Chapter Fifteen
My father’s second mandate tells us how important it is to garner respect from our families. A man who cares and nourishes his children is my lone definition of a man. Remember, when we raise our children we raise our entire race. Deeds are more important than words alone. Hard work, sacrifice, selflessness are all necessary building blocks for rebuilding our status in our homes.
-Xavier Prince
Xavier
Broad Street NW (Five Points), 24th Day
There had been a flurry of venomous activity heightening already enflamed racial tensions since Thomas Pepper’s announcement.
Four female young women of color beat their white classmate to death outside the victim’s dorm room in what local authorities called an unprovoked attack. There had been a SUV full of Black teenagers shot at by a middle aged White man over loud music and the threat of violence from the young men parked next to him in front of a convenience store. Two different lethal shooting incidents between White police officers and young Black men were making second page headlines as well.
Three Admirals in the Peacekeepers had informed Xavier Prince that another of Atlanta’s missing children had been found safely. Unfortunately, those reports had proven erroneous. A group of the Peacekeepers themselves had been fired upon in a drive by shooting that had left one member dead and two others in serious condition. Witnesses believed that it was car load of the Choir Boys using the aged tactics to strike back at a House in Chains for all they had lost at Carver. And finally last night, a Pandora sympathizer physically attacked Warren Washington outside a NAACP convention downtown. The Circle member successfully fought off his attacker and eventually killed him with his own butcher knife.
Warren and Quincy Morgan briefed Xavier on how and where they disposed of the man’s body. The One had been spending an evening out with Grace Edwards that might have turned into one that was in if not for the late night cell phone call from Percy telling them what happened.
They had been meeting here on Broad Street at Five Points for a bit over an hour when Xavier finally said to others gathered together with him: “How do you respond to insanity?”
To his mild surprise none of his Circle responded immediately. Quincy grinned as he knew the obvious answer but tossed his penny once and again without speaking. Warren shifted his one good eye—the other one covered with an eye patch. The ex-athlete had killed his attacker, but the engagement may have cost his at least partial sight in his left eye. Percy stroked his bald head, but hadn’t looked up yet. Grace flipped the page of the notes she was taking.
Finally, Warren sat all the way up and said aloud: “I’m not sure I understand the context of your question, Number One.”
“Then you should break the question down to its base…to its lowest common denominator.” He said without anger. “It’s a simple question, guys. Don’t overcomplicate this. We are a Circle. My father asked those who served under him the same question many years ago—in this room.” Xavier stood up. “How do you answer insanity?”
Percy stopped rubbing in his head, but still didn’t meet any of the other’s eyes. “You meet it with equal insanity.”
Xavier pointed proudly to where his Number Four was sitting. He thought they, the other members of his Circle knew the answer, but Percy showed the courage to answer him…even if he had been wrong.
“Yes, equal insanity it our only option now,” He nodded as he said it. “Yes, I think it is time.”
Grace dropped her pen on top of her notes and looked over her eyeglasses at him. “Are you proposing what I think you are, sir?”
“I am.”
“Scar,” Quincy flipped the penny high into the air and snatched it out with a smile.
“Oh my, God,” Percy found the crease he’d rubbed into his head and began caressing it again.
“Scar,” Xavier had said again for himself and for Warren in case he’d somehow had missed it. “Grace, I want you to contact your sources within the press and leak it that I have an announcement for 12 A M. I specifically want the fact of an announcement itself and what time it will be to be a guarded secret…at least for now.” He rolled up his cuff and checked his watch. “It’s 8 P M now. I don’t want the media to get wind of this until around 10. I want plenty of speculation…and buzz we can generate to happen in a very short controlled burst.”
Warren stared at him with his one good eye. “Are you sure about this?”
Xavier flashed the man his hardest glare. He pulled a toothpick from his stash and stuck it in his mouth. “At midnight, I will announce that our House in Chains will give the authorities 24 hours from that point in time to return the 5 remaining children to their families. A former Circle member solicited Thomas Pepper’s services and he had provided us with all of the intelligence and hard evidence we need to justify our response. I’m done sitting around waiting on Pandora. It is time for us to take the offensive against our enemies.”
Percy looked as if he had a question lodged in his eyes. “Xavier, what if the children are found before tribulation’s hour is unleashed but they…but they are found in less than ideal conditions.”
Xavier shifted his weight from one leg to the other. “Give us an example Percy.”
Grace spoke up instead. “What if we find that any of them have been beaten…or that they’ve been sexually abused?”
“Your afforded mentioned conditions are unacceptable to me, Grace,” He gave the room a once over. “They are unacceptable to our Circle.”
“Here is another scenario,” Quincy stopped tossing his coin long enough to pose his question. “We have somehow retrieved the children into our care, but one or more of them die from one aspect or another from their ordeal—“
“That is unacceptable to us as well.”
“We do want these children returned alive.” Grace kept her tone respectful, but serious. “Our first goal is to bring these children home alive to their families…sir.”
