Disclaimers: I don’t own them, I lease them month-to-month. The dialogue about Ebola in Rogue is incorrect, so I’ve tweaked the details to fit facts. This is a sequel to Raising Hopes. Much thanks to the betas, Sheila, Stacey Holbrook and Caro Dee.
Simon sighed heavily and gestured for Joel to sit down. The two captains both eyed the stack of newspapers on Simon’s desk with equal loathing: “Kindergarten Cop!” “Psychic Child Rescues Survivors, Heals Sick!” “And a Child Shall Lead Them!” “Archangel Michael Reveals Coming Apocalypse Through Jimmy Ellison!”
“I hate to say I told you so, Joel,” said Simon.
Joel searched his face. “What was I supposed to do, Simon, let those people die? The kid saved lives; we would never have found all the survivors of that explosion without him.”
“It was bad enough letting a ten-year-old tamper with evidence -- do you realize you nearly screwed up the DA’s case? -- but taking him to disaster sites? You probably traumatized him for life, and if anything had happened to him, stumbling around in that collapsing rubble--”
“I know that, Simon. But his guardian was there the whole time, and if Blair or I thought he couldn’t handle it, we would have pulled him out of there.”
Simon tossed one of the papers at Joel. “Yeah, you did a great job of protecting the kid. Now the media won’t leave him alone. How’s he supposed to go to school with this kind of harassment?”
“He’s home-schooled,” Joel corrected automatically, though he winced at the memory of the reporters who had besieged his house immediately after the rescue trying to get photos of Jimmy, the memory of Jimmy huddled in Blair’s arms, scarred by what he’d seen and heard and smelled at the disaster site. Simon was right, that was no way for a kid to grow up. But Jimmy had been furious a couple of days ago when he found out no one had told him that a building downtown had collapsed after a fire, sure that he could have prevented some of the deaths if Joel and Blair had let him help. He'd even threatened to use his hearing to listen for the radio in passing police cars and go save people on his own if Joel and Blair wouldn’t tell him what was going on. For better or worse, the kid had the bug now; the best Joel and Blair could do was try and focus the kid’s energy on less traumatic situations where his talents could make a difference, like forensics. “It’ll die down in a week,” he said, though he knew the story would only be round-filed, brought back every four months or so, whenever the human interest columns were having a slow day. “The Chief called me into his office yesterday, Simon.”
“He chew you a new one?”
“Yeah. And then he handed me a stack of waivers for Blair to sign and told me there was no use in shutting the barn door after the horses had bolted, so the PD might as well milk the good PR for all it’s worth.”
Simon slumped in his chair. “Joel, I don’t care what the Chief says. What if Jimmy gets injured or killed? What if he’s targeted? I’m a father and there’s no way I’m going to let a child younger than my own son anywhere near another crime scene.”
“And the next time civilians need to be rescued from a fire or explosion? Or a child is kidnapped and every second counts? Or a case dead ends because forensics needs a week to process test results, and by that time the killer has gone to ground?” Joel beseeched Simon. “I would never let anything happen to Jimmy. And Blair would die to protect that kid, I know it. So would half the men here. I wish to God the press hadn’t gotten a hold of this, but the damage is done. We can’t put the genie back in the bottle, but at least it can’t get any worse.”
Jimmy froze in worry as he and Blair turned the corner to Blair’s office. The door was open, and there was a faint, spicy scent in the air that hadn’t been there yesterday. He heard Blair’s heart speed up, but after gripping Jimmy’s shoulder to indicate he should stay put, his guardian pushed the door further open with his foot and peered inside.
The office had been completely trashed. Files were strewn all over, mingled with wide swaths of toilet paper, and artifacts had been knocked off the walls, which were now marred with graffiti. “Ohhhh man!” Blair wailed.
Professor Collins stuck his head out his door. “You too?” he asked sympathetically.
“What happened?” Blair asked. “God, look at this!”
“Security came by, they believe it was a tailgate party that got out of hand. Half the science offices have been trashed. Is anything missing?”
