Crow - The Awakening (61 page)

Steven looked at the scanner. What could he do if they could follow him? He patted his clothes but didn't feel any bumps. He didn't even know what the tracking bug would look like. He felt violated. But it made sense because no matter where he went, they always seemed to show up.

His stomach grumbled as he sped down the road and he realized he was smelling something. Looking around, he saw a pizza bag. He reached back and pulled a box out of the bag and opened it. Smiling, he figured Brandon would appreciate that if he was home. Steven pulled out a slice and started eating it as he continued sticking to the side streets, taking the longer way to Brandon's neighborhood. The dots on the scanner had congregated around the SUV he had just left and no one appeared to be following him just yet, so he relaxed a little. The pizza was horrible, but he was starving. He missed his meals back home and determined that as soon as he wrapped all this up, he was going to make things right with Sally and Jonah. They were right on so many counts.

"No, no, no!" Laurence yelled as he pulled up to the SUV. His men were milling around it as they secured the scene. He jumped out of the car and ran up the them. "What? This was perfect!" The operation could not have gone smoother. He looked into the abandoned SUV and noticed the scanner missing. "Perfect," he grumbled.

He was waved over to another SUV and saw the two limp bodies of his men laying in the back seat.

It appears that he darted them, sir," an agent explained. A medic had been working on them but shook his head. "They didn't make it."

"How did he get his hands on a dart gun?" Laurence looked at them. They were good men but he was furious with them.

"He didn't. I think he used darts that were shot at him." The agents held the darts that were extracted from the necks of the deceased agents.

"There was enough left in them to do this?" Laurence was surprised as he picked up one of the darts and examined it. There were several, so even if the darts weren't full, there was enough of a collective dose to kill the men. A dose that was only supposed to sedate Steven, and still seemingly failed.

"Apparently. It was a really concentrated dose," the agent said. "It would also seem that the dose is still insufficient to take down our target."

"We don't have anything else." Laurence had hoped it was just a matter of dosing. Without knowing Steven's physiology, he couldn't know for sure. Until now. "We're going to have to do this the hard way."

"Like it's been easy so far?" The agent was not amused, no doubt mirroring the sentiment of most of the men. Laurence had to concede, they'd all been working with little rest and no success and it was no doubt affecting them. The sooner they closed this operation down, the better.

"Okay, get them out of here." Laurence turned around and was about to address the rest of his team when a gangly looking teenager walked up to him. Laurence looked at him, "What?"

"He took my car. You guys need to help me get it back." The kid was angry.

"Why?" Laurence was completely taken aback by the teenager.

"He was one of yours, right?" The pizza delivery driver pointed an accusatory finger at him.

"No, he was a prisoner." Laurence walked past him, not wanting to continue the discussion.

"That you... allowed to escape?" The kid persisted. Laurence winced. Teenagers so love to run their mouths.

Laurence turned around. "Look, do you have a GPS locator on your car?"

"No." The driver looked surprised by the sudden change in the conversation.

"Then you're useless to me." Laurence drew his dart gun and shot the kid who fell down on the sidewalk. "Sweet dreams." Laurence holstered his weapon, remembering just then that the potency of the dart could probably have a much more permanent affect on the kid. He waved his men over to prepare for the next stage of their operation.

"Okay, he has one of our trackers and knows where we are and knows that we know where he is. Have tech reset the beacon frequency in our vehicles and reprogram our scanners. I don't want him seeing us." One of the agents walked off to contact technical support. He couldn't reprogram the chip lodged in Steven's gut so that would be something they'd just have to deal with. Of course, a reminder that they knew where he was at any given time would no doubt have a psychological value to the operation, keeping their target off balance and making mistakes.

Laurence grabbed his GPS and pulled up Brandon's neighborhood block. The team commanders mirrored his data on their devices and followed along. "Thankfully, we know where Steven is going." He looked around. "Tracking is no longer a problem." He changed to a camera view of the residence. "This... this is the problem."

