Marcus woke up feeling as if his head had been used as Metallica’s bass drum. He lay atop one of two mattresses inside a dimly lit concrete cell. Ackerman occupied the other. His older brother sat on the concrete with his legs crossed and his arms in some kind of strange yoga pose.
Marcus asked, “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m meditating upon the present circumstance.”
“Wonderful. Any revelations?” His voice was harsh, and his throat felt like sandpaper.
“I suspect I already know the answer, but the device you implanted into my spine … It doesn’t actually track all my movements, does it?”
Rubbing his eyes against his palms, Marcus replied, “If you’re asking whether or not anyone knows our current position, the answer is probably not.”
“I feel something there, a foreign object. I’m going to be rather annoyed if your Director friend risked paralyzing me in order to insert a placebo.”
“It’s a real device. We’re actually still trying to get the funding for the more sophisticated chip and monitoring capabilities from the NSA, but after Foxbury, the powers that be wanted you in the field asap. So they put in last year’s model, in a manner of speaking. The implant can still track you and kill you, but it only sends and receives small bursts of data whenever you’re in range of a Wi-Fi network or cellular hot spot. Basically, the device hijacks an Internet connection and transmits your GPS coordinates. It then receives back a code of whether to detonate or not. As long as it doesn’t receive the kill code, you’re fine. But if you screw up, that chip would eventually end you. You wouldn’t be able to hide from it forever.”
“But I could kill all of you and strategically make my way to Washington in order to deactivate such a termination order. Hypothetically.”
“You’re not traveling across the country without hitting some kind of wireless network. Not in this day and age.”
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
Trying to steer the conversation back onto the right track, Marcus said, “The good news is that we just need to get you within range of a network. That security camera probably runs off Wi-Fi. Maybe a team is already on their way.”
“Doubtful. An internal network in a private compound would have restricted access to the Internet. Our captor may even employ signal jammers. Such devices are easy to come by and inexpensive to build.”
“We’ll figure something out. We always do.”
Ackerman said, “In light of this new information, my opinion is thus: we should now behave in the same manner that a scuba diver would when coming face to face with the massive jaws of a great white shark. Or, if you prefer, the hiker coming nose to nose with a grizzly bear and her cubs.”
Marcus had no idea what his brother was talking about, which was a common occurrence, even when he wasn’t groggy from being drugged. He said, “Are you waiting for me to answer? I don’t know. You poke it in the eye?”
“No,” Ackerman said. “Try again.”
Marcus snapped back, “You pull out a knife and jam your arm into the shark and/or bear’s mouth with the blade pointing vertically. So when it bites down, the knife is stabbed into its brain.”
Ackerman chuckled. “I like your line of thinking, if you and I were actually encountering one of those situations. However, I was speaking more metaphorically. Sort of like that old joke about what to do when you’re on a plane going down … you put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye. We have now come to such a moment.”
“Bullshit. I’ve never seen you give up before.”
“I’ve never met anyone who could beat me before.”
“I beat you.”
Ackerman chuckled again. “You really believe that, don’t you?”
Marcus growled and cracked his neck. “We really don’t have time for that discussion right now. What makes you think we can’t outsmart or outfight this guy?”
“Past experience is usually the best indicator, and our new friend has consistently beaten me.”
“Don’t you mean: beaten us?”
Ackerman said, “If you prefer. The point is that I have evaluated all the variables, and based upon everything I’ve observed from this opponent and given our limited resources, I see no way that we can possibly defeat him and survive this encounter. Well, perhaps a ten percent chance.”
“We’ve been in worse situations than this, and we’ve always come out on top. I will never stop fighting, until they cut out my heart and drop my cold ass in the ground.”
“You misunderstand, dear brother. I’m not giving up. I’m merely preparing myself for the possibility of defeat. There’s a significant difference.”
With a shake of his head, Marcus paused to consider his brother’s words. He never treated the moments he had with people as if they could be his last. And maybe he should start. He said, “I want to tell you something, just in case.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“It’s a Star Wars reference. You were going to say, ‘I love you.’ And I replied, ‘I know.’ I’ve heard you and Maggie do it before.”
Marcus rolled his eyes. “I do love you, in some weird way, but that’s not what I was going to say. I want to tell you that I think you were right all along. I should have listened to you.”
Ackerman cocked an eyebrow. “You’re going to have to be much more specific.”
Marcus continued, “We should have turned the Demon case over to another agency. Maybe we still can. I’m sure Valdas could get some team at the FBI on it. You were right. There is no case that’s worth sacrificing any of the people I love. Maggie is off chasing phantoms. We’re in this situation. And I can’t shake the feeling that Dylan is in real danger. If we make it out of here, I think we should walk away from this case. I say we let this dragon sleep.”
With a shake of his head, Ackerman closed his eyes and said, “It’s much too late for that.”
“What do you mean ‘too late’?”
“That ship, as they say, has sailed. Demon allowing us to walk away was a one-time offer. He’s going to destroy all of us and everyone and everything we love, merely on principle.”
Marcus rubbed the cross tattoo on his chest. “Then what do we do?”
“Now, the only way out is through. We’re going to have to kill them all, little brother, before they do the same to us.”