The Devil's Dream: A Nightmare (5 page)

How long had he been complaining about his current boss to his father? A year? His newest promotion had put him under the prick—Bradley Vestor, and while he wouldn’t have turned down the promotion if he knew what it meant, he still didn’t like the person he worked under. In fact, he might venture far enough to say that he hated the man, Vestor.
Brad
. Even now, packing to head to Washington D.C. with Art Brayden, Jake couldn’t stop thinking about how bad he wanted to get away from the Vestor. So whether or not he knew exactly what his position was going to be when he got to DC, at least he wouldn’t be listening to the incompetence of Vestor on a weekly basis. Even this case, up until the call from Brand, Vestor said that it wasn’t him. That it couldn’t be him. That it was a copycat, and the leads Jake followed were dead-ends and he should stop them immediately. Jake didn’t listen because Vestor was a coward more than anything. He’d bitch and complain, but he wouldn’t do anything to stop Jake from following the case as he saw fit. The truth was, Vestor didn’t
want
it to be Brand. He didn’t even want to consider the possibility that such a responsibility might be thrown on him. Vestor coasted and that was something else Jake hated. Jake hadn’t coasted to this high of a position in six years on the police force, he’d busted ass, but now he was under a man who thought the road to heaven was probably still being paved because working slow was almost akin to righteousness.

So there was that; he’d be able to call and tell his father that he wasn’t working for Vestor anymore. He thought Brayden was sharp too; he’d watched him over the past few days, watched how he worked, what he did, what he said. He saw the man slip briefly when Brand first called, but would Jake have behaved any differently? Would anyone, if someone claiming to be Matthew Brand called their phone without any notice? He didn’t think so, and even if Brayden slipped there for a second, the man hadn’t slipped anywhere else. So yeah, Jake didn’t know exactly what was going to happen when he got out to DC, but it had to be better than sitting here under Vestor and working on the next 7-11 robbery. Which was coming. You could bet on that in Katy.

Jake tossed a pair of khakis into the suitcase and walked to his closet to grab his suits. Did they wear suits in the FBI? He had to imagine they weren’t walking around in khaki pants all day. Either way, it didn’t matter—they had a Brooks Brothers in DC if his suits weren’t up to snuff.

Matthew Brand. That’s who they were going after. That’s who
he
was going after. What had his plans been before this? To continue working his way up and maybe, if he had a lot of luck, reach Chief one day? Maybe to apply for the FBI down the road and see where that took him? In a single week he’d been recruited by a man who was two steps away from the President though. What had Moore thought when she got the first call about Brand? When she was told to suit up because she was about to chase the smartest man in the world? Jake was sitting here happy, mainly to be getting away from Vestor, but there were some nerves coming into play too. He wasn’t being recruited because he had a great jawline; they wanted him to produce. Maybe not to the level Moore had been at, but still, Brayden must have thought Jake would be able to bring something that others couldn’t. So that’s what he needed to do, to produce value. He’d done it before, not on this scale obviously, but he had put sixteen cases in the black over the past three years and that wasn’t anything to shy away from. Sixteen cases in three years tied for the county’s best, and he did it at twenty-eight years old. The other detective was forty-five.

“Produce, produce, produce,” Jake said absently, picking up his shoes.

This was, without a doubt, a great opportunity.

“
T
hat’s all you saw
, Father?”

“Son, I’ve told the police everything. I do not understand why you feel the need to question me again. Let the police do their job and you and I will do ours.”

Joe looked at the old Mexican and said nothing for a few seconds. He knew he was lucky the priest hadn’t asked him to leave as soon as he started asking questions; he also knew that the priest could just as easily let the cops know a civilian was snooping around. Wondering things he had no business wondering.

“Do you know who I am, Father?”

“No.”

“My name is Joseph Welch. Have you ever heard of me?”

The priest looked down at his lap. Both men sat next to each other on benches in front of the stone engraved sculpture of Jesus hanging from the cross. Joe kept his eyes on the priest, not caring about any of the surroundings, not caring about the fact that he was in God’s house. He had come here because the priest had seen the crucifix. He would next go to the person who actually called and reported it to the police. Joe knew everything The Boston Herald had said about the dead woman, and now he wanted to know if the priest knew anything the paper didn’t.

“I remember your name. I prayed for you years ago when you were in the newspaper. I prayed that you might find peace. Have you found it?”

“No. There’s no peace left for me here.”

“Have you searched for it?” The priest asked.

“What do you think I’m doing now, Father?”

