Chapter 38

Real Terror

 

 

After the consultant had leapt from the cliff, Angela had exited the Land and returned to her office. Parker Reid’s business card was waiting where she had placed it on her desk. She snatched it up and took out her phone. The consultant was right; this was no longer about protecting the company’s image or herself. She keyed in Parker’s number and waited for the call to go through, practicing in her mind what she would say. She was poised to race through the script she’d settled on when she got his voice mail. She hung up and paced around her office. Then she hit redial and got his voice mail again. This time she left a message.

“Agent Reid. This is Angela Harding. I’ve discovered something that might help with your investigation. Please call me back.”

As soon as the message left her lips, she felt better, like a great weight had been removed from her shoulders. She would soon no longer be an accessory after the fact. Though, at the same time, she knew telling the truth, as the consultant had urged her to do before he’d disappeared over the cliff’s edge, would likely lead to the FBI learning about their other dealings. Did they put people in prison for corporate espionage? Angela mulled that over as she gathered up her bag and keys and headed out her office door.

She poked her head into several cubicles as she made her way through the aisles. All the monitors were dark and the chairs empty. It looked as though everyone had left, probably hours ago. Good. The team needed a break. Then she saw the lights on in the corner conference room that Rituraj had commandeered for the hacker hunt war room and sighed. She would have to order Rituraj and his team to take a break soon or they were going to hit burnout.

Angela felt a pang of guilt for not checking on them as she badged out and headed into the night. Outside, she dug into her bag and retrieved the can of pepper spray she’d purchased to ward off stalkers. Just a few short days ago, she would have felt silly walking to her car holding the spray, but that was before she’d been stalked by whispering homeless men and learned the hacker behind the Anomaly was killing people. Worse, she probably knew the hacker. It might even be Jasmine or Lincoln. Please God, no, she thought.

Before the Anomaly had turned things upside down, Angela almost always left the building to find the parking lot empty. Ordinarily, only the Days’ sleek black sedan and her small white convertible would still be in the lot at this hour. But since the Anomaly, things had been anything but ordinary, and a half dozen cars belonging to Rituraj and his team had become permanent fixtures in the lot. She’d find them parked in the same spots when she arrived in the morning and when she left at night. Angela sighed again. The team really was going to hit burnout. She should know.

As odd as it still seemed to walk out and see the lot occupied, it was even stranger to see the Days’ car missing. The cofounders had left uncharacteristically early today. No one was quite sure why because no one dared ask.

She was staring at the Days’ empty space as she headed for her car, when the high beams on one of the new fixtures came on and blinded her. She stopped walking and shielded her eyes with the hand holding the pepper spray. She’d been startled by the light, but now she was annoyed that the driver either didn’t notice her discomfort or didn’t care enough to switch to their low beams.

She was about to march over to the car and ask the driver if they knew they were blinding their boss’s boss, when the car lurched forward. She froze like the proverbial deer in the headlights as the car raced toward her. Just as she was certain the driver intended to mow her down, the car glided to a stop next to her. The driver’s window slid down. A young male developer, whose name she did not recall beamed up at her. His white smile shown with all the intensity of his car’s headlights.

“Hi, Angela. Sorry if I startled you. I guess I was just focused on getting home. Too many late nights. You know?”

She managed to smile, despite wanting to kill, or at least fire, the man. Her stupid heart monitor was buzzing again. “No worries,” she said as she tried unsuccessfully to read the name on the employee badge hanging from the man’s neck. “Please be careful driving home.”

“Will do,” he said and sped off.

After he’d gone, she stood in the dark for a moment before power-walking to her car. She dropped into the driver’s seat and took five deep breaths to steady her nerves as her yoga instructor had taught her. She was still clutching the pepper spray. Feeling silly, she tossed it into the passenger seat and emitted a relieved and somewhat embarrassed laugh. Then she let the car drive itself the short distance to the small home she shared only with a three-year-old French bulldog named Louie.

She waited in the car for the garage door to close, keeping her eyes on her rearview mirror to ensure no hooded homeless men ducked in under it. Now that she was home safe, all Angela could think about, as she plugged the charger into the car, was who would take care of her dog if she went to prison.

