Chapter Twenty-One
Mayne starts walking toward me. With a quick wave of my right hand, I lift the shards of the broken glass case off the floor and throw them into his face. His pull on the Arrowhead stops as he falls to the floor, grabbing his face as he writhes and screams in pain.
“Story of my life,” I say.
I get up slowly, still uneasy from my collision with the wall.
Swoosh!
I trade my suit and tie for a T-shirt and jeans as I change back into Calvin. I want to give everyone a vivid illustration of some of the physical and mental pain that’s been caused by the Arrowhead’s mere existence. The next time Mayne looks in the mirror, he’ll get a good idea of where I’m coming from.
In the hallway, I put my foot on the first step and look up into the stairwell. Three men skip down the stairs with smiles on their faces. Their grins disappear when they see me and the mess I’ve left behind.
“Code twelve!” one of the men yells up to the top floor.
I throw the trio of men against the wall, knocking them to the ground. I start racing up the stairs until I hear a cavalcade of footsteps coming from the level above me. I turn around, hop off of the stairs and run toward the other end of the hallway, passing the Arrowhead’s display room while Mayne continues tending to his facial wounds.
As the commotion draws nearer, I begin to fall forward.
I’m getting a little tired of this.
When I open my hands to brace myself for another fall, the Arrowhead falls out of my hand and skids a short distance away from me.
Behind me, the Three Amigos’ footsteps grow louder.
I telekinetically reach for the relic and catch it with my right hand before rolling onto my back. The three men now five yards away from me, I look to my left and focus on a door next to me. I use my feet to push off of the linoleum floor, sliding a few more feet away from the men.
With a grunt, I break the door off of its hinges. It slams into the trio and knocks them unconscious. Meanwhile, the shadows of more men grow larger in the stairwell. I stand up and sprint to the end of the hallway, reaching the plain door.
I turn the doorknob, surprised that it’s not locked. When I take another look back, the first of the stampede’s legs hits the landing between the top and bottom levels. I step inside the antechamber and close the door.
I flip on a light switch and discover that I’m actually in a utility closet. A fire extinguisher sits on the wall to my left. On my right is the circuit breaker and hot water heater.
“What the hell happened?” I hear a man say.
“Somebody’s taken the Arrowhead!” says another.
“Check these men’s pockets. Search every room,” another man says. It sounds like Gantert.
Once again, I’m presented with an opportunity to destroy the Arrowhead but I can’t. I have a better chance of getting out of here with the relic intact than I do with it destroyed.
Out in the hallway, I hear the other doors being opened and closed, accompanied by the occasional worried grunt.
The footsteps draw closer, inevitably leading to the utility closet. I turn to the fuse box and clutch the main power switch before thinking twice about it. If I cut all of the facility’s power, I won’t be able to leave the facility. I search the breaker for the switch that controls the entrance and find it down at the bottom.
I put the Arrowhead in my pocket, turn around and rip the extinguisher out of its holster. I then go back to the fuse box and flip every switch, save for the main and the entrance.
Out in the hallway, the men curse the power outage. I flip the three remaining switches in darkness, doing it softly so as not to be heard.
“Check the utility closet,” Gantert says.
I turn my back to the fuse box and hold the extinguisher in my arms. The closet door opens slowly, the hallway’s backup lights illuminating part of the closet. The shadow of man’s head enters the closet.
“There’s nothing in here,” he says.
“Check the fuse box,” Gantert says. “It might have been tripped.”
“But it’s dark, sir. I can’t see a thing.”
“McNeely, stop being a baby and check the damn breaker.”
He groans before finally stepping into the closet.
I slowly raise the extinguisher with both hands, pulling it back over my shoulder. As McNeely blindly reaches out with his right hand, I hold my breath. His hand touches my chest.
“What the …?” he says, quickly pulling his hand back.
I drive the extinguisher into his face, knocking him to the floor on the other side of the closet.
The loud pang of the extinguisher meeting the man’s skull carries into the hallway. I turn out of the closet and, illuminated by the facility’s backup lighting, start spraying the extinguisher. The shadows of the men, six of them, stop dead in their tracks.
“Oh my God!” one them yells.
“I don’t see him,” says another.
