Where are our Children: A Novel: Complete and Uncut
Chapter Twenty Two
As long as Xavier Prince leads a House in Chains I consider him the most dangerous person in the world. And yet when I think of Serena Tennyson, I fear that this woman will eventually evolve into someone who is potentially far more lethal.
-An excerpt from Thomas Pepper’s bestseller Who is the Caretaker?
Roxanne
Indian Creek, 26th Day
They were both in survival mode.
Roxanne Sanchez tried to get to her feet to no avail. Stubbornly, she gave it a second attempt, got further along than she did the first time, then crashed to the side of the Marta car (which served as the floor now) when she failed to steady herself by putting pressure on her ankle. It was tender. It was maybe even fractured or severely broken.
She bit her lip and watched Angel rise from her own unconsciousness. She cocked a brow and gave her surroundings and their plight in general a once over before rising to her feet. She worked her way over to where Roxanne was and she could see bruised blood caked on the doctor’s blouse.
A stab of guilt washed over Roxanne. And yet, feeling the emotion was cool. It meant that all of her humanity hadn’t abandoned her yet. Roxanne still found herself angry at Angel, at least a little. But the harshest feelings were subsiding. Thankfully, she still had managed to separate what was right and what was wrong—at least in her own mind.
And this pursuit of the doctor had proven fruitless.
What about Chris? Where is he now? Is he alright?
And to what extent had the earthquake enhance the city’s suffering or alter it to one degree or the other. Was there still an active investigation for Atlanta’s missing children?
Angel had finally pushed her way over to where Roxanne was sitting,
“Lean all of your weight on me, Roxanne.” Angel got her arm around her. “I’ve got you. I’m not going to let go.”
Roxanne grunted and then struggled to her feet again. Once there, she peered back over her shoulder only to see multitudes of other Marta riders from other overturned cars that were in various states of stress. There were obviously dead people among them. Yet, there had to be at least handfuls of them who were injured but would survive if they were treated to adequate medical attention.
“What about those people over there,” Roxanne asked Angel. “We can’t just leave them here.”
She felt the doctor nod.
“We are going to do just that. I’m sorry, Roxanne. We are in no shape to help them—at least in any adequate sense. We’ve got to concentrate all of our energy and efforts on ourselves right at this moment. If there are any emergency services or responders available they will show up here sooner than later.” Roxanne parted her lips in debate. “Come on, we are leaving this car.”
Roxanne felt a surge of new anger rising up out of her chest to her temple that she could direct at the doctor…but it quickly passed. Damn you, Angel, you are right here. They were blessed enough to be able to escape this car, they weren’t in the condition to aid anyone else.
They took one measured step at a time, each seemingly slower and more ponderous than the one that proceeded it. Roxanne’s ankle was busted up good alright.
And then she felt a buzzing.
It was her cell phone ringing.
Angel must have felt it too and halted both of their progress, reaching over and then past Roxanne to slide it out of her side hip pocket; maybe it was Chris calling her.
Damn. Angel couldn’t reach it before it stopped buzzing. When the doctor showed her the number on the screen Roxanne didn’t immediately recognize the phone number that the call had originated from. She snorted while she waited the long minute it usually took for any left message to work its way to voicemail. She had to think a moment or more to remember what her password was and entered it into the phone while Angel held it up for her.
And then both women waited.
“I will see you suffer before your end,” Was all the voice on the message said. It was all that it needed to say. Roxanne felt a cold shiver of fear run through her shoulder blades and down the length of her spine. Not now, I can’t deal with this now. I can’t deal with him now.
Roxanne must have seen the look on her face.
“Roxanne,” She asked in a gentle voice. “Are you alright? Who was that voice on the phone? He sounded foreign, maybe of South American origin from my distance? Roxanne can you hear me?”
Roxanne surprised both women…by laying her head on Angel’s shoulder. They sat on a bench nearby.
Roxanne wasn’t sure why she did—she was unsure of most everything now but she told Angel the story of Ricardo Silas, the story of her time in Mexico in its unfiltered entirety. She told Angel how she’d been warned not to pursue the business man’s missing girls. She remembered how Ricardo had warned her of the consequences of her actions for the villagers after she rescued them. She told the doctor the story of putting a gun to the girls ‘head and threating to shoot them instead of letting them be returned to their corrupt mother.
She told Angel how she would have done anything to survive the moment.
And that her former lover Ricardo had promised to see her suffer before her end.
“Don’t beat yourself up, Roxanne.” Angel said when the fires of this maddening story had turned to embers at last. “You were desperate and vulnerable. Sometimes people put in such dire situations sometimes do desperate things in return.”
Maybe;
And the tears rushed out of Roxanne.
Were these tears the continued sorrow over Maria’s death or the first ones she’d ever shed over her own situation in Mexico?
Anyway, she couldn’t believe that she was behaving this way—especially in front of Angel, this stranger who she’d grown to hate for so very long.
Was there a power epiphany at work here?
After a time Roxanne asked Angel about Louis Keaton?
“I think that I can still reach the humanity that lives within him. Louis is a troubled soul but is had a moral base.” Angel said. “The persona known as Hugh is partly my responsibility, partly my creation. Well, maybe creation is too strong a term but I think my medication techniques aids in bringing his dominant personality back to the surface.”
“Hugh,” Roxanne asked in confusion. “You’re the first person from Pandora, A House in Chains or the FBI or the media who I have heard refer to Keaton with that alias.”
Angel nodded.
“Hugh Keaton is his true self.” Angel said to her patiently. “Louis is little more than a persona that he picked up along the way. Louis was someone who was very special to him. I’ve never been able to extract the entirety of this tale from him in the time I’ve spent with him. I do know that Hugh reverts back into this recessive personality during various times of stress, and stimulation. To be honest, Roxanne, I’m unsure what it all means on the grand stage. I do know that I have to reach the Hugh persona if those children have any chance at survival. I’ve screwed up so much. But I know that he is trying to communicate with me. There were crime scenes that Christopher and I were investigating when Atlanta’s children first went missing.” Angel swallowed deeply. “He may have killed Denise Prince’s daughter Erica as well. I’m not sure.”
Roxanne had never considered that scenario but she was not privileged to Keaton’s file and background the way Angel had.
