knew right after he said it that Legacy could put himself in charge of any situation, as he was now in charge of this operation. The men reported to him, but Legacy was running the show. “I need sharpshooters on the high ground, and every available agent standing in the middle of every road leading from the venue. Nobody leaves.” He pulled the headset microphone away from his lips, afraid that he couldn’t contain his frustration from erupting into a tirade that would likely include every vulgarity in the English language interspersed with Russian and Farsi slurs he’d learned on assignment. He would say them all if he lost Sabita tonight, but not now. He let the mic spring back realizing something about the field report. “Where is Agent Brent?”

  *****

  Brent took one look at the unconscious security guards and had reversed course heading back down the steps. He had sent the rest of his team ahead, but he’d known what they were going to find. The confirmation that the trailer was empty came across the radio as his feet hit the impacted dirt and gravel parking lot. Brent ran full speed across the maze of cars, headed for the main access road. He could see cars that were filing onto the main ramp that led to the freeway. He had to get to that intersection, each heartbeat meant another car was racing away from the venue, and any of them might contain the girl he’d come here to save. His body moved back and forth in an off balance stride, straining for any more speed that his legs could give him. His muscles began to burn, and the pain gave him new strength, he wanted to be reminded of the consequences of his failure. This pain was the least of that that was to come.

  *****

  Legacy had listened to the mission fall apart from Tyke’s living room. It was like hearing the final broadcasts from the ground reporters watching the Hindenburg, a fiery plunge with no way to intervene. The slight tilt of the unfinished floor beneath his feet did not benefit his balance either. He felt like he was on one of the center spheres of a perpetual motion machine, the type that had become so popular on executives desks. His station was unmoving but in rhythmic disequilibrium as forces moved through him to their point of action. It was where the metronome pushed outward and things actually happened. It was outside his sphere, literally. The only person he could blame was himself, he knew if he’d seen the location, been on site it would have been different. Blue had known the venue, and had given specific instructions – the kind that Legacy was cycling through his brain to recreate. He picked up a thread, it wasn’t much, but it could help. “Wilkes, scan the fringe of the lots, look for three people, they’ll be headed for a van, and there might be a bike parked nearby.”

  He relayed the instructions without question, and Legacy could tell that his well-placed words earlier had broken his leadership. Wilkes had started to question himself in the field, and once a commander starts blurring the line of command, he might as well step back entirely. It appeared as if that’s what he’d done.

  Wilkes was now taking orders from Legacy – if Martin had stopped for a moment to think about it, he would have marveled at wresting control from one of the most accomplished, powerful men in the country. Beware if Legacy ever became a presidential advisor, he’d be running the country before the presidential crème fraiche was stale.

  “I’ve three lined up with a limp payload between them. Parking lot P, vector southwest, in the overflow lot.” He waited for a second and when Wilkes did not reply he added. “Copy.”

  Legacy spoke the language of authority “Mark the forearms of the men with your scope. Tell me what you see.”

  Stones and Feely stumbled up to the van making just enough joyful noise that other concert goers thought they were having a little too much fun. The truth was that Sabita was the first girl they’d dosed who had displayed such a heart rate. Stones checked her pulse every twenty paces as was directed by Blue. There was always a helpful spike in the beats per minute when the girls felt the needle go in, and that help push the drug up through the blood brain barrier. In Sabita’s case, she’d just come off the stage where her aerobic workout kept her at a sustained plateau, the injection circulated quickly to the brain, but a constant drum roll heart beat had pushed the toxin deep into muscle tissue on a systemic level. Her legs were the first to start trembling, then her biceps contracted, bringing all three heads together with a thud. The last fifty feet they had to slow down to a crawl, but as Feely leaned Sabita against Stone’s tree-like frame a
nd pulled out his keys, he knew the experience would be the best that retelling could offer. He could see them with all of the guys grouped around them, jerking around to uproarious drunken laughter. He spoke while turning the key in the lock. “This will be something to tell, won’t it Stones?”

  He turned back and could immediately tell that something was wrong. Sabita was slumping to the ground with a spattering of blood on her cheek. Stones stood frozen.

