The Breaking

CHAPTER Six


Canadian-U.S. border

Ten miles west of Niagara Falls

After renting a cheap room in Toronto and resting there overnight with her Beretta grafted into her hand, Paige was more nervous about crossing the border than she was about stealing the car she’d used to do it. In that time, she’d cleaned up her arm well enough to find less damage than she’d been expecting. The muscle tissue was scraped and gouged, but was still solid enough to function. A few injections of healing serum from the kit strapped around her ankle did a good enough job to get her on the right track. She wasn’t one hundred percent, but could barely remember what that felt like anymore.

The vehicle she’d stolen was a little blue Toyota Tercel missing a taillight, several loops of electrical cord holding the rear bumper in place. The shabby exterior matched an engine that rattled noisily under the hood in what could very well be its last hurrah. Whoever the previous owner was, they were probably glad to be rid of the heap and collect the insurance. When she pulled up to the border crossing station, Paige was concerned that she might not be able to get the car moving again. An even bigger concern was that her friend in uniform had already met with the same lying little prick who had turned Rico against her.

“Hey, Mike, it’s me again,” she said with a tired smile.

Wearing his fifty-plus years on a face that was weather-beaten and scarred by three jagged grooves running all the way down his left cheekbone, Mike smiled and waved away the other Border Patrol officer who started to approach the car. “Back so soon? Usually you guys spend a little more time to get to know a place.”

“Things went better than normal,” Paige told him. “Just headed home.”

“Where’s Rico?”

Mike wouldn’t have made a great spy. That much was certain. On the few occasions she’d needed to get into Canada, he’d been extremely helpful in either waving her through or arranging for one of his friends to let another Skinner pass somewhere else along the border. He’d made several calls to help Gerald into the Great White North, and was the one to grease the wheels for Cole to reenter the States after Gerald and Brad were killed. None of those things made it any easier for her to tighten her grip around the Beretta hidden beneath the flap of her jacket.

“He had to stay behind,” she told him, while praying that he didn’t know anything more than a retired trucker and ex-Marine who’d been jumped by a Yeti in the Adirondacks should know. “Cleanup stuff. You know the drill.”

Mike let out a tired breath and nodded as if he was simply praising the fact that Mondays were indeed the worst. “Yeah. I hear that. Should I expect him soon?”

“Not sure.” Before his experienced eyes picked up on something that might delay her any further, she faced forward and set her sights on the gate that blocked her progress. “Should I just go ahead, then?”

Mike’s hand slapped flat against the top of the car just above her head.

He looked over his shoulder at his partner and another car that had just pulled up to the station.

He started leaning in to the window.

If he got much closer or asked too many more questions about Rico, she would have to assume he was either tainted by Kawosa or aligned with the Skinners who had rallied under Lancroft’s flag. And if that was the case, she figured she might as well shoot her buddy Mike and drive straight through the barricade. What’s the worst that could happen? The law might try to hunt her down?

In a fierce whisper he asked, “Is this trip connected to those policemen that were killed?”

“Maybe,” she replied as her thumb flicked off the Beretta’s safety. “But you’ve got to know we don’t kill innocents.”

“Can you tell me where Rico is?”

Paige shifted her eyes to look at him and angled her gun barrel so she would be sure to hit him if she started firing through the car door. “I could,” she said, “but then I’d have to kill you.”

After a few seconds Mike nodded and gave her a quick little wink. “Gotchya. Walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

“Just about.”

He smacked the car again as if he was swatting a football player’s shoulder pad. “If I see him, I’ll let him know you came by. You have a safe trip and keep up the good work.”

Paige waved graciously and drove beneath the barricade that was lifted and then lowered behind her before the next car in line could slip through. She sped down the road without seeing any of the beautiful scenery around her. The terrain looked as if it had been painted as an ode to approaching winter, which normally would have put her in a very good place. Now, she saw the falling leaves and brown grass as more death heaped onto an already rotting world. Cole would tell her to lighten up when she got like this, but she stopped thinking about him before her mood any worse.

