by TR Kohler
“Mike,” Tania Lynch says, her voice arriving a moment before her hands do. One each on his shoulder and bicep, she bends over him, trying in vain to pull him over onto his back. “Mike, are you okay?”
Neither does Mike respond to immediately. Not her question or the pull of her hands.
Instead, he remains curled up on his side. Knees drawn up toward his midsection, his shoulder and elbows are rolled inward.
The fetal position as executed by a grown man in his mid-thirties.
Teeth clamped down tight, there he remains for several moments. Time with his eyes shut, sucking in shallow breaths of air.
Precious moments like those he’s been through many times before, the last being his previous encounter with Firash. The incident that helped nudge him toward retirement and the belief that instances like this one were now well behind him.
“Mike?” Tania asks again, hands both traveling to his upper arm. A position to give her a better vantage, allowing her to peek over his shoulder.
Gain some definitive answer as to if he is okay.
“I’m okay,” he manages to mutter. Words spoken in a voice that hardly sounds his own. “Just give me a second.”
Leaving it at that, he keeps his body rolled inward. Every muscle is pulled taut, seeming to be loaded with lactic acid as the agony in his midsection crests before slowly starting to pull back.
A gradual downslope that gets him just past the worst of it, allowing him to begin to unfurl.
A process that lets him crack open his eyes after nearly two minutes, his skin damp with sweat. Same for the sheets on which he rests.
“Oh, thank you Jesus,” Tania mutters. The touch of her hands disappears as she steps back from his side. The chair she returns to creaks softly, the sound punctuated by a loud exhalation.
Signals it’s been difficult for her as well. Time when he was knocked unconscious and she was left to wrestle him from the Avon factory floor to where he now rests.
A spot he is pretty sure isn’t back in the safe house, though he can’t be sure.
Can’t even imagine how she might have gotten him up the stairs and into bed.
Piece by piece, the last events he can remember come back to him. A sequence that begins with him stepping out onto the production floor. Picking his way through the mass of machinery, following the heading provided by Kevin Banyu.
Getting stopped cold by the shift change horn.
Spotting the girl. Taking her down. Hearing her laugh.
Sending her and Tania away before finding the device that she had deposited and the dwindling time left.
The decision he was forced to make, covering it with his body to prevent the entire building from going down.
The feeling of freefall as it detonated, lifting him into the air.
The darkness that immediately enveloped him thereafter, taking over well before he even hit the ground.
“The factory?” Mike asks without rolling over.
“Still standing,” Tania replies. “Nobody really knows how or why, but it is.”
“Good,” Mike manages to push out. A single word that sounds muffled as he nods, the side of his face buried into his pillow. “The girl?”
“Downstairs,” Tania says. “Put her in the other interrogation room for now.”
Nodding once more, Mike lifts a hand to his brow. Kneading the skin for several moments, he leaves it in place to block the overhead light as he rolls over onto his back.
A pose he remains in, his eyes narrowed to slits, waiting for the inevitable questions to arrive. The ones that always do after something like what he just went through.
A pattern going clear back to his younger football days, whenever a coach or trainer would marvel over a massive hit delivered or received, seemingly without effect.
Same later in the military, when medics couldn’t figure out how he had walked away from a particular incident.
“Mike,” Tania asks, the weight of her gaze hitting him square as he remains fixed in a prone position, “what happened in there?”
Pausing for just a moment, she continues, “Last I saw, you were going for the duffel bag loaded with explosives. Last thing the cameras picked up, you were scurrying along with it held out in front of you.
“Ten minutes later, we find you sprawled out on the ground, the bag and the bomb and your clothes all destroyed. You covered in ash and soot.
“No damage anywhere.”
Not hearing anything resembling a question, Mike remains silent. Using her quick overview, he tries to fill in any gaps in what happened. The sequence of events and what might have been seen.
The story he may be able to concoct that will exonerate him. At the very least, assuage any questions or concerns she might have for the next few hours.
A thought process that is cut short by her adding one last sentence. One final thing that nobody else has ever asked. Words they have bitten back through either fear or social grace or simply being unaware.
“You’re one of them, aren’t you?”
A ripple of palpitations rises through Mike’s core. Passing into his chest, it causes the pain he feels to spike once more, seizing him tight, before slowly abating.
As it does so, he lowers his hand from his face. Looking over, he sees her staring down at him, the thumb and index finger of her right hand grasping the bottom of the cross around her neck.
For a moment, he thinks to plead ignorance. Ask her what she is referring to.
A notion that lasts only an instant as he sees the earnestness on her features, a slow dawning occurring to him.
“You’ve seen it before,” he whispers.
“Not that,” she replies, “but something similar. Something that most people don’t have.”
Sliding his focus from her face to her neck, he asks, “Is that why...?”
Flicking her gaze down to match his, she spies the cross pulled out in front of her. Nodding slightly, she says, “My sister. I wear this to remind me God doesn’t make mistakes.
