Chapter Four
SHOOTER: I have an unobstructed visual of contact. I am awaiting the authorization to terminate contact.
COMMAND: Negative, Shooter. Hold your fire. I say again that you are to hold.
SHOOTER: Contact is moving expeditiously. She will be out of my range in 8…7…6…
COMMAND: Shooter, you are to hold, damn you…Alright. We have been given the authorization for immediate termination of Contact. Kill her now.
SHOOTER: You re authentic authorization has been received and acknowledged. The termination of Contact is commencing—
-Danielle Rohm speaking with an unidentified Pandora Agent on a secured wireless transmission on April 3
Roxanne
Piedmont Park; Midtown Atlanta, 4th Day
Using the cover of darkness, she could have killed Special Agent Christopher Prince when he entered Piedmont Park from the south entrance without scanning the shadowed area off and to the right of him, or when he failed to glance in the silhouetted spectrum of corridors above his head when he passed under the water slide, or when he walked too close to peach trees boarding the skating rink.
He appeared to be alert, especially considering it was 1:00 am and the hell the man had suffered through over the past 36 hours. In fact, other than favoring his lower back when he walked, Roxanne Sanchez thought that Chris looked no worse for the wear, at least on the surface. Still, she needed him to be sharp both mentally and physically, with the horrors she was bringing to his life.
She had sent him a series of texts after she was certain that he had finally opened the first one and he had followed her instructions to the letter: Come alone. After you pass underneath the standing area beneath the skating rink, wait ten minutes, and approach the kiddies’ playgrounds from over by the bicycle trails. Sit in the swing that is farthest to the right. This will position you in a wide open space and protects both of us from ambush. I will approach you from the merry go round. Do not get up from the swing. Do not attempt to call me.
Roxanne Sanchez:
She was a coffee-colored, shapely Latino in her mid-thirties. She had dark shoulder length hair and dark eyes, a crooked nose and black lips stick on thin lips that curse words seemed to flow from between them far too often. Or so her mother had said. She’d paid too much for her body spray, her selection of panties was too risqué, her boots too long and her slacks hugged her hips far too tightly. Roxanne knew this and didn’t give a damn what anyone thought of her or her choice of attire.
She used a long fingernail of her index finger to chip away at the bark from a tree trunk, while she stole a panoramic view of the entire park. Piedmont had been grand enough to host an Olympic celebration all those years ago, and yet had remained small enough to retain a good measure of its intimacy. Mayor Ernestine Johnson had been the latest of Atlanta’s Mayors to use tax revenue to refurbish most of the picnic areas, plant new trees and spice up the other shrubbery, and extend three of the walking and bike trails.
And now she was dead.
Two men were out for a late night jog in the murky air. How are you two standing to breathe this air? They seemed to circle back towards her and she lifted the cell out of her back pocket with one hand to check the time. It read 12:45AM back at her. She rested her other hand on her gun that was sitting in the holster inside her jean jacket. Don’t corner me; she silently spat the words at them. If I’m enough of a monster to place this steel at the temple of two innocent little girls and threaten to kill them both, then what would I do to you two?
When Roxanne left the bureau training program for her gig in private investigations, she first took on work where she could get it: She found an unfaithful husband in Albany, uncovered how a shady business was cheating its customers in Montgomery, and investigated faulty disability claims all over Louisiana, while brokering her services for one of the state’s most prestigious insurance companies. As both her reputation and bank account grew she ventured further away from her childhood home of Atlanta.
Six months later Roxanne finally settled in one of the small border towns near El Paso, Texas, doing some missing person’ s investigations on both sides of The Rio Grande. Most of these were simple runways cases.
She began working with a Mexican Police Chief after a couple more months, sharing professional duties during the day…and falling in bed with him during the night.
Victor Castillo:
He was a 35 year old brown skinned man. He had a slim but muscular torso, a bald head and spoke with a deep, raspy voice. Roxanne found him to be the ultimate study in contrast…the moon and the sun, the squall and the tranquil… the darkness and the light. He and his partner Gonzales fought injustice, or at least their vision of it, with a steel hand of viciousness and ruthlessness that almost…frightened her.
Yet, he could be so very tender when he touched her. She told herself that she didn’t love him. She didn’t need his love. Those feelings were left reserved for a man back home that she could never have. Victor, however, was a man of vices like most men who were cursed with them: He liquored too much, puffed like a chimney on his Cuban cigars and gambled at craps and poker and roulette. Vices had destroyed Roxanne’s her father and her only sister. No, she reminded herself, Rachel’s addictions ruined her life for sure, but it was Dr. Angel Hicks Dupree killed her. She had vowed to never forget the woman’s role in Rachel’s demise.
And someday Roxanne Sanchez would make the good doctor pay for her sins against her family.
As for Victor, Roxanne had been content with his company, his silly serenades in her ear as they showered, his rock hard abs, and the way he held her lower back in place when he cojamosed her from behind. One night, after a particularly intense session of lovemaking she noted the look in his dark eyes that told her that he’d crossed his own private border, although his pride did not allow him to verbalize it to her. He did say in that raspy voice: I know that you are a big girl, Senorita, but always watch your back when you are down here…down below. Never allow yourself to dip in Cartel business…ever. You Americans think you understand them, but you don’t. You think the cartels are about weapons and drugs or money…no, they are about property. The cartels are not satisfied until they own your body, your soul; they want to own all of you.
She rolled on top of him and showed appreciation for his concern for the rest of the night until she serenaded him with moans of her orgasm.
For 30 more days her days were productive and profitable and her nights for a passion and pleasure.
On the 31st day she met a man who would change her life forever.
Julio Vargas:
He was a pie faced, pallid colored Mexican man who wore a toupee to cover his naked scalp, a thick moustache covered his top lip, and he looked as if he had been well fed to this point of his middle aged life.
He sat on his lush couch and told Roxanne that one of local cartels had kidnapped his two oldest daughters who were only 14 and 12 years old. Vargas’ wife gnawed at her fingernail and burst into tears when her husband had mentioned the girls ages.
