Sweet Dreams (24 page)

214 AARON

The past few days something was happening to him. He could turn on and shut off his emotions at will as if he had an internal switch, his reactions were quick and precise, and it was as if he were two different people. He thought back to the gun range.
How could he shoot like that without any training?

And the ordeal at the cabin, his movements just came to him like they had been imprinted into his brain. Maybe he had watched too many movies; maybe it was a reaction from what he saw on the bloody actions movies he liked to watch. Wrapping a towel around himself, Mark wandered into the kitchen and poured some coffee into a medium-size mug. As he sipped on the black, dark brew, he looked at his hand. It was fine, no marks, and no bruises. He walked over to a nearby mirror and turned around to look at his back; same thing, not a scratch or a mark anywhere on his body. He tried to think back,
was he hit or punched at all through everything.
He could not remember.
Maybe not.

"Weird, that was lucky," he muttered as he walked from his bedroom, where he had just thrown on a black shirt and a pair of Lucky jeans. Just as he was finishing buttoning up his shirt, he noticed something in the corner of the room. A woman.

Mark froze; he could see her outline up against the wall over by the fireplace. Without even thinking, he dropped to the floor, diving for the fire poker to his left, and came up with it in his hand. Her dark hair reflected from the sunshine coming through the window, but she did not make a move due to the sharp poker that was now at her throat.

Mark's hand was steady as he whispered in a dark voice that did not even sound like him, "What do you want?"

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________________________________________

ISIS KANIKA COULD SEE Mark waking up from his slumber from the building across the street. Her window was about two stories above where Mark's apartment was and was a perfect vantage point to spy on her new assignment. Her cell phone made a chirp sound, indicating that she had a text message. Opening her phone, she read the words aloud,

"Bring him in."

She smiled with her dark eyes half-closed; this was the part she loved. It was not just the danger, but it was the feeling she got of being in control. Okay--so maybe, she was a control freak, but even when it looked like she was not on the top of her game, she always knew.

She was.

She opened the window without much effort, and with a quick look to make sure that Mark was in the other room; she buttoned up the top button of her long black coat and jumped out the window.

The frigid air hit her lungs like an icy bolt of lightning as she fell from the window, bringing her senses to a heightened state. Rolling over onto her back as she fell, she made a fist with her right hand extended toward the building to the right of Mark's apartment.

A burst of air came out from a small device attached to her wrist and shot out a tiny, sharp spine that blazed past Mark's building. The tiny arrow made its way to the adjacent building, digging itself into the side of the concrete and expanded to make a solid hold. The cable tightened as it stretched, causing Isis to swing parallel to Mark's building.

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As she swung toward the side of the apartment, the device on her wrist began to reel up like a fishing line on steroids, pulling her up. With the momentum, she was heading straight for a crash landing with the side of the apartment building, and she did not want to do that so just before she smashed through the glass-lined building, she flipped her feet out in front of her and hit the glass running.

The line was attached about four stories above Mark's apartment, causing Isis to swing upward toward Mark's window. She saw that she was about one story higher than the target window and heading straight for the edge of the building, which would send her around to the other side if she kept on her current course.

The reel made a zipping sound as it reeled in and would have pulled her over to the next building, but Isis quickly hit the release button and began to fall once again straight down past Mark's window. Reaching out her hands, the suction from her gloves attached to the glass and slowly added pressure and as she slid, they brought her to a stop with the perfect timing so she would not snap her wrists.

She ended up only two windows below where she wanted to be and she smiled.
Not bad
, she thought to herself as her foot suction controls engaged and she began to climb up onestep at a time. Each hand and foot suction would grab in precise order and with only enough suction to hold her up. Her left hand would lose its suction, allowing her to reach a little higher, then her right foot, then right hand, left foot and so on. The suit she wore under her long coat was designed just for her, made to react to her heart rate and body movements.

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She stopped just below his window and peered up to see if the coast was clear. With no one in sight, she pulled herself up, reached for her sunglasses, turned on the x-ray lens, looked through the apartment, and saw Mark in the bedroom. She reached her right hand out and allowed it to hover just centimeters from the glass, the magnetic pulse that came from her gloves allowed her to unlock the window from the outside. Moving her hand up, she could see the latch slide up and unlock with a click. After deactivating the magnet, she slid open the window and vaulted inside, not making a sound as she landed.

After closing the window, she went over to the fireplace and looked at a picture of Mark and his family standing in front of their house filled with joy, so much, so she could almost feel it coming from the photograph. She felt a wave of sadness wash over her as she thought about her family, her son.

Just then, she saw Mark coming from his bedroom from the corner of her eye. Before she could react, she was looking down the end of a sharp fire poker. Her heart did not even race or skip a beat; she felt no fear as the poker touched her neck. Reaching up, she took off her glasses and looked Mark right in the eye.

"Hello, Mark."

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Chapter Sixteen

"MOOCH." KIRK TALKED INTO HIS CELL PHONE AS

he drove toward downtown Manhattan. "I've got a name for you; I need to know where to find this chick."

"Hold on, man--you're so demanding. Sometimes I think I would've been better off going to jail," Mooch grumbled as he made a racket in Kirk's ear.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to find my chair under all this mess I call a bedroom. Hold on one sec," Kirk could hear Mooch yelling at his mom, telling her not to go into his room. Kirk just got more annoyed when he had to wait for anything, and that
anything
lived with his mom in a basement. "Okay, I'm back, give me her name,"

"Isis Kanika,
K-a-n-i-k-a.
She is the woman from the drop-off; I need to know where she went or anything that will give me a last known address, place of employment or who her 220 AARON

family is and if she was married, I want everything."

