Where are our Children: A Novel: Complete and Uncut

  Chapter Ten

  My Father’s first mandate states that you and I should respect ourselves. I’ll boldly take his words one step further: I’m sure that he would want us—as Black men, to place ourselves on the highest moral pedestal. We should push ourselves beyond any expectations that society burdens us with. My brothers, we must change how we talk, we must change how we walk. We must set a new standard for our sons and the Rooster’s sons to emulate.

  -Xavier Prince in a speech given at a NACCP rally in July of 2000.

  Thomas

  Atlanta Journal Constitution (Editor’s Suite), NW Atlanta, 14th Day

  Bernard Lott.

  The Senior Editor of the Times was a Black man who stood as tall as he was wide. He had a newly clean shaven head, sleepy eyes, a wide nose, and spoke with an authorize voice fit for command.

  A toothy thin woman who Thomas thought was a one night stand in waiting ushered him into the older man’s office and shut the door as she exited. Lotto was on a conference call with what sounded like two of his beat writers, men that Thomas knew from his time here. Lotto acknowledged his presence without looking up, wrapping up his conference with his guys.

  The suite was spacious and a splendid piece of architecture. It had a spectacular view of the downtown Atlanta skyline behind Lotto’s desk. Across the floor was a loveseat similar to those that Thomas knew were manufactured across the Atlantic, especially in Greece and Italy. Thomas ran his thick fingers across the armrest and his touch confirmed that it was fine Italian engineering after all.

  Photos of Lotto’s meetings with former presidents, prime ministers, state governors and other heads of state lined the far wall. Thomas even saw one showcasing the two of them standing with Ernestine Johnson at some function or the other during her first term as Atlanta’s Mayor.

  Thomas glared at the picture for an extra minute. If we only knew what Mayor Johnson was ahead of us then would we have even bothered to smile?

  Littered on his desk were pictures of Lotto’s grown children when they were much younger. Thomas made a mental note when he noticed that the picture of the man’s wife of thirty some odd years was absent from where it stood before. Thomas knew from experience that it probably meant that Lotto’s fidelity issues were flaring up once more. The room stank of cigar smoke which meant that Lotto wasn’t playing by those rules again either.

  Lotto hit the button ending his call. The Editor and Chief approached him. Thomas grinned, extended his hand…but his former boss would have nothing to do with such a bland formality and bear hugged him instead. Lotto held him close until he got an up close and personal look at Thomas shiner.

  “What in the hell happened to you, Tommy?” Lotto asked. He offered Thomas the chair nearest his desk and sat back down in his own recliner. Lotto deactivated the alarm for the window from a button underneath his desk and while still seated, manually opened it behind him. Two minutes later he got his cigar going the way he wanted to.

  “Nothing,” Thomas lied to his friend. “And everything. How are you, Lotto? You called me remember. It was an important enough issue for you not to leave this to one of your assistants but to make the call yourself. Why did you ask for me to come down here?”

  “You know it’s always good to see you, Tommy.” He said, and eased back into the recliner. He took two puffs of his cigar. “Now, which one was it? I just have to know?”

  Thomas grinned again.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Ernest.”

  Lotto pointed the ash end of the cigar at Thomas eye. “Which one of those estranged husband’s finally nailed your ass.”

  Thomas laughed out loud.

  Lotto said, “Come one, Tommy. I’ve got a 100 bucks riding on this.”

  “You’ve got it all wrong. It’s not like that at all.” Thomas replied.

  And it wasn’t.

  Thomas had just exited the city’s largest public library after doing some extended research on Microfiche about Pandora’s origins dating back to the 1980’s. Thomas hadn’t trusted using his computer or doing much else in his townhome since Serena’s impromptu visit. He had three different highly capable organizations in the FBI, A House in Chains and Pandora who were probably tapping into his private affairs. It was enough to make even him nervous.

  And now he had the incident outside the library to add to his paranoia.

  Thomas had noticed a white man, who needed a new suit, trailing his footsteps and stopped to confront him on the reason why before he reached the more secluded and dark areas of the parking garage. The man was half way lit up on…something…and told Thomas that he thought it was real fucked up that he’d betray his own people for the likes of them. Thomas calmly explained that he was doing his job. He was going to gather in the facts. And let those facts decide—that’s when the man got in his face and looked to dip his hand into his coat pocket to grab something.

  Thomas punched him first. His opponent got in a couple of jabs in, but Thomas used his superior size, strength, stamina, and boxing experience to wear the culprit down. The street looked empty afterwards. Thomas was sure that he’d broken the man’s nose as he saw there was blood racing from it and his mouth as well.

  “Tommy?” Lotto had been trying to extend a cup of coffee to him for how long? “Do you want this or not?”

  “Yea,” Thomas said, trying to swim up the current back into the present. “And which of these husbands did you bet on finding out about me and his wife?”

  Lotto took another long puff off of his cigar and let the thick smoke filter out of his nose. “Telling you would spoil most of the fun. And don’t you dare look at me like that. You should know better than to take it personal, Tommy.” Lotto said. “You know that I’m all about two things: Business and winning.”

  “Business, huh, well, it’s good to know that no matter how much the Earth may spinoff of its axis from time to time that some things don’t change, especially here at the Times.” Thomas sat up straight and put his shoes flat on the hard wood floor as if he were bracing himself. “What’s this about, Ernest?”

  Lotto punched the ash end of his cigar out in this ashtray which Thomas always took as a sign that the man was ready for business. “Don’t play coy with me, Tommy, You know what I want.”

  Thomas nodded. “Ok, so let’s say that I do. You know that I can’t do it even if I wanted to. I can’t discuss any of it on any official level.”

  “Of course you can’t, Tommy Boy…but you’ll do it anyway. Lotto pulled what looked to be a two page document out of his brief case and slid it over to his side of the desk. Thomas glanced over the letterhead briefly. “After I hung up with you yesterday, I cleared this with the publisher and now know that I can offer you this proposal.”

  Thomas scanned the finer points of the context including an impressive six figure compensation with his name typed at the bottom. The document only needed his signature next to his printed name for it to be complete. He slid it back to his former employer, never taking his fingers off until it until it reached him.

  “Sorry,” Thomas said. “That’s a no go, Lotto. And before you start…it’s not about the money. That’s more than a fair offer and I thank you for it. But it’s a no go. And I don’t want to hear anything else about it.”

  Ernest Lott got to his feet. “Oh, you’ll hear me out, Tommy Boy, and you’ll like what I’m telling you.”

  Thomas rose with his friend and put his hands in his pockets. “Right,” He said. “Next, you’ll have me believe that Ernest Lott, super editor, will stoop to the level of indignity of what is known as begging me.”

  “I was hoping you would save me that much trouble, but what the hell?” Lotto planted his elbows on the desk and assumed a praying pose that Thomas would have thought priceless if it were at all genuine. “Alright, Tommy, I am officially begging you.”

  “Save it, Lotto.” Thomas smiled and sat back down and waited on his friend and mentor to do the same. Thomas spread his hands wide
. “I am doing an investigation for our former Mayor. A woman that this paper…and you endorsed in her campaign for that office twice; I’m going to present my findings from this investigation soon. You know that I can’t ally myself with any media outlet of any type if I’m to retain the slightest chance in hell of neutrality on this one.” Thomas stopped for breath and to measure how his friend was taking in all of this. “You are the Senior Editor in Chief of a newspaper that has been traditionally classified as a liberal publication.”

