Where are our Children: A Novel: Complete and Uncut

  Chapter Seventeen

  Okay, so I’ve been reduced to a cliché on this one. I’ll categorize this area of extreme low pressure surging through the plains heading east by southeast can only be categorized as the storm of the century.

  -Rudolph Phelps, Chief Meteorologist of the Weather Channel

  Seth

  North Avenue (Street Level), 25th Day

  The doctor swam up put of slumber the way a salmon struggles up stream against a stiff current.

  He had a dull headache racing through his skull, down the nape of his neck and through his shoulders. His vision had blurred and he had trouble focusing his thoughts. He rubbed the back of his head and felt a mountain of a knot raising there that would take weeks to heal. He’d bumped his head in a collision with an oak tree when he was eleven and the way he physically felt was the only thing he had to compare to this fiasco.

  He focused.

  Concentrated.

  He wondered where in the hell he was. This wasn’t the same row of houses or streets he remembered before he blackened out. With a sudden chill he thought where is the person who did this to me?

  Seth watched the Peacekeepers—he thought he’d heard the media refer to them in that vein—dragging a white man out of the passenger side seat of an old Buick by his hair.

  A trickle of sweat poured down his own forehead as he continued to watch the proceedings: They drug him up the hill, within 20 or 25 feet from where he was seated. Seth heard a bald dark skinned man—the only Peacekeeper unmasked—supervising the operation.

  Seth looked away. He felt a sudden tingling running through his legs. He took it as a good sign that he’d be able to lift himself up and escape. He was the wrong color in the wrong neighborhood on the wrong night. And nothing would change those facts for the better. And probably no amount of explanation that he was a doctor would serve these people. He had just decided to exit to the south when he heard subtle movement behind where he was still sitting.

  Seth thought, don’t panic. Well okay, you are already panicked, but don’t show it.

  “Good evening, Doctor,” A deep voice said. “Well, good morning actually. You finally came to. For a moment I thought that I had belted you across your head too hard.”

  Seth eased into a new position with his knees up, chin down, and his arms wrapped around his legs.

  “Very good, Doctor, very good indeed. You are playing it smart. You are taking in your surroundings; letting the moment breathe. You’d be amazed how many people get themselves killed in situations like this one because they talked too much or did something irrational.”

  Two of the masked men slam the white man, who’d been dragged from the old Buick, to the asphalt. The victim pleads his case. The bald headed man and the others halt the assault long enough to turn towards Seth and whoever is behind him, seemingly awaiting instructions.

  “You’re going to execute him,” Seth managed to say in as neutral a tone as he could muster. It was the same voice he’d learn to perfect over the years in his practice. He’d often needed it when he had given a patient the news of a difficult diagnosis or when he had to inform a family that their loved one had died on his operating table. “May I ask what his crime was?”

  “The Circle has attained enough circumstantial evidence to convict this man for the being responsible for the disappearances and murders of four men of color on separate occasions in Southwest Georgia and across the border into Alabama.”

  “Circumstantial evidence?”

  The man behind him grinned softly.

  “Sorry. I need to back up a bit. Let me give you a little history. This man, John Ritter, was actually convicted in a Georgia courtroom for one of the kidnapping and murders. Yet, and you’ll like this part, Doctor,” He paused for effect. “Yet, that jury indictment was later tossed aside in an Appellant Court due to logging errors by the arresting officer. Can you believe that, Doctor?” The man’s breathing became very heavy. “The court allowed a killer to walk because of a logging error.”

  Seth swung around. This man of color was lean and toned. He had almond colored skin, big brown eyes and wore a fresh haircut. Seth couldn’t recall ever seeing this man on television. He quickly decided that he wasn’t Xavier Prince.

  But if Xavier Prince didn’t fear this man he very well should have.

  “Look, I don’t know who you are, sir. But those men over there are Peacekeepers. You mentioned the Circle. That means you are all A House in Chains. I’m certainly not foolish enough to instruct you how to carry on your business, but aren’t you violating your own mandate. I thought Xavier Prince called for an extension to the Zero Hour to avoid hostilities.”