Lying in bed together later that night, Victor told her that by now the girls had been repeatedly raped and even worse had been branded with the cartel seal on the nape of their necks. Vargas fronts as a small time business man but behind the scenes he’s a hood who deals guns for the cartels. He’s not very good at either one. And his accountant is a moron. He’d gotten pretty deep in the red for them to take the females though. Still, Vargas served as an unofficial mayor of a small village of about 50 families or so just west of where they were now. They call it the Hill. Those villagers depended on Vargas to maintain peace with the cartels. He finished by telling her that whoever the cartels regional leader was he considered the debt paid in full now. Victor had gotten to his feet then, his vice of Bourbon calling him from her bed. The girls are property now, Senorita, he had said as if the manner was a matter of fact and nothing else. This man who Roxanne had given herself to could be a study of contrast, of
darkness and light. Vargas only called on you to save face in front of his wife for his screw up. He can’t take his girls back even if he wanted to. Besides…he had turned and became one with the shadows, but his voice rasped the truth out at her…he still has three other daughters left.
So Roxanne poked her head in a few doors for a few days and knocked on a few more…to play the game with Vargas was playing with wife…or so she told Victor.
In actually, she was twisting arms and bashing skulls in the way that her lover had shown her over her tenure down here.
Roxanne should have heeded Victor’s warning.
She found them. And within an hour or so of their discovery she’d snuck them off of the compound without setting off an alarm or firing a shot. She brought the girls back to Vargas at his home, his wife running as fast as her weight allowed her to greet her children in the foyer. Two of Vargas’ men wrestled Mrs. Vargas to the ground before she could touch their faces. Roxanne heard the woman’s shoulder pop when her arm hit the tiled floor.
Vargas stood motionless. He looked surprised. The surprised bled into a pained expression. The pained expression died a fast death and anger replaced it.
This is cartel property. He pointed a fat finger, one for each daughter. Take them back from where you found them.
Mrs. Vargas’ grief took her back to the tile as she screamed for all who were the house to know her displeasure, to share a mother’s misery.
When Roxanne didn’t immediately move, Vargas’ men stepped in the girls directions to follow his instructions themselves.
That is when Roxanne had put her gun to the temple of the oldest girl and pressed the head of the other so tightly against the first, that when she squeezed a round off the younger girl would likely share her sister’s fate.
You know not what you do here. Tears dropped from Vargas’ eyes where they had been absent when he told Roxanne of these same girls’ abductions days earlier. They are the cartel’s property. You do not damage cartel property. And then he added: I have three other daughters
She backed out of Vargas’ residence…and out the country without another word and stuck the girls with a family in a remote corner of the world where they would never be found.
24 hours after she left Vargas the cartel’s incursion into the Hill began. Those 50 families or so were slaughtered and the Hill was burned to the ground.
Roxanne Sanchez never saw Victor Castillo, or heard his silly serenades in her ear or any of the rest ever again.
He did send her a text in the same manner that she’d sent Christopher Prince earlier tonight. It said:
You did not heed my words, Senorita. You dipped your hands in cartel business. Someday, when the time is right, Gonzales and I will stop what we are doing here…and find you.
I will see you suffer for what you have done here down below.
I will see you suffer before your end.
The two men had jogged past her without incident. She noticed sweat on her brow even though the night was cool and crisp. She pulled her cell out of her back pocket and it said 1:00 AM. She got her boots beneath her and walked towards the swings where Chris was seated.
“Sanchez?” Chris said and it warmed her heart that he would remember her face so quickly. It had been 6 years now. “Roxanne Sanchez, my God, is that you?”
“It is, Chris.” He stood up from the swing and found his footing in the loose sand. “How are you?”
He nodded his bald head once, made a quick sweep of the park with his eyes and then settled his focus back on her. “I’m good, or at least I thought I was. Look, our line of work has taught me not to believe in coincidences. I’ve been casing this park for the better part of 45 minutes. It’s 1:00 AM in the morning. Except for those two men I saw jog past you a few minutes ago, there isn’t anyone else here.” She watched his gaze turn serious, his opaque skin beautiful in the full moon’s light. “It was you who have been sending me the text messages. It was you who asked me here. What in the hell is going on here, Roxanne? What is the meaning of all this and what does it has to do with my step daughter?”
Roxanne pulled her hoodie up over her ears and stepped closer to him. She needed to gage his reactions to the news she was about to tell him about. Never again will I allow lives to be lost because I failed to judge people correctly. “Chris, your step daughter is missing?”
“Erica? And when did this happen?” He rubbed at his nose and mouth and she heard him whistle. “And if this is true at all, how did you become involved?”
She didn’t blink. “Your ex-wife hired me about two weeks ago.”
“Denise hired you a couple of weeks ago, that means that Erica has supposedly been missing even longer than that.” Even in the faint light, Roxanne could see his naked brow curl in hurt and anger. “And I’m just hearing about this tonight. Yea,” He nodded. “This would be very typical of how my ex-wife conducts her business.”
Roxanne let Chris stew in his anger for a minute or two. The night’s air had grown thick with smoke. Most of it, she figured, blew in from the brushfires that had plagued Atlanta’s metro area during the year long drought. A drought she knew, that had until the last 36 hours, had dominated the local news scene. Yet, at least a portion of haze was the gift of the explosion that had occurred originally at The Andrew Young Center three days ago. The fires had spread to the shotgun houses that sat adjacent to the center, but the dry conditions and the loose brush milling about, had caused an entire block or two to go up in smoke. Local firefighters told reporters that they had never seen anything like the conditions plaguing the city.
“Denise hesitated to involve you at all, Chris.” Roxanne said, remembering that fact alone caused knots in her belly. “She wouldn’t elaborate on what circumstances would cause her to think like that. Denise only told me that there had been some…difficulties in the relationship between the three of you. I finally convinced her that you needed to know what was going on. After all, you had helped raise Erica. You are her father, even if biology says that you aren’t. Despite any difficulties that you three might have struggled through, you had the right to know that she’s come up missing.”
