The Harbinger Break (14 page)

  
He stopped walking and sighed. The voice continued.

  
"The fall of the golden boy."

  
Summers looked at Paige. She gave him a slight grin and rolled her eyes.

  
"What could this possibly mean for the rest of us?"

  
"That's enough, Alcove."

  
Summers turned. A tall, stocky man with a brow so heavy that it made a black line cut horizontally just above his eyes approached with a hand outstretched and a smug grin on his face. Summers sighed.

  
Harrison Alcove, a fellow FBE field agent. Closed cases quickly, but never put in enough time. Rumor had it that he'd removed a few innocents from the gene pool a few times, a few lawsuits too many, and for as long as the two had known each other Harrison Alcove had always been a step behind Summers. That is, until now.

  
Summers grasped his hand and resisted Harrison's attempt to crush his fingers.

  
When they withdrew, Harrison said, "Guess who they handed Shane off to?"

  
"Let me guess. You."

  
Harrison flashed a toothy grin and went to slap Summers on the shoulder in a mock friendly manner, but as he moved Summers took a step back and made Harrison over-reach. He grinned as Harrison stumbled forward.

  
Harrison's smile dropped. "Funny."

  
Summers shrugged and looked at Paige, who winked at him. "You're predictable, Alcove."

  
"Whatever," he said. "Any advice on Shane?"

  
Summers nodded. "Yeah–that. You're predictable. You'll never find him."

  
Paige laughed, a quick snort. The two turned to look at her, and her smile dropped to a serious look. After a moment, Harrison looked away and she grinned again at Summers.

  
"You have any idea where he may be?" Harrison said.

  
"Not sure. He could be in Savannah, where he was last seen, or in Pompano, where he was before that, or he could be in Jacksonville, hiding out in the basement of that condemned apartment complex on 3rd and Cypress."

  
Harrison sighed. "This is turning into way more work than I'd hoped. What had you been doing, Summers?"

  
"Research. Try it." Summers dropped his smirk and narrowed his brow. "This is not your cut and dry case, Alcove. Good and evil isn't as black and white as you think."

  
"He's murdered people. Seems simple to me."

  
Summers lowered the pitch of his voice. "Right. That's my mistake. Didn't realize you were out sick the day they taught ethics. We've killed too, Alcove. Think we deserve castration?"

  
"Who cares?" Harrison shrugged. "All I'm saying is he's a bad guy and it's not like I'm killing him–it's just his balls."

  
Summers locked eyes with Paige for a moment, then turned back to Harrison.

  
"Walk with me."

  
Summers turned, and Harrison followed. They entered the elevator, and as soon as the doors shut Summers spoke.

  
"Alcove, listen closely. He's dangerous. Believe me when I say he doesn't deserve castration–he deserves death. A quick, painless death–but death nonetheless. If you find him and you have the upper hand, don't hesitate, don't stutter. Shoot him dead. I can't tell you how many lives depend on it."

  
Harrison looked at him closely, then broke into a grin. "Ah, so you're trying to get me fired as well. That's low, Summers."

  
"If you try to take him in he'll escape. You can't hold him, and he won't stop. Please."

  
Harrison glared at him. Summers glared back.

  
"Let me think," Harrison said. "Okay. No."

  
The elevator doors opened and Summers exited. Harrison didn't follow, and pressed a button to go back up.

  
"Thanks for wasting my time, Summers."

  
He stuck his hand between the doors and continued. "Guess the path to Paige is all clear now with you out of the way, huh."

  
Summers glared but didn't respond. Harrison retracted his hand and the elevator doors shut. Taking one last look at the lobby, Summers turned to leave the building, frustrated and still upset. That idiot was going to get himself killed.

  
He walked out onto the busy Mason Street sidewalk and glanced around. His city, Raleigh, North Carolina, bustled constantly, with a skyline laced with interlocking cement, glass and metal sky scrapers, necessary relics that stood preventing technological modernization like a kennel three sizes too small. Teenagers and young adults walked with their cellphones in hand, information relaying God-knows-what as their eyes scrolled miles a second, hands free information feeding a royally stuffed brain, turning knowledge from a constant hunger to an abundant commodity.

  
His phone vibrated in his pocket. It was probably Paige, and she'd be upset. Not that she was the only one. He withdrew it from his pocket and glanced at the screen. A picture of Paige at her desk, mouth open mid-sentence saying, "don't you dare take a picture!" as he took a picture always made him smile.

  
He thought she was gorgeous–with her auburn hair, big, friendly eyes, and a contagious smile that lit up her whole face. She spoke fluently five languages, which made her ideal for her department in the FBE, and it was just a matter of time before she got her dream reassignment overseas, somewhere in Europe–a prospect that Summers dreaded although he wanted her to be happy.

  
He couldn't help himself from grinning at the screen. She looked especially gorgeous in candid photographs–which she hated but dealt with.

  
Understanding the way she made him feel was complicated, but it was similar to a feeling he had when he was twelve years old, still traumatized by his parents’ murders, locked out of his aunt and uncle's house, and was forced to sleep in the clubhouse he'd built next to the tree by the lake.

  
It had stormed torrentially that night, but the clubhouse held. And the next morning, as he stood outside and saw the damage the tree had taken, comparing that to his perfectly kept clubhouse–he felt overwhelmed with a feeling that the world wasn't as unmanageably scary as it seemed–and as he saw the sparkling grass and the reflection of the sun on the lake, he felt that perhaps the world wasn't so bad after all. How she made him feel was similar to that.