“Hard to say,” said Blair, toeing through the wreckage. “Most of the stuff they knocked over was wooden, a little beaten up, but not shattered. Nothing really valuable here, unless you count sentimental value. But the papers are going to be hell to sort through.”
“Look on the bright side,” said Collins, “It gives you a chance to reconsider old ideas in fresh configurations. A colleague of mine once recommended taking all one’s files every year and throwing them into the air before re-filing them, allowing new ideas to spark.” He stepped into the office and gave a low whistle. “This is worse than mine,” he said. “Once you get the files off the floor, you should talk to Maintenance about repainting before you bother with the artifacts. Get that awful scrawl off the walls.”
Blair pursed his lips speculatively, then broke into a grin. “I’ve got a better idea. Since the walls are already ruined, why not go all the way? I have a couple of students looking at the significance of street art as territory marking; I can ask them to bring in some talented street artists and turn the walls into displays of urban tribal art.”
Professor Collins laughed. “That’s a brilliant idea! But I’d get it done before Chancellor Edwards sees it, and then pass it off as the original damage, otherwise she’ll put you in stocks for defacing school property.”
Through all this, Jimmy stood and sniffed the air in silence. Tailgate party? Yes, Sunday was game night for Rainier’s football team, but the hallways and the office were completely clear of the sour tang of beer. Only that odd, faint spice, like chili peppers. Who cares? he scolded himself. It’s probably Blair’s. He hasn’t had spicy food since you moved in, cause he doesn’t want to spike your senses. If you tell him, he’ll think he can’t have one lousy burrito on the sly without you freaking out. He was still trying to get used to the concept of a foster father who actually liked him. Who rearranged his life to accommodate Jimmy’s crazy senses: buying mild foods and expensive soaps, even home-schooled him. Who taught three courses and acted as Professor Collins’ research assistant in order to afford the apartment Family Services required. Blair didn’t even bring girls home; he’d told Joel, when he thought Jimmy was listening to his walkman, that there was no way a Sentinel child could avoid hearing or smelling through closed doors, and Jimmy was too young to be exposed to such things. Jimmy was far too embarrassed to tell Blair that even the closed door would be a step up from some of the things he’d seen and heard in other homes.
Blair grumbled and cleared the mess off of Jimmy’s desk, a makeshift affair cut down from an old lectern. Then he fumbled through the mess for the cool shrunken head, which went back to its rightful place on Jimmy’s desk with a grin traded between Jimmy and Blair. “It could be worse,” Blair told Jimmy. “Last year, after a really bad tailgate party, someone set Ruth Singer’s car on fire.”
Jimmy blanched. “Holy crap! Was she in it?”
“No, but her dissertation notes were, along with two interlibrary loan books. The fines nearly wiped her out, and the car insurance didn’t cover vandalism.” Blair shook off the memory. “How about you get started on your long division while I wade through these papers?”
“I can help,” Jimmy offered. “I know you want to file stuff yourself, but I can get rid of the toilet paper and pile up the blue books by class.”
Blair’s smile widened in surprise. “Thanks, Jimmy, that would actually be a huge help.” The two of them worked in comfortable silence, punctuated by odd comments from Blair as the sight of long-forgotten papers sparked memories of adventures in Morocco and Ghana. Blair was so cool.
A pretty young woman came into Blair’s office, and Jimmy glanced at his guardian for a signal. If this was a student coming for office hours, Blair would need privacy. That was cool with Jimmy; he was about ready for a break.
But Blair just gave him a cheery, puzzled shrug when the girl grinned broadly and leaned over Blair’s desk. “You lucky rat bastard,” she said.
“Hey, leave my parentage out of this, Chloe,” said Blair. “What’s going on?”
“Bor-nee-oh,” she pronounced, her eyes sparkling.
Blair lit up like a hundred-watt bulb. “You got in?”
Chloe shook her head. “You got in.”
He jumped up from his desk. “I got in?”
“You got in!”
Blair threw his arms around her and they started jumping up and down. “I got in! Bwahahaha! I got in! Eli fucking Stoddard wants me on his team? Oh my god, what did he say?”