Kirk could hear Mooch typing over the phone and his eyes darted over to where Geoff was sitting; he seemed engrossed with something on his laptop. Nothing made him angrier than all this techno garbage like the internet and cell phones, I-pods and the like. Kirk liked it better before the world turned electronic and people actually had to talk to each other rather then check their Twitter or Facebook. "What have you got?"

"Hold on, I am tracking her from where she left the warehouse and following her truck. Okay, she turned into a parking garage on Forty-Fourth and Fifth Avenue. It looks like an office building of some kind."

"Great. Does it show her coming out?"

"No. Just going in; that's all I got. As far as a home address or anything like that, all I could find is her files from the

'Black Widow' Project."

"Yeah, I got that already. Okay, keep looking, and one more thing: Try to find out what this project was and why she left, if you can. They said she was killed in action which is a lie; we both know that is code for she left and we can't find her so let's bury our heads in the sand."

"Fine, but I want four large pepperoni pizzas delivered to my house. I don't work well on an empty stomach."

"Ha! Now you're pushing it, just get to work Mooch or I just might forget to be so nice to you!" Kirk hung up the phone and turned to Geoff. "Hey, I need you to send some pizza to Mooch's house, you think you can take care of that?"

"Sure. I can even order it online," Geoff began typing, and was soon finished with the order and sent it off. "So what did you find out?"

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"There is an office building at Forty-Forth and Fifth where we might find Isis. That's where she went after the switch."

"That's the Merc building, I think." Geoff pulled up a website and was soon on the site of Merc, Inc.

"How did you know that?" Kirk looked over at Geoff, picked up his coffee mug, and took a sip.

"Well, I was an intern there before I got hired on at World Magazine. They put out a publication that goes out all over the world, big stuff on politics and global warming, stuff like that."

"Are you talking about The Global Advisor?"

"Yup, that's the one, multibillion-dollar company and very big on saving the world." Geoff's face lit up as he talked about them. Kirk could tell he admired what they were trying to do. Kirk could care less about the poor earth and its fever, not as if he could do anything about it anyway. The environmentalists were all up in arms about carbon and cow farts, when China, India and every other country polluted ten times what America ever thought of doing. We cannot build a nuke plant so they do and in the end, the world gets polluted faster, but we sleep better at night because we didn't do it.

"Well, if they're involved in this, then they will be going against everything that they claim to believe in."

"If you think about it, these people think they are doing the right thing. They killed all the prisoners, which were all convicted rapists and murderers, and they didn't kill anyone that was considered innocent, like the guards, for example. They did a good job at burying it, too, with the whole food poisoning thing."

Kirk rubbed his chin as he thought. "I think we've got a vigilante group on our hands."

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Thinking about the case so far, how he was kidnapped to give the FBI time to close the case and hoping that he would forget all about it, it all started to make sense. However, to keep him alive was an example of how much they believed in their so called convictions--No innocent would be killed.

"This is not going to be easy, with the technology I've seen so far in the prison I was in, and how good they are at covering their tracks. We might be neck deep into an underground operation." Geoff nodded as they turned onto Fifth Avenue.

The Merc building was made of brick and stone with dark glass covering the windows shooting up into the skyline like a crystal breaking through solid rock. Pulling into the parking garage and finding a space on the fifth level, Kirk put the car into park and turned the ignition off.

"Well, are you ready?" Kirk asked.

"Ready as I'll ever be!"

________________________________________

MARK'S HAND WAS SURPRISINGLY steady as he held the weapon at the intruder's neck. He could feel his heart slow down until all he could feel was his adrenaline pumping through his body.

"What do you want, and how do you know my name?"

Mark demanded as he stepped closer; cocking his arm, ready to thrust it in a moment's notice.

"Mark." Her voice was calm and soothing. "I am here to help you. If we could just talk, then I can explain everything."

She reached up and carefully touched the end of the poker. Mark looked into her dark almost-black eyes and slowly low-

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ered his weapon. He brought it down to his side and motioned for her to sit on the couch behind him.

She walked over to the couch and sat down, leaned back, and looked up at him. "Mark, my name is Isis, and I'm the one who left you the surveillance video as well as the note in your car over a year ago. I'm also the one who knows the truth about the bombing that day."

Mark looked at her as if he wasn't surprised in the slightest. "You drive a black Lexus, don't you?"

She smiled and laughed. Shaking her head, she said,

"Well, you're better than I thought, but he said you would be, and after seeing the cabin..."

"How do you know about that?" Mark tensed up as he looked around.

"I know more about you than you do, and that's why I'm here. We have been watching you for some time now; it's only a matter of time until you begin to wonder..."

"What are you talking about? Wonder what? I am fine!"

Mark didn't even convince himself, let alone her. He knew something was happening to him and he didn't know why and maybe he didn't want to know.

"Have you noticed anything different about yourself, such as knowing how to shoot a gun without any training? Did you ever think you were capable of killing four people? I know that this is a confusing time in your life, but I need you to come with me. I can help you find the answers you are looking for."

Mark tried to think of a good reason not to agree with her, but then, he knew that she had evidence to put him away for life. He thought for a second; he did not think he had much 224 AARON

choice.

"Who are you people?" Mark was frustrated, but somehow he knew the answer.

"I'm with the World Justice Agency, and I can take you home."

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MARK WAS TRYING TO put all the pieces together as they drove downtown toward Central Park. He sat in the Lexus that he had seen many times but never thought anything of it until now. She must have been watching him for who knows how long, months maybe even years.