  Lotto sat up straight and put his own thick finger index finger in front of his lips. “You know using the term liberal is forbidden if not taboo terminology in this building, Tommy Boy.” He sat back then, resting his hands behind his bald head. “I thought I taught you better than that. You apparently laminated all those notes about journalistic integrity and that other bullshit, but forgot all about loyalty.”

  Thomas’ gaze turned serious. “I haven’t forgotten what you and this paper did for my career.”

  Lotto snorted. “You could have fooled me. It wasn’t easy for a lowly junior editor working in Chicago to convince his bosses to give a snotty nose kid fresh out of a small, irrelevant, area state college a shot at the big time. You began writing for one of the largest distributed daily papers in the country.”

  Thomas smiled at the memory of days long gone by. “I’ve told you time and time again, Lotto, that wasn’t snot in my nose. I was living on chicken soup back in those days.”

  “Maybe, but I wasn’t finished yet,” Lotto snapped his finger, remembering another detail. “And then many years later, I also gave the first rousing review for an unauthorized biography of Cathy Hooks that most papers called slightly bloated, if now well overwritten.”

  “And may I remind you that the bloated and overwritten biography won a Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction that year.” Thomas straightened his tie for emphasis. “And its author gave his first interview to the paper you were editing when the book hit number one of the New York Times Bestseller List.”

  Lotto looked wounded. “I thought our relationship had grown well beyond reciting what we’ve done for one another, Tommy Boy.” And then a grin formed on his face. “You continue to disappoint me, Thomas. I guess I have no one else to blame but myself. I had such high hopes for you.”

  “Join the crowd. But then good judgment never has been my strong suit has it?”

  “That interview Beverly Hooks, Cathy’s daughter was one of the few. How is the old girl?”

  She wasn’t well and Thomas told his friend with a degree of sadness. Beverly’s oldest son had put his mother into a nursing home after a year of complications from Alzheimer’s made it impossible for him and his wife to care for her any longer. Thomas thought it was remarkable that a woman who had such a remarkably sharp memory could lose it all in such a short span of time. She was Thomas main source for the biography about her mother Cathy—a survivor of the Atlanta riots of 1906. Cathy had disobeyed her father’s instructions to stay in the house when an assembly of white men took her father away when they came looking for some Black Man…any Black man to lynch for the rape and murder of a couple of white women in the alley behind an after-hours establishment. Cathy had tracked them down as they readied her father for his lynching and hanging. Beverly had told Thomas that the leader of the mob was a White man that she’d seen hanging around with her dad on numerous occasions as they drink and whored together.

  The old White man had told Cathy’s father that she had one—and only one chance to leave there before she risked being raped and murdered herself. Tearfully, Cathy’s father kissed his devoted daughter on her forehead and pleaded with her to run away. He told her to run away and not look back. Cathy looked into her father’s eyes for a few seconds more with a waterfall of tears in her eyes and did as her father beckoned.

  She did not look back.

  “Thomas,” Lotto had said when the old tale had told itself out. It was time to get on with the here and the now “Look, what happened down at your townhouse…and then at the FBI field office, seriously. Are you alright?”

  Thomas felt a warmness flow through his shoulder blades. He was reminded why he appreciated this man’s friendship. “Yea, thanks. I’m going to get through this someway or the other. If Cathy Hooks can stare down a racist mob and live to see another day then I can see this through to its end without looking back as well.”

  “I know that you will.”

  “Well, in case I don’t, you can help me help you.”

  “You’re not making any sense, Tommy Boy.”

  Thomas Pepper gave the Senior Editor’s office a hard once over and then lowered his voice. “I told you that I won’t share what I know with you in any official capacity. But I will tell you what I know unofficially. These are serious people that I’m dealing with across the aisle…across all these aisles.”

  “Tommy Boy, you sound a little scared.”

  “I am scared, Lotto. If I wasn’t…then being questioned by the FBI before and after Serena’s escape and seeing on television what Xavier Prince and a House in Chains did at Carver instilled a little fear in me.”

  “Alright, Thomas, if you need me to be confidential, then I will be. What do you have?”

  Thomas reached into his jacket and slid his own two page document at the other man. “I’m sorry, Lotto. Even your word is not good enough considering what I know and the ramifications of it being leaked before I’m ready to talk.”

  Ernest Lott yanked an expensive fountain pen from his shirt pocket, scanned the papers briefly…and scribbled his name next to the printed version at the bottom of the page.

  “I’m giving this paper…and you to right disclose this information if I am somehow incapacitated before I’m ready to take this public.” Thomas said.

  “I’m the Senior Editor here, Thomas.” Ernest Lott said with some heat. Thomas knew the man was upset about having to sign a contract. But Thomas needed the extra protection against Lotto running this story in the Times. He knew his old mentor wouldn’t like it, but he knew that he would sign the document just as he did. He also knew that he would get over it…in due time. “I can read. Now talk to me.”

  Thomas had gained an anonymous source. He (or she) had contacted him on his cell shortly before Thomas had his second interview with Special Agents Christopher Prince and Tabitha Blue at the field office just prior to Serena’s escape during Deliverance. The voice was disguised electronically. It said: The world wrongly believes that Adolphus Sweet was killed by a sniper’s bullet.

  Thomas remembered the man had been campaigning for a second term near in Houston when he went down from a sniper’s bullet as he left the Toyota Center. The president did not die that day…he was already dead before that bullet struck him. The assignation attempt only expedited the process of the guilty party going through what they had been planning to do all along.

  Ernest Lott sat back in his recliner again and let out a low whistle. “Ernestine asked you to find the questions to the three questions that every Man of Color…what most people in this country wants to know: Who killed President Adolphus Sweet, who is the Caretaker, and what is the Whirlwind?

  Thomas nodded but looked away.

  “So what did the ‘source’ tell you the real reason behind President Sweet’s death?”

  “He was poisoned…just like Ernestine Johnson was.” The poison sat inactive inside of his system for weeks. The responsible party only activated it after Sweet was shot.

  “Do you believe this source, Thomas?”

  Thomas shook his head…and then nodded. “I didn’t, not at first. But I went back and looked at the footage. You know that the conspiracy theorist were all over this anyway. The official report said the bullet punched in through the president’s side, but the conspiracy theories state that he was either hit in the thigh or not at all. Most men don’t die from bullet wounds to the hip…especially in the hours afterwards that it took the Vice President to make the public announcement that Sweet
had indeed been killed.”

  “Alright, Thomas, let’s say that I’m going to side with you and your informant on that front. What about evidence about the presence of a foreign toxin in Sweet’s system?”

  “The whole world saw part of the evidence…and saw none of it when his funeral aired on national television days later—“

  “We saw none of it because his casket was closed.”

  Thomas nodded, happy that his friend had caught on to his logic so quickly. “That fact alone had fed the conspiracy theorist that horrible day. They were stating that Adolphus Sweet wasn’t even in the casket at all. I believe that he was, but he had suffered through and had been scarred by what I’d watched Mayor Johnson go through at her estate.”

  “What else?”

  “I called the Director of the Center for Disease Control here in Atlanta which you and I both know is the first line of defense for this country in any war against any disease.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He said,” Thomas paused for a very long time and a cold shiver had replaced the earlier warm one that he’d experienced for the man sitting across him. “He said no comment.”

  Ernest Lott shot out of his seat like a missile. The senior of the two men scratched the back of his shaven head and had to use his desk for support. The old newspaper man suspected what Thomas Pepper had suspected. “You can’t make a ‘no comment’ on something you don’t know about. By saying what he did, the man is admitting that President Adolphus Sweet was indeed poisoned by some foreign agent and that his office new about it.”

