Phoenix (13 page)

Mort watched until CBS cut back to daytime
television, then he turned and paced around the couch. "Not much
else we can do besides let it happen."

"That’s not true."

He whirled on Jonah. "It’s not? What would
you have us do, then? Beat information out of the agent who’s been
watching us? Oh that’s right. We can’t."

Jonah raised an eyebrow. "You know I tried.
And you damn well know what they’re capable of. If he doesn’t want
to be found, then he won’t be."

Mort sat on the couch arm and passed a hand
over his mouth. "I’m sorry. I know you tried. It was a long shot to
begin with."

Jonah snorted and grabbed his hat. "Time for
me to get gone."

"Why don’t you stay with us? If this goes
south, we could use your help."

"You don’t need me." Jonah headed to the door
with Mort on his heels. "Best thing you could do right now is
circle the wagons."

Mort followed him outside and down the
sidewalk. "Where will you go?"

"Think I’ll head east to the river." Jonah
looked in that direction and paused before heading off to the bus
stop. "Yeah, to the river. Cross over into West Virginia, maybe
find a cabin down in the mountains to hole up in." He turned back
to Mort and tipped his hat. "Keep your head down."

Mort watched his old friend saunter down the
sidewalk until he was out of sight, then he whispered, "Good
luck."

* * *

Rakburn ended another call and dialed the
next on his list. So far all his agents had confirmed his worries:
the vaccine was being prepped for shipment at every Command Center
across the country, and they could
not
confirm that
Operation Phoenix had begun. If this next person on his list said
the same as all the others, he would contact Briggs and send him to
Ohio’s CC south of there.

South
… He paused in thought as he
listened to the phone ring. He didn’t notice when it went to
voicemail.

South
.

He hung up and called Briggs. "Has the lady
returned?"

"No, sir. Have you gotten any reports? The
news says—"

"Agent Briggs, if you’d please focus. I want
you to report to the CC. If you locate the woman, detain her.
Otherwise, stay in the shadows and report back to me. I want to
know what is happening there."

Briggs was quiet for a moment. Rakburn could
hear the man breathing into the phone.

"Briggs. Focus."

"Sorry. Yes, sir. Leaving now."

"Very good," he replied, then tucked his
phone inside his jacket and turned his own focus to the young man
across the way. Rakburn closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and
began concentrating his considerable power.

* * *

"You got a lot of balls calling me."

"Uh…" Brad replied.

"Did you seriously call me at work after
what, two years, to say ‘uh’?"

Her honey-badger voice was exactly as he’d
remembered it.

"Well, no."

"Then shit or get off the pot. What do you
want?"

Fuck
.

"Kasey, there’s something going on that you
need to—"

"You’re fucking kidding me. This again? Your
gut telling you something’s wrong? What is it this time, Brad. I’m
going to be t-boned on my way home from work? Maybe hit a
pedestrian? Better yet, I’m going to be the victim of some sort of
horrendous nail clipper accident unless I remove them from my
presence immediately?"

"I didn’t call to fight." Brad held his fist
against his forehead and tried not to scream into the phone.

"No, you called to feed me a line of shit.
Would’ve been nice if you’d called to see how I was doing. ‘Hey,
Kase, missed ya. How’s it going?’ But no. Two years and you’re
still on the same—"

"Oh my God, would you shut the hell up and
listen to me for one damn minute!" When silence answered him, he
knew he had her attention. "Thank you. Now listen. Do you still
live in your Granddad’s old house?"

That surprised her. "Uh…"

"What, all you can say is ‘uh’?"

"Fuck you."

Brad felt his lips curl up. "That’s better.
So do you?"

"Well, yeah. Why?"

"Okay, don’t hang up. I have it on very good
authority that something big is about to go down. When I say big, I
mean ruin your day big."

"Brad…"

He started treading a path between his bed
and dresser. "Listen. I want you to start stocking up on food and
water, and make sure you’ve got enough ammunition for the damn
armory you’ve got in the basement."

