Bloodstone

by Gwen Hunter

  On the screen, on the bottom third, the camera angle looked down on the entryway. I could see two men bent over at the front door, which now wore a metal overcoat. I couldn’t see what they were doing, but I didn’t think they were leaving a calling card or a basket of fruit. On the split middle screen, I could see another man as he rounded the side of the house. He was well lit in the security light until he turned and aimed his weapon at the fixture. Jane punched another key as it went dark and the computer voice said, “Going to low-light resolution.” The man now appeared as a pale greenish form against a darker greenish background.

  “I’m glad your brother is on our side. He is, isn’t he?” Evan asked. “On our side?”

  I didn’t respond to the rhetorical question. I was watching Jane. Welling pride damped down my fright. My niece was amazing.

  “I lost my cell connection.” He flipped his phone shut.

  I handed him the house phone, which was still connected to 911. The landline was still working, which had to mean that the cell had died due to the steel plates. Maybe some EM interference, as well? I could see Davie installing something that would jam an attacker’s communications. It was all one great big computer game to my brother. Wasn’t it? I looked at the CD still in the computer. Maybe not…

  “SBI, Special Agent Evan Bartlock. Who is this?”

  “Emergency Services. Charlie Harrow.”

  The voices were coming through the PC speakers, making a weird distortion and a split-second time delay. The words seemed to hiss as the echoes superimposed the electronic background.

  “Harrow, I was just on the line to Detective Jack Madison. He should be dispatching three armed units and calling in SWAT. Can you patch me through to him?”

  “Will do.”

  The muted sound of gunfire came from above. Jane stabbed a key and the upper two-thirds of the screen began to darken. A soft whomp seemed to shake the air in the house. My ears reacted to a pressure change.

  “Into the room,” Evan said.

  This time, I grabbed Jane by the arm and pulled her into the closet. She was finally ready to come and plucked Davie’s CD from the unit as she moved. As I moved her into the Secure Room, I looked back over my shoulder. On the bottom screen, two men shoved back the security shutters and smashed through to the front door. A second whomp sounded, louder. The men were inside. The PC went through a fast shutdown.

  In the Secure Room, Jane opened a panel on the inside wall and hit a button. A tiny screen lit up and I realized the security system and PC were linked to this screen. A miniature shelf with an even smaller keyboard slid out beneath it. Double-O-Seven for real.

  On the screen, two men appeared at the top of the stairs, and the entire apartment went black.

  “What the—” Evan started.

  Jane had cut the lights. The green screen showed the men pulling on goggles. When they had them in place and started down the stairs, Jane hit the button again and the lights shocked the men motionless. One cursed and threw off the goggles. Jane laughed. Evan joined us in the Secure Room. Jane hit a key and the door began closing us in. “Cool,” she said. “Just way freaking cool.”

  A computer-generation kid playing computer games with paramilitary hit men. Because that is what they were. They had come here to kill us.

  Or take us.

  I lowered a bunk and sat in the tight space, watching my niece. She hit a button and the men fell to the floor covering their ears. “That one was, like, this piercing scream of sound. They’ll be deaf for a long time and probably can’t get up anytime soon. And they probably peed themselves,” she said with glee. “High-pitched sound does that.”

  Like they took Davie? No. Davie had been pummeled. This was something else.

  I closed my eyes and reached out with my mind.

  Anger. Pain. Voices that ricocheted, pulled along behind it. We didn’t expect this freaking fortress. There was supposed to be only the little girl and her expendable aunt. Pain. Have to get out of here. Get out.

  I pulled back behind my wall. They had intended to take Jane.

  On the small screen, the two men made it to their feet and stumbled out the door. Jane punched a button, changing cameras. Four men raced into the SUV and it started up. It careened out through the front yard, throwing sod and bouncing across a dormant flower bed, out the front driveway into the street.

  Jane sat back, pleased with her work. “Daddy will be really happy his system worked.”

  “Your father designed this system?” Evan asked.