  “That means the Vice President knew about it as well. If I’ve read this correctly in my research then only a handful of people in the entire world would know about this: The Vice President and the Head of the Center for Disease Control in the United States are two, as well as the head of the CIA and the head of the FBI. So far, Deputy Director Rice’s people aren’t acknowledging my phone calls. It’s not about calling back…they aren’t acknowledging that I’m calling at all.”

  Lotto rubbed at his jaw as if he himself had been punched and not Thomas. He got up and closed the blinds of the windows in his office. “I’ll get back to Sweet in a moment. Did this source tell you anything else, Thomas? Did you learn who this Caretaker character is or was? What about this so called Whirlwind?”

  I will only disclose to you who the Caretaker is only if I feel the Whirlwind is imminent. The first answer leads directly to the latter.

  Lotto sat back down and asked,” I can only guess that this source is or was a Pandora Agent?”

  “That’s what he told me.”

  “Then why come to you—“

  “Because he feels betrayed somehow; I don’t know how and I don’t know by whom.” Thomas took a deep breath; the telling of this tale had taken a lot out of him.” Thomas cell phone was on mute but the light lit up with a brand new text message.

  “Anyone woman I know?” Lotto watched him reach into his pants pocket.

  I need to see you, Thomas. The message said but oddly had not provided a sender. Yet, somewhere in his marrow Thomas Pepper knew who had sent him the text. Serena Tennyson. He hoped his intuition was just a theory and told Lotto the same in a voice he had reserved for delivering tales of disbelief.

  Lotto laughed heartily enough to move a mountain. “Serena Tennyson texting you on your phone… don’t you Goddamn wish?”

  A second later Lotto’s office buzzer sounded off. He politely, but sternly reminded his receptionist that he’d asked not to be disturbed unless a race war had broken out in the streets of Atlanta. She apologized, but hung on the line. Her lone response to her boss was that he really wanted to take this call.

  Thomas asked, “Any woman I know?”

  Lotto frowned at his younger friend but did not comment. Thomas could see him working his brain cells for remembrance of any potential appointment that he could have missed. He cursed aloud in recollection, apologized to the receptionist for his language and then instructed her to put the call through.

  “It is some woman you know, actually.” He made sure the line was clear of his receptionist probing ears. “This is someone that you would know better than anyone who works in this building actually.” He said. “I have the best writer of prose that I have ever had the privilege of editing sitting before me. And yet a younger woman that I’m getting to know as well could possibly top your work, if only she would dedicate herself to it. I have little doubt that she could rival your success, Tommy Boy.”

  “Bernard Lott,” Thomas frowned in anticipation of knowing who the other man was speaking of. “Tell me you didn’t—“

  “Oh, yes, I did.” He said with a grin. “I anticipated you turning down my offer and prepared a preemptive strike to counter it. Sorry, Tommy Boy, remember what I said when I told you that I’m all about business and winning.” The phone in front of him beeped and Lott picked up and turned the line on its conference setting as it was positioned when Thomas Pepper first walked in this suite. “Hi Lucy,” Lotto said with his eyes burning through Thomas as his own comfort level went down a notch or two. “Say hello to Thomas.”

  “Hello, Ernest how are you,” Lucy said in her South African accident and Thomas could imagine her flashing her overbite as she smiled. “Thomas, I didn’t expect to talk to you today darling, what a pleasant surprise.”

  “Lucy,”

  She continued. “Alright, Bernard, enough with the messages already, you know that I’ve been busy. And you should already know that I want this assignment…under certain conditions, of course.”

  “Conditions,” Lotto’s bushy brow raised his master plan somewhat in jeopardy. “What conditions are you speaking of?”

  “Calm yourself, Bernard, my conditions for taking this assignment are pretty simple and straight forward enough.” Lucy replied. The background noise made it sound as if she were driving on the expressway. Thomas hoped she was using her hands free device. “I want total control of the subject matter, darling. We are already in agreement about the material, but I want to drive home some other concepts you may not have considered. What you have pitched is a wonderful idea under normal circumstances, but considering what our story is up against in Thomas’ announcement about his findings causes us to have to dig deeper if we are even to compete for page two.”

  Lotto looked hopeful again. “I’ll take all of that to say that you’ve uncovered something worthwhile?”

  Thomas felt the buzz of his cell before Lucy answered Lotto’s question.

  “Wrap up your conversation with Lott and me at the Children’s Healthcare Center of Atlanta. It was a twenty minute walk from the Times, ten minutes if he hurried. And he felt cold again as a second more ominous thought fought past the urgency of the first. She’s knows where you are. Pandora is having you followed…or worse you have some type of tracking device on your person or your car. Let’s test that theory by walking down there instead of driving the Jaguar.

  Lucy was saying, “Sorry, darling, I had to dig in my wallet to get a couple of dollars out to pay the toll. What I was going to say is that I don’t have anything concrete enough to go with it yet. I am close however. And you know how I get when I want something bad enough…”

  Thomas wasn’t sure her reference was for Lotto or his ears. Her boss said, “Double your efforts, Lucy. I’ve already purchased time with the local superstation. I want your report to air the same day as Thomas airs his. I’ll speak to you again later, Lucy. Good hunting.”

  “You bet your ass you will, Ernest,” Lucy said. “Goodbye, Thomas. I’m still waiting on you to consider the offer I made to you back at the Mayor’s estate. Remember, together, we will live forever. ” She said and hung up before he had a chance to answer.

  Thomas beat his former boss to the question line. “What was all that about?”

  “Don’t look surprised,” Lotto said and lit his cigar again. “I won’t play second fiddle to anyone in this city, Tommy Boy, not even to the likes
of you. After you present your findings on Pandora, Lucy will hold a press conference shedding some light on one of the other key players in this game.”

  “Bernard Lott, tell me that you wouldn’t have this woman fabricate a story to sell newspapers. I hope I know you better than that.”

  Lotto stood again so he could dramatize holding his hand of his heart all the better. “You wound me, Tommy Boy…you wound me.” And then he leaned over his desk so Thomas would not mistake what he heard from an old newspaper editor in chief himself. “Besides, the truth can be far more devastating and more importantly to me…newsworthy than any lie. I’ll let you in on something, Thomas, and I won’t make you sign anything to hear it.” After Thomas exhaled in exasperation, Lotto said, “I’ve received several tips that someone directly involved has not been forthcoming with his background. I hear that this has something to do with directly why we are all involved in this crisis in the first place. Lucy’s tying up some loose ends right now as we speak. I believe this information to be relevant. I believe that it is pertinent. I believe that the public has the right to know. I’m going with it. And you would be too if you were sitting in my chair instead of the one you’re perched in.”

  This time it was the sound of defeat exhaling through Thomas’ nostrils. “Who has Lucy been assigned to do this expose on?” Thomas said. “Whose life is she going to destroy for the sake of increased revenue from advertising ads?”

  “None of it won’t be necessary, Thomas, if you’ll tear up this.” Lotto pushed the contract that he’d signed a few minutes ago, back towards Thomas. The younger man simply shook his head. The older woman laid his head back in recliner and puffed triumphantly on his cigar. The smoke making rings around his clean shaven head. Lotto was already counting this year’s bonus…which wouldn’t fall to far underneath the dollar figure he’d offered Thomas twenty minutes ago.

  “The expose will feature the life and times of…Special Agent Christopher Prince, “The Senior Editor of the Atlanta Times said. “I think you’ve already met his acquaintance.”

