“I have traveled out of body many times. I know everything about you and where you live. You also want what’s right Quenton. You just do not know how to attain it sometimes. We could accomplish quite a lot, if you are willing.”
“I.I do not know what to say. Your powers are incredible. If you really do mean what you say, I will work with you.”
“You realize you cannot lie to me or hide anything without me knowing it?” Connor asked.
Quenton looked down at Hutchison’s shattered body and nodded. “I know.”
“Good.” When Quenton looked up, Humphrey Bogart looked down at him, wearing the same hat and trench coat he wore in the movie Casablanca. “This looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” Connor added in perfect Bogart voice.
Quenton laughed uneasily as Connor changed back into Quenton’s form. “Stay here for a half an hour, and I will get you credentials you may use to come and go as you please. I may even be able to get a vehicle assigned to you.”
Connor changed to his own form and smiled in agreement. “Call me Thomas. I was having a little fun with you before. Your proposal does seem like the best course. I just wanted you to stay out of trouble with your superiors.”
“Will you be staying here at night?”
“Yes, although I can protect my body with an impenetrable aura when I leave it, I would just as soon leave it here.”
“Why do you need to go out at all if you can go anywhere out of body?”
“Some questions will need to be asked,” Connor replied. “I will need my body if I am to ask the questions, and then gain the answers.”
Quenton shuddered. “I will be back in less than thirty minutes.”
“I will be here.”
Quenton left. Connor began to help the men sent in to subdue him back to consciousness. By the time Quenton returned, his men were on their feet, albeit a bit unsteady. He had brought Connor a suit, shoes, and tie along with the credentials. Connor handed him his Ford keys back, and took the keys Quenton gave him for an agency vehicle. Connor quickly changed into the suit, while Quenton explained the change in plan to his men, who became even more confused. After obtaining directions to his government vehicle, Connor left with a slight wave to Quenton.
Quenton mopped his brow again as his men gathered around him. Quenton held up his hands, “I know, I know, this must be the weirdest damn thing you all have ever seen. Trust me, it would not be any clearer if you knew everything. Mr. Connor will be back. He is to have full access to the complex until further notice. Is that understood?”
He received nods of affirmation and then dismissed them. Quenton then called for cleanup. After leaving the room, Quenton went around to another doorway. He entered into a room, which had a two-way mirror, overseeing the killing room he had just left. The blonde haired woman seated in the room, typing furiously into a laptop computer, looked up at the intrusion.
Chapter 3 Karen
She stood up to face him as he closed the door behind him. Wearing a clinical white smock over her dress did nothing to hide the attractiveness of the woman. Her long blonde hair lay over her back, held in place with a light blue elastic band. Even in her obvious distress, she managed a very professional stance.
Karen Blakely had graduated in the top of her class at Harvard Medical School, where Quenton personally recruited her into the NSA. Her research over the past ten years for the National Security Agency had yielded a large volume of work in the area of human behavior modification. Karen Blakely’s single minded obsession with her work, coupled with the almost unlimited funding, had only added a slight arrogance to the young woman Quenton had recruited out of Harvard. That arrogance could not be detected in her face now.
Quenton motioned for her to sit down. He took a seat next to her, and leaned back wearily. “What did you think of all that Karen?”
“More importantly Sir,” she began quietly. “What will you do with him? I always thought of Mr. Connor as a very dangerous and deadly tool. The last few times you used him for interrogation, he did only what you asked and no more. For some reason, this Hutchison fellow triggered him into revealing himself.”
The hard edge to her otherwise soft, throaty voice, stayed steady. Her voice carried no tremor at what she had witnessed. Quenton again felt justification for having brought her into Connor’s case. All thought of developing him had been removed as an option. He had hoped Dr. Blakely would be able to come up with a way to get Connor to lose his quirky comic book and movie line persona. Blakely had agreed with him as to the drawbacks of having a man as dangerous as Connor lose touch with reality, and consequently his usefulness to the NSA.
“Very perceptive Doctor, but I believe Mr. Connor has been using us, rather than the other way around. I do think this case, and his loved ones’ deaths brought him out. He wishes to deal with this on the outside in person. Frankly, as you observed, he can pretty much do whatever he decides. I never meant for anyone to see what you have seen. You have been included in something, which must remain top secret, whether we want you in or not. Do you have any recommendations?”
“I want to study him of course,” she answered without hesitation.
Quenton looked at her in complete bewilderment. “Were you not watching this demonstration? Connor can turn you inside out.”
Quenton laughed out loud at a ridiculous thought. “The man reminds me of that old Santa Claus song. ‘He knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake’.” Quenton shook his head. “Be good if you do not wish to die screaming.”
“He likes you Sir. I can tell,” Blakely replied. “Connor did not have to make a deal with you. He needs you and your resources. I would be safe with him. You need to find a way to regain control over him. I can help you.”
Quenton stood up and ran his hands back through his hair, pausing as he looked down into the room at the cleanup crew removing Hutchison’s body. He turned back and grabbed her shoulders. “Karen, he knows where I live. He can mimic anyone, and kill or maim in a split second. Get a clue woman. Connor takes what we thought of as dangerous to a level in some other universe.”
