Chapter 1
Avalon
International Breads
West Willis
Street, Detroit, Michigan
December 24,
2013, 1:24 p.m.
Jack Henshaw’s fingers tap danced across
the keyboard of his laptop, the clicking keys drowning out both the dulcet
tones of Theodore the Chipmunk and the heavy rain lashing against the windows
behind him. The plump cartoon rodent sang about wanting his two front teeth for
Christmas, and all Henshaw wanted was a little quiet to finish his latest
novel, overdue to his editors by a week. He knew the rain’s staccato bursts
were outside his control.
He exhaled before he grabbed the latte
next to him, the cup resplendent in Christmas colors. He took a long sip,
feeling the still-warm creaminess surge down his throat. He put the cup down,
licked his lips, and sighed heavily.
“Ahh, a Christmas Eve caramel latte.
Love it,” he said before he returned his fingertips to the keyboard, his gaze
to the final chapter. He hoped he could bring his story—currently at 95,000
words and counting—to its explosive denouement within the next few hours.
He continued typing.
Henshaw was relatively new to
publishing, even though the gray near his temples and the lines under his eyes
belied his age. He wore his dark hair short even after he had retired from the
service, his rectangular-framed glasses resting comfortably against the bump on
his nose. His body had morphed from a slim, well-toned physique to a doughy
blob of flesh due to several years of inactivity. His hazel eyes blinked a lack
of sleep away as they darted from the keyboard to the screen. He looked for any
error that he could fix right now, such as the dreaded passive voice or the
wordiness that he usually employed in his sentences following a lifetime of
reading Peter Gammons’ rambling baseball prose in The Boston Globe and Sports
Illustrated.
His story, though, was a fast-paced
thriller, with a heroine that loved to kick ass and shoot first before asking
her targets a few questions. The character, Jocelyn Jackson, had a knack of
cornering the bad guys with her stunning good looks—a beauty that rivaled
supermodel Kate Upton, except that her breasts were a quarter the size of the
cover girl’s voluminous casabas—and gadgets that seemed culled from science
fiction’s greatest stories. But the readers loved her, and Henshaw mixed in a
bit of his past life into the stories to make them seem more believable:
Henshaw was a former FBI agent, and after an accident in the field left him
incapacitated, he had retired and took up the pen. He began writing books.
There was only one caveat the government
requested—they wanted to make sure nothing classified went into his stories,
such as privileged information or anything that would damage national security.
Once finished, he had to email the manuscript to Washington. Once there, the
feds read through and cleared every word before it went off to an editor in New
York. And as he was nearly done with this book, his fifth in the series, it was
almost time to do just that.
I
just had to write about government conspiracies and terrorism, Henshaw
thought as he typed. I could have written
about zombies or romances, mysteries or fantasy. Hell, I could have even
written about gay, sparkling vampires and made a bundle of cash that would have
made my federal pension look puny. But no, I had to write what I know. I had to
remain true to myself and to my ever-demanding muse, that whore, and I had to
write about things that went boom in the night, or in the day.
He smirked.
And
I need to make things go boom in this story soon, he thought, and leave it on a cliffhanger so that
readers will buy the next book. Have to keep the money flowing, keep the
readers interested, and keep the publisher happy.
He looked at the screen and grimaced. He
had typed what he had just thought. He quickly tapped the backspace key,
deleting the entire sentence that made no sense in the story.
Focus,
you moron,
he thought. Focus on your story. Remember
your motto, your creed: Be prolific, or you’re going to go hungry. The gas and
light company isn’t going to take a rubber check, and your looks certainly
aren’t buying your clothes or putting food on the table.
With that in the back of his mind,
Henshaw resumed typing, eager to write every writer’s favorite two words.
Several minutes passed. Customers
entered, some talking on cell phones. Some sat in cushy chairs, pulling out a
paperback from their bags, an eReader or a newspaper, and began reading. They
held cups of coffee or another warm beverage in their hands, the thin cardboard
surrounded by a sleeve of heavier cardboard. Other customers set up their
laptops—Henshaw wasn’t sure if they were other writers or execs looking to park
their hiney in a chair that wasn’t surrounded by tall cubicle walls on this
last day prior to the holidays kicking in—before they headed to the back to
grab a drink of their own, or a slice of warm artisan bread. Several carried
large bags full of last-minute Christmas buys. He noticed they were already
wrapped.
