No good deed, p.13
No Good Deed, page 13
part #4 of Destiny Saga Series
“I guess you’ve got this all covered then, huh?”
“Pretty much. I’m serious about this Cas. We need more room, and we need to make sure we’re all safe.”
“Okay, I’m in. Let's take a vote.”
Everyone agreed that it was a good idea. Tami was still iffy on leaving her friends at school, especially our lunch group; but we had some time to figure out how to deal with that. Long-term, I had some thoughts on how we might make sure not to leave our friends behind.
“Okay, I guess that about finishes us up. Let’s not take any more time. I know some of you have a family you want to get back to. I appreciate you guys all staying, and Merry Christmas.”
The good part about Christmas, was that there were a few days without any new emergencies. The stuff with Celia wouldn’t happen until the New Year, nor would anything with the company. So we had just family time, with friends dropping in for visits, for a full week. It was, honestly, the happiest week I could remember. No crises, no fires, no life-threatening events, no machinations. Just friends and family.
The universe could only let that last for so long, of course. The breaks on our peaceful Christmas week came three days after Christmas, with a call from the judge.
Mom and Alex were back at work. They were close to submitting their new cancer therapy to the FDA for approval. The animal trial part was, apparently, difficult to deal with since my cells did not have any effect on animal cells. But, as expected, applying my cells to cancer-ridden cells had startling effects. While neither of them was concerned about getting to the human trials, the results they were able to show allowed them to be fast-tracked by the FDA, which meant a lot of late nights for both of them.
The girls were all out doing some post-holiday shopping with Levi, in his capacity as one of the heads of the new security company, and one of Carter's guys, who are all to be integrated into the security company and changed by this point, both shadowing them. Vicki had tried to argue that since there was a whole group of them, including Tina and Judy and a bunch of the girls from the lunch crew, that they were fine and didn’t need babysitters, but I stood firm. Things with the syndicate were going to be heating up soon, and I didn’t want to take any more chances. Thankfully, Jawarski was around and backed me up.
That left me alone at home with just Jawarski, who usually stayed in a different room unless something specific was needed when my cell rang.
“Caspian, it’s Tillman. They know,” the excited voice of the Judge said when I answered.
“Jawarski,” I yelled out, cupping the recover, before removing my hand and answering. “What do you mean they know?”
Jawarski came into the room, looking in each direction as she did, I guess thinking maybe the threat was more immediate. I pointed at the phone, and put it on speaker, holding it up between us as she walked over to me.
“I got a call from one of them, one of the guys who they normally send to give me orders. He said they weren’t happy with how I was dealing with you. They said to expect someone to come by and talk to me soon to remind me of my responsibilities. They know, and they’re coming to kill us.”
“Judge Davis,” Jawarski said, “if they were coming to kill you, they wouldn’t have called to make an appointment. They are trying to scare you, to get you to find some new way to go after Cas.”
“You didn’t hear them. They sounded pissed.”
“I think Jawarski’s right. They wouldn’t call if they were going to kill you, but I don’t think we can rule out some kind of physical threat, either,” I said.
“Probably not. But if we intervene and stop them, that’s it. He’s blown, and they will try and kill him. If we stop them, we have to pull them out and stash them in a safe place until we need them.”
“You can’t let them hurt Diane,” Tillman said.
“We won’t. Jawarski, you’re right, but now that … we’re involved with Judge Davis, we’re responsible for him and his wife. We can’t let them be hurt. If we pull them out, we need to find a place to take them.”
“We’ve got that covered,” Jawarski said. “When Judge Davis first agreed to go against the Syndicate’s demands, we set up a safe house for him and his wife.”
“Good. Let’s get one of our guys down there and ...”
“No,” Tillman said, sounding frantic again. “I want someone I know to come and get us, and I don’t know any of your ‘guys.’”
“Fine. Get packed up with the essentials, and be ready to go in the next twenty minutes. We’ll deal with the specifics once you’re with us.”
“Thank you,” Judge Davis said and hung up.
“Caspian, that’s not a good idea.”
“Maybe, but I said we were responsible for him and his wife, and I meant it. He doesn’t know any of Carter's people, and with some unknown person from the syndicate also headed his way, I can see why expecting a stranger would make him nervous, and possibly cause problems for us. No, you and I are going to go get him. On the way, you can have one of Carters guys meet us at some place where we can hand off the Judge and his wife without us being seen, and take them to the safe-house.”
“Fine,” Jawarski said, her expression making it clear the decision was anything but fine with her. “But you’re going to listen to me. The slightest hint of danger and I want you out of the way. You’re not going to go all Rambo on me, like you always do.”
“You’re the boss,” I said, heading to the car, eliciting an eye-roll.
