by David Beers
“What do you mean?” the doctor said. “It was your fault you got beat up?”
Christian had spent the first four hours of his morning de-briefing with Waverly and others as to what happened the previous night. Tommy had told the truth, Christian believed.
Himself, though?
No.
Not at all.
“I’m not sure I can say,” Christian answered.
“Or you’re not sure you want to?”
Christian looked away, his neck hurting as he moved. He missed Melissa. He could have told her anything, but here? This guy was in Waverly’s back pocket, but yet he had to keep coming. Week in and week out.
“We’re never going to make progress, Christian, if you don’t push Director Waverly from your mind. We’ll keep playing these cat and mouse games, and if I can be frank, I’m tired of them. I have a lot of work to do, and if you didn’t notice, it’s dark outside. I have a wife and a son who is getting ready to go to college, and I like eating dinner with him while I still can.”
Christian said nothing.
The doctor sighed.
“Okay, what do you want to talk about?”
Silence ensued. Christian stared at the window and the darkness outside.
“Chris—”
“It’s my fault because I knew he was coming. I knew he’d be there, and I waited for him, and then I tried to attack him. He, of course, being Luke-Fucking-Titan got the upper hand and beat the shit out of me. That’s why it’s my fault. Because I knew he was coming and I didn’t tell anyone.”
A longer silence passed. Tears sat in Christian’s eyes, though he wasn’t sure why. Anger. Rage. Frustration. All of it centered around someone he’d once loved. Confusion. Hopelessness. Any number of feelings, all mixed together in a cesspool of depression.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“Because I wanted to kill him.”
“Christian, I’m truly not trying to be harsh here, but do you realize what you may have done?”
Christian nodded, a tear falling from his eye. Anger at himself, too. Perhaps even hate.
“I know you don’t trust me, and perhaps you have reason not to. I must balance my duty to my patients with my duty to those that we serve, the public. It’s not always an easy balance, and a problem other psychiatrists don’t have to consider.” He paused and sighed. “I won’t break confidentiality on this, Christian, because it might be the most honest thing you’ve said to me in two years.”
Christian was quiet, still not looking at Hanson.
“Others could have captured him, if you’d alerted Waverly,” the doctor said. “Do you want to stop him, Christian, or do you want to end him? There’s a difference, and an important one.”
“I don’t know anymore.” He finally flicked his eyes to the doctor, the room blurry. “I know what I did. I know how many lives I may have put at risk. We could have fucking had him, right then, and right there, but I wanted to kill him … Except that’s not even true. I could have killed him. I had a gun and I was able to move maybe a second before he knew I was there. I could have pulled the trigger but I tried to hit him with the gun instead.” Christian chuckled, shaking his head.
“Why?” Hanson asked.
“I wanted to hurt him first.”
The two men were silent for a few minutes, the longest Christian had sat in a shrink’s office without speaking.
“Do you think you should be on this case, Christian? Sincerely, do you think you’re mentally fit for it?”
Tears still in his eyes, he said, “No.”
Christian held the cup up to Tommy, placing the straw gently inside his mouth. Lunch had definitely changed for Christian; before, he’d spent his time devouring sandwiches, barely looking up to see those around him. It was humorous, when he thought about it.
He had grown colder in every area of his life, and yet at lunch, he was forced to pay close attention to Tommy. He had to serve someone else, when the rest of his time was spent serving his obsession.
He supposed he could have asked the nurse, Anne, to do it … but then he’d serve no one, ever.
Christian pulled the cup back, giving him some time to swallow.
“Thanks,” Tommy said. “Go ahead. Eat. I’m fine.”
“You sure?” Christian asked.
“Positive.”
Christian placed the cup down and moved to the opposite side of the desk, sitting down and unwrapping one of his sandwiches.
He was waiting on the call from Waverly. The one in which he would say Hanson recommended Christian be removed from Luke’s case. He was, in short, waiting to be fired.
He’d said nothing to Tommy yet, and wouldn’t either. Not until there wasn’t any other choice.
“How’s your face feeling?” Tommy said.
“Hurts,” Christian responded through a mouthful of food.
Tommy let him eat for another minute before saying, “Do you ever wonder if we can win this? If we can beat him?”
Christian looked up from his sandwich, surprised. Tommy never asked questions like that, and Christian used to wonder if he ever thought them. Tommy’s bone marrow was made up of both pragmatism and optimism. Questions involving ‘what ifs’ weren’t in his nature—neither was doubting himself.
“Why are you asking that?”
“Does it sound that odd coming from me?”
Christian nodded.
“It feels odd. I guess because I’m wondering it myself. Maybe it’s because I’m sitting in a wheelchair and having you feed me. Waverly gave me a nurse to wipe my ass, so you wouldn’t have to do it. Maybe all of that has something to do with it. Or, maybe, it’s because I’m seeing the truth. He’s always been too powerful. I mean, eventually everyone gets caught, I understand that. I just wonder if when he finally is caught, if it’ll even matter then.”
Christian looked down at his sandwich, not hungry at all.
