Where are our Children: A Novel: Complete and Uncut

  Chapter Eight

  If Louis Keaton were to be unleashed on the public again without proper, professional supervision, I am convinced that the results would be catastrophic.

  -Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree’s patient notes (private) in October 2000

  Louis

  Red Wine Road (East Point), 10th Day

  He watched.

  He waited.

  Moses Jackson’s grandmother dragged the 12 year old boy and his two younger siblings to an old crusty Baptist church early that cool spring morning. The routine hadn’t altered much since he’d started scouting this particular boy out about six weeks ago.

  Felicia Jackson:

  She was a fair skinned black woman in her early 60’s. She had dark circles under her eyes and wore her dentures and her stockings everywhere she went.

  And the show would always begin as she was leaving the old shot gun house with her grand kids. The older woman saying to her daughter, Moses mother, that someone in this house needed to give God some time back in return for all that he had provided them. Tracy Jackson would argue back that He shouldn’t expect a whole lot of visits from her then. She cursed out loud. God or Jesus hadn’t provided her with much over the past few years except these begging ass children all ways in the need of something she didn’t have. Matter of fact, she yelled as her mother closed the screen door and walked away with the kids, she’d be fuckin impressed if he dropped off a man at her crib who had a good job. That would impress the hell out of her.

  By the time that one sided conversation had ended Louis slid back into his Ford. A man is coming into your life, Felicia. And we do have a good job. You’ll see. Per usual, Tracy Jackson stormed out of that same screened in porch after her mother and the kids left, and was already out for her daily grind.

  Tracy Jackson:

  She was a shapely dark skinned Black woman in her early 30’s that had straight hair and she dressed the same every day: She wore a cut off shirt at the midriff that highlighted her tattoos and her stomach and lower back, tight enough pants to cause a yeast infection, and shoes bearing a six inch heal. The grind didn’t change as she continued her search where she left off from the day before…and the day before that—of a trick and then a hit of some crack or weed.

  Sunday mornings were the worse for Tracy. That’s probably why she always had such an attitude with her mother before the older woman left for church. Traffic flowing through the neighborhood was the slowest all week on Sunday mornings. And if she did manage to get some guy off and pocket some money, then trying to find one of her dealers took some doing as well. Even the most religious drug pusher had to sleep some time or the other, especially with Friday and Saturday nights being so prosperous and all. And the weather was warming up too which was great for the drug and the skin trade.

  Louis knew that Tracy was running low on cash with the days approaching the middle of the month. It didn’t take rocket science to figure that between her mother’s social security and Tracy’s welfare, that money was tight under the most ideal circumstances.

  These weren’t ideal circumstances.

  Louis abandoned his usual routine of following Felicia and the kids and stayed after Tracy this morning. She had walked down one of the alleys and behind the dumpster. The neighborhood was circular by design with rows upon rows of shotgun houses all in some need of work or paint needed on them. Louis had seen men of his color drive down here every so often. Most of these men were legitimate business types: Salesmen, Insurance Brokers, Bails Bondsmen, and even some undercover police. And it amazed Louis that no matter how dangerous the neighborhood was the drug pusher code was the same during the day: Hands off Whitey unless he backs you into a situation where you have no other choice.

  Yet, all bets were off when the lights came on. It is the twilight and shadow syndrome. The voice inside him said. Four Pandora agents had to sprint down and rescue him when he got cornered by a group of gang members a week ago. Those young men never knew what hit them when the bullets tore through the soft tissue in the back of their heads. We weren’t afraid though. We would have handled ourselves…defended ourselves even if the cavalry hadn’t arrived. Louis told himself that the other voice was a liar. He had been scared. He still had the trembling hands, the cotton mouth and the piss on his pants to prove it.

  Still, Danielle Rohm offered him a pretty smile…and more importantly a change of clothes as the other Pandora agents dragged the fresh corpses away. Shooter had taken the young men out from at least 200 feet away. Louis was thankful that Serena had put together men and women with such a variance of skills and talents within Pandora. But no one had the lethal range and the means to spout off kills like the little girl dressed in black.

  The neighborhoods of downtown Atlanta hadn’t changed much since his first round of raptures 30 years earlier. He saw the same trash low income housing areas, the same potholes in the roads, and worst of all the exact same hopelessness imbedded in the faces of the people who lived down here.

  One thing had changed though.

  He saw young men and several women as well, dressed in khaki suits and sneakers running pockets of drug dealers off of the corners. The confrontations often were no match. The Peacekeepers were always victorious. Some of the residents would actually walk out into the streets and cheer them. One night, several weeks back before 411, he saw a group surround three Peacekeepers and started hopping up and down while they chanted we have a vision, we have a vision…

  Louis drove away as fast as the F150 would take him that night.

  Yet, he had always come back. He had been given a job to do by Serena Tennyson and it was very unwise to displease the head of Pandora too often. So he got to the business at hand.

  He came close to grabbing Moses two days ago as he walked home from middle school. The opportunity was there, but he had blown it. Moses had run straight home as his grandmother had instructed him to. Since Serena’s announcement on Thomas Pepper’s blog, Felicia Jackson would often leave her home and begin walking towards the school where each child came home from. The walking was difficult for her considering her arthritic hip and other ailments. Also the younger kids got out of school an hour before Moses did and she barely got back home, caught her breath, before it was time to venture out again.

  But that day, two days ago, had presented the best opportunity that Louis had yet to grab the boy. Moses best friend had stayed home with a bug. He would be walking alone and even if the old woman started walking to meet him, she would not get to him in time. What did save him is that some neighborhood kids were playing kickball on a side street about four blocks from his home. And no matter how disciplined a 12 year old may be, he was still just 12 years old and the game was too much of a good time to pass up.

  The temptation earned Louis a spanking from Felicia that day, arthritis and all.

  And it saved you from us…for now.

  Tracy Jackson had been waiting all evening for a regular John to show up at the house so she sent Moses, as she often did, to meet her dealer for a rock. Moses had met the young man, who was probably four years older than he was, countless times before and knew right where to go. He had tears in his eyes and hated this task. He knew his grandmother wouldn’t allow it, but she had already left for her bible study meeting at the church, and wouldn’t be returning until it was late. Tracy knew this as well and that’s why she always scheduled these rendezvous at her house through the week on Wednesdays and Fridays. And Tracy could put it on them too. She could satisfy three of four men in the two to two in half hours his grandmother would be out of the house.

  The John was driving up now, so Tracy slapped her oldest child upside his head and gave him another slap on his rump, cursed at him to get on his way.

  When the screen door closed behind him, Louis vowed that he would at least never have to return to this specific hell again.

  If Serena Tennyson and Pandora were going to exploit his talents the way she was exploiting Danielle Rohm and all
the others then so be it. He would be happy to use their money and resources so he could engage in the pleasure that he had been born to engage in.

  This was no different than when the Caretaker had commanded him to do the same thing 30 years earlier. In both cases, the political and social ideologies were well past his ability to completely understand them all. He did understand what to do with these boys after he had picked them from the streets.

  And just as before, Louis Keaton had six of them already of his scope of vision. He had their routines and habits and their family’s routines and habits rounded into memory. He had the locations, the point of rapture mapped out and his necessary escape routes available to him whenever he needed to fetch them from thought.

  Louis knew, just like years earlier, that he wanted…no, we needed…to capture his General first. He wanted a boy of outstanding character and discipline who would watch over the other boys once he had captured them all. The general would help keep them quiet, calm and safe.

  Moses Jackson would be his general for this generation of abducted boys…just as Christopher Prince had been his first general when his first rapture began all those years ago.

  When the boy had cleared the first street Louis Keaton made his move.

  He waited patiently until Moses made his buy from the drug dealer. Louis needed him to advance quickly out of this little sector of hell and start walking down the block. This street, with its low lighting and narrow streets, actually would have served Louis better to grab the boy unseen but anywhere that significant narcotic activity took place, there was an increased opportunity of Peacekeeper interference. Louis didn’t need that kind of headache. He was running low on chances to get this thing started. Serena Tennyson had insisted on the operation beginning now.

  Louis knew that snatching the other boys would be a breeze by comparison. It had been three decades since he had tried to hold a group of boys together. He had the pleasure of a single boy here and two brothers there, but not a collection as was needed to satisfy the Dragon Woman and her brood.

  Suddenly all of the brief sessions that he had with Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree came back to him. She had asked him how he felt when these urges washed over him. She had instructed him on how he should fight back against them. She had smiled at him with her fake lips and told him that he was no less human for having these feelings, what dehumanized him was his inability to overcome them once he recognized they were on him in full.

