Dobbs gaped. “Is there something wrong with the tape?”
“Rewind and play it back in slow motion,” Talon ordered, hoping his suspicions wouldn’t be correct.
“Well, shit,” Dobbs said as the tape showed one of the enhanced moving so fast, it didn’t look like the other enhanced and the guard even took a step. He knocked the guard out with his own gun he had snatched out of the man’s holster before the guard knew what was happening. By the time the other enhanced reached the guard at about a distance of six feet, the guard was unconscious and cuffed. They both stepped over him, and the last image before they disappeared down the corridor was the other enhanced pulling out a gun and shooting at the ceiling.
“That was just to cause fear and panic,” Talon confirmed. “Was the guard the only one who was injured?”
“I’m afraid not,” Dobbs answered and fast-forwarded the tape as both enhanced appeared again.
One was carrying Adam Mackenzie carefully, presumably not to cause further injury, but it was the second guy’s appearance that caused the heavy silence in the room. The second enhanced was walking with a body casually slung over his shoulder. A clearly unconscious body. Anger and pain warred for dominance in Talon’s gut. It was Finn.
The guard stopped the tape at the point where they got into a truck and drove away.
“He hasn’t had a good week, really,” Dobbs said in the silence.
Talon couldn’t respond but was saved by Gael and Eli arriving with their things.
“Gregory says we have to wear these.” Gael handed out their uniform shirts.
Talon closed his hands around one of them. He knew what it would say on the back, and he didn’t want to put it on. He threw it onto the chair. He wasn’t going to wear something that proclaimed him for something he wasn’t. He’d never felt less like a hero in his life.
“The helicopter has been circling for fifteen minutes. The plates have been confirmed as false, but there’s been no sighting of the car since it left the hospital. It should have been picked up pretty much straightaway on street cams, but it seems to have vanished,” Dobbs added.
“Talon, do you think it’s an ability?” Gael said slowly, and Talon narrowed his eyes.
“To hide a whole car and its occupants?” he said skeptically. “It’s unlikely, and it’s certainly not something we’ve ever come across.” As far as they knew, Sawyer was the only one who came close, and it wasn’t the same, anyhow. Sawyer changed his body’s composition, almost; he didn’t hide anything.
“Is that even possible?” Dobbs asked in astonishment.
Talon shook his head and stared at the screen. “How about we start simpler? Do you have any maps of the surrounding area?”
“Yeah,” the guard piped up. “They’re talking about expanding. We just got a bunch.” He stood and went to the filing cabinet in the corner. The guard spread the map out, confirming what Talon was just working through in his head. The hospital was surrounded by water on all three sides.
“They didn’t go over the causeway to Bayshore. Street cams would have picked them up,” Sawyer said.
“What about north to that industrial area? Are there any street cams up there?” Eli pointed at the map.
Dobbs shook his head. “No, and there’s a chance if they went into a garage or something fairly quickly, the helicopter completely missed them.” Dobbs suddenly got dispatch on his radio, and he stepped out of the small office.
“Are all these medical buildings full?” Talon pointed out the pediatric and the dentist facility.
“Yeah,” said the guard. “Actually no.” He pointed to a building on the edge of the large parking lot. “That’s empty and hasn’t been rented. The master plan is that they build a multilevel parking lot and free some ground space for a new therapy department. This building would be demolished, as it’s in the way for the new parking lot if they decide to go that route.”
“Sawyer?” Talon looked at him. “We’ll get you as close as we can, but there’s nothing surrounding it for any type of cover. I need you to go see if there’s anyone in there.”
Vance piped up. “Surely the helicopter has thermal imaging. That would tell us straight away.”
Dobbs stepped back inside and shook his head. “We’ve actually got two, but the one with thermal imaging is on a hunt for a gunman from a reported ATM grab as of thirty minutes ago. This one generally does traffic snarl-ups—no infrared.” Dobbs paused. “We have handheld I can get down here.”
Talon nodded, but he had no intention of waiting that long, and Dobbs disappeared out of the door again to call. Talon was also unsure of the distance the handheld infrared would work at, and the problem was the building was set apart. He didn’t want to warn anyone.
