The Ties That Bind (21 page)

I got back home and the girls were still not there yet. I called Ted, Marcus and Jonathan and set up a meeting that evening for all four of us, to go over what I learned about Mapes. It wasn't much, but I still had a bad feeling about where this was going, and I thought a little strategizing wouldn't hurt. Marcus said he would pick me up in an hour.

Luckily, before the hour was up, the girls came home. I greeted them at the door.

"I have news," I said after giving each of the girls a kiss.

"What news?" Vicki asked.

I turned and faced Tami as I said, "I met with your parents today. Judy is safe. They are going to get her out of the thing with Taylor, and find an excuse to make her … and you, just in case … off limits.”

"Really?" Tami said looking a bit stunned. "How did you manage that? They were so happy about it I couldn't imagine anything keeping them from going through with it.”

"I did just what I said I was going to do. I got a bunch of information on the church and blackmailed them. Your parents' allegiance to the church, over you two, was made very clear. So I explained to them how I would make life very difficult for the church, and them, if they didn't cooperate.”

"And you sure they will go along with it?" She asked, still not quite believing the danger to her sister was over.

"Yes. I showed them what I have. It's damning stuff. They realize how bad things will get if I let it get out.”

"What about the other girls," Tami asked.

"I'm afraid there isn't anything I can do for them. The evidence isn't admissible in court, so the police can't use it. And those girls are all brainwashed enough that they would make any kind of intervention difficult. I will try and find something I can use to get the police involved; but for now, my priority was you and Judy.”

"So you make a habit out of blackmailing girls parents?" Emily asked, half smirking.

"Only when I have to," I said. "There is literally nothing I wouldn't do to keep you girls safe.”

Tami gave me a quick kiss and rushed out the door to go to Tina's house to give Judy the good news. I let the other girls lead me into the living room so they could tell me about their afternoon out.

About thirty minutes later Marcus showed up. He and I headed out the door. He looked concerned and wanted to get into it as soon as I was in the car.

"Wait 'till we get to the office," I told him, forestalling the questions that started as soon as I got in. "It saves me from having to do this twice. Ted and Jonathan will have all the same questions.”

"Yeah, I guess," Marcus said. We drove the rest of the way in silence. By the time we arrived both Ted and Jonathan were there waiting for us.

"Hey, guys," I said as I walked into Ted's office where the two were gathered. "Why the long faces.”

Ever since the break-in, everyone had been a little stressed; but the tension I felt when I walked into the room had notched up to a new level. Besides his desk, Ted had a small round table he used for meetings. Ted's men were seated at the table now, and Jonathan was over at Ted's desk talking on the phone. I grabbed a seat that faced the door, so I could be next to Ted. Once Marcus had grabbed a seat, pulled up the remaining chair to prop up my feet. It was probably a bit transparent, but I was trying to seem as casual and nonchalant as possible, hoping my mood would ease the tension in the room.

"We have a problem," Ted said as I sat. "I received an official notice today that the contract is on hold. They already accepted delivery of the test units, so that stays, but the order for the twenty units has been put on hold, indefinitely.”

"What happened?" I said, pulling my feet off the opposite chair.

"We aren't sure. Ron is dodging my calls," Ted replied.

"This is bad," Marcus said.

"Ok," Jonathan said as he hung up the phone, "I finally talked to your guy. He said he couldn't talk at the office, and had to wait 'till he got home. The order to shut us down came from much higher than his pay grade. From what he could find, MilTech Limited, one of the sub-contractors who handles much of their current drone productions, has ties to some DOD big wigs. They have been putting pressure on the Air Force to cut us out, and stick with their product.”

"We knew there were some rumblings," Ted said, "but from what I heard, the Air Force wasn't listening to it, since MilTech doesn't have anything comparable to SWEEP.”

"That is true," Jonathan replied, "but apparently there has been a change. MilTech started upping the pressure on their people in the DOD, and they have announced they will be launching a product that sounds very similar to ours, in the next few weeks.”

"Really?" Marcus said. "Everything I had heard suggested they hadn't even started working on a stealth product. How are they going to go from a full stop to production in just a few weeks. They need at least some lead time to do design and testing.”

No one had a good answer for him.

