Where are our Children: A Novel: Complete and Uncut
Chapter Eighteen
Never forget that our father abandoned us, Roxanne. He was our own flesh and blood. Maybe it’s something to do with having to carry around a penis that makes men lie, cheat, give in to their vices and hall ass at the first sign of trouble. I’ll never trust a man, Roxanne. And either should you.
Maria Sanchez chastises her sister in 1977.
Chris
Christopher Prince’s private residence, 25th Day
Someone knocked on Christopher Prince’s door.
“Who is it? Who’s there?” Chris swam up out of sleep. “I said who is it?”
No answer.
Chris pulled out his gun.
“This isn’t the time for games.”
Another knock.
He stumbled across the floor, his head spinning. He didn’t trust his aim if he was forced to fire, but what choice would he have if the anonymous visitor on the other side of his front door intended him harm. After all the crank calls had continued well into the night until he’d yanked the cord out of the wall.
Maybe they thought an impromptu visit would feel far more personable.
Maybe.
So Chris flung his front door open; it barely missing a younger black woman standing outside on his top step with two firearms turned away from him but where he could see them nonetheless.
Grace? Why was Grace Edwards standing at his door at 3am in the morning?
Chris lowered the barrel of his weapon two inches.
“Are you trying to get yourself killed, Grace?”
“Maybe, we’ll see.” She said putting her guns away methodically, one at a time so her host was fully aware where she stored them. “I needed to speak with. Alone. Coming here seemed to be the best option.”
“What could you possibly want with me?”
“I’ve put my guns away. I think that’s a start. Why don’t you do the same and invite me in.”
He lowered the gun but didn’t budge.
“What do you want, Grace?”
“I need your help, Agent Prince.”
Grace had aroused his curiosity at the least. She also had aroused his suspicions as well. He couldn’t be sure which extreme won him over but he led her inside. Chris glanced over his shoulder one last time, looking for an ambush that never came. He placed his gun in the holster behind him for quick assess.
Chris hadn’t completely forgotten his manners: He showed Grace to his comforter. She sat down, smoothed out her pinstriped pants suit and crossed one single leg over the other.
He folded his arms, kept his distance and wore his best confrontational look on his face. “You’re a member of the Circle, Grace. There is absolutely no reason that I should trust you.”
“Don’t be so sure, Agent Prince.” She sat up long enough to check her watch. And why was she still referring to him as Agent Prince. Information was Grace’s business. Surely she knew that he’d been asked to turn in his badge—“Any minute now you will be receiving a phone call on your business cell. Please answer.”
Chris’ business cell did indeed ring.
And yet, the man jumps, startled in spite of himself.
“What kind of game are we playing here, Grace? How could you know…” Chris’ voice trailed off while the ringing continued. “Do you know who it is as well?”
Grace said, “Sheridan.”
Chris finally answered it on the fifth ring.
“Hello,”
“Prince?” Sheridan sounded tired. “Agent Prince? Chris are you there?”
“Sorry, sir, it’s the middle of the night and being awaken by an unexpected phone call from you.” Chris lied. “But I’m here. What’s up?”
“You’re right. I apologize for calling you at this hour. Are you alright?”
“Yea. Yea, I’m good.”
“I got new that couldn’t wait until sunrise. I thought that you should hear this directly from me: The higher ups have cleared up this mess up about you and your family. Though we are without an official deputy director, the Justice Department as a governing body has reinstated you as a federal agent with all of the honors and privileges that come with it. Someone over there will be giving a formal announcement to all of the available media outlets at 7am.”
“Really?” Chris had eyed Grace Edwards during the entire conversation.
“Really, Chris,” Sheridan said. “I need you back on the case ASAP.”
Grace said, “Say yes.”
“Where can I help the most, sir?”
“Locate a House in Chains Command Center. Pronto. Your partner knows about the reinstatement and after she ties up a few loose ends she should be arriving at your place within the next couple of hours to pick you up. Time is not our ally.” Sheridan said and sounded as if stopped long enough to take a sip of water or coffee. “I’m asking you to try and talk some sense into your brother. The extension he provided proves that he’s not beyond reasoning. Maybe you can convince him to sever whatever operation he and the Circle may be planning.”
“He is my brother, sir. No one knows him better than I do, so I’ll tell you this now so we won’t mince words or waste any more time: Xavier is probably well beyond reasoning by now.”
Sheridan snorted.
“You’ve got to find him and get some reasoning through to him, Agent Prince. I don’t care what you have to do, no matter the price we have to pay.”
“And if I can’t get through to him?”
Agent Nicholas Sheridan’s voice went cold.
“Then, Agent Prince, you will have to stop him by any means necessary. You will be forced to make the ultimate decision between your family and your duty. I don’t anticipate that decision being a problem for you. I’m confident that you will make the right choice.”
“You’re right, Agent Sheridan. In fact I already have made my decision.” Chris said and found Grace Edward’s eyes once again. “And I’ll find him. I’ll find my brother somehow.”
After Chris snapped his phone close he said to Grace, “I’m sure you are responsible for this somehow…and because of that…I should thank you for clearing my name at the least.”
Grace nodded once.
“Don’t mention it.” She stood and smoothed out her pants suit once again. “As I said before, I need your help, Agent Prince. And if we are going to be successful we need to move now.”
“Successful?” He asked. “What are you talking about, Grace?”
She stepped in his line of vision.
“You’re the only one who can help me save your brother’s life.”
Chris made coffee. He took his black to finish clearing out the cobwebs. He pushed the sugar and crème towards his guest.
“The more you talk, the more confused I seem to get. Alright, you pulled some strings, called in some favors and got me reinstated to the Bureau. But you must have known that my superiors would immediately order me to bring down the very man that you want to save.”
Grace nodded and took a sip of her coffee.
“Your brother’s arrest might be the very thing that saves his life. I won’t like it but I can live with that.”
Chris took a sip of his own. He’d always hated the stuff but his new drinking hobby made having it a necessity.
He searched Grace’s eyes for signs of deception. Intelligence was her business meant that liars and lying was her business as well.
And yet, all he found in those beautiful brown eyes was concern…and something a great deal more personal at stake in all of this. Sure, this plea for his help was about sparing her leader, a man that she’d respected and admired from harm—
“Grace, you are in love with my brother.”
She exhaled.
“I am.”
“You have my sympathies.” Chris said without smiling.
“I’m serious, Agent Prince.”
“So am I,” Chris had always berated his younger brother for how insensitive he’d been towards the women who had come and gone and come again in hi
s life. He’d adored his boys for sure, but the mother of his children was a little more than a necessary evil in his life.
But now Xavier’s questions about matters of the heart back at the church after Denise’s funeral made more sense to him now.
“I believe you, Grace. And for what it’s worth, that is the lone reason that I’m not arresting you here on the spot.”
“Arresting me?” Grace’s voice sparked with a flame of anger. “You wouldn’t be in a position to do anything of the sort if I hadn’t personally helped you.”
“No doubt,” Chris replied. “But that doesn’t change that the fact that you and your people made a volatile situation even worse with the initial proposition of a deadline for retrieving Atlanta’s missing children. Pandora initiated this. No one knows that fact better than I do, but A House in Chains’ deadline presented a variable that wasn’t there before.”
“And what would that be?”
“A deadline is something tangible. Your people made a bad situation worse for everyone involved. Thank you all for the rising tide. There are thousands of lives across this city and country at stake now more than ever before.”
