by Fiona Quinn
Not alone. Was this the thirteenth floor? Was that Indigo? Was he hurt? Whoever it was was certainly in horrible pain. The EMT in me wanted to thrust the slide to the top, jump out, and help. The operator in me said I should sit tight and see what happened next.
That’s when the smell hit me — rotten eggs, pickled in sulfur. My stomach heaved, and my eyes watered as I gagged as silently as I could. I yanked my headlamp from my backpack and used it to prop up the door, so I could try to get a better understanding of what was happening. I pulled my elbow across my face. Even breathing through my mouth wasn’t helping much as the viscous scent coated my taste buds.
From behind the sliding door came sighs of relief and the flush of a toilet. Bathroom. Blech. The man’s relief didn’t last. Very quickly, the sounds of extreme intestinal discomfort swirled with the vapors of what I’d guess would be major food poisoning — or, shoot, maybe Ebola — through the three-inch crack.
His cell phone jangled in the room, and he answered it. I would never get over the modern idea that it was okay to be engaged in such a private moment, and yet people were willing to chat through it on their cell phones. It blew my mind every time I was caught in a public restroom, and there was chatter from the stall next to mine.
“No, I’m at home. I’m in agony over here… No, don’t come over. I don’t know what this is… No, do not increase the dose. He’s a big guy, but you don’t want him to go into cardiac arrest. Wait it out, he should get sleepy soon, and once he’s unconscious, you can secure him.”
Secure whom? Was this an Omega Commander? Were they after a criminal?
“Once he’s secure, I need you to do something. I can’t get to Elliot. I can get into his room, but there’s a doorknob I can’t get past. I need you to identify it and send me a text so we can figure out how to work around this… No shit, no, I can’t get anything. They stole their art back and returned it to the walls. Now it’s impossible…” A major groan erupted from his throat. “Got to go. Call me later when you — shit. Got to go.”
Indigo.
He attends all of the home games — unless he was in major gastric distress, that is. He tried to go to Iniquus, but that’s now secure. Woot! He knew General Elliot had a doorknob in his room, and he used the word doorknob, so he must understand that we figured out what was going on and were purposefully protecting General Elliot. I needed to get word to someone, so they could place a security detail on the general. But I had no comms equipment with me. I couldn’t risk communications, especially after the Fuller Mine debacle with the D.O.A. I wasn’t at all sure that our comms had been secured. Anything I could say to Iniquus, I might also be feeding to our enemy. Better safe than sorry. No, that was the wrong phrase — there was no “safe” connected to my decision making; it was more like, better hope for the best.
Someone was helping Indigo. Someone who was close enough that they had his personal number, and he would be willing to speak with them while hovering over the toilet with such, um, violent outcomes. There was no one in my life that I felt that close to.
I couldn’t think past the poisonous gases emanating from his body. It smelled like something had crawled up this guy’s colon and died quite a while ago. My eyes watered, and I worked hard on not coughing. Surely he’d hear me past his distress. When I got out of here, I planned to relax in a boiling hot bath with Clorox.
My legs were falling asleep. I tipped over to my other hip, reversing my trapeze swinger’s stance. And waited.
Finally, the toilet swirled with a flush, followed by a gushing tap. The lights went out, and I went to work. For a brief second, I shined my penlight under the crack in the sliding door. I peeked at my path out of here. It must be the linen closet because there were cleaning products that needed to be shifted out of my way in order to move forward.
Slowly, careful not to tip or bump anything, I broadened my entrance. I prayed under my breath for fresh air and for Indigo’s gut to calm down long enough for me to clear this room. Then, of course, it would be awesome if things reversed, and he got stuck on the ceramic throne long enough that I could get what I needed.
My final push into the crawl space was made with seriously gelatinous limbs. Pulling my balaclava over my head, I crawled out, cracked the door, and slipped into what was supposed to be the outer ring. I immediately understood Major Trudy’s confusion.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The outer ring of the penthouse seemed designed with only doorknobbing in mind. I slid left behind a chair that created the only shadow in the room. The outer walls were glass windows; the inner walls were gold-veined mirrored squares like those used in 1970s-style decorating, and maybe some peoples’ bedroom ceilings. The floor was black marble, shined to an obsidian reflective glow. In the two corners that I could see from my vantage point hung two enormous floor-to-ceiling Tsukamoto pieces. With the overhead lights shining brightly, all of the moving glittering surfaces disoriented me. If I felt like Indigo did right then with the digestive upset, I would not be very comfortable with this environment. It would be like having the flu and seasickness in a rowboat during a raging storm when all you wanted was a steady horizon.
Indigo’s vomit hit the bottom of a metallic container, and soon after, he wove his moaning, unsteady way back to the bathroom. Tall and lanky, with a shaved head and stylized facial hair, he looked like a dad — not at all like a monster willing to kill and kill again, someone willing to destroy the infrastructure of American government and security for his own gains or his own retribution.
While I had closed the sliding door to the chute entrance, the cans were still arranged along the sides. If Indigo were reaching for the Lysol, he’d notice something was different. I crossed my fingers that he was too inwardly focused to care about something as mundane as how the cleaning supplies were arranged.
