by Jeff Altabef
“Are you all right, Jack?” Tom helped him up.
Jack shrugged off his hands and tottered back and forth like a seesaw. “I had him right where I wanted him.” He managed a grin.
“Really—leave the security guys to me next time. You’re still recovering, and I’m the black belt, remember?”
“If I had a tennis racquet, I would have flattened him.” He steadied on his feet.
“Next time we’ve got to remember to bring one. Come on, let’s move before someone else comes along.”
Tom led the way back to the tombstone. “Maybe Rachel didn’t open the tunnel because she had spotted the guard.”
Jack pressed the “o” in Samson, and this time the stone marker responded with a hydraulic hiss, lifting up a quarter of an inch.
Jack smiled. “I guess we’re invited in.”
The tunnel, originally built as part of the Rockefeller estate as an emergency escape path for its wealthy owners, worked as a secret entrance into the Fourteenth Colony’s headquarters.
Jack climbed down the hidden staircase with Tom following close behind. The familiar musty smell of the tunnel welcomed them.
“Watch your step,” Tom said. “The stone can be slippery!” He recalled the first time he’d entered the tunnel four months earlier, when he slipped on these steps and tumbled down the staircase into Mary. Luckily, he’d twisted his body under hers to avoid injuring her. He cracked a rib in the process, but it was worth it, even if she had called him an oaf.
As they reached the last step, Jack pointed to the words “The Fourteenth Colony” scrawled in red spray paint on the concrete wall at the entrance to the tunnel. “Do you think Dad wrote that?”
“I think so. It matches his handwriting from those letters he’d give us on our birthdays.”
“I like your addition.”
Tom had drawn the thirteen stars of the original colonies in a circle, with a larger fourteenth star in the center. It had become the unofficial symbol of the movement.
Tom had to stoop as he traveled the cramped passageway. His fingers brushed crumbling concrete sides fixed with dark spots of concrete patch, and his head bumped against exposed white lights hung on a cord along the top right side of the tunnel to light their path.
“I miss Dad,” Tom said as he headed down the tunnel. “I wish he would have told us about the Fourteenth Colony.”
“We were too young when he died. I’m sure he would have wanted us to join.”
Their sneakers squeaked against the concrete floor.
“Tom, you know Mary’s going to find out about Mom from Aunt Jackie. You’d better think of something to tell her. She’s not going to be happy that you haven’t called her yet. She can be awfully tough if you make her angry. Just ask David.” David was Jack’s best friend and Mary’s older brother.
Tom had fallen in love with her from the first moment they’d met. He knew how tough she could be, having spent a lot of time with her over the past four months. He couldn’t imagine his life without her, even if she did drive him crazy. He only wished she felt the same way, but she had other priorities.
Tom stood stiff with anxiety. Time inched forward as he studied the heavy steel door, noticing for the first time scratches by the hinges and a small dent toward the bottom. He waited for someone to let them in, feeling as if he had to sit for a test he was woefully unprepared to take. He had walked through this entrance dozens of times over the past four months, but he felt different this time.
His mother was missing, and Mary would be angry with him.
Mary changed his world, made everything vivid. She added texture and meaning to everyday activities. Even breathing improved around her—she smelled like cinnamon and roses. He wanted only her happiness and for them to spend time together. It didn’t matter what they did, as long as they did it together.
He hadn’t realized it before, but he would be lost without her, and now she would be angry with him because he was an idiot. He should have listened to Jack. If he could go back in time, he would have called Mary first, but given that time travel was beyond his reach, he waited by the steel door like an inmate on death row.
The metal latch sprang open and echoed like a gunshot, and Tom flinched. Jack whacked him on the back, and they somberly entered the secretive group’s headquarters.
As usual, it took his eyes a moment to adjust to the harsh white light after the relative darkness of the tunnel.
“Damn, that’s bright,” Jack whispered, even though he wore sunglasses.
