Superhero (13 page)

“I’ll be with you in a minute.”

He folded his arms and scanned the monitors behind the counter, capturing cell blocks and the cafeteria and the hallways. Few places were as depressing to be in as the jail. He wondered how people worked here without feeling like inmates themselves.

“Okay,” the woman said, looking up at him, “what can I do for you?”

“I’m Detective Kane with the LAPD. I need to speak with a Hector Cortez.”

She pulled up Hector Cortez’s file and scanned it.

“Where’s your badge?”

“I don’t have it with me. I came directly from home.”

“Well I can’t…wait a sec. Okay I got a note from a Detective Yates that you’re comin’ to see him. Just head right through those doors, Detective. You don’t need to pass through security.”

Jack got a slight thrill from the woman’s change in demeanor. When she had verified that he was actually a cop, she smiled and became helpful. One of the perks of being an officer.

Though Jack had technically been a cop these past eleven years with the DEA, he wasn’t allowed to let anyone know except the partners he was working with.

He went past a sliding metal door and nodded hello to the guards. A long hallway led to the meeting rooms and as he walked down he looked at the drawings up on the walls. Drawn by hand, they were all works done by the inmates. Many were sketches of ancient Mayan and Aztec warriors and Gods, women collapsed as slaves by their feet. Their enemies’ broken bodies underneath them. Some were of motorcycles and loved ones that had been left behind. Others were places they had been, like the Grand Canyon or Las Vegas.

Jack entered the meeting room and sat on the cold metal stool bolted to the floor, facing thick glass and a phone. A buzzer sounded and the metal door on the other side of the glass opened. A large Mexican man with dreadlocks stepped inside. He sat down across from Jack and was quiet a long time before Jack picked up the phone and he did the same.

“What’chyu want, cop?”

“You Hector?”

“Yeah.”

“I want to know where Agamemnon is.” Jack said. Though his training told him to build rapport, somehow he knew it wouldn’t work with this man.

“Man, ya’ll sound like a broken record. I ain’t tellin’ you cops shit about Agamemnon. Ya’ll want him so bad, you go out and find him.”

“YOU WILL TELL ME WHERE HE IS.”

The space was filled with a voice that wasn’t Jack’s, one he didn’t believe could come from him. It was loud and piercing and he could see its effect by the way Hector’s face contorted.

“What the fuck is that shit?” Hector said.

“YOUR FAMILY ON LAS CRUCES BOULEVARD.” Jack suddenly felt the smoothness of the metal platform just underneath the window. He looked down as his hand moved a human tooth up toward Hector.

Jack jumped up with a start. He was trembling and felt vomit rising in his throat.

“You a cop, man,” Hector shouted, his voice muffled by the glass barrier. “You can’t kill nobody.”

“DON’T BE NAÏVE, LITTLE BOY. GOD KILLS, AND SO SHALL I.”

Hector turned ashen and placed his head in his free hand, staring down at the ground.

“I tell you where he is, you leave my family alone?”

Jack didn’t respond. He just listened as Hector began to describe how to find Agamemnon.

Jack walked out of the jail and vomited in the parking lot. Somehow, he knew where he needed to go.

Las Cruces Boulevard was a lower-middle-class neighborhood. A place where the older generation had expected to put in their forty years and then have their retirement and their homes to rely on. But all those jobs had been transferred overseas, leaving only gangs and drugs and part-time and contract work. People just barely scraping by.

Jack pulled to a stop in front of the third house on the right. He had never been here before but somehow it looked familiar. He stepped out of the car and walked slowly up the driveway to the front door. It was open and he went inside.

Two men who resembled Hector lay on the living room floor. Their hands were tied to their ankles, and gags had been placed in their mouths. Trembling, Jack removed their gags.

“What happened here?” Jack said.

“Don’t hurt us, esay. We ain’t done nothin’. We ain’t done nothin’, man.”

“DO NOT BE AFRAID, JACK.”

Jack noticed the man’s front teeth; one of them was missing. He stood up in horror and nearly stumbled backward out of the house. He stood at the doorway a long time before running over and untying the men. He sprinted out of the house, slamming the door behind him.

