Chapter 40

" ... that's more like it! I do believe we finally have the Doctor's attention. One more time Paolo, but I think a little additional amperage is called for, don't you?"

... zzzztttzztttzzttttt...

... Peggy's near death experience only served to aggravate and intensify my obsession with finding and killing Alex Chorney.

Jeff Harmon and the two men patrolling with him had been killed, apparently by the men who'd come to kidnap either Izzy or Belle. None of us were ever sure who the actual target was. Not that it mattered much to me.

We buried our people, my people, at Arlington, complete with all the bells and whistles. Frankly, it didn't help one little bit.

We interred Junior right there on the ranch where he'd died defending my family, and put up a small monument over his grave. Izzy told me afterwards that she'd put my Medal of Honor in the ground with him, and I can't say I disapproved. He deserved it a lot more than I ever did.

There was no doubt in my mind who'd been behind the attack. But, once again, there was no proof to connect Chorney.

I butchered his mother anyway...

... zzzztttzztttzzttttt...

... came home early from work that day late in November of 2003. Thanksgiving was only a couple of days away and the girls had been busy preparing for the big get-together they'd planned. Every one we knew was coming; David and Anya Jones, Laurie and Nigel, Dr. Wills, Sly and his new bride Angelica, two of Peggy's colleagues from the clinic and two of Lilly and Izzy's friends from the foundation.

I'd have preferred we kept it just a simple family gathering, but they had other ideas and I'd been told to mind my own business.

Outvoted again.

I'd hung my coat in the front closet and dropped my briefcase on the desk top in my den, when I felt a sudden hot flash of lust and desire blast thru my senses.

The girls were moving around between the kitchen, pantry, wine cellar and dining room, and I couldn't sense anything remotely resembling lust from any of them.

I walked out of the den, down the hall and stood in front of staircase that led to the second floor.

The sensations increased, drawing me towards the hot house. The door was closed, as it normally was, to keep the heat and humidity out of the main house. I opened it gently, careful not to make any loud or overt noise and stepped inside.

Rows and rows of potted plants on neat and well spaced rows of waist high benches.

I heard faint voices coming from the back. Moving quietly, I made my way down the nearest row, taking care not to kick or step on anything that might be lying on the floor. The voices grew slightly louder, and the emotions I'd been sensing grew more and more tangible. Hormones were rising to a fever pitch.

" ... what's it feel like?" I heard Rosie ask breathlessly.

" ... kinda tickles ... uhghhh ... hurts too..." AJ's soft tenor replied gasping.

"It hurts?" Belle inquired, a little fearfully.

" ... good kinda hurting ... do it a little... faster ... oh god!"

I crouched down and approached the sound of their voices as if I were back in the Iraqi desert. When I reached the end of the row I snuck a peek around the end of the bench and nearly swallowed my tongue.

AJ lay naked on top of a small potting bench, Belle and Rosie on either side by his shoulders, running their hands over his bared chest and belly, while little Tink, wearing what appeared to be one of Peggy's lab coats and a stethoscope looped around her neck, bent over his pelvis, was sucking diligently on his ten year old penis.

I'd never even imagined playing that kind of doctor when I was his age.

To say I was shocked would have been overstating the obvious. Surprised? No, not really. There'd been plenty of indications over the years telling me that this was possible, if not inevitable.

Was I upset? Fuck yeah!

Under different circumstances I'd have secretly been proud as hell. What father wouldn't be thrilled to know his ten year old son was getting blown? But these were some very odd circumstances.

And it was my eleven year old daughter doing the blowing for fucks sake!

I was torn between a need to jump up and start hollering and the cold harsh realization that my own childhood had ended up in almost the same way.

Belle bent down and kissed her little brother tenderly on the mouth, taking his hand and guiding it up under her t-shirt. It was then that I noticed that his other hand was moving around under Rosie's skirt.

" ... Tink, I want a turn too..." Belle whined plaintively, resting the side of her face against AJ's forehead while he squeezed and fondled her budding breast.

