Read Where are our Children: A Novel: Complete and Uncut Page 6

  Chapter Five

  One Man shouldn’t wield so much power.

  -Ferris Banks, the former warden of Calhoun State Prison’s final log entry before his reassignment.

  Xavier

  Calhoun State Prison (South Floor of Beta Wing); 5th Day

  “It’s alright, I’ve been expecting them,” Julian Moore waved Xavier Prince, Warden Donald Bright, and Rose Dixon towards the crude checkpoint of file cabinets and high chairs with his pistol. “Shake them down, make sure they aren’t armed and then let them through.”

  Julian Moore:

  He was a brown skinned, wiry shaped Black man, whose eyes were large and very intense. He was tattooed from neck to foot and wore too much hair on his head for Xavier’s taste.

  He’d chosen an ideal location here down on the South end of the first floor for keeping these hostages safe, but well secured. The library was Calhoun’s oldest structure in an already aged composition more wide than deep, with ten foot ceilings and was windowless as far as Xavier could see. He himself had spent many hours in this place during his in incarceration. This morning, Xavier could have lived without the musty smell that reminded him of old socks waiting to be washed in the laundry room. He tugged at his tunic as well; damn, you would have chosen the only area in this whole prison that gets consistently warm this time of year, it is steaming down here. Xavier knew that this zone set right on top of the prison’s furnace. And Julian had his people intentionally turn the gage up to its highest setting.

  Julian’s Black Knights admitted Xavier and the others after an intense round of pat downs. Xavier heard one man, whose chest hair pushed up out of his tee shirt yell, what in the hell he was doing here? Xavier was unsure whether the question was directed at him or the warden. The hostages, and it looked to be near a dozen civilians and a host of Calhoun’s guards among them, were bound, gagged, stripped of all clothing except their under clothes and being kept together on the floor of the Fiction section of the Reading Library, packed tight and undignified in some type of cage.

  “Julian,” The wiry man lay his gun down on the table and embraced him like a brother. “What are we doing?”

  “We wanted to see you before you left for Atlanta, left here for freedom.”

  “I was told that you demanded that I take part in any negotiation.”

  Xavier planted a hand on each hip and rolled his eyes back at the warden who was shifting in his stance and finding something more interesting to look at on the dirty carpet. So you lied to my face, Donald. Even in Warden Bright’s darkest hour he was still cool, the ice still flowed through his veins. Circumstance had certainly dictated that Xavier would never call this man a friend, but he could respect the way he carried himself.

  “I couldn’t accept a release with these people’s lives hanging in the balance.” Xavier would play the warden’s game, at least a little while longer. He turned his focus back to Julian. “I needed to stay around long enough to see you get through this.”

  Julian flashed his associates a look, perhaps 20 armed men in this room alone. “I tried to convince them to wait a few days longer, but the visitation from the Georgia State Council on Prisoner Safety and Welfare was too ironic, and to great an opportunity to let pass. And Riot’s Last Gleaming was upon Calhoun at last.” Julian said and raised his pistol high to the ceiling. The other prisoners cheered loudly.

  The warden stepped in behind them after the applause died down. “Let’s cut to the chase shall we gentlemen?” He said in a low voice. “You two know that I can’t allow this…this insurrection to stand.” He lowered his tone even further when he addressed Julian directly. “Inmate Moore, I must demand that that you release those state employees and prison guards into my custody immediately, return Calhoun to my control, and then return peacefully to your cells while you still can.”

  A dozen black Knights laughed behind them.

  Julian’s tone matched the wardens. “You aren’t in a position to demand anything here…sir.”

  Warden Bright pushed past Xavier and Julian and then two Black Knights to where the hostages were being held. Half a dozen inmates trained their guns on him and Rose Dixon took a large step forward as if she would defend her warden…or die trying. Julian raised his right hand in the air for peace. He knew the warden’s actions were truly of no consequence here.

  “Is everyone here okay?” Warden Bright squeezed the bars with his fingers. “Does anyone need medical attention?” The ten men and two women made eye contact with him as best they could, but all shook their heads. The prison guards were being kept closer towards the copy room. “I need each and every one of you to trust me. I am searching for a way to secure your release as soon as possible.” One of the women started crying, her pleas muffed by the gag over her mouth. “Be strong for your families. I won’t let you die here. You have my word on that.”

  Julian hopped up on a desk and sat down. “Then, Warden, you must be prepared to give in to our demands.” He said. “This prison that you inherited is a hell hole. You are a Prince of the damned.”

  “Look…Julian is it?” Xavier watched the Black Knight nod. “I’ve read my predecessors logs. Warden Fain’s decade long rule here was nothing short of a travesty, to say the least. That, in part, is the reason I was brought in.” Bright took his place next to Xavier and Rose Dixon. “But you haven’t given my administration a chance to settle in. We haven’t had a fair opportunity to fix what’s broken here.” He pointed towards the cage, the hostages hanging on his every word. “This gets us nowhere.”

  Rose said, “The National Guard and The Georgia State Police are in route as we speak, Inmate Moore. What kind of mood do you think they will be when they arrive and find out that not only that you have taken state employees hostage, but have them caged like common animals?”

  “Look at the concern etched on my face, fat girl.” Julian gleefully hopped down off the desk again. Xavier had known the man almost from the day he started his sentence. This wasn’t an act, but Julian had been known to let his passions govern his thinking patterns. He turned his large eyes on Xavier. “You should have gotten the hell out of this place when you had the chance, bro.” He said to Warden Bright. “And beyond our grievances we have nothing to talk about.”

  The warden cautiously pulled Julian’s list out of his shirt pocket and read some of the list aloud so that the hostages specifically could hear them. “Every issue on your list is solvable or at least correctable, given adequate time an attention.”

  “Time’s running low,” Julian sprinted over to the cage and waved his pistol at the state workers. “These good folks over here don’t have a lot of time.”

  Xavier swallowed hard. Up into this point he had been satisfied to lie back in the background of this crisis and observe. Now that he had attainted at least a little information, he knew it was time to start keeping his word to warden. He stuck a toothpick in his mouth.

  “Julian, you are too smart to let a tremendous opportunity to advocate change—real change in this place, pass through your fingertips.”

  Julian’s large eyes sunk a little as he tried to mask the hurt, the betrayal he’d obviously felt at that moment. “What in hell are you talking about, bro? And whose side are you on anyway?” He kept his pistol out, but thankfully with the barrel pointed towards the floor as he approached Xavier. “Your father taught us to seek retribution for sins committed against our brethren. This is what we are doing here.”

  “Isaac Prince did say just that.” Xavier stood on his toes and said it loud enough for the entire room to hear. “And I thought I taught you better than that, Julian. Have you completed the first to parts of the mandate? Have you and these Black Knights of yours gained self-respect first, respect of your family after that, and finally the respect of your community. Have you really?” When Julian failed to answer immediately, Xavier said, “My father taught us only after these tasks are completed in full, may we seek the retribution against those who have sinned against us.
”

  Warden Bright finally spoke into the silence that followed. “Julian, you have my word that my office will bid out three or four of these maintenance issues by the close of business hours today.”

  “I’ll hold him to his word, Julian.” Xavier said.

  Julian kept his pistol raised but dropped his head. Xavier knew from his long conversations with the man that the former gang banger was giving their proposal a long consideration. And where Julian Moore lead the Black Knights were likely to follow—

  And then it all went to hell.

  Rose Dixon moved quicker than any woman her size had the right to. She snatched Julian’s pistol out of the grasp out of an inmate idly standing next to her, batted Julian’s pistol from his hand, and had the first man’s pistol lodged against Julian’s head in one lighting motion.

  “Damn you, Rose,” Warden screamed at the woman. “What are you doing?”

  Rose backed both her large frame and Julian, who she had in a choke hold, to the wall so no other inmate could slip in behind her. “Inmate Moore, you will order these men of yours to release these civilians right now or I will blow your brains all over this library.”

  Two of the Black Knights grabbed Xavier and he could feel the cold steel of guns planted on each side of his temple. A shiver ran down his spine. He had known fear before, but rarely had he experienced an episode bathed in such urgency. Warden Bright wasn’t doing much better as three inmates surrounded him. The two guards that had accompanied them down here had drawn the remainder of gang bangers attention.

  “Everyone,” Xavier struggled to keep his voice from quivering. “Lower your weapons.”

  “Rose,” The warden used his indoor voice, ironically suited for a library. “Mr. Moore and I were very close to reaching a gentleman’s agreement weren’t we, Julian?”

  “How about it, Julian,” Xavier asked, he tried to tilt his head away from at least one of the barrels trained on him. “Do we have an agreement, or are you going to sit back and allow a slaughter to begin over cold cells, clogged toilets, and frozen meals?”

  “Sure,” Julian struggled to say through the choke hold. Rose loosened her grip some. “All of the hostages we are holding here and the security personnel that are being held near the copy room will be released only after the warden here agrees to all 31 of the issues that I’ve written on that paper.”

  Just as a victorious grin begins to play on Warden Bright’s face it disappeared as if it never existed in the first place. He scanned the list again…and again from top to bottom with a trembling hand.

  “Julian, you must be in error, son.” He said. “You’ve got it numbered. I only count 30 requests on this paper.”

  Julian makes a hand motion for Warden Bright to flip the paper over to the other side.

  The Warden exhaled in exasperation and looked away. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I’m dead serious.” Julian didn’t blink. Rose had released her grip enough for Julian to walk away from her without incident. The Black Knights still had their guns pointed at the three of them, but Xavier felt as if the chance of a slaughter had been downgraded a notch or two. He hoped that trend would continue. A lot depended on what Julian said next. “In exchange for the lives of your sweet, innocent civilians, Warden, I want these five known Klansmen brought here from the west wing. They were found guilty in a court of law and are now serving life sentences for the lynching and murder of three Black activists over in Albany seven years ago.” Julian finally found his place, directly in front of Xavier Prince.

