The Devil's Dream: Book One (32 page)

He sat with his hands
in his lap, leaning back in his chair, looking at the ceiling and not
saying a word to his lawyer. Both of them were silent, waiting on Art
to walk back in and tell them their deal was accepted. Because what
choice did the F.B.I. have? Tell them no, they wouldn't be granted
immunity, and Allison's kid and husband would die? She would murder
everyone in this room right now if that happened. She would take her
gun out and pull the trigger until the clip was empty or everyone in
here was shivering and shaking with holes in them.

They tried threatening
him, telling him all of the charges that would be listed next to his
name if either of her family members died—accessory to murder for
one. He didn’t even blink.

“
Go
ahead, play tough. I’ve got all the time in the world, does Agent
Moore?”

Dillan had pointed at
the one-way mirror she stood behind.

He was right. They
could charge him, could threaten him and turn those threats into
reality, but both her daughter and husband would die.

"You want to know
exactly what he's asking for?" Art said, standing at the door to
her right.

"No. You're going
to give it to him, right?"

"He wants complete
immunity and access to everything we have. Access to anything The
Wall has on Brand, access to anything you have, access to anything I
have, and access to Brand during his time in jail if he survives the
raid. He wants a public thank you for his help in capturing Matthew
Brand once we have him either apprehended or dead," Art said.

"Are you going to
give it to him?"

"Yes."

"Good." She
didn't look over at Art, just kept staring at Jeffrey and his pet
lawyer next to him. She'd trusted this guy in a way, told him more
than she should and got very little from him in return. This whole
thing, every single part—she had been so stupid in it all. Thinking
she could catch Brand. Thinking Dillan should be someone brought into
the fold, because he might be able to supply her with information she
couldn't get elsewhere. She had been naive, over matched by everyone
involved, and now her daughter was missing.

"Wait,"
Allison said. "Add a stipulation. If my daughter's dead, he gets
nothing. No immunity, no access, no thank-yous. He only gets any of
it if we save my daughter."

Art stood without
saying anything. No one else in the room spoke either, a bunch of
faces that Allison didn't know and even if she did, she hadn't looked
hard enough to recognize anyone.

"If he rejects
that, Allison? Then Marley's dead anyway."

Warm tears flooded her
eyes. "We'll worry about that if it happens."

Art shook his head and
looked down at the floor. "I can't do it, Allison. He's getting
the deal; we don't have any more time to waste."

The stipulation had
been stupid anyway and she knew it. Offering Jeffrey something that
he could reject with absolutely no problems. Her kid dies? What did
he care? He didn't have to tell them anything, and her kid would die
all the same. She
hated
Dillan,
maybe as much as Brand. She wanted Dillan attached to those machines
Brand was bringing her daughter to. If the F.B.I.'s calculations were
right, Brand should be about five hours from Florida, although once
in Florida they didn't know where he was heading.

She had five hours
until her daughter would be lost forever.

She watched as Art
walked into the room in front of her, watched him put down a folder
in front of the lawyer.

"It's all here.
Everything you asked for. Obviously we don't have time for you to
read all of it. What we need is your signature and then the place
this guy is."

Dillan looked over to
his lawyer, a fat guy that Allison spoke to at the beginning of all
this, on what felt like another world and in another life.

"Most likely, they
aren't lying. None of this would look good for them if it were to
come out. If you were some black guy here alone, I'd say don't sign
it, but they're probably on the up and up. I can have it read over
the next couple of hours and let you know for sure," the lawyer
said.

"You really know
how to make me feel secure, Frank," Dillan said, not looking up
from the document.

"Gentlemen, we
just don't have time. He's a few hours from finishing this. He's got
four bodies and that's all he needed last time. He could get there,
hook these two up, and his kid comes walking out of the wall or
something."