After pulling off to a spot marked as a scenic overlook, she dug her phone from her pocket to dial a number she’d memorized instead of programming it into the phone’s memory. The Beretta was kept on her lap, with her free hand resting upon its grip. Just when she thought she wasn’t going to get an answer over the phone, a connection was made and a crisp voice made itself known with a simple, monosyllabic greeting.

“I need to talk to Adderson,” she said.

The person who’d answered sounded like a dispatcher from any number of taped 911 calls. He was quick, sharp, and had less personality than a discount greeting card. “He’s not available. Who is this?”

“Paige Strobel. I know he’s available. Put me through to him now.”

“One moment.”

There was a series of electronic crackles, a few short buzzes, and then half a muted ring tone. Paige knew she was being recorded, but for once she was talking to people who had more right to be paranoid than she did.

“This is Adderson,” said an even sharper voice than the one that had answered the call.

“Where’s Cole? I need to know right now, dammit.”

“Paige?”

“You know it’s me. If you’re trying to trace the call, don’t bother. I had a friend of mine wire this phone good enough to screw you up for a while.” That wasn’t exactly a bluff, but she wasn’t entirely convinced that Prophet knew what he was doing. The bounty hunter had access to some good equipment through his employer, and swore it would do the job as advertised. She took very little at face value anymore and would be moving along soon enough anyway. “Things are even shittier than before, and I don’t want to leave my partner in a lurch. It was bad enough handing him over in Denver.”

“He’s safer where he is than on the outside,” Adderson replied. “Already, some of the local police units have lessened their searches for you and your people.”

“I want to see him. You said you’d keep tabs on him, and I want to know where he is.”

“Where are you?”

“New York,” Paige replied, figuring the equipment at the other man’s disposal would be good enough to find out that much anyway. “The last I heard, he was already being hauled off to a maximum security prison.”

“That’s right.”

“Just because you put that crap on TV about him getting held up in a trial is just a smokescreen, that doesn’t mean you guys can just lock him up wherever you like and keep him there. He’s supposed to be getting medical attention.”

“He’s getting the best care we can give him, Paige. Didn’t Bob tell you how we operate?”

Bob Stanze was a great cop. He was the only cop who’d tried to do something about the encroaching werewolf presence before they swarmed Kansas City. After that he’d been one of the few to survive the Full Blood siege without trying to pass it off as an urban riot that took place while a pack of wild dogs were prowling the streets.

“I went to Bob for help in tracking those Nymar in Denver before those cops were killed,” Paige said. “He told me you guys would also be able to help with what happened to Cole.”

“A lot of those Denver cops are alive because of what you and your partners did.”

“And some died. Plenty more were killed across the country. I’m starting to think we could’ve done just as well without you.”

“The IRD is in its infancy,” Adderson explained. “Like any agency, it’s not going to hit its stride right away. Considering what we’ve got to work with, I’d say we’re doing pretty well. We’d be doing even better if you were more forthcoming about the rest of the Skinners throughout the country.”

“You convinced me to hand over my partner and you still want me to help you recruit? You’ve got some set of brass under that expensive suit. Until I hear something solid about Cole, you can consider me one hell of a potential problem who’s really good at fading away when the heat’s on.”

The man at the other end of the line sighed. “Cole was supposed to be held at one of our facilities in Boulder where he would be given a preliminary hearing to keep the Justice Department off our backs. After that, as far as any official documentation goes, he was transferred to the Colorado State Penitentiary in Canon City. That was supposed to buy us some time to do what we could before anyone pressed too hard for a trial or an interview with the prisoner.”

“And?”

“And . . . he was transferred.”

“That wasn’t part of the deal,” she snapped.

“Maybe I should remind you that none of this has gone according to the original plan,” Adderson said in a voice that sounded like a steel cable on the verge of snapping. “The Skinners in that warehouse were all to be remanded to our custody so we could take some of the heat off of both you and us. We would do our best to help your partner, and the others would be approached with a deal that would be mutually beneficial if completed properly. Even though the others fled the scene of a crime, we have done our best to see to it that your partner gets the attention he needs.”

“You forgot the part where you promised I’d be able to see him once things settled down. That was the only way I agreed to throw in with you guys at all, and you’d better not f*cking back out on that now.”