The image showed a tall concrete wall surrounding the property and a heavily armed security gate. Of course, Laurence's people don't often go by the front gate, so that's pretty much irrelevant. But the presence of armed resistance ratcheted up the risk factor significantly and Laurence couldn't help but kick himself for blowing this easy opportunity. He couldn't fathom why things had gone so abysmally wrong and was extremely eager to put all of this behind him. Just who did he tick off to maintain this constant stream of bad luck? Laurence rubbed his eye brows. Focus.

He looked around at his men. "Okay, I want all 911 calls in this neighborhood and closest cell towers rerouted and proxied. I want a team on power." He looked at the image and rotated it around. "We'll blow the wall here. I want a diversionary team on the entrance and we'll synchronize to keep the guards distracted. Do not attempt to go through the main entrance or kill the guards. I want as many of them there as possible and I don't want them to think this is an organized assault." Laurence zoomed on the mansion itself. "We'll enter here, here, and here." Laurence pointed to large, low windows. I want a team up here with sniper rifles." The roof looked like it provided good coverage. He zoomed the image out. "I want a secondary net set up here and here to cover any avenue of escape," Laurence continued, pointing to strategic locations further from the house. "Most importantly, Steven is to be taken alive. Other than that, anything goes."

His team went to their respective SUVs to prepare for the assault. They exchanged their dart magazines for bullets and attached silencers on their weapons. One was already coordinating the proxying of the 911 system in that area and still another was working to reset their beacons and scanners. Laurence sat in his car looking at his scanner. Steven appeared to have made it to Brandon's. An agent walked up to him and he got out of the way as the agent reset the beacon in his car. He stood up and Laurence handed the scanner to him. All the dots but Steven had disappeared. The agent reset the frequency detector on it and the dots returned. At least Steven was blind again and wouldn't see them coming.

The dots still seemed to congregate around the vehicle he had abandoned, and Steven started to relax. The scanner sitting in his lap was his first connection to technology in what seemed like an eternity and he was exhilarated to finally be able to see where his pursuers were. And he was even more thrilled that it didn't look like they were chasing him. He only hoped that Brandon was at the mansion. They had remarkable security there and he would feel much safer behind their walls.

The neighborhood changed gradually as he drove. Properties and homes got bigger. Steven started recognizing more details as he drove by. He had been to this neighborhood a few times when he was in town taking exams for college and the familiarity brought back a sense of security that Steven sorely missed. Starting to get excited, he slowed as he got to the gate of Brandon’s property, then drove past it. Grimacing as he drove by, Steven remembered he was in a stolen car, so he would have to ditch the ride first. He found a neighbor’s access road and stashed the car there, out of sight from the street. Grabbing the pizzas, he trotted and limped back to the gate and buzzed the attendant. Looking up at the camera, he waved, smiling.

The gate opened and a stern security guard stood there glaring at him. Steven smiled weakly. "I have pizza." He held up the boxes.

The security guard lifted an eyebrow as he gave Steven a withering stare. "Pepperoni?" he asked firmly as he looked at Steven.

"And sausage and I think mushrooms," Steven answered, looking in the box. "Oh, and also garlic bread."

The guard grinned. "Well, why didn't you say so? Come on in, Steven."

Steven walked in while the guard looked up and down the street then closed the door. The door was actually part of the larger sliding door that allowed vehicles to drive in and out and was extremely well armored. Steven waited while the guard secured the door. Suddenly he felt a massive wave of relief wash over him as he realized that he was with friends now, and safe, for the moment at least. No one here was trying to kill him and he wasn't having to hide. All of the guards here were combat veterans too and were heavily armed and prepared for an attack. Part of Steven still wondered if that was deterrent enough, but he pushed that thought aside as he began to mentally unwind.

Steven went into the guard house where another one of the guards was monitoring the cameras around the entrance. He sat up and called over his shoulder to a guard in the other room, "Hey, where's the napkins?"

"Over here," the other guard said. "Hi, Steven. Brandon will be here with the cart in a second."

"Oh, cool. He's home." Steven sat down heavily in one of the chairs. He was so exhausted, and yet so happy to see friendly faces finally.

