It took Jessie a few seconds to realize that O’Hanrahan was done. “Sir, would I be able to talk to him?”
Her lieutenant regarded her with a mixture of pity and regret. “I can send the request up the chain, but it’s doubtful. At least, not right away. I do have the name of the special agent in charge. It’s Johnson. “
“Thank you.” At least it was a place to start. She stood, amazed that her legs held her. “Did they take him to the Metropolitan Correctional Center?”
O’Hanrahan nodded. “I expect FBI will have some questions for you as well.”
That hadn’t occurred to her, but she’d welcome the interview. Mark had some peculiarities, but she had no doubt he was a good guy.
***
A bead of sweat raced down Mark’s back, and he could feel more gathering on his brow. The room stank of stale cigarettes and body odor. He picked at a cigarette burn on the scarred table. How long were they going to keep him waiting? It had to have been at least an hour, but there were no clocks in the room so he didn’t know for sure. The window on his right reflected only the inside of the room and he knew it had to be a two-way mirror.
The door opened and Mark’s heart tripled its rate. Even though he wanted to straighten the mess out and had wished someone would come talk to him, a shiver of fear shook his body. Johnson led a new group of agents into the room. He carried a folder and set it on the table across from Mark.
The agent sat and took out a pair of glasses, perching them on the end of his nose. Mark hunched over the table, keenly aware of the two remaining Feds flanking him.
Johnson tapped the folder with one index finger. “I have some very disturbing information about you, Mr. Taylor. Especially in light of recent events.”
“There’s an explanation. This is all just a misunderstanding.” Mark’s head ached and he rubbed his temples.
“Do you admit that you made a series of phone calls on the morning of September 11th to various government agencies?” He opened the folder and sorted through several documents. Running a finger down a line of print, he added, “Calls that began a full three hours before the planes hit?”
“Well, yeah. Of course I admit that. I left my name.”
“How did you come by your information?” Johnson leaned towards Mark and said, “And I must caution you that withholding important details will only make it go worse for you.”
“It’s gonna sound crazy, but hear me out.” He tried to laugh, but it fell flat. “See, the thing is, I have this camera and when I take pictures, the photos sometimes come out much differently than…” He hesitated. How could he explain this in a way that would make sense?
Johnson cut in, “Get on with it.”
Mark swallowed. “Sorry.” He wiped his hands on his thighs and darted a look at the other agents. “The photos-they show up in my dreams, only with more detail. And my dreams…they come true.” Johnson narrowed his eyes and Mark rushed on, “It’s the truth and because I see what happens before it happens, I can change it…sometimes.”
He closed his eyes as the visions of the planes hitting the towers played in his mind. “Only, it didn’t work on September eleventh. There wasn’t enough time. That dream…well, I’ve had some bad ones before, but…” He shuddered and opened his eyes, but couldn’t get the images out of his head. He ground the heel of his hand against his brow as if he could erase them.
“Stop!” Johnson slapped his hand down on the table top.
Mark jumped, then froze.
“I don’t have time for this crap. We have tapes of your calls. We have records that you traveled to Afghanistan two years ago. We know that you associated with Mohommad Aziz, a suspected terrorist.”
Mo? A terrorist? Mark didn’t buy it. He had known the guy for years. He was no more a terrorist than Fred Flintstone.
Johnson took a sheet of paper out of the folder, grabbed pen from his shirt pocket and shoved them both across the table. “Please write down everything you did and the names of the people you met in Afghanistan.”
Anger simmered inside of him and Mark tried to shove it down. He eased the paper back towards Johnson. “I already admitted I made the calls. You have the tapes.” Glancing at the two agents beside him, and then back to Johnson, he shrugged. “Yeah, I did go to Afghanistan. It was work related. Mo Aziz is a free-lance photojournalist I’ve known for about five years now.”
Agent Johnson’s eyes narrowed. “Oh really? How interesting.” He jotted something on a note pad.
