Halon-Seven (21 page)

She wanted to ask more. She wanted to understand; he could see it in her eyes. But she seemed to understand he wasn’t ready to talk about it. That impressed him. Maybe even scared him a little. She could see into his being. This was a painful subject. And for the first time in his life, he actually found himself wanting to share the story. He wanted to tell someone what happened that day six years ago, working undercover for the Coalition. The day that Natasha lost her life. The day Natasha was taken from him.

Reese gently wiped away the single tear that had fallen from his eye. He hadn’t even felt it form. But she gently pushed it away. She rose up onto her toes and kissed him very softly on the cheek.

—————

A single tear
had formed at the corner of Cyrus’s eye. It teetered there for long moments before finally breaking free and rolling down his cheek. This was clearly a very difficult conversation for him. Reese felt bad for bringing it up. But somehow the faraway look in his eyes made her think it was something he had avoided for too long already.

She wanted to know more. She didn’t understand.
Natasha had died?
How horrible. Reese raised a hand and gently wiped away the tear. When she did, his eyes pulled back to the present, back from some faraway place. Her heart broke seeing that hurt in his eyes. Laying a soft kiss upon his cheek, she whispered the only thing she could say under the circumstances. “I’m so sorry.”

But his eyes cleared and he looked down at her. He looked into her eyes, and his face brightened again. “Yeah, well,” he said quietly. “To be honest, I haven’t had a serious relationship since.”

He smiled again and pulled her close. “Thank you,” he whispered in her ear. “I’ve never talked about that before.”

She pulled back and looked up at him. “Never?”

He shook his head.

“With anyone?”

He shook his head again.

Good lord
, she thought. The woman he loved died six years ago. And this conversation was the first time he had shared his feelings about it with another person? Who could do that? How could he live like that? She was sure people had gone insane keeping lesser emotions bottled up.

“So,” he said, clearing the air. “Let me grab a few more things, and we’re out of here.”

Cyrus went back to the desk and started going through the drawers again. While he did that, Reese turned back to the bookshelves. He had a massive collection of hardcover books. Some were very rare, antique leather-bound tomes. Many were newer. But all of them had their spines bent and cracked. That impressed her. He wasn’t one to buy books for show. But could he have actually read them all?

Perplexed and impressed, she moved on across the shelves. She found timeless classics as well as modern thrillers and mysteries. There were technical and scientific journals, as well as biographies by historic figures and Nobel Prize winners. With curiosity, the contents of the bottom shelf caught her eye.

“Wow!” she said with some admiration. “It looks like you’ve got every novel Alastair Rose ever wrote!” She went down the shelf. There were twelve hardcovers lined up. But none of these had cracked spines. She pulled the first book from the shelf and flipped open the front cover. The binding popped as she paged through the first few sheets in search of something. Her eyes went wide. She looked up at Cyrus, her mouth agape. “Are they all first editions?”

Cyrus pulled the last of the important files from his desk and shoved them into the end of the duffle bag with his clothes. He shot her a glance and nodded. “Every one of them.
Autographed
first editions.”

She looked back to the book and flipped the pages once more. Sure enough, she found the inscription! She looked back to Cyrus. It was curious. He didn’t appear very interested in talking about the books. “I don’t get it,” she said. It was almost an accusation. “You must be a collector. But you don’t seem very interested in them. It couldn’t have been easy to get a set of first editions. The first printing of each book was a limited run. Rose intentionally kept the first printing short. Each book was in extremely high demand when it first shipped, but most fans had to wait for the second printing before they could actually get a copy.”

“Yeah,” Cyrus said with a knowing smile. “Most people don’t know it, but Alastair Rose reserves the entire first printing for fans who signed up to his mailing list prior to the release of his first novel. It was 256 people. Every book that followed, those same 256 people were shipped a first edition as soon as it was available. Each book autographed and free of charge. It was his way of supporting the people who supported him.”

“That’s ridiculous! I’m just about the biggest Alastair Rose fan there is, and I’ve never heard any of that!” Her eyes narrowed. “How do you know that? Are you one of the 256?”

He didn’t respond. He just watched her carefully, enjoying himself.

