BEST SERVED COLD
CHAPTER 5: PLANS UNRAVELLED
Sarah drove towards Carnegie Hall in an odd state of numbness. Surely, she should be feeling any number of emotions: fear, worry and possibly excitement, to name a few. But as she drove on, not even the perpetual Manhattan traffic succeeded in bringing a rise from her. She'd become like a puppet, or a machine, intent on a singular objective. Likewise, her mind refused to think of any particular subject; she drove almost on a subconscious level. On and on she drove, it seemed, until she purposely drove passed Carnegie Hall. No one stood waiting, but countless busy people strode by, many returning to work from lunch. Sarah drove for another block then parked in a pay lot whose recent tenants had gone.
A quick glance at her watch reminded her of the time, but still failed to elicit any sort of reaction. 12: 52 PM. Sarah took up her purse and left the car. Dressed as she was, in the proscribed blue jeans, black sweater, sunglasses and the tiny X-shaped pin at her throat, Sarah felt almost invisible, totally non-remarkable against the throng of bodies. Behind the dark tinted lenses, Sarah's eyes flicked back and forth across the crowd, seeking the silver jacket she knew to look for. She didn't see it until she turned the corner of Carnegie Hall itself.
He stood there, perfectly at ease, to all outward appearances. A tallish man with big, square shoulders leaned back into the wall on the other side of the main entrance. He was as equally non-descript as Sarah, but his clothes announced his identity to her as loudly as any siren. Silver New England Patriots jacket, bright red knit beanie, neatly trimmed goatee.
It's him, Sarah realized, the first coherent thought to cross her mind since she left Kathy's. An old-fashioned clock-post across the street BONGED the hour. The FBI man, incognito, reached into his jacket pocket and produced a paper ticket-stub, the letters LOTTO clearly visible to all written across it. Sarah started walking towards him, as though in a dream.
In those few seconds, time slowed down. Everything faded and blended into a muted background buzz. All that mattered was getting rid of the damnable disk, getting back to Tracy. The disk felt like a brick within Sarah's purse, a dead weight on her mind, soul, and conscience. The FBI man's nondescript brown eyes came up in slow motion and locked with Sarah's. They stared at each other across the diminishing distance, magnetically attracted. When they were just a few paces away, Sarah heard a voice—her own—saying the words she'd been instructed to.
"Feeling lucky?" The words were blurred to Sarah, muffled by the sound of her suddenly thundering heart. The man's voice, a pleasant and forgettable tenor, cut through the fog of Sarah's mind like a knife—casual, but subtly sharp and pointed.
"The odds are only three thousand to one." Spoken without inflection, the words were like a computer confirming a bank transaction. With that, he held out his hand, "offering" her the lotto ticket. Sarah reached into her purse without looking, palmed the disk, and "accepted" the ticket, sliding it into his hand while taking the ticket. Immediately, time snapped back into full swing, all the sights and sounds of busy Manhattan returning to sharp focus. Sarah blinked and the tension poured out of her.
There. Nothing to it. All done. Maybe Sarah had expected something more…dramatic. The deed was done, it seemed, and quite anticlimactic, too. She had completed her end of the bargain and intended to quietly disappear into anonymity. Sarah blew out a long breath, and actually smiled at the FBI man, tucking the ticket into her pants pocket. "Good luck," she said, turning away to leave.
"There may be a problem, Ms. Gibbens." The agent's voice stayed casual on the surface, but carried an undertone of danger that turned Sarah's blood to ice in her veins. She stopped in her tracks, but didn't turn back.
"What …problem?" She asked, struggling to keep her voice as steady and level as his. She nearly succeeded.
"We think McKannen may already know about this, Ms. Gibbens. If he does, both you and your daughter's lives are in danger." When Sarah turned back, the agent's brown eyes melted into a look dark with worry and concern. She was glad of the sunglasses; Sarah was certain her own eyes contained nothing but terror.