  Xavier

  1224 Red Wine Road, 14th Day

  Two members of the Circle sat in Moses Jackson home.

  Xavier Prince heard Warren Washington say, “On behalf of Xavier Prince, myself, and the entire House in Chains extended family, I assure you Ms. Jackson, your son Moses, will be found.

  It was a bold proclamation. But it was not unlike any Xavier Prince had taught his people to say. I wonder if Roxanne Sanchez made a similar vow to you, Chris and Denise before she went off and found my niece…very dead. Grace Edwards had told him this as well two days before. And for a minute he wondered if the liberation of Carver had anything to do with Erica’s demise. Grace assured him otherwise. The condition the young woman’s body had been found it told examiners that it had been in that dumpster for a week or more. And she wasn’t on the Peacekeeper’s list.

  “Uh-huh,” Tracy Jackson mumbled more than said something aloud. She had greeted the two men sitting in her living room and a half dozen more Peacekeepers with a cut off shirt barely hiding her breast and tight jeans. “Marlon, Manning, one of you two get your mamma a beer.”

  The two boys, no older than nine and ten years old, argued about who was going to the refrigerator this time, until Xavier heard the larger pair of dirty sneakers angling towards the kitchen. Tracy fished a broken Newport out of her breast pocket and turned her focus to the two members of the Circle who sat across the coffee table from her.

  “Either of you fancy brothers got a light?”

  Warren fumbled around in his pockets while Xavier leaned over the table with his lighter, Tracy meaning to greet him half way.

  “Tracy,” Felicia, Moses maternal grandmother warned her only daughter. Felicia Jackson was trapped inside of a mostly broken down body but her mind was still sharp…and her tongue had proven sharper since they’d all sat down. “You know you don’t smoke in this house or any other where your children are present. Mr. Prince please put your lighter away, it won’t be needed.”

  Tracy’s quivering hands caused the cigarette to drop to the floor. She got a mix of a sense of urgency and agitation on her dark face. “Wait just a damned minute,” She said. “I don’t have to remind you again whose house this is now right, Mamma?”

  “Of course not, dear,” Felicia Jackson smiled in spite of her child’s disrespectful tone. “More importantly, I don’t have to remind you that these are your children. And you do not smoke around them, especially your youngest who has asthma anyway.”

  Tracy decided to give up the fight for another day, circled the long way around the coffees table away from where her mother was seated, and snatched the cigarette and Xavier’s lighter in one motion.

  “I’ll bring this back.”

  Xavier saw a cloud of blue smoke rise above the younger woman’s shoulder before the screened door slammed shut. Xavier hoped she would keep her word because he didn’t have a spare lighter on him. He stuck a toothpick in his mouth. Warren shifted his gray eyes, focusing his attention on Tracy’s mother. He cleared his throat.

  “As I was saying, we’ve set up dozens of search teams filled with volunteers who are casing the surrounding neighborhoods.”

  Xavier added, “We’ve also established safe houses in most of these same neighborhoods. These residences have been equipped with flashing yellow rotating lights that will run 24 hours a day until these children are found. They also have loudspeakers that have been programmed to repeat each of the four missing boys names individually with a message telling them that it safe to enter homes. When Moses or any of the missing children show, they’ll have a safe haven and a friendly face waiting to either call us or bring them home to you themselves.”

  “Friendly,” She said, her smile never wavering underneath too red of lipstick. “Mr. Prince, how many of your people died at Carver?”

  Xavier shook himself out of a stupor and pushed the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other with the sudden change of subject and the venom for which it was directed at him. She sat back on the worn loveseat, crossed her arms, and awaited his response. Warren sat with his mouth parted open and shifted his eyes back and forth between his leader and Felicia Jackson.

  “There were 12 confirmed souls lost.” He said evenly. “I visited four area hospitals this morning and seven more of our people are listed anywhere from fair condition to still needing intensive care.”

  She nodded as if Xavier were only confirming what she already knew as fact. “And the Choir Boy dead have risen well over 75 or 80 last I heard. There are four Carver residents among the dead as well, with countless others still admitted to those same local hospitals you speak of.”

  Xavier didn’t break her gaze…or blink.

  “That is correct.”

  “Was it all worth it, Mr. Prince?”

  Warren shifted his long frame in his seat. Xavier continued to hold his gaze. Considering the hoops we’ve had to jump with local and national authorities ever since I would almost say no. But Grace had it handled as she had everything handled. With Admiral Ronald Broward killed in the battle, another man Admiral Ronaldo Darwin, a formal marine in the armed services, fell on his sword for his House. Immediately after Carver had been liberated, he walked into the Atlanta Police Department Headquarters armed only with the black tee shirt, khakis of his Peacekeeper uniform…and an severed Usher’s head with him in a plastic bag. The head belonged to a previously 22 year old man—who was the highest ranking Usher and number three man of the Choir Boys as both The Bishop and his Deacon had escaped them. Darwin put the head on the counter and announced to the second officer who he saw what his own name was, his rank, and that he had authorized this rouge operation out of the knowledge of the Circle or Xavier Prince.

  The second officer called for plenty of backup and took notes has fast as she could. She noted the tags that were attached to this…head and that the authorities would find on all of the skulls that had to be taken took down
from the electric wires. Darwin, given his Miranda rights and in cuffs now, explained it all to her as slowly as he could manage. These are forms of ID. Do you people think we just go around and kill just anybody we saw? We have matched the Id’s, social security numbers, and the warrants that were out on each corpse with 100 percent accuracy.

  Xavier had been told that the officers then walked Darwin to the processing area after he finished his statement, careful to step around the first officer who had greeted him…and had passed out from seeing the severed head when he sat it on the officer’s desk.

  “It was,” He finally said in response to Felicia Jackson’s question to whether it was worth the lives his side had paid to take Carver back from the Choir Boys. He cleared his throat so she would hear him clearly…echoing the words that he had said in a press conference after Darwin’s confession. “The Peacekeeper’s cut through all of the bureaucracy and red tape. They alone did what local, state and national authorities failed to do: They eliminated a dangerous threat in our community who poisoned our people with despair and illegal drugs. And although their operation was without my blessing or consent, I applaud it all the same.”

  Felicia nodded, though she never broke eye contact with him.

  “I heard the Bishop escaped you. I also heard that he has HIV if not full blown AIDS.”

  And it had been the curse of them not acting earlier. Of the 22 women and girls who had been a part of the Bishops’ harem, 20 had tested positive for HIV already. That number had been confirmed by Grace from a source she had within the Atlanta Center for Disease Control.

  “He has escaped for now.” Warren squirmed in his seat again. “But his entire support system is gone. Word is that he’s been wounded. He got a slash right across the throat. And another rumor has it that the Black Knights and other local gangs are trying to kill him before we find him. They’ve seen the light of our…the Peacekeeper’s commitment to end their illegal activities by whatever hostile actions they deem necessary. The other gangs are putting the blame squarely on his shoulders. No one wants that light to shine on their doings ever again. It’s just a matter of time before Bishop’s found, just like your Moses.”

  Xavier heard voices outside. The neighbors had obviously gotten wind of the Circle visiting their community and had gathered around fences and street corners and front yards for a peek at A House of Chains governing body. Percy Harrison had led one of the volunteer groups in a search for the missing boys. Grace Edwards had been outside with the Peacekeepers trying to keep the mob at bay. Xavier was worried about his Third in Command. She seemed really shaken since the news about the women being inflicted by the Bishop’s HIV, maybe she knew one of the women personally who had been infected—

  “There are so many people out there.” Felicia looked past him out of the screened door.

