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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

 
 

Before calling Liam, Kyle scrolled
through his emails to find the one Liam was talking about.

The email had been
sent about fifteen minutes earlier and came with an Excel attachment that Kyle
opened. It was a simple spreadsheet showing eight dates. That was it. Just one
date after the other, all from the last few months. Kyle scrolled to see if
there were any other columns or notes anywhere, but there wasn’t anything other
than the dates.

The earliest ones
dated back to April, and the most recent one was that very day. He looked at
them more carefully and realized the second to last date was the day Allie
collapsed, which meant at least two of the dates were days when someone had a
ruptured aneurysm—one when it happened to Allie and the other from
earlier in the morning. He counted them again. Eight. The number matched the
number of ruptured aneurysms he knew about. There were the six Tom had
initially given him, the guy with the broken neck, and Allie.

But how did Liam
know about all of them? He had said he’d only known about four who had died
and, of course, Allie. That was it. Had Liam discovered them on his own? But
how could he have found out about the guy with the broken neck? It was still
being kept under wraps.

Kyle looked at the
dates again. Maybe the email wasn’t about the aneurysms. Maybe it was about
something else. After all, other than Allie and the one from earlier in the
morning, he didn’t even know the dates. He never got that specific with Tom.

As he continued to
stare at the computer screen, his BlackBerry started to ring.

He checked the
display.

Liam.

“So?” Liam asked
as soon as Kyle clicked on. “What do you think? Crazy, right?”

“The dates you
sent?”

“Yes. Of course
the dates,” Liam said as Kyle continued to stare at the spreadsheet up on his
screen. “Someone in the city had a ruptured aneurysm on each of those dates.”

“You do realize
that you have today’s date listed, right?” Kyle asked.

“Dang right I do,”
Liam said. “There must have been another stroke somewhere in the city today.
Probably really early in the morning.”

Kyle was confused.

Must
have been? So you’re saying you
aren’t sure about that? You don’t know if there was or wasn’t?”

“Oh, make no
mistake about it, I’m sure alright,” Liam said. “It definitely happened today.
Who the victim was, I have no idea. Not yet, anyway. But it definitely happened
today. There’s absolutely no question about that.”

He was right. Tom
had already confirmed it. But how did Liam know about it?

“What makes you so
sure?” Kyle asked while trying to decipher whether there was a pattern to the
dates.

“Okay,” Liam said,
excited that he had Kyle’s interest. “So, one of the Crusaders put me in touch
with a guy who knows a lot of stuff, and this morning I get a return email from
him.”

“What do you mean
‘knows a lot of stuff’?”

“You know, the
guy’s a real heavy hitter.”

“Heavy hitter?”

“Yeah,” Liam said.
“He’s even been in the news before. I had to promise him I wouldn’t use his
name but, trust me, the guy is big time.”

“Big time what,
though? Who is he?”

“Who is he? He’s
someone the government actually contacted to say the conspiracy theories out
there about 9/11 had no credibility to them.”

“So he’s a
conspiracist?”

“He’s a truth
seeker,” Liam corrected him.

“Okay,” Kyle said,
not looking to quibble. “And the government actually contacted him about 9/11?”

“Well,” Liam said
hesitantly, “they didn’t say it was the government. You know, they go through
back channels, but he knew it was them.”

Kyle closed his
eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose, swallowing his frustration, an act
that was becoming routine while speaking with Liam. “Okay,” he said, “so what
did this … truth seeker have to say?”

“When I called
him, he started telling me a story about KnightWare and he asks—”

“KnightWare, Liam?
Really?”

“Yes,” Liam said.
“But just listen.”

Kyle was familiar
with KnightWare. The whole world was familiar with KnightWare. They were one of
the largest private military contractor firms in the world. Which also meant
that if one Googled the words military and conspiracy together, the name
KnightWare would litter the page. He knew exactly where the story was heading.