"This makes me even more concerned about the Mapes thing," I said. "I talked to Carter Talmon today. This guy Mapes is a ghost. Carter thinks he is a professional, some kind of corporate spy. Everything he could find on Mapes is fake.”

"Didn't Ron give you Mapes' name?" Jonathan asked Ted.

"Yeah, but he didn't know anyone specific when I asked, so he talked to some other guys in procurement, and got a name," Ted replied.

"Are we sure there wasn't anything taken in the break-in?" I asked. "Mapes being tied to someone at DOD. The break-in. The MilTech announcement. The canceling of our contract. I am having a hard time believing these things aren't all connected somehow.”

"It does feel that way," Ted said, "but no, nothing was taken. The safe wasn't breached and my IT guys swear the computers where we store back-ups of the plans haven't been touched.”

"So, what do we do?" I asked glumly.

No one said anything for a long time. We just looked around, sometimes at each other and other times at the walls around us. There didn't seem much we could do, but no one wanted to say it out loud. No one wanted to acknowledge how bad things were for us. Without this contract we were not 'dead in the water', but things would be a real struggle. Ronald's project would take a good deal of capital, for starters. It was a longer term bet than the drone project seemed to be.

Just sitting in silence was starting to get to me. I was about to suggest we call it a night and sleep on the question, when my thoughts were interrupted by a crashing sound from the front door. We were all up in an instant, and I rushed out the door, only to be greeted with a shock. Running from the broken in front door of the office were two men wearing ski-masks, and carrying guns.

The three of us were the only people in the building. These guys were making a beeline towards us, so they must have known where we were. The distance from the front door to Ted's office was pretty short and they were closing rapidly. Ted and the others were just coming out of his office and in the narrow hallway they would have been sitting ducks for the armed men.

There was no way the masked men could have expected me to move as fast as I did. As soon as I saw them, I held nothing back, both pushing my body to the limit, and forcing myself into 'the zone' of my slow motion perception. In the time it took for the man in front to raise his gun, which he had been carrying at his side while he ran, I was on him.

I pushed his wrist up as he fired, which sent a bullet ripping through the drop ceiling. I held on tight, pushing his body between me and his buddy. Thankfully the hallway was small enough that his buddy couldn’t get an angle on me that didn’t put his partner in danger. Still, I needed to do something, fast.

While holding his hand I grabbed the gun, which was still on its way up from the recoil, and rotated it up and away from me in a half circle. This caught the man's fingers in the trigger guard, the trigger itself was still mostly depressed, his finger just releasing pressure off it. After a fraction of an inch I felt resistance to my twisting, and added more pressure to my movement. As his finger broke against the trigger guard his grip weakened and I pulled the weapon out of his hand as I again pushed against his chest, giving me a few inches of working room.

Putting my weight on my back leg, I kicked out, placing my foot solidly into his chest. I put all of my strength into the kick, lifting him off the ground and sending him in a shallow arc down the hallway. It was only a few feet, but his buddy was close enough to be in the way.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was mildly impressed with the speed of his friend's reaction. He flattened himself against the wall to avoid the human missile I sent his way. He even managed to keep his gun pointed more or less in my direction. As soon as his buddy cleared the line of fire, he took his shot at me.

Unfortunately for him several things had been happening at once. He had hit the wall hard enough to dent the drywall. Added to the impact was the awkward sideways lean he was now in, and the fact that he was using one hand. All this would cause anyone, no matter how skilled, to take a serious hit to their accuracy.

I also had not been still. I continued falling forward from my kick, ending in a kneeling type of position. His bullet passed over me, and well to the left. Had I remained standing, I was pretty certain he still would have missed me. I heard a scream from behind me and feared the worst, but I couldn't let my attention waver. Not yet. He was already bringing his gun down for another shot and moving into a more stable firing position.

While I had been falling, I had also begun turning the gun in my left hand so I could grab the grip with my right hand. Being a child of the Generation X, I knew how a gun worked. I knew that guns had safeties, but seeing as how this one had just been fired just seconds before, I was certain it was still off. I also knew the basic mechanics of marksmanship, such as pointing the gun at my target and pulling the trigger.

I had never fired a gun before, so I was certain my aim would not be great, but I was only a handful of feet from my target. Thanks to my slowed perception of time, I had what seemed like an eternity to line up my shot. I wasn't going for anything fancy. I just pointed the barrel at the center of his chest, and pulled the trigger.