“Listen, would ya? He’s no terrorist. He’s a good guy. He wanted to do a story on women’s rights, or lack of them, actually, in that country. Mo had some connections there, so we were able to go places where outsiders aren’t normally welcome. He interviewed the people and I took the photos. It was a hell of a book and I was proud to help with the photos.”
Johnson nodded, his pen scratching across the paper. “Good. Where can I find a copy of this book? So we can verify your story.”
Mark sighed. “Unfortunately, it was never published. Nobody was interested in the plight of the women of Afghanistan at the time.” He scratched the back of his neck.” Last I talked to Mo, he was still shopping it around.”
“So, you have no proof that this book exists?”
“I have my negatives,” Mark said. “You’re welcome to see them.” Should he have offered them? Maybe he should ask for a lawyer. His hope that this would all be quickly sorted out, faded.
“Believe me, we will. In fact, a search warrant on your home has already been executed.” Head bent, the agent continued writing.
“Oh.” Shit. He didn’t have anything to hide, but hated the idea of strangers going through his things.
“That make you nervous?” Johnson raised his eyes and smiled for the first time. Mark wanted to punch the smug look right off his face.
“No.” His voice shook with anger so he cleared his throat. It wouldn’t help matters to lose his temper.
Johnson motioned to the agent on the left. “Why don’t you get Mr. Taylor something to drink?” He looked at Mark. “You have any preference? Coffee? Soda?”
He wanted to refuse, but fear and anxiety had caused his mouth to feel like cotton. “Water’s fine.”
Mark tapped his foot on the floor, his arms crossed as Johnson thumbed through a stack of papers in the folder. What could they have in there about him? He started to lean forward, hoping to get a glimpse, but Johnson glared at him.
The agent returned with a bottle of water and set it in front of Mark. Before he could take a drink, Johnson said, “So, why don’t we start over. I’m willing to pretend that this conversation has just begun. What do you say, Mr. Taylor?”
Mark put the bottle down untouched. “I don’t have anything to say that I haven’t already said.” Should he tell them about his other dreams? They could go question some of the people who had been in them. People he had saved. There were dozens of them. Mark didn’t know all of their names, but he remembered some. They would vouch for him. “If you’ve done all this fact-digging on me, then you’ll know about other times I’ve had dreams that came true. The Chicago P.D. knows. Have you talked to them?”
Johnson chuckled. “They know you all right. Let’s see, Detective Cruz says that you spoiled three months worth of work when you tackled him just as he was about to make an undercover buy. They could have arrested a dozen gang members in that one.”
“Cruz was going to be shot. Did he mention that?” It should have been part of the file. The guy Hanson was buying from had been killed when a rival gang sped past spraying bullets as they went.
“That’s just one of a very long list of incidents you’ve been in with the police, so I don’t think you’re high on their list of favorite Chicago citizens.”
Mark’s leg bounced and he swallowed. “You make it sound like I’m a criminal…or a terrorist.” He folded his arms around the back of his head. The headache had reached migraine level and the bright lights stabbed into his brain. He
pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, I need to talk to a lawyer.”
CHAPTER THREE
Mark ground the heel of his hand against his forehead. How many days had he been here already? A court-appointed lawyer had been in to see him, but the legal mumbo-jumbo had gone in one ear and out the other. All he knew was that his calls on the day of the attacks and his trip to Afghanistan two years earlier had caused enough suspicion to get him locked up.
He slumped on the edge of the hard bed and buried his head in his hands. The questions they’d asked made no sense. Mark’s eyes shot to the door as a key scraped in the lock. His lawyer said he wouldn’t be back for several days. As far as Mark knew, nobody else was aware that he was here. A guard entered, a length of chain held loose in his hands. Instead of taking Mark out of the room, he snapped a cuff around Mark’s ankle and attached it to metal ring embedded in the floor. He was no better than a dog.
The guard left only to return a few minutes later with Jessie trailing behind him. Mark tucked his tethered foot behind his other one, but the chain rattled and he didn’t miss the shock in Jessie’s eyes when her gaze followed the sound.
