The Defender (The Carrier Series Book 2) (23 page)

I took the opportunity to turn my head so my mouth was by Drew’s
ear and spoke softly, giving him directions.

“One, two, three!” I called and busted out of my ropes. I
whipped the black bag off of my head to see Drew already punching one of the
guards in the face. The other guard came at me, but I was able to kick him in
the knees before he could throw a punch. He toppled over to the ground in pain
just as the other guard jabbed Drew in the stomach. I jumped up and hung from a
pipe running through the exposed ceiling. I swung my legs back, smacked the man
in the face with my feet and he went tumbling backwards, crashing into a stack
of metal containers.

Drew yelled for me to duck as he jumped up on a chair and
leapfrogged over my back, using his whole body to plow into a guard behind me.

Then the door opened. “STOP!”

I couldn’t believe it. Agent Harper, my old boss from the CBB,
stood in the doorway aiming his Glock at my head.

“I knew we’d meet again, Agent Hill.” He walked closer, the
guards still lying on the ground. “Now, be a good little agent and hand over
the Schematics.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t play ignorant!” He stopped a few feet closer to me but I
only stared at him, showing no fear. He raised his voice a little and spoke
through clenched teeth. “Give me the damn Schematics.”

Drew didn’t know who Harper was. “Listen buddy, we have no idea
wha—” BANG! Drew fell to the ground with a grunt and lay at my feet holding his
shoulder. My heart rate sped up to the same speed as a hummingbird’s.

Harper spanned the room quickly and landed within inches of my
face. “Give me the papers.” His intense eyes bored a hole through mine.

Nerves flew rampantly through me, but I didn’t allow them to
surface. I knew he’d shoot me, and I hadn’t a clue what papers he was talking
about. “Listen Harper, I’d love to cooperate,” I said, trying to steady my
voice, “but I do not know what you are looking for.”

He studied my eyes for another twenty seconds while Drew groaned
on the floor. I wanted to bend down and help him stop the bleeding, but I knew
I’d be shot if I moved.

A tiny hint of a smile made an appearance at the left corner of
Harper’s mouth. “You really don’t know, do you?”

I remained silent.

Harper cracked an evil laugh. “Ethan’s got you figured all wrong.
You’re oblivious to the truth.” The smirk turned into a rather large and ugly
smile. “Well, I guess we’re back at square one, guys.” Then with surprising
speed, he took my arm and twisted it behind my back until I felt my shoulder
crack and heard a painful pop from my forearm.

 *
     *      *
     *

Sunday, October 26th

I woke up in a very dark room. Sleep was still on my mind as a
horrible and moldy smell accompanied the dampness in the air. I was lying on
some kind of dreadfully hard mattress, and as soon as I rolled over I felt
intense pain in my left arm. I couldn’t move it. There was no control.
Panicking, I used my other hand to check if my left arm was actually there. Of
course it was. One limp arm with incredible pain. It had to be broken in several
places.

Where was I? Was I alone? My mind felt fuzzy as I tried to
remember the last thing that happened to me.

Harper…

“He’s nothing but a worthless piece of trash,” a voice said in
my memory. “Make him feel the pain.”

I cautiously called out for Drew, but my voice came out scratchy
and barely audible. I waited a few seconds, but there was no answer.

You’re utterly alone,
my heart
called.

“Ava,” I spoke out loud. “Ava, I need you…” and then my eyes
closed, and I passed out.

 *
     *      *      *

Monday, October 27th

Hunger pains forced my eyes open. My mouth was extremely dry,
and I was disoriented. The room was spinning, even though I couldn’t see
anything through the darkness. The pain in my arm was difficult to endure, and
now it felt like my brain was knocking itself into my skull. I leaned over the
side of the bed and heaved onto the floor below.

A stranger’s faint voice echoed through the halls of my mind.
“Leave him there to rot.”

Ava. My heart called desperately for Ava.

I wished I were dead.

 *
     *      *
     *

Tuesday, October 28th

The creaking sound of a heavy metal door opening woke me up.

