Father of Fear (14 page)

A chunk of wood flew from the top of the fence where the bullet struck. Maggie screamed involuntarily and ran back for the cover of the ditch. She vaulted over the fence. This time her foot caught on the rail, and she stumbled forward. She let her momentum carry her onward and rolled back into the ditch.

She had come all this way for nothing. She was pinned down, just as she had been at the house. Only this time she was all alone.

Of course, the sniper couldn’t watch the house and her at the same time. Unless there were two of them, which seemed unlikely, but she supposed that it was still possible.

Pulling out her cell phone, she dialed Andrew. He answered on the second ring and said, “We heard another shot. Are you okay?”

“I’m pinned down in the mud. But maybe you can make it to the car while his attention is on me.”

“Unless there’s two of them,” Andrew replied.

“When did you think of that?”

“From the beginning.”

“When were you going to tell me?”

“I didn’t think it would help. Just freak you out more.”

“So what are we going to do?”

She heard something happening in the background, and Andrew said, “Hold on. Someone wants to speak with you.”

There was a pause and then another voice came on the line. “Hello, Maggie.”

“What do you want?” she said to Ackerman.

“I want you to trust me for a moment.”

“There’s a better chance of you getting hit by a meteor than there is of you gaining my trust.”

“He won’t shoot you.”

“What are you saying? He shot the Director.”

“Yes, but that was just to get our attention. He shot him in the shoulder on purpose. Every other shot he’s taken, he’s missed on purpose. Think about it. He hit your Director from probably a third of a mile, but then he starts taking potshots at the side of the house. And then he knows that you’re there, but he can’t even hit you coming at him from a few hundred feet. It doesn’t make any sense. Unless he’s following orders. He’s just supposed to keep us pinned down and occupied for as long as possible. If you stand up and rush him, you’ll be fine.”

Maggie was quiet for a moment. She hated to admit it, but Ackerman was making sense. Maybe that meant she was losing her mind? “That’s quite a risk to take on nothing but a guess. Why would someone be out here only to keep us pinned down and occupied?”

“They found Marcus’s gun on the back porch, and Claire’s missing along with one of the mercenary’s pistols.”

She thought about the new information and gritted her teeth. That was why Marcus’s father had led them to Claire. She was a Trojan horse. It was all part of his plan. And now, while everyone else was distracted, she had kidnapped Marcus right out from under their noses. The more she thought about it, the more sense it made. Marcus’s father had her son, and a mother would do anything for her child. Even if that involved betrayal and deception.

“You’re sure about this?” Maggie asked. “If you get me killed, Marcus will never forgive you.”

“Don’t worry, little sister. I just took a stroll out in the yard while you were running for the shed. He didn’t even come close. Whoever’s out there doesn’t want us dead, just distracted.”

“You better be right,” she said as she hung up. Then she stood and headed for the trees.

She vaulted back over the fence, pulled her gun, and traced the same path as before. And as before, she heard the explosion of another gunshot. It echoed across the surrounding fields and hills and sent shivers down her back. But no bullet hit her.

It embedded itself in the fence like its predecessor.

Maggie continued forward, moving faster than she should have, almost losing her footing.

Another blast. Another miss.

She twisted her foot in a hole, but it didn’t stop her forward progress.

Another shot. This one closer, but still a miss.

She had reached the halfway point. Her gun was up and aimed at the trees.

The boom of another shot startled her. At this distance, the blast from the high-powered rifle was deafening. A puff of dirt and a piece of a cornstalk exploded from the ground to her left.

Maggie centered herself and continued forward. “It’s over,” she yelled. “Come on out.”

She half-expected another shot, but only silence greeted her. She slowed her pace as she drew closer to the trees. “Come out with your hands where I can see them,” she said.

This time, the shooter listened. He stepped from the darkness of the clump of trees into the open expanse of the field. He held his rifle out at his side by its stock. His arms were spread wide in a gesture of surrender. He wore camouflage fatigues that blended perfectly with the foliage. If he hadn’t revealed himself, she probably would have walked right up to him without even knowing he was there.

The man’s face surprised her. He was old. In his sixties or seventies at least. His skin was deeply lined, and white hair poked out from beneath a military-style boonie hat.

