James Patterson - Gone

The man flew backward immediately out the van door, into the darkness. Without a cry. Without a sound. The man was just gone.

Dear God, I thought, feeling dizzy in the cramped, suddenly too-hot office. Dear God.

I watched as Perrine slid the door shut with a bang. He dusted off his hands as he plopped himself back down in the beanbag chair. He lifted the tennis ball and bounced it off the floor and wall of the van again.

“Now, where were we?” he said, catching the ball. “Oh, yes. Your kids. How is the law-enforcement version of the Duggar familia? ”

“You bastard,” I said.

“Mike, Mike. Please,” Perrine said. “Do not mourn. That priest is in a better place now. He has gone to his God. You know, like your friend. What was his name? Hughie?”

He was taunting me now. Trying to get to me. He was. I wanted to smash the screen with my fist, but I couldn’t. I took a breath and refused to give him what he wanted.

“That’s true,” I said calmly. “Good point, Manuel. Hughie’s gone to God.”

I paused as I leaned in closer to the computer’s camera.

“Just like your wife, Manuel. No, wait. I made a mistake. How could she be with God? I sent that bitch directly to hell.”

Perrine hurled the ball against the wall and didn’t bother catching it this time. He stood up and walked over to the camera until his face filled the screen.

“I have one more thing to show you, Bennett. My men are sending it to you right now. If you have any popcorn available, I advise you to get it popping and pull up a seat. You’re going to like this, Mike. I know I will. We can talk after. Maybe when it’s over, we’ll trade notes. But if you don’t feel like talking, that’s OK, too. I’ll understand. You probably won’t be in the mood. Au revoir. ”

The screen went blank.

“Wait,” I said to Agent Downey. “What in the hell is he talking about? He’s sending something else? What is it? Where is it?”

“Something’s coming in now. It’s another Skype request,” a tech said, clicking a button.

The first thing I noticed about the footage on the screen that opened up was that it was from a night-vision camera. It was showing an empty field. The grainy image reminded me of a black-and-white TV image, only with dark green instead of black, and light green instead of white.

And it wasn’t footage, I realized suddenly. Since this was Skype, it meant what I was looking at was something that was being filmed in real time.

The camera swung shakily to the left. A kneeling figure appeared. It was a soldier of some kind, wearing a dark hazmat suit with a full gas mask.

The fentanyl , I thought. Perrine was ordering another fentanyl attack and making me watch. Two more hazmat-suited soldiers appeared beside the first, and the camera started moving, shaking a little as the group moved across a field.

There was some kind of fence at the far end, which they climbed, and then they were standing in a dirt road. The soldiers started moving up the slightly curving, uphill road, covering each other. Then they went around a bend, and suddenly, there was a house.

Realizing what it was hit me not like an electric shock but like a sudden shot of anesthesia. I felt numb. Like I wasn’t there anymore. Like I wasn’t anywhere. Like the bottom of the world had just dropped out from underneath me.

“It’s his safe house!” Emily yelled from somewhere behind me as the soldiers on the screen arrived at the porch.

“In Susanville! My God, his family!” Emily yelled as she burst into the office. “Contact the marshals! Where are the marshals? Perrine is attacking the Bennett family in Susanville as we speak!”

The Skype image was showing a dead marshal on the porch when I stood and walked out of Downey’s office. I walked over to the corner desk Emily and I were sharing and just sat there rigidly, with my feet on a plastic file box, gazing steadily forward at a blank spot on the wall.

Emily rushed over to me.

“The image cut off, Mike. They kicked in the door of the house, and the image went blank. We’re sending everybody there. Everybody.”

I didn’t reply, didn’t look at her. I kept staring at the wall. I needed to be there for my family, and yet it was impossible for me to be there. This did not emotionally compute for me, apparently. It was like being tied to a chair and having to watch your two-year-old climb out and off the ledge of an open window. I felt beyond confused, beyond disoriented. I felt disintegrated inside.

I don’t remember much about the next twenty minutes that went by. I vaguely remember a lot of activity around me, Emily making a lot of heated phone calls and Downey coming over to me a few times in order to assure me that every available unit was on its way to my family.

And what will they find when they get there? I kept thinking.

The next thing I knew, I was being guided by Emily up onto my feet. I followed along obediently as she took me out into the stairwell. But instead of heading downstairs, she led me up.

“What’s going on?” I mumbled.

“They’re bringing you up there to Susanville, Mike. A chopper is going to take you to a plane waiting for you back at the SoCal Logistics Airport. I’m going to be right beside you the whole time, OK?”

I suddenly stopped on one of the landings.

“What have you heard?” I said, breaking her hold on my elbow.

“Nothing yet.”

“But it’s been a while. Someone should have gotten there already,” I said, grabbing her wrist. “They’re all dead. Just say it now. Don’t lie to me.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you, Mike. I’m not sure why no one has responded. All we know is that the US marshal on scene is not answering the radio or his phone, and neither is your family. I swear to you, the second I hear anything, I’ll tell you, Mike. Let’s just get up there and see what’s going on, OK? You need to be up there,” Emily said as we went out onto the roof.

Five minutes later, an MH-60 Black Hawk swooped down out of the night, and a burly young soldier guided me aboard and strapped me in. I would have said it felt unreal as we lifted off, out over the lights of Wilshire Boulevard, with the wind rushing in through the chopper’s nonexistent doors, but it already felt unreal. I’d felt like I was outside my body ever since Perrine had shown me the video of my family’s not-so-safe safe house.

At the airport, an air force jet was already gassed and waiting. A couple more unbelievably gracious and young, competent soldiers strapped me into this new aircraft, and we took off. Emily didn’t tell me to sleep or calm down or talk to her or anything. After a while, I turned away from the window and found her hand in mine.

We touched down less than an hour later at Susanville Municipal Airport. When they dropped the jet door, I could see marked town-police and state-trooper cars parked alongside the tarmac, their lights wheeling. A trooper car rushed us to the state road where Cody’s farm was. There was another clog of official vehicles just in front of the driveway turnoff. There had to be twenty cars, but why weren’t they up at the house? My mind felt like it was exploding. Why were they just sitting there!?

A lanky, brown-haired FBI agent rushed out of the black Chevy Tahoe as we came to a skidding stop.

“What the hell is going on?” I said before he could get a word out.

“I know you’re upset, Detective,” the agent said. The young agent was handsome, square jawed. Instead of the MIB suit, he wore a tweed jacket and jeans, like a popular young college professor.

“My family is up there!” I screamed as I grabbed his tweed lapels.