What the hell am I?

CHAPTER 27

William Yates woke up at seven in the morning to his phone ringing. After meeting with Jack the previous night, he decided to get as much sleep as he could before starting the day. Unfortunately he was the type that grew more tired with sleep, not less.

He rolled over and grabbed his cell phone off the nightstand. “Hello?”

“Detective, this is Marcy at the precinct. Um, you have some visitors.”

“Take a message and tell them to come back in a few hours.”

“Um, I don’t think they’re going to do that, Detective.” She whispered, as if it were as secret, “It’s people from the military.”

William’s heart dropped. He sat up in bed.

“Detective?”

“Yeah, I’m here. Tell them I’ll be in in twenty minutes.”

“Okay.”

William hung up and tapped his cell phone against his palm. He got up and dressed quickly before heading out the door and to his car.

The day was hot and a thick layer of smog covered the city. The air stunk of exhaust, and as he pulled onto the busy street, he wished he’d bought that cabin in Ketchum that he had always thought about. Right now, relaxing in a police department of six where nothing ever happened sounded like heaven.

Cars were packed tightly on the freeway and he guessed he was travelling an average of ten miles per hour. His air conditioning only worked sporadically and he had to take off his suit coat and roll up the sleeves of his shirt.

When he got to the precinct, he was expecting Humvees and military Jeeps. Instead, there were just two black Chrysler 300s parked out front. He took his time going inside. He had never been in the military or had the desire to be. But his father had been. On the nights when he was too drunk to leave the house, his father would put on his uniform and rant about things that had happened in Vietnam.

The precinct was buzzing with activity and William saw Marcy behind the front desk. She pointed to the conference room near the back. William would have preferred if they were sitting in the waiting room.

He walked in to four men, two of them in uniform and two of them in suits.

“Detective Yates?” an older one said. “I’m Colonel Tiberius Finley. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you.”

William noted that none of the other men were introduced as he sat down across from them on the other side of the conference room table.

“What can I do for you, gentlemen?” William asked.

“It’s regarding a detective in your unit. We were told you were his direct commanding officer.”

“Which detective?”

“Jack Kane. He recently retired from the DEA and took a position here.”

“Okay, what would you like to ask me?”

“We’d like to question Detective Kane about a possible break-in at a secure government facility a few days ago. We believe he may be involved.”

“Really? You think a decorated DEA agent and detective broke into a federal facility, huh?”

“The circumstances are…extenuating. We’re not faulting him. We don’t think he had much of a choice. But the person he is with is extremely dangerous and unstable. We need to find her immediately and we think that Detective Kane may know where she is.”

“Hm. That is a dilemma. But it’s not one I can help you with.”

“When was the last time you saw Detective Kane?”

“Colonel, all due respect, but that uniform don’t mean shit in this town. Now, if you boys will excuse me, I have real work to do.”

William stood up and began to walk out of the room when the colonel said, “He’s more dangerous than you can imagine, Detective Yates. Remember that I warned you about that.”

William waited in his office until the men had left. He pulled out his cell phone and realized Jack probably didn’t have his cell. It was still at the hospital in a storage unit. Besides, those suits looked like FBI or Homeland Security. Knowing them, they probably already got cell phone records and maybe even a wiretap going.

Suddenly, his cell phone rang. An unknown number.

“This is Detective Yates.”

“William, it’s Jack.”

“I was just going to call you. Where you callin’ from?”

“New cell. You can reach me on this any time. I got a feeling I should call you just now. You have anything you need to tell me…William, you there?”

“Yeah. That’s just weird. Um, yeah. Military was here to see you. They brought some Feds.”

“Anyone we know?”

“No. A Colonel Finley. Never heard of him. They said the woman you’re with is extremely dangerous and unstable.”

“The government does love their propaganda.”

“Who is she?”

“She’s the one that saved my life. She had to take me somewhere. She wasn’t supposed to do it and I don’t think her bosses are happy about it.”