“Whatever you’re doing, there is no peace at the end of it.” The priest looked back to his lap. “I saw nothing else but what the paper told you. I saw the woman hanging in mockery of our Lord, and then I collapsed. There was nothing else to see. There was nothing else I wanted to see.”

Joe stood from the pew. “Thank you.”

He left the priest sitting by himself as he walked from the cathedral.

* * *

J
oe had known
it would start again. He knew it the moment the world said Brand escaped a second time. He knew it when Dillan disappeared and he knew it these past two years when no one else even thought about Matthew Brand. Joe knew Brand wasn’t done. Knew that he couldn’t be done and that he would return bringing all his havoc and hellfire with him. Joe kept tabs on everyone. Art Brayden. Allison Moore. The judge from Brand’s trial. He kept up to date with anyone that might be a target, because when Matthew Brand decided to come back, Joe Welch was determined to be ready.

Matthew Brand had finally returned, although only a few people knew it. When Allison Moore disappeared a few days ago, an alert came through on Joe’s email because a few local news stories were printed in a small Texas town. Joe left his house that morning, caught a flight with only one bag packed, and went to Texas. He didn’t need to be there long. He used a rental car to drive by Moore’s house, or former house, and when he saw Art Brayden standing out on the driveway, Joe knew all he needed. Art Brayden wasn’t showing up to any missing person’s house unless something big was happening. That something had to be Matthew Brand. There wasn’t anyone else that would take Moore and her daughter.

Joe would still be in Texas but for the crucifix in Boston.

No one in media made the connection, but Joe didn’t need them to. Moore missing in Texas and two days later a dead woman nailed to a cross shows up in Boston. Brand had a thing for theatrics, and Joe felt—he didn’t have any real evidence—that what happened in Massachusetts had something to do with what happened in Texas.

He glanced across the hotel bed to the small dinner plate sitting on the sheet. The stuff on it could be the reason he was making these connections; Joe wasn’t so far gone as to try and deny that. The white powder—

The cocaine, Joe
.

—was cut up into three neat lines, ready for his nose whenever he decided to pull the plate over. Not yet. Soon, but not yet.

No news stories connecting the events in Texas and Boston. The priest knew nothing else besides what he had told the cops. And yet, here Joe was in a three hundred dollar a night hotel room in downtown Boston, because coincidence wasn’t a viable option. Brand was back. Joe didn’t doubt that. Back from the dead and planning something, and then for a body to show up here, posed like Christ? No, Joe didn’t believe in coincidence.

He picked up the plate and put his nose to the rolled up dollar bill he held in his hand. A quick, hard snort brought half of one line into his brain, and then he tilted his head back to make sure he got every last granule of the white dust.

What Joe did believe in was justice, but not any type that was to be levied out by the courts or even God. He believed in his own justice, and that’s why he was here. His wife deserved justice. His baby, his son, deserved justice. Maybe even his father, although that was on down the list. His wife deserved justice because she had her throat slit, in front of Joe no less, due to Brand’s cruelty. His son deserved justice because he’d been stolen from his crib for usage as a character in Brand’s horror novel, to resurrect some long dead son.

Joe’s wife, Joe’s son. He was here asking questions of a priest because when he found Matthew Brand, he was going to kill him.

J
ake took
a seat in front of the desk—which looked like it didn’t really want to end but did only because physics said it had to. He wore a gray suit, his tie hanging down perfectly to his belt buckle, and even with every piece of his hair placed just where it should be, he knew he was hopelessly out of his depth.

The Assistant Director of FBI Operations, Art Brayden, sat to Jake’s left, and the Director of the FBI, Gyle James, sat behind the desk.

Jake was a detective for Katy, Texas—on leave now, unpaid, and there still hadn’t been any discussion about how he was supposed to eat, let alone pay bills.

“How are you?” Gyle James asked, looking at Jake.

“I’m well. Thank you for having me.”

“Art seems to think you have some potential to help what’s happening here, so we’re glad to have you aboard. Just do your best to carry your own weight, as this has already reached a point of seriousness that I doubt Texas sees much.”

Jake nodded and watched Gyle turn to Art.

“We got out of the meeting with the President about an hour ago. It...well, things don’t look exactly rosy. You saw the body in Boston this morning, I suppose?”

Art nodded. “In the back of the same church this time. Everything appears to be identical to the last body. The girl was murdered before she was nailed to the wood, and then taken to the cathedral. Thank God the same priest didn’t find it this time. A janitor cleaning up towards the middle of the day saw it when he took out the trash.”

