by R. E. Rowe
“Love!” he shouts in a heavy English accent to Bree, giving her a hug and a passionate kiss. I notice he’s wearing a gold bracelet too.
“Ah, jeez. Get a room.” I scowl and look away. This must be the lieutenant dude Richard was talking about in the car.
“Reizo Rush,” Richard says. “This is Lieutenant Curtis Webb.”
I was right.
“Cheers, Rush,” Curtis says. “Heard a great deal about you, mate. I hear you’re the last of our kind, brother.”
“What?”
Richard makes a face and shakes his head at Curtis.
The dude definitely looks intimating. He could knock the crap out of Josh the Hulk back in Franklinville with one punch.
I flash back to Franklinville. Theodore High. Adding color to gray. Aimee.
I sit down and grab my head. I’m in overload. “Aimee,” I whisper. “Where are you?”
“Who’s Aimee?” asks Curtis, frowning.
I look up. “What?”
“Easy now. I totally get it,” Curtis says. He turns and blinks at Bree. She smiles back at him.
“Lieutenant Webb is the leader of our special ops team,” says Richard.
“Hey, man, just call me Curtis. I understand this is intense,” he says. “I took it the same way when I was first activated.”
Richard clears his throat. “Not now. He’s not been fully activated.”
I notice the jewels in Richard's bracelet are all lit up, some blinking. “Fully activated? What does that mean?”
Curtis nods at Richard. “Apologies.” He pauses and gives me an intense look. “I get you’re confused at the moment.”
“You think?”
“Sorry, mate. Just try to chill. Breathe.” Curtis puts out his hand. “It’ll help. Believe me.”
I reluctantly shake his hand.
“Would you at least tell me what activated means?” I ask Richard again.
He lowers his voice. “Please, not now. There isn’t the time to explain.” Richard lets out a short breath. “Later, I promise. Can we count on you to help?”
I glance at Bree. She’s making her soft puppy eyes, but not at me. She’s directing her gaze at Curtis.
I hesitate. Curtis is right. This is all crazy. FBI, CIA? I wonder what I haven’t been told yet. Part of me is worried about Mack, but a bigger part could care less. I don’t even know the guy. I’m starting to think I didn’t hear Aimee at all. My head buzzes.
Deep down, I know Richard is right. Getting answers means I have to help. Besides, Mack is a cousin.
I shake my head. “Tell me what I need to do.”
“Follow me. I’ll brief you in the car,” Richard replies. He claps his hands twice.
We all file out of the apartment as if a fire bell just rang and make our way to the garage.
As we speed through the Malta streets in the black sedan to a place Richard calls the historic Grand Master’s Palace, he explains the plan.
We arrive with five minutes to spare before the deep-voiced kidnapper’s deadline. I get out of the car and lift a bag of money over each shoulder.
“There, those trashcans,” Richard says, pointing toward the front of the Palace at two trashcans on either side of the grand entrance stairs.
“Put one bag in each can,” Bree adds with a disinterested yawn.
I stumble over to the green trashcans with the two bags and set them down to take off both trashcan lids. Disgusting. Both cans are full of ripe trash and smell worse than a rotting landfill.
I pull the plastic bags full of smelly trash out of the metal cans, and then stuff a bag of money inside each can.
A block away, I notice a white four-door car with two men in gray suits watching me. With the money placed in each trashcan just as Richard told me to do, I pick up the two bags of ripe trash and hurry to the white car. Before either of the men inside the car can react, I open the backseat passenger door and heave the trash inside. One of the bags splits open when it hits the seat, spreading smelly contents all over the back of the car.
The look on the faces of the men in the white car is priceless. They scream at me. It’s time for Richard to tell me what is going on. Just as I take off in a sprint back to Richard’s car, a small black car screeches around a side street corner, fish tailing towards me, machine gun fire rattling from inside.
Oh hell! I freeze.
When I realize people are shooting out the window of the small car, I turn around and bolt back to the white car for cover. So much for sending Richard a message.
Before I can get back to the white car, a guy leans out of the passenger window of the speeding car and fires a rocket-propelled grenade.
Direct hit.
The white car explodes right before my eyes, knocking me backwards onto my butt and sending trash into the air like confetti.
Ears ringing, I struggle to get back on my feet.
The small black car is still getting closer. I’m so screwed.
Suddenly, a second black car screeches around a side street a block away. I catch a glimpse of a driver in a gray suit and sunglasses before he slams into the side of the fast approaching black car. The T-boning impact of the second car sends the hard charging black car into a building on the side of the road. An explosion erupts as both cars plow violently into the side building.
More gunfire echoes from down the street.
I’m fully exposed and have no idea which direction to run.
Bullets explode into the buildings walls and parked cars in a fiery hailstorm.
A hand grabs my arm from behind. “Hurry. This way—” Bree shouts. “Keep your head down.”
Bree pulls me into the black sedan and shoves me inside, and then jumps on top of me, slamming the door at the same time. “Go, go, go!”
Richard hits the gas. “Hang on!” We accelerate away from the scene.