An urgent, whispered voice called my name. “Nolan. Get up. We’ve
gotta get out of here quickly.”

A small shaft of light shone through the door and into the dark
room. I could see now that I had been in a tiny concrete cell with a moldy cot
and a moist floor. A dead rat sat in the corner of the room. I looked up at the
blurry person standing in the doorway. She was wearing some kind of black
leather bodysuit.

“Darcy?”

“Come on, Nolan! If we don’t leave now you’ll never get out of
here.” She reached out and grabbed the hand of my good arm, pulling me off the
cot and onto my clumsy feet.

“Drink this,” she ordered and shoved a small bottle towards me.
I slowly drank in the sweet contents.

I stumbled out of the room into the hallway, almost falling to
the ground several times, the muscles in my legs protesting from lack of use.
The dim lights in the hallway were too bright and burned my eyes. Opening them
only into slits, I saw a dead guard lying on the floor at the base of my door.
Drew was waiting down the hall for us by an exit, sucking on a bottle similar
to the one I had. As we approached, I noticed his eyes were black and blue, and
his face was very swollen. His shirt was soaked with blood at the shoulder and
upper chest.

“You look like hell, kid,” he said to me.

“Same to you, buddy.”

“Quit the chit-chat you two, and get up those stairs.” Darcy had
opened the heavy metal door to the fire exit and was waiting for us to ascend.
We both stumbled and dragged ourselves up the stairs as Darcy followed behind
us.

“Take the first-story exit,” she called quietly, stifling back
bursts of laughter at the sight of us.

My legs felt like they were made of jelly, and my left arm was
throbbing with extreme pain. Even though I had only gone up about eight steps,
I was out of breath as if I had just run a 5K race.

Darcy tried to keep her laughing under control, and even though
I knew we must look ridiculous, I told her to shut up. “How long was I in
there?”

“Same as me.” Drew used the handrail to pull himself up a few
more stairs. “Almost four days.”

I could see the second-floor exit at the top of the next flight.
“How did you find us, Darcy?”

“They took our cell phones,” Drew answered, “but they didn’t
check my pants pocket for the emergency GPS button I had in there! Darcy gave
me one before we left Dublin and I launched it when Harper’s men bagged us. I
knew things were not going well at that point.”

Darcy climbed a few steps at a time and charged ahead of both
Drew and me. “I got the signal, the IIA flew me to St. Ives, and I found you
guys here in the basement of this old factory.”

Those little GPS buttons come in handy. My mind raced back to
the night I left one on Ava’s shoulder after I was forced to stab her.

“I took out the guards at the entrance door, and the rest of the
place was abandoned.” She pulled out her Glock and slowly opened the door at
the landing of the stairs.
“Stay here,” Darcy whispered to us. Then she stuck her head out
of the door and looked up and down the dark, empty space in front of us. “Still
looks clear, but we’ve got to run our asses out of here quickly before Harper
realizes you’re gone. You think you boys can do that? I’ve got a car waiting
out back.”

“We’ll do our best, babe, but my mind is still a little hazy,
and I don’t think it’s sending the right messages to my legs.”

Darcy laughed and said, “Let’s go!” She shooed us out the door
and then ran past us, leading the way through a large, dark warehouse. I willed
my legs to move quickly but they were sluggish and weak, barely keeping up with
Darcy as she jogged in her heeled boots toward an exit on the far end. It
seemed as if we were passing rows and rows of metal shelving units, but I
couldn't see what was on them as we rushed by in the dark.

Suddenly, gunshots fired from behind us, ricocheting off metal
and exploding a series of lights in the ceiling high above me. Glass rained
down as Darcy turned her torso and expertly shot into the darkness behind us. I
had to admit, she looked incredibly hot.

With a lot of effort, Drew pushed open the door as shots bounced
off the walls around us, sounding out metallic tings. The door led right into
the alley behind the building where a black SUV was waiting. Drew and I opened
the door and dragged our tired bodies in while Darcy continued shooting behind
us back into the building. She dove into the car just as the driver pulled away
from the building.

