Paradox

by D. L. Line

  “Make it right, Denny.”

  Her mother’s voice, telling her every time to make it right. Handing her a dollar bill to take to the guy with the three missing fingers who ran the convenience store on the corner. She hadn’t really wanted to shoplift the gum, but they dared her. Getting her a legal pad and a pen to write the apology to the coach and the principal. Sneaking beer on the bus to the softball tournament sounded like fun, until they got caught. Pushing her out the front door of their house to go next door and apologize for smashing Marcus Scott’s nose all over his pathetic, pimply-ass face. Well, she had only been thirteen and didn’t know then that he was right, and besides, even if she was queer, nobody got to call Denny a dyke. Except for Denny.

  “Make it right, Denny.”

  Turning over the USB drive in her pocket, recently liberated from Dr. Rosenberg’s desk drawer, a new voice sounded in her head. “If a crazy person shows up at your house ten years from now and threatens to blow your brains out, you’ll really wish you’d listened to me... if you remember, I told you that it didn’t work out so well... some poor kid, who deserves nothing more than a swift kick in the pants for being stupid... I don’t think bad begins to cover it, do you, Denny?”

  Striding purposefully toward the long escalator at the Metro Station, Denny stopped to respond to a buzzing in the pocket of her cargo pants, looking over her shoulder to make sure that no one was coming after her. Not yet anyway She noted the caller ID. It was Faith.

  After offering tentative greeting, Denny listened as Faith began to talk.

  “Denny, dude, you’ve been hard to track down. Everything okay?”

  Denny tried hard to keep the fear out of her voice. “Yeah. Sorry about that, but it got late, so I spent the night on Dr. R’s sofa. I’ve got that stuff you wanted.”

  “Good girl, D. I knew you’d come through. Are you on your way home now?”

  “Yeah, I’m on my way down to the Metro right now. Are you coming over?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Tenleytown-AU station, right? How about if I meet you there? I’ll give you a ride home on the bike.”

  “Okay. See you in a few.” As soon as Faith said good-bye, Denny snapped her phone closed and returned it to the pocket of her khaki cargos. She was going to make it right.

  *

  Faith closed her own phone, gritting her teeth against the completely uncomfortable sensation of the compact Glock handgun pressed insistently against a spot about an inch below her left ear. “How was that?”

  Skip answered in a maddeningly smooth tone that reminded Faith of a used car salesman. “Faith, that was perfect. I’d offer you a hearty round of applause, but you know...” He stopped, mid-sentence, twisting the gun against her neck for effect.

  The muscles in her jaw clenched and unclenched as she stared at the back of the limo driver’s head. “Yeah, I know.”

  “Tony. Tenleytown Metro Station, please. Oh, and don’t spare the horses.”

  Faith closed her eyes as Tony pulled the Lincoln away from the curb and headed north, attempting to will away the thoughts about how this was all going to end. The Glock at the base of her skull did nothing to help.

  *

  Jen paced the route from the sink to the refrigerator and back again for about the twenty-eighth time, clutching her cell phone in her right hand with her arms crossed over her chest, trying to comfort herself. The knot of nerves in her head made her want to cry, and the knot in her stomach made her want to throw up, but she really didn’t want to do either, so she just paced like a tiger in a cage. Bobby and Terri sitting there quietly at the kitchen table did nothing to ease her fragile nerves, especially considering that they were both armed, wired for sound, and decked in those spiffy black Kevlar vests. This was just not a scene she had ever wanted to replay, especially considering the first time it had happened in her old farmhouse last winter. She could handle all the plotting and the planning. What she couldn’t handle was the waiting, because it was all too familiar. Terri’s soft voice pulled her from her musings.

  “Jen, sweetie, would you please relax? She said she’d call.”

  “But, Terri, it’s been over an hour. She said she’d call, but she hasn’t, and she’s not answering her phone. What if something went wrong? What if Faith did something bad? Oh, God, she’s probably hurt. Can’t someone just go after her?”