While I had been expecting recoil, the sudden motion of it still took me by surprise. I am not certain there was any way I could have been accurately prepared for it. I kept pulling the trigger, though, even as my first bullet was reaching its target.

Things were moving slow enough for me that I could see the bullet impact with an out-splashing of red. I was surprised he wasn't wearing some kind of bullet proof vest. Experience … and by experience, I mean watching movies … had taught me that guys like this normally did. He also didn't do that fall backwards thing you see in movies. It didn't seem to move him back much at all.

Then the second bullet hit. I hadn't readjusted with the recoil, so this one was much higher, going into his neck. It wasn't dead center. Instead it was slightly to the right side, but still close enough in that it looked pretty gruesome. The impact caused him to start to spin, his head angling to the left.

I had fired a third bullet, but this one sailed over his head, cutting at a sharp angle into the ceiling. He pulled the trigger on his weapon once more, but this seemed more like a reflex than an aimed shot. It punched through the drywall directly across the hallway.

His friend was just getting off the floor as I pushed myself up, and began moving towards him. He made a smart play, trying to push off the ground and spear me with a mid-section tackle. I had a gun, so running away from me wasn't his best option. He needed to either get his gun back, or get his partner's gun.

Unfortunately for him, I was still experiencing everything in slow motion, and I had the benefit of my enhanced reflexes. I moved aside and brought the gun down sharply on his head. The hall was narrow so he did manage to get a piece of me, knocking me down in the process; but he was out by the time I landed on the floor with him on top of me.

I wasn't sure if he was unconscious or dead. Blows like that are not like they are on TV. A forceful strike to the head with a hard metal object is as likely to crack your skull open, as it is to knock you out. Either way, he was out of the picture for a time, at least.

Time returned to normal as I pulled myself out from under him, and turned to face my friends. Ted was being held up by Jonathan, clutching his left arm. I could see blood seeping from between his fingers. All things considered, that was a much better result from a bullet shot down a crowded hallway then it might have been.

"How did you …" Marcus started.

I held up the hand not holding the gun and said, "Go call the cops, and an ambulance. I'll explain while they are on the way."

None of us wanted to remain in the same area with the two inert bodies lying in the hall, so Jonathan and Marcus led Ted to the front reception area. There they could call the police and bandage Ted's arm. I stopped for a moment to collect the two guns, on the off chance the guy I struck on the head woke up.

I had just picked up the second gun when I noticed a green card sticking out of the back pocket of the second man. I knew I should leave the scene to the police, but my curiosity got the best of me. I leaned over and pulled the card out of his pocket. It was a paper sleeve with hotel room keycard inside. The sleeve listed a hotel not far from Ted's office. I'm not sure why I did it, but I slipped the card into my pocket. I knew that there was more behind this attack, and I had substance for my suspicions. It's not that I didn't trust the police, but I needed to get information, and I was certain they would
not
give me everything we needed to know.

Stepping over the bodies, I continued to the front office. Jonathan had grabbed a towel and wrapped it around the wound in Ted's arm and Marcus was just hanging up the phone. I set the two guns down on the desk away from all of us for the police to collect and pulled up a chair in front of the three men.

"They are on the way," Marcus said. "What the hell happened back there, Cas. How did you move that fast?”

All three men were looking at me intently, even Ted who was still gripping his arm.

"We only have a few minutes until the police get here, so I am not going to be able to explain everything to your satisfaction. Once this is all over I'll be happy to answer all of your questions. The short version is that after that drive-by shooting at my school, we learned that my genetics are different from other peoples. We are still trying to get a full understanding of what is happening, but what we know is that my brain is significantly more active than the normal brain, and my muscles are much more efficient.”

"So you have what …" Marcus asked, "superpowers?”

Everyone seems to jump right to the superpower thing.

"Not really," I said, "I can run a little faster than, well, anyone I know of. My hearing and vision are better. I also process information faster than normal. That last report you sent me, I read it in about seven minutes.”

"That was a hundred and fifty pages! I am finding this all very hard to believe," Marcus said, shaking his head.

"I don't," Ted said through gritted teeth. "Consider what you saw, just now. Also consider Cas's involvement in all of our business dealings. How is any of this normal for a fifteen year old? If anything, this explains a lot.”