"What are you going to do?" Sarah whispered. The agent leaned a bit closer, to be heard.
"We want to take you and your daughter to a safehouse until this is overwith, Ms. Gibbens. Don't worry, we won't let anything happen to you or her. I promise." His voice rose slightly in entreaty. "Trust us," he whispered. For an instant that seemed like eternity, Sarah's mind, empty since this morning, boiled with chaos and confusion.
He knows, she thought, He knows! He'll try to kill us! OhmyGod what am I going to do?! Sarah's gaze met the agent's again. She considered him next. The Feds have kept up their end of this too, Sarah thought, her mind slowing to a semblance of normalcy, They'll protect us. They still need us for witnesses. Not even Douglas McKannen can get us if the FBI hides us. I have to believe that.
"All right." Sarah's voice remained steady this time.
The agent nodded, then walked to the edge of the street. Reaching into his other coat pocket, the agent withdrew a pack of cigarettes and pulled one out. He lit it with a disposable lighter, took a long pull then blew all the smoke out in one long puff. A black van caddy-corner from Carnegie Hall revved to life. It joined traffic, made a quick U-turn and pulled up to the sidewalk where the agent stood, causing several drivers to honk in consternation. The agent flicked the cigarette into the road under the van and pulled the sliding door open. "Get in," He said, jerking his head towards the open door. Sarah complied. They drove aimlessly for a while.
We need to get Tracy, and maybe even Kathy too, Sarah thought after a time.
"We need to get my daughter," she said, voicing her thought, "She's staying with a friend down by the waterfront—"
"We know, Ms. Gibbens."
"Huh?" Sarah blanked out in mid-thought. That's impossible. I didn't tell them—
"We know about your daughter and Ms. Wister," the man said, his expression now blank and impassive again. Sarah's eyes widened in complete shock when the man unzipped his jacket and produced the biggest revolver Sarah had ever seen in her life. Slowly, deliberately, he trained the barrel on her head. The muzzle looked big enough for Sarah to walk into. "We've known for a while now."
"No," Sarah's throat constricted; an iron hand clamped itself around her heart. Then she knew her mistake. This was no FBI agent. The van stopped. Sarah's vision instinctively left the gun for a second to see where they'd arrived at. The iron hand tightened its grip. McKannen Industries Main Office Building.
"Mr. McKannen wants to have a word with you, Ms. Gibbens." His cold, mocking tone made her feel like a little girl being called to face a school principal. The false agent lowered the gun from her head, but the muzzle remained pointed at her. He slipped it into a pocket, its point plainly visible. "Don't decide to get brave, little girl," the man said in frozen tones, "If I have to, I will shoot you in public." The van door opened.
Sarah concluded that the short, rotund man standing outside the car must be the driver. His round glasses sat on a squashed nose, magnifying his beady eyes. He wore a simple round cap over his greasy hair, and his clothes were worn and shabby. The lingering smell of gasoline and smoke clung to him. He gave her a nasty little smile but said nothing as the armed man nodded towards the door. Sarah got out.
The two men marched Sarah up to the main door like a pair of butchers leading a cow to the slaughterhouse. Sarah mentally shied away from the image. The short, smelly one opened the door, and the other followed Sarah through it. They passed the secretary's desk in the lobby. Sarah paused briefly, thinking perhaps to scream for help. The point of the gun nestled gently against the small of her back. A tiny vibration there told her that the hammer had just been cocked. Sarah swallowed the incipient cry for help and continued walking, under the secretary's confused gaze.
Across the lobby, three elevator doors waited. The short man pressed the button for the nearest one. Sarah nearly sobbed when the door opened immediately. She was pushed in, and the tall man's eyes narrowed when she turned. Hand on the concealed gun, eyes on Sarah, the tall man reached out with his other hand to press the button for the top floor. Sarah's hammering heart skipped a beat. The McKannen residence, built directly on top of the office building!
