Blood Web: Caitlin Diggs Series #1
Page 34
Hainsworth propped his hands on his waist. His back was turned to the window. Like the moon in an eclipse, Connah stood before Dudek blocking any hint of sunlight from illuminating the room. “Then what about the hostage? What did she see?”
Dudek answered. “Tara Diggs was still in a state of shock when rescued from the dwelling. She thought she saw a chain around Schenker’s neck, but she couldn’t swear by it. As far as she knows, she never saw the crystal.”
Hainsworth finally gave in, conceding to the burning sensation he felt surging throughout his stomach. He dug a bottle of antacid from a desk drawer and popped a pill. Hainsworth resigned himself to the fact that he would have to stomach the company of Agent Diggs a bit longer. Dudek hoped Hainsworth didn’t catch the grin quickly flashing across his face.
Wolvington had already put two and two together. He knew Jonas Schumacher had died plummeting into the bay. It was highly likely the crystal was there now. But how could such a small stone ever be found? Such irony. Only the technology offered by the very crystal itself could ever unearth its hiding place.
He pondered the futility of going back to Fort Belvoir. The very idea of training men for ground war left a bitter taste in his mouth. He phoned the facility in Texas. He ordered his men to abandon it, and to let Jake Campbell go free. He then disengaged the little black box, breaking its tether-like hold on Ross Fisher. Neither Campbell nor Fisher should continue to pay their debts now that Right Hand was back off line.
He ultimately wanted to become God—not the devil. So without further hesitation, the colonel began the process of “checking out.” Just like his hero Socrates, Tom would die by poison. But hemlock would not be his ticket to ride. Wolvington would down something far more hipper, trendier, and now. He raided his medicine cabinet, swallowing all it had to offer. The names of the medications stored there were nearly impossible to pronounce. He washed them all down with whiskey. By dawn he was dead. Belly up. He had choked on his own vomit.
Alyssa found him. She was not sad. She was mad. Before calling the police, she spat at him. “Another man who promised me the world and could not deliver!”
As soon as Eugene Campbell received the call from Arlington PD he was on a plane to Texas. His dream had come true. He would reunite with his father, Jake. Both were quite frayed, both physically and mentally, from their respective ordeals. However, both were positive a little time spent communing with nature would work wonders to restore their spirit. Both father and son were correct. They were seers after all.
Rivers and Tara visited Diggs in her room at Newport Hospital. Both tested negative for radiation exposure and were released. Rivers promised Diggs she would chaperone her baby sister for a day or so. Hoyt was flying in from Virginia. The trio would spend some time visiting the majestic Newport mansions. “Rest up,” Rivers joked,” I hear Dudek’s already working on our next assignment.”
Diggs would need about a couple of months recovering. Her body was covered with lacerations, her ankle was sprained, and a couple of her ribs were cracked. The damage from exposure to radiation was minimal. As she endured her down time, she reflected upon how the crystal almost lured her to connect into the great worldwide blood web. It promised so much. That was the whole problem. All the bad came “free of charge.” It was a package deal. You had to endure the crystal’s petty greed to reap all the good it was capable of doing for humankind.
She believed the mystery man probably would have used the crystal to control others. A better world should emerge drone-free, without greed and ambition taking precedence. Leaving someone behind was contradictory to human nature. Humans are social creatures. The changes required to put the world on the same page must happen at all levels of society. The Atlanteans may have already learned this lesson. Maybe their gods really did punish them for creating the first Me Decade, nearly 13 million years ago. If so, humankind in its present state was on the verge of repeating history.
Caitlin drifted in and out of lucidness. Her thoughts focused on Gayle Swenson, the expectant mother who was caught between the crystal’s duality. She would visit Gayle in person when she was better. Diggs needed to let Gayle know that her boyfriend was as much a victim as he was a murderer.
Her train of thought was broken when a nurse stepped in. She announced a visitor. Diggs glanced at her watch. There was still an hour left of visiting time today. But Deondra and Tara had already come and gone. Who could it be? She looked up and saw Ross Fisher. He stood there, solemn, holding a fistful of flowers in his left hand. His right arm was hung in a sling. He had several lacerations on his face.
Without further explanation, he asked, “Can you ever forgive me?”
Diggs spent little time contemplating the cryptic inquiry. “Is this about your unannounced entrance at the Carlson house?”
Fisher shook his head.
“Well, whatever it is, we can talk about it sometime over dinner.” Diggs knew forgiveness was a part of the human condition. She, too, had hoped for forgiveness once. However, her situation was a bit more complex. The person she had asked was no longer among the living.
Ross smiled. He placed the flowers in a vase and left as mysteriously as he came in.
***
After Fisher left, Caitlin had fallen into a deep REM sleep. She saw something that hadn’t happened yet. It was a vision of a yacht sailing into Massachusetts’ waters. Another boat, a U.S. Coast Guard cutter, stood bow to bow with it. Aboard the cutter was Boston FBI personnel and an old friend, Stanford Carter.
He looked at the yacht with disdain. The two men who had beaten Geoffrey McAllister to death were aboard. Arrogantly, they believed they could return to America under the protection of Connah Hainsworth. But they would be in for a surprise.
Piracy was one thing. Murder of an FBI agent was another—especially when damning evidence sat in an FBI storage locker. Connah Hainsworth opted to sell them down the river. The spit found on Geoffrey’s shirt was the deal breaker. No hint of Hainsworth’s contact with these men must ever be bread trailed back to the bureau.
As they neared the cutter, Carter greeted the scumbags. “Hope you like the color orange.”
Diggs was about to dismiss her vision as a simple dream. She never had a vision of the future before. All her prior dreams of McAllister occurred in the past. But then she realized the crystal might have enhanced her natural psychic ability.
She called Dudek and Carter to tell them about her premonition, and just a few hours later her premonition became reality. It played out just as she imagined. The arrest of Abul-Matin Ali and Asad Hashim did indeed take place on the ocean, proving Celeste’s prediction correct. Apparently, Stanford’s pet Tonkinese could see into the future quite capably.
***
A warm and gentle breeze blew on her forearm. It comforted her like the fact that McAllister’s murderers had been taken into custody. Tomorrow the killers would find themselves in a Miami holding cell, awaiting trial, facing the heat. But Diggs was still puzzled over the source of the breeze. She looked at the window in her hospital room. It was sealed shut. As an investigator, and an inquisitive human being, she had to know just where this breeze was coming from. The mid-October nights in New England were becoming nippy. It was sweater weather. So even if the breeze had come from the window it certainly would not have been warm.
Diggs took this as a sign. How could she rationalize it any other way? The last weeks had been full of signs. But this sign would be the last she would receive from her partner and lover, the late Geoffrey McAllister. She embraced Geoffrey’s signal with melancholy because of its finality. The past was indeed the past. He was reminding her that a laundry list known as her future must be tended to now. Diggs breathed a little more easily with the realization. She would move forward, believing in herself again. In truth, she had become stronger through faith. Feeling enhanced, Special Agent Caitlin Diggs let go of all doubt that night.
THE END
r /> Gary Starta, Blood Web: Caitlin Diggs Series #1