"You look like you've been through Hell, kid," one of the guards observed as he bit into one of the slices. He made a face. "Needs hot sauce." He went to look for the sauce as the other guard grinned at him.

"That guy puts hot sauce on ice cream." He shook his head and Steven grinned.

"Hey, save some for me!" Brandon said as he burst in, grabbing a piece.

"Relax, I have another box." Steven lifted the first box up and slid the other one out. "Canadian bacon and something, I think." He peeked into it. "Pineapple?"

"Dude, it sure is good to see you. I worried all day." Brandon beamed and gave him a hug then looked at him. "You're a mess. What's up with these?" Brandon pointed to his cuts and scrapes.

Steven got serious. "You were right, Brandon. Those are some really scary people."

"Did they do all of this?" Brandon grabbed his arm and led him to the golf cart. "Why didn't you call me?"

"Oh, man, it's been a really bad couple of days." Steven sat back, feeling the exhaustion and the stress starting to weigh on him. "I couldn't remember your number. I can now. Go figure." Steven rubbed his eyes. Brandon's number was right there in front of him as he closed his eyes.

"Stress does that to me too, bro," Brandon said, smiling at him. He was amazed Steven made it there intact.

"I can't stay long, Brandon. They've got a tracker on me somehow. I can't find it, but they know where I am." Steven pulled out the scanner.

"Whoa, that's intense, dude!" Brandon's eyes got wide when he looked at the scanner. Steven nodded, feeling subdued. He was delighted to be here, but even with the guards, he decided he needed to leave as soon as possible.

"I'm sorry. I should have believed you from the beginning." Steven sat back.

"Nothing to it, Steven." Brandon kept driving. "You're staying here. If those guys want you, they're going to have to go through me and our guards."

"That's what I'm afraid of, Brandon." Steven looked at him. "Brandon, people are dying because of me. They blew up cars to try to trap me. I saw her and she was looking right at me when her car blew up." Steven shuddered.

"Who?" Brandon looked at him, agast.

"I don't know. Someone's wife. Or mother." Steven took a deep breath and looked out over the property. "I can't get the look on her face out of my mind." Steven rubbed his eyes.

"You can't keep running, Steven. You need to take a stand somewhere. May as well be with friends with big guns," Brandon said. Steven looked at him, hoping it was as simple as that.

Brandon drove up to the house, which was a vast campus of joined and luxurious buildings. He pulled around to his apartment. "It's not the same as before, so I hope you don't mind." Brandon grinned as they walked into the apartment. His parents had recently renovated it for Brandon.

"Didn't this used to be your garage?" Steven looked around. It wasn't even remotely a garage now.

"Yeah. I live in a garage now." Brandon snickered as they walked past the bar. "You go up and get yourself a shower and I'll see if I can dig up some grub. If my parents were home we'd have a ton of leftovers but you'll have to settle for sandwiches." Brandon pointed upstairs. "Clothes in the closet should fit too." Steven nodded and trudged up the stairs to the apartment's guest suite. It may be over the top in luxury, but Steven was thankful to finally have a place to unwind.

The bathroom was huge. The adjoining closet was even larger. He could get lost in there. He found some clothing that suited him and laid it out, then hopped in the shower. As the water soaked into his skin he winced in pain as his cuts and scrapes all started complaining. The pain subsided after a while, however and the soap seemed to wash away not just the grime of the past couple of days, but the stress too. He would have extended the shower, but exhaustion was starting to catch up with him and he found himself nodding in the stream of steaming hot water so he got out and dried off.

After rooting around Steven found a first aid kit and tended to a few of the worst scratches. It wasn't nearly like the salves that his godmother would prepare, but it would do for now. Steven was shocked by just how many wounds he had. Everywhere he looked there was something that was scraped, burned or cut. He wondered just how much blood he lost. Shaking his head, he taped gauze and bandages to as many as he could reach and hoped the ones he couldn't reach weren't that bad. "Sarah is going to freak," Steven said to himself when he stood up and looked at the amount of bandages and treated wounds he had.