The Devil's Dream: Book One (11 page)

Allison would deal with
that later, because their car was pulling into Rally Allen's
neighborhood. She flew out with a few people, leaving the rest of the
operation intact in Phoenix. Allison wanted to hear for herself what
Matthew Brand told Rally, wanted to see the woman's face as she
relayed the message. Texas wasn't far from Phoenix and she needed to
understand exactly what the relationship was between Rally and her
ex-husband. She'd spoken to the woman over the phone, listened to the
recording of her initial report to the police as well. From her
history, Rally seemed to be an honest person. She cooperated fully
with the F.B.I. last time, even attended the entire trial and
testified—dry eyed—to help put Brand away.

Had ten years changed
that? That's what Allison needed to find out, and if she felt the
same about her ex, then maybe she would be willing to help again, in
a larger role than she currently played.

Is
that what you really need to find out? Or should you be finding out
if Jerry is getting a divorce lawyer? Should you be trying to figure
out if what he's saying about Marley is true, or is this stranger
more important than all of that?

She didn't want to hear
those thoughts, couldn't hear them. They would have to wait until she
could go home. Allison had to be present here, not at her house, not
until they caught this man.

Stop,
she told herself.

The black SUV pulled
into Rally Allen's driveway. The house stood two stories and the lawn
was cut short with a typical flower garden on either side of the
pathway, connecting door to driveway. Brand accumulated enough money
during their marriage to allow for a much more spacious
accommodation; Allison had seen pictures of Rally's previous life.
She didn't want to call this a downgrade but there wasn't much else
she could say. Rally Allen had lived in a mansion and now she lived
in a house; a house that most people would enjoy, but a house all the
same.

Allison stepped from
the vehicle, her heel sounding off on the pavement. What if the woman
wanted back all she had lost? What if her first call had been a
reaction, and then she thought of all she could have, of all Brand
might be able to give her—the most important of it all, her son?

Allison heard the rest
of the doors to the SUV close as her crew followed.

The place smelled
clean, like the lawn had been cut recently. A light breeze came
across the road and the whole place suddenly reminded her of her own
home. Marley and Jerry, waiting on her to come back. Were they
anymore, though? Was the house that this reminded her of still hers,
or would it be sold soon, and she living out of an apartment?

Stop
it.

She rang the doorbell,
the three men behind her waited silently.

It only took a few
moments and the door opened.

A graying man stood
with his hand on the doorknob. Taller, over six-foot probably. He
smiled, but worry lived on his face and it looked like he didn't
carry it well. To Allison, it looked like he went through his whole
life without worrying, and this new situation weighed on Rally
Allen's husband with a weight he had never before experienced. His
eyes didn't smile, nor did his face, only his mouth forming the shape
that he had been taught since a child.

"Hi. Agent Moore,
right?" He asked.

"Yes, sir. Harold
Allen?"

"That would be me.
All the rest of you?"

"This is Agent
Friedman, Agent Murray, and Agent Woods, all of them have been
assigned to this particular case and are working closely with me."

No one extended hands
but Allen nodded at each name.

"Well, Rally is
inside, let's go ahead and get started. Coffee, water, or anything
else?"

"Coffee, please,"
Allison heard Friedman ask as they entered the house.

The living room held no
television, but was instead organized around a large coffee table
that had books and magazines across it. There were extra chairs,
probably pulled in from another room, so that everyone had a place to
sit. The F.B.I. agents all stood behind their chairs, waiting on the
lady they had come for.

She came from the
hallway, a full length sun-dress sashaying as she walked towards
them.

"Agent Moore, a
pleasure to meet you," Rally said, the first one to put a hand
out for anyone to shake. Allison clasped it. Rally continued: "Let's
all have a seat and get this started. I know it's hot in Phoenix, but
I'm sure you guys don't like the Texas heat either and would like to
get back."

Allison sat down,
watching as Rally found her place next to her husband, her hand
naturally going to his knee.

