Hellbent (Orphan X #3)(107)

Evan unzipped himself, releasing the humidity of the booster bag. He climbed out. The air tasted of smoke and blood.

Bodies covered the nave, folded over pews, sprawled on the floor, heaped against the walls.

No sign of Freeway.

The sirens were louder now.

Bullets riddled the old wooden altarpiece. Blood painted the Virgin Mary’s forehead, an Ash Wednesday smudge. The arc of the cast-off spatter pointed to the right side.

Evan followed, mounting the carpeted steps.

A brief hall behind the altar led to a rear door.

He stepped out into the crisp night. Drops of blood left a fairy-tale trail out of the back alley. Evan followed them.

He came to the street and crossed it as a swarm of cop cars screeched up to the front of the church. A crowd had gathered, and he melted into its embrace.

More crimson drops on the sidewalk. The transfer pattern of a handprint on a streetlamp. A red dab stained a flyer by the bodega with the plywood-covered window.

The bodega sign was turned to CLOSED.

Evan slipped inside. The owner stood behind the cash register, trembling.

Evan said, “Lárgate.”

The owner scrambled out through the front door.

The blood drops were thicker now on the floor tiles. Evan followed them up the aisle and into the back courtyard.

Freeway was leaning against a metal post, clutching a gunshot wound in his side. His other hand held the straight razor. He firmed his posture and held the blade to the side.

Those black eyes picked across Evan. “You’re stupid to come here with no weapon.”

“Maybe so,” Evan said. “But I have one advantage.”

Freeway bared his teeth. “What’s that?”

“I don’t have metal in my face.”

He hit Freeway with a haymaker cross. The studs moored the skin. There was a great tearing and a drool not of saliva. The straight razor clattered to the concrete as Freeway hit his knees, the wreckage of his face pouring through his fingers.

Evan picked up the razor from the ground, looked down at Freeway.

“Look what I found,” he said. “A weapon.”





70

Negative Space

Sitting at his kitchen island, Evan fanned through Van Sciver’s red notebook again. He stared at the scrawl standing out in relief from the pencil-blackened page in the middle.

“6-1414 Dark Road 32.”

He’d returned to Castle Heights to make a few arrangements, laying the groundwork for the battle to come. In light of the conversation he’d overheard in the church, he needed to check the notebook again. Staring at the words now, he sensed the puzzle piece slide into place.

He walked past the living wall, catching a whiff of mint, and stepped through one of the south-facing sliding doors onto the balcony. He crouched before a square planter at the edge that held a variety of succulents and slid clear an inset panel. It hid a camouflage backpack, which he removed and carried inside.

He returned to the island, the notebook page looking up at him, the scrawl rendered clear in the negative space.

Joey came down from the loft, ready to go. She paused and took him in sitting over the notebook.

“You know what it means now,” she said.

He nodded absentmindedly.

“You gonna share?”

Evan shut the notebook as if that could somehow contain the problem within. “Yeah. (202) 456-1414 is the main switchboard for the West Wing,” he said.

She processed this. “And ‘Dark Road’?”

“A code word. Presumably to kick the caller to a security command post in the White House.”

“And the 32,” she said. “That’s an extension.”

He nodded again.

“That goes to who?” she asked.

He looked at her.

“Holy hell,” she said.

“Indeed.”

“Why?” she said. “Why would he be involved?”

Evan rubbed his face. Again he pictured Jack dropping him off at departures at Dulles back when Evan was a nineteen-year-old kid. Jack’s hand on his forearm, not wanting to let him go.

Evan said, “When I was in that booster bag, I heard Van Sciver reference 1997.”

“And?”

“That was the year of my first mission.”

“What was it?”

“I can’t tell you that,” he said. “But in 1997 President Bennett was the undersecretary of defense for policy at the DoD.”

“And the Orphan Program existed under the Department of Defense’s umbrella,” Joey said slowly, putting it together.

All at once the rationale for the shift of the Program’s aim under Van Sciver’s leadership came clearer. So did the sudden push to exterminate Orphans—Evan most of all.

He didn’t just know where the bodies were buried. He’d buried most of them himself.

Joey said, “So Bennett greenlit your first mission.”

“Yes. And as the leader of the free world now, he wants to clean up any trace of his involvement in nonsanctioned activities. Any trace of me.”

Joey set her elbows on the island and leaned over, her eyes wide. “Do you get what this means? You’ve got dirt on the president of the United States.”

Evan spun back in time to his twelfth year, riding in Jack’s truck, Jack describing the Program to him for the first time in that ten-grit voice: You’ll be a cutout man. Fully expendable. You’ll know only your silo. Nothing damaging. If you’re caught, you’re on your own. They will torture you to pieces, and you can give up all the information you have, because none of it is useful.