by Siegel, Alex
"Good thinking," Marina said.
They walked to an elevator at the end of the hall. Odelia pushed the laundry cart. Marina pressed the button.
"Relieve the guards and take their place," she told Smythe and Jermaine. "Try to convince them to go to their rooms. Tell them Race Hanley sent you. If they give you trouble, knock them out. We'll be up in five minutes."
The men took the elevator up.
When the two women were alone, Marina said, "Smythe feels pretty strongly about you."
"I feel the same about him," Odelia replied. "He's an amazing, wonderful man."
With her pure white hair and flawless skin, she had an otherworldly beauty that made Marina feel plain in comparison. Even Odelia's red-brown eyes looked attractive instead of strange.
"Come on. You two just met yesterday. You can't fall in love that fast."
"We were made for each other," Odelia said. "When we're healing, we're a perfect team."
Marina sighed. "He's a good friend of mine. I don't want to see him get hurt."
"What can we do?" Odelia shrugged. "We can't turn off our feelings."
After five minutes, they took the elevator up to the seventh floor. Smythe and Jermaine sat on either side of the elevator door.
"You convinced the guards to go peacefully?" Marina said.
Smythe nodded. "They were too tired to argue."
The hallway looked clear. She hurried down to the other end and peeked around a corner. Three alert guards were protecting one of the doors. Hanley must be in there, Marina thought.
She turned and found the rest of her small team directly behind her.
"They're expecting me," Marina whispered, "so we'll use the false prisoner tactic. Odelia, stay behind us. You're our backup."
"I'll flash them with my hands," Jermaine said. "Close your eyes or you'll be blinded."
Everybody nodded.
Jermaine and Smythe grabbed Marina roughly by the arms. They marched her down the hallway towards the guarded room. Odelia followed several paces behind with her laundry cart.
"We caught this woman trying to sneak in," Jermaine announced in his deep voice. "Wake up the chief. He'll want to talk to her right away."
Marina struggled to pull free, but her teammates had a very strong grip. She was sure she would get bruises on her arms. A realistic performance was sometimes necessarily painful.
"Let me go!" she whined. "Please!"
One of the real guards knocked on the door and said, "Sir! You should see this."
There was some noise in the room, and a moment later, the door opened. A man stepped out, blinking in the light. Marina recognized Hanley's face from a picture Leanna had sent.
He was in his thirties. His black curly hair was cut short, and he was clean shaven. His narrow eyes conveyed an intensity that appealed to Marina.
"I wasn't doing anything wrong," she said. "I got lost. Just let me go!"
Hanley leaned towards her. "Hey! I recognize your voice. You're the mysterious woman on the phone." He sneered. "Not so tough now, eh? We caught you."
Jermaine let go of Marina's arm and raised his hands.
"A hasty assumption." She closed her eyes.
The flash of white light was intense even through her eyelids. When she opened her eyes, she found Hanley and his three guards covering their faces with their hands. They were momentarily defenseless.
Marina hit the guard behind her with a mule kick to the jaw that turned him off like a light. Jermaine and Smythe simply punched the other two guards. Hanley started to back away but didn't get far. Marina chased him down and injected venom into his neck. She quickly gave a dose to all the guards to make sure they stayed down.
"This one too," Odelia said.
Marina looked down the hall. An old man had come out of the room next door, and Odelia had knocked him out. Marina gave him a shot of venom.
"I like your gift," Odelia said. "Very handy."
"Thanks, but yours is better," Marina said.
Jermaine and Smythe placed Hanley's body into the laundry cart bag. Everybody walked away.
Chapter Thirteen
Race Hanley opened his eyes. He was in a cozy little living room with a couch and some padded chairs. He was sitting on a wooden chair in the middle of the room, and he was tightly bound with nylon ropes. He couldn't move his arms and legs at all.
Four people were watching him closely. The first was the woman he had seen just before his abduction. She had strawberry blonde hair tied back in a long ponytail. Freckles on her nose made her appear girlish. Her jade colored eyes caught the soft light beautifully. She had long black fingernails, which were filed down to sharp points. Hanley didn't like the Goth touch.