Maggie kept her gun trained on his midsection and said, “Put down the rifle.” He laid it lovingly on the ground, like a father tucking in his child. “Who are you? Why are you doing this?” she asked.

The old man’s voice was gravelly and confident when he spoke. Maggie’s grandfather had been a sailor during World War II. This man’s demeanor reminded her of her grandfather’s take-crap-from-no-one attitude. “Son of a bitch took my wife. Left me a video with instructions on what to do. I’m sorry. How’s your friend? I was told specifically that my first shot shouldn’t miss, but I tried to do as little damage as I could.”

“We need to get him to the hospital, or he’s going to die. Are you alone?”

The old man nodded. Maggie moved forward, ordered him down to his knees, and placed a pair of flex-cuffs on his wrists. Then she called Andrew and told him that it was safe to go for the car.

“On your feet,” she said. He awkwardly complied, and she asked, “Do you know what happened to my other friend? The one in the Suburban.”

“No, I was just shown a picture of the blonde woman and was told to let her and another guy get to the SUV. Then keep the rest of you pinned down. I swear I don’t know anything more than that. I’m sorry. My wife’s all I have. I can’t lose her.”

Maggie glanced down the road in the direction that Marcus and his kidnapper had driven. She knew exactly how the old man felt.

And then she realized something. Ackerman had told her that they had found Marcus’s gun, but he hadn’t mentioned finding Marcus’s phone. Claire wasn’t a professional criminal. She was just a scared woman who had been tortured and sent on an insane mission by a madman. She might not have thought about the phone. Even if she had been told to leave it behind, she might have forgotten.

Maggie grabbed her cell phone and clicked one of the numbers on speed dial. A husky voice answered. “Stan, the great and powerful. You have been granted three wishes.”

“Good. My first wish is for you to track the GPS in Marcus’s phone.”

The sun was setting. Marcus watched the sky turn orange and red as the great star dropped below the horizon. Claire had given him an address for the meeting which he had plugged into the GPS unit mounted on the Suburban’s dashboard. Then she had used his phone to call a number and inform the person on the other end that they were on their way. Claire tried again to say that she was sorry, but Marcus just told her that he would probably have done the same thing in her position. There wasn’t anything else to say. In the end, this was his choice, no matter how she felt about it.

The GPS guided him up I-49, which merged into I-435. He kept his speed at seventy, not wanting to draw attention. He wove lazily in and out of traffic, just like any other commuter on their way home from a hard day’s work. Neither of them spoke. Claire sobbed from time to time, but he didn’t try to comfort her. The whole situation was like a dream. He felt numb.

Eventually, the electronic voice called for them to leave the major thoroughfares behind and guided them onto forgotten roads devoid of other motorists. Marcus steered the Suburban into an industrial park on the northeast side of Kansas City. Some of the buildings looked new and prosperous. Others were empty, with signs announcing foreclosure auctions.

Then their artificial navigator announced that they had arrived at their destination. The building looked new and unused. Marcus didn’t see any for-sale signs out front, as if it had been purchased but the new owners hadn’t moved in yet. Or maybe someone bought it because they needed to hide some money from the IRS. Either way, he hadn’t seen another soul for several minutes, and it seemed like the perfect place for his father to conduct some business undisturbed.

Claire got out first, and he followed her to a side door. The inside of the building was wide-open space. Just metal walls, concrete floors, and support beams. He could picture the place filled with rows of high industrial shelving units and forklifts. It would make someone a nice warehouse. But right now, it only contained an older man sitting on the hood of a black S-type Jaguar. He wore a pair of black slacks and a gray polo shirt, as though he had just left his friends at the golf course.

The older man smiled at the newcomers and said, “Please toss the gun over, Claire.”

Marcus had forgotten that she had the weapon. He hadn’t even considered a way to turn the tables on his father. He felt strangely peaceful, as if by being resigned to his fate he had found a measure of serenity. He realized that he didn’t care what happened to him. He just wanted Claire and Dylan to get out of this alive, and nothing else mattered.

Claire tossed the pistol onto the floor, and his father walked forward and retrieved it. “You look different,” Marcus said.

The older man smiled, “Plastic surgery, my boy. I apologize for that. Believe it or not, you and I had quite a family resemblance going before I went under the knife.”

“You seem pretty calm. You didn’t even check to make sure that we didn’t bring help. How do you know we don’t have an army of cops waiting out there?”