"What can I do for
all of you?" Rally asked.

"Ma'am, obviously
I want to talk to you about Matthew Brand. I'd like to discuss your
feelings on him and maybe how far you'd be willing to go to help us
catch him."

* * *

How
far would you go, Rally?

She knew the question
was coming. Matt called her first and she was his son's mother. Rally
inhabited a unique place, able to help or do nothing. The police knew
it, and Matt knew it too. She had never betrayed him, never acted
like she would help only to sic the police on him. No, he knew from
the beginning where she stood, that she would not contribute to his
attempt at playing God. She had been fair to him—she owed nothing
else to her ex-husband, the father of her dead child.

Allison Moore's
question seemed to hint that Rally didn't even owe him that much.

"Hon, you
alright?" Harold asked from her side.

Her thoughts had kept
her silent too long, and as she came back to the here and now—
where
do you go, babe?
Matt used to ask her—she saw everyone
looking at her.

"How do I feel
about him? That's pretty loaded. I'm not sure you guys will ever
catch him if you give me the time I need to answer that. You'll never
get back to doing police work."

"Is there a
Reader's Digest version?" Agent Moore asked, smiling.

"That's what
everyone wants, isn't it?" Rally smiled too. "That's okay
though. That relationship doesn't interest me anymore either, and if
not for his new adventure there wouldn't be any need to dredge it up,
so the short version is fine."

Rally leaned over and
kissed her husband's cheek.

"I love Matt, and
I always will. I also know that he probably needs to die, or at the
least be locked away in a prison that uses metal instead of glass.
That's about as condensed as I can make it."

"Why do you still
love him?" An agent next to Moore asked.

"Because I
understand him. Isn't that the real reason we love anyone? Because we
can relate to them, we can feel their pain and therefor make it our
own? I know why Matt is doing what he is doing, even if I don't agree
with it. I know why he won't stop and I know that despite his
actions, it comes from a good place. His son was taken from him, our
son. He wants Hilman back and has the ability to do it. It's hard to
really blame him."

The agent nodded.

"Do you want him
to do what he's doing?" Moore asked. "Do you want your son
back?"

"Do I want my son
back? Do you want the air you're breathing to be here tomorrow? Would
you like your heart to keep beating? Yes, I want my son back, Agent
Moore, but I don't want Matt to go ahead with this. Hilman wouldn't
want him to either. If, somehow, he brings back our son, Hilman will
hate him. Hilman will want to be dead and probably want his father
dead right there along with him. What he's doing, it's completely
selfish. It's not for me. It's not for our son. It's for him to have
what he can't any longer." Rally reached up to her eyes and
wiped a tear away. "I'd do almost anything to have my son back,
but not that."

"You believe he
can do it?" Moore asked.

Rally looked away,
thinking about what everyone said ten years ago when Matt was finally
apprehended. All the news articles, the scientist commenting on the
papers that were found, the police saying he would never get the
chance to test his theories. "I can't pretend to know what any
of the science means. I'm not sure anyone besides Matt can actually
understand it. But yeah, I think he can do it. I think Matt can do
anything he wants."

"Even evade us?"

"If he wants. Last
time he didn't want to. He wanted to spit in your face and that's
what he did. He killed four people before you had any idea where he
was."

"Can't argue with
that. My second question, how far would you go to help catch him?

"What do you have
in mind?"

"Well, it's clear
he cares for you. He goes away for ten years and within a few hours
of escaping, he is on the phone trying to speak with you. There's
probably a lot he would do for you, except stop this murder spree we
think he's gearing up for. If you were to get in touch with him, he'd
let you come to him. He'd tell you where he is and as soon as that
happens, all this is over."

"We're not putting
my wife in danger. I don't really care what the reason is or how good
it will be for the country. We're just not going to do it,"
Harold said.