  
The phone continued vibrating, and he considered ignoring the call. With ease she could inadvertently turn his tough outer shell into a little boy curled up underneath a desk–and he just wanted to recover, not reflect. But after one more ring he answered it anyway.

  
"Paige."

  
"Chris."

  
The simple inflection of how she said his name would've brought a lesser man to tears.

  
"What are you going to do now?" she continued after a moment. It was a good question, and it took his mind off his frustration and sadness.

  
He'd begun designing a plan earlier when he'd been driving back. After his parents’ deaths, Summers quickly learned that the best solution for a sulking mind was a simple distraction, and forming a plan helped keep him motivated.

  
He'd begun with the problems–simple: GenDec and Shane. He considered planning the assassination of Shane first, but found planning the downfall of GenDec more challenging, useful, and honorable than the former. But it'd require Paige's help, and he wasn't ready to share his idea with her just yet. Involving her just stood to condemn her if shit hit the fan, and he wasn't prepared to do that until his plan reduced failure to a near impossibility. Before he could lie, however, she spoke.

  
"You're planning on shutting down GenDec, aren't you?"

  
He reminded himself to never play poker with her.

  
"That obvious?"

  
"We've met once or twice, handsome."

  
He sighed. "It's a bad place, Paige. I'm not saying I'm innocent concerning that boy's death. But GenDec sure isn't either."

  
She took a breath. "You sound excited."

  
"Not exactly excited–it almost feels like adrenaline, like getting back to why I got into this line of work."

  
She paused before responding. "Do you regret taking the promotion?"

  
He scratched his head. "No. I met you, didn't I?"

  
"Look at you," she said softly. "Getting all sentimental on me."

  
"Yep. Alright, I'll call you–I have to figure out my next step."

  
"Sounds good. Take care, Chris."

  
He hung up and stared at his phone. Well, this was as good a time as any, he thought as he scrolled through his list of contacts.

◊   ◊   ◊

   Ten hours after her ordeal, just after midnight, Claire locked the door of her New York estate and dropped her bag carelessly on the marble floor. Accustomed to traveling for business, she sometimes spent weeks at a time away from home, but had never felt so mentally and emotionally exhausted as she did now. And this trip had only been a single night. She walked into the kitchen, mind in a daze, and began steeping a glass of tea while staring hatefully at one of her nudist paintings.

  
Thoughts of Shane attempted to claw from the tomb of her subconscious, but she fended them off skillfully. She already repressed a majority of her life's memories, what was another hour or two? She could always deal with that memory later–for now, she had one thought stewing: the means to a perfect murder.

  
She formed a list. First, her assets. Money, check. Brains, check. Looks, check. She laughed at her vanity. That was all she needed–everything else would come with the plan. But she continued on with her list.

  
The perfect murder meant never being associated with the crime. Nothing remotely pointing to her. Which meant, to be safe, she couldn't be in the same state as Pat from now on. She would have to work remotely, use her considerable means (refer back to assets) to use people, set up a plan.

  
What did she know about Pat? He was smart, but also crazy. It all came down to delusions with him. Delusions of grandeur, paranoia, aliens. He was crazy, but she had to admit, there was logic to his alien rant.

  
She watched bubbles form at the bottom of the pot as water began to boil. How interesting would it be if Pat was an alien, manipulating everyone? Could convincing the crazy man that he's an alien be done? And then have him kill himself? She tossed a few ideas at the wall, but nothing seemed to hold–he was too clever for a trick like that, not to mention pulling it off remotely would be near impossible.

  
But utilizing his fear of aliens as means to his death wasn't garbage just yet. She realized that manipulating Pat to think he's an alien might be impossible, but what about manipulating everyone else?

  
She twirled locks of hair around her index finger. That could work, she thought. Manipulate those swayed by Pat's reasoning to think he's an alien, then wait for those swayed to kill him.

  
She laughed aloud, unable to help herself–oh how beautifully ironic that would be–watching as he pursued his noble quest, trying to convince people that aliens were among them, and then having those same people turn against him. How demoralizing, humiliating, and pitiful his last moments would be, oh, how pathetic he'd feel. The master of his own demise, the architect of his own collapse. Yes, that had to be it.

  
She sat down at the kitchen table with her tea, grabbed a sheet of paper and a pen, and began scrawling, chuckling to herself every now and then. Twenty minutes later, her sheet plastered with notes, she grabbed her cellphone and gave Lee White another call. She wasn't calling in a favor again. No, this time, she assured him, it was a job, and she bought his silence and his loyalty with a quick $200,000 dollar transfer, promising him the other $800,000 on completion. She hung up as she heard him scurrying to pack his bags.

◊   ◊   ◊

   Sam Higgins paced his living room with unbridled fury, flames chasing his heels, crushing charred imprints into his carpet. Pat had to die, but fuck if he wasn't onto something with his crazy theories. He had to kill Pat, that fact wasn't optional, but what about saving the world? Sam sat on the couch and breathed deeply, dealing with an array of never-before-felt emotions. Well,
he
could save the world. What if he killed Pat and then took the savior's heroic glory for himself? That didn't sound too shabby. He would finally receive not only positive attention, but respect. Now that didn't sound too bad at all.