by Shawn Keys
Kyle and Dazz flashed by him, with Dazz pausing long enough to smash a kick into his ribs with a scream, “That’s for my parents!” Then, not wanting to see the grizzly sight of her fallen parents by the front door, they bolted out the back and across the rear lawn.
When there wasn’t any sound of pursuit, Kyle had some small hope they had gotten away clean. Not pausing to gloat, they kept running fast and hard until both of them were sucking in wind. Tucking behind a random hedge a dozen blocks away, they collapsed into the shadows.
Dazz gasped out, “What the hell?” Tears were shrouding her eyes. “My parents were assholes, but… they didn’t deserve that!” She bit her lip, emotions that she had never dealt with and now never could bubbled up to the surface. All the angst and rebellion and fights evaporated and left nothing but the tragic certainty that her parents had been snuffed out.
Kyle didn’t have any answers. “This is insane! They pulled a gun on Laura, and now this? I don’t get it. I… I just don’t get it! What the hell is wrong with these agents? We’re just supposed to be talking!”
Dazz clutched at his arm. “Why were they at my house, Kyle? How’d they know?”
Kyle cursed. “They were watching. They had to be.”
“You said there were only two of them! They couldn’t be watching everywhere.”
“I mean our implants, Dazz. They were probably watching the feeds from everyone I know! Maybe looking for information or patterns to suggest I was with one of you. When your implant went dark, they must have figured out what happened.”
She was aghast, further horror striking her. “I killed them! It was a game and… and that’s why they’re dead! If I had just done you, they… oh… oh, Kyle I… I killed them!”
He grabbed her arms, turning her to face him. “No! Dazz, listen to me. They killed them. These two are out of control for some reason.” He scrubbed at his face. “I want to call the police or… or… I don’t know, anyone! Who do you call when you’re being stalked by two crazy G-men?”
“We need a place to hide… oh, shit, Kyle, you’re bleeding!”
She reminded him, and suddenly shock gave way and he felt the pain spreading over his arm. He brought his arm up, trying to see it in the dark. He hissed in agony. “Damn.”
Dazz tore a shirt out of her bag. “Here, hold this against it.” She glanced around. “Maybe we can find a store open for bandages. But that needs stitches.”
Kyle shook his head. “We can’t go to a hospital, Dazz. They’ll be on us in seconds.” He smirked. “Guess I’m gonna have a scar.”
Scowling at him, Dazz said, “It could get infected!”
“Alright, so we need a place we can hide and a chance to patch this up.”
Dazz objected, “I can’t do that kind of thing!”
“Let me think a little. We still need that place to hide.”
Dazz clutched his other arm. “We can’t go to any place with any friends. I mean, if they find us, look what they’ll do!”
Kyle scowled. “OK, let me think about this. Those fuckers asked if I was there before they shot them. Which means they’re probably going to slash and burn anyone who tries to hide me or knows anything. Nathan and Riley don’t know anything. He probably thinks I’m home in bed. Which means we can’t call him. As soon as we do, he’ll know. And he’s a terrible liar.”
“Laura and Danielle. You said they helped you out earlier.”
Kyle nodded, growling, “Damn. Yeah, they aren’t safe at all. I can text them an address and they can meet us somewhere. We can all hole up and think this through. Figure out some way to blow the whistle on all this!”
Dazz snarled, “I’m not letting this pass over. I don’t care if they forget about us. I’m going find a way to take these bastards down!”
“I’m with you. But right now, we need a place to think. I’m so fucking tired.” He rubbed at his forehead, the adrenalin seeping away and starting to bring on a wicked headache. The knife wound throbbed. “Come on, think. Where can we go where someone would definitely help us, but these two wouldn’t even think to go?”
* * *
“And what did you see then, Agent Lawson?”