  Serena, on the other hand, balled up her fist the last time he saw her and told him to embrace his urges. She told the truth about us, Louis. We are a magnificent creature. We are a blunt instrument. But mostly we have been kept at bay for far too long. We need to feed. Dupree-Hicks would bury us forever. She is a fool. We will feed again. Dinner’s on.

  The good doctor’s influence hadn’t waned however. In his mind’s eyes he could see her pleading with him to return to his F150 and drive away. She yelled at him to remember the dead and the dying that happened because of his miscues last time. She reminded him that he was a molester, a pedophile…a butt fucker, but he was not a killer. And if he took Moses Jackson here and now, he would get his pleasure but he would eventually have to kill them as he had been instructed to kill the other boys before.

  Don’t listen to Dupree- Hicks. We won’t allow the situation to erode like it did the last time. Moses is stronger than Christopher had been. And what saved him…and started the ball of death rolling for the other boys was dumb luck anyway. That ain’t happening this time; it just ain’t.

  Moses Jackson dropped his mother’s bag of rock on the ground, gave his dark surroundings a once over and stooped down to scoop it up—

  And Louis Keaton was away from his F150 like a blur of light with his phony badge in his hand. He was yelling…but not too loudly about how much trouble the boy was in. Moses tried to drop the baggie again but it was too late for that. The police had seen you with it in your possession. And everyone knew what the police did with 12 year old Black boys who were in possession of rock cocaine. Moses cried and nodded his head. He probably didn’t know, but he surely had been taught to always agree with an officer of the law, especially when he caught you with the goods on you.

  Moses Jackson was a smart kid; in fact the 12 year old was brilliant. Although he attended a failing school that was short of resources, funds, teachers who gave a damn and mostly illiterate kids he was excelling. And even though he’d been assigned to high school equivalent classes and arguably was the smartest kid in the whole school he allowed himself to get caught doing this.

  But after Moses let the moment and his bad situation sink in…some of that intelligence seeped through. He asked Louis if he were a cop where was his gun? He asked why he wasn’t calling his back up in. And then he said respectfully, but firmly, why they would put a man as old as he was on such a dangerous beat in a neighborhood like this one.

  Louis Keaton found the strength, quickness and resolve that he thought he left behind years earlier to snatch Moses and throw his ass into the passenger side of the truck. He worked quickly but steadily, he gagged Moses and roped his feet and hands together and stuffed him down on the floor board all without drawing any attention.

  Louis got himself over to the driver side, closed the heavy door, latched his seat belt on and drove off without speeding. He turned onto one main road, then to another and then another at a moderate rate of acceleration. He checked his rear view mirrors and saw that no one was following him including Pandora agents. Serena had explained to him that they would no longer be sent out with him since the scouting phase had concluded and the rapture phase had begun.

  Louis pushed the F150 harder when he drove the truck up on the entrance ramp and eventually onto I 20 heading parallel out of the main part of the city, towards the sanctuary that he had created for Moses and the other children. And He has built many rooms in this mansion. And after the rapture of his flock, they will spend an eternity together.

  We’ve done so well.

  Much later, hours after the Pandora agents helped pull a crying Moses Jackson from his truck, Louis Keaton allowed himself a deep exhale of a breath he hadn’t known he was holding and threw up. He walked inside the sanctuary. Serena had promised him that her hand full of agents would allow him adequate space to do what needed to be done. And we have held up our end of the bargain and we will make sure the witch of a dragon woman does the same. Serena Tennyson was proving to be as efficient as and even far more ruthless than the Caretaker had been.

  And although no one would trade Serena’s cold passionless persona for Caretaker’s compassion and love of humanity, Louis had to believe that between the two of them that somehow they would be able to pull all of this off without the senseless deaths that occurred the first time around.

  Yes, the voice inside said as the first stir of his manhood inside of pants this evening occurred. There would be plenty of time for that soon enough. You are stronger than Chris ever was, Moses. You won’t force Serena too command us to kill the other boys who will soon be joining us here.

  We’ve chosen well.

  We’re sure of it.

  Roxanne

  Carver Street Apartments (Summer Hill), 10th Day

  The liberation of Carver had begun.

  And while it wasn’t her war per say it would be affecting her if she didn’t move out of one its many apartments soon.

  At first all she had heard were a few bangs and pops of scattered gunfire. Those sounds were more common around here than the sound of children laughing and playing. This was Carver after all. But then there was the screeching of tires followed by another round of bangs, pops, and cries of men dying. It some odd way it had reminded Roxanne Sanchez of her childhood growing up with Maria and her parents in the old broken down shack that had once been her beloved home a few blocks from here. This evening was like New Year’s Eve all over again. The closer to midnight the hour got the louder and more frequent the sounds of New Year’s Day drew closer. And
that gunfire and the killing is getting closer minute by freaking minute, where is he—

  So far Councilwoman’s prognosis of the offensive had been on target. The Peacekeepers had engaged in a full-fledged assault that senior militias across the world would have been challenged to mimic. The problem was that she’d been caught behind enemy lines when the campaign had been engaged and it had slowed her investigation to a near stall ever since.

  And I was getting closer to some answers. Roxanne slid over to the window of the otherwise empty apartment for a quick look down the street. The usual early evening activities of drug sales, pimping out the younger hoes and maybe even a quick game of craps while you could still see the numbers had ceased to exist. She’d seen a lot of running back and forth. Mothers were grabbing their children and making a break for cover. The dealers were on the phone trying to find out what in the hell was going on up in the front.

  And I’m stuck in here, waiting. The Prince family had paid well and on time but they both had been a pain in her ass. First, there was Denise Prince, who had originally hired her. The lady was a head case at best with her moodiness and downright hostility at times, especially around Chris. Her ex-husband was loyal maybe even to a fault to his former family, but it was clear that both of them were hiding a secret that might have been the final nail in the coffin of their marriage. And its and ugly secret too, Roxanne thought and pulled the curtain back further for a larger look see down the street. It was something that nearly destroyed you, Chris, not just your marriage.

  And now Xavier Prince, Chris younger brother had deployed this offensive today…right now that made an already difficult search even more dangerous.

  She heard the bolt on the lock unlatch on the front door. She brought her Nine up to greet in unwelcome visitor.

  Andre Knight opened the door and slid inside. He locked the bottom lock, bolted the middle one and even swung the chain over into place. He was out of breath and looked as if he’d seen the mountain top for himself.

  “They’re dudes dying out there,” He told her between bits of heavy breathing.

  Andre Knight:

  He was a scrawny dark skinned Black man who had graduated high school a year after she did. He was so long and so lean in fact, that Roxanne would have sworn on a pile of bibles that if he were any skinner she would be able to see behind him. He wore too much grease in his hair and a well-manicured goatee surrounded a mouth full of beaver teeth. He’d acted like a spoiled punk in high school and age hadn’t improved his standing with her one bit.

  “They’ll be one dying in here if you’ve lied to me.” She had ‘Dre pinned to that same front door with all of the locks in place with the back of her forearm. She hadn’t pointed her gun at him…yet. “Where is this contact you promised me? You said that someone in him saw Erica Prince after the day that most people think she went missing.”

  “Calm your nerves, Girlfriend.” Andre said and pushed himself away from the door and out of her grip in a single motion. “There is a shooting war going down in the hood in case you ain’t keeping up with current events. Things like that can add to a man’s travel time. I wasn’t nowhere near up front and struggled to get here. My man had further to go.” He closed the curtains. “He’ll be here.

  Roxanne rolled her eyes at her old schoolmate and sighed in exasperation. She did not do waiting well. Patience is not a normal human virtue, Senorita. Victor had once told her after he’d made her body tremble with pleasure. You are good at what you do. Yet, you must make patience an ally if you truly want to excel. And her own inner voice countered: And I suspect that you are using that patience right now…in an attempt to find me, Victor.

  And so his words that he had text her echoed in her soul;

  Someday, when the time is right, Gonzales and I will stop what we are doing here…and find you.

  I will see you suffer for what you have done here down below.

  Roxanne Sanchez knew she would rather face a thousand Peacekeeper liberations than one Victor Castillo.

  That was at least until ‘Dre had told her what he’d seen so far.

  The Peacekeepers had used two old vans to ram through the check in point at the front gate. Everyone knew that ‘security’ was bought and paid for by Bishop and his Choir boys. Dre said that one of the fools even had the nerve to go for his pistol but one of the Peacekeepers’ riding shot gun in the opposite van shot just above his earlobe killing him on the spot. The other played it smart—at least at first, by hitting a silent alarm that notified the Ushers that they had company.

