Swerve (18 page)

“Before we can move forward on our task, we have to close up shop in America—with you,” Maxwell said, pointing at Romia over the dinner table. They always ate together.

She looked around as if there were another Romia standing behind her chair. “Me?”

“Yes. Tomorrow we fly back and you will die,” he said.

Romia's eyes widened and her muscles tensed. She felt Royale's hand land lightly on her shoulder. “Die?”

“It's okay, Romia, he doesn't mean it like it sounds. We've all had to do it,” Royale said softly.

“It's not an actual death. It's signing off the books, so to speak. Your mother did it, your father did it, and all the members of the Phoenix team have done it, which is why they have been so hard to locate.”

“So you're looking for members of the Phoenix team, of which I am not a part, so why must I do as they do?” she asked, considering how fresh her conversation with Royale about Maxwell's motives had been.

As if he felt his thoughts violated, he glared at her. “I never said or implied that.”

“But, you said…” Romia began, before again feeling Royale's hand on her shoulder.

“We'll pack,” Royale interjected.

Maxwell looked at the two of them strangely. “We?”

“Yes.” Royale smiled.

Maxwell frowned. “She's a big girl, I'm sure she can pack herself,” he said, showing a sneer. “Besides, you two have been spending way too much time together.”

“I suspect they are fucking,” Olga said, to which Jerry chortled. Romia's face burned with embarrassment.

“You are simply jealous, no?” Royale asked Olga, allowing a wicked grin to cross his face.

“To hell with you! To burning hell!” Olga yelled, tossing her wine in his face.

Wiping his face dry with the napkin, he came back quickly. “I can stand the heat, can you?”

“You are a little boy in big men's clothes,” Jerry said, attempting to join the argument, his Russian accent strong and husky. Romia watched Olga's, eyes. She was filled with rage, spit and all the other bad things a jealous woman feels.

“This little whore is nothing but trouble. From the start, she's been nothing but trouble,” Olga blurted.

“Look, we can talk outside,” Romia said then, sliding back her chair, ready to go a couple of rounds with her.

“Enough,” Maxwell said.

Romia scooted back up to the table.

“Romia, you'll pack,”—Maxwell glared at Royale—“alone. Royale, we need to talk.”

He jumped slightly as a thud was heard under the table. Olga had kicked him. She then buckled her lip and shook her head ever so slightly.

Romia realized then that the two of them had a secret.

Yesterday

“Mr. Jackson, you have a call on line one.”

“Thank you.”

“What is it?”

“I hate to spring this on you but we're at red.”

“Red? What happened to green and yellow, oh, and orange, and all those other pretty colors?”

“Stop your joking, you're always joking.”

“My friends used to say the same thing.”

“I can't imagine you having any friends.”

“Yeah, well, there are a lot of things about me you probably couldn't imagine, but they're true.”

“I'm sure they are. But back to business. I need you in Holland.”

“Why?”

“We picked up a signal. If you get there right now you can catch him.”

“I told you, catching him isn't enough. Besides, my kid has a recital tonight. I'm not going anywhere.”

“Look here, Stone—”

“What did I tell you about calling me that!”

“Okay, okay, keep your shorts on, I'm sorry. It's just that we've been after this guy for a long-ass time, and, well…”

“I told you, when the time is right, I'll do it. He's not close enough yet.”

“What? You want him in your living room?”

“Basically, yeah.”

“You've made this way too personal.”

“You're kidding me, right?”

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. “Yeah…what am I thinking? I'm sorry. I know this is way over my head. I'm just following orders. I was told to call you and tell you we found the guy.”

“Well, you did your job perfectly, Smithy. No worries. Now I'll do mine and we'll all sleep better knowing that I got a handle on the Phoenix situation.”

Smithy chuckled nervously. “I will always think it's strange that…I don't know how to say this, but…that you're the one on this case.”

“Why?”

“Well, hell, because of who are you are.”

“And who am I, Smithy?” Bozman Jackson teased.

Smithy could be heard smacking his lips. It was as if he was scared to say the words, as if he knew the rules and played to them closely. Bozman Jackson was not the calm-spirited older gentleman he appeared to be. He was cold, ruthless, and worse, dangerous. Could he be trusted? No one was sure. But he was the man for this job and those orders had come directly from The White House. But Smithy knew too that those orders had an addendum: “one false move and Jackson was to be brought down by any means available.” Smithy could only hope that would never happen on his watch.

“Have a good afternoon, Mr. Jackson,” Smithy said, ending their conversation.