“What she could do, what you can do, that was put there for a reason.”
Catching the use of the past tense with regards to her sister, Mike asks no questions. No inquiries about what her ability was or what happened. If the two were connected.
Things that a lifetime of hiding his own gift have instilled, knowing that what she’s shared already is more than he has any right to receive.
An olive branch in hopes of getting him to open up. Explain what she just bore witness to.
“My pop,” Mike replies, “he always used to call me Iron Hide. Started back when he coached my peewee football teams and realized I never got bruises.”
Her focus shifting down to his exposed arms and shoulders, it is almost as if she is testing the theory. Checking to see if he has any visible contusions.
An effort that is futile, the same thing his father noticed decades before still applying.
“So you’re...bulletproof?” she asks.
“I don’t know exactly what you’d call it,” Mike answers. “I mean, I have been shot five times today now, but it kind of goes even further than that.”
“All the way to, say, being able to fall on bombs without so much as a scratch?”
“That too,” Mike replies, “but it’s not like I’m completely impervious. I still feel the worst of it, only it’s more like blunt force trauma than actually being shot or stabbed or whatever.”
Lips forming into a small circle, Tania rocks her head back. A move meant to denote she understands, when in reality Mike can see the wheels turning. A working attempt to put things in order. Make sense of all that was shared.
A task he knows will take longer than just a few moments, having been privy to his kind before or not.
“So right now...?” she eventually asks.
“World of hurt,” Mike replies. “But I’m okay.”
Nodding once more, Tania falls silent. Still clutching the cross in hand, she fixes her gaze on the wall op
posite them. Her eyes glaze as she stares off, further processing the new information.
A visible effort to square things in her mind.
“So yesterday, when you talked about tracking down Firash before...you were there that day in Thailand, weren’t you?”
Unaware that it was already the next day, Mike lets that part go without comment. Homing in on the backend of the question, he considers how much she might already know. If she’s seen the full case file or is merely working from exchanged information.
Stories that have been floating around for the last few years, no doubt subject to the standard amount of embellishment.
“I was,” he says.
Blinking twice, she shifts her focus back to him. “Like, there there.”
Exhaling slowly, he repeats, “I was.”
“And that’s why you’re going after this case so hard?” she asks.
“Among other reasons.”
Chapter Seventy-One
Henry Rawit can feel the effects of the last twenty-four hours beginning to wear on him. A stretch that started with Mia entering his office the day before, her eyes red and puffy, to point out the latest explosion had occurred across town.
Destruction plainly evident from his office window. A visual he spent most of the day staring at while pacing back and forth, trying to get one of the people he knew to be responsible for it on the phone.
Dozens of unanswered phone calls that culminated with finally speaking to Firash.
Being told that more devastation just like it was impending, the man’s increasingly headstrong nature finally pushing him to taking the reins himself.
A reveal that called for a largely restless night for Rawit. Hours spent alternating between checking the view from his penthouse suite, scanning the horizon for the flashing lights of first responders, and staring at the ceiling. Long spells of time when his mind refused to shut off, every possible permutation for the days ahead spooling out.
Outcomes that finally led him to a decision shortly before dawn. A firm choice that he only hopes he still has enough time to put into motion before Firash continues on with whatever he is planning.
Seated back in his usual position behind his desk, Rawit is well aware that he got nominally more than a few short bursts of rest the night before. Each time he blinks, it feels as if there are bits of sandpaper affixed to the backs of his eyelids. His joints ache.
Fatigue grips him, kept at bay only by the combination of anticipation and liquid caffeine hurtling through his system.
A cocktail that has him charged much higher than he actually feels by the time Mia appears before him for their regular morning meeting. A discussion Rawit has been anticipating for hours now, forcing himself to count down the minutes to her arrival.
An action that was not without a tremendous amount of willpower, his every desire to have called her in the moment he arrived.
Or, even more so, to have sidestepped the meeting entirely, instead meting out his instructions over the phone.
“Good morning, Mia,” Rawit says as she enters. A greeting containing all the buoyancy he can muster as he scans her features. A quick glance to determine if any of the telltale indicators from the day before are present.
Signs of recent crying or worry that, for now, seem to be held at bay.
“Good morning, sir,” Mia answers, her heels clicking against the floor twice before all sound is swallowed up as she steps onto the rug.
Today having swapped out her dress and jacket for a blouse and skirt, a new stack of files and papers is clutched close to her side. The latest in pressing matters for the company, there never is a shortage of things demanding Rawit’s attention.
A fact he hopes to soon be exploiting, putting a bit of distance between himself and Firash’s impending plans.
“You were here early today,” Mia comments, closing the gap between them and lowering herself into her usual seat.
“I was,” Rawit admits. “Last night, I had a thought.”
“Oh?”
Relinquishing his grip on the coffee cup, Rawit leans back in his chair. Reclining as far as the seat will allow, he turns toward the window. A half turn, allowing him to see both Mia and the site of the previous blast a day before in his periphery.