  Dre stopped his tale long enough to pull a brew from his fridge and chugged half of it down in one gulp. Roxanne frowned at him when he dared offer her one. Men and their vices, still she urged him to continue. They might as well do something constructive while they waited on this contact to arrive.

  He said that the ‘Boys followed procedure…but it didn’t help them much. Bishop had prepared himself for the one day that the APD grew a pair and came after him. He would use the narrow streets that went from eight lanes when you entered the complex that reduced themselves to four, two and eventually one for every two blocks of cross streets to his advantage. He also had some Ushers that would climb up to the top of damn near 12 or 15 apartment tops. They would serve two purposes while they were up there: They would pitch pigeons to help blind Ushers on the ground know where the cops were heading…and they could snipe any pig that was traveling by foot.

  Roxanne felt a lump in her throat.

  “That doesn’t sound to promising for anyone trying to flush Bishop out of here?”

  “And you would normally be right, Girlfriend,” Dre finished his beer and missed the garbage can when he flipped it at the basket adding to the already filthy surroundings. How do you live like this? “But we ain’t talking about the APD or even Five-O. Bishop or nobody else ain’t ever seen nothing like this.”

  Four school buses rushed into the open space that the van had created. Two went to the right side while the other two somehow made the curve and headed to the left. One Peacekeeper after the other, after the other…after the other marched off of those buses until, Dre couldn’t be sure, but there had to damn well 200 men and women in all were on Carver streets taking cover and taking names. They were dressed in the classic gear that world had come to know them for: khaki pants and black tee shirts or khaki suits. The difference today is that they all wore skeleton mask to protect their identities like they were some real life superheroes or something Dre guessed.

  A gunshot fired loud enough that Roxanne jumped and Dre went to the floor. She stayed low enough not to be caught in any direct crossfire and got over to where the host was.

  Roxanne, reluctantly, had often turned to this bastard since she’d been back in Hot Atlanta when her cases veered off the linear path. He’d proven useful…especially if your cash flow was right. And 24 hours ago he’d called her and told her that he had a contact who had mentioned Erica’s physical description to a tee, knew about her hoeing around with Trey Davis, and even mentioned her possible sexual relationship with a young woman who was hooked up with an Usher. Roxanne had learned that leaning of Andre Knight for information down here usually generated results.

  It didn’t mean she had to like him.

  “As long as you understand one thing,” She had forearmed him to his upswept tile this time. The dirt was shining in his greasy head. “If you’ve betrayed me or wasted my time in any way, I’ll make you wish you hadn’t lived long enough to regret it.”

  Dre looked the part of a cockroach that had been flipped on his back. Yet, he had managed to escape her clutches again and had sat himself just under the window sill.

  “Betray you.” He wiped the dirt off of his too big shirt. His greasy hair might take the rest of the decade so he let it ride for now. “Girlfriend, we go all the way back to elementary school. You wouldn’t give a playa the time of day back then but I’ve always had your back.”

  “Let me correct you,” Sh
e crawled to where he was again and sat close enough to smell the booze on his breath. He would not escape her again. “I’ve know you too long and having my back has always been defined by me either paying you or fucking you. And I’d rob the Bishop himself first before I’d let that latter half happen, Dre.”

  More shot rang out. Roxanne heard a window shatter. They’re getting closer; we are running out of time. Finding Erica and…potentially giving her the justice she deserved was running on fumes as well.

  Dre soothed the moment and her nerves over again, if only momentarily when he finished telling his tale. Girlfriend, I ain’t got to the good part yet. Two dozen or so Peacekeepers busted through apartment doors and sprayed the inside with gunfire. Pockets of Choir Boys would show up from down the street or around a corner cursing and shooting…but they no match for the semi and fully automatic weapons of the Peacekeepers.

  The campaign was far from flawless. One of the buses stalled before it reached its rightful destination and 20 or 30 of Xavier’s men had to run half a block to reach the next row of apartments. A couple of Usher’s who were still on top the rooftops picked a handful off as they tried to exit the idled bus. There were more than a few hand to hand, and knife to hand battles in the middle of the street, in the dark alleys and in private doorways. A civilian woman, whose weight was all behind her, was shot in the crossfire when she tried to rush what must have been her elderly father to safety. Another man with weenie arms, a beer belly and chicken legs was run over when he stepped out in front of the bus as soon as the driver got it going again.

  But then the Peacekeepers took control of those first two sections of Carver. Three Wheelers rolled in by the dozen. There were two riders per vehicle. While one steered the other fired rounds at any and everything that moved that wasn’t wearing khakis and black tee shirts. With another wave of Peacekeepers on the ground the snipers were nullified and then eliminated with extreme prejudice. One was shot and Dre said that he fell from the rooftop nearly to the asphalt nearly where he was standing.

  “But it didn’t stop there, Girlfriend.” Dre shook his head. His eyes were two unblinking street lights. For all of the things that Andre Knight was not, Roxanne Sanchez could say that he was cool. The punk in him wasn’t faking or fabricating. What he saw in those few minutes before he arrived here and sealed himself inside his apartment had scared the hell out of him.

  Dre said that he watched a man bigger than most stand climb atop one of the vans that had crashed through the front gates into the housing project. “He was a pretty big man but that’s not what I remember most about him.” Dre said trying to mask the fear in his voice. “He was the only one of them wearing a sleeveless black tee shirt that had no ample room for a vest underneath. But Roxanne, he had a long scar on each arm that stretched from his elbow to his wrist. And he…”

  “What did he do? Andre?” Roxanne wanted to know.

  “He pulled a machete from what seemed out of nowhere. I look up again and there were, I don’t know, maybe 20 or 25 others who were carrying machetes too.”

  Andre Knight said the scarred man pointed at all of those sneakers hanging from the wires marking Choir Boy territory, the way a dog pisses on a bush. And then The Scarred Man said at the top of his voice: Our adversaries proclaim themselves Choir Boys. They have Ushers…they have a Deacon…I even hear that they are blessed with the presence of a Bishop. The Scarred man’s words were greeted with laughter from his troops, his Peacekeepers. Well today I have visualized his people’s future. And Dre said he heard a single voice…with a woman’s tone ask from her skeleton mask: And tell us what do you see, Admiral. The Scarred Man found who had asked the question and his smile threw a shining light on the entire world. I see a day…this day, filled with misery and pain.

  And the Peacekeepers one and all…all and one, begin to stomp.

  But the Scarred Man was not finished. When his troops had quieted enough to allow him to speak into a setting sun, he said: If there is a Bishop and a Deacon and Ushers and Choir Boys…then this must be Paradise.

  Andre Knight watched the Scarred man pull a locket from underneath his tee shirt, kiss it affectionately and say: Then I say that we should storm Heaven.

  He hopped effortlessly off of the van and charged up a stairwell with his machete drawn. The others who possessed the blades matched his movement and did the same, pouring into one apartment and it seemed to the storyteller, at random to the next one.

  And Andre Knight ran for his life.

  That was 30 minutes ago.

  What sounded like an explosion rocked the building underneath their feet. Roxanne Sanchez had gathered her druthers first. “What did they do with these machetes, Dre? How did they know what apartments to crash? I know that everyone in this complex is not a dealer or a member of The Choir Boys? Dre, are you even listening to me?”

  “Of course I’m hearing you, Girlfriend.” Dre dared look out the window. Two Choir Boys darted by…but they were then cut down in a hail of bullets. “Look, I didn’t stay around long enough to see the end of the movie. The opening credits were enough for me as it was.”

  She had enough of this man—so she snatched him by the collar and the skin underneath. He would not escape her this time for sure.

  “Damn, Girlfriend, what’s happened to you?” He screamed over the gunfire drawing closer and closer still. “Look, Roxanne, we’ve done business before. You have never been this hard. You are starting to act like that crazy ass sister of yours. Don’t act like you don’t remember that crazy bitch fighting day in and day out. Anyway, whatever happened—“

  Roxanne planted the butt of her Nine against his big lips in a quiet plea for him to be silent. “Look, Dre, we are not going to talk about Maria. We are not going to talk about what you had for breakfast this morning. We’re not even going to talk about the Peacekeepers who could knock that door down any moment and kill us both—“

  And there was a knock on that exact door.

  And the knocking became more persistent—and then desperate.

  “Open the door, Dre, it’s me.” A voice said.

  “My man,” Andre flashed a million dollar smile.

