Distressed: Enemy Of The State- Book 1 (8 page)

The tunnels finally opened up to where Dylan pushed himself to his feet and stumbled through the light stream of water running along the tunnel’s floor. A small circle of light was ahead, and Dylan felt a burst of energy surge through him at the sight. He broke out into a jog, his head ducked and back hunched from the small tunnel.

Dylan squinted his eyes against the sunlight and continued his stumbled walk through the forest once he was free of the tunnel. It wouldn’t take long for Cooper and the rest of them to realize what had happened. He had to keep moving. The thick trees overhead blocked the sight of the chopper humming through the air, but Dylan still heard the rotating blades wane above.

The trucks they’d arrived in were still nestled under the cover of the large tree where they’d left them, and Dylan ripped the tarp off and climbed into the driver’s seat. His body started to feel cold, and he looked to see that the bloodstain had grown from his trapezius to cover half his chest. He managed to stretch his fingers, curling them in limited mobility, but the rest of the arm was useless. Using his good arm, Dylan pried open the dash underneath the truck and yanked the wires down. He cut the ends off two wires and peeled back the wax. He twisted the pieces of copper together then jammed his knife into the ignition and turned the engine over.

The V8 roared to life, and Dylan engaged the four-wheel drive and tore off through the woods, careening around trees and boulders, doing his best to remember the way out. Each bounce of the truck sent a jolt of pain into Dylan’s shoulder, but he didn’t dare slow his pace.

The blacktop of the road came into view, and Dylan jammed the accelerator down, peeling out on the pavement. The speedometer tipped sixty then seventy once he was on the smooth pavement. Keeping the dangerous speeds and balancing the wheel with his knees, he reached for the phone that was buzzing in his pocket. He knew who it was before he even looked at the screen.

“Here’s the deal,” Dylan said, sandwiching the phone between his cheek and neck while driving. “You get your computer chips when I get my son, and if he’s in any worse shape than the last time I saw him, then the deal is off. There is no other alternative, there is no other deal, this is it. Take it or leave it.”

The only response was the rumble of the truck’s engine as Dylan drove. The silence that filled his ear lingered longer than he would have liked. He knew Perry would play on his relationship with his son. It was what he’d been doing since the very beginning. The only difference now was Dylan had something that Perry wanted equally badly.

“A bold move, Dylan,” Perry replied. “You do understand that I still have control over Homeland operations, and my people will be able to track you down. Not to mention my Egyptian friends. You really think you can hide? Did you think this would work?”

“I’ll call you with the details of the exchange. Until then, not a hair on my son’s head is harmed, understand? And you better keep this number. I’ll be calling you from a different phone next time you hear from me.” Dylan chucked the phone out the window, and it crashed to the road, breaking and snapping in half.

There wasn’t any turning back now. Dylan had set the wheels into motion. He was on his own. No Cooper. No Perry. Just him and Mark and the computer chips for nuclear missiles in the bag sitting on the passenger seat.

Cooper received the call from Moringer while she sat with the strike team on the mountain road where Dylan was meant to lead Perry and his men after they had the computer chips. For a moment, she thought she misheard him when he spoke, but once the words sank in, she kicked the dirt and cursed a violent storm under her breath.

They tried catching up to Dylan and tracked the phone that Perry had given him, but all it did was lead them to the smashed remnants of the mobile. There was no doubt that Homeland, the CIA, and the FBI now had his picture up on any and all major news networks, citing Dylan as an accomplice in the attacks that had happened around the country. And with that, Moringer couldn’t risk Cooper coming in until they had some sort of resolution. Moringer told her to stay low, off grid, and he'd contact her when it was safe. She had to go dark.

Why? Why would he risk all that? Does he think he can blackmail Perry by himself? Does he think we wouldn’t have made good on his deal?
Whatever the reasoning, there was no way that Moringer would be able to go to Homeland now. The moment Moringer revealed any knowledge about the operation, he’d be thrown out of the agency and tried for treason, along with Cooper and Diaz. The only hope that Cooper had now was to get to Dylan first to try and convince him that there was another way.

The house where Dylan was staying with his first mate was empty, with the exception of the old furniture inside. Cooper knew the place was probably being watched by Perry, but she didn’t have time to be coy. Each second that passed was one less in which Homeland, or Perry, could find him.

Cooper checked the marina and security footage in the area but found nothing. The only other option left to her was looking up the ex-wife, although she doubted that Dylan would get her involved. Still, it couldn’t hurt her chances to check.