Darcy pulled her legs into the moving car and shut the door as a
few gunshots ricocheted off the hubcaps and bumper. Her strawberry-blond hair
was loosely falling out of her high ponytail, and she was out of breath.

“Well boys, my job here is done. You’ll be on a plane back to
the US within the hour.”

Drew reached over and grabbed her face in his hands. He stared
sincerely into her eyes and said between breaths, “Thank you for rescuing us.
You saved our lives. “

“Not a problem. I told you I’d be there for you when you needed
me.” And then as if I wasn’t even in the car, they shared a passionate kiss.

Although my heart swarmed with sorrow wishing I could share such
a wonderful moment with Ava, my heart was filled with joy and anticipation—we
were actually headed home!

Wednesday, October 29th

Drew and I looked like war heroes returning from battle when
landed in Chicago late Wednesday afternoon. The IIA chartered a flight for us
furnished with a medical staff to treat the injuries Drew and I suffered from.
My arm had been broken in two places and my shoulder had been dislocated again.
Drew had a fracture under his right eye socket and his nose was broken. He had
a gunshot wound in his shoulder and needed surgery to repair the muscle.

We were driven back to the Midwest FBI headquarters in
Milwaukee, where Drew received more treatment and the FBI doctors performed the
same state-of-the-art laser surgery on me that they had done for Ava a few
weeks before. Drew and I rested in the hospital wing until late that night.

It was almost 11:30 p.m. when Agent Bowman came into the
hospital room Drew and I shared. “Agents, good work. I am proud of your efforts
in Ireland and Cornwall. You were able to recover some important information.”

Bowman sat down on the edge of Drew’s bed. “
Caducuspetra Morbus
.”
He tapped his fingers together and stared out the window. “I’ve known for a
while about
Caducuspetra
. I just didn’t know that I did.”

He’s known about it?

There was a long silence as Agent Bowman stared out the window,
thinking. Neither Drew nor I dared to say a word.

Then suddenly he stood up from the bed and cleared his throat,
turning toward us.
“You boys know about genes, right?” We both nodded. “Of course you do.” Bowman
sat down on the visitor’s chair in the corner of the room, crossed his legs,
and interlocked his fingers over his top knee. It was like he was settling in
for a long lecture. “DNA is the building blocks of our body’s trillion cells.
Long, twisted ladders of tiny pieces of code contain the maps of genetic
information that make our eyes blue or hair curly.” He uncrossed his legs and
continued the lesson, leaning forward so his elbows were on his knees, fingers
interlocked. “What if your genes were missing parts of the DNA molecule in each
cell? What if certain pieces of that ladder slowly disintegrated over a period
of say, twenty years? Gradually the DNA chains would become weak, and
eventually the whole ladder would collapse, leading to…death.” He seemed to be
thinking out loud.

I sat up in my bed a little.
This has to do with Ava
, my
heart suggested.

“We know these blue meteor rocks exhibit radiation capable of
weakening DNA this way, depending on the size of the rock and the length of the
exposure, of course.” He got up from the chair, walked toward the door, and
shut it. “Up until now, this problem has not been widely advertised, and a cure
has not been necessary.”

“Up until now, sir?” Drew asked.

“We have a double agent who is providing the agency with insider
information from Myers’s outfit. Our mole has indicated that Myers has been
collecting the names of infected Americans for quite some time. For many
decades there were isolated communities of people infected, but now the number
is more widely spread. Myers believes there are almost twenty-thousand victims
in the continental US alone.” He paced the room silently for a few seconds
while Drew and I waited patiently. “Recently he’s been searching oversees and
our double estimates Myers has learned the names of hundreds of others around
the world that may be infected with
Caducuspetra
.”

Drew spoke up. “What does he want with a list of infected
people?”  