Grace stood suddenly. Chris found it highly unlikely that the young woman was used to being lectured, especially by a virtual stranger.
“Point taken, Chris, now drop. It.” He could see the veins in neck throbbing. She ran her fingers across her flawlessly arched brows for a moment. “I don’t see you trying to take my guns are handcuff me so I gather you’re going to let the arresting me part pass. More importantly, are you going to help me or not?”
Chris sat his coffee cup on the counter and strolled off until he found himself standing in front of Hoshi’s picture.
Matters of the heart were always the most pressing, the most difficult of them all.
“How imminent is this threat?” Chris spun back around. “And my investigative gut tells me that this threat you speak of doesn’t originate from my colleagues or even an assassination attempt by Pandora.” He hesitated before he spoke again. “You believe the threat is homegrown. It’s Quincy Morgan—or those who maybe loyal to him.”
Grace got up and got her purse.
“I’ve said enough already. I’ve probably said too much. But I do need an answer from you Chris Prince and I need it right now.”
He’d hit on something alright. Chris rubbed on his hairless chin with a thought.
“If Xavier’s safely tucked away in my custody can you steer enough members of your Circle away from any retaliation you may already have planned.”
“Threats don’t mean anything if you’re not true to your work.” Grace said but looked away. She exhaled audibly. “I’ll try, Chris, but you should know that parts of our operation is already under way as we speak. Hundreds of Roosters…hundreds of white people who are directly or consciously responsible for injustices and acts of violence against people of color have or are being culled right now. This campaign began after the initial deadline passed. Don’t ask me to speak any more on this matter.”
Chris turned away from her so she couldn’t see the anguish in his face. He had to contemplate the gravity of what she’d just told him. Now he was faced with a grave decision for the second time in the past few hours.
He should have brought in Serena Tennyson when he’d been given a chance. He should have kept his composure. And yet, he knew that it wasn’t every day that a man learns that his father had been alive for a number of years after the world had presumed him dead—wait, it was past time he test a theory of his.
“Grace, do you remember a man named Agent Bass from your days at the academy?”
“Do I?” Grace smiled was a streak of light on a rainy day. “The man hated me. How is the old fart?”
“He’s dead,” Chris said as a matter of fact. “But my reason for bringing him up is that I remember him bragging to everyone at the bureau outside of your hearing all the time. It’s how I first learned about you. He said that you had the most natural gift for absorbing and then deciphering information that he’d ever seen in his four decade career. He told everyone that you knew how to quickly separate fact from fiction.”
“He was a good instructor. Despite our differences, I learned a lot from him.” Grace walked past the counter to where Chris was still standing next to Hoshi’s painting. “You’re not bringing up the memory of a dead man for nothing, Chris. What do you have to show me?”
“The only thing that may save a man we both love from continuing a walk towards his own destruction.”
An hour later they returned from the school site where the corpse of his dead father, the Caretaker’s remains was still where Chris had last seen them. Christopher Prince was surprised that Serena didn’t have them removed. She must have been pressed for time just as it seemed that everyone involved in this was. He hoped that was a good omen.
Grace asked if she could use his laptop. Soon after, Chris watched as she typed in an encrypted password and hopped on a secured FBI database that even he didn’t have clearance for with relative ease. Her long fingers worked fast but she never looked as if she was hurried. Seconds later a picture of Chris Prince’s father, Isaac Prince appeared on his computer’s screen in full HD and Chris choked up. Grace had used the information provided by Serena’s documents, fed it into the database, and the network had provided a detailed sketch of how his father would have appeared if he were still living today.
The results were astonishing.
“Everything I’m learning from the database tells me that this documentation is authentic.” Grace said over her reading glasses. “The dental work, the available DNA strands, even the fingerprints match within a probable 98 to 99 percentile range. I’ve run it through the system twice so I would be damned sure. What’s left of the corpse is Isaac Prince.”
“The Caretaker,” Chris watcher her reaction and she noted his. She looked away a moment. Grace looked as if she realized that this was more than just data to him—the fact that this was his Dad was starting to sink in to her.
She closed the lap top, pushed away from the dining room table and crossed her legs at the ankles.
“Why do I get the feeling you aren’t surprised by this finding, Grace?” He asked her. “You knew somehow.”
“I suspected.” She admitted to him. “I know that he was your father. I know this must hurt like hell, I respect that, but the professional intelligence officer in me has so many questions for you. How did you know he was there? When—“
“Serena Tennyson asked me to follow her there.”
Grace stood up suddenly.
“Tell me that you killed her, Chris.” Grace’s neck had that strained erectness about it again. “Tell me that you left her body in that old abandoned school with your father.”
He could only shake his head.
Grace looked at tile on his floor.
“Again, I’m sorry for you and Xavier, Chris. I know how difficult a time the coming days will be for the both of you.” Grace squeezed his arm.
Chris won’t tell her about the darker secrets that he’d only shared with Xavier and Angel. He can’t share with her where and why a deeper pain in his heart exist with his discovery of his father’s remains. He also didn’t tell her about the dire diagnosis that his personal physician gave him earlier in the evening. It wasn’t any of her business anyway. How can he even begin to trust this woman or his own judgement on these very personal matters entirely?
But Grace Edwards had exhibited her professionalism and expertise through this conversation so far.
It wasn’t too late for him to return that professionalism and expertise.
“I take it that you know where Xavier is, or at the least where he should be?”
Grace nodded hesitantly.
“I think I do. Finding him will be the easy part. Getting you past the Peacekeepers, especially his privatized security force won’t be easy.”
“Then take me to your leader, Grace.”
And then Agent Christopher Prince got busy.
He moved to gather the rest of things that would be needed if the two of them had any chance of pulling this miracle out of the hat. He charged up both of his phones, stored a couple spare clips of ammunition in an old gym bag and filled his wallet with some $100 bills that he had stashed away for a stormy day.
With Grace waiting on this side of his front door, Chris made a final stop next to Hoshi’s portrait. He ran the tips of his fat fingers over Hoshi’s lips. A part of him wonders if he’ll ever see this portrait again. He looks around the room. This apartment was never special to him but it has been his home since he and Denise divorced all those years ago.
He looked towards where Grace Edwards was standing in his foyer past expecting her patients to be well past an end.
What he did see was an unexpected pained look on her forehead.
“Grace, what is it?” He asked her gently as if his voice raised any louder she might crack in its wake. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry, Chris. With everything that’s going on—especially what you’ve shown me tonight—I’d completely forgot to fill you in on a very vital detail that will be important to you.”
“Shoot,”
“We assigned two Peacekeepers to case the woman your ex-wife hired to find your step daughter.”
“Roxanne?” Chris heard his own voice take on a darker tone. Was there anything that a House in Chains didn’t have their hands in? “She has nothing to do with 411 or Deliverance or anything else that has to do with your people’s business. Leave her alone…oh no, what’s happened Grace? What have the Peacekeeper’s done to her?”
Chris hadn’t realized that he’d grabbed a hold of both of her lean but toned arms. He eased his grip…just a little.
“For once, it isn’t about us, Chris. From the information I’ve been able to gather, Roxanne blames your friend, Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree for the death of her sister Yolanda Battle. Tonight, she…” An old school pager lit up red on Grace’s hip interrupted their conversation. “We have to move now, Chris. We’ve got to get out of here.” He put the squeeze on her arms once again. “Why, Grace? What in the hell has happened now?”
