Chasing Ghosts (30 page)

“
You and the boys have been
busy.”

Sara smiled as she shook out a pain pill. “It
was a long ride back from Nebraska so we spent the time bouncing
ideas off of each other.”

“
But what about Demko Number Two?
Wouldn’t he be expected to return the flash drive?”

She gave a shrug of indifference. “Don’t you
think BettaTec would have given instructions that Demko destroy it
even if it means destroying himself? As far as they know, he
accomplished what he set out to do.”

Dagger sank back against the pyramid of
pillows. Worry still left tracks across his forehead. “Provided
BettaTec doesn’t send someone to retrace Demko’s steps before he
flew to Vancouver.”

“
Such a worry wort. Now take your
pill.” She handed him the pain pill.

He dropped the pill on the nightstand. “Is
Padre sniffing around for answers?”

“
Padre’s been busy. He discovered that
Father Thomas isn’t a priest much less Donald Thomas. Cardinal
Esrey had met some people several weeks ago who had gone to the
seminary with Father Thomas. Only problem is the real Father Thomas
died in a car accident right after graduating from the seminary.
What better way for a BettaTec assassin to get close to the Pope.
What they have against the Pope one can only guess. Skizzy thinks
it might not even be the current Pope they are after. Could be the
next one, that it’s all a move in BettaTec’s giant chess game of
manipulation. Either way, Father Thomas wasn’t going with the
program. Skizzy figures there was a break in the ranks and the
leaders have chosen up sides. Unfortunately, Father Thomas was on
the wrong side.”

Sara walked over to the jalousie windows and
cranked them open, bringing a waft of floral odors from the garden.
She kept the blinds closed but slices of sunlight managed to seep
through.

“
Remind me to ground you for coming
after me.”

“
Right,” Sara grumbled. “After I remind
you to thank me for again saving your life. You might still be at
the bottom of that sink hole if I hadn’t dragged your bleeding body
out of there.”

No argument there. She was right but then the
memories of bleeding out on the floor came back to him. “Why is it
I remember bleeding all over the car and a doctor stitching me up
but I don’t have any scars? Did I dream it?” Dagger asked.

“
I was wondering when you were going to
get to that.” She pulled the sheet up to Dagger’s waist. Her
fingers grazed the area where he had been injured. Skin as smooth
as a baby’s had replaced the damaged skin. “You were pretty badly
injured. That futuristic weapon sliced into you pretty good. You
lost a lot of blood so I gave you four pints of mine.”

Dagger blinked several times as though trying
to remember details. “I can heal my wounds as though nothing
happened?”

“
If anyone needs that ability, it’s
certainly you.” Sara rummaged through the bathroom cabinet and
returned with a roll of tape.

“
But why aren’t my ribs
healing?”

“
You only have four pints of my blood.
Not all of it so don’t expect miracles.” She motioned for him to
sit up as she re-taped his ribs. “The doctor said NOT to remove the
tape. Got it?”

“
Can I…?”

Sara knew what he was thinking. “No, I’m
pretty sure you won’t have any shifting abilities. That isn’t
something you can get from my blood.” She returned the tape to the
bathroom. Once she was sure he was comfortable, she made her way to
the door.

As her hand reached for the doorknob Dagger
said, “Stay.”

Sara’s breath caught in her throat and she
heard her pulse pounding in her ears. She looked over at Dagger to
make sure she had heard right. In the past she had thought nothing
of waking him by walking into his bedroom with a cup of coffee and
sitting on his bed. Why does it feel different now?

“
I don’t know what’s real and what
isn’t anymore,” Dagger said.

Sara released her hold on the doorknob
saying, “And lying next to a shapeshifter will give you a grasp of
reality…how?”

Dagger gave a weak laugh to the irony of his
statement. Then his face turned serious and he stared at her with
an intensity that frightened and thrilled her. “You’re one of the
few real things in my life.”

“
On one condition,” she replied. “You
take your pain pill.”

“
You know I don’t like those. It makes
me sleep too soundly. Then I can’t wake myself from dreams of being
stuck one mile below the surface or stuck in the Doomsday
Vault.”

“
I’ll wake you out of the nightmare, if
that happens. You need as much sleep as possible in order to get
your strength back.”

Dagger relented and took the pain pill,
washing it down with half a glass of water. Sara kicked her sandals
off and carefully climbed in next to him, fearful of moving the bed
too much. His major injury might be healed but his body still
showed bruises and his ribs were still tender.

She stretched out next to him and propped
herself up on one elbow. “Is there any part of you that doesn’t
hurt?” she asked.

A slight smile tipped the corner of his mouth
as he lifted the baby finger on his left hand. Sara slipped her
hand into his and squeezed. If she was fearful of anything, it was
what the visit to the city might have done to him.

“
What did Connie show you?” Sara
asked.

“
Connie?”