“And that’s the part of the story we are missing.” The heels on
Agent Bowman’s shoes clicked as he walked to the window again. “Myers must know
something we don’t.” Bowman stared out the window for a moment, thinking.
“Intel believes he may try to engineer some type of antidote or cure. A million
dollar enterprise sits before the creation of this cure, but I am hesitant to
accept this as Myers’s only motivation.” He turned from the window. “You two
have discovered that Myers believes the cure lies within the infected, but it
is much more complicated than that.” Bowman let out a loud sigh. “Agents, I
think Myers needs something from these people to create his cure.”

I suddenly wanted to jump up out of the bed and drive up to
Stevens Point to be with Ava. There was no way in hell that I was going to sit
here while she was on Myers’s hit list.

Agent Bowman turned from the window and saw me pulling back the
blankets. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, Agent Hill, but you can’t run off to
Miss Gardner just yet. I need to send you and Agent Smith down to Lena,
Illinois, Myers’s childhood hometown, to find out exactly what his father was
researching when he died.”

“And what about Ava?” My stomach turned butterflies.

“I just got off the phone with Agent Greene before I came up
here.” He thought about what to say next. “I won’t insult your intelligence and
try to tell you Miss Gardner is in no danger. Just last night Agent Greene and
Miss Gardner narrowly missed a car bombing. I’ve sent extra protection to
Stevens Point to follow Miss Gardner around the clock, just in case.”

“Shouldn’t we pull her out of there to be safe, sir?” A few
extra guys weren’t going to stop Myers, I was sure.

“We have no other indication that Myers or his men were in
Stevens Point last night, and we’d like Miss Gardner to be able to live the
most normal life plausible for as long as possible.” Then he paused for a
moment. “Believe me, she is well looked after.”

“It had to be him. Why else would there be a random car bombing
in a little central Wisconsin college town?” The tips of my ears were growing
hot with agitation.

Agent Bowman smiled and ignored my comment. “I’ll have a car
ready for you to take to Lena tomorrow morning.” He walked around to the edge
of my bed and patted my feet, but looked at Drew. “That is, unless either of
you object to another mission so soon.”

Something inside me said that in my condition, I probably
shouldn’t take the mission, but honestly there was no one else I trusted for
the job.

Since neither of us replied, Agent Bowman said, “Good. Now you
two get some rest,” and he walked out the door.

Easier said than done. My heart was racing with worry over Ava’s
safety.

*     *
    *     *

Thursday, October 30th

Drew and I woke amazed at the marvels of modern medicine.
Although we did not look our best, our injuries only felt like minor nuisances.

The trip to Lena was only supposed to take two and a half hours,
but we ran into rush hour traffic around Chicago early in the morning. I spent
the ride through the flatlands of Illinois on my tablet searching for anything
I could about Myers or obscure genetics.

Drew kept yawning and exhaling loudly. He really looked
miserable.

“Hey, are you sure you’re up for this? You want me to drive for
a while and you can take a nap?”

“Nope. Just crack me that energy drink in the console. I
couldn’t leave my buddy when he needs me most.”

“Thanks, Drew. You know I’d do the same for you.” It was true.
There was no one else I’d rather be on this mission with. “I think we should
start our search at the Lena Community Library,” I suggested. I read from my
tablet when Drew didn’t comment. “Bowman knows Myers spent his childhood at the
Stephenson County Children’s Home because his parents died in a car accident
when he was six.”

Drew looked in the rearview mirror and then changed lanes. “We
should go there. I bet they’d have some info for us.”

“Maybe after we hit the library.”

I wondered how Ava was doing and when this mission would be
complete. Would it be soon that we’d have enough information to truly take down
Myers and get Ava back in the operating room to restore her memory?

Lena, Illinois, was a small Midwestern community of
three-thousand people. The Lena Library was a small, red brick building only a
few blocks from the out-of-use railroad tracks that ran through town.

A very overweight woman, probably in her forties, was chugging a
bottle of Mountain Dew behind the front checkout counter when we walked in the
door. There was an empty bag of Cheetos on her desk and a suspect ring of
orange cheese powder around her mouth. Drew shot me an eyes-wide-open look and
I returned the sentiment. We awkwardly stood in front of her for a good twenty
seconds before she opened her eyes, stopped chugging from the bottle, and
noticed us. She jumped, startled, and choked a little on the soda.