“My sources have informed me that the others are moving quicker that even I anticipated.” She said with a calmness that defied logic. “They’re going to kill Xavier within the next few hours.”
Chris released her and followed her to his front door. They agree that it would be safer for the both of them if they ride in her car instead of his. She’ll drive. She knows the way to wherever in the hell they are going, which will save valuable time. Anyway, the extra time that will buy him will help him feel better about getting behind the wheel after his binge last night.
They also agreed to work out any remaining details as they go along, which will be alien two normally very detailed and organized individuals. Well, at least they broke camp before Agent Blue arrived. She must have more than her share of loose ends to tie up as well. It would have been hell trying to explain all of this to his partner anyway.
Chris swung his front door open and beckoned Grace Edwards to exit the premises first.
But to his chagrin, Special Agent Tabitha Blue was standing in the doorway with her hands planted on her hips.
Xavier
Undisclosed Location, 25th Day
Xavier Prince saw his father.
The old man was seated on Xavier’s couch.
Dad? You shouldn’t be here, Xavier thought. He was dead.
And this version of his father looked younger that the day that he’d died in the traffic accident when both he and Chris were teenagers.
Isaac Prince saw his son out the corner of his eye, flashed a wondrous grin, got to his feet, stood face level to get a long look at his boy all grown up and planted a bear hug on him that neither man would soon forget.
Xavier felt tears biting at the corner of his eyes and he did not fight them and hugged his father back.
When his father released him the old man had did just that: He’d looked as if he’d aged 20 years. Standing before Xavier Prince now was a man who would’ve likely been his father’s age if he’d lived until this year.
His father wrapped his heavy arms around his petite son and said, “I’m so proud of everything that you’ve accomplished in your life, Xavier.” He caressed his son’s cheeks which were still wet from tears with his thick fingers.
Xavier fought to compose himself, but he was so damned happy to see his father again after so long. No dream had ever been so powerful. No vision ever this potent.
“Dad, I shadowed your footsteps because I admired you so much and I hoped…” He wiped his face with the back of his hand. “I hoped to expand on the legacy that you’d built with a House in Chains.”
“I know, son,” Isaac Prince said, cupping his son’s face with both hands. There was strength and a sense of safety to be in his father’s grasp, even when Xavier had angered him with his juvenile ways back then. “I also know that it wasn’t easy for you. I know you followed my footsteps because your brother Christopher wouldn’t.”
Somewhere Xavier’s song began to play.
Xavier looked to his left, then to his right and finally behind him, but failed to hear where the melody of Death is in the Air Tonight was coming from.
Xavier did hear his boys sweep through the living room in a youthful rush of legs and a cloud of laughter and teasing. He caught his youngest by the collar, preparing to chastise them for not speaking to any adult, yet alone their grandfather who was standing there in the living room.
But Isaac Prince had turned into a pile of dust.
He kneeled over the pile and let his fingers run through the sand that was once his father—and shook his head once and again. Had he imagined that he’d seen Isaac? Had he dreamed it? Was he still dreaming?
When Xavier stood again his oldest son had stopped his running about long enough to say, “Why don’t you put your work aside long enough for a few minutes and come outside and toss the football around a bit before the game comes on.”
Xavier felt the muscles supporting the frown on his face relaxing. He laid the briefcase (that he hadn’t remembered holding before now) down on the couch where his father had been sitting before.
And he also wondered was that really his oldest boy who’d asked about the game of catch because he looked more like his younger son would have a few years from now.
Whichever one of his sons it might have been needed to turn the volume of the radio down…
…but his sons, like most kids their age, adored hip-hop. They wouldn’t be listening to an instrumental—especially a track as monotone as Death is in the Air Tonight.
His boys called to him again. He heard them even over the song. So he let his happy face return and angled to his bedroom to fetch a pair of sneakers before it got dark outside.
Candlelight greeted him when he closed his bedroom door behind him. Wasn’t it the late afternoon only seconds ago? He shook the latest oddity away and started to open his closet when a whiff of perfume caught his senses with a pleasant surprise.
He turned back to where the bed should be (how could he be sure of anything at this point), and saw Grace Edwards lying across the length of the bed. She was older than when he last saw her, perhaps middle aged, but her tight figure, soft brown skin, and beautiful face still remained intact.
She wore a huge diamond wedding band on the appropriate finger, a tight smile and nothing else. He returned his wife’s smile with one of his own. He heard her ask him to come to bed and join her. Xavier looked back over his shoulder where his children might or might not have been waiting in the yard for him to come out and play with them. Yet, a peek at the window sill verified that it was indeed dark outside and they would be in the house fooling around in their rooms before it officially bedtime.
Xavier aloud himself a quick laugh. He fumbled with his tie, kicked off his loafers, and inched towards his wife slowly until their lips
touched at long last.
A Death in the air tonight blared louder and louder but Grace seemed oblivious to it at least. It was nearly deafening to his ears but he could hear her moans of pleasure after he entered her.
The music be damned.
He would not let it steal this moment of pleasure from him and the woman who loved him so.
And with each thrust the music lessened and his wife’s shrieks of pleasure grew louder.
They climaxed simultaneously and he heard Grace Edwards Prince scream out his name—
And then Xavier awoke with someone unfamiliar calling his name.
“Get up, sir.” And the voice was more insistent. “Get. Up. Xavier Prince if you want to live, sir.”
Xavier sat up as if he were shot out of a canon in a cold, uncomfortable sweat resting on his temple.
The memory of the dream was vivid in his thoughts…but the recollection of what he was doing before he dozed off might have proven more useful to him. Yes, he’d been listening to a brilliant instrumental with a deliciously dark melody to it that someone had sent to him as a gift. It was no denying that it was the same composition that he’d heard when he and Brother Chris had their last conversation together in the church’s bathroom.
It was also the same song that had played like his personal theme song during the three phases of his dream when he saw his father alive, his boys altered and made love to the wife version of Grace Edwards.
“We have to get you out of here now.”
“What?” Xavier said. And when one of his personal security details grabbed him by the shoulder he did not flinch. “Take your hands off of me. I’m not going anywhere with you until somebody explains what in the hell is going on here.”
Two younger men eyed each other anxiously. The one on the left looked as if he’d played a game of Russian roulette and loss the other could have been a firecracker on the Fourth of July he was moving about so much.
Gunshots peeled off in the distance of the compound. Xavier stood then. The Russian leaned over and cleared his throat.
“Ms. Edwards assigned us directly to the task of protecting you, sir. We need you to trust us as you would trust her. They are ready to execute an assassination attempt on your life, sir. We have to move you to a preordained place of safety and we have to do it right now.”
Firecracker hopped around, took a quick glance out of the door.
“They’ve been planning this coup since your release from Calhoun State Prison, sir.”
“You two keep saying they.” Xavier said as the third man, a man who looked as if he knew one joke and told it often, nearly blanketed his smaller frame with his much larger one. “Who does Grace suspect has been planning this?”
The Joker said from behind him as he pushed Xavier forward. “Look sir, your Number 2 has taken control a majority stake in the Peacekeepers, especially many of the principal admirals and lieutenants. Make no mistake, sir, you have allies, but we are outnumbered and outgunned, especially in this compound. I am prepared to exercise any method necessary to relocate you to a safer locale.
Russian smiled and laid a hand on his partner’s shoulder. “All three of us will be more than happy to accept any disciplinary measures you find necessary afterwards, sir.” He gave a final look out of the door before they all exited never to return to this room. “Number One, if you will kindly join us?”
