Steven James - The Pawn

No!

He fumbled for something in his pocket. “And this is for-” he started to say, but then he began to convulse.

In all my time in law enforcement I’d never witnessed such a terrible death.

In the end I had to turn away. I couldn’t watch. I looked up just in time to see Ralph punch the gorilla in the stomach. The man was gasping, backing up as Ralph went at him, bashing him with his shot-put-sized fists.

Roundhouse.

Uppercut. Finally a left hook. Ralph hit him so hard in the face that he spun around in an instant and, with a meaty crunch, collided face first against the stone wall of the hotel and toppled to the ground. Ralph wiped his hand across his face to get the blood out of his mouth as he cuffed him. “Ah,” said Ralph. “Just the way I like it. Fast and clean.”

Tessa looked around the living room.

Police and a bunch of ambulance guys had arrived, and half a dozen people she didn’t know were milling around asking her questions. They’d put the cop who’d gotten shot on a gurney. Maybe she was still alive.

“Tessa!” Agent Tucker came running in. “Are you OK?”

She blinked. “Where’s Patrick?” she said weakly.

“He’ll be coming in a minute,” he said. “Don’t worry, Tessa. I’m here to help you.”

“We would rather die free than live as slaves,” said Marcie.

“That’s what he told you, isn’t it?” asked the woman, coming closer. “Kincaid, right? Or maybe Jones? But what do you think? You get to decide. That’s the thing. A slave is someone who can no longer choose.”

“Stay back!”

The Chinese woman stopped. “What’s your name?”

After a pause. “Marcie.”

“I’m Lien-hua. Please, Marcie, help us protect these people. Please.”

Marcie watched as the security guards tried to corral people into conference rooms, control the panic, calm people down.

She thought of her daughter lying still on the floor. Saw the look in the little girl’s eyes as she’d told her to drink the “medication” back in the library. “Will it hurt, Mommy?” her daughter had asked. “No, sweetie, it won’t hurt,” Marcie had said-had lied. She’d lied to her only daughter because Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid told her to. “Of course it’ll hurt,” she’d wanted to say. But she didn’t say it. She just told her it wouldn’t hurt, and then her daughter nodded and closed her eyes and opened her mouth, a trusting little girl.

Marcie backed into the retaining wall of the fountain, lifted the tablet. “There’s nothing left for me here. My daughter is dead. I killed her.”

The woman, Lien-hua, was still talking to her. “Please. I know you loved your daughter. I know you did. Sometimes when people are afraid, they do things they later regret.”

“You don’t know what it’s like-”

“No, I don’t,” the woman said, and it surprised Marcie that she agreed with her. “None of us can know what it’s like for someone else. It’s what makes us individuals. We each have our own pain, our own mistakes. But we can reach out toward each other, help each other. That’s what makes us human.”

“It’s too late…”

Lien-hua pointed to the line of people being herded out of the courtyard, guided into conference rooms to be quarantined and treated. “It’s not too late for them, for their children. You don’t have to do what Kincaid says. He’s gone. You get to decide. Please help us.”

The capsule was in Marcie’s hand.

She raised it to her lips.

She got to decide. It was her choice.

She saw them: the children in the library. The poison still moist on their lips. Moist on their lips.

Her daughter’s trusting face.

At last, with her little girl’s smiling face drifting before her, Marcie let the last fragment of her old life fall from her fingers and onto the floor. “Francisella tularensis,” she whispered. She sensed a man beside her, a big man with a rough voice. It was almost as if she were somewhere else watching, a spectator observing a woman getting handcuffed. “Genetically enhanced…” she said in case anyone was listening. This was good. She could finally do something good with her life. Something right. “We spliced the genes… Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever…”

Tessa tried to drink the glass of water Agent Tucker had gotten for her, but her hands were still shaking. She heard purring and noticed Midnight stretching out on the floor at her feet. She hadn’t seen Sunshine since the craziness started.

She set down the glass and looked in her lap. She had two phones-hers and the one Patrick was using. She slipped them into separate pockets in her jeans and gently stroked Midnight’s soft fur.

She just wanted to get out of here. To go home.

Mr. Tucker was talking on his cell. “Yeah, Agent Wellington?” he was saying. “This is Brent. I need to get a message through to Pat. Tell him I’m with his daughter, and she’s fine. Yeah. Make sure you tell him. All right. Thanks.”

I overheard Lien-hua talking with one of Kincaid’s people about the contagion. Ralph was cuffing the woman. I ran to them. “Wait, ma’am. What did you say?”

“Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever,” she said.

“What’s that? How do you know?”

“I have a degree…” Her eyes were blank. “In microbiology.. ” She spoke to us from another place. “I used to work for Father at PTPharmaceuticals… I was a researcher… that’s where we met.”

I looked her in the eye, tried to help her focus. “Can we stop it? Do you know how to treat it?”

The woman nodded. “We altered the genetic makeup, but I worked on the project. I can help you.”

“Let her go,” I said.

“It’s another trick,” said Ralph. “She’ll kill herself just like the others.”

“I believe her,” said Lien-hua. “I believe you, Marcie.”

So her name was Marcie. I looked at her. Tried to read her eyes. Couldn’t. “Why would you help us?”

“The children,” she said, “my daughter.” Mists began to form in her eyes. “No more children need to die.”

“She could be lying,” said Ralph.

“She’s not lying,” said Lien-hua softly.

Marcie’s eyes found me. Searched me. “Do you have any children?”

A rush of emotion overwhelmed me. “Yes. I do,” I said. “A daughter. She’s seventeen.”

The woman nodded, smiled. “My daughter was seven. I loved her.” She looked directly at me. “I killed her,” she said, her voice as fragile as glass, “because I loved her.”

Fear and love, the two missing motives that drive all the others. Set free in some hearts. Twisted in others.

Then Marcie began to weep, and Lien-hua reached out for her, cut off her restraints, took her in her arms. Ralph’s cell phone sprang to life and he flipped it open. “It’s the CDC,” he said. He told them about Marcie and then grudgingly he handed the phone to her. “They want to know what you know.” Then he glowered at her. “No games, you understand?”

She nodded and stepped aside with him to a quieter corner of the courtyard.

Just then Margaret came hurrying over to us. I didn’t even know she was here. Probably just came when she heard about all the media people present. “Sit down, Pat.” It didn’t sound like anger in her voice. Something else. Fear? Concern?

“What is it?”

“Sit down.”

“Tell me.”

“A few minutes ago there was a 911 call from the safe house.” “What?”

“Listen, Tessa’s OK. An officer was shot, though. Officer Muncey.”

“Where’s Tessa?”

“She’s still there. Don’t worry-”

“Jason Stilton has always been a good friend,” Trembley said. “Do anything for a buck.”