A warning light went off on Tom’s mental dashboard, but he ignored it. Concern about his imminent collision with Mary filled his mind.
When his vision cleared, he took in the familiar concrete cellar with long tables made from old, cracked wood, each piled high with new, high tech computer monitors and equipment. A half dozen people hunched over keyboards working diligently. They barely glanced up to see the brothers.
Mary stood just inside the doorway, waiting for Tom with her hands on her hips. Her long, wavy red hair tumbled below her shoulders. Her brilliant green eyes were ringed with red and sparkled with a moist sheen.
He had never seen her cry before, and a grapefruit-sized lump formed in his throat. Without uttering a word, she rushed forward and flung her arms around his broad shoulders, and he melted into the embrace. His death sentence had been lifted at the last second.
Mary squeezed him. “It’s awful, but we’re going to get her back, Tom. I know it.”
“Of course we will.” His assurances rang false, like a poorly tuned piano, and he clutched her tighter.
After a long moment, she pushed away, and new tear tracks ran down her cheeks. She wiped them away with her sleeve and blushed, which turned her normal cream-colored skin a bright shade of pink. “Aunt Jackie and Rachel are upstairs in Rachel’s office. I’m supposed to bring you straight up.”
“You know Aunt Jackie?” Jack said.
“Of course I do.” Mary swung an elbow hard into Tom’s stomach. The blow caught him by surprise and knocked the wind out of him. “Next time you call me right away!” Raw emotion rang through her voice.
Tom stammered three different apologies, hoping one of them would be good enough.
Jack chuckled at his helplessness and pushed him in the back.
Mary led them up a short metal staircase to a wooden trap door. She pressed her palm against a glass screen, the light above the trap door turned green, and she shoved it open.
The trio entered the ground floor of an old, abandoned carriage house. Tom liked the old building. He appreciated its utility and how the beams and wood joints were fashioned together. Most people saw an old oak barn built in the mid 1800s, with sawdust spread haphazardly along the floor where spiders and their immense webs ruled the day. Tom saw a beautifully crafted puzzle of wood, expertly formed together to create a functional space. Even the musty smell mixed with the pungent oak lifted his spirits.
Jack lowered the trap door behind him. It formed a perfect seam with the floor, impossible to detect unless you knew where to look. A gouge in the wood served as a handhold.
Mary led them to the east end of the building to the false wall, which blended into the rest of the structure almost perfectly. Almost.
Tom noticed the imperfections. The color of the wood was a shade darker than the rest of the carriage house, and probably most telling, the wood beams fit together perfectly—too perfectly for the rest of the structure, and given the tools available in the mid 1800s.
Mary crouched low at one end of the wall and placed her palm against a small glass plate. The sophisticated screen read Mary’s DNA and flashed green, and a hidden door sprung open. Its modern, stainless steel hinges hissed as the door swung inward, granting them access to Rachel’s office.
The simple narrow room had no windows. Rachel sat behind a massive antique oak desk and studied one of three video monitors that competed with two perfectly pruned bonsai trees for space. In her sixties, with long b
rown hair streaked with gray and pulled back in a ponytail, she exuded an understated confidence and authority. Her dark brown eyes, usually welcoming and bright, now darkened with worry.
Aunt Jackie sat on the opposite end of the room, on a couch near two small chairs and an oval cocktail table, her arms crossed against her chest and an angry scowl drawn on her face.
“Aunt Jackie, how nice to see you again,” Jack said. “I’m sorry we’re late, but we had an unpleasant meeting with a security guard in the cemetery.” Jack pointed to a series of video feeds projected on the long exterior wall. They changed frequently, but the middle feed stayed fixed on the tombstone from the cemetery.
“Too bad the taser didn’t hit you on the head. It could have jolted some sense into you. Naturally, Tom bailed you out.” She smiled at Tom.
One feed showed the “T” where the brothers had fought off the security guard, who hadn’t yet moved.