  “You just said it, Julian,” The warden said. “They were convicted in a Georgia court of law. They are serving life sentences, justice has been served. What else could you possibly want from these men?”

  “I want justice for what they’ve done here.”

  “What in the hell are you talking about?”

  Xavier said, “Do you really want to do this, Julian.”

  “I tried to wait until you were released, my brother.” Was all that Julian Moore could manage, he hugged Xavier Prince around his neck and whispered in the other man’s ear. “You’ve done so much for me. I owed you this. I owed you…justice.”

  Julian released Xavier and turned back so that every inmate, prison guard, hostage and…every warden would hear his words…and remember.

  “Let me tell you all a story, a true story, a tale full of glory and sadness. A few years ago a young man by the name of Xavier Prince was accepted into Princeton University prestigious law school. He was only one of 138 who were accepted into a small, but impressive class that included another name that would be familiar to most people in this room, a hatemonger named James Carter.” Julian Moore said, letting the names and faces burrow themselves in his listeners conscious. “Two men with very different roomed together, but rarely interacted, or at least it appeared that way to the other members of the freshman class and staff at the law school. Xavier and James Carter even roomed together.” Julian looked back at Xavier with large, sympathetic eyes. “This man was the only Black man in the entire law program at the time; we are talking about Princeton here. Xavier Prince thrived during the day. He quickly rose to the top of his class. Some of his instructors have commented, even when they are interviewed now, that this man may have had the brightest law mind they had ever seen. I only wish he had done as well after dark. There were nights when he did feel…isolated. There were nights when he felt so very alone.”

  Julian began to pace the floor, slow at first, but soon his stride quickened until it was nearing a fever pitch. “James Carter hadn’t had a whole lot to say to Xavier over the first year. In fact, there were times that the other young man seemed downright hostile to the young Georgia native, the son of a renowned Black activist, who had founded A House in Chains years earlier. Carter had grown up in Georgia as well. He’d been raised as the son of a man who ran a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.”

  Julian Moore had stopped in one sudden motion. All eyes in the room were fixed on him. Even Xavier Prince watched his every move.

  One night, one very fateful night, Carter finally spoke at length with Xavier Prince. Carter knew about the other man’s past and told Xavier that they should not allow their father’s decisions affect how they lived their lives moving forward. They were going to be lawyers if not judges someday. They were going to change the world! Why should they not act like friends and go out and celebrate the future.” Julian said and looked at Xavier Prince for a long time. It was Xavier who gazed away at last because he already knew how this tale ended, the horror that soon followed. He had lived it, of course.

  “Carter had laid an ambush in waiting for Xavier Prince. Four local men from a New Jersey chapter of the Klan helped Carter beat the black man within inches of his life.”

  The woman hostage who had cried earlier looked as if a fresh round of tears were building in the corners of her eyes. An inmate cursed. Warden Bright said, “God Almighty,” and looked away.

  Julian continued when the room quieted again. “This is all heartbreaking but true. Yet, friends and neighbors, we haven’t reached the tragic climax of this story just yet.” He put a long emphasis of his pronouncement of the word just for effect. “The four local men stripped Xavier of his shirt, then they stripped him of his pants and his underwear…and then they stripped a Black man…a Man of Color…of everything left that was meaningful to him. They stripped Xavier Prince of his dignity.” Julian stopped for breath. This was a harrowing tale for Xavier Prince to hear. And if he hadn’t experienced it…lived through it himself…he might not have believed such a horrible thing could have truly have happened.

  “James Carter took a bullwhip that was a going away gift from his father, and whipped Xavier with it. He lashed him…once...twice...thrice…again and again...and again. He told Xavier that he was in control here. The man on the wrong end of the bullwhip was actually the governor of his own fate. Carter told him that the lashes would only continue until the beaten man screamed.” r />
  One of the inmates, a man who looked the part of a fish out of water, walked behind Prince, gave him a hard measured look…and ripped the shirt from Xavier’s body. He had to see for himself if Julian Moore’s story were true.

  Xavier Prince stood motionless in the middle of the library, lonely once again, except for his scars and the mark of A House of Chains to comfort him.

  “32 strokes later, for each year that Sarah Woodward, Xavier Prince mother had lived, he finally did scream. Some neighbor residents have testified years later that they heard it. They say that this scream...this sheik that went on, what sounded like forever…sounded inhuman.”

  Julian Moore stopped long enough to center his attention on Warden Bright. “This inhumanity hadn’t written its final chapter and verse just yet.” Julian stressed the just one last time. “The four local Klan’s men had planted a cross in an empty lot just off campus. However, Carter, the young brilliant mind that he was, had the men dig the cross up and alter its shape. After all, Xavier Prince was the son of the founder of A House in Chains. He deserved better than to have his wrist and ankles strapped to a cross like lesser Black men.

  “A half an hour later the other men had reshaped the cross into an X…for Xavier, of course.” Julian suddenly stopped, choked back tears. Three other hostages, several inmates and one prison guard, who had a dash of salt and a pinch of pepper in his beard failed to hold back theirs. Xavier drunkard eyes only misted. “He was nude and beaten, so it took the strength of three men to rope his wrist and ankles to the X. Carter watched the entire scene with his own arms crossed…and a satisfied grin on his face.”

  “Xavier was up against a wind. He hung there until an 11 year old white girl saw him while she was walking to the bus stop two days later. Neighbors say that she had unleashed quite an impressive scream out herself.”

  Warden Donald Bright rubbed at his nose and mouth again and again until Xavier thought the man’s face would chafe. Rose Dixon never moved, and her pretty face showed little reaction.

  Julian Moore finished the story by saying, “For a long time, Xavier Prince never revealed who did it. The Four local men went back their lives. James Carter suddenly got homesick, quit school, and went home to work in the family business.” Julian Moore said. “But the walk of death and life would not take Xavier Prince without a fight. He recovered from his wounds in a local hospital over the next several weeks, returned to Princeton…finished at the top of his class, and earned and graduated with a law degree.”

  “And these men you are asking for that are in this prison?” Warden Donald Bright asked while the room still sat quietly, in a stunned silence. It was such a quiet moment that it felt it the Earth herself was holding still. “What do they specifically have to do with the disturbing story you just told us?”

  “I have proof that these types of men can’t be rehabilitated. I have proof that that these types of men have the culture of hate for Men of Color imbedded in their hardened hearts.” Julian Moore scooped up Xavier’s shirt from the floor and handed it back to him. After he put it back on Julian said to the warden, while never taking his eyes off Xavier. “Most importantly, I have proof that James Carter had paid these men to kill Xavier Prince as he was originally scheduled to leave Calhoun Prison today.”

  Serena

  Fulton County Jail; Downtown Atlanta, 4th Day

  The FBI hoped to sneak her into the courthouse after midnight and under the cover of darkness.

  Serena Tennyson estimated that at least a 1000 Atlanta resident had proven their logic flawed.

  They had camped out in the parking lot across the street from the courthouse, in the bowels of the parking garage behind the building and had begun sitting on the curve beside the road. Most were baring picket signs, screaming obscenities, humming old Bible hymns and chanting. The boldest of them had flung eggs and pebbles and stones at her, before the APD identified the offenders and launched their selves into the mob to apprehend them.

  Serena could barely breathe in the bullet proof vest that covered her from just below her neck to her shins. The FBI has stuck a helmet, something what a gladiator would dawn before entering the coliseum for battle. Special Agent Christopher Prince continued to keep his vice like grip on her already chained wrist with his left hand, while shoving the back of her hair and head as far down as her tall frame could manage. His partner, Agent Tabitha Blue, pushed her forward by the base of her spine. Serena had never felt so irritated and so…comforted by another human being’s touch.

  “Make a hole people,” Agent Blue screamed at the mass of uniformed police and members of the press that had clogged the walkway that led to one the side entrances of the courthouse.

  Serena felt nauseated…discombobulated…as if he were now floating and not walking. For a single moment in time she was transported back in time, back in place. This scene played out so very much like the way her marathon races would end when she was in her freshman year in high school. Reporters, teammates…and most importantly, her father, would be waiting for her as she led the field after a long race.

  I want you to remember how you feel right now; he had told her after winning a particularly grueling contest. When life throws you its most tormenting curve, when mankind is at its ugliest, I want you to think of how you overcame it all to achieve this triumph. I want you to always treasure this moment right here, right now; and never forget the Dragon’s call: You’ll do fine, you will be good, and you can still fly.

  A stone found the tiniest gap between the lid and the protective visor and stuck her near her left cheek.

  “It came from over there,” Blue stopped long enough to tug at the shirt tail of one of the uniformed officers. “I want the person who threw that arrested right now.” Blue stood back to back with Serena, and wrapped her arms around the other woman’s hips killing any gap between them. “Stop this madness, now. I promise you that Justice will be served if you allow us to do our jobs.” She spun back around and quickly restarted where she left off shoving Serena forward. “Make a Goddamned hole, people.” Blue said. “Move it.”

  The processing portion of her detention was an exercise in time consumption and humiliation. First, a butterball of a man drinking from a coffee mug, greeted Agent Prince, shook his hand, and told him that they would be assigning two female officers to stay with the prisoner at all times while they process her. Secondly, the two women joined the FBI ensemble, walked her to the area where they fingerprinted her, snapped several mug shots, and unlocked her wrist and ankle chains and made her shower. “It’s so cold in here.” She hugged herself, twisting around so the Dragon showcased its power and beauty to all the nonbelievers in the low lighting, until the two female officers protected her privacy by blocking anyone else’s line of vision with their own frames.

