Flight of Shadows: A Novel

by Brouwer, Sigmund

  “Then we protect her with everything the agency can throw at this,” Wilson said. “It also protects you. Once we have her, you can come in.”

  “Good. We’re clear. To make it happen, we’re going to have to deliver on protecting someone else. You’ve got the authorization to make it happen.”

  “I’m listening,” Wilson said. “It sounds like you’ve got me on speaker. So I guess that person is also listening.”

  “Yeah,” Pierce said. “It’s the kid who snatched her from us in the first place. Calls himself Razor.”

  “The one we got on the wheelchair cam? What’s he want?”

  “Protection. Physical first, immunity second. And some money. Then he’ll give her up.”

  There was no hesitation from Wilson on the other end. “Done.”

  Razor finally broke into the conversation. “I’ll need to see the money in an account. I’ll give you the number. You’ve got five minutes for it to show up.”

  “And how do we know you can deliver?”

  Pierce said. “He’s got them in protection himself. In a shanty, guarded by Illegals. He’ll take me to them if we have a deal.”

  “Them?”

  “The girl and her two friends. Billy. Theo.”

  “Only half the money up front. The other half on delivery. And you keep Razor in custody the entire time.”

  Pierce gave Razor an inquiring glance.

  Razor nodded.

  Pierce said, “Wilson, at the same time, I want an electronic letter of immunity sent to my attorney. One for the kid. One for me. Signed by you.”

  “Also done.”

  “You’re the only guy I trust at this point,” Pierce said. “Once the agency has her, I become her protection. Short term and long term. We work together to get your son back. Got that?”

  “Got it. Back to you in five minutes with confirmation of funds.”

  Pierce hung up and looked at Razor. “Satisfied?”

  Wilson set his phone down on the burnished walnut desk and looked without emotion at the man across from him.

  “You heard the entire conversation,” Wilson said. “She’s with the others from Appalachia. We’ll need a stealth chopper. You’re military. You authorize it. Come up with whatever reason you need. I haven’t been out of the field so long that I can’t do this myself. We’ve got a short window here. We need to be in the air before Pierce realizes the money is not showing up in that account.”

  “It’s not enough that we get the girl,” the man said. “I need to know Pierce’s location. He’s one of two people who can link this to me.”

  Wilson knew the man’s dossier. General Richard Dawkins. Head of World United. Seventy-five years old. Looked barely a day over fifty.

  Wilson also knew where the man had been the night before. In the backseat of a private vehicle Pierce had spotted while visiting the scientist.

  “You don’t get Pierce,” Wilson said. “If I could kill you for sending someone after him today, I would.”

  Dawkins opened his desk drawer. He pulled out a Taser and pointed it with a steady hand at Wilson. “You’re the other weak link.”

  “Please,” Wilson said, more in mockery than protest. “Think I’d go into this without my own backup? I’ve been documenting this from the beginning. I’ve got something set up in cyberspace, ready to go out if I don’t plug in a password once a day. If I’m dead, I don’t care who knows about this. But you’ll care. Because it will go to the agency. To the military. You won’t be safe anywhere.”

  Dawkins kept the Taser trained on Wilson. His knuckle on the trigger slackened.

  Wilson continued to speak calmly. “I’m not a weak link. I’ve got as much to lose as you do.”

  Dawkins set the Taser down. “Pierce has to go. He doesn’t have anything to lose. If he’s not gone, your son is. It’s that simple. You choose between the two.”

  Wilson stared at the ceiling for a long time. He kept staring at it when he finally spoke.

  “We know where Pierce is headed,” Wilson said. “Same place we are. Only we’ll be in and out before he gets there.”

  Again, a long, long pause. Again, eyes locked on the ceiling.

  “Put a couple of snipers on the chopper,” Wilson said. “Well leave them in place to wait for him.”

  SEVENTY-FOUR

  Thursday evening

  The skinny one, Theo, had just stepped back into the shanty. There were a half dozen men still outside. Guards.

  Still, it was time to move. Mason had decided on dusk. Just as the eastern sky shifted into purples and the western horizon glowed orange. The black of night would be too risky. Too many people around Caitlyn, too many unknown factors. It had been different with the whore and her daughter, Thirsty; in that situation, Mason had been led by a local boy and knew that the two were alone.

  Mason didn’t want to wait until daylight the next day either. First, his patience was ebbing as his rage was building. All he needed to do was rub his destroyed eye to be reminded of what he wanted to do to her. Second, he didn’t know what the new day would bring. Caitlyn had spent time with Billy and Theo and the other one. Discussing what plans?

  No, Mason had to act before then.

  Dusk was his best option. He’d wait until the light had almost faded, then spring. Like the panther he was. He’d use the Taser to take out as many guards as he could and rely on his knife if the Taser ran short of power.

  Mason crept away from the wall that had shielded him during his observations. Waiting for the perfect moment to pounce.

  “I need your help,” Caitlyn said to Billy.

  “I’ll do it.” Billy had been sitting against the shanty wall. Now he stood. He exhaled, looked toward the door, as if she were calling him to action.

  “Listen to me, okay?” Caitlyn hardly spoke above a whisper. “I just want you to listen to me.”

