Sleeper Cell Super Boxset, page 9
Dylan gave his head a light shake. Sweat rolled down his temple and neck. The inside of the vehicle suddenly felt cramped, and the seatbelt across his chest felt like it was choking him. All that matters is getting my family to safety. Focus on that. Dylan’s heart rate lowered, and his muscles loosened their vice-like hold.
Once out of the city and into the suburbs, the chaos and violence was less prevalent. Screaming and looting was replaced with neighbors on their front lawns, talking to one another, no doubt trying to figure out what was going on now that most of the cell towers and communication channels were lost.
The security guard at the front gate of his ex-wife’s community was nowhere to be seen, so Cooper and her agents let themselves in. This neighborhood was more or less the same as the others they passed. A few families were packing up their belongings and anything they could fit in their car. Most of these people probably had second homes somewhere, and that’s where they would wait it out until whatever was happening ended.
No doubt that Peter would be in that same category. The man had money to burn. No matter how many times he tried to rationalize it, Dylan couldn’t rid himself of the gnawing perception that the only reason Evelyn had married that man was because of the money. Not that he blamed her. With everything that Dylan had put her through, she deserved some comfort. Dylan wasn’t a poor man, but the size of his operation never made him rich either.
“What now?” Cooper asked.
The caravan came to a stop on the side of the street right next to Evelyn’s house. She was outside, screaming at her neighbors, screaming at Peter. Her face was a bright red and her eyes and cheeks puffed from crying.
Dylan ripped his seatbelt off and rushed past the rest of the agents and toward Evelyn. She gripped him by the shoulders, hysterical, her nails digging through the fabric of his shirt. “He’s gone!”
“What? Who’s gone, Evelyn? What happened?”
Her voice quivered, and her hands trembled. “Sean. He was here, and then after we heard those explosions, we stepped outside, and when I tried to find him he was gone. I don’t know where he is or if he’s okay, or… or…” Evelyn’s face scrunched up, and she let go of Dylan and used both hands to cover her mouth, muffling moans creeping through the spaces of her fingers.
“Mrs. Harth, when was the last time you saw your son?” Agent Cooper asked. She held a notepad, and some of her men were already out, scanning the house’s perimeter.
“Um, an-an hour ago?” Evelyn shrugged, her lips still quivering. She wrapped herself with her own arms, and Peter walked up behind her and kissed her cheek.
“What about you, Mr. Harth?” Cooper asked. “When did you last see your son?”
“Stepson,” Dylan interjected. He didn’t care how good of a man Evelyn made Peter out to be. Those were his children. This was his son that had gone missing. And it would be Dylan who found him, not that man. That was his blood out there, not Peter’s.
“It was just before we heard the blasts in the city,” Peter answered, giving Dylan a side-eye. “Which was about an hour ago, like my wife said.”
“Anything go missing? Clothes, toys, food, his bike?”
“His room’s a mess.” Evelyn breathed big gulps between words, almost to the point of hyperventilating, but she held it together despite the random shakes from her body. “But I didn’t see anything.”
“I can check the garage for the bike,” Peter replied.
Cooper put a hand on Evelyn’s shoulder, giving it a light squeeze. “I’m sure he just went for a ride around the block, probably hanging out with some friends, trying to explore and figure out what happened. He’ll come back when he’s hungry. They always do.”
Evelyn gave a ghostly nod. Peter jogged back over and shook his head. “His bike’s gone.” The words set off another shriek from Evelyn.
“Does he have any friends nearby?” Cooper asked. “Someplace he likes to go when he feels scared or he’s in trouble?”
“No. He doesn’t have any friends close by,” Evelyn answered.
“He keeps to himself most of the time,” Peter said. “He doesn’t have a lot of friends.”
Dylan noticed the flicker of Peter’s eyes toward him when he said the words. It was true that Sean didn’t like crowds, and it wasn’t a secret that his father wasn’t a fan either. Some genetics stick more than others. “Where’s Mary?”
“She’s inside,” Evelyn answered, wiping her nose on Peter’s sleeve.