I took advantage of the gagging noises to move to the door of the remote viewing room from the side of the penthouse that housed his dining table and kitchen. The cool, dim calm of the viewing room was such a relief. But I didn’t stall to appreciate it for even a second.
Major Trudy thought that the desk held the answers I sought. I started there. Even though I was using the newest in document surveillance cameras, this would still take an enormous amount of time. I pulled the first journal out. The camera clipped down over my right eye and worked like a movie camera. Its specialized lens could focus on the words even in dim light, and the computer stabilized the image, so none of the photographs should be fuzzy. I turned the page, and as soon as it lay flat, I could say one-Mississippi, and then turn the next page to flat, one-Mississippi.
Long. Tedious. Nerve-wracking. I had grabbed all of the journals from the desk — there were probably twenty of them — and crouched behind the dentist chair, where I would have precious seconds and the element of surprise if someone were to come in and flicked on the overhead light.
The gagging had stopped; Indigo’s moans came intermittently. The flush of the toilet and the jet of the faucet were followed by the echo of a door being closed. I froze in place. It wasn’t as if I couldn’t fight my darned way out of this, I reminded myself. As sick as this guy was, he probably couldn’t even post a gun with two hands. But he could call for help, and Omega operators were only a floor away. And there were only three ways out the elevator, the stairwell, or the bathroom.
I heard the sizzle of a soda bottle being opened and poured. And I pushed on. If I were running for my life, I’d need to take as much information with me as possible. I reminded myself that I was breaking all kinds of laws at this moment. B and E would mean hard time in the penitentiary, and people who crossed the Hydra had short life expectancies once they entered the penal system. Maybe it was a bad idea to think those kinds of thoughts.
Head in the game, Lexi.
For hours, I continued photographing each page, one after the other. Late, late into the night, I heard the phone ring. It made me jump and still. He must be in the kitchen if I were able to hear
him so clearly.
“Are you there now? … No, no. I can’t do anything about it. I’m in agony over here … I don’t want you to come over. We can’t both be down for the count if I’m contagious, and I wouldn’t want you to get this. It’s torture. So tell me, you have him secured? … Good, it’s what you want. You’ll have a better chance with his defenses down. Are you working on him tonight? … I need you to work on Elliot, too. What the hell is that thing in his room? … A Christmas tree? Well, turn off the light, do your thing, turn it back on. Tomorrow, you can sneak in and attach a remote that you can manipulate from your iPhone. At least now we know someone’s figuring us out. I don’t want Elliot coming around enough that they move him home … All right, thank you. I need to try to get some sleep. Maybe this is only a twenty-four-hour thing, and I can be more helpful to you tomorrow… and no one knows, right? You covered your trail and his? … Good. Yes… Oh, god, I have to go.”
I wondered whom he was talking to. Whoever it was seemed to have Indigo’s skillsets. If I could steal his phone, I could do a search. I’d have to see how things went.
Once I’d finished photographing the logs, I slipped out of the remote viewing room and made my way through the apartment. On the side opposite the kitchen was the bedroom area. The lights in the penthouse were all on at full blaze; I had no doubt that he left them on to continue doorknobbing the place. Indigo slept with a thick night mask over his eyes. With my backpack pulled tight across my back, I crawled over to his bedside table and retrieved his phone. I slipped it into the top pocket, then slinked my way toward the bathroom.
As I opened the door, the phone rang. Your house is on fire! I leaped forward onto my knees and pulled frantically at the sliding door. Scrambling for the entrance, I dove headfirst into the chute. Your family will burn! The intensity of this knowing slowed my brain and my reflexes. Someone grabbed hold of my ankle. My forward momentum was too great for Indigo to hold on to me. I twisted quickly back down the thirteen floors into the subterranean world of infrastructure. Scrambling out of the tube, I propelled to the staircase that ran along the plumbing, then hurdled myself down another flight.
“Down here, someone went that way,” a man’s voice yelled.
“Get the K9 in here. If he thinks he can hide, we’ll drag his ass out and let him be dinner.”
“I’ve got this way. You all go that way.”
The chase was on. I assumed I had the advantage of fusion night-vision goggles, and I forced myself to slow down and put them on. I also pulled the battery out of Indigo’s phone, so it wouldn’t suddenly give me away. That also prevented him from tracking me with GPS once I reemerged aboveground.
Crawling under beams and over pipes, I reached a metro station. I tested the door — unlocked. Thank you, God. I pulled off my black turtleneck and black stretch capris, leaving me in a low-cut blue t-shirt and a mini skirt with ripped hose and my combat boots. I tucked my hair into a hipster-looking hat, shoved everything else in my backpack, and emerged onto the platform. I checked my watch: zero-five-fifteen-hours. Once again, I lifted a prayer of thanksgiving. The Metro was already running. I walked nonchalantly to the other end of the platform, where a group of tired-looking workers leaned against the wall.
The door to the mechanical room slammed open, and four men in Omega uniforms stormed onto the platform. I pushed into the shadows and thought ceramic-tile thoughts as I tried to disappear from sight. My change of clothes might help, but I was sure there was telltale dirt all over my face. The man standing beside me took a look at the Omega men and opened his newspaper wide, covering me with it. I looked up at him, and he gave me a wink. The men ran past as the train arrived. I moved toward the yawning Metro car doors.