Xavier nodded and thanked each man for their help.
How the three four of them maneuvered through the labyrinths of rooms and hallways and corridors was something Xavier would have to figure out later if he lived long enough. He would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that he’d visited every square inch of this place, but quickly was realizing how inaccurate his assessment to mere size of this facility they’d secretly built hidden but in plain sight really was.
Grace Edwards had worked out this escape route even without his consent or input in order to aid in keeping him safe. Each room along the route was supplied with food rations in case they were pinned down here by a Pandora or FBI incursion. Weapons are also on demand in case they were involved in a fire fight.
Xavier’s security detail used a moment of pause to fill their clips with ammunition that would feed a small hungry army.
And then they saw the damage done from what they’d heard earlier.
Joker led the way as they stepped over scores of dead bodies of Peacekeepers that had littered the hallways. He recognized a handful of them. Curiosity bested him for a minute: Who had fought for him and who against?
This time Firecracker nudged him forward. He silently thanked Grace Edwards again. She was a genius indeed. She had chosen his protectors well.
Twenty minutes later Xavier heard one of the two men behind him whisper with some anxiety that they were nearly through this maze. Xavier couldn’t tell which one it was. He just followed Joker and kept his eyes pinned in front of him. He still hoped whichever of the men made the statement knew what he was talking about.
And he hoped Grace had been thoughtful enough to leave him a pack of smokes when they cleared this structure and the immediate danger had passed.
Joker pushed him against the wall and with eye contact only, encouraged Xavier and the other two Peacekeepers to mirror his sliding motion along the wall while staying low. They continued along with their slide for about 20 feet when Xavier saw—light.
It wasn’t much in the way of light, but any light at this point meant they were nearing the end of this perilous journey and the freedom of the outside world was one last door away.
Firecracker took the lead this time; and with his rifle drawn opened the last door which nearly blinded them with the intense light of the Atlanta morning.
And when Xavier’s pupils had adjusted to the new sensations they were exposed to—he saw Warren Washington standing in his path with a semi- automatic gun in each of his hands.
Xavier’s boys didn’t waste time or movement as they drew all of their weapons on the lone wolf denying their exit in one incredible heartbeat.
The leader of a House in Chains had to suppress a smile.
This was far too easy.
Something—perhaps a sixth sense urged him to look just over his left shoulder. And he saw movement in the shadows on the far side of the courtyard.
And then another moved.
And another still, until dozens of Peacekeepers he was sure were not loyal to him had descended and the four of them from all directions until they were completely surrounded. In addition, their enemies had nearly every model of firearm pointed at them.
Grace’s efforts were to be commended. And these three men who would die with him were more than honorable, but the seeds of this betrayal were rooted deeper than any of them would have believed.
He refused to be “protected” any longer. He shook the hand of each of the men who had tried to aid in his escape and stepped to the point.
“Warren,” Xavier called out to the former athletic star. “I should have known you would be involved in this. I did know in fact. So here I am. So here you are. I’m not surprised that Quincy Morgan sends his lapdog to execute his dirty work for him.”
Warren swallowed hard but otherwise remained still and silent—for now.
“You call it dirty work,” It was Quincy Morgan’s voice over bellowing from speakers whose central location was a place Xavier could not centralize. “I call it cleaning up, Number One. We are at a necessary end. And yes, someone must always do what is necessary especially when it concerns our people moving forward.”
“Quincy,” Xavier looked over the courtyard’s walls onto the horizon. “Don’t lecture me and don’t take the coward’s way out of this. Be half the man you claim to be and show yourself.”
“I’m sorry, Number One, but that won’t be practical or possible.” Quincy replied. A strung gust a smoke enhanced wind blew in. “Right now I am in the process of getting a lot done on a very tight schedule. But rests assure that I wouldn’t miss this important
transition of power for the world.”
“So by killing me you hope to gain power, authority and status over a House in Chains?” Xavier asked the absent man. “Have you forgotten the Visionaries? I know that the everyday Joe Citizen who makes up the vast majority of our ranks. I know what they have meant to this movement—my father’s movement over the years. Do you think they will follow you when they learn how you betrayed me? You will need all of the Peacekeeper’s strength and numbers to fight them all off.”
“Under normal circumstances I would agree with you, Number One. But you’re only skimming the surface of what my real intentions are.”
Xavier listened to Quincy but watched as a female Peacekeeper disarmed his three protectors of their weapons. If they weren’t truly defenseless before they were now.
“Speak quickly,” Xavier swallowed bile. “You have my attention and I am in no rush to go anywhere right now.”
Quincy continued: “Number One, you have been our great leader. You have raised your father’s name to new heights and sealed his legacy within our House. You should be commended. Well done.”
“You should kill me now, Quincy,” Xavier said dangerously. “I will not tolerate being mocked by the likes of you.”
“I’m not mocking you. How could you ever accuse me of showing you such malignant disrespect? I admire you, Xavier. No one else—myself included—could have placed a House in Chains in this position to excel well past even your father’s mandates and goal. I can think of no one else in this world but you, sir.”
“And yet, you want to kill me today, Quincy. And you’ve gone through a lot of trouble to pull it off.”
“You are wrong again. I don’t wish to do anything of the sort, my friend. You are the brother I never had. This experience is heartbreaking to me. I won’t soon forget the horror of this day.” You aren’t the only one. And yet Xavier found Warren Washington standing before him teary eyed. Quincy’s choice sounded as if it were choking up with each passing sentence. “I want you know that all of your strengths in leadership and character were invaluable during peacetime.”
“And the peace has passed?”
“It has, Xavier. Pandora and to a lesser extent, our own government has pushed us into a less civilized age. In fact that new barbaric age is upon as even as we speak.”
“Educate me, Quincy.” Xavier said in all seriousness. “I don’t fully understand your meaning.”
Quincy seemed to be collecting his thoughts and his voice. After a minute of uncomfortable silence he continued:
“I mean to say that there are heartless men and women out there, lost souls, born for one reason only: They are born to lead troops onto the battlefield, into the heart of Hell itself.”
“Are you so heartless?” Xavier asked his former Number Two. He waited on the man that he begrudgingly had trusted with his life. “Are you truly so lost?”
“I am,” Quincy’s voice went silent again. Xavier had decided that if Quincy was acting then this was an Oscar worthy performance. He did finally return at last, his voice transformed into something fragile and nearly unrecognizable. Could this hard, unyielding man truly be grappling with true emotion right now? “You are a grown man, Xavier. I won’t tell you how you should think or feel in your last minutes on this Earth. But I do want you to know that I do love you as a man would love his own blood brother.”
“Brothers who love each other don’t slaughter one another in cold blood.”
“It’s either murder my brother or allow him to fail a House in Chains in her House’s greatest hour of need. I love you, Xavier but I love the House you built more.”
Xavier scanned the courtyard once again feeling that Quincy’s monologue was at long last coming to an end. He felt the minute hairs on the nape of his neck rising in the cool, brisk breeze. He felt a mix an emotions: Xavier still had a dozen guns trained on him so his fear was still prevalent but his anger was gaining a foot hole inside of him; the anger that consumed him when the news arrived on his teenaged doorstep that his father had been killed and that his brother Chris had gone missing. And the anger turned to fury when those white boys at Princeton had left him out to rot on specially designed X just for him.
