Mark Edward Hall

Chapter 8

The Blackhawk helicopter was waiting at idle when Jennings got to the airport. There were no problems with security. They rushed him right through. He boarded the military transport, strapping his hulking frame into a seat as a crew member handed him a headset.

“What’s this for?”

“Things are noisy,” the crewman hollered above the racket. “Besides, the boss man wants to talk to you.” Jennings nodded and put the headset on. The chopper’s engines whined distantly as the craft lifted into the air. The airport slid away beneath him giving way to the Portland skyline, a jagged coastline, and finally, open ocean.

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Chapter 7

The jet taxied to a stop. When the attendant opened the door, a dreadful blast of heated air rushed into the aircraft cabin, reminding Doug of a sauna. He hated saunas almost as much as he hated Florida. They both gave him claustrophobia. He took Annie by the hand and led her down the steps to the tarmac. A black limo sat at idle patiently waiting.

The driver was a solid muscular man who looked like he’d been sculpted from stone. His hair was black as wet tar, his skin, olive and he was appallingly handsome.

“Hi,” he said casting a small polite smile at Doug and a bright, toothy grin at Annie. He held the door. “I’m Theo. Mr. De Roché sent me. You must be Annie?”

“Yes,” Annie said, falling into the car. “This’s Doug,” she said slurring her speech.

Doug shook the man’s hand.

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Chapter 6

It was nearly 10 am before Portland Police Lieutenant Richard Jennings left the scene of Doug and Annie McArthur’s ruined house and the subsequent carnage left in its wake. Five men were dead from gunshot wounds; none had been carrying identification. Even worse, there had been a massive pileup on both the north and southbound lanes of Interstate 95. Two motorists were dead and six were in the hospital, three in critical condition. Two separate individuals had come forward saying that their cars had been hijacked by gunmen. One had identified photos of Doug and Annie McArthur; the other had no idea who the two gunmen were that threw her out of her vehicle, and furthermore, she could not adequately describe them. For unknown reasons, their faces were just blanks, she told authorities.

Following the initial stages of the investigation, things had happened fast. The State Police had quickly moved in and taken charge of the investigation, followed almost immediately by people in plain dark suits that Jennings recognized as federal agents. When he quizzed them about what agency they worked for he was given the cold shoulder. The State Police were gone in a heartbeat, leaving Jennings to deal with the feds. For the most part they were rude assholes who treated Jennings like a boy scout. By mid-morning they’d dismissed him altogether, telling him in no uncertain terms that his help was no longer needed on the case. He was too close to McArthur and his wife to be objective. Jennings had left the scene feeling like a beaten dog, vowing that there was no way he was going to sit idly by while his best friends were in trouble and on the run.

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Chapter 5

“I am an artist,” Annie had proclaimed without conceit on the very day she and Doug had met. It was almost the first thing she had said to him, in fact, as though she were setting ground rules around which the two could establish a relationship. Doug had been left with little doubt that art was Annie’s calling. Regardless of her position in life as sole heiress of a political and financial dynasty and the responsibilities that went along with that position, Annie considered herself first and foremost an artist. They’d met at the University of Maine in Orono. It was their first day of classes, freshman year when Annie had made her proclamation.

“Oh?” Doug had replied. “What sort of artist are you?”

“I paint pictures,” she said.

“Pictures? Lots of artists do that. What kind of pictures?”

“Whatever comes to mind,” she said with a broad and beautiful smile, her mysterious eyes twinkling. Doug was lost in them almost immediately.

The University of Maine was the only school Doug could afford, and he was grateful to be there. Annie could have afforded anything, but that’s where she’d decided to go. At first Doug had been skeptical, little rich bitch slumming with the commoners, but the better he’d gotten to know her, the more he believed she was sincere. She was bright, and so filled with life. Like she was tasting freedom for the first time.

Little did he know.

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Chapter 4

The large business jet was waiting when they arrived at the airport. The small crew was cordial but businesslike. The flight left the ground within five minutes of boarding. An attendant, a smartly dressed woman in her forties named Greta with a pretty but smug face and shifty eyes handed Annie a phone.

“Daddy?” Annie said, her voice breaking, sounding oddly like that of a child’s. “Tell me what happened. Yes, I’m okay. I want to know everything.” Annie kept the phone to her ear for a long time, occasionally exclaiming in awe or grief. “Oh no. My God, no. Daddy . . . please don’t cry . . . please. I know. Yes, I love you too, Daddy.”

Slowly, as if in a trance, Annie put the phone down. Doug wanted to puke. He was pitting his love for Annie against his hatred for her father and in the process he was totally ignoring the fact that her mother was dead and that she was hurting. But he couldn’t help it. This was all wrong. They’d vowed never to go back there. Now they were being forced into it; De Roché was manipulating Annie’s emotions like a talented maestro conducting an orchestra.

Annie fixed Doug with a vacant, helpless stare. “Oh . . . Christ, Doug,” she said, and the words were choked in an odd way, as though she was trying to swallow them.

Doug reached over and touched her trembling hand. “God, Annie, I’m so sorry.”

“Daddy . . . heard . . . her . . . get out of bed around midnight. He drifted back to sleep and woke up to the sound of gunfire. He went . . . looking for her and someone shot at him. The gunman somehow escaped. Daddy found Mama on the bathroom floor with a  . . . bullet through her heart.”

“Annie, that place is a fortress. How could a gunman get through security?”

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An interview concerning my latest story, The Fear, which appeared in Lee Pletzers Masters of Horror Anthology.

http://catherinemede.wordpress.com/2010/05/05/interview-with-mark-edward-hall/

Chapter 3

In a room beneath an ancient cathedral, a telephone began to ring. The monk in the simple black robe and white collar turned away from the altar at which he had been praying and stared at the ringing telephone as if it were something not of this world. Carefully he tucked the object which he had been clutching tightly in his praying fists into the side pocket of his robe. This was only the third time in as many years that this particular phone had rung. The telephone number was unpublished and there were only seven men in the world who knew it. After the third ring, the monk got to his feet and picked up the handset.

“Yes?” he asked.

“I have news,” the voice on the other end of the line proclaimed. The caller was male and he sounded winded and overwrought.

The monk hesitated for a long moment before replying. “What is the code?” he asked. He would never acknowledge his identity unless the code was repeated exactly as he knew it; exactly as they all knew it. To do so would be to violate the most sacred of all oaths.

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