I made the call to Carter to let him know what was going on, and to find me a good place to drop off the Judge and his wife and get them on to the safe-house. To his credit, he only called my plan stupid once. After looking into whatever shady ex-cop directory he had on hand, he told me to go a parking garage not far from the Judge’s house, where he’d have a guy waiting.
Alice isn’t a big town, and we were at the Judge’s house in under ten minutes and found a black Lincoln town car parked in the driveway. I had the door open and was headed towards the judge's house before we even came to a full stop.
“Cas,” Jawarski said as she slid over the hood of the car and sprinted towards me. “Get your ass behind me.”
I slowed down and let Jawarski get ahead of me, knowing if I ignored her it wouldn’t just be her wrath I’d have to deal with when I got home.
“What are the odds I could talk you into going back to the car and wait for me to bring the Judge out on my own.”
“Slim to none.”
“Fine, but stay behind me.”
We got the front porch we both noticed the door was slightly opened, causing Jawarski to reach and pull her sidearm from the holster she always wore on her hip, usually concealed by her jacket or shirt.
“Just, stay behind me,” she said again, pushing the door open with her foot and stepping into the house, weapon at the ready.
She didn’t get a chance to use it. A guy was standing next to the door when we went through, his hand coming down on Jawarski’s outstretched arm as soon as she was in the doorway.
He pulled her away from the door and towards the floor. She was already off balance enough from pushing the door open that she started to fall as soon as he yanked her forward. His other hand had a gun in it, and he started to move the barrel towards her.
I didn’t hesitate. Using what Levi had helped me figure out, I slipped into 'the flow.' Instantly, the world around us slowing to a crawl. I started forward towards the gunman, but his weapon was pointed at Jawarski by the time I could get to him. The ship had sailed on stopping him from aiming at Jawarski, leaving me only the option of forcing him to overshoot her instead.
Reaching out, I grabbed his wrist with my left hand, much as he had grabbed Jawarski, and started pulling the arm in towards me, while I grabbed his jacket with my right hand, pushing down hard. The two motions together and my enhanced strength caused his body to start spinning, feet coming off the floor.
Both because it was certainly what he was going to do anyway, and because of the sudden impact of my hands on him, the gun in the man's hand went off. The bullet flew over Jawarski’s prone body and into the marbled front entryway. The whizzing sound of the bullet ricocheting off the marble was audible, to me at least; but it didn’t hit me, and didn’t seem to hit Jawarski, so I ignored it for the moment.
I continued with my pushing and pulling motions, causing the man to come down on the hard floor on his shoulders, his head bouncing hard on its white surface. As soon as his head impacted, I felt his whole body go slack. Coming out of the flow, I released his arm and coat, causing him to flop limply onto the floor. I was just bending down to check and see if he still had a pulse when a sound caused me to look up, directly into another man standing at the end of the hall, pointing a gun at me.
I was completely flat-footed, and my brain was taking a second to yell it's warning at me when I heard the bark of a gunshot. It took me another second to realize that the flash I saw hadn’t come from his gun, but was something I registered in my peripheral vision. By that point, the man, who looked almost as surprised as I had a moment before, dropped his weapon and crumpled.
Looking down I could still see the smoke slipping out of the end of Jawarski’s gun, which she had fired lying prone on the ground, clearly having had much better situational awareness than I’d had. The judge’s head poked around the door and looked at us.
“Ohh! Thank God!” he said, stepping over the shot man and coming towards us.
“Are there any others?” I asked as I finished checking the man’s pulse, which was still strong and indicated he was only unconscious.
“No, just these two.”
“Okay, let's get you guys out of here, now.”
“No, we need to call the police,” Jawarski said, holstering her weapon.
“No, we should leave them here. The Syndicate has too many people in the department. They’ll know we’re involved, and it proves to them that the judge was involved with us, putting them in more danger, along with you, the rest of the family and me. If we leave now, it’s a mystery. One of their people is dead, the other hurt but alive. If the cops get here and check it out, it looks like a burglary or some other crime, with the Judge missing. A mystery, but one that doesn’t point at us. And the Syndicate doesn’t have anything specific telling them to step up action against us.”
“But …”
“He’s right,” the Judge said. “There are too many people in the city who're in their pocket. A mystery is better than us sitting in jail, waiting for the untainted police to investigate, giving the Syndicate’s people time to come for us, while we’re easy pickings.”
“Fine, let's go,” Jawarski said, not sounding happy about the decision.
Chapter 9
We got the judge handed off with little problem. For now, at least, it seemed he and his wife would be safe. I promised them we’d do what we could to get the Syndicate out of his life, and mine, as fast as we could.
Any hesitancy he might have had about walking away from his life, even if only for a few days or weeks, pretty much vanished when armed men came into his home and threatened to take his wife with them to ensure he towed the line. Jawarski and I went back to my house and waited, occasionally turning on the news to see if there were any mention of a body found and a missing local judge.