Allison placed her fist
against the mirror, gently at first, and then pressing harder and
harder until pain bit back against her knuckles. This was all
bullshit, this whole conversation and those papers full of ink. Her
daughter, her husband, both were going to die soon, and these people
were arguing about what a contract said.

Dillan put his fingers
to his forehead and massaged as he closed his eyes.

"If they fuck me
here, will we have a chance in court?"

"Yeah, of course,
Jeff. I didn't start this career yesterday."

"Okay, okay."

Dillan opened his eyes
and pulled the packet to him. With a quick flick of his wrist and
fingers, he signed the back page.

"Forty-six
nineteen, Lackluster Lane, Daytona, Florida."

The
Devil’s Dream

By Jeffrey Dillan

Epilogue

It's
hard to say what the world will think of Matthew Brand in another
twenty to thirty years. His accomplishments before his reign of
terror were deep and long lasting, but brief in timespan. He spent
perhaps ten to twelve years working after he finally left school,
digging deep for a few years into whatever interested him and
changing the way the world looked at that subject, before moving
onward. Nothing kept his attention for long, unlike an Einstein, who
dedicated his entire life to theoretical physics. Brand's mind could
not find one task to obsess over until his son was taken from him,
and then all the powers of the United States law enforcement could
barely stop him.

There's
no doubt that the police who gunned down Hilman Brand were wrong, as
well as the judge who let them off; all four should have done jail
time for their actions. What about Matthew Brand though? What should
he have done when his son was stolen from him and the courts refused
to serve justice? There used to be Godfathers and the Mafioso for
such things, but in today's world, what retribution can someone find?
What would you have done if it was your son and the power to move
planets rested inside your head?

I
keep coming back to that question over and over, even now with my
interviews done and the book nearly ready for publication. I keep
wondering, was he wrong? Did those cops deserve to die in the fashion
that they did? What would I have done?

Matthew
Brand, with God's help, will never be allowed back into public again.
Someone like him, with that much power, with those gifts—the world
is theirs to do with as they see fit, and Matthew decided that the
world could burn if it meant he would have his son back. The justice
system didn't take his life, but they took his freedom—both mental
and physical. They took all the weapons from him that he had used to
terrorize families and kill those he hated. Should he have died for
his actions? Should they have inserted a needle into his veins and
pumped him full of chemicals? Would that have been justice?

The
humorous part is that they saved him for mankind. They wanted him
here so that he might be able to help us in the future. He gave up on
the world years ago, looked down two paths and chose the one of
damnation, yet we're holding onto him like some sort of National
Treasure. A man that would have killed everyone on this Earth to
regain his son and we've frozen him so maybe one day he'll help us.

Matthew pulled past the
security gate, a blanket covering his passengers in the back. The
tape had been replaced on the little girl's mouth just in case she
got any smart ideas about trying to make noise. Matthew wondered if
Jerry was dead; he'd heard some noise from him a couple hours ago,
just moans, but nothing since. He might have some serious brain
swelling going on; Matthew just hoped he would live. He didn't have
to thrive, just live. Jerry could be brain dead and lay on one of the
gurneys inside the warehouse, as long as his heart still beat and
blood still flowed through his veins, things would be okay. If the
man died, Matthew would have to go find someone else and he was
feeling that he had probably overstayed his welcome here in Florida.
Maybe in the United States.

He needed to get these
two hooked up and the power turned on. He needed to have his son back
and they needed to leave.

Matthew stopped the car
in front of his warehouse and he turned it off.

"We're here,
everyone," he said to the backseat.

He went to the door,
unlocked the padlock and pulled it halfway open. Back to the car, he
opened the rear doors and threw the blanket to the floor. The little
girl looked at him with wide eyes, not puffy, not crying, but
terrified all the same.

"Don't be scared.
You won't feel anything."