Chris rubbed at his smooth chin, working something out in his mind. “You say that Denise hired you two weeks ago. How long did she think Erica was missing before that?”
“The official APD reports state that she went missing on or about the 10th of March.”
“Did anyone say where she was last seen?”
The born investigator in Chris had taken hold. Good, you are still sharp indeed. “The few people that I got to talk to me said she’d been hanging out with some of her friends in and around some neighborhoods in College Park.” Chris flashed an unsettling look. “And if you don’t mind me asking this, you give me the impression that you don’t truly believe that this young woman is missing?”
He exhaled a deep breath he’d been holding. “Erica is 20 years old and she’s been doing this kind of thing almost half her life. She first started ditching school at 12. And that was just a start of a laundry list of issues she’s put us through.”
“Word on the street is that trouble often found her?”
“Especially when you meet if half way,” Chris nodded, sat down in the swing and took another deep breath. She noticed that it was something about the swing that brought a pleasant memory up to the surface of Chris’ mind. “Did Denise talk to you about Erica, I mean on a more personal level?”
Roxanne sat in the swing next to him. “No, not really,” She said. “She gave me some names, you know a list of family members and friends that she liked to hang out with. She did state, like I heard in the street, that trouble could find Erica, but she didn’t elaborate on it further.”
Chris looked over at her and the skin around his brow curled as if he’d made his mind up about sharing something important with her. “Like I said earlier, Erica first ditched school at 12 years old. The school gave Denise a call. We went looking for her. We found her a
few blocks from the house…giving oral sex to this older kid, a 15 year old in the back of a parked car.”
“Whoa.”
“I wish I could say these types of incidents were isolated and that this type of behavior ended there. By the time Erica herself had reached 15years old, she’d served two separate stints at the local juvenile detention center. She served once for a string of petty theft charges and she did a stretch for violence against another female minor with a knife.”
“What about running away?”
“She’d do the teenaged thing; get pissed about something or the other, and hall ass for a day two and show back up at our house when she got hungry or one of her so called friends grew tired of her act.” He said. “I think I remember four days as the longest time she’d ever disappeared without a single word from her: No phone call, or anything. So when you ask me if I’m surprised that she’s come up missing again, then I guess my answer would have to stand at no, I’m not surprised with anything that Erica gets herself into.”
“Are you worried about her?’
Chris considered her question a moment. “Yea…maybe a little,” He got up out of the swing and began walking towards one of the trails, downwind of the smoke. “Look, I know how my reaction may all appear to an outsider.” You don’t know a damned thing; Roxanne thought, the image of Vargas, his screaming wife, and those precious girls buried in her head, but let him go on nonetheless.
“Every family has issues, Roxanne. But those difficulties, as Denise stated to you, cut far deeper than a half dozen families endure. When the three of us were together, especially the last year or two my marriage, we defined what a dysfunctional family meant.”
I know about dysfunctional families as well, Chris. And she was thinking about her own family, not the ones that she had interfered with across the border. This wasn’t the time to dwell on her mother and sister right now, though. She needed to focus her energy and thoughts on the case at hand. “I see.” She stopped walking and turned to face him. He had gained a little weight around his middle, but he was still a handsome man. “Before we go on about Erica, are you okay?” She wasn’t showing any real weakness by simply asking. It was simple courtesy, nothing more. “You know…after what happened to you over the past several days?”
“I’m going to make it, Roxanne.” He smiled at her and something inside her melted as it always had before. “You haven’t changed. I wondered what became of you after you left the academy.”
“Yea,” She smiled back. “I’ve moved around a bit. I’ve seen a lot of the country. I went and did my own thing. I’ve been doing professional investigative work ever since.” The hard lessons she learned in Mexico doused her smile just as quick. Chris had to wonder what if had been the cause of the smile’s dismissal.
“Professional investigator, I like the term, though I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone use it in that manner before. Good for you, Roxanne.”
“Thanks. And the road from falling out of the FBI’s academy to all of this wasn’t as narrow as you think.”
Prince nodded at that. “It never is.” She saw something stir in his face, stood in silence and let it flow. “During my marriage with Denise, Erica and I were never close. Like I said before, she’s pulled disappearing acts before. She’s also grown and not responsible for letting Denise or anyone else knows her every movement. I haven’t spoken to Erica in months. I’ve had a lot on my plate.” The FBI Special Agent peered out over the horizon to the space where The Andrew Young Center once stood. “And after 411, I expect this plate to only grow with responsibility.”
“I know that.”
“What you don’t know, Roxanne, if that the relationship between my ex-wife, my step daughter and me goes well past the point of dysfunction. It goes past the point of toxic. That’s all that I can say about it for now.”
An awkward silence fell over them before Prince broke in again. “You have my number; I expect daily reports on your findings.”
“I will.”
Christopher Prince put his hands in his jacket pockets, turned again towards the heart of the city, glared at the moonlight, and then turned his clean shaven head back towards her as he stepped closer.
“Roxanne, I’m holding you personally responsible for bringing Erica back to her mother…whether she is alive or not. She is her only child, her baby. And every mother should know whether their baby is alive or not.”
I know that truth all too well. Roxanne stood there a moment longer and gazed into his eyes, searching for what exactly, she could not say. She finally heard herself saying, “That is how it should be.”
Prince’s cell phone interrupts the silence that occurred between them afterwards. He excuses himself, doesn’t seem to recognize the number at first glance, and then steps over to the side to take the call, then makes his way back over to her at last five minutes later.
“You kept texting me,” He continued on as if the conversation they were having before had never been interrupted. “I never responded to any of your first half dozen texts. After some time you must have realized I was involved in 411 in some capacity.”
“Yea, I knew about the 411 and I was aware about the siege specifically. And I knew you had a date and tickets to the show.”