The neighborhood had changed slightly since the last time Cooper visited. The well-kept streets and yards had been replaced and covered with trash, the houses etched in graffiti, windows boarded up, and not a single light on that she could see. Apparently the wealthy were not immune to the power outages that plagued the rest of the city.

Cooper pulled into the driveway and saw that the ex-Mrs. Turk’s home was in the same condition as the others. Trash, boards, and no sign that anyone was even home. She kept one hand on the pistol at her side as she walked to the front door. She gave a few knocks then tried peeking between the cracks of the boards over the windows to see inside. With no answer, she knocked harder. “Mrs. Harth? Are you home?”

The turn of the lock on the front door clicked open, then the door opened just a sliver. “What?”

Cooper could only see a fraction of Mrs. Harth’s face, but what she did see looked in bad shape. “Mrs. Harth, I don’t know if you remember me or not, but—”

“I remember who you are, Agent Cooper. What do you want?” Her words shot out the door like blasts of ice in a snowstorm, and despite the still blazing-hot temperatures, Cooper felt a chill run up her spine.

“I need to talk to you about your ex-husband and your son. Can I come in?”

The sliver in the door remained open for half a second then abruptly closed. After standing there for more than a minute, Cooper thought Evelyn had left, but then the door jerked open and there she was, wrapped in a robe, her hair frizzled and unwashed, dark circles under her eyes and red blotches on her cheeks and neck. Whatever she’d been getting into didn’t seem to be healthy. “You heard what he did? It’s all over the news on the radio. They’re saying Dylan was a part of all this. The attacks.”

Cooper stepped inside. The house was even more humid and stuffy than the air outside. “Mrs. Harth, I can’t get into the specifics of what Dylan did or did not do at this time, but I was wondering if you’ve spoken to him lately? Or maybe even seen him?”

Evelyn turned and marched away without a word. Cooper followed, although not knowing if her leaving was an invitation or not.

The kitchen was dirtied with opened cans of food, liquor bottles, and beer cans. Evelyn reached for one of the half-empty vodka bottles and a cup then filled it. “I spoke to him a few days ago.” She took a sip, winced, then made her way to the couch.

Cooper took a minute to stop and listen, but she heard no other voices inside the house. “Mrs. Harth, where are your husband and daughter?”

“Peter took Mary to the second home in upstate New York. He figured it would be safer up there.” She curled herself onto the couch and sipped the vodka that seemed to soak through both her and the house. The stale stench of old liquor and beer left a nasty sting in Cooper’s nostrils.

“Why didn’t you go with them?” Cooper asked.

“My son’s still here.” Evelyn turned her head sharply, and her face twisted as if the words had caused her pain. “And he’s still alive, and when he comes back, I’ll be here waiting for him.”

Cooper joined Evelyn on the couch. “Evelyn, Dylan is in trouble. Did something happen after the two of you spoke a few days ago? Was there anything said that may have put him on edge, or did he seem out of character?”

Evelyn swirled the vodka in her cup, watching the liquid splash around. “He’s used to being out of character. He was for a long time.” She took another sip then set the cup down in her lap. “You read his file, right?”

Cooper nodded.

“Hmph, of course you did. I don’t know how he managed to live with that for as long as he has. But you know what isn’t in that police report that you read? That it was my idea that Zack go out with him that day.” Evelyn’s eyes started to wet and redden. “Sean was two, and Mary was just a baby then, and I was just so tired and overwhelmed. I thought that just having to watch the two of them would make it easier, so Zack went with his father.”

“The death of your son, that’s what started the drinking?” Cooper asked.

Evelyn nodded. “I tried talking to Dylan about it, tried telling him that it wasn’t his fault, but it was like trying to teach a fish to breathe on land. It just didn’t make any sense. He was a good man. I held on for as long as I could, but he was just spinning out of control. And when… when…” She broke down, burying her face in her hands, the booze and memories overpowering whatever self-control she had left.

Cooper rested her hand on Evelyn’s shoulder, giving it a light squeeze. “Losing a child is something that is unfathomable to those who haven’t experienced it. The grief, the loss, the sadness, nothing else comes close to that type of pain.”

Evelyn wiped her nose and eyes, the cup of vodka shaking slightly in her hand. “That night, on the police report, the one where my father was there.” She sniffled, clearing her nose, her hand steadying. “Dylan was just so angry, so drunk, he didn’t realize what he was doing. My father, he… said things that no one should have uttered out loud. He blamed Dylan, said that no father would let his son die like that, no father would give up.” Regaining some of her nerve, Evelyn sipped the drink again. “I tried getting Dylan off of him, but he just knocked me down and kept hitting my dad. Blood stained the tile, both of their clothes... By the time the police came, Dylan was blacked out, and my dad was barely breathing. He spent six days in the hospital, and his face was beaten to a pulp.”