Dylan found his daughter upstairs in her room, coloring on the floor, circled by her stuffed animals. She didn’t look up when he entered, a habit she formed when her brother convinced her to keep a secret from her parents. “Hey, honey, what are you doing?”
“Drawing.” Mary switched out one of her crayons and continued the picture.
Dylan placed his hand on the top of Mary’s head, stroking her hair. “Mary, I need you to tell me where your brother went.”
“Sean said I wasn’t supposed to tell Mom or Peter.” Mary looked up at him, batting her eyes, her small cheeks round and puffy. “He made me promise.”
“But you can tell me, right?” Dylan asked, giving a smile.
Mary let out a sigh. “He said he was going to find you.” She returned to her coloring, and Dylan kissed her on the top of her head then flew back down the stairs.
Dylan barely slowed to a stop as Evelyn and Cooper grabbed hold of him on his way to the car. “We have to go back into the city.”
“Captain, I don’t know if that’s the best idea right now,” Cooper said. “We want to get you and your family to a safe place, and we don’t know when all of this is going to end.”
“And what is happening out there?” Peter asked, interjecting between the two of them. “We’ve been hearing all kinds of things. Mostly speculation, but it would be nice to have some facts.”
“The facts are still developing.” Cooper gave a smile that Dylan noticed had a hint of “fuck you.”
“Sean went to my place,” Dylan said.
“He’s out there?” Evelyn pointed toward the pluming smoke and chaos that had consumed Boston. The plumes had multiplied, and another explosion rumbled in the distance. It was light, like a thunderstorm growing on the horizon. Evelyn broke down and buried her face into Peter’s shoulder at the sound and sight of the city. “My baby.”
“I’ll get him back,” Dylan said, but before he could head to the car, Cooper pulled his shoulder back and spun him around. The other agents with her cut off any other path, forcing him to stay put.
“Dylan, think about this. And we don’t know what else these people are planning.” Cooper kept her voice low as the circle around Dylan thickened, causing Peter and Evelyn to move closer to hear what they were saying.
“You can either help me get back to my place, or I can go alone, but either way, you’re not stopping me.” Dylan felt his face redden. Each of the DEA squad members gripped their weapons tightly and took one step closer to Dylan in the center.
“All right, Captain,” Cooper replied, letting out a sigh. She thrust her hand into the air and circled it around. “Let’s move out.”
While the rest of the agents piled back into their cars, Dylan walked over to Evelyn, still buried in Peter’s arms. “Evelyn, I will bring our boy home. I promise you.” She moved her head out from Peter’s shirt, her face red and wet. She walked over to him and used both of her hands to hold one of his. “I know you will.”
Dylan gave her hands a light squeeze, and then he rushed back to the SUV where Cooper and her agents were already waiting. The crowds had thickened on the streets and lawns of the neighborhood at the sight of any authority that could tell them anything about what was happening. But those people were the farthest thing from Dylan’s mind. If he couldn’t bring his boy back, he wasn’t sure if he could hold back that anger he’d kept at bay for so long. He wasn’t going to lose another son.
***
Dylan’s heart dropped when he saw his son’s bike propped up against the staircase of the duplex he rented. He glanced up to the front door, which was open, and Dylan was out of the car before it came to a complete stop in the driveway. He sprinted toward the stairs, screaming his son’s name, before Cooper had a chance to stop him.
“Dylan, wait! We don’t know wha—”
Gunfire from automatic rifles shattered the windows that faced the driveway where the DEA caravan of vehicles was parked. Bullets peppered the hoods and windshields, turning the SUVs into Swiss cheese. Cooper tackled Dylan to the ground as the bullets continued then dragged him back behind the cover of the trucks while her men returned fire.
Dylan tripped over some of the shell casings rolling down the driveway and waved his arms for Cooper’s men to cease fire. Cooper stopped the gunfire, but wouldn’t relinquish her grip as Dylan tried to push her off of him but kept pulling him back behind the car door. “Let go, Cooper.”
“Dylan Turk!” The shout caused both Dylan and Cooper to quit their squabble, and Dylan jumped up from behind the car, exposing himself and refusing to let Cooper drag him back down. “We have your son! If you want him to stay alive, you will come up here, alone!”
