“A Gift from Jackie”
Chapter 19
Cindy and Jackie were not at the gate. At first I thought maybe they were just delayed, but when I went to the airline desk and checked I found that they’d never boarded the flight they’d bought tickets for.
“God damn it!” I bellowed at the top of my lungs. A wave of anger exploded from me. Every eye in the area turned towards me, wide with shock. A few of them turned and ran away down the concourse.
“It’s okay,” said Tiffany, “it will be okay.”
“Not for that bastard...”
“Who?” asked Tiffany.
“Mr. A,” I growled. I ran down the concourse and out the front of the terminal building, Tiffany trailing. I commandeered another cell phone and called up Carl.
“Yeah,” he answered, out of breath.
“It’s me,” I said, also breathing hard as I marched across the automobile loading area.
“Josh, I’m so sorry, they got the drop on me.”
“It’s okay, Carl, just tell me what you know,” I said, crossing into the long sky-bridge.
“Not much. They were inside airport security, and I was trailing them on the way to their flight. I saw these two guys behind them and I thought I’d go in for a look. But it seems they’d made me as two more jumped me. One of them said something in German. They beat the shit out of me, right there in the concourse, people all around, then ran off. By the time I finished explaining to the TSA they looked for the ladies and they were gone.”
“Shit.”
“They’re taking it serious, and I’m trying to get a look at the surveillance video. I’ll let you know what I find out.”
“Right, I’m going to fly back there. I’ll call you from the plane.”
“Right.”
I flipped the phone closed. Tiffany was barely keeping up with my frantic pace. “Where are we going, anyway?” She panted.
“To the executive terminal,” I said aloud, then added mentally, “but we’re not going there yet. I wanted to draw out the guys who are tailing us.”
She was smart enough not to look behind her. “How did you spot them?” She thought back.
“I just knew they would be there.”
Sure enough, there were two of them trailing behind me, jogging to keep up. Both were Resistant, and seemed to be armed.
“Keep moving, go up there behind that pillar and let me know if you see any more of them,” I thought to Tiffany. She signaled assent, and I turned and made visual contact with the two thugs, who stopped awkwardly in the middle of the walkway. I raised my hands and grasped them both with my mind, pulling them through the air, arms flailing, to float in the air about fifteen feet in front of me. Their faces told me they were only now realizing what they were getting into.
“Which one of you is going to tell me what I want to know?” I asked, eyes blazing.
One appeared defiant, the other uncertain. I whipped the defiant one to my right, and his head crunched against a column.
“Now, I hope you’re not about to tell me that he’s the one who knew everything.”
“Shit, man, shit, what do you want to know?”
“I want to know where your boss is.”
“He got on a plane in Vegas, with those girls.”
“What plane?” I let the man down on his feet, and carefully retrieved the ceramic knife from his jacket pocket.
“It was a big jet,” he continued, “but he had chartered the whole thing. Said Delta, but he had his own people flying it.”
“Where was he going?”
“I don’t know, he didn’t tell us. He picked us all up in Houston.”
I considered a moment. “Tell me about this guy.”
“German as hell. His buddy called him ‘Edmund’. He was bragging about how he finally had you, talking about how heavy something was.”
“Mass?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah, something about Mass.”
“How’d he find you.”
“I was just walking down the street in Boston one day when this guy is walking past me, he suddenly stops and does a double take, and offers me a job. I was hard up at the time and so I listened. He has been paying me for two years do nothin’ but sit around and shoot guns. I never actually saw him between that day and yesterday.”
“Good, good. Now, if you were me, how would you take him down?”
He swallowed hard. “With your crazy magic powers, probably,” he said.
“Good call,” I said, and then I crushed his neck and let him fall to the floor.
I resumed Tiffany’s side and we walked on toward the executive terminal. “How do you think they will explain that situation? We’re on camera by the way.”
“I don’t care any more. Things are going to change from here.”
I rapidly arranged for a jet to be readied, then called Carl.
“Does the name Edmund ring any bells? German guy?” I asked him.
“Shit, yeah,” he replied, “I’ve been looking at this guy. Edmund Brach, trust fund kid, he paid some money to the widow of the dead guy from Columbus.”
“He might have been in Houston,” I said, “and he left Vegas in some kind of a commandeered Delta jet.”
“Yeah, the Feds have been looking at that. The guy bought out every seat on the flight and then boarded only a half dozen people. Real shady doings. I think he took your girls to the jet while everyone was distracted with the fight down the hall. Somehow the FAA lost track of it, though, they think it took off without clearance or something.”
“How the fuck...”
“Yeah. Everyone’s looking for him. They connected it to the guys in Columbus, treating it like a terrorist action, they’ve got fighter jets in the air, they’re on alert, there’s no way that guy is getting very far.”
“Then I assume he isn’t going back to Germany.”
“No, not immediately anyhow.”