I shook my head sadly and backed up silently. Then I got to my feet and beat a hasty retreat out of the hot house. Mindlessly I ended up seated at the desk in my den, my head held in both hands.

They loved each other, that much was clear. And it appeared that their activity wasn't one sided. I supposed that was something to be thankful for.

What the hell was I going to do about it? What could I do that wouldn't make matters worse?

I'd have to tell the girls. They had a right to know. More importantly, from my perspective, I didn't want to carry this alone.

I raised my head from my hands and looked around, my eyes landing on the phone set.

I picked up the receiver and began punching numbers.

"Hello?" the familiar voice answered.

"Hey Dad." I said. For the first time in my life, I felt a real bond between us. For the very first time, I understood him...

" ... this isn't working."

"Make it work!"

"I can't. The man's in some kind of trance; either that or he's a fucking masochist. Either way, electro-shock's not working."

"You're sure?"

"Does the man look like he's about to spill his guts about anything?"

"Don't take that tone with me Paolo."

" ... sorry ... I'm frustrated is all."

"Yes, well, join the club. I suppose we'll just have to go the drug route."

" ... not going to do any good as long as he's unconscious..."

"These drugs are a little different than what you're used to dealing with. Once they're in his system, it won't matter."

... my life was coming apart at the seams. There's no nicer way to put it.

My job at the CIA had become a joke, even among my staff. Since September 11^th no one in power trusted much of anything that came out of the CIA. Moles and spies were a fond memory. There was even talk that the President planned to issue a directive eliminating my department.

I couldn't muster up sufficient feelings on the subject to even give a damn.

My children were fucking like hyper-active rabbits. My girls said we should just leave them alone and they'd grow bored in time.

I knew better.

I'd become a super-sized pain in the ass; distant, cold and uncaring most of the time ... angry and violent in erratic bursts. People avoided me as though I'd come down with leprosy; even the ones that adored me.

And to top it all off, I hadn't been able to manage an erection in nearly seven months.

The girls were nearly forty and they'd become convinced, as a group, that my lack of interest had something to do with that approaching milestone.

They couldn't have been more wrong. It had everything to do with Alex Chorney, and my continued inability to locate his sorry ass...

" ... easy does it, big fella ... just a pinch ... there we go. See, that didn't hurt, did it?"

... two days before my thirty-sixth birthday I came home early. Very early, even for me. There'd been nothing requiring my attention at the office, and no one I wanted to talk to anywhere else in D.C. Or who wanted to talk to me.

I felt a collective sigh of relief run thru the building when my helicopter lifted off to take me back to the ranch.

The flight back failed to ease any of the tension that had become my constant companion. I'd been verging on a violent rampage for months, held back only by the daily ministrations of my girls, who'd taken my lack of sexual desire as a personal affront and challenge. Not that their efforts had paid off, but I gave them a lot of credit for trying. And I hadn't forgotten what an orgasm felt like, so when I began to get irritated with their attention (and my lack of response) it was a simple matter to flood them with ecstasy.

I got out of the helicopter and walked slowly thru the muggy August swelter towards the front door.

Then I stopped dead in my tracks. I couldn't feel anything from the house. No emotions of any kind.

I could feel Peggy's horses off in the distance standing in the shade of a tall stand of trees; I could feel Sly and his men at the front gate and patrolling along the tree line. But not a damn thing from the house...

" ... he's mumbling ... what's he saying?"

"Hard to tell... not again ... or something that sounds like it."

"Doctor, can you hear me? Where is Lucifer? Where is Lucifer?"

... closed the front door behind me and stood unmoving for a long count of ten. The house was eerily quiet, both audibly and emotionally.

I walked stiffly past the empty living room, eyes unblinking as I searched for signs of life.

... into the dining room...

... the kitchen...

... the entire lower level, including the hot house, was empty. I headed for the staircase, and no sooner had I put a hand on the right side banister than I was hammered with a barrage of emotion. Erotic emotion. Powerfully active erotic emotions.