  He nodded.

  “Then sit,” she said.

  Awkwardly, he found a position near her.

  Caitlyn found his presence comforting. She knew he wouldn’t have resisted if she reached for one of his hands to hold, but she didn’t want the intimacy of contact. She wanted to be in a bubble because it felt like the words were coming out of someone else, not her.

  “You were the first to see my wings,” she said. “Remember? At the river?”

  She’d almost drowned. Billy had waded into the raging water, fought the current, and borne her weight as he pulled her from death. She’d spread her wings to dry, bewildered and terrified and exhilarated. Only moments before, she had soared into space and discovered the mystery of her body’s deformity.

  “You don’t know it,” she said, “but I think if you had reacted differently, I would have hated myself. Instead, and I know because I was watching you so closely, you smiled. It was a beautiful smile, William.”

  Then, even though she wanted to be in a bubble, alone and yet not alone, the memory compelled her to touch his hand. “In that moment, you made me feel just as beautiful. I will always be grateful to you for that.”

  He kept his head bowed, staring at her long, almost unnatural fingers. She left her hand there.

  “William,” she said, “I’m not sure I can ever explain to you what it’s like to be in the air. The freedom. The first time, it was like getting to a place you never knew existed, until you got there and then realized your entire life you were longing for it, and you also suddenly realize the certainty that it was waiting, like the blood in your veins, something you’d be aware of only when you began to lose it.”

  “You told me to listen,” Billy said. “But I got to say something. Or I’ll never find the right time or place to say it. I know what you mean.”

  He lifted his head. His face was strange mixture of determination and fear. “That’s what it was like for me. Meeting you. Not knowing a person could have the feelings I had, but then understanding that’s what a person is made for.”

  Caitlyn touched his face, gently. And was betray
ed by wondering what it would be like to touch Razor’s face in the same way.

  He misinterpreted her slight frown and pulled away. “I’m sorry.”

  “No,” she said. Feeling horrible. Billy was the right one for her. Why did she want Razor? “It’s me. That’s why you need to listen. Who could ever be with me? The way I am?”

  “Caitlyn,” Billy began to protest. “Don’t you know how beautiful you are?”

  “I need you to listen.”

  He gave a slow and reluctant nod.

  “If you gave me the choice, today,” she said, “I would say yes to my wings. Yes to being a freak. I would say all that hurt along the way was worth it for what it feels like when I fly. That’s why I never went to Swain. I wanted to be me. I didn’t want to lose my wings.”

  She blew air from her lungs in a long, quiet sigh. “The way I am, right now, I will always be hunted. No one around me would be safe. Ever. And when I’m caught…”

  She knew it was going to be a struggle to articulate this. She didn’t have the medical knowledge. But Billy had told her enough that she could guess at the future.

  “When I’m caught, it’ll be because they want to make more like me. Experiments. I’ll be the one responsible for inflicting this deformity on the babies that are born. They’ll be kept prisoners, like me.”

  She had it now, knew what she was trying to say. “Will they be given a chance to fly, given a chance to find the place that is waiting for them? No. Never.”

  She didn’t have to tell Billy to keep listening. He soaked in her sadness.

  “To stay the way I am,” she said, “would be selfish. I can’t do that. You and Theo, you know where Swain is. Let’s call Theo. Then both of you, take me there. For surgery.”

  “Caitlyn?”

  “William, I have to lose my wings. There is no other way.”

  SEVENTY-FIVE

  In a crowded alley, two nondescript men blended in with the Industrials and Illegals around them. Both were armed with agency air pistols. There wouldn’t be enough noise to draw any attention when they fired the weapons. The poisoned pellets only had a range of about ten feet and had just enough velocity to break skin.

  They were waiting to step in behind their target and shoot him in the back of the neck. The target would feel little more than a vicious wasp sting, but the poison would send him to his knees in seconds, to his death in seconds more.

  “There he is,” the first one said, pulling his partner’s elbow.

  “Yup,” the second one said. “Rogue agent.”

  Their target, Carson Pierce, was about ten paces away. He had no chance of realizing anything was wrong. Not in this crowd.

  “You got it,” the first one said. “No mercy.”

  Pierce followed Razor through the crowd in the shadows between the shanties. As Pierce stepped around two little girls, one grabbed for his hand. They were five years old, maybe six. Ragged hair and face tattoos, indistinguishable from any other children who’d circled him and begged for money.

  Anyone else and Pierce’s reaction would have been a counterattack. Here, Pierce simply tried pull away, to disengage without hurting the girl, who laughed and giggled and held on like it was a game. Her friend, too, grabbed Pierce’s other hand. She turned her face upward with a big smile and laughed.

  Pierce tugged harder and the girls laughed harder. They held tight and dragged their feet.

  The crowd’s current seemed to shift. Then Pierce realized it wasn’t an illusion. Women and other children cleared. He saw men, their tattoos making their expressions inscrutable, moving in quickly. Pierce needed his Taser to defend himself, but the girls were still clinging.