“After everything that happened yesterday,” Rawit says, lifting a hand and motioning toward the window. “I was thinking, we should get away from here for the day. Get outside the city.”
“Oh?” Mia repeats, a divot appearing between her brows. A look mixed of concern and confusion, the expression raising a small bit of annoyance within Rawit.
He owns the damn company. If he wants to leave, he can.
And it is not his assistant’s place to question it.
“Yeah,” he continues, doing his best to keep his voice free from inflection. “Figured we could do a couple of those site visits we keep saying we need to. Drop-ins to see how production is going at some of our more remote locations.”
“Oh,” Mia says for the third time, this one marked by dawning realization. “Yeah. We could do that. There are a few pressing matters that we need to see to first,” she adds, lifting the stack balanced atop her thighs an inch before returning them to position. “But outside of that...”
Flicking his gaze down to the pile, Rawit cannot imagine a single one rising anywhere near the level of what he knows is about to occur. Minor details that pale in comparison to whatever Firash is planning.
“Could you do them from the air?” he asks.
Glancing down, Mia considers the question a moment before replying, “Certainly.”
Lifting her gaze back to him, she adds, “I’ll call the airstrip straight away and alert them. I’d guess we could be up and away within an hour? Two at the most?”
Chapter Seventy-Two
Less than a day has passed since the last time Mike was standing in the hallway with Tania Lynch after first trying to interrogate the young man with dreadlocks. A stretch of time that seems much longer, so much having transpired in just a number of hours since.
And still it feels like there is an unending list of things left to be done, none more pressing than finding and putting an end to Firash.
A task that hopefully gets a lot closer in the moments ahead.
“You sure you’re up for this?” Mike asks, peering across at Tania Lynch. Standing a few feet away from him, she stares at the metal door of the observation room. Weight balanced, she sways side to side like a fighter about to enter the ring.
Hands curled into fists, she appears all set to tear through the door and begin lashing into the young girl currently strapped to a chair inside.
A continuation of the feistiness she has displayed since going to fetch the girl from the other interrogation room earlier. The angst that has propelled her since the young girl made the blunder of trying to display the same cocksure manner as her cohort, even going so far as to spit in Tania’s direction.
An error that has Tania ready to fly through the door and begin picking the young girl apart, cross around her neck be damned.
A welcomed change Mike must admit, seeing her ire aimed somewhere other than at him.
“Are you?” Tania fires back, giving him a sideways glance.
Not sure if the comment is a reference to his slow and painful wakeup a short time earlier or merely the woman’s meager attempt at talking trash, Mike lets it go. Rotating his focus back to the door beside him, the same one accessing the interrogation room where he ventured just a day before, he says, “We should know pretty fast whether he intends to play ball.”
“Yup,” Tania agrees. “And after wasting most of yesterday with him, I intend to give him a pretty short leash.”
Accepting the comment as a warning of sorts, Mike nods. Taking no more than a moment to steel himself, to push aside any lingering effects of the blast he absorbed the night before, he shoves straight ahead.
No final words. No parting thoughts or bits of encouragement.
<
br /> Tania was there the night before. Yesterday morning at the General Motors plant as well.
She knows what they are facing.
Pushing straight through the door into the interrogation room, Mike sees the young man jerk awake. His eyes pop open as he takes in Mike, one corner of his mouth peeling back.
A smartass remark all cued up, ready to be unleashed. Words Mike has no interest in hearing, knowing it will only likely end up with the kid flat on his back again, another new bruise and some more swelling added to his burgeoning collection.
“Save it,” Mike says, striding straight up to the edge of the table. Placing the front of his jeans against the side of it, he stands perpendicular to the young man, making sure he has an unobstructed view to the window on the wall.
The one that for now is merely showing his reflection. An image he seems rather fond of, repeatedly exchanging his focus between it and Mike beside him.
“You have one shot,” Mike says. Ignoring the pungent smell of urine in the air, he continues, “One chance to answer my question. Where is Firash?”
Just standing in the young man’s presence, Mike can feel his animosity starting to rise. The same hatred that filled him the last time he was inside the room.
Acrimony enough to lessen the ache gripping his body. Trauma lingering from absorbing the blow from the device at the Avon plant the night before.
Wrath that rises further still as the young man’s lips part, making it no further before Mike adds, “Again, one chance. No mention of wanting something to eat or drink. No asking to go to the bathroom. Hell, not even one word about how I am alive now.”
Bending forward, he places his palms flat against the table. Rotating his head at the neck, he stares directly at his captive and repeats, “Where do I find Firash?”
Staying completely rigid, the young man keeps his focus on the mirror before him. Gaze locked on himself, he remains motionless for nearly a full minute before smirking. A slight movement that rocks his head back no more than an inch.
Flicking his focus to the side, he replies, “You’ll never find Firash.”