Familiar emotions. I'd have recognized them anywhere.

Lilly, Peggy and Izzy's emotions; each as familiar to me as my own pale reflection.

... and one other set that was completely foreign and unknown...

A flood of soothing warmth filled my veins ... followed by a savage burning that made my tendons and ligaments feel as if they were being dipped in molten silver.

What the hell is going on? I don't remember this part...

" ... damn, it is getting hotter in here. What's up with the A/C?"

" ... hear me, Doctor? Where is Lucifer?"

... climbed the stairs in groups of three and padded silently down the hall to the master bedroom. The door was shut.

Fear gnawed ravenously at my guts. I swallowed hard to keep down the bile that rose up my throat. The skin around my mouth tightened and the hairs at the base of my neck stood on end.

I reached out a hand, twisted the knob, opened the door and walked in...

There on the bed, my bed, my rumpled and disheveled bed, were my girls. Peggy on all fours, a blissful expression on her sweet, pixyish face as the young man I didn't recognize banged his hips slowly against her bare bottom, Lilly and my sister were kneeling on either side of the stranger, their naked breasts pressed against his shoulders as they leaned into one another, exchanging a long, lustful kiss. The young man didn't appear to be paying much attention to any of them though; his body seemed to be on auto-pilot, hips rocking back and forth like clockwork while his mind was busy elsewhere.

Not again ... please, not again.

Peggy looked up and met my eyes. She sighed breathlessly, moaned and grunted a time or two and then smiled lopsidedly.

"Hey Daddy ... mmmm—ohhh ... wanna play with us this time?"

The burning inside my body increased a hundred-fold as the soothing warmth worked its way along the canals of my circulatory system.

Get me out of here!!!!

The sound of demonic laughter echoed thru my skull; rattling my teeth and stomping my brain.

... ahahahahahahaha! Do me a favor Sparky and get ALL of us out of here.

" ... please tell me you're seeing the same thing I am..."

"I don't fucking believe it!"

"You don't believe it? I'm getting the hell out of here..."

"Stay where you are! Is that ... what the hell is that?"

" ... the worst case of static discharge I've ever seen..."

... the sound that emerged from my lips wasn't coherent or recognizable. But it matched the high tension snapping I felt occur within my body. I tried to think—and couldn't. Tried to speak, to bellow, to rage--and couldn't.

The feeling of betrayal overwhelmed me completely. Loss, hurt, and devastatingly empty loneliness swarmed up and joined together in a mass of pain that, for one precious moment, robbed me of my sight.

But not my senses. The sounds of passion, of damp skin against skin, sighs, moans, whimpers and heavy breathing, the scent of sexual secretions, of human sweat, of lust...

And most importantly, it didn't take away their emotions and feelings. And I feared nothing ever would.

My mind went blank as my vision returned, and once again I was confronted with the unbearable. Blood flowed across my eyes, turning everything a muted crimson. Flames licked at my eyelashes while tiny bursts of lightning danced across my thinly compressed lips. Sounds became as severely muted as what few images I was still able to see thru the bloody veil in my eyes.

I turned slowly and walked out of the bedroom, the weakened sounds of their laughter and passion faded completely only after I'd descended the stairs and reached the front door. For a brief instant I imagined hearing Lilly and Peggy's voices screaming in the background, but that delusion passed quickly.

My hands were so slick with cold sweat that I couldn't get a grip on the door knob.

A ragged, wounded animal scream tore past my lips—followed by a massive bolt of blue-white lightning that blasted the front door into a thousand splintered pieces. I stomped thru the scorched opening, down the front steps, fumbled in my pockets and finally came up with my keys.

I climbed into my car, started the ignition and was slamming the door shut when I heard what vaguely sounded like my sister calling my name.

I wrenched the car into reverse, backed out in a hurry, threw it into drive and tore off down the drive towards the front gate.

Sly and four of his men were standing on either side of the heavy wrought iron gate when my car hit the barrier, ripping the two sides apart and throwing them wide.