  “He did.” The man behind him said. “And as you have so politely articulated, I am a member of the Circle. And I’ve decided on my own authority that recovering Atlanta’s missing children won’t erase the guilt off of this man.”

  Seth felt himself swallow.

  “Am I on your list as well?”

  The member of the Circle shook his head.

  “No, of course not, Doctor. You are one of this state’s most decorated and successful surgeons. You improve the quality of your patient’s lives. You save countless others. You are an asset to this community…” The man’s voice trailed off.

  “…You are so unlike your wife.”

  Seth finally stood.

  “You have me at a disadvantage, sir.” The doctor said, and then quickly realized he had adapted Denise’s inflections of his last spoken word. He took a deep breath before speaking again. “You know so much about me and my family and yet I don’t even know your name.”

  “My name is Quincy Morgan. I am the sergeant at arms of A House in Chains and the military head of the Peacekeepers.”

  Seth swallowed any foolery or bravado that he may have dared to mouth next. Angel had made powerful enemies across of wide spectrum. A few impotent words ushered from his thin lips weren’t going to change that from fact to fiction like magic.

  And yet, as long as they both lived, she was his wife.

  He had taken a vow to protect her.

  He must still find a way to reach her before…before all the others did.

  “If my wife is truly guilty of any wrong doing she should be tried and subsequently convicted in a court of law by a jury of her peers, Quincy.”

  The other man nodded.

  “As well she might. My Peacekeeper’s part in this phase of the operation will be very brief.”

  Seth shook his head once, not understanding.

  “What exactly does that mean?”

  Morgan checked his watch.

  “We don’t have the time or the resources to dedicate a full search for your wife, Doctor.” He took a step in Seth’s direction. “We are sure that Roxanne Sanchez does have both time and resources to complete the task for us—likely before dawn anyway.”

  Seth slouched in his stance a little.

  “So why am I here, Quincy?” You didn’t knock me unconscious just to have me awaken so you can gloat about my wife’s impending doom.” Seth wiped spittle from his lips. “Why am I here? What could you possibly want from me?”

  Quincy Morgan approached Seth. The doctor felt his pulse quicken and his pulse racing in his ears.

  “Come with us. Witness our historic and glorious work for yourself.” Quincy’s voice lowered itself to an almost quiet, but lethal tone. “And my people have much glory to take in the hours ahead.”

  Seth dared square his shoulders and held the other man’s gaze. “It sounded as if you asked me along and not instructed me to. Are you saying that I have a say so in this matter?”

  Quincy laughed. It was surprisingly absent a sarcasm and animosity.

  “Of course you have a say so, Doctor. It’s not as if anyone here had put a gun to your head.”

  “And if I choose to decline your offer?” Seth asked quickly while he wore courage on his shoulder. “What if I choose to left alone? What if I walk away from here??
??

  “Then you would have chosen darkness of the light. You would have chosen death over life.” Quincy said just as quickly. His mood was dire as if the laughter of the moments just before now never existed. Dr. Seth Dupree watched the other man’s big brown eyes fall to slits. “I can guarantee that each member of the Peacekeeper cell you see before you will hunt you down like the hound dogs your people once released on runaway slaves.”

  Seth felt tears coming. “And then your people will kill me.”

  “No,” Quincy shook his head and the smile had reigned again. “No, Doctor, not at first. We will let you suffer out here for hours and hours on end helpless and alone. You will tire. Your body will wish for food and water. Your mind will urge you to push on and save your loving bride. But then—and only then—when your spirit is crushed, we will find you and end your suffering in as violent way as possible.” Quincy patted Seth on the shoulder and walked past him. “But it doesn’t have to come to that extreme. Join us. The FBI is incompetent and a jumbled mess. Like I said before, they aren’t going to find those children. You can join us instead. You can watch as A House in Chains Vision of the Future unfolds for yourself.”

  “I’ll come with you—“

  Seth barely gets the words out of his mouth when Quincy calls out to the bald headed man, Percy, to kill the man who they had drug from the old Buick.