  “Your processing will be concluded soon enough.” Agent Prince signed a form for one officer whose hair was a matted mess, and then entered his authorization code on a data pad for another one who had a grease stain on his chin. “They’re scheduling you for a very early arraignment in the morning—he looked at the digital clock on the wall—later this morning.”

  “Thank you,” Serena said with her lip quivering, her body warming at a glacial pace. Agent Prince ignored her and had already taken steps toward the exit. “You have proven to be every bit the opponent that your brother has been.”

  Agent Prince spun back around. “I’ll say this to you this one time, Serena,” He said. “Don’t talk to me, don’t ever talk to me.”

  Serena lowered her head, letting the warming water wash over her red hair. “As you wish,” He turned back to exit again when Serena added: “But you and I will fellowship again before my end, before the Whirlwind begins. I have seen it in the flames.”

  Serena’s words had halted the special agent’s progress in the middle of the doorway. You are a strong man, Christopher…stronger than your brother is in fact, but at the end of the day, if you do not turn from your nonbelieving ways and ac
cept the Dragon…

  And yet, Agent Prince did not accept the Dragon into his heart then and Serena doubted that he would anytime soon, as he walked out of the door without responding or looking back at her.

  An hour later it was all over.

  Serena lay on the hard tile of her jail cell. When Serena parents died weeks after she’d won that marathon, she’d lived the remainder of her adolescent years moving from border home to border home. The family’s changed. The rules and regulations changed. The rooms changed. The beds changed. The floors never changed. She had found a stability, familiarity and comfort in them that had stayed with her all the way through adulthood. Lying on this floor was no different than the one in her condominium in suburban Atlanta home and no different than luxurious hotel suite that Pilot had leased for her at The Bank of America Hotel where she was staying when she unleashed 411 on the city of Atlanta.

  Agent Tabitha Blue and the two other female agents had long abandoned her for other duties. She knew, from research, that the courthouse and adjoining jail housed at least 50 female prisoners but they had isolated her from the other inmates. The room was too cool to her liking, the lighting low, and she was far from the Dragon’s flames…or its love.

  They had assigned her three uniformed officers, one of them female, the other two males, all three People of Color on the other side of her bars. Serena was sure that there were countless other officers on the other side of the door, down the hall, and guarding the sides of the building. The FBI wanted to guarantee that no one would try to extract her from the courthouse and no one was getting in either.

  At last, a blessed sleep threatened to pull her up into its bosom, she prayed it would be without nightmare…or visions…

  Serena Tennyson was wrong.

  She was so very wrong…

  The light that greeted her on the other side of sleep, or wherever this was, nearly blinded her. She had to shield her eyes from the brightness as she walked towards the lone figure that she saw. Someone…it looked like a man, was sitting cross legged on a wooden bench in a park. There were no birds humming or flying, no bees buzzing about, there didn’t even so seem to be ants crawling in the dirt. Outside of Serena and this man, there didn’t look to be anything living in the park besides the trees and bushes and flowers scattered about.

  She walked up to the bench.

  Thomas Pepper looked back over his shoulder at her.

  “Hello.” He said. “I thought you would never get here.”

  “What are you doing here?” Serena asked. She would not panic the way a non-believer would. The Dragon had exposed to her to an abundance of stimuli since she had accepted his calling after her parents death. Visions and prophecy had been introduced her in dreams before…this was no different.

  “Your contact with Pepper at his home, that intimacy you experienced with that man led to this. I am but a shadow, an echo of that man you know on the other side.” He beckoned her to sit next to him. After she obeyed, he said, “Serena, I’m here today…tonight in your world, to offer you the opportunity to turn away from the path you are walking. This is your last chance to avoid disaster. This is your last chance to avoid The Whirlwind.”

  “The Whirlwind,” She laughed the sound of it foreign in her own ears. “The Whirlwind is something that Caretaker conjured up, something that I will implement of my enemies if it—“

  “The Whirlwind is something a great deal more personal than that, Serena.” Thomas Pepper or this entity that wore his guise said. “Serena, every human being, even those who follow the teachings of the Dragon like you do, potentially suffer from their own Whirlwind if they are pushing too hard…if they are reckless. You have been reckless, Serena.”

  She sat back on her heels. “I have followed the teachings of The Dragon. I have followed the wishes of the Caretaker.”

  “You have not exercised free will. Your recklessness will result in destruction beyond repair and the death of a great many people. From this point forward you will bring out the bad in good men. And bring out the worse in bad men. Yet, if you turn away right now, then your Dragon is little more than a metaphor…your Caretaker in error, or a liar.”

  Serena had no response for what Thomas Pepper said. He was on his feet; a big man dressed in one of the other’s signature tailored suits and extended a big left hand to her. She avoided human contact as often as he could…but he wasn’t quite human was he? And until Thomas Pepper, the real Thomas Pepper had seen my nakedness as I undressed in front of him at his townhouse before the Feds arrived…no man had ever seen all of her. Serena had kept herself pure as the teachings of the Dragon had expected of her. She accepted his hand and walked with him.

  One minute all of the light in the entire world was behind them, while darkness ruled the realm in front of them. After another minute, three doors appeared out of the nothingness. Serena waited on Thomas to explain…but all he did was squeeze her hand…touch her unlike she had ever allowed a man on the other side to touch her before.

  He wore a tired, sad look on his squared jaw. “As you can see, Serena there is three doors in front of you. Behind each one is a point that you can avoid your Whirlwind, here and now. If you choose not to…if you choose unwisely, then you risk the probable outcome of what you see evolve from behind each door.” He said. She nodded in understanding, but did not interrupt.

  “When you are exposed to each scenario, I will ask you to turn away and that door will close to you forever. Again, if you choose not to…again, if you choose unwisely, we will move to the next door and so on. If you have not turned way back the time the third and final door shuts, I will simply ask you to turn around, so you may continue you’re walking your path towards your own personal Whirlwind.” He paused for a very long time. “Do you understand, Serena?”

  “I do.”

  Thomas released her hand and she let it fall to her side.

  The first door opened and a tiger…albeit it a paper tiger leaped out. She drew back, fearing at first that she would be the object of its attention. It swerved around her, lay on its stomach for an instant, snarled and let out a mighty roar. Then it repeated the same action, but when it opened its fanged mouth this time it purred like a common housecat would. In fact, Serena took notice of its stripes and how the stripes altered color and shape and number with each blink of her eye, as if the thing didn’t know what type of tiger it actually was. Finally, the darker stripes remained, the snarl intense, and Serena imagined the roar would be frightening when it decided to unleash it again.

  Six chocolate covered paper children began walking hand and hand down a paper street. Serena watched the snarl from the paper tiger intensify. At the right moment he pounced on the children…one…and then another…and another, until he was standing with all of his weight on top of them. The chocolate children flapped their arms and legs but the tiger was too heavy, too powerful to remove. Their mouths opened to scream and either Serena couldn’t hear them or the sound wasn’t coming out.

  Another minute passed. In the second minute, one of the paper chocolate children stopped waving his arms and legs…he stopped moving at all. The next minute saw another child repeat the action or inaction of the first one. The remaining children opened their mouths wider, but again Serena heard nothing ushering out.

  Thomas Pepper said, “What is your decision, Serena?”

  She folded her arms and stood flatfooted in defiance. “I understand the symbolism here, Thomas.” She said in a confident voice. “The Paper Tiger is Louis/Hugh Keaton. Those children are caricatures of Black children in Atlanta. Although the two deaths are unfortunate, Operation Where are our Children looks as if it succeeded as I planned it.”

  So Serena nodded her head, no.

  The first door closed, she heard an audible click of a lock bolting and second door opened immediately thereafter behind her.

  Thomas Pepper said, “You should turn away.”

  And Serena was surrounded by flames.

  The
Whirlwind was all around her. Thomas looked unfazed. She fanned the flames as best she could, but they only seemed to grow in intensity and heat. She ran back into the light and seemed to find some relief from the inferno there. Thomas was standing next to her at this point as if he’d always been by her side.

  In the distance, Serena saw a small scaled replica of Atlanta. The flames had encompassed the city from the sides and from areas both front and behind it. Paper people ran one way and then another. She could hear them screaming this time. The shrieks of fear and pain nearly overwhelmed her. Some of the cries cascaded from people that she knew.

  Am I signally responsible for all of this death and destruction, Serena thought, but dared not say aloud.

  “You are,” Thomas voiced the answer to her thought. He turned to her but never lost his eye for the flames. “Turn away from your path here, turn away right now and this destruction stops before it ever begins.”

  Serena neared tears. Her father had sacrificed so much. The Caretaker had sacrificed so much more.

  “No.” She said again.

  The second door closed, and once again she heard an audible click of a lock bolting and the third and final door opened immediately thereafter behind her.

  Thomas Pepper said, “You should turn away.”

  There was a huge paper chocolate man stomping about. What Serena noticed most about him is that he wore a crown on his brow that grew larger and larger…and larger as the minutes passed them by. He had a flock of paper people walking behind him. And there numbers grew so big, so fast that Serena quit trying to count them all.

  Across a street, a group of paper pasty white people were marching towards to where the huge chocolate man with the oversized crown and his flock were standing.

  The crown eventually grew too large for the chocolate king and Serena heard it rattle as it fell around his ankles. He clumsily marched on and tripped over his own crown. If he was dead or injured from his fall, Serena could not tell.

  Both the chocolate colored paper people and the pasty white paper people paused for only a minute as if they were honoring the fallen, drew out paper sticks and charged each other.

  Many of the chocolate covered people fell from what…some type of an illness or disorder …even before the battle had been engaged.