The flight was long and tiring, but Romia couldn't rest. The thought of faking her death was frightening. What Maxwell wanted was a circus act. She was to allow Royale and his underdeveloped pyrokinetic abilities to start a distracting fire. This fire was to precede an explosion. She would avoid gunplay by hiding herself amid the explosion, and later be assumed burned. She didn't even want to know where Maxwell was going to find a female body that matched hers. The more she thought about his tactics for getting the job done, the less she trusted him.

He claimed over and over to be one of the good guys, but it just didn't seem that way. She and Royale had worked it out in their minds. They had connected the dots. There were too many references that just didn't add up. Maxwell just knew too many details about the inner workings of the Phoenix team.

“Either he was booted out, or he became a turncoat. That's how I see it,” Romia told Royale as they walked through the market, picking out produce.

“Turncoat? This mean betrayal, yes?”

“Yes. I'm seeing this…I know he's not really Maxwell What's-His-Name, right? Well, have you ever wondered who he really is?”

“No,” Royale said, tossing up a grape and catching it in his mouth.

“Can you be serious for a minute?”

“You are far too serious.”

“Perhaps that's true, but”—she took a grape from his hand-basket, tossed it up, and caught it in her mouth—“I want to be on the right side.”

“Which side is that?”

“The side that doesn't end up with me dead…really dead.”

“I dig you,” he said, causing her to burst into laughter. “You see? You can laugh and it's beautiful. I saw a picture of my mother once. The nuns had one. You look like her. She was beautiful too.” He touched her hair. “She was amazing.”

“You don't even know that.”

“I can dream, can't I? If you think about it, she had more than one man in love with her. One was the father of her babies, the other a mad lover who caused her to run away in the night, another was one who brought her to safety. She was amazing.”

“Babies…”

“I didn't tell you. Yes, I was so ugly and evil that she left me and took my sister.”

Romia stopped walking and stared at him. He grinned at her before cocking his head to the side in question of her actions. “What was her name?”

“I don't know. You think they would tell me? No,” he answered. “Those damned nuns,” he fussed on. Romia chuckled, allowing her first wild thought to leave her mind.

“Yes, because you were so ugly and evil,” she jeered.

He turned to walk backward. “Sticks and stones may break my bones but you will never hurt me,” he said, grinning like a prince in a fairy tale.

Yes, it was her bones she was concerned about now, for Maxwell was nothing more than a sophisticated kidnapper. She thought about the cases where those kidnapped by cult groups eventually fell for the lies told by the leaders. Once they committed crimes on their behalves they were sold up the river by those leaders who allowed justice to be played out unjustly.
Not here, buddy. You'll go down long before I will. I want the truth and I'm going to find it. If my father is alive I'm going to find him. And if he's a criminal I'm going to do what I must, but it won't be based on your measure of what justice is.
Before anything went down in the US, Romia planned to do a little investigating on the Phoenix, now that she had more information to work with. Maxwell didn't know who he was fooling with.

He might just be in for the unexpected,
Romia thought.

“You ready to die?” Maxwell asked her as if reading her thoughts, bringing her mentally back to the plane.

She looked over at him and shook her head, smiling weakly. “Are you?”

“Touché
,” he said, reopening his magazine and flipping the pages.

Tommy jolted awake. The banging on her door was relentless. She slid from under the sheet and grabbed her robe. Walking without the boot had her still favoring that ankle. Peeking through the blinds, she saw Keliegh's car, and groaned. She glanced at the clock. “Four
A.M
.? What the hell does he want?” she grumbled, shuffling to the door.

Before she could completely unchain it, he burst in.

“Oh my God. I'm being haunted.”

“What?”

“Last night. Romia came to me. She was…she was a ghost. She must be dead or maybe it was a premonition but…oh my God,” he stammered. He seemed in shock so Tommy tried not to laugh at his crazy hair and wild eyes. He was barefoot, and in his T-shirt and pajama pants as if he'd just jumped out of bed. Brushing past her, he ran to her kitchen and poured a cup of water, gulping it down.

“Slow down and tell me what happened,” she asked, still trying to stay calm.

“It was Romia. I was asleep. But she woke me up. She was”—his eyes widened—“naked. God, she was beautiful. She, um…” He gulped, apparently noticing Tommy's blank expression. “She climbed on me and, well…” He chuckled then. “We did it. I mean, we didn't just do it, I mean, we…” He chuckled again. “We really did it, and then she told me not to worry about anything, that she was gonna be fine. She said she was with her kind and she was happy. And she laughed.”

“Romia laughed?” Tommy asked. “I mean, like, ha ha ha?”

