Sweet Mercy (13 page)

She called out, “Hello? Mr. Rosso? I’m from Team Guardian. Help is on the way. You won’t need your weapon.”

“Who’s that? How do I know you’re not some tool or spy of
his
?”

“I’m Rachel Connolly, with Team Guardian. I helped defuse the hostage situation at your offices yesterday. Maybe you heard about that?”

“Yeah—” A brief silence. “You can come ahead. Tell that backstabber to stay where he is.”

The other man, had to be Rosso, approached, despite Hanson’s words.

“Listen to me,” Rachel urged, placing herself between the two men who looked all too inclined to start tangling with each other. Before they could get within arms’ reach of each other, she placed a hand on each chest, projecting all the warmth and good will she could muster. “Your enemy is the man who set you up to destroy each other. You must know this, deep inside. Believe what you must. Believe what he’s made you believe, but let 
me be a buffer between you for now. Let me play Switzerland.”

The men glowered at each other, for a moment, then turned to her, gave curt nods.

“Good.” She smiled, beaming her pleasure and relief. “Let’s walk, keep ourselves warmer. What can you tell me about this place I haven’t seen already?”

“It’s a maze of alleys just like this one,” Rosso said.

“There are rats,” Hanson told her, keeping pace on her right. “I got bit—chasing some out of that dumpster.”

Rachel made a clucking noise, projected her sympathy.

“Cockroaches, too.” Rosso volunteered. “Big ones down this storm drain I found.” He walked on her left and pointed vaguely off in that direction. “There’s a nice warm draft comes up it, though.”

An explosion of light blasted them and Rachel stopped short, shielding her eyes with her forearm. Her companions fell back to either side. With a series of chunking sounds, bank after bank of lights blazed on across the high ceilings of their prison.

For a moment, Rachel relaxed at the wash of welcome warmth. The chill began seeping away from her bones. Numbed fingers and toes tingled with feeling again.

The men exclaimed over it. Rosso laughed. “Thank God.” He said. “Is this it? Has your Team found us?”

“I don’t think so.” Rachel frowned. Though it seemed an age, she’d scarcely been here long enough for Mesmero to have crossed town by car, let alone for Fluke—and the Team—to have followed, dealt with him and figured out how to get in here. “Mesmero said he’d turn this place into an oven by day—I’m afraid this is part of his plan and it won’t be long before we’ll want shelter from all these heat lamps.”

Hanson shielded his eyes, looking up at the arrays of high intensity lamps above, then looked pleadingly to Rachel. “Why? Why is that mad man doing this to us?”

“Why not just kill us?” Rosso’s face twisted in distress. “This is crazy.”

“I know.” Rachel soothed, and explained as best she could. “Capital Finance foreclosed on his house years ago. He spent time living on the streets. He blames you and the other board members and wants you to suffer what he suffered—”

She broke off. They all looked around at a new sound, echoing between the alley walls, round hidden corners: the baying of hounds.

~ * ~

Fluke drove David’s silver Honda while David kept in contact with the rest of the Team and the police via his specs. The car didn’t stand up to Fluke’s Porsche in most respects, but it had the advantage of being inconspicuous and unfamiliar to the people they tailed.

Fluke had to remind himself that Johnson wasn’t a native of the Twin Cities. He couldn’t be expected to know the best routes or how to direct Mabel to them, and Mabel wouldn’t be taking any initiative while under a puppet master’s control. The blue Toyota had backtracked a couple times after making turns onto one-way streets going the wrong directions, or dead-ending altogether. Fluke had known better than to follow them down the last one and idled at the curb where he could watch the corner where they’d have to emerge again after turning around when they hit the dead end.

David sat beside him, muttering, keeping everyone apprised of their location and ready to meet them when they determined just where Rachel and the board members were held. The information seemed all too slowly gained by tracking their quarry to his destination.

What happened with Rachel during the endless minutes they followed Johnson/Mesmero to his lair? Fluke’s only comfort remained the certainty he’d know if any harm came to her. He focused on the task at hand. Mabel obviously drove with no consciousness of the possibility of being followed. She stopped in the middle of the road several times, as if needing direction for every turn.

On the cusp of dawn, the traffic had yet to reach full morning rush hour proportions, but enough cars filled the downtown area through which they passed to make the going even more frustratingly slow.

At last, the downtown area behind them, they proceeded more speedily down Broadway into the warehouse district. Fluke almost missed it when the Toyota made an abrupt left hand turn onto a side street.

He spun the wheel, skidding into the turn. Horns blared as he cut across the oncoming lane and reached the side street just in time to see the tail lights of the blue car disappear into an alley between a pair of red brick buildings occupying an entire city block from one street to the next.

Fluke pulled in beside the nearest building, just short of the alley and shared a look with David before the two men exited both sides of the car at the same time. David put a finger to his lips and gestured to the alley. Fluke moved silently to the corner, crouching to peer around it.

Johnson stood on a loading dock, alone at the door, apparently fumbling for keys. Mabel and Tamara must still be in the car. He could see the rear of it, parked beyond the cement block of the loading dock. David took a quick look, and then muttered to his specs.

Fluke picked up the alert via his feed. “You’ve got my location? Converge from all sides. Keep some distance. The puppet master needs physical contact to do a take-over. I’m going in now.”

