American Mutant (24 page)

“Take the envelope with her hair in it out,” Connor directed, “and take the lock of hair into your hand, and just hold it.”

Quenton straightened up, and took the envelope out. Connor saw his hand shakily grasp the lock of hair, and grip it in his fist. Connor gripped it with him. In seconds, he knew she was alive, and where they were holding her.

“She’s fine Derek,” Connor projected to him. “I will free her, and have her picked up. Nate and I will be here right on time.”

“Please Thomas, Please.”

“She will be fine my friend,” Connor guaranteed, “but no one else will. Hang on now.”

Quenton nodded as he continued to grip the lock of his daughter’s hair.

Connor straightened next to Nate. “They have his daughter Nate, wired up with explosives, and three dead man’s switches in three different locations.”

“What do you want done,” Nate asked grimly.

“Get Sammy on the phone and give him this address.” Connor wrote down the address on his notepad, and tore it off to hand over to Nate. “Tell him to go up to the door of the house and knock three times. Take the girl who comes to the door to our place, and then lock down and wait for us.”

“You going there now?”

Connor smiled grimly. “Yea, I’m goin’ there and set things right. Then you and I will keep our date. Don’t get too near until I get back. Stay a couple of blocks away.”

Nate punched the quick dial number on his council to phone Sammy, while Connor leaned back once again. He was inside an empty dark cellar, with a chair in the middle of it. Derek’s daughter sat bound and gagged to it, with C-4 explosives tied all around her. She trembled in fear, as tears streamed down her face. Connor drifted outside of the structure. The building was guarded on the outside by only three men. Connor literally tore their necks out, and then streaked back inside. He disarmed the mechanisms from within.

“Kim,” Connor projected.

Her whole body shook. “Take it easy honey. I am a friend of your father’s, who has some special powers, your Dad can explain to you later. I am going to release you, and then I want you to go up out of this cellar, and wait until you hear someone knock on the door three times. Go with him in the limousine, and your Father and I will be there shortly. If you understand just nod.”

Kim nodded, and Connor made the restraints fall away. She stood up shakily, and took off her gag. “Why can’t.”

“Don’t talk Kim. Go upstairs now and wait,” Connor directed. “I will wait with you until you hear the knock.”

She nodded as she stared fearfully around the room, looking for the source of the voice in her head. She made it to the stairs, and walked upwards, carefully gripping the rail. She went through the door to the basement, and covered her eyes against the light. Kim sat down near the entrance of the abandoned house on the floor as Connor had directed her.

“Are…are you still here,” she asked.

“I will be here until I get you picked up Kim,” Connor projected. “Just relax, and your ride out of here will arrive shortly.”

Connor heard the limousine pull up outside, and then an involuntary gasp as Sammy saw the dead men. Three knocks sounded on the door. Kim jumped up, and ran to throw open the door, causing Sammy to jump back a little. Kim threw her arms around his neck, and began crying. Sammy recovered his poise a little, and held her. He pulled her out of the house, and over to the limousine. Connor saw Luke at the wheel. The rear door opened and Sammy helped Kim into the backseat. When they were on their way, Connor rejoined Nate.

“Let’s go pay them a visit my friend,” Connor said smiling. “Sammy and Luke have Kim with them, and are on their way to our place.”

“Outstanding,” Nate said. He looked over at Connor. “What do you have in mind? You aren’t going to hog all the fun, are you?”

“I am going to let Derek call the shots,” Connor replied. “We have three United States Senators in on this. The stakes are big on this play. If it were up to me, well…you know…I don’t have to spell it out.”

“Likewise,” Nate agreed. “It will be interesting to see what Derek does.”

“Yea, I guess it will. He was really shook Nate, and I know the feeling.”

“Well, here we are,” Nate said.

They pulled up in front of a two-story house, with a van parked in the double sized driveway. Two men in dark suits and sunglasses stood outside.

“You think these guys are government Thomas?”

“Hell, I don’t know. Want to just play until we get inside, and see what Derek wants to do?”

“Yea,” Nate answered. “I think that would be better.”

Connor led the way over to the men and showed them his NSA badge with Nate right behind him. The man on the left nodded, and waved them in. Connor walked into the entranceway, and saw Quenton sitting on the couch in a living room off to the right of him. Connor led the way over, with Nate checking for other people on the balcony above. Quenton jumped to his feet as Connor and Nate entered the room. Nate walked over to the bar, smiling at the Senator, and the man next to him. The man next to the Senator put his hand into his coat on what Nate could see was the handle of a handgun. Connor walked over to Quenton, and bent around to his ear.

“I have Kim on her way, safe and sound, to our place Derek.”

Quenton looked at him in disbelief at first, and then his fists clenched. He turned and charged the Senator. Nate saw what was coming just in time. Nate put one hand quickly over the man’s gun hand in front of him, and dropped him with a right to his temple. The Senator put up his hands, as Quenton slammed into him, carrying him first into the edge of the bar, and then down to the carpeted floor.

An unintelligible whine issued from Quenton’s mouth, between his clenched teeth. He pummeled the now screaming Senator slowly with one fist, and then the other, as Connor and Nate headed quickly to the house entrance. The front door swung open, and Nate smashed the first one through it to the floor. Connor disarmed the second one, and chopped him to the back of his neck, just short of breaking it. Nate picked up the guns, as Connor hurried back to the living room. Blood was everywhere from the Senator’s face, as he weakly tried to ward off Quenton’s blows. Connor picked up Quenton easily, with him still swinging.

“Whoa big fella,” Connor said, as he tried to calm Quenton down. “Everything’s under control now Derek. If you want to beat this piece of shit to death right now, Nate and I will kick back and watch with pleasure. I think it might be good for you to think about it though, because you are acting like me, instead of like the planner and head of this organization.”