The older man smiled. His eyes were a piercing blue. “I’ve been five steps ahead of you this whole time, Marcus. You knew that I wouldn’t bring the boy here. If you were to try anything, the boy would die in a hole somewhere. You can’t risk that. You know it, and I know it.”

Claire stepped forward and yelled, “Where’s my son? We had a deal!”

His father’s piercing blue eyes, which had only a moment before seemed so calm and cordial, filled with a maniacal fury within the space of a blink. Marcus had once seen the same kind of change in the eyes of his brother.

“You will keep your mouth shut, whore! Say another word and I’ll send that boy back to you in tiny pieces. Don’t speak. Just nod if you understand.”

Claire shook with rage. Her pale skin had gone red. But she nodded slowly.

Then the older man’s gaze moved back to his son. He tossed over a pair of flex-cuffs and a strange collar. It was metal with a black box mounted on its side. It looked like a larger, more sophisticated version of a dog’s shock collar. “Take off your clothes. Down to the underwear. Then put on the cuffs and the collar, and we’ll talk.”

Marcus did as he was told. He kicked off his shoes and slid off his leather jacket, shirt, and jeans. He strapped the collar around his neck and placed his wrists inside the plastic cuffs.

“On your knees.”

Marcus complied, and his father walked over behind him. Claire stood facing away from him, shivering as if being in the older man’s presence made her physically ill.

“Why are you doing all this after so many years?” Marcus asked. “Why now?”

“There comes a point in every person’s life when they start to understand their own mortality and think of the legacy that they’ve left behind. When this is over, the world will remember.”

“If this is about legacy, then why are you targeting the KCPD? Something happened to make you want revenge. That’s all this is really about. Vengeance. Simple and petty.”

“There’s nothing simple about me, son. It’s true that the KCPD has a role to play, but so do you. And you have played it beautifully every step of the way. I’ve always been fascinated by human nature and how people react to certain stimuli. I pull the strings and make people dance. And I’ve been in the game long enough to know exactly which strings to pull. But you are smarter than I gave you credit for. Unfortunately, you weren’t smart enough to stop me.”

His father’s next movement was so fast and graceful that it took Marcus’s brain a second to process what had just happened. A small blade appeared in the old man’s hand. With two long strides, he was on top of Claire. Marcus screamed but could do nothing to help.

A flash of metal. A flick of the wrist. A twist of Claire’s head. And it was over.

Claire didn’t even seem to realize what had happened. Her face had just started to register something—shock or fear or both—when blood gushed forth, and she fell to the concrete floor, her throat slashed in a deep, precise cut from one ear to the other.

Maggie had commandeered the Director’s Buick Lacrosse from the barn while Andrew rushed the Director to the hospital in Fagan’s car. She left the old man in the care of Fagan and his mercenaries. She supposed they’d just let him go. Fagan wouldn’t allow him to be arrested. That would create a need for police reports and trials and depositions and all manner of entanglements that the bureaucrat wished to avoid.

Maggie didn’t really care what happened to the old man one way or another. She only cared about the fate of one person at that moment.

“It looks like they’ve stopped at an industrial park on the north side of KC. Merge onto I-435,” Stan said from the speakerphone.

She considered calling in backup from the local police. Fagan would order her not to and probably string her up later if she did, but she didn’t care what Fagan said or what he thought about her. She only cared about Marcus, and right now, she could be the only thing standing between him and death.

“Stan,” she said, “Contact the local police, give them the location, and have them meet me there. But tell them to stay quiet. No sirens, and no one goes in until I get there.”

Blood from Claire’s wound splattered over Marcus’s chest as she hit the concrete. He screamed and jumped to his feet to rush his father. His hands were bound, and he was going against a man with a deadly weapon and the know-how and will to use it, but Marcus didn’t care. Rage eclipsed any rational or tactical thinking.

The old man didn’t even flinch at the sight of his onrushing opponent. He simply pressed a button on a small device in his left hand. The device was oval-shaped with a couple of buttons and a red LED light. It looked homemade.

Marcus suddenly found himself on the ground writhing in agony. His body convulsed involuntarily as every muscle contracted and tensed. His eyes rolled to the back of his head, and he blacked out for a moment.