  “My daddy can design and build anything,” Jane said proudly. “He owns the company that sells the systems to rich people and governments and businesses all over the world.” She looked at me and her expression slipped a bit before it firmed with resolve. “They were after me. And they had orders to kill you.”

  “Let’s not jump to conclusion,” Evan started.

  “It isn’t a conclusion,” I said.

  “St. Claire sh—ah, stuff—again?”

  I nodded, holding Jane’s eyes. “What else did you get?”

  “They aren’t the ones who have Daddy, but they want him, too. They want him even more than they want me.” On the small screen, blue lights were flashing, closing in on the drive fast. “And they really want the computer discs. They think Daddy stole them.” She paused. “He didn’t. Did he?”

  I looked at my niece, her eyes holding the first glimmering of awareness of potential fallibility in her parent, of discernment that Davie might not be perfect. I couldn’t stand to see her father crash and burn off his pedestal. “Your father more likely took them from bad men who were misusing something. If Davie did anything wrong, it was to protect what was fragile and in danger.” As I said the words, they took shape in my mind and solidified. They were the truth. Jane smiled at me and I smiled back. “You and me against the world, kiddo. You and me and your daddy.”

  “And Aunt Matilda.”

  “What am I, the yardman?” Evan said.

  The rest of the night was predictably torpid. That is, once the county SWAT team and the local cops got over storming the place, descending from offense mode and settling in to observe, take notes and investigate.

  The hurricane-style shutters that covered the windows and doors had worked as designed, giving the household time to call for local enforcement and get into a secure location. The cops were impressed. Even old Weasel-Face, who walked around the house as if he owned the place or was about to make an offer for purchase, lock, stock and barrel. The security program was a marvel to them and they wanted particulars, which Jane happily provided, down to numbers of cameras, demonstration of a simulation exercise, discussion of the system’s encryption bits, and the fact that Davie’s company was working on an artificial-intelligence program that would work the system all by itself.

  She downloaded the video feed from the attack onto CD and gave it to the cops, saving other copies for Evan, me, herself and her father. That one, she also uploaded to his secure site without telling anyone what she was doing. That’s my girl.

  Because the only damage was to property, all the cops wanted to do was to file a report and head back to the job. According to them, it was likely only a thousand dollars’ worth of damage. Yeah, right. A thousand dollars for the steel shutter and the inside door, which was reinforced steel shaped to look like mahogany. I guessed the door alone would go for a couple thousand, but what did I know? Of course, if I knew my brother, Davie would not even report this attack to his insurance company; he would simply absorb the financial loss and upgrade again, delighted to have the excuse.

  When I finally was allowed to see the damage, I was shocked into silence. The steel shutter at the entry was peeled inward as if attacked by a giant with a can opener, and the door itself had been knocked off its hinges by an explosion, possibly from some form of plastic explosives, according to the SWAT team’s demolition expert.

  The entire attack had been carried out with military precision. That part the cop
s noted with unease. But it wasn’t as if they had any idea what to do about it. One uniformed officer mentioned terrorists and homeland security. I wanted to laugh. Yeah. Call the Department of Defense.

  Only the SWAT officers, who might be expected to show some concern for an armed paramilitary unit operating in their county, were interested in what more could be gleaned from the crime scene. They roamed the grounds and the house, and grilled Jane about the system, walking around in black camo and—once Jane punched a button and their communication system started working again—talking into little mikes attached to their jaws. Rambo meets James Bond at his private estate. An estate that was no longer secure but open to the elements, curious wildlife, and any passing masked attacker. Evan helped the cops nail a sheet of plywood over the front door opening.

  Jane preened under the attention of the SWAT team leader, a good-looking man in his thirties, with flashing blue eyes above streaks of black grease. She played the expert as she showed off the bells and whistles of the top-of-the-line system to him, all but the Secure Room, which we all agreed was off-limits to everyone, even cops. Jane acted as if the closet was the secure room. The cops believed her.

  Finally, around midnight, shaken and subdued, the SWAT team leader, Sergeant Lopez, settled on the couch next to me. I watched Evan’s eyes track the cop, and got the feeling that he knew the sergeant but didn’t want to let the other cops know.