Shifting into a tone that reeked of federal authority, Adderson said, “You were in no position to threaten me when Officer Stanze brought you to us, and you’re in no better position now.”

“That’s where we differ. See, my whole life is sliding into hell. When someone doesn’t have anything else to lose, the last thing you want to do is set them off. You know what would make me feel better?”

“Talking to Cole?”

“Now there’s the smart guy Bob promised me.”

The tapping she heard at the other end of the line wasn’t a keyboard. Judging by the frustration in Adderson’s voice, it was most likely a pen being bounced off a desk or even the crackling of knuckles. “I’ll be candid with you, Paige. Things simply never settled down long enough for us to get you in to see him. Now that he’s been . . . diverted, that situation is worse.”

“Where has he been diverted to?” she asked.

“Actually, although one member of the IRD checked Cole out of Canon City, he was taken away by someone not under my jurisdiction.”

“So . . . Cole’s just gone?”

“He can’t be far,” Adderson assured her. “Our people are watching the roads and have a great number of contacts in that area. That’s why it was so vital for us to make our move in Denver as opposed to—”

Paige interrupted in a voice that was sharp enough to snip an iron post in half. “Is it possible the real cops took him from one prison and transferred him through the system?”

“We’re checking on that.”

“Yeah? Well you’d better not be waiting for our trouble with the cops to blow over. By the time that happens, Cole could be a stain on an electric chair. What do you know about what happened to him?”

“We had visual confirmation that Cole was taken into Canon City. He was put into Maximum Security Holding and was under constant surveillance. After we sent someone in to deliver the message from you, he was moved.”

“Where to?” The long silence she got was enough to answer her question. “You seriously don’t know, do you?”

When Adderson failed to respond to that, Paige gritted her teeth and prepared to unleash as many kinds of hell as she could summon. Before she could spit her first piece of brimstone, another car rolled to a stop several yards away. It was stuffed with two adults in the front seats and several bouncing little ankle biters in the back. The driver pushed open his door and staggered out, looking as if he was ready to take a dive over the guardrail just to earn a few moments of peace.

Turning her head away from that car, she said, “You guys are supposed to know what you’re doing! The only reason I agreed to let Bob set me up with you is because you had the resources to start getting this f*cking mess cleaned up.”

“We’re a privately owned organization operating outside the parameters of several official agencies. Right now, it’s taking everything we’ve got to keep from being noticed.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit!” Paige snarled. “With all the contacts you’ve made and the resources you’ve got, there’s no way you could work outside every government agency. Someone’s gotta know about you.”

After a pause, Adderson calmly replied, “Highly ranked officials in the Army and Marine Corps are aware of us, but not in an official capacity. Perhaps it would also make you feel better knowing that one of our men in that SWAT van with Cole kept him from being shot by angry officers who lost their friends that night. And before you spout off again, I realize you Skinners had nothing to do with actually killing those men and women. You want to know what we’ve been doing? The IRD has been stretched almost beyond our limits just keeping the truth about all of this from being spread across the Internet. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to create plausible deniability regarding monsters that are showing up on everything from conspiracy blogs to national news sites?”

“Actually, yes. I do.”

“Your friend Cole did some good work with those doctored videos and pictures he circulated after the Kansas City riots. Those got a lot of people willing to write these instances off as a bad hoax in troubled times. But there’s more to it now. You people simply do not know how to lay low. It’s bad enough that my agency was forced to show itself once the Nymar started targeting innocent people and police officers. With all the attention being aimed at you, it’s that much harder for us to keep our heads out of the sights.”

“You’ve got ties to the government. Doesn’t that make anything easier?”

The sound Adderson made was barely recognizable as a laugh. “We have some funding and equipment from the military and many members with federal or state law enforcement duties. If anything, that makes things a whole lot more difficult. And before you consider threatening me with becoming a squeakier wheel, let me remind you that if you were on your own, none of you would have gotten away from that warehouse.”

Paige knew he had a point, but there was no way she was about to give him that much slack. “Is that how you’d react if one of your men disappeared?”