Into the lion's den…
A few employees sprang for the open door, but the look in the tall man's eyes stopped them. Annoyed, he punched the 'doors closed' button. As the elevator began to rise, the short man leaned uncomfortably against the wall. The tall man joined him a few seconds later, all the while watching Sarah. Sarah pressed her back to the wall, wishing she could melt into it, through it, to escape what she knew must be coming. The short man crossed his arms, revealing his hastily bandaged left hand.
The fat fingers that protruded from the bandage were purple, almost black at the tips. When he shifted his posture, the bandage slipped back enough for Sarah to see a small, reddened crescent of teeth marks decorating the outer edge of his palm. Sarah gave him a tight smile. When he noticed her staring at his hand, he angrily thrust both of them into his coat pockets. A sullen glare replaced his earlier smug look.
Sarah watched the numbers on the panel over the door ticking away the last moments of her life. She'd lived in Manhattan all her life, lost in the swelling tide of humanity. She'd gone to school, been a track star, gone to college, gotten married, had a family. Her husband had left her when Tracy was born. She got a job working for Howard McKannnen, and for his son after his death. She'd seen the world through young eyes in the sixties, cried through Viet Nam, again through JFK's death, and helped firemen and policemen on September 11, 2001 when the World Trade Centers collapsed in fire and smoke. She'd watched her daughter grow into a beautiful young woman. She tried to help the FBI expose perhaps the greatest act of racial discrimination, maybe the largest single act of human trafficking of the new century. Now, she would die unknown and unmourned, while thousands of innocent mutants would suffer. Silent tears of regret began to flow for all the things Sarah had not done, and would never see. The two men stood in stony silence, uncaring.
When the numbers on the panel reached 30, the elevator stopped and a bell chimed. The tall man slipped a security access card into a slot in the control panel and rapidly entered a few more numbers. The elevator began slowly rising again, but stopped just one floor above Sarah's office. When the bell chimed again, Sarah's mind likened it to a death knell.
The two men stood up and led Sarah into the house proper. Sarah had never seen anything like it. The ceiling seemed to go up and up, and everywhere she looked there were precious works of art. A man in the black and white of a professional servant came and led them away with all the emotion and enthusiasm of a robot. Down this hall, left turn, through this door, down this way to the right. When they stopped, they were in front of the most ornately carved door in the entire house. Sarah knew beyond a doubt that this was Douglas McKannen's own room.
A tingling chill danced across Sarah's shoulders. The touch was gentle, almost tender, teasing. Sarah could almost imagine Death at her shoulder, waiting patiently, silently. I'm here, she was saying voicelessly, Your time is almost over.
The servant knocked twice, and leaned into the door. At some small sound, he turned the knob and revealed the most posh bedroom Sarah had ever seen. Sarah's whole apartment could probably fit into it with room to spare, and that without the walk-in closet and swimming pool-sized bathtub. Belying the opulent luxury before them was the sickening, smothering stench of burned meat. Sarah gagged, nauseated.
"Please excuse the smell," That voice could only belong to Douglas McKannen, so cold, so condescending, "I'll have my janitor deal with it later." Sarah turned to face him.
McKannnen stood off to the left, in a large alcove dominated by a huge desk many times larger than the one in his official office, one floor below. McKannen was standing next to a large swiveling chair, which was presently turned toward the huge windows overlooking New York City. One hand rested easily atop the chair's high back; the few strands of wild hair peeking over the top revealed the chair to be occupied. A thin curl of smoke twisted upwards from the chair's tenant. McKannen turned from the panoramic view and stared at Sarah, as though for the first time. Looking into his eyes revealed nothing.
That damned poker face of his.
"Ms. Gibbens," McKannen said after a moment, in a deceptively mild voice, "Let me introduce you to Agent Antoine Donovan, FBI." McKannen gave the chair a gentle spin, bringing its occupant into full view. A scream of pure horror warred with hot bile at the back of Sarah's throat.
