by E. E. Borton
The wall of the small bathroom kept Ryan from falling to his knees. Kristina’s face was covered in Scott’s blood as well as her own. He could see a large bullet hole in the top of her head. Several more holes among the blood spatter were in the tile wall behind them. The men who killed them wanted to make sure the job was complete. There was no mercy.
He slowly slid down the wall until he was sitting motionless next to them. Kristina’s head was cocked to the side with her eyes still open. She was looking right at Ryan with a question. “Where were you when I needed you?”
“I’m sorry, sweet girl,” whispered Ryan with a tightening chest. Lying next to her hand in the pool of blood was her copy of Treasure Island. He wiped what he could off the book with a towel. It only took a few moments before the tight feeling in his chest turned to anger. He stood, cleared his throat, and walked out of the bathroom to Michelle. “Why is Scott here?”
“The real question is why you weren’t,” said Michelle, defiantly. “We’ve been trying to reach you for over an hour.” She stood up with tears in her eyes.
Ryan lowered his eyes to meet hers and asked her again. “Why is Scott here?”
“He told us Colonel Brown and Alex knew where she was and they were planning to take her tonight. Donaldson ordered us to an assault briefing because they had a location on Derek and Joshua. We told Steve’s men to move her and then we went to the briefing to maintain your facade, but there was no briefing. We were set up by our own fucking boss, and Scott led them straight to her. He obviously was in over his head.”
“Scott brought them?” asked Ryan, confused.
“Yes, he brought them,” said Michelle, gritting her teeth. “Since you don’t believe me, go ask Tom.”
Ryan left the room and found Tom staring off into the backyard. Tom didn’t notice him walking up behind him. He put his hand on his shoulder, startling him.
“Ryan,” said Tom, “Glad to see you’re okay. I thought the worst. I thought we were going to find you here as well when we couldn’t reach you.”
“Michelle said—“
“Oh, yes, here,” said Tom, handing him a small GPS transmitter. “They always make a mistake. They always leave something behind letting us know who they are. I found this on Scott. He led them right to her, Ryan. He played us.”
“I’m tired of getting played, Tom,” said Ryan, fighting back his emotions. “The gloves are coming off and I’m not putting them back on until this is over.”
21
All for One
Holding the bloody copy of Treasure Island, Ryan stood alone on the front porch. He was thinking about the story he overheard about Kristina’s father beaming with pride while his little girl was reading to him when he was sick. Ryan didn’t have any children, but he imagined all the hopes and dreams her father must have had for her. Hopes and dreams any father would have for his child. He had never met the man, but Ryan felt an overwhelming sense of guilt for letting him down.
He had only known her for a few weeks, but he couldn’t ignore the significance of the impact she had on him. It was obvious she was highly intelligent and driven in her career, but what he remembered most was her walking into the bookstore in Baltimore with a beaming smile and childlike excitement. There were very few days Agent Ryan Pearson wished he didn’t work for the FBI. The day he met Dr. Kristina Anderson, he very much wished he was just a guy in a bookstore running into a beautiful face.
As he rubbed the dark red stain on the leather binding of her book, Ryan did his best to try and keep himself at a safe distance from the rage. He knew the emotion had claimed the lives and careers of many before him. It was critical for a man in his position to remain objective at all times. The moment he wavers will be the moment he puts everyone else in danger and gives the men responsible exactly what they need. And what the Colonel needed was for Ryan to become angry, confused, and to make mistakes. He knew the agent was already on his heels. He also knew killing Kristina would put him on his knees. Ryan’s untraceable phone alerted him to an incoming call.
“Are you at the safe house?” asked Steve.
“Yes,” said Ryan. In spite of the deaths, both men knew work needed to be done immediately.
“First things first. More of my guys will be there in a few minutes. They’re going to recover the men I lost and sanitize the house. Do you want them to take Kristina and the rat?”
“No,” said Ryan, trying to maintain his composure. “Recover your men, but I’m leaving Kristina and Scott where they are. As soon as your team is gone, I’m going to call the murders in to my boss.”
“I’m not following you. He’s going to wonder why you’re there in the first place. If you stay, you’re basically telling him you’ve been hiding a fugitive. Didn’t you say he sent another FBI team to find her?”
“Even though he’s dead, Scott’s going to help me one more time,” explained Ryan. “I’m going to tell my boss Scott found out where she was hiding. I’ll say my team and I were on our way to verify her location and set up surveillance. When we arrived, we found them dead. Unless he wants to implicate himself, he’ll have to play along.”
“Not bad. It’ll explain why your team’s fingerprints are all over the place.”
“How long will it take them to figure out the blood inside the house is from your men?”
“I seriously doubt they’ll ever find out. My guys operate on the fringe. We make a point to erase any fingerprint, DNA or military files associated with any of my men. I basically turn them into ghosts when they start working for me. I hate to say it, but I do it for situation just like this.”
“Okay,” said Ryan, pausing. “Steve, I am sorry about your men. I know you guys are a pretty close group.”