The second person was a huge black man. His skin wasn't just dark. It was pure black. Hanley had never seen anything like it before. The woman standing next to him had a starkly contrasting appearance. Her hair was so white it looked like plastic, and her face was almost as pale. Her beauty was strange but hypnotic. She had red eyes that had to be the result of novelty contact lenses. The last person was a big man with rust colored hair and a broad jaw.
All four of Hanley's captors had the bodies of professional athletes, even the women. The men had chests as big as barrels. Hanley felt wimpy in comparison.
"Where am I?" Hanley said. "What am I doing here?"
"This is the meeting I promised," the woman with red hair said. "You're in one of our safe houses. Scream if you want. Nobody will hear you."
"All of you are with the Gray Spear Society?"
"Knowing that name isn't a good thing. It's one of the secrets we kill to protect."
He pulled on the ropes holding his arms. Whoever had tied him had done an expert job. "So, you're going to kill me?"
"Not yet," the woman said.
"What are you waiting for?"
"Try to relax. You're in no danger at the moment."
Hanley looked around again. The air was a little chilly. Plaid curtains were drawn across the windows, so he couldn't look outside. He saw a bathroom through an open door. An oil painting of an old man with a cane hung on the wall behind him.
All of Hanley's captors wore plenty of guns and knives openly. The red-haired woman had ten knives strapped to her wrists, ankles, and waist. Edged weapons seemed to be a fetish of hers. He wondered how sharp her fingernails were.
Hanley didn't see anything that might help him. He had no choice but to settle down and wait.
A short time later, the door opened and three more people entered. The first was a tall, muscular man with straight brown hair. Heavy eyebrows shaded his eyes. The second was a black woman in her fifties or sixties. Her hair was completely white. She was lean and moved with surprising quickness for a woman of her age. Last came a very tall man who was completely bald. The many veins under his skin were easy to see. He wore highly polished steel gauntlets with sharp spikes on the knuckles.
The black woman took a chair facing Hanley. Everybody else remained standing.
She had two machetes strapped to her back. She took them out of their scabbards and placed them on the padded arms of her chair. The weapons gleamed like pure silver.
"Hello," she said. "I'm Ethel. Did Xavier mention my name to you?"
Hanley nodded. "You're the top boss."
"My formal title is legatus legionis of North America. I'm responsible for the whole continent. Everybody else here works for me. As long as we're making introductions, Aaron is the commander of Chicago." She nodded towards the brown-haired man beside her. "And the very tall fellow behind me is Guthrum, my bodyguard."
"Who is she?" Hanley looked at the woman with red hair.
"Marina," Ethel said. "She works for Aaron. That's enough names for now. Aaron, tell everybody about our friend here."
Aaron was holding a thick sheaf of papers. He walked over to a lamp and started reading, "Race Stanford Hanley, age thirty-three. Married for fifteen years to Peggy Hanley. They live in Clinton, Maryland. Par
ents are Ralph and Mary Hanley, who live in Ocean City, New Jersey."
"Hey!" Hanley said. "Are you trying to intimidate me by threatening my family?"
"No. I'm simply presenting information as ordered. When we get to the threats, it will be obvious. To continue, Mr. Hanley served in the United States Navy for twelve years. His service record is distinguished and impeccable. The last five years were spent in the Navy Seals. He rose to the rank of lieutenant before being discharged because of a debilitating injury. He was awarded the purple heart."
Hanley sighed with impatience. When would they get to the point?
He looked over at Ethel's silver machetes. They were beautiful weapons but too ostentatious for his taste. Obviously, they were intended to intimidate her underlings.
"Do you know how to use those?" Hanley nodded towards the machetes.
She moved faster than his eyes could follow. Suddenly, she was across the room with a machete in hand. The sharp edge was pressed against his neck.
"I'm highly skilled," she whispered.