“Yeah, like she'd heard a big ol' joke. I asked her what she meant, you know, that comment…her kind, and that was all I could remember until like twenty minutes ago when I woke up and…and I came over here. I think she's dead and in heaven or something or I mean, if you'd seen her you'd know she was a angel for sure. I mean…”

Just then, Jim appeared in the hallway. Keliegh stopped speaking. He then noticed Tommy in her robe with clearly nothing underneath. Jim was without a shirt and only in his slacks that were no doubt leftover from his date attire the night before.

Keliegh, after allowing the shock to wear off his face, offered Jim dabs, which he accepted.

“Did she say anything about being with the Phoenix or anything like that?” Jim asked then, yawning and scratching his head, attempting to shake off the sleep.

Tommy rolled her eyes before stomping toward the bathroom. “Guys do we ever stop working?”

The plan was simple. She was to come into the open and be seen. That was all that was needed, and Maxwell would do the rest. She had to trust him. He had information about her mother as well as her father that she needed. He was dangling a carrot in front of her.

Maybe he had the same information for Royale, who was out of sight right now, but clearly somewhere around. He was always around. It was strange how he, too, seemed to have the ability to disappear right in front of her. He puzzled her, and lately she'd been puzzling herself.

Watching him start small fires with just his mental control was frightening at first. He had told her he first developed the ability when he was around thirteen. The nuns at the convent found his ability to be disconcerting considering their beliefs of its origin. Apparently, the news of the firestarter spread in that small village until, finally, one day, Maxwell showed up and took him away from the convent.

“Acceptance is a powerful pull. Maxwell accepted me for who I am and what I am. For that I am to be forever grateful to him,” Royale confessed. “But that gratitude has separated itself from trust. I have you to thank for that.”

 

“Hey, it's Romia!” she heard an on-duty cop call out before calling in his sighting over the small radio.

She wore her jacket and her helmet, and rode through the streets in front of the precinct on her motorcycle before parking in front of the stationhouse. She worried about the possibilities of a sniper's bullet but she was sure Royale, Maxwell, Jerry, and Olga had that covered. They had a vested interest in her survival today. For what reasons, it didn't matter.

Within seconds the officers poured from the stationhouse, some with murder in their eyes, others with a little fear. She wasn't sure what stories they had heard, what Maxwell had planted in their minds about her, but none of it could make her feel any less accepted than she already felt.

Guns were drawn. Romia felt her chest tighten. She held out her arms. “I'm unarmed,” she yelled out.

“Doesn't matter, Romia, and you know that,” the captain said. He had come down from his tower to witness this. Romia knew then, this was huge. “Now, I'm gonna read you your rights. You're under arrest for the murder of Officer Frank Boxler, Mike Johnson, Akmir Tosiff, Enuabuli uh…” The captain was stumbling on the foreign names. “Zane Danzali, as well as acts of treason and terrorism against the United States of America.”

Romia looked around for Maxwell. When did she become a terrorist? That wasn't part of the plan. Her emotions grew. Her lips tightened. This wasn't part of the plan.

“You will be tried in a court of law,” the captain continued to call out. “Anything you say can and will be used against you,” he said before fanning his hand to two officers who were assigned to put the cuffs on her. As they stepped forward she stepped back. She felt in the open and exposed. She no longer felt trusting that she had backup. Maybe she was just used to the way her fellow officers did it. Like now they crowded the streets, ready to take her down.

“Romia, don't run,” the officer said, holding out his cuffs and stepping toward her as if she were an animal—one that bit or struck quickly like a snake.

Her emotions grew. In her hand she held a small signaling device. With it she would signal Royale when it was time for him to act. She scanned the crowd for his face, but did not see him. Suddenly, a small fire broke out from behind the crowd. She couldn't help but smile. He'd done his best, but still his abilities were underdeveloped. She had watched him for weeks starting small fires, but did not want to tell him that she too had tried it and started a fire she could almost not contain. The memory made her chuckle.

Up her sleeve also, she concealed an incendiary device that, ignited, would send a flame at least twenty feet. She hadn't told Maxwell she had strapped it on, but she had planned to use it in case of emergency. In case her thoughts on him were right and he was going to betray her this day.

The plan was working so far, however, and the men were divided now, some tending to the fire, some still focused on her. “Step back,” she warned.

“Come on, Romia, don't make this hard.”

Suddenly Keliegh called out, “Romia!”

Another fire, slightly bigger, popped up; this one came with a few sparks, as if maybe Royale had used a device much like what she had up her sleeve.