Cooper had seen domestic cases before, but whenever she read the file, she always reminded herself that she would never truly understand the situation, what happened in that moment. All she was reading were recorded facts on a page, told with no emotion or favor. It was rare she actually saw the aftereffects, those moments of pain and anger.

“My father made a deal with me when he woke up in the hospital bed,” Evelyn said. “He told me that if I divorced Dylan and filed for sole custody of the kids, he wouldn’t press charges. So I did. For a long time, I told myself that was the reason I divorced him, because of my father, but the truth was that was just an excuse. I’d wanted to end it for a while but didn’t have it in me to lay the axe down myself.” She finally turned to look at Cooper, her eyes dry but still red. “He’s been alone for a long time, Agent Cooper. Whatever the radio says he’s done I know is to help Sean. So if you’re here to try and get me to tell you something to help you stop him”—she wiped her nose again—“you can go fuck yourself.”

A loud crack sounded at the front door, and Evelyn flinched. Cooper drew her pistol and jumped from the couch. Evelyn followed but was two steps slow. The cracks crew louder and were soon followed by the crash of glass. Cooper grabbed Evelyn by the arm and pulled her to the back of the house, the drink spilling from her hand and onto the floor.

Cooper hid them in a back room and shut the door. What few windows it had were boarded up. Cooper had to pull Evelyn from standing at the door and ducked her behind the desk. “Stay down, and stay quiet.”

Evelyn nodded, and Cooper kept her footsteps light. The voices on the other side of the door were muffled, but she could hear the hurried tone and the shuffle of boots running through the house.

Cooper cracked the door open, keeping low. The voices were louder now, clearer. She crouched and waded into the living room, gun aimed for any oncoming perps. She crept around the kitchen behind the marbled island, being mindful of the broken glass of beer bottles around her. The toe of her boot accidently crunched one of the pieces, and she froze, cursing herself silently as she prayed that no one heard it.

The rest of the house went silent, and Cooper heard the goons whispering back and forth in another language. It sounded like Perry had sent in his own unit to collect another body to trade with Dylan. Cooper poked her head around the kitchen’s island and saw a cluster of legs. She quickly darted back behind the counter and gripped the pistol with both hands, slowly backtracking toward the door.
Too many.
She couldn’t take them all by herself.

The back of Cooper’s right heel hit one of the side tables in the living room, and the lamp on top of it wavered back and forth then crashed to the floor. The moment the lamp shattered into pieces, Cooper sprinted toward the office with a trail of bullets hot on her tail. She slammed the door shut behind her and pulled the couch on the adjacent wall over to barricade the entrance.

Evelyn was still behind the desk, covering her head as bullets thudded against the hardwood paneling of the barricaded office door. Cooper immediately went to the boarded windows, gripping her hands over the angled edges, and pulled down with every ounce of strength she had. The nails in the wall slowly started to retract and finally gave way.

Cooper flung the board to the floor then reached for the second one. She looked to Evelyn. “Help me!” Evelyn, still staying in a crouched position, rushed over to Cooper and helped yank down the rest of the boards. Cooper opened the window, and the first crack in the door splintered open. “Go!” Cooper pushed Evelyn through the window and quickly followed. She half pulled, half dragged Evelyn through the backyard as some of the terrorists spotted them and gave chase.

Cooper had her hand on Evelyn’s wrist when she felt nails dig into her flesh. “AH!”

Evelyn ripped her hand free and pushed Cooper away. “Go! Help Dylan!” Evelyn turned around as the first terrorist opened the back door.

Cooper aimed the pistol and fired three bullets that hit the doorframe and sent the terrorist back inside for cover. She went to reach for Evelyn one more time and again received the same push back. “They’ll kill you!”

“No, they need me, but they’ll kill you. Now, go!” Evelyn didn’t give Cooper a choice as she stumbled forward, picking up speed and almost sprinting to the terrorists.

Cooper watched Evelyn be pulled back into the house, and once she was inside, the terrorists volleyed a barrage of gunfire toward her, and Cooper leapt over the fence. She sprinted to the front of the neighborhood then dashed across the road into the surrounding woods. She ran until her legs gave out and fire filled her lungs. She bent over, resting her hands on her knees, to catch her breath.

Cooper didn’t know what Evelyn was thinking, but the fact of the matter was she no longer had any leverage with Perry or with Dylan. She could try getting in contact with Diaz or Moringer, but she knew reaching out to them now would just put them in more danger. Any way she sliced it, she was screwed.