“As I think you might have noticed, I’m old-school.”
He handed the picture of his daughter over to Finn. “Was this girl one of the ones there?” Finn looked at the photo.
“How long ago was the picture taken? I didn’t see any kids as young as her—just teenagers and a bit older.”
Finn took the picture back. He stayed silent for a moment, staring at the image of his daughter. Without looking up, he said, “This was taken a while ago. She’d be your age now; maybe a bit older.”
Finn reached out and brushed his arm. Parker found himself incredibly touched that, after what she’d endured, she was comforting him.
“Will you tell me what happened?” she asked.
He almost said no out of pure reflexive habit, but something stopped him. “I messed up,” he said instead. “I was supposed to be watching her,” he commented, his voice almost a whisper. “We were over there by the mall, and I got out of the truck… I was a goddamn cop,” he said, his eyes burning and his throat tight. “I knew better; I knew what could happen because I’d seen it happen before. But I was in a hurry and it was only going to take a minute.”
He stayed silent for a while, Finn’s hand resting comfortably on his forearm. Finally, he zipped up his wallet in the bag and put it back in his knapsack.
“Is that why you’re helping Ava?” she asked.
He smiled, but it was bitter. “I don’t know why I’m doing anything anymore.” His stomach grumbled—without the appetite suppressing meds or alcohol, he was ravenous. He had exactly two MREs in his bag. They were old, and he’d really only kept them because some old vet had told him he’d want them if shit really did hit the fan. Energy bars and jerky weren’t meals. Even after eating a hundred of the mushy things, though, he realized they were better than the alternative and they were high in calories. Calories meant energy. He gave Finn one.
“Spaghetti,” he said. “You’re lucky.”
“God!” Finn’s eyes grew huge. “I’m so hungry!” They ate in silence, completely absorbed in the act of eating. Out on the horizon, he saw the sky lightening further as dawn continued approaching. He began shoving the now empty packets into the brown envelope of the MRE bag.
“We’re close,” he said. “I want to try and get a look at the church while people are groggy.”
“Like we ‘attack at dawn’?” Finn asked.
“No,” he said. “Not like, ‘we attack at dawn.’ First, we’re not a platoon of Marines and, second, there is no ‘we’ in this part. Just me.”
“I feel as if we’ve had this discussion before,” Finn laughed.
Parker caught her gaze and held it. “Don’t buck me on this, Finn.”
“What if what happened to me is what’s happening to Ava?”
“We’re going to save her,” Parker told the girl. “And you did a hell of a job keeping your head in that hell house, but I can’t go in if I have to worry about what’s happening to you. Besides, if something goes sideways, I need you to go get help.”
“I thought the reason you came was because there was no help.”
“There isn’t that I know of,” he admitted. “At least not right now. But if something happens down there to both of us, then the secret of this fucked up church, along with Ava, ends with us.”
Finn’s hand again found Parker’s arm, and he decided she was a pretty touchy-feely kind of person once she trusted you. His ex-wife had been like that. There’d been two kinds of people in her world back then, those inside the circle of trust and those outside. When you were on the inside, there wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do for you. But, as he came to learn, if you were on the outside, she didn’t have the time of day for you.
“Do you think your daughter is with them?” she asked.
Parker avoided her gaze. “No, of course not. That’s not how life works.” He turned around and began walking.
Finn watched him walking away for a moment, she decided she didn’t believe him. He very much was holding onto the chance, no matter how minuscule it was, that his daughter was with the church. Hope was like that, she reflected; it didn’t always need to be logical to be powerful.
She almost felt sorry for whomever got in his way. Almost.
20
“That’s it?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered.
The old TV station sat on the top of a hill built up on the edge of the city where, presumably, the land had been cheaper. Now, with what would have been an unobstructed view of the lights of Louisville, the real estate market had gone up quite a bit. As a result, the area around the defunct station was surrounded by large upper-class houses on five to ten acres of land each.
“Can’t believe the zoning board hasn’t demanded they knock it down,” he said, more to himself than Finn.
She answered anyway. “The cult got it designated a church. They don’t pay taxes on it and it’s provided protection from gentrification.”
Parker looked at her in surprise.
She shrugged. “Once she’s into something, Ava learns everything about it, and isn’t afraid to share the knowledge. Don’t even get her started on the punk rock movement in 1970s Britain.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Parker said.
Finn started to say something else, but Parker suddenly held up a hand to silence her. He cocked his head and listened for a moment.
“They have a generator running.”
“How is that possible?” Finn asked. She stopped, as if remembering what she’d just seen. “They can’t be part of what happened down at the mall, right?”
“It’d be easy, as long as you knew what was coming,” he said, answering her original question but talking mostly to himself. He remembered the crooked warden’s phone and frowned. He’d been talking to somebody, and that somebody had to be somewhere.
“What are you going to do?”
Now that’s a good question, he reflected. What was he going to do? He guessed that if he’d been a vigilante, or a soldier at war, he knew what he’d do. He’d sneak down there and start removing cultists with extreme prejudice. But he wasn’t those things… at least not yet, anyway. If things kept going the way they had so far, there was no telling where in the hell he’d end up.