The look on his face said that he recognized she was an investigator, but he was unsure whether he’d appreciated her keeping tabs on him. Instead he asked, “After the carnage of the first night, how did you know that I was still alive?”
The monster that raged inside Roxanne Sanchez – that allowed her to escape her own siege at Vargas’ home shrugged into the early morning darkness, “We’re survivors, Chris,” She finally said. “You and I both know how to survive.”
Though I’ve survived by being a monster, Chris; how can anyone ever love a monster?
Thomas
Dunwoody, DeKalb County, 4th Day
He went to slide the key into lock on the front entrance to his townhome in Upper Dunwoody—
The door was already unlocked and opened slightly.
Fighting back panic, Thomas decided against calling 911 from the cell phone in his hand—at least not yet, and peered inside.
He took as a small of a step as a man his size could manage and opened the door the entire way. He was unarmed. He only owned one weapon and knew he would never reach it in his bedroom, if a prowler was somewhere in the living quarters between here and there—
“Hello, Thomas.” Serena Tennyson, leader of Pandora, was sitting on the edge of an easy chair that Thomas often dozed in after a long day of writing or interviewing. She was wearing a dark blue pants suit with her feet planted firmly on his hardwood floor. The suit highlighted the rich texture of her red hair. “Hopefully you will remember who I am. I don’t want to waste the little time we have together with us having to reintroduce—“
“I know who you are.” Thomas slid along his front door to an adjacent wall, sweating worse now that he knew who had invaded his home.
He’d just made it home from a particularly raunchy session with a woman named Darcy. They’d spent half the night together when her husband had surprised them both by taking an earlier flight and returning to their suburban Atlanta home nearly a day sooner than he was expected. Thomas had to squeeze his large frame into the couple’s walk in closet and stayed there until the man had fallen asleep, nearly an hour later, and only then was allowed to escape into the Escalade that experience had long taught him to park smartly a couple of houses down the street.
He hadn’t had the chance to shower, and he was sure that Darcy’s scent was all over him, especially with the perspiration pouring from underneath his armpits with this discovery. “I know what you are capable of? The whole world has been reminded over that past few days, what you are capable of, Serena.”
“Then my appearance here shouldn’t come as a real shock to you, Thomas.” She swallowed a mouthful of bottled water that she’d brought with her. Other than a case of beer, Thomas was sure t
here was very little to drink in the fridge. She was sitting perfectly still. “Try to relax, Thomas. Breathe. The first thing I need you to do is to assure me that you won’t do anything volatile. I can guarantee your safety during the duration of my visit only if you promise not to dial 911 or try to leave this place until we are finished with our business.”
Thomas found a spot in front of his bar and halted his motion there, his pulse racing in his ears with a new thought. If you help me, you will gain enemies on both sides of this conflict. Mayor Ernestine Johnson had said in the last minutes before she died. They both will harass you. They will threaten you. They may even kill you. Yes, Thomas, they may try and kill you.”
“You, of all the people in the world, are going to guarantee my safety, huh?” Thomas snorted and then pointed at her. “Right now, lady, you are the most hunted woman who ever lived. I’m standing her in the same room with you. How safe can I actually be?”
Serena sat back in his chair a moment. “I guess we will see.”
Thomas’ heavy breathing slowly subsided, oxygen beginning to feed his starving brain allowing him to regain some his wits… and then a revelation. “Sophie?” He began to scanning the hard wood floors and moving the couch, coffee table, bookcase, and stereo player aside in frantic search for his pet. “Sophie?” He called again, growing distraught that she would ever answer his call again. “What have you people done with my dog?”
“That…thing is being kept at a nearby kennel.” Thomas could see the distaste written as Serena’s thin top lip lifted into a sneer. “It is being detained there, but otherwise is not being mistreated.”
“She,” Thomas said. “Her name is Sophie. She is a living, breathing animal with feelings.”
“Whatever.” Serena sat erect again, as if her real discomfort came from any relaxation that the chair may have provided her. “I would advise you to be more immediately concerned with your own health and well-being.” She paused to allow him to swallow that dose of reality. “If we have an agreement, then please sit down. We have much to discuss and we’ve wasted enough time as it is.”
Standing on these hard wood floors for long periods of time had recently started his lower back and feet to ache. He put one hand on his side and continued to stand despite his discomforts. “What could you possibly want from me, Serena?”
“I’ve had you followed. I know that you spoke candidly with Mayor Ernestine Johnson before her passing.”
“Ernestine who,”
“Don’t fuck with me, Thomas.” Serena stood. She drained the last ounces out of her water bottle, walked over and dropped the empty plastic into the recycle bin, retrieved another from a pack she brought with her. “I’m sure you and the city’s former mayor spoke at length on several matters, including the three questions that every Person of Color in this Color wants to know?”
Thomas laughed, a sickly sound that he hoped drowned out all of the anxiety and fear he was actually feeling at the moment. Yes, Thomas, they may even try to kill you. They might at that, but he had made a promise to the dying woman. He tried to push the conversation in a different direction. “So if I’m guessing correctly, you are here to use me as a propaganda tool in denying portions of what has transpired in this city over the past 36 hours?”
“You have it backwards actually,” She sipped at her water bottle, looking as if she were savoring its taste. “And I’ll let you get away with changing the subject only long enough to verify that Pandora, under my orders, did launch all three attacks that the world has come to know as 411, as these operations began on April 1, 2011.”
“Why do you need me to confirm this for you, Serena?” Thomas asked. “Through whatever channels you chose to use, your people already established that you perpetrated these offensives to the media.”
“You’ve been an esteemed journalist a long time, Thomas. You know, as well as I do, that those channels do serve a purpose,” She glided over to where he was standing. He wanted to step away, but found himself paralyzed in a single block of space. She put a hand on one of his shoulders. “But when America hears these same words utter from my lips, and when they see my face today they will know once and for all that everything they’ve feared is true. That’s why I am here today.”
“You’re talking about my online show. You’re going to appear on my blog.”
