Deadly Powers (Tapped In Book 2) (2 page)

She looked back over her shoulder at me but kept on walking. “I told you, I’d rather not get involved in my employer’s personal affairs, but fine, I’ll let you know, sir.” Her face was void of any expression.

I watched her hurry down the stairs ahead of me. As there are multiple levels in this sprawling home, there are multiple stairways, and since so much of the house is made of glass and concrete—a recurring theme—the stairs are no exception. The master suite occupies the highest partially-cantilevered platform on the cliff, so getting to and from this section of the house—say, to the kitchen or great room on level one—requires taking three different short staircases. I was standing on the second-level landing when I decided to
tap in
again before leaving. I never know when, or where, I’ll be able to electrically connect when I’m on a mission, so it’s better to play it safe now than be sorry later.

Soon after I took up residency here, I added what I’ve come to refer to as the Voltage Vault. It’s nothing elaborate … basically, a converted, slump stone block, large storage area on the second level. Electricians brought in a commercial, high-power, 40,000-volt electrical conduit. Next to a mounted electrical box sits a comfortable barcalounger, with a small table beside it. I entered the vault, closed and locked the door, and sank down into the old comfy chair. I set an ordinary small manual kitchen timer for ten minutes and leaned back. The way I had the chair situated, when it was fully reclined my head came within four inches of the high-power source.

Within two seconds I was tapped in. Immediately, I felt the oneness … a reunion with unknown others in a place I knew nothing about. The sounds around me, like music, carried me inward, to an elevated state of being that had no equal in my everyday life. I may as well be on another planet. Perhaps I was. Here, in this inner sanctuary in my head, I felt I was a million miles away. I stayed suspended … elevated by unknown others around me. There was a time when I looked at them … or tried to. It took away from the experience, closed down my tapping-in session. There were times, mostly early on, when some singular voice would call out to me. Plead for my help.
Help me, Rob …
but I hadn’t heard it for over a month now. A part of me feared learning too much about such desperate-sounding requests. Would finding that person, that being, negatively impact my tapping in … my acquired mental abilities? Perhaps then for selfish reasons, I’d let those calls for help go unanswered. Now, it seemed, I’d never know.

Ding!

Ten minutes had passed. I opened my eyes and inhaled several deep breaths, letting them out slowly. I felt refreshed. I could now operate on a full tank and was ready for whatever SIFTR had in store for me. I continued to rest comfortably for several more moments, thinking about the powerful advantage I carried with me. With the exception of Pippa, no one knew about my mental, mind-reading, capabilities. Not even Cassie … who, I’d learned from peering into her mind, figured I meditated in here, my little closet, once a day. But that didn’t mean others weren’t getting somewhat suspicious: There were things I knew that I couldn’t possibly know. I’ve slipped several times in the presence of other agents, and really need to be more careful from now on.

* * *

I arrived at the Kingman airport ten minutes later. Once a gunnery-training field during WWII, the small airport is fairly plain and nondescript. I drove up to the security shack and waited for Carl, the lone security officer, to come out and hand me a clipboard. A tall black man in his early sixties, I knew Carl once played for the Lakers and his wrecked knees were constantly on his mind. Now, seeing his perpetual friendly smile, I wondered if anyone really knew just how much this man suffered.

I signed in and handed the clipboard back to Carl.

“You want me to take care of this baby while you’re gone, Mr. Chandler? Be no problem … I’ll keep her safe for you …”

“Yeah … I saw that movie too, Carl, and there’ll be no
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
romps around town today, my friend.”

He gave me a half-hearted smile, shrugged, and waved me through.

I drove onto the tarmac and skirted the row of small private planes, mostly Cessnas. I continued forward for close to a minute, veered right, and pulled into a large, open, Quonset hut-style hangar. Parking against the corrugated metal wall, I grabbed my bags and hurried out to the tarmac. Curt Baltimore was standing by the lowered steps of a Gulfstream G650. Painted gloss-black, with no discernible markings or logos, the big jet looked strangely ominous compared to the other smaller, mostly white jets parked nearby. Its two jet engines were already revving up and Baltimore, arms crossed over his chest, looked impatient to leave.

