by Dale Mayer
She froze. Two men and a nurse stood in front of them. The men nodded, acknowledging the presence of Kerrick and Griffin, but their eyes were on Amanda and Brandon.
One of the men was obviously the brawn, but the guy in the lab coat seemed to be the leader and spoke up. “We’ll run some scans to make sure that you haven’t been injected with anything. Particularly to confirm you’re not carrying a tracking device.”
“What kind of scans? Will they be invasive?” she asked, stepping closer to Brandon. Instinctively Brandon reached up and put his hand in hers.
“Just the swipe of a handheld wand for basic metal detection, like used in some American schools, and another one that’s pretty high-tech to see if there are any foreign bodies within you, not just those minute metal invaders overlooked by the wand but those made of plastics or whatever.”
“And what’s the nurse for?” she asked, not moving from her spot. Griffin and Kerrick had aligned themselves on either side of the two of them, still protecting them. That did help a lot, but still she and Brandon were now in somebody else’s stronghold and under somebody else’s rules, and she didn’t think much of that at all.
The nurse stepped forward and swept a handheld wand over both her and the boy. “Clear,” she announced to all in the room. “No large metal foreign objects found.”
The lead man smiled at Amanda and said, “Just lie down on the bed. We’re not doing any major surgery.”
After a glance at both Griffin and Kerrick—who nodded gently to her—she walked slowly toward the man. He motioned for her to enter the next room, and she stepped forward hesitantly. There she saw some kind of a portable X-ray machine. Different but the same. She frowned. “Is this the only way?”
“It’s the best way, the least invasive way,” he said. Then he reached out a hand and introduced himself. “I’m Dr. Claussen.”
Because he seemed to be a medical doctor, as evidenced by his white lab coat, her brows immediately came together in a frown. “If no major surgery will be done here today, are you expecting some level of your medical services to be needed?”
“I hope not,” he said quietly. “But, if you do have a tracking device, it’s likely subcutaneous, and somebody will need to remove it.”
“I haven’t noticed any recent injury,” she said, slowly realizing she had had no way to adequately check any part of her back. She’d had had more pressing health issues to address, both of the physical and mental kinds, like surviving, like escaping, like dealing with poor Brandon’s nightmares.
“Good,” the doctor said. “Maybe you should go first. That’ll make Brandon feel a little better about the process.”
“Do I get to watch?” Brandon asked, in serious mode now. Obviously he wanted firsthand information on this.
Amanda spoke up. “I vote yes,” her stare locking in on Kerrick first, then Griffin.
“I don’t think that is a good idea,” stated Dr. Claussen.
“This boy has a higher IQ than me—and probably you,” Amanda responded to Dr. Claussen, slightly amazed at the heat in her words. “If it’s such a good idea for me to go first to convince Brandon how safe this procedure is, then Brandon should be an eyewitness of that before he decides whether to do this himself.” In the lull that followed, Amanda added, “And he does get to decide himself. Right?” Again she stared at Kerrick and Griffin.
Kerrick grinned, sharing a knowing glance with Griffin, before speaking to the doc. “Mama Bear has spoken.”
“Let me just state for the record,” Dr. Claussen began with a huff, “that I do not agree to any of this.”
Kerrick pulled out his special disposable phone. “No problem. We’ll arrange for another doctor.” He was already texting when Dr. Claussen cleared his throat.
The nurse with him nodded her head, giving him a pat on his arm.
“That won’t be necessary. While highly irregular and not our standard methodology in my field, I realize these are trying times for the two of you and that your emotional health is as important as your physical health.” Dr. Claussen faced Brandon. “I’ll leave your medical decision up to you, young man.”
Brandon was all smiles, and yet, surprised as he looked into the faces of all who surrounded him. “Cool!”
