The IRIS Algorithm, page 7
Oh, Samuel. I am so sorry.
I vaguely heard Logan ask if I was all right. I wondered if dying would be a relief. The world became very small, then black.
When I opened my eyes, Logan’s face was close to mine, his green eyes wary. What was he doing here? A wave of panic surged through my body.
Samuel!
Lightning lit the sky and torched my soul. Flat on my back, I struggled to get up. My lungs were filled with the smell of sweaty concrete, the taste of car exhaust in my mouth. Thunderstorms gathered in the dark sky above me.
Samuel!
Logan’s lips moved, but I could not hear what he said. Staring into his eyes, I saw something odd, something unexpected, something more frightening than the hatred I deserved.
CHAPTER 16
MOBILE, ALABAMA – 10:04 A.M. CDT– AEM TUNNELS
Patience rhythmically clicked her black, polished, acrylic nails on the gray metal desk. With her right hand, she slowly raked her silky, raven black hair. She studied the pale figure of the boy in the holding cell on the other side of the one-way glass. On his knees, he rocked gently and stared at the line of books he’d arranged end-to-end across the floor. The bleakness of it all was lost on him.
Her experienced fingers slid up the back of her scalp, slowly, with purpose. Clutching a handful of her own hair, she pulled brutally and held on. She gasped, the hot moist craving spreading within her.
“You know he hasn’t spoken since we took the nanny,” a voice said behind her.
Patience spun the armless office chair around, feet off the floor. Her expensive black high heel dangled from her right toe, playful, unconcerned. Virtue, brow furrowed in thought, stood just inside the tunnel door. She watched the boy on the other side of the glass. Her delicate pale arms folded tightly across her chest, but there was nothing maternal in her look. It was more a shopkeeper’s glance to see if the melons had gone bad.
“Virti, my sweet little sister.” A crooked smile throbbed on the left side of Patience’s mouth, her appetite whet, imagination keen. “You really shouldn’t sneak up on people. I would hate for an accident to happen.”
“I wasn’t sneaking. You were just preoccupied with yourself, as usual.” Virtue surveyed the five-sided anteroom, as if the desperate cries of agony collected over the years clung to the charcoal gray walls and sooty black ceiling. “Besides, when you try to kill me, we both know it won’t be an accident.”
“Poor Virti. Such drama.” Patience cocked her head to one side with a glossy pout and pulled her right knee high toward her chest, leaving no doubt that she was without underwear beneath her black, leather, mini skirt. She slid the high-heeled shoe back on her foot. “Too bad you’re such a prude. I guess that’s why father named you Virtue.”
A smile as thin as a corroded, rusty razor split Virtue’s lips. She was used to her older sister’s antics. “Father named you Patience. Clearly, there’s no meaning or insight to his naming.” It would take more than a sibling peep show to get a reaction from her.
Patience’s eyes narrowed to a laser focused on her weakling sister. The old man couldn’t live forever, and when he was finally gone, things would be a lot different. She would get a reaction whenever she wanted it.
Virtue approached the cold metal desk, eyes fixed on the little boy lost in his quest. He focused intently on the line of books, precisely spaced and aligned on their left edge. “He seems oblivious to his stark surroundings. I think his mind is in a more meaningful place, a happier place.”
The two sisters studied the boy in silence. “You do understand that the fate of The Movement depends on our ability to get what we need at the expense of his life,” Patience said.
“A small price to pay.”
Patience casually twirled a lock of hair. “Where’s the nanny?”
“That’s been taken care of,” Virtue said.
“Oh, come now. The dear woman just arrived.”
Virtue looked amused and disgusted. “The nanny had no information. She was a liability. By tomorrow she will be a statistic across the border in Mexico: a victim of drug violence.”
“A pity. I had such grand plans.” Patience rolled her eyes playfully.
“I saw a stray dog wandering down Conception Street this morning,” Virtue said. “Perhaps you can still make a date.”