  “I apologize for the circus atmosphere, especially now, Ms. Jackson.” He looked at Warren. “Why don’t you look in on Grace…and perhaps give her a hand.”

  “I’m sure she’s okay.”

  “Why don’t you have a look in on her anyway?”

  The two men, who couldn’t be more at the end of the height spectrum, engaged in a brief stare down that the younger man with the gray eyes seems all too happy to break. He exited the small house following Tracy’s path disgusted…and defeated.

  Afterwards Xavier found himself counting to ten before saying, “Have I done or said anything to offend you, Ms. Jackson?”

  Felicia smiled through her ruby red lipstick again. “That has yet to be seen, Mr. Prince.” With some effort she scooted to the edge of the loveseat avoiding springs that were sticking out along the way. “You know, I didn’t vote for Senator Lavelle in the Democratic Primaries.”

  “Excuse me?”

  She said, “You know, when he ran for president two years ago…but you were away in jail at that time, I’m sorry. Anyway, I didn’t really like Mr. Lavelle all that much anyway; he’s just so full of himself and arrogant. Anyway, I also didn’t feel that A House in Chains was ready for the type of responsibility it was casting on itself if Lavelle had won the White House. I don’t think you people have enough political experience. A House of Chains has become an organization full of style and preamble, but I think you lack substance…just one old woman’s opinion.”

  Yes, you are an old woman full of passion and grit and intelligence. He could grow to her indeed. “It is unfortunate for my House that Lavelle couldn’t garner the support of voters like you, Ms. Jackson. He was narrowly defeated by only a few hundred votes. I respectfully disagree with you on a House in Chains political standing. We were ready to lead. We are leading. A victory for Lavelle would have been victory for all our people, especially in light of the challenges we face now.”

  She continued to smile but said nothing to that.

  This…discussion had been spirited but fruitless, he had thought. It was time to bet back on point for his visit to this woman’s home in the first place. “Ms. Jackson, if you have any doubts that your grandson will be found alive—“

  “I don’t have any doubts whatsoever, Mr. Prince.” She scooped up a pocket sized Bible off of the coffee table. She held it firmly in her right hand for Xavier to glimpse in case he had not seen one before. “My faith rest in a much higher power than Xavier Prince or your House; and that faith also confirms that I will see Moses again, if not in this life, I will be with him again in the next.”

  Xavier took his turn at squirming in his seat. He lowered his eyes to the floor and wished for a cigarette of his own. Politics was one thing, but Xavier Prince would not argue someone’s spiritualty, especially in their own home.

  “Faith,” He found himself saying…it was within his realm to question his own spiritualty however. Why am I admitting any of this you? You are a stranger to me. “Sometimes I find it difficult to believe.”

  She’d chastised him for everything thing else…but as he braced himself for the stern lecture he got another round of her smiles instead. “Then, Xavier Prince, I will have to believe for the both of us.” She said. She saved her chastising for Tracy’s younger boys who were running through the small house again. She let the room regain some semblance of quite again before she spoke. “Share something with me?”

  “Of course,”

  “Is finding these children more important for their families or for the House in Chains?”

  Xavier swallowed hard. He’d lied to Ronald Broward’s widow when he told her that although her husband and father to her two children had died honorably, but had partaken in a rogue operation that he had not sanctioned. He listened as Warren stated the same fabrication just a few minutes earlier. Thomas Pepper was not the only man in this town who could utter the truth. He would do so right now.

  “Both,” he admitted to her. “Getting those children back into the loving arms of their families is my first priority of course…but yes, Ms. Jackson, I need them found as well. I haven’t spoken to you about victories since I’ve been in your home. We earned one with the liberation of Carver. A House in Chains needs one over Pandora. After 411 and Deliverance…and now Rapture in its earliest stages, I need our community to see that we can stand toe to toe and blow for blow in this embattled arena with our enemies. I want People of Color to see that we can protect them from all dangers.”

  Felicia’s smile remained…and it seemed to gain a little warmth to it. “You spoke about offending me earlier, Mr. Prince, I want you to know that I never find the truth offensive.”

  He nodded and pulled the toothpick out of his mouth. “May I ask you a question?”

  Felicia spread her arms out as far as they would reach. “The floor, as dirty as it may be, is yours.”

  Xavier stole a quick gander at the screened door to make sure no one was walking it as he spoke. “Why don’t you have custody of your grandchildren? Please forgive me for saying this: Your daughter seems…unstable if not vulnerable in her role as a parent.”

  “To call my Tracy anythi
ng but unstable would be a kindness that she does not deserve, Mr. Prince. She is a crack addict.” She said emphatically. “To answer your question: I did take temporary custody of my grandchildren until my health failed me over the past 18 or so months.”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Jackson.”

  “No, it is I who should apologize to you. I am another in the line of mothers who have unleashed an ignorant, irresponsible, baby making fool into a Black Community already over burden with them.” She went silent for a moment, gathering herself. Xavier thought he saw tears swell in her eyes. After she collected herself she said: “No mother ever wants to believe that her child is capable of doing wrong. I’ve learned though continuous trial and error to know better.”

  Xavier crossed the room to where the older woman was sitting and grabbed her wrinkled hands and gave them a gentle squeeze. If only you could have lived to see this ripe old age, Mother. Oh how I would have treasured our time together. “It pleases me to see how important family is to you, Ms. Jackson. Generations of stronger families would have eliminated the need for a House in Chains. My father believed that.”

  Felicia nodded in agreement. “He did at that.” She said. “Isaac Prince was a truly great man. We all miss him.”

  Xavier felt an anger rising up in his chest with a suddenness that he couldn’t explain. He let go of the old woman’s hands. “You didn’t know my father.”

  “No, I didn’t know him personally, of course, but I did follow him.” Ms. Jackson twisted around in her seat for Xavier to see a chain link tattooed on the nape of her neck. “I believed in him. I believed in his mandates, I still do. And I trust my instincts when I say that your father would have found another deterrent with dealing with Carver. Did the Circle consider using the Peacekeepers to blockade the projects? After a few months the isolation would have isolated The Choir Boys and starved their ability to make money.”

  “Yes, we considered many options—“

  “I just find it hard to believe that your father would have approved of a full scale assault on lowly drug dealers and thugs when you have a probable conflict with Pandora hovering over the horizon.”

  Xavier rose abruptly, shook Ms. Jackson’s hand and thanked her for her hospitality. He turned for the front door needing some air, not waiting on her to respond. He excused himself but not before he heard the final words she said to him before the screen door closed behind him.

  These other two boys awaken nearly every night with nightmares about dying in this Whirlwind that Serena Tennyson keeps spewing about. She had said. They love their brother; they miss him…but they are more afraid for themselves than they are for him.

  He stood outside and let the brushfire smell fill his lungs. He was about damned tired of people doubting his decisions and doubting his ability to get his people through this. Still, Isaac Prince’s voice said to him. Go back in there right now, son…and apologize to that woman. Remember what you told the Circle about Senator Lavelle’s brash behavior.

  He opened the screened door, calmed his nerves with some considerable effort, and found Ms. Jackson in the same spot where he had found her. “You have been loyal to my father, to me and to our House. I have disrespected your home and I know he wouldn’t have approved of that.”

  30 minutes later the sun had nearly retired in the western sky and had taken both all the warmth and some of Xavier’s faith with it. Worse, the stench of the burning wildfires had become almost unbearable as the smoke seemed to sit on top of this specific spot where he was standing. The crowd had dispersed somewhat because of it, but mostly, he knew, in anticipation of another night of sporadic gunfire that plagued neighborhoods like this one all over Atlanta and urban America. There were little Carvers everywhere.