The cadaver propped up onto McKannen's chair had been charred to a crisp. Its empty, blackened eye sockets and silently screaming mouth poured sour gray smoke. The white shirt it had been wearing was burned through in several places, most notably across the chest. Its skeletal hands were twisted into permanent claws, below the charred rags that had been sleeves. From his posture, he had obviously been sitting down when he'd been killed.
The bile at Sarah's throat won out. Stumbling to the wall, Sarah's knees gave out as she heaved helplessly onto the expensive wooden floor. McKannen shook his head, grieving for the wooden paneling, the tall man waved a hand under his nose, and the short man smiled broadly, wringing his hands in delight. From somewhere nearby, Sarah heard a high-pitched, malicious giggle, a scraping, raspy sound not fit for a human throat. When Sarah stopped heaving, the tall man reached down and hauled her back to her feet.
"While we're all getting acquainted, let me introduce you to the rest of my associates," McKannen went on, imperturbably, "The tall fellow there is 'Mr. Michael Vickers', or so he claims. Quite the professional; he came highly recommended. His rather pungent companion is Mr. Stephen 'Smoky' Bertrick, also a recommended professional, although his field is a bit narrower than Mr. Vickers'." McKannen looked ready to continue, but the man identified as 'Vickers' interjected.
"Is this really necessary?" he asked bluntly. His look darkened when McKannen dismissed his concern with an indolent wave. McKannen went on almost as though he hadn't been interrupted.
"And last, but certainly not least, my new personal assistant, the Gremlin." Sarah did a double-take, confusion written clearly across her face. There was no one else in the office. What was McKannen talking about?
Just then, all the lights in the room flickered, as a brilliant, blinding arc of electricity exploded out of a wall socket to McKannen's left. It leaped into the air above McKannen's desk, sizzling and snapping, where it condensed into a glowing blue-white sphere the size of a basketball. It hung there for a moment then emitted the most horrible sound Sarah had ever heard. The sound of the scratchy, rasping giggling amplified into fits of insane laughter. Dancing sparks of electricity spun and twisted across its surface. Sarah felt the hair on her neck and arms stand on end.
"Gremlin, if you please," McKannen said impatiently, folding his arms over his chest. The laughter ceased, with a final sizzling giggle that promised slow, agonizing death. It floated down from the desk to hover at McKannen's side, then slowly began to expand into an irregular shape. Spindly arms and gangly legs extended from the sphere, and a triangular head rose from the top. When its feet touched the floor, the glowing blue outline darkened into solid features. Grotesque features.
Well, Sarah thought with lunatic hilarity, he wasn't kidding. The name fits.
The Gremlin looked like nothing so much as the mischievous little critters from the 80's movies, albeit much taller. His emaciated body was covered in sickly green hide, sporting discolored patches and scales here and there. The three fingered hands and feet all ended in two-inch long, dirty yellow claws. Wedge-shaped pointed ears stuck straight out from his triangular head. Tiny horns framed his jaw, sharp chin, and slit-pupil yellow eyes. The Gremlin's sadistic sneer revealed his orange, irregular, needle-sharp teeth. Unlike the Gremlins from the movie, this one boasted a full head of bleached white hair, spiked in random directions with an absurd amount of hair gel. Electricity sparked and crackled through it, then jumped and snaked to the dozens of gleaming metal piercings in his ears, eyebrows, lips, nose and tongue. His body fairly buzzed with the sheer amount of power it contained.
McKannen let Sarah absorb everything she'd just seen for a moment. Then he shook his head, sighing, like a beleaguered parent lamenting the ineffectual efforts of a child.
"Sarah, Sarah," he said, "I'm really, very disappointed in you. You should have known better than to try and double cross me, especially with the FBI. Have I not proven that I am not, I repeat NOT, a man to be trifled with?" Sarah was momentarily speechless in the face of such overbearing arrogance.
"How—?" She managed to blurt out.