“What are you people waiting for?” Xavier shouted to every Peacekeeper who had dared to betray him. He took a purposeful step towards Warren. “I won’t plead for you to spare these men who sided with me because I know that you will not. I won’t beg for my life because I’ve sworn to myself that I won’t give you the satisfaction—“
“Begging is the last thing that I want you to do, Xavier.” Quincy wasn’t finished chiming in after all. “You’ve heard the man, Warren. I need you to serve our cause not any man in particular. Do what’s better for our House, for our race.”
Warren raised his shotgun with remarkable quickness. So this is how it ends. And then he fired a single shot that blew past Xavier’s right ear into the head into one of his protectors. He matched his initial precision by firing twin shots and killing the other two men.
The next time he squeezed the trigger he would launch a round into his forehead killing him a second or two thereafter.
Xavier could feel the dozen or so Peacekeepers who had sided with Quincy Morgan tensing without looking at them. They may have disagreed with his policy, but they wanted this exhibition to end as soon as possible.
Xavier flashed back to the scene back at Calhoun Prison when he and Julian Moore held Michael Davenport’s life in their hands just like his own life rested in Warren Washington’s. He remembered hoping that Davenport would provide the information that they had needed and that he wouldn’t have to order Julian’s Black Knight’s to kill the rooster on the hard, prison floor.
All of those previous grievances seemed petty now.
“I know that we talked about this, Quincy,” Xavier was unsure of which shook more: Warren’s lips or the shotgun wielded from his fingertips. “I want to end this like we planned. I want to obey your command.”
“Then simply obey it then, Warren.” Quincy’s voice remained patient and calm—at least for now. “I remember you asking…I remember you begging me for the right to complete this task. You told me it would be and honor to rid our organization of Xavier’s smugness, of the stench of stale cigarette smoke clouding every room we were closed up with him.” Quincy exhaled audibly over the microphone wherever he was. “How many times has this man embarrassed you in front of the others in the Circle? You owe this man like no one else in that courtyard. Do it now, Warren. Kill Xavier Prince now.”
“I can do this.”
“I said do it now, Warren.”
“I will do this.”
“Do it now.”
“I’m sorry for all of this, Number One.” Warren said…and then he did something that Xavier could have never anticipated—
Warren Washington threw the shotgun aside, pulled a small caliber pistol from somewhere inside of his jacket, turned the barrel on his own temple and fired his final efficient shot into his own forehead.
Xavier didn’t bother going for the shotgun, but he slowly kneeled to where Warren Washington had fallen to the courtyard’s concrete canvas.
Warren had died instantly.
But he wasn’t the only one.
Behind Xavier, a half dozen other Peacekeeper’s adapted Warren’s inspirational but fatal move as their own as they committed a very loud and a very violent suicide as well.
Xavier got on his knees and screamed in anguish towards the heavens above.
And then he got to his feet and was pacing feverishly around the courtyard, while six remaining Peacekeeper’s kept their weapons trained on him, but otherwise allowed their former leader his space.
“Warren’s dead, Quincy. Six of your loyal troops joined him in eternity by their own hand. At the moment, I don’t see anyone else rushing to take the lead in carrying out your commands. You’ve failed. Do you hear me you miserable traitor, you’ve failed.”
“Warren fail
ed,” Quincy said with an air of confidence that unnerved Xavier at his core. “And to some degree or the other every Peacekeeper—both dead and still alive—has a bond with you. I can forgive that. I understand that. I’ve planned for that contingency.”
“Quincy.”
“Like I said I prepared myself for all contingencies. So I recruited an understudy. I recruited a strong, courageous, coldly calculated person to pick up the pieces and put it all back together again if it became absolutely necessary. It’s never easy to find someone just like me but I did.”
Xavier had that cold inkling a fear running from his shoulder blades down his spine.
He glanced over his shoulder and saw the boy from the college who Grace Edwards had introduced him to when the Circle had its first meeting together in the days after he was released from Calhoun Prison.
Mario Stalls walked into the courtyard from a nearby gate, strolled by the Peacekeepers as if they were nearly six separate parts of the landscape. He slowed just long enough to scoop up two of the many idle guns from the fallen and both of his guns on Xavier in milliseconds.
Quincy made an announcement: “Sometimes you do have to send a boy to do a man’s job.”
Xavier showed the boy a single palm.
“You’re going to want to be careful with those, son.” He said. “You have two potentially lethal weapons in your possession. Neither one of us wants to see anyone get hurt do we?”
“If you truly believe that, then you are more pathetic than I already believe you to be, Xavier.” Quincy said. “Mario knows all too well what to do with those guns. I’ve trained him well.”
“He has, sir,” Mario said. His eyes were like cold steel. “I’m sorry sir, but I’ll do what I must.”
Xavier Prince had once heard that when a man’s death is impending that his life flashes before him.
And I believe that is what the dream that I had just hours ago—my life…what it was…what it is… and what it could have been flashing before me before I met my end.
He heard his father tell him with his gruff voice one last time how proud of the man he’d become.
He heard his boys ask him to sit his work aside and toss the football around before the game came on.
He heard Grace Edwards invite him into her bed to make love to her again—for the first time.
He heard Death is in the air playing in his head.
And then Xavier Prince, the One, the most dangerous man in the world heard Mario Stalls fire his killing shot at him.
Serena
Undisclosed Location, 25th Day
The former director of the FBI said, “Thank you for coming on such short notice, Serena. I apologize for my choice of locales but it will have to do.”
Serena Tennyson pulled her hands out of the windbreaker’s pockets and folded them.
“Anything for you, Guardian,” She said. “I need to be here for you, for Pandora—especially now.”
Death was in the air tonight. Rice paced in a semi-circle around a small space in the alley. The place stank of discarded food, garbage and mold. And when the wind gusted just right…the stench of burning flames nearly consumed the senses.
It was wondrous.
Guardian had chosen this place or reunion well. The banks of the Chattahoochee River were a stone’s s throw from where they were standing right now. Three decades ago Muhammad Clark had tossed more than one of his victims into a watery grave. Caretaker had witnessed two of the incidents himself.
Tonight she’d come unarmed as show of good faith even over Rohm’s persistent protest. She reminded Danielle that she’d already seen herself in the flames. Tonight didn’t have that feel of finality—at least not yet.
But she did have that feeling that the flames had cleansed another of his burdens tonight.
She could feel it in her marrow.
She heard the rattle of automatic gunfire in the distance. I am not beyond making errors in judgement. If tonight is the night then I am ready. And in that instance she heard the whine of an ambulance soon followed the gunfire.
“I’ve gone over this thing countless times in my head since we’ve last spoken, Serena.” He finally stopped pacing long enough to look up at her. “I want Xavier Prince dead. As soon as we confirm his passing—and I do mean that I want to see a body—I want the remainder of this campaign to cease and desist.”
“Sir—“
Rice waved a dismissive hand at her so she would remain silent.
“All other losses are deemed acceptable to me at this point. I’ve come to realization…and not for the first time—that when the clock moves beyond the Zero Hour that you and I will be forced to call Xavier’s bluff or we can fold. Continuing along the first path likely will lead us towards a massacre if not an annihilation people of color in this country. I’m talking genocide, Serena. I will not stand by and watch the country that I love go down in history with the likes of Rwanda or Kosovo. It can’t come to that, Serena.”
“And what of the Caretaker’s vison? What about his personal sacrifices—
“I don’t think Isaac Prince envisioned what we have in store for his people if this escalation of hostilities continues.”