“Two million hits a day. I surely don’t miss an episode.” Serena took another hit of her water and pushed her red hair out of her pale face. “I’m going to give your viewers…I’m to give the whole world all the truth they can handle.”
For the first time since he saw this woman sitting uninvited in his home, he felt a rousing of curiosity that thrust some of his fear aside. Maybe this doesn’t have to be a deadly invitation after all. He folded his arms, relaxed his breathing, deciding that it was ill advised to push his luck any further. And I’m interested in how much you truly know about what is said during my coming and goings. Serena had more than enough resources at her disposal to have him followed, no doubt that she knew that he’d been asked to the mayor’s estate and subsequently to her chambers to confer with her before her unfortunate passing…but you don’t know what was said between us or you wouldn’t have asked.
“There are three questions that every Person of Color in this country wants answered.” He echoed what she had said a few minutes earlier.
Serena nodded once. “Who killed President Adolphus Sweet? Who is the Caretaker? And, of course, what is the Whirlwind?”
He imagined he was struggling to keep the shocked look off of his face. “Are you going to tell the audience the answers to those questions today?”
“No.” She replied without anger. “I will say that once the answer to one of the first two questions is revealed, the other two answers almost will reveal themselves. I’m hopeful that it won’t come to that.”
“You’ve already shown that you have the power to stop me from learning the truth, Serena.” He said cautiously. “My question to you, is will you stop me?”
“I’m hopeful that it won’t come to that.” She said again and then quickly added, “Our time together grows short, Thomas. May we begin this interview?”
“I record the show from a studio in my basement.” He flashed Serena his best goofy smile. “I’m sure you already know where it is.”
“Of course I do, Thomas,” Serena waved her arm towards the appropriate door and his nerves flared up again. “It’s in your best interest to go first.”
The studio was a box shaped room which is more wide than big in its owner’s eyes and he kicked himself again for not having it painted beyond the bland white it was originally assigned. He also could have had piped the central air and heat down here but decided against it at the time to save a dime. Serena went about shivering almost immediately, sitting her water bottle down for the first time. He had to fight against his own instincts and not give her his jacket top, unknowing of how Pandora’s leader would take to his gentlemanly offer of goodwill.
Instead he got down to the business at hand. “I don’t normally operate this equipment myself. It might take me as long as 20 minutes to half an hour to set up everything.”
Serena pulled a stopwatch out of her pants pocket, synchronized it with the time on her wristwatch and pushed the top button. “30 minutes, Thomas,” She sat on one of the two stools he used in his interviews. “I’m holding you to that timeframe.”
If Serena had made that last statement as some implied threat, he hadn’t had the time to concentrate on it. Instead, he glared at a nearby magnetic calendar he had stuck on a makeshift bookshelf over by where his main camera rested on a lanyard.
“What is it, Thomas?” Serena asked. She looked more comfortable sitting atop this stool than she ever did in his easy chair. “What’s wrong?”
Thomas sat back on his own seat without looking back at it, dumbfounded. “I have a maid, her name is Eloise.” He glared back at the calendar to be sure. “She comes in once a week to clean
the townhouse for me.”
Serena rubbed her shoulders for warmth. “Again, Thomas, you haven’t told me anything that I already don’t already know about you and your life. She is scheduled to clean this place tomorrow.”
Thomas slid his stool nearly on top of Serena. He dared put his hands on hers so she could not back away from him. “Did you know that Eloise needed to clean a day early this week.” He ducked his head, searching his memory banks for confirmation of what his mind was processing. “There was something…maybe a midweek vacation with her husband who had requested some days off.”
“I’m sure that she told you the last time you slept with her, Thomas. That is what you do with her after she finishes cleaning—“
“She has a key.” He dared lurch his head closer “She normally would have been here by now and she’s never late. Where is she, Serena? Is she being detained as well?”
For the first time since this particular conversation has been struck, Serena’s expression flashed blankness at Thomas and caused him to blink rapidly in panic.
Then he watched Serena tilt her head ever so slightly to the right. If he weren’t sitting this close, sitting so dangerously close to her, he might not have noted the small movement.
“Are you hearing this?” She said with a hushed voice into some type of communication device clipped to her collar. He had never noticed it was there before now. “Roger.” She listened to what the party on the other end had to say. “Contact, Shooter. I need this data ASAP.” She paused. “Understood; Oracle out.”
Still locked in by his vice grip on her stool, Serena leaned in towards Thomas close enough that their lips were close enough to touch. “I’m sure we are well within the 30 minutes I gave you to ready us for this interview, Thomas.” She said in a low voice that reminded him who was in control here. “Shall we begin?”
Serena
Dunwoody (Inside Thomas Pepper’s Basement Studio); DeKalb County, 4th Day
The field leader of Pandora watched one red light flash above the largest of Thomas Pepper’s tabletop computers. He’d finished the setup with still over six minutes to spare. Well done, Thomas; It was time.
Thomas’ intro played with its usual dramatic flair, one Serena Tennyson though was full of preamble, but contained very little true substance. I might fault his methods but his madness holds much merit, his popularity and most importantly to me today is, his ratings don’t lie. That is the specific reason that I am sitting in this icebox of a room.
“Please introduce yourself and state the purpose of your visit to my program today?” Thomas asked and took his seat beside her.
She glanced one final time at the stopwatch hanging from a nail just out of sight of the camera. She had set it for the exact time that this broadcast would begin. She had committed the remainder of the countdown to memory. The FBI would have this transmission signal decoded, itemized and her exact location transmitted to local law enforcement within minutes. She had that much time…and little more, to honor one of her final promises made to Caretaker before he died two years ago.
After you enact 411, give a moment’s pause, so that your adversaries have one last chance to save their selves from destruction. She remembered his words as if the greatest man she’d ever known had said it to her just yesterday. Allow them a chance to save face, allow both sides to back away from the brink. Remember the sacrifices that I have made, Serena. I order you to save as many lives as you can
“Serena…are you still with us,” Thomas was saying.