When he regained consciousness, the first things he saw were Claire’s lifeless eyes. They were still red from all the tears she had cried recently. He had fallen beside her. He felt her blood pooling beneath him. It was still warm. Tears and blood. Both shed simply because of her connection to him. He knew that feeling responsible was irrational, but that realization didn’t ease the weight of his guilt.

His thoughts were still scattered, but he surmised that the intense electric shock he had just experienced originated from the collar around his neck. It must have been some type of amped-up shock collar. The kind used to train a dog, but modified for his father’s sadistic needs.

“Are you back with me, Marcus?” his father said.

Marcus’s gaze didn’t leave Claire. “What do you want from me?” he asked.

“Have you ever heard the story of Pandora’s Box? The ‘box’ was actually a large jar which held all the scourges of the world. Pandora was told to never open the jar, but curiosity got the best of her, as it always does. So she released all the evils contained within it out into the world. The point I’m getting at is that once the evils were released, the only thing left in the jar was the spirit of hope. Pandora eventually released this into the world as well. Some would say that hope was in the jar because, without all the evils, the world didn’t need hope. But I feel that hope was at the bottom of the jar because it is the worst scourge of all.”

Marcus watched his father crouch down a few feet behind Claire’s lifeless form. The old man twisted the blade in his hand. It was still coated in Claire’s blood. “Some say that hell is all fire and torment for eternity,” his father continued, “but—while I don’t believe in such a place—if it did exist, there would have to be hope in hell. There would have to be some illusion of escape or freedom from the pain. Some glimmer of absolution that remains just out of reach. Because, you see, without hope, a person will start to accept their fate, even if that fate is a particularly terrible one. They will build up walls. They will achieve acceptance. They will transcend their circumstances. But if they cling to hope, their minds will forever be shackled to their circumstances. Hope is the bedfellow of torment.”

The old man rose to his full height and circled around behind his son. Marcus felt a stabbing pain in his kidneys as his father kicked him. “Are you listening, boy? I’m doing you a great service, out of my love for you. Abandon all hope. This will go much easier for you if you accept your fate and seek transcendence. I’m going to share with you what’s going to happen next because it is inevitable. You can hope that your friends will end your pain, but no one is coming. I’m going to start by breaking you physically. Then mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Not necessarily in that order. I’m going to show you how to live without fear. And when we’re done, I believe you’ll thank me.”

Marcus rolled over to face his father. “You have me now. You can let Dylan go. He’s just a boy.”

“Let him go? He’s going to be my greatest pupil. I’ve learned a lot since the time I spent with your brother. I’ve analyzed my mistakes and won’t make them again. We’re all going to be together. Three generations of the Ackerman family. My legacy.”

Marcus shot to his feet and charged again, and once more he felt the blinding white pain that blocked out the rest of the world. He convulsed for a moment, and then his mind shut down and the darkness took him.

Maggie met three squad cars a block from their target behind one of the neighboring warehouses. She informed them of the situation and told them that they didn’t have much time. They hit the building fast and hard, multiple units converging from multiple points of entry. They went on Maggie’s signal and performed their tasks with utter professionalism.

Inside, they found a pile of clothing which concealed Marcus’s cell phone. Claire’s body lay a few feet from the pile. Her blood had spread out across the concrete, filling every fissure, tracing every crack. Maggie checked for a pulse. Not that she expected to find any, but it was procedure.

All units reported back that they had found nothing else at the warehouse. An all-points bulletin and a state-wide be-on-the-lookout announcement went out over the police channels. They were given descriptions of Marcus, Ackerman Sr., and Dylan Cassidy. Tire tread found at the scene was identified as that of an S-type Jaguar. Security camera footage from one of the neighboring buildings confirmed it. But that trail went cold when a similar vehicle was reported stolen the next morning.

Maggie and Andrew worked with the locals. They exhausted every avenue of the investigation. They searched for the initiating event. They ran down every mask-maker in the country. They checked companies that made the tools and supplies necessary to make such masks. They questioned workers at every store within a hundred miles that sold the type of high-end camera equipment that the techs believed the Coercion Killer used. They checked Ackerman Sr.’s interests and hobbies. They tracked down and vetted everyone with one of the suspected aliases.

They found nothing.

Marcus, his deranged father, and his estranged son had all simply vanished.