“We haven’t abandoned Cole. We’re still trying to find out what’s going on in Colorado.”

“I want to go there. Send a chopper for me.”

After a short pause he asked, “After all of that spiteful talk, you want us to be the ones to pick you up? What’s wrong? Is there a search being conducted with your name attached to it?”

“Cole’s been alone too long as it is. At the very least, I need to try and get another message to him.”

“If that were possible, we—”

“Just take me there,” she snapped. “If you’ve got men in Boulder, then take me to them. I can help track Cole down.”

“No. Our people are placed strategically and cannot be exposed just to ease your mind about your partner. I promised we’d take him out of Denver before he was brought down by police snipers, and we did. I promised we’d put him in a facility where the IRD has a presence, and we did.”

“What about the other promise you made about getting Cole medical attention? Do you people even really have doctors that know their way around Nymar spore?”

“Of course we do. There were some initial studies done by one of our doctors.” Adderson lowered his voice until she could barely hear it over the phone. “We think the medical team is where we were infiltrated. Cole was in their care when he was taken. One of them was under my microscope about a day before Cole disappeared from Canon City.”

“Who is it?”

Surprisingly, Adderson replied, “His name is Hal Waylon. Run that by your sources, and if you find anything, let me know. As long as we get proof that he’s been sanctioned, we don’t care who does the deed.”

“If sanctioning is the same as jamming a shotgun up his ass and pulling a trigger, I’m in.” When Paige looked over at the other car, she found two sets of little eyes staring at her from the backseat. She wasn’t certain she’d been loud enough for them to hear her, but the harried dad stretching his legs suddenly seemed ready to climb back into his kidmobile just to get away from there.

“Which brings us to ground we’ve already covered.” Adderson sighed. “As soon as I get an update on where Cole is, I’ll let you know. Now, would you like me to arrange a pickup? It would be helpful for us to know if we might encounter any hostility when we arrive.”

Paige ground her teeth, suddenly thinking of reasons to refuse the offer. She needed to move faster than her stolen car could take her, but if Cole had gone missing while in Adderson’s care, then perhaps it wasn’t such a great idea to climb into another one of those choppers. Also, she had a few more tactical options available when she wasn’t hindered by any sort of authority looking over her shoulder. Even worse, the last thing she needed was to lead Kawosa to a pseudomilitary group that was armed to the teeth and had enough access to arrange tricky ways to bamboozle the citizens of a major country. She still didn’t know where the shapeshifter had gone after scampering away from that expressway. “I got some hostility, all right,” she told Adderson. “I’ve been saving it up for a special occasion and I think I know where to send it.”

“We can pick it up if you like.”

She’d never wanted to hit someone so badly in her life, and that included the day when she couldn’t get away from a boy band radio marathon while being stuck in a cab during rush hour. “Forget it. Call me when you find out anything. I’ll make my own way.”

Adderson’s valiant attempt to get the last word in was cut short by a decisive poke from Paige’s thumb. Once she’d hung up on him, she dialed another number and opened her window to get a better look at the road leading up to the crescent-shaped little parking area. The cool air helped calm her down, right until the point that she was reminded of how Cole used to hang his head out the window like a dog just to feel a breeze on his face. She allowed herself a quick sad smile while watching for any sign that she was being followed. Rico wasn’t dead, which meant he would be coming after her with all he had if he still believed he had to kill her. Since she doubted that Kawosa had planted that stuff about a Skinner splinter group, she wasn’t sure if she should trust him anyhow. That was a tough fact to wrap her mind around, but would have been dangerous for her to take lightly.

“Midwestern Ectological Group, Branch 40,” chirped a fresh voice that Paige had never heard before.

“Can I talk to Stu?”

“He’s in the field. Someone else can help you, though.”

“No. Put me through to him. Take this number down.” After Paige rattled off her identification number, the girl at the other end of the phone wrote it down, asked someone else what to do with it, looked it up and then made a quick connection that resulted in a transfer to another phone line.

“Paige? Where have you been? Wait, is this really you?”

“Yeah, Stu, it’s me.”

“Prove it.”

