The ride over gave me time to gather my thoughts.
I didn’t trust anything Smith had said. If his outfit was so powerful, so important, why did they have so few resources at their disposal? His explanation about most of his people being killed by Murdock was plausible, but why didn’t they get more backup?
Had I not seen the video of the murders at the computer lab, I wouldn’t have agreed to help him at all. If Murdock hadn’t done something so heinous, I wasn’t sure I could have known if I was even playing for the right team.
So much information had been dumped on me that I was still trying to process all of it.
Smith told me that Murdock wouldn’t be able to control me the way he had other people, but he’d also been lying to me from the moment he opened his mouth. I found it more likely that he didn’t give a shit what happened to me as long as I could help him locate Murdock.
Why a cemetery?
Why kill those innocent computer geeks?
Who was Smith? Hell, who was Murdock?
As the SUV pulled away from the building, I took in the surroundings. We definitely weren’t on a military base of any kind. It appeared to be an industrial park.
What the hell did that mean?
I took a mental note of the numbers on the side of the building and the name of the street attached to it. Drew and I would have to do a little investigating later.
Speaking of Drew, I had to get through to him somehow.
The driver kept peering at me in the rearview mirror. He was military, Private Eckles, and he didn’t know anything about my current situation. Just some kid put in a bad situation, and he wasn’t even aware of it. He’d been ordered to give me a ride to a cemetery and that was it. They’d told him not to engage with me and to leave his cell phone at home.
Smith had covered his tracks, ensuring that I couldn’t learn anything on the ride over.
God, he smells awful. Why do I always get ordered to drive around the crazies?
Damn, I really needed to take a shower.
My shoulder itched—it had since they’d administered the narcotic into me in the gentlest manner possible. I scratched it, feeling the small lump there from the injection. The memory of being jabbed with the needle pissed me off.
Bullets? No problem.
Getting punched in the face? Sissy stuff.
Needles? Hell no. I hated those things.
I was a walking paradox, what could I say?
The idea of grabbing Eckles around the neck and forcing him to pull over occurred to me. It would probably work, but I wasn’t entirely sure that it would help. If Smith and his merry band of assholes were following us, then I wouldn’t get too far.
And what would Murdock do to someone else today if I didn’t help take him out?
I longed for two days ago when I would workout and then get blotto. Life was simple then. Shitty, but simple.
It took us about twenty minutes to get to the outskirts of the cemetery. We’d travelled further than I thought while I was drugged up earlier.
Dark clouds rolled on the horizon as I stepped out of the SUV. We were stopped in the parking lot of an auto-repair garage. Dave’s something or other, it was called.
Thank God, we’re here. I couldn’t take one more breath of that dude’s B.O.
I looked at Eckles through the passenger side window and pinched my nose closed. I waved a hand in front of my face and then pointed at him, insinuating that he smelled bad.
His face twisted in confusion and then he smelled his armpit, wondering if the smell had been him after all. He put the car in reverse and left me alone in the parking lot. His thoughts were hilarious.
Being able to read minds sucked, but there were a few times when I did get a kick out of it. You could really screw with people if the desire hit.
Dave was inside the garage, cursing up a storm because a wrench had slipped and he’d banged his knuckles on an engine block. Frustration baked out of the garage in angry bursts. Poor Dave had a less than pleasant week. He’d totaled his own car, and he was fairly certain that his wife was sleeping with his best friend. Rapping his knuckles was the last straw.
He was a man on the edge, and no one around him knew it.
I stopped at the edge of the parking lot, watching the storm clouds roll in from the other side of the cemetery. Murdock waited for me inside. I really wasn’t looking forward to going in there, and Dave gave me a good reason to delay my arrival by a few more seconds.
A few other people were inside the garage, performing mundane office tasks. I sifted through their thoughts until I locked onto Dave’s wife, Lisa. Invading people’s privacy like that didn’t feel good, ever, but I saw the awful things going through Dave’s mind. If I didn’t do something to help, I’d regret it forever.