"—Did I find out about you? Please—" McKannen rolled his eyes, "Don't prove yourself to be a complete idiot. You actually put on quite a convincing performance last night. I forgot briefly that you're a fan of theatre. I might not have even noticed that you'd hacked into my computer, except for one small detail." McKannen bared his teeth slightly; a smile. "My computer's digital camera activates automatically whenever my log-on is open. It records the time spent and saves the video file in a hidden drive for security purposes, which I check every night. Guess what my little eye-spy saw last night? Miss Sarah Gibbens, peeking where she shouldn't be!"
"Actually, the Gremlin was the one who caught it first. He spends a lot of time in the company network, rewriting files for me. When my security camera activated, he hacked the video feed and saw you shuffling around in my log-on. When you shut it down and logged back on to your own computer, he followed and monitored your little conversation with 'Sp00kyMuld3r' here." McKannen patted the blackened corpse sitting in his chair, sending up a small cloud of ash.
"Afterwards, Gremlin traced your partner's line back to a laptop computer in a rather shabby hotel room. This unfortunate man then experienced a regrettable accident involving a bolt of lightning striking a phone line."
Sarah's lower lip trembled, and her eyes began to water.
"Such a fitting name, 'Tragedy'," McKannen went on, taunting her, "Poor, insignificant Sarah Gibbens, trying to make a difference in the world. But everything goes horribly wrong. The villain,"—McKannen bowed—"discovered your noble plan, killed your comrade-in-arms,"—McKannen indicated the charred corpse—"sent his own man to take his place,"—a nod towards Vickers—"and then tracked down your daughter and fellow conspirator, Ms. Wister, who, I hear, is also a mutant! How marvelous!" The Gremlin smirked.
McKannen's words took a moment to sink in. A subtle change came over Sarah Gibbons, gradual at first, then with more clarity. Her head came up, her trembling lip stilled, the tears blinked away. All expression evaporated from her face. McKannen was about to ask her if this meant her surrender, but he was in for a shock.
"What have you done with my daughter?" Sarah asked, every quiet word forged of cold steel.
McKannen blinked, momentarily taken aback by the quiet menace in Sarah's voice. Then he wanted to laugh at the hilarity of it all. What nerve! To threaten me in my own home, when I hold every advantage? McKannen held his poker face.
"Ms. Gibbens, Ms. Wister's name, address, and home phone number are listed on every single vacation request form you've filled out for the last ten years as your secondary contact. It was quite obvious that she'd be the first person you'd go to."
"That's not what I asked, McKannen." Sarah's brown eyes smoked with seething hatred. McKannen's poker face cracked for a second.
"Ask my associates," McKannen snapped, "I sent those three to fetch them both this morning, but they came back empty-handed. If it means anything to you, I am told"—McKannen shot Smoky a look—"that they put up quite a fight." Smoky squirmed.
"Hehehehe…fight?" the Gremlin rasped, speaking for the first time. "HehHEHhe! Fight?! No fight! ZAP! BURN! Fried fish-bitch!" Sarah's momentary strength failed at the Gremlin's choppy narrative. "Snow-White on the bed? Had fun, fun, fun with that one! HAHAHAHA! Ask Smoky-Smoky! Almost became frozen Smoky-sausage! HAHAHAHA!"
"Well, there you have it," McKannen stated calmly, while Sarah visibly trembled, "I instructed these men to retrieve your daughter and your friend, but appears that things got somewhat out of hand. My sincerest apologies."
That was the last straw. Tracy, beautiful, precious Tracy, dead by the hands of these filthy beasts, and this monster had the absolute gall to offer 'sincerest apologies'?!
As physically fit as McKannen was, he was caught totally unprepared. Sarah moved so fast, so suddenly, that she may as well have teleported across the room. One moment she was flanked by Vickers and Smoky, the very next instant she whistled past the Gremlin to McKannen.