But by Finn’s own admission, Ava had gone willingly with these people. And while as a police officer he’d have had probable cause to investigate, he wasn’t a cop—not anymore. If he snuck down there or demanded they send Ava out while he was presenting weapons, private property owners would be well within their rights to shoot him. Hell, if someone came up on his house in that manner, either creeping or making demands backed up with a gun, he’d probably shoot them himself.
The parallels with the problems he’d faced at Ava’s parents’ house were obvious. He didn’t think he could bet on things turning out as harmless here as they had there. Even if the cult had kidnapped her, not everyone in there might be guilty. Most larger organizations worked like that. The leadership were distinct, and they selected out from among the herd the most loyal to back them up. He couldn’t go down there and shoot someone who’d been homeless three months before, had joined to get shelter, and was guilty of nothing more than washing dishes.
On the other hand….
Last night had been a bitch mother. The sudden loss of services and direction by authority had seemingly brought out the very worst in his city. Economic strain had already turned the place a lot darker and more violent than the place he’d grown up in. The blackout had seemingly freed the animals from their cages. The criminal element had mobilized in a shockingly rapid way, and it’d only escalated from there. Ava had been close to hysteria on the phone. If she hadn’t convinced him this was serious, he sure as hell wouldn’t be here now. The possibility of murder-level violence seemed very real.
He sighed. He turned back to Finn. “I’m going to go down there and ask about Ava.”
“You mean ‘we’ll’ go down there,” Finn corrected.
&nb
sp; Parker shook his head. “No, Finn.”
She started to protest and he held up a big hand to stop her. He noticed it shaking with the effects of his withdrawal and put it down, hoping she hadn’t noticed.
“Listen,” he said. “I’ve gone over this with you. This isn’t about me treating you like a little girl. If we go down there and something happens to both of us? Ava’s screwed, the cult goes on, and in the aftermath of a night like last night, nobody ever knows. You have to stay here in case something happens to me.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“Sooner or later, the authorities will come and regain control. When they do, you can tell them what happened. It’ll be Ava’s only hope.”
“How am I supposed to make it out?” she asked.
He could tell by the look on her face that she was remembering the gang of convicts and the nightmare she’d lived through. He reached out and shook her gently.
“You can do it if you have to. You reacted like a survivor when the chips were down. Follow the river until you get near your old neighborhood, staying off the main streets. Hide until it’s almost morning; your night owls, which include your rioters and nefarious types, like to sleep in. This is the safest time to move in an apocalypse situation, or at least that’s what I’ve read.” He caught her gaze and held it. “Finn, this is important, so don’t fight me, please.”
Obviously feeling guilty, Finn looked away. But she nodded.
Satisfied, he looked back towards the TV station. “Please be hippie peaceniks,” he said quietly.
He left the submachine gun with Finn and only took his pistol. Unburdened from his pack, he walked up the hill quickly, striding directly down the middle of the access lane so that no one observing him covertly would think he was up to any subterfuge. He strolled up to the open gate of the chain link fence circumventing the property.
“That’s far enough,” a young male voice called out. “You stop right there or I’ll blow you away!”
The chain link fence around the TV station was overrun with brambles from a blackberry bush. From behind those brambles, off to one side, a skinny kid with a Winchester pump action shotgun rose up out of a folding lawn chair. His voice was strained and he sounded unsure of himself, trying to use bluster to mask the nervousness.
Parker looked at him. This kid couldn’t be it—surely, he wasn’t the only person standing sentry? Because otherwise the cult was going to be a piece of cake, and nothing about last night had worked out that way for Parker.
Across the worn and cracked asphalt of the parking lot, on top of the flat one-story roof, another figure appeared. Parker clocked him. Early fifties, good-sized belly on a husky frame. Carhartt jeans, work boots, and a canvas jacket. With a greasy tangle of salt and pepper hair, and a scruffy five o’clock shadow, he looked like a brick mason or a factory welder at quitting time.
He also held an Armalite with a twenty round magazine and a x6 power hunting scope. He looked serious and capable. Never easy, Parker thought. Not one damn time.
Parker slowly raised his hands.
“Hello to the house.” He smiled. It felt fake as hell on his face, but he thought it couldn’t hurt to try.
“Whatever you’re selling,” the kid sneered. “We don’t want none.”
“Want any,” Parker said. “If you didn’t want none, that would mean you wanted something.”
“What the hell are you talking about!” the kid demanded.
Okay, my witty banter isn’t a hit. I guess I’m feeling too cranky to be charming, Parker thought, still watching the kid. Who am I kidding? I can’t pull off easy-going and friendly anyway—it’s just not me.
“Like the kid said,” the man on the roof spoke, “we don’t want none,” accenting the words to let Parker know what he thought of Parker’s grammar lesson.
“I bet you don’t,” Parker replied. “I bet someone with a working genny don’t need much right at the moment.”
“You mind your own goddamn business!” the kid yelled.
“What’s all this yelling about?” a new male voice said.
Parker looked towards the sound. A man about Parker’s size and age, but with a heavy grizzled beard, stepped out the front door of the station.
“Nothing we can’t handle, Mr. Gruber,” the kid said.
