Father of Fear (31 page)

Ackerman grabbed his brother by the shoulder and pointed out the too-clean SWAT team member. Marcus nodded, and fire filled his eyes. A look of understanding passed between the brothers. It was time that their father paid for his sins.

They pushed their way toward their target and watched as their father slipped into the front of a squat red-brick building with an orange and black for-sale sign hanging from its front.

Ackerman took off at a dead sprint, not about to allow his father, the man who had tortured and corrupted him, to escape. Marcus fell behind, but Ackerman didn’t care. He didn’t have a gun, but the Bowie knife was still in the sheath beneath his shirt. He would prefer to use that anyway.

Anger fueled his steps. Years of pain and hatred and guilt pushed him forward.

He ripped the door open and entered a small storefront with whitewashed walls and beige linoleum. A door was at the back of the room, and he barely slowed as he burst through it and into the empty warehouse beyond. The space was a large concrete room with loading docks along one wall. Another set of doors occupied the back wall, and the black-clad figure ahead of him was running toward them.

Ackerman imagined that they opened into an alleyway where his father had a car waiting, but he didn’t intend to allow this foot pursuit to turn into a car chase.

The black-clad figure was aware of Ackerman’s presence now and fired a few wild shots over his shoulder as he ran. Ackerman didn’t slow his pace. His father had taken away his son’s fear by scarring his brain, and now that lack of fear would be the old man’s undoing.

His father fired again. This time Ackerman felt the bite of the bullet in his left arm. The pain invigorated him, gave him strength, made him run faster and harder.

His hand slipped beneath the back of his shirt, grasping the bone handle of the Bowie knife. Then he pulled the blade free, and with an underhanded throw, he sent the knife spinning through the air.

It twisted and caught the light as it closed the distance between them, faster than any man could run. The blade buried itself deep into his father’s thigh, and the older man screamed and dropped to the concrete. As he landed flat on his chest and slid through the layer of dust that had collected on the floor of the disused warehouse, the black pistol flew from his grasp and skittered off into a corner.

Ackerman slowed his pace now, circling his prey at a distance. His father pulled off the black balaclava and looked up at his son with eyes full of hatred.

“You always did bring nothing but disappointment to me, junior. So what now? You going to kill me?”

“No, I am,” a voice said from behind Ackerman. He looked back to see Marcus pointing his Sig Sauer at the wounded man. “Where’s my son?”

“Marcus, I wish we could have spent more time together. You and Dylan. It could have been beautiful. Three generations of our family, together.”

“You and I are
not
family.” He kicked the old man in the ribs, but the movement caused Marcus to cough violently.

Ackerman said, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Turning back to their father, Marcus screamed, “Where is my son?”

“I’d rather see him die today than live the rest of his life in a world where he’s afraid to follow his true nature.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I could have showed you a world without fear, Marcus.”

Marcus slammed the pistol against the side of the old man’s head. “Do I look afraid? Where is he?”

“Anger is fear,” their father said, wincing in pain. “Dylan will be dead soon. I didn’t use all my PLX in the parking garage. I kept back a tiny bit as my fail-safe in case I didn’t make it back to Dylan. If I don’t disarm the device soon, your son will be set free one way or another. The arms of oblivion will carry him into the darkness.”

Marcus pistol-whipped the old man over and over again, yelling something unintelligible. He only stopped when his muscles seemed to give out, and he collapsed to his knees. Ackerman rushed to his side and steadied him. Marcus fell against his brother’s shoulder.

The old man spat blood onto the floor and laughed. “You have a choice to make. Let me go so I can disarm the bomb—or condemn Dylan to a fiery death.”

Marcus pushed Ackerman away and raised the pistol to their father’s head.

“Do it, Marcus,” the old man said. “Give in to your desire.”

Ackerman saw his brother’s finger tighten against the trigger and surprised himself when he said, “Don’t, Marcus. Don’t kill him.”

Through the tears, Marcus said, “Give me one good reason.”

“Because we’re better than him. He’s just a terrified old man who’s been afraid his whole life and needs to project that fear onto others to cope with the pain of existence. He has nothing. He
is
nothing. Don’t let him have power over you. Don’t let him turn you into something you’re not.”

“I’ve killed before.”

“And you will again, but that doesn’t mean that you’re a murderer. You have a choice. We all do. Don’t give him the satisfaction.”

Marcus held the gun on target, his hand trembling and his eyes wild, but then he lowered the weapon and sank to the floor. He looked up at his brother and said, “What now?”

Ackerman turned to their father and placed the bottom of his boot against the bone handle of the Bowie knife that was still embedded in the old man’s leg. He pressed it down, tearing the wound. The old man cried out, and Ackerman kicked him over. Then he searched through his father’s pockets for anything useful. He found a wallet with a fake ID and credit cards matching the false name, a roll of cash, a set of car keys, a scalpel, and a hotel room swipe card with the Crowne Plaza logo on its face.

Ackerman showed the key card to Marcus and said, “This is where he’s keeping your son.”