“Score one for the good child.” Patience cackled and spun the squeaking office chair one full revolution, then stopped abruptly with the stab of a four-inch heel. The salted ice of her eyes, rimmed in blue-black, glacial pools of impending transgression leered at her sister. Virtue should be more careful when testing her boldness, use that intelligence Father bragged about. “I don’t need to prove anything else with dogs; unlike you, my pathetic weak little sister.” With a wave of her carefully manicured hand, Patience pretended not to care, but she was livid. The memory of her first and only pet, and the test that followed still aroused confusing and noxious emotions. She alone passed the test. Virtue didn’t. At age eight, she learned an important lesson, one her weak-hearted sister would never master.
To attain greatness, you must be willing to kill what you love.
When she brought Father the dead pup, strangled by her own little hands, he hadn’t said a word. The old man grasped the limp puppy by the nape of its small neck, a little sack of garbage, and nodded with that all-knowing look she despised.
She knew then that her mother, who had been missing for a week, would never return. She crawled under the bed in her room on the third floor of their antebellum house on Conception Street and cried. She cried for the puppy her father gave her the day her mother left. She cried for her sister, Virtue. She cried for her mother. The tears poured from her like blood, pain stabbed her heart, and the angel of visceral anger comforted her.
Annoyed with her momentary lapse of weakness, Patience shook away the thoughts with a cruel smile. She passed the test; Virtue didn’t. She slowly turned and looked around the five-sided room. Down a short hallway to the left were three more cells without windows. The heavy doors of layered oak were held together with enormous bolts, all painted over countless times since the mid 1800’s when the labyrinth was built. On the formidable doors, layers of oily black paint, mingled with sweat and blood, covered truth and lie; just like the door to her black heart.
Two dank holding cells with windows of one-way glass clung like leeches to each side of the five-sided apex. The thick steel door to the underground tunnel that snaked to AEM headquarters on Conception Street was opened just enough for Virtue to have squeaked her petite body through. Virti, you are a sneaky little bitch. We will have so much fun after father is gone.
No one outside the Skeffington family knew about the tunnels. What lay beneath, not the historic structures above, had kept the full city block of old Mobile in the Skeffington family for more than a hundred years. The property bordered, by Conception Street and the three saints—St. Anthony, St. Joseph, and St. Louis streets, was an enigma suited to the righteous intent of the American Edification Movement. At least that was what the old man told them.
Love is fickle and fleeting but painful family secrets last forever.
Virtue leaned over the gray desk, considered the boy and the work ahead. “We’ll need him in one piece, dear Patience. I can only imagine what you had in mind coming down here but you need to get over it. The boy is the only leverage we have to get the mother to cooperate.”
“You misjudge me, dear Virti. I wouldn’t harm a silky hair on his pretty little head.” She closed her eyes and breathed in Virtue’s floral perfume, mixed with the mold and mildew of the tunnels. “I’m thinking of keeping him.”
“Are you mad?” Virtue shot a glance toward Patience, then regained her composure. “I believe Father will have something to say about that.” She leaned further toward the glass and resumed her gaze at the unsuspecting boy. “We need to weigh the options and the consequences carefully.”
“Yes, I’m sure Father will want input if I decide to keep the boy.” Patience stood, shoving the chair away with the back of her bare muscular legs. It rolled with a rattle of protest over the uneven floor. The boy did not respond. She leaned over the cold metal desk, rubbing against Virtue like a cat. “Think about it, dear Virti. What if young Samuel inherited the same gift as his mother? What a great addition to The Movement that would be. It’s not as if his mother will survive long enough to be of ongoing usefulness.”
Virtue’s face told Patience she was considering the possibilities. The logic was too plain to dismiss out of hand. “What about that fellow we paid to get information? Before we resorted to kidnapping.”
Patience traced the length of Virtue’s right arm, from wrist to shoulder, with a long black fingernail. “I spoke to the idiot just before you sneaked down here. Perhaps you overheard?”
Virtue shook her head.
