by Evelyn Drake
He pressed his palms into his temples as if he could squeeze out the memory of Travis’s death .
How could it have come to this ?
He shook his hands out and paced some more, breaking into a jog as he circled the apartment, vaulting over ornate furniture he’d never seen before and would likely never see again. It took over half an hour before his surging energy waned and his heart’s pace beat as a normal man’s would, instead of that of a man facing the death of his family .
“The self-serving little prick!” The ire he cast into the ether at the now-dead Travis came back on him with more haunting images of the man dying. “That fucking sound!” Michael wished he could scrub his eardrums clean as Travis’s gurgling death rattled continued to torment him .
Michael knew that he didn’t owe his dead lover any tears. Travis had delivered Michael to an executioner, fully expecting to climb to greater heights atop the back of Michael’s corpse .
“Fucking idiot !”
Michael tallied the number of jobs he’d done for the Family. Whether the job had benefited the Family through the collection of rare and priceless artifacts, or power gained through blackmail made possible by stolen secrets, Michael had been the catalyst that had turned the Family from a local nuisance into a growing world power .
Michael was the goose that laid the golden egg, and Travis was the idiot who got himself killed as a demonstration of what the Family was willing to do to keep Michael under their control .
“They’ll do it, they’ll really do it,” Michael lamented, thinking of his family. “Okay, breathe .”
He plopped down atop the rich upholstery of a single-piece, hand carved chair. The upholstery was a cover and distraction to the real value beneath. The apartment was full of such treasures, things Michael had picked up through the years. They were his retirement plan .
“Where’d I tell him to put them?” He’d left specific instructions with the building’s concierge when he’d set up the safe house. His mind travelled every corner of the apartment before his eyes flew open .
Michael crossed the room and jumped onto the furniture, balancing himself with one foot on the back of a lime green couch and the other on a Victorian end table. Retrieving a coin from his black dress slacks, he fit the coin’s edge into a screw head in a vent grate high on the wall. It was quick work to get the vent off, and he sent his hand fumbling blindly around the air shaft’s corner. He’d reached all the way in to his shoulder when the tips of his fingers brushed plastic, and he exhaled as relief flooded through him. He thought he would be sick from the sudden release .
Pulling the bag out of the vent, Michael sat down heavily on the couch to study its contents. Inside were four burner phones—prepaid devices to which no one, not even currently himself, knew the number. He’d tossed his own cell phone down a sewer drain before heading to the safe house .
He tore open the bag and had the devices plugged in and charging a few minutes later. He waited, head in hands and elbows on knees. The phones needed a small charge before any of them would even boot. Meanwhile, time ticked away with greater and greater volume inside his head. He had to get word to his family. He had to warn them. But most of all, he had to save his sister .
A small chime filled the apartment, and it was as if it had been a bell rang by an angel. There was hope again in the world. There was a way forward .
Michael checked each phone until he found the one that was ready and able to do his bidding. He tapped the memorized numbers into the phone, then held his breath as a ringing tone called out his wanted connection in a place he had not called home in almost ten years .
“Gammot residence,” a haughty voice intoned, fueled by years of practiced self-importance. It was Michael’s family’s butler, a man he had known since a small boy, a man who held him in the highest disdain, side by side with Michael’s father .
“Baxter—” The phone clicked dead .
It took all of Michael’s self control not to bash the still-charging phone against the wall .
He dialed again .
“Gammot residence,” Baxter’s voice intoned again in the same steady, even manner used the first time Michael had called, giving no indication that he’d just hung on Michael .
The phone’s line went dead again as soon as Michael spoke, and Michael’s cursing voice filled every corner of his safe house .
Michael punched in the numbers again. The ringing stopped and the empty sound changed to that of an open line. “They’re coming to kill you,” Michael blurted before Baxter even had a chance to speak. Silence followed, but the line stayed connected .
“You have to tell my father. Everyone needs to leave. They’re coming in three days .”
“How convenient that they would give you a time table. You will have to find someplace else for you and your kind to squat.” The last word was spoken as if it left a foul taste on his tongue .
“Baxter, please, tell Father. They’re coming. They’ll kill everyone. Please, Baxter .”
An exasperated sigh met Michael’s ear. “I will pass your concerns along if a suitable moment arises to do so. Call again and you can be assured that your message will reach no one beyond my ears .”
The line clicked dead again .
“No, no, no, no, no!” Michael paced, his palms pressed into his temples once more. His father had a cell phone, but he didn’t have the number. At sixteen, Michael suspected that his sister now had her own cell phone too. But he hadn’t talked to her in years .
Elaine had been precious to him before Michael had been disowned. She’d loved him unconditionally—and that had been a love he had never known before. But since being disowned by their father, Michael had kept his distance. With their mother long dead, their father had grown rigid in his views of the world. Anything that did not fit the image of how he thought things should be was met with scorn and derision, and it was not an experience he wished on Elaine. So, Michael had stayed away. It was for her. She was more beautiful and dear to him than sunshine, and he had never wanted to risk for her a moment’s harm .