Sarah's open hand lashed out and connected with the side of McKannen's face, fueled by all the helpless fury of a mother whose child is lost. The stinging, whipcrack blow actually spun the dazed McKannen to the floor. She stood over him, fists clenched, tears of rage and grief flowing freely now. She would have gladly continued her assault, but a bolt of liquid electricity slammed into her, throwing Sarah sideways into the wall. She slid down the wall to the floor as her body convulsed, hands clutching her side, moaning.
McKannen picked himself up off the floor with more haste than decorum and put a hand to his face. The skin was beginning to burn. Blood rushed to McKannen's face when he realized that there would be a mark. Sparing a glance in the mirror, McKannen's blood now boiled when he saw Sarah's blazing red handprint, edged in purple, seared into his cheek. A bruise! A muscle worked in McKannen's jaw, and a vein stood out across his temple.
"Gremlin," he snapped, "Are the documents ready?"
"Yep."
"The note? The will?"
"Yep."
"Good." McKannen strode towards Sarah's huddled form, his posture broadcasting rage. He reached down with one hand and took a firm hold around Sarah's throat. Lifting her into the air, McKannen turned and dragged her, in one hand, to the window. The Gremlin obligingly opened it. Sarah's head was turned just far enough that she could see the tiny figures of people and cars below. Her stomach, now empty, attempted to tie itself into a knot.
"That was not smart, little girl."
"You'll never—"
"—'Get away with this?' Stupid bitch, I already have! The FBI will get a reply from the 'Sp00kyMuld3r' account in a few days declaring the investigation a dead-end and total failure! Your friend Wister is dead, and so is your daughter! They were both inside the house when my men torched it." McKannen shook Sarah for emphasis. Her hands, such weapons only a few seconds ago, slapped desperately, futilely at McKannen's thick wrist. She struggled for air. McKannen suddenly brought Sarah's face scant inches away from his own.
"I have your new 'Last Will and Testament', plus a suicide note, compliments of the Gremlin's forgery skills," he whispered savagely. "Project Helot is going to make me even more profit than I could make if I ran this garbage company for fifty years, and there is nothing - you - can - do - to - stop - me," McKannen snarled, biting off the end of every word.
McKannen force-marched Sarah over to the windowsill, but didn't stop when they reached the edge. He continued until Sarah was leaning backwards out the window, hanging above three hundred feet of empty air. Panic soared inside Sarah's mind.
"There's a lot of dangers in this world," McKannen said loudly to be heard over the wind, "muggers, terrorists, disease, global warfare, there are a million ways to die! Now I'm going to show you what happens to worthless, nobody garbage-people who dare to double-cross ME!"
McKannen grabbed Sarah's belt with his free hand and hurled her out the window. Her sharp scream of terror lasted a brief instant, and ended abruptly with the sound of tearing cloth and ringing metal.
That was too soon. Now what…? McKannen looked back out the window in irritation.
Impossibly, Sarah was hanging on for dear life from an American flag, suspended from a flagpole mounted on the side of the building outside McKannen's own office, one floor below. McKannen chuckled, admiring Sarah's will to live. She climbed up the flag and managed to get one leg over the pole.
"Gremlin, will you please kill that woman?"
With a howl of purest glee, the Gremlin leaned out the window. When he spied Sarah climbing up the flag onto the pole, he propped his elbows on the windowsill and cupped his face with both hands. Tilting his head with a playful attitude and a vicious grin, the Gremlin pointed one dirty claw at the metal rod. Lightning arced from his fingertip and wrapped itself around the pole, igniting the flag and throwing Sarah once more from the building. This time her scream lasted a full five seconds, echoing off the surrounding buildings before cutting off sharply. The Gremlin laughed the whole time.
"Mr. Vickers, please prepare for the press." McKannen said, straightening out his jacket and tie. "Oh, and send in a makeup specialist too."
"Yes Mr. McKannen."
"Such a tragedy. A pitiful, pathetic Tragedy…" McKannen murmured.