"I am sure you all understand why it's important that we keep this quiet, right?”

All three nodded their heads. Jonathan opened his mouth to start to speak, when we heard tires squeal out in the parking lot.

"That's probably the cops," I said standing up. "We can all talk about this later, ok?”

All three men nodded their heads as two uniformed police officers came through the front door. Jonathan showed them to the hallway where the two men were lying. We had all agreed to let Jonathan do most the talking for us, although we each had to give statements. Ted was temporarily spared when the paramedics took him off to the hospital to get his arm looked at.

It took almost an hour at the offices to get it all sorted out, and another couple of hours at the police station answering questions. Since Jonathan was involved, he arranged for a friend of his to come sit in while we were giving statements.

While they didn't tell us we were in the clear, the detectives inferred that as long as everything at the scene backed up our stories, we should be ok. If ever there was a case for self-defense, this was it. I did learn that the second man, the one I struck in the head, also died. I wasn't sure how to feel about all of it. I had killed two men, which would shake anyone, but I also felt I'd not had a choice. I found that I didn't feel bad about having killed them, although I was feeling a little bad about not feeling bad. It would be something I would have to talk to Mom and the girls about. If nothing else talking to them would help me better understand my own thoughts on the subject, but for now I had other things to focus on.

First, I had to call home.

"Hello," Zoe said when she answered the phone.

"Hey, Zoe. I need to talk to Mom," I said.

"Where have you been. I thought your meeting was only going to last for a few hours?”

"Zoe, this is important. I need to talk to Mom.”

"Ok," she said with an exasperated sigh, "hold on.”

"Cas, is everything alright?" Mom said when she came on the line.

"I'm fine, but please don't freak out," I said.

"What's happening?" Mom asked. She was starting to get agitated.

"I am at the police station with Marcus and Jonathan. Some goons broke into the office tonight, with guns. Ted got shot in the arm and is at the hospital.”

"Oh my God. I'll be right there," She yelled.

She hung up before I could say anything. Marcus headed to the hospital to check on Ted and Jonathan waited with me until Mom got there, just in case. A few minutes later Mom came running up from the parking lot and crushed me in a hug.

"What happened?" she asked Jonathan.

"There was some kind of attack in the office. Cas managed to take out the two gunman before any of us could be seriously hurt, well, except for Ted. But the paramedics didn't think the wound was life threatening.”

"He knows," I told her, nodding at Jonathan.

"Ohh," she said as she released me from her vice-like hug. "You and the others should come and talk to me, later this week. I know Cas probably told you some of it, but he tends to gloss over some information that embarrasses him. Call me and set up a time to meet, and I will have his doctor come along. We will explain everything. Did you say anything to the police about …”

"No," Jonathan said, interrupting her. "Cas suggested we keep the more extraordinary aspects of what happened to ourselves, and we agreed. Thankfully, everything can be explain by Cas's martial arts training, and luck.”

"Thank you for that," Mom said, looking relieved.

"Jonathan, please call Mom later this week and arrange time to talk to her and my doctor. I trust you three implicitly, and could use your advice on everything that is happening," I said as I turned to shake his hand.

"Will do," Jonathan said.

We gave Jonathan a ride back to the office to retrieve his car. It was eerie seeing the front door taped off with yellow crime scene tape. When he got out of the car I turned to Mom.

"Before we go home, we need to make a stop," I said.

"Where?" She asked.

"The Asbury Hotel on 12th street.”

Instead of pulling out of the parking space, she turned to look at me.

"Why do you need to go there?" she asked.

"There is more going on here that just two guys coming after us. It has to do with the drone contract and the Mapes guy that tried to break into our patent safe. I know I should leave it to the cops, but they aren't going to see the bigger picture, at least not for a while. I am worried these guys will take another shot. We were lucky, tonight. I do not want to take another chance and see someone I care about getting seriously hurt.”

"So why do you want to go there?”

"They had a key for the hotel. I wanted to poke around a bit, see if I can find anything useful.”

"Caspian, you should really think about leaving this to the police.”

"I know, but I can't. I need to do this. Please.”

She thought for a long moment and then turned back to face the front of the car, and pulled out of the parking space.

"I must be out of my mind," she said to no one in particular.