Jack was hiding the pain well. Jill had checked; his entire body was black and blue from the roughing-up he had taken. His falls down the stairs would have killed a lesser man. As it was, Jack deserved some sort of acting award for not showing a trace of pain as he spoke to the police. Indeed, he even managed a credibly believable sigh of regret. “Not much to tell. We came around to question a witness, and found the door ajar. The parents were lying as you see them. You’ll need to do a full search to get a full list, but we saw right away some valuables were missing. Neither of them was wearing wedding rings. That was the first give-away. Home invasion. Robbery.” He gestured at the two dead people being eased into body bags. “But from the way they were arranged, they knew were talking at the door as if they knew the attackers.”
“And the daughter is missing?” the detective prompted.
“Unless you found her in the house somewhere. We did a quick sweep, then called you in. Thought we checked all the corners, but I might have missed her.” Jack put on a theatrical expression that perfectly mimicked professionalism with the right amount of ‘broken’ after finding a tragic scene. He used his very real physical pain to simulate emotional trauma at the ‘horrible scene they had stumbled upon’.
The detective sympathized. “Nah. You did it right. She wasn’t inside. We’ve seen this pattern before. Well-off daughter lives on the wild side, then tells the wrong people about where she lives. They show up and things go bad from there. Either she was in on it, or she didn’t know it was happening until it was too late. That means she’s probably with them, a hostage, or dead.”
Jack shook his head. “Damned shame.”
Jill drifted away, leaving Jack to finish up the act. A half-dozen police cars were scattered around the road, cordoning off the area. The two FDPC agents had called them in once sure the scene was properly prepared. The ‘missing jewelry’ was in her pocket, soon to be lost forever.
She wiped at her eyes with a cool cloth, doing her best to soothe the inflammation from the pepper spray attack. Fortunately, the Simmons whelp had used a commercial variant. Enough to sting for sure, but no enough to deliver the lasting burns of military grade variants, and certainly not the at-times permanent damage of real mace. That didn’t mean it didn’t sting like fiery pokers in her eyes. She had played off the redness as tears, suffering a little loss of reputation to build their cover story.
Giving Jack space to finish the work, she brought her phone up to her ear and redialed a specific number. She only had to wait two rings before it picked up. “Missed again, Sir.”
“Am I mistaken about the identity of your target?”
Jill knew her boss wasn’t being sarcastic. He could be demanding, but didn’t expect the impossible. If she told him that Hutchings was a former recon marine with deadly skills, the boss would give her access to a full tactical team to take care of the problem. Then again, if she wasted his resources, that same team would be sent for her next. “No, Sir. He’s a young adult with a few friends that are intent on helping him. He’s more resourceful than expected. He also has a bit of combat training. Nothing we can’t handle. He’s just a little more determined than we expected.”
“You would not be calling me merely to report a failure.”
“No, Sir. We came close this time, and had to take a few of those extraordinary measures you spoke about.”
“I see.”
“The two that were killed were non-baseline. No large interruption, but there will need to be a cover story. We’ve cooked up a possible smoke-screen involving their daughter. She has an erratic nature. This will help keep the authorities suspicious of her if she is helping the target. Make her a suspect, and that will take away some options from them. We may need your help injecting a few elements into the daughter’s files to make sure the st
ory sticks.”
“Send me the details. I don’t want to divert too many resources to such a small task, but I’ll see what I can do. Anything else?”
“Access to Hutchings’ personal cell phone would be nice. Can you put pressure on the NSA to let us in?”
“That sort of thing isn’t easy. In any country with a nationalized telecom service, sure. But this isn’t China. Here in the States, everything is private-commercial. They’re sticky about allowing any data that isn’t part of the app stream. We can locate the phone, but reading his mail is another level. For this small situation, I’m not going to burn favors. If he turns on the phone, you’ll be able to localize him. But that’s it. Find him. We’ve trained you to be resourceful.”