“How can you know that for sure?”

“I don’t know. Have any better ideas?”

Marcus tried to push himself to his feet but fell back down to the dusty concrete. “Help me up. We need to go. We need to get to the Crowne Plaza.”

Ackerman placed a hand on his brother’s shoulder and said, “Someone has to stay here, and you’re in no condition to go anywhere. Guard our prisoner. I’ll save Dylan.”

“No, I—”

Ackerman leaned down close and whispered, “Let me do this. Let me be the hero for once. I’ll bring your son back. I promise.”

Marcus looked deep into his brother’s eyes, and an understanding passed between them. Marcus pulled out his federal credentials and passed them to Ackerman while saying, “If you flash it quickly, most people won’t look at the details.”

With his father’s car keys and the hotel room swipe card in hand, Ackerman sprinted toward the back door of the warehouse where he hoped to find his father’s escape vehicle waiting and ready.

The lobby of the Crowne Plaza hotel was lined with modern art deco furniture and colored in earth tones and red accents. Ackerman rushed up to the front desk and earned a looked of surprise from the short black man behind the counter. Ackerman knew that he looked like he had just been through a war zone, and in a manner of speaking, he had.

He quickly flashed Marcus’s credentials and said to the black man, “I’m a federal agent, and I need your help. I’m sure you’ve heard about the explosion down at Kaufman Center.”

The man barely glanced at the ID. “Yes, I—”

“I just came from there and have reason to believe that there may be another bomb in your hotel.” He slapped the swipe card he had retrieved from his father’s pocket down on the dark wood surface of the desk. “Tell me what room this card is for.”

The man seemed momentarily dumbfounded. He looked at the card as though it was an alien artifact.

“Now!” Ackerman said. “Lives are at stake.”

The attendant snatched up the card and went to work.

A few moments later, Ackerman was in the hallway on the seventh floor. He rushed down the brown and beige corridor, scanning the numbers on each door. When he reached room 717, he swiped the card through the reader and rushed inside.

He knew that his father would have allowed himself only a small margin of error before his failsafe was activated. Any deviation from the plan could have meant his capture, and so Ackerman guessed that after arguing with his father, trying to figure out Dylan’s location, and waiting for the man at the front desk to read the room number from the card key, he had only a matter of seconds before the bomb detonated.

He had no idea what to expect inside. His mind conjured images of Dylan duct-taped to a chair with the bomb on his lap or locked in a closet or wearing a miniature version of a suicide bomber’s vest. Ackerman, thinking of his own experiences as a boy, could easily imagine the kinds of atrocities that the grandfather could have committed against his grandson.

Instead, he found a healthy-looking little boy wearing a green collared shirt and playing with Legos. The boy looked up with wide eyes. Ackerman was a bit shocked to see Dylan in such a condition, but he shook that off and scanned the room for the bomb.

A briefcase sat on a desk in the corner. “Dylan, don’t be afraid. I’m your Uncle Frank, and I’m here to help you.”

Ackerman moved to the briefcase. He tried to pop the latches but found it locked. He was afraid to try and crack the case open, for fear of prematurely detonating the device. Judging by the size of the bomb, the effects of the explosion would probably be confined to that room, so Ackerman decided that he would just take Dylan to safety and then pull the fire alarm to get everyone clear of the potential blast radius and any residual damage to the building.

From inside the briefcase, he heard a mechanical whir and a sound like air being released from a balloon. His eyes went wide, and he acted on instinct.

Ackerman tossed the case on the floor beside the window and pushed the mattress off the bed, flipping it on its side and covering the bomb. Then he scooped Dylan up into his arms and ran for the hallway.

His hand grasped the handle and twisted. The heavy door swung open, and the bomb went off.

The blast was deafening in the small space. He cradled Dylan, shielding the boy with his own body.

He felt burning shrapnel pierce the flesh of his back and shoulders, and he was blown forward by the heat and concussive wave. He and Dylan slammed against the far wall, drywall crumbling and cracking around them. He felt something break and snap, and then the lights went out on Francis Ackerman Jr.’s world.

Marcus dropped into a chair at one end of a gray metal table inside a secure containment facility located in Bethesda, MD. The building was another black site on loan to the Shepherd Organization from the CIA. Fagan had arranged for Ackerman’s temporary incarceration there while more permanent arrangements could be worked out. The bureaucrat had actually turned out to be a decent guy. He’d felt responsible for the actions of Mr. Craig, and so he’d allowed a bit of leeway to Maggie and Andrew for what they’d done. They were each suspended for three months without pay, and the whole group would remain on a tight leash for an indefinite probationary period, but at least the Shepherd Organization was still alive and kicking.

Ackerman’s fate was still undecided and the subject of much debate. He had been deemed too dangerous and too much of an escape risk for a normal prison, and yet—given the help and insight he had provided in the capture of Thomas White and his apprentice and the lives he had saved—Ackerman had proved himself too useful to kill outright. Plus, Marcus had threatened to expose the entire organization if anyone harmed a hair on his brother’s head, a move that had not earned him any friends and had probably even put his own life at risk. Against strong opposition, Marcus had argued that Ackerman could actually be a powerful asset to the Shepherd Organization. It was perhaps a crazy idea that would never be approved, but it was worth a shot. After all, their group was all about breaking the rules anyway.