He nodded after a moment of muted thought. “Of course I want them back alive,” He said if any other thought on the matter was ridiculous. “But I want them to be left unharmed physically. It will already take these boys decade to mentally store away what they have already been through. I’m not unreasonable, Grace…not yet anyway, but we will demand more from the authorities in compensation if the children are returned in anything less than ideal condition.”
Grace returned to writing her notes, satisfied with her leader’s reasoning. Scar was something that could not be undone…once it was started.
Quincy Morgan looked intrigued with the idea of compensation. “What do you have in mind as a payment, Number One?”
“It is more in line of who I have in mind.” Xavier replied.
“Alright,” Warren said. “I’ll take a stab at that one…Hugh Keaton in the flesh, or Danielle Rohm would be an early Christmas present.”
Xavier nodded. The Circle was getting at the core of his thought process at last. “Those two would be nice for starters,” He put his hands on the table in front of all of them. “I was thinking along the lines of finding out the identity of this Caretaker.”
Quincy laughed.
“Did I say something funny?”
“I wish you were, Number One.” Quincy tossed his penny up a single time. “You were correct when you mentioned insanity during this entire presentation of yours. Serena will never give you or anyone else that man’s identity while she lives. If Scar is what you truly want out there…you are guaranteeing yourself that it will come about asking that question right there.”
“So will you carry out my orders, Quincy?” The One had been surprised and a little disappointed that his Number Two hadn’t questioned him further in matters of state concerning the incursion of Carver. “A few days ago you questioned my decision to go into armed conflict with the Choir Boys to take Carver back.”
It was Quincy’s turn to look to all the others. He slowly got to his feet. “I am prepared…and most willin
g to carry your orders to the letter if you can do one thing, Number One.”
“And what is that?”
“I haven’t always agreed with you or your methodology that controls your decision making. But I know one thing that is for certain: You are not a liar, Xavier. You have never done so the members of this Circle. I don’t think that you know how to do so. I’m going to ask you to look me in my eyes and tell me that this decision on Scar has nothing do with what has been said about your brother Chris.” Quincy put his penny away. “Scar is the nuclear option. Once it is unleashed, most of the responsibility and most of the burden of the operation falls on my shoulders. I can live with that. I can also live with the consequences and the scrutiny that is sure to follow…the eternal scrutiny.”
“And so you think that I haven’t thought this all the way through?”
“What I think, Number One is this,” Quincy cast a large lean silhouette over his leader. “I think that Lucy Burgess untimely revelations about your older brother carry the potential to cloud every decision you are making in the short term.”
Xavier swung his head around. “Do the rest of you share Quincy’s fears?” Xavier waited semi patiently for answers. When no one spoke he answered his own question by asking: “Do any of you believe that I have the capacity to exercise better judgment about such a lethal matter without me casting emotion out of the equation.
Percy spoke up first. “You’ve never given us a reason to doubt your motives before, sir,” He stood up. “I support this decision with every fiber in my being.”
Warren shifted his one good eye back from Quincy to Chris. “Things change, Percy…people change, especially under the strain that our One has been under. Quincy’s concerns…are my concerns.”
Xavier inhaled deeply. He knew there would be resistance from these two but…what if one of the others failed to support his call to action. “Alright, I tell you again…we are governing a House in Chains in a civil manner the way my father once did. It may even be more so that way now. The Circle of Five was initiated by me so that I could not rule our House as an absolute authority with the four of you impotent to challenge my rulings on any matter. The next leader of this house may choose to rescind the privileges that Circle enjoys and become an absolute ruler like my father was. I believe that a majority rules.” He sat on the table and folded his arms. “I have heard from Percy and it verifies to me that we have two votes for unleashing Scar is our conditions aren’t made by the Zero Hour we impose on Pandora. We also have two voices against the offer as I’ve presented it.” He spoke to Grace Edwards without looking at her. “Your vote, once again, is the tiebreaker, Grace.”
Grace methodically removed her eyeglasses and laid them flat against her notes. When she looked up she’d found four sets of male eyes locked on her as if she were sitting there nude. Xavier felt for the position he had put this woman, for he was beginning to have true feelings for, the terrible burden he was lying at her feet. And how will these feelings in their infancy stages change if you vote against me, Grace? Xavier Prince thought back to what he had asked his brother Chris in that stinky bathroom after Denise Lovings’ funeral. He knew that he was going to lose a part of her no matter how she voted. If she mouthed a no the change would be obvious.
And if she had voted with her leader, Grace Edwards would watch her deadly plan roll out for the entire world to witness. Society as a whole would condemn Scar and all of the lives, on both sides, for which it claimed. And what the Circle itself would see when it visualized the future—
Grace voiced her support for unleashing Scar.