“Jessie.” He tried to smile and pretend he hadn’t noticed her hesitation, but heat flooded his cheeks. How much did she know? After the initial shock, her face had frozen into a neutral expression.
“Mark.” She stopped a few feet away, crossed her arms and ran her hands up to her shoulders a few times, as though warding off a chill. “How are you doing?”
The concern in her voice drove his emotions to the surface, and he blinked hard, looking away with a shrug. He cleared his throat. “Guess I’ve been better.”
“That’s the understatement of the century.”
Startled at the flippant tone, Mark stared at her.
She surveyed the stark cell and then bent her head, giving it a shake. “I’m sorry. That was a cruel comment.” Tears swam in her eyes when she finally looked at him again. “I’m confused. When I get stressed, I say dumb things. Do you realize I had to call in every marker I had just to find out where you were?”
“No, it’s okay. I’m just glad to see you.” Despite his shame at having her see him like this, he felt a thrill that she was here. Why hadn’t he confided in her before? He should have shown her the camera. It wasn’t like there hadn’t been plenty of opportunities. If he’d shown her from day one, when he’d first contacted her in an attempt to change the outcome of a photo, maybe none of this would be happening. Maybe he wouldn’t be stuck in this damn jail cell. He hung his head. Hell, maybe three thousand people would still be alive. It was a huge maybe, but he couldn’t help wondering.
“Mark, I only have a few minutes. It’s only because my partner knows some of the Feds that I was even able to get in here at all.”
Her gaze swept him, and he rubbed his chin self-consciously, the bristles prickling his palms. He looked like crap-like the terrorist they were labeling him. Did she see him that way?
How much credibility and trust had they built up in the two years since they’d met? Maybe if they’d started dating right away, he’d have told her his secret, but their romantic relationship was less than three months along. There hadn’t been much time to tell her about the camera and dreams. It was a poor excuse and he knew it. He wished he’d given her a chance to understand, but he hadn’t. He’d never given anyone a chance.
He’d convinced himself he couldn’t divulge the secret of the camera and dreams to anyone. It was too risky. What if the camera fell into the wrong hands? It was a legitimate worry, but not the whole truth. A part of him had relished the cloak of mystery; the feeling of being a real-life superhero.
Jessie tucked her hair behind her ear and took a deep breath. “Talk to me, Mark. What have they got on you?” Her voice shook.
Mark searched her face. Would she believe him now? He had no proof. “I thought I could help stop the attacks. That’s all I was trying to do.” The words came out in a harsh rasp. His leg bounced with pent-up nerves and the chain clanked, drawing her eye once again. Trapping the chain under his foot, he willed his leg to still. Eyes closed, he leaned forward, hands clasped behind his neck. Most times, he could wake from the nightmares, reason out how to change them-could make things right.
The planes hitting the buildings, the fall of the towers, the terror on the faces of the people fleeing-it had been too catastrophic. There was no way to fix it, even as he had called the authorities to warn them, part of him had realized that. He was only one man.
Jessie paced, her heels clicking on the cement and echoing in the cell. Her black boots crossed in front of his vision as he opened his eyes.
“How could you think you could stop the attacks? Unless…were you part of it?”
Even though he’d worried, hearing her voice her doubt felt like a kick to the chest. “You really think that?” Did she know him at all?
She bit her lip, but her eyes didn’t waver. “What the hell am I supposed to think, Mark? In the two years I’ve known you, you have never leveled with me! Not once! At first I overlooked it because you had good information and were pretty harmless. Then I overlooked it because…”
Jessie turned away and crossed her arms. When she spoke again, her voice cracked, “I overlooked it because I’d come to care for you.” Facing him, she swiped tears off her cheek with a brusque motion, her eyes accusing. “You want my trust? Well, why the hell didn’t you trust me?”
He had blown his chance. Mark sagged back against the cinder-blocks. “I should have. But I was an idiot.”