  Feely took a step toward him and realized that it wasn’t caution that kept him propped rigid against the van. A sniper’s bullet had come through the bottom of his jaw on angle through the back of his head, it looked like someone had pulled the plug of a bathtub and brains drained out the hole under his chin. If his expression said anything about his bewildered last thought, it would have been a question like “Why can’t I turn my head?” There was no anger, no pain, simply an unanswered query that never made it to his bloodied lips. Time, which had seemed to move so slowly as Feely examined his slain friend, caught up to them. Stones fell like a rag doll, all of the neural signal cut to his muscles. Feely stutter stepped between running for the driver’s seat and retrieving Sabita.

  He thought about driving up to the compound without Sabita, and then dropped to his knees, pulling at her arms and dragging her into the cargo using the van door to protect him. He looked out into the night sky the entire time, waiting for another raindrop to turn out the lights completely. Nothing but clear skies, he closed the sliding door and the latch caught twice.

  Or was that the sound of a clip being slapped into an automatic rifle? Brent kept a level gaze on Feely. He knew that a cornered animal was the easiest kind to shoot, and he had to restrain himself from letting his trigger finger find that warm, natural firing position.

  Feely raised his hands, a warped manic smile coming to his quivering lips. “Is there - is there only one of you?”

  “Only one of me –” Brent began slowly, but his effort to calm Feely only gave him an opening. If he could get past him, he was free. A knife flashed in Feely’s hand and with a quick motion he drew it back to throw.

  Two bullets ripped into Feely - one into his upper throwing arm, the other into his chest. The sniper hadn’t waited for an order. Brent waved his arms in a panic “Stop shooting, who is shooting?”

  It was too late, Feely was on the ground, blood spilling from front and back, soaking into the clay soil beneath him. The knife dropped harmlessly from his fingers. Feely shrugged impishly as Brent approached, his face set in a childish panic. “I dropped my knife.” His glassy eyes fixed on Brent “You’re in trouble now, you drew blood, only Blade is allowed to draw blood. You’re in trouble now.”

  His breathing was labored. The interrogation would have to be quick. Brent pulled out his first aid kit and went through the motions of stabilizing Feely. It was only trappings. This deal had been closed with the wound gushing into his lungs. It was all a matter of watching the second hand on the clock.

  He spoke into his headset, giving the home base all of the details of his condition. His clinical assessment was laced with anger, why the hell did that shooter put that second bullet into him? Brent had the situation under control, ten feet from the victim with body armor and, more importantly, the ability to duck – the explanation was obvious; the entire agency wanted these men dead. He should have seen it coming.

  “An ambulance is on the way.” Wilkes cut in with an update.

  “He’s not going to last.” Brent heard footsteps behind him as his team assembled near the van and secured the scene in a thirty-meter arc. He glared into Feely’s eyes. “Where were you taking her? Where is your home base?”

  Feely shook off the latest question as he did every other one that he’d asked while Brent worked on him. He smiled, something just beneath the surface of his expression screamed to break through. Like a buried confession that desperately wanted to be brought into the light of day, his clenched teeth, stained pale red, kept everything in.

  Legacy entered the radio chatter and it immediately went silent. “Agent Brent, from your descriptions I see a high side of five minutes. Do exactly what I say. Don’t let him see your face whisper in his ear “We’re on our way home.” Keep the microphone close, I need to hear.”

  Legacy could hear the rustle of Brent getting into position, he thought about how awkward the intimate distance would appear to the onlookers. The response came quickly “We can clean the blood off the seats before we get back right? He won’t know any better.”

  Legacy fed questions into Brent’s ear.

  “How do we get out of here, I can’t find the freeway.”

  “I-70, you always get lost, I’ll drive.” He raised up a hand to push himself into a sitting position. Feely had no strength left and fell back, face to face with the agent. “You fuck. You fuckin’ cop. I’m dead.” Convulsions gripped his body as he spat blood in a spray that covered Brent’s face and slipped invisibly into his neat hairline.

  “Fuck.” Brent knocked the earpiece out of position wiping his face clean. It was over. Feely knew he was dying.