His simple happy reaction was a very welcome respite from the rest of this. And then reality brought Amanda back to the present. … Hating to go first, but smiling for Brandon’s sake, Amanda shot a nervous glance at Kerrick, but he again nodded at her reassuringly. Following the doctor’s instructions, she laid down on the temporary hospital bed that they had set up.
She noted the brawny stranger was camped out near the front windows of the safe house and felt a bit reassured.
“I want Brandon behind a lead shield,” she said as he held her hand and stood beside the bed. “But … you two aren’t wearing lead vests. Is there any chance of radiation exposure for Brandon?”
Dr. Claussen shook his head. “Not with this machine. It uses lasers instead.”
Amanda felt somewhat better and smiled down at Brandon, whose entire focus was on the machinery in the room.
With the doctor’s click of a handheld toggle switch, a series of X-rays were taken while the others remained standing nearby in the other room, with a direct view of the procedures.
She frowned, not that she had really stopped frowning since leaving the motel, and asked, “Won’t it take a while to develop them?”
The nurse smiled. “No, not for this kind of X-ray. We’ll have results very quickly.”
“And, if I don’t have a tracker, we still have to X-ray Brandon?”
The nurse nodded. “It’s best if we do, yes.”
Dr. Claussen asked Brandon if he could be X-rayed as well.
“Sure.” Brandon was already climbing up on the hospital bed as Amanda stood up.
“Why don’t you sit in the chair in the other room, Amanda, while we await your results?”
She was already shaking her head when Brandon piped up. “No. Why can’t she stay here with me?”
The doctor gave in easily and quickly completed Brandon’s scan. When done, the doctor said, “We expect your results, Amanda, in just a couple minutes.”
“Literally?” she asked.
Dr. Claussen chuckled. And the nurse was already pulling something from the strange X-ray machine, like copies from a photocopier.
Over the instant objections of Dr. Claussen, both Kerrick and Griffin joined them in the makeshift hospital room, ready to see the official results.
With a resigned sigh, the doctor walked over and held the odd sheet in his hand. He held it up for her and the others to see. He pointed to the picture, at the base of the back of her neck, where something metallic was identified. It appeared on the picture as just a small dot.
Her hand immediately went to her hairline at the nape of her neck, and she felt a little bit of a scab but thought it was just a scratch from her rough treatment in the initial kidnapping event, not to mention Dr. Hinkleman’s slap.
Dr. Claussen leaned forward to take a closer look at her neck, while the others gathered around the end of bed to stare at the photo laying there. “There are no stitches,” he said. “It’s simply been injected. The body is amazing in the sense that it will cover any injuries, no matter how slight, with scar tissue very quickly.”
“So how do you get it out?” she asked, while seeing a picture of her head on the hospital bed and surrounded by everyone except their guard.
“I’ll have to cut it out,” he said quietly.
She stiffened, but Kerrick grabbed her shoulder and squeezed. “It’ll be fine.”
“So you say,” she muttered, turning her head his way. “It’s not your head they’re cutting into.” And honestly, she didn’t even realize they would do it right now until she felt the doctor’s hand on her head, telling her to remain still. Then she felt a tiny cut slicing her skin, followed by a probe inserted briefly, before the doctor pulled out something so small s
he almost missed it. She studied the edge of his tweezers and saw a small metal ball, which could have been the end of the tweezers for all she knew. She looked up at him and said, “That’s it?”
“Yes, that’s that,” he said. He put it carefully into a little test tube for safekeeping, slipping a metal casing over it. “This metal sleeve stops the tracking unit from sending out any signals.”
The nurse now came over with Brandon’s X-rays.
After a quick look, the doctor pulled out a second tube and turned to Brandon. “May I do a quick check of your neck, young man?”
“Sure.” Brandon seemed to be in total research mode, happily taking in this new experience as both fieldwork and lab work. “Do I have the same thing in my head as Amanda?”
“Looks like it,” the doctor said amiably. “Same place too.”
Amanda gripped Brandon’s hands and said, “It’ll be over before you know it, and I hardly even felt it.”