Dylan took a step forward, and Cooper twisted his wrist and yanked him back down behind the door. “You can’t do this,” Cooper said. “It’s a trap. They want something from you, and they think they can use your son as leverage.”
“I’m going to do whatever needs to be done to get my son back. There isn’t any other option for me.” Dylan noticed the panic to his voice, and from the look on Cooper’s face, she did as well.
Cooper shook her head. “It’s the wrong move, Captain.” But her words had the defeated tone of knowing that he was going to go in no matter what. “I’m calling for backup, and when they get here, I won’t be the one in command, and the person that will be won’t care about you, or your son. They’ll want to nail those bastards at any cost. You won’t have much time.”
“I understand.” Dylan kept his hands in the air when he rose from behind the car. The DEA agents kept their rifles aimed on the house, looking for any signs of movement. Dylan walked briskly yet carefully as he ascended the staircase. The wood creaked with each step, and when he made it to the front door, the front living room was cast in darkness, as the blinds had been drawn throughout the rest of the house.
The moment he stepped inside and blinked his eyes to adjust to the light, he counted six men, all wearing masks, all armed, and in the middle of them, with his sandy-blond hair and watery eyes, was his son. “Sean.” Dylan made a move toward him, but the butt of a rifle smacked into his head, knocking him to the carpet before he even got close.
A sharp ringing pierced his ears, and the back of Dylan’s head felt like it had been cracked open, but when his fingers touched the side of his head at the point of contact, they didn’t even draw blood. For a moment he saw two of his son, and both were crying. “It’s okay, Sean. It’s okay.”
One of the pirates yanked Dylan up by his collar and forced him to stand on his wobbling legs. The pirate next to Sean had his hand over his son’s shoulder. “You let my son go.”
“You would be wise to speak with respect, Captain.” Kasaika pulled off his mask while the others kept theirs on. “You’ve been foolish enough with us already.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone that had a piece of paper folded on it then tossed it on the carpet by Dylan’s feet. “You will take that phone and keep it private. Show it to no one. When you leave here and go back to your DEA agents, you will tell them the following: We want five hundred million dollars delivered to that account on the paper. In addition to that, we demand that any and all American military presence in and around the country of Egypt will be sent home, and our regime will be placed into power and backed by the US government and the United Nations.”
Dylan kicked the phone, and it skidded back to Kasaika’s feet. “Give me my boy. Now.” But Kasaika simply nodded to two of his men, who restrained Dylan’s hands behind his back and kicked the back of his legs, sending him to his knees.
Kasaika stepped forward once Dylan had been subdued, and crouched down to meet him at eye-level. “You will do these things, and when we contact you and give you instructions of what else we need, you will do those as well. If you choose not to do these things, or tell the authorities about the phone or any other orders we give you, I will kill your son in front of you.”
Dylan spasmed against the two men, every fiber in his being enraged, struggling to be set free. All he could envision was wrapping his hands around the pirate’s neck and choking the life out of him one breath at a time.
“And then after I’ve killed your son, I will kill your daughter, Mary. And then your ex-wife, Evelyn. And I will work my way down the list of every person you care about, and when I am done, I will tear you apart piece by piece, keeping you alive long enough for you to feel every ounce of pain I inflict on you.”
Kasaika glanced back at Sean, and Dylan saw his son’s eyes. It was that that broke him. His son’s life was above anything else in the world. All that rage, all those feelings of pain and vengeance melted away. Dylan reached for the phone he’d kicked and slid it into his pocket. He clutched the paper in his hands and then looked Kasaika dead in the eye. “I will get my son back.”
“Only if you do as you’re told,” Kasaika answered. “I will keep him with me until we are done with you. As long as you do as we say, no harm will befall your son.”
“You’ll never get out of here,” Dylan said. “There are twenty men downstairs, and they will kill all of you, me included, just to make sure my boy is safe.”