“Did you tell Chris any of this?”
Angel shook her head.
“I couldn’t. I wasn’t sure. I’m still not sure that he did.”
All of the memories Roxanne had of finding Erica dead in that dumpster back at Carver came rolling back into Roxanne’s head. If this Keaton was as potentially vicious in this Hugh persona as Angel believed then he could be good for the deed.
Roxanne made her best effort at standing up once again. The pain in her ankle was terrible but she stood up none the less.
Angel asked her, “What are you doing?”
“We’ve wasted enough time, Doctor.
I’ve wasted enough of your time. You told me when I first saw you tonight that you were trying to reach a family important to one of the missing boys and I caused you to miss that appointment. Now, you need to find this Keaton fellow and help save those remaining children and I’m holding you up from that as well. I’ve wasted enough of your time. We need to get along with the business of finding those boys.”
“And we’ll waste even more time with me dragging you along on a busted ankle, Roxanne.”
“Surely you are not suggesting that you should leave me behind?”
Angel pulled out Roxanne’s gun. At some point in the conversation and the closeness, the doctor had lifted the weapon off of her without her even missing it.
“I’m so sorry for this, Roxanne,” Angel said. She never pointed the gun directly at her, but she made sure that Roxanne could see that she possessed it. “I am suggesting just that. I need to make things right. Like I said before, I’m sure emergency responders are already headed here, but I promise that I’ll send any help I come across to you and the rest of the victims here at this station. I know that ankle hurts like hell but otherwise you’re alright. And you’re not under any immediate threat of any kind here.”
Roxanne wanted to be angry with Angel, especially when the woman began to back away from her. It marked the second time tonight that the barrel of her own gun was put in her face by a civilian. That was unacceptable in her eyes. She was supposed to be better trained than that. It was more than apparent that her fear and anger were overriding emotions that clouded the rest of her judgements.
“The only promise that I want you to make me is that you will tell Chris what you believe, Angel.”
“How can I? How can I tell my best friend that my training may have set Louis Keaton off on his latest kidnapping and molesting venture? ”
“You have to, Angel. Don’t let him find out any other way. If Keaton or anyone else associated with Serena Tennyson and Pandora killed his stepdaughter Eric Lovings, Chris should hear it from you first.”
“I know,” Angel said with a blank look on her pale face. “Like I said, I’ve screwed this up so badly already.”
“Don’t let him find out any other way, Angel.” Roxanne said as she sat herself on the ground, offered her cell phone to Angel and resigned to the fact that she might be there for hours to come. And since she had her own secrets to keep as well—the fact that Angel’s husband Seth was with her only hours ago—the sooner Angel left her, the better. “Don’t,”
Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree nodded silently and disappeared into Atlanta’s night.
An hour later Roxanne lay down in the dirt; she had no cell phone, no gun, and no chance of defending herself if and when he found her.
Roxanne broke down in tears once again.
She called Chris Prince out loud by name but he failed to answer her back. Was he even alive? He wished he was with her right now.
Every shadow frightened her.
Every movement startled her.
And Ricardo Silas was coming soon to watch her suffer before her end.
He might as well come right now
Chris
Piedmont Park Vicinity, 26th Day
“Somebody shoot this bastard,”
Special Agent Christopher Prince heard what the Deacon said, but continued his march towards Deacon and the Choir Boys’ leader the Bishop. He had finished his countdown with a shot that everyone involved in this standoff knew was an intentional miss wide enough to miss the Bishop’s skull, but close enough to get his full attention. Chris could feel the tension from Martin’s clan behind him. He had deduced that the others weren’t just following him they were family. Martin’s family had to be unsure of what they were seeing. Why should they believe in him especially after walking on him and Blue had guns locked on each other at the beginning of this?
Tabitha, he remembered his partner lying on the ground nearby after his gun discharged as the earthquake struck the city unexpectedly. It was an accident, he kept telling himself. It was a damned preventable accident.
But he had one problem to deal with at a time.
Since the Choir Boys had showed up on the scene something in him had changed. Or perhaps they fully manifested themselves. Perhaps it had started when the FBI had relieved him of duty after Lucy Burgess had brought the spotlight on a very dark period of his life? Perhaps it began when Serena Tennyson exposed him to the truth…all of the truths about his father Isaac Prince. Or perhaps it was commenced when he held his dying brother Xavier in his arms? Anyway, he couldn’t identify what it was. A transformation was taking place. Chris couldn’t stop it. He wouldn’t stop it.
A dying man had nothing to lose.
“Ain’t this something, just look at us, Bishop?” Chris said, continuing his methodical approach with his gun drawn on the two men. “I want you to understand how pathetic we are.”
“What are you talking about, man?” The Deacon said for the Bishop. How the man translated for his muted leader was beyond Chris understanding—or caring at this point. “I know that you need to back the hell up.”
Chris looked back at Martin’s clan for a second.
“No wonder white folk fear our kind, our very presence. Look at you, Bishop. Look at how you are dressed. Look at the gold teeth and the tats and the baggy pants. You are a disgrace to the mother that births you.”
“They don’t dictate what I wear,” Deacon said for the Bishop. “You are fucking crazy, man. Why doesn’t someone put this bastard out of all our miseries right now? Somebody shoot him.”
Chris finally stopped in his tracks.
“You’re right, Bishop.” He said in a voice that was eerily calm and civilized. “They don’t dictate what we wear, how we talk, what we do with our lives. Yet, too often our people grasp ideals and ideas that the rest of society questions as a way of embracing our so called blackness. A man once said that we see the right in the wrong and the wrong in the right. I believe that to be true. Look at you, Bishop. The baggy pants and the tattoos originated from prison garb. Is that what we want our young people to aspire to look like—escaped prisoners?”
Bishop actually tried to mumble something through the injury that had incapacitated his means.
Deacon seemed to struggle with this translation. He searched his leader’s face long and hard before speaking again.
“I…I guess it’s our heritage.” Deacon finally said. “I don’t know. I do know that I didn’t come here for a public service announcement or history lesson from you. I want Grace Edwards. I want payment for the lives that white man and his redneck brood took from me. You got real spirit there, boy, real spirit. I’m going to let you walk away from this if you’re smart enough to hand them over to me and just walk away.”