“Really, little sister, do you think all this sneaking about is necessary? Regardless, I don’t think the idiot is as qualified as father was led to believe.” She paused to watch Samuel, now rearranging the books in some geometric pattern. “Personally, I think Mr. Glunt is a poor investment of time and money but as another example of how it’s better to be lucky than good, Mr. Glunt was reassigned to stay at the woman’s side until this is resolved.”
“I thought Mr. Glunt was supposed to be some technology whiz in his own right.” Virtue’s voice was tight and clipped. Anxious.
Patience leaned over and fingered a lock of Virtue’s wavy blonde hair, pulling it to her nose to sniff. Lilacs and the stench of the seeping tunnels, there is no aphrodisiac like power over the innocent. “More likely a genius only in his mind. Getting the information we require from Simone Dancing is only one part. Pulling the trigger on Mimosa requires other roles that Mr. Glunt is more qualified to fulfill.”
Virtue flinched slightly as Patience’s warm breast brushed her bare shoulder. “I thought we had all the technical expertise we needed within members of The Movement.”
“We do. However, one can never have enough scapegoats. Mimosa will become an immediate national security emergency. The Movement has to be seen by the masses as the solution, not the problem. People like our Mr. Glunt, Simone Dancing, and the government henchmen within the intelligence community will be exposed to the world as the slime mold they are.”
She glided with serpentine grace behind Virtue, one practiced hand under her own blue silk camisole, the other down the front of Virtue’s sleeveless floral dress. Her hot breath panted on Virtue’s lily-white neck, knowing her sister’s abhorrence never rose to resistance.
There’s no point of screaming when no one can hear you.
CHAPTER 17
SOUTH OF HOUSTON, TEXAS – 11:20 A.M. CDT
Logan was pleased with the new land speed record he set on the fifteen-mile drive down the Gulf Freeway to Ellington Field. Simone was oblivious to everything around her and now walked in circles in the General Aviation hanger. Her lips moved in silent conversation with unseen confidantes. Maybe she was crazy.
When he collected Simone off the pavement in front of the George R. Brown Convention Center, he assumed they’d be driving to a hospital. Simone surprised him, reviving quickly with irrepressible vigor. She knew exactly what they had to do, and they had to do it fast.
The guy faking phone calls ran over when she fainted and introduced himself as Jason Glunt. Once Simone was awake, she ordered them to follow her. She ordered Phone Boy to call Martin and arrange for a private plane as soon as possible, and without breaking stride, rushed to the hotel where she haphazardly slung clothes and women’s junk into a black canvas, Samsonite suitcase. She hesitated with the laptop, finally shoving it roughly into the backpack. A small pine box was handled with care and placed gently into the well-worn backpack.
Her certitude began to wane on the drive; her thoughts cloistered. In the blue metal hanger housing the twin engine Beech Baron chartered by VTI, Simone seemed lost, buried inside some sort of savant trance. Maybe it was all an act. Logan’s mind warred against his training. This was not a mission. He tried to talk to her again.
“Simone, it’s wonderful that Martin gave you a blank check for chartering planes,” Logan walked in circles beside her, “but we have to file a flight plan before they let us out of here. Where are we going?” Logan still struggled to decide if he was actually going anywhere. Given his line of work, he had the latitude of going off the radar for days at a time. That wasn’t the problem. It was Simone.
She kept walking. It wasn’t a circle after all. It was a spiral, and she was getting closer to the center, slowing down, brow creased in concentration. The kerosene incense of aircraft fuel hovered over the rite while cold fluorescence from the artificial sky bathed her skin, harsh and hard, unforgiving. A decade for this?
Logan stuck his face in front of hers. “Simone do you hear me? Simone!” It was time to deliver a double-barrel blast of reality. He jumped when a weak, clammy hand stuck to his forearm. As Logan drug him along, Jason’s shoes clopped like a little pony on the painted concrete floor.
“Maybe we should give her a minute,” Jason said. “She’s under a lot of stress.”
Logan snatched his arm free and resisted the intense urge to follow up with a crushing right cross to the bridge of Phone Guy’s pretty nose. “You’re going to be under six feet of fresh dirt if you don’t keep your slimy hands off of me.” It wasn’t reasonable to despise someone the first time you laid eyes on him, but something about Jason didn’t pass the smell test.