He pulled Sawyer to one side. “I hate to ask,” Talon said.
“Why?” Sawyer replied bluntly. “Don’t think I don’t know you wouldn’t do exactly the same for any of us, Talon. It’s obvious you like the kid, but”—he shrugged—“this isn’t what this is. This is just doing my job.”
“This is doing a damn sight more than your job,” Talon growled.
Sawyer put a hand on Talon’s arm. “No, it isn’t. Finn isn’t the only one who needed something extra to get in the FBI. My ability is what I am, Talon. I never even graduated high school. Let’s not kid ourselves that I’d be here if I couldn’t do any of this.”
Talon sighed. He was right. This was what they all signed up for. “Okay—I’m gonna drive to the edge of the parking lot but no farther than the cars already there. Too suspicious to suddenly park away from that. I’ll get out and pretend to hunt for something in the trunk. You follow me unseen out of my door, and I’ll wait for you to come back. No heroics,” Talon added. “We just want to know if they’re in there.”
Talon’s phone rang in his pocket, and he absently took it out. It was probably Gregory wanting an update….
“Talon?”
Talon’s knees nearly buckled when he recognized the thready voice. He gripped his phone and raised a hand. Everyone immediately fell silent. “Finn?” he echoed in disbelief.
“Agent Valdez.” The cool voice came on the phone almost immediately. “As you heard, we are holding your partner, but we just want to talk to you.”
“Then let him go.”
“I don’t think so. There is a blue sedan waiting outside the fire exit nearest to where you are sitting watching security tapes. You have sixty seconds to get in it, or we will just shoot your partner. We have no interest in regulars.” He ended the call almost immediately at the other end.
Talon took a step and was blocked by Gael. Talon looked at him, agonized. “I have no choice. Just do whatever you can.”
Gael stepped to the side, and Talon was out of the door in ten seconds. He walked quickly to the car, and the back door opened as he got close. The same enhanced he saw on the tape cuffing the guard got out and gestured for Talon to get in.
“You’ll have seen how fast I am already,” he said. “Don’t bother trying anything.”
Talon nodded and got in. The man reached over before Talon could even blink and removed Vance’s gun from his waistband. If Talon hadn’t felt the touch on his back, he would never have known what he was doing. He didn’t acknowledge the sardonic smile the other guy gave.
The car wove in and out of traffic, speeding north, and eventually entered the warehouse area they’d looked at on the map. The car shot around a corner after the first warehouse and straight up a ramp at the side. The whole journey took a little over five or six minutes, and Talon understood how they missed them. The enhanced got out, pulled Talon from the back, and the shutter door rolled down behind. The black truck they saw on the vid was parked to one side. The other enhanced on the hospital tape started walking through some doors, and the first one waved the gun to show he wanted Talon to follow him.
Talon walked through an archway and came to a stop in surprise. Finn was tied up and gagged, sitting on the floor. A third enha
nced he had never seen was pointing a gun at him casually. Adam Mackenzie sat propped up on the floor next to him, awake but looking like shit. His hand was pressed tightly to the gauze covering his chest, which was now covered in red stains. Talon took a step toward Finn, but a hand bit into his shoulder.
“No reunions yet,” the enhanced who was following him ordered.
Talon stared at Finn, who apart from being tied up and gagged, looked okay. In fact, as the green eyes glittered at him, he looked downright pissed.
That’s when Talon noticed the third person who was seated on the floor next to Finn and blinked in surprise. Oliver Martinez, the eight-year-old missing child they were supposed to be finding.
Talon heard footsteps and looked up at the man who had walked in. He recognized the enhanced who was walking toward him as Isaac Dakota, the enhanced who spent more time on television than the fucking news anchors.
“Talon Valdez.” Isaac held his hand out. Talon ignored him, and Isaac dropped it in amusement.
“What the hell are you doing, Dakota?” Talon ground out.
“I’m doing what we should all have done twenty years ago,” Dakota snapped. “Enhanced are superior to regular humans in every way. They keep us belittled or locked up because they are frightened of us, and with good reason. Most of us are treated like common criminals.”