Matthew reached in and
grabbed the two of them, one arm around each, and pulled. It was like
dragging a piano across a floor without wheels, dead weight probably
close to two hundred and fifty pounds. The car was parked so that
anyone looking from the curved road would only see a man lifting
something heavy, but the cargo was blocked from view. He tugged,
grunted, and began moving the two of them. He pulled them from the
car and their taped feet landed with a thud on the asphalt. The man's
head still sagged forward and that wasn't a good sign. Matthew
stopped moving and readjusted to feel for a pulse in Jerry's
neck—still there, but faint. His hands went back to gripping as he
dragged them into the warehouse.

He closed the door
behind him, locking the padlock on the inside this time. The air
smelled clean in here and every time he breathed in it reminded him
that he was pleased to birth his son here. The place smelled as if
life hadn't touched it yet, like Matthew was breathing in air that
had never been inside human lungs before, had never witnessed the
horrors of this world. That's what he wanted his son to smell. That's
what he wanted his son to experience this time around. Matthew might
have forty years left in this life, but he would spend those next
forty making sure Hilman saw nothing but the pleasures Earth had to
offer.

The knife Matthew found
was a bit rusty, but it would do for the tape. He cut both prisoners
free, the man simply falling to the floor. Marley tried to stand and
run, but her muscles deceived her, causing her to collapse face first
on the floor. Tape still covered her mouth, so instead of a scream,
only a painful grunt escaped. Matthew squatted, watching the young
girl trying to get back up. No matter the age, that instinct to live
was all powerful. To keep breathing just a little while longer, even
if only a few moments—humans would go almost any length for another
five minutes of heartbeats. The knife rested in his hands and his
hands on his legs as he watched Marley struggle, her arm pushing a
foot off the floor but her legs unable to put any real weight on
them. She slipped back to the ground as she tried to rise, and then
sobbed. Exasperated. Scared. Realizing that Mommy wasn't showing up
and that the end was here. That she was going to die, and for a child
her age, this must have been the first time she'd ever truly realized
it. Life was finite, as was she. Dreams, hopes, wishes, None of it
mattered when the universe decided you were done. Or cops decided. Or
Matthew decided. In the end, it all came to the same result—your
heart stopped beating and you died.

Matthew stood and
walked to her. He grabbed Marley’s hair and lifted her up so that
she saw the knife in his hand.

“Shhh,” he said.
“No more.”

Matthew lifted her up
and in his arms, as if she was his bride rather than prisoner. He
brought her to a gurney and strapped her down quickly. No words came
from the little girl. No struggle.

To Jerry Moore. That
was who Matthew needed to deal with first, to make sure that Jerry
was up and running before his life expired. Once the tubes were
connected, Jerry's mind could go wherever it wanted, but his heart
would keep beating and his blood flowing until Matthew decided it
could stop.

He hoisted Jerry onto
the gurney and turned him on his back. The man's face hadn't improved
any, maybe worsened. Waxy grease covered the bruises and cuts like he
was a boxer in between rounds. Matthew stripped the man of his
clothes, leaving him naked, lying on the metal table. Matthew went to
his tools and wheeled them over. Incisions first. Wires and tubing
second. All this would end in just a few hours.

Matthew put sanitizer
on his hands and then a scalpel between his fingers.

He got to cutting.

* * *

Allison shouldn't have
come—protocol certainly didn't allow it—but the only way anyone
would keep her from this industrial park would be to lock her up. Art
wasn't going to do that.

Fifteen cop cars and
two SWAT vans pulled past the security gate, no one slowing to speak
to the guard.

They weren't too late.
It'd only taken them an hour to get here and their best calculations
put Brand an hour away yet. When he pulled in, they would be here
waiting and Allison would draw her gun and shoot him dead the second
she saw him. He would have no chance to hide behind Jerry or Marley.
No, when Matthew Brand showed up, he would die.

She rode in the car
with Art, seeing him for the first time with a vest on and his weapon
drawn. He normally wore suits and kept his badge in his wallet. He
looked out the window, not smiling, not sweating, just still. He'd
done this before.