  Percy snaps out a pistol from a holster, his expression so calm…so neutral, as if this ungodly business is just another task to be completed on the day’s itinerary. The gunshot barely makes a mark on the sound meter but in Seth’s mind it is the shot heard around the world.

  Seth felt wet. Perhaps he’d pissed in his trousers. He dared not look. Finding the wet mark would only confirm that this nightmare he was suffering through was indeed very real.

  He was alone.

  He was in a city that housed millions and yet he was so very alone.

  Millions, he heard a voice, Roxanne Sanchez’s voice call out to him. There are millions here but all you needed to do was listen to one voice, Seth. You should have never left me, Seth.

  You should have never allowed me to leave you.

  Within an hour his captors had driven an old beat up Hertz into a parking lot outside a sleazy looking motel. Seth grunted and shook his head at the car—at the metaphor—and told himself what a calculating man this Quincy Morgan must have been.

  The wind had picked up and tossed the Gray Man’s hair about with the back window down. He rested his head against the lowered glass and pondered his last memories of the world and his life in it would be the stench of the wildfires in his nostrils. He guessed that it was better than smelling blood or that man’s brains that Percy has so nonchalantly blown out of the back of his skull.

  And yet, no matter, how hopeless his own position seemed, his thoughts never veered far from the plight of Angel. He’d ridden with Roxanne just hours ago. If he’d stayed with her he was sure that they’d found his wife by now.

  And either he would have idly stood by while Roxanne killed Angel or he would have killed Roxanne during her attempt on his wife’s life.

  Either way he wouldn’t be here.

  And in the here, Seth watched as a middle aged white woman whose hair looked as if she had just pulled her finger out of the socket parked her car in the sleazy hotel’s parking lot and got her key out. A man, who looked as if he’d taken one in the nose for the team once too often, happily drunk, and even happier in anticipation of what would be going down inside got out of the passenger side.

  They were swamped by the Peacekeepers almost instantly.

  The two of them never had a chance to scream.

  The Hertz had stormed towards a nearby alley in no time afterwards as if the driver had the coordinates programmed in a GPS system. Next, Seth heard four of the doors opening and then slamming shut as the two pale riders were thrown unceremoniously to the concrete with the rest of the trash. The wind picked up expeditiously.

  Seth wished for his jacket or a nice warm death, whichever came first.

  Seth decided for better or worse he’d direct any inquiry he had with Quincy.

  He asked, “What did he do?”

  “Nothing,” Quincy leaned over in his seat so Seth could hear him clearly. Percy pounded the drunken man across his skill repeatedly with the pistol until he drew blood at last. The woman screamed. Seth felt a cold shiver run down the sides of his neck fearful for her. She had chosen the worst of nights to be caught with this man.

  “Why would you bring her along, Quincy?” Seth asked, he could hear the pleading in his own voice. “Please don’t tell me you’re going to kill and unarmed, defenseless woman in cold blood and call it justice. I won’t accept it. I won’t.”

  Quincy grabbed Seth by the collar of his shirt and they both stepped out of one of the opened doors of the Hertz.

  “What part of justice allowed white men to gang rape the women who were their black slaves?”

  “This isn’t the same thing and you know it.”

  “Don’t be so sure, Doctor.” Quincy inched ever closer to him.

  Seth heard the woman tall to her knees, crying. Percy held her by the wrist. The rest of the Peacekeepers blocked any and all avenues of escape for all three captives.

  “How about black women being separated from their children the way you and I would take a pup from its mother.” Quincy continued on. The longer he spoke, the more fire seemed to spark in his eyes. He grabbed Seth’s shoulders in his large hands. “Don’t you dare lecture me about justice, Doctor.”

  “Killing this woman won’t change our country’s sad history, Quincy. Murdering her and discarding her body in this alley like garbage won’t put any of those families from all of those years ago back.”

  “You’re right, of course, Doctor.” Quincy made simple eye contact with Percy. The dark skinned man with the clean shaven head ripped open the woman’s blouse, produced a knife, cut her bra and exposed her breast to them all.