He had told no one about the deal Luke made with him. All he had to do was kill his partner, boss, and former lover—then, Luke would allow himself to be captured. Christian had made up an entire story regarding their conversation, leaving out the actual words spoken.
And now Tommy was asking him if Luke could be caught.
The other didn’t show up, standing behind Tommy, but Christian knew what he would have said: Tell him if he wants to take Luke down, all he has to do is die.
“We’ll get him,” Christian said. “He’s going to slip up and we’ll get him when he does.”
“But do you really believe that?”
Christian did, or something very close to it. Only Hanson knew that Christian attacked Luke first. Even Luke hadn’t suspected it, which meant that Christian was anticipating things that hid themselves from Luke. It meant he was gaining an advantage, mentally if not physically.
He couldn’t tell Tommy any of that, though.
Instead, he nodded and said, “I do believe it. He’s not God.”
No one spoke for a few seconds and Christian resumed eating, only from necessity. He wouldn’t have another chance to eat all day.
“I hope you’re right,” Tommy said. “I really do.”
“She’s called three times today, Christian. The last one was five minutes ago. I’m getting tired of putting her off,” Simone said. She hadn’t yet flown to D.C.—she was working from home most days, as the entire Atlanta office was shut down. Waverly told them this afternoon that she’d be coming up on Thursday. Hanson, apparently, hadn’t told him of Christian’s unfit state yet, but Waverly clearly knew Simone would be beneficial for both Christian and Tommy.
Christian should have told him that she was doing a fine job bitching at him from Georgia, so there wasn’t any need to waste the taxpayers’ money flying her up here.
He didn’t, though. He missed her. Some.
“I need to talk to Waverly first,” Christian said, referencing who kept calling him.
“No. You could have talked to him today. You’ve been
up there for two days now, and we were all in a meeting an hour ago. You knew she’d called twice by then, and you didn’t say a word.”
Simone was talking about Veronica. Christian honestly didn’t understand how people with less brain power than he were handling all this—it was a whirlwind for him. Before lunch with Tommy, he’d had another meeting with Waverly (half expecting to receive his walking papers the entire time). They looked over nearly 20 preliminary reports regarding the four buildings attacked, and spent three hours combing through dossiers created on the identified attackers.
Now, he had to deal with Veronica calling his office constantly.
Christian had changed his cell phone number, so she didn’t have that. He’d changed his mother’s too. Veronica hadn’t been the reason for it—in fact, she never came to mind the entire time. Yet, since she couldn’t get in touch with him through her normal routes, she was annoying the hell out of Simone instead.
“She said she’s heading to D.C. if you don’t call her back. I’m not sure the Director will like her showing up at his door, ya know?” Simone asked.
Christian sighed.
“You don’t let up, do you?”
“When I get my way I do.”
“And what is your way this time?”
“That you call the woman, Christian,” she said. “Didn’t you love her once? So why are you ignoring her?”
“She has an armed guard around her, Simone. It’s not like I’m leaving her to the wolves.”
Are you sure? Isn’t that exactly what you’re doing? An armed guard. That’s funny. Do you think that will keep Luke from getting to her if he wants?
“We’re not talking about an armed guard. We’re talking about a phone call. You need to do it. I don’t know everything that happened between you two, obviously, but I know that she deserves more than talking to your assistant, and having me tell her I’ll relay a message. Don’t you think?”
“Why has every woman to ever enter my life consistently told me how wrong I am? Can I not have one who just agrees with me?”
“Maybe. When you start acting right.”
Christian said goodbye and got off the phone, though he kept staring at it. He was tired and it was nearing 10:00 at night. He wanted sleep more than anything right now, and yet, Simone was right. Veronica deserved more than that. A lot more.
“Then give it to her,” his mother said.
She was suddenly on the bed, sitting right next to Christian. She reached over and put her hand on his leg.
“You used to treat people with the love they deserved, that they earned, even. You stopped, though, because you thought it was better for them if you didn’t show that love. Are you seeing now that it doesn’t matter what you do? That you don’t control the world no matter how much you like to think you do?”
Christian stared at his feet while the figment of his imagination continued speaking.
“She’s still in danger and you haven’t spoken with her in years. Maybe it isn’t your love that puts her in danger. Maybe it’s Luke Titan.”
Christian said nothing back. He instead looked at the text Simone had sent earlier containing Veronica’s number.
He dialed it.
“Hello?”
“Hello,” Christian said, his eyes squinting and a grimace rolling across his face … preparing for the beating that would surely come.
He heard only silence, though—so long that Christian wondered if she’d hung up.
“Are you there?” he asked.
“Yes. It’s just been a while since I’ve heard your voice. Was kind of taking it in.”
Christian’s face relaxed and he sighed. “What are you doing, Veronica? Why did you get on that goddamn television show and say all of that? You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“Not with the ten people you have outside my house at all times.”
“It’s not ten,” Christian said.
“You get my point.”
Christian smirked. “If it’s any solace, I have about the same outside my own door.”
“Why?”
“Well, mainly because Luke has declared war on the United States, and so far he’s winning.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Veronica said, her voice snapping off his sarcasm. “Did something happen besides what was on TV?”