“Nice of you to mosey on by,” he said, taking my bags and handing them off to a steward standing at the rear of the plane.

I didn’t reply to that. I knew Baltimore and knew that his caustic comments were just how he was. He lived and breathed SIFTR—a company man, through and through. I didn’t share his enthusiasm for the agency—or any government agency. I’d recently discovered retirement was not in the cards for me; at least, not until I figured out how to do it and keep on breathing.

“And good morning to you too, sunshine,” I said.

He ignored me and gestured for me to head up the steps. I did as told as he followed behind me. I was greeted by Darci, the thirty-something flight attendant, also a SIFTR agent. With a quick peek into her thoughts, I discovered this was her last scheduled round-trip flight. She was getting married and leaving the agency. Obviously, not all SIFTR agents were required to honor the same in-for-a-lifetime requirement that I seemed to be held to.

The cabin smelled of leather and newness. Thick tan carpeting, muted lighting cast from recesses above, plus a perfect complement of burl walnut accents strategically placed. No less than twelve camel-colored wide leather swivel seats were positioned down the expansive cabin. Midway back sat a handsome, gray-haired man in an impeccably tailored dark navy suit. He casually raised a hand and I headed for the opposite seat, directly in front of him. Baltimore moved past me and sat next to the window.

“Good morning, Rob.”

“Mr. Calloway,” I said. “Replaced the old G550?”

“No … it’s still a SIFTR asset.”

I leaned back into the plush seat and waited for the man in charge of the SIFTR agency to say something. He didn’t look happy. In fact, he looked terrible. I peered into his mind, and suddenly found it hard to breathe.
Pippa’s been taken!

I did my best to keep my face neutral. Calloway nodded toward Baltimore and I was handed a folder. Inside were a dozen color eight by tens. My heart stopped when I viewed a panel truck with white letters reading
D.C. Water and
Sewer Authority
painted on its side panel. But that wasn’t what caught my eye. It was a long black item being hefted either into, or out of, the back of the truck. I’d seen many of them in my lifetime. I knew what a body bag looked like. I glanced up to meet Calloway’s stare.

“Just keep going.”

But I remained focused on the film’s image. The surroundings looked familiar.
Where have I seen that building before?
“D.C.?” I asked.

Again, Calloway nodded at me. What I was looking at, directly behind the truck, was a brown, nondescript, box-shaped building. It was obviously old … perhaps historical.

“The Lockkeeper’s House,” I said. I knew the building and didn’t need confirmation from Calloway or Baltimore. I must have passed the two-centuries-old structure hundreds of times. Located between the White House and the National Mall—maybe even considered part of the mall—it was easy to walk past without a second glance. I brought the photo closer to my eyes. The small building was two storied, with one door and four windows. The roofline showed two chimneys, placed at opposite ends of the structure. The front door was partially opened. A date and time stamp were placed in the lower right corner of the photo: 3:31 AM.

I moved to the second image, which was nearly identical to the first. The only discernible difference was the positioning of the two uniformed men with the body bag. They were now moving across the street, each holding on to an end of the bag. The time stamp read 3:32 AM. So they were moving the body bag out of the truck. I riffled through the remaining photos; each one showed the progress of the two men, until they were finally shown entering into the Lockkeeper’s House. The last photo showed the two men absent from view and the door closed.

I looked up at Calloway, then over to Baltimore. “Are you telling me Pippa is inside that bag? That she’s dead?”

Neither man spoke for several long beats. Calloway eventually said, “Yes, we’re fairly certain it is Pippa, but not so sure that she’s dead. Why go to the trouble of transporting her this way? There’s far easier, safer, means to dispose of a body.”

Baltimore retrieved the folder, opened it, and scanning through the photos pulled number five out and handed it across to me. “This one shows the best view of the body bag. And, thanks to the nearby street light, you can catch the most detail.” He tapped at the photo and handed it over to me.

Again, I brought it closer to my eyes. I shrugged, not seeing what he was referring to. Then I saw it: In the middle of the bag, low and long, was a smooth protrusion; a lump that looked to be cylindrical-shaped. “An oxygen tank?”

Both Calloway and Baltimore nodded.

“But why take her there? To an old abandoned historical building?”