“Let me go first,” Fluke turned to him, voice hushed. “I’ll distract him, so you can get in close with the tranq.”

“She’s my sister.” David’s mouth made a grim line. Fluke figured he had more than a tranq in mind for Johnson.

“I love her too,” Fluke said, and then sauntered around the corner, 
thumbs hooked in the belt of his Levi’s. He called out to Johnson. “Hey, I’ve got a couple questions for you, buddy.” He kept walking at a leisurely pace, closing the distance, trusting David to hang back for now, trusting his luck on more than one count.

Johnson turned to him, scowling, and then assumed a friendlier expression. “Can I help you, sir?”

“Cut the crap, Johnson. You know I’m with Team Guardian and I know you took my girl. What have you done with her?”

“She’s right in here, but I’m having some trouble with the key. Maybe you can help me out?” He beckoned Fluke closer.

Fluke mounted the short flight of cement steps to the loading platform and approached Johnson, who extended the jangling key ring to him.

Fluke moved around him, to approach the door from Johnson’s left and Johnson turned, following him, still extending his hand with the key. This put Johnson’s back to the steps and the mouth of the alley where David waited.

“Why don’t you just toss me the keys?” Fluke kept his distance. “I know what you are, Johnson—or should I say,
Mesmero
.” David rounded the corner into the alley, approaching swiftly, and light-footed as only a man could be who’d once lived in hiding on the streets.

“I
am
Mesmero!” The older, slighter man lunged at Fluke, dropping the keys as he grasped for a hold on his intended victim.

Fluke caught him by his forearms. The long sleeves of the man’s polyester suit jacket insulated him from direct contact. He held Johnson off despite the strength his manic energy gave him.

At the same moment David made it up the steps and plunged his hypo in the man’s neck. Police snipers appeared at either end of the alley and on surrounding rooftops, their rifles trained on Johnson. The puppet master slumped in Fluke’s grip.

Fluke lowered Johnson to the cement dock before releasing him. He scooped up the fallen keys and went straight for the door. Let the others deal with Johnson/Mesmero now. He had to get to Rachel.

David snapped a few commands to the rest of the Team and followed close on Fluke’s heels as they entered the building—only to face a steel-clad door and its security panel, with no idea of the pass code.

Six

Dogs. They’d been among the worst monsters of her years living in hiding with David. Dogs picked up her projected emotions like nobody’s business. They had no filter of higher consciousness and they scared her, so she scared them, and more often than not the dogs reacted by attacking what they feared. She and David had had to run all too often from strays, guard dogs and even family pets.

Now, when she heard the baying of hounds in this maze of narrow alleys with no shelter in sight, a sudden spike of fear shot through her. Damn. The two men panicked, running off in opposite directions. The baying, nearer now, though the dogs hadn’t yet come in sight, took on a frantic urgency.

She forced legs that wanted to go sprinting off after the men to collapse under her instead and assumed a suddenly seated posture. Lotus. She focused on her too-rapid breath. Slower. Breathe deep. Feel the breath fill her abdomen, rise through her torso. Throw back her shoulders. Let them loosen, drop. Relax. You are no longer a frightened child, she reminded herself. She embraced the feelings that might as well be a child’s, surrounding them with compassion, filling herself with a tender mercy toward all things fearful and vulnerable. She breathed slower now, calmer, radiating warmth, serenity, a palpable aura of love.

The dogs fell silent. She peeked from beneath her lowered lashes to see a ring of half a dozen Rottweilers, all facing her, lying with forepaws extended and what looked to be adoration in their eyes. She smiled at them. “Poor things,” she said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you earlier. Everything’s okay now.”

She looked around, took stock of their surroundings. The heat lamps above had banished the last of the chill air, but already beat down with uncomfortable intensity. She’d been hungry to begin with and now grew aware of an increasing thirst to accompany the gnawing hunger. She soothed her discomfort.

“Let’s see if we can find some shade.” She rose to her feet and the dogs crowded around her, butting heads under her hands. She petted them.
That’s right. Contact intensifies the effects of my power. When I was… so close… to Fluke it even seemed to go both ways, like I could feel what he felt, even as he felt what I projected
…

Strange
. She’d like to try more of that. Later. Now, the dogs frisked around her like they’d never known kindness or a gentle touch before. She laughed at their antics. “C’mon, guys.” She led the way back toward the dumpsters near where she’d first entered the facility. If she propped the lids against the wall behind them, she could make a shaded area big enough for her and the dogs to retreat from the searing light above.

Hanson and Rosso had gone off in opposite directions. As their biggest danger seemed now to be from each other, she wouldn’t worry about them for the time being. She had enough to do, focusing on calming herself and her new doggy pals.

As she neared the steel door through which she’d entered the place, Rachel heard strange sounds of clanging and whining coming from beyond it. The dogs whined too. She reassured them. “Stay close to me. You’ll be okay. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

~ * ~

Fluke felt like a caged lion; though the steel panel blocked only one direction, that direction was the only way to reach Rachel.

“It’s going to take hours to get through this door by brute force.” David signaled the techs with acetylene torches to take a break and stepped back from the door. “Maybe we should get a transmuter in here?”