With a wave of my free hand, I form a cloud with the extinguisher’s foam as I spread it across the hallway and hold it in a levitated state. Gantert and his men back away as I step slowly down the hall and eventually stop spraying, hoping to save some of the extinguisher’s contents.
I then toss the extinguisher itself around the hallway, filling the corridor with the orchestral sounds of the extinguisher smacking against the heads of the men in its path. As they fall to the floor, I start picking up the pace, moving toward the stairwell. Presumably in the clear, I take my cell phone out of my pocket and use it as a torch. The stairs are only a few short feet away.
I stop, though, at the sound of footsteps and a snarl before being tackled to the floor.
“Give me the Arrowhead,” the man says, straddling me as he holds down my arms. It’s Gantert.
I wrestle with the German, trying to break away. Surprisingly strong, he delivers a right hook to my jaw.
“Give it to me!” he yells in a ravenous growl. He then pins my head against the floor with his forearm.
I turn my telekinetic focus on Gantert. As I lift him off of me, the man holds me by the collar of my T-shirt. We both fly into the stairwell, falling onto the landing between the top and bottom levels. This time, though, I land on top of him. As he holds my arms, preventing me from punching him, we wrestle once more, this time directly under a backup light.
Gantert stops for a brief moment to observe my face.
“Take a good look,” I say.
“You have no idea what you’re doing,” he says with a smile, now pushing my face away from him with the palm of his hand. “Just give me the Arrowhead and we’ll leave you alone.”
“No, I’m pretty sure I know exactly what I’m doing,” I say, standing up.
He pushes and holds me against the wall. “What is it that you want? More money?”
I scoff. “You guys and your money. What would your donors say?”
Gantert grins, as though he knows something I don’t. “You wouldn’t be telling them anything they don’t already know.”
“Huh?”
“You’re a businessman. You understand supply and demand, don’t you?”
I hold Gantert’s gaze as his revelation washes over me. Richardson lied; there are no donations. His buddy Mayne, meanwhile, was right—this isn’t just about money.
“Our donors, as you call them, are really our customers,” Gantert says.
My eyes narrow. “You’re selling replicas?”
“To the highest bidder.”
“What do you do after your five years with the Arrowhead is up?”
“Oh, I have a special agreement with the executive director of the Agency of Justice.”
Unbelievable.
No wonder the A of I is so eager to turn a blind eye to the A of J’s attacks. Both agencies extort money from each other by agreeing to ignore one another.
When I punch Gantert in the face, his smirk turns into a laugh. “By the time we finish with you,
you’ll be begging us for mercy.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Exactly.” I thrust Gantert backwards in an attempt to slam him against the stairs.
He grabs on to my shirt again and brings me with him. Before we hit the stairs, I lift us higher, causing us to flip in unison before eventually landing on the top level, down the hall from the conference room.
On top of me again, Gantert punches me in the face before reaching for my pockets. I kick my leg upward, driving my shin into his crotch and causing him to fall into the fetal position.
“Code twelve! Stop him!” he yells with a suddenly high-pitched tone.
His plea carries through the hallway and out to the lobby. A quartet of men in the lobby turns to look down the corridor before standing up and running in my direction.
I stand up and feel my face. My scar is now bleeding.
Running down the hallway, reddened by the backup lighting, I feel myself falling again. This time, I keep my balance and turn around. Gantert continues to roll around in pain, suffering too much to actually knock me down. I give him one last thrust down the stairwell, pushing him out of sight.
As I continue toward the lobby, the men from the lobby run toward the hallway before veering off to the side, out of sight.
I pass the conference room. Empty.
When I clear the hallway and finally reach the lobby, though, my instincts take me into a slide across the linoleum. A table is hurled in my direction and cools the air above my head as I slide underneath it.
I notice that the rectangular wooden box against the wall is now open and my heart skips a beat. One of the men has a shotgun in his hands.
This definitely complicates things.
Click-Click, Bang!
The first shot whizzes past my head and disappears into the masonry behind me.
“Give us the Arrowhead,” says the man with the gun, “or the next one will kill you.”
I pull the relic out of my pocket and hold it tightly in my right hand. “Put the gun down or I swear I’ll break it.”
Click-Click.