***
When I finally made my way back to my car, the streets were filling with early morning commuters. Something felt odd about my car as I approached it slowly from behind. I realized there was a man sitting in the front seat, scrolling through his phone.
I unlocked the passenger car door, climbed in, and handed him the keys.
“You smell horrible,” Spyder said.
“You have no idea.” I leaned my head against the window and closed my eyes.
“I trust your little adventure produced sweet fruit. I got your text and came to your car last night. I will admit that as the night, and then the dawn, advanced, I became apprehensive for your safety.”
“Yes, sir. I had a lot to accomplish.” I kicked my backpack to the side so I could stretch out my legs and get more comfortable. I was wiped out.
“Back to my apartment. Shower, food, and then debriefing.” He sent me a wrinkled nose glance. “I can’t account for this particular odor.”
“I’m sorry, sir.” I rolled down my window to let some fresh air into the car and sent a little have-a-happy-day juju to the guy who protected me with his newspaper. He couldn’t have missed how badly I smelled. That was really above and beyond on his part.
***
I emerged from the shower and dressed in fleece pants and a t-shirt with my wet hair wrapped in a towel. I was feeling considerably better. Coffee’s reviving aroma met me as I moved into the eating area. Spyder handed me a mug already doctored with Splenda and milk.
“Spyder, we need to think through the endgame. Can you catch me up on where you are with the data from Brody?”
“With the help of the computer system, I have created an American Baseball-like system. The major leagues for the heaviest hitters — the men who sent their directives down the chain. Minor league for the criminal middle management, the doers and shakers. Farm leagues for support. Little league — probably had no idea what they were involved in. I organized the information about the major leaguers with plentiful evidence so that they would pass without issue through any grand-jury system. I was especially keen on demarking those that might stand in the way as the dominos tumble, to mix two different games in my analogy. The judges, the attorneys general, the police, and the alphabets. This is going to reconfigure much of the east coast’s power grid. While there is much work that can be done making sense of their setup, I think that that should be left to others. I am ready to behead the monster.”
“Indigo, too.”
“That will be a harder task in that I cannot link the names Puppet Master or Indigo to a single man. Though you have said his name is Allan Leverone, you and Deep have already discovered that this man no longer exists on paper.”
“Do you remember when we talked about the Hydra having a head that could not be destroyed? And Hercules removed that immortal head and put it in the hole, and covered it with a massive boulder to trap it forever. I believe that this is a problem that needs serious thought.”
“Continue,” Spyder said.
I pulled my backpack toward me and dug through it. Out came the phone. I laid it on the table, placed the document camera beside it.
“Where did you go all night, Lexicon?” he asked.
“Indigo’s apartment.”
“And where is this?”
“The penthouse at Omega.”
There was a long pause, then, “Was it a clean mission?”
“No, sir. They are aware there was a breach in security.”
“I see. There was a good reason you brought his phone.”
“Indigo will have to have a contract for it. Hopefully, that’ll give us a line on at least one alias he’s using. But also, I overheard a very unusual conversation.”
“Do you know with whom?”
“I hope to find that out by tracing the number.”
“And why did this conversation catch your attention?”
“Indigo was talking while using the toilet in severe gastric distress. He asked them to figure out what the doorknob was in General Elliot’s room and sent this person to check on it, disengage it, ‘do their thing,’ and reengage it since Indigo was too seriously ill with the gastrointestinal issues to attack the general, and he was afraid that soon, General Elliot would be well enough to
go home. Once General Elliot was home, they wouldn’t be able to affect him anymore.”
Spyder took his phone from his belt and sent a long text. “We shall see who showed up on the cameras. And I will intervene on General Elliot’s behalf with Mrs. Elliot. Go on.”
“I believe this means that someone else has been trained by Indigo to influence people. Also, from what I heard, it sounded like they had taken someone prisoner.”
“But you do not know any more about the circumstances?”
“I’ll need to go over it again in my mind and see if I can’t find any clues. I thought of Brody, though. I’d like you to hand him over to Strike Force and get him off our plate.”
“I will transfer him to Iniquus on the day the monster falls.”
I blew on my coffee and let the steam rise up my nostrils. I was heartsick about Indigo.
“Say that thought out loud,” Spyder said.
“I’m heartsick about Indigo.”
“Continue.”
I tucked a foot up to my hip, so I could wrap my arms around it and lay my head on my knee. My other leg stretched out in front of me. “He was an American hero, working on a project that was scoffed at, but doing the work anyway because America needed his skills. He was tapped as one of the two most altruistic people amongst a group of people who were of the highest possible moral caliber.” My mouth tugged down into a deep frown. “Then, suddenly, he was let go with no prospect of a job. Worse, he was sedated for almost eighteen months, given a false psychiatric diagnosis, and then they attempted to kill him. They succeeded in killing his wife and son. Surely that would drive me past altruism. I think I would — like he seems to have — set my sights on vengeance. And the enemy, in his eyes, is America.”