  Roxanne allowed him to get to his feet and it took a minute for him to unlatch the door from all of its locks. He opened up the door…

  …and a White man walked through the threshold.

  There was a White man walking through the front door at Carver Street Housing Project…here…now.

  Roxanne Sanchez said blankly: “You’re a White—“

  “Champion,” And he put his white hand out for Roxanne to shake it. “My name is Joseph Champion actually not White. A dozen rounds of gunfire passed nearby. Roxanne thought that a couple of the bullets struck the front door where this…Joseph Champion had stood only seconds earlier. “Andre was supposed to explain to you who I was.”

  Joseph Champion:

  Roxanne thought that he was average height, weight, but he seemed smaller with his face buried underneath an overabundance of unruly brown hair, bush eyebrows, and a meaty goatee.

  “I’m not interested in anything about you beyond what you can tell me about the disappearance of Erica Lovings.” She was interested in everything about this man in fact, and how he came to Carver, but she neither had the time or patients to pursue such an investigation.

  Two more shots strike the apartment next door to this one. A third shot shattered the glass by the window sill. All three of them duck for cover behind the dining room table, Champion using his wits, turned the table over to shield them better against anymore bullets that could pop through that opened window.

  Roxanne stood just enough to see…the three wheelers driving up with the white vans and the school buses slowly bringing up the rear. They’re here. She thought nearing panic. She spied the shadows of figures growing larger as they approach their position. The first rider off of a three wheeler was a loan man wearing a black tee shirt and cursed with a long scar running the length of ear arm
from the palm of his hand to his elbow.

  The Scarred Man had unsheathed his machete.

  Champion was still talking. “I might be able to do more than just tell you about Erica Lovings, Roxanne. I may call you, Roxanne?”

  “What in the hell are you talking about?”

  Before Champion can answer a handful of shots strike the apartment above them. All parties accounted for push their selves as low to the floor as their individual frames allow. She makes herself larger—and more vulnerable to gunfire, so she can scoot over to where her old classmate was covering his greasy head.

  “Andre…Andre, I need you to think harder than you ever have before” Roxanne said.

  “What?”

  “We know that A House in Chains sent the Peacekeepers to root out the Choir Boys. We know that many of them live here in Carver. We also know that many of these units are used in the production of crack cocaine.” Roxanne spoke slowly to Andre as if she had grown up but had left him back in elementary school. “There are no fools running the Circle. Just like you told me when you walked in here they are killing people out there. The Peacekeepers must be using some barometer to flag where their enemies are. They knew exactly where the combatants and the crack houses were before they even boarded those buses and crashed through that front gate.” Roxanne grabbed Andre Knight one last time. “I need to know what they are using to identify these enemy positions, Dre, and I need to know right now.”

  Andre looked to the heavens in thought.

  He blinked rapidly…his mind processing everything he’d seen…and anything he might have seen.

  And then he had her answer.

  “I saw red stripes painted on the front doors of the units. I’d never seen them there before.” Roxanne got to her feet, danger be damned, and sprinted as fast as her long legs would take her to the window sill. “I thought they were marking them some for a paint job down the road or something.”

  Something is right, She bent as far as she could…nearly falling out of the window. A bullet sailed by her and struck the wall nearby.

  And then Roxanne saw it.

  There was a big red slash on the door where the three of them were hiding behind.

  She was all the way back inside…and on top of Andre in a flash. She finally had her Nine pointed at him now.

  “Andre, why is there a red painted stripe on your door?”

  “There isn’t one.”

  She hit him in the chin with the pistol.

  “I just looked out of the door, Andre.” She said in a voice that far more patient and calm than she felt. She could feel Champion looking on, wanting answers from Andre as well.

  “That ain’t my door, girlfriend. This ain’t my crib.”

  “What?”

  “Man, we were talking about Erica Lovings and her potentially having something to do with an Usher. Everybody down here knows you been asking questions about that girl. I couldn’t have anyone seeing you—no matter how fat your ass is—walking out of my place whiles you asking about that dyke. So I stole—I mean, I found this key and used this place only for show, until I could hook you up with old Stoney here.”

  Roxanne helped him up partially. Then she crawled through the apartment that wasn’t Andre’s after all, and made it to the bedroom.

  One hell of a large crack lab stared back at her.

  “Son of a Bitch,” She yelled, nearing tears.

  Andre Knight and Joseph Champion, thunder and lighting, ran into the room as well.

  “I didn’t know, Roxanne.” Dre said. “I swear I didn’t know.”

  “Let’s get the hell out of here.” Champion looked at her.

  “No,” That single word drew both of their silent ire after she said it. “We’re not going anywhere yet. Roxanne was hot with Andre, but she at least understood why he did what he did. More shots rang out. Someone sounded as if they were right outside the front door. She drew her Nine on the other man instead. “I take back what I said to you earlier…Joseph Champion is it? Yea, sure, you can call me Roxanne if you like. I do need to know you. I need to know if I can take your word at face value and I need to know right this minute. First, what is your story, Champion? Tell me the extra short version.”

  There was a cry from someone outside the door for God to save them but two gunshots later left the man heading towards eternity without an answer.

  “I may die tonight, Champion.” Roxanne choked back tears. If she was going to join the man outside—and the many others who died in Carver today, she damned wouldn’t go weeping like bitch in front of a punk like Andre and some stranger who needed a shave and haircut.

  “I am with Pandora.” His lip quivered beneath the hair. “At least I was.”

  She cocked the hammer.

  “Whoa,” Champion put his hands up. “You asked a question and I answered. Roxanne, I was a mole…I am a mole. I’m in hiding from Serena. You won’t need that gun…at least for me.”

  Roxanne processed the information as fast as her brain allowed her to. She considered her limited options. She knew her time was nearly out. “Alright, Champion,” Roxanne said, but she kept her Nine trained on his forehead all the same. “If you truly are a mole, I can’t think of a better place in the world to hide from everyone…Pandora, A House in Chains and the FBI. I can buy that. I don’t buy why you are connected to Erica Lovings.”

  “I know where she is, Roxanne. I can take you to her.” He said. “I’ll be straight with you: I didn’t have any reason to come forward to you or anyone else with this information before.” Champion peered over his shoulder when he heard a voice say, I am an Admiral in the Peacekeepers. In the name of Xavier Prince, I demand that you open this door and admit me…or I will have it torn from its hinges. “But as you can see, I will no longer be able to hide here. Even in the unlikeliness that we survive whatever is on the other side of that door, Carver will be filled with police and FBI and reporters for weeks to come. I will be discovered.”

  Champion stepped close enough for Roxanne to see that there was plenty of salt to go with the cinnamon in his beard. “Give me your word that you will continue to hide me when we—“Roxanne heard the door knocked down in the front room. “If we survive the night and I will take you to Erica Lovings.”

  “How do I know I can trust you?”

  “How do I know I can trust you, Roxanne?”

  Andre Knight kept a small pistol for the times his punk ass mouth wrote checks that his scrawny ass couldn’t cash. Roxanne gave Joseph Champion her .22 that she kept strapped to her shin in case she had exhausted her clips for her Nine in a pinch.

  She turned towards the living room area again.

  The Scarred Man had said at the top of his voice not so long ago: Our adversaries proclaim themselves Choir Boys. They have Ushers…they have a Deacon…I even hear that they are blessed with the presence of a Bishop. And when his troops had quieted enough to allow him to speak into a setting sun, he said: If there is a Bishop and a Deacon and Ushers and Choir Boys…then this must be Paradise.

  Then he said that the Peacekeepers should storm Heaven.

  Roxanne sprinted around the corner…gun in hand…and rushed to meet him there.

  And then she let God have His will.

  Angel

  North Desert Drive, Atlanta, 11th Day

  Make sure you secure the crime scene.

  Special Agent Nicholas Sheridan’s instructions still resonated inside of Angel’s head nearly an hour after he had stated them to Christopher and her before they left the field office for North Desert Drive. Or is it the banging inside your skull from a whopper of a hangover you’re really feeling. Angel had retired early last night after some Jack Daniels, or was it that she had passed out?

  Anyway, she now threw the newer rental car into park and buried her thoughts into the latest crisis in a series of them since she’d arrived in this city. A local camerawoman using social media had texted that a barrage of reports had flooded her station’s office with so
mething big having been discovered in the lower eastside of downtown. Sheridan couldn’t or wouldn’t elaborate further, but dispatched the old childhood friends to the heavily wooded area they were arriving at now.