He sniffed and turned his eyes back to
his work.
“Hey, Jack Henshaw,” a voice called a
minute later.
He looked up. A grin automatically
sprang on his face.
“Carl Scott, you scurvy bastard! How the
hell are you?”
“I’m doing pretty damn good for an old
war horse.”
The two old friends shook hands. Henshaw
remained in his chair, while Scott dropped into a chair opposite. He saved his
work and lowered the laptop screen so he could get a good look at his old high
school classmate. Scott had put on a few pounds, but he still had the build of
a high school basketball player that had worked extra hard to stay in shape. He
had a bald head and carried a cup of Avalon’s house special coffee, the aroma
reaching out to Henshaw and threatening to lift him out of the blasted
contraption that gave him mobility.
“Working on a new book?” Scott asked.
“Yep. And it’s almost done, too.”
“What’s Double J getting herself in to
this time?”
Henshaw grinned.
“You’re going to have to read the book
to find out.”
“That’s going to be when, a year from
now?”
This time, Henshaw nodded.
“Maybe a year and a half, depending on
when Washington clears it and I do any edits they want. Sooner if the draft is
clean.”
“You could always self-publish once the
draft is clean,” Scott said.
Henshaw made a face as he blew a
raspberry.
“But if I were to do that,” he scoffed,
“who would validate my greatness as a writer? The readers?”
Scott shrugged. He sipped his coffee,
then gestured toward the toward.
“Have you been getting around OK in that
thing? You know, the rest of the class is worried about you.”
Henshaw grinned as he jiggled the wheels
of his wheelchair.
“Tell them I’m fine. It works for me,”
he said. “I had had enough of standing on my own two feet anyway. The terrorist
bastard kind of granted my wish of being handicapped for the rest of my life.”
“Is that why you have a girl who’s
slightly handicapped take care of the terrorists in your books?”
Henshaw’s sarcastic grin didn’t fade.
“If I told you that, I’d have to send JJ
after you.”
Scott chuckled.
“Always a kidder. How’s Marjorie?”
The grin on the author’s face faded this
time.
“Marjorie and I split a few months
back,” Henshaw said.
Scott’s grin turned sour. Jack Henshaw
saw the watery pity in his eyes. Scott, as he knew, was always a sap for true
love, even three-plus decades out of high school: he had married his high
school sweetheart, the daughter of their English teacher—ironically, the man
Henshaw kept in his heart as he brought Jocelyn’s world to life—and had several
beautiful girls as a result, if he had properly kept up.
“I’m sorry.”
Henshaw shrugged.
“It happens. I think she didn’t take me
being in the hospital for a year well at all. And I had the feeling that while
I was out in the field for weeks at a time, she was with another guy even when
I had working legs and hips, and wasn’t peeing into catheters and shitting into
pouches. So, I’m sure that my new condition and situation in life didn’t help
her libido at all. She packed up, left.”
Scott shook his head.
“You file for divorce yet?”
“She did. She served me the papers as
soon as she packed up. I signed them.”
“You didn’t touch the soft drinks, did
you?”
Henshaw smiled.
“I may find inspiration at the bottom of
a bottle or at the bottom of a coffee mug, but in that situation, drinking
wouldn’t have helped. I wouldn’t have been able to write properly, and I would
have hated myself afterward.” He reached for his latte and brought it close. “I
see it this way, though: Marjorie will get her comeuppance soon enough. She’ll
be incredibly old one day, her looks will go into the crapper. The younger guy
she was fucking behind my back will leave her for someone more attractive and just
as younger, and she’ll feel like I felt that day. Meanwhile, I’ll still be a
sexy bitch.”
Scott lifted his coffee cup in a
toast-like manner and nodded toward his old friend.
“Amen, brother.”
“Besides,” Henshaw continued, motioning
to the laptop, “I’ve already killed her off in this book a few times.”
“You made your soon-to-be ex-wife as
different characters?” Scott asked. Henshaw saw his friend, his eyes wide,
trying to wrap his mind around the concept.