“Oh good Lord Almighty! You two startled me!” She laughed and
wiped the Cheeto dust from her mouth with the back of her hand. “Can I help you
gentlemen?”

I detected a slight southern accent hiding behind her words.

“Yes, we’re looking for the public records, specifically
archives of the census, old newspapers, and family records.” The place was
small and dated, and I hoped this wasn’t a waste of time.

“We have a collection of newspapers on the microfiche machines
in the basement, and there are several town hall record books down there as
well.” The large librarian got up from the chair and waddled around the
circulation desk. “You two veterans? You look like you’ve been through a war!”

I was about to reply no, but Drew cut me off. “Yes. Just
returned home.” I had forgotten we don’t normally offer our FBI status unless
there is good reason to.

“Thanks for your service, boys. The country is in your debt.” Her
oversized backside bounced and jiggled as she led us through the library. I
could barely turn my eyes from the spectacle before me, but finally looked away
when I noticed Drew making obnoxious sexual gestures behind her back. I tried
not to laugh, but a little snicker snuck out, so I faked a cough to cover it
up.

We walked toward the back of the building; there wasn’t another
soul in the library. The librarian turned, “You two new to Lena? I know most
everyone who lives in this little town and I don’t think I’ve ever seen you
fine young men around here before.”

“We’re just passing through, ma’am.”
Drew had a talent for quick thinking
.

“Just passing through, huh? Well, welcome to Lena.” We walked
past the children’s section and around a corner to a staircase. “We were in the
process of taking all those old newspaper scans and turning them into digital
copies, but lately our volunteer staff have been busy preparing for the big
town holiday festival in November. The whole scanning process is pretty much at
a standstill at this point.” She laughed a big chuckle and her butt bounced up
and down as she did so. “You boys know how to use a microfiche machine, right?”

I had no idea what she was talking about, but Drew nodded his
head.

At the bottom of the stairs the librarian showed us an area with
two large microfiche machines on top of a long table pushed against a wall.
Nearby were bookshelves of old leather-bound, oversized books.

“Good luck, dears. I’ll be upstairs if you need anything.” Then
she turned and shuffled her way back down the hallway, humming an unfamiliar
tune.

“Why don’t you check out those books while I fire up the
microfiche?” Drew suggested. He sat down in front of an oversized computer
screen sitting on top of a computer box with a large dial attached. There was
no keyboard, only a few buttons built into the front of the box. Under the
monitor was a light shining up to a place where the user could put a piece of
film to be read on the monitor.

While Drew got to work, I found the census record book from
1960–1970 and located Dr. Clennan and Mrs. Myrna Myers and their son Ethan
Myers, residents of 519 Locust Street. I wrote down the information and put the
book back on the shelf. Then I found county court records, town council meeting
minutes, and many books recording marriages and divorces. But nothing seemed to
be of help. I let out a sigh and turned to Drew. “Are you finding anything over
there?”

“Nah. Not yet.” He kept his eyes on the screen and turned the
large dial on the machine until his phone vibrated and interrupted his work. He
looked at the screen and then smiled a guilty grin and laughed quietly, trying
to hide it from me.

“Nice try. What does she want?” I knew it was Darcy.

“Oh…you think it’s…” Then he gave up his act. “Yeah, it’s Darcy.
She wants to know what we are up to.”

“Doesn’t she have anything better to do than text you all day?”
 

“I sure hope not,” he said while texting.

I recognized that smile. “You really like her, don’t you?”

He took a few seconds to muster up some courage, and then he
said, “Yeah. I really, really do.” He put down his phone and looked up at me,
his face filled with complete sincerity. “It’s so cliché but…but I’ve never
felt about anyone else the way I feel about her. She stole my heart in the five
days I spent with her.” Then he let out a deep breath. “It sucks that she lives
halfway around the world.” His smile faded instantly.

“You’ll find your way back to her.” I smiled, wondering if I was
talking to his heart or mine. “But for now, we have work to do.”