The Angel of the Abyss

by Hank Schwaeble

  The woman smirked. “You may be a skeptic, Miss Wright, but I do have abilities. You don't get to have one of the highest rated TV shows on cable without getting a few predictions right.”

  “Meaning, the information came from you, from a vision.”

  “Yes.”

  Amy turned to Bartlett. “And those tips you've been getting from your source, they've all been based on her visions, haven't they?” She let out a sardonic chuckle, shook her head. “You'd thought you'd tapped into a direct line to the paranormal, but instead you were doing her bidding.”

  Bartlett said nothing.

  “Am I the only one here willing to cut through all the bullshit? She played you, General. She's been playing you all along. Feeding you her visions, making you think you were scoring some prime supernatural intelligence. Moving you and your men like chess pawns.”

  “It's not like that,” Sahara said.

  “Oh, I think it is. You really were worried about someone getting you, that's why you had such a large group with you when you left. But that many people would have made it impossible for Bartlett's men to pick you up quietly. So you ditched them and made yourself available, but only at a particular time and place. A time and place your gal Friday related when she gave him the tip that you were in danger, too stubborn to seek help, blah blah blah.”

  Bartlett stared at Sahara for several seconds. She stared right back at him.

  “Why wouldn't she just ask?” he said, but Amy could tell it was a question he was answering himself as he said it.

  “Do I really have to spell it out for you?” It was piling on, but she didn't care. She felt like she'd earned the right. “That would mean giving up control. If she asked for your help, she'd have to owe you, changing the power dynamic considerably. But even more important, she didn't want to risk losing her ability to spoon-feed you information. She wanted you to think you still had a CI in her midst. No, I think America's Favorite Psychic insists on manning the controls every step of the way.”

  Sahara spread her lips into a wry smile. “Maybe you should look into my line of work.” Her eyes jumped to Bartlett's. “Yes, General. It's true I approved all the information being forwarded to you. Did you really think you could have a genuine spy in my midst without me knowing? For goodness sake, you were relying on my visions to conduct operations, but it never occurred to you to question how someone like me would have a traitor right under her nose?”

  Bartlett's face seemed flushed. To Amy's surprise, he seemed less angry than embarrassed. “We assumed your powers were selective. That if you ever caught on, the information would stop and that would be that. But the big question I have is, what do I do with you now?”

  “Oh, come now. Have any of the leads you've been given been false? What would you have been doing for the past year, if it wasn't for me? Just because I didn't want you to know I was volunteering the information, doesn't mean it was wrong or that anything's changed. I was helping you. Now, I need you to help me. Fair is fair.”

  “I don't like being made a fool of, Ms Doyle.”

  “No one's a fool here, General Bartlett. We're all on the same team. The information you've gotten from me has been real. Still is. What did you call it before, actionable intelligence?”

  Amy spoke up, interjecting. “Excuse me, but what kind of operations and intelligence are we talking about?” She thought about what Hatcher had told her, about his meeting with Deborah. “This has something to do with the Carnates, doesn't it?”

  “I could sit here and try to explain it to you,” Bartlett said. “But it just so happens I have a better idea. We're heading out for an op in a little over four hours, assuming Ms Doyle confirms to my satisfaction her info is still good. Why don't you let Calvin here show you to a bunk, get some rest, and then you come along and see for yourself?”

  Chapter 16

  Hatcher stood at the end of the rocky path and looked down upon the dwellings and structures on the hillside. Yellow pockets of candlelight fluttered among the subdued shades of rusty silver cast by the large moon above. A group of four or five approached up the hill, maybe two hundred feet away, hard to distinguish from each other.

  “I've asked some of my group to meet us,” Micah said. “I hope you don't mind. I wanted to clear the air.”

  “How many people did you say you have here?”

  “Just over two hundred.”

  The men drew closer and Hatcher saw there were five of them, then noticed one was a woman. She was young and slight and wore a simple dress of thick cloth that looked like she made it herself. All of them were dressed in similar materials, loose shirts over baggy trousers. Sashes for belts.

  “I don't tell them what to wear,” Micah said. He shrugged when Hatcher looked at him. “I could see it on your face. To capture a Biblical experience, many feel it helps to recreate details as much as possible. I assure you, their garments are their own doing.”

  “What did you mean about clearing the air?”

  “Because you're angry. I'm not saying it's not justified. I would just prefer you get it out of your system.”

  Low murmurs and throat-clearing grew audible as the group came within a few yards, stopping at various intervals nearby. The man at the front approached Micah, and Hatcher saw he was barely a man at all. More like a boy. Barely out of his teens.

  “Mr Hatcher, this is my brother, Jonah.”

  Hatcher dipped his head, but barely. “This is all very impressive, this little Bible village you have going here. But now that I've seen it, I think I'll be leaving.”

  “Oh, come now, Mr Hatcher, do you really think I'd have arranged to bring you here for nothing? Having been in my presence for almost an hour, do I strike you as impulsive? As crazy? As meaning you any harm? Your curiosity has to be getting the better of you. Won't you at least stay to hear me out?”

  “There was plenty of time to explain things while you were playing tour guide.”