He was so startled his whole body jerked. He looked into her dark eyes and saw twin pools of blackness that seemed to stretch into infinity. They weren't human eyes. Only a real monster could have eyes like that.
She went back to her chair as quickly as she had left it. He couldn't believe what he had seen.
"How the hell did you do that? Am I on drugs?"
"No." She shook her head. "It was a miracle. You'll see plenty of them tonight. Aaron, continue."
Aaron shuffled his papers. "Of particular interest is Hanley's last mission as a Navy Seal. I think it summarizes his military career. It took place in the Gulf of Oman, north of Muscat. That's a city at the northern tip of Oman."
"Wait," Hanley said. "That's classified information."
"I know. This whole damn report has top secret stamped all over it. Hanley was leading a team of Seals. They were pursuing a ship suspected of transporting terrorists in and out of Iran. The ship was flying a Russian flag, which made for a diplomatically challenging situation. Any action the team took would have to be covert and deniable."
Hanley couldn't believe he was hearing this report. It was supposed to have been buried in a file cabinet deep in a sub-basement of the Pentagon.
"Aaron," Ethel said, "our friend looks uncomfortable. Cut him free."
"Yes, ma'am," Aaron said.
He spat across the room. A sticky glob of yellow material struck the ropes holding Hanley's right arm. Immediately, the liquid started to foam and produce greasy smoke. Hanley desperately tried to pull himself free before the acid got onto his skin, but he was tied too tightly. He could only watch as the ropes were eaten away. When the liquid hit his skin, it didn't do anything. There was no pain. The ropes parted and he wiped his arm on his shirt. The fabric dissolved but the flesh underneath was unharmed. What the hell? He had now seen two impossible things tonight.
He used his free hand to finish untying himself. He could stand now.
"Remain seated," Ethel said in a stern tone. "Aaron, go on."
Aaron nodded. "The Seals waited until the target ship had stopped for the night. They were two miles south of the Iranian coast. Hanley and his men swam over and climbed onto the deck."
"Wait," Hanley said. "Let me tell the story. I want to get all the facts right."
"Go ahead."
"I had four men with me. We hid for twenty minutes and listened. The crew spoke Russian and the passengers spoke Persian. There were a lot of enemies on the ship, a lot more than we expected. We realized it was much too big a job for us. We were about to withdraw when they spotted us."
Hanley took a deep shuddering breath. He had clear memories of that very bad night.
"Continue," Ethel said.
"The shooting started right away. We kept falling back, and the enemy kept coming at us. They chased us through the guts of the ship. Two bullets ripped up my right knee. We eventually barricaded ourselves in a cargo hold. By that time, two of my men were dead and the other two were hurt. The Iranians were trying to burn through the door with torches. There seemed to be no way out. That's when we saw canisters of enriched uranium. Somebody was going to build an atomic bomb with that stuff."
"But you did escape."
Hanley nodded. "I knew we had to scuttle the ship, even if we didn't survive. I couldn't let that uranium reach its destination. There were boxes of C-4 in the hold. I put a detonator on a box and set the timer for ten minutes. Then I took one stick of C-4 and put it against the hull on the other side. I formed the charge to make a hole big enough to escape through."
"But you were probably under water," Aaron said.
"That's right. When I blew the charge, water flooded in. We had to wait until the pressures equalized before we could swim out through the hole. It was a close call. We were still underwater when the main charge went off. The concussion almost knocked me out. By the time I reached the surface, only one of my men was left alive. The plan worked though. The ship sunk."
"Nice job."
"Thanks," Hanley said. "We swam back to our boat and discovered the enemy had destroyed it. We ended up swimming all the way to shore. Two miles of open ocean, and I only had one good leg. We spent two days on a beach without food or water until a rescue team finally found us."
"Did your knee heal?" Ethel asked.
Hanley shook his head. "It still hurts every day. That's why I left the Navy."
"Smythe and Odelia, fix him."
The big man with rust colored hair came over. He drew a long knife.
Hanley tensed. "Are you going to cut me?"