  Grace had found her way to the other side of the Jackson’s wooden fence.

  “Hi,” She said.

  “Hey.”

  She updated him on what she knew about Pandora, the missing children, any and everything that he could possibly need to know. Afterwards they both allowed the silence to breath even if they struggled to.

  “Thank you for your words back at Morehouse.”

  Grace shook her braids and smiled. “There is no need for thanks, Xavier. I told you then…I’m telling you again now, I am here for you. I am here for our house.”

  Xavier nodded. He needed a cigarette but Tracy Jackson still had his lighter. He wouldn’t insult this woman who had been so good to him by asking her for something he knew she wouldn’t be carrying on her.

  Intelligence was Grace Edwards business…it was her life. He was sure that she knew his life story as well, the real reason he was so uncomfortable about building true relationships beyond physicality with women. She had to know that his father had left Chris’ mother…abandoned her, even after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer, for love and affections of his mom.

  And though he had forgiven them both…until both of them were taken from him, he had never allowed himself to become emotionally attached to any woman…ever. “I don’t think I ever came to terms with relationships in general after I learned about my parent’s affair.” He said to Grace Edwards aloud as if his previous thoughts had been aloud as well. “It’s torn at everything I’ve believed in about family. My boys are my family. Chris is my family. I have no one else except this House that my father built. It is like whispers in the dark. God, I can’t believe that I still struggle to talk about this after all of these years.”

  She nearly grabbed his arm, thought the better of it. Xavier lowered his head, his heart aching.

  “Perhaps we shouldn’t talk about this anymore today.” She suggested instead.

  “My mother broke up a marriage.” There. He had said it aloud for Grace…and the whole damned world to hear if they already didn’t know. “I loved my father. I love my brother, Chris. I loved…yes, I still I believed I loved my mother as well. I honored her memory when I took those lashes for each year she lived on this earth when James Carter desecrated my back with his whip back in school. I just don’t think I’ve been completely able to forgive her for her role in what the two of them did to a dying woman. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to trust a woman…or myself completely to remain monogamous in any relationship.”

  And if I required further proof, then all I needed was to watch what Denise Prince enabled her daughter Erica Lovings almost to do to Chris when she supported her lies. He needed to see his brother’s face again. But how, what circumstance will allow the time or space for us to pull it off; I can only see an act of God allowing us to.

  Grace had regained her resolve…her sense of courage. She ran a finger along his sideburns. “Trust me or not…it doesn’t really matter.” Grace said and entangled herself in his arms. She was soft and hard all at once. “You are loved nonetheless, Xavier Prince.” She said. “I love you, Xavier Prince.”

  The proclamation stung him so intently that he went cold all over. He had suspected the attraction of course, perhaps even with her smaller frame, he had even desired a physical relationship…but love? He wasn’t emotionally prepared to deal with that possibility right now.

  “Grace,” He said slowly. “I don’t think I can—“

  She smothered him with kisses to his cheeks, jaws, and chin. It was him who drew her in. She even tried to pull back but he only kissed her harder until she had accepted his full kiss.

  He’d fathered two boys and had a multitude of sexual conquest over the years, but had never experienced something this powerful…this wonderful in his entire life.

  He felt warm inside.

  He felt hard outside.

  He felt a…buzzing…

  “Sorry,” Grace said and looked at her smart phone, which had been set to silent and buzzed when they were close. “Pepper’s on the move. I have people following him but there is something that I want to see for myself.”

  In an instant she’d transferred from a vulnerable woman melting in his arms to Grace Edwards, the Number Three member of the
Circle who was the Chief Intelligence Officer with duty calling her.

  “I’ll call you later,” She said as a way of departing.

  The night turned out clear and the sky was plentiful with stars. For a moment…a small moment maybe, he felt his hope renewing. If Xavier Prince can experience what the earliest feelings of true love is, then all things are truly possible.

  He laughed out loud.

  Serena Tennyson herself could magically appear inside of this fence and not spoil this moment. He picked out one of his cigarettes and begins his slow, methodical, familiar routine of lighting it when he realizes…that he still doesn’t have his lighter.

  Someone cast a small shadow behind him. For a minute he had hoped that Grace Edwards had changed her mind, leaving duty to someone else, but he knew that thought was ludicrous as soon as it jumped off a brain stem. Yet, he is far from alarmed not knowing who is there. The Peacekeepers had every corner within a five mile radius covered and no one would approach him without their knowledge or consent.

  Even this crack head named Tracy Jackson who now stood in front of him when he turned around.

  “Your lighter,” She handed it to him.

  Xavier decided she was just in time. As he went to light his Newport, the flame gives him a clear look into the woman’s eyes across from him. Her pupils have fully diluted. She was perspiring heavily. She was pacing in place. Xavier knew that she was now high as a firecracker. He wanted to chastise her. He wanted to have sympathy for her. How anyone already cursed with her condition could not be more stressed, when one of her children had been kidnapped and the fact existed that he could possibly be dead…

  He remembered how his own mother stressed about a child that wasn’t biologically hers when Chris disappeared without a trace over those fateful months.

  Seeing Tracy Jackson at her worst causes Xavier to lose the taste for his own addiction; He handed her the remainder of his pack and gives the lighter back to her. “Keep these, Tracy.” Xavier said. “If there is anything else that I can do to help ease your pain…do you or your family need any money?”

  Tracy shook her head, almost uncontrollably. “I’m not a beggar.” She said, but when she got a peek at the stash of hundred dollar bills in his possession she switched her head into the nodding mode real fast. “Yea, I could use a few bucks.” Xavier handed her two bills…and instantly regretted it. He should have given the cash to Felicia instead. “Yea, I still have two other boys left. I’m just not a beggar.”

  “I know that,” Xavier smiled, but he felt his smile…all of his good feeling evaporating away as Tracy went to her knees and attempted to unzip his slacks. “Stop it, Tracy, What in the hell are you doing?” And when she gave it one more effort he pushed her head away. “I said what in the hell are you doing?”

  From her knees, Tracy Jackson stopped long enough to gaze up at Xavier as if he were the one stupefied. “I said I’m not a beggar. I pay my debts. You gave me money and cigarettes and nice lighter. I’m gonna pay my debts by giving you a blow job like you’ve never had before, a damned good one.”

  Xavier Prince backed away from her…all the way until he had somehow unlatched the wooden fence. He turned and four Peacekeepers hurried to match his pace getting the hell out of that neighborhood.

  His special moment was ruined after all.

  Thomas

  Children’s Healthcare Center of Atlanta; SE Atlanta, 14th Day

  Who in the hell is Helen Shatner? And how is she involved in this.

  That was the name that Serena Tennyson had texted to him to ask for when he reached the Children’s Healthcare Center of Atlanta. An underling whose breath was of spearmint smiled and paged the woman; Five minutes later Thomas Pepper watched as the Duty Nurse, Helen Sutter greeted him. She was at least 10 years younger than he was. She was wearing her hair in ponytails. She wasn’t cute enough to wear her hair in ponytails.

  “Good evening, Trisha told me that would be coming, Mr. Donovan. Would you mind following me?”

  “Donovan?”

  “You are Arnold Donovan, Trisha’s friend. She described you to a tee and told me you would be visiting the newborns with her tonight.”

  “Ah…Trisha did that. Yes, Nurse Sutter, lead me to Trisha. I’m dying to see her again.”