  “Anything else you might want to tell me about tonight?” His eyes were penetrating. “Off the record, if you like.”

  I shook my head, feeling a flush rise with the lie, and tried to cover for it. “I’m tired, scared and seriously ticked off. Someone took my brother, and now they’re trying to take my niece. Or kill us all.”

  “Anyplace you can go until we catch these guys? Until it calms down a bit?”

  I thought about Aunt Matilda’s home, a tidewater house situated in the middle of an inland marsh, surround by miles of water and swamp grass and alligators. Anyone who wanted to could drop in with a helicopter anytime. The house had minimal electricity, an ancient hot-water heater and no security system. I kicked off my shoes and pulled my chilled feet up onto the couch. “No. There’s only here and my loft.”

  “I’ve seen the loft,” Lopez said with a glimmer of amusement. “It’s less secure than here by far. Even with the door off.”

  “Yeah, but the cops are only thirty seconds away there. Here, we’re alone. With a front door a raccoon could get through.”

  “There is that.”

  “If we have more snow, we could get stuck out here, roads closed, no way for help to get to us fast. And bad guys, if they have money, could find a way.” I was thinking helicopters again, with men in black rappelling to the ground. “I want to go back to the loft.”

  Lopez scratched his cheek, smearing the black grease-paint, and released a breath. “It’s against my better judgment to let you abandon a house with a security system this sophisticated, but you have a point.”

  And I hadn’t even mentioned the chopper or rappelling.

  “Okay. Pack what you need and we’ll escort you back to town.”

  Relief puddled my bones at his words. I had been trying not to think about the ride home on winding mountain streets. We loaded up the Tracker with Jane’s belongings and several wood boxes that had appeared mysteriously in her closet to be carted out by Evan. Guarded by a SWAT team, we left the sanctuary of Davie’s violated house.

  The air outside was cold, wind blasting with ice pellets. The heater in the small Geo warmed up fast, but my heart stayed frozen in my chest for the ride back to town. We were part of a cavalcade that included a SWAT van and two police cars as escort. No chance for anyone to run us off the road in the dark, or finish us off with Uzis, AK47s, shoulder-mounted rocket launchers, or big-rigs filled with explosives. If I hadn’t just left a fortified house that the bad guys had attacked with automatic weapons and plastic explosives, I’d have known I was paranoid and overly imaginative. No such luck. My imagination couldn’t even begin to conceive a night like this.

  We made Jane strap in to two seat belts while lying across the back seat, shielded from sight beneath blankets. I drove. Evan rode shotgun, his grip relaxed on his nine millimeter. My knuckles were white on the wheel, and I clenched them tight at every car and truck we passed, expecting a second attack. The drive was an anticlimax. Nothing happened until Evan’s cell phone rang.

  Opening it with his left hand, gun steady in his right, he answered. “Bartlock. Who?” After a long silence, he said, “Yeah. She was with me. Yeah. I agree, it sucks.” He snapped the phone shut.

  “What?”

  “You won’t like it.”

  “I don’t like anything about today so far,” I said, flexing my hands, trying to get them to stop cramping on the steering wheel.

  “Your brown man. He’s been identified.”

  “Why do I get the feeling that isn’t good news?”

  “Because he was ID’d by the coroner who was checking the wallet of a COS. He was shot in the back of the head, probably with a nine millimeter.”

  Shock peppered me. “What’s a COS?” I asked, knowing it wasn’t the right question but unable to stop my mouth.

  “Cold at scene. Dead,” he added, in case I was too stupid to put dead together with cold and shot in the back of the head. “His name was Willard Blythe.”

  When I said nothing, Evan said, “They’re killing off one another.”

  I had figured that part out on my own. The cold of the night crawled through the floorboards and beneath my skin like tiny maggots of destruction. I shivered once, hard. “So they won’t have any compunction about killing Davie, either.”

  “Yeah.”

  I briefly closed my eyes, shutting out the sight of the cop. Unable to shut out my ancient dream images of Davie, dead in the snow.