She grinned wider. “He said, and I quote, ‘Between the tribal leader’s concerns and the local militants, if we don’t have that silver-tongued bastard, we’re fucked’.”
Blair beamed. “Yup, that’s Stoddard, all right.”
“Where’s Borneo?” Jimmy asked. “When are we going?”
Blair grimaced. “Aw, sorry big guy, but not this time. Borneo’s a little too rough for a ten-year-old. But don’t worry; I’ll ask Joel to take care of you, and six months isn’t that long. It’ll fly by and I’ll be back before you know it. Okay, champ?”
Six months? Jimmy felt like he’d been kicked in the gut, but he forced a smile. “Sure, Blair. We’re okay.”
He kept his thoughts to himself as Blair chattered eagerly about immunizations and travel permits and a wild story he didn’t really follow involving Stoddard, an earthquake, a plate of cookies, and a potbellied pig. Mostly he just tried to ignore the sick feeling in his stomach.
The graffiti artists were more than happy to give Blair’s office a psychedelic makeover, and all the masks and icons were basically undamaged. Blair was shocked at the time when he finally looked up from the clean-up. “Time to go, big guy, or you’ll never get to the drama department in time.”
Jimmy hauled his backpack strap over his shoulder. “You’ll be here when I get back, right?” he asked.
“Huh? Yeah, of course,” said Blair, separating the last sheaf of papers into the stacks he’d laid out. All done.
With a happy sigh, he opened his email and started reading Eli’s preliminary study of the tribe they were going to be staying with. Eli Stoddard wanted him! He could still remember the thrill of getting all A’s in Stoddard’s Anth101 course when more than half the other students dropped out, the anguish of the C’s the following year in Stoddard’s Applied Anthro course when the professor had deemed Blair not worth his time, too personally involved in his assignments to make a decent anthropologist. He’d sweated for almost ten years to change Eli’s opinion of him, and now, finally, here was the proof he’d won the man’s respect.
It couldn’t have come at a better time, either. Being brought up by a single parent, Blair was well-versed in the concept of ‘alone time’, that of course he came first, but sometimes his mom needed a life of her own, so that she wouldn’t end up resenting Blair or trying to live vicariously through him. By the time he was five he knew that parents go away now and then, but they always come back, and he’d learned to relish the places he stayed and the people who took care of him, new customs, new foods, new adventures, and an ever-widening circle of ‘family’.
Jimmy would have a blast with Joel, no pun intended. They got along great, and Jimmy loved learning all the inner workings of the devices Joel defused. Brought a whole new meaning to applied science. And truth be told, Blair was a little intimidated by the massive responsibility he’d taken on. Jimmy would be in his care for the next eight years, give or take. The larger apartment and extra mouth to feed were making Blair money-frantic. He had to start teaching more courses if he wanted to stay afloat, but he had no time for that, not if he wanted to give Jimmy more than a scrap of his attention. He’d quietly started using fake IDs and a rotation cycle between different centers so he could sell blood every day, but wasn’t nearly enough. All he needed was six months to catch his breath, regroup, figure out what to do. Jimmy could stay with Joel, they’d rent out the apartment for six months, and Blair would come home rested and out of debt, ready to take on his responsibilities.
A few minutes later, Rafe and Brown showed up at the door, gawking at the walls. “Damn, Hairboy, decided to redecorate?”
Blair shook his head. “Tailgate meets science building. Not a pretty sight.”
The two detectives winced at that. “You have no idea, babe,” said Henri.
“Why, what?”
“Hargrove wasn’t the only break-in last night,” said Rafe. “The biomedical research building was tagged.”
Blair looked up at that. “Biomed? What did they take? Equipment?”
Brown shook his head. “Can you keep this quiet?” he asked. At Blair’s nod, he said, “What do you know about Ebola?”
Blair gulped. “Oh man. What strain?”
Rafe checked his notes. “Ebola Zaire.”
“Oh no. You mean someone’s actually walking around Cascade with that poison? Are you kidding me?”
“What’s the worst case scenario?” Rafe asked.