Serena stepped into his shadow and squeezed his shoulder. “If we don’t complete our mission now—
“What,” The Guardian snapped at her. He tugged at the collar that seemed to squeezing every bit of oxygen out of his windpipe. “Are there sure to be consequences? I’m sure that there will some. Perhaps a House in Chains slips through this time. Perhaps they grow in stature and power as a result. I don’t care. They don’t have the numbers or the logistical means to overcome us. What difference will it make if we wear them down over the next five years instead of eliminating them in one decisive blow tonight?” He shook his head wildly. “I’ve made my decision. I can live with it. My conscious is clear. It’s over. All of this is over.”
“I understand all too well.” Serena replied with a brittle tone that she did not mask. “My question to you is this: will you be able to live with the piles of bodies on both sides that have and will continue to die in vain with no resolution to this conflict in sight? Will that satisfy that conscious of yours as well?” She snapped back, the ferociousness in her voice surprising its speaker.
Rice did a half turn.
“Serena…Adrian Browner is dead. Gwyn Cannon and a man she was planning to spend the evening with were also found murdered. Dozens more of Pandora’s friends, business associates, vendors, allies and other supporters have turned up dead or missing in the past four to five hours across the nation. It is time for us to let this go.”
Serena searched his face for clarity.
“Your decision disappoints me.”
“I’m sorry that you feel that way, Serena.”
“You should feel more than just sorrow,” Serena stood at her full height and put her balled fist on her hips. “You should die for your insolence. I thought believed in death before dishonor. I came here with the expectation of receiving punishment for any and all failures I was responsible for. But here…at the end…it is you who have failed me—failed him.”
“Serena—“
“If there is one lesson that I’ve always learned it is this: Great men do what they have to, no matter the personal cost. Isaac Prince gave up his life figuratively and then literary so that his people would someday know peace while achieving dignity while they did so. He sacrificed his own son to start the process because he thought his actions would ultimately save lives. My own father—“
“Your father murdered your mother and killed himself because he was a coward, Serena. He was a coward and a failure.” Raymond Rice said in a sad voice.
Serena snatched him by the collar and pulled him in a single, violent motion as close to her face as she could.
“My father was no coward. He was a tactician and a believer in the Dragon.”
“What?”
“My father’s investments all tanked within a 24
hour period as you say. We’d lost everything…everything. The only value his life had left were the insurance policies.”
He tried to pull away from her vice like grip but was unsuccessful.
“Often, you can’t collect on insurance policies if you commit suicide.”
Serena nodded sadly, her grip loosening a bit.
“I know that. My father’s last scam failed to work. I would not collect my parent’s insurance policies. I would not be taken care of as per my father’s wishes. And I would live the rest of my childhood alone even in the company of foster family after foster family.
“I’m sorry.” Rice unlatched himself from her grip until he was free at last. “I understand now more than ever why you seek out such isolation. You must have been so very lonely.”
“I didn’t ask for you pity.” She said. “I do ask you to reconsider your decision. You are sacrificing everything that we’ve worked for, everything that we’ve accomplished so far—“
“Serena, I have made my decision.” He said in a tired voice. “I’m asking you to drop this now.”
“Then you leave me no choice but to relieve you of command.” She said. “It is not often a man loses two jobs in a 48 hour period, but you leave me no choice. Go home, sir. You don’t belong here.”
Rice pointed a finger at her.
“That will be enough out of you, Oracle. You are out of line.”
“And you are pathetic.”
Raymond Rice reached into his right jacket and produced a gun.
Serena laughed; it was a curt, pathetic sound. How didn’t she feel that piece of steal when she had him in her grasp only minutes before?
“Maybe I am pathetic.” Rice pushed his glasses up, but kept the pistol’s eye focused on her. “Yet, despite all of your bravado and proclamations, I am still in command of Pandora. I am still where the Caretaker left me when he died all of those years ago. I’m not asking for your love, Serena—hell, I’m not even asking for your respect. But if you loved Isaac Prince and all he stood for as much as you claim that you do you will stand down. I am giving you a direct order to cease and desist. If you disobey me at any point from the moment forward, then you are betraying the Caretaker’s memory.”
Both of them glared at the other while they each took deep breaths.
Guardian coughed and spat. Serena turned her back to him.
“You have been my have been my number two, but I haven’t kept you in the loop about everything. More wheels are churning than you think. We walk ever closer towards a tragic path that we soon may not be able to pull back from—“
“No,” She snorted but had not turned back to face him—yet.
“What—“
“I said no. You just admitted to me that you haven’t told me everything that I need to know about our own operation. I’m done with you. I am refusing to recognize your authority.”
Raymond Rice pulled the hammer back and pointed his gun in the space between her eyes.
“You believe you have power when he the only advantage that gun gives you is the gift of choice.”
He snorted.
“And what choice is that, Serena?”
“You can both resume command and order me to continue my duties…or you can betray me and kill me where I stand. The choice is yours alone.”
“I don’t want to have to kill you, Serena.”
“I’ve always been willing to take responsibility for whatever came next in my life, sir. My father introduced me to accountability. Isaac Prince taught me to make it apart of who I am.” Serena showed him her back again and began to step away. “I’m carrying on in my attempt to complete the Caretaker’s mission. Only death will stand between me and completing this.”
“Stop, Serena.”
“Goodbye, Raymond.”
“I am commanding you to stop.”
Serena Tennyson takes two steps…and then a third… and then—
A shot is fired.
She falls to her knees with a scream.
Serena finds that her heart is beating at an alarming rate. She can feel her pulse racing in her ears and she is struggling to contain her breathing.
And yet, everything on her body seems, at first glance, to be intact. She doesn’t see any blood either.
Guardian is laying face first on the asphalt.
Now she see’s blood. She sees a pool of blood spilling out from underneath Rice’s carcass. A single gunshot wound to the back of his head initiated the gushing action of blood and brains.
Serena falls to her knees. She attempts to turn him over, but his dead weight nearly topples her over. She screams for the second time in many minutes. Tears flow freely from her eyes.
“No,” She rests her head on his chest where only a hollow, empty silence greets her in return. “Don’t die. I wanted you dismissed not dead, Guardian. You were right about me, Guardian. I am so alone. Everyone that I love keeps leaving me behind. If someone loves you, why would they do that? Why would they leave you behind?”
Serena heard footsteps marching through the alley from the direction where the kill shot originated. Her first instinct—a protective one—urges her to get to her feet and sprint to the exit through the slim opening by the dumpsters in the back.
A second—more forceful instinct—advices her to collect the still armed firearm resting within her range and shoot anyone who dares emerge from the shadows.
She fails to do either.
Serena Tennyson can only lie on Raymond Rice’s chest, mixing her tears with the dead man’s blood.
“Serena?” A small, familiar voice called out to her. “Serena, can you hear me? Are you hurt?”
She shrugged off Rohm’s tiny hand when the younger woman tried to massage the small of her back.
“Don’t touch me,” Serena said in a barely audible voice. “You promised to stay behind, Danielle. You told me that you trusted me to handle this alone. You lied to me.”
Rohm went to one knee and dared to run her fingers through Serena’s hair. With her petite figure and her deep dark clothing, Rohm was barely visible in this dark ally. She was the perfect assassin. She was a perfect assassin.
“I did just that, Serena. I did. I lied. And I would do it again and again to protect you, to protect our work that is still to be done.”
“You took him away from me.”