“President’s aware of it too. There’s good news and then there’s really bad news. The really bad news is that at least a few of the scientists pulled into that meeting see this whole thing as possible. We already have the power to split an atom. That’s basically what we’re talking about here, is an atom bomb. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima split an atom, which caused all the destruction. So, we’ve been able to do it for years, practically every developed country in the world can. What we think Brand is talking about is something like building one hundred, billion, trillion atom bombs and then launching them at the sun.”

“And they think that’s possible?” Jake asked, not realizing he was about to speak until the words had left his mouth. Both men looked at him.

“Some think it may be.” Gyle went back to Art. “Not everyone, but probably six out of the ten in the room think Brand might be able to accomplish it. At least the part about splitting every atom in a human body. Where disagreement rises is whether he will have the ability to channel that energy and somehow fire it at the sun. Only one person said she thought it could be done, but her opinion rested on the fact that Brand was doing it. She said if anyone else attempted it, it wouldn’t be possible, which doesn’t really help us much.”

“If he can harness the energy, but can’t direct it, it’ll simply blow up the world instead of the sun,” Jake spoke to himself, in awe at what that meant. He had heard the call made to Art, heard Brand say the human body contained seventy trillion suns inside of it. If he failed in taking all of that energy and hitting the sun with it, everything would explode right where he extracted it from. There would be no more world. There probably wouldn’t be a sun either, because the detonation might even encapsulate objects that far off.

Both Art and Gyle were looking at Jake. “Smart, but doesn’t really stay quiet, huh?” Gyle asked.

“He actually hasn’t said much the whole trip over. I guess he was holding it in for this meeting.”

“He’s right,” Gyle continued. “So we have a sixty percent chance that Brand can split all those atoms. The rest doesn’t really matter. Whether or not he takes them and fires them at the sun like some kind of super missile or it blows up in his face, we’re dead if that sixty percent is right.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Art said, putting a finger to each of his temples. “There’s good news?”

“Kind of. As long as he’s putting bodies across the city of Boston, nailing them up to crosses and what not, he’s going to have a tougher time collecting the bodies he needs for all those atoms.”

“That’s our good news?” Art asked. “So we’re not going to publish what he wants us to publish? We’re not going to tell the world what’s going on?”

“We’re not going to tell anyone. Not our allies, not the newspapers here, no one. We’re going to find Brand on our own, and until we do, let him crucify as many people as he wants. If we do anything else, if we tell anyone about this, the entire world is going to want in. The UN, China, Russia, everyone will attempt to have some kind of police force in America, all of them trying to find Brand. It’ll be a cluster of cosmic proportions.”

“How are we going to find him, then?”

Gyle leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. “That’s the hard part, isn’t it? If he keeps up this crucifixion nonsense, it’ll be pretty easy to capture him. We’ll simply wait for a black guy in a white van to drive into Boston, pull him out of the van, and arrest him. He’s not that stupid though. No matter how much we want him to keep crucifying dead people and littering the city with them, he’s going to figure out some other way to get his message out.” Gyle looked down from the ceiling and over at Jake. “You got kids? Parents?”

“Parents, sir. No kids.”

Gyle nodded. “Your grandkids, Art. We’re going to need to get them locked down pretty hard. It would be much easier for Brand to grab up someone close to us and ransom them off for his message. I don’t think the President would go for it, but it would be a better idea than the current one he’s running with. Jake, you’re going to want to have your parents go into hiding for a while, if you plan on staying with us. If you’d rather not work with us so that your parents don’t need to go into hiding, Art and I would understand, but that’s just the way this is going to be played out unfortunately.”

Gyle paused, swallowed, and then continued. “Everything we have is going to be focused in Massachusetts. Everything. Every missing person that comes up, every sighting of Arthur Morgant. The scientists are making up a list of what they think Brand might need to do all this, and we’re going to trace every piece of metal on that list bought in the past four years, and see what shows up in Mass. When we leave here, Art, you’re going to want to have Arthur Morgant’s picture on every newspaper, news program, and internet website you can think of—that’s the man we’re looking for, and we’re looking for him because he’s hanging people on crucifixes. His name isn’t Arthur Morgant; it’s whatever you want it to be. We don’t want anyone tracing this back to The Wall and then making inferences that it’s Brand. Get a team together, Art. Pull in everything we have. The scientists say there really isn’t any time limit on this thing. As soon as he has fifty-five bodies, they said he can go ahead and start. He needs fifty-one more.”

* * *

“
I
didn’t want
to speak in there—” Jake started.

“Really? Seemed like you did to me,” Art broke in, both of them walking down the hall leading away from Gyle James’ office.