Dr. Blakely sat back in the chair. “Please control yourself Sir. I am in this now. The risk will never outweigh the reward of studying Mr. Connor’s progress. I will have to come up with a way for us to reason with him. He must have a weakness.”
Quenton backed away from the woman. “You just do not understand what you saw with your own eyes. You wish to play Delilah to Connor’s Samson, but you neglect the fact Samson did not have the power of a living lie detector.”
“I have no intention of seducing Mr. Connor Sir. I will ask him if I can conduct a study on the progression of his power. I will not lie to him and I will not mislead him. Will you authorize and help me with this study? It appears to be our only course of action.”
“Why not do exactly as he says?”
“Our superiors do not pay us to take orders from the inmates here. I would be forced to report this incident.”
Quenton began to sweat again. “Karen, you don’t know what you’re saying. You could get us all killed, and I mean all of us.”
“I believe you may be overstating the danger now Sir.”
“Yea, tell that to the twenty-eight members of the gang who wiped out his family. They died screaming for the privilege of dying.”
“Will you authorize my study or not?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“We all have choices Sir. I had hoped to work with you on this. You know Connor better than anyone.”
“No one knows Connor, and I dare say no one will. I will introduce you to him whenever he decides to return. In the meantime, please reconsider your position on this Doctor.”
“Mr. Connor can be controlled.”
Quenton sighed as he watched house-cleaning mop up the blood from the floor below. “Someone will be controlled Karen, but it will never be Thomas Connor.�
��
The gang members looked up as they saw Rack walk into the warehouse. They had grabbed up weapons as the door opened, and were training them on the man they thought was their fellow member. Rack closed the door behind him and turned to face the rest of the gang. A black man, with corn-row hair style, standing nearly as tall as Rack, approached him with a 9mm handgun held in a sideways aiming position. He was more slender than Rack had been, but every muscle rippled as he walked.
“We heard you was toast Rack. Now you walkin’ in here like nothin’ went down at all. Makes me think you been sharin’ our business.”
Connor pushed the button on a small transmitter he carried and a small explosive blew up the power box on the side of the building. The warehouse lighting went out, bringing darkness and silence for a moment. Connor brought down the man in front of him before he could even move the handgun. Connor took it off of him and fired into the warehouse indiscriminately. He had already rendered its owner unconscious. In the midst of the wild crossfire he created with the shots he had fired, Connor wove a pattern of death in the darkness until the silence returned. He killed without mercy, and without thought to anything other than the efficiency of his actions. Connor returned to the man he had knocked out, and picked him up as an adult would lift a small baby. He carried him out of the warehouse, over his shoulder, past the dead guards. Eighteen men lie dead in and out of the building.
Connor whistled as he drove back to the agency building in the Washington DC traffic. His prisoner awoke next to him. The lights of the city’s capitol cast a bright glow over the nighttime travelers. Devon Lewis led the gang, Connor had executed, for the last two years. His hands were duct taped together behind him. His feet were taped together at the ankles and knees. Devon turned his head, and looked at the suited figure whistling next to him. He started to struggle, only to feel a sharp blow just under his ribcage, which caused him to struggle for the next few minutes just to breathe.
“Do not move Devon. I did not want to have to tape your mouth too, because I thought we might speak a bit on the way over to my house.”
“Who the fuck are you? What happened to Rack?” Devon gasped.
“He’s dead, and so are all your little friends. I want you to tell me who runs the slave ring you sell the kidnapped girls to. Rack only knew your name to be the next step up.”
Sweat ran down Devon’s face and he smelled of fear. He had not even seen the man move when he was hit. If this man had made Rack give him up, and killed his whole crew, Devon knew the police had nothing to do with this. Devon incorporated a cunning intelligence in running his gang, and that same intelligence now told him he did not have long to live.
“We can make a deal man.”
Connor sighed. “No deals Devon. I do not plan to insult your intelligence by promising you things, which you will not live to enjoy. The best I can do would be a quick death, after I know you have told me everything you know. Would you like the easy way or the hard way?”
Devon remained quiet as he considered his plight. He knew when to keep silent. No bluster or threat or promise would matter to this man. “How long can I live.”
“Not long, but your death will be pain free. Much less painful than the lives of the young women you have sold into slavery. You have poverty pimps of your own race out there railing against the enslavement of your people over a hundred and thirty-five years ago, knowing there are others of their own race selling black people into slavery right now in Africa. Here you are kidnapping and selling into slavery young women of every race including your own. How do you think this speaks for you, or them, as human beings?”
“We just tryin’ to get even.”
“Even with who? I am a little fuzzy on this whole getting even with the man thing. Anyway, no matter, you probably do not want to insult my intelligence either. So, how would you like it? You will tell me everything before we finish.”
“A man named Pierre flies in from France whenever we have something for him. He pays us, and he smuggles the women out.”
“He flies in from France?” Connor interrupted.
“Yea, but the men who take the women back go through Mexico. Once they get over the border into Mexico, no one asks questions.”