“I’ll give you the best case scenario: If the airports and highways shut down and no one gets in or out of Cascade, the death toll stops at the city limits two weeks from now with nine out of ten people in Cascade hemorrhaging blood until the meat falls off their bones like pot roast. Ebola Zaire has a 90% kill rate, and in the past 20 years, no one’s been able to find a cure or a vaccine. It makes the Black Plague look like a head cold. Whose genius idea was it to bring that stuff here, man?”
“Some scientists from the CDC were transferring it to Atlanta, it was being held here. And now someone’s got it.” Rafe met Blair’s eyes. “I was hoping we could use Jimmy to see if there were any clues at the crime scene--”
“Rafe, are you kidding me? I’m not going to let my kid anywhere near that mess.”
“Sandburg, everyone in Cascade could die from this thing, and that includes Jimmy. We need you two. You’re our best hope of catching this guy before he does anything or before there’s a panic. The docs are saying we have to seal off the city--”
“They’re right,” said Blair.
“No, whoever pulled this off was a real pro, Hairboy. They won’t be setting it off by accident. If we issue a quarantine, there’ll be mobs, traffic jams, robberies, a total mess. Our only chance is to keep this quiet so we can focus on this guy, catch him before he does whatever he’s planning. Now, Joel’s got some theories about the equipment used in the break-in; he says the explosives look like CIA work.”
“Why would the CIA need to steal from the Center for Disease Control?” asked Blair. “They could just commandeer the stuff, couldn’t they?”
Henri nodded. “We think we’re looking at a rogue agent.”
Blair thought for a minute. “I’ve got a friend who might be able to help.”
Henri’s cell phone rang, and he flipped it open. “Detective Brown. What? We’re coming.” He turned to the other two men. “Our boy’s made his move.”
Jimmy normally loved his apprenticeship in the drama department. Climbing the scaffolding and setting up lights was fun, and Bruce was teaching him all the technical words for stuff. But mostly he loved watching the actors. When they really got into it, his senses sometimes couldn’t tell that they were only acting. They really sounded and smelled scared, or angry, or in love. How did they do it? He kept trying to figure out if he could crack the code and tell an actor’s fake emotion from the real thing. But today he had trouble just wiring the lights, kept zoning on the view of his own fingernails, thinking about Eli Stoddard and an expedition that couldn’t go without Blair.
Six months was a really long time, longer than Jimmy had spent with any of his foster families in the last two years. He’d only been with Blair for a little while now, and he thought Blair liked him, but six months was more than enough time for Blair to move on from whatever crazy impulse made him adopt a kid as messed up as Jimmy. There were the senses, sure, but if Blair was so excited to leave, he must have most of the data he needed already. Jimmy fought down a sob. He’d really liked Blair. But he’d been stupid to think, this time, he could stay.
When he went back to Blair’s office, he found a stranger waiting. The guy smelled familiar, though Jimmy couldn’t quite place it, and he looked a little like Rafe, with straight dark hair and a wide, friendly mouth. “Um, are you looking for Blair Sandburg?” asked Jimmy.
The stranger shook his head. “Actually, I’m looking for you. You’re Jimmy, right? Blair’s told me all about you.”
Alarms went off in Jimmy’s head. Blair promised! He wasn’t even supposed to be leaving for months yet! Had he decided to just get it over with and kick Jimmy out while the going was good? “Who are you?”
The man leaned comfortably against Blair’s desk. “You know Blair has to find someone to look after you while he’s away, right? It’s harder than with a regular kid, because of your senses. Whoever takes care of you has to know how to handle them, and then there’s your work with the police. You’re doing a lot of important stuff, and it’s important that you use your talents the way they’re meant to be used.”
Jimmy nodded. He knew all this; he just hated the thought of Blair holding auditions for official freak-sitter. “So you’re what, a professor or something?”
“Not exactly,” said the man. “I’m with the CIA. My name is Lee Brackett.”
