The Overseer (29 page)

Devin pulled himself to his knees, then stood. He checked the Five-seveN; he hadn’t fired it before and had worried in passing about its ability to perform. Devin took his finger off the trigger and walked toward Scarza. “Where did the girls end up?” he asked again.

Scarza’s hysterics deteriorated to a kind of macabre giggle. “They’re gone. They’re long gone. They’re all gonna get fed to perverted strangers who are going to violate them in ways you’ve never dreamed of.” A shudder ran through Scarza’s dying body.

The front door came open fast. “Devin,” Hannah’s voice said from behind him, “I heard shots. What….” She trailed off, apparently taking in the carnage of the scene.

“Where are they?” Devin demanded again, jamming the muzzle of his handgun into Scarza’s eye socket. “Where are they, you
sick
—?”

“I’m already dead.” Scarza laughed, a malicious grin crossing his already paling face. “And you’ll never find out what happened to those nubile playthings.”

“What?” Hannah demanded, rushing up next to Devin, grabbing at Scarza. “Where are they?”

Devin stood, backing away. He’d been through this. And this sicko was going to let the whole thing die with him. Hopped out of his mind on drugs he bought with the suffering and misery of others. Devin watched the intensity of Hannah’s actions, begging Scarza to tell her where the girls were, but there was no point—the trail and Scarza’s body went cold at the same time.

Then the sirens started.

The police were on their way. The neighbors had heard the shots, and the police would be there in seconds. “Hannah?” he said gently.

“Where?” she asked the dead body, the grin gone from the man’s face.

“Hannah?” he said again, a hand on her shoulder, “we have to go.”

She stood, backing away, seething with anger.

“Hannah,” he repeated, “we have to go.”

She looked at him, turned, and followed him out the front door.

John Temple’s eyes opened, and he saw Vincent Sobel standing in front of him.

“Hello, sleepyhead.” Vince smirked.

“Vince,” John said, moving to sit up, realizing that Trista was still resting her sleeping head on his chest, “how did you…?”

Vince sat on the coffee table, eyes meeting John’s. Trista started to stir, waking. “You know I don’t support this,” he said.

John glanced down at Trista, her waking face surprised by the presence of Vince. “Vince?” she said.

“I don’t approve of the two of you, either,” he said, rubbing his hands together, “but I’m here about Senator Warren Foster and your disobedience.”

John looked around and saw three other men in the room, all wearing suits, though none as expensive as Vince’s. “How did you find us?” John asked.

Vince nearly rolled his eyes. “We’re all members of the Firstborn here. It was just a matter of time until one of us saw where you were. And there are more of us that are opposed to what you are doing than those that support you. A lot more.”

John looked down, working the heels of his hands into his forehead. “What do you want?”

“We’re here to make sure you don’t try to pull anything having to do with the Senator Foster press conference tomorrow.” He reached into his jacket and removed something, setting it on the table—a silenced pistol. “And we really do intend to keep you here. No matter what.”

“Even if that means letting a United States senator die?” John asked, looking up.

Vince didn’t reply.

Chapter 17

H
ANNAH MUST HAVE
nodded off. Her eyes opened, feeling the sting of dawn light creeping in. A few seconds of recollection: She was in the car, passenger seat. They had left the house in a hurry—Scarza dead on the floor. They hadn’t talked at all, not a word between them as they drove in circles. Hannah’s mind had been a furious tumult of thoughts, fears, and conjecture. Plans made themselves and unraveled at their seams as she had tried desperately to will the girls out of captivity. And then, at some point, she had succumbed to the exhaustion that worry and anxiety brought.

Devin was outside, leaning against the hood of the car, a silhouette against the horizon and the keen slashing rays of the dawn sun lifting over it. His arms were crossed, face turned slightly down—caught up in a kind of stillness that was inhuman. Hannah hunched her shoulders, stretching, then reached for the car door.

The car was parked at a higher elevation than most of the rest of the city, giving a good view of the city below. The kind of place people always seemed to name Lookout Point or something ridiculous and cliché. Tan dirt and short dry plants were all that was anywhere near them.

“Hello,” Hannah said to Devin, walking toward his place at the front of the car. A tip of the face as a subtle nod was all she got in return. She took a place near him, leaning against the hood. Hannah crossed her arms, feeling cold, forgetting that the desert could get so freezing cold at night. “Where do we start looking for the girls?” she asked after a moment.

Devin moved for the first time in a truly noticeable way, stepping away from the car. “We don’t,” he said with a sigh.

Hannah blinked, then stepped toward him. “What do you mean?”

He turned from her, walking toward the edge of the bluff, once again a silhouette against the golden bloom of the morning sun. “It’s too late,” he said, shaking his head as he put his hands in his pockets.

“Devin,” she chided gently, “you can’t be serious. They’re just girls—barely into their teens. We can’t give up on them.”

“Clay Goldstein might have been right,” he mused, eyes transfixed on the city below. “Maybe it is time to give up on the girls. They’re not here, and we only have a few hours before they’re supposed to attempt the assassination.”

“But,” Hannah started, sounding more desperate and weak than she believed she was capable of anymore, “the girls—”

“Are gone,” Devin interrupted, turning to her, face stern. “They’re gone. Sold. Out of our reach. At least for now.” He shook his head morosely. “Maybe later. Maybe sometime in the future we can resume the search. But right now there’s nothing that we can do to—”

“No,” she sneered, backing away from him. “I can’t believe you’d just let this happen. I can’t believe that you would let them…” She winced, trying not to think about the possibilities.