  Back at my loft, the cops secured the area. That’s what they said, meaning they went though the loft, the rooftop garden, the shop and workroom, and talked to my neighbors to see that Isaac and Jubal were not being held against their wills by black-bag, black-ops, bad guys. After the all clear, Evan carried Jane inside, shielding her with his body, and up the stairs. I followed. The loft was empty of attackers in black stocking caps and free of danger. But it felt hollow, open and extremely unsafe. Aunt Matilda was gone.

  As if reading my mind, Evan said, “I called Isaac while you talked to Lopez. Aunt Matilda went to their loft just as the attack happened, hysterical. She saw the attack play out.” He shrugged his shoulders as if they were too tight. With quick swivel motions of his head, he cracked his neck, confirming my hypothesis. “She’s sedated, medicated with something Jubal had on hand. I didn’t ask what it was. Don’t ask, don’t tell.” His eyes smiled. “A good motto sometimes.”

  “So what now?” I didn’t want to say that I was afraid to be alone in my apartment, but I was. Terrified.

  “Pull out the trundle and put Jane to bed,” he said, handing her the kitten. “I’ll let myself out and set the alarm on the way.”

  “I can put myself to bed,” Jane said, and yawned hugely.

  I figured anyone who could hold off invading commandos single-handedly until the army arrived could indeed put herself to bed. Still in her clothes, she pulled out the trundle, folded down the covers and crawled in. She was asleep instantly. I envied her that talent, wishing I had the release of instant slumber. I was wound so tight I’d never get to sleep. Evan patted my shoulder and left as I tucked Jane in, seeing the SWAT team out.

  “Great,” I said to the loft. My words echoed. My reflection looked back at me, worried, from the black windows. “The one time I need to be protected, the one time I want to lean on a man’s brawny shoulders, I’m on my own.” I put on the kettle to warm and drew a bath. I wandered to the roof-garden windows, where I checked the locks and pulled shut the drapes on my reflection and any prying eyes.

  I stripped and added bubbly, lavender-scented bath oil to the water, dropp
ing my clothes on the floor and stepping into the rising water. I adjusted the temp to hotter and settled in. The cell rang. I knew it was Evan before I answered, and a soft smile curved my mouth. With a wet hand, I answered. “Hello.”

  “Want company?”

  “I’m in the tub. Soaking.”

  “Want company?” he repeated.

  I laughed.

  “Seriously. I’m checking out of the hotel and I’ll be at your door in twenty minutes, luggage in hand. Lopez has a roll-away bed I’m borrowing and setting up in the workroom. Assuming that meets with your approval. Of course, if you’d rather I joined you in the tub—”

  “Jane’s here.”

  He laughed. “You won’t always have her as a buffer.”

  “Promises, promises.”

  “I’ve borrowed a few private weapons from the SWAT team, but they denied me access to smoke bombs and flash-bangs.”

  “Whatever that is.”

  “Things that go bang in the night. They have some tactical weapons. They won’t share them, either.”

  “Selfish beasts.”

  “I’ll let myself in.”

  “Who told you the alarm code?” I asked, surprised that he knew it.

  “Jubal.”

  “Okay.” I yawned wider than Jane had and slid deeper in the water.

  “I’ll leave my cell on. Call me if you need anything. Anything at all. Your back scrubbed. Feet massaged. Anything.” I didn’t answer, just flipped the phone shut. But I was still smiling.

  When the water was too cold for comfort, I stepped out, greased my skin up, shaved my legs, put on night cream and pulled on a velour sweatsuit and fuzzy socks. I stared around the loft, uncertain, bored, wired still. I yawned again, but knew I’d never get to sleep. So I opened the door to the stairs and called Evan on my cell phone. I heard his simple ring through the open door as I worked the cork out of a bottle of white wine.

  “Want company?” I asked. “Wine?”

  He didn’t bother to answer. He just clicked off the phone and I heard the soft pad of his feet on the stairs. I poured the wine, got some sliced fruit out of the fridge, added crackers and a six-inch wheel of brie to a plate.