“Afternoon, Mayor,” said the man on the tape. “My name is Lee Brackett, and as I’m sure your advisors can confirm, this canister I’m holding contains a strain of the Ebola virus. By the time you get this tape, I’ll have wired this canister up to a timer and a bomb somewhere in your fair city. It wasn’t hard to get, and I’m not a greedy man -- I believe in a day’s pay for a day’s work -- so all you have to do is get me twenty million dollars in the next ten hours and I’ll tell you where the virus is. I’ll contact you with the rendezvous location closer to the deadline. The clock is ticking.”
“Run that tape down to the AV room,” said Simon, “See if they can pick up any background noises. Joel, is there any way to predict or detect where he’s put that bomb?”
“All he needs is a crowded area,” said Joel. “A school, a movie theater, a public pool. There’s no way to check them all.”
Blair tried to get anyone’s attention. “My friend might--”
“What’s he doing here?” Simon interrupted. “I don’t want you or that kid of yours anywhere near this station, do you understand me? You’re just going to get yourselves hurt.”
“Simon, it could speed up the investigation, give us an edge,” Joel protested.
“I said no, Taggart. I don’t want untrained civilians, especially kids, anywhere near ticking bombs or unholy plagues. It’s a disaster waiting to happen.”
“But--” Blair started.
“Out!”
Blair swore under his breath and ran out of the station. He had to find Jack Kelso. Rafe and Brown had mentioned the CIA. Even if these guys wouldn’t listen to a mere grad student, they had to listen to a former CIA operative.
Kelso was in the middle of a class, but Blair just kept tapping on the little window in the door and making a nuisance of himself until Kelso told one of his students to take over and went to see what the problem was. “Blair? What’s wrong?”
“I need to talk to you right now,” Blair whispered. “It’s an emergency. The whole city’s in danger.”
Kelso moved his wheelchair out into the hallway. “What’s happened?”
“Have you ever heard of someone named Lee Brackett?” Blair asked.
Kelso’s eyes hardened. “Oh yes. Come to my office; we can talk privately there.”
Jimmy frowned up at his new guardian as they walked across the campus green. There was something off about Brackett, and the man’s heart rate sped up for no reason as they got to the parking lot and got in an otherwise unremarkable car. Why did the car make him nervous? Or was it something else?
The familiar smell was stronger in the car, though, and Jimmy’s brain finally made the connection. “You’re the one who broke into Blair’s office,” he said. “You’re lying, Blair never told you to take care of me!”
Brackett chuckled as he drove, not even bothering to flick a glance in the boy’s direction. “How else was I supposed to get his notes, learn how best to use you?” he asked. “I’d already been alerted by an undergraduate paper Mr. Sandburg wrote on Sentinels; when I saw your name in the newspapers, I made the connection. You and I are going to make a great team, kid.”
“No way!” said Jimmy. “They won’t let you get away with this. They’ll find me.”
“Who will? Sandburg? He’s got his data, that’s all he needs. He never signed up for all that parenthood crap. Sandburg’s leaving the country; he doesn’t want you. No one wants you, Jimmy, you’re too much trouble. Except to me.” He turned to smile at Jimmy. “I can think of a hundred and one uses for my own baby Sentinel. So you’d better hope you stay of use to me, because I’m all you’ve got.”
Jimmy swallowed, backing up against the door of the car. There was nowhere to go.
“Now we’ve got a busy day ahead of us. Our first stop is a little public service, a visual aid if you will. See, as Eichmann once pointed out, death is shocking in small doses, but the human mind tends to trip over big numbers of corpses. They cease to be real. So you and I are going to give those bozo detectives a little dose of reality.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” said Kelso. “Brackett is a megalomaniac. He loves intricate, ornate plans that keep the enemy running in circles. ‘Your money or your life’ is just not his style.”
“So you think he’s just lying, and he plans to keep the virus and the money?” Blair asked.
Kelso shook his head. “He’s definitely leaving the virus in town. That’s not something you want to be selling on the open market; a virus gets out of hand too easily. That thing could wipe out the planet, and Brackett with it. But if the virus isn’t the goal, and the money is just a side bonus, what’s he really after?”