"Even if I did
agree to do something like that, which I'm not, it wouldn't work. You
can't really think Matt is so stupid. I sat behind him at his trial
and didn't say a word to him. Do you think he's going to believe
after ten years I've fallen in love with him again?" She
laughed. "I don't mean any offense, but if this is the plan
you're trying to catch Matt with, he's further ahead than I ever
dreamed."

"Maybe you're
right," Agent Moore said. "Sometimes I feel like he's a few
light-years ahead as well, but I still have this job to do. Maybe
sending you to meet him won't work. He'd know it was a trap. But if
you called him, if you spoke to him, even that would be better than
nothing. Start with one phone call, talk to him, gain a bit of trust
from him. We won't be here. You call us when it's over and tell us
what was said."

"You have a
wiretap on the phone," Harold said.

"True, but that
doesn't mean she can't call us and tell us what she felt about the
call. Wiretaps aren't going to give us the information that is going
on inside your head. You start with one call, and then the next day
maybe you give him another. You're not asking to find him. You're
just asking to talk to him."

The room was silent
when she finished.

Rally looked beyond
Agent Moore at the wall. Call Matt. Talk to Matt. The only
conversation they could have would consist of her begging him to
stop. To give it up. He wouldn't listen to her, not for a moment. He
was Ahab and this his White Whale. Even so, he would talk to her. He
would talk and when she said the phone was tapped but no one was at
her house, he would believe her because Rally never lied to him.
She'd left him. Reported him. Stood in the court room and put her
hand over the Bible before telling the world that he deserved the
death penalty because he would never stop. During all that she hadn't
said one falsehood to him, so this could work.

"I can't lie to
him," she said still staring at the wall. "I won't lie to
him."

"No one's asking
you to lie. We're asking for you to talk to him. He'll talk, Mrs.
Allen. He'll tell you things that no one else knows, and you won't
have to lie to get it out of him."

Rally looked back at
the agent. "I'll do it. I'll make the first call although I
don't know if he'll be there for a second. You really don't
understand what you're dealing with here, Agent Moore. Ten years ago
the last person in charge of this thing didn't either. He got lucky.
I don't think you will."

* * *

Press conferences were
supposed to create transparency between the public and whoever was
speaking. They were supposed to disseminate information from the
powerful to the weak. They were supposed to help level the playing
field when it came to that all-important currency of knowledge.

They were all shams
though. All press conferences were fun-houses full of smoke and
mirrors, sending images every which way so even if someone saw the
truth they wouldn't recognize it. They would think it only another
image in the indecipherable pictures that came down from on high.

On high today was
Allison Moore, F.B.I.

She stood behind the
podium wearing a blue shirt and skirt, a white professional button
down, and her hair hanging around her face. "We're asking for
anyone who sees the man in the pictures that are being given out to
press organizations to come forward. Call our dedicated phone number.
Do not try to apprehend the subject. Do not follow him. Just call."

Matthew's picture had
been on the news long before this, but he guessed there was now an
official picture to be on the lookout for. Is that all this was, a
public plea for help? No, no. That's what the fun-house made it seem
like. Sure, they wanted help if they could get it, but they were
probably already being inundated with more calls than they could
handle. This was to make him feel safe. To make him feel like they
were far away.

The small hotel room
was clean, if dreary. The light over his bed did a poor job of
revealing the room but he kept the curtains drawn. The bathroom was
probably ten feet wide, little more than a box, but still bigger than
the Silo he had lived inside.

Allison Moore, on the
television begging for help.

Did that mean they knew
where he was?

He reached for the
computer he'd bought a few days ago, figuring it safer to buy
something once than to continually visit the public library. It had
taken him an hour or so to get caught up on the intricacies of
anonymous surfing, but he understood it now. When he logged on, his
I.P. address continually bounced around the world and any packets of
information he sent out either purposefully or accidentally would
destruct after a short time. He was invisible on the computer,
cloaked from whatever prying eyes Agent Moore might have out there.