“No, it’s far from being that simple, my brother.” Chris said. “Grace Edwards is a little busy right now. She’s not going anywhere with you. And in the 30 minutes that I’ve known Mr. Martin, I can tell you that he’s not giving any of his people to you either.”
“Give me—“
“No,” Chris answered in a tone that would brook no further argument. “You have only one choice here, my brother; you are going turn and walk away from her or you—and your Deacon is going to die here, tonight, right where you are standing right now.”
“Man, I was right, you are crazy.”
“I am far from it, Bishop. I am sick in every way a man can be sick. I’m sick to death of young brothers like yourself embracing everything that you perceive that white people hate. I am sick of more black men your age serving prison sentences than being enrolled in college. I’m sick of the nightly shootings and other violence. Mostly though, I’m sick of good men like my brother Xavier Prince who died to make this world better for your tired trifling black ass.”
“I don’t care.” The Deacon said for his Bishop. “I’m trying to get mine. It’s every man for himself in this world.”
Chris shook his head in exasperation.
&n
bsp; “Yea, I guess you’re right. And that might be the saddest part.”
“What have you done? What are you doing?” The Deacon asked him. “Just because you wear a badge don’t mean anything.”
“You’re right again,” Chris said. “In this role I’ve probably done little more than you have to further the cause of people of color. I’m one of those people whose taken their success—and there money to the suburbs. When I’m off duty I was one of the ones who pretended that what goes on in our communities that I left behind doesn’t affect me personally. All of the drugs, all of the suffering, all of the murder fade into oblivion while I move on to a new day.”
Chris raised his weapon.
“Look man,” The Deacon said with a trembling voice. “I recognize you, now. You’re Chris Prince from the FBI. I…he didn’t kill your step daughter.”
“Of course you did, Bishop.”
“She dissed him just like that bitch over there, Grace. He wanted to kill her. He would have but someone beat him to it. I swear it. We found out shortly after that private dick your ex-wife hired found your step daughter in that dumpster in what the Peacekeepers left of Carver.”
“I…I believe you.”
And Chris Prince spun around and showed both of them his back.
The Bishop grunted, nearly incensed.
The Deacon said: “Oh, you screwed up now, boy. Somebody shoot this mother—“
Chris twisted back around and squeezed off a round with the speed and precision that no one, including himself, would have thought imaginable that tore into the Bishop’s skull. He mustered a second and third shot while Martin’s people got the memo and targeted the Choir Boys—picking them off one by one.
When Chris looked again, there were only three Choir boys still standing. At least two of Martin’s men were wounded and didn’t look well.
“I want you to remember back when I told your Bishop that I was sick.” Chris told the last of the Choir Boys. “I am, as much as your leader was. You are still armed so I guess that makes you dangerous in the immediate sense. Perhaps one or more of you will fire off a shot that kills me, that eases my pain. Dying tonight instead of painfully down the road may be a mercy. I really did believe the Deacon when he said that your people didn’t kill Erica Lovings. But you are responsible for scores of deaths and destruction and deserved the death penalty that the Peacekeepers and now…I have served on you. The atonement for your sins has been paid. You three can have a stay of execution but hey it’s been a strange night already. Maybe you three will continue to cheat death but it is my advice that you throw down your arms and walk away. You should walk away and live.”
They throw down their weapons quickly and leave the scene.
Special Agent Christopher Prince holsters his as well and walks to the spot where Tabitha Blue is still lying.
He praised God that she has a pulse, however faint.
“Who will help me get my partner to the hospital?” Chris asked. “You people have heard me; I’m dying of a type of stomach cancer that killed my mother as well. I’m dying but my partner doesn’t have to.” Chris said through the tears that were streaming down his face.
Serena
Fulton County-Cobb County Border, 26th Day
“Tell me your name, sir.”
The man, whose voice was the buzzing in a hornets nest, shifted his beady eyes back and forth before they landed on Serena Tennyson at last. At least a dozen other Pandora Agents were mulling about the darkened alley avoiding eye contact with her as well. Today she wore the guise of Oracle, the hard and unforgiving field leader that existed before her near assault at the end of Operation Deliverance. Only Danielle Rohm—Shooter—dared to maintain eye contact with her now. And Serena could not decide if the petite woman dressed in black’s gaze was one locked in fascination or contempt.
“Penrose,” The man’s thick mustache rose and fell as he spoke. “My name is Charlie Penrose.”
“Very good then,” Serena locked her hands behind her back and circled Penrose. “Tell me, Operative Penrose, in what capacity did you serve your country before you became enlightened and recruited by Pandora.”
Penrose looked from Serena to his immediate supervisor, Alexander Bolton for any indication of support from the suntanned and fit younger man, licked his lips and watched Serena complete another circle around him.
“Look, Oracle, I—“
Serena hardened her gaze further and planted her nose and lips an inch from Penrose’s right ear.
“I asked you a fucking question, operative,” Such vulgarities were normally beneath Serena, but this was not just an exercise in discipline but in appearance. Reports were coming in from many of her field supervisors that belief, courage and hope were fading—especially after the destruction and death that had touched so many of her people after the earthquake. “I asked you a question and I want a fucking answer to that question an hour ago.”
She heard Penrose swallow.
“I was a contracted agent for the ATF. In fact, now that I think of it, I would have been employed by them ten years late next month.”
Serena grinned…and it startled Penrose. Good.
“You would have served them ten years you say?”
“Yes, Oracle, ten years,”
“Well then, to the matter at hand. Why did you abandon your post?”
She heard Penrose swallow again.
“It was about the earthquake of course,” Serena could see sweat building on his brow and on his thick mustache. “Before our last operation began I moved my family out of Metro Atlanta, you know, expecting the worse in violence and rioting in the city after we passed the Zero Hour.”
“Go on,”
“Well, mam, when the initial reports about the earthquakes started filing in and we learned that the epicenter was 20 to 25 miles east of the city…well…I panicked. That was the same general area where I sent Lizzy—my wife and my boys towards. My in-laws retired in an area near Athens.” Penrose seemed to shrink a little and some of the sting went out of his voice. “I haven’t heard a hair from them since the quake struck; I admit that the situation has shaken me up pretty badly, it’s been difficult to concentrate on anything else since. I needed to know if my family made it. I left here and drove until I found them alive at last.”