But the one called Gruber was sizing him up, and Parker could tell the man was savvy enough not to like what he saw. Because of this, Parker decided it was time to get right to the heart of the matter.
“I’m a friend of Ava’s,” he said. “I’d like to talk to her.”
“Samuel,” the man named Gruber said in a quiet voice. “Go get Dr. Marr.” When it looked as if the kid might offer an opinion of some kind, Gruber firmly cut in. "Now," he said.
The kid named Samuel glared at Parker one last time for good measure and then quickly moved to obey. Then the men stood around and looked at each other. Parker didn’t mind. Social awkwardness was the least of his worries.
21
“I heard the yelling, Hank,” a woman said from the doorway. Dr. Marr, Parker presumed. Tall, almost regal, silver hair, lean. In a different context, he would have found her attractive. She turned and looked at Parker. “Hello, Mr....”
“Parker,” Parker said. “James Parker.”
“Hello, James Parker,” she said. She seemed very self-assured, Parker thought. “May I call you Jim?”
“Sure,” Parker smiled. He was being massaged. He wondered if the ‘doctor’ in Dr. Marr was for psychiatric medicine.
“Thank you, Jim. I understand you are a friend of Ava’s.”
“Sure,” Parker nodded. “Gosh gee whiz, she’s such a nice girl, and I’m really worried about her. I wanted to see her for a moment and catch up on old times.”
“So she knows you?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Parker smiled really big to show how agreeable he was.
“In a manner of speaking?” Marr repeated.
“Right,” Parker nodded. “In a manner of speaking.”
“That seems perhaps a little vague,” Marr said. “Perhaps you could unpack that a little more.”
“Dr. Marr,” Parker said. “I’m a little confused.”
“By what?” Gruber snapped. He clearly wasn’t enjoying the exchange.
Marr held up a hand, shutting Gruber down. “It’s okay, Hank,” she told him. “We want to be polite.” She fixed Parker with a stare. “At least until it no longer seems appropriate. Jim, what is it you find confusing?”
“Oh, let me count the ways,” he said. He held up his hand and began counting off fingers as he gave his list. “One, a 911 call I got from a scared young woman in trouble. Two, an active generator at a church in the middle of a city—hell, maybe a state or even the whole damn country—that’s lost power. Three, being greeted at a church by class-A asshats with all kinds of firepower.” He met Marr’s eyes full-on. “Four, what the hell a doctor is doing leading a Luddite doomsday cult.”
“Wow,” Dr. Marr said. Her voice was soft and so filled with potential danger it might as well have been the whir of a rattlesnake tail. “You weren’t kidding; you really are confused.”
“I come seeking enlightenment.”
“If only that were the case.”
Parker felt the intensity of her stare reach out between them in an almost tangible presence. She stepped forward slightly. Her gaze was so piercing he almost took a step back in return.
“We are a church. Our members are lost when they come to us and we accept them into the bosom of our family. Like all families, we have our rights to privacy. You mentioned a 911 call. Are you a police officer, Jim? Can I see your badge? Are you armed?”
Well, Parker thought, the game is up.
“I never claimed to be a police officer,” he countered, carefully ignoring the question about him being armed. “I’m a 911 operator, and my agency knows I’m here,” which was maybe sort of the truth. He just didn’t know if Saint Klein had men
tioned where he was going to anyone who mattered, or if it would make a difference if she had.
“I didn’t realize 911 operators responded to calls personally.”
Parker took a step back.
He was caught in a death trap if they opened fire. He’d have to shoot first if he hoped to live. Double-tap to Gruber because he seemed the most aggressive and competent. Double-tap to the gunman on the roof because he had the advantage of elevation, too, but after Gruber because it’d take him a moment to bring the rifle up and then find Parker in the aperture of the scope. It would actually be slightly more difficult for the man to find him in the optics because Parker was so relatively close, compared to the standard zero on a x6 power.
Then the kid with the shotgun. He looked green, and Parker had to make the wager he’d be momentarily shook by sudden violence. Of course, he could see the full choke on the barrel of the kid’s Winchester. That meant that, at this range, even firing surprised from the hip, the .12 gauge shot spread would likely catch him.
He decided that, if he survived that long, he’d rush forward and try to take Marr hostage to trade her for Ava. He brought his eyes back to Marr. He answered her question.
“Obviously, we don’t,” he said. “But extraordinary times and all that.”
“I see. Look, Jim,” she said. Her voice had taken on a slightly saccharine quality that put his teeth on edge. “You have no identification, no official reason to be here, and this city has turned into a cesspit of violence. I’m afraid that, given the, to use your terms, extraordinary times, I’m going to err on the side of safety and decline your request.”
“Whose safety?”
Marr dropped any pretense of a smile. “Everyone’s.”
The conversation, Parker realized, was at an end.
22
He wasn’t getting Ava free without violence.
He realized that now. Not only understood it on an intellectual level, but really felt the truth of it in his bones. He thought about taking a hostage of his own, but judging by Marr’s reaction, the person he took would need to be valuable. To get to someone valuable, maybe even Marr herself, he’d have to kill his way in.
911: The Complete Series Page 21