The guards ushered Ackerman into the small gray chamber and shoved him down into the chair at the opposite end of the table. “Hi, Frank,” Marcus said.

“You look good, little brother. You’ve actually been sleeping.”

“Yeah, Emily Morgan came up with this crazy treatment idea that could help me to block out the world and get some rest. She has me spending time every day in a sensory-deprivation chamber. It’s basically a big soundproof and lightproof tank full of salt water that’s heated to body temp. You lie in there and feel like you’re floating in space. It’s pretty cool, and I was skeptical at first, but it helps. It’s like turning off the world.”

“Sounds wonderful. Emily’s a very impressive and intriguing woman. You’re lucky to have people like that in your corner.”

“You have people in your corner too. I’m in your corner. Nobody’s forgotten how you helped us.”

“I’m sure that no one has forgotten anything else I’ve done, either.”

“Our father scarred your brain. He’s the monster, not you.”

“We’re both monsters. And I make no excuses. I can never make amends, only ask for grace and forgiveness.”

“I’m working on something. Maybe a way for you to balance the scales a bit more.”

Ackerman shrugged. “We’ll see what happens.”

“Please, do yourself and me a favor and behave yourself in here. I can’t help you if you hurt anyone or try to escape.”

Ackerman pursed his lips and bobbled his head back and forth as he seemed to consider the words. “Fine. But I’ll provide you with a list of security flaws that I’ve noticed. It’s best if I can avoid any temptation.”

Marcus laughed and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sure the CIA would appreciate that, Frank.” Then his expression turned grave, and he said, “I tried to get our father into ADX Florence, but I had to settle for the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute.”

“I’ve heard that it’s the most high-tech prison in the world.”

Marcus pulled out a small piece of thin tissue paper and slid it across the table to his brother. Words were written across the paper’s surface in red crayon. “He sent me that,” Marcus said.

The note read:
I tried to show you a world without fear, but you r
e
jected my gift. Perhaps because you don’t yet truly understand the mea
n
ing of fear and the depths of despair. But I’ll teach you.

Marcus added, “If he ever gets out, he’ll come for me and Dylan and everyone I love.”

“Yes, he will. Father is obsessive about finishing what he starts. But that’s
if
he can find a way out of the very impressive cage that we’ve put him in. Remember, he feeds on fear. Don’t let him exert that power over you. Are you still having nightmares?”

“Only when I close my eyes.”

“All that happened down in father’s little basement of horrors is on his soul, not yours. You have to realize that.”

“I know, but I still feel… tainted. I have the same darkness in me that’s in the two of you. I’ve killed people. I would have killed my own father if you hadn’t stopped me.”

Ackerman took a deep breath and drummed his fingers on the metal surface of the table. “Are you familiar with the story of John Newton?”

“I don’t think so. The name sounds familiar.”

“He’s the man who wrote the song
Amazing Grace
, arguably the most famous Christian hymn of all time. That song has brought comfort to millions in times of need and sorrow. But John Newton’s story is much more complicated than that. He was the captain of several voyages on slave-trading ships. Those boats packed people in like cattle. They usually contained at least four hundred slaves, but often as many as seven hundred. The death rate was very high. Reaching twenty-five percent in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. So it could be argued that John Newton was responsible for the deaths of as many as one hundred and seventy-five people every time he sailed. If a man like that can change and go on to do wonderful things, then why not the two of us?”

Marcus smiled and gave a slow nod. “You know, Frank, you’ve been a horrible human being, but you’re actually not half bad as a brother.”

Ackerman chuckled. “How have you and Dylan been getting along?”

“Okay, I guess. It’s been difficult, with everything that’s happened. He misses his mom. It’s lucky that Maggie and him have hit it off because I really have no idea how to be a father.”

“You’ll learn.”

“You want to see how you do as an uncle?”

With a sincere smile, Ackerman said, “I’d like that.”

Marcus stood, and the guard buzzed the door open. He stepped into the bright fluorescent lights of the hallway and waved his hand toward a young boy with dark hair and bright intelligent eyes who was sitting in a metal folding chair along the corridor, his feet dangling and swaying back and forth.

Dylan hopped up and joined his father. Marcus gestured toward the chair opposite Ackerman, and Dylan sat down reluctantly. His young eyes drank in his surroundings—the guards, the guns, the man in chains opposite him. He seemed nervous, but also curious.

“This is your Uncle Frank,” Marcus said.

Dylan looked across the table and, without any greeting, said, “They say you’re a bad guy.”

Ackerman laughed and gave his nephew a wide grin. “My boy, as you grow older and wiser, you’ll find that very few things in this world are merely black or white. Good and evil, like so many other lofty concepts, are often simply a matter of perspective.”