Jack’s jaw clenched. “If you had dropped us off by the cemetery, we would never have had any problems, you old bat!”
Aunt Jackie stood, knees bent and hands held flat and tight in a martial arts ready position. She looked like a gray-haired, miniature ninja dressed in a blue tour vest and beige blouse. “I’m not too old to teach you a lesson, racquet boy! Come and get some!” She inched her way toward Jack.
He waved his arms and backed away from the approaching ninja. “I wish I had taken that taser.”
Tom jumped between them. “Stop it! This isn’t helping! We need to focus on Mom.”
Rachel stood. “I’m sorry I couldn’t open the tunnel when you first got to the tombstone, but the security guard might have noticed. Stop this bickering. We need to work together to rescue Maggie.”
Jack tore his eyes from his aunt. “Where do we start?”
“Let’s start with the letters and the pictures. There has to be a clue as to this man’s identity in that file. From there, we can assess the situation and make a plan to save Maggie and bring her back.” Rachel’s usually soft voice sounded firm and definitive. “We start with the first note Cooper wrote. I am sure it’s the key. The logo embedded in the paper has to be connected with the resort where Maggie was staying when they met. If we can figure out the name of that resort, it will be our starting point. The resort must keep records. If we can retrieve those records, we can crosscheck the family names and find a Cooper that fits. We know he’s rich, has blue eyes, and is white.”
Tom agreed. The only loose end they had was the original note. Cooper probably never imagined she would keep it. Maybe if they pulled on the loose end hard enough, everything else would unravel.
Mary squeezed his arm. “I’ve scanned the logo into my computer, and I’m running it through as many databases as I can think of. We should discover something soon.”
“Which years should we check?” Jack asked. “When did Mom meet this monster?”
“Maggie was young when she met Cooper,” Aunt Jackie said. “You can tell from the way she drew that first sketch of him. I traveled out of the country from the end of 2011 until 2014. She must have met him then. We need to focus on those years.”
Rachel nodded and turned to Tom. “In the meantime, you should continue to go over the letters and photos and see if you can find any other clues. I’m throwing out some feelers with people I know to see if anyone’s heard anything. Bring the folder to the basement and look it over down there. Call me the moment you come up with anything.”
Tom reached for the manila folder on the cocktail table, and his hand shook. It looked like a simple folder, but he could almost see the evil rising from it.
Jackie watched as the whirl of the door’s metallic gears locked and sealed the room. “I don’t want them involved in this. Maggie’s been protecting them their entire lives. I can’t have them facing Cooper. She wouldn’t want them put in such a dangerous situation.”
“You underestimate them. Jack’s been contributing to us since he was fifteen. Tom saved his life only four months earlier. He handled himself extraordinarily well in an extremely dangerous situation.”
“Anyone can be lucky once.” Jackie scoffed.
“He’s a gifted person, both mentally and physically. You saw how he handled the guard in the cemetery.” Rachel paused, pressed her palms together and brought her fingertips to her lips. “I wonder how the guard knew to search for them in the old part of the cemetery. They don’t patrol that part of the grounds often.”
Jackie brushed aside the implied accusation. “They’re still just boys. I’d be better off on my own.”
“Maybe twenty years ago, but age catches up to all of us.”
“There’s still some life in me, and I know what needs to be done. Cooper has to be put down like a rabid dog, and I intend to do just that.”
“You need help. Besides, there’s nothing we could do now to keep them out of it. I’m not going to lock them up. It has to be their choice. They’re old enough. How many targets did you take out by the time you were seventeen?”
Jackie crossed her arms again and shot Rachel another searing glare. She had lost the argument, but she didn’t have to like it. If she found a way to ditch her nephews and still get Cooper, she would take it.
They were her charges now. Rachel could go screw.
Darian raced on old Bessie, his body sweating and his conscience clear as muddy water. The Beatles’s Hey Jude filled the room.