The man holds the cold barrel of the gun against my warm scalp. If I try to break the Arrowhead now, I’ll no doubt be dead before I finish the job. When I dreamt of my name being associated with Daphne Tierney’s, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind.
“Give it up,” he says, “and I’ll let you go.”
Maybe I should hand over the Arrowhead, let bygones be bygones. I have no problem living in obscurity and, with Elena’s help, I’d be able to avoid all of the Agency of Justice’s planned acts of terrorism.
It’s not like it would matter much to the public if I broke the Arrowhead and died a hero. Although I will have saved millions of lives, unlike most heroes, no one will ever know what I’ve done. And, as someone who doesn’t believe in the afterlife, I can’t say I’d get to enjoy the fruits of my labor. As a former businessman, I like to see results. Tangible results are even better. “If I give it to you, will you put the gun down?”
He nods.
I start extending my right hand to the man but stop. The gun remains flush against my scalp. “How do I know you won’t shoot me?”
“Fine. No funny business.”
“None.”
“Careful, Steve,” says one of the directors behind him.
While I start extending my hand again, the gun falls away from my head as the man takes his left hand off of the barrel of the gun. But it’s not until I start to put the Arrowhead in his hand that he takes his finger off the trigger.
Got him.
With a nod of my head, I thrust the gun out of his hand, sending it into the air. With the gunman stunned, I pull the Arrowhead out of his hand before quickly smashing the back of his head with the butt of the shotgun.
As the gunman falls to the floor while grabbing the back of his head, I snap the gun in half and send it down the darkened hallway and into the conference room.
One less projectile to worry about.
The other three men move in on me as I run toward the entrance. I look to my right and see all of the chairs leading up to the stage. In one singular motion, I hurl a row of chairs at the men, knocking one of them on their back.
Then, with a wave of an arm, one of the men knocks me back down to the floor and another table flies toward me. Directly in its path, I can’t get out of its way this time. I cower and let the table hit me. It drags me across the floor and slams me against the wall.
My ribs and face sore, I hear the men approach as I lie hidden behind the table. With the entrance less than twenty yards away, Central Park never seemed so inviting.
Why did it have to come to this? Damn Ronni and her train wreck. It’s funny what drives a man. Ronni’s smile gave me my last push during the chase at Independence Hall and …
Independence Hall.
Perhaps it’s only through losing something great that we learn what we must do to never lose again. With the three remaining men bearing down on me, I say a brief prayer. This’ll be painful, if not life-threatening.
I close my eyes and recall the most painful moments of the past year. The embarrassment I felt in front of Independence Hall. The resentment I felt upon hearing Elena’s conclusion that our branch had been infiltrated. My conversation with Valerie on Clearwater Beach and learning the truth about Ronni. Nick. The Causeway. Josh Jenner. Suburban Station. Justice will be done.
My blood boils. My heart beats at an astronomical rate. I let out a snarl as I burst with rage.
The lobby begins to shake with a rumble louder than that of the subway below. The table is thrown away from me. The three men tumble backwards toward the stage like debris swept up in a sandstorm. The linoleum begins to peel off of the floor. The chairs follow the men up to the stage. The glass in the nearby office windows shatters. The screen behind the stage rips in half. The stage itself collapses on top of the three directors.
Gasping for oxygen, I discard my rage and rise to my feet. I take one step toward the entrance before I realize that something’s not right.
I feel weak.
The room is severely tilted.
It’s hard to breathe.
Spent, I fall back down to the mangled floor.
I can finally leave with the Arrowhead in hand but I can’t. The room’s spinning too fast. It’s hard for me to move.
Where am I again?
Lying face down, I look up and see the stairwell, the silver button.
I remember now.
I slowly rise to my feet, widening my stance in order to keep my balance. I stagger over to the wall near the hallway and lean against it until I reach the silver button. I hit the switch to open the door and look over my shoulder for the last time, expecting one more director to rise out of the wreckage.
Nothing.
As the door reaches its apex, I grip the handrail and plod up the stairs and back out into Central Park. I double over to catch my bearings. I need a bed. I also need a rock.
With no way to close the door from the outside, the Agency of Influence’s international headquarters are open to the public, not that it would find anything of interest.
I take one more look at the destruction down in the lobby.
Tangible results.