  Camerawoman huh…maybe…just maybe, Sheridan wasn’t quite the Boy Scout who was only married to his work after all. Angel thought.

  Christopher had already unbuckled his seatbelt and was preparing to launch himself up out of the seat when she grabbed him by the elbow—

  “Ask Sheridan to reassign you.” She said. “Please, do it while there is still time.”

  Christopher’s hairless brows shot up on his dark face. “Reassign me? What in the hell are you talking about, Doc?”

  Angel nudged her head at the door; he got her silent message and slammed it shut. Uniformed cops had already done their jobs and roped the area off, probably setting the perimeter further out from ground zero more than they needed to. That’s a wise move. Civilians, most of them People of Color, were already starting to line up along the boundaries trying to get a closer look at what was on the other side. Angel leaned into her friend. “You should ask to lead the investigations that will wrap up the 411 attacks…anything but this.” She looked out of the window towards whatever secrets were hidden beyond those boundaries. “You’re not going to want to see what’s in there. I don’t have to remind you of what happened to you all of those years ago. You’re not as prepared as you think you are to deal with what you may see over there.”

  “Angel, we don’t know—“

  “We do know, Christopher.” She squeezed his wrist harder than she had intended. “We know that Rapture is Serena’s attempt to go after the city’s Children of Color. She showed Thomas Pepper the yellow rose and we both know all the symbolism and history that goes with that. We also know that she has a major tool in the box in Louis Keaton to pull this off. He’s done this before.”

  Chris nodded slowly. “In speaking of the roses, Sheridan had a forensic team run some test on them. They didn’t identify any contraband. Serena probably picked them at random somewhere on the route to Pepper’s townhome that day.” He gave her a hard look. “But you don’t really deal in the substantive do you, Doc? You live and work outside the box. This is about suggestion and inquiry for you?”

  A part of her wished that he was being sarcastic, but that wasn’t Christopher’s nature. He was also dead on. “It’s just a theory for me in a roundabout way. I can’t prove any of it beyond a reasonable doubt and I know that is the world that you live and work in.”

  Christopher smiled and it gave her a warm feeling that only the booze usually provided. “You’ve been on target with everything that’s happened so far. Let’s hear what you’ve got.”

  “I don’t have to remind you about the Atlanta Child Murders.”

  “No,” She heard him suck in a breath. “But I’m sure you’re going to remind me anyway.”

  Angel raised her long index finger with a manicured nail at the end of it. “I’m only stressing the point about the yellow rose. The roses and the symbolism as you named it a few minutes ago.”

  “Alright, Doc,” Christopher said patiently. “I was a little occupied at the time, but the city adopted a policy of raising a yellow rose, one for each of the missing victims…that included me.”

  Angel shook her head and it surprised Christopher. “That’s not the whole of it, Christopher. The yellow rose evolved into a symbol of hope for a city that desperately needed it at the time.”

  “Yea, alright, Doc, but hope against what exactly? We now know, all these years later, that there was more than one kidnapper and more than one motive going on at once. We still aren’t sure who followed whom.”

  Angel acknowledged Christopher’s accurate assessment with a curt nod. Louis Keaton told her himself that the Caretaker and a very early rendition of Pandora had recruited him to kidnap and molest Black boys with the intent to incite a race war in the city that would likely spill over into the entire South, and perhaps the total country.

  Simultaneous abductions were being perpetrated by Muhammad Clark. He was a troubled young man who was sexually assaulting, just as troubled older teens and young men, and was tried and convicted of killing scores of them and throwing their dead bodies in the Chattahoochee River. Clark was now on the fringes of old age and was still serving time in the Georgia Prison System.

  But Angel knew that her theories and innuendoes could wait. Five minutes and twenty feet later, Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree and Special Agent Christopher Prince found out how odd this investigation was going to get.

  Agent Willie Collier:

  He was a dark haired man who looked to be around 35 years old. He looked as if he’d recently dropped a significant amount of weight and his skin had yet to adjust to his body’s new configuration.

  A helicopter had taken to the sky. It was close enough for its blades reverberation to be an annoyance, but still far enough away not to disturb her hair. A new truck from the local CBS affiliate had pulled up behind where they had parked earlier. More APD police cars were arriving on the scene and Angel surmised that it was no coincidence that they got here right after the media did. There were going to be a lot of spectators here. Tensions were already high. An increased attendance by the APD may be needed to help curb the tide. Or their presence may make matters worse thanks to the results of Deliverance.

  What Angel knew for a near certainty was whatever they found here was going to nearly impossible to hide from the public.

  “What in the hell is this?” Christopher asked when he reached ground zero. “Is this some kind of prank?”

  Agent Collier held up his hands defensively. “We haven’t disturbed a thing, Agent Prince. This is exactly how the two civilians who called this in to that camerawoman at the news station found it.”

  It was the damned oddest thing that Angel had seen in all the times that she had consulted with the bureau in the past. And she had seen a hell of a lot.

  For the lack of a better description, someone, Angel could only guess a single person, had wedged a black doll into the concrete hole in the floor of this particular structure. They’d even taken the painstaking time and effort to place the doll partially inside of it without crushing the toy. They also had troubled themselves into clothing the thing to protect it against the dirt that would strike it because of today’s smoky strong winds. Angel pulled at the cuffs of her trousers and then kneeled to get a closer look.

  “It’s no joke, Christopher,” She said. It is more of an illusion though. “Take a closer look at this.”

  Christopher assumed a Johnny Bench pose of his very own to catch a better glimpse at what she’d detected. He saw it right away too. There were cut marks around the doll’s throat and the head had been squeezed so much that the plastic had refused to pop back out into its normal given shape.

  “Did you see this, Doc?”

  That same someone had presumably left a full sized bullet inside the dolls head. That wasn’t all however. A full size rope was tied, without much success, around the doll’s tiny legs. Christopher stopped his examination long enough to look at her probably to gage if they were thinking along the same lines or not, which would save a lot of time.

  “It’s nearly identical to the real early crime scenes the APD found in the fall of 1979,” Christopher made his voice of whisper. “This was some of the heavy evidence that the State used in its prosecution of Muhammad Clark.”

  Agent Collier had heard Christopher after all. “The State…Muhammad Clark, what are you talking about?”

  Angel used the explanation to Agent Collier as a tool to refresh herself on what she had studied some years earlier. “The corpse of the 16 year old boy was badly decomposed, but the Medical Examiner was still able to recognize that he had been strangled to death and then shot post mortem.”

  “Look at here,” Christopher had rubbed his thumb over the forehead and hair of the doll. “I believe this model hit the retail market about eight to ten years ago.?
??

  “I think you’re right, Prince.” Agent Collier smiled with a pleasant recollection. “My boy must have been about four or five at the time. He carried that thing around with him everywhere. ‘Action Traction’ is what I thought the store people called it. I finally had to hide the thing to wean him off of it. He must have cried for days afterwards.” His smile soured. “Respectfully, sir, what is the significance of what model the doll is to all of this?”

  “The significance,” Angel found herself saying evenly. “Is that these dolls went out of circulation two or more years ago. Am I right, Christopher?”

  He nodded. “Yea…that means whoever did this has been holding on to this thing for a time or they troubled their selves with E-Bay or some other web site to order it specifically. You don’t find black male dolls everywhere. They wanted this scene to be a nearly flawless rendition of the real thing. They wouldn’t accept anything less than perfection.”

  The chatter in the background had increased two fold in the background.

  “It’s a Goddamn conspiracy.” One voice proclaimed.

  “Hell yea,” A woman’s voice added her two cents worth. “We’ve seen the FBI’s handiwork already.”

  “What do you visualize when you see our people’s future?” A third voice asked

  “I see a future filled with sadness and pain.” A group of people answered in return.

  Angel spoke to the two men over the crowds whooping and hollering. “I remember reading that the authorities who first found that young man’s corpse they thought that it was a horrible murder, but an isolated case. The prominent media attention, at least what passed as media attention in those days, really didn’t jump on board until a couple years later when—“Angel found her friends gaze. She honestly didn’t know who or how many agents within the bureau knew about Christopher’s abduction by Louis Keaton in the other half of this story. “They really didn't hop on board until Keaton’s victims were taken.”

  Christopher nodded curtly in Angel’s choice of discretion. He got back to his feet and brushed the dirt off of his trousers. “Do you think this is an isolated event, Doc, or do you believe that there will be more ‘scenes’ like this one to be discovered.”