Derek looked down at his bloody hands, and then back at Connor. “He has to die for this,” he gasped, choking back his fury.

“I give you my word, I will put you in a position to beat him to death any time you wish. How’s that?” Connor asked.

Quenton nodded, and walked over past the now crying Senator, who held his hands over his busted face. Quenton kicked him right in his groin on the way past him to the bar, provoking an ear-piercing scream from the Senator, and a new grip on his body, as he curled into a ball.

Connor held his hands up in mock horror over his face, as he grinned back at Nate, who was laughing. Quenton poured himself a small glass of Scotch from the well stocked bar and drank it down. He choked a little, and shook his head to clear it. With both hands gripping the bar in front of him, Derek waited for the Scotch to work. Nate came over and pulled up a stool, while Connor went behind the bar and sat down. They both waited in silence for Quenton.

Derek looked up finally, and Connor could see the Scotch had kicked in a bit. “I don’t know how I can ever repay you two. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t see any way out of it. How in the world.oh never mind. Thank you for stopping me.”

“De nada,” Connor said. “What would you like done?”

“I just want to go see Kim.I.” Quenton’s voice broke for a moment. “I just want to see her.”

“Can do,” Nate asserted. “I think what the mutant wonder here means is do you want us to clean house so to speak?”

Quenton shook his head negatively, “We will need these three Senators. They are in important positions on the Armed Services committee, Appropriations, and Budget. Can we own these guys Thomas?”

“If they like living, we will,” Connor answered. “If you can get Greg in as CIA head, we will even track them for you.”

“That will be a done deal,” Quenton stated. “This son-of-a-bitch on the floor will whisper the right thing to the President, and Haynes will be acting CIA Director. The other two you can deal with tomorrow, after I see whether I can get this prick on the floor to meet with those other two with the details of the stuff I showed him from the files.”

“I will go clean him up, while Nate makes sure we do not get interrupted by his hired help.” Connor went over, picked up the groaning Senator, and went in search of a bathroom. Nate tied up the men on the floor with their belts, face down and hands behind their backs.

Quenton sat down wearily on the bar stool while he watched Nate work. “How did he do it Nate? How did he ever get Kim out of there?”

Nate looked up from the man he was binding by the bar. “He can do physical stuff now while out of body. He freed her, and I sent a couple of our boys over to take her to safety. I called Karen, and she will be sending a clean up team over to take the bodies and explosives away. That mutant freak comes in pretty handy, huh?”

“I don’t know what I should do now,” Quenton said tiredly.

Nate stood up, and went over to sit next to him. “We will work through this Derek. I can’t say how tough it will get, but we are close to achieving something, which may give us the power to clean up and monitor these traitorous scumbags. I can tell you this much Derek, we have the opportunity to do a lot of good. I think even Thomas would understand though if you did not want any part of this.”

“I am probably safer in close touch with Thomas than I would be outside,” Quenton acknowledged. “This happened just at a time, I thought I was finally seeing, what you outlined, be put into reality. It might be selfish and idiotic on my part, but I don’t want to give this up. If I would have lost Kim though, all of it would have been in vain.”

“This is war Derek,” Nate stated. “There may be casualties. When you have a lot to gain, most times you also have a lot to lose. No one knows what you felt here today better than Thomas. He would never have put your daughter in danger. We were probably one day behind making sure it did not happen.”

Quenton filled up his Scotch glass again and downed it. “God help us if anything happens to him. Life has gotten to the point where everyday seems like a new trip into the Twilight Zone.”

Nate laughed. “I know what you mean.”

Connor walked in with the Senator, who could walk by himself gingerly. With his face cleaned, and the nosebleed stopped, he just looked like a mugging victim instead of a corpse. His hair was combed back, and he had a piece of adhesive tape over his broken nose. His eyes were already swelling. He winced as Quenton got up and walked over to him.

“Sit down on the couch you fuck.”

The Senator sat on the couch, while Connor and Nate dragged his three semi-conscious bodyguards out to the entryway closet and stuffed them inside. They returned and sat down at the bar while Quenton took over.

“You will do exactly as I tell you,” Quenton hissed through clenched teeth, “or I will ask Thomas over there, if he would be good enough to find your sorry ass, and torture it to death.”

“I put him in a special place for a few moments Derek,” Connor told him. “The Senator understands about things other than dying. He and I now have a connection. I can and will find him anywhere. We have an understanding, don’t we Howie?”

The terror streamed into the Senator’s features, and his eyes began to water. “I will do anything you say,” he whispered nasally.

Quenton smiled at the obvious horror on the Senator’s face. “Good, that will save us time. I have a new candidate for CIA Director. Greg Haynes worked as a CIA operative before his temporary retirement. He has experience in running clandestine operations. He will be the next CIA Director, or you will be dead, or worse. Am I clear so far?”

The Senator nodded, but Quenton grabbed his chin with his left hand in a viselike grip, causing the Senator to involuntarily start to whine and blubber. “When I address you I want to hear an answer loud and clear,” Quenton whispered threateningly, as he slowly shook the Senator’s head back and forth. He let go finally, leaving the man to gasp.

“Yes…yes…I understand,” he blubbered.

“Do you remember the information I showed you, and those two other miscreants?”

“Yes.”

“Can you get them on board with all of this without a special visit?” Quenton asked. “They will do as they are told from now on too. We will not interfere with anything having to do with the regular business of the Senate, but God help you all, from now on, if we find out any of you are making anymore deals with foreign agents and drug dealers.”

“I.I understand,” the Senator said quickly.

“This shit was your idea, wasn’t it Senator?” Quenton asked.

The Senator nodded fearfully, and then remembering his warning, he blurted out, “yes, they did not want anything to do with this. They wanted to take your deal.”