Bree sits up and so do I. I glance back through the rear window. Smoke and fire roll upward as people shoot at each other. This isn’t a dream.
Bree pushes my head down. “Will you stay down until we’re out of here?” She sounds irritated.
“What the hell just happened?”
“It was a set-up,” Richard says.
“A set-up? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Why are you so stupid?” asks Bree.
Richard waves her off. “They wanted to kill you, Reizo.”
“No shit,” I say. “But why?”
“Wait until we get back,” Richard says, driving like a mad man, screeching around corners, weaving in and out of traffic back to the safe house garage.
Richard slams on the brakes and glides into an open parking space. He leaps out of the car and opens the back door. “Let’s go. Get out.”
We run back into the safe house apartment.
I’m freaking out. First an exploding bus. Now exploding cars? Machine guns? More guys getting killed? Rockets? “What is happening? Who were those guys?”
“You’re safe now, Reiz,” says Bree. “Stop crying and relax.”
“Are you kidding?” I yell. “Relax? Screw you—”
“Reizo, please,” says Richard. “Patience.”
Tano walks in and scowls, huddling with other gray suits around Richard. The creepy dude scans the room as though he’s waiting for someone to burst through the doors any second.
“What do we do now?” I yell.
“We wait,” a woman in gray says.
I can’t stop shaking. A guy hands me a wet towel and a glass of water.
“Right, like a wet towel is going to explain what’s going on here.”
The guy ignores me.
I pace around the room trying to understand what is happening, but no one wants to answer my questions. Richard is busy talking with a small group of gray suits. Bree makes puppy dog eyes at Lieutenant Webb. Her tough demeanor has changed to rosy cheeks, wide eyes, and giggles as if she toggled an on-off switch.
After thirty minutes, one of the men in gray suits s
itting at the table stands and shouts, “Frag tracking is online. We got ’em, sir.”
Richard rushes to the man. “Where?”
“In the city,” he replies. “I have an address.”
“Let’s move,” Curtis says. “I’ll take Rush with me.”
Richard looks at Bree, and then at me. “No!” Richard shouts. “Bree and Reizo ride with me.”
We return to the same black sedan.
I’m so confused. “At least tell me what frag tracking means?”
“The money is coated in red beryl dust,” Bree says. “Richard’s team controls satellites that can track it.”
“Bree, not now,” says Richard, continuing to focus his attention on the road ahead.
I start to ask another question, but Bree turns away and raises her voice. “Like Richard said, not now.”
The mess just keeps getting messier.
We speed through the narrow city streets lined with two story stone buildings that look as though they’d been standing for a hundred years with no upkeep. I’m amazed at Richard’s driving. He manages to whip around parked cars and get safely around slow drivers. We make a couple of right and left turns on the city streets. The farther we drive into what appears to be a remote residential section of the city, the fewer cars we see on the streets.
Before long, we park a half block away from two other double-parked black sedans full of gray suits blocking the street. Gray suits leave the cars and run into one of the old, two-story buildings, prompting a group of pedestrians to scatter.
“We’re not going in?” I ask.
Richard puts a fist up. “Not yet.”
Suddenly, I hear gunfire rattle the neighborhood, and then a series of explosions coming from the building where the gray suits entered.
Holy hell! Here we go again!
Richard’s face turns flush. He hits the accelerator, and then slams on the brakes behind the two cars. “Wait here, both of you, until my all clear!” He takes out a handgun and leaves the car in a hurry, running toward the explosion.
I look at Bree. She peers nervously out of the car window.
“CIA? When?”
“A year ago. On my fifteenth birthday,” she says.
I feel my stomach churning like sour ice cream.
Bree fidgets and taps her fingers on the door.
More gunfire.
Bree lets out a loud sigh. “That’s it. Time to go. Whoever is behind this is not getting away this time.”
Which means we run into a firefight? “Richard told us to—”
“Suit yourself. I’ll be back in a few minutes. Stay put, you understand?” She bolts out of the car toward the explosions before I can respond.
“Ah crap.” I get out and run after her.
When we arrive, the front door is open and we continue inside. The interior of the house is completely empty of furniture just like the safe house. Bree continues up some stairs. I follow close behind.
A small fire from the explosion is still burning in a back room when we get to the second floor. There are bodies everywhere lying motionless on the floor. Most are bleeding, a few groaning.
I do a double take as I watch Bree move with no hesitation, as if she were some kind of SWAT team expert. She checks the wounds of the gray suits, and then calmly picks up a handgun lying on the floor.
It doesn’t take long to find Richard bleeding on the floor. He’s conscious.
“Richard.” Bree says.
His shoulder and leg are bleeding. Two black bags are near him. Both are empty. Bree quickly applies pressure to Richard’s wounds and I help her.
“It was a trap,” Richard says, coughing. “Carmina was never here.”
Bree takes off the scarf from around her neck and uses it to put over Richard’s wound. She presses down hard and ties the scarf around his leg.
Richard grimaces. “In the trunk of the car, Reizo, you’ll find a device like the one I gave you to use on that first jet. Do you know what I’m talking about?”