Brandon nodded, trying to be brave, but it was obvious that doctors and needles and surgical knives were a bit of an issue. She hugged him tightly. “I’ll stay right here, holding you. Just focus on my face. Okay?”
Brandon’s neck was exposed for the doctor to work with. He bent closer, took a quick look at the back of the child’s neck. “It looks the same, like the scabbed-over scratch that I saw on the back on your neck, Amanda.”
She and Brandon exchanged a look and then a nod. She squeezed his fingers when the doctor held Brandon’s head still and made a tiny slice and popped out the same type of microdot that had been in her. He washed the wound carefully and then told Brandon that he was all done.
She frowned, asking the doctor, “Did you wash my incision?”
He chuckled. “Yes, I did.”
“I didn’t even realize it.”
Brandon sat up and instinctively raised his hand to the wound, but she stopped him and said, “Let it heal for a few minutes, so you don’t transfer any dirt or germs from your fingers and put it on the open cut.”
He nodded and then immediately turned and asked the doctor, “May I see it?”
And there was that same bright and inquisitive child back again, jumping down from the hospital bed to stand closer to his tracking dot. The miracle of youth.
The doctor chuckled and held up the tube that contained his microdot, then placed a metal sleeve over it too.
“So what’s on those dots?” Amanda asked.
“We assume tracking information,” the doctor said, “but, until we get it analyzed, we don’t know.”
“So is it likely to have things like our medical records or what they did to us while imprisoned or just something to keep track of where we’ve been moved to?” She wrapped one arm around Brandon’s shoulders and held him close.
“We expect just tracking info, but I don’t know for sure yet.”
On that note, she jerked, turned to look at Kerrick, and said, “That means they tracked us here. We can’t stay now.”
He nodded. “We never intended to. This is just a temporary stop to make sure that we don’t get followed beyond this point.”
“Were we followed?” she asked. “Are these people in danger too?” She pointed to the doc and his nurse, frowning again.
“Not followed that we noticed, no, but that doesn’t mean the kidnappers aren’t keeping track of us on a computer somewhere and, therefore, could come attack this place to reclaim its victims.”
She looked back at the doctor. “So, you’ll set up something here? To capture the kidnappers, or the people they’ll send here, expecting to attack us?”
“That’s a good idea,” Dr. Claussen said, with a hand extended toward Kerrick and Griffin. “I don’t handle that type of thing, but I’m sure the people in the know will have it all organized.”
“It’s already being set up,” Kerrick said, a smile on his face.
“But we need to be long gone,” Brandon piped up. “So where are we going next?”
Now that the ordeal with the surgeon’s knife was over, Brandon seemed to be right in the midst of the action. And loving it.
She smiled down at him and said, “You’re a brave little guy, aren’t you?”
He grinned up at her. “Hey, we’re in a spy movie. This is awesome.”
She laughed, looked at Kerrick, and said, “Well, you appear to be our intrepid leader. Where to next?”
His phone beeped. He pulled it out and checked the screen. “I have the new address for us, so I suggest we fall back into the vehicle and head off again.”
“How long to the next stop?” Brandon asked.
He shrugged. “Maybe fifty-five minutes.”
“Good,” Brandon said. “We need to stop somewhere on the way to pick up lunch.”
Kerrick looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “There’s still leftover breakfast.”
“No, there isn’t,” he said. “I ate that already. And, besides, it’s almost lunchtime.” He rubbed his hands together with glee and raced toward the garage.
Kerrick drove carefully and steadily. He wondered how long before Amanda and Brandon noticed, considering they were both incredible geniuses. He wasn’t sure if they were that practically minded when so blessed intellectually. But shortly thereafter Amanda leaned forward from the back seat and whispered, “Where are we going?”
He caught her gaze in the rearview mirror of the car. “You’ll find out soon.”