“I am and thank you for this opportunity to join you today on your show, Thomas.” Her smile would not bare its fruit, but she ran her fingers on his knee in an act of humanity that the television cameras liked. Even these micro sized cameras that they were using here in Thomas’ igloo of a studio. “My name, as most of you out there know is Serena Tennyson, and I come today to speak on behalf of Pandora.” It often troubled her to misrepresent Pandora and its followers as if she were its lord and governor. Yet, she reminded herself that just as Pilot’s features had to remain near anonymous to her that his very existence had to remain a secret to the outside world. We did agree that he will reveal himself if I fail to make it back—
For those who are watching or listening to the podcast, Serena, would you briefly elaborate on what Pandora’s mission statement is and perhaps a small origin of how this group came to be?”
“I will, Thomas. Thank you.” Serena sat up a little straighter. Thomas was reading from a questionnaire that she had prepared in advance. Off camera, she informed him that this was his show being broadcast from his home, and so his large personality and ego during the filming of this episode was not only permitted but encouraged. However, he was not allowed to deviate from the prepared questionnaire. If he defied her wishes, a technical difficulty sign would flash across his viewer’s computers screens, static would infiltrate the podcast…and Thomas Pepper would be killed minutes later by Pandora agents nearby. “In layman’s terms Pandora is attempting to preserve the fragile harmony that exists between the most influential races in our country maintaining the status quo.”
Thomas squirmed and did a half turn on his stool that already seemed to buckle under his weight. “You did say status quo?”
“I did.”
“I find your response and use of terminology interesting; as I’m sure many in my audience would as well.” He split equal time looking at the camera and at her. He’d mastered the technique. He’d surpassed Oprah Winfrey and Barbara Walters as the nation’s most trusted interviewer over the past number of years. If he were as skillful at researching then he would do Mayor Johnson’s dying wish honor. She had chosen well. And so have I.
“Some in tonight’s web audience would argue that a dominant race, a race that both you and I belong to, have diligently, and sometimes forcefully attempted to keep the prominent minority in this country disadvantaged, if not oppressed?”
Very impressive, Thomas, he nearly read her passage word for word without a prompter or looking at his notes. Still, she fixed Thomas with one of her trademark hard stares that would infuriate some in the audience, and intimidate the rest which was far more important, of course. “I would call that response ignorant.” She took a staged deep breath and spun her stool slightly to face the camera to her left and allowed what youthful features she still had remaining, to highlight her face. “And I truly find it sad that such lies and innuendo have left so many misinformed on various fronts vital to understanding our position.”
“Please educate us,” Thomas said in a deadpan voice.
“People of Color and their culture have blossomed in both status and standing since the twilight of the Civil Rights Movement. Do discrimination, prejudice, and blatant racism still exist in today’s world? Well, of course if does. And unfortunately, Thomas, in all likelihood, despite our best efforts, you and I will not live long enough to see a complete eradication of hatred from either side in our lifetime. Even here, in the melting pot that is America, living amongst the most civilized people on this planet, pockets of close minded individuals and groups of individuals continue to carry the banner of hatred around with them.” Serena paused for breath and a drink of water. She fought off chills with all of the concentration she could muster. A first impression still meant so much. She knew she would have one opportunity to get this next passage perfect. “Pandora does not endorse, support, or encourage hatemongering on any level, whatsoever. Pandora was founded by a man who cherished all life. Everything thing that I do, have done, and will do is based on the Caretaker’s ideals and principals.” She straightened a bit and twisted her long neck so she would deliver the next part of her monologue to the camera facing her from the right. “That being said, make no mistake, Pandora will not tolerate the further deterioration of an already tedious relationship between our race and those who now proclaim themselves People of Color. Extremists’ elements, such as those who populate separatist groups like A House in Chains, are the prime offender
s of this hatemongering.”
Thomas slid back in his chair. “I see.” She watched a question form on his bearded face. It was not a matter of when he would ask it, but how he would form his next question. “So you would proclaim the simultaneous and highly choreographed April 1st attacks on The Andrew Young Center, The Siege of the Fox Theater, and the blatant murder of Atlanta’s Mayor Ernestine Johnson by poisoning as what, Serena, and an act of extending the hand of friendship?”
“Even I wouldn’t be so bold.” Serena said and took another deep breath and hoped Thomas Pepper would wisely follow her lead. “I will say this: While each and every life is precious in the eyes of your God, the alternative for this continued defiance by forenamed parties will only result in more People of Color rushing to greet Him.”
Thomas looked uncomfortably shaken, as he should be; he tugged at his collar, glanced at the center camera a second, and looked back in her general direction, but whether he was afraid or disgusted by her, he continued to make eye contact with her all the same.
“You speak as if an escalation is coming?”
She took the time to steal a hard gaze at the stopwatch hanging on the nail near the center camera. Serena guessed that she came across as a farsighted middle aged woman to the audience, who had left her spectacles home, but that was a price she was prepared to pay. She no longer wished to trust what little time they had left before the authorities arrived to intuition only. We are running around two minutes behind schedule even with the …distractions set in place. She’d come too far now not to finish delivering Caretaker’s message. They must hear this, no matter the cost. I must keep my word no matter the personal price I must pay.
“People of Color always ask the same three questions, Thomas.”
He spoke out of turn, but that was fine by her. “Who killed President Adolphus Sweet? Who is this Caretaker than you speak so fondly of, and what is the Whirlwind?”
“And they are all worthy questions, Thomas.” It took every fiber of her being not to warm herself. She was so far away from the Dragon’s flames, so far away from its love. “The first is immaterial, in fact most people are asking the wrong question when it comes to Sweet’s murder. The second question is inconsequential. The Caretaker is dead, is identity died with him. I will never give up it up unless it benefits those of us he left behind. And the third question…oh dear, Thomas, You, I, no one in your audience, no one in the entire world hopes to learn what the Whirlwind is.” She considered something that was off script. “I will tell you this: the wraith of The Whirlwind has already been exhibited twice before. You saw it the second time it was showcased, but you missed it with your eyes wide open the first time.” Serena nearly smiled.