  She cried louder.

  Percy said over her noise, “On your knees.”

  “No, Please, God, no.” The woman begged Percy as she scraped the ground as she went to her knees.

  “Quincy, don’t order Percy to do this.” Seth said in a quiet voice. “Please.”

  “Bring her to me.” The other man ordered instead. Percy caught her by her thick brown hair mostly, and dragged her to where both of them were standing.

  After a moment Quincy said to the woman without taking his eyes off of Seth. “I want you to tell our good doctor your name and the nature of your probable crime that would make you the focus of such a vicious retaliation this morning. And spare us your lies. Your lying has gotten you into this in the first place.”

  “Please. Don’t.” The woman continued to sob, covering herself where she could. “I just want to go home.”

  And it all clicked for the Gray Man just then. The man who they’d pistol whipped into submission wasn’t the focus of this…whatever this was.

  This woman was.

  “Tell. Him.”

  “You are right…I shouldn’t have lied. Please. I would take it all back if I could. I’ll do any—“

  Percy twisted and squeezed her hair as tightly as he could manage. “Lady, he’s not going to ask you again. You need to talk and fast.”

  “It will be alright, Miss.” Seth said to her. What are you saying? What the fuck are you doing, you idiot. “Percy’s not going to hurt you, if you do as you’ve been asked. My name is Dr. Seth Dupree. I’m a surgeon by trade. What is your name?”

  The woman looked doubtfully through her smeared mascara from Seth to Quincy to Percy and back again. She didn’t bother covering herself anymore. She wiped her tears away instead.

  “My name is Amy Kissinger. Four years ago I filed a false police report.” She said through a quivering lip and tried to compose herself. “I guess that’s what all of this is about.”

  Seth asked, “A police report?”


  “Four years, eight months, and seven days ago I filed a police report stating that I had been raped.”

  “You did, Amy.” Quincy said. “Now tell the doctor the rest.”

  She did another round of looking and fresh tears littered what would have been otherwise a pleasant face to gaze into. “My lie centered on a man named Stanley Jordan who was a promising young attorney at a law firm I worked at in Atlanta at the time. I was initially going to try to get back a lover who wouldn’t leave his wife for me. But when the police pressed me for information I changed my mind and my story and blamed it on Stanley who had been trying to ask me out at work. Stanley was a black man.”

  Seth actually remembered reading about this story but couldn’t piece together how it turned out for young Mr. Jordan.

  “Don’t stop now, Amy” Percy yanked unforgivingly at her hair again. Seth swore he’d heard several strands rip from her skull. “Tell the doctor what became of your former co-worker.”

  The woman cried out. She sounded as if she would soon hyperventilate. Seth took a giant leap of faith and step forward when Quincy halted his progress with the back of hand and forearm. He shot him a warning glance and shook his head once and then again.

  Amy managed to say, “Stanley committed suicide after spending the first 18 months of a ten year sentence in Calhoun State Prison after the State denied him a retrial.”

  Quincy said, “And now you and your latest lover will join him in Hell.”

  The Sargent at Arms of a House in Chains yanked a gun out of the inside of his jacket and blew Amy’s brains out of the back of her head. The Peacekeeper who was standing in closest proximity to her man pulled the trigger on him killing the man instantly as well.

  All the Gray Man heard over the next few minutes was the echo of the shots rattling around from his eardrums to his brain. The leaves swirled in the wind and his teeth chattered.

  Quincy finally said into the ensuing silence, “Well, at least when Amy faces God at her Judgement she can’t say that you lied to her Doctor Dupree. Percy didn’t harm her after all. He walked by Amy’s fallen body, waited for the latest gust of wind to pass and said, “Are you still convinced that all of the wrongs done people of color are from ages long passed?”

  “Oh my God…” Seth got in Quincy Morgan’s face. He wanted to be absolutely sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing. And just like that—there it was—the slightest hint of a smile. “You’re enjoying this.”