  “Jen, stop. We don’t know where she is, and if we go now, where are we supposed to go?”

  Jen tried to think of an answer, but none was forthcoming. So she chose to lean into the embrace that Terri was offering and try to will away the demons in her head. As hard as she tried, she just couldn’t shake the picture in her head of Denny, scared out of her wits, pinned against a doorframe somewhere by Faith or a Kazakhstani terrorist with an itchy trigger finger. She was so frightened for Denny that she shook, and the only thing that kept her from coming completely unglued was Terri’s arms holding her together. Jen actually let out a yelp of surprise as the phone went off in her hand. She pulled free, and had to take a second to process that it wasn’t an actual call, but a text message. “What the hell...?”

  “What?” Terri asked quietly.

  “Text message...it’s from Denny.” As she hit the proper buttons to open the message, she saw Bobby get up from his seat at the kitchen table to see what the message was about. She looked at the small screen on her phone, not quite understanding the one word message.

  Wrhose.

  She held the phone out toward Terri. “Do you know what this means?”

  Once Terri and Bobby exchanged what looked like an understanding glance, Jen hoped that they knew what it meant.

  “I’m pretty sure that it means warehouse, Jen, and it also means that we have a pretty good idea where she is. It also means that I have to leave. Will you be okay?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Please be careful.”

  “I always am. I love you, you know?”

  “Yeah, baby, I know that. I love you too.” Jen pulled Terri close for a last hug. As hard as it was, she followed Terri and Bobby to the front door, and closed it once they had pulled away in Bobby’s car. “God I hate this part,” she offered quietly to Snickers and Jojo as they watched her lean back against the closed door. Somehow, deep down, Jen knew that they shared her concern.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It always looked so easy when they did it in the movies.

  Denny continued to shake in her seat in the back of the Lincoln limo. Trying to send a text message from the phone in the pocket of your pants wasn’t as simple as Matt Damon made it look in the movies. Especially when the big guy with the gun seemed to want to do nothing but watch her. Oh, and talk about himself. She looked to Faith for, what? Something. Support, understanding, anything, but all she could see was wide-eyed concern—she’s afraid, Robertson—and something else. Maybe remorse. Denny wasn’t sure, but she somehow sensed that everything had gotten away from Faith, and that they were now both in exactly the same boat, a rather leaky boat that was quickly filling with water and captained by a crazy dude with a gun.

  She had no idea what it meant when Gun Dude told the driver to head for the warehouse, but since the FBI had been following Faith, Denny took a chance that Agent McKinnon would know what the message meant. She could only hope that she’d actually sent the message to Dr. R’s phone and didn’t hit the down arrow one too many times and send a cryptic, possibly-misspelled text message to Aunt Betty’s home phone. That would suck.

  Denny attempted to force down the panic that she was feeling. It didn’t help much, especially considering that she was currently experiencing a level of scared that she’d never imagined before. Make it right? She was pretty sure that any making of anything right was pretty much out the window. Hanging on and hoping for the best was about all that Denny had left.

  “Ms. Robertson? You don’t have much to say.”

  Oh, shit. He was still talking and now he was talking to her. She looked up, tears brimming in her eyes, to
see what the hell he wanted now.

  “What do you want from me?” she asked.

  “I just need you to show me how you managed to get into my system.”

  The look on Denny’s face must have telegraphed her towering disbelief at what she had just heard. Gun Dude just looked at her, finally coming to the realization that she really hadn’t been listening to him before.

  “Ah, Ms. Robertson, you’re confused. I think I understand. I just wanted to make sure that my network was secure, and you’ve shown me, in no uncertain terms, that it’s not.”

  “Of course she’s confused, you idiot,” Faith interjected, showing little concern for the gun that was still pointed in her direction. “You, or whoever the fuck you were pretending to be, hired me to find a kid to break into your system. She really is as naïve as she acts.” Faith hesitated, offering her next comment directly toward Denny. “Right, D?”