“It shook you up; of course it shook you up, Operative Penrose.” Serena said, echoing the man’s earlier statement. She glanced back only at the woman dressed all in black only interested in her reaction to all this…and interested in her words. “Shooter, tell Operative Penrose what transpired during his absence from his post.”
Rohm rolled her eyes and stepped up to the center of the group and planted her small but lethal hands behind the small of her back in as neutral a stance as the younger woman could muster.
“The Atlanta Police Department had split into smaller independent battalions as they’ve struggled with their own breaches of discipline and defections during events in the city over the past 24 to 48 hours. One of these battalions, a group who called themselves Blackstreet infiltrated a position that our people held six miles from here. Operative Penrose was by far our most senior and most experienced man in the area of combat. The others fought valiantly…but were overrun and were forced to withdraw from this vital strategic holding.”
“With all of the earthquake damage between here and there the obstructions caused my roundtrip to take far longer than I would have anticipated. I knew that zone was important to Pandora, Oracle. I know that it was important to you—“
“Operative Penrose,” Serena interrupted him.
“It is my opinion that we wouldn’t have held the zone even if I—“
“Operative Penrose,” Serena said in a voice that ran both hot and cold. “You abandoned your post. You allowed an enemy combatant to make a successful incursion into Pandora held territory; a zone that cost us valuable lives and resources to claim and then to hold.”
Penrose’s mustache quivered as hi
s hidden lip beneath muttered something incomprehensible. Serena thought she saw tears in his eyes.
“I didn’t do this on my own authority, Serena…Oracle. Operative Bolton gave me permission.” Penrose peered over to where his suntanned superior went a shade of white. “You’ll back me up on this part right, buddy? I got permission. I drove back as quickly as the conditions allowed me to. Please, Serena, forgive me for what happened to my guys while I was gone. We lost good people. I lost good friends.”
“Operative Penrose are you aware of the penalty for desertion?”
“Desertion,” Penrose uttered the word as if it were a curse as his bushy eyebrows shot up.
“We are in a state of war, Operative. What you did amounted to an act of treason against our cause—against me. Treason is punishable by death is it not?”
All of the life went out of Penrose as if his execution had already been commenced and all that was left behind were his bones. Bolton shifted his weight as if he needed to pee. Rohm folded one arm over the other and licked her black lip stick.
“My God, what kind of people are you?” Penrose asked them one and all and then rested his scorching gaze on Serena. “What kind of woman are you?”
Serena answered only be planting her hands on her lean hips.
“I am the woman who is commanding the most lethal, efficient, counter terrorist unit that this country—that the world has ever seen, mister. I have been tasked with protecting this country’s way of life and values that you and I both enjoy. I expect nothing less than the best efforts from my subordinates in these urgent matters of state. Do you agree that Operative Bolton was your direct superior in this case?”
“What?”
Serena sneered as she tapped a toe in exaggerated inpatients. The look of pure dread in Penrose’s eye, the anxiety of the other operatives and even the hint of anxiety in Danielle Rohm’s face was exactly the effect this theatrical exercise was meant to accomplish.
“Are you deaf as well as blind to your incompetence? “ Serena asked, and jerked a long manicured index fingernail into the chest of Operative Penrose until she knew that it hurt. “Is Operative Bolton your direct supervisor? Did this man give you permission to leave the city in search of your family?”
“Yes,” Penrose broke down with tears. “Yes, his is. Tell her Alex. Tell her that everything was on the up and up. Tell her, please. I don’t want to die—not now—not after going through so much to learn what happened to my family. Tell her what she wants to know, Alex.”
“Mistress Tennyson,” Bolton cleared his throat. “If I could be allowed to speak on Operative Penrose’s behalf—I know this man to be of high character—
Serena interrupted Bolton.
“Well, of course he is, Operative Bolton. He would not be a member of my team if he were not.” Serena’s tone softened for now. She never took her eye off of Penrose, focusing on his thick mustache but spoke to Bolton. “I want you to step forward.”
“Yes, Oracle,”
Bolton arrived in six steps.
“I want you to hand me your side arm.”
“Sorry…I don’t understand.”
“Operative Alexander Bolton, you will hand me your sidearm, mister and you will do so immediately.” Serena said while still eyeing Penrose’s mustache.
“He acted under my consent, Oracle,” Bolton said. “Please forgive him—“
“I asked for you weapon, Operative Bolton, not for your opinion—and I will ask you for your sidearm only once more.”
Bolton handed it butt first.
Serena examined it quickly, checked the magazine’s clip for ammunition, released the safety and points the barrel at Operative Penrose at last.
Bolton gasps in horror.
Rohm unfolds her arms.
Serena watches the other Operatives shift in their stance while one female in the groups turns away from what she fears are the final seconds of Penrose’s life.
And then Serena chooses a new target—Operative Bolton—and squeezes the trigger at point blank range between the young man’s eyes.
Operative Alexander Bolton’s suntanned body is long dead before he ever hits the pavement.
Serena waited a heartbeat before speaking further, her theatrics nearing its end.
“Family is certainly crucial, Operative Penrose, especially in light of the events that have shined such a negative light on all of us in the past few days.” Serena said and even squeezed Penrose’s trembling shoulder. “However, Pandora—everyone here—is your family as well. By the end of this we may your only family left. The fault in the abandonment of your post is not yours, Operative Penrose that is why you still live. Operative Bolton was not killed because he erred in letting you pursuit the whereabouts of your family. Alexander was permanently relieved of duty because he failed to commit someone with equal experience in your place while you were away.”
“Yes, Oracle,” Penrose tried to steady his voice. “I understand.”
“Very well then; I want you to assume Bolton’s command and select a qualified candidate to serve Pandora in your own post and then I want you to retake our zone from Blackstreet.”
Penrose pointed a thumb as his own chest.
“Me,”
“Operative Penrose,” Serena softened her voice until she sounded as if she were another person. This wasn’t theatrics any longer. This was real. “I regret to inform you that it has come to my knowledge that your wife, your children and your in-laws were all killed when one of the aftershocks leveled that community just east of Athens where your family was.” Serena allowed Penrose to examine the official documents that Rohm had handed him while she spoke. “Minutes ago I spoke of Pandora as potentially your only family. You can honor your family—you can honor us by continuing to perform your duties to the best of your abilities.”