She paced again, her arms tight across her chest. “You’ve been running around Chicago sticking your nose into situations where it doesn’t belong. Turning up at bank robberies, or at the scene of a drive by shooting, only you just manage to get yourself and bystanders out of the line of fire.” She paused her pacing long enough to level a look at his leg. “Usually, anyway.”
Mark dropped his hand to his left thigh, rubbing the scar. He could feel the ridge of it through the coveralls they had made him wear.
“So, you’ve never once told me who your sources were. Do you understand how that makes you look now?”
“Yeah.” He drew in a ragged breath and bent his head. The remains of a cockroach stained the cement between his feet. He nudged it with his toe.
Kneeling beside the bed, she looked up into his face. “Listen, Mark. You helped me out a few times with tips on cases. I appreciated that, even if my boss gave me grief over how I’d acquired my information. So, now, I want to help you. Will you let me?” Her voice softened and her eyes bore into his.
“I already told them the truth. What more can I do?” Mark held her gaze. Whatever it took, he’d do it. He had to clear his name. Even if that put the camera in the wrong hands. He grimaced. Not that there was much chance of that. The authorities had ridiculed that explanation.
“You need to lay all your sources out for them. Names, dates, places. If you fully cooperate, your lawyer will push for leniency.”
A roar built in his ears as his hope plummeted. “I can’t do that.” She asked the impossible.
She shook his leg, her voice rising, “You have to do it. You have no choice in the matter.”
“You don’t understand. I can’t do that because I don’t have any ‘sources’!” He raked a hand through his hair. “I have…” Oh God, this was hard. “I have a camera. Those times when I showed up…the robberies…the shooting…I-I have a camera and when I use it, the photos that come out…they aren’t anything I photographed. There’s pictures of those things happening.”
Her eyes widened in shock and disbelief.
He licked his lips and rushed on, “I don’t know where they come from, or…or how they end up on my film, but they do. Then at night, after looking at the photos, the images come to life in my dreams. Like a movie-” He shook his head with a mirthless laugh. “The next day, they come true…unless I do something to stop it.”
The look on her face had gone
from disbelief to pity.
He reached for her hand. “Please, you gotta believe me, Jessie. You’ve seen me stop things. How else would I know what I know?”
She pulled free and backed to the cell door. She turned, her shoulders slumped as she rested her head against the steel. For a long minute, she remained that way before facing him. “You realize how that sounds?”
Mark nodded. What more could he say? He picked at an orange thread on his sleeve. It sounded insane. He knew that. Flicking the thread from his fingers, he watched it float to the floor and rest beside the cockroach. “They think I’m crazy don’t they? You think I’m crazy.”
She threw her arms wide. “What do you expect? You give them this bizarre story and then wonder why they don’t believe you?” She stood in front of him, hands on her hips. “Come on, Mark.”
“Jessie, listen, please.” He willed her to believe him. “I was only trying to help-I did help. You know that!”
He saw doubt as she looked away. She thought he was crazy. Or guilty. Oh God. His gut twisted and pain ripped through him. Why had he tried to stop it? It wasn’t something isolated, like most of the things he’d changed. It had been bigger than himself. He should have realized that. This ability that he had to see the future in his dreams had never been meant for something this big.
“Right now, I’m the only one even willing to listen to you. The guys in charge,” she flicked her hand towards the hallway, “they’re done listening. They’re talking about enemy combatant status now.”
Her words seemed to come from a distance as his mind slowed. Nobody believed him.
“An enemy combatant, Mark. Do you have any idea what that means?”
He jumped as Jessie lifted his chin to meet her eyes. “No.” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat.
“It means no lawyers, no trials, and you leave your rights outside the door. It’s just you and them.”
Mark’s fear gave way to anger and it burned through him. What did they want from him? Did they expect him to confess to something that he didn’t do? “I dreamed the whole thing, Jessie. The whole damn thing.” He blinked sudden moisture from his eyes, embarrassed. “Why won’t anyone listen? Instead, they chained me up like I’m a goddamn animal!”
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