  “Yes, yes, but some things defy simple explication. You might say what I have to share requires a visual aid. Tell you what, if you still want to leave after I show you, after I've laid it all out, I will have one of our number drive you wherever you want. To the airport, back to New York. You name it.”

  Hatcher hooked his hand over the back of his neck, stretching it. “Make it quick.”

  “Splendid. First, let's get this out of the way. Alan, Jeffrey, Austin... please, step over here.” The three remaining men in the group moved closer. They were in their twenties, trim but not all that lean. Average height, one a couple of inches taller than the other two, about the same height as Hatcher. The tall one had light brown hair, short but shaggy; the man to his left had thin dark strands hanging past his ears. The other was almost bald.

  Micah raised an arm. “Alan...”

  The tall one took another step. “This is Alan,” Micah said. “Alan, along with Jeffrey and Austin, were sent to retrieve you from New York.” Micah took a few steps back, giving them space.

  Hatcher gave the man a long, hard stare. The moonlight made his face a pale mask, hard to discern.

  “You're the one who shot the bean bag round.”

  Alan stiffened, standing taller. “Yes. I needed to make sure—”

  Hatcher launched a stiff right straight into his solar plexus. A grunt of breath huffed out through the young man's mouth and he bent over.

  “That's a fraction of what she felt, a woman you don't even know, who never did a thing to you.”

  He started to throw a quick hook, a final blow to make sure he remembered the lesson for a few days, when he felt his arm get caught, stopped dead.

  “I think you made your point. Can't have you busting the fellow's jaw. He's young, trained only in the basics. As I said, the ultimate responsibility lies with me.”

  Hatcher stared at the man's arm, hooked over his own. What he'd just w
itnessed – or almost witnessed, the more he thought about it – should have been impossible. Micah had been several feet away, hadn't even moved after he'd landed that right to Alan's gut. He was still that far away when Hatcher had loaded the hook, an efficient, abbreviated motion that took no time at all. Yet at some point between the time he started to throw the punch and the time it would have landed, the man was right there, capturing his arm in mid-motion.

  Micah was still there, arm still hooked, looking Hatcher dead in the eye.

  “I know you're thinking that's an invitation to teach me a lesson, instead. And I don't need to tell you you're quite formidable. Strong and skilled, obviously. But I think you can already see it wouldn't be the kind of physical altercation you are used to.”

  Hatcher dropped his gaze to his arm, where Micah's was looped over and inside it like they stopped in the middle of a square-dance. Micah pulled his away and held his hands up, palms out.

  Alan groaned and rested one arm on his knee, the other cradling his stomach.

  “I allowed the one blow because I thought you deserved that much. But I can't let you hurt him. We don't have men to spare, and it wouldn't be right in any event. I did mean it when I said the real blame should fall on me. And please believe me when I say I'm sorry. It's an honest apology. I did not mean for her to be harmed in any way. I have no reason to believe she sustained any serious injury, so I do hope that is mitigating. If you'll allow me to get to why I brought you here, why I had to bring you, I think you may understand why it was so urgent.”

  Hatcher pressed his gaze into the man's eyes for several seconds. He clenched and unclenched his fist a few times, then decided there was little to gain by not letting it go. For now.

  “This better be good.”

  “Good. Interesting word. I'm not sure if this qualifies as 'good', but I can assure you it will not be disappointing.”

  “As long as it's quick.”

  “That, Mr Hatcher, will be up to you.”

  “I don't understand.”

  “I need you to put your considerable skills to use. I'm talking about a full interrogation. The faster you extract the information, the faster you'll be done. Trust me, it's important, and it's information you'll want just as badly as I do. I'd do it myself, but for reasons I'd rather not go into yet, I simply cannot. You're uniquely qualified. We're not just talking about an interview, or a Q&A, if you get my meaning. I need someone experienced with enhanced methods.”

  “That's what you brought me here for? To torture someone you're holding captive and make them give you all the info they have? What would ever make you think I'd agree to that?”

  “Because, Mr Hatcher, you'd want to even if I didn't ask. How often do you get to interrogate a demon?”

  Chapter 17

  The throaty idle of the Humvee pulsed in Amy's ears as she watched the forward vehicle move into position. Three of Bartlett's men slipped out of it – crouch-sprint, crouch-sprint, crouch-sprint – each disappearing into the shadows, headed toward the back of the building.

  An old section of town, Amy thought, looking up and down the street. Low-slung commercial buildings surrounded by chain link mixed in with smaller, antiquated-looking structures of brick and wood she guessed had to be almost a century old. Like the one directly across from them, where Bartlett's men were creeping in the shadows.

  The forward Hummer pulled away, making space for the vehicle in the rear to pass the one Amy was in and let out three more. Instead of circling the building, these men took positions near the front entrance – two to the left, one to the right, tight against the wall.

  Amy looked at Bartlett, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, watching the men settle into place. “What happens now?”

  “Now...” The general put his hand on the door handle. “We pay a visit.”

  “Wait.” Amy slid a look to Sahara, seated next to her, and pushed herself forward. “No offense, Ms Doyle, but General, I have to ask again – how do we know this isn't a trap?”