  Quincy snatched Seth into his grip, careful to keep the barrel of his gun away from the doctor’s temple. For now. The other man’s grip was so powerful it nearly lifted Seth off of the pavement.

  Quincy snarled at him.

  “Do you truly believe what you just said, Doctor?”

  “At this point, I don’t know what to think of you. Of any of this.” He replied back with equal venom.”

  “You just need to know that this—all of this has to be done.” Quincy shoved him away.

  And then he did something totally unexpected.

  Quincy straightened his wrinkled shirt and ran one of his large hands over his over his nose, mouth, and hairy face.

  And then he stopped as suddenly as he had started and checked the time on his watch once again.

  “So much more has to be done tonight.” He peered out into the nothingness. “Our enemies have us outnumbered and outgunned,” Quincy stepped into Seth’s shadow, eerily calm. “Can’t you see it too, Doctor? This is my people’s last chance to right four hundred years of wrongs.”

  Behind them Percy and the other remaining members of the Peacekeepers seat themselves in the Hertz and methodically wait until they are beckoned by their leader to do otherwise. Quincy extends his arms towards Seth as if he were a valued customer taking in an expensive limo ride around town.

  Ten minutes and several blocks later, Seth could barely feel the motion of the engine as the cased Atlanta’s streets for a House in Chain’s next victim.

  The night was still young enough.

  Seth asked, “When did it all come apart, Quincy?”

  The other man lounged in his seat and closed his eyes.

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “When did you lose your humanity?” Seth asked. “No human being short of a narcissistic psychopath could possibly do what you are doing in the past few hours and live with themselves afterwards.”

  Quincy Morgan slowly opened his eyes, sat erect, nodded and ever so slowly. Seth tried to read his expression as she’d done before in the alley. “You don’t. I don’t. But you should stick around, Doctor. I have promises to keep. And I always keep my word.”

  Angel

  Nearing Marta Station (Anderson Avenue SW, 25th Day

  The loud, obnoxious, butterball of a biker eased off of the throttle. The wind was shifting. It was coming out of the Northwest now.

  Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree pressed her breast against the leather jacket covering his back and squeezed his manhood and he found the proper motivation to hit the accelerator again. Angel had promised Ted—at least she thought that what his name might have been—a phone call and maybe a date if he got her to the lower Eastside of the city where Mathew Clifton’s family lived and fast.

  She was pushing it. The biker—wearing $300 sunglasses in the wee hours of the morning and a $10 tee shirt from K-Mart said that he wasn’t going nowhere near one of their neighborhoods, especially tonight, even for a fine piece of ass like hers. He did say he’d get her to the Marta station and she could find her way from there.

  Angel had begrudgingly accepted his terms, wrapped her arms around him the way a man would like and held on.

  The interstate heading out of the city was a mess. In her many trips to and through the city she’d never seen it slow to a crawl like this, not even during rush hour, after Braves games or even when the Super Bowl was in town. Yellow school buses were packed to capacity with scores of families continuing to evacuate. Thank God for Xavier’s extension.

  She’d used a woman’s power of tears to lose the FBI Agent instead of shooting him. She knew that at some point she still would be held accountable for what happened next: She’d grabbed his weapon and used the threat of lethal force on his person until he yielded and allowed her to tie him up.

  And then Angel left him and her old gun behind.

  Now she saw hoards of the homeless loitered around the Central Marta Station as the biker eased off of the brakes and sat his boot heel on the asphalt. She gave him a kiss on his cheek and one last squeeze that promised more in the very near future before turning his attention on the station. She released the safety off of the weapon that she’d lifted off of the Federal Agent, charges be damned at this point.

  Angel didn’t want trouble.

  Actually, she didn’t have time for it. Any delay right now would cost lives.

  The threat of delay didn’t take long to manifest itself.

  Damn you Karma, she thought, Damn you to Hell.

  Two heavyset women were stealing aluminum cans out of the basket from a third woman who had soup bowls for lips and table spoons for ears. She was carrying what looked to be a two or three year old in a car seat that she’d hitched to the bicycle seat somehow and made it work.

  A minute later it all unraveled.