The car's front end crumpled slightly, but it wasn't enough to slow me down and I spun out onto the road with the sound of squealing tires in my ears and the stench of burning rubber in my nose. I hit the gas and barreled off down the road, not certain which direction I was heading.

Three minutes later the anger finally escaped, erupting with full force and in all its devastating glory. I burst into flames. The entire inside of the car filled with flames, and it consumed the upholstery, the dashboard, the carpet and my clothing in less than a heartbeat.

Thirty seconds later I reached a four way intersection and a moving van came tearing out of nowhere on my right and plowed into me, folding the car into a boomerang shape. The car flipped twice, my head bounced off the driver's side window, slammed forward against the burning steering wheel, and then the gas tank exploded with a dull thump. A billowing ball of red-blue-green flame ripped the driver's side door off its twisted hinges and I was shot out of the flaming wreckage. I hit the ground like a lump of wet clay, smashed the right side of my face and forehead into a partially buried rock. The very last thing I remembered was a small little voice in the back of my head asking:

"Daddy, what's a wave?"

And then there was nothing at all...

'You remember now, don't you?'

"Unfortunately."

'I'm sorry we had to do it this way... '

"No you're not, so let's dispense with the simulated sympathy."

'As you wish.'

"Always." I snarled nastily.

'You remember, but do you see?'

"Enough of the fucking mind games. Say what you've got to say."

'What you saw is not all that you remember, is it?'

I gave it some thought, reviewing the freshly restored memories several times, trying to see what my subconscious was hinting at.

Anger, disappointment, jealousy and devastating betrayal threatened to overwhelm me, but I brushed them aside and concentrated on the memories.

From the removed perspective of hindsight they seemed somewhat ... off kilter. Almost as if they weren't really mine.

'No, the memories are truly ours.' the luminescent me replied.

"No, not all of them." I pointed out.

'The warmth and the burning you feel ... that's happening now. They're side effects of the drugs you've been injected with.'

"You noticed something back in the bedroom that I didn't. What?"

'Not a damn thing that you didn't see or hear as well.'

"I've just about had my fill of your cryptic bullshit!"

'Look who's finally grown a pair!' the darkness smirked. 'But only after we rescued your lily-white ass.'

"Will the two of you shut the fuck UP! I'm trying to think! Why am I having such a hard time thinking?"

'Gee, I dunno Einstein ... think it might have something to do with these assholes pumping half a gallon of drugs into our blood stream?'

"Did they now? Well, we'll have to see what we can do about that..."

"Doctor, I've just about run out of patience with you, so if you have any plans at all for the future I'd suggest you answer my question. Where is Lucifer?"

I tried to sit up, but found that I was strapped down securely with a series of heavy canvas straps across my chest, belly, thighs, wrists and ankles. I turned my head from side to side, but couldn't see a damn thing. The gauze bandages across my eyes, smelling strongly of disinfectant and burnt cotton balls, prevented any light from getting thru.

What's a wave?

I smiled and licked my parched lips.

"A wave is transmitted energy." I said. "Apart from frequency, the only difference between light and sound waves is mathematical."

"Fascinating as that may be..." the Voice began angrily.

"Link by sight, link by sound—what's the difference?"

"He's lost his mind." a nervous voice near the door muttered. "All that voltage fried his brain."

I don't need to see him?

'You never did. It was a self imposed limitation. Like I told you before ... we haven't even begun to reach ours.

I lifted my head, reached out with my senses and found its source...

"You by the door; Paolo right?" I could feel his astonishment at being addressed.

"Uhhmm ... yeah?" the man nervously replied.

I frowned slightly as the heavy straps cut into my chest and legs while I struggled to sit up.

"Haul your ass over here and un-strap me, will you? And get these fuckin' wires off my balls while you're at it!"

"Yes sir, of course sir, right away!"

"Tell your chubby little friend in the corner to lend a hand ... I've got places to go and people to chastise."

I turned my bandaged eyes towards the camera mounted in the far upper corner, followed the sound, linked and finally made the connection I'd been after for so very long. That single sensation was more satisfying than anything I'd felt in what seemed like forever.

