Threshold (5 page)

And their education would continue until a situation requiring their unique experience and knowledge developed. Either that or a lead in the Siletz Reservation investigation that had brought them the team’s newest, shortest, and feistiest addition.

“Any day now, big guy,” came the high-pitched voice again.

Bishop laughed as he sat cross-legged on the floor, which was impressive for a man of his size. Not that he was fat. Quite the opposite. He sported two hundred fifty pounds of Iranian-born, American-raised muscle. And while Queen wore her battle scars on the outside, for all to see, Bishop’s were hidden. Internal. Thanks to some genetic tinkering at the hands of Richard Ridley and Manifold Genetics, Bishop’s body could heal any wound, but at the expense of his sanity. Only the crystal hanging around his neck, found in the ancient Neanderthal city of Meru, kept his mind in balance. Without it he’d become a raving mad, endlessly hungry “regen” who would only stop killing when his head was removed. But with his mind kept at peace by the crystal, he could sit on a living room floor, enjoy his friends, and hold a thirteen-year-old girl in his lap.

Fiona, call sign Pip-squeak, if you asked Rook—had come to call the Chess Team her family. Over the past year she had spent every day with them, watching them spar, study, shoot at the range—absorbing every detail of their lives and attempting to apply the lessons of valor and discipline to her tutored schoolwork. But she found the Chess Team much more interesting and the subjects of their study far less boring than Algebra I. “Okay, Rook. There is a plane with a bomb on it. When it explodes, the plane will crash into a train full of pregnant women on their way to a lactation conference. The answer is the code to defuse the bomb.”

Rook looked at the black-haired, brown-eyed girl and couldn’t help but smile. “That’s twisted.”

She shrugged. “Ten seconds. The unborn lives of countless children are counting on you.”

He cleared his mind and focused, playing along, but not wanting the kid, who’d become their weekly quizmaster, to gain teasing rights.

“Five seconds.”

The phone rang and Rook’s eyes popped open. “Djet! Djet Horus was the third pharaoh of the first Egyptian dynasty from 2970 B.C. to 2960 B.C.”

Fiona formed her hands into two guns and shot them at Rook complete with gunshot sound effects. As she spun the imaginary weapons and holstered them, she said, “Way to go cowboy. You got—”

She cocked her head and looked into the kitchen.

Rook noticed her attention on Knight as he spoke on the phone. “You can’t hear him can you.”

Fiona nodded. “Good ears.” She looked at Rook. “Something’s wrong.”

“What’s—”

Fiona shook her hands at him, her mood growing serious. “I want to hear if it’s about King!”

King had left three days ago after receiving word of his mother’s death. They’d all attended the wake and funeral, but she didn’t get to see him much as he greeted long-lost relatives and family friends. She knew he was supposed to be gone for another week, settling things with the estate, but she hoped he would be back sooner.

Before she could hear what was being said, Knight hung up the phone, shut off the stovetop, and returned to the living room. “Dinner’s off. Keasling wants us asap.”

Fiona frowned.

“Did he mention why?” Queen asked.

Knight glanced at Fiona and it was all she needed. She stood up quickly. “Is it King?” When Knight didn’t answer in the affirmative, she asked, “They found something?”

Knight shook his head. “Apparently, something found us.”

“Is Dad coming back?”

For a moment, no one responded. They were still getting used to King being referred to as “Dad.” In fact, he’d requested several times that she
not
call him Dad. But after being raised by her grandmother and having no real father figure for most of her life, she’d quickly adopted King as her father. He’d explained that their foster placement was temporary, until the danger had passed and a good family was found. The news had been heartbreaking and she did her best to call him Jack, or King, or Siggy, like his sister, Julie, had before she died, but in moments of excitement her true feelings rose up and exited her mouth before she had a chance to rein them in.

Knight frowned for the girl. They all had come to adore her and loathed watching her endure the emotional roller coaster that had become her life. “King needs more time off.”

Bishop stood, towering over Fiona. With his similarly colored brown skin, eyes, and dark black hair, he looked the most like Fiona’s biological father, but his angular nose and low brow revealed his genetics as Middle Eastern rather than Native American. He plucked the girl up and put her on his shoulders. “Hey, you’ve still got us.”

Fiona rubbed his shaved head. “I know. I just wish I could be with him.” Her smile faded. “I know what it’s like to bury family.”

FOUR

Richmond, Virgina

KING STOOD ALONE
over his mother’s grave. Grass seed lay scattered over the fresh soil where she’d been put in the ground the previous day. The funeral had turned out nice—as nice as laying your last friendly family member in the ground could be. Bishop, Rook, Knight, Queen, Aleman, Keasling, and Fiona had all been in attendance. Only Deep Blue, whose presence would have been impossible to hide, was unable to attend.

The night before the funeral, George Pierce had flown in from Greece for the event. Sara Fogg had come to give moral support as well, staying with him through the night. Since she knew what it was like to fight alongside the Chess Team, their dinner together swirled with conversation about mythology, genetics, and battle-scar comparisons.

In the morning, Pierce headed back to Rome, where an excavation awaited. Sara had hoped to stay for a few days. The combination of their demanding jobs, coupled with the addition of Fiona keeping King on base, had kept them apart. But fate had pulled her away to Swaziland, where an unknown disease outbreak was under way. Since bringing home the cure to the previous year’s Brugada pandemic, she had become the CDC’s poster child and had been assigned to ground zero of more than a few nasty outbreaks. Finding himself alone again and without distractions, King’s thoughts were once again fully with his mother.