The gizmo projected Bouncer and Honesti as 3-D holographs. “Yeah. I remember.”
“You’ll be able to track the money,” Richard says, and coughs. “Follow it and you’ll find Mack.”
He coughs again this time harder. “Don’t trust anyone. You hear me?”
I nod. “Tell me more about Carmina. Who was the guy on the phone?”
Richard coughs. “You must stop Carmina.”
I hear sirens getting closer. For the first time, I agree with Richard. We need to get the hell out of here.
“Let’s go,” Bree says, pulling my arm.
I follow her outside to the black sedan. An ambulance with its sirens blaring arrives on the scene, hitting its brakes hard in front of the house.
“What about Richard?” I ask.
“They’ll take care of him,” Bree replies. “He’ll be fine.”
“Get the device that Richard was talking about from the trunk. I’ll drive.”
I retrieve the device from the trunk, sit in the front passenger seat, and then tap on the screen expecting holograms to appear.
Nothing happens.
After pressing on the screen frantically for a minute, I manage to get the display to switch on, but it shows only a map of the Mediterranean that includes Malta and North Africa with a green dot. “It’s a map with a moving green dot.”
“Map of where?”
I look closely at the display. “Ah. Over the ocean in between Malta and North Africa. I think the green dot is flying to . . . a place called Libya?”
I check the display more closely. I remember hearing news reports about unrest in Libya. It's definitely not a vacation resort town.
Bree hits the brakes and makes a U-turn that would impress a racecar driver.
Damn, she can drive! I feel my stomach stretch into my mouth, and then down to my feet when she accelerates.
chapter nineteen
Franz’s face abruptly appears as a hologram directly in front of me. The concern on his face causes my stomach to sink. I remember this same expression during our last lifetime when General defeated us, but this time I see fire in his eyes. He’s not given up.
“Have you made progress?” I ask.
“I’ve fixed the bugs in the builderbot. And I believe I know why the silica form can’t entangle with a soul beyond the ether.”
“Go on.”
“After General’s system’s failsafe took everything offline, it appears that General’s keepers moved all souls in the reincarnation queue back into the fourth dimension. The builderbots are functioning properly. The problem is simply that there are no souls available to pair with a silica body.”
“You mean—”
“Yes, I mean only reckoners remain online with communication access.”
“But why hasn’t General removed them too?”
“The council of souls won’t let him. Reckoners still wish to remain independent regardless of our war with General. They’re beyond General’s ability to control since they report directly to the council.”
With no souls available to incarnate, I’m running out of options. “I must motivate the reckoners to convince the council to permanently remove General. But I will need proof that General’s system is flawed to convince the council. The reckoners must see our QCC communities working. We must end the unrest.”
“Yes, I agree. The council will need proof.”
I take a deep breath and lower my voice. “Can you hack the reckoner link and plead our case directly to them?”
“I’ve tried, but I need more data to break the encryption. The only way to crack the Reckoner link is by using an active entangled reckoner channel.”
“An active one? But the gold bracelet shields all enforcers from the reckoner link. You’re not thinking about recruiting an unaware biological human are you?”
“No, nothing like that. The process would drive a normal human mad.”
“Bree says Rush has a temporary bracelet. It’s not
implanted.” Franz smiles. “Without a bracelet on his arm, I can decrypt his active comm link with the two reckoners who are communicating with him and talk with them directly.”
“Ah good,” I say, rubbing my chin. “Reizo Rush, correct?”
“Correct.”
“Is there any way to reincarnate Alex and Asher?” I ask, scratching at my head.
“I’m afraid not. General’s keepers have isolated their souls.”
“Bree must find a way to get Rush on our side.”
“Yes, Carmina.”
“Communicate this plan to Bree. She must recruit and train Rush as soon as possible. We need him on our side to win this war with General.”
chapter twenty
Bree drives through a chain-link fence topped with razor wire into Malta International Airport. She causally nods to the guard.
He waves her through without hesitation.
I’m stunned. “Do you know that guy?”
Bree smirks. “Nope.”
“How—”
“Your training starts now. Watch and learn, Reizo Rush.” She hits the brakes. We screech to a stop on Apron Two near a business jet with its engines whistling. A group of men in dark suits starts up the jet’s stairs.
Bree’s eyes sparkle as she looks over the million dollar private jet.
“What are you—?” My stomach drops. “No, you’re not.”
Bree shakes her head. “Just relax and stop crying every two seconds.”
“I don’t believe this. You’re crazier than I am. Just get us out of here. Before—”
She blows me a sarcastic kiss. “We’re going to borrow it.”
“And how are you going to borrow an entire jet with people on it?”
Bree holds up an arm exposing the gold bracelet with the blinking jewels. “We have these. They work pretty well when we’re not fighting someone wearing them too.”
“What do you mean, pretty well?”
A blank look comes over Bree’s face. She closes her eyes and the jewels on her gold bracelet glow brightly.
All the business people abruptly stop, turn around, and walk back to the terminal. One guy in a pilot’s hat, white shirt, and a black jacket continues onto the jet.
“Our ride is ready,” she says, getting out of the car. “Let’s go.”