Four hours later, Xavier Prince concluded his short speech on the grounds outside the Fox Theatre by saying: “…I can’t answer all of the questions to how we exactly got to this point. What has happened over the past hours, the past weeks and through all of the years has brought People of Color and all of our enemies to the brink of conflict. What has been perpetrated against our people is unforgivable. Yet, the Circle has considered every alternative. I can only best give my best answer to the most rotten choice of scenarios. And I know that someone once told me to stand on the side of what is righteous and true. If civic authority fails us, then 24 hours from now we will all learn how righteous our cause really and truly is. We will teach Atlanta. Our nation will learn this lesson. The whole world will be educated.”
Xavier Prince looked out over the crowd of well over 10,000 people strong who had attended to hear his words in person. “Brothers and sisters, what do you see when you visualize our people’s future?”
The crowd, slightly disjointed in their response, but powerfully all the same said back to him: “We see nights filled with misery and pain.”
This reply grew louder…and louder…and louder still.
Xavier began to stomp where he had once stood still.
And 10,000 People of Color stomped with him.
Serena
Bank of America Plaza, 24th Day
She watched the flames rise in front of her as the night of the vipers rolled on.
Xavier Prince appeared first. He casted a silhouette of pride and insolence that even his burning would not destroy. She could smell the charred flesh of a dead child charred and blackened to the bone. The sound of Rohm’s gun firing a round into the back of the head of one of the agents who had betrayed her…betrayed Caretaker’s vision caused the embers to pop and flicker in anticipation.
The flames suddenly swooped up, chastising Serena Tennyson like a child who’d gone astray. Xavier was still standing and had cemented his otherwise feeble frame against her will. Where did I go wrong? Caretaker had once told her to be happy that it was the younger Prince Brother she was facing and not Chris. He had said that Xavier would fold as the stakes grew.
Perhaps they both had misjudged him.
Could even her great mentor been wrong—
“Hey there, Serena, I’m sorry to disturb you.” Rohm had eased up behind her without the older woman knowing. Tonight, the baby faced assassin was dressed…as she dressed every night before. Tonight her black outfit almost looked oblique on her body. “I thought that you could use the company.” She must have seen something in Serena’s eyes. “Perhaps I was wrong.”
“Rohm,” Serena surprised herself by reaching out for the other woman’s hand. “Danielle…I’d like you to stay. Your company would be appreciated. Today has been the longest of days.”
Rohm squeezed both of Serena’s hands with her own.
“I’m here for you, Serena. You can talk to me. You can trust me.”
“Trust has never come easy for me. I have my faith…my flames…and little else.”
“You are our leader. All great leaders share the same similar path of isolation and loneliness. I know that you have to measure every decision you make with so much thought and care. You have some of the same responsibilities that our Savior did.”
Serena nodded once. She was no closer to believing in Rohm’s god or any other tall tales or superstitions, but some things were better yet unsaid. Since the day that her father voluntarily sacrificed himself and her mother to the flames, Serena had known nothing else but the Dragon’s way.
And what she saw…who she’d seen in Memphis had certified all of her faith and personal sacrifices as well. All of the others were fools. I am the only one blessed with an unshakable sense of purpose and resolve to see these last days to their end.
Rohm was asking her a question for the second time. “I asked you what you saw.” The Dragon’s flame reflected in the young woman’s eyes. Serena shifted her weight. There is much reflection of the flames in your eyes, Rohm. Shooter was full of fire no doubt. There is much reflection…much fire…but little understanding.
Serena still wished that Rohm had been her—
“I see order.” Serena said aloud. There would be time for all the reflection she could stand after Xavier and his brood was put out of her misery. “On the horizon, behind all of the uncertainty and ciaos we are sure to
face, I see the gift of order as a reward for our work and resilience.”
“That sounds like wonderful news, Serena. Yet, you seem sad somehow.”
Serena said: “The order that I seek…that the Dragon commands, usually comes at the highest price. I had hoped to avoid having to unleash the full wraith of the Whirlwind. I’m begging you to surrender, Xavier. Your people will never be seeing life the same after the Dragon’s version of Armageddon. Serena wondered if Rohm could see the fear etched on her face as well. Your people won’t survive the Whirlwind that others have planned for you.
“The hour grows late. The opportunities grow faint and unlikely that we will be able to contain the Dragon’s wraith much longer. The Whirlwind is coming, Rohm. And sooner than any of us had anticipated.”
“Will we all burn, Serena?”
Serena shook her head. She could not expect a nonbeliever to totally understand the inner workings of something so extraordinary. “The Dragon comes to feast, Danielle. Eventually, we all are given to the flames.”
She felt a chill in her shoulder blades in spite of standing here directly in the path of warmth and graciousness. “Tell me, Rohm, did you feel any sorrow or remorse when you killed Thomas Pepper’s maid a few weeks ago?”
“I guess that I could best describe my feelings best as an indifference,” Rohm told her. “Until I joined this organization…until I met you, killing was nothing more than a job to be executed as efficiently and quickly as I could squeeze the trigger.”
