Chris Jordan - Torn

There are stars on the walls and ceiling, emanating from a night-light on a bureau. Constellations to keep him company. He’d be able to name them, too, my brainy boy, my precious son, and then I’m flinging myself on the empty, rumpled bed and burying my face in the pillow, the smell of him bringing tears to my eyes, and a full-bodied pang of love so powerful that I fear it may stop my heart, because I know, even before we search under the bed and inside the closets, that he’s no longer there.

We just missed him. The bitch has my boy.

Evangeline knows what the breaking dawn must look like, on a day like this. The way the first faint blush of daylight will climb down the mountainsides, putting the rough surfaces in relief. With the Pinnacle sealed she cannot, of course, actually see the glow lifting over the eastern horizon, or the stars fading from the sky, but she’s fully capable of describing the familiar scene to Arthur Conklin as he lays very nearly comatose in his special hospital bed.

“It’s beautiful, darling. You called it a great waltz, the planets swinging in time to the universe. That bright planet rising with the sun, that must be Venus, I suppose. And the fainter star or planet, could that be Mercury? You’d be able to tell, Arthur, because you always knew such things. Always knew exactly where you were in the world and what you were seeing. You could name the stars and the planets, and every bug I ever saw, and you made those Latin names sound like poetry. What was that horrible beetle you loved? Scarabaeus something or other? You told me the ancient Egyptians believed the beetle pushed the sun over the horizon every morning, which sounded rather beautiful. Then you told me the real beetle rolled up balls of dung, and that’s what made the Egyptians think it did the same thing with the sun. A dung beetle!”

Evangeline has dismissed the medical attendants so that she and her husband are alone in the great room.

“It was so like you, to make a dirty little bug seem so grand, so important in the scheme of things. You never bored me, Arthur, not once in twenty years! Being your consort has been a great adventure. And I promise you, my darling, that you’ll never die, not really. I will continue to speak with your voice. I’ll be the new you.”

The old man’s head begins to rock from side to side, feebly but distinctly. His eyes remain closed-he hasn’t opened them in two days-but there’s every indication that he can hear, and that he doesn’t particularly like her tone, even if he doesn’t exactly comprehend her words.

“The Rulers have come to a turning point, my darling,” she explains as she slips the pillow from beneath his frail head. “Mistakes have been made, all in a good cause, and the barbarians are at the gate. Literally, I am afraid. A convoy of black Chevy Suburban SUVs, filled with armed men. I believe they’re called a tactical rescue squad, but really they’re just ignorant slugs who do what they’re told. We’ll have to let them through, of course. But not before we get our little ducks in order. Not before we make sure that your vision will endure. Not before I make your old friend Wendy go away, and take his followers with him. It will be very tragic. And the boy? I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but the boy is going with Wendy. They’ll think it was because the old mole was so loyal to you. Hereditary bond of the boy and all that plebeian crap people love. There’s no other way. It’s sad but it’s all for the best. All for the Rule of One. And now, my darling, I’m sure you’ll understand if we hurry things along, just a little.”

Evangeline places the pillow over his face and presses with all of her strength. She’s surprised not only at how much the old man resists, but by the flush of tears that come to her after it is finally over.

She truly hadn’t expected to cry.

It’s like The Guns of Navarone without the guns. That’s the assessment from the Hostage Rescue Team Leader, reporting to Assistant Director of Counterterrorism, Monica Bevins, who shakes her head and asks him how old he is.

“Um, thirty-two, A-Dick. On my next birthday.”

“Then The Guns of Navarone was an old movie long before you were born,” she points out.

“Yes, A-Dick. An oldie but a goodie. Gregory Peck and Anthony Quinn on a suicide mission to save innocent lives. Same kind of deal we got here. A large, reinforced structure built into an inaccessible part of a mountain. Quite a challenge.”

“This will not be a suicide mission, Team Leader, is that clear?”

“Yes, A-Dick. I was referring to the movie, not us.”

“They didn’t have helicopters back then. We do.”

“Yes, A-Dick.”

“There’s also an aerial tram system, if you can figure out how to retrieve cars from the topside terminal. One car at the upper structure, one at the lower, both inoperable at the moment. Former agent Randall Shane mentioned a tunnel connecting the two buildings. We need to locate it.”

“Yes, A-Dick. Working on it.”

“Keep me posted,” she says, dismissing him.

Bevins has never seen anything quite like the situation in Conklin, Colorado. There’s been no overt resistance. Riding shotgun in the lead Suburban-strictly against protocol, but screw it, this is Shane-she had flashed the warrant at the BK Security goons and much to her surprise they’d been waved through. It soon became clear that the FBI would have full, unfettered access to the campus and the surrounding village, that the private security firm had been ordered to stand down.

The problem is the fortress the locals call the Pinnacle. The village may be open to inspection, but the entire structure of the Pinnacle has been shut up like a giant, reinforced clam, shielded with blast shutters. The landline phones have been cut off, and the aerial tramway is not responding. Nobody is responding. Getting inside will mean finding the tunnel, or, failing that, cutting through the hardened blast shutters with an acetylene torch. That will take time. Time they may not have, if the situation inside goes south.

Bevins was a rookie Special Agent when the Branch Davidian thing went down, and she watched it unfold on TV like everyone else. The disaster at Waco, in which many innocent children died, haunts the FBI to this day, and agents working a cult situation have it in mind as an example of what can go badly, horribly wrong. But the cult headquarters in that case had been a collection of ramshackle farmhouses. This is way different. The Ruler campus looks positively bucolic, the residential area could be an exclusive, gated community in Aspen. This ain’t the Bible-thumpin’ badlands of Texas, and Arthur Conklin is no David Koresh, preaching apocalypse. So maybe wiser minds will prevail. Bevins certainly hopes so.

Her own history with Shane complicates the situation. Because she is tall, over six feet, and because she and Shane have long been close, her colleagues assume they have a sexual history. To Bevins’s mild regret, that is not the case. Shane was married and faithful for most of the years when they worked together, and their friendship remains platonic, even as they quietly acknowledge a mutual attraction. Their bond transcends rank and status, and to Bevins it doesn’t matter that Shane is technically retired. So when the call came in from Maggie Drew, she had to act, had to make it happen. Normally the A.D. of Counterterrorism would not be at the scene supervising a kidnap recovery situation, but if Bevins hadn’t swung weight, given the green light, they’d still be arguing about jurisdiction.

She’s out on a limb with Shane, a civilian, relying on his word that the missing mother and child are being held against their will. Of the top ten priorities of the FBI, as approved by the Director, supporting missions like this one comes in at number nine. Just one level above “upgrading technology to successfully perform the FBI’s mission.” At some point she’s going to have to justify the operation, but right now she’s more concerned about having it conclude successfully, without loss of life.