Chapter 9

“Thank God you’re safe!!” Vivian said as she greeted them at the door. She embraced Mark, who felt Charles’ comforting hand on his shoulder. They were in an apartment in a large building; Mark wasn’t sure where, but it was on the outskirts of town. There was another man with them Mark didn’t know.

“You can put her over here,” Vivian said, pointing to the couch. The man carrying Julia deposited her on the couch. She appeared to be asleep. Vivian followed them over and knelt next to Julia.

The man with the gun spoke.

“We got them both back but we were too late with her. They were already done and starting on him. There were four of them.”

“You did what you could,” Charles said. “Thank you.”

“And there was an unfortunate accident. One of their men died. My shot hit him in the eye. He was moving very fast and ... well, it just happened that way. Peter will take care of getting him out. We’re going to leave the other three in room. They’re zip-tied, but they’ll soon get loose. We’ll have someone check tomorrow to make sure they’re out.”

Mark glanced at Vivian and was startled. Her eyes were locked onto the gunman, blazing with fury.

Charles turned to Mark.

“Mark, this is Robert,” Charles said, gesturing toward the man with them. Mark nodded.

“He’s going to help us deal with the current situation. He’s...”

“I’m in security,” Robert interrupted.

“This is extremely unfortunate,” Robert continued, “and I’m sorry it happened. But the best course right now is to split you up. They obviously penetrated our security some time ago, and it’s unclear how much they know. It’s much too dangerous for you to be together. But someone needs to take care of Julia,” he said glancing at her as she lay prone on the couch, “and that should logically be Vivian. The two of them can stay here for the time being. Mark and Charles, we’ll set up secure places for both of you, but in the short-term we’ll put each of you in hotels. For the moment, we’ll have to keep communications among all of you to an absolute minimum — and then only through one of us — until we further assess the situation and develop a longer-term plan.”

“And, what about our things — clothing and the like?” asked Mark.

“Unfortunately, none of you will be able to have your personal possessions, except what is with you now. They clearly know where all of you were living and it would be far too dangerous to go back. When things settle down, we’ll make an effort to retrieve your possessions, but under no circumstances should any of you go anywhere near where you were. They will be watching. We’ll set you up with some bare-bones supplies in the interim. Sorry it has to be this way but we can’t take any chances.”

“Of course, we also need to complete Mark’s conversion,” Charles said.

“Yes,” Robert agreed. “And Vivian will handle that, right.”

“I will,” said Vivian, her eyes still angry.

Robert talked more about the timing and logistics. He outfitted them with “burner phones” — which he explained were prepaid, non-traceable phones that had nothing but call features. He gave them numbers and instructions about how to communicate with him.

“You can keep your existing phones, but they need to be on airplane mode all the time. No cell connection, no WiFi, no texting or web browsing, and certainly no calls. I’m sorry, but that’s the only way to do this.”

They spoke for another hour. Robert arranged for cars and dropped each of them off at the rental agency with directions and instructions about the hotels.

Before they left, Mark had a brief conversation alone with Vivian — Charles had been talking to the other two men.

“Are you okay, Vivian?”

“Funny, you asking me that after what you just went through,” Vivian said with a tight smile.

“You seemed angry earlier,” Mark said.

“I was. I still am. What happened there — that man being killed — should not have happened. This is very bad. I don’t know where this will lead but it won’t be to a good place. You need to be very careful,” she said, reaching up and touching the side of Mark’s face. “Promise me?”

“Promise,” said Mark.

“I wish I could be with you through all of this,” Vivian said, her hand still on his face. “But I’ll see you tomorrow for the conversion.”

Mark nodded.