“I saw things getting out of hand. I saw Ryan pull a gun on you, which means he didn’t live up to his end of the agreement between you. He brought a deadly weapon to this meeting…and I just wanted to make sure that you were as adequately armed.”
Serena looked up at last and Rohm gently pulled enough red hair back to plant a kiss on her forehead.
“You are our leader. You are a Prophet. I wasn’t going to allow him to take you away from us—from me. There are still far too many innocent lives at stake. We still have much work to do. Will you join me?”
Serena felt her heart rate decelerating. She swipes at her tears and ties her long red hair back in a single motion. Rohm stands and offers her tiny hand, which Serena accepts and rises to her full height overlooking the younger woman. Rohm uses the opportunity to pull Serena close—and squeezes her tightly.
Serena finds returning the embrace. Perhaps I am not alone after all.
“I’ll never leave you, Serena. I promise.”
Serena nodded. A quick gust of smoky wind dries the remainder of her tears. She inhales deeply and steps next to the spot where Ryan died.
“We should place his body next to Isaac’s in the school. The Guardian should join the Caretaker. Together they will rest for an eternity?” The mere sound of the suggestion soothed her heart.
Rohm said, “I will see to your wishes.”
Serena snapped open her cell phone and made a few calls explaining Raymond Rice’s untimely death to a few high ranking friends, allies and associates of Pandora.
She made no mention of Rice’s acknowledgements of plots and plans that were going on outside of h
er knowledge and consent.
She would learn all of the truths in due time.
“Rohm, show Ryan’s body all of the dignity and respect that it deserves, but I need you to move swiftly.” Serena said. “We have to finish what we’ve started.”
And then when a House in Chains was put to rest, Serena vowed to find those who would betray the ideals of Isaac Prince.
There is Death in the air tonight.
And this night marked the first of many deaths to come.
Chris
Near Underground Atlanta, 25th Day
“Turn left at the next red light.” Grace Edwards sat up and pointed in the appropriate direction from her seat the back. “We’re almost there.”
Special Agent Christopher Prince watched as his partner Agent Tabitha Blue snorted and twisted uncomfortably in the driver’s seat. She took her eyes off the road long enough to roll her eyes at him, but she whipped the car in generally direction and fed the gas once they were headed west.
Chris whistled a curt tune to ease the tension in the car between the two women, but knew his efforts were probably in vain. He sipped at his coffee from his mug between verses.
“Alright,” Blue said. “Someone explain to me why I’m taking orders from a member of the Circle. And while that someone enlightens me about that I would love my curiosity to be satisfied on why we don’t have this woman under arrest by now.”
“The explanation is simpler than you think, Tabitha,” Chris exhaled through his nose. He rubbed the skin between his eyes. “Sheridan gave the two of us explicit orders to locate the leaders of a House in Chains. Ms. Edwards, as you’ve so correctly stated, is a member of the Circle. We are doing our duty. And who could be better suited at leading us to my brother?”
Blue shook her head. “I’m not buying her story, Chris, and you shouldn’t be buying it either.” Blue noted the heavy pedestrian traffic on the streets down here and eased off the gas a bit, but laid on the horn. “Look, from the Circle’s point of view, what she is contemplating is nothing short of treason. Tell me why would she betray a House in Chains now, especially with their self-imposed Zero Hour—their moment of glory, closing in?”
Grace chimed in.
“First of all, I would appreciate if the both of you stopped talking about me as if I weren’t here.” Chris looked at Grace in the mirror. She straightened out her collar and pointed a long finger left when they arrived at the next intersection. Chris noted exactly where they were: This so compound sat perilous close to the main entrance of Underground Atlanta.” Secondly, this agreement was between Agent Prince and me. The chances of us achieving our objectives were slim at best.” Grace focused her attention to the driver’s side of the car. “Your presence, Agent Blue, lowers our probability of success greatly.”
Blue glanced back and frowned.
“How terrible for you,”
Chris buttoned his shirt at the sleeve, avoiding eye contact with his partner where he could.
“I gave her my word, Blue.”
“And what about the oath you swore to the Bureau? The oath you swore to your country.” Blue took the next curve hard and spun the wheels.
Chris leaned over to the driver’s side.
“I don’t know quite how she did it, Blue, but if it wasn’t for Grace Edwards I wouldn’t be reinstated into the Bureau in the first place. You and I wouldn’t even have this opportunity to nip this madness coming in the bud. Blue, if it wasn’t for Grace, you and I wouldn’t be having this conversation at all.”
Blue seemed to sniff the air between them. She didn’t care for it at all.
And then she sniffed it again, as is she was testing the same air for a hypothesis of hers.
“I don’t believe this; I don’t believe what my own senses are telling me.” Blue said as she pulled over and slunk down in her seat.
“What?” Chris wanted to know.
“Have you been…drinking, Chris?”
Chris knew when he didn’t answer immediately that this conversation would quickly go south. Blue threw the transmission into drive again, crossed over two lanes, and cut into traffic. Several angry drivers took out their frustrations by laying heavily on their horns. Chris watched as one driver sped up to match their velocity and gave Blue the finger. Blue flashed her badge and her overbite. Grace sighed, crossed her long legs and sat back in the backseat.
“Answer my question, Agent Prince; have you consumed alcohol over the past few hours?” Blue asked.
Chris sipped at his cold coffee.
“I have.”
Blue promptly slammed a balled fist on the stirring wheel.
Grace mouthed a curse.
“We’re wasting time, Agent Prince; your partner’s temper tantrums bring us no closer to achieving our objectives.”
Chris ignored Grace. If they were going to find his brother in time they needed Blue’s cooperation.
“I’ve had a trying time. I’d been relieved of my duties among some other far personal things that have gone on in my life. I had no reason to think that I was going to work Bureau business tonight or any night ever again. And then Grace shows up. I’m suddenly reinstated. You know the rest. I’m okay, really. I can do this.”
“I don’t believe that I’m involved in this.” Blue kept shaking her head. “I don’t believe I let you talk me into this.”
Suddenly, Agent Blue stopped just long enough to slam the transmission into reverse.
“Where are we going?” Grace asked.
“I’m turning this car around, Missy, and driving us towards the FBI field office. I’m letting someone else figure this out. It’s not too late in the game for someone to debrief both of you—“
“No, you aren’t going to do anything like that.” Chris said in a calmer than he actually felt.
“Agent Prince,” Blue said. “I don’t see an alternative—“
Chris laid his right hand on the steering wheel.
“Tabitha, have ever known me to ask you or anyone else for anything?”
“Dammit, Chris, don’t make this personal. This isn’t about just me and you.”
Chris squeezed the wheel tighter and reached across her with lighting speed pinning her hand under his.
“Answer my question, Blue.”
After she pulled over to the shoulder again all three of the passengers seemed to stop for breath and composure. Blue glanced out the rolled down window into the smoky Atlanta night. She flashed Grace Edwards a dirty look and finally found her partner’s eyes once again.
“No, Chris, no you haven’t asked me or anyone else we both know for anything as long as I’ve known you.” To his surprise she added, “And you’ve taught me everything that I know about being the best FBI Special Agent that I can be. You were the one who taught me about being a professional.”
Chris nodded.
“Where does loyalty fit into those lessons?”
“Dammit,” Blue said again. “I’m pleading with you not to go there. Look, Chris, I’ve never seen you like this before. I’ve never witnessed a time where I didn’t think you weren’t in absolute control no matter how bad a situation seemed.”