A gunshot twanged as if ricocheting off a building. Chaos now ensued.

Distraction overtook her as she looked away from the officer toward Keliegh's voice. At that, an officer grabbed one of her her outstretched arms. She threw him off with a hard side kick and again swept the crowd for Keliegh. He appeared, just as a second officer came at her with a stun gun. He didn't make it far. She wasn't going to let him get close with that weapon. He hit the ground hard, with the help of her foot.

“Keliegh!” she called out, headed toward him.

Another office grabbed him, pulling him toward the ruckus. He fought him but was pulled into the crowd that seemed to grow bigger with each second.

The officer lunged at her, only to receive a work over from her quick hands. She was angry instantly. The officer looked up at her from where he lay on the ground. Her glare caused him to shake his head in apparent surrender.

“Fine, Romia, fine,” he said, coughing out blood.

“Keliegh,” she called out, pulling off the helmet. She wore it only to protect her hair if in fact she had to set herself on fire or in case Royale missed his target and set her on fire instead.

Spying Keliegh, he turned to her. Their eyes locked. Inside she knew then that they had connected in their souls. Her heart melted at the sight of his smile. He loved her. She knew it.

Starting toward her, he was stopped by the captain coming between them. “Keliegh you'll lose your badge this time,” he threatened.

Suddenly she felt the tug of someone grabbing her arms and locking the cuffs on her wrists.

She kicked backward, landing the kick in the officer's groin. Swinging the helmet at him, she batted his head. He crumpled on the ground.

“Romia,” Keliegh yelled, breaking past the captain.

She couldn't let him risk his career. It was all he had.

Olga had taught her this magic trick, and it was easy to slide the locked cuff from her wrist and toss it to the side. She could see the captain's eyes widen. “Stay away from me, Keleigh,” she screamed, hoping to sound convincing that she really didn't want him to hold her, kiss her, and take her away from all this madness.

Fire trucks roared onto the scene. It was a madhouse now with neighboring residents in the street wondering what all the uproar in this normally quiet neighborhood was.

“Romia! You're…you're…a witch,” the captain exclaimed. Yes, they had been fed much propaganda she could tell.

Suddenly, an explosion erupted within the stationhouse. Royale was feeling his oats now she thought. Everyone's attention was turned to this new fire. She slammed the helmet back on her head.

“Romia, stop it. I don't know what's going on with you and why you've gone to the dark side but stop it right now!” the captain barked.

Romia lips turned into a wicked smile. If only they understood magic with this smoke and mirrors they would have known the truth. But no, they wanted to believe she was a witch, and as she had always thought to herself,
If I were a witch, you'd never catch me to prove it!

Within seconds she raised her arms. “I am the Phoenix,” she said, admitting what she had only pondered from Maxwell's story regarding her parents—her father.

Any good detective had done the research by now, and Keliegh was a good detective. Her announcement clearly had not surprised him. She pushed the button on the device that would set off the fire that was designed to ride the top of her specially designed clothing. The way it's done in the movies. She had thirty seconds now to escape.

Aiming the incendiary device toward her bike, she shot the flames. She would miss her friend (her bike) but it was time they parted. The bike exploded as it was loaded with explosives designed for a full fireworks display, just like the movies. There were louder yelps from the crowd as some were taken off their feet by the power of the blast. She could see Keliegh's eyes through the glass of the helmet. He stood his ground as she turned and walked toward the flames. He called to her to stop but not before another explosion reverberated. This one came from a fire truck that apparently was parked too close to the bike. It was too close to Keliegh, too.

He was down.

Her first instinct was to stop and help him, but she couldn't. She had ten seconds to get to safety. At that instant, Royale appeared on the other side of the flames. He was singed but smiling, dressed in a police uniform, which he stripped away like a dancer on the Chippendale stage.

No one seemed to care about what they were doing now. No one seemed to comprehend that they were about to make their escape.

Human nature was truly amazing. What was expected was what occurred. The rest was for Maxwell to handle and Romia didn't care how he did it. She had done her part and given them the belief that she had taken her own life by walking into the flames.

Now she and Royale would get back to their plan.

Leaving a single life to live a double one was an odd fact to focus on at the moment so she tried not to. After quickly ripping the charred leather from her body and tossing the helmet aside, she and Royale climbed on his waiting motorcycle.

Slamming the helmets on their heads, they appeared to be young beatniks out for a warm day in the city: he in his black tee and black skinny jeans with trooper boots, and she wearing the female version of the same. No one paid them any extra attention amid the crazy scene playing out in the streets.