  One alcohol scented room over Nurse Shutter and Thomas—AKA Arnold Donovan had found himself in the baby wing of the care center.

  And Serena Tennyson was standing with her forehead of the glass looking in on the newborns wearing a trench coat.

  “Trisha, how have you been girl?” Serena smiled at the other woman, but before she could mouth an answer Helen said: “I found your friend up at the front desk. This is the newspaper writer that you’ve been telling me about for months aren’t it?”

  Thomas said: “You two know each other on a personal level? And…Helen, do you know any of my work?”

  “Of course Helen and I know each other, honey.” Serena squeezed his hand and pulled him next to her. “We know each other as much as my weekly visits to see the newborns right, Helen?”

  Helen nodded her ponytails moving. “Right…Mr. Donovan, you don’t think we just let anybody back here do you?”

  “And not everybody in the world knows who Arnold Donovan the famous beat writer of the Atlanta Falcons football squad is honey, I hope you don’t feel insulted?”

  “Of course not…sweetheart,” Thomas replied, playing her game.

  Helen, the Duty Nurse shook Thomas hand and smiled her not so cute smile at him. “It’s good to finally have met you, Arnold. Trisha talks about you all the time.”

  Has she really? “That’s so sweet of you, Trisha.”

  The newborns were kept behind a heavy sheet of glass. The room was lowly lit on their side in heavy contrast to this side of the glass. Two couples were near enough for Thomas to hear their muttered conversations. The room was frigid. He buttoned up his coat and was glad that he’d worn it inside this building.

  He caught Serena’s reflection in the glass. She wore a shoulder length black wig and blue contact lenses to mask her appearance. Thomas noticed something else: She looked fatigued, especially the dark circles developing under her eyes. Her normally flawless posture was affected as well as she was slumped over just the slightest bit. It was something that his journalistic perceptions had aided in him in seeing.

  Duty had called Helen away and she waved her goodbyes at the couple.

  Thomas gave ‘Trisha’ a hard stare. “You’re putting these children’s lives in danger by being here.”

  “These children are as safe as you allow them to be, Thomas. Do nothing foolish or hostile and they will be fine.”

  “Me? What kind of double talk is this, Serena? You asked for me to come here remember?”

  “I did, but you are the one who is being followed.” Serena stole a quick glance at the couples…and then fixed her gaze on Thomas. “I needed to see you. I wanted to see you, but I could not compromise my safety or my mission.”

  “You say that I’m being followed. Who am I being followed by…the FBI? Is it a House in Chains?”

  “Both.” She took a deep breath. Her phony blue eyes did not take away from her normally intense gape. “I know that you won’t believe me, but I’m glad to see that you are well.”

  Thomas frowned. “You can’t seriously expect me to believe that can you?” He asked her. “I could have been killed at my townhouse, for God’s sake. You used me Serena, Goddamn you. You used me to advance Pandora’s cause.”

  “I did.” She nodded. “Using you doesn’t automatically mean that I wanted to see you come to harm.” Serena glanced away. “Or does it mean that I meant harm to those that you were close to.”

  “I don’t want to hear this.”

  “The murder of your housekeeper was unfortunate but necessary.”

  “Unfortunate,”

  “Yes, unfortunate,” Serena managed her tone. “Thomas, we sit at the doorstep of an extraordinary moment in ra
ce relations in the history of this country. Every generation has had their time to step up or be trampled: The abolishment of slavery and the Civil War that came of it; The Civil Rights Movement; The election of the first Black President, Adolphus Sweet.”

  “I hope that you don’t call the 411 attacks and the loss of life that it caused as part of an extraordinary event in history?”

  “Much of the advancement of People of Color has come at a high price. Each passing generation has suffered less racial strife as a direct result of what has occurred to their ancestors before them. If Pandora succeeds…If I can fulfill the Caretaker’s vision, then future generations will be spared the pain of what the people of this time must see to its end.”

  Thomas swallowed bile. One couple had moved on, but two others had taken their place. “I’ve gathered enough evidence to go public with the knowledge that President Sweet was not killed by a sniper’s bullet—“

  “But that he was poisoned in a similar fashion to Mayor Ernestine Johnson on 411”

  Thomas laughed heartily, the couples noticed him…but he knew nothing else to do. “You’re still using me, even now, Serena. Why should I believe that any of this information from this so called source of mine is real—“

  “Because he is real, Thomas,” Serena gave the room a slow once over. “I turned the source on to you. When you hear from him again he will tell you that he works in biogenetics lab in Houston, Texas. He will tell you that Mayor Johnson, not President Sweet was the initial target of this poisoning. But after the president was shot his symptoms were turned on, for the lack of better terminology, to see how effective the virus actually was.”

  “I don’t understand, Serena. What is going on?”

  “More than you imagine, Thomas.” She said. “You’re getting the facts as fast as I can get them to you.”

  “So what do you want from me now?”

  “What I want, and have wanted since before 411 launched are for Xavier Prince and the Circle to surrender. I want to see a House in Chains and Pandora disbanded. I left the door open for these very happenings back at your townhouse remember? I was willing to sacrifice myself when I surrendered to the authorities?”

  “Here you go with more double talk, Serena.” Thomas said through clenched teeth. He was angry. But he knew that he was putting every life in this building in danger if these strangers were alerted to who he and his blue eyed acquaintance truly were. “You had Deliverance already planned before you surrendered yourself to the FBI.”

  She nodded. “Of course I did, Thomas. But the operation was not to have taken place until after the FBI took me back to Quantico in Virginia. Pandora had always prepared itself to extract me from either location. Two things happened that changed that location to Atlanta: Xavier Prince and his brood did not surrender themselves as we asked—“

  “And you being nearly raped at the holding station by those two men frightened you enough that you couldn’t wait any longer.”

  Serena nodded her brunette head…and looked visibly shaken.

  Thomas turned his attention to the babies on the other side of the glass and couldn’t help but smile at their innocence. At last the other two couples had trailed off and he and Serena were alone. He wanted some answers. He deserved some answers.

  “Are you responsible for the recent kidnappings of Black Children in this city?”

  “Yes,” She admitted with little hesitation. “And answering your next question before it forms in your mouth is: Yes, we masterminded the majority of the first wave of kidnapping and subsequent killings that occurred during the first half of the 1980’s as many historians and people like you in the media have suspected.”

  He felt his knees knocking…and not from the cold. Thomas Pepper, more than ever, wondered if he would live long enough to tell what he knew to the world. “This Louis Keaton,” He said. “He is the one doing these kidnappings.”

  Serena nodded again. “Special Agent Christopher Prince, Nicholas Sheridan and all the others in this investigation will piece the entire puzzle together sooner or later. Perhaps they know all of the answers right now.” She admitted. “But unless they find these missing children, which I assure you they will not, it will eventually force Xavier Prince to engage in a full scale war with Pandora. That would be a move that would be very unwise on his part. This is a war that he cannot win. And I have no wish to see more bloodshed.”

  Thomas continued to look through the glass. “You said that you needed to see me, Serena.” He found her reflection in the glass and confirmed the desire in her eyes. “What has happened to you since we last saw one another? I know about the attempted sexual assault…but something else is troubling you.”

  “I am not the unfeeling woman you think I am, Thomas.”

  “I don’t know who you are, Serena.” He faced her. “Are you the woman who would order innocent people killed and follow that with another order to have children kidnapped in the name of furthering this Caretaker’s cause? Or are you the woman who could be heard crying long hours from her cell after being nearly raped by two Black policemen who let their grief of a fallen friend overwhelm them into such a devious undertaking?”