It couldn’t be her parents. They were too busy traveling the world or playing golf or both. Would the FBI really send her to prison? She had an MBA from Harvard, for God’s sake. It was all benign white-collar stuff. Maybe if she did go to prison, she’d go to one of those low security places like where they sent actors and politicians. Who knows, after years of hundred-hour workweeks, a few months in a place like that might do her some good. Maybe they’d let her take her dog.

“Louie,” she called as she stepped through the door and braced herself for the mad scamper and excited sniffling and pawing that would follow. It didn’t come. Louie was not in the house. He must be in the backyard. She’d had a doggie door installed when the demands at work had made it difficult for her to make it home to walk him. Nothing worse than returning from a long exhausting day at the office to find a home full of dog shit. She opened the backdoor and called, “Louie! Louie!”

She peered into the dark corners of the backyard, looking for the dog. “Louie,” she called again, but Louie did not come. He must have dug under the fence and escaped, or maybe someone had taken him. Angela had heard French Bulldogs were one of the most frequently stolen breeds. She was about to retrieve a flashlight to go search for him when she felt a presence behind her and froze.

“I’m afraid Louie will not be coming home tonight,” a soft voice said.

Angela screamed and something struck her in the head, and everything went dark.

When she came to, it took her a moment to realize she was lying face down on her kitchen table. Her hands and feet were tightly bound, and tape had been wound around her head, covering her mouth. A piece of the tape covered one of her nostrils, making it difficult to breathe. Her heart pounded against the wooden tabletop. Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump. The heart monitor on her watch must be redlined. She tried to twist her body but found she had been tied or taped to the table. Terrified, she rotated her head from side to side looking for her attacker.

“Behold the great Táma the Terrifying,” the soft voice said.

“We must take her before she uses her magic,” a deep voice boomed.

“She has no magic in this world,” the soft voice said. “Only in yours.”

The swish of a long metal blade drawn from a leather sheath came from close behind her. The sound was familiar. Angela had worked with the audio team for weeks to get it just right. She rocked her head back and forth trying to dislodge the tape from her mouth. Maybe she could reason with them.

“Stop moving,” the soft voice said. Then the cold tip of a sword’s blade touched the exposed base of her neck. Angela held her breath as the tip was dragged down her back with enough pressure to cut through her shirt and scratch her skin. Undressing me. Rape? Oh my God, they’re going to rape me.

Hot, sour-smelling breath fanned the back of her neck, and the soft voice hissed, “So powerful and evil in the dream world and yet, so fragile in this one. Soon, you will kneel before me.”

Her muscles locked with panic, and the same thought repeated in her head with every beat of her thumping heart. They’re going to kill me.

“Not so terrifying now,” the soft voice laughed. “No, in this world, Akandu and I are the real terror.” The voice laughed again.

Angela thought she recognized the soft voice. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she knew there was no reasoning with its owner.

“Enough talking. Take her now or I will, mouse,” the deep voice said.

The deep voice belonged to a stranger, though like the drawn sword’s swish, it had a familiar, simulated quality about it. Like it belonged to a character in her land.

The sword’s blade that had come to a rest at the base of her spine withdrew.

“Don’t call me a mouse again,” the soft voice said, this time not so softly.

She heard a loud clang as if the sword had been knocked to the ground, followed by the thump of a body being thrown against a wall. They were fighting each other.

The deep voice laughed and boomed, “You are far from ready to challenge me, little mouse.”

“Take your hands off me,” the soft voice yelled.

Their anger had made them loud. Maybe one of her neighbors would hear and the police would come. She worked at the tape with her teeth again. If she could just get it below her mouth, she could scream and maybe scare them away. She heard the blade slide across the kitchen floor as one of them picked it up.

“Take her, or I will,” the booming voice said.

Rocking her head, she managed to get the tape below her mouth. She took a deep breath and shouted, “Please no, Marcus.”

“N-N-not Marcus. I-I-I am Musuka,” came the reply.

“Take her now.”