  It became a tussling match with the three women exchanging elbows and curses over the bag of cans. The two year old wasn’t helping matters as he began to cry with the pitch growing with each passing minute. Then a third woman came from around a post and expectantly launched herself at the mother who’d had been holding her own against her two beefy pals.

  She put her ass in the woman’s face cursed at her and told her to shut up while her two friends took what they wanted off her bicycle and her person.

  Angel tried to look away. She caught a glance at the digital display that informed her that the scheduled Marta was still six minutes from arriving at this station.

  Damn.

  I really don’t ne
ed this just now. Life was always about the needs of the many—

  “Alright,” Angel got the agent’s gun out before she talked herself out of it. “Enough, already. The three of you leave this woman and her child in peace.”

  “Come get a load of this.” The First Woman, the heaviest of the assailants who smelled of old tennis shoes said. “I don’t remember anyone asking you to get in our business, Whitey.”

  “Step back,” Angel searched for an exit, careful not to back herself into a corner where her only choice was to kill these fools. Give your attacker an out, Christopher had once told her when he had privately trained her to use firearms. “Look, I don’t want to hurt any of you, but I refuse to just stand here and do nothing while you rob this woman. Do you have any sense of decency rattling around in those bloated bodies of yours? She’s got her baby with her for God’s sake.”

  The third woman, who had entered the fray, lifted herself off of the mother and got to her feet. She was cross-eyed and semi-conscious of it. “Yea, Claire. We’d better back off. I think she means business.” She said but didn’t mean one damned word of it.

  “Yea, Claire, look at me, I’m shaking in my Adidas.” The second of the original assaulters said rolling up her sleeves. She wore a tattoo of a cross on each wrist.

  Angel looked from one to the other. The woman with the tattoos picked up a broken bottle, the Sitter grabbed a stick and Claire popped out a blade. And yet, she found herself eerily calm even as they approached her.

  When they don’t grasp the lifeline you’ve thrown them, when they refuse to take the out, Angel, Christopher’s final words of her lesson that day resonated in her ear as if he’d spoken them only minutes instead of years before.

  You fucking make their poor choice a fatal one.

  “I will shoot you, Claire.” I will gladly add your name to list of those that I have killed.

  “You might,” Claire said just as calmly. “You still outnumbered though. And I guarantee that one of my girls will get to you. And they’ll take this blade and carve those fake ass lips off of your little pale face.”

  “We sure will, Claire.” A voice, a fourth one came from behind her this time. “You know what—she probably wants that baby for herself. That’s probably the reason she involved herself in this in the first place.”

  Angel had checked to make sure no obstacle could box her in, but she failed to make sure there wasn’t more unwanted guest to this private party. I let you down, Christopher. You’re my best friend in this world and I’m always letting you down.

  Angel muttered a curse.

  The four women heard her and found that hilarious.

  She could kill Claire and possibly one of the other women in front of her…but her disadvantage would still remain.

  If she glanced back—even for a second—she’d be ambushed by Claire and the others.

  The first tinge of panic struck in her gut.

  Angel hadn’t felt this helpless since the first few hours she found herself alone and vulnerable to a fugitive and a killer in Tyson Vincent all of those years ago when she was a teenager.

  Claire slowed her approach long enough to say: “Yea, Sweetie, you right, girl. She probably helped kidnap them other little boys anyway.”

  “What?” Angel hadn’t meant to speak her thought aloud. But at least she now understood where the baby taking reference came from. The women had recognized her appearances from the press conferences and clippings from TV.”

  “Ain’t that some shit?” Sweetie added. Ain’t that some shit? Angel mocked Sweetie. Just because the woman had to have the last word she’d given away her positioning behind her. The doctor was far from getting out of this unscathed, but her odds of her survival had improved a few percentage points. “This bitch doesn’t think we know who she is. The Doctor thinks we are ignorant. She thinks we don’t know what’s going on in the world.”