Thomas recovered from whatever state of stun he had fell into. “Back to these conditions you were speaking of?”
“They are very simple, Thomas.” Serena knew she was nearly out of time. “And they are no different than what we have asked before 411 was enacted.” Serena saved the center camera for the epilogue of her interview with Thomas Pepper. “First, Xavier Prince is already an inmate at Calhoun State Prison in southwest Georgia. He is scheduled to be released later today. He is to voluntarily rescind this discharge, plead guilty to further charges that include terrorism, munity, collusion, and hate crimes, and remain at this facility until a new trail of his peers can be assembled. Secondly, the other surviving members of A House in Chains governmental body, The Circle, is to turn themselves over to authorities, and share in the guilt and the charges I just laid out to you of their beloved leader. Lastly, A House in Chains is to be unconditionally disbanded, as I and my Pandora associates are prepared to disband as well. We can all turn away from an inevitable conflict before it, as you stated earlier, before it escalates.”
“I’m sure that if Xavier Prince can hear this broadcast that he and his associates are considering your offer as we speak.” Thomas gave his last statement the proper dramatic pause its implication deserved and then carried on smoothly. Serena’s answer to the specifics of what this provocation is was to be featured last. “You admitted to me off camera that at least part of the operational portion that went on at the Fox Theatre suffered through …tactical errors as you put it, Serena, would you care to elaborate.”
“It did,” Serena found the left camera again. “Benny Stanton, Luna Belle and their associates were ordered hold the theatre for a signal night, then to proceed in killing as many patrons as their ammunition had allowed, exit the premises, and then torch the building.”
Thomas Pepper looked ill. “I hope that you don’t believe that this acknowledgement of a breach in your orders doesn’t comfort the families and friends of those who lost loved ones there?”
“Of course not,” Serena said dispassionately. In fact this breach of my orders, as you so eloquently put it, saved lives of People of Color because a mission that was never intended to go on nearly as long as it had did just that.” She found the camera sitting to her right once again. “What I am saying is that Stanton was under my command. His actions are ultimately my responsibility. And Stanton’s and his failings fall directly in that pocket of small minded people we spoke of earlier, Thomas. Pandora would have never bartered, therefore extended those civilian’s suffering, for a hatemonger like James Carter.”
“Let’s talk for a minute about James Carter now that you mentioned him.” Thomas said in a rush. He’d finally gone off script. And Serena knew that her people, specifically Rohm had vacated this theatre of operations, per her orders. And unlike those idiots Stanton and Belle, Shooter had followed orders so far to the letter. “You stated earlier in this interview that Pandora is not blatant hatemongers, yet you ally yourselves with a man like James Carter who has been notorious for exercising bigoted behavior such as being involved in intimidations, lynches, and beatings of People of Color. In fact he is solely responsible for the whip marks that are rumored to be on Xavier Prince’s back right now in some hideous incident when these two men roomed together at Princeton.”
Serena snapped back at him. “Carter and all the people who share his narrow mindlessness will not be welcome once the new world order that the Caretaker died trying to create finally comes into existence.”
Thomas raised his voice to match hers. “And yet, he serves a purpose right now?”
“He does.”
“So you would have us believe—“
“Believe what you will, Thomas.” Serena was standing, and silently cursed both Thomas and herself for her burst of anger. “I’m disgusted with the losses suffered in the Black Community over the past three days. But parents, children, and friends of those who have fallen can be comforted that their loved ones deaths were not in vain. Pandora has suffered losses as well. But we all can bring this…season of death to a close. I have laid out Pandora’s conditions for this to happen, the ball, as they say, is in their court to comply.”
The stopwatch beeped.
Their interview…and their time had come to an end.
Serena sat back on her stool and took the longest pull Thomas had seen from her water and acted as if the heated exchange between them had never occurred. She found the precious center camera, one last time. “I am sure by this point of this broadcast, that members of various law enforcement agencies may feel compelled to act against me. I’m sending out me sternest warning against such a hasty and futile exercise. Pandora has not left me unprotected against such retaliations. Contrary to what had been written, said, or speculated about me, I have no desire to see needless bloodshed. Allow me to conclude my interview with Thomas Pepper, leave his residence, and return to Pandora without incident, and you have my word that no law enforcement official will be hurt. Defy my wishes and you only have yourselves and your foolish pride to blame for the losses that you will suffer.”
Thomas was still standing, nearly on top of her. Sweat had begun falling from his curly hair. “What is this escalation?” He asked. “Damn you, Serena say something.”
“For years People of Color have wanted the answer to the same three questions: Who killed President Adolphus Sweet? Who is The Caretaker? And what is the Whirlwind?” Serena said in a monotone voice. “Three days ago, Pandora answered the one question that had been brewing for several months: What is the 411?” She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, blocked out how cold she really was and filled her thoughts with the warmth and love of the Dragon. “It is highly probable that I will be dead soon. What is more important is that in after the days that I am gone, after I am caught up in the Rapture of the Dragon, that you, People of Color have turned away from wickedness, turned away from you vile leaders.”
Serena walked off of the set at a steady pace while the cameras still rolled on. She only quickened it after she heard the first explosion in the distance. Thomas nearly fell to the floor and looked around wildly. She picked up a yellow rose from off of the shelf where she had left it the previous night when Pandora first started its incursion of Thomas’ home.
She placed the yellow rose on an empty space on the table inches in front of the camera and then takes her place next to a shaken Thomas who takes an involuntarily step back from her positioning. She finds the center camera and a subtle, dignified calm in her tone once again. “If you choose to side with the likes of Xavier Prince, the Circle and A House in Chains, then this local community will have a new, pressing question to ask. Thank you for your time and attention.”
“What?” Thomas said stupidly and turned the cameras off as a second explosion erupts, one whose epicenter was closer than the first.