  Denny only nodded.

  “She doesn’t know squat between terrorism and all that bullshit about Kazakhstan. She doesn’t even read the news. You wanted wet-behind-the-ears, and that’s exactly what I delivered. She knows all about firewalls and all that techno babble that you love to throw around, but—”

  Denny watched with horror as Skip pulled the gun back up level with the side of Faith’s head. “Faith, I think you need to shut up now.”

  Denny’s terror grew as Faith reacted to Skip’s increased threat. “Knock it off, dude.” She reached up, left-handed, to push the barrel of the gun away from her head. “I got you exactly what you asked for, and now you’re playing all this Mission Impossible bullshit, what with the gun and the limo...Dude. Not cool.”

  Denny was dumbfounded, and she could guess from the look on Gun Dude’s face, that he was right there with her.

  “Listen, right now I’m the only thing that the cops have to tie any crime to. I’m the one who smoked the FBI, remember? Which wasn’t easy, believe me, especially considering that you were the one who tied them to my tail in the first place. I did everything just the way you asked me to, and now, despite the fact that you lied to me, I get that it’s just part of the gig.” She stopped talking to point across the back of the car toward Denny. “I got you your hacker, just like you wanted. I lost the FBI, just like you paid me to do, and now you turn on me, too. Bad form, what’s your real name...Skip? Dude, you need a new nickname if you’re going to do this international terrorism shit.”

  Denny watched the interplay between Skip and Faith, barely able to comprehend what was transpiring. “Okay, Skip... here’s what you need to do. First, put the cannon away. You’re scaring the hell out of the kid.” Denny could hardly believe her eyes as Skip actually lowered his weapon, resting it, still clutched in his right hand, on the seat of the car. “Good choice. Second, you’re going to have Tony pull this overgrown Ford over and let me the fuck out. First rule of international terrorism, Buckwheat: don’t fuck over your help. You wanted to see if your system was secure, and we know now that it’s not, but I’m just as guilty as you are here, despite the fact the FBI only knows about me and not you. I’m the one part of your plan that’s still intact, and keeping me here only makes you look like an amateur. You don’t want that now, do you, Skip?”

  Denny could plainly see the indecision playing out on Skip’s face as he contemplated Faith’s words. Words that did nothing but confuse her. Faith was trying to talk her way out of the back of the limo, and it was starting to look to Denny like it was going to work. He wasn’t answering quickly enough for Faith, however, who continued to work Skip like the professional criminal that Denny was quickly beginning to realize had duped her just as effectively.

  “C’mon, dude. This is stupid. Either shoot me now and show the kid exactly how deep all this shit is, or let me out of this fucking car so I can get back to work.”

  Denny couldn’t believe what was happening. She watched Skip’s finger move idly around the trigger guard of his weapon, wondering if he was actually going to blow Faith’s brains out. She could see the resolve play across his face as he slid the gun into the pocket of his black jacket.

  “Tony, pull over.”

  Oh, shit.

  *

  Terri craned her neck to look around the exterior of the warehouse, silently wishing that they had thought to borrow Jen’s 4Runner rather than take Bobby’s forty-year-old muscle car with the really loud V-8 engine. Since she had no idea if they were actually in the right place, she worried and fumed, looking around for any sign that Denny might be nearby. She could only assume that things had gotten away from Denny, evidenced by the cryptic text message, and she hoped that whoever had shot McNally hadn’t shown up to do the same to Denny.

  Terri was jarred from her thoughts as Bobby stopped the car, lightly grabbing the sleeve of her jacket with one hand, pointing out the windshield of the car with the other. “Terri, look... limo... over there behind that Dumpster.”

  She spotted the car even before Bobby got all of the words out. “Yeah, I see it. Circle around the back of the building and check it out. I’m going inside.”