A quick perusal of Lisa’s recent activities showed that the only affair she’d had lately was with a showerhead. I could have done without seeing that, but at least I could pass some good news onto ol’ Dave.
Christ, the things I saw in people’s minds.
I stopped at the large, double-sized garage doors, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness beyond. Dave was bent over the front of a Ford Escape, ratcheting away under the hood.
“Hey, Dave.”
He poked his head out, still muttering to himself about the throb in his knuckles. “Yeah? Whozzit?”
I opened my mouth to tell him that his wife wasn’t cheating, but I stopped myself before the words could come out. How could I convince this guy of something that I couldn’t possibly know? He’d probably think I was some kind of stalker creeping around his house at night.
“Well?” he asked. “What do ya want?” His oil-covered shirt didn’t appear to have been through a washing machine in the past month or so.
“All of those horrible things you’re thinking aren’t true. Your wife isn’t cheating. She misses you.”
His mouth dropped open. Who in the shit is this guy? How does he know that?
I left the garage and walked across the parking lot, heading for the cemetery. Ol’ Dave watched me go in complete bewilderment, but I could already feel the seeds of doubt about his wife being planted. I could only hope that would be enough.
As I walked past the first of the gravestones, I couldn’t help but wonder if this was how Superman must have felt—not the good feeling of helping people, but the compulsion to do so. The constant, never-ending barrage of downtrodden people who needed something was hard to describe.
When people walked out in public, they put different faces on, masking their pain and sorrow and loneliness. They all needed something.
Love. Compassion. Money to pay the bills. An ear to bend.
Everyone needed something, and I was privy to it all. If I ignored them, just walked on by, what did that make me? Twice in the past twenty hours or so, I’ve had to go up to complete strangers to stop them from doing terrible things.
Some would call me a hero for that.
Being a hero sucked.
Enter my current situation, as I walked across a massive cemetery, intent on locating a lunatic with uncanny abilities. Why? Because I walked into a bank last night.
Yet I continued on, still eyeing the storm clouds. The breeze had picked up, bringing with it a warm wave of humid air. The rain was coming. The smell of earthworms hit me a few seconds later.
I pulled the transceiver from my pocket and stuffed the small bud into my ear.
“Mr. Benson, can you read me?” a voice asked. It crackled as the man spoke, but I could make out what he said.
“Yeah, I hear you.”
“What were you doing? We’ve been trying to contact you since you arrived at the cemetery.”
“Had to take a leak.”
“We’re monitoring you via satellite. What did you do in that garage?”
“Took a piss.”
“Mr. Benson, need I remind you that—”
“Shut up and tell me where to go already. There’s a rerun of Cheers on tonight that I want to catch, so let’s get on with it.” I stopped beside a small mausoleum and looked out over the expansive lot.
Gravestones and trees dotted the landscape as far as I could see. The place was massive.
“There is a funeral a few hundred yards ahead of you. We suggest you check there first.”
“You want me to crash a funeral?”
“No, we want you to check on it.”
“And if he’s there, that isn’t going to go well.”
Silence on their end.
As I started walking again, the first drop of rain plopped into my hair. More followed. Within twenty seconds, a torrential downpour soaked my clothes. The ground turned soupy under my feet as I kept going.
Lightning arced across the sky, trailed by the rumble of thunder.
“Ominous,” I muttered.
I spotted the funeral a minute later. A few people fled the rain, half-jogging their way back to a line of cars. Others opened umbrellas and huddled together.
The rain grew heavier, slowing my pace. My heart beat faster as I approached. The idea of coming face-to-face with a man capable of making people commit horrible crimes finally sank in.
I was about to step into some deep shit, and I didn’t have any boots on.
A woman stood off to my right, staring down at a plain tombstone with minimal etchings on the front. Her hair was matted to her head from the rain, but she didn’t seem to care. I blocked off my mind, keeping her thoughts away from my own. She was grieving and deserved to do it in private.