Penrose’s beady eyes brightened for the first time since this entire episode began. He wiped the snot that had leaked into his mustache on his sleeve.
“I need you to be a leader now. I need you to retake what’s ours. Peachtree Street served as a major listening post between our current position and the heart of Midtown Atlanta. We are currently blind in that respective and I don’t like being blind, Operative Penrose.”
“I understand.” Penrose said and seemed to find his footing again. “And I will retake that zone. You have my word on that.”
Ten minutes later after the group had disbanded, Serena heard Rohm calling her by that particular name as she strolled down the other end of the street. The wind was howling and whipped both women’s hair into an unkempt frenzy.
Serena had been walking towards a mobile weapons depot to pick up two guns from its wide and varied arsenal. She slowed her long strides just enough for the younger woman to catch up to her.
Danielle Rohm struggled to match her pace and Serena could feel Shooter looking up at her.
“You have a query for me, Rohm?”
“More of an observation perhaps,” Rohm replied after a prolonged thought. And then she did something unexpected…Danielle Rohm reached out and squeezed Serena’s arm at the elbow and spun her around until the two women faced each other. Rohm glanced down the street they had been facing and then to the one behind them and then dismissed the driver of the mobile weapons carrier.
Any anger or resentment that the younger woman had experienced after Serena’s proclamation of her leading role in the Peacekeeper’s murder of James Carter and the maiming of the man’s wife years ago was subsiding.
Serena softened her stance as well as not to appear unnecessarily confrontational. She would admit to no one—not even Rohm—that the confrontation with Penrose and Bolton had been emotionally draining. Serena wasn’t completely comfortable with all of the emotions running through her over the past weeks but somehow it felt right somehow to need this woman’s approval somehow.
Perhaps Rohm was her family.
“Look, I can’t say whether I completely agree with how you handled the Jame
s Carter or this Bolton situation or not. But I can save that I disagree with your decision since that you should be leading this assault yourself proves nothing. Blackstreet would have fortified their hold on that zone by now. They have more than Pandora to worry about. We also don’t know if any of the other battalions of APD officers have joined them. Even if even one of them did it would make their stronghold nearly invulnerable to any incursion we could muster.”
“You’re knowledge of tactics and military strategy never fails to astound me, Rohm. You are quite the student of combat.”
Rohm ignored that.
“I’m asking you to stay behind, Serena. I’m asking you not to do this.”
“My dear, Rohm, are you actually trying to protect me.”
“I am. You spoke about family earlier. You are the mother; you are the father of this family especially with Raymond Rice no longer amongst us. If you should fall…” Rohm let her voice trail off while she still had strength in it.
Serena looked up and glared into the smoky haze and the nothingness that existed well beyond it.
“I will, as you say, fall, Rohm.” Serena would not allow herself to look at Rohm. She thought neither of them possessed the strength to engage in such an emotional stare down. “I’ve seen it in the flames, Rohm. I’ve looked into the fire and saw my reflection there. But I do understand that my end is not here, it will be soon, but not now. I may not deserve your trust, Rohm, but I need it unconditionally.”
Serena smiled at Rohm wand resumed her march towards the mobile weapons unit when the younger woman halted Serena’s progress once again.
Rohm said: “There is something dark about to happen to you…to me…to all of us who have been involved in this since the introduction of the 411 Campaign. I can feel it, Serena.”
“Have you peeking into my flames, Rohm?”
“I’m serious, Serena.” Rohm said. “And this comes from someone like Raymond Rice who once told you that he did not believe in your flames. I don’t believe in them or you’re Dragon. I do believe in you, Serena. I always have. And I’m asking you—I’m begging you to stay behind. Nothing good comes from you going any further with your plan. I can feel it, Serena.”
Serena touched Rohm’s face.
“I’m sorry, Danielle but I have to. I listen to Dragon within those flames. And the flames tell have instructed me to walk this path. I must obey. There is something within that zone that I was meant to see.”
The battle finally turned in Pandora’s favor 45 minutes into it. The majority of the operatives who had led the initial incursion with Penrose had been killed in the first half hour including Penrose himself. Still, the man had served his family, both old and new, with distinction and valor as his men had taken scores of Blackstreet with them into eternity. More importantly, Penrose’s men had eliminated a handful of snipers that had been casing two buildings from above. Rohm had been wrong—thankfully—about other APD battalions’ merging with this one. In fact, Serena was more than happy to tell Shooter that they’d overestimated their enemy’s numbers and organizational capacity period.
Or perhaps they were more effective as the aggressor where they could use emotion and sense of purpose to drive an enemy out…but lacked the direction and aptitude to wage a defensive campaign against the likes of Pandora.
But finishing what they had started wouldn’t be easy.
Serena’s forces had met resistance from an unexpected source: A group of civilians who had called themselves the Book Worms. Their numbers were around 20 and they were former librarians who had banded together to defend the building and street from any and all comers. They were far from efficient with their attack and disorganized and lacked proper training. But Serena admired their gall and their courage.
It was an honor to order her people to kill them all.
By the time they’d reached the zone of Peachtree, Serena’s people were tired and they had a limited amount of ammunition and supplies. And yet, not only was Blackstreet surprised at Pandora’s initial counter attack, they were caught completely by surprise when Serena’s supportive cell came out firing with all guns.
And then Serena made the most difficult order of them all.
Xavier Prince, the Circle and the Peacekeepers had taught Serena and her Pandora associates a valuable lesson during their outlandish missions in the operation that they had called Scar.
They had taught Serena that there were no lines that were beyond not being crossed in the effort to win a war.
And if Xavier’s people could kill civilians in unpresented numbers using an unpresented and crude manner—
She could surely order her people to respond in kind.
So three of your junior operatives sprinted towards Blackstreet’s final stronghold of nearly 12 to 15 officers and ignited the explosives on their chest as both men and structures exploded in a fiery hell storm worthy of Serena’s Dragon.
Serena smile faded as soon as she looked behind her.
Danielle Rohm had been shot.