“So this guy asks
me if I know how KnightWare got its start in the business,” Liam said. “And I
told him what I know about the founder, Mack Reilly. That he was a Vietnam vet
who started contracting a small band of private soldiers for covert operations
the government wanted no official role in. You know, black ops type of stuff.
He says, ‘Yes, but do you know how they separated themselves from all the other
groups doing the same thing?’ And then he tells me. It was their
assassinations. No one else could do what they did.”

“Seriously? A
KnightWare story?” Kyle cut through the dangling end of the sentence. “That’s
what led you to finding these dates?”

“It didn’t lead me
to it. It just helped me connect the dots from the question that’s been bugging
me about this whole thing. Who in the city would need to siphon the energy of
these kids? Why would they be doing it? So the guy tells me the reason
KnightWare was so good at assassinations was because they were able to get it
done without any indications it
was
an assassination. No drugs and no physical violence. It didn’t even look like
an assassination
,
the
targets would just stroke out.” Liam paused. “Hear that? They would friggin
stroke
out. Just like what’s been going
on here. Just like what happened to Allie. And because the deaths would be so
clean and undetectable, it allowed them to become a big player in killing
people here in the States because, whereas overseas people could pretty much do
what they want, here in the States there’s too much scrutiny. So this gave them
a whole new platform

private
assassinations. It separated them from the other firms.”

“Liam—”

“Wait,” Liam
interrupted, “there’s more. So the guy told me he’s spoken to someone who used
to work for KnightWare. And even though the company has the strictest
confidentiality agreements there are, and everyone knows squawkers get snuffed,
he was able to talk to this former KnightWare guy because the guy’s already in
hiding for other stuff he did. He’s already a marked man, so he didn’t mind
spilling the beans because they’re after him anyway.”

“So how is it that
your friend was able to find him, yet the top private security firm in the
world with nearly unlimited funds and connections wasn’t able to?”

“He didn’t. The
guy found him. He wanted someone to know his story before they got to him.”

“So if KnightWare
is actually in the habit of killing people who spill their secrets, why
wouldn’t they just kill your friend if he knows things he shouldn’t?”

Liam hesitated.
“Good question,” he said. “And I don’t know the answer to that one. Maybe it’s
because he’s too high profile. Or maybe because he has information on them that
will be released if he dies. Or maybe they don’t know he knows. Not sure. I’ll
ask him the next time we speak.”

“Can we just get
to the dates?” Kyle asked as he refreshed his screen to look at the spreadsheet
again. “What did he tell you that made you figure out there was another victim
today?”

“Right. So he
tells me this former KnightWare worker told him there’s this guy who’s got a
knack for finding people with special abilities, whom he then contracts out to
companies like KnightWare. And the special ability of one of the guys was what
allowed them to perform these—”

“Liam,” Kyle cut
in, growing frustrated with his refusal to cut to the chase. “Just tell me how
any of this led you to the dates.”

Kyle could feel
Liam’s excitement even before Liam started with his explanation. “The guy who
can cause these strokes, or used to be able to do it, absorbed the energy of
others,” Liam said.

“Absorbed the
energy?”

“That’s what he
said.”

“How is that even
possible?”

“He didn’t say.
But it makes sense that’s what’s happening here if you think about it.”

“How on earth does
it make sense?”

“Think about it,”
Liam said. “Since
neurons are
electrically excitable, it’s possible their voltage gradients can be increased
so
that the nervous system’s synapses can work at an even crazier pace than they
already do, which would, in a sense, supercharge the senses. You know, kinda
like you’d have a 90-watt bulb instead of a 60-watt bulb. A brighter, more
powerful light. And that’s what happened to this guy when he absorbed the
energy. The man said it would heighten all his senses. The wiring in his
nervous system kicked into overdrive and amped everything up.”

“Okay. Putting
aside the improbabilities and impossibilities with the story—again, what
does any of that have to do with the dates?”