“Yeah,” drawled Talon, “because kidnapping is illegal in all fifty states.”
Anger darkened Dakota’s features, but it quickly fled when he laughed shortly. “You may have a point,” Dakota conceded, “but I wasn’t the one to start holding perfectly law-abiding citizens against their will. I didn’t make it impossible for law-abiding citizens to get health care. I didn’t make it impossible for us to get something as simple as a car loan or a mortgage, or ban some children from school. I didn’t even make it impossible for certain kids not to be allowed in a fucking movie theater.” He pointed to Oliver, who was trying his best to huddle next to Finn. “I didn’t ruin so many kids’ childhoods just because one morning they woke up with a mark on their face!” He stabbed wildly at the mark on his own cheek.
Talon grudgingly admitted most of the points, but whatever Dakota was doing wasn’t going to improve those childhoods. He was going to make a lot of them ten times worse. “Just what do you think is going to happen here?” Talon asked, trying not to look at Finn’s green eyes, which seemed to be boring into him.
“I have a proposition,” Dakota answered immediately. “Join us. You and your team. We will fight for enhanced to get equal if not better rights than the rest of the US. Our skills can be used to make America the great country it once was. The enhanced shouldn’t be just allowed to serve in the military. They should be running it. Imagine”—Dakota threw his arms back wide—“the next third-world dictator who wants to blow up Americans will think twice when he realizes who’s in charge.”
Talon blinked. The man was certifiable. No, he amended. The man was egotistical and ambitious and very, very dangerous. He glanced at Oliver, and everything suddenly clicked. “You’re responsible for the enhanced kids going missing, aren’t you?”
Dakota smiled. “I wondered if you’d worked that out. The gifted children are wasted in the paltry foster homes that are being hurriedly put together. They should be trained, their gifts explored, molded.”
“How about you let them be kids?” Talon said incredulously. “Toss a football. Go to school.”
“I am merely taking what the state has already thrown away,” Dakota argued.
“Well, Oliver’s mom hasn’t thrown him away. She wants him back.” Talon saw Oliver raising his head and, unbelievably, Finn bumping shoulders with him a little.
“For how long?” Dakota snapped. “Until the next time he loses control?” He paused and heaved a huge sigh. “Join me—join us.” He glanced around.
Talon thought quickly. He had to try to convince Dakota he was interested. “Let Finn and Oliver go, and I’ll stay.”
Dakota shrugged. “I’m afraid not. I have a use for both of them, and the child is valuable.”
“He’s eight years old,” Talon said in disgust. “He’s a child, not a commodity.”
“Don’t be naïve,” snapped Dakota. “Everything’s a commodity. It’s the world we live in.”
Talon suddenly twigged. “You’re behind the bank robberies?”
Dakota looked furious. “Of course not,” he spat. “They were only brought to my attention when I realized they had the help of an enhanced, and I am not interested in a couple of lowlifes who can do paltry smash-and-grab when I have access to people with the ability to control the world’s finances.” He shot Talon a calculating look. “I’m pretty sure your team’s value would increase if they knew exactly what you can all do.”
Talon stiffened at the implied threat. Just how much did Dakota know? “Let them go and we’ll talk,” he insisted.
Dakota smiled and turned to the enhanced behind him. They both seemed to share a joke. “I’m sorry. I know full well you have no intention of joining us. I just wanted to see how far you would take it to convince us.”
Talon frowned. What?
“I have no need of someone with your ability, Talon.” Dakota inspected a nail casually. “So you can kill people? Big deal. I can go to a dozen street corners in this city and pay someone less than the cost of my dry cleaning bill to do the same.”
Talon blinked.
“What I really want is Gael, Sawyer, and Eli,” Dakota continued, and Talon’s heart thudded. “I know they have much more interesting talents, but while you are here, while there is a chance of your team succeeding, I know I would be unable to recruit them. Your vision of a normal life may be degrading and beneath their talents, but I suppose it must have its charms.