“No. All I did was when a death scene
came up, I pictured her as the character that was about to die, and I pictured
the look on her face when JJ pulled the trigger. Writing is great therapy, let
me tell you,” he said with a wide smile.
Scott laughed.
“I’ve always wanted to know, so tell me:
How did you come up with the name Jocelyn Jackson?”
Henshaw beamed.
“Like it, huh?”
Scott nodded.
“Jocelyn came to me when I saw Katrina
Edwards at Bob James’ funeral back in 2007 or 2008. She showed me pictures of
her daughter, Jocelyn. I thought it wasn’t totally original, but it would serve
my prose purposes well.”
“Katrina was a looker back in high
school.”
“She’s still a looker, if five years ago
is a good barometer,” Henshaw said. “And the last name, Jackson, came to me
from the old cop that patrolled the college when we were kids.”
He watched as Scott’s face lit up with
recognition.
“I remember him. Bald guy, kind of
husky.”
“That’s the one. I put the two together,
and it was as if I had a license to print money.”
“There’s nothing wrong with literary
gold.”
“Not at all. I hate to cut this short,
Carl. I have to get Jocelyn to the end so I can go reward myself with some
Chinese.”
“Chinese food? I always wondered how the
authors I read reward themselves after they finish a book.”
Henshaw showed gleaming teeth.
“No, the masseuse down the block. This
little Chinese girl, she can’t be more than 25. She walks the mile in just
under ten minutes and not once does she leave my back. If there’s a Heaven, my
friend, I want her to come with me.”
The two shook hands before Scott left.
Henshaw returned to his writing, sipping his latte before he resumed typing.
An hour later, he had completed the
first draft. He had sent Jocelyn after the terrorist, who had taken to hiding
in a mosque somewhere in New York City, close to the World Trade Center site.
Jocelyn managed to avert a catastrophe by killing the terrorist with a
well-placed bullet between the eyes, and doing so, as he wrote, without a hair
out of place or a bead of perspiration marring her skin, which had a strong
resemblance to café au lait.
A grin slid across his face as he typed
the final six letters of his manuscript.
“The end,” he said, before he exhaled
sharply. He closed his eyes and slid his fingers behind his glasses, into the deep
crevasses underneath them. He rubbed the pain of the glasses’ weight away.
“Another book done.” He let his body slump back into his chair, feeling relief
sag into his shoulders. He grinned as he felt the weight of the world leave his
body, as if he were the Greek King Sisyphus and he had finally made that pesky
stone stay in place.
He grabbed the cup and downed the rest
of his latte, ice cold by now. He swallowed it down despite the lack of warmth
and twisted his features as he did so. He reached over and, with his thumb and
forefinger, clicked Control and S, saving the work for the last time as a first
draft.
Henshaw contemplated getting another
latte for the long ride home to nearby Algonac—a family member drove him to his
doctor’s appointments and to the coffee shop, even though he hated putting them
out like that—but instead he leaned back and looked at those final two words on
the screen. The End. He thought about every little thing that went into them:
Two thousand words a day, six days a week for the past few months, all in the lead-up
to those all-important words. The hours he spent typing away, opening up a vein
in his hands as he performed his daily tasks, giving a little bit of himself
with every keystroke, as if he bled himself dry on the keyboard. The character
development, the plot that he came up with at 3:30 in the morning after it
awakened him from a deep, semi-peaceful slumber, all of it. All went into the
story, as if wringing tears from a washcloth.
And there was also the fact that his
wife had left him just before he started writing this book. Instead of
wallowing in his grief, he chose to plow right through it, using the
270-plus-page manuscript and his made-up world as a distraction to his
real-world problems.
Now, with the novel done, he wondered
what he would use as a distraction until he began plotting and writing the
sixth book.
Henshaw’s lips twisted in dismay.
Everything
I’ve ever done, Marjorie, he thought, I
did for you. For us. I went out into the field to keep you and the rest of the
country safe, and this is how you’ve repaid me. Henshaw demanded tears to
spring from his eyes, but his body didn’t respond.
It didn’t respond to much these days.
Henshaw firmed his jaw and leaned back
over his computer. He X’d out of Microsoft Word and opened his email program,
then clicked a new message. He attached the document with a few simple clicks,
addressed the email, and, after letting the cursor hover over the final step,
he took a deep breath.