“I’ve never found my ex-wife and step daughter dead within days of one another. I’ve never had a blatant lie about my personal life broadcasted on the six o clock news. And I’ve never had my brother’s life be put in imminent danger.”
And I never had to learn that my father not only faked his death, but evolved into the leader of Pandora while he handed me over to a pedophile.
And I never learned that I may have six months to a year to live.
“And his brother’s life,” Grace added in a bitter tone. “Which I believe may have been snuffed out minutes ago while we sit and catch up on a little history, has been threatened by very dangerous—very powerful men in my organization.”
Blue dropped her eyes.
“Alright I’m in.” She waved a halfhearted scolding finger at him. “But you’re going to write the paper
work on all this.
Chris smiled for the first time in hours.
“Of course,”
They were ten minutes into their methodical trek through the corridors leading to this underground bunker which Chris guessed was somewhere within a mile or so of Underground Atlanta, mere blocks from the FBI field office downtown. To construct this location in plain sight was brilliant enough—audacious enough to be the brainchild of the woman leading them through the halls of this place. Grace Edwards was a formidable presence to say the least. It must have taken countless dollars and resources to design and build a setup right under city officials’ noses even if the former mayor was an ally.
Chris could only hope that Grace’s personal guards’ were just as tactful—and more importantly—just as successful in their task as well.
And then he saw the first signs that they may indeed be too late.
Chris felt the first stab of pain strike the walls of his stomach when he saw drops of blood on the floor. The pain transformed into nausea and eventually numbness all together when they nearly stepped on the first dead body. Grace stooped down and scanned for a pulse, but Chris could tell by her reaction alone that the victim was long dead.
A half dozen Peacekeepers were found scattered across another corridor. Chris hypothesized that the men and women paid the most particular interest to the ones who were loyal to herself and the man she loved. When she finally rose to her feet after tending to the sixth fallen Peacekeeper he could see in her face that her hopes of finding Xavier and extracting him out of this place alive was fading.
His beloved brother hadn’t given up on finding him when Louis Keaton held him so long ago.
He could at least return that determination.
He put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
“Lead on, Grace.” He said to her. “For better or worse, we need to find Xavier.”
She lifted her long legs and did as she was asked, peeling a rifle off of one of the carcasses and continued taking the point. Blue had trailed them from the rear so far by a few yards, scanning everything in her site, saying little, and leaving nothing to chance. She was sweating.”
The entered a small room after a few more minutes that fed into a far more grand setting of a courtyard. There were at least ten more bodies spiraled about it. It smelled of bruised blood, marrow, urine and gunfire.
They were deep into an abyss.
And there they found Xavier at last.
Blue holstered her gun and pushed her tied down hair out of her eyes to give herself something to do so she wouldn’t focus on what she was seeing. Grace found a nearby wall without looking for it to support her weight as she struggled to hold herself up right any longer. Chris…Chris Prince didn’t move for a very long time. He wanted to ease his frame over to where he saw a bloodied, dying Xavier sitting up with his back resting on an adjacent wall, stroking the equally blood nappy mane of a dead young man who looked to be no older than his step daughter when she died. The younger man looked very much like a child who had settled in for a long nap.
Special Agent Christopher Prince couldn’t tell whether his brother’s blood ended and the younger man’s began. He glanced to his own left and recognized Warren Washington’s frame, still athletic, even in death. Chris had trained with men and women who’d taken a great pride in piecing impossible crime scenes like this together like one would piece together a jigsaw puzzle.
The professional in him did not envy them this task.
But the Christopher Prince who had a personal stake in this rediscovered his resolve, and stepped over the final dead body that separated he and his dying brother and made his way over to him. Chris sat on his knees on the floor in front of him as close as he could.
“Xavier…it’s alright, man.” He examined two or three bullet holes pouring blood out of his chest and side. “It’s…it’s not that bad…really, we can fix this—“
“Liar,” Xavier said. And then he smiled at Chris and the action broke the agent’s heart all over again. “You should stick to the truth, big brother; it’s what Dad always said you were best at. And he was right.”
And even if time allowed me to, do I send you into eternity knowing the ugly truth about our father?
Instead, Chris squeezed both of his brother’s forearms bruised by blood. He looked back only for a moment: He saw Tabitha Blue squatting over in a corner, protecting their perimeter against any attack and giving him a respectful moment to grieve. Grace Edwards had planted her face into her skinny hands and began to openly sob. The man she loved was dying and Chris was sure that she was wrongly blaming herself for her inability to protect him from Quincy Morgan’s power play.
Chris sat all the way down in front of his brother.
“Who did this to you?” Chris asked through clenched teeth.
Xavier remained tight lipped, but when the tears started flowing ever so freely and his stroking of the boy’s hair increase simultaneously it clued Chris in. Nevertheless he said, “I’ll find Quincy. I’ll make him pay for what he orchestrated here.”
Xavier wiped at his tears and then glanced down at the boy. “We’ve already paid the price, Chris. My vengeance has been served. It’s too late for anything else. I’ve already forgiven Quincy…I’ve forgiven Serena Tennyson as well—just as I hope my God can forgive me for all of my sins.”
“I wanted to save you, Xavier.” Chris said as his tears now came. He knew Grace’s misery. He understood it all too well. “I wanted to save you the same way you rescued me when we were just boys.”
Xavier stopped brushing the dead boy’s hair and reached for the living. He wrapped his arms around his brother Chris and pulled him close.
“You still can save me, big brother,” He said, his voice fading with every syllable. “I saw our father in a vision tonight, Chris. I don’t understand everything that seeing him was supposed to mean…I know that if you can save his legacy, that the both of us will live one. Don’t let his dreams die here. I want you to promise me that you won’t let them die when…I die.”
“I promise.”
Other than the sobbing of the two people closest to the one dying, there is only silence. Grace walks over, falls to her knees and wraps her slender figure around the both of them. Chris only listens as she tells her brother that she loves him and regrets not telling him earlier. Xavier’s voice had been reduced only to a whisper. Chris had wedged himself so close that he could feel his brother’s heart beating. It is louder than his voice at this point. Blue is silent…still…so still in fact that Chris cannot recall ever seeing her so motionless before.
Xavier whispered to him to tell his boys that he loved them and that he hoped to see them again soon. Chris wasn’t sure what that meant, but he nodded nonetheless.
And then with strength of voice that defied his condition, Xavier said, “Do you remember the track that was playing through the church’s speakers being piped in even in the bathroom I met you in?”
Chris nodded slowly through his tears.
“I do.”
“Do you remember what I said to you when I heard it?”
“You said that when you died, you wanted a song so beautiful to playing for you.”
Xavier smiled.
“Will you hum it for me, big brother?” Xavier asked. “Will you do this one last thing for me?”
Chris hums the melody of the song as best as he could remember.
“Yes…yes…that’s it, Christopher. That’s it exactly. It’s called A Death is in the air tonight. I never thought that I would have done enough in this world to earn my own theme song. I never…”
And then Xavier Prince, the One, the most dangerous man in the world—all of him died.
Special Agent Christopher Prince sees his own reflection as he glared into his brother’s lifeless eyes one last time before he gently closes them with two fingers.
Grace cries audibly and Blue bites back her own tears with every fiber of her being.
&nbs
p; Chris begins humming his brother’s theme song from the beginning.
Xavier had died without even saying goodbye to him.
He never could say goodbye.