Jason Pinter - The Stolen

Reggie Powers. I figured there would be some sort of office structure set apart, or he'd just be waiting for me outside.

Yet as I took a quick look around, there was no sign of him.

As I walked through the construction area, dipping under low beams, peeking around corners, I felt a queasy sensation in my stomach when I realized there wasn't a single person in sight.

Powers's secretary had told me Reggie would be at the site all day. But there were no other cars on the lot. No discarded papers or bags. No sign that any human beings had even set foot here today. Why would Reggie be here all day if nobody else was?

A terrible suspicion grew that I was alone here. Or even worse, not as alone as I thought.

"Hello?" I called out. My voice echoed through the structure. A chill ran through my body, and I held the backpack tighter. "Mr. Powers?"

Still nothing.

I exited the structure, walked around the exterior.

Several cranes were standing tall over the skeleton, long steel beams lying at their feet. The cement trucks were quiet, side elevators dark.

"Reggie Powers!" I called again. When again there was no answer, I decided it'd be best to get the hell out of there.

I began to jog back toward the car, winding my way around the side of the building. As I passed a blue van, I saw something that made me stop in my tracks. My breath caught.

Beside the van I could make out a human hand splayed out on the ground. As I crept closer, I could see the fingertips coated with blood. The hand belonged to a black man.

The body was on the ground in an awkward position.

The right hand was splayed out above the man's head, the left arm at a ninety-degree angle. The legs were crumpled, one stuck beneath the man's torso. A single hole was in the center of his head, and a pool of blood had begun to dry.

I didn't need to check the wallet to know that Reggie

Powers had been murdered.

I whipped around, looking for something, anything.

He'd clearly been dead a little while, so whoever had done it had either fled the scene, or was waiting for me.

I took the cell phone from my pocket. Dialed 911. I felt panicked as I waited to be connected, every second not knowing what the hell was happening. Was Powers already dead when I called his office? Or had he come here with the intent to meet with me, then was murdered by someone who knew…

Then I knew it. Powers meant to set me up. He knew nobody would be at the construction site. He must have told somebody before he arrived. And that somebody took him out. Somebody who'd begun to think Powers was better off dead. Somebody who felt he'd become a liability.

And when I heard the click of a gun safety being removed, I knew immediately that Raymond Benjamin had killed him.

"Step away from the van, Parker."

I put the cell phone in my coat pocket. Every muscle in my body was numb.

I recognized the voice. I'd heard it that night at the house on Huntley, as this man tried to torture information out of me.

I slowly turned around. Hands above my head.

Raymond Benjamin was standing ten feet away from me. He held a gun in one outstretched hand. The scar on his cheek seemed to glisten in the darkening sky. His face was a mask of anger and frustration.

"I didn't want it to come to this," he said. "Killing is an ugly, ugly thing. If you'd just let it be, Parker, this wouldn't be happening."

"Petrovsky. Powers. You killed them both, and for what? To hide your dirty secret? I know what all this is,"

I said. "All this by your hand."

Benjamin took a step closer. "Parker," he said. "I'm sorry you won't have a chance to know any better."

The sky exploded, a yellow blast echoing in the night, and I shut my eyes and waited to die. When after a moment

I felt no pain, felt nothing at all except the wind on my face, I opened them. Raymond Benjamin was dead on the ground. Smoke wafted from a bullet hole in his back, right where his heart had beat its last breath. And standing there, smoking gun in his hand, was Senator Gray Talbot.

"It was you all along," I said, staring into the senator's cold eyes. "You were behind the kidnappings. Hobbs County and

Meriden were your pet projects so you could look good come voting season. That way you could come off looking like some great savior, when in reality you were feeding people the same poison you claimed to be eradicating. You and Raymond Benjamin found children who were born with diabetes, whom you could subject to these sick experiments to rob them of years of their lives. You take them away, then use their disappearances as leverage to get good press, gentrify the towns. The crime rate plummets. Property values go up. In come landowners who are more willing to vote for you. You bring in Reggie Powers to rebuild the town.

You steal lives for political gain, you fucking monster."

Talbot shook his head like a teacher whose student was too stupid to understand a simple equation. "That's the black-and-white version," Talbot said. "But who's really losing here? These kids lose a couple years of their lives, but when they come back their towns aren't criminal beehives anymore. Their schools aren't run-down. Drugs aren't sold on their blocks. It's a small sacrifice for a lifetime of happiness, for them and their families."

"So one life is worth shattering if it saves another, is that right? The ends justify the means?"

"They always do," Talbot said. "And if I'm reelected because of it, if this leads me to the governor's mansion or, heaven look upon me, the White House, it will be because I take steps weaker men aren't willing to take. If you can sacrifice one life to save others, don't you have to do that? As a human being?"

"I don't buy that," I said. "Reggie Powers contributed thousands and thousands of dollars a year to political campaigns. Want to bet if we looked up his history of donating to your fund, we'd find a little more than 'Good Samaritan' money?"

"Reggie had a good heart," Talbot said, and I detected a hint of real sadness. "He was a true hero. But he was compromised. Just like the Reed family, it was only a matter of time before Reggie's heart got the best of him."

"So you're tying up your loose ends," I said. "Dmitri

Petrovsky. Reggie Powers. Ray Benjamin. Everyone who knew about this is dead. And if we hadn't found them first, the Reeds would be, too. All those lives, you're actually trying to say these people's deaths are worth furthering your demented cause?"

"Without a doubt, absolutely. You cannot put a value on one life, Henry. But I can tell you that a hundred lives, a thousand lives, are worth more than a simple few. The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. Those children, these men, were our patriots. They gave their lives to prevent others from suffering in the future. Men like Raymond Benjamin are our tyrants. He represents everything wrong with our culture. And so while he was a means to an end, so, too, did his blood need to water the ground."

"And Daniel Linwood," I said. "Michelle Oliveira.

Caroline Twomey. Their blood funds your campaign, too."

"If my platform must stand on a column these children have provided, so be it. I can live with that. I am sorry, Henry.

Consider yourself a patriot. Your death will save lives."

"One thing before I, you know, go," I said.

"Yes, Parker?"

"The blood might choke the ground," I said, taking my still-connected cell phone from my coat pocket. "But with my plan I get a signal pretty much anywhere."

Talbot looked at me with horror, and right as he raised the gun to fire, I heard the sound of several sirens approaching. Talbot turned around to see a police cruiser pull into the construction site, followed by half a dozen more along with two ambulances.