Jawarski said she could check at the precinct with people she knew there, but I nixed that idea. The Syndicate would be trying to find out what happened, and they’d have all their dirty cops and probably other civil servants we didn’t even know about yet, trying to get a line on who took Judge Davis and killed one of their men. Jawarski coming out and asking about it, especially with her known connection to me, would be a big red flag for them.
While they knew I was a pain in their ass, they mostly knew it from my connection to the company and the foiled attempt on my life. While it meant I definitely had their attention, it would be a stretch for them to make the leap to my being actively engaged in a plot against them. They’d figure that part out eventually, but the longer we could delay that, the better.
That didn’t save me from hearing the displeasure of both Mom and the girls, who didn’t like my taking risks, no matter the reason. Aside from that, nothing new happened on the Syndicate front for a week. There was a small story about the mysterious disappearance of Judge Davis, whose home was found locked up, but nothing out of place. No word about the body, or the mess left by both of the two Syndicate men or our confrontation with them, meaning the Syndicate cleaned up after themselves.
Carter had the Judge on lock-down, neither he nor his wife were being allowed outside. I could imagine they were going a little stir crazy, but considering the alternative, it didn’t seem like there was any other choice.
By the end of the week, I had something new to worry about; which, as they always seemed to be, was heralded by a phone call. This time it was Jonathan. He said he needed to come by and talk to me, and wanted to make sure Mom, at the very least, was there. The process of calling Mom away from work somehow ended up as a signal for pretty much everyone from the household - except Judy and Tina - to be present when he showed up.
“Hey, Cas,” Jonathan said when I let him in, “Oh, I wasn’t expecting this many people.”
“Yeah, you asked for me to make sure Mom was here, and that got the rest of them curious. You know how nosy they all are.”
That last part I said staring at the girls, which was promptly ignored.
“So what’s up?”
“We finished up the paperwork with Mrs. Keen this morning, and she is pushing for us to start working with her daughter as soon as possible. I told her I’d have a timetable for her this afternoon.”
“That’s easy. She comes and stays with us, we give her the injection, she gets sick and then kicks the habit. Sure we have to make it look good, convince her what’s happening is more conventional than it is, but I’m not sure what the big deal is.”
“That isn’t going to work,” Mom said.
“Why? We’ll put her through the change, she’ll be clear of the drugs, and we won’t have to worry about her giving anything away.”
“Except, it isn’t that easy. Problem one, we can’t just give her an injection the moment she comes through the door. Even to a twenty-something junkie, that’d seem weird, and there’s the window between injection and when the loyalty part of the change takes effect. Are you suggesting we grab her and tie her down the minute she comes in the door? We need to go through steps to make our ‘procedure’ seem legitimate. You have argued that the change isn’t brainwashing. We agreed we weren’t going to tell her the whole truth, at least not for a while. She might be loyal to you after the change, but she will still have suspicions and, unless you specifically tell her not to talk to anyone about what happened, she’ll probably talk to someone about the suspicions.”
“Okay, I see that, but …”
“Two,” Mom said, rolling over my protest, “is the living conditions, here. How are you going to explain you sleeping in the master bedroom with four girls every night? Of whom two of the girls’ mothers live in the same house. Hell, I love you as my own son, and I know everything; but I still have to try and not think too hard about it, or I start to freak out.”
“Okay,” I said, realizing I wasn’t going to be able to say anything until she was done.
“Three, where the hell are you going to put her? We’re already packed in here pretty tight. So much so that you okayed spending a giant chunk of cash to build a new, much larger home to contain us all.”
I hadn’t considered that last part, and I should have. The first two were problems I thought we could deal with, but Mom was right, there was literally nowhere to put her.
“So what should we do?”
“Rent a place for her,” Vicki said.
“Wouldn’t that also seem strange, putting her up by herself? Also, if we’re going to put in sometime between when we take her in and when we ‘treat’ her, to make it seem real, we’d be leaving a junkie by herself, completely unsupervised.”
“I wasn’t suggesting renting a one bedroom apartment. You’re right, she can’t be left alone, so we rent a two bedroom apartment and someone stays with her, or we take turns or something.”
“That might work. Could we rent a place quick?” I asked Jonathan.
“Sure, we’d have to pay a bit upfront, but I don’t see why not. We’d have to rent under either Next Step or Evolve since no one would rent to a minor.”
“We do it under Next Step, since, if this works, it might be something we end up doing again. Maybe. So who stays with her? It can’t be me. I have too many balls in the air right now with the Syndicate and some of the stuff at work for me to play babysitter. Probably not Zoe either, since she’s in charge of the building going on at the new center.”