I’d almost walked by her when I paused and turned back, a thought occurring to me.
“Excuse me, Miss?” I took a step toward her, putting on my best apologetic look. “Do you have a cell phone I can use?”
“Lieutenant! You are not authorized to—”
I tore the earpiece out and cupped it in my hand. The man droned on against my palm, his voice little more than a faint buzz.
The woman looked over at me, rain coursing down her face, mixing with tears running from her red-rimmed eyes. “I’m sorry?”
“I hate to bother you, but my ride out of here left without me and I need to call my friend. I don’t have a cell phone, so…”
She wiped the water from her face and gave me a small, embarrassed smile. “Of course.” She pulled her phone from her purse and handed it over.
I dialed Drew’s number and held it to my ear, trying my best to shield it from the rain with my free hand. After five rings, I was getting ready to end the call when he answered.
“Detective Lloyd,” he said.
“Drew, it’s Ash.”
“Jesus Christ, man. Where the hell are you? I got a call this morning from that big-boobed—”
“I’m in big trouble here. The feds grabbed me, and now they have me running some kind of ass-backwards mission for them. I’m at Mt. Olivet Cemetery outside of D.C. I need you to haul ass down here and get me.”
The woman stared at me like I’d grown a second head.
Drew paused, then said, “You’re helping the feds with a mission? At a cemetery? You better start making some sense.”
“I don’t have time to explain, Drew. Just get down here. The shit is about to hit the proverbial fan.”
“I’m on my way, but—”
“You might want to call 9-1-1 and tell them to get over here too. I don’t think this is going to be pretty.” I closed the woman’s flip phone, wiped some rain away from it, and handed it back to her. “Thanks. Sorry for your loss.”
“Are you an escaped prisoner?” she asked, clutching her phone to her chest.
“Nah. I’m a psychic working in conjunction with a super-secret spy agency. We’re tracking down a man who can kill people with the power of his mind. He’s an international terrorist and a master of disguise.”
She blinked at me.
“Judging from the expression on your face, you think I’m insane. It sounds pretty crazy to me too.” I faced the funeral again. “You should get out of here. Things are going to get really ugly soon.”
The woman slowly backed away from me. I didn’t have to be a mind reader to know that she thought I was a drugged-out psychopath. My t-shirt and stench didn’t help.
She fled between the rows of grave markers, throwing glances over her shoulder every few feet. Unfortunately, she was heading more or less in the direction of the funeral, so she wouldn’t be out of harm’s way.
I started after the woman, and that really scared the hell out of her. Her pace picked up, which made me feel even worse. I looked so horrible that I was actually scaring her toward the terrorist.
Another clap of thunder slammed down on us. The rain came down in sheets. My shoes slid in the mud forming between the graves.
And then I felt it.
A crushing, forceful weight that bore down on my mind.
It pushed all the other thoughts coming from different people to the side, creating a singular, encompassing tunnel between my mind and Murdock’s. I could feel his fury, his rage, and an intolerable hate that permeated his every action.
The power of his mind caught me off guard and I staggered sideways, catching myself on a shoulder-high cross marking a grave. My breathing went ragged as I fought back against his will, trying to reassert myself.
I waited for him to take over my motor skills, to force me to bash my head into the stone I clutched.
Nothing happened.
Who are you?
The voice didn’t come as the typical echoes of other people, but as a thunderous bellow that made me flinch. It was as if he had an amplifier in my mind. I forced myself to my feet and focused on dampening the volume of his thoughts.
Name’s Ash. I’m here to deliver an Asher Benson Special Delivery.
I put the earpiece back into place and held my finger against it. It worked without me touching it, but I always wanted to look like one of those Secret Service guys in movies. “I’ve got him. Send in the cavalry.”
“Roger that, Lieutenant. ETA two minutes.”