“And unfortunately killing you may have the opposite effect. I don’t want them continuing in some disgusting obligation to your memory. So I have a quandary. I need to humiliate you. I need the world to dislike you, and I need your pathetic little team disbanding so I can add them and their talents to mine.”
He gestured to Finn. “Untie the regular and the child, and bring them here.”
The enhanced calmly walked forward, bringing Oliver.
Talon’s heart bounced hard in his chest and seemed to drop. He had an awful feeling about this.
“You have to choose one of them to be the test subject.”
“What?” Talon said in horror.
Dakota laughed. “Choose one of them to demonstrate your ability on.” He lowered his voice and gestured to Oliver. “Pick one.”
“Are you insane?” Talon said, thinking furiously, his heart pounding in his ears.
Finn was dragged in front of Talon, and the gag dropped from his mouth. The other guy Talon hadn’t seen do anything took Oliver’s hand and led him quietly next to Dakota. Oliver was sniffing quietly, and the lights started flickering.
Dakota looked at the ceiling and glanced at Oliver, smiling reassuringly, and the lights returned to normal. “Interesting,” he murmured.
“Now this is Raoul.” Dakota gestured to the enhanced standing beside him. “Raoul has got quite a unique ability with energy. He can heat a room. He can also heat a body.” Dakota nodded as if he were talking to himself. “Over seven thousand people die of heat stroke in America every year, did you know that? It’s fascinating, really.”
Dakota carried on almost conversationally. “The first thing that happens is that blood is diverted away from the major organs to the skin’s surface.” He stroked a finger idly down Finn’s cheek, and Finn tried to pull away. Raoul just held him firm. “Your sweat glands try to release water to cool your skin, and that’s when the real problems of dehydration begin. Of course, the sweat glands can’t cool the skin fast enough, so that causes your heart to pump even more blood from your vital organs. Once your core temperature gets above a hundred and four degrees, you’re in serious danger. Blood flow stops to the brain, and your brain begins to swell. Hallucinations
and seizures may occur, followed by a loss of consciousness. People actually stop sweating because their bodies simply run out of fluid to do so.”
Talon always knew he was strong, but right at that moment, he didn’t know how he was still standing and not holding that sick son of a bitch’s throat in his hands and squeezing the life out of him.
“I am aware of what you can do,” Dakota continued. “You haven’t kept it secret in the department, and money loosens tongues anyway. So I’m going to ask you again. Pick a victim.”
Talon took a slow breath, trying to remain calm.
Dakota beckoned to the other enhanced behind him, who stepped up with a video camera, and Talon suddenly understood. He was going to have to murder on film and have it shown to the world. That was how Dakota would get the team disbanded.
“No one will fall for it,” he said derisively, but inside, sick panic was clutching at his gut.
“Oh, the tape will be judiciously altered. I have another of our team who can alter any recording and make it undetectable. All the world will see is you losing your temper at me and your partner begging you to let me go before you kill me. Of course, your lack of control is well documented, and when you unleash your ability on your partner and kill him, no one will be surprised.”
Talon fisted his hands, and Dakota sneered. “Keep going.” He nodded to the camera. “We’re getting some lovely shots of you losing your temper. I wonder if your father was scared of you, his own son, before you killed him as well.”
Talon let out an agonized cry and leaped for Dakota. Instantly both enhanced from the car had guns pointing at Finn. Talon forced himself to stop.
Dakota raised an eyebrow. “Lovely control, but I think we’ll edit that part out.” He turned to Oliver and smiled at him. Oliver glanced at Talon in fear, but Talon had no idea how to reassure him. “Whichever you choose, Raoul will demonstrate on the other. I want to see who is the fastest, until someone’s heart stops. Oliver’s or Finn’s.
“I should add, to be sporting, we will give you a head start. If you succeed with Finn, Raoul won’t need to start on Oliver at all. Which is just as well,” Dakota whispered as he covered Oliver’s ears with his large hands. “I’m afraid Raoul’s talent is very painful. I have heard the brain can literally boil in the skull.” Dakota smiled and cuffed Oliver on the cheek, and Oliver looked confused and took a step away.
Five Minutes Longer Page 22