  “I only care if you and your friends are stupid, Sweetie.” Angel spun to her left—but she still didn’t see the woman who should have been behind her. “I swear if any of you take one more step—“

  Sweetie, who must have twisted to the other side just as Angel made her move, belted the doctor across the back of her head and upper neck. Angel’s world went spinning out of control and she wanted to get off so very badly.

  Angel fired off a round while opportunity allowed her to. She believed she’d struck gold as she heard a thud that only a dead body hitting the concrete makes.

  The weapon was knocked from her hand.

  And then her plight went from bad to worse.

  Angel felt a warm sensation heating up a large area of her calf and she safely assumed that she’d been stabbed at least once there. This probably meant that Claire had cashed in her 25 percent survival ticket when she blindly fired off her lone round.

  And the idea that a thieving fat bitch like Claire would be left alive after she was dead pissed her off more than she was frightened at that frozen moment of consciousness. Angel closed her eyes.

  And then it was all over.

  There were shots:

  Once.

  Twice.

  Thrice.

  And when Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree opened her eyes again there were dead bodies lying on either side of her.

  Angel raised herself as quickly as her pain… and her surprise would allow her. She saw dozens of people scattering away from the scene in every direction including the mother and her child whose rescue Angel had come to in the first place.

  And then Angel saw Claire lying on her back a few feet away from her…drowning in a whirlpool of her own blood.

  But the question of the early morning was a clear one though: Who had extended the lifeline to her?

  Angel heard someone call her name but the sound of it was silenced by the roar of the Marta reaching the station at last.

  Who knew six minutes could last for so very long.

  She felt faint—not knowing if it was from a loss of blood or from the adrenaline rush from a near death experience.

  Angel felt strong…but somehow feminine arms wrap her arms around her to keep her from falling and walked her on to the Marta.

  When Angel opened her eyes again she saw Roxanne Sanchez, dressed all in black, seated across from her.

  “Roxanne?” Angel said. “Roxanne Sanchez, I never thought I would hear myself say this but I’m so happy to see you. You saved me.”

  Roxanne didn’t return the doctor’s smile. “I guess that I did.” She said and the Latino woman sat back in her seat. She extended her arms across the back of the seat, the small caliber pistol she’d used to give her a stay of execution rested in her lap. And although it was clear enough for Angel to see it was blocked from the view of the other dozen or so passengers by the way the rows seats in front of them were sequenced.

  Angel felt a new round of unease settling in.

  Why did she feel one round of ciaos was at an end only for another igniting in this subway car?

  “Let me give you a small piece of advice, Doctor,” Roxanne said. “I trained with Special Agent Christopher Prince as well. He thought me what he the same lessons about giving your enemy an out, never backing yourself into a corner…yada…yada…yada. But you forgot one powerful thing that he said. And you of all people should have never forgotten it.”

  Angel nodded her head. It helped clear out the last remaining cobwebs and brought Christopher’s most important words during those lessons.

  “Never introduce a weapon of lethal force unless you are planning to use it in the vain.” Angel said.

  Roxanne nodded silently.

  “You’re right,” Angel said and tried a smile to see if Roxanne would match hers with one of her own. When she did not she said, “You both were.” Angel felt for the bump on back of her head. At least there was no blood though. She turned her attention to the wound on her lower leg. The cut was superficial, but would—at least in the short term—cause her limp to become even more pronounced.

/>   When Angel looked up again she found Roxanne Sanchez with her pistol pointed at her.

  “What in the hell is this, Roxanne?” Angel asked. “You saved me from those barbarians just…just so you kill me yourself.”

  Roxanne gave the Marta her full measure before she spoke again in low, dangerous tone.

  “I wasn’t going to let them deny the prize that is mine by rights. I would have gone through them all to get to you: The FBI, Pandora, and A House in Chains— I would go through the Devil himself in Hell, his own turf, just to get to this moment right here. I’ve earned this.”

  Angel sat back in her own seat and took a deep breath but held her silence. She could have used some particularly strong gin right now.

  “Like Chris Prince said, Doctor, you never pull a weapon on anyone unless your intention is to use it. And rest assure before this city sees another sunrise I plan this use this gun on you.”