“Two minutes? He’s going to fillet me in two goddamn minutes.”
They didn’t come back again.
Smith sent you. Murdock said it as a statement, not a question. You’ve made a grave error in coming here.
Grave? Please tell me that pun was intentional. Though communicating with someone without speaking was odd and surreal, it came almost naturally. I didn’t have to think about how to do it.
You mock me? Do you understand what I’m about to do to you? Do you understand what fate awaits you?
Why do you talk like that? You sound like a moron. Me no hablo dickheadese.
Why I decided to antagonize a monster, I didn’t know. As I turned to walk back the way I’d come, intent on leaving before the inevitable firefight happened, I spotted a man with long, light-brown dreadlocks standing just behind the funeral. He scanned around the cemetery with his eyes before locking onto me.
There you are. Do you hablo this?
A handful of the mourners standing by the open grave spun around and faced me. The priest performing for the service dropped his Bible.
“Oh shit,” I muttered. “You guys better hurry up and get here.”
The voice in my ear crackled again. “I suggest you run, Lieutenant.”
“Gee, you think?”
The mourners burst forward, sprinting straight at me. They tossed umbrellas to the ground as they came, the heavy rain soaking them through in seconds.
A woman in a black dress led the charge. She kicked off long-stemmed heels as she ran.
Two lanky teenage boys came up behind her. They couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen. Their youth allowed them to pass by her after only a few steps.
A pudgy man, likely the husband and father, lagged behind. His ample belly swayed as he chugged along, his middle-aged muscles struggling against years of inactivity.
The elderly, white-haired priest brought up the rear.
I turned on my heels and ran for it. Standing around and fighting an onslaught of civilians sent my way didn’t feel like the best of ideas.
My shoes slid in the mud as I tried to accelerate, so I had to stay at a jog to keep from crashing into the grave markers. After I’d made it a dozen feet, I looked back over my shoulder.
The family of four hadn’t gained on me, but they weren’t falling behind either.
Pain exploded in my chest.
My legs flew out from under me, and my back slammed down to the soggy ground.
The air burst from my lungs.
Diaphragm spasmed.
Ribs ached.
Water splashed into my ear, wetting the electronic piece shoved in the canal. It hissed and crackled.
I tore it free.
A caretaker stood by my left shoulder, a shovel held in his hands. His perplexed eyes appraised me as Murdock controlled his actions remotely. He raised the shovel overhead, intent on dashing my brains out.
I rolled to the right as the spade slashed into the ground, splashing water against my muddy t-shirt. The roll brought me to my feet, and I closed the distance between us in a flash.
The caretaker had just pulled the blade from the ground when my fist connected with his temple. He crumpled to the ground, arms loose as he lost consciousness.
My lungs quaked in my chest as they struggled to sip in air. I leaned against a large, intricate, stone angel. It stood taller than I did. I grabbed its arm, hanging some of my weight from it.
Lightning lit up the cemetery.
The combination of my running and the caretaker swinging had magnified the impact of the shovel. I felt like I’d been in a car accident. My legs were weak, knees wobbly.
Squeezed my eyes shut. Focused on relaxing, and letting some air in.
Fat rain pelted my face.
As my lungs stopped seizing, the first of the teenagers reached me.
I pushed away from the angel and squared off with him, raising my arms in a boxing stance. The teens weren’t old enough to overpower me, but both of them combined could do some damage.
He lunged at me, reaching for my shoulders.
I grabbed one of his forearms and jerked him forward as I stepped to the side. He fell face first into the mud and slid for several feet before coming to a stop.
The next teen reached me a moment later. He threw a sloppy, unskilled punch. I rolled my shoulder up, letting it accept the brunt of the impact, before shoving him backwards. He tripped over a low tombstone and crashed to the ground.
The father came next. His lack of conditioning produced an audible wheeze and a flushed face. The swaying belly hanging from his midsection shook like a bowl of jelly with each step.