  When the combat had ended there were scores on both sides who had been slaughtered. Serena saw such much red paint…so much blood, that she felt the same sensations in her gut, chest, head and face as she did when The FBI rushed her into the side entrance of the courthouse.

  She hugged herself, and felt her body trembling.

  Thomas had to stop himself for reaching out to comfort her. He bore a look mixed of frustration, disbelief, anger and sadness.

  He said to her, “You should turn away.”

  “I can’t, Thomas.” She yelled over the cries of the dead and dying. “Even if I wanted to, I’ve come too far to turn back now.”

  The final door closed, and Serena found that after she blinked again that she and Thomas were seated on the wooden bench as when this whole episode started. This time, however, she saw birds flying in the sky, she heard bees buzzing about, and a school of ants crawled on her shoe.

  Thomas Pepper had changed with the scene as well.

  He had lost a lot of his weight, his hair had thinned and most of the life had drained out of his eyes.

  He was watching children playing in the distance…what appeared to be real children, not paper caricatures, playing together in a space perfect for viewing although he couldn’t reach out to them as he might have wanted to.

  He slowly turned around and found her eyes with his own tired, sad eyes.

  And Thomas Pepper or whatever this entity had been said, “You should turn around, Serena.” And when she did not right away he said again with gruff in his tone. “You should turn around…”

  …And when Serena did finally turn around, she was back on the jail’s floor and had tuned in time enough to hear one of the male uniformed officers’ call out to the other one. “Hey Freddy,”

  Officer Fred Dennison:

  He was a brown skinned Black man who was all chests, shoulders, afro and beard. Since his friend had broken his concentration, he stopped doing his paperwork long enough to stretch and yawn. The lone female officer noisily pushed her chair back from her own desk and told the other two that she was stepping out back for a smoke and would make another pot of coffee, if they wanted some, when she got back.

  Dennison called out to her: “Please do, Pam. Just make sure you wash your nasty ass hands before you do.” Both men laughed. She removed the cigarette from her fingers long enough to give her co-workers the finger before closing the door behind her.

  Fred stretched again and said to the other officer: “And Joe, I ain’t got time for your bullshit. It’s almost 7:30 AM. The sun’s already up. You see all this paperwork I still got to finish before the end of our shift an hour from now. The old lady’s about sick of all the overtime I’ve been working. I’m going to get this shit done, and work a little somethin’…somethin’ this morning with her before she’s off to work herself.”

  Joe Wilson had ignored his friend and edged himself closer to her cell. “Yea, you’ll tell me anything, Freddy. But I’ve seen you watching this one since they brought her ass in last night.” Wilson said to his friend Fred Dennison without looking at him. “Why don’t you come a little closer and take a closer look at this.”

  Officer Joe Wilson:

  He had a small build, golden brown skin, green eyes and his hair could not decide whether it was brown or red when the sunlight hit it from above.

  “She’s a little bony for my taste, man.” Officer Dennison replied and went back to his paperwork. “I know you like them types though. I’ll tell you what…why don’t you look enough for the both of us while I finish this—“

  “Why don’t you come over here?” Joe Wilson waved a single finger at her.

  Serena’s heart thumped louder in her chest as she sat up and slid her frame into the corner of her cell as far as she could from Officer Joe Wilson and his little probing green eyes. He kept summoning his friend to his side, the other man finally giving in to the adolescent chiding.

  “You know, I was talking to one of the reporters outside, you know after the cameras finally went dark last night.” Officer Wilson said. “Patsy Clark, you know the brunette who looks like she needs a new hairstylist, actually allowed the word brilliant come out of her mouth when she went to describing this bitch. Patsy thought that even after what this woman said on that web program with that other reporter…what’s his name…the big guy?”

  Dennison nodded his fat head. “Yea, you are talking about Pepper, Thomas Pepper who used to write for The Advocate.”

  “Yea, that’s him.”

  “And now that you say it, I remember what you told me that chick reporter said to you last night.” Dennison’s frown grew intense. “She thought it took a superior mind to conjure up mining those streets that led to Pepper’s crib like that.”

  Wilson shook an oversized key ring out of his pocket, sifts through them until he has found the correct one, and unlocks her cell…and steps inside. Dennison takes a long hard look over his shoulder for Pam, gazes back at his partner and ask him what in the hell did he think he was doing.

  “If she’s so smart I need her to educate me some.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know Johnathan Boatwright?”

  Dennison had to search his memory. “Yea, I know him; he’s a skinny dude who worked Buckhead a lot last year.”

  “He was a skinny dude, man.” Joe Wilson said. “He was one of the first patrolmen to get the call when the feds learned that she was up at Pepper’s townhouse.”

  “Boom,” Fred said and threw his hands towards the ceiling to highlight the effect.

  Serena jumped. She steadied her left hand as Fred Dennison laughed out loud at his own stupidity. Stay calm, Stay focused
, she thought, let them have their fun. They aren’t stupid enough to try anything with you.

  Under normal circumstances her training would provide her with more than an adequate chance to disarm and kill both these men with simply her bare hands. But she’d been weakened by her processing, her lack of food and proper rest. And, rather she wanted to admit it or not, shaken to her marrow by the vision she’d experienced with the parody of Thomas Pepper and his three doors to prophecy.

  And that hard look…the look of hatred, especially in the eye of the big one, Officer Fred Dennison unnerved her.

  “A blast like that normally would kill a man on the spot.” Officer Wilson was saying.

  “What, Joe, don’t tell me that he survived?”

  “Nah, man…Boatwright died last night.” Wilson sounded remorseful. “He lived long enough for me and some of the guys to see him at the hospital.”

  Wilson began to approach her again, while his partner backpedaled towards the door where Officer Pam Greer had walked out of to smoke her cigarette. Serena felt the cold steel of the bars behind her massage her shoulders as he leaned on them. Her lips trembled and she tasted something sour in her mouth.

  Joe Wilson stood nearly on top of where she was seated.

  “I’ll never forget the look of uncertainty plastered in Boatwright’s eyes even as his face couldn’t be seen under all those bandages.” Joe said in a low voice that only she could hear. Fred Dennison was well out of hearing range. “He was so scared.”

  Serena had hoped that Dennison, at the least, would come to his senses when he reached the door. But instead of looking out of it for Officer Greer she heard him lock it, the bolt sliding true with an audible click.

  The sound reminiscent of the closing doors of prophecy in the vision she experienced earlier.

  “What I like is that the same look my friend had in his eyes before he died,” Wilson continued. His friend Dennison had reentered the cell and locked it behind him. “I really like that you… you little brilliant bitch, you have that look on your face right now as well.”

  Joe Wilson shook his red head once and then again. “But I’m going to wipe that look off of your face; there ain’t any reason for you to be scared of old Joe.” He slid his belt through his loop, handed his gun to Fred and began to unbutton his pants. He asked about Greer, while he kicked off his shoes.

  Dennison’s hard look held up. He told Wilson that Greer was probably running her mouth with the detectives who were arriving early for their shift. She ain’t had a steady man in months.

  “Well, that fact is gonna change real fast for you isn’t it, Rooster?” Joe said to her as he lifted her chin. “Even after you threatened Black children in front of the entire world, it wasn’t a guarantee that our justice system would convict you. Even after you admitted that you gave the order to kill innocent people on 411 there was still no guarantee that they would toss you in a cell like this one and throw away the key.”

  “You’re right, Joe.” Dennison agreed. “They always get off.”

  He squatted down next to her and Serena turned her head away. “What I am going to do right now…I’m going to be brilliant. I am going to prove once and for all that rape is not about sex but about power. I’m not the least bit attracted to you. But I’m going to guarantee that you never forget this moment of my total control over you.”

  Wilson ripped at her jail issued gown, while he fumbled with releasing his manhood from his trousers. Dennison had his own gun out and pointed at her head and the look of hatred on his face is unnecessary because Serena was already convinced that he will shoot her if she makes too much of a fuss.

  Serena struggled, shook her head wildly in denial, and managed to flip over, ending up on her knees.

  That didn’t work in her favor however. Wilson used the bars of the cell…and then his own body weight to pin her in the corner.

  Serena had exhausted her last avenues of escape.

  If she dared to scream, she knew that Dennison would shoot her.

  She could feel Wilson’s hand ripping at her underwear…she could feel him hardening as it begins to part her thighs and grace her pubic hairs.

  Serena remembered her conversation with Louis Keaton, in what feels like a lifetime ago: And often too many of them are uneducated, unreliable and act too uncivilized to contribute to society.

  Wilson slapped her once across her head and when her face took the brunt of an impact with the bars all of her resistance at last came to an end.

  As the first tears ran down her face, Serena Tennyson looked past the bars, and in her mind’s eye she saw her father waiting for her at the end of a grueling marathon. I want you to remember how you feel right now, his voice resonated lovingly in her mind, when life throws you its most tormenting curve, when mankind is at its ugliest, I want you to think of how you overcame it all to achieve this triumph. I want you to always treasure this moment right here, right now; and never forget the Dragon’s call:

  You will be fine.

  You’ll be good.

  You can still fly.

  Serena heard a gunshot.

  And then she heard the glass on the topside of the door where Officer Pam Greer has gone to smoke shattering.

  Officer Joe Wilson stopped before he could finish entering her, before he could go where she had allowed no man to go before in her life. The woman was calling for them.

  Dennison said, “Turn your ass around, Pam, and walk back out of here right now.”

  Pam Greer held her nine millimeter out in front of her, her feet planted squarely on the tile, and didn’t move, not with eight shots still left in her gun.

  “Back off of the prisoner right now,” She commanded them. “If both of you idiots want to live you’ll do as I say.”