“Captain,” Kasaika said, shaking his head, “you and I both know that it’s me they want. It’s you and your son who are dispensable.” Kasaika stood straight and pointed to the door. “Go. Tell your agents what we want, and if they try and chase us, we will kill the boy.”
The two men holding Dylan down released their grip, and Dylan pushed himself off the carpet. Sean had stemmed back the tears from earlier, but the boy’s mouth was twisted in a downturn of a smile. He was afraid and not understanding why his father couldn’t help him. “I’ll be back soon, Sean.”
“Dad, no!” Sean tried running to him, but Kasaika caught him before the two could touch. “Dad! Dad!” Sean kept his arms outstretched as Dylan slowly backed toward the door. Each piercing scream from his son wrenched his heart.
“I will come back. I promise.”
“Remember your words, Captain. Or I will slit your son’s throat,” Kasaika said, holding Sean still.
One of the terrorists gave a forceful shove to Dylan’s chest and pushed him out the door and then slammed it in his face. Dylan crumpled the piece of paper with their list of demands in his fist, and when he turned around, the DEA agents still had their guns aimed up at the second story, and Dylan made his way back down the stairs. A cold emptiness engulfed him.
Cooper grabbed him by the arm and yanked him back behind the cover of the trucks. “What the hell happened? Are you hurt?”
Dylan shook his head then handed her the crumpled paper in his hands. He listened to the sound of her voice, reading the demands as he looked back up at his apartment. He couldn’t imagine what was running through his son’s mind at that moment. He wasn’t sure if Sean would ever forgive him, but if Dylan could keep him alive, that was all that mattered.
“This is ludicrous,” Cooper replied, tossing the paper to her comrades. “There isn’t anything in here that the government would agree to, even if they hadn’t tried to blow up half of Boston.”
“They said they’d only let my son go if you did those things,” Dylan replied, turning back to Cooper. “If your men try and go in, they’ll kill him.”
Before Cooper answered, her voice was cut short by the wailing sirens and the flashing lights of police vehicles arriving on scene. Two men, dressed in suits and ties, exited of the front vehicle while SWAT poured out of vans, fully dressed in Kevlar and loaded down with rifles and ammo.
The closer the two men moved, Dylan recognized the agent who’d let him go at the hospital. “Agent Cooper, I’m taking command of this operation.” It was Perry.
“Well, that just makes me feel real good inside,” Cooper replied.
Perry had helped him before, and Dylan believed he could do it again. Dylan rushed over to Perry, gripping him by the collar. “They have my son. They’re armed. You need to tell your men to let them go.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Mr. Turk.” Perry turned to the men behind him. “Set up a perimeter. We don’t want them trying to sneak around the back.”
Dylan grabbed Perry by the shoulders. He watched the man wince from the pressure of his fingers digging into the suit, squeezing hard enough to feel the bone underneath. “Call them off!” Perry tried to wiggle free, but Dylan had too good of a hold on him, and for a moment Dylan thought he saw a smile creep up Perry’s face. Cooper and one of her men had to peel Dylan off of him, and even then Dylan took the jacket Perry was wearing with him.
“Get him out of here!” Perry said, his face flushed red. He pulled the radio off his side and put it to his mouth. “We are a go. I want those bastards dead.”
“No!” But Dylan’s screams fell on deaf ears. The SWAT team raided the building, marching up the staircase, and even stormed the first floor. Dylan waited for the gunshots, his eyes glued to his apartment, Cooper and her man still holding him back. But as the seconds ticked by, all Dylan heard were the shouts from the SWAT members instead of bullets.
“House is clear, sir.”
Perry kicked the dirt and cursed. Cooper let Dylan go, and he collapsed to his knees. Mixed emotions of relief and fear gripped him. His hand found the outline of the phone Kasaika had given him in his pocket. As long as he did what they told him to, Sean would live.
“Dylan.” Cooper’s voice startled him, and he spun around quickly. “We’ll help get him back. I promise.” She offered a smile, which did nothing to calm him.
“No, you won’t.” Perry marched over like a bulldozer, jamming his bony finger into Cooper’s shoulder. “You’re the reason those bastards got away in the first place. And you let a civilian go up there to speak with those animals?”