I smiled brightly, barred my teeth and licked my lips hungrily.

"Alex ... you are in such big trouble."

The narrow shouldered man sitting in front of the rows of flat-top monitors shuddered at the look the man on most of those monitors was giving the camera.

The man standing directly behind him, sputtered momentarily, coughed twice and then made a visible effort of gathering his wits.

"Hello Ike. I don't suppose you feel like telling me where Lucifer is?"

The man on the monitors cocked his head slightly to one side and grinned. It wasn't a pleasant sight.

"I feel like keeping the promise I made you."

"You promised me you'd kill Lucifer. Lying sonofabitch!"

If anything, the expression on the pale long haired man became even more unpleasant and unsettling.

"I never promised to kill him, and you never asked me to. You said eliminate Lucifer, and that's exactly what I did. No one's heard from him since then, have they? Especially not you! And on the subject of lying ... you're a fine one to talk. You'd have gone back on your word in a New York minute if Id've let you."

The man on screen sighed loudly as the two men on either side of the table he'd been strapped to finally released his restraints. He sat up with a smooth motion, swung his legs over the side and stood up. Not once did his eyeless gaze shift away from the camera.

"But putting all that aside, the promise I'm talking about is one I made specifically to you. I was very clear. Do you remember?"

Chorney sniffed derisively.

"It doesn't matter what you did or didn't promise Doctor. You're not getting out of that room unless I personally release the locks."

The pale skinned man reached up with both hands and ripped the heavy gauze wrapping from around his head.

The man's left eye glared up coldly at the camera, while the right...

... there was no right eye. Only a deep, dark, empty socket, crusted around the raw and ragged edges with dried blood and pus. The right side of his face was mildly scarred, which gave him a menacing and malevolent expression, but the swelling was gone and the scars that ran from temple to cheekbone were an old dull white, rather than the fresh and shiny pink they should have been.

"Don't do me no favors. Just stay where you are Alex. I'll be there directly." The man with the scarred face, one eye and long white hair turned away from the camera for a moment, then stopped, looked back over his shoulder and smiled coldly.

"Watch closely. See if you can spot the trick."

The man who called himself Alex Chorney ripped the headphone off his head and tore the microphone jack out of the console with a practiced snap of the wrist.

"Get everyone armed and into the halls. I want that room surrounded... NOW!"

I turned to the men who still stood on either side of my torture rack. One was called Paolo; he'd been the one who'd administered the multiple electric shocks as well as injecting me with Chorney's drug concoction. The other, the one I'd dubbed 'Chubby', was a complete non-entity as far as I was concerned. Didn't know his name, didn't want to.

"Paolo?" I inquired.

"Y-y-y-es sir?" the medium sized wiry muscled thug with the Al Pacino features stammered.

"Go stand against the door, would you?"

"Okay..." he whimpered before shuffling over to stand facing the door, the bridge of his nose pressed firmly against the metal hatch.

I stepped up next to Chubby and looked down at the man. His upturned face barely reached my shoulder.

"Stay close if you want to survive the next few seconds." I cautioned the man with the round, dough-boy face.

I looked up and saw Paolo's back.

"Paolo, turn around and put your shoulders against the door." I commanded.

He did as I told him, but refused to look me in the eye. I grinned openly.

"Paolo? Look at me!" The man's head snapped up and when his eyes locked on my face his guts turned to water. " ... just not your day." I said sympathetically then linked, filled the man with my pain, amplified a thousand times, and lit him up with a single directed bolt of blue-white lightning in less than the blink of my remaining eye.

Paolo went nova and blew the heavy metal door, along with half the wall supporting it, out into the hallway.

"Jesus Christ! What the fuck have you gotten us into?" the man sitting in front of the monitors screeched, lurched up out of his chair and ran pell-mell for the door behind him.

Alex Chorney lashed out with a back-hand chop to the base of the narrow shouldered, wide hipped man's skull and the lumbering techie smashed face first into the hard concrete floor, just inches short of his goal.