"No," Smythe said. "Just your pants."
With the deft touch of a surgeon, Smythe sliced off Hanley's pants above his bad knee.
Smythe tapped the joint. "That's a lot of scars."
"There are more inside," Hanley said.
"I'm going to need you to hold very still. No matter what you see or feel, don't move around, or I might not do a good job. I'm a real doctor. You can trust me. Got it?"
"What are you going to do?"
"Fix you," Smythe said. "Ready?"
Hanley grimaced. "Not really."
Smythe pushed his hand into the knee. It was the most disturbing thing Hanley had ever seen. It took all his self control not to scream and jump away. Smythe's hand was actually moving around under Hanley's skin. It looked like a magic trick. Hanley was shivering but he held still.
"What a mess," Smythe muttered. "I'm surprised you can walk at all."
He pulled out a handful of pins and screws. He dumped them on the floor and went in again.
"How the fuck are you doing that?" Hanley said in a shaky voice.
"Shh," Smythe replied.
He seemed to be pushing things around inside the joint. Hanley could feel his bones and tendons being adjusted. It didn't hurt but it was a frightening sensation.
Finally, Smythe pulled his hand out and stood up. "The knee is structurally sound now, but there is still a lot of inflammation and damage to the cartilage. Odelia, you're up."
The woman with white hair came over and knelt before Hanley. She put her hands on his knee.
She smiled at him. "This is going to look strange. Just stay calm."
"Are you kidding?" he said. "You can't possibly do anything stranger than what that guy just did."
Her skin began to glow with a bright white light. Her hair looked like it was on fire. The red in her eyes burned like tiny embers. I was wrong, Hanley thought. This is stranger.
He felt a powerful tingle inside his knee. His heart started to race, and his whole body became warmer. She was certainly doing something to him. It felt good. In fact, it felt wonderful.
After a couple of minutes, her skin stopped glowing and she stood up. "All better."
She walked over to Smythe and held his hand.
The pain in his knee was gone. He squeezed the joint and it felt completely normal. He stomped his foot, cautiously at first and then with some force,
but it didn't hurt. He wanted to jump and dance for the first time in years.
"Remain seated!" Ethel said.
Hanley couldn't believe what was happening. It had to be a dream.
"Can you do a trick?" he asked Marina.
She held up her pointed fingernails. A drop of clear liquid formed at the tip of her index finger. "I'm venomous."
That revelation didn't shock him. Anything was possible in a dream. Hanley looked at the big black man and said, "What about you?"
His face turned lime green and his lips became neon red. He looked like a circus clown. "Me? I'm the normal one here." He grinned.
"Don't tease him, Jermaine," Ethel said. "You were in his situation once, and you were just as scared."
"Yes, ma'am." Jermaine sounded remorseful.
"Aaron, finish up the background information."
"Yes, ma'am." Aaron flipped through his papers. "After his discharge from the Navy, Hanley joined the FBI. The bureau wanted an agent with his skills despite his minor disability. He worked on several important cases and built a reputation as a man who consistently got things done. Four months ago, he was appointed chief of the top secret Special Missions Unit, a very prestigious assignment. The Unit was created to battle the most dangerous terrorist threats inside the United States. Half of them are soldiers on loan from the Army, mostly Army Rangers. They're equipped to conduct military-style operations."
Hanley looked down. These people seemed to know everything.
Aaron continued, "The reports state that Race Hanley is a very brave and compassionate man. A natural leader. However, a lack of formal education has held him back throughout his professional life. He went straight from high school into the military. His career in the Navy had already reached its limit when he was discharged. These days officers are expected to have college degrees. He overcompensates for his lack of education by working too hard and by taking too many risks."
Hanley frowned. Aaron was absolutely right.
"It's finally time for us to get down to the real business of this meeting," Ethel said. "What did Xavier tell you about us? I need all the details."
Hanley faced her. "Do you seriously expect me to cooperate? I'm not telling you anything. This is just a dream anyway."