Kasey sighed and said nothing. He could
practically hear her rubbing her face and tapping her foot.

"Please…" He stopped pacing and bowed his
head to stare at the floor. "Please…if you ever cared about me,
you’ll do this for me."

"You sonofabitch. You did
not
just—"

Brad was starting to feel faint. "Kasey."

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, I’m fine. Things are…they’re getting
bad. You gotta do this for me. I can’t warn everyone, but I can
warn you."

"Does this have to do with the Korean
thing?"

"Yes." Brad didn’t want to push his luck by
getting into details with her.

"Oh." Kasey fell silent.

Brad was beginning to feel so dizzy that he
had to sit down on the bed before he fell down. He tried to keep it
out of his voice, though. "Do you know something about it?"

"Brad," she replied, her trademark impatience
showing again. "I work with this shit. Of course I know something
about it."

"Then you know not to fuck around. For your
sake I hope you take this seriously, and warn others in your
profession. Because very soon now this thing is going to blow up
and there won’t be any stopping it." His voice gained an edge it
didn’t have before and he swooned to the side, catching himself
with his free hand before going head first onto the floor. "I have
to go. Please be careful."

"Wait, what’s—"

"Call me if you really need me," Brad
said.

What
is
this
? Brad
thought. He slumped further off the bed.
Oh
crap
,
is
it
the
old
guy
in
the
—

He had just enough presence of mind to end
the call before collapsing to the floor.

* * *

"I’m headed back now. It was close, but I
think I did it." Laura sounded out of breath. "I’m starting to get
calls from the others and it sounds like it’s half and half. I
guess some of them were a little fuzzy on the spark-plug-wire part
of the plan."

"Figures. Are you being followed?" Mort
asked.

"No, I don’t think so."

Mort heaved a sigh of relief. "Good. Get back
home then and keep your head down. Hopefully no one noticed
you."

Laura laughed. "Well, they noticed me,
alright. I thought I was going to go to jail for prostitution
instead of vandalism."

Mort chuckled. "I’ll talk to you soon. Keep
me posted."

"Will do. Laura, out."

He was pleased that she seemed so optimistic.
He hadn’t heard from Brad since the young man left earlier, and
this was the first he’d heard from any of the Club regarding the
results of their plan. He expected to see something about all the
vandalism on the news by morning. If things went their way, it
would be attributed to a radical group of imaginary people whose
extreme views and beliefs included being dead set against
vaccinations and modern medicine in general.

Out in the world, people were being turned
away from clinics, churches, hospitals, and anywhere else the
vaccine was supposed to be given out. Some doctors’ offices had
received their shipments but ran out within the hour; there were so
many showing up to be vaccinated. While there had yet to be any
cases of the flu reported in the US, the citizens were becoming
frantic. Where were their shots? Why were they being told to go
home?

Many thought the vaccine had been given to
those who were well off, those who could buy their safety and the
safety of their families, and there simply wasn’t any left for the
average American. This caused an already disgruntled population to
boil over.

Riots broke out. Looting and vandalism
stretched police departments and other authorities too thin.
Hospitals across the country began to fill with patients who, in
their fear, mistakenly thought they had contracted this Korean Flu.
Case after case was being dismissed as nothing more than the common
cold or worse, hypochondria, and sent home with a pat on the back
and some Tylenol.

* * *

Brad woke early the next morning. The sun had
just begun its ascent. Streaks of red and orange filtered in
through the bedroom curtains, and for a moment Brad thought he was
still stuck in his dream. The dream of blood and death that usually
followed his dreams of the Suits. It wasn’t until he felt the
carpet under his cheek that he realized he was indeed awake, and
that his left leg was numb. He groaned and braced a hand against
the floor, pushing himself over onto his back. He groaned again
when feeling started coming back to his leg.

"Son of a
bitch
."