  Angel shrugged. “I guess are first order of business is to find out what it truly represents. Our answer lies in there somewhere—“

  Angel was interrupted when the cries of the dissenting voices grew louder. It took a full unit of uniformed officers to move in to quiet the building ruckus. Two of the cops pulled out their batons and pushed their way on the other side of the dividing tape.

  A young woman who Chris believed had been beautiful once, but the stress of adulthood had been most unkind to her face screamed at him. She was wearing the colors of a Peacekeeper. “You need to pick your side, brother. Either you are with us…or you’re with them. The Rooster if foul, the Rooster is no damned good.”

  Christopher had seen and heard enough. “Sargent, get those people back right now. We cannot allow this crime scene to be contaminated.”

  Angel watched as a mini melee occurred right before her big brown eyes. She couldn’t testify exactly who pushed whom and who punched the other first. But three uniformed APD officers had toppled five citizens and were striking them with their batons.

  But the men lying on their backs weren’t going to have the APD have the last say in the manner. They punched at the officers. They scratched at their eye sockets. The largest of the cops was bitten on the shoulder hard enough to draw blood.

  Christopher had lowered into a sprinters stance to intervene when the advantage shifted over to the crowd, but Angel caught him, planted her feet in the dirt, and used all of her strength to hold on to her friend to keep him from diving into the fray. “Don’t involve yourself in this, Christopher. It will stabilize itself.” Angel spoke loudly so he would hear her and suddenly she was right. “Look for yourself,”

  And it had. At least for the time being, cooler heads had prevailed, along with the arrival of a new squadron of officers making their way around the curve from their cars.

  “It’s all falling apart,” Angel said. “This situation is on the verge of exploding into something none of us may be able to pull back from.”

  Christopher snatched his arm away from her and straightened his shirt and jacket. Angel hadn’t realized she still had him in her grasp. “And you seem to always be in tuned with those fools in Pandora’s thought processes. Where should we look for clues next, Doctor?”

  “Like I said, Christopher, I have theories, nothing more.” Angel felt suddenly as if she had taken a defensive stance. “Most of what I feel is based on intuition. I worked with Pandora for a very short time. After you around Serena for a while you can’t help but understand some of her thought processes. She’s a complicated woman for sure, but she’s not impossible to read.”

  A new voice called up from somewhere behind them. “That’s why Sheridan doesn’t completely trust you, Doctor, and either should you, Agent Prince.” Tabitha Blue said as a means of announcing her arrival.

  Angel held her ground. “I’m not keeping anything from you that I’m conscious of, Christopher. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

  Christopher rubbed his jaw and looked as if he couldn’t make up his mind about anything at that moment. He caught his breath, introduced Collier to his partner and caught her up on the few things they had learned and theorized from this crime scene.

  Blue said: “So this is the escalation…the rapture that Serena Tennyson kept hinting at. I’m not impressed.”

  “You shouldn’t be impressed, Agent Blue.” Angel crossed her arms. “But don’t be a fool either. This is just the beginning. Of this I have no doubt.”

  “What in the hell is that supposed to mean?” Blue asked her.

  Chris had returned to a state of calm. “It means that the doctor believes that this doll is a representation of a child that has already or will be soon abducted off of the streets of Atlanta. I know Louis Keaton. He is a serial pedophile. And we will have more serial dancing to do to catch him.” He finally said. “That child will be left alive as long as Keaton doesn’t feel threatened in anyway.”

  Angel nodded at her friend’s input but reserved her statements for the agents Collier and Blue. “And if I had to guess, I would say that he will be abducting at least a half a dozen children or more to join this boy soon.”

  Christopher’s business cell rang.

  “Agent Prince,” He said into the receiver.

  After listening to the party on the other end he sighed long and deep. There is more trouble, Angel thought. What could have possibly gone wrong now? “Yea, thanks, Ricky. I’m glad you called me first.”

  Blue shifted in her stance, impatient for the news. “What now, Chris? Did someone find another doll? Or is it worse did someone find a real body?”

  “Hundreds of bodies have been found.” Christopher slapped at the ‘off’ button feature of his smart phone. He may it his business to lookout at the crowd, chanting and singing, but relatively peaceful for the time being. “We keep asking if things could possibly get worse in this city, well it has expeditiously.”

  “What is it, Christopher?” Angel felt the need for her first drink of the day. “What has happened?”

  “The House in Chains has sent the Peacekeepers to infiltrate the Carver Street Housing Project.” He looked to the heavens and then down below. “There are hundreds of casualties.”

  Roxanne

  Carver Street Apartments, Atlanta, 11th Day

  She jerked out a dreamless sleep, disoriented, sweating, and pissed off that strangers saw her in a state like this.

  And a little hungry, whatever was cooking in the kitchen had either a wondrous smell to it or she had indeed been starving to death.

  Joseph Champion flipped some eggs from one side of the frying pan to another. He waited until she gave him a visual conformation to approach where she had been lying on the couch—

  Wait. Som
ething’s wrong here.

  There had been no couch…no kitchenette…and little else where they were before.

  Champion must have read her mind, handed her a biscuit as a peace offering and said, “No Roxanne, we’re not in the same apartment before your lights went out.” She took the biscuit. “I got some bacon in the stove as well. It will all be ready in a minute, but I’m sure you want some answers.”

  “I do.”

  He stepped back over to the stove, as his eggs were on the fringes of burning. “First of all, I should say good morning to you.”

  She glanced up and quickly out of the window and then sat back on the couch and tried to get her thoughts together. Have I been out all of that time?

  “To answer the first of your many questions—this is Andre’s place, the real one that he didn’t want either of us in. With the Choir Boy threat…neutralized…he no longer felt threatened by having other residents seeing you or me come out of here.”

  And Roxanne believed it.

  It had his style or lack thereof. There were pictures of his mom who Roxanne had remembered meeting or more than one occasion when she had to come down to the middle school for parent-teacher conferences. She had grayed considerably but it was her. A life sized pinup of Beyoncé graced one wall, while a Nicki Manji featuring her fake breast in a tight shirt stared at them from another.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t wake you …you were sleeping so peacefully, well you were, at least at first.” He handed her a plate and a plastic cup with water in it. She reluctantly accepted it. “I wasn’t sure how you would react to being awakened by a virtual stranger.”

  A new question rose to the surface of her brain.

  “Where are my—“

  Champion pointed to both her guns and the small amount of bullets she had remaining. She put the plate down on the table and gave each weapon a thorough examination until she was positive they hadn’t been tampered with.

  “Where is Andre?” She asked

  “He’s around the complex someplace.” Champion said between three forkfuls of eggs. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Are you alright, Roxanne? What, if anything, do you remember from last night?”

  She flashed him a fake smile. “I’m fine…and not much actually.”

  She leaned against the window trying to get it together, trying to gather her thoughts into something…anything nearing cohesion. Something was poking her in her pants pocket when she leaned on the wall.

  She pulled a locket from inside of her pants.

  She opened it and saw the face of two darling little girls.

  And it all came back in a rush.

  She’d charged around the corner in the apartment with her gun a blazing hitting The Admiral of the Peacekeepers with a shot to his upper chest before his forearm could get in her line for a kill shot to his head. He was close enough to dive on top of her. The landing took her breath away and any advantage she had previously gained.

  Champion had stayed back using the bedroom door as a shield and fired hitting one…and then a second…and even a third Peacekeeper who tried to reach them through the narrow doorway. Andre had fired shots all over the place, his accuracy made worse by the punk trying to hold his pistol sideways like a gangster that he would never be.

  Roxanne had struggled to breathe. The Scarred Man had bashed her head against the tile with one of his scarred forearms and kept her gun wielding hand at bay with his other.

  Roxanne did use his strength against the man though. She used him to aid in her aiming the gun and she squeezed off two rounds killing a couple more Peacekeepers coming through the threshold as Champion had done minutes ago.

  She remembered hearing Champion announce that he was out of ammo when he took an apparent stinger to his shoulder blade. Andre had wasted his bullets…and his time and was now involved in a hand to hand duel with… by her curves, what looked like a female Peacekeeper. Roxanne knew, female or not, training or not, Andre’s slight frame and fragile psyche wouldn’t hold up long in a fight.

  Roxanne had used The Scarred man’s weight against him again and managed to slip a knee…and then the opposite knee into his groin. It was far from a perfect maneuver, but a man’s jewels were a man’s jewels. Impressive, Senorita, she recalled hearing Victor’s throaty acknowledgment. Now impress the hell out of me and finish him.

  Roxanne had regained full control of her pistol but was unsure whether she had any shots left. The Scarred Man was vulnerable, but the clock for her to keep this small advantage counted down with each passing second.