  Sahara Doyle didn't react. Her face remained neutral, an amused curve to her lips.

  Bartlett let out a deep, almost theatrical, sigh. “Detective, if Ms Doyle here had wanted to lead us into a trap, she could have arranged that on any number of occasions at far less risk to herself. Besides, while I don't want to sound all religious or preachy, once in a while you have to have a little faith. Without it, why even bother with any of this? Faith is the reason I'm here, the reason those young men out there are here. I don't think it's naïve to believe a Divine Hand is guiding our efforts, unless somehow you think it's logical to presume only supernatural evil exists and everything else is silly. And on a more practical, more worldly level, with her help, we're about to deal quite a blow to the organization.”

  Amy said nothing. She glanced at Sahara again, then out through the windshield to the building. There hadn't been much discussion – not that she'd been privy to, anyway – and she'd voiced similar concerns before they'd left. All she knew was they were conducting an operation of some kind, that the target was almost an hour and a half drive from the silo. She looked at the clock on the dashboard. It was almost 4:30 AM. Zero dark thirty. The general promised that after this, they would focus on finding Hatcher. Trusting this man was a function of not having a viable alternative, not if she wanted the help, anyway.

  Bartlett stepped out of the vehicle. He looked back in at her through the open door. “Are you coming?”

  Amy blinked. She almost asked whether he was serious, but decided against it. She opened the door and got out, adjusting the loose-fitting shirt. It was a military blouse of some sort, men's, big and floppy on her, but it was better than prancing around in front of all these men with that tight top designed to show off as much cleavage as possible. She wore her fanny pack around it like a belt and had the sleeves rolled up. It hung almost as low as her shorts.

  She circled the front of the hummer and stopped near the general. Sahara was visible through the windows in slants of uneven light where they diluted the shadows.

  “What about her?”

  “We both decided it may be advantageous for Ms Doyle to not be seen. They may suspect she's with us, but there's no need to confirm it.”

  “Are you going to tell me what's going on? I assume this has something to do with the Carnates, but I have no idea what you're hoping to accomplish. What do you do on these raids? Kidnap them?” She hesitated. This was the first time she thought about the fate of the Carnates that were the likely targets of these raids, and the realization disturbed her. “Kill them?”

  “No, nothing like that. I should have been more clear when we talked back at the silo, these are not seek-and-destroy missions. We simply disrupt their operations.”

  “I don't even know what operations you're talking about, let alone what disrupting them means.”

  “Please don't take this the wrong way, but it would be a waste of breath to explain. You'll see for yourself in a few moments. Are you ready?”

  Amy started to pull open her fanny pack holster. Bartlett put a hand on her arm. “That won't be necessary.”

  She took her hands off the pack, waiting for an explanation that never came. The general crossed the street toward the building and gestured for her to follow.

  A light switched on, the sheer curtain to one of the dormered front windows on the second floor flashing yellow. A shadow swept across the window, then the yellow faded until it almost disappeared. The general checked his watch as he arrived at the front porch. He waited there for a while, at least two minutes by Amy's estimation, then gestured to one of his men. The man swung his rifle down to hang from its strap and took two crouching steps up onto the small concrete porch in front of the door. He removed a small leather case, folded in thirds, and slipped two small rods like dental instruments from their pockets. He set the case across his leg as he knelt and inserted the
two instruments into first the deadbolt, then the door handle itself. The whole thing was over in about ten seconds. Amy watched him refold his case and slip it back into the large side pocket of his BDU trousers, thinking, damn, he's good.

  The first one still had a foot on the porch when the man on the other side crept in to fill the space. He had a pack over his shoulder that he slid off in a continuation of the motion he used to sling his rifle. Amy couldn't quite make out what he removed from the pack. It was round with two side handles. The man rose smoothly from his crouch and placed it close to the door, holding it by the handles, adjusting it up and down until finding a particular spot and pressing it against the surface. Amy noticed a tiny red dot pop on, and the man turned the handles. She heard a mechanical clunk.

  The sound of a bolt being thrown. An interior lock, she realized. Keyless.

  He disengaged the device and put it back into the pouch. Like the one before him, it was over in seconds, and he was back in position, rifle ready, in what seemed like no time at all.

  Amy heard a faint whistle, realized it was coming from her own lips. That was really quick. Bartlett nodded and the third man scampered onto the porch in a tight squat and opened the door, rifle at the ready. He slipped inside. The other two flowed behind him.

  The interior was bathed in the dim, funereal glow of computer screen-savers, the float of images on the monitors shifting faint shadows around the walls and ceiling. It was a commercial space of some kind, or had been, now gutted and repurposed, but it was hard to tell what it had started out as. The room was open, sparsely furnished with a few nondescript chairs, a couch. Toward the back was a kitchen, modern-looking with stainless steel appliances, open to the rest of the floor and separated only by an island. Four consoles sat on large tables littered with tablets and smartphones and Wi-Fi routers. Everything with a cord or a dock seemed to be wired through some sort of control panel that dominated its own table along a wall. It reminded Amy of a recording studio, or some elaborate home mixing station.