Brad rubbed sleep from his eyes and tried to
remember the night before. It was hazy and he had no idea how he’d
ended up on the floor, still in his clothes.

He remembered the dream, though.

"Running out of time. Get your ass up."

He thumped his half-awake leg a couple times
and dragged himself over to the edge of the bed. After standing and
making sure he wasn’t going to fall, he made his way to the
bathroom to clean up. A marching band thumped and beat in his head.
The dark under-eye circles that had plagued him for months were
worse.

"Did I get drunk last night?"

He hurried to the kitchen, searching for
empty cans or bottles. The kitchen and living room were both neat
and tidy. If any drinking had taken place there the night before,
the Beer Fairy had shown up early to clean up after him. He stopped
in front of the TV and ran his hands through his hair, then his
phone rang. He stumbled over to the end table and looked at the
caller ID.

Brad answered, "Morning, Mort."

"Oh thank God!"

Brad pulled the phone from his face to make
sure it had indeed been Mort calling. The voice sounded like a
hysterical woman.

"I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m afraid you have the
wrong number."

"Dammit, boy. I thought you were dead." Mort
now sounded like he was crying.

Brad chuckled. "Why would I be dead?"

"Because I woke up just a little while ago
and you were gone!"

"Well, of course I’m gone. I left last
night."

"No, you little shit." Mort sighed and paused
before continuing, this time with a more tempered tone. "I can’t
feel
you. You’re there, I’m talking to you, but you’re
just…invisible. I cannot sense you at all."

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh! You want to tell me what’s going
on?"

"Beats me. Feel kind of shitty, but other
than that I’m fine. Alive and sort-of well."

Mort remained silent for a long time.

"Mort?"

Brad used his free hand and patted himself
down, wondering if his ghost was carrying on an odd conversation
with his mentor. He felt solid enough. He pinched himself and it
hurt, so he was fairly sure this wasn’t a dream. "Mort? C’mon, man.
You’re freaking me out."

"You’re being watched."

"What? How close?"

"Working on it."

"Work faster."

"Five hundred feet, give or take. Feels like
danger but I can’t get a stable fix, lots of emotions swirling
around that area. I’m guessing you don’t have a female
admirer."

"Hold on."

Brad went over to the window. He separated
the curtains only a fraction and blinked, activating his danger
radar. His eyelids snapped open and closed twice and a green blip
lit up the screen. In the building across the street from him, same
floor.

"I’ve got it. I’ll call you back."

He heard Mort start to yell at him before
ending the call, but his eyes never left the darkened window across
the way. He slipped his phone in his pocket and got on with it.

* * *

"Dammit!" Mort yelled and squeezed the phone
with both hands.

He panicked. He could no longer see those
little wisps of emotion from his mental image of Brad, no matter
how hard or fast he tapped his pen. It made no sense at all. The
only time that should ever happen was if someone was dead or using
a psychic cloak, and he knew Brad couldn’t do that. While trying to
break through it, Mort had picked up on a very stark tendril of
treachery close to Brad, and now Brad was investigating and Mort
couldn’t keep track of him.

"Damn it to hell."

He slumped to the couch and buried his face
in his hands. He had yet to turn on the television and see the
news, being too distracted by Brad’s disappearance. He had several
voicemails that he hadn’t checked either.

* * *

Brad decided against the elevator and hit the
stairwell. The closer he got to the third floor, the weaker the
radar blip became. This told him either he was wearing out, or his
target had escaped. He left the stairwell and headed down the hall,
estimating by memory which apartment he was looking for. This
building was older than his and had a strong musty smell. The paint
was peeling off the walls in places, and the carpet was stained in
spots. Being distracted by these things, Brad almost missed it.

A brighter blip as he passed one door in
particular.

Brad stopped and tilted his head. He walked
backwards a few steps and blinked until he saw the blip again. He
faced the door and reached for the knob. Something like static
electricity buzzed between his skin and the metal.