“Right. The tough guy,” Jason said with all the imitation courage he could muster, “the mighty man, superhero dude who’s going to save the day.” Jason flicked the cuffs of his expensive suit. “Martin said you were some kind of black ops hit man or something. I think you and your testosterone are going to get us all killed.” His voice carried the ignorant condescension of a man who’d never had his ass kicked.
Logan kept his eyes on Simone and leaned down to Jason’s ear. “I seriously doubt Martin said that. He knows better. I’m not a hit man, but I’ll be more than happy to hit you if you get in my way again. Do we understand one another?”
Simone was oblivious to their altercation. When she reached the center of the spiral and stopped, she looked to Logan, eyes pleading. “I have to go home.”
“To California?” Jason asked before Logan could respond.
“To DeFuniak Springs, Florida. My parents’ house. Where I grew up. I have to get something there. It’s the only way to end this.”
“I thought your parents were dead,” Logan said.
“That’s nothing,” Jason shrugged. “I thought you were dead. Lost in a tragic accident is the story at VTI.”
Logan frowned. “I suppose that’s true in a way.”
Simone moved with purpose, picking up her backpack and slinging it over one shoulder. “I never said my parents were dead. You told me your parents were dead. I told you I knew what that was like. You didn’t care to know anymore, and that was fine with me.” The rumbling storms spoke in thunderous agreement. Simone cringed as if she had been slapped.
She was right. Back then, he didn’t care about the fate of Simone’s parents. After the way he’d lost his own, he was secretly glad that she never talked about hers. Except, that one time. Simone always told the truth, but you had to listen very carefully. She told truth with such precision that you tended to fill in your own lies to round off the conversation.
An earsplitting clap of thunder rattled the metal hangar. The storm was almost upon them. Simone trembled visibly, shoulders hunched, hands over her ears. Her astraphobia looked worse than he remembered. He wanted to hold her, tell her everything was going to be all right, but he held back. Let Phone Guy do something for a change.
Simone frantically looked around the hangar. “I have got… to get somewhere….”
“There’s a restroom over there, in the corner.” Before Logan could ask if she wanted him to come with her, she dropped her backpack and sprinted to the white door.
Jason looked more confused than normal. “What just happened?”
“Astraphobia,” Logan said. “Fear of thunder and lightning. Simone’s had this condition since I’ve known her. Seems to be worse now.” He took a tentative step toward the white door.
Jason shook his head. “Everybody’s scared of lightning. It’s dangerous. I mean something would be wrong with you if you weren’t.”
“This is different. This is something you can’t control. It controls you. When we lived in Maryland, we didn’t go anywhere without checking the weather forecast first. A person with astraphobia often won’t leave the house for fear of getting caught in a storm with no place to hide.”
Jason nodded. “Or, you move to Southern California.”
Through the open hangar door, the smell of summer rain rode in on a surge of cool moist air. The first raindrops splattered on the hot concrete apron. The metal roof erupted with the crackle and roar of millions of fat raindrops intermingled with pea sized hail. Lightning flashed and thunder detonated simultaneously. God’s wrath come nigh.
Logan watched Jason fidget with his fancy watch, fuss with his cuff links, and smooth his eyebrows. He was a nervous runt, trying not to let Logan see him sweat. It wasn’t working. Jason’s smugness, his paper thin mask of confidence was laughable. Logan had seen it all before. Amateur hour at the Kasbah. A two-bit punk living large, dying small.
Logan leaned in close to be heard above the thunderous din of rain and hail. Close enough to smell Jason’s expensive cologne. It made him want to puke. “So tell me. Why are you really here?”
Jason’s eyes blinked rapidly. He tried to lean away from Logan. “I’m helping, which is more than I can say for you at the moment.”
“Helping? Just good ol’ Jason, trying to help?”
Jason took a step back and tried hard to swallow past the silk tie that suddenly looked too tight. Sweat glistened on his forehead, an eyelid twitched.
