Jamie Freveletti - Running from the Devil

The kitchen was spotless. Stromeyer walked to the dishwasher. The display read CLEAN. As if Emma had started it before she left.

Stromeyer chided herself for calling Ms. Caldridge Emma, even in her mind. The more she learned about the woman, the more she wanted her to be a victim in this disaster, not a player, as Banner had called her, but Stromeyer needed to keep her objectivity. What she wanted and what was real might not match.

A telephone mounted on the wall docked in an answering-machine base. The machine blinked the number three in a pulsing LED display. Stromeyer pushed the message button. The machine whirred, and a woman’s voice poured out of the speaker.

“Emma, it’s Cindy, please call me. I heard about the crash and we’re all worried about you here.” Cindy was Caldridge’s secretary at Pure Chemistry. The second message was Cindy again, sounding even more worried. On the third, Stromeyer hit pay dirt. A man’s voice poured out of the machine.

“Honey, I know you said not to call, but I’m worried. Please send me a message that you’re all right.”

Stromeyer grabbed the receiver. A button allowed the owner to scroll through the caller identification list for the phone. The phone numbers of the last ten calls were there, neatly recorded, except the last. The last read PRIVATE CALLER.

“Damn,” Stromeyer said. She heard a key in the lock. She placed the phone into the dock without making a sound and moved to the corner of the kitchen. She peered around the wall at the front door. It swung open, and a man stepped into the living room. He hesitated a moment before turning to close the front door with a quiet push. Tall, tan, with silver hair cropped close to his head, he looked to be about sixty-five. He wore tailored khakis and a yellow polo shirt. He moved toward the kitchen, giving Stromeyer a full view of his face. It was George Caldridge. The resemblance to his daughter was unmistakable. Stromeyer stepped out of the kitchen.

“You must be George Caldridge,” she said.

The man gave a violent start. He pulled a small gun out of his pocket and pointed it at her.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?”

The gun surprised the hell out of Stromeyer. It was as unexpected as his visit. It was also obvious that Mr. Caldridge didn’t know how to use a gun. Stromeyer put up a hand to calm the man.

“I’m Major Carol Stromeyer. I work with a company in conjunction with the Department of Defense. I’m here investigating the hijacking of Flight 689. Please put the gun down.”

The gun stayed pointed at her. George Caldridge gave her a grim look.

“Haven’t you people done enough?” he said.

Now Stromeyer was confused. “What in the world are you talking about?”

Mr. Caldridge waved Stromeyer out of the kitchen. “Come out of there.”

She did, moving slowly, keeping her hands in sight so he could see that she wasn’t armed.

“You know what I mean. First you try to confiscate my daughter’s research, then you threaten her with treason should she not cooperate with your plan. She’s a scientist, not a traitor. She came upon the formula completely by accident, and you and your people knew it.”

“Mr. Caldridge, I swear to you, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I work for Darkview, a security consultant firm contracted by the DOD. No one has informed me about any of this. What formula?”

Mr. Caldridge stared at Stromeyer hard for a moment. He sighed and lowered the gun.

“I don’t know what formula. Emma wouldn’t tell me. All she said was that she’d discovered something by accident. She said someone claiming to be from the DOD got wind of her discovery and wanted her to license the formula to them. When she refused, they started harassing her. Threatening to charge her with treason. Tapping her phone.”

“Did she give you a name?”

He shook his head. “No. She told me she had a plan that would end the harassment, though. She warned me to leave Florida for a while. She said she’d call when it was all clear. I knew that she’d intended to fly to Colombia. When I heard that the plane went down…” Mr. Caldridge’s voice cracked. Tears filled his eyes. He shook his head.

Stromeyer put her hands down. “Mr. Caldridge, she’s still alive, as far as we know. When the plane first went down she sent a text message to her boss at Pure Chemistry. And since then our search-and-rescue team found her luggage with yet another note from her tucked inside.”

Relief flowed over Mr. Caldridge’s face. “Oh, thank God. I’d heard about the toll-free number to call for information about the passengers, but I was afraid to turn on my cell. Emma insisted that I keep it off until she returned. She said they could use the signal to track it. She was afraid they’d use me to pressure her.”

Stromeyer had to agree with Emma. If whoever was harassing her had engineered the hijacking, then they were not afraid to employ any method to achieve their aims. Now Emma’s text message to her boss made sense. She had been afraid to send something to her father for fear of its being tracked.

Stromeyer waved at Mr. Caldridge. “You’d better come with me.”

“Where?” Mr. Caldridge’s voice was loaded with mistrust.

“Don’t worry, not to the DOD. I’m taking you to Darkview’s temporary offices. I need you to tell this story again to my partner.”

Mr. Caldridge put the gun in his pocket. “I’m sorry about the gun. I wouldn’t have shot you.”

Stromeyer nodded. “I knew that.”

Mr. Caldridge looked surprised. “How?”

Stromeyer opened the door for him. “The safety was on.”

29

ALVARADO CAME TO AND SAT UP IN A GROGGY HAZE. IT WAS black as pitch. His head throbbed something awful, and his vision was blurred. Walking anywhere was out of the question. He lay back down and fell asleep.

The next morning he walked into a tense camp. The passengers huddled next to one another on one side, the guerrillas on the other. Both groups eyed Luis with dread. He was busy beating a male passenger with his bare fists. The passenger lay on the ground, his body curled into a tight ball and his arms over his head to protect himself from the blows. Luis grew tired of punching and graduated to kicking the passenger with his steel-toed boots. It sounded like he was kicking a side of beef.

Alvarado sighed at this display of Luis’s usual inability to control himself. Luis looked up and spotted him. He stopped kicking.

“Where the hell have you been? And where are Jorge and Gordo?”

“They deserted,” Alvarado said.

“What? That’s not possible.” Luis was shocked. His best men.

“Leave off the passenger and let’s go in your tent. We need to talk.”

Luis delivered one more blow to the groaning man and stormed into his tent. Alvarado followed at a slower pace. Once in the tent, he delivered the news as quickly as he could.

“The diabetic man is dead, but the tall man escaped with the help of an English-speaking woman. I believe she was the one tracking us, not El Chupacabra. Jorge and Gordo were afraid to tell you this, so they attacked me and ran off.”

Luis stood, unmoving. The only sign that showed he’d heard Alvarado was the twitching in his left cheekbone.

“I will track that man down myself and kill him. Only after he is dead will my luck change.”

Alvarado wanted to pull his hair out at Luis’s ridiculous statement. The only thing that stopped him from doing so was the fact that Luis was partially correct. His luck on this venture had been bad, and it was getting worse by the day. Nevertheless, Alvarado reached for a way to placate Luis. In point of fact, things were not at a total loss, and they were so deep in the shit now, going deeper was the only alternative.