Richard Doetsch - Half-Past Dawn

The lead technician, an overly tall and gaunt man, leaned over and unbuttoned, Cristos’s shirt, exposing his chest. And as the tech’s eyes fell on the condemned’s torso, so did every other eye in the room, and an almost collective gasp cried out. No one expected to see what Cristos had hidden under his fine suits, masked from the world. His burned and scarred skin was inhuman, like melted flesh from a horror film.

The technician quickly set back to work, affixing the heart monitor to Cristos’s mangled flesh, and checked the readout to ensure that it was working, surprised at the slow heartbeat of a man who was about to die.

At the subtle nod of his head, the two techs confirmed they were ready. They pressed a button on the wall and signaled the executioner.

In an adjacent room, unseen by all, sat a third technician before a console. The IV lines in Cristos’s arms ran into this room, terminating at a middle-aged man in a lab coat who sat at a coldly white, antiseptic desk. Before him were three syringes, each conspicuously labeled.

With a methodical nature, he picked up the first syringe, flicked his finger against the needle, and slipped it into the port in the IV line. The administered drug was sodium thiopental, a barbiturate and anesthetic agent.

Out in the execution room, Cristos’s eyes fell shut as the chemical flowed into his system, rendering him unconscious.

Back in the side room, the technician inserted the second syringe into the IV line. Pancuronium was a muscle relaxant that caused complete paralysis of the skeletal striated muscles, including the diaphragm and respiratory muscles, that would eventually cause death by asphyxiation if the third drug didn’t do its job.

And finally, the technician picked up the third syringe and injected it into the line. The potassium chloride acted quickly, and within two minutes, the heart monitor affixed to Cristos’s chest registered no heartbeat.

With little fanfare, before an audience of twenty including Jack Keeler, the medical examiner stepped into the room, read the monitor, laid his stethoscope to the deceased’s chest, and declared Nowaji Cristos dead.

Jack sat parked at the North White Plains train station, the lot nearly empty on the Friday of a summer holiday weekend.

He and Mia had commuted from this station into Grand Central until a few years ago, when the demands of their jobs turned their schedules upside down and it became more practical to drive into the city.

A black Suburban pulled to the curb beside Jack, and he recognized it at once as the car that had pulled him over on the bridge the night before, the car that had taken Mia away.

Two men emerged from the front of the vehicle, dressed casually in sport jackets and slacks. Jack caught a glimpse of the driver’s shoulder holster.

The driver turned and opened the rear door. A moment passed before Nowaji Cristos, sitting in the back of the car, turned and looked directly at Jack. Jack couldn’t believe his eyes as he watched the man he had convicted and seen executed less than a year before emerge from the Suburban. His black hair in a ponytail, wearing jeans and black boots, he reached back into the car, pulled out a dark blue sportcoat, and threw it on. The man took a few steps forward, approaching like a bird of prey, his black eyes focused on Jack as if ready to pounce on his next meal.

Jack slowly emerged from the Audi.

“So glad you can join our team.” Cristos’s deep voice was thick with contempt. “Aaron and Donal will be joining us. I believe you have already met.”

The two men glared at Jack. Indeed, he knew them from the bridge. Donal, the oversized man who had pummeled Jack senseless, throwing him back into his car and sending him over the bridge, and Aaron, the skinny redhead who had struck Mia so hard and knocked her to the ground. Jack stared back at Aaron until he finally averted his eyes. No matter how the next hour unfolded, Jack swore to himself, that man would pay for what he did.

“Two dead men working together,” Cristos said. “I told you death is not always permanent.”

“How?” Jack said. “I saw you die.”

Cristos smiled, taunting him. “You have a beautiful wife, Jack. You should see how she cried when she learned of your death.”

“You son of a bitch,” Jack said through clienched teeth. “How do I know she’s alive?”

Cristos pulled out his cell phone and dialed. “Get the woman. Put her on the phone.”

Cristos handed Jack the cell.

“Mia?” Jack quietly asked.

“Oh, my God.” Mia’s voice cracked with anguish and relief. “You’re alive?”

“Mia-”

Aaron reached for the phone, snatching it from Jack’s hand.

“No!” Jack yelled, trying to pull the phone back.

“Let him talk.” Cristos stepped forward and stilled Aaron’s hand. “It may be the last time they ever speak.”

Cristos gave the phone back to Jack, indicating that he should get into the Suburban.

Jack took the phone back and climbed in as Cristos shut the door behind him.

“Are you hurt?” Jack said, doing everything to keep his emotions from spilling out.

“No, don’t worry about me. You were shot. I saw you go over the bridge into the river… That bastard showed me the newspaper…”

“How many times have I told you not to believe everything you read in the paper? And remember, it said we were both dead. You and I don’t go down that easy.”

“The girls…?”

“They’re fine. I checked. Do you know where you are?”

“No idea. They drugged me. I woke up in this small room, no windows. I can hear the city noise, though.”

“I will find you.” Jack’s voice boiled with emotion. “If it’s the last thing I do, I will save you, I promise you.”

“Jack,” Mia said, “Those guys who jacked us last night were FBI.”

“I know. How deep do you think this goes?”

“Deeper than you can imagine. Jack, do not help them,” Mia pleaded.

“What choice do I have?”

“Jack… you have to stay alive for the girls, protect the girls… I’m already dead.”

“You’re not dead!” Jack yelled. “Don’t say that. You survive, whatever happens, do you hear me? You fight!”

Mia grew quiet. “Jack, you can’t let him get that box. You know he’ll kill us both once he gets it?”

“That’s why I have no intention of giving it to him. But Mia, you have to tell me what is inside.”

“Jack, I can’t.”

“I saw Jimmy. He told me about the prayer books, about some kind of drawing-”

“Where did you see Jimmy? I don’t understand-”

The car door opened. Cristos stood there, his hand out, wanting the phone. “We’ve got to go.”

“Jack, promise me something,” Mia pleaded. “Don’t look inside.”

“I love you, Mia.”

“I love you with all my heart, Jack. Please tell the girls I love-”

And the phone was snatched away, closed, and tucked back into Cristos’s pocket.

Jack felt powerless, manipulated by Cristos. “Do you have any intention of telling me what we are doing?”

“You’re going to lead us down to the evidence room of the Tombs,” Cristos said. “And you’re going to steal the evidence case.”

The boy was eight years old when his father gave him the small red leather book. It was a book provided only to those whose hearts were deemed pure, whose future would be one of devotion to their religion, their people, and the earth.

The book, used by the Cotis monks, contained pages filled with prayer, but through the simple act of wetting them, a blank page would be revealed, a secret tableau where one’s thoughts and words could be written and concealed as the paper dried. Informally called the Book of Souls, it was nicknamed so because its true heart was only known by its owner.