Christian briefly wondered if Waverly was monitoring his cell phone, or Veronica’s. Maybe the entire conversation would be recorded and listened to later. Through his exhaustion, or perhaps because of it, he decided he didn’t care.
“Yeah. Luke came to visit Tommy and I.”
“You’re kidding,” Veronica said.
“No. He tuned me up a little bit, but that was my own fault, I suppose. So now we have 24 hour surveillance around us both. It feels a little bit like having the Secret Service, doesn’t it?”
Veronica laughed, though only briefly. “Yes, I guess it does.”
A few seconds went by and then Christian said, “Why did you want me to call?”
“Isn’t that obvious? I want to come out there with you. If he’s going to kill us, Christian, we might as well be together.”
Christian lay back on the hotel bed, his feet dangling off the end. He kept the phone to his ear and closed his eyes, listening to the silence between the two of them.
She didn’t question if he was still there and he said nothing. Both knew what she was asking of him, and she had to know an answer wouldn’t be immediate. Regardless how fast his brain worked, she wanted him to change everything he instilled in his life. A wall that ran so deep into the ground, and so high into the air, it couldn’t be scaled or tunneled under.
He was insulated, and that meant others were insulated from him.
And yet, the wall wouldn’t stop Luke from getting to Veronica. Luke was beyond it.
No, a thought spoke, you can stop Luke from getting to her, by killing her yourself. That’s the option he’s given you.
Christian shoved the diseased idea away.
“I’ll talk to Waverly tomorrow. We’ll get you an escort out here,” he said.
Chapter 12
Charles had left his house and gone into hiding. He didn’t want to do it, but knew he had to. The riverbeds of information were drying up for him, and quickly. He had expected a response from the FBI, certainly everyone involved in the operation had—but this swift of one? No, Charles hadn’t anticipated that.
Perhaps it was his own arrogance, thinking he could somehow defeat the goddamn FBI.
Charles was in the North Georgia mountains. The place all the abortion bombers went after blowing up unborn babies. He was in a small cabin; it had a bedroom, a bathroom, and a kitchen attached to a living room. He’d arranged to stay there, and then told Titan where he was heading … who sounded as if he couldn’t care less whether Charles was hiding out in hell.
The cabin was fully equipped with everything he needed to command operations. He had radio communications, burner phones, a top speed Internet connection. The place might look like a piece of shit, but in reality, he could operate just as easily here as he could at home.
Which was all that mattered.
“Just a few more weeks of this,” he said as he stared at the map on the wall. “A few more weeks and you’ll be rich and Titan will be dead.”
He was looking at a state map of Alabama, focusing on Birmingham. A small, red circle encapsulated a single building. Using, black, red, and green markers, Charles had traced different routes to the building—the reds wouldn’t work, blacks were better, green was best.
A week had passed since the attacks on the four FBI buildings, with Titan giving him the task of figuring out what the next one would look like.
Charles gave it some thought, and then decided, why try to reinvent the wheel? Hadn’t Timothy McVeigh done a good bit of damage with a moving truck?
Titan gave his okay, and they were just about ready to move.
Charles took the red marker from between his
lips and then circled one of the green paths already on the map. “That’s the one.”
The road contained the least amount of traffic, the least traffic lights, and had a direct route right to the FBI building’s entrance.
The FBI response would grow harsher, but Charles was safe up here. The noose might be tightening, but there was still plenty of room between it and Charles’s neck. The FBI was traveling up the lines of communication, trying to find the man at the top, but they were still a good way off. By the time they knew of Charles, this would be over.
He’d be rich.
Titan dead.
And the world right again.
First, though, a lot of other people needed to die.
Luke was a half mile away from the Birmingham, Alabama FBI building. He stood on top of another building, the wind blowing hard so high up. He was at the roof’s edge, a pair of powerful binoculars in hand. He could see only the top half of the FBI structure, but it would have to do. Any closer and he’d risk danger to himself.
A few things were on Luke’s mind as he waited for the building to fall. The first, and least important, was when he could rid himself of Charles Twaller. He held no doubt that the man was thinking the same thing about him. They would tolerate each other for the time being, but sooner or later, Charles would come for Luke. It was a bit strange when he thought about it, how Charles felt himself the predator in this relationship.
Luke didn’t care what the man thought, at least not outside of knowing what he thought. Twaller could think he was an astronaut and it wouldn’t matter. He would get no closer to killing Luke than anyone else had.
But when Charles Twaller died depended greatly on Christian. Twaller was magnificent at what he did, and Luke planned on increasing the pressure until Christian snapped—which meant the fat man was necessary for now.
“Will you snap, though?” Luke asked the empty rooftop. His eyes peered through the binoculars, watching the still standing building.
Luke didn’t know the answer to the question. It was the first answer he hadn’t known since he was a boy in a small Mexican classroom. Christian hadn’t broken yet, and certainly it wasn’t for Luke’s lack of trying, but this attack would be different. The FBI building Luke now stared at was in a heavily populated area. Massive casualties would result, and all of them would be laid at Christian’s feet.