“And now,” Serena asked. “You looked specifically at me when I ordered you to execute the second man we discovered had a hand in aiding the traitor in the hostage’s escape attempt. I saw an expression of hardened resolve on your face as you blew the man’s brains out of the back of his head from point blank range.”
Rohm’s thin eyebrows rose and she smiled. “I consciously hadn’t realized I was doing that. Like I’ve said before, Serena, I’ve changed my outlook over the past few months. I believe in you. There isn’t much that I wouldn’t do for you.”
“And if I ordered you to kill all of the remaining children, tonight, while they slept?”
Rohm didn’t hesitate. “I would feel as if I was doing God’s work. As long as I believe in you…”
“You believe it to be God’s work?”
Rohm smiled again. “Why do you act so surprised, Serena? I believe you to be a modern day Prophet. I believe this with all of my heart and soul.” Danielle Rohm grabbed Serena’s hands once again and gave them another squeeze. “You’ve gone far and beyond what any reasonable person would do to maintain the peace between Pandora and…them. You were captured. You were nearly…you could have been seriously hurt. And yet, Xavier Prince has pushed his people to the brink of disaster…while spitting on your graciousness. Just look at how he dared to threaten you with a timetable for you to release these children to authorities. Who the hell does he think he is? I’ll tell you…he alone is a threat to everything that is good, honorable, and holy in this world.”
“And if I ask you to eliminate Xavier as that threat?”
“I would only ask you why you failed to honor me with that task at an earlier date.”
Pilot said: “Let’s hope that particular course of action won’t be necessary at this point.” Either woman had heard him enter. How long have you been standing there? My sense of awareness has been poor to say the least since my return from the bureau’s custody.
Pilot…Raymond Rice, Deputy Director of the FBI, looked as if he were carrying suitcases under his eyes. He also looked and—smelled as if he’d aged 20 years over the past three weeks. Serena knew that carrying on this charade as the leader of the FBI had taken a toll on him. One of Thomas Pepper’s main source of information for his reports—her had provided him proof that Pilot and Rice were one and the same.
Serena told herself over and again that she did it to test him. Caretaker had picked this man…even over her…to lead Pandora from the shadows in the days before his death.
And yet, Serena knew that Thomas wasn’t the only one involved in all of this interested in truth. The truth of the matter is that Rice had not told her the real deal behind Adolphus Sweet’s assignation attempt. He didn’t tell her about the connection between Sweet and Ernestine Johnson.
And he damned sure failed to tell her about what his version of the Whirlwind consisted of.
She was not above the pettiness that could engulf the most reasonable of human beings.
She had betrayed his identity to Thomas Pepper because he had betrayed Caretaker, Pandora and her first.
He was saying: “To murder Prince now would martyr him. We don’t need more distractions do we, Serena?”
“I’m prepared to keep all avenues and options open at the moment.”
Rohm must have detected the icy tones that this conversation was rapidly falling into. “You two must have hundreds of items to discuss. I should go.”
“No, you should stay,” Serena said to Shooter, but never took her eye off of Pilot. “Caretaker wouldn’t seal any option no matter how bleak the operation looked over the horizon. He wouldn’t panic and neither should we. I recommend that we stay the course that we outlined from the onset.”
“Do I need to remind you that your precious Caretaker indeed panicked? When Xavier Prince saw his brother Chris passing the family’s house, he stopped him from going back. Caretaker not only had those children killed—he cut their throats himself.”
“It was a dastardly act, I agree,” Serena said carefully. “But he took all of the responsibility for his failure and depended on no one else to do what had to be done.” Just like my father had.
“And who will take the responsibility for two of your own Pandora agents betraying you, Serena. So far we have one child nearly killed and another missing. That first child tried to commit suicide. And that maniac of yours molested one of those boys before it we gave him permission to.” Rice said. “And somehow Pepper got the lowdown on my identity, so I’m out of the game. So don’t lecture about any of this, Serena. I want you to remember that any action against Xavier Prince unifies everyone against us.”
Rohm chimed in: “We can still prevail.”
Serena reached into her purse and pulled a compact disk from out of it. The CD reflected against the fire. “We will prevail.”
Rice studied the disk at her fingertips and exhaled audibly. “You made the recording.”
“I did, before we even launched the 411 attacks.” She replied, careful not to smudge the disk with her fingerprints. “I’ve always considered this as a fallback position, sir.”
Rice asked for the disk and she gave it to him freely. She had dozens of other copies if she needed them. He played it on the player sitting on the desk nearest him as she knew he would. Serena had worked with some of Pandora’s most talented electronic people to edit the content to get everyone up to current events and cleaned up the audio as well.
The production opens dramatically and to the point by revealing the true identity of the Caretaker, which everyone in this room knew would take the starch out of the opposition. And those who are angered are subject to errors in thinking and judgment.
Soon after, it revealed a firestorm of detonating pipe bombs and other various explosives on the city of Atlanta—her Whirlwind.
Later on it showed in detail, Pandora’s involvement in the initial Atlanta Child Murders. A voice over explained how Pandora was heavily influenced by Muhammad Clark’s activities in the months before their operation began.