Now Sigmund had orders to kill her. It wouldn’t happen quickly or cleanly; Michael knew that about Sigmund. The man liked to play with his prey. He liked for them to know that they were going to die, and he lived for the moment that hope faded out of his victim’s eyes .
“I’m going to be sick.” Michael raced for the bathroom and made it just in time to empty what little he had in him. His chest hit the rim and the large stone in his breast pocket pressed into him painfully .
With the retching past, he sat down heavily on the cool tiles with his back against the wall. Reaching into his jacket, he pulled the stone out .
“Why do they want you?” It didn’t make sense. He’d seen rocks like this before. It was big, sure, but it was rough with flaws visible to his naked eye. When cut, there’d be no large stone left. The best it would become was a collection of small to moderate sized stones—nothing worth the effort that the Family was putting into it .
He wrapped his hand around its unyielding surface and closed his eyes as he leaned his head back against the wall. The answer was a missing direction through the undefined maze he was trying to find his way through. It provided an answer to a question he didn’t yet know. He could feel it in his bones. He remembered all that he’d had to go through to retrieve it. He’d managed to infiltrate a house that had nearly as many guards as it did high-powered guests. Climbing the outer walls with only the vines had been tricky, as he hadn’t been able to give any one spot the full of his weight. But as always, he’d managed. He’d gotten what he’d come for and he’d left without anyone getting seriously hurt .
Michael’s eyes flew open, but he didn’t see the bathroom within which he sat. He saw only the plan his brain wove before his eyes .
“I’ll steal her,” he said to no one but himself. “I’ll break in and I’ll steal her. I’ll kidnap her!” His heart pounded as the plan gained greater clarity. Getting
up, he paced the apartment, but the ring of the apartment’s landline stopped him cold .
It rang once and then stopped .
Michael’s heart beat as if it were wedged in his throat, making it difficult to breathe. He waited, and then his body eased as seconds of silence ticked past .
The clang of the phone rang again. Three rings and then nothing .
Michael exploded into action. The signal had been one he’d worked out at the front desk and he’d paid a thousand dollars to make sure it happened. Grabbing the phones, he ran, taking nothing else with him .
At the elevator, Michael forced the doors open and stepped into the empty shaft, where he clung onto a small-rung ladder cemented into the shaft’s wall. He climbed up to the next floor and waited. Below him, the elevator climbed as well. It was like a speeding room that surged through the darkness toward him, and it took everything Michael had to hold his position and trust his faith that the elevator would stop before it reached him .
Faith paid off, and the elevator stopped, its roof a mere six inches below Michael’s feet. He stepped onto it, moving carefully so as not to alert its vacating occupants. Then, crouching low for a better center of gravity, he rode the elevator down. When it reached the first floor, he climbed up and pried open the doors of the second floor. There, he hit the elevator call button. After it arrived, he pressed the topmost floor that didn’t require a key, then stepped back off .
Giving the car a chance to pass, he pried the elevator doors open again and followed the shaft down into the bowels of the building. There, using the service tunnels that connected this building to other buildings on the block, Michael made his escape .
6
Steve
“N o, I haven’t found him yet,” Steve said into his phone as he peered out of his Jeep’s front window. He watched Michael as he moved with a gymnasts’ grace through a large home that teetered on a steep embankment, held up on slender stilts and looking as if a strong gust of wind could send it tumbling into the large, glacier-fed lake below .
Charlize’s sigh from the other end had Steve questioning his motives for not reporting that he’d found Michael. It had taken more than ten hours to locate the man, hours of which had been spent going through months of logs listing locations Michael had visited. It had been Steve’s hunch that Michael would utilize some empty home he’d cased at an earlier date. The hunch had paid off .
“You doing okay?” he asked Charlize. Why he was keeping Michael’s whereabouts from her, he wasn’t sure. He just knew that he wouldn’t be doing her any favors by telling her in the event he failed in his mission. Killing Michael. His chest grew tight every time he focused on the thought .
“Yeah, I will be. Monica has been in meetings all day and has mostly left me alone. I’m starting to think she might be unhinged—as in not an act to keep people on their toes but actually unhinged. She’s not acting right, but she’s so volatile that no one is confronting her about it. Simon questioned the logistics of her plan to infiltrate the Family in the event you fail to retrieve the stone, and she put him on 6-month leave without pay for insubordination .”
“Fuck. Doesn’t he have five kids ?”
“Yeah. And his wife is a stay at home mom. This will devastate them financially .”
“Well, keep your head down .”
Charlize snorted. “Only kid I’ve got is a fifteen year-old cat. I’ll be fine no matter what. Don’t worry .”
Steve smiled at the phone. Charlize was the most resilient person he’d ever known. She could find something positive about living in a leper colony .
He looked through his binoculars again. Michael was sitting down in chair reading a book. He looked as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He’s just like Charlize, he realized. Resilient. Michael was on the run for his life and he was relaxing, looking perfectly at ease reading a book in a home that wasn’t his .
Steve couldn’t stop the smile that came to his lips, and he once again wondered at his ability to let the man go. Watching Michael had been like a meditation for him. It relaxed him and made him feel as if the world were in balance instead of in a constant state of free fall .