“It’s okay, Ryan. This is the way our world works. Most of the time we hurt the bad guys, but every once in a while we have to pay the piper. If anything, I should be apologizing to you for failing the mission. I know she was more than a material witness to you.”
“Is the mission over?” asked Ryan.
“That’s your call. You know where I stand. I will tell you this: My mission isn’t over until I put six feet of dirt on every prick making the choice to kill my men. The real question is, where do you stand, lawman?”
“I’ll tell you when you get here,” said Ryan. “But I need you to bring someone with you. We’re going to need a rat of our own to get inside the Michaels Lab.”
“I read you loud and clear. I’ll see you in a few hours,” said Steve, ending the call.
Several cars and SUVs pulled up to the house as Ryan put his phone in his pocket. Without the need for much conversation, Steve’s men quickly removed their fallen comrades and cleared anything from the house that would identify its occupants. They were finished and gone in less than fifteen minutes.
Ryan asked Dallas for his cell phone and notified Deputy Director Donaldson that they had found Kristina dead. The deputy director’s only question was if his team was okay. He even made the comment that it probably was Joshua or Derek who killed her. Ryan took a moment to think about what he would do when he finally came face to face with the man that was helping Colonel Brown. He handed Dallas his phone and sat at the kitchen table with his friend.
“This wasn’t your fault, Dallas,” said Ryan, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “I should’ve moved her the first time they tried to take her. We’ve been played since this mess started and –”
“Don’t even, Boss,” said Dallas, standing. “I’m smarter than this. There’s no fucking excuse for what I did. That woman is lying up there dead because I was an idiot. I should’ve seen it coming. I really am smarter than this. I fucked up. Plain and simple.”
“Sit down, Dallas,” ordered Ryan. “I need you to listen to me, okay?”
“I’m listening.”
“Is your head clear? Are you still with me?”
“Of course I am,” responded Dallas. “I just know you cared about her and I –”
“That isn’t what I asked,” said Ryan, cutting him off and leaning in closer. “I’m asking if you’re still with me on this, or are you done?”
“I’m with you,” said Dallas. He’d been with Ryan long enough to know when he was going to step into the grey area between the laws of man and the laws of nature. He had no idea what Ryan was planning, but he welcomed the opportunity for redemption by the man he respected above all others.
“More feds will be here any minute,” said Ryan as Michelle and Tom entered the room. “I’m telling them I received a call from Scott pointing us to this house as Kristina’s hideout. When we arrived, we found them exactly as they are upstairs. Are there any questions?”
“Where were you?” asked Michelle again.
“I’ll tell you later,” said Ryan, hearing the arrival of the agents looking for Kristina.
They were questioned briefly by the investigators before being allowed to leave. It was business as usual and nobody suspected Ryan had been hiding her for almost three weeks. He knew it would be the last time he would ever see her face, so Ryan slowly walked upstairs as his team waited outside in the front yard. He knelt beside Kristina and took her hand in his. He looked around to make sure no one was near. He stared into her lifeless eyes, allowing his rage to feed. It only took a few moments to take him to the dark place he needed to find.
With his resolve galvanized by his anger, he finally lowered his guard. It was his last chance to talk to her.
“I’m not sure if you have any idea how beautiful you are,” whispered Ryan. “I was hooked the second you walked into the bookstore. Even though you were dressed down with your hair up and glasses way too big for your face, nothing could hide that smile. It was brilliant. For a few seconds, I actually forgot why I was there.
“It’s always been difficult for me to think about having someone in my life. But with you, it was easy. I even practiced how I was going to ask you to dinner after all this was over. Crazy, huh? I was positive you were going to say no, but I had to at least try. I’m so sorry I let this happen to you. I’m sorry I wasn’t here to protect you.”
Ryan swallowed hard, trying to force down the lump in his throat. He didn’t realize he was crying until he looked down to see one of his tears fall on her arm. He watched as it slowly rolled off her skin and splashed into the pool of blood on the cold tile floor.
He closed his eyes and forced himself to imagine her terror and fear as men who knew nothing about her brought unthinkable violence. He pictured her scared and trembling on the bathroom floor, powerless to stop the advance of the monsters standing over her. He squeezed her hand while he thought about her last breath before the bullets exploded into her body. He wanted to feel every ounce of the fear they forced into her. He wanted to feel every ounce of the pain they inflicted on her. He wanted to remember every detail. He wanted to remember so he’d know exactly how much to give back to them.
*****
Cautiously walking around the perimeter, Joshua arrived at the hideout east of Atlanta. He had a feeling Derek wasn’t there, but he knew he was close. The intuition he felt with his fellow mutated Marines was the strongest of the group, but it still only brought him to their general location. It wasn’t like an internal GPS system, but it was good enough to allow for little effort to pick up their trail.
He settled in a thicket of woods less than fifty yards from the front door and waited. The sun would be rising soon, and he didn’t want to expose himself until he knew it was safe. Whatever Derek had recently experienced, Joshua knew it was an event powerful enough to elevate his level of awareness. He knew something was wrong.
*****
The team arrived back at the FBI house with little conversation during the short trip. Michelle immediately separated herself from the group and went upstairs to her room. The men entered the kitchen and Tom grabbed three beers as they each took a seat around the table.