Blair thought it over. “The virus scare is a diversion, meant to keep all the cops on a wild goose chase while he does something else.”
“Exactly. Now all we have to do is try and find out what his real prize is. I still have a few contacts, I’ll start making calls. You tell your detective friends to conserve their energy.”
“Maybe you’d better talk to them. They’re not listening to me,” said Blair.
“Make them listen. I’ll have my hands full figuring out Brackett’s next move.”
There were holes in his hazmat suit. They’d patched them with duct tape, and all Brian Rafe could think as he walked into the music center full of dead people was that the only thing keeping him from becoming one of those corpses was a torn suit and a couple of strips of cheap tape. The pretty doctor was yelling at Henri that this was all their fault, they should have let her put up the quarantine, and Rafe turned away to avoid getting sick in the suit.
That was when he saw the flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye. Heart pounding, he followed it around a corner, up the stairs. He clenched his fists, wishing he could handle a gun with these freaking unwieldy gloves. Then he caught a better glimpse and realized who it was. “Jimmy?” he called. “What the hell are you doing here? Where’s Blair?” God, the kid was going to die and Rafe was going to have to watch…
Brackett stepped out of the shadows, a gun in his uncovered hands, not even wearing a breath mask. “Dammit, Jimmy, I told you to stay put. Hello, Detective. You look very silly in that getup. Relax, it was only sleeping gas this time, just a little demonstration of what’s in store if I don’t get my money.” He made a motion with the gun. “Let’s go, Jimmy.”
“You let him go,” said Rafe, trying to sound as menacing as he could without a weapon to back him up.
Amazingly, Jimmy backed away, put Brackett between himself and Rafe. “Blair doesn’t want me anymore. He told me himself. Just go away, Rafe. I’m sick of people making like they actually care what happens to me.”
“Jimmy, what? Wait!” Rafe demanded, but the two of them ducked out of there faster than Rafe could follow in his moon boots. “Jimmy!”
Blair skidded to a halt at the top of the stairs of the police station, scanning the room for Joel, who was nowhere to be found. Couldn’t reason with Simon -- “Rafe! Rafe! You have to listen to me!”
Rafe marched over and shoved Blair up against the wall. “What did you tell him, Sandburg?”
“What did I tell who?”
“Jimmy! You told him you don’t want him anymore?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” said Blair. Then the other shoe dropped. “No, I never said I didn’t want him. I thought he understood that. I’m just going away for a little bit on an expedition, six months tops. I’d never just leave him, he knows that. Parents go away now and then, but they always come back. Everyone knows that.”
Rafe looked disgusted. “Sandburg, what adult in Jimmy’s life has ever come back?”
Blair felt like smacking himself. He’d thought if Jimmy had a problem, he’d say so. He should have known by now how well the kid kept things inside when he was hurting. “Oh man. I’ll talk to him as soon as this mess is over.”
“You’re not going to have the chance,” said Rafe. “Brackett’s got him.”
Blair paled. “Oh no. Oh man.” Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw their shouting match had attracted the attention of Simon Banks, who was bearing down on them. No time, no chance of convincing the captain. Blair turned and ran.
There was a payphone on the corner, and Blair scrounged change out of his pockets with shaking hands. “Come on, come on,” he chanted as Jack’s phone rang.
“Kelso. Go.”
“Jack, it’s me,” said Blair. “Oh man, please tell me you have something on Brackett.”
“It’s gotten worse?” Jack guessed.
“He’s got Jimmy,” said Blair. “He’s got my son. Jack, Jack, we have to stop him! I mean--”
“I talked to my contacts,” said Jack. “It wasn’t easy, but once I convinced them of the gravity of the situation, they told me a prototype stealth plane, worth a hefty sum on the black market, is waiting in a hanger for the brass to get here for a demonstration flight. But it’s in a secured facility; even someone like Brackett couldn’t break in without alerting the base guards.”
“And once he gets it, it makes a neat getaway car, too.” Blair felt a chill. Jimmy was alone with that psycho. “What’s he going to do to Jimmy once he has what he wants?”