“Understood, Sir.” Jill waited until she heard the click on the other end. The regional Boss was not one for lengthy goodbyes. She tucked the phone away and waited for Jack to get clear of the police. Then she said, “We have a little fire-support from on high, but not a lot. He was satisfied with us making strong moves like this, as long as we put a nail in Hutchings’ coffin soon.”
Jack scowled. “Are we at the point of hostages yet?”
“Close.” Jill steepled two fingers against her temples. “I have a headache and I need a shower. We need food and sleep. Let’s take a few hours, then come at this again in the morning. If we don’t get our hooks into him by midday, we’ll start looking for pressure points to squeeze. After this, you can be sure I’m going to take pleasure in watching him squirm.”
Chapter 9
Kyle now suspected his phone was under pretty much constant surveillance. He turned it on but killed the transmission functions long enough to copy all the phone numbers he needed onto a piece of paper, then kissed the thing goodbye and tossed it into a river.
Dazz was about to do the same, but he stopped her. “There aren’t any stores open this late at night. They might not have yours tapped yet. Until we can get a burner phone… wait, is that even a thing?”
She chuckled. “Yes.”
“Well, until we can buy a couple, that’s all we have.”
“Too risky. If they know I’m helping you, it’s only a matter of time before they are tracking it.”
“Can I see your phone for a second?”
“Are you going to throw it in the river?”
“Not yet.” She snapped it away, but Kyle held out his hand. “I won’t use it for long. Come on, I need to find someone, and this stings like a bitch.” He was trying to hold the shirt against his cut while flicking through apps on Dazz’s phone. He managed to log into his ‘Always In Touch’ social media account. AIT was the current standard for photo pools and streaming threads for your day-to-day life for anyone who cared to follow you.
He thought back in his mind, remembering the last name the school nurse had given him. A quick search later, he had found the only Lily Perkins living in the area. She didn’t have a listed phone number, so he had to pray that she kept notifications active for her AIT. He fired her off a chat request with a high priority on it, adding a note as to where they would be. That was a risk, but hey… she was either going to ignore it or answer the call. Hopefully, she wouldn’t do something silly like summon an ambulance.
He handed back the phone to Dazz. “Alright, that sucked to type. Here. These are the numbers for Laura and Danielle. Can you send them a text? Tell them to shut off their phones and meet us at the Lyall street church. We’ll warn them they might be next ones to get questioned. Maybe even hurt.”
Dazz did precisely that, and then her phone followed Kyle’s into the drink. “Come on. We don’t have any way to tell them not to show up, now. So, we have to be there.”
They hustled down the streets and up the broad garden pathway leading to the stairs of the All Saints Church. They took those two at a time, then tugged open the heavy oak doors and went inside. It was one of the few places that was open into the wee hours of the night.
Neither of them had any intention of summoning the padre who would be on call. There was a doorbell to do so, and they steered well clear of it. Settling in, they both dozed for the few minutes they had before their company arrived. Dazz kept to herself, quietly mourning her parents. At one point, she cuddled up to Kyle long enough for a touch of hugging comfort, nothing more. Kyle let her work it out in her own way.
* * *
Kyle let out a small gasp of pain. His hand jerked a little.
Lily frowned at him. “You really need to keep still or this isn’t going to work.” She had his arm cradled on her lap. Rather than the nursing attire she had worn last time they met, Lily was dressed in what you might expect from a person called out in the middle of the night to do illicit surgery; a fluffy sweater and a pair of sweat pants. Already, a few spatters of blood had dribbled onto them.
In Kyle’s opinion, the petite blonde could have made a garbage bag look sexy, but his mind wasn’t really focused on that. He was watching with horrified fascination as she sewed up the gash in his arm. Anesthesia, unfortunately, wasn’t a part of it.
Lily had brought along the first-aid kit he had asked for, but not much more. Dabbing a little more blood away, she exhaled in mild displeasure. “You really should go to the hospital. This is going to look ugly, Kyle.”
Gritting his teeth, Kyle asked, “Can you stop it from getting infected?”