“I mean, I didn’t want to say anything bad about his plan. That can’t really be what we’re considering doing, is it? Bringing everyone in the FBI to Boston and having them, do what, look around for a black guy driving a white van?”

Art laughed. “What do you think we should do? We need people here and we need to start looking. As leads turn up, we’re going to follow them and adjust our plans.”

“Brand needs fifty-one bodies. That’s a lot. Last time he wanted four and look at the mess he made. Fifty-one? He can’t get them the same way he did last time. He’s not going to be able to keep this crucifixion thing up much longer either. He has to know that. He made his point, that he’s serious about us telling the world, but he won’t have the time to continue this, and after this morning, he won’t be able to drive an inch into Boston without someone recognizing him. The crucifixion thing is done, so what other leads are we going to be looking for?”

Art stopped and turned to Jake. “I’m not going to pull the ‘how many years have you been doing this’ card, but if you’re going to shit on what the FBI Director just told us to do, have something better to put in its place.”

“All I’m saying is, finding that many bodies is going to be hard. Especially if you’re taking them from the general population. He won’t be able to fly across the country and grab them one by one. He won’t be able to take them from families like he did last time, because it’s too many and we’ll find out too fast. He’s going to have to look outside of the general population, and the easiest way to do that is to take the homeless. No one misses them. No one knows they exist until they’re asking for money. That’s where we need to be looking. The crucifix stuff is over, and he’s going to start pulling large amounts of people soon.”

* * *

A
rt both loved
and hated DC. He hated it because of the people that lived here. The vast majority of a liberal breed so pure that Art was shocked they hadn’t created laws to kick out anyone who even hinted at conservative thoughts. Not that Art was a huge conservative, just that he really wasn’t a fan of liberals. He lived amongst them because he had to, because his position at the FBI demanded he live in DC, and he made it a strict rule to never discuss politics with anyone within a hundred miles of the city. Once he got outside of a hundred miles, he’d begin discussing whatever was popular on the news, and his own ideology after a few drinks.

He loved DC too, though. One reason was the ability to step outside of almost any building, walk three blocks in any direction, and find a Catholic church. The good Catholics had decided to populate the nation’s capital with buildings, and that was fine by Art. He had his church that he went to each week, but getting over to St. Gregory’s during the middle of the day, like right now, wasn’t going to happen.

Still, he needed some time to be alone with God, to think, to pray. He could always do that in his office, but interruptions happened there. Prayer wasn’t as respected as much as Art would have liked, and right now, he didn’t want any interruptions. He briefed Jake on who Jake would need to begin speaking with, allowed him use of his office, and told Jake that he would be back in a little bit. Art didn’t mind working twenty-four hours a day if needed, as long as he could take time to pray when it struck him.

Art was glad he brought Jake to D.C. That insight into the homeless alone was something Art might not have seen. Someone else may have, and it could have risen up through the line, but not this quickly. Jake made it so that on day one, they would have the ability to watch the homeless shelters, to know who was coming up missing.

“I have blind spots. I’m old. Nearing sixty now and my blind spots are worse even than what they were four years ago,” he had told Jake. “Right there, you saw one of them, and Goddamn, it was a big one. That’s why you’re here. No other reason. That’s why I didn’t say shit when you spoke up in there. You’re going to get a lot of responsibility and really fast. You get to keep it as long as you don’t fuck up.”

The kid said okay and then Art said he was going to pray.

“You curse a lot to be going to pray.”

“That’s why I need to go,” Art said and left Jake in his office.

He walked outside of his building into the DC heat. People in Texas didn’t appreciate this heat. It might not be as hot as South Texas or Florida, but people weren’t walking around in three-piece suits every day in those places. They did in DC, so the lack of temperature was more than made up for by the added clothing. Art wiped at his forehead a few feet out onto the sidewalk but kept walking.

It took him about ten minutes, but he arrived, his suit jacket draped over his arm and the back of his neck dripping sweat down into his shirt. He didn’t exactly love coming out in the middle of the day to pray, but sometimes it just couldn’t be avoided. Most of the time he would say something quietly at his desk, or maybe head to the john for a few minutes of silence. Today, though, none of those options would work.

He opened the door to the massive cathedral, stepping into the atrium, feeling small immediately. That’s what Catholic churches did to people, and Art thought it good. The human race was nothing. All of their problems, all of their issues, all of their contrived self-importance was insignificant. The world had existed long before them and God long before that. In the end, they were all here because of God’s grace, and stepping into buildings like this helped remind Art of that. He walked through the atrium and into the actual cathedral, where he dutifully formed the sign of the cross, and then walked over to a pew midway through.