His wife, who had been ahead of him, was nowhere to be seen. The priest was still a few dozen yards away.
I dropped to a knee as the beefy husband drew near and punched him in the gut.
He doubled over, eyes bulging, mouth working like a landed fish.
I stood and reached down, looping my forearm and elbow around his exposed neck. Locking in a guillotine choke, I squeezed, cutting off the blood flow to his brain.
His body went limp a few seconds later.
I eased him to the ground, not wanting his head to crack off a gravestone.
The teens were getting back to their feet, so I turned and ran away.
Impressive, Murdock bellowed in my mind. But why are you running away? Don’t you have a special delivery for me?
The wife rounded a mausoleum ahead, cutting off my escape route. I could hear the teens’ heavy breaths behind me. I turned right, heading for a road running along the edge of the cemetery.
The whine of a helicopter’s rotors overpowered the dull roar of the rain.
It appeared over the tree line ahead of me, flying low and fast. It banked hard, slowing its momentum enough for men to lower themselves to the ground with ropes. They detached and the bird lifted into the sky, disappearing over the trees again.
Six armed agents progressed between the grave markers, rifles pointed at Murdock, who hadn’t moved yet. They barked orders at him that I couldn’t make out over the rain.
What the hell? I thought. Why are there only six of them?
Murdock laughed in my head, maniacal and cold.
I stopped, watching the confrontation.
The mother and her boys stopped as well. They looked around confusedly, shaking their heads.
“What’s going on?” the mother asked.
I didn’t answer. Kept watching the armed men.
They moved toward Murdock in a tight formation, leaving a few feet between them. They stopped a hundred yards away, still shouting. Their rifles lowered then, bodies going rigid.
The deep rumble of an engine came from the road. An eighteen-wheeler appeared through the gaps in the trees, accelerating along the street running parallel to the cemetery.
It veered, tires screeching, weight shifting, and rumbled through a wrought-iron gate running the perimeter of the property.
The truck plowed through the headstones and memorials, churning them to rubble under the heavy tires.
I watched in horror as the agents stood rooted in place. They didn’t turn to look at the truck.
At the last second, the driver jerked the wheel to the right and slammed the brake.
The tires locked, the truck skidding sideways.
The trailer fell on the agents, crushing them under its metal bulk.
They never made a sound.
Top soil and mud piled up against the roof of the cab as it slid to a stop.
Murdock laughed the entire time.
Then he turned his attention back on me.
Something wrapped around my neck, pulling my head back, a white-hot line of pain searing into my skin. My fingers brushed against small beads wrapped around my throat—a rosary.
The priest’s warm breath blew against my ear as he grunted in exertion, pulling harder, cutting off the last bit of air I had. My head pulsated as the pain increased.
My vision darkened.
I had seconds left before I went out.
In a last-ditch effort, I snapped my head back as hard as I could. Felt the crunch of the priest’s nose against the crown of my head. He gagged as blood poured down his throat.
His grip on the rosary eased enough for me to slip two fingers between it and my neck. I yanked against the beads, breaking the string holding them together. My knees buckled, and I fell to the soggy earth.
Sirens whooped from somewhere far off.
I fought to stay conscious, willing my vision to clear. It didn’t work very well.
Pain bloomed on my right cheek and I fell over, landing on my side. The world swam before me. Rain fell into my eyes, forcing them to blink rapidly.
I stared up at the mother. Her black dress, soaked through, clung to her figure. Mascara ran down her cheeks. Her eyes were wild, and she reared back and kicked me in my already-sore chest.
The sirens grew louder.
Murdock’s cackling died down. Saved by the bell. Give my regards to Smith.
The teens joined in, stomping and kicking.
I turtled, protecting my head and neck as best I could.
And then they stopped.
The mother gaped down at me.
“What’s happening to us?” she asked.
“You’re kicking my ass.” The words came out like a croak. I craned my neck and watched as Murdock fled through the cemetery, disappearing in the rain.