The knowing look he was giving suggested he knew more than he was saying. But that could mean—

“Do you
know
Alastair Rose?” There was a long silence. “No one knows Alastair Rose!”

Cyrus laughed. He moved to the front of the desk and sat on the edge.

Dammit! He’s enjoying this.

“You seem to know a lot about the man. Why would I know Alastair Rose?” Cyrus asked.

She wasn’t sure. It was something about the look in his eyes. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but there was recognition there. He knew something he wasn’t saying. He found this far too amusing for it to be—

No way…

“You?” her voice cracked, as if her mouth had betrayed the word passing through her mind at that very moment. But the second the word left her lips, she somehow sensed it was correct. She didn’t know why, but she had confidence. “It’s you. I don’t believe it… You’re Alastair Rose!”

“What?” Cyrus seemed genuinely shocked by the accusation. “Why would you say that?”

She laughed and slapped closed the book still held in her hands. “I’ve read every one of these books. And, I don’t know, you read that much by one person and you just have a sense of them. A familiarity with their humor—their way of looking at the world. It’s you! I’m sure of it! Everyone assumes Alastair Rose is some kind of hermit or recluse, because he’s never been identified. People have even tried to track him—you—through the publisher’s financial records. There have been two break-ins at the publisher’s office, for god’s sake! Everyone who has tried to identify Alastair has failed. The man’s a ghost!”

Cyrus shrugged, and finally nodded. “Fair enough. He’s a ghost. It’s just a pen name. But there’s no conspiracy to it. I’ll tell you one thing. It turned out to be one hell of a viral marketing campaign.”

She laughed, a really heart-felt laugh. “Wow! You’re full of surprises. Alastair Rose is Cyrus Cooper! Why didn’t you ever come forward? Don’t you know how hard people have worked to find the man behind these books?”

“Hell yes, I know! But it sort of snowballed with time. At first I did it on a lark. Then people started posting questions online. ‘Who is Alastair Rose?’ That sort of thing. There was a lot of conversation. By the time the third book came out, it had become a big deal. Everyone was talking about it. People who would never have known about the books knew the name. But since people couldn’t talk about the name without talking about the books, pretty soon the books were everywhere. The damn things even hit the bestseller list…Repeatedly!”

His smile lessened, and he just looked at her. “Can you imagine how crushed people would be if they put a face to the name now? After twelve books and all the build up? All the conversation? All the hype? If people found out it was someone boring like me, they’d be crushed.”

Now she laughed. “I don’t know if they’d be crushed, but I can see your point. It has grown into its own kind of monster.” It was true. Things had reached the point where reality couldn’t possibly meet with expectations. “Still, these are some of my all-time favorite books. I can’t believe you wrote them!”

“Thanks. Tell you what, when we get this Meridian thing sorted out, I’ll hook you up with a set of your own first editions.” He grinned mischievously. “I know a guy.”

He hopped down from the desk and returned to the empty corkboard. At the far right corner of it, he slid his fingertips between the edge of the board and the wall. That must’ve triggered a switch because a four-foot-wide section of the board popped forward. He grabbed the section and swung it to the side on a hinge.

Behind the floor-to-ceiling corkboard was a hidden compartment. A slightly reclined rack held a selection of rifles and shotguns. A tall section of pegboard held a dozen or so handguns of various makes, models, and calibers. And shelves recessed into the compartment were stacked high with ammunition.

Reese’s eyes bugged at the sight of the arsenal. This was unprecedented. Every time she turned around, she was seeing a new side of Cyrus. “Well,” she said, finally finding her voice. “You had a hell of a story for the books. The one behind these guns must put that one to shame. Care to share?”

Cyrus’s eyes met hers. It was clear this needed some sort of explanation. “Yeah. There’s a reason for all of it. I’m not a nut job. Let’s just grab what we need and get out of here. We’ve been too long already. I promise I’ll explain this, once we get everything secured.”

Alright. That was fair. He went about selecting the weapons he wanted to take and loading them into the last remaining duffle bag along with all the ammo he could carry.

Reese turned back to the bookshelves. She shook her head thinking about the Alastair Rose conspiracy. There were endless theories that Alastair was someone in witness protection hiding from the mob, or some kind of reclusive eccentric who never left his home. All sorts of crazy theories were thrown about. But the truth was something far more mundane. That struck her as very amusing.