“I’m going to get in a jet and fly in that direction.”
I gave the number for the air phone to Carl and headed out to where my jet was being fueled.
Tiffany and I embraced each other. The plane lifted off and headed west. I stared out the window, half-hoping that I’d spy a Delta jet, with Jackie and Cindy waving at me out the window.
Somewhere over Colorado, the air phone rang.
“Yeah,” I answered.
“He’s in Salt Lake,” Carl said urgently.
I send a mental message to the flight crew to re-route us. “Where?”
“He spoofed the transponder on his plane, for another one that was out on a mechanical. He landed it at SLC, and made way to the Delta service center there. By the time the mechanics figured out it didn’t belong there, he was gone, but they got video of him leaving with his entourage, and your girls, in a van, a ten passenger Ford van. They are locking down the entire state of Utah right now.”
Indeed, the co-pilot was at that moment walking back into the cabin. “We can’t get a change of plan for SLC, there is some kind of an event there and they instructed us to continue to Vegas.
“Tell them we need an emergency landing,” I ordered, “that’s plausible, right?”
“Well, maybe, but now that we asked for the change of plan it will be very suspicious.”
“Shit.” I thought about it. “Can you make another change that will at least let us fly over SLC?”
“Sure, probably Boise, if we time it right and fudge it a bit. How close do you need?”
“As close as you can. And get us as low as you can without arousing suspicion. Do it.”
He went back to the cabin. Tiffany took my hand. “What are you planning?” She asked.
“Something batshit insane. But I have to get there.”
“I know. I can feel them now, they’re scared.”
“Me too,” I said.
“I probably can’t go with you, can I?” Asked Tiffany.
“No, you can’t. This will be hard enough by myself.”
Soon I felt the plane banking as the course was adjusted. The co-pilot came back. “Best I could get will put us 30 miles from the city. If I push it I could get closer, but the sky is full of antsy fighter jets and they’ll be all over us like bees to honey.”
“That’s okay. Get as close as you can, and then comply with everything they say. Tell them it was a navigational error, and sit tight till I come to smooth things over.”
“If you say so,” he said, shaking his head slightly as he went back to the cockpit.
I sat in the flight attendant’s seat, listening in to the air traffic control signals through the headset there.
“CH-1345, check your bearing, over.”
Silence. I could feel the pilots growing nervous.
“CH-1345, there are military operations under way in your vicinity, return to bearing two-eight-seven, over.”
“Two F-18s on our tail boss,” said the co-pilot over the intercom, “we’re forty miles from the city center.”
“CH-1345, return to your bearing 287, the Air Force flight will escort you, over.”
I discarded the headset, smiled at Tiffany, took a deep breath, and visualized myself outside the aircraft.
The noise was deafening. I couldn’t open my eyes. My fancy button-up French shirt was torn open, shucked from my body, followed by my shoes. I tumbled. I tried to stabilize myself but I had no sense of my orientation. I thought I might die again—but that would not do. My eye caught on a cloud—I focused on it—slowed—then I was drifting downward at a manageable pace. I took a deep breath.
One of the fighter jets was banking, coming back to get a look at me. I moved downward faster, hoping he wouldn’t see me. He was banking in a wide circle around where I’d been, and I didn’t know whether he’d spotted me or not. The other F-18 was still with the plane, and two more seemed to be heading towards it as well.
I guided myself towards the city. I thought maybe I could levitate myself forward with a good speed, but I couldn’t get the hang of it and had no good point of reference besides. I was no Super Man. I guided myself to land behind a strip mall, fell onto the asphalt too hard and tumbled over, jamming my shoulder. I stood up and walked around the corner. A young man, and two young ladies were walking towards a sandwich shop and turned to gape at me standing shirtless and in stocking feet. I summoned them to me.
“You,” I said to the young man, “go over there and bring me three different pairs of size eleven sneakers. And you two,” I said to the first young lady,” go find me some size large T-shirts, plain ones. And you,” I said to the last, “go find me a laminated city map.”
As they hurried on their tasks, commandeered another cell phone and called in to Carl.
“What’s the latest,” I inquired.
“No sign,” he said.
“Call me here if you hear anything. I’m on the ground now.”
“Right.”
A man was driving by in a Ford GT, which I appropriated from him. The young man with the shoes came first, followed by his friend with the shirts, and then the map. The four of my temporary helpers stood there waiting for their next directives.
“Go have your lunch, and forget all about this,” I told them.
They turned and walked away, and I drove off. I raced to the airport, where I was able to easily find the cluster of emergency vehicles around the Delta service facility. I drove to the abandoned jet and followed an FBI forensic technician up the stairs. The interior smelled strongly of cigarette smoke.
“What have you found so far?” I asked the technician.
“Not much,” he sighed, “plenty of DNA though, if you get my drift.”