  She wrinkled her nose at what he had said.

  “Oh yes, Serena, I have my sources as well.” He bit back a smile. “But you haven’t answered my question, who are you?”

  Serena shrugged. “I can justify everything I’ve done so far. I’ve seen it all in the—“

  “In your flames,” He interrupted her. “Everything in your world revolves around this belief system with your Dragon.”

  “It would be unwise of you to mock my faith, Thomas.” Serena’s tone warned him that he would be unwise to ignore her words. “I use what I see materialize in the Dragon’s flames to guide me in every decision I make. What do you use to guide yours?”

  “Truth,” He replied just as quickly. “I’m not interested in taking sides here in this cold war between Pandora and a House in Chains. I’m only interested in keeping my word to Mayor Ernestine Johnson and telling the truth about what I discover. And furthermore, I’m going to tell this truth to the world about what I’ve learned and will learn, Serena, unless you plan to have your people kill me. Or perhaps you will kill me yourself?”

  “I guess we’ll have to see, Thomas,” She said evenly. “We’ll both do what we must.”

  Their conversation had drawn a few curious glances from both staff and parents walking it and out of this area. Thomas took a deep breath and now realized that his voice had must have risen well beyond a conversational tone. Endangering these people’s lives was the last thing he had intended to do.

  “I guess we need to go. Is there anything else, Serena?” he asked. “You wanted to know what I knew. You wanted to know where I stood with my investigation…but I still feel that you wanted something more. What did you really call me here for?”

  She told him that she called him here because she thought he was the lone person outside of her organization that she could talk to. She told him that she could show her real face to him.

  “I flew to Memphis yesterday.”

  Thomas frowned at that proclamation. Pandora must have had its own private jets. It was no way this woman was getting through security checks in any international airports in this country.

  “Memphis,” He searched his memory banks and found a record. “Memphis, Tennessee is Louis Keaton’s hometown.”

  “Yes,” She nodded, impressed that with his knowledge of her operative. “I saw his mother, a woman named Lisa Healy in the flames.”

  Thomas pulse thickened in his ears. “Did you kill this woman?”

  Are those real tears in your phony blue eyes, Serena? “That was my intention, yes, Thomas. After I had questioned her about whether her brother Templeton still lived and his whereabouts I was going to do just that for her crimes of…neglect of her son, Louis Keaton.” Serena gave Thomas a brief synopsis of what circumstances led to the continued sexual assaults of the boy
Keaton by his uncle. The story twisted knots in Thomas’ belly. “I made her strip down after I had the information I wanted. I intended for her to die with as much indignity that her own son had been forced to endure when he was repeatedly raped by the monster that was her brother.” Serena folded her arms, fighting against the cold. “And yet, I was shown something that I won’t soon forget, so I was compelled to spare her.”

  Thomas itched under his collar to learn what that information was, but didn’t want to bite off more than he could chew. So he asked her this instead: “Lisa Healy’s brother wasn’t dead was he? He would have been a very old man by now.”

  Serena shook her head…and then nodded a yes at his second question. “He was very old, very feeble. He gets around in a wheelchair.” She said carefully. And then the shadow of the woman who he found sitting in his living room returned in all of her glory. “However, my justice has no statute of limitations.”

  “He was old and defenseless, Serena.” Goddamn you, Thomas, you have to get your tone under control. “Tell me you didn’t do this.”

  Serena pulled her hands out of the trench coats pockets for the first in minutes. Curious; and there, he saw it for the first time since they’d come in this hallway. There was dried, bruised blood underneath her fingernails. There were two scratches on her wrist and that ran half way up her arms. Were these the last ditch efforts of Templeton Healy’s attempts at saving himself?

  “I did.” And Serena looked as if she relived the entire episode of the man’s final moment’s right here, right now, where all of this new life was as its beginnings. “I looked into his gray, lifeless eyes, ran my fingers through his liver spotted scalp…and avenged Louis Keaton.”

  Thomas stomach turned. “Why should I believe any of this?”

  She leaned forward and dropped something with weight into his coat’s pocket and whispered in his ear. “If you doubt my work then you really don’t know me at all.” She began to back pedal away from him. “I advise you to retreat to the rear of this building. It’s the only way that you’ll escape both a House in Chains and FBI Agents who are following you. I left another package for you back there on the floor near the exit door that you won’t be able to miss.”

  Serena looked as if her eyes were full of tears, but as she became one with the shadows it became entirely impossible for Thomas Pepper to be absolutely sure. “We’ll speak in person again, Thomas.”

  “Serena…Serena,” He called out to her. “Where are you going?”

  “We’ll speak again…before the end…before the Whirlwind is unleashed upon the world.” She promised.

  “Serena,”

  He had awakened three babies with his yelling. One woman told him to be quiet. But it was too late for all of that now. And he needed to know something from Serena…before she left him behind for good.

  “Have you seen me in your flames?”

  Serena stopped her retreat only long enough to say: “We are all given to the flames eventually, Thomas, even I will be someday.” She said and disappeared out of the side door that led to…he had no idea where the door led.

  Several babies were crying in earnest. More than a few onlookers were giving him a wide berth as he followed Serena’s advice and angled towards a rear outlet. Nurse Helen had returned to question him. The frown on her face hadn’t improved her overall looks any. Whatever Serena had dropped in his pockets was rattling around and was weighing him down some, but he dared not stop and look to see what it was right now. He heard one of Helen’s assistants say to her that maybe they should summon security.

  He walked…and finally ran out of the first door that he could find. He heard Helen yell at the others to let him go, not to worry about, at least the creep was leaving.

  Thomas found a sign above a door that said, “Exit to back entrance and parking area.”

  There was something wrapped up in a knapsack on the floor next to the door.

  Thomas scooped it up, took one last long look behind him and ducked through the door. He found himself standing next to a dumpster once he was outside…but the dumpster wasn’t where the worst of the odors was fumigating from.

  He walked a little further down the alley to make sure that no one was tracing his steps. When he felt he was clear he sat the package down and reached into his left pocket first. Ouch. Whatever it had been it cut him.

  He pulled out a man’s seared hand.

  He threw it down in disgust. He was breathing hard by then. The man’s sharp fingernail is what had cut into his own skin. It took a moment for Thomas to gather himself and reached in his other pocket.

  He pulled out a man’s burned foot this time.

  He bit down into his lip and tossed the foot in the general location of where he had thrown the hand on the ground. He tried to breathe in deeply and control over his emotions. He still had one item left to investigate, and memory served him that it was the heaviest of the items that Serena wanted him to see.

  He squatted down and carefully…methodically untied the knapsack.

  And Templeton Daley’s head darkened head rolled out onto the pavement.

  Thomas Pepper lost his dinner of sautéed lamb chops and green beans. He cried tears of desperation and disgust. And just as suddenly…fatigue rushed upon him and pushed down on his big shoulders and sat his big frame and a thousand dollar suit in the muck and the grime in this alley. And he knew that Serena Tennyson had provided him with all of the proof that he needed of her exploits in Memphis.

  He looked out at Templeton’s severed head…and the head seemed to look up at him and some of his curiosity peeked through the holes where the disgust and desperation in his heart and soul existed only moments before.

  You bastard, Templeton…you poor, miserable bastard; he thought, which torture did Serena impose on you first, was it the cutting or the burning? And then his mind questioned: And why did she burn you at all? Somehow I don’t believe that given you to her flames is enough of an answer? What else did Keaton tell her that you did to him to deserve to be burned alive?