“
The computer, when it was repeating
the phrase, I was lonely, it was like you were hypnotized. You just
stared as guards tramped down the metal stairs and the minutes
ticked off until total destruction. You just stood frozen in place.
Afterwards, when Simon got you settled for the ride home from the
vet’s, your eyes were shifting left to right as if you were reading
instructions.”

“
I did?” Dagger’s puzzlement swiftly
changed to relief. “My memory. Connie was starting to give me back
my memory.”

“
Your memory?” Sara slowly sat up. “And
I cut the power to the computer before it finished? I can’t believe
I ruined your only chance...”

“
Don’t blame yourself. With the guards
and the bomb, we didn’t have much time to hang around.” Dagger
thought of the few snippets he had been able to grasp. The memories
hadn’t been in chronological order. He remembered some of the
training; he remembered his mother telling him not to reveal that
he wasn’t like the others. And he remembered his father finding out
that his mother had tampered with the program. Exactly what was his
father’s role? Did his father have something to do with his
mother’s death? Was that why Dagger had a memory of pressing a gun
to his father’s head? So many questions and so few
answers.

“
What if she also planned to give you
the identities of the players? It was your one chance to expose all
of them and I screwed it up.” One lone tear made a lazy trail down
her cheek.

He reached up and wiped the tear away with a
finger. “Don’t worry about it, Sara. What’s done is done. Maybe a
face in the crowd or a name in the paper might trigger something
someday. Maybe I know more than I can grasp at the moment.”

“
What about your real name? Did the
computer reveal that?”

He tugged at her arm and she reluctantly lay
back down. “I kind of like Chase Dagger.” He blinked slowly, either
the fatigue or pain pill taking its toll. “Has a nice ring to it.”
Then again, all he would ever be was a number...617. That’s all
anyone had been. His words were slow and labored. “How do you know
the vet won’t say anything?”

“
Because we paid her off.”

Dagger swung his head toward her. Obviously
the pill hadn’t taken that much effect yet since the mention of
money always got his attention. “You what?”

“
I gave her the satchel of money for
all of her help. She’s in Montana by now scoping out a new animal
sanctuary, thanks to you.”

Dagger gave a weak laugh. “Easy come, easy
go.” Blinking started to become an effort. Memories of Connie and
the security guards flooded back, the wound he suffered, and his
last thoughts as he felt his life drain away. “How old was the
vet?”

“
I don’t know, maybe late fifties,
early sixties. Why?”

Dagger took a deep breath and winced as his
ribs protested. “I had the strangest dream that I kissed a
beautiful angel. She didn’t have gray hair, though.” He closed his
eyes, giving up on the effort to keep them open. “I knew when I
died I definitely wasn’t going to Heaven so I thought, ‘if this is
Hell then I’m definitely staying.’”

Sara smiled secretly. “They say when you are
close to death you are prone to hallucinations.”

A figure made his way slowly across a dark
London street. The rain was a light mist which played havoc on his
body. His slight limp was more pronounced than usual. Later the
police would blame it on poor visibility that the man didn’t see
the vehicle barreling down on him at sixty miles an hour. It hadn’t
left skid marks and it was only because of the distance the body
had been thrown that authorities could gauge how fast the vehicle
was going. The man had died instantly. As yet the victim had not
been identified.

The Cedar Point Police Department was at a
loss to explain how a prisoner being transported to the county jail
at the crack of dawn had been abducted by three men in a black SUV.
The police van had been run off the road by the SUV and tipped over
on its side. Witnesses say Donald Thomas, who was due to be
arraigned in court at nine o’clock, was reluctant to leave with his
rescuers and had screamed for assistance from the police officers
who lay unconscious from the accident. Witnesses were unclear as to
which direction the SUV had driven. Authorities had yet to locate
the vehicle.

Skizzy stayed up all night searching the
Internet for photos from a list he had made of certain names that
had popped into his head. Given enough time, he could probably make
a lengthy list. At seven o’clock he sat staring at two computer
monitors struggling whether to believe he was a genius or totally
off the deep end. If anyone would believe him it would be
Dagger.

John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan
Sirhan, and Khalid Islambouli who had assassinated Anwar Sadat,
were just a few photos he had examined closely, assassinations that
affected the course of history. He even found photos of Charles J.
Guiteau who assassinated James Garfield in 1841. When it was
difficult to find photos from all angles, he was successful in
finding autopsy reports.

Where to go from here, though. Newspapers?
They probably control them. Politicians? Some of them are probably
members. You Tube? The Internet? Would only force them underground.
No, he and Dagger needed to outmaneuver them, to be patient and
unpredictable.

Skizzy returned his attention to the photos
on the monitor. What did the future hold for mankind if their lives
were in the hands of a select few? Although he wanted to
congratulate himself on his brilliance, there was a chill that tamp
down any attempt to be too smug. He was still having a hard time
believing what he could see right before his eyes.

Skizzy discovered the one thing these
assassins had in common: They each had a scar on the back of his
neck.