  Serena could hear the cavalry—dozens upon dozens of uniformed officers running towards this block. Wilson yells back at Greer that Serena deserves this and so much more. Dennison turns his own gun on Pam—a mistake in which she makes him pay with his life, when she fires two rounds into the skin just above his left eye before he completed his turn.

  “Joe, don’t make me kill you too.” Pam said, tears streaking down her cheeks.

  Officer Pam Greer:

  She was a petite brown skinned black woman with big brown eyes, big lips and a stylish haircut who was holding a big nine millimeter handgun in her small hands.

  Wilson knew that he wouldn’t be able to reach his gun that was trapped underneath Fred Dennison’s dead body—so he must have decided right then—that if he was going to die this morning that he would serve Serena her breakfast first.

  He grabbed Serena by her head and decided to shove his manhood between her other lips instead—

  And Officer Pam Greer dropped him where he once stood by shooting him in his head.

  Serena never moved from her seated place on the tile, while she watched the room fill with uniformed officers. One of the senior voices called for Officer Greer to stand down, first in a commanding, then a more sympathetic tone. She lowered her weapon but did not holster it.

  Instead, she unlocked the cell door, entered, and kicked both weapons away from the carcass that was once Officer Fred Dennison. She choked back further tears and placed two fingers on his neck and checks for a pulse. Serena notes that death has robbed Dennison of his hard look that he must have learned to master over the years.

  Next, while the other officers stare in a stunned silence, Officer Pam Greer moves on to Officer Wilson, performs the same ritual on him and finally stood up at her full height, finally relaxing her grip on her gun enough for a comrade to lift it from her fingers with a pen.

  Three more officers entered Serena’s cell and began to escort Greer out, as quickly as the woman who saved her, could manage.

  “Officer Greer?” Serena called out to the other woman. Two plain clothed detectives began to attend to Serena’s needs and sat her on the cot. “Officer Greer?” She said when the petite, uniformed woman failed to answer h
er call the first time.

  It took all of the strength and some time for the group of women to turn Greer so that the two women could see each other’s face.

  “I should thank you.” Serena said.

  Greer screamed.

  When she had finished at last she said, “I’ve worked with both of those men for over five years. I know Joe’s brother. I’ve met Fred’s wife.” She began to sob uncontrollably. “And now I have to go home this morning and explain to them that I killed them…for you.” Pam’s head lowered in shame. “I killed these men because of you. So… don’t…thank…me.”

  An hour after Officer Pam Greer was escorted out of her cell, Serena watched a half dozen detectives begin to mechanically examine the crime scene. Another group of three detectives took care of her needs. Serena was told by one, who knew his way around a buffet, that they would need a statement before the FBI arrived and took over the investigation. Her appearance in front of the Judge would be postponed for at least a day now, maybe two. She also was told that she had to refrain from showering until medical personnel could examine her.

  Two hours later after she had made her statement, showered and changed, Serena lay on the tiled floor of a new cell with one window high above, and traded local law enforcement for a team of federal agents who were tasked at guarding her this time.

  Serena shivered.

  Behind her, rays of sunlight were glowing from the window. She wanted to warm herself…yet she remembered that once someone very dear to her saying that beams of sunlight radiating throughout small pockets of space, like in this room, were like the eyes of God piercing through. And that the guilty shied away from this light for fear of His judgment raining upon them.

  If she didn’t believe it the human deity…then why was she so…hesitant…Perhaps he did exist after all?

  She crawled backwards, lay in the trail of the light and let God’s judgment rain upon her.

  Xavier

  Calhoun State Prison (Delta Corridor) 5th Day

  “So deep down, at least a part of you knew that Julian would do something like this all along?”

  Warden Donald Bright’s blonde hair had darkened with sweat and his cheeks had reddened into a fine color of cinnamon. The entire search party: Xavier Prince, Warden Bright, Rose Dixon and two other uniformed were winded after a trek up to the sixth floor produced empty results. All five of Carter’s men had escaped with many of the inmates on that level when A Riot’s Last Gleaming started.

  Xavier kept walking and didn’t provide a response. Warden Bright quickened his pace and circled in front of the smaller man and blocked his path. Prince drunkard eyes flashed him a look or irritation. We don’t have time for this. “Alright, Warden…so I guessed that he would.” Xavier cut his eyes at Rose Dixon who was hanging on every word exchanged between the two men.

  Warden Bright caught his silent messaging. “Ah…Rose, take these two men and begin a search of the southwest block. When I studied the diagram of this place, I saw some isolated points over there that might provide a man some hiding spots.” He pointed a finger at her. “Tell no one any specifics of what you are searching for.”

  After this search party had concluded their meeting with Julian, Warden Bright had gone alone to speak with representatives of both the Georgia State Police and the National Guard. They had agreed, at least for now, to abide by his wishes and provide tactical support and a perimeter defense and not allow any convict to leave the interior of the prison itself. Bright told Xavier that they were on a time frame of two or three hours, no more, to bring this matter to a head. The woman who led the Georgia State Patrol assemblage told him that there had been an incident at the courthouse in downtown Atlanta already during Serena Tennyson’s arraignment. She wouldn’t go into further details with him, but privately mentioned that state couldn’t tolerate any more screw-ups.

  Rose Dixon hadn’t moved. “I won’t leave you alone with this man. I don’t trust him and either should you, Warden. For all we know, he may have been on this riot business with inmate Moore all along.”

  Warden Bright squeezed her big hands with some affection and smiled at her, the woman’s own overreaction back in the library that nearly cost all of their lives forgiven. “I’ll be fine, Rose.” He said. “By splitting up, we will cover more ground this way. We need to find Carter’s men before Julian’s Black Knights get their hands on them. We’ll be in a better position to bargain for the hostage’s lives if we do.”

  Rose Dixon reluctantly agreed with a curt nod. After she and the two uniforms vacated the scene Xavier said, “Make no mistake here, Warden, the grievances on the front side of your list are all legitimate. Fain’s rule here was a reign in Hell.” Xavier stopped to rest and leaned his back against a nearby brick wall. “For the flip side of that paper, I suspected that the opportunity for Julian and his Black Knight’s to strike back at Carter’s associates would be too great to pass up once he figured I was safely off the premises.” He stood up straight again. “You said you want truth from me. Well, the truth is I didn’t know the specifics of this plan, or whether there was a plan at all, despite what your bodyguard thinks. I do know that Julian is carrying out his plan the way that I would, if I were in his place.”

  “Fain, that freaking idiot,” Warden Bright spat on the floor. “How could he schedule this inspection, allow any unnecessary civilian passage through this place, especially the day of your scheduled release, knowing how volatile this situation had grown here.”

  “Did you get a radio off of one those uniformed officers before we left?”

  “Shit, I didn’t,” He peered down the hallway, whistled at two uniforms within a patrol group and commanded that someone fetch him a radio. A bucktoothed sergeant gave Xavier a hard stare, but handed the Warden a radio anyway. Xavier took it and turned to channel four.

  “What are you doing, Prince?” The Warden wanted to know. “Who in the hell are you calling?”

  “Backup,” Xavier grinned. “Julian has his plans. I have mine.”

  The Warden listened as Xavier disguises his voice, making it darker, richer as if he were of Mexican or Columbian decent and called for a guard named Evans.

  Xavier completed a list of commands in Latin.

  The man, Evans, on the other end responded in Latin as well, Xavier turned the dial to the off position and handed the radio back to the warden.

  Warden Bright was struggling to keep his mouth closed and the look of astonishment off of his brow. “Who was that? What did you tell him?”

  “Lieutenant Vincent Evans has been one of the most decorated guards at this and other state facilities for over 25 years. In the past year, however, he has taken the mark of A House in Chains…he has visualized our people’s future and wishes to amend what he has saw.”

  “God, Almighty,” Was all the warden could manage. After another second spent in disbelief he asked, “Are you going to share with me what you said to him?”

  Xavier looked to each side to make sure the bucktoothed man who had brought the radio had returned to his post and that no other guard was coming. “I instructed Evans to gather up more help…more Peacekeepers, and search every crack and crevice of the western wing of the promenade and the first floor. Carter’s men still don’t know that I am not leaving per schedule. I would have had to exit through those sectors to complete my processing before my official release.”

  Yet, Warden Bright only could find the energy, the resolve to rest his bigger frame on the opposite wall from where Xavier had paused only minutes earlier. “How many are there,” The Warden asked. “I want you to tell me how many of the state’s men…how many of my men share your vision of the future, Prince?”

  “Enough,” Xavier said and pulled a toothpick out of his pocket and stuck it in his mouth. I need a cigarette. “What is more important to you right now is that these prison guards know the layout of Calhoun better than Julian and his followers do. And I’m convinced that James Carter’s hoods are where I say
that they are. But we still have to find them. And whether it is because of an itchy trigger finger of one of Julian’s Black Knights, or the imminent incursion by The Georgia National Guard and State Police, we are running out of time, Warden.”

  The warden shrugged. “Did you and Julian come to some type of agreement after I left to speak with the outsiders? Did you two already decide Carter’s men’s fates before they are even found?”

  “We agreed that if I found them first that I would decide their outcome. Those men’s lives belong to me in Julian’s eyes anyway.” Xavier felt the other man glaring down at him “I never told him exactly what I do if I found them first, Bright. But it was the best solution that I could come up with at the time.” He said and started to walk again—

  The warden grabbed him by the forearm, but as soon as he gained his attention, he aptly let go. “I don’t get this. I have to ask you the same question Julian did back in the library…whose side are you on, Prince?” Xavier only answered by swerving the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. “I believe that horrible tale Julian narrated to the room back in the library. I believe that Carter’s men had their sights on killing you later on today as you left the prison. What I don’t believe is that you will find these men and simply let them…walk away from all this and potentially anger the Black Knights and allow those hostages to be harmed.”