“Probably. You already got a little dirt in it. I think I got it clean and I’ll get it closed and bandaged up. But the scar isn’t going to be pretty. If I could numb your arm and do this under the light, it would be much better!”
“Not an option.”
Lily frowned deeper. “You said that. But I don’t get why.”
“Please, Lily. You need to stop asking. We’re in trouble. The more you know, the more things could go badly for you. This is the second time I’m going to owe you, and I have no idea when I’ll be able to pay you back. But that’s just how it has to be.”
With a final tug, Lily tied off the last stitch. She looked to Dazz. “You can’t talk any sense into him?”
Dazz was still curled into a ball at the end of the pew. “He’s right.”
Lily’s empathy took over. “Are you alright?”
Kyle placed his good hand on Lily’s shoulder. “She just needs time.”
The church doors opened again to admit Laura and Danielle. The former stopped theatrically right inside the door.
Danielle gave her a weird look. “What’s the matter?”
Laura held her breath, then exhaled explosively. “I just wasn’t sure. After all I’ve done in my life, I half expected to burst into flames.”
Danielle rolled her eyes as her friend dissolved into giggles. “Almost done?”
Laura grinned. “Think so.” She strolled over and tossed herself into one of the wooden bench pews. “Can’t believe it’s still that cold outside at night. Why won’t summer get here already?” She took in the scene. “Woah, what is this? You didn’t say you were hurt!”
Kyle tried to wave that away. “Any trouble getting here?”
Danielle said, “More than it had to be. We made sure no-one saw us coming. Not even those who wouldn’t care. That meant we had to take a couple detours when we saw car lights coming toward us.”
Appreciating their caution, Kyle said, “I need to tell you a few things. After that, it’s going to be your call where you go from here. I’m sorry to say that I’m probably going to raise more questions than I answer. But you need to know.” He switched back to his nurse savior. “I think this is it, Lily. If you’re done, then I’m going to ask you to head off. Go back home. You really don’t want to get into any of this.”
Lily absorbed the two new women who had arrived, all of them seeming like fugitives hiding against the law. “Yeah, I think it is.” She collected her things, then paused to favor Kyle with a small smile. “You need to rethink all this. But… thanks for trusting me. That means a lot. Whatever you’re into, don’t do anything too crazy. You’re too c
ute to die.” She flickered him a wink, then slipped out the church door and vanished into the night.
Laura watched her go, then smiled. “She seems nice.”
Kyle nodded. “She really is. One day I’m going to figure out a way to thank her. You know, once I’m not running for my life.”
Danielle gawked at him, seeing the gash on his arm now fully bandaged. “Was that from them?”
He nodded, then gave them a brief run-down on what happened. Their mouths dropped open when they heard about the murder of Dazz’s parents. “All the horror stories we’ve heard about the FDPC being this evil overlord organization don’t seem like stupid conspiracy theories anymore.”
Danielle was ready to believe. “You should have seen those two draconians that raided the shed and nearly shot us. I could totally believe they would do all that!”
Laura obviously agreed. “What now? They’re going to track you down pretty quickly.”
Kyle said, “We ditched our phones. Plus, Dazz burned out our implants. They won’t give up trying to find us, but it won’t be that easy.”
“You know how to do that? Cool!”
Kyle held up a cautioning hand. “Look, they already know you helped me once. But that might have been a prank. I’m sure they’ll come around to question you again, but you might get away with apologizing and saying you didn’t know me that well. There’s a small risk; I mean, if they get desperate, who knows how far they’ll go? But I was there at Dazz’s place. I think that’s why they went into kill mode. Whatever they want me for is worth a little collateral damage to them. If you stick around, you’re staying in the blast zone.”
Danielle asked, “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying you deserved the warning, but you could probably go home and play dumb. Stay out of this now. Because the only way you can stick around me would be to burn out your implants, too. And as soon as you do that, you’ll drop off their map. They’ll know you are involved, and that’ll make you a target as well.”