He clicked send, then exhaled.
That’s
that,
he thought. Time to make sure they
received it.
Henshaw grabbed his cell phone and
dialed a number he knew all too well. It rang once before he heard the telltale
signs of voices in the background coming through on the other end.
“Central Intelligence,” the voice on the
other end said.
“Get me the Director,” he said. His tone
drew on a reserve tank of energy that wasn’t in use a second ago.
The call went on hold without the drab,
electronic elevator music in the background. Several customers left the coffee
shop as they wrapped scarves around their faces to stave off Detroit’s chill
winds that blew off Lake St. Clair to the northeast. A young couple carrying a
small bundled-up child entered and headed back to the counter, the Arctic air
swirling in the vestibule. The baby, who wore a purple winter coat fashioned
like a Tyrannosaurus Rex, squealed with delight.
Henshaw couldn’t help but smile at the
sight.
“Director Dupuis,” a cold, feminine
voice said through the line. Henshaw blinked himself back to the present.
“Alex, it’s Jack Henshaw,” he said.
“Hey there, Mr. Author.” To Henshaw’s
ears, it sounded as if Alexandra Dupuis had just applied an instant-yet-rare
smile upon hearing his voice. “How’re things in the Motor City?”
“Cold and wet, yet I can barely feel any
of it,” he replied. “And in our fine capital?”
“Just about the same, minus the wet. I
can see the sun reflecting off the snow. No melting, but that’s what we get for
wanting a white Christmas every year. Are you feeling well?”
“I’m feeling like George R.R. Martin had
a balding lovechild with J.K. Rowling.”
Alex laughed.
“That’s great. What do you have for me?”
“I have a finished manuscript ready for
a well-paid yet underworked government fact checker to take a little look-see.
It should be in your email, if Daly hasn’t blocked large incoming files yet.”
“Let me take a look,” Alex said.
Henshaw heard several keys clicking.
“Yep, it looks like I have it,” she
said. “I’m going to send it over to the fact check—”
A tremendous boom ripped through the
rear of the coffee shop, out of Henshaw’s sight. Soon, smoke and flames tore
through that section, the smoke billowing rapidly into the cafe. Henshaw,
feeling warm, immediately heard people screaming, even though it came through
his ear canal at a softer timbre than he would have preferred.
“Oh, shit!” he said, and he quickly
pulled his USB drive out of his laptop. He dropped his cell into his lap and
maneuvered his wheelchair away from the table. He left his laptop. There was no
time to pack it up.
Henshaw made his way to the exits along
with several other surviving patrons. He couldn’t hear their footsteps over the
ringing in his ears, and he knew there was a problem. He grabbed his cell phone
as soon as he rolled out into the rain. What remained of his hair plastered
itself to his scalp.
“Alex, are you still there?”
“Yes, I am. Give me a sit-rep. Do I have
to call Detroit PD?”
Grimacing slightly, Henshaw pressed his
phone up against his ear. The freezing late December rain hit his skin like
tiny needles.
“Alex? I can’t hear you. If you’re still
there, get someone on the phone and call EMS. There are a lot of people
standing out in the rain, and I can’t tell if they’re hurt.”
“How many people?”
This time, Henshaw’s face grew twisted
in mortal frustration while smoke continued pouring out of the coffee shop. He
discovered that his heart was rather frustrated, too, its beat resembling a
Mariachi band—a Mariachi band that played La
Cucaracha rather rapidly.
“Ugh—I can’t fucking hear. Alex, if
you’re listening, pound the keys a few times. Hopefully that’ll help me—”
He immediately heard two long tones as
he kept the phone pressed hard against his head. Once again, it came out
softer, but he sighed knowing that she heard him.
“OK, great. Alex, the situation is grave.
There was an explosion in the back of Avalon International Breads, West Willis
location. We have an unknown amount of fatalities and injuries inside. Outside
in the rain, it’s myself and about ten other customers. Get fire and EMS here
on the double.”
He couldn’t hear, but he hoped that what
he didn’t hear was Alex turning to an aide and barking out orders in her
patented no-nonsense approach, an approach that reminded him of an old U.S.