"Spineless amateur." Chorney muttered under his breath as he kicked the man's body to the side, clearing a path to the door. He returned his attention to the remaining images on the active monitors. Blacktower, and his overweight little shadow, walked out of the rubble and out into a clear section of the hall, where they were immediately confronted on two sides by several rows of gray/green jump suited men holding short barreled automatic weapons.

The explosion had apparently damaged all the microphones in the area, because there was no audio to go with the images.

Blacktower looked down at the little man beside him for a moment then appeared to ask a question. The smaller man bobbed his head frantically, gestured rapidly with his hands and then went still.

"Just shoot him already!" Chorney seethed quietly.

Nothing happened.

"What are you waiting for? Shoot the sonofabitch!"

Blacktower cocked his head fractionally then twisted at the waist to face the nearest ceiling mounted camera. Chorney inhaled slowly between his teeth, generating a brain stabbing high pitched whistle. The dark socket on the right side of the man's face was lit from within by what looked like a glowing ball of fire.

The tall white-haired man faced the group of gun toting men in front of him. Chorney couldn't tell what he said, but whatever it was didn't take more than fifteen seconds. The men lowered their weapons, turned around and walked away. Blacktower then looked over his shoulder at the men behind him. His lips moved briefly, and then the group behind him followed quickly after the first bunch, like little children in a grade school fire drill.

Blacktower's portly little sidekick took off after the departing gunmen, leaving the tall man standing alone amidst the rubble in the hall. He looked back up at the camera, wagged one index finger back and forth in a 'no-no' gesture, grinning all the while like a wolf then strode off out of sight.

"Guess she wasn't crazy after all." Chorney whispered to no one in particular. The man sucked air thru his teeth for a second or two, turned around and headed for the exit. "Time to get the fuck out of Dodge."

He reached down for the door knob but his fingers stopped just inches shy of the dull gray metal handle and refused to get any closer. No matter what he did, or how loudly he cursed, Alex Chorney could not force his fingers around the door knob.

He began sweating like a pig in a sauna.

Chorney tried slamming his body against the door, jamming his hip against the door knob, kicking with first one foot then the other, but no matter how hard he tried he could not make physical contact with either the door or the knob.

Sweat poured down his face and neck, stained his shirt beneath his armpits, and made the fabric stick to his chest and back. He swore loudly and violently in several languages as panic and terror filled his body.

A large shadow appeared in the small chicken-wire window of the door and the veteran spy had to bite back a girlish squeal.

The door knob turned, squeaking ever so slightly, and the door slowly opened outward.

Chorney scuttled back quickly, crouching in a defensive stance, bringing his fists up in front of his chest. He blanched, his heart pounding like mad within his chest, as he beheld the ivory white face; one pale grey eye glaring balefully at him while on the opposite side a writhing ball of red, yellow and brilliant orange exuded flickering tongues of flame that licked back and forth across the expanse of the bigger man's snowy white eyebrow.

"What in god's name are you?" he demanded in a pleading voice.

The tall white-haired man stepped inside the room and the door closed behind him with an audible 'snick'.

"Inevitable." the tall, long haired, flame eyed man rumbled. "From the moment you assaulted my sister I've been inevitable."

"I told you, it was just business. It was never personal!" the older, smaller man whimpered.

He didn't understand why he was reacting the way he was. Alex Chorney had been in worse spots before, faced greater odds, and he'd always come out the winner. Always. He was smart, cool under fire ... hell; he actually thrived under extreme pressure. It was one of the many attributes that had made him such a good field agent. That and being absolutely ruthless in the pursuit of his objectives.

"Maybe not to you; to me it couldn't be more personal. You drugged and abused my wife you stupid fuck!"

"What? No ... sister!" the trembling ex-CIA spymaster insisted.

"Didn't tell you everything, did she? Wife, sister; doesn't really matter one way or the other ... you attacked my family dumbass. Doesn't get much more personal than that."