Serena fired off two or three more rounds as Blackstreet stragglers who had tried to outflank her people from the rear. Oracle was more frantic than she would have ever thought as she rushed over to the area where Shooter was nearly flat on her back.
She did calm her breathing with some effort when she arrived to where the woman in black was lying.
Honestly, after a second and then a third glance, Rohm looked to have suffered more than a flesh wound in her side as the bullet had went in and then immediately had passed through and out of her. When Rohm had actually mouthed the words that she was okay it caused Serena to breathe even easier. The man who had taken over for Penrose sprinted over to where the two women were and asked for permission to retake the building that would serve as a Pandora command center for as long as they held this zone. Serena happily gave him that order.
Twenty more minutes and this battle was all over.
Serena Tennyson commanded Rohm to seek medical attention for her wounds no matter how minor she thought they were, as well as the other dozen or so operatives that had various injuries like the one Rohm had suffered through to more life threating ones.
Then Serena walked with a hand full of her victorious operatives inside their old new home to inventory what weapons and information that the APD battalion had left behind.
They had completed their mission.
They had retaken the zone.
She gave her next command: She instructed two operatives to begin to access the damage to the computers that they’d set up and to get the communications array operational once again to that they could get back in contact with other Pandora cells throughout the city and beyond. Louis Keaton’s whereabouts was the obvious top priority. She wanted to know if he and those boys had cleared the mountain retreat or not.
Again, Pandora had learned from the Circles ’deviousness. They had released their own suicide agents into the field. The gloves had indeed come off.
But.
But if she thought all was lost and she were to unleash the fiery inferno upon the city…Oracle’s vision of the Whirlwind, Serena wanted to be absolutely certain that events had left her with no other choice—
And then Serena heard Rohm screams above the cries many others.
Serena ran out of the building as fast as her long legs would carry her.
And then she saw it.
It looked as if an entire acre of land had disappeared that was a part of historic Peachtree street as the earth had opened up—and a gigantic sinkhole had taken its place.
She carefully but quickly worked her way to the top of it ignoring the pleas from her subordinates not to venture down below.
Serena didn’t lower herself down…what she saw below her…told her that it was far too late to help anyone who’d fallen into the sinkhole.
Danielle Rohm’s body was torn, twisted and broken unlike any human body Serena Tennyson had ever seen before.
Serena leaned over the edge just en
ough so she could wipe the dirt and tears from Shooter’s eyes.
Those eyes…Danielle Rohm’s nearly lifeless eyes fixed themselves on Serena above her.
Serena told her stupidly that it was all okay; she told her that she would be okay. She didn’t bother checking on the other operatives whose bodies were just as torn, twisted and broken as Rohm’s. Most of their fates were already sealed. Rohm lived on. For a few seconds that she had left, Rohm lived on.
Rohm reached her hand up until Serena leaned over further and grasped it with her own.
Danielle Rohm, the Shooter, the woman who all dressed in black could only whisper what she meant to say.
She told Serena something that she would always remember.
And then she told her something that she would never forget.
And then the young woman died a painful, agonizing death.
And Serena Tennyson found herself orphaned once again.
Seth
Georgia Dome (Triage Center); Northside Avenue (Lot B), 26th Day
The Georgia Dome’s Westside Club Section had served at a triage center of operations even before the earthquake had hit the city.
It wasn’t designed for this. It was massively understaffed and the refugees kept pouring in not only from Metro Atlanta, but from rural Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama in search of medical attention, food, water, and a place of safe refuge.
It would have to do until something like that could be provided.
Dr. Seth Dupree was more than thrilled to be helping others inside its walls however. It had seemed as if it had been forever since he’d what he’d actually been trained to do—surgery.
It wasn’t actually. He’d performed two minor and one major procedure with the late Denise Prince assisting during the Carver mess. He had to laugh inwardly; he thought at that time that the Peacekeepers siege on that housing project had been the single biggest farce of his life.
Oh how much of the world—and his opinion—had changed since then.
He looked at the clock. He’d been working for what…four procedures and 12 hours straight since he’d found his way here via one of the few operating Marta’s in the city. Two other members of his original team had been killed in separate incidents since the Zero Hour’s inception. A stray bullet had taken one; the after effect of the earthquake had claimed the other. And yet, these people who he’d never worked with now were excellent and professional and dedicated to their craft despite the many different things that had befallen them and their families over the past days.
The emergency lights flickered off and then on again.
“Teresa,” Seth hoped that was the name of the young woman who smelled of body wash. “Get that electrical crew up here again. We can’t risk having these power fluctuations’, especially right now.”
“I did earlier, Doctor, just before—“
“Do it again, please. We either need consistent lighting from the primary systems that they set up or they need to concentrate their efforts on getting the damned battery backups going. I know that this triage center was originally designed to function from surface level. I know that our little groundbreaking event has made that design less than palpable. We’ve got to make what we have work for us. If I remember in our training that they should have designed the electrical systems to bypass primary conduits and piggyback directly off of the Georgia Dome’s secondary power grid.” He stopped the surgery and talking a moment to catch his breath. “We should have at least three more hours before all these primary systems shut themselves down. That increases the risk to what we are doing here. I’m not going to lose any patients because of loss of power at a critical juncture.”
“Alright, Doctor, I’ll head right over to their holding area.”
“Good, you do that. And Teresa,” Seth replied as she turned around with the door handle in her hand.
“Tell them not to have me to have to come up there. I can be a very dangerous man when I want to be.”
Seth’s sly attempt at humor brought a smile to the young woman’s face. Two other nurses laughed out loud and Seth’s one moment of lightheartedness had relieved much of the tension in the room that he himself probably was responsible for creating.
And yet the chemical release that laughter had provided had only served to tire him out further.
He shook off his weariness and threw all of his concentration into his work. He managed to relax his mind while working his fingers. He allowed his experience and his years of training to lead him where he needed to go. This patient—he glanced at her chart again—Tabitha Blue needed his best efforts this afternoon. The bullet had only grazed an area of her skull lined with major tissue, but missed the subsection that housed her brain. A gunshot to the head was never good, but this was a workable situation. It would be a slow physical recovery for Ms. Blue. She might suffer some headaches and there would be bouts of memory loss but she would survive.