Serena told Rice after he had finished watching that she planned to give the CD to Xavier Prince in exchange for his word that he would surrender himself and the Circle to them and disbanded the current version of a House in Chains.
A heavily edited version of the disk was to show the first round of kidnappings 30 years ago and the ultimate firestorm of the Whirlwind that was still to be released on the general public. Raymond Rice listened to her in vested silence before he hand
ed the CD back to her. “We’ve proven our point, Serena. More importantly, we’ve proven that our cause if just and fair. There are millions of lives at stake from sea to shining sea if this escalates anymore. We have reached an impasse. This far and no further, Serena, I mean it.”
“Of course,” She said, taking the disc and storing it into safe keeping. His actions tonight had proven a dozen of her theories. He does not know that I am the source of Thomas’ information. He is playing the role of a peace lover, but he knows his call for inaction will enable Xavier to act…and then Raymond Rice will unleash his version of the Whirlwind on People of Color.
And you will die, Xavier Prince.
You and all of People of Color everywhere will die.
Serena shook her head.
To what…she could not say. “My plan leaves the most important decisions to them. I think that you fail to see that our adversaries have been seduced by a calling that he does not have the will or means to finish.”
“On that we agree,” Ryan nodded his head. “And you’ve taken bold steps before.”
Serena felt her head shaking again. “They were necessary steps and this time is no different. My plan gives Xavier his victory. Our price includes that he will have to surrender himself and all he finds precious to have it.”
“Everything that has come before, even when Keaton snatched Chris Prince and all those other boys the first time is a campfire in comparison to what we are facing now, Serena. There would be no backing down, any retraction.”
Serena said: “I think my plan is the correct way to proceed. I won’t let you down, sir. I won’t let the Caretaker down.”
Rice lowered his head. “We’ve already done that.” He moved on to the other matters at hand. “I’ve been told that you and Rohm took care of the traitors at the sanctuary.”
Rohm explained to him quickly and efficiently. She added that they were close to retrieving the Clifton boy when the APD lucked up and found him first. Rice asked them the next obvious question to whether either of them believed that their little paradise had been compromised.
Both agreed that it had not.
“Tell me about Keaton,” Rice asked them. “To think that I’ve known the man for the better part of 30 years and yet I still don’t know him; I got your text earlier about this transformation that he’s undergone. You said that he is truly Hugh Keaton now. You think that the Louis persona, a far less intrusive personality has been pushed into a recessive state.”
“I do,” Serena was glad he understood her diagnosis the first time. “Dr. Hicks-Dupree conclusions, when she was with us, turned out to be on the money after all. She repeatedly said that the key to our investment reaching his full potential was to dig past the exoskeleton that Louis was. Louis turned out to be little more than a kindhearted boy who Keaton’s uncle gave to his own version of the flames.”
“Caretaker briefed me on some of the same suspicions many years ago.” Ryan said. “But I would be cautious with him, even though it seems that you have him reined in. If I remember correctly, Angel warned you that a third persona, one that no one, including the doctor herself, could predict how it would behave or react to the stimuli that Keaton has been presented so far.”
“I remember her words.”
“I only want to know if you are still in control of this Hugh personality.”
“I am.”
“I’ll hold you to that, Serena.”
“I’m fully aware of my responsibilities to Pandora…and to you, sir.”
“Now that I’ve been released from my own double life, I will be more engaged in what goes on during our operations moving forward. It starts right now. If and when you release this CD to a House in Chains, I expect hourly briefs from that point on.”
“Yes, sir,” Serena said.
As the former Deputy Director of the FBI spun to leave the flames behind them all seem more agitated than any time before. It’s like hellfire. She’d caught the scent of freshly burning flesh as if it were roasting next to her. At first she thought, however foolishly, that it was the draft rushing in from the opening and closing of the hotel room’s door.
And then for the briefest of an interlude, Serena wondered if Rohm could see what she saw as well. The gaze on the other woman’s face must have been like the one she had when she first discovered the flames for herself shortly after her father sacrificed him and her mother to the Dragon.
“Oh my, God, Serena,” Rohm said. “What has happened? I’ve never seen your flames react this way before. I don’t understand what I’m seeing here. I want to but I can’t.”
“Quiet, Rohm,”
She went to the floor screaming at the top of her voice. Tears streamed down her face.
“Serena, are you alright?” Rohm asked her. “Are you hearing my voice? Can you tell me what is going on with you?”
After a moment the older woman said: “The Dragon is calling out to me like never before.” She said through her tears. “She is warning me that this is my final chance to avert her scorching Atlanta again. This is my last chance to maintain order.” Serena searched deeper…saw…him. “Why didn’t I see it before, Rohm? Why didn’t I see him before now?”
“Who are you talking about, Serena?” Rohm fell to her tears, wanted to be closer to her leader. “I want to be your right hand, the way you were his right hand…the Caretaker. Point me in the direction where I can be the most use to you.”