  Xavier jumped in the other man’s face. Warden Bright must have seen a handful of guards reach for their sidearm and screamed at the men to put their guns away. “I’m not siding with you, Warden.” Xavier chewed on the toothpick and willed himself to take a half a step backwards. “I am trying to protect the lives of those civilians who have been threatened, if only partially, in my name. I want to lessen the chances that they will be slaughtered if we don’t find Carter’s goons first. I’ll worry about the ramifications, all the rest, once we’ve accomplished that much.”

  “I get it now,” Warden Bright said three intersections and down a flight of stairs later. “In truth you don’t really give a damn about those civilians. This is all about you. This is about politics and protecting the image of your precious little House in Chains.”

  Xavier snorted. “Of course, politics plays a role in every decision I make, Warden. You work in a governing position. You should know this.” He ran a hand through his short mane of hair, forcing himself to remain calm. They had loss enough time as it was. “Militant behavior should never be the first option for A House in Chains. My father taught me that when he was the One. He taught his followers to exhaust any and all other avenues before we turn to violence.”

  “And your friend, Julian Moore, I don’t think all of the skulls and crossbones tattooed to his body comfort me into believing he shares you or your father’s views.”

  “Julian’s been a gang banger for as long as he can remember.” Xavier admitted to the other man. “The stories he told me…he fights, he kills, and he does these things because he hasn’t learned how to do anything else. I will tell you that he has grown at least a little bit, because if he had not, then those hostages up there would already be dead.” It was Xavier’s turn to grab the warden’s wrist, but only to check the time on his watch. “Warden, we need to move. We have unexpected allies, but time is not on our side.”

  “I know…but…” The warden placed a hand on each hip and shook his head in disbelief.

  “What?”

  “Like I told you in my office earlier, I’ve been in this game a long time and I thought that I’ve saw it all. I’ve seen men find truth and clarity locked inside these walls. I’ve seen men find sorrow for their victims and empathy for the families that have been left behind. I’ve seen hundreds of men find Jesus—if only because they had nothing else to do while they served out their sentence.” Warden Bright said. “And yet, Julian Moore found you.”

  Just then, a stocky guard Xavier hadn’t remembered seeing before during his incarceration at Calhoun ran up to them with a rifle in his hand. “Warden Bright, is that you, sir?”

  “It is, Sargent.” Warden Bright said to the man. “Report,”

  “Lieutenant Evans and a group of four or five other officers are engaged in some type of standoff with some unidentified inmates on the promenade. Before I left to find you I saw a cluster of Black Knights closing on the section as well. Julian Moore was with them. If you’ll follow me sir…”

  When the three of them arrived on the promenade Xavier noted that Evans men, those who had accepted the mark of A House in Chains, had barricaded themselves between Carter’s men and Julian’s Black Knights who were arriving in force on the scene. One butter ball of man, with his head nearly between his knees gasping for oxygen, had proclaimed that Julian’s people had found Carter’s men first.

  “Liar,” Warden Bright shouted loud enough that every man on this floor knew that he and Xavier had arrived. “These prison officers are friends of A House in Chains. They share Xavier’s vision for their people.”

  Julian walked, ever slowly towards where Warden Bright and Xavier Prince had made their stand. “I don’t see it that way, Warden.” He grinned for the first time that Xavier could remember since this crisis began. “I do see that my men out number your men, what, four to one—five to one.”

  Xavier slid smoothly between the warden and Julian Moore. He said: “Stand down, Julian. This is over. You have been a thug. You have been a murderer who has killed without thought or conscious. Don’t be a liar as well.”

  Julian stretched his amazingly large eyes to a full bulge, and Xavier inwardly braced himself to be struck by this gang banger that he had learned to call a friend and an ally in this hell hole.

  Julian simply said, “Respect of self, Xavier…respect of family, and finally of community, yes I can recall your words to me as if you said them a minute ago.”

  “Then stand down, Julian,” Xavier placed his right hand on a tattooed shoulder and rubbed at a particular area of skin that showcased the mark of A House in Chains amongst all the other body art. “You told me that if I found Carter’s men first and Evans is my man, then we had an agreement that their lives…or deaths as it may be, belong to me.”

  “I told you that I wasn’t worthy of a seat in your house.” Julian said in a remorseful tone. “I’m not as strong as you are, Xavier. I can’t let go of what was done to you before. I can’t push the thought out of my mind when we learned what they were planning to do to you on this day.” Julian’s voice cracked. “I’m no better than James Carter or these other fools locked up in here. I can’t let go of my hate for them.”

  Xavier hugged the other man then and gave his wiry frame a brotherly squeeze. “I’m here for you, Julian. I’m here. There is no need for you to avenge me. You can’t retaliate for a murder that has yet to occur.”

  Julian returned Xavier’s embrace and cried for a long time.

  And then he pushed the other man away and cocked his pistol once more.

  “You are a great man, Xavier Prince. You are the man that I wish that I could be.” He said “But you are wrong today. These men are too dangerous to not to kill here and now.”

  The Warden moved with the speed and precision that men half his age weren’t blessed with. He was a blur. He was a thought. He was a ghost. He snatched a gun out of one of his own men’s hands, so that he now possessed two, and drew it on the area where Carter’s men had been forced to kneel. He shot and killed three of Carter’s men before they had a chance to get to their feet. One of the Black Knights took the aggressive posture of The Warden as if he were acting against Julian and twisted his frame and placed it so he could get a clean shot off at Bright. In his mind’s eye, Xavier could picture the lone uniform that had accompanied them down here targeting the gang banger and the remaining Peacekeepers aiming at him. So he used his small stature and strength to get underneath Julian’s man just enough to make contact with his elbow, pushing the gun’s barrel to the ceiling when the man fired off a round.

  Meanwhile, the ward
en found his fourth target as one of Carter’s men had lifted himself off his knees, charged past a Peacekeeper and lunged at Julian. Time’s run out, Xavier thought, everyone within a hundred feet of the promenade had to hear those shots. Soon, this corridor would be overrun with trigger happy Georgia State National Guardsmen and State Patrol Men. God help us all.

  Somehow the fifth and final hatemonger had stolen A Peacekeeper’s weapon from him, shot the original owner, the man next to him and fired a third round that grazed Xavier’s skull.

  The bullet had struck the officer who had accompanied him instead, killing the man instantly.

  Julian unloaded half a clip into the man, each bullet holding his frame up, so the one behind it could find its mark on the man’s torso.

  A second or two later, Warden Bright moved like a man on a mission needed to; he instructed Xavier’s surviving Peacekeepers to place to place a gun that had been used in the exchange in a dead man’s hand. Initially, no one moved so Warden Bright explained again louder but slower in case anyone was having trouble comprehending.

  The deed was done as Rose Dixon led a group of nearly uniformed men and women onto the already crowded promenade. She was struggling to catch her breath, but her face brightened when she saw that Donald Bright was very much alive.

  “Sir, are you alright, are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine, Rose.” Warden Bright squeezed the woman’s arm. “All of you lower your weapons.” He commanded to everyone in the room, Julian’s Black Knights in particular. “There are hostages up in the library who are waiting to be freed and a few people here who need medical attention, including myself.”

  Rose looked around the area at the carnage. Blood had been splattered on the walls and the floors. Xavier had lost his toothpick. “What happened here?” She asked.

  Warden Bright pointed in the general direction of the five dead men who once belonged to James Carter and kept emotion of what sounded like a rehearsed answer to Xavier. “These men were operatives of James Carter and perhaps Pandora. They nearly ambushed me and Xavier Prince when we entered this section. Inmate Julian Moore in his Black Knights had already signaled to me that they were prepared to lay down their arms, release the captives and return control of the prison to my control. But they rushed to our aid when they first heard shots down here and Julian Moore killed the last assailant who would have shot me or Prince without his assistance.”

  Warden Donald Bright let his lies breathe and waited to see if anyone, including Xavier Prince, was stupid enough to deny his claims. Julian Moore swallowed a response he might have made and silently rolled his big eyes at Xavier.

  Rose couldn’t stop shaking her head. “I never should have left you, sir.”

  “There are plenty of questions that could use answers, Rose. I’m sure you don’t envy the report that I’ll have to write on this one.” His smile was infectious as Rose and a few others let out a chuckle. Xavier folded his arms instead. Circumstances dictate that I could never call you a friend, Warden Donald Bright. He could admire to collective way that the other man carried himself.

  The warden and the gang banger stared at each other for a long time. This all wouldn’t be truly over, until Julian relinquished his weapon and called on his Black Knights to do the same.

  Julian broke eye contact first and headed his gun to the warden, butt end first.

  It took less than two hours after that moment to release the hostages from the library where they had been caged like animals, to return the control of Calhoun State Prison to Warden Donald Bright, and have all of the convicts return peacefully to their cells.

  All of the convicts save for one, Xavier Prince, the One, the leader of A House in Chains.

  He was released into the custody of his two grade school aged boys who had to kneel on the concrete and brace himself as the leap into his arms for an extended embrace in the alley that separated the prison walls from the highway that led far away from here. Both of his children’s mothers kept their selves at a polite distance away to allow him the moment with his children. He had never loved either of their mothers, but he had respected both of them more than ever before for their gesture.

  As he walked down the alley with a son on each side of him he stopped his walking, to gander at a crowd that was massing at the end of the alley that seemed to be growing in number by the minute—by the second.

  He must have seen a thousand People of Color standing there.

  He handed his boys off to each of their mothers so they would not be separated in this throng of people. He blew a kiss at each of them and promised that he would be theirs…just theirs in the days to come.

  He turned back to the crowd that began chanting his name. He inhaled a deep breath, wished for a cigarette or toothpick for which he had neither…and begun the long walk he’d always been destined to take.