“What about drugs? This does not seem like a business which would be all that profitable.”
“They fill specific orders. They give us a list of qualities, and we locate what they want. It pays very well. Until Rack got taken, none of us were ever caught.”
“What do they do with the rejects?”
Devon stayed silent; trying to think of something he could say.
“Devon, I am beginning to get negative vibrations. You can only die once. I will keep my word as to the manner of your passing no matter what you tell me.”
“Organ donors.”
Connor pulled the car over and reached into the glove compartment. He took out a notebook and pen. He undid the tape holding Devon’s hands together. Connor gave him the notebook and pen.
“Write down everything you know about this Pierre. List all the ways in which you get in touch with him. Leave out nothing. I will know if you do.”
Devon looked at him pleadingly, “I can set him up for you man.”
In a split second, Devon found himself sitting next to his mirror image. He listened to his own voice come out of his double’s mouth. “That won’t be necessary Devon. Start writing.”
“Man,” Devon whispered. “What the fuck are you?”
“Write,” his double said again.
Devon began writing while his double watched. After he had been writing for twenty minutes, he paused for a split second.
“Don’t do it Devon. I will know, and the deal will be off. I will then be free to punish you. You do not want that.”
Devon began writing again. He finished fifteen minutes later and handed Connor the notepad. “That’s all of it. How…”
Connor killed him after taking the notepad. Devon slumped forward with the left side of his skull crushed inward at the temple. Connor reached across the body and opened the car door. He pushed Devon out onto the side of the road, and drove on to the agency complex. He changed back into his original form, and began whistling the theme from the John Wayne movie The High And The Mighty.
The gate guard at the complex looked over the ID card Connor handed him. He called the other guard over to look at the card, while he used a flashlight to look around the inside of Connor’s car. He bent down near Connor’s window finally, “Please pop the trunk Sir.”
Connor did as he was instructed. The first guard to check his ID went through his trunk, while the second called into the complex. After closing Connor’s trunk lid again, the first guard joined the second as he continued to speak on the phone. Both guards walked out then and gave Connor back the ID wallet.
“Thank you Sir. You are cleared to proceed.”
As Connor drove through the gate, he congratulated himself on not stuffing Devon into the trunk to save him for questioning later. He smiled thinking of how much trouble that would have caused Quenton. Perhaps next time Connor thought to himself.
Fifteen minutes later, he was in the small room, which had been his cell. He had all the conveniences, and now it was no longer locked as he entered. It consisted of a bath and shower, a small kitchen alcove with a sink and running water; and a living room, which had a small bedroom leading off to the back. Connor laughed out loud, thinking of the looks on the guards’ faces he passed on his way to his room. This next phase was proving to be the most interesting of all.
The phone next to Quenton’s side of the bed began to ring. Quenton swung his legs over the side of the bed and looked at the clock as he picked up the receiver. It was nearly midnight. Quenton spoke into the mouthpiece.
“Hello, Quenton here.”
“Connor came back in ten minutes ago Sir,” Dr. Blakely informed him. “I want to go and talk to him now.”
“Karen,” Quenton sighed. “Do you ever go hom
e at night? Do you ever sleep? Do you have a life?”
Ignoring her superior’s rhetorical questions Karen continued. “I just wish to introduce myself and see how he reacts to me.”
“Shall I have cleanup go to his room in the next hour to collect your body?”
Karen laughed. Quenton had never heard her laugh in all these years since he had recruited her. He could only think of a handful of times he had ever seen her smile. It had a musical, throaty sound, much like her voice. He hoped he would have the opportunity to hear it again.
“I will be fine Sir. I just called to inform you he had returned. I will meet with you in the morning to brief you on our meeting.”
“I hope so Karen, goodbye.” Quenton hung up the phone with the sound of her laughter again in his ear.
Chapter 4 Connor
Dr. Blakely knocked on the door to Thomas Connor’s cell-residence and waited. Nothing happened, although she knew he had not left again. She knocked again, but still there was no reply. She tried the handle on the door and it turned in her hand. Entering the room with some trepidation, Karen saw Connor sitting in a lotus position in the middle of his living room.
“Hello Mr. Connor,” she began. “You did not answer and I thought perhaps you had.” she stopped herself, knowing she had been about to tell a lie. She walked over to where he sat without movement, and reached to feel his wrist.
Karen Blakely lay chained spread-eagle by hands and feet in a dank cellar, with a dull light cast over the filthy room. Rats were swarming over her, and nibbling at her flesh. Her clothes lay in tatters on her body. Blood flowed from dozens of bites, and she screamed in pain and fear. Through her agony she heard the sound of thousands of tiny clicks, and looked down to see the room covered in huge black beetles. The rats fled for their lives as the horde covered the room; and devoured the rats that did not flee. They turned their attention to her as she screamed in waves of undulating horror, as the first of the beetles reached her chained feet.
A flash of bright light blinded her, and she lay on Connor’s living room floor. She began thrashing around her as her skin still tingled from the beetle’s touch. Strong hands gripped her wrists, and effortlessly lifted her up from the floor. She felt herself held in an iron grip, and she realized she was still screaming.
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