Serena heard the younger woman, but all of her focus was on the flames…and the figure of a man who existed just behind the hellfire. “I’ve been so blind, Rohm? The answer to all my queries lies with him. I’ve only needed to pursue him all along.
“Well then, we will find him,” Rohm said. “Xavier Prince will be dead within the hour if you wish it. A hundred of his Peacekeepers won’t keep me from killing him.” Rohm rose to her feet, but Serena grasped her by the wrist and then her elbow and denied her the opportunity to stand totally erect.
“No,” Serena said and shook her head continually for emphasis. “Don’t you see, Rohm, Xavier Prince is not the key to dousing the flames of the Dragon’s Whirlwind. He never was.”
“What?” Rohm looked dumbfounded, but that was alright. Serena Tennyson was the Oracle and yet she had not seen it for herself until moments earlier. “I’ve always thought that you believed that Xavier Prince was the key to staving off Armageddon…if he is not, then who is, Serena?”
Serena felt…a smile crease her thin lips through all of her tears.
Perhaps the Dragon wouldn’t resurrect her flames on Atlanta after all.
Perhaps the Whirlwind would be avoided…and the end of all things not as terrible as they had all imagined it would be.
Perhaps they could all avoid being given to the flames.
“We must find the other Prince Brother and quickly, Rohm.” Serena Tennyson said when she found her voice again at last. “I know now that Christopher Prince is the key to all of our salvations.”
Angel
Georgia Bureau of Investigations, 24th Day
“That son of a bitch must die.” Special Agent Nicholas Sheridan said into the musty air that made up the main conference room of the Georgia Bureau of Investigations building in downtown Atlanta.
Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree heard another agent she’d met just a day earlier, Barry McTavish, slide his chair out from the table, get a cup of coffee and sit himself back into his seat. “Which one are you talking about, sir?” He asked.
“Both,” Sheridan said without smiling to the dozen agents occupying the room of agents.
They all had watched both Xavier Prince’s press conference from outside the Fox Theatre and examined the DVD production that Serena Tennyson had sent to the field office and the re airing of it on the evening news. The stress of the impending situation had taken its toll on everyone involved. The manhunt to find Atlanta’s missing children was one of the largest in the history of the mainland. Angel herself had returned with one of the search parti
es led by Agent Blue empty handed. No one could ever say that the younger woman wasn’t passionate about her work. Yet, Tabitha whispered to her that she had all but admitted defeat when it came to finding the remaining missing boys. Apparently, Serena had them safely tucked away in a little corner of the world where no one would find them—at least not alive.
Mathew Clifton was recovering nicely, however, and was nearing a release from the hospital. But either he truly didn’t know or was choosing not to share any intimate details of his abduction. Angel had seen cases like his a thousand times before. He will come around. She thought. He’ll be of help to the FBI but unfortunately not in enough time before A House in Chains’ Zero Hour passes and all the consequences that arise from that.
So we have one Prince Brother causing trouble and the other in trouble.
Some of the agents standing here in this very room had complained to her about how Christopher had been treated by their superiors at the bureau. They said that an agent with his record and his years of service had deserved more benefit of the doubt. The bureau should have been more loyal to this man, especially considering how many former FBI agents were responsible for this mess they were in the first place.
Blue planted her hands on her hips, ever impatient. “What are your orders now, Agent Sheridan?”
“First, I want you to give every note, every lead you, the doctor and Agent Prince collected in your investigation of those crime scenes to Felder.”
Angel took a step towards the man who looked as if he had German measles. She was sure that Sheridan would assign her to Felder and anyone else he assigned to the agent’s team. Good enough, she thought, although he wasn’t much of a conversationalist, he had proven to be more than competent in his duties. He had two degrees in the social sciences and it would help her that she wouldn’t have to dumb her analyst when she articulated her opinions.
Felder asked: “And what else, sir?”
“And study the data they’ve accumulated and string together something…anything feasible so we can try to figure Keaton’s next move. I want to know what that monster’s thinking before he does. Get your team together. Thanks to our friends in the Circle, we have less than 24 hours left.”
“Yes, sir,”
Sheridan then turned his attention to Agent Blue. “In speaking of a House in Chains, I’m placing you in charge of a task force responsible for finding the leaders of a House in Chains—the Circle.” He said.
“Sir,” Blue nodded but a question was forming on her face. “Even if we find them it won’t be easy to acquire warrants for their arrest, it is a Sunday.”
“Normally that would be an issue,” Sheridan agreed with her. “But with me standing in as the acting deputy director, I’ve been on the phone with several judges already who have are prepared to help us anyway they can; even on a Sunday.”
“Alright,” Blue said. “Get warrants. Get something on the Circle. Bring them in. Check, check and check. I’m on it.”
Sheridan then said: “Agent Dooley?”
“Serena Tennyson?”
“Serena Tennyson.”
“I’ll find her, sir.”