  Young kids hopped on the shoulders of adults for a better look at him. Women and even some teenaged girls giggled at him and hugged him and kissed him on his cheeks and jaws as he passed. He was lit up with the light from the flashes of cell phone cameras. Men his age and older waited patiently for their turn to shake his hand, pat him on the shoulder, or speak words of encouragement that the large crowd didn’t really allow him to hear.

  His walk didn’t last as long as he might have imagined. Two very large Peacekeepers, who were dressed in the traditional garb of khaki suits, hoody’s and sneakers, plucked his small frame up as if he were a child himself and placed him on their shoulders. He had protested but his cries fell upon deft ears, especially when the crowd saw what was happening and roared louder and louder with their approval.

  At long last, the crying out, the singing, the chanting of his name ceased long enough for him to speak to the mass, while he sat high on these other men’s shoulders. He asked, “Brothers and sisters, what do you see when you visualize our People’s future?”

  He heard the mass yell back to him in near unison. “We see days with misery and pain.”

  With the exception of the two Peacekeepers who continued to hold their leader up high, the crowd broke into the largest cheer so far…and then began to jump up and down in place.

  Xavier Prince smiled for them and urged them on. That is what a leader sometimes has to do for his troops, even if he doesn’t feel like smiling. He found the four figures of his two boys and their mothers some distance behind them and his smile grew wider and more genuine.

  Warden Donald Bright had joined Rose Dixon and several other uniformed prison guards at the foot of the alley. And even at this great distance, Xavier Prince could read the question burrowed on their faces and answered them silently with a look of his own. These People of Color before you are engaging in what we have come to know as the stomp.

  It is the ultimate sign of pride, love of our people and cause…and the ultimate act of defiance against all of those who would dare try and hurt us.

  Xavier Prince muttered a prayer on his lips that his people’s defiance would be enough to save them from what may be coming.

  Angel

  Fulton County Courthouse, 5th day

  She stumbled, ever so slightly, as she sat down in one of the chairs that encompassed Interrogation Room Number Eight of The Fulton County Courthouse.

  Dr. Angel Hick-Dupree had only three shots of Tequila the night before. That wasn’t enough to even start feeling good. She’d seen a shitload of patients running her practice down in Macon drinking heavier than that and with hours less sleep. She sipped at the mug of black coffee, and it’s just coffee only, she’d keep her word to Agent Sheridan about that part at least, and pulled her chair tight against the table.

  She just needed an extra minute or two so she could stop feeling the world would stop spinning on its axis beneath her. I’ll be fine. I am fine.

  The room was a box shaped, cool, had a piss poor paint job, and had her friend Special Agent Christopher Prince, Sheridan and Agent Tabitha Blue hidden behind the mirror that served as the classic two w
ay glass like they did in the movies. I’m sure they’re still getting set up back there. She gathered together and then sorted the notes that the FBI wanted her to question Serena Tennyson about when she was brought in. No one saw my stumble. I’m fine.

  Two female agents followed by two uniformed female officers had escorted the leader of Pandora into the interrogation room. Angel could hear the prisoner’s shackles with every final step she had taken before the door swung open and they began to methodically disconnect her from bondage.

  Deputy Director couldn’t in his wildest wet dream imagine that his troops would have bagged such a prize, but here Angel was now seated across from her in an orange jumpsuit that mandated that she was an inmate of The Atlanta Justice System. Angel smoothed out her eyebrows, pushed the collar of her silk blouse down into she felt it was perfect, took one last drink of her flavorless black coffee and focused on the moment, as she had always successfully done before. The FBI needed as much Intel as they could about Pandora’s current and future operations. It was time for Angel to earn her keep.

  “Hello, Angel,” Serena initiated the conversation. “How long has it been now… a year…two? I’ve looked so forward to seeing you again.”

  Oh no, Serena, we need to keep this conversation professional, impersonal…and focused on you, at least for now. “I’ll remind you that you have waved your right to be represented by legal counsel at this time.”

  “I have.”

  “I will also remind you that anything you tell me, you are sharing that information willingly with representatives of Federal Bureau of Investigations,” Angel made a slight inkling of her head to left where the mirror sat on the wall. “And they have representatives present on the other side of that glass.”

  “I’m fine, Angel.” Serena said without looking at the mirror herself.

  Angel scanned the other woman’s face; she had the slightest discoloration building underneath her eye and some purple bruising on her forehead and a cut by her left ear. The mastermind behind the vicious and cowardly attacks that had killed scores of innocent Atlanta residents deserved to be tried, convicted and even potentially executed for her crimes. I will gladly pay to reserve a seat at that party.

  Still…no woman, not even this one, deserved to be whipped…and nearly raped, especially when she was supposed to be under the protection of the Atlanta legal system. I know that everyone from Rice to Sheridan to the APD is taking a beating by the media and women’s group for the two men’s behavior.

  And now she and Serena had another bond that tied them together.

  Angel reached for her coffee out of habit, the cup lukewarm against her fingertips. Serena matched her movement and swallowed a third of a cup of water in a single gulp. Since the incident Serena has been assigned a shift of four female guards to stay with her at all times. Sheridan shared the report with Angel as she arrived at the courthouse this morning: Serena was eating very little, only the fruits and vegetables that came with her meals. She was consuming water by the gallons. And she was seen muttering prayers from time to time in her cell.

  Angel cleared her throat. “Both the FBI and the Atlanta Police Department extend a full-fledged apology for the trauma that you experienced at the hands of state employees.” Angel said. “I assure you that either association condones such behavior, in fact it is unacceptable and intolerable in their eyes. A full investigation is taking place, even now as you and I speak.”

  “It’s not your fault, Angel.” Serena said quietly.

  Angel stole a peek at her associates standing behind the glass. She could imagine Christopher pacing like a caged tiger. Sheridan probably was standing stoic, almost a statue in concentration. And she didn’t know Tabitha Blue well enough to give a fair opinion on the younger woman. Remember to focus, Angel, she thought to herself as she planted her two inch heel on the floor.

  “I’ll share this with you, Serena,” Angel leaned close. “It took some prodding to convince the FBI to allow me to conduct this conversation with you, especially considering my short stay in Pandora.” Actually, it was Sheridan’s idea, but Angels’ lying, especially to herself over the years about the booze and the men, flowed so naturally that sometimes she couldn’t help herself. “If you have any statements you would like to make, if you have anything meaningful to say to me this would be one hell of a time to start.”

  “All in good time,” Serena sat back in her chair far enough to cross one matchstick of a leg over the other. “How is Thomas Pepper? Are your associates, as you call them, treating him well? And try telling the truth this time.”

  Angel shifted her feet under the table. “I’m not at liberty to speak about him at this time.”

  “How deeply do they suspect that he is involved in this?” Serena acknowledged the people behind the mirror for the first time with a quick glance.

  “How deep,” Angel said in a quick burst of anger. “Eight APD officers and two federal agents died from the result of you having the roads to his townhouse mined during your little visit. He is involved in this, Serena. In so many words you threatened to have black children kidnapped if Xavier Prince and the others in A House in Chains don’t disband and turn themselves in.” Angel felt a snarl curl on her surgically enhanced lips. “That means you will be involving Louis Keaton, a known pedophile, which also involves…me, because I treated his sickness when he was a patient of mine when I served under you.” Angel got to her feet and made quick circle of the room. She combed her brunette hair with her fingers. “We’re all in this thing together. The feds will have to make their decisions to who is truly involved and to what extent.”

  Serena sat back in her seat in silence. Angel sat back opposite her and examined her facial expression for any sign of …anything. Serena had always been a glacier. Angel had rarely run into anyone that was difficult to gage their emotional state, if at least on an introductory level. That is why Angel had felt that she was reaching Louis Keaton, getting at the core of where his real issues were.

  But Serena Tennyson was either asking about Thomas Pepper because she hoped to distract Angel from conducting her interview at her pace and with the subject matter she wanted or did the woman truly has a concern over the man’s well-being? Did anyone truly know the extent of the two’s relationship? Christopher had told Angel about the shrine Thomas had dedicated to the wall of his spare room. Angel glanced at her wristwatch. Maybe, they’ll get more out of him that I’m getting out of her. Christopher and Agent Blue should have left from behind the glass by now so that they could conduct their own…debriefing, she wouldn’t call it an interrogation, with Thomas Peeper down the hall.

  Now it was Serena’s turn to lean over…and she locked her long fingers with Angel’s.

  “Emissary, when have you last had a vision?”

  Angel snatched her hand back with such suddenness, with Serena’s grip so tight, that the retraction caused the other woman to scratch her enough to draw blood.

  Angel grabbed a nearby napkin, dabbed it in Serena’s drinking water and put slight pressure on the wound which was clotting already. The truth of the matter was that the doctor wasn’t sure what exactly disturbed her more: Was Angel upset that Serena had used her old Pandora call sign that she’d been issued during her brief stint with them, or did this woman somehow know about this dream that Angel had last night?

  Angel had dreamed that she was in this same courthouse, sometime in the future she guessed, and she was walking around the building as naked as the day she was born.

  What was worse it that she was all alone.

  “I hadn’t had one in a very long time.” Angel lied and if the other woman saw through it then so be it. “I did have nightmares after I saw both People of Color and your Pandora operatives being pulled out of the Fox Theatre. I’ll never forget watching the construction crews finding a foot, arm or a severed head form a child at the remains of The Andrew Young Youth Center.”

  “Perhaps you aren’t really sure when the timeline of your
nightmare occurs. You think it might be about the present or hope that it was something in your past, when it is truly the future you see.” Serena told her. “Operation 411 is over and done with. We are dawning on a new hallmark, a new chapter…The Whirlwind. If The Circle doesn’t turn away from their wicked ways then that carnage you saw last night was not a nightmare but a vision and it is not about what has happened but will yet happen.”