Army general he used to know.
“Jack, are you still there?” Alex yelled.
“This time I could hear you.”
“Detroit EMS, Police and Fire are on
their way.”
“Good.”
“Is there anyone else alive inside?”
Henshaw bit the inside of his cheek.
Soon, he tasted copper filling his mouth—and at the same time, he felt
something wet slipping down the left side of his forehead.
I
hope to God that’s sweat, he thought. He felt his heart thrumming against
his breastbone.
“I don’t think so.” He felt his breath
rattling his teeth, and the air tasted sour to him as he inhaled. “Alex, I may
be bleeding.”
“Did anything hit you?”
“Not that I know of. I don’t remember.”
“Check,” Alex said.
Henshaw wiped his forehead and looked,
finding only clear liquid slipping into the faint grooves of his fingers. An
engine revved close by before tires squealed to a stop.
“It’s sweat,” he said as if sighing.
“Is that EMS I hear already?”
He turned his head and found that a
black car, the rain dancing across the tinted windshield, had pulled up to the
curb. It was a non-descript sedan, and the rain had washed whatever mud and
dirt and snow that its wheel wells had accumulated over time. The passenger
side door opened.
“No, just some car. It’s not even a
cruiser. I’ll find out what they want,” Henshaw said.
“Tread lightly, Jack. Remember that
you’re off-duty now—”
“Move along from here,” he said as he
rolled the wheelchair toward the sedan, his phone still clutched in his right
hand. “We’re going to need this area for emergency vehicles!”
A large, beefy man in all black emerged
from the car, as if light had chased away a shadow. His head was clean-shaven
with nary a follicle showing on the smooth pate, and he wore silver sunglasses
that looked as if he had stolen them from Arnold. He didn’t flinch as the rain
caromed off his skull. The man stared at him for several moments before he even
looked up at the others huddled together near the front entrance, even with the
potential danger of another bomb going off. Two other men hopped out of the
sedan, and Henshaw immediately felt the blood leave his face, his flesh tingling,
as he saw the AR-15’s they carried in their hands.
“Hey, don’t move another step closer,”
Henshaw screamed. He pointed an accusatory finger at the one on the right, his
phone now held between his thumb and the meaty part of his palm.
“Walt, Richie,” the thick-bodied man
said casually without taking his eyes off the author. “Blast the others.”
The others behind Henshaw gasped before
the two men raised their semi-automatic weapons and pulled the triggers in
rapid succession, pops filling the air. No one moved as the bullets riddled
their bodies, before they dropped to the sidewalk. Groans rented the air. Some
of them didn’t speak, nor could they even if they wanted.
Henshaw’s jaw flapped open, but he could
not produce sounds. The sounds of the bullets leaving the gun rung in his ears,
and combined with the blast, he almost couldn’t hear the bald-headed man’s
footsteps as he approached. He felt his back stiffen as the man leaned in on
him, putting his hands down on the armrests of his wheelchair. He brought his
face within a few inches of Henshaw’s before he reached down and applied the
brakes. He was close enough that Henshaw smelled the beer on his breath. And
even though he was somewhat of a connoisseur of the victuals himself, he
couldn’t place the aroma that swept from between the man’s teeth.
“How you doing, Jack?” he said. “Nice
weather we’re having, eh?”
Henshaw shuddered. He heard every word,
and even the rain sounded amplified now.
“How do you know who I am?”
The man grinned and reached into his
jacket with his right hand.
“I’ve been hired to kill you,” he said.
Henshaw caught a glint of gold before
the man wound up and drove his metal-laced knuckles deep into his skull before
he could say another word.
He only saw black as he tumbled out of
his wheelchair.
***
At Langley, Alex Dupuis hung on the line
as Jack Henshaw, her old friend, approached the new arrival. She felt a cold shiver
squirrel its way up her spine as he said that it wasn’t a police cruiser, then
moved her butt closer to the edge of her seat. She felt her heart beating with
a quickened pace, and she felt her skin flush with heat that wasn’t there a
second ago.
Be
careful, Jack,
she thought as she heard his wheelchair squeaking away.
There were several tense moments of
silence right before Alex heard the long, crisp sound of a gun firing off
several rounds.