“We just don’t have the time.” Devin balked. “Don’t you see? We have to choose—and the assassination is about to happen. There just isn’t time right now.”

“So.” Hannah took another step back, appalled by what she was hearing. “You’re just going to give up on them? Forever?”

“No.” Devin looked away. “Just until we make sure the senator is safe.”

“The window is closing,” Hannah argued, crossing her arms, “and if we wait, they’re going to be gone. Forever. Or might as well be.” She wasn’t used to arguing. She hadn’t done it much, and she had never liked what little she had done. But she found herself emphatic. Impassioned. Angry.

“We can’t just let these thugs kill a United States senator,” Devin said, voice raised, tone angry.

“These girls have mothers. Fathers. We can’t let this happen!” Hannah argued back, matching volume, posture pitched forward, tone shrill and desperate to be understood.

Devin threw his arms out to the sides, posture equally emphatic. “They’re going to kill a senator! We’ve wasted enough time trying to save these girls!” he shouted, mad.

“Wasting time?” Hannah demanded, face red.

“They’re gone, Hannah!” he yelled, jabbing a finger at the dirt. “It’s too late. Why can’t you see that? It was always too late!”

“But we have to keep trying!”

“Later,” he shouted, balling his fists, “maybe. But not now. Not with so much at stake!”

“Like what?” she demanded. “A senator?”

Devin pointed a finger accusingly. “You’re being an irrational child!”

She took a step back, furious. “I am
not
being irrational, and I am
not
a child!”

“You’re emotionally involved,” he growled. “You see yourself in the people you’re trying to help—young, vulnerable girls!”

“And you’re not?” she fumed, “Trying to save an authority figure who just happens to have the same skin color as you?”

They stopped.

Devin’s expression dropped.

Hannah trembled, suddenly realizing what she was saying. “Devin, I’m so…”

Devin sighed. “We’re always pitted against each other— forced to choose between two goods.”

“Devin,” she stammered, “I’m sorry for the things I said. I’m sorry I lost my temper.” She pushed a drop of blurry mist from the edge of her eye. “I’m so sorry.”

“That’s the problem when people work together,” Devin said with a kind of resignation. “They become more caught up in what’s happening between them than what they set out to do in the first place.”

She turned her head toward the sun, the sky starting to turn blue now in a fully formed morning. “We’re going to have to do these things alone, aren’t we?”

“No,” Devin said, putting a hand on her shoulder, “because I’m not going to let you do this alone.”

“But the senator—”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned living a life in the pursuit of moral and spiritual wholeness,” Devin said gently, “it’s that if you try to do it all by yourself, you won’t last a minute. Working together has its problems, but it beats working alone.” He took out his phone. “Besides,” he smiled, “there’s already someone who can deal with this.”

Trista Brightling sat in the hotel suite. Their intruders had kept a close eye on them, restricting their movements to the point of paralysis. Vincent Sobel had tried to make small talk with her and John, but neither were willing to engage with him. The other three “guards” had taken turns sleeping and going to the restroom, occasionally opening one of their laptops to check e-mail.

Trista sat on the couch—the same place she had sat and slept for hours now. She was watching Vince, standing at the window, looking out at the city, when John’s cell phone went off in one of Vince’s jacket pockets. He had collected their phones, making it that much more difficult for them to contact anyone in the outside world. Vince took the phone from his jacket, checking the caller. He frowned and hit a button, silencing it, before putting it back in his pocket.

She looked at John, slouched in his place, looking beaten and sad. “Are you OK?” she asked, certain she knew the answer. He seemed to think for a moment, then looked her in the eye.

“I am,” he said with the hint of a smile.

Trista frowned, thrown. “Why?”

He looked at her hand, taking it in his. “If everything has to go wrong,” he said with a fully blossoming smile, “then I’m just glad that I can be here with you.”

Trista felt something warm in her chest, a feeling that urged her to return John’s smile. “Me too,” she said without thinking.

The cell phone rang again in Vince’s pocket. He checked it again, silenced it, returning it to its place.

Trista looked at John again, trying to think of something to say.

“I love you,” he blurted softly, without any kind of pretense.

She felt the urge to say something back, to reply with something that might come out disastrously similar. Yet she somehow managed to stay silent.

“I always have,” he continued, “since I first met you in Barcelona—it feels like it was years ago.”

Trista laughed quietly, almost to herself. “John—it was years ago. Two, at least.”

“And I’ve never stopped,” he whispered, eyes sincere and intense. “I ran halfway across the world, but I never stopped loving you.”

“John, I—”

“I told you I’d die for you,” he said with all seriousness. “If it comes to that, I promise I will.”

Her threshold of comfort diminished in an instant. “What are you saying, John?”

“Angelo,” he said, unblinking. “He said that the Thresher wanted you dead. That’s what he said to me in the parking garage yesterday, before he disappeared.”

“And you believe him?” Trista asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, looking like he might cry, “but you have to promise me that you won’t do anything to put yourself in harm’s way. Do you understand?”

She stared at him, transfixed, trying to find some crack in his resolve, some indication on his face that he didn’t believe what he was saying—not really, at least. Did he?