  So instead of shooting him, she used the pistol to bash his balls again.

  The Scarred Man howled in pain as if he had a new scar in a tender spot to add to his two others. In that split second she could remember yelling, we are not drug dealers or Choir Boys, Admiral. But he lunged at her one last time.

  And Roxanne snatched the machete off of the floor and beheaded the man who felt swoop of speed and power.

  “You swung so hard that the hilt of the blade struck you in the forehead.” She could feel the tender spot and wondered how bad it looked…ever a woman to concern one’s self with aesthetics when your life had been on the line. “I don’t think that was enough to knock you unconscious, but your head striking the tile probably was.”

  So Champion finished the tale for her. Andre had won his battle with the female Peacekeeper and had her blood dripping on a steak knife as proof. There was enough of an opening in the crosswalk and enough distraction of the Peacekeepers with the other battles being waged for them to make their escape.

  “You weren’t light, I’ll tell you that.” Champion demonstrated the fireman’s carry that he used to carry her out and then eventually up the stairs to Dre’s place. “You do have the cutest tattoo on your lower back—“

  “Zip it, Champion,” She cut him off. “I already hate the idea of thanking you as it is.”

  He smiled when he downed the last of his biscuit. The crumbs were entangled in his goatee. “But you still will thank me, won’t you Roxanne?”

  “Thank you,” She said with as acidly as she could manage.

  She finished her food, her pride taking a back seat there as well. After they both had finished she asked: “You didn’t run away, Champion?” Her arched eyebrows raised in curiosity. “Why wouldn’t you run away?”

  “Run where, Roxanne. Just as I told you before the Peacekeepers rudely interrupted our conversation: I have no place to go. I’m the only one in this housing project who is somewhat sad to see the Bishop and his men go.”

  He beckoned her to sit on the couch with him so he wouldn’t have to speak so loud. Thin walls still had thick ears or that was the excuse the man used to have her sit next to him. I think you flatter yourself to much, Roxanne. She thought. She stank of perspiration, gunpowder, and other people’s blood.

  Champion continued by saying, “I also promised you that I would take you to Erica Lovings in exchange for my safe passage out of Carver. I intend to live up to my end of the agreement.”

  Roxanne stood back to her full height quickly. She didn’t need this stranger who had admitted that he was a Pandora agent to think for a single minute that he was scoring points with her. She had yet to take the mark but she had no love for Pandora or their twisted ideologies. They had killed innocent people. They had killed innocent children. And they had tried to kill the man who was the closest thing to any man that she ever loved—

  Andre Knight unlocked the door, entered, and struggled to steady his hand while he put a single lock on the front door. He stood with his back pinned to the door as if he were holding it up. He was sweating in his greasy hair and his arm pits. And he was breathing very hard.

  “The cops…Five-0…their working their way back here. They are knocking on every door asking for witnesses and the like. They ain’t taking no for an answer. We’ve got to get out of here now. I can’t deal with the APD right now. I’m one or two phone calls from having to stay downtown with them by def
ault.”

  Roxanne stepped towards Dre. There was more to this than just the police. She looked down at this hands which were both now shaking almost uncontrollably. She squeezed one and then the other.

  “Dre, you’ve been arrested countless times. You know most of those uniformed officers by their first names. You don’t want to go downtown because people who get into the foolishness that you do never want to go down there.” She squeezed tighter and at least a small sea of calm washed over him. He wouldn’t make eye contact with her though, so she used the tip of her index finger to turn his chin until his big eyes were in line with her dark ones. “You’ve never been afraid to go down there, Andre. What are you so frightened of this morning? What have you seen that has scared you this badly?”

  Champion had put his plate down and stood, wanting to know as well.

  “Roxanne, have either of you been outside?”

  Roxanne remembered what those killing fields in Mexico looked like. She knew Andre had seen a drive by or two, she knew that he had run from a few more, but the human mind may not be able to process the blood and the killing on a massive scale that Peacekeepers and the Choir Boys exhibited just yesterday.

  Champion’s long legs began to inch him towards the window—

  “No,” Andre said with a calmness that now began to unnerve her. “The way my place is configured, the view of the outside world is blocked by the rooftops of the other apartments. For you to see what I’ve seen, you’ll need to go out of the front door and then over to the top step.”

  “What are we looking for, pal?” Champion asked.

  Andre looked away. “You’ll know when you see it.” His head spun about quickly and his voice took on an authoritative tone that she’d never heard before. “It’s the only reason why the cops haven’t gotten back here already. I’ll meet you two at the bottom of the stairs.”

  Dre left the door open after he had left. Roxanne grabbed her guns, secured them out of sight, looked behind to make sure Champion was still there and walked out.

  The smoky haze had lifted a little today and Roxanne took that as a good omen. She took the eight or ten strides that her legs provided for her and reached the top of the steps that Dre had mentioned to them—

  And then she saw what had frightened Andre Knight so badly.

  For as long as Roxanne could remember The Choir Boys and the many gangs before them had hung pairs of sneakers to the electric wires in a unnecessary…not to mention dangerous way to symbolize to all who walked or drove by that this was their territory. Roxane had seen pairs of sneakers after pair of sneakers…after another pair of sneakers…

  Now, for all the days she still had to live, Roxanne Sanchez would remember this morning and that all the many pairs of sneakers had been taken down…and new symbols of ownership and territory had taken their place.

  She saw the severed heads of the gang members hanging from the electrical lines. She saw one head after the other…after the other…until these heads were stretched from one end of the project to the other.

  Champion lost the breakfast that he’d taken the time and effort to fix. Roxanne could feel her mouth widen into it was a classic O.

  In the twenty minutes it took the two of them to gather themselves and reach the asphalt level and catch up to Dre. Roxanne’s throat was still dry as she said to Champion: “How far is she?”

  Champion stood on his toes and peered over to what Roxanne could only guess was due north. The bureau’s training program had always taught her to be aware of her surroundings and have an out navigated ahead of the time. Victor had agreed with the first part, but demanded two potential outs in case something sealed one of them off from her. But neither of those parties has to push their way out of a housing project where every building and street looks the same.

  And Roxanne doubted that either had the fresh carnage of urban warfare on an American street embedded in their conscious mind either while they were trying to get out of dodge either.

  “Around the next column of buildings,” Champion increased his pace. “I think it is at least?”

  “You think?”

  “Forgive me, Roxanne,” Champion sounded irate. “I’ve only been down this far in this place a couple of times.”

  Andre added his thoughts: “If he’s heading where I think he is, we’re looking at 15 minute walk.”

  And where is that, Dre, a sense of dread fluttering over her again. There was a very important question that every Professional Investigator should ask a potential witness in a missing person’s case. And she had not asked Joseph Champion. “Then it should be ten minutes if we hurry. Let’s go, gentlemen.”

  Half way across the courtyard they slowed then stopped for a breather. At least they were beyond the view of most of the severed heads. Roxanne knew that the images that were burned into her head would give her nightmares that would rival the epic final moments of her confrontation at Vargas estate, and the fact that she had her gun trained on two innocent girls who had no means to defend themselves.

  “Champion, I want to ask you something about last night?” She was winded but not nearly to the level of the two men who had accompanied her. “You didn’t really answer my question to how you ended up in a place like this.” Roxanne said, shielding her eyes from bright sunlight that fought through the haze. “You had to have made a previous contact to even dare coming here at all, someone you really trusted.”

  “Yea, I did. Anyway, Roxanne, it’s a long story—“

  Roxanne grabbed his wrist when the man tried to move forward. Dre looked aggravated by yet another delay, but had learned by now not to tempt fate by running off at the mouth in Roxanne’s wake. “I’m not going anywhere else with you until I at least hear some of this tale. I’ve gotten this far and this close to finding Erica. I’ve got a resounding fear that she’s not going anywhere.”

  “You know this tough girl act grows old real fast you know.” All of the muscles in Champions face seemed to frown. “Don’t act like that shit with those severed heads didn’t bother you because I saw the look in your eye. And I also saw the fear on your face when the Peacekeepers were bashing through the door of that first apartment.”

  Roxanne told her to save his psychological crap of evaluations for someone who actually gave a shit. And then placed her hand on her Nine and said: “Answer my question, Champion, or you are your own. You know what Pandora is capable of. You’ve seen what a House in Chains will do. And you have the FBI about 200 yards behind us as well.” Roxanne’s laugh was brief and hard sounding. “Let’s see how long you last out there on your own.”