When she reached the end of the shelf, something different caught her eye. She was just about to ask Cyrus about it, but thought that now might not be the best time. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw him zipping the last duffle bag and closing the wall’s hidden panel. They were about to leave. She thought for a second, then took advantage of his distraction. Grabbing three of the sixteen paperback books from the end of the bottom shelf, she stuffed them into the backpack at her feet.

“Ready to go?” Cyrus asked.

“All set,” she confirmed.

They headed for the door. She had the backpack slung over one shoulder and Cyrus had a massive duffle bag in each hand.

—————

As they reached
the front door, Cyrus got a funny feeling. A strange sensation tickled at the based of his skull and sent his eyes in the direction of the doorknob. He’d heard a floor board squeak in the hallway outside the apartment. He’d always liked that particular
 
floorboard because it gave him a heads up when someone was standing at his doorstep. The squeak was always followed a second or two later by a knock or the electronic chime of the bell. But this time there was no knock.

Cyrus stopped dead in his tracks. Reese, caught off guard, walked right into him. He lowered both bags to the floor, turned quickly, and signaled Reese for silence. He was relieved to see that she was already on alert.

In one smooth motion, he pulled the gun from the holster behind his back. He could see a shadow move across the small gap at the
 
bottom of the door. Someone was standing directly outside. He stepped to the side of the doorframe. Should the person in the hall start shooting through the wooden door, the thick wooden frame would dramatically reduce his chances of taking a round. He signaled Reese into the office a few feet away.

He was deciding how to best deal with the person at the door when the floorboard squeaked again and the shadow was gone. He was confused. A nosey neighbor? Someone trying to find the right apartment? Or, it could be—

Oh shit!

Oak Park, Chicago Illinois

Wednesday, 4:42 pm (3:52 pm Colorado Time)

Cyrus turned and bolted down the hall. He made it six strides before the front door detonated in an shower of splinters. The concussive force of the blast smashed him to the floor and jolted the gun from his hand.

His ears ringing and eyes blurry, Cyrus rolled over in time to see a large figure dressed in black lunging at him with a large hypodermic needle in hand. At the last moment, he squared his body to the man and raised his feet, catching the man in the abdomen and arresting his approach. With a flex of his back and knees, Cyrus launched his assailant over his head, in the direction of the living room at the far end of the hall.

Climbing to his feet before the next attacker could reach him, Cyrus’s hand slid up under his jacket and pulled free the short handle of a telescoping baton. With a snap of his wrist, the baton extended to its full two-and-a-half-foot length. It would be difficult to swing within the confines of a hallway, but not impossible. With a snap of his wrist, Cyrus flicked the tip of the baton down on the extended hand of the oncoming second attacker. He was instantly rewarded by the sound of snapping bone. The man shrieked in pain. Cyrus followed up with a devastating right cross, square to the man’s nose. This time he heard the sound of splintering cartilage. A solid front kick to the man’s chest sent him hurtling backward down the hall, where he collided with a third oncoming attacker. The two men landed in a tangled pile that blocked the hallway.

Spinning a hundred and eighty degrees, Cyrus turned in time to find that the first attacker had recovered and was advancing on him. The man had the large hypodermic needle at the ready and was looking to drive it home. Cyrus had no idea what was in the syringe and no desire to sample it first hand. The fact that no one had pulled a trigger yet made it a safe bet they wanted to bring him—or Reese, or both of them—back alive. That gave him the advantage, because the way this week was going, his reluctance to take another person’s life was proving a luxury he couldn’t afford.

The attacker feigned a lunge with the needle only to backpedal a half step before attacking with full force. Cyrus grabbed the wrist supporting the oncoming needle with his left and put all his power and weight into another right cross. He dropped forward to one knee as he followed through with all available momentum. The punch caught the oncoming man in the abdomen, right above the belt buckle. Between the attacker’s oncoming inertia and the force of the punch, Cyrus had certainly knocked the wind out of him. Hell, there was a good chance the man had just involuntarily pissed himself from the force of the blow. Cyrus ducked and more or less threw the man over his shoulder. Flailing, he landed on top of his two unconscious comrades.