The Gray Man just needed the damned lights to stay on—and for him not to make any mistakes.
“Doctor Dupree,” One of the two doctors who had found the humor in his words earlier said. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” He said a little too quickly and instantly regretted it. He bridged the awkward silence by instructing her to hand him the scalpel to the far left. He made an incision that his medical tutors of long ago would have pleased with.
“No, you’re not,” Dr. Parker, his number one assistant said. He was a former lunch partner of Denise Prince and whether through personal or professional jealously, hadn’t treated Seth with much affection during their training together. “You’ve been at this since you arrived—from nowhere—12 hours ago. You look like hell.”
“I’m fine,” Seth replied again, stopping long enough to raise the bloody instrument towards the heavy set doctor. “You do, however, have the authority to relieve me of my duties by the rules we all agreed upon when we signed on to serve this state in matters such as this. But you wouldn’t start any shit like that—not now would you, Doctor?”
Parker chose not to pursue any of those avenues just now.
They completed the work on Tabitha Blue 30 minutes later. Teresa had returned from her errand just in time to inform Seth and Dr. Parker that this patient had two people, who she didn’t think were her relatives, waiting from a report from them on the next floor.
Teresa’s words got Seth’s attention. Almost half of the patients at the triage center being treated for major trauma were solo acts who had been separated from loved ones by countless circumstances. This was a striking change from what he’d grown used to in his time here. He actually looked forward to speaking to who had accompanied Ms. Blue here.
It feels good to be a surgeon again…it feels good to be me again. He had survived a terrifying night that he would have never given himself a chance of surviving before it began. He had proven himself worthy of life. He had proven himself worthy of living.
But he was good at this. And what he was superior at was still in high demand after all of the madness perpetrated by equally as mad men over the past hours and days.
And yet, when Seth saw the party who had escorted Tabitha Blue to this place, he knew that the madness had followed him here.
“Let me see the chart again, Teresa,” Seth said, without looking back at the woman who trailed close behind him. He only had eyes for Special Agent Christopher Prince and a slim black woman who was seated next to him on a comforter. “The patients name full title was Special Agent Tabitha Blue of the FBI.” He said for his own ears more than the others standing near him.
The Gray man left Teresa and Dr. Parker where they were standing and angled his way towards where Chris and this stranger to him were seated. I’m not prepared to deal with you right now, Agent Prince. He saw Denise Prince throw herself out of her apartment’s window to her death as he approached Chris. He knew that he wasn’t prepared to deal with a potentially grieving ex-husband…especially one who didn’t know what he knew about his
ex-wife’s final thoughts and words before she died.
And yet, Chris had knowledge of what came in the hour or so before that. What or perhaps who did Denise see inside of Agent Prince’s motel room that started her down that path to self-destruction?
Seth took a deep breath as the two of them rose as he stopped next to where they had been previously been sitting.
As Chris rose to his full height he said: “Hello, Doctor, thank you for seeing us…how is Tabitha?” He had achieved full recognition of the other man. “Seth? Dr. Seth Dupree is that you? What are you doing here?”
“It’s good to see you again as well, Chris.” Seth stuck his hand out and let Chris give it a squeeze. “Sit down.”
Chris flashed a look of dread.
“Tabitha isn’t—“
“No,” Seth shook his head and visibly saw the FBI Special Agent exhale visibly. Something else brightened on his dark face, something that Seth couldn’t immediately place. He saw Seth searching for an answer as well and he quickly introduced the younger woman wearing the tight braids in her hair as Grace—no last name. And since either one of the men were offering explanations Seth moved on to why he originally came up here. “Tabitha is stabilizing. Even as we speak she is recovering.”
After Seth gave Agent Prince his immediate and long term prognosis of his patient he said: “She’s out of whatever fight you two are involved in, Chris. Your partner has a long recovery ahead of her, but I am very optimistic. In the short time we spent together I can tell that she is very strong and very stubborn.”
Chris turned on a sheepish smile.
“You don’t know the half of it, Doc.”
The three of them sat in an awkward silence while the Georgia Dome’s lights flickered off and on again. Seth knew that he needed to get back to the business of his other patients. Agent Chris Prince had already turned on his professional demeanor. He had transformed into full investigator mode now: The Gray Man could see the other man examining every blink of his eye, every movement of his lip searching for clues to something hidden.
The woman—Grace—kept checking her watch and suddenly couldn’t sit still. Seth couldn’t work out if she worked for the bureau or one of its many subsidiaries. She carried herself in a professional manner even as the fatigue showing beneath her eyes wore her down. For and instant—a small instant—Seth thought them to be lovers…but their chemistry wasn’t giving off that type of vibe.
And in speaking of lovers—
“Where is Angel, Chris?” Seth asked, wondering where his beloved was and if Roxanne Sanchez had made good on her threats towards his wife. “Have you heard from her in the past few hours?”
Chris shoulders dropped a little.
“It’s been a great deal of hours ago…before the Zero Hour and certainly before the quake hit.” Chris admitted to him. “I don’t know where Angel is, Seth, no one does.”
“What in the hell do you mean by no one does?”
Grace took the opportunity to excuse herself and offered to bring the two of them some coffee after she found and had one of her own. Chris nodded in agreement at her suggestion without lifting his eyes off of the doctor to watch her leave.
Both men stopped speaking for a second as medical personnel rushed past where they were seated with another patient who looked to have numerous injuries to his lower extremities. Seth found a clock on the nearby wall and let his gaze hand there for a second so that the FBI Agent understood that he didn’t have an infinite amount of time to chat.
“I’ve only heard this information second hand, Seth. Things didn’t end well between your wife and the bureau. Sheridan—my boss left a single agent responsible for keeping her put during the duration of this investigation into Atlanta’s missing children. She escaped him. No one knows where she went off to or why she made her escape. No one has seen a trace of her since.”
“That means that she could be anywhere in the city.”
“Well, the FBI has few resources to commit to finding her—especially in light of everything that has happened since. They are struggling with communications along with everything else. And now reports are surfacing about some super storm moving into the area over the next few hours to add misery to everything else.”