They sprinted up the stairs, returning to Thomas’ main living quarters. And though the temperature is instantly ten degrees warmer than that in the basement, Serena can barely contain her trembling. Thomas seems to be oblivious, or he is occupied with the detonations occurring outside.
“What in the hell are these explosions, Serena?”
Serena begins to unbutton her blouse. “As I said, Pandora was prepared for my peaceful exodus from your townhouse, Thomas. It is apparent that A House in Chains is not the only association not heeding my words these days.”
A third explosion, this one the loudest and closest to his townhouse, rocks the building’s foundation, breaks his living room windows, and knocks both of them to his wooden floor.
“God almighty, what is that?”
“I had every street that leads to this residence mined.” Serena stopped long enough to unbuckle her pants and folded them neatly on top of her jacket and blouse after removing them all. She kicked off her flats. “The last few explosions you heard were the ones laid closest to this property. There were a dozen or more scattered about the five mile radius. They were activated only after I made my plea to the authorities not to come here. I told you, Thomas, Pandora values civilian life.”
“God almighty,” Was all that Thomas Pepper could offer as he neared tears.
Serena turned her back on him, unfastened her sheer bra and stepped out of her white cotton panties. She could feel the man in Thomas staring at what men stared at in nude women, her long legs, her curt but shapely buttocks…but she guessed through all of his lustful thoughts that he gazed longest and hardest at the tattoo of the Dragon that encompassed her entire back, featuring the Dragon’s tongue licking the side of her neck.
When she spun back around, Thomas verified her theory two fold as he sat on his wooden floor with an astonished look plastered on his bearded face.
They both heard the blades of a helicopter beginning to hover somewhere outside of his dining room window.
“What am I doing?” She asked the question out loud of what he must have been thinking at the moment. I’m doing what all field generals must do in wartime when the battle is lost.” She lay flat on her nonexistent stomach and spread arms as wide as each extremity would go. “I’m surrendering so I can live to fight another day.” She looked up long enough to make eye contact with him. “Although you are not the object of the FBI’s attention or wraith, I advise you to undress as I have. They may not enter this place with the idea of restraint in their hearts.”
Thomas must have figured her for being right, because he undressed as quick as his sizeable fingers allowed and joined her…at a cautious distance on the hard wood floor.
She could hear the first wave of men pushing up the stairs. Thomas must have heard it too because he tried to bury his face as far the unforgiving floor would allow him. Perhaps this is a suicide, Serena thought about Pilot’s words when the first pang of fear hit her in the chest. At least her fear had a warm element to it as she felt it rush though the rest of her body.
“Am I all that you thought I would be, Thomas?”
“What?” Thomas asked as she heard three, four, and uncountable number of vehicles breaking at street level. The chopper had taken residence outside of the front window now.
“What did you day?”
She poked her head up again and pointed her chin in the direction of Thomas’ spare bed room that served as an office. “I’ve been waiting here for you to arrive last night. I made myself at home. I saw the office…the pictures that you’ve clipped from magazines and printed off of the internet. You have many that even I didn’t even know existed of me. It is quite an impressive shrine.”
He reddened from either embarrassment or fear. “We are the beautiful and the bold,” He finally said as heavy footsteps push their way to the top of the stairway.
Agents of the FBI announced their obvious presence and have busted down his door by the sentence conclusion. Three…four…ten armed agents pour into his townhouse with pistols and rifles drawn in every direction. A dozen more agents slide in behind them once an alley was created. Serena was sure that Thomas never knew his place could ever fit so many human beings inside its walls.
Special Agent Christopher Prince is amongst the second wave of FBI who entered the townhouse.
“Agent, Prince, welcome.” Serena announces conversationally. He, like most of the men in this room, wearing the cursed vest with FBI stenciled on the back. It is the one that she has loathed so much when she slaved for the bureau all those years before Pandora summoned her to serve, before The Caretaker called her home. “Your brother must surrender to the authorities at Calhoun Prison. Time is short. If you want to truly serve your people. You will make your younger sibling comply, his time, all of our times are running out.”
Christopher Prince and the room full of agents seem to be almost mesmerized by her words. She used the silence to her advantage. “I’ve said enough for now. I’d like to evoke my right of silence as it is presented under The United States Constitution.”
“Whatever you say,” Agent Prince kept his gun trained on Serena’s forehead as he spoke to a younger female who was just arriving through the open space where the front door once stood. He scanned the room, snatched Thomas Pepper’s jacket off of the floor and through it across her buttock and the upper part of her legs. “Agent Blue, read this woman her rights, get her up, dressed, and then get her the hell out of here.”
Agent Blue does as she is commanded and cuffs Serena quickly. Prince helps her to her feet while another female agent shields her womanhood from view.
Four agents begin to escort her from the front while two more agents join Prince and the two women behind her.
Three male agents are helping poor Thomas Pepper to his feet. He looked as he has some of his curly hair has fallen out, and as if he has lost five pounds since before the interview began. There are dark circles under his eyes. “Serena?” He calls out to her and then: “Serena,” He said again with enough urgency to stop her…and the FBI agents in their tracks. “No more games,” Thomas said “Tell me…tell us what is this new pressing question that People of Color will be asking in the days to come. Tell us now,” Thomas pleaded, Serena thinking she did see tears misting in his eyes. He was weak. Outside of men like Caretaker and her father, they were all so weak. Still, she had nearly gotten the man killed in his own home, so he was entitle
d to something out of this deal. He deserved to know. They all deserved a chance to know the truth. So she lifted her head high enough so everyone in the room could see another yellow rose resting on top of Thomas’ artificial fireplace where she kept company with the Dragon while she waited on him to return home.
“A yellow rose,” Thomas said in a low voice, but everyone in the room was perfectly still, they could all hear. “A yellow rose stands for sympathy. You said it was to be another localized event. Who do People of Color in Atlanta need sympathy for, Serena?”
“Themselves,” Serena said. “What is the 411 is now in the past. What is The Whirlwind is in our probable future…but for now the immediate question they all will be asking is, where are our children?”