  Champion sighed. “Like I said it’s a long story. Years ago, I did some Intel for a gang task force on activity in this region. Of course, some of Atlanta’s gangs like the Black Knights, The Legion of Doom and The Choir Boys came up in my database. Believe it or not I was damned good at my job. I’ve help put away some high profile drug pushers from here to Texas, Illinois, California, all over the freaking country.”

  “That’s a good start, Champion.” Roxanne countered. Obviously something went wrong. What was it?”

  “I was born and raised in Houston.” Champion sighed again. “I collared what turned out to be a low life looser in that part of the state…or so I thought at first. He turned out to be the state’s prized witness against his former employers. My superiors and the District Attorney never seemed to agree on a hell of a lot, but they did come to the conclusion that this gentleman’s testimony was far more important to the tax payers of the State of Texas than a long term sentence for the gentleman himself.”

  Roxanne nodded, wanting him to get on with the story. “They pleaded him out.”

  “Yea,”

  “Our Justice System can suck when it wants to, Champion.” And you and I can attest to it can’t we, dear sister. “Unfortunately, in high profile investigations these things happen—“

  “Don’t tell me they just happen,” Joseph Champion pointed a finger of discontent at
her. You are alive after all, Champion. “My new best friend had been freed. And he wasn’t quite in the mood just to be thankful that for not serving hard time.” Champion got close to her…real close. “He abducted, tortured and killed my wife four weeks later.”

  “I’m sorry.” Was all Roxanne could say to a man that she had learned had an odd…kinship in their long journey to the end of this courtyard.

  “He hacked at her face…her neck and breast…everywhere.”

  “I’m sorry.” Roxanne said again. “Now connect the dots for me of how you ended up here in Carver.”

  Andre stopped their conversation long enough to remind them about the time, the cops, so Roxanne started walking again and Champion took his strides next to her.

  “I guess it was good timing or a blessing I guess.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Champion pointed to the left. He told her Erica was right around the bend. “On my last case with the task force, a Black man who testified against one of these gang bangers was killed when the case resulted in a mistrial. Let’s say his wife and I developed a totally plutonic kinship drenched in the blood of our dead spouses. She told me if I ever needed her she was a phone call away. Hard times hit her with her husband’s death with little insurance and then the Great Recession stripped her of a job she’d worked for 20 years. So she ended up here…in this God forsaken place.”

  “Okay, Champion, let’s say that I believe half—“

  “I don’t give a damn whether you believe me or not, Roxanne. What I am telling you line for line is the truth.”

  Roxanne Sanchez honestly hadn’t made up her mind yet and told him so. He could put that in his pipe and smoke it for all she cared. “I’m interested in fast forwarding a bit. Alright, you felt betrayed by our legal system, check. You many have been driven into the waiting arms of Pandora because a man of color tortured and killed your wife, check. Now you are here…and the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle that wins us the prize is what you did to become so unpopular with Pandora. How did you piss Serena Tennyson off?”

  “She started me off in surveillance, a little intelligence, cyber technology, and any other grunt work she could find me. I was desperate. I was angry. I was eager to serve…so long as it didn’t include murdering anyone.” He said. “I wasn’t Danielle Rohm or any of the other shooters. I wasn’t Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree who was working with that nut Louis Keaton—“

  The doctor’s name drew Roxanne’s attention and ire. “You know the doctor?”

  Champion said that he did, that he’d met the good doctor on a couple of occasions. “I was certainly angry that the system cost me my wife, but not upset with the people who still served her. I refused to cross that line into corruption and murder of government employees.”

  Roxanne thought about his monologue for a few moments and voiced her won conclusion.

  “But it wasn’t enough to satisfy your boss was it, Champion?” Roxanne asked him. “Tell me, who did you refuse to kill?”

  “Serena’s consumed with the Circle…and Xavier Prince in particular. He’s a cool customer. If I could use one word to describe that little man then cool summarizes him pretty well.”

  “So she asked you to kill Xavier Prince for her?”

  Champion shook his head her, sad that she didn’t see as he had laid it out for her. “There have been times in the past that Serena has thought the best way to knock Xavier Prince off his block…is to kill his older brother Christopher.”

  Roxanne had whipped out her Nine and bashed Champion across his temple with it with ridiculous speed. Andre saw what happened out of the corner of his eye, but Roxanne’s hard-edged glare backed him down.

  “She wanted you to kill Christopher Prince, huh?” She stood over him. Champion was bleeding from the spot where she had hit him, but he would live…a little while longer. “And we all know that his step daughter’s ended up missing, and you seemingly the only one on the planet who knows where she is just one fat coincidence right?”

  Champion felt for blood.

  “Yea, Roxanne, it is just that, one fat coincidence as you say.” Champion got back to his feet and resumed his walk. “Erica made some powerful enemies in here. It’s like this place has its own social networking going on. She showed the ultimate disrespect to an individual or individuals who had the means and the will to do something about it. I’ve been in the business long enough to understand that these neighborhoods administer their own brand of justice. And Xavier sent his ‘gang’ and administered his too didn’t he? Anyway, I want to keep our agreement, Roxanne. I need it. Carver has gone civilized on me. That is wonderful for the good folks who suffered here. It is very bad for me. I need you to take me with you while I figure what my next move is.”

  Roxanne stood in the bright sunshine, the heat making the smell from a nearby dumpster smell even worse than it normally would.

  “Why should I do that, Champion?” She said evenly. “Why should I believe any of this?”

  “Because I’ve done as I said that I would.” Joseph Champion pointed at the smelly dumpster without looking at it. “She’s in there. Erica’s remains are in this dumpster.”

  Roxanne stared at the body of Erica Lovings for a long time after Champion and Andre unlatched the side opening of the dumpster so that she could walk inside instead of climbing over the top of it.

  Erica Lovings:

  She had been a petite, light skinned young woman who anyone would have proclaimed as a ‘cutie’ if not all of the earring holes in her ears and forehead, all of her tattoos that covered both arms and ran up the side of her neck. Her last day on earth she had been dressed in overalls that would have fit a man twice her side and steel toe shoes. Her hair was cropped low. Roxanne was sure that she’d been mistaken for a very small man when people approached her from behind.

  Roxanne went for her cell to call 911—

  She heard a woman…or perhaps a male child scream from an area that they had just left behind.

  Andre…when did he leave us…was holding one of the Choir Boys…a true boy who Dre’ seemed to know by name and had probably been a scout before the Peacekeepers had marched on Carver and shown him and his brethren the error of their ways.

  Andre smiled at and talked with the bleeding boy as he found the strength to carry the child who probably weighed as much as he did. Dre sat him down as gently as he can as to not rock the boy who has death written all over his face. It is the same look your face has just relinquished, Erica.

  The boy died in Andre’s arms and to her old school mate’s credit, he honored the boy by siting him on the ground as gently as he had sat him in his lap and closed his eyelids for him.

  Oh my, God, will this ever end.

  The boy had not traveled this lonely road towards death alone. Another child was walking aimlessly…a staggered step to his left…three wobbly strides to the right…

  His left arm was missing from the elbow down and he had a river of blood pouring from his nose and both his eyes

  And he was carrying a pistol in his other hand.

  Andre cried out in a voice that didn’t sound a human. Champion had semi blanked out, as if the only way he will survive this day is for his mind to exist far away from the city of Atlanta…far away from the Carver Housing Projects. Roxanne wished she could have joined Champion in that place. She wished it with every fiber of her being.

  The boy fell suddenly on his own gun.

  And there was a shot fired.

  Andre Knight no longer attempted to hide his pain or his grief. And he released both in cry that may have been powerful enough to wake the dead, including Erica. He crawled on his knees towards where the second boy met his end…but either wielded the strength in his knees, or the will to press on had forsaken him forever.

  Roxanne gently put Erica’s head down, she put all of her burdens down and ran out of the dumpster and carried Councilwoman’s prophetic words with her by the time she reached Andre. If you want to see me suf
fer, come now Victor, come now.

  Carver is going to experience a tragedy unlike any ever seen before. The wig wearing woman had said. And Roxanne had remembered the woman’s fat face brighten with sudden mix of pride and wonder. While at the same time Carver is going to experience a rebirth that will be glorious and long overdue. And Roxanne had yet to still decipher if the hysterical fit that had taken hold of Vanessa Davis had been a bout of laughter or crying. Carver is going to experience a purging that none of us shall ever forget.

  Andre Knight had cried for a long time on the asphalt floor of Carver’s Housing Projects.

  Roxanne Sanchez wrapped her arm around the waist of her old classmate, held him close…and cried with him.