The other agents in the room all seemed to be scrambling to gather their belongings ready to disembark in a half a dozen directions. Angel called out to Felder asking him to hold up a minute, she needed to fetch her personal belongings out of one of the briefing rooms.
“Agent Felder,” Sheridan said. “You have your orders. We are on a tight time schedule. You are free to leave.”
Angel made her way to in front of Sheridan was standing. “I don’t understand. I thought my experience and expertise would serve you best by continuing to assist Felder in his investigation.”
And as long as Angel lived, her redemption was possibly still at hand.
She was alive.
Sheridan took a deep breath. “Your services are no longer required, Doctor.”
Angel felt a stab of pain in her chest.
“What?” She asked him. “Tell me you’re not taking me off of this case, Goddamn you, Sheridan. I won’t be dismissed by you when I can still make a difference.”
“I am doing just that, Doctor.” Sheridan stood at full height over her. “I’ll remind you of what I told you when we first met back at that café in Macon. I was given an order to solicit your services. The man who issued that order has been ousted as the deputy director of this organization because he is a member of Pandora. Your presence in this investigation has always been a potential liability to me. Now with the truths that has already has been revealed to the world about Agent Prince and Serena Tennyson, two people you have had friendships with—“
“Don’t do this to me, Nicholas.”
She reminding him that she had been right about Serena’s escape plans before Deliverance was initiated. She’d dissected the evidence in piecing together the crime scenes that Keaton or whoever had left behind for them to find. Her theories about Keaton and his transformations into something more were proving accurate.
She deserved the chance to see the rest of this to its end.
“And I won’t dare disagree with any of your evaluations. You’ve been damned good.” He said. “My question to you is what you can do for me now that justifies me jeopardizing what little credibility this agency has left.”
Angel parted her thick lips to speak, but the words ran and hid at the back of her throat.”
“Sheridan said instead: “Agent Reed?”
“Yes, sir,” The last remaining agent who had dandruff flakes on the shoulders of his dress shirt stood up.
“You are personally in charge of watching over the doctor until I give you new orders that she can exit this building. I can’t spare anyone else. She is to be treated with courtesy and respect, but at no time may she be allowed to leave this room without supervision.”
Angel folded her arms and raised her eyebrows. “And if she does try to escape? What happens then Agent Sheridan?”
“Agent Reed, I want you to choose a non-lethal target on her body—and shoot her.”
“Yes, sir,”
Sheridan seemed to exhale and turned to leave. He opened the door—
“You are making a grave mistake, Sheridan.”
“You’re right, Doctor.” Sheridan said, but he glanced at his Rolex and not at her. “I probably am at that. What I do know for sure is that the world that I’ve known and loved is 20 some odd hours away from coming to a very bleak, a very tragic end. None of my formal training has prepared me for any of this the way that it has unfolded. I’m now down to doing nothing or doing what my gut instincts tells me. I’m choosing the best decisions that I can manage from the little I have to work with left. Dismissing Christopher Prince was my choice. Leaving you behind is another. Good bye, Doctor.”
Thirty minutes later Angel found herself glaring at the pint of whiskey she’d taken out of her purse and placed on the coffee table in front of her.
She had her pistol out as well.
She’d given consideration to shooting Agent Reed, but had put that idea aside—at least for the moment. For now, she settled on dousing the lights and had stripped off her jacket and heels. She hid the pistol out of sight. Whatever Reed was doing, he hadn’t interacted with her since Sheridan’s exit and that was fine by her. She’d had her damned fill of the FBI and their protocols anyway.
Angel unscrewed the cap on the whiskey and the mere scent of it nearly overtook her. What do I have to loose now anyhow? She hadn’t changed her ways and drunk during all her spare time away while here in Atlanta and served her duties well. She wasn’t the one who let Christopher down. And where are you anyway? What had he gone through and more importantly—what solutions did he come up with since they’d spoken minutes after Lucy Burgess’ announcement on live TV.
She threw the whiskey bottle at the window with her bottle taking the brunt of the contact and losing that battle. Agent reed stuck his head in the doorway and asked if she were okay? Angel told him to
fuck off and keep all of his remaining questions to himself.
Why did she speak to that man like that?
Why did she have these streaks of virtual evil?
Why had she’d been so mean and distant to her husband Seth…
Most importantly, why in the hell would she shatter her last bottle of booze like that?
Angel crawled over to where the last of the liquor rested on the broken glass. Who knew how long she’d be locked in here with Reed? She wouldn’t be able to leave and get any more liquor anytime soon. What was she thinking? What in the hell had she done?
Her eyes searched frantically from broken glass to broken glass looking from enough of it to quench her needs. Sucking it off of the carpet itself would be disgusting. It was expeditiously running down the cracked mirror like an animal trying to escape a predator—escape her. She stood quickly and started to snatch just a tiny bit with her tongue, but that would be so degrading, but she needed the hit so very badly…
She found a smooth spot on the glass and slid down it without cutting herself in the process. She sat on the floor for a long time and cried unlike she had in years. She remembered her husband again. You always broke first…you always cried first, Seth, that’s why I never had to.
