Excerpt
The cold air was
refreshing as she sprinted to her Ford Mustang in the parking lot. After she
sat down in the driver’s seat, she opened Windows Maps on her cell phone to
search for the address her evil handler had texted. Since Microsoft stopped
supporting Windows Phone, she couldn’t use her voice to enter the address in
the navigation app of her cell phone.
It felt weird to go unarmed, on a mission unknown, while the navigation
calculated the best route from her current location. Whoever captured Harry
held all the cards. At the moment, she had no other choice but to follow up on
their instructions. She started the car and drove off. Luckily, there wasn’t
much traffic on her way to the mansion.
Since the pandemic, life
was slow. People had more time on their hands, working from home, distracted by
their kids and spouse. Eating more comfort food—watching TV all day, or in
Sybil’s case, spending time with her pet rabbit, Max, and trying to avoid the
news. She didn’t have a TV. Well, she did, but she used her 70-inch display as
a monitor. It was connected to a Windows 10 laptop with an external soundcard
attached to a Dolby digital surround set. Felicity installed the equipment and
showed Sybil how to use her dinosaur cell phone as a remote control for the
laptop.
The laptop offered her a
safe window to the world. She had online meetings once a week, on Sunday night
at eight, and sometimes she watched the news on CNN. Most of the time, she used
the laptop to binge-watch streaming media. Prime video, Netflix, Disney Plus,
and reruns of her favorite TV shows: Body of Proof, Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
and she loved movies starring Denzel Washington. My life during the pandemic.
She wanted to floor the
gas pedal, but then she noticed a police car and she slowed down considerably.
The police vehicle turned left at the intersection. She glanced over her
shoulder. A truck came into sight, and a few more cars appeared on the street
ahead of her. Morning rush hour was about to begin, even though she hadn’t
expected it.
Sybil reached her
destination in twenty-six minutes after she floored the gas pedal when she
reached the outskirts of Boston. She had some time to kill, but she didn’t want
to waste it by sitting in her car. So, she explored the area. The mansion
didn’t stand out by itself. It was a wooden, two-story building, Victorian
architecture style, late 1800s, set in a rural landscape outside Boston,
normally a thirty-five-minute drive if she hadn’t gone way above all posted
speed limits. Its shingles used to be white at some point.
She exhaled and contacted
Vanessa Dogscape—an ATU data analyst, and currently married to her friend and
coworker Felicity Walker. Perhaps Vanessa could help her—off the record. She
didn’t want to involve the ATU. It took a while before Vanessa answered the
phone.
“Sybil. You know what
time it is?”
“I’m aware of what time
it is. Look, I need your help. Harry’s been kidnapped by—I don’t know who.
Anyway, they want me to do some errands.”
“My God!” Vanessa replied
in a worried voice.
“I need you on this. But
please, keep it off the record. I don’t want to endanger Harry’s life.”
“Sure. How can I help?”
“Perhaps you can pinpoint
them somehow and get their location so I can kick some ass?”
“I need more intel before
I can do anything,” Vanessa said.
“They contacted me via my
cell phone and sent me a text message. Oh, and a picture of Harry’s battered
face.” She gritted her teeth at the thought.
“Send the text message
and the picture to me. And please activate the ATU app Felicity programmed
three years ago for your Windows Phone, so I can tap into each conversation and
perhaps ping their location while you talk to them. Are you sure you want me to
help you off the record? It’s better to make this an official ATU investigation.
At least, let me inform Jack.”
Sybil closed her eyes for
a moment. If the criminals found out she had informed the ATU, it’d complicate
things. Perhaps endanger Harry’s life. But then again, she sure could use all
the help she could get. Otherwise, she wouldn’t bother Vanessa with it. Taking
that into consideration, and the knowledge that Jack was a professional, Sybil
agreed to Vanessa’s suggestion.
Despite the sun in a
clear, blue sky, her body responded with a shiver that ran down her spine. She
did not know what to expect as she stood near the abandoned mansion with its
weather-beaten, cracked walls covered in pointless graffiti. But she knew she
had to go inside as she sat down on her haunches, studying the rusty sword
lying in the mud. She took a deep breath before she carefully touched its sticky
handle. Blood! Clotted blood.
Her stomach gnawed at the
sight. She smelled. It wasn’t human. She stared at the mansion as she heard a
strange sound she couldn’t identify. Immediately, her old instincts kicked
in—weird sounds coming from an abandoned mansion equals danger. She grabbed the
sword in both hands, jumped up, kicked the battered door wide open and ran
inside. It was time to act; this was no time to be cautious. Lives were at
stake.
The wooden planks creaked under her feet as she rushed into the dark
hallway. The sound of rasping breathing reached her eardrums when she entered a
dark room with just enough light to see the overturned furniture and the
bloodstained, fractured walls …