  A defensive move would have been simple. The girls were rag dolls. He just needed to jerk them toward his body, into an upraised knee. But something like that was capable of shattering a nose, breaking a jaw. Given enough time to appraise the situation intellectually, maybe Pierce could have forced himself to do it. Maybe not. The girls knew exactly what they were doing. The choice was him or them.

  Emotionally, it was certain he couldn’t react with that kind of violence against little girls. He made a desperate ineffectual shake of his hands. That was all he had time to do before the men were on him, fingers like talons on his biceps. Arms from behind him, around his neck. He was swarmed and taken down in seconds.

  He fought hard to keep his hands in front of him, but there were too many, and in seconds more, he was on his belly, knees on his back, a body across his head, his face pressed into the ground.

  They were too smart to disarm him. His gun was programmed to send in a silent alarm if it was moved more than six inches from his body, and it wouldn’t fire without recognizing his fingerprints.

  Instead, they tied his hands behind his back.

  He wondered what would be next. A knife to his throat? A homemade shiv between the ribs?

  But all the attackers moved away.

  Pierce waited before rolling onto his back and exposing his belly. A second later, he told himself that was stupid. If they meant to hurt him, it would have already happened.

  Slowly, he maneuvered himself onto his feet.

  Razor was waiting, facing him.

  “Don’t remember this as part of our discussion,” Pierce said. It was obvious that Razor had set up this trap.

  “Would have been stupid to bring it up,” Razor said. “I need you out of the way.”

  “No,” Pierce said. “You need me.”

  “Maybe later,” Razor said.

  “Somebody should explain to you how a deal works. You got your money. And your letter.”

  “I’ll let you in on a secret,” Razor said. “I asked for double what I really wanted. The first half of that money is all I need. That letter puts me home free. Gives me a chance to see what I can get from the other side. If they’re stupid enough to pay half up front before delivery, then I’ll come back to you and we’ll do a little more negotiating. See?”

  Razor grinned.

  He pointed at a nearby shanty, and a half dozen of the Industrials pushed Pierce toward it.

  Pierce lost sight of Razor, and seconds later he was inside. Trapped and well guarded. Looking at hours ahead in the heat and smell with his hands already numb from how tightly the rope around his wrists bit into the skin.

  SEVENTY-SIX

  How do we get out of here?” Caitlyn asked Billy and Theo. “You can take them,” Theo said. “In a fight. There’s only five. You can take them.”

  “I don’t like to fight.” Billy looked at Theo, then at Caitlyn. “Both of you know that. I don’t like hurting people.”

  Caitlyn didn’t want to force Billy to do anything.

  “We don’t trust Razor,” Theo told Billy. “If we could trust him, why would he keep her and us here like this? Why not let us do what we want?”

  “He said it was protection,” Billy answered.

  “Right,” Theo said. “Protection for himself.”

  Theo didn’t hide his exasperation and pleaded for help from a higher source. “Caitlyn. Do you trust Razor?”

  That was the big question, wasn’t it? She didn’t know. And she didn’t know if that’s why she found Razor so exciting. She trusted Billy. But didn’t feel the same excitement around him, the almost delicious uncertainty that came with the mystery that cloaked Razor.

  Did she want to wait until Razor returned? Or should she try to escape again, relying on Billy?

  Billy took the decision away from her.

  He stepped over to the wall of the shanty, where the framing was exposed.

  “Maybe we don’t need to fight,” Billy said. He grabbed one of the beams with both hands. He leaned back, lifted one foot, and pushed it against another beam.

  Billy was deceptively soft in appearance for such a big man. No definition of muscles when his body was at rest.

  Here, with full exertion, his arms seemed to grow. His biceps bulged, and Caitlyn realized Billy’s arms were thicker than T
heo’s legs.

  It wasn’t just the framework that he needed to break, but the metal sheeting that formed the exterior wall and the assortment of nails and rivets and screws that held the sheeting to the framework.

  He was fighting more than that; Billy was fighting his own strength, pulling his arms in one direction, against the push of his legs in another. Another man might have grunted. Billy’s face, however, settled into serenity as he focused all his strength on prying apart the frame. It wasn’t Billy who eventually groaned, but the framework. The popping wasn’t gristle or muscle or tendons, but the screws and nails and rivets that could no longer endure the forces against them. And finally, the opposite beam snapped, where Billy was putting all his pressure against the wood with one foot.

  Billy half staggered but managed to keep his balance.

  The wall had literally separated. Outside, the dusk of sky and the outlines of other shanties.

  Billy breathed heavily but said nothing. Didn’t even look to Caitlyn for praise.

  Theo skipped to the wall, examined the broken metal sheeting, skipped back to Caitlyn.

  “Like Samson!” Theo said. “Just like Samson. Except I’m blind and Billy’s not. Nobody can stop us!”

  Billy managed a bashful grin at Theos exuberance. “I think we only need a few minutes head start. They won’t know what direction we went. Plus it’s getting dark. They shouldn’t be able to find us out there.”

  “Thank you,” Caitlyn said. She pushed thoughts of Razor out of her mind. She didn’t need him, and Razor was only trouble. Just like her wings. “Let’s go.”

  Mason saw the wall of the shanty burst. Then saw the three of them. Coming out the back.

  Perfect!