Seth.
Where was Seth?
For the first time since she left him in their bedroom, she wondered where her husband was and what he was doing.
She reached into her pocket book and called her husband on her cell phone. Seth didn’t answer her call...
…he didn’t answer her fifth either.
The pistol:
She’d stared down the furious fervor of death before. Others had tried to take her life.
And she had failed in an attempt herself.
It was a death by rights. If only she’d showed true courage and placed a shot in her temple during that attempt. Instead, she’d chosen the cowardly act of swallowing pills that left her only with a stomach ache and Seth to swoon over her for a week after.
She would not make that mistake again.
She grabbed the gun, opened the magazine to make sure each chamber had a bullet in it and stuck the barrel between her teeth.
She felt a little sorry for Agent Reed who’d have to hear the shot and discover her messy remains.
Although she’d tried to contact Seth a few minutes earlier, she was more indifferent about her husband’s feelings. The other doctor in this relationship was a good man who deserved far better than the years that she’d given him.
As for Christopher…she’d miss her best friend most of all. He too had deserved better than her friendship. The explanation she’d given him about her suspicions about Keaton and Erica Lovings only scratched the surface of a very complicated…very complex relationship she had with the most wanted man in Atlanta.
Roxanne Sanchez had seen through it somehow—though through what extent Angel didn’t know.
And I will never know.
Angel’s cell phone rang.
She ignored it.
A tear ran down her cheek.
The cell phone rang again.
Delays, she thought, there are always delays when you have business with life and death.
Angel answered it without looking at who was calling her.
“Dr. Hicks-Dupree,” A woman’s voice. One that was not recognizable to her and barely audible. She sounded as if she had been crying. “Is this the Doctor?”
“It is,” She said in her best professional voice. “I apologize to you madam. I’m not taking on any new patients in the near future.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” The other said. “I told you people that my baby would return as he had. Mathew is safe, thank God. He’s recovered somewhat from his escape from Pandora…
Angel sat up and put her gun down. The word going around the room a couple of hours ago was That Mathew Clifton had mended from a physical sense, but had been tightlipped ever since he had regained consciousness. Perhaps he was ready to step up and aid authorities in leading the FBI to the other children the way Christopher had done 30 years earlier. Angel’s mind raced with all of the possibilities.
“It was a miracle, Mrs. Clifton. And it’s one that can help the FBI perform more miracles in turn by paying it forward. There are more lives at stake. Your family may be able to help. Are you calling from home right now? I can send—“
“No, you won’t be sending anyone over here.” The other woman said in a frightened voice. “I’m taking all of my children and we are leaving the city tonight.”
“You’re leaving?”
“You heard me. We are Katrina survivors, Doctor.” She said and Angel noted her Cajun accent for the first time. “I’ve learned that standing your ground when the levies are unstable and a killer storm is coming is the wrong thing to do. By this time tomorrow Atlanta is going to be a war zone. God has given me a second and third chance to get my family—all of my family out. I’m going to do just that.”
“You are right about a war, Mrs. Clifton. The reappearance of Mathew may have stayed the inevitable off for a while longer. If he has something useful to say publicly, cooler heads may prevail and this confrontation may not happen at all.” Angel tried to reason with her. “Listen to me, America needs to see your child alive and well to assure it that this has any chance of working out for the better. The FBI is still searching for the others. You may buy them valuable time—“
“I don’t trust the FBI.”
And no person of color probably should. “Then you should trust me. You called me, Mrs. Clifton? I’ll be very blunt here: Deep down, you know that your family running away from all this is a death sentence for all of your friends and family that you leave behind.”
Mrs. Clifton said nothing into the other end for a very long time. Angel used the absence of conversation to put on her jacket and shoes…hoping for the very best.
Her mind raced.
She had to convince this woman to stay here in the city somehow.
“What if I came to you?”
Angel knew that the idea would probably work better anyhow. It would save her time…save all of them time. “Would that be better for you?”
“No, it won’t, Doctor.” Mrs. Clifton replied just as bluntly. “You are asking me to risk everything I love on too many assumptions. I don’t even know if that Serena woman is going to try and seek retribution against my family. And I’ve refused a House in Chains involvement because I believe their presence makes our situation worse not better.” But before Angel could interrupt her, the other woman added: “I’ll give you to dark, Doctor. No longer than that to reach me.”
“I’ll be there.” Angel said and disconnected the line.
She checked the gun’s chamber one last time.
She would prove to Nicholas Sheridan that his instructions could indeed be followed to the letter by her.
She would find a non-lethal spot on Agent Reed’s body and shoot him…twice.
As long as Dr. Angel Hicks- Dupree lived…as long as she breathed, she knew that the possibility of her redemption was still at hand.
She was alive.
She opened the door to the where Agent Reed was reading through a magazine.
She was alive and this man was in the way of an appointment she had to keep.