“Do you know the history behind the structure?” Calloway asked.

I was finding it hard to keep my composure. This was Pippa’s life or demise we were dealing with. “I don’t know … I presume it has something to do with keeping the keys to various locks around Washington.”

“No … not that kind of lock. In the early 1800s much of that area of D.C. was under water. Canals cut across, all the way to the Potomac. Various locks were set up, to raise and lower small boats. The Lockkeeper’s House was constructed for the Lockkeeper to collect tolls and keep records of the comings and goings of small boats. Eventually … sometime after the Civil War, as railroads became the primary mode of transporting things, the canals were filled in and the Lockkeeper’s House was given over to the United States government. It became a small police station for a while, then a public bathroom; now it’s a depot for city park groundskeepers.”

I felt the big jet moving along the tarmac. Outside the window, I saw we were already moving along at a fast clip. “Interesting … what does all this have to do with Pippa?”

Calloway said, “You already knew, firsthand, that there are high-speed trains running beneath D.C. The president has use of his own train, as do several other important government officials. We believe there is a second subterranean means of transportation. One that utilizes underground hydro-powered passages, leftover from the canal’s era.”

“Should be easy enough to check. Why don’t you just look? Open the door to the little lock house and see.”

“We did that,” Baltimore barked back.

I waited for him to continue.

“There’s nothing there. No trap door … no secret access. It’s a fucking garden shack.”

“Obviously, there’s more to the property than is evident. Bulldoze the thing!” I said.

“It’s not that easy. Our agent was discovered entering the house. Caught by security cameras, he is currently sitting in a cell, courtesy of Homeland Security. There are few things more important to them than protecting our country’s national treasures, namely the National Mall, and checking out potential dangers to the public. Until cleared, he’s being held as a possible terrorist threat.”

I looked at Calloway, mystified. “Hell, you’re a BFF with the President of the United States … you ride together on that secret little train of his. Can’t you persuade him to pull some political strings?” I asked.

Both Calloway and Baltimore exchanged looks.

“That’s where things get a little murky,” Calloway answered.

“Those two men carrying the body bag, at least one, we suspect, is CIA. That’s probably an agency surveillance truck, as well,” Baltimore said. “We can’t go anywhere near that building. And we can’t go to the president, either. Not yet, anyway.”

“So what are we doing? Heading to D.C.?” I asked, looking out the window.

“You’ll be our man on the ground at the mall. We have two other teams working this from other angles,” Calloway said.

“On the ground. What does that entail?”

* * *

The thick, mid-summer eastern-seaboard humidity made the eighty-five-degree air feel more like one hundred and ten. And whoever’d worn these faded old overalls previously had a serious problem—they reeked to high heaven. Aside from the hot sticky air, and the continual wafting-up of stink every time I moved … the fact I wasn’t able to actively look for Pippa caused my foul mood to ratchet up every minute that passed.

Gustavo handed me a shovel, then picked up one for himself from the bed of the electric garden cart. Together we hoofed it over a grassy rise to the east side of the Jefferson Memorial. I was about as far away from the Lockkeeper’s House as humanly possible without leaving the mall. Two Asian girls, probably college kids, were taking a selfie, with the white, domed-shaped memorial in the near-distance strategically positioned behind them. Gustavo and I walked by them and I heard one of the girls make a choking sound. A waft of my own odor rose up and entered my nostrils. I didn’t need to read their minds to know what they were thinking. I glared at Gustavo’s back; he’d purposely given these particular overalls to me—picked them out special. After twenty-five years on the job, he didn’t like being told with whom he’d be working. Today was day three and so far I hadn’t the opportunity to be in the Lockkeeper’s House on my own, but I did notice it was under heavy surveillance—by cameras and plain-clothed security people, or agents.

Apparently, SIFTR had done an adequate job in providing the necessary cover credentials. I was Garry Mangus from Akron, Ohio, here on a special job-share program for the mentally challenged. Seems the U.S. government will bend over backward for the disabled; there are all kinds of opportunities for those suffering from such misfortune. Commendable, to be sure, but right now, I didn’t give a shit about the unfortunate, underprivileged, or the mentally handicapped, and I contemplated hitting Gustavo in the back of the head with the business end of my shovel.