“Well, you know the drill. Lawyer up and let them give it their best shot.”

“No, I don’t think that’s what this is. They’re not doing an investigation.”

“What’re they doing then?”

“I don’t know. But it’s not that. Look, if you hear anything else, let me know. Would you?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Thanks.”

“Jack,” William blurted out, “are you in something deep?”

A long pause before he said, “I’ll call you in a couple days. Bye, William.”

William hung up the phone. He had an uneasy feeling in his gut.

CHAPTER 28

Jack sat on his back patio, enjoying the light breeze that was blowing through the apple and pear trees in the massive backyard. He watched the way the sunlight glimmered off the clear water of the pool to the right. He felt Heidi’s presence before she slid open the sliding glass door. She sat next to him in a patio chair and they were silent a while.

“That suit,” Jack said, “what is it? What is it made of?”

“A synthetic polymer that we couldn’t identify. It didn’t correspond to any element in the periodic table.”

“Where did you get it?”

She looked to him and then away. “Off one of…them. We found it conforms to whatever shape it happens to be covering.”

Jack was quiet. “I feel different.”

“Different how?”

“There’s a voice in my head. It’s much louder than it should be. It sounds like it’s outside of me but I know it’s coming from me. Yesterday, it made me do something that I wasn’t even aware I did.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I literally took actions that I didn’t remember doing afterward. I hurt…I hurt some people. Not bad, but I hurt them and didn’t know that I did.”

“Jack, I know this is all hard to swallow. Maybe I’ve been in this so long that I’ve grown desensitized to how bizarre it all is. But you were injected with an extraterrestrial hormone. The only other person that has done that is Agamemnon and we haven’t been able to study him. I don’t know all the side effects that’s going to have.”

Jack shook his head. “The voice was there before. I heard it for the first time in the hospital.”

“Oh,” was all she managed to say. After a few minutes, she said, “You were locked inside your own head for a very long time. I’m not a psychiatrist, but there has to be some sort of psychological impact from that.”

“Yeah.”

A phone rang inside the house. It took five rings to go quiet.

“I know where Agamemnon is.”

“How do you know that?” Heidi said, turning to him.

“I got the information from one of his men. He’s in an abandoned plant. It used to manufacture engine parts for planes and automobiles. I know where it is. I’ve been out there before. I’m going tonight.”

“Why?”

“Because I need answers. Colonel Finley showed up at my precinct today asking where I was.”

“Did he?” she said, glancing away toward the pool. “What did he want?”

“He wants you. And me. He says you’re dangerous.”

“Do you believe that, Jack? Do you think I’m a threat to national security?”

He looked her in the eyes. Her eyes were large and brown with thick lashes. “Of course not. I just don’t know how long we can last here.”

“You said you want answers. Is that all you want?”

“No.”

“Jack, revenge doesn’t just hurt the object of the vengeance.”

“They shot my niece and he took my legs. What would you want me to do?”

“Let’s go somewhere where Finley can’t find us. He has no jurisdiction in the Caribbean. Let’s go there. Let’s leave this whole mess behind.”

“I…we will. But first I need to find Agamemnon.”

“And what are you going to do when you find him? You have no idea how powerful he is. You haven’t even gotten used to your suit or your new abilities. He’s been living in them for years.”

Jack thought a moment. “You’re right. It’s not time yet.”

She exhaled. “Thank goodness you see reason.”

“But it will be soon. And when it is, Heidi, don’t try and stop me.”

CHAPTER 29

Reese Stillman stopped his Chevy Tahoe just outside the warehouse. Though it was the middle of the day, there was no one around for at least twenty miles. The warehouse sat on a stretch of land that used to be an Indian reservation on the California/Nevada border. Converted to open space in the 70s, there was nothing here now but abandoned buildings from a few foolhardy investors trying to rent out land bought on the cheap.

As always, Agamemnon was already here. He stood near the warehouse in his full, black suit. His eyes were closed and his breathing was deep and purposeful. Reese had seen him do this hundreds of time, sometimes numerous times a day. He was meditating. Though for what purpose, Reese could never tell.