“We need to get the police over there now,” said Jack.
Blair shook his head. “They won’t listen to me. Jack, you need to be the one to call them. I’ve got to go.”
“Blair, wait! Brackett’s a trained assassin, he’s--”
Blair broke land speed records driving to the base, and screeched to a halt a little ways down the road. As he crept up to the base’s entrance, he heard a loud crack. Please don’t let him hurt Jimmy, please, just let him be okay. He froze as he saw Jimmy stumble away from the gate entrance and sink down by a car, hugging his belly. He’s been shot! Keeping as quiet as he could, Blair ran to his son, checking him over for damage. Jimmy jerked away from his touch, staring at him like he was a ghost. “Blair? What are you doing here?” he asked.
“Are you okay, Jimmy? Are you hurt?”
Jimmy pulled away from him. “What do you care?” he asked, his voice thick with pain and anger. “You don’t need me anymore, you ran your tests. I’m just a pain to take care of, I know that, okay? So just go away and leave me alone.”
A shadow fell over them, and Blair looked up to find Brackett pointing a gun to Blair’s head. Behind the rogue agent, a guard slumped dead over the desk at the sentry post. The gun looked huge, and Blair found it was hard to stare Brackett down when his gaze kept drifting to the business end of the gun in Brackett’s hand, but Blair did his best. “Let go of him, Brackett. I’m only going to tell you once.”
Brackett laughed. “And how are you going to make me, Mr. Sandburg? Alone and unarmed?”
“The cops will be here any second,” said Blair, “I told them to follow me.”
“You expect me to believe the police let an unarmed civilian take point? You’re very funny, Sandburg, but I don’t have time to sit and chat.”
It felt like someone yanked his shirt backwards, and then he couldn’t hear Jimmy yelling over the thick buzzing in his ears. Wow, he thought, I’ve been shot. Holy crap, I’ve been shot!
Jimmy was crying and grabbing at his shirt, which made it even harder to breathe, but Blair managed to wheeze out, “run… run to joel…”
Brackett was talking now, and Blair tried to focus on the words. “Would that be Joel Taggart?” he asked. “Jimmy, I really wouldn’t suggest that. You don’t want to be responsible for getting that lardball shot too, do you? I’d say you’ve done enough for one day.” He looked Blair over. “That’s a sucking chest wound. Nasty way to die; it can take more than an hour as you slowly drown in your own fluids.” Jimmy was crying, snot running down his face. “Now, we can’t call an ambulance until the job is done and we’re away, so if you don’t want his death on your hands, Jimmy, I’d suggest you focus on the job. Of course, if you do want him dead, it’s all the same to me.”
Jimmy looked up at Brackett, hatred drying the tears on his face. Brackett lied to him, and now Blair was going to die because of the ungrateful kid he’d saved in a parking lot one night with no hope of reward.
Let it go, he remembered Blair telling him in a hundred meditation sessions. Let go of the distraction and focus. The job. He had to do the job if he wanted to save Blair, not just cry here like a little baby.
Brackett smiled his approval as Jimmy stood up and looked to him. “Very good. Come here.” He pointed to a bridge with an odd checkerboard floor. “Underneath every square is a pressure-sensitive mine. Some are turned on and some are turned off randomly every day, to keep out intruders, but I’m betting your super senses can tell the difference between active and dormant mines, am I right?”
Jimmy thought back to everything he knew from tinkering with Joel. A setup like this had to be electronically or radio-controlled, for the activation signal. He could hear the active mines, if he concentrated on the higher frequencies. He closed his eyes to shut out distractions and dialed up his hearing until he heard the whole array whining softly like a choir of mosquitoes in summer. Clenching his fists and eyes firmly shut, he took the first step, half-expecting to be blown to pieces, but no, he’d figured it out, he took one step and then another, unharmed as he navigated the choir’s ranks.
But towards the middle the shrill, unending hums enclosed him, made him dial up higher and higher, until all he could focus on was the sound. He was vaguely aware that he wasn’t moving anymore, but who could move, entrapped in those thick, unyielding walls of sound?