It took less than five minutes to get to the hotel. I asked mom to stay in the car and promised I would be careful. The hotel was not one I would normally stay in, and if I missed my guess, they sometimes charged by the hour. The gunmen probably chose the hotel because employees and other guests went out of their way
not
to notice anything. I seriously doubted if this place had cameras, but I went in a side door, all the same.

The desk had been nice enough to write the room number on back side of the paper sleeve, room 413. I rode the rickety elevator up to the fourth floor, and leaned out of the elevator to look both ways before exiting. I wasn't sure what I was expecting; but I was greeted with a silent, empty hotel hallway.

At the door to room 413 I knocked quietly and waited. I had decided it was better to have someone in the room think I was lost, rather than burst through the door with their dead friends' room key. There was no response and after standing looking at the closed door for another moment, I put the key into the lock, and pulled my shirt sleeve over my hand to ensure I didn't touch anything as I entered the room.

The room itself was clean. The hotel was cheap, but they still kept maid service, and clearly they had been through since the last time the occupants had spent the night. I didn't know if the police would find this hotel or not, but I thought it best if I didn't leave fingerprints if I could avoid it. I saw a closed laptop on the desk in the room. Powering it on, I was happy to see it didn't have a password on it. Otherwise I would have had to take it to Zoe and see if she could get in. He had a mail icon on the screen and I clicked on it. I read through dozens of messages, most of which were either innocuous, or contained references that needed explanation. One was not.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Re: Evolve

The original contractor was unable to retrieve the documents. We need to get the patent documents and any plans or designs they have, and soon. I don't care what you need to do. Get it done!

K.S.

I grabbed the hotel notepad and supplied pencil out of the desk draw and scribbled down the email word for word, along with the email address. I slipped the notepad, along with the pen that now had my fingerprints, into my pocket.

It was quite the smoking gun, but considering I wasn't supposed to be in this room, there wasn't much I could do about it … at least, not directly. I needed to talk to Ted and the others about this, and probably with Carter Talmon there, too.

I peeked outside quickly before leaving the room and locking the door behind me. Mom was relieved when I made it back to the car.

"See? No problem," I said as I slid into the passenger seat.

"I still don't like this," she said.

"I know. I promise I won't make a habit of it.”

"Hmm," was all she said as she drove us home.

I put the girls off for a few minutes, until I could call and make arrangements to meet Marcus, Jonathan, and Carter Talmon in Ted's hotel room the next morning. I made sure to impress on Marcus and Jonathan the need to keep the full scope of what happened away from Carter.

The rest of the night was spent answering questions for Mom and the girls. They were pretty freaked out. Rightfully so, since last time I was shot at, things had gone pretty badly. I reassured them that I was fine. Zoe in particular was keeping a close eye on me.

"What?" I said after I finished explaining what I found at the hotel. I could feel her eyes burning holes in me.

"Are you sure you're ok?" she asked.

"Yeah, not a scratch," I said smiling at her.

"That's not what I mean. I know how you let things get to you. How are you doing with what happened?”

"You mean, am I feeling screwed up because I killed those two guys. Maybe this is going to sound bad, but honestly … no. I feel ok with it. By the way they were coming in, it was pretty clear they meant to harm me and the others.”

She looked at me with an unsure expression.

"I'm serious, I feel fine.”

She let it drop but the rest of the night I could feel her watching me. I couldn't complain about that, really. I knew it was just because she cared about me and wanted to make sure I was ok, both physically and mentally. Still, I was happy when the next morning rolled around and Jonathan picked me up to go see Ted. I was surprised when Jonathan said we were meeting at Ted's house and not the hospital.

"Getting shot is pretty bad," he said when I expressed my surprise, "but the bullet didn't hit any bones or anything important. They patched him up, gave him some painkillers and sent him home. We don't get a lot of shootings here, but ERs see stuff worse than this all the time. From what Ted told me, they were actually pretty nonchalant about the whole thing.”

"Huh," was all I could say in response.

Thankfully, Jonathan had called everyone else, and had moved our meeting to Ted's house. They were all already there when we pulled up. Ted's wife, whom I had only met a couple of times, let us in and showed us to their living room where Ted was propped up in a recliner. She fussed over him for a few minutes, until he shooed her out of the room.