She gave him a quick frown but settled again in her seat. Brandon leaned against her as soon as she resettled. The farther away from the safe house they traveled, the clingier Brandon got. But she understood. She didn’t know what would happen to him. His father hadn’t reported him missing. Did he even know that Brandon was gone? How could he not be aware? What parent could be that clueless?
Unless Brandon was enrolled in some private school, but even school officials take note of student attendances—or absences. Or had Mr. Coleman, Brandon’s own father, had a hand in this atrocity? That thought really bothered her. Already she was game to adopt the boy. Legally.
Or whatever it took.
As he drove, Griffin talked on his phone incessantly in the passenger front seat, continually distracting Kerrick because the bits and pieces he heard were disturbing, to say the least. Brandon’s father still couldn’t be located, which, in Kerrick’s opinion, could work out for the best for his kid and for people in general. Neither could their associates locate Hinkleman or Amanda’s ex but not for lack of trying.
Kerrick was afraid that, every step of the way, people were being taken out of the equation so as to not leave any living witnesses.
Which didn’t bode well for Amanda, Brandon, or any of the other kidnapped victims from that original prison location. Kerrick worried about the well-being of those other victims now. While Kerrick’s new organization had tracked those victims to their new prison, were they still alive at this very moment? His new employer was taking care of that element with a separate team of men. Kerrick understood the viability of compartmentalization in any op, but … hell. He had a vested interest and wanted continued updates on all aspects of this mission.
Even worse, how many other kidnap operations were active, just involving these lowlifes? He didn’t even want to consider how many other separate criminal elements out there were responsible for other such kidnappings.
Maybe Mr. Coleman, Brandon’s father, was dead, either as a witness or maybe as a willing partner in all this. Kerrick still awaited more information regarding his own damn op. His phone beeped in his pocket, and, while he drove, he pulled it out and speed-read the text.
Brandon piped up, “You shouldn’t text and drive.”
He glanced into the rearview mirror and said, “You’re right. I shouldn’t.” He dropped the phone beside him, but he’d already seen the message. His assistants had identified two of the faces on the gurneys that Griffin had supplied via his nighttime op immediately after rescuing Amanda and Brandon. One was the daughter of an opera singer and the
other was the wife of a billionaire from Saudi Arabia.
To Kerrick, this seemed to be a pure blackmail scheme, just extorting money from the rich families so the kidnappers would return their loved ones relatively unharmed. Like a stream of income to fund the bad guys’ main objective: the illegal harvesting of body parts.
Yet Amanda’s kidnapping was to force her to divulge her cancer cure. And Brandon? While a brilliant kid, he seemed to be collateral damage for whatever his father had been up to. Kerrick wanted to ask his associates in his chat window if this was a working theory on their end too but knew that they would be heads down, already involved in doing their own research as well. Better to leave them alone to do what they do.
He and Griffin and their two special packages were long past the time frame when they were expected at the new safe house. But he and his partner had chosen not to share with anybody their actual whereabouts. Not now. Not yet. And the three people back at the first safe house seemed to know about the next safe house location, and that was too many people “in the know” for Kerrick.
Griffin had scouted out another location. Hence all the phone calls he had been making, including one to Delta, his old buddy, thinking he might give some updates that the others weren’t willing to do. No such luck.
Up ahead was a fast-food place. Kerrick glanced into the back seat and asked, “Brandon, are you hungry?”
“Always,” Brandon piped up. He looked out his window, saw the burger joint, and cried out, “Yes! Fries.”
Kerrick pulled in and parked. Then he said, “We might as well all go in.”
Griffin tore his attention from his phone and put it away, looking surprised.
Kerrick shrugged and said, “We could all use a chance to get out and to stretch our legs.”
With everyone out, Kerrick glanced into the back seat of the car and pointed. “Is that yours, Brandon?”
It was a small pad of paper and a pen. Brandon nodded and dove into the back seat, then grabbed it up.
In a low tone, Kerrick told Amanda, “Don’t leave anything in the car.”