She was the kind of woman who smiled all the time despite a deep hurt hidden within. She baked pies from scratch. Had an open-door policy for friends and family. And she always,
always,
kept a fresh pitcher of homemade lemonade ready for visitors. He’d shared the last of that lemonade with his friends the night before the funeral.

But her bright exterior was all a sugar coating. Julie’s death in the fighter jet training accident was the first blow. The second blow came months later, when his father, Peter, left for a business trip and never came home. Peter had been dramatically opposed to Julie joining the air force, while Lynn Sigler had supported her children. Even when King followed in the footsteps of his dead sister.

King knew it couldn’t have been easy to let him go. But she had supported him, despite the risk to not only his life but her soul. She’d gone so far as to say his father would be proud of the choice, had he been around.

After a week of rain, the day of the burial had been beautiful, refusing those gathered the stereotypical rainy-day funeral. The trees, brimming with young, bright green leaves stood tall around the St. Mary’s Church graveyard. Flower beds surrounding the black wrought-iron fence bloomed with the warm colors of spring. The day was like his mother had been: alive.

But no longer—thanks to a head-on collision with another car. Apparently, his mother, weary after a day of gardening, fell asleep at the wheel and drifted into the oncoming lane. King shook his head at the thought and pushed it from his mind.

The following day’s weather was much the same, but being alone at his mother’s grave cast the day in a darker light. He knelt by the upturned soil of the fresh gravesite and dug into it with his fingers. After hollowing out seven shallow holes, he opened a small package and planted a single snowdrop bulb in each. He knew his work would often keep him from visiting the grave every year. This way his mother’s favorite flowers would bloom every spring to mark her passing, even if he wasn’t there to place them on the grave himself.

He patted the dirt down with his fingers, one bulb at a time, allowing the coolness of the earth to calm his nerves, and used the peaceful moment to remember his mother. As he finished the final bulb he sensed he was not alone.

Keeping his head down, he scanned the area and saw nothing. He turned around. No one was there.

He was alone and nerve-shot. Deep Blue was right to make him take a week away. He was off his game, sensing enemies where there were none. He placed his hand on the soil, whispered a good-bye, and stood up.

Standing, he now had a clear view beyond his mother’s headstone. Thirty feet away, a man stood in the shadow of a maple tree. This alone wouldn’t be enough to raise King’s hackles, but when the man saw King stand, he started and took a step back. Not a casual step. It was the kind of step a man took when he was about to make a run for it. King took a step toward the man, testing the theory.

The man ran.

King was after him in a heartbeat. He had no idea who the man was. It didn’t really matter. That he was running told King everything he needed to know. One, the man was guilty of something—only guilty men run. Two, he knew King was dangerous, someone to run from. And three, he was at his mother’s gravesite, which meant he knew King’s personal identity as well.

None of this was acceptable.

As King rounded his mother’s headstone and gave chase, he took in everything about the man he could. His black hair was slicked back neat. His trench coat covered most of his body. His shoes were shiny. Fancy. Not great for running. The man hadn’t planned on being chased down.

Then why is he running?
King thought.

After entering a clearing lined by two rows of headstones, King broke into a sprint and cut the distance between him and the man in half. The man wasn’t fast, and as King closed in he could see streaks of gray on either side of the man’s head.
Must be between fifty and sixty,
King thought.

The man followed a paved path that King knew wrapped down and around a steep drop. Rather than follow the man around, King continued straight on, pounding up the rise. When he reached the top, the man passed directly below him. King jumped, landed with a roll, and grabbed a fistful of trench coat.

The coat pulled from King’s hand, but the sudden jerk made the man stumble. He toppled forward, fighting to right himself, but lost his balance and fell into the grass next to the path.

In no mood for a fight or a second chase, King drew his Sig Sauer and cocked the hammer.

The man must have recognized the sound because as he got to his knees he raised his hands and said, “D-don’t shoot!”

King approached the man, weapon raised, but he slowed when something about the man, the shape of his head, his ears, struck a chord. He knew this man, but couldn’t place him. The distraction slowed his reflexes.

The man, who was quicker than he looked, spun around and took hold of King’s gun hand, pointing the weapon to the sky. With his free hand, the man took a swing at King’s face. Thick knuckles brushed across King’s nose. If he hadn’t jerked back, his nose would have no doubt been broken.

The momentum of the missed blow pulled the man forward. King raised an elbow to jab into the man’s back, but before he could, the man charged, burying his shoulder into King’s gut. King fell back under the weight.

In the second it took the pair to fall to the pavement, King completed his assessment of the man’s fighting ability. He was a brawler. All heavy punches and big blows, concentrated into a single devastating attack. Old-school fighting. It worked wonders against people who didn’t know how to fight, but King’s abilities could be matched by very few people.

As he fell back, King dropped his weapon, took the man’s trench coat in both hands, and hopped up, placing his feet against his opponent’s waist. With all of his weight pulling on the man, King controlled the fall. When they struck, King rolled and pushed with his legs, sending the man sprawling into the grass.

King stood as the older man climbed up and raised his fists in front of his face like a boxer. He came in fast, taking hard swings that King easily dodged or deflected. With the element of surprise gone, the man didn’t stand a chance.