  “Sir?” An agent’s voice came from over your shoulder. “Agent Legacy is asking for you.”

  Legacy never asked. Brent had come to know Legacy; It was probably the worst misuse of the word “asking” since the Huns “requested” entrance into Warsaw. He replaced the earpiece; it was like coming midway into the current of a stream of orders. “Repeat please.”

  Legacy’s voice carried an almost electric current of urgency “He’s not done. Tell him he’s dead.”

  “If he knows he’s dead - “

  “He’s afraid of Blue, he won’t say anything or think about anything else including his own death until we remove him from the equation. Just say, he’s dead.”

  Brent stood over him. “He’s dead.”

  An angelic look crossed Feely’s face. His features softened. “Oh, that’s terrible.”

  “Where is your base?”

  “I’ll take you there.” His body convulsed in a coughing spasm, then his eyes fixed. Brent thought he was dead until he heard his voice sputter one more time. “He was such a sweet man.”

  Brent’s voice had the finality of a customer service representative explaining a list of fees to an irate customer “He’s gone. No ID on them, but from the looks of it we have Yellow and Green.”

  Wilkes’ voice burst in “I thought we already positive identification on both of them in Wyoming?”

  Brent answered, “Legacy was right.” The words must have stung, because Wilkes didn’t say anything, even though he hadn’t read the brief that was eventually printed in the final report with very few changes. This is what the report had to say:

  The bodies in Wyoming represent a distraction, and an odd glimpse at the man who leads this group. He is patient beyond belief. Blade constructed, recreated his family unit around himself. He carefully selected the members of his gang, and assembled them as perfect body-type matches to the brothers who tormented him through his childhood. The fact that he was followed, even idolized by their likeness must have been very satisfying to his ego, it kept the monster fed. The brothers that held him down and spit into his mouth were now kept rigidly in line cowed by Blade’s violence, which lashed out at them. They probably never knew that he was striking out at his past as much as striking out at them. It is my opinion (which is as good as fact) that he always expected to use that resemblance as a final distraction. He expected that when his real family died, a mistake would be made on every level of the investigation and all hell would break loose. He did not know I would see it as a plot. Killing the family was always his escape plan. The complexity of torture that led to the death of each of the occupants of the Wyoming house presents itself as proof that this was no mere vengeance killing by a gang of bikers. The ability to buy a few days of confusion in the aftermath of his final crime, and if there is any comfort to be taken in the carnage it is the fact that something had made him alter the timing of his plan. He�
��d played his cards early. They were dead and he hasn’t finished. All of the kidnappers are still alive, and working towards their next goal with the only change being that most of the FBI is no longer focused on their next objective, too.

  Chapter 54 Copy

  Brent waited in an eerie silence for someone to respond to his request. After what seemed ages, Wilkes came on the line and told him that a team was on its way. “Copy.”

  Brent walked ten paces into a bright patch of halogen light from a lamppost. The blood on his hands shimmered and smelled metallic. There was nothing he had wanted more than to see the men who took Laura bleed. He looked into the wet sticky mess, coelomic cavity fluids sticking to tissues floating in the rapidly oxidizing puddle. A fresh drop slid down his forefinger and entered the pool; he could have sworn that he saw a brief image of Laura’s body glistening in the reflective surface. Somehow the air changed the color before his eyes and it became fresh crimson lifeblood as his hands rose, creating long night shadows. He was no prophet, but he knew that he had Laura’s blood on his hands.

  *****

  “Forensics.” Legacy thought is the most overrated science in the world. Biologicals are for those with no imagination. He didn’t like fiber evidence, either. People committed the crime and only an examination of people could describe the depth and breadth of the circumstances surrounding a criminal act. Maybe he was pissed off because he simply didn’t want to start putting together another puzzle, or maybe it was the fact that he knew that he didn’t have the time. Blue would have the entire organization underground within hours – and in the forensic playbook, it took days. Add to that any one of the steps could hit a roadblock and the situation appeared to be aided by anything less than a fiber that had a map stamped on it or a genetic code that came with a utility bill complete with a current address.