The computer simulation had finished, and the events played out on the monitor in front of him. He saw only darkness and death. Under each scenario, Jack’s brain continued to develop, the strain increasing against his skull until the computer pronounced him dead, dead, dead. Based upon the analysis, Jack had four days, perhaps five at most.
George strolled into the lab, a worried frown replacing his usually congenial expression. “I assume the computer analysis came back negative.”
Darian nodded at the screen. “Under the best case assumptions, he has until Tuesday. Tuesday!” He pumped his legs furiously.
“Darian, you’ve done all you can do. EBF-202 will eventually save millions of lives once we figure out how to stop it. You will save millions of lives. We’ve learned a great deal from Jack already.”
“I don’t think he’s going to see it that way. How do I explain his condition to his mother and brother? Do I tell them how much we’ve learned from him? ‘Sorry he died, but someday we’ll save a bunch of lives. Thanks so much for playing!’”
George moved in front of him. “What are you going to do?”
“What I should have done originally. I’m going to tell them the truth—that I tried an experimental drug on him and can’t stop it. Now it’s going to kill him. They only have a few days left to get his affairs in order. He deserves that much.” He stopped pedaling and hung his head. Sweat rolled off his nose.
“He would probably have died already if he hadn’t received the treatment. He only had a slight chance of pulling out of that coma by himself. You’re being too hard on yourself.”
“No, I’m not!” Darian pounded the handlebars with his fists. “His mom should have been given the choice. I should have given him the choice. I could have done it. I had hours to do it.”
“Just think this through. A scandal could sidetrack the drug indefinitely, and everything you’ve worked for would be wasted. The drug works. It promotes brain growth. It will cure Alzheimer’s and senility. The applications are endless. We just need the agent that stops the growth. As it is, the growth rate has slowed. Lassie is stable. Don’t throw all our work in the trash. There must be another way.”
“I’ll keep your name out of it.” Darian narrowed his eyes. “You won’t get into any trouble.”
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” George’s face flushed red and he stormed out of the lab.
Darian sighed. He knew George wasn’t worried about himself, and he shouldn’t have suggested it. George was a good man, a better man than he was. Anger and frustration had made him say it. Ten
years removed from the orphanage and he still acted like an angry, forgotten child.
Will I ever change?
Darian dismounted from the bike and eyed his cell phone on the desk. Though not more than twenty feet away, it still felt like an impossibly wide chasm to cross.
George was right: if he told Jack about EBF-202, the drug might never be developed. All the good and promise behind the treatment would be wasted. Jack’s life—and death—would be wasted. The dogs and the time invested, all wasted. He might get tossed back into the ghetto, back to the overpass where death lingers.
The distance to the phone grew even more daunting, and then he remembered the Warden and the ice cream and the moment he learned his mom had passed away. He didn’t have a chance to say goodbye. She had already been disposed of.
The chasm shrunk to a few feet and he broke out in a cold sweat. His Beatles t-shirt clung to his body as he reached for the phone.
Jack spent hours reviewing the letters and gruesome photographs with only a headache to show for it. The more he matched the words and the pictures together, the more he thought he understood the monster behind these murders. He felt Cooper’s anger and hatred and, worst of all, the thrill he got when he sensed his victim’s fear. When he closed his eyes and let his imagination roam, a picture of a man’s face started to form—grainy around the edges, turquoise eyes jagged.
The feeling became so intense he started shaking. His imagination had run amok. How can I see the bastard’s face?
He had to move. Sitting still and thinking suffocated him, so he walked toward Tom at the end of the table.
Tom methodically waved a specialized ultraviolet light across one of the notes. From his tight lips and narrow eyes, Jack could tell he was spinning his wheels. “How’re you making out?”
“This is useless.” Tom tossed the light on the table. “This Cooper is too smart to leave any evidence behind. Maybe if I analyze the paper itself, I might find the manufacturer. No one writes these days, and fine cotton paper must be rare. If I can figure out who made the paper, then maybe we can retrieve a client list or develop a lead.”