My blood boiled anew. The tech shivered. “Any clue why they wanted to be in Salt Lake?”
“No,” he replied.
“Do you know where they had the hostages?”
“Over there, we figure,” he said, gesturing to business class, “that row and that row.”
There was a fingerprint technician there. I shooed him aside and looked over the rows where they’d been kept. I thought I could feel the residue of their presence, their fear. It was unmistakably my wives who’d been there.
“He’s coming, sis,” I heard, or felt, Cindy’s voice whisper, through the once-immutable fourth dimension.
“I know,” replied Jackie.
I walked down the aisle and out the door again. Down the stairs I went and straight to a patch of pavement where someone had leaned against the hood of an automobile and smoked several cigarettes, waiting. A technician was cataloging and collecting the cigarettes. I stood where the van would have been parked.
“Isn’t that the name of the place Tim stole the plant from?” Whispered Cindy, across time.
That place... in New Mexico... but they couldn’t be headed there. I called Tim.
“Yeah?” He said warily.
“It’s me. I need to know the name of that place where the plant came from.”
“Arc Light Biomed,” he replied.
“Good thanks,” I said.
“Josh, there’s some FBI guys at the door. I’m not sure why.”
“Sit tight. I’ll explain later.”
“Okay.”
“Tell me if Arc Light has any locations in Salt Lake City.”
“Yeah, I tried there first actually, but the place was empty.”
“What’s the address?”
In a few moments I was back in my purloined sedan closing the distance to the location indicated, which was a couple of miles away. I stopped within sight of the building, and focused all my senses on the area. Almost too easily, I felt my mind lock onto Jackie and Cindy.
They were each sitting, and bound. An unfamiliar sensation—gags in their mouths. They were watching a man I did not recognize, who seemed to be in the middle of pacing back and forth in front of them, speaking in German-accented English.
“...further injuries to my men I will consider untying you. Now, as I have stated, you have two choices. You can submit to me and live in comfort for as long as you like, or I can kill you right now, and your unborn child as well. I would much rather have the former, and I would give you the freedom to raise the child as you see fit in my household, as equal to my own children. Please take a moment to consider these options carefully.”
“Josh, is that you?” Thought Cindy to me.
“Yes,” I said.
I felt joy and relief from both of them. “He’s Gifted, but he has a weakness. He only...”
I felt a searing pain, and heard through my own ears the ring of a gunshot. From Jackie, terror beyond what I’d ever imagined. I stumbled slightly, then straightened.
I waved my arm and the side of the building suddenly found itself lacking the molecular glue which had held it together, and fell into a pile of dust. Two men stood with their backs to me, apparently watching the front door with their MP5 sub-machine guns raised. They started to turn but not before I compressed their bodies under a plane of force, rending them down to two red piles of sludge and fractured bone.
I moved forward and tore back the next layer of building, flinging it to the side. I blasted the roof up and out of the way and flattened one more section of aluminum and sheet-rock wall, then found myself looking at the inner room where Jackie sat in a chair, and Cindy lay on her side, far too much blood rushing from her. Standing on the other side of Jackie was the German man, aiming his semi-automatic pistol at Jackie.
“Don’t make another move,” he said quickly, “or this one will die too.”
I just stared at him. I knew he was trying to bide time until Cindy bled out and I was weakened by the loss of her bond.
“Maybe you’re thinking of stopping the bullet,” he said, “but I think you’ll find that rather difficult while I’m here. Your tricks will not work on me, and mine on you. We are at an impasse, and yet I have the tactical advantage,” he said with far too much confidence.
“You’ve neglected something,” I said.
“What’s that?” He replied.
“That I might do that,” I said. He glanced down to see Jackie and Cindy were both gone.
“How...” but then he noticed that I was gone too. He dropped the useless weapon and turned, looking for me.
“I learned a thing or two fighting Mass,” I said from behind him, and then moved again. “I’m also not stupid. I know you’re mortal.”
“I may be mortal, but my...”
His words were cut off as a small chunk of rock came streaking silently down from the sky, piercing the top of his head and exiting through his abdomen, followed by the shriek of a tiny sonic boom. He toppled over, eyes unblinking.
“Can’t fight gravity, asshole,” I said. Then I collected his limp body, and spread it out over the opposite wall in the form of a homogenized paste, just for good measure. Wasting no time, I stepped through to the place a few blocks away where I’d stashed Cindy and Jackie.
Jackie was struggling to get out of her chair. “You could have untied me!”
“This is still new to me,” I said, severing the rope with a thought as I knelt next to Cindy. She was alive, but in trouble.
I placed a hand on her, and visualized a place I had no longer wanted to know: the entrance to the hospital where Cindy’s lymphoma treatment had been administered, not so many years ago.
I shifted, and there we were, at the entrance to one of the best trauma centers in the country.
“A little help here!” I bellowed, and half the staff of the hospital came running.