“Jack!” Alex screamed. Half a heartbeat
later, two aides entered, but Alex paid them no heed. “Jack, answer me damn
it!”
There was no answer, but then she heard
a voice laced with evil intent. She didn’t know why it sounded like that, but
Alex immediately prayed.
Please
God,
she thought, don’t let him hurt Jack.
Yet when she heard the magic words spill
from the man’s lips—“I’ve been hired to kill you.”—Alex felt her eyes widen.
She shot out of her chair, which collided with the wall behind her.
“JACK!”
Then she heard a crumpled moan before a
tinkling sound made the line seemingly go dead. But she then heard two heavy
footsteps, then a pause—then a laugh that seemed to originate from the
chuckler’s feet.
Another shiver wriggled its way up from
her middle. She leaned over the desk, her left hand holding her steady. The
aides approached, ready to assist her. She felt sweat coating her brow, as if
someone—this creepy bastard in Detroit,
perhaps—had plunged her and held her in a pool of her own cold perspiration.
It was when the man spoke again that
Alex, the usually stoic Alex, was almost ready to break.
“Take this American piece of shit to the
car. We need to get out of here and across the border before the authorities
shut everything down,” the man said. “Then blow the front. Be quick about it!
Cover the dead with debris. They’re just filthy American scum.”
Alex’s mind reeled as she slammed
herself back down into her chair, which squealed with the return of her weight.
The aides spoke to her but she didn’t hear them, so concentrated on the call
she was—she didn’t know if she was the only “witness” to what had happened—that
everything else was just white noise to her ears. She heard some jostling of
metal—his wheelchair, perhaps, she
thought—before she heard the unmistakable sound of people counting to three.
In
French, though?
Alex thought.
Then, just as quickly as everything had
begun, it had ended with silence, before she heard car doors slam. Tires
squealed as they peeled away.
Alex then remembered to breathe. She ran
her tongue over dried lips.
“Madame Director, are you all right?”
Alex blinked tears away as she looked up
into the eyes of her aide.
“I’m fine, but Jack Henshaw isn’t. Get
Detroit PD back on the line and tell them that an ex-FBI agent is believed
missing. They’ll find his wheelchair—”
Another boom echoed through the line,
this one closer than the first one that she had heard. Its suddenness made Alex
jump.
She closed her eyes and tucked her chin
toward her throat as she heard many pieces of something—and she had a good idea
what it was—rained down around Jack Henshaw’s phone. A loud thunk preceded
silence.
“—underneath the rubble.” She opened her
eyes and put her phone down in the cradle. She knew she wouldn’t hear anything
else. She looked to the aide. “And after you get off the phone with them, call
the White House. Inform the President that I’m coming over and that his
secretary should clear his schedule for the next couple of hours. Tell them
that something’s come up, something that will require his full attention and
that I’ll inform him personally. Have someone get that call transferred to a
disc. He’s going to need to hear this to believe it.”
The aide nodded and departed, leaving
Alex alone—alone with thoughts that she never thought she would ever have.
No, she thought. I’ve had them before. I’ve had them with
Jaclyn. I’ve worried that she hasn’t been able to handle a particular
assignment, each one coming with a little extra degree of difficulty, yet she
handles everything with grace. She handles everything with the attitude of,
“Okay Alex, give me something a little tougher next time.” She is
battle-hardened, and I wonder what happens when she’s done with her assignments.
Sure, I spent time with her after she returned from Las Vegas, Tom in tow,
before she went off again to find the men that had kidnapped Tasha, but she
didn’t even seem fazed that she had just stood toe-to-toe with a terrorist and
a deranged senator. She was determined. And then she had the incidents in
Atlanta, which had me concerned. But once again, she handled it easily.
Alex inhaled, holding the breath for a
few moments before letting it out slowly.
Right
now, I’m worried more about the status of an old colleague who may be thrust
into more than he bargained for, more so than anything Jaclyn has ever seen in
her past. Jaclyn’s a tough girl. Jack may be tough, but he’s seen better days.
Alex stood and grabbed her coat, then
made her way to the door.
I
just hope the president’s ready for yet another disaster on his watch, she thought as
she walked, her stride full of purpose, to the limo.