  Once again, Terri was out of the car and moving, ignoring Bobby’s plea for her to wait. Now was hardly the time for a long discussion about procedures. She pulled her weapon from its holster at the small of her back and slid around the side of the building. She had some knowledge of the layout of the building thanks to the surveillance cameras that the Bureau had placed there earlier, but McNally’s actions had made access to those cameras impossible. “I’d really like to be able to see what the hell is in there,” Terri mused to herself, as she pushed lightly on the first door she reached, hoping that she wasn’t walking into a trap.

  She took a second to allow her vision to make the adjustment from the bright sunshine outside to the hollow, dark interior of the warehouse, and slipped through the door, hiding in the shadows until she reached a stack of crates large enough to hide behind. She took a moment to catch her breath and try to determine if anyone else was inside the building. The dim illumination spilling in from the skylights of the warehouse did little to make her task easier, but the darkness and shadows provided an oddly comforting sense of security. If she couldn’t see them, then they couldn’t see her either. She felt her anxiety reduce to a slow simmer. She leaned around the closest crate to look toward the back of the building. The light filtering out from under a door in the back offered hope that someone was here, and if Terri was lucky, it was Denny and she was safe. For the moment anyway. Terri moved stealthily toward the light, quickly realizing that there was no way to safely see who or what was behind the door. She’d have to draw them out.

  She looked around through the shadows for something, quickly spotting what she had been looking for. A large metal toolbox sitting on the floor next to a forklift. She dropped into a crouch and moved toward the tools. Hopefully, it would be the distraction that she needed.

  *

  “What was that?” Skip turned his attention from Denny, who was attempting to explain the holes in his firewall, to the noise that he had heard out in the warehouse. Skip startled as Denny attempted to call out for help, regaining his composure quickly, turning around to level his Glock right at the bridge of her nose. Denny gasped once and firmly closed her mouth, taking his warning seriously.

  “Not a sound, Ms. Robertson. Okay?”

  Denny nodded quickly, letting Skip know that his message had gotten through. He pulled the door of the office open just enough to slip through and out into the shadows of the warehouse.

  *

  Terri saw motion as the door opened just wide enough for a tall guy with salt-and-pepper gray hair to step out, gun clutched securely in his right hand. She watched as he turned back, offering a statement that Terri couldn’t hear to someone in the office. She could only hope that it was Denny and that she wouldn’t freak out when she saw Terri and start yelling. Terri had no idea what to expect as she lobbed another wrench toward the opposite end of the warehouse, watched the sound register to the t
all guy with the gun, and silently encouraged him to go check out the noise.

  Once he was safely clear of the door and heading toward the diversion that Terri had provided, she stayed low and snuck through the shadows around more stacks of crates, toward the office door. She almost jumped out of her skin when her earpiece crackled to life as Bobby checked in.

  “Terri, come in.”

  “Jesus, Bobby,” she hissed into the sleeve of her jacket as she ducked further into the nearest shadow. “Don’t do that.”

  “Sorry. Just wanted to let you know that I arrested the driver of the limo. He said that his boss is inside with Denny.”

  “Roger that, Bobby. I just got him out of the office and I’m going to check on Denny.”

  “Got it, Terri. Backup is on the way, so check back in when you know more.”

  “Okay. Out.”

  With that, Terri ended the conversation and turned her attention back toward the door to the office after a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure that the tall guy with the gun was still headed the opposite direction. Assured of her safety for the moment, Terri moved quietly toward the door, steeling her nerves to deal with what she could only assume was a terrified Denny who would most likely freak when she spotted the FBI.

  If she hadn’t been so on edge, Terri would have laughed at the wide-eyed expression of shock on Denny’s face as she slid around the corner and into the office. Denny’s quivering lower lip and eyes brimming with tears made Terri wonder if Denny was close to an emotional meltdown that would have drawn the attention of everyone within a two-mile radius. That was the last thing either of them needed. Holding a finger to her lips, Terri urged Denny to remain silent as she tried to come up with a way to get her out of the office and outside to safety.