“That’s what I’m
getting to,” Liam said. “So when I was watching Hillier’s game earlier, I was
thinking, who in the city would need the extra energy? Who would it help? Who
would need to be a Superman of sorts, but only for short spurts of time? And
then it hit me about the fifth inning of Hillier’s perfecto. I thought about
his stats at home—ten wins, no losses, a better than Bob Gibson-like ERA
of .48. Even less if you toss out the start before today. What’s crazier is
that he’s doing it in the American League East, against the best teams in the
league. And he’s twenty-nine and coming off two devastating arm surgeries.
Hillier isn’t just having a good year, not even just a great year. When you
factor in the adjustments for modern-day ball, the DH, the training these guys
have, this guy may be having the best year ever.”

Kyle couldn’t help
but smile. “So you’re telling me that you think Evan Hillier, the pitcher for
the New York Yankees, is causing these strokes?”

“No,” Liam said,
“that’s not what I think. It’s what I know.”

“Liam, the man is
having a good run. And he’s pitching for a good team. His arm is finally
healthy. Pitchers have runs like this. Remember what Orel Hershiser did in
eighty-eight? Fifty-nine scoreless innings in a row.
Fifty-nine
. In a row. Pitching all around is better now, and ERAs
are down because the hitters don’t have carte blanche access to the performance
enhancers like they used to. Just because the guy threw a perfect game doesn’t
mean he’s got some sort of super powers. There have been more than twenty guys
who have pitched perfect games, and a slew of guys with no-hitters. Nolan Ryan
has seven of them. Besides, if the umpire had called a few full counts the
other way, or one of the fielders muffed a play, Hillier doesn’t even have the
perfect game. It’s ludicrous.”

Silence.

“Look
 …
” Kyle softened his tone,
realizing he was coming on too strong. He didn’t know Liam that well and the
man was going through a tragedy. There was a good chance his niece would never
wake up again and, even if she did, that she’d never be the same. Liam also
seemed to have some psychological issues going on, whether his sister or family
wanted to recognize them or not. So maybe this was the way he needed to cope.
There was no need for Kyle to slam the door so dismissively, so he eased up a
bit. “I’m just having some difficulty understanding any of this,” Kyle
explained. “I’m also having difficulty believing that, even if what you’re
saying is true, a person would actually kill people so he could pitch better.”

“No worries. I’m
not upset,” Liam said calmly. “I get it. It’s a tough pill to swallow, I agree.
But what about the dates? How do you explain them?”

“The dates?”

“Yeah.”

Kyle looked back
at the spreadsheet. “What about them?”

“How do you think
I filled in the ones I didn’t know about? How do you think I know someone died
today of a brain hemorrhage?”

Excellent point
, Kyle thought.

“How did you come
up with them?”

“MLB.com.”

Kyle kept staring.
Looking at the spacing between the dates. There wasn’t an exact pattern he
could decipher. They ranged from eleven days apart to five, with the heaviest
concentration in May. He didn’t get the correlation.

“His home ERA is
microscopic,” Liam said. “Yet his road ERA is average.”

A sudden chill ran
down Kyle’s spine.

He now understood.
He knew the pattern.

“Shit,” Kyle said
softly into the phone, barely believing the correlation. “Starts.”

“Yup.”

“Jesus,” Kyle said
as he leaned back in his chair, his eyes remaining glued to the computer
screen. “Every single one of these dates coincides with one of Evan Hillier’s
home starts, doesn’t it?”

“You got it,
Einstein,” Liam said, undoubtedly with a wide grin. “He’s loading up on energy
before each of his home starts. Instead of steroids, HGH, amphetamines or some
other PED, he’s enhancing his energy field. Something that would never be
detected by any drug test. He’s essentially found the perfect way to circumvent
the rules.”

Kyle couldn’t
believe it, yet he knew Liam was right about the last two starts. The young man
with the broken neck was earlier that morning, the day of Hillier’s perfect
game, and he remembered Hillier also pitching later in the day after Allie
collapsed. He opened up his Internet browser as Liam went on about more
statistics. He clicked on espn.com and typed in Hillier’s name, then brought up
his starts. He compared the home ones to Liam’s spreadsheet. They matched.

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