Then a quick, truncated song played counterpoint, cutting through the walls. Blair’s gasps for air. Jimmy shook off the zone, opened his eyes to help divide his focus and kept going, Brackett close on his heels.
“What the hell were you doing, freezing up like that in the middle of the bridge?” Brackett yelled.
“I was zoning,” Jimmy said defensively, “I thought you read my freaking file!”
Brackett laughed. “I’ve had a busy day. Only had time to skim it so far. We’ve got plenty of time for me to do an in-depth reading later.” He hit a button and the mosquitoes instantly grew louder. “I just turned all the mines to active. Now no one can follow us.” He turned to the building in front of them. “This lock has a motion sensor on it. Any jiggling will set off the alarms and lock down the complex. Think you can crack it?”
Jimmy looked at the lock. Looked at it close, close enough to see the faint, narrow streaks at the base where fingers had smudged the door’s finish and had been almost perfectly wiped clean. Almost. But he could still see a thin, imperfect band where the fingers had paused and turned back. “I’m going to need you to turn it; my hand’s too small,” he said. “Go slow and I’ll tell you when to stop.”
Brackett obeyed, and Jimmy watched until the fingers perfectly overlapped the break in the streak where previous fingers had changed direction. “Now left,” he said. “Right … stop! Left again. Right. Keep going. Stop!”
And the door opened to reveal a sleek military jet.
Jimmy looked at the plane in despair. They were cut off from any help, and Brackett was just going to fly them out of here and disappear. Brackett started forward, eyes gleaming as he took in the view of his prize. “All aboard, Jimmy, the skies await.”
“FREEZE!”
Jimmy turned, hands in the air, to find a whole squadron of army-type guys standing between them and the bridge, weapons trained on Brackett. “Lee Brackett, you are under arrest. Lay down arms or we will shoot.”
Jimmy looked back across the bridge, where an ambulance was taking on a passenger. Blair had reprogrammed the array. He thought he was going to die, but he spent the last of his energy trying to rescue Jimmy.
Brackett set down his gun, his face growing pale. “Then you have to get me back across the bridge now, or we’re all dead,” he said, “I left the virus in my car.”
Joel knelt beside the crying child huddled on the hospital corridor couch. “Is he going to die?” Jimmy asked.
“No, kid, he’s not going to die. They reinflated his lung, and he’s going to be just fine.” He reached out to hug the kid, but Jimmy pulled away, balling himself up even tighter.
“My fault. It’s all my fault.”
“Look at me, Jimmy,” said Joel gently. “This was not your fault. Brackett had this whole thing planned out, every move, and he was going to kill anyone who got in his way. There’s nothing you could have done to change that.”
Jimmy shook his head, silently disagreeing. “Where am I going to stay?” he whispered.
“I’m going to take care of you until Blair gets out of the hospital, and then you’ll be back with him,” said Joel, but to his surprise, this didn’t comfort Jimmy.
“No I won’t. He didn’t want me before, and he’s never going to want me after this.”
Joel shook his head. Where did the kid get an idea like that? “Come on, come with me.” He urged the unwilling kid into the room where Simon Banks was tearing the wounded man a new one.
“What did I tell you, Sandburg? You should have left this to the real cops. If you had, you never would have gotten shot.”
“No, Simon,” said Joel quietly but firmly, “If he’d sat back and kept quiet, Brackett would have gotten away. But if you’d listened to him, Blair wouldn’t have been out there alone.” He pushed Jimmy forward. “Someone to see you, Blair.”
Blair looked at Jimmy and his face lit up with relief, slightly dulled by morphine. “You’re okay,” he said. “Had to find you. Had to tell you, not going anywhere, okay? Not if you need me.”
Jimmy looked like he badly needed a hug, but the tubes and wires coming out of Blair’s body looked scary and intimidating even to Joel. He reached out and put Jimmy’s hand in Blair’s, showing the kid how to stroke Blair’s fingers, and the kid held tight to his father’s hand.
“Not going anywhere,” Blair promised over and over. “Not going anywhere.”
End.