Seth had noted that the wind had picked up substantially in the past few hours before the shelter of the Georgia Dome had at least taken that danger away. A super storm, you say, what else in the hell can wrong here? Seth got up and walked to one of the giant windows to see it for himself. Three men were fighting against that very wind while they were setting up a tent outside in the parking lot. Another man was chasing down some packaged medical supplies that had blown away as he gave chase.
“I haven’t spoken to her either,” Seth said, almost defensively. “She hasn’t answered her cell in ages.”
“It’s funny how she never mentioned to me once that you were in town. In fact she seemed hell bent on avoiding you all together.”
“She never knew that I was here.” Seth hoped to quell the investigator’s instincts with quick and precise answers. “We had a knock down drag out fight just after your man Sheridan recruited her. Look, Chris, I’ve trained with this trauma unit for situations like this one over the past few years. I needed to do something when I suddenly found a lot of time on my hand. I also wanted to be closer to my wife if this situation between Pandora and a House in Chains deteriorated further. It looks as if I made the right choice.”
Agent Prince was nodding.
“I’m sure that this unit benefited greatly from having you aboard, Seth. I need to look no further than you saving my partner’s life as evidence of that.”
Seth believed that the FBI Agent was being honest with what he was saying, but there was something just underneath the surface of what he was saying that meant a great deal more.
“I hope so, Chris. I hope so.”
“And speaking of this specialized unit of yours, Denise spoke to me about all of your training and expertise; I remember her saying that you were more than a fine surgeon. She said that you had leadership qualities that were unmatched as well. She was definitely impressed with your work. She said that you were a medical genius.”
“Denise…” Seth said, and when he finally said her name he knew that the moment of truth—both literally and figuratively between them—had finally arrived after minutes, after years of buildup. He took a deep breath and lay a hand on the agent’s shoulder.
“Denise…yea...look…I’m sorry for your loss. I know that the two of you had been divorced for some time, but what happened to her is beyond belief. Her death was a shock to me and our entire team as well.”
“Her team,” Chris looked around the floor. “Now that I look back at it I find it funny that, just like your wife, Denise never mentioned you were in Atlanta either. I saw her more than a couple of times after you’re training sessions would had begun, but yet no mention of you.”
Seth grinned like a madman.
“That is funny, Chris. You know, since we’re already laughing, let me tell you something even funnier: Like I said a few minutes ago, I knew that the two of you were divorced for some time now. Perhaps…just perhaps, your ex-wife didn’t feel that she owed you any explanation for what had been going on in either her professional.”
“You’re right there, Doctor,” Chris smiled with him. “And that fact goes for her personal life as well.”
And now it was Seth’s turn at nodding.
“I didn’t think that was my place to point that out, but thank you for saying it for me.” And then the Gray Man surprised both men by squaring his shoulders and getting into Chris Prince face. He had stared down death all the previous night; he wasn’t going to let anyone intimidate him now.
Chris as expected didn’t back down either.
They did the testosterone thing for a time until Seth noticed a torn piece of paper lying in the seat next to Chris that he had failed to notice before.
“Perhaps you shou
ld pay less attention to me, Chris, and more to that piece of paper next to your leg. I’m pretty sure that has something or the other to do with your lady friend returning with our cups of coffee.”
“Don’t dodge the subject, Doctor—“
“Why don’t you take a look at what it says?”
Chris finally reached behind him and snatched the paper off of the seat and gave it a disinterested look over.
But when he read it a second time his reaction was far different—and more serious.
Special Agent Chris Prince ripped the note into pieces, cursed and stormed out of the club section without a word of goodbye for Seth. The doctor allowed the moment to breathe again. He was thankful that the conversation—and any connection to Denise Prince and eventually him being at her place when she threw herself out of the window were not completed.
He squatted down and took the time and effort to piece the four torn parts of paper together…and read the note in spite of himself.
It said:
“I never lied to you, Chris. I never lied to you when I said that I didn’t know when or where the suicide bombers would be initiated during Scar. What I am guilty of is failing to mention to you that brainchild of all of this is me. The members of the Circle realized long before 411 that we could not win any prolonged engagement with Pandora. Once the Zero Hour passed and your agency as well as ours failed to secure the release of Atlanta’s missing children from the clutches of Louis Keaton we knew that we had no out left. Once the cold war ended and the situation went hot, we knew that victory was unachievable—at least in any traditional sense of the word.
And yet, we knew that we had to make these last hours of a House in Chains—at least this present version of it—memorable for them and for us.
History must never forget the lessons that we teach it now.
I also want you to know that I loved your brother very much. He only learned of my feelings days before his end. And because of my love for Xavier Prince by extension, that means that you and I are family and I love you as well. And as a member of my family I feel the need to bid you farewell, even in this crude manner.
I heard you when you said that you were dying.
But it is I who won’t live long enough to see you again, Christopher Prince.
It is time for a House in Chains to institute the final stages of Scar. We are to gather the last surviving members of the Circle, the Board and the higher ranking members of the Peacekeepers and are to engage in a massive suicide ritual at the mansion on Riverside Road on the south end of town.
The world will never forget what they will see there.
What do we see when we visualize our people’s future?
We see days filled with misery and pain.
Seth drops the torn letter as he feels discombobulated.
Special Agent Christopher Prince, the man who Seth had set off to Atlanta hurt or destroy must have been hurting inside more than anyone he knows—perhaps anyone that he ever has known. The Gray Man remembers the words of Quincy Morgan and his grandmother before him about the lasting effect of scars on the human conscious. And in some impossible sense, Seth understands the calamity that Quincy Morgan perpetrated on the world in the short hours Seth spent with the Peacekeepers one night earlier.
In his mind’s eye, Seth can see Denise Prince as she hops through her window and dies again and again and again…
He can see the fury that a determined Roxanne Sanchez has for his wife Angel as she leaves him behind while her personal search for vengeance continues.
He sees Quincy Morgan scalping the head off of a dead James Carter and holding high and proud while the Peacekeepers celebrate in mass.
He sees Grace’s letter for Chris and memorizes it nearly word for precious word although he’d only read it once.
And then the lights in the west club section of the Georgia Dome flicker on and off and on and then off…
Dr. Seth Dupree wanted to call out for Teresa again, he wanted to call out to anyone…but suddenly his lips fail to form the words…
And then all of the lights in the Gray Man’s world went black
Episode 8 Tempest Rising