  “You are truly insane, Serena.”

  “I believe in the power of The Dragon. And my visions never reveal themselves so simply, Angel. In truth, I’ve never seen you given to the flames. Although I know that we all are given to them eventually.” The other woman’s voice quieted as if she were in reflection. “But you are headed towards a pain and suffering that will make those days your father left you alone in that camper feel like child’s play in comparison.”

  Angel got in the other woman’s face, tired of this game of words between them. “Let’s talk about fathers, shall we.” Angel pushed a single piece of Serena’s red hair that had loosed itself from her bun out of her face. “Your father was a believer in the flames as well. That’s where you learned this foolishness from.”

  “Leave my father out of this.” Serena said, her thin lip nearing a quiver.

  “We shared stories about our fathers, remember.” Angel remembered drinking too much scotch that night. Serena had nursed only on club soda. “A couple of weeks after you took the state title and set a record, if I can recall your tale correctly, in a marathon that your father had attended—“

  “Leave my father out of this, Angel.” Serena said in a low, dangerous voice that would have frightened most people. Doctor Angel Hicks Dupree wasn’t most people.

  “Two weeks after you won that marathon, your father had most of his stock options go south on him. He’d lost everything.”

  “He made a mistake, Angel, but unlike most human beings, he owned up to it.”

  “He came home from the office,” Angel continued as if Serena hadn’t spoken at all. “He had decided that it was time to sacrifice his body to the flames.”

  “He was a brave man—“

  “And how brave was your mother, Serena?”

  “That…bitch…she never believed in Daddy’s visions, his callings. She ran like the weakling she was. But Daddy caught her, cornered her.”

  “Yea, he did, Serena. She’d made it as far to the tool shed out back before doused her with gallon after gallon of gasoline. And then he struck a match and tossed it at her.”

  “He did not want her to suffer over time for his mistakes.” Serena’s eyes had widened to full hilt, and Angel could imagine that the woman sitting across her was no longer the hard leader of Pandora, but the 17 year old girl who watched this entire scene unfold as she observed in horror from the kitchen door.

  “He set her ablaze, Serena.” Angel sat back in her chair, exhausted as if she had ran one of Serena’s marathons for her.

  “And then he glanced back at me,” Serena said in a reflective voice. “I’ve often wondered why he didn’t come for me as well. Perhaps, it was because the flames had danced their way over to his pants leg and licked at his thighs, his groin…he could have ran but he didn’t. The flames had come for him at last and he stood there and let them. I recall it being a slow burn. He screamed in ecstasy. He sacrificed himself so I would be a better person. I will always remember them as flames of disclosure.”

  “You are truly insane, Serena.” Angel said.

  “No, I’m being quite reasonable considering the opponents I’m up against.” The Serena Tennyson, the hard one who was the leader of Pandora had returned in earnest. “I’m trying to save People of Color from themselves.”

  “Save it, Serena.” Angel spat. “Take another look around you. A House in Chains is not our father’s NAACP; they are not our grandfather’s Civil Rights Movement. For the past 20 some odd years they have lifted the Black Community to heights never seen in this country’s history. Isaac Prince’s vision has transcended an entire race. You know better than I do, that their strength comes from their unrelenting resolve…and their numbers. A House of Chains got away from the old school mentality of basing their movement around Christianity, Islam, or any other religion. They don’t care if you are a smoker or a casual drinker. They accept people into their bosom and value them whether they are rich or poor whether they are college educated or ride on the back of a garbage truck for a living.”

  Angel got to her feet again, and rounded on the other woman, ending up behind her left ear. “Respect of Person, Serena,” Angel said. “For the first time in this country’s history, the numbers show that there are more Men of Color enrolled in college than there are in prisons. Respect of family, Serena. Black women having children out of wedlock is at 35 or 40 year low. The divorce rate has been cut in half. Respect of Community, Serena, cases of rape, domestic violence, gun violence, poverty, and drug convictions are all at or near historic lows in what we still consider predominantly black neighborhoods.”

  “They can still be cruel, unreliable…and uncivilized,” Angel imagined that the other woman pictured her two attackers with her doe eyes as the words parted her lips.

  “The Great Recession set them back. It set all of us back.”

  “They are doomed to eventual failure, Angel. I’m trying to save them from themselves. This progress you speak of has come too hard to fast. Isaac Prince’s vision was an honorable one. His son and those in The Circle who do his bidding have perverted his father’s vision. Even their name, People of Color speaks to their arrogance.”

  Angel stooped and wrapped her left arm around Serena. She seemed not to unwelcome the doctor’s touch, at least for now. “You’re wrong, Serena, it truly speaks to how people of Latino and Asian, and Middle Eastern…and hell, Caucasian people have joined their ranks, have taken the mark. Some government officials estimate that there are 10,000 Peacekeepers in America. This young men and women are drug tested, trained, and eventually set loose on the streets of urban America, taking back neighborhoods from prostitution, corrupt cops, thieves and drug pushers.”

  “That would be all good and well, Doctor, but remember the threat that is not so subtlety implied at the conclusion of that passage.”

  She did know it: And when our homes and our Houses are secured at last we will turn our attention to the Rooster, for he must make reparations for all that he has done to us; this is the ultimate Vision of our Future.

  “And I guess you mean to stop them by any means necessary.” Angel asked her.

  “No. I suppose not.” And just as Angel’s eyes flicked ever hopeful, if Serena Tennyson would turn from this destructive path, she knew Pandora would fall apart. “I’ll be dead soon.” She peeked over at the mirror on the wall. “They won’t let me live much longer.”

  Twenty minutes after Serena abandoned Angel and the interrogation with for the return of her security detail…and her chains, the doctor watched as Christopher, Agent Sheridan and Agent Blue took her spot in the room that was warming as the afternoon sunshine moved in.

  Christopher spoke up first, “I’m a little worried about your safety from reprisals from Pandora, Doc, I think we should have your hotel room monitored at all times moving forward.”

  “I agree.” Blue said. “I think we got a lot of your interview with her, but she is trying to use you the same way she used that reporter down the hall.”

  Agent Sheridan nodded, but looked a little shaken. “That whole bit about her parent’s murder suicide. It was just a footnote in our files…but to hear both of you recanting the story. I think her entire ideology is based on her relationship with him.”

  “Yea,” Christopher agreed. “Her attachment with him and whoever this Caretaker character is partly why we are all in this mess right now.”

  Angel nodded in her head in agreement. She reached for her coffee cup out of habit; the coolness of the handle reminded her that it was undrinkable for more than just one reason. Her childho
od friend and Tabitha excused themselves, anxious for another round at Thomas Pepper, with Chris putting up a phone sign with his hand mutely saying that he would call her later.

  Sheridan remained behind. The doctor consciously using the gathering of her paperwork as an excuse to remover herself from his shadow just in case the whiskey betrayed her by leaking through her pores with the perspiration that had built up with the tension of the interview.

  Yet, in that same exact moment, Angel decided that she would go out and by bottle or two of gin or whatever else she chose after she left her. She would keep her a small irrelevant stash with her at all times in case the stress became overwhelming. Fuck Sheridan and his expectations. She could function with the booze. She had always functioned with it before, that wouldn’t change now. Damn. A part of her wished she had listened to her husband, Seth, and stayed home with him and her patients back in Macon.

  “Doctor, did you hear me?” Sheridan asked. How long had she been tapped out of it? “I asked you for your professional opinion?”

  “I’m sorry, Agent Sheridan, I was reading some of these notes in my file.” She said smoothly “What did you say?”

  “I asked do you think Serena Tennyson is suicidal.”

  Angel said, “Before the attempted sexual assault, I would consider the percentages very low to nil. But that kind of thing can break any woman, even a sociopath like the one escorted out here a few minutes ago.”

  “Even after witnessing what her father did in front of her?”

  “In her father’s eyes, he failed in his mission of raising and protecting his family when he lost all their money. She’s been caught sticking her hand in the cookie jar, but there are still other sweets in the kitchen that she may have an opportunity to grab undetected.”

  Sheridan smiled at that one. Smiles looked good on the agent. “I can’t disagree with your diagnosis, Doctor.” He said and the smile still hadn’t dissipated yet. “Despite your little tantrum you threw at the Chief Negotiator, I believe you have been helpful so far on this case. Thank you, Doctor.”

  She felt the first stab of guilt for cursing this man for trying to protect his people and his mission. “That’s why I am here, sir.” She said, maintaining her distance now more than ever.

  “We have a lot going over the next half a day or so. I need that woman alive to answer for all the charges she’s facing and the lives she has taken. Tomorrow my concerns shift to someone trying to assonate her out when we transport her out of this facility to Federal Jurisdiction in Virginia. I’m already assigning every available hand I can spare to help with this transition.”

  Angel halted all of her movement in one motion, as the delayed reaction of what coded message that Serena had said to her before she left. I’ll be dead soon.

  What floored her even more is that the doctor believed Serena wanted her to decrypt her message. They won’t leave me to live much longer.

  “However many people you are going to assign to this mission, Agent Sheridan it isn’t enough.”

  “Thank you again, Doctor, but I already know that the leader of Pandora is a tempting assignation target for an agent of A House in Chains or even a private citizen and I have planned accordingly.”

  “I’m not sure that Serena’s assignation is your biggest concern.”

  “Then spit it out, Doctor what is my biggest concern?”

  “She is anticipating an assignation attempt on her life. She is going to use the increased security against your people. Pandora has a stupid codename for everything. I believe they call it Operation Deliverance. Serena is plotting her escape.”