“I’ll let you know as soon as I find him .”
“And I’ll do my best to shield you from Monica for as long as I can .”
“Thanks, Charlize.” Michael looked at his watch and stood, soon moving out of sight. “I’d better get back to it .”
They clicked off, and a moment later the mansion’s garage door lifted. The nose of a Jaguar Roadster peeked out .
Steve whistled in low appreciation. “The man’s got taste.” Or, appreciates somebody else’s taste. Steve smiled again, wondering how freeing it must be to live any life you wanted, to be able to put it on or take it off like a coat. In contrast, Steve felt like he was trapped in a living hell. He had to kill the one person who had given him the first peace he’d known in years .
Steve’s car was parked off the road, and blended in well among a landscape of ancient evergreens that stretched high to the heavens and a floor of ferns that would have been at home in prehistoric times .
Getting out of his car, Steve crouched low with his gun in hand, waiting for Michael’s car to pass. A car chase would be laughable, and if he stormed the house in an attempt to take Michael alive, the results would be just as humiliating. On land, Michael was too fast for Steve. That left one alternative. He had to stop Michael cold before Michael even recognized there was a threat .
The Roadster drove passed. Steve took aim and tracked the car as it followed the curve of the single-lane drive. Then, just as the car built speed, Steve fired. The front drive’s side tire blew just as the car nosed into its next tight curve. The car’s handling slipped, and for a moment Steve thought that Michael could control the turn even with the blown tire, but the tire’s rim dipped off the steep edge of the road’s lip. In the next moment, the car disappeared from sight, and the sound of breaking trees and the sudden revving of the engine reached Steve’s ears .
Emerging from his crouched position in the underbrush, Steve stood and took his time walking down the winding drive to the spot where the car had gone over. He wasn’t in a hurry to see the results. When he got there and leaned over the near-cliff drop, he flinched at what he saw, and had to turn and look away .
Below him, staring up, was the underbelly of the Jaguar, its body bent and twisted. The machine hung precariously at the edge of a precipice over the lake below. The only thing stopping its fall was a young pine, its trunk threatening to break like a twig .
Using broken trees for leverage, he made his way down the steep embankment until he reached the smoking car. Dropping to the ground, Steve looked through the Jaguar’s shattered windows. Michael hung unconscious within, his head tilted at an unnatural angle against the car’s crumpled roof .
Steve’s eyes stung at the sight of the man who had defied the laws of gravity for so long, hating that he was the one who had brought Michael down to earth .
Standing up, Steve found a large rock, big enough that he could barely wield it with one hand. Hefting it and giving it an experimental toss in the air, he returned to the driver’s side of the car .
Steve found Michael alive and breathing but unconscious. A trail of blood flowed down the side of his head and pooled beneath him .
Steve set down the rock and reached through the car’s busted window to pat Michael’s closest hip pocket. Empty. Reaching in further, across Michael’s seemingly lifeless body, Steve found what he was looking for. It took some digging to get the wedged rock out from between Michael’s hip and the car’s seatbelt .
Holding the large stone up to the light, Steve wondered at the thing’s importance. So many people were searching for it, and so many people were willing to kill for it. He was tempted to throw it into the lake only a few feet away, but instead he stuffed the uncut diamond into his jeans pocket .
He eyed the unconscious Michael again. It wouldn’t take much, St
eve knew. A couple of well placed blows to the head and the man would likely bleed out in his upside down position .
“He’d probably never wake up,” Steve said as if trying to reassure himself. He picked up the rock and gave it a couple of practice swings to make sure he would be able to connect well with Michael’s head .
Michael groaned .
Fuck! Steve squeezed his eyes tight, feeling a lump tighten his throat. After taking a few deep breaths, he swung the rock again, preparing to bash it into Michael’s skull .
He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t make himself connect the rock’s heavy mass with Michael’s head .
Tossing the rock aside with a heavy thud, Steve scrambled into position on his belly, pulling his gun from the small of his back. He aimed it at Michael and put his finger on the trigger. He squeezed—or rather he meant to. But in truth, he was frozen, even unable to breathe. A couple of heartbeats later and his vision blurred with unshed tears .
“Fuck!” He hissed the word in a whispered scream. “Fuckfuckfuck !”
Michael groaned again .
Steve thought about the two roads ahead of him. One of them, he went back to Operations and got a hearty pat on the back. Maybe he even got the chance to run his own unit .
The other road led to his being hunted and eventually killed as a rogue agent who had cut the strings that controlled him. A rogue agent who had defied his masters. They’d make an example of him. They’d crucify him as a warning to everyone else who did their bidding .
But, Michael might live. The thought made him smile. It made him happy .
“Fuck...” Steve sighed, a crooked smile pulling harder at his lips, and to his amazement, Steve felt the first happiness that he’d felt in years .
“Come on, you.” He reached inside the car and fought with the seatbelt that still restrained Michael. Michael groaned louder as Steve twisted the mostly unconscious man’s body to gain a better grip on the seatbelt’s mechanism. When the latch finally gave way, Steve did his best to capture Michael in his arms and control his fall to the car’s crumpled roof .