“How are you holding up, Boss?” asked Tom.
“I’m okay,” said Ryan, “But I’m a little concerned about Michelle. She seems very angry.”
“Would you care to hear my opinion about why?” asked Tom.
“Please.”
“She’s taking this hard because she lost a friend tonight,” said Tom. “She’ll probably deny she was getting close to Kristina, but I could tell. I can’t help but think she may feel somewhat responsible.”
“I’ll talk to her and make sure she knows it wasn’t her fault,” said Ryan.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea right now.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s also blaming you.” explained Tom, “When nobody could reach you, she felt like you left us on our own to deal with some pretty heavy issues. I know you have a legitimate reason for being gone, but we needed you here. Dallas did the best he could trying to sort it out, but they really had us running in circles. He wasn’t sure how to handle orders coming directly from Donaldson.”
“Don’t make excuses for me, Tom,” said Dallas. “I screwed it up on my own.”
“Calm down, Dallas. We agreed with the plan. We all screwed this up.”
“Don’t tell me to calm down.”
“Guys,” interrupted Ryan, “We can’t start coming apart now. We all took a beating tonight, and it was nobody’s fault but theirs. If we start doubting ourselves, then we don’t have a prayer against them. We’re all we have right now. They’ve had us on the defensive since this began, and it’s time to change that. If we’re going to stop them, we have to stay strong and stay together.”
“Stop them?” asked Dallas. “Kristina was the only chance we had to figure this out. How do we prove it now?”
“You couldn’t reach me because my phone was destroyed.” said Ryan, “It was destroyed when Derek put me through a table.”
“Say again?” asked Tom.
“I had dinner with a friend from high school,” explained Ryan. “She received a phone call from her security monitoring service that an alarm was tripped. I went to her house to clear it, and Derek was waiting there for me. I was set up. But he wasn’t there to kill me. He was there to ask for our help. And we’re going to give it to him.”
“Just when I thought this couldn’t possibly get any weirder,” said Dallas.
“You and me both, brother. But we have him now, and we’re going to use him to find Joshua and expose the Didache Project. I just have to figure out how.”
“He just let you walk away?” asked Tom.
“Yep,” said Ryan. “He’s a pawn in this game just like we are. And just like us, he’s had enough.”
Ryan explained the details of his encounter with Derek and Jennifer. Tom picked up on the situation immediately, but Dallas was having issues trusting a murderer. But he did trust Ryan, so he was onboard with coming up with a plan. Ryan told them to brainstorm how they could capture Joshua instead of letting Derek kill him while he went upstairs to talk to Michelle. He knocked on her door and she let him in without making eye contact or saying a word.
“Tom said this would be a bad idea, but I’m out of time,” pleaded Ryan.
“You’re out of time?” asked Michelle, condescendingly, “No, you have plenty of time. Kristina is the one out of time, or did you already forget about her already?”
“Michelle, I’m –”
“Don’t you dare say you’re sorry! Don’t you dare. You’re the one who dragged her into this. You’re the one who took her away from her happy life and threw her right in the middle of this shit storm,” said Michelle, unable to restrain her anger, “You uprooted everything familiar to her and shoved her into a hole where she couldn’t even see the light of day. You had me and your watchdogs babysit her while you ran around chasing your monsters. Well, Ryan, the real monsters got to her. She trusted you. She believed you’d keep her safe. I believed it, too.”
Michelle stood and walked across the room and looked out the window. She didn’t want Ryan to see her crying.
“You were bigger
than life to her,” said Michelle quietly. “She talked about you all the time. Christ, it was like a teenage sleepover whenever I stayed. I’d go out and get us a couple bottles of wine, and we’d sit for hours talking about how crazy our lives had become. But the conversation would always turn to you.”
Michelle turned around, not caring anymore if Ryan saw her tears. She walked back over to him and sat on the corner of her bed.
“It’s no secret I’m a hard ass,” said Michelle, “And I forgot how to cry years ago. And I sure as shit didn’t want you to be the first person to see me when I remembered. But she reminded me that it was okay to still be a woman while trying to do what people consider a man’s job. She reminded me that it was okay to cry. Maybe not in front of you jerks, but somewhere where I felt safe and secure. She felt safe and secure with us. She knew we’d do whatever it took to protect her. She was wrong.”
“I am sorry, Michelle. I didn’t know you two had become close.”
“We spent almost a solid week together. She made it very difficult not to become friends, and trust me, I tried. I knew it was a bad idea, but I couldn’t help it. There’s just something about her that disarmed me.”
“You weren’t the only one disarmed,” said Ryan. “She did it to me the moment I met her. I instantly turned into a cliché. You know the whole at first sight thing.”
“Really? You?”
“Yeah, me. I knew it was a bad idea as well, but like you said, you couldn’t help it with her. I even thought about how I’d approach her after this was over. Because you’re right, I did turn her life upside down. I did drag her all over the country and leave her to be watched by strangers. And I did let her down, Michelle. I cared about her and I let them kill her.”