She drew a breath and brought the phone so close to her mouth that she almost ate it. “I already gave my number to the stupid little dimwit you got answering the phones, and if you make me give it out again, I’ll drive to wherever you are and tattoo it onto your face with a piece of broken glass.”

“Whoa! That’s you, all right. Sorry about that, but we’ve had some changes on this end. And please don’t start making comments about my end. I’m kinda in mixed company here.”

Not everyone at MEG knew about Skinners. Most of the organization just chased ghosts and investigated paranormal claims, but the core members were more than happy to provide a communication structure for those who knew where to find the occasional genuine Bigfoot lair. Stu was not only eager to be Paige and Cole’s primary contact, but able to back up that trust with results.

“Have you heard anything from Cole?” he asked.

“I was just going to ask the same thing.”

“If we had, don’t you think we would have called?”

“Yes,” she said earnestly. “What about Rico? Have you heard anything from him?”

“Yeah. Just a little while ago. Sounds like you two got separated. Want me to connect you to him?”

“No. Calling him right now may be dangerous. You know how it is.”

“Yeah,” Stu said, even though he was too far removed to know how anything was.

“Do you know anyone who can pick me up?”

“Any Skinners, you mean?”

“No,” she replied, without worrying whether it was too quick. Rico still hadn’t tracked her down, but that was as comforting as a fuse taking just a little longer than expected to reach the dynamite. “I was thinking more along the lines of one of the MEG branches. You guys have to have an office somewhere in New York, right?”

“Our closest branch is in South Jersey. There’s another bunch of guys covering the East Coast paranormal scene better than us. I could make a call. They don’t know about you, but they’d probably be willing to help you out as a favor to us.”

Paige was going to accept the offer when she thought better of it. Calling the MEG guys was sketchy enough. They were still only observers and phone operators. Bringing anyone else into this mess was just cruel.

“Paige? You still there?”

“Yeah, Stu. I’m just thinking.”

“Let me call the Jersey branch. Don’t you know someone out that way?”

“It’s all right.” Wanting desperately to put him on another track, she asked, “What are you doing in the field? Usually the only time you’re away from the office is to play in one of those Sniper Ranger tournaments.”

“One of our investigators got shoved off a patio. He swears it was a poltergeist that did it, but the guy once tripped over a bump in the sidewalk and broke his wrist. Whatever the reason, I’m taking his place. I love talking to you guys, but going out on real investigations beats the snot out of staring at a computer screen all day.”

“Congrats.”

“Thanks. Everything all right, Paige? You sound upset.”

She fired back with: “Maybe it’s the whole fugitive thing. Or it could have something to do with Cole being in prison. That kind of stuff tends to put a damper on things.”

“Okay, fair enough. Dumb question. Just trying to help.”

There was no way for Stu to help. She felt like an idiot for even thinking MEG could be of any use in this situation, especially when they were purposely kept as far removed from Skinner business as possible. “Do me a favor. Try to find out what you can about Cole. Run a search on Colorado State Penitentiary. Google his name. I don’t care. If you find anything, let me know before anyone else.”

“I can do that, definitely.”

“I’m serious about that last part. No matter who else calls or asks, even Rico, I want to know first.”

“He’s your partner,” Stu replied. “I can respect that.”

“Okay. Thanks.” Paige hung up and faced the stretch of road leading back to I-190. Her ears had picked up the crunch of approaching tires on gravel. Moments before the car came into view, her hand was already wrapped around the Beretta and preparing to empty its entire magazine through her window. She didn’t relax until she was certain that the old woman driving the late model Dodge wasn’t one of Rico’s contacts.

After the Dodge pulled to a stop, the old woman killed the engine and reached for her passenger seat. When she turned back around, she was holding a little sandwich that she nibbled on while gazing out her windshield.

There was one more number Paige wanted to dial, but she wasn’t going to do so while standing still. Her nerves were jangling so badly that she thought it might feel better to run all the way back to Chicago. She backed out of her spot, headed for the interstate, and began tapping out her next call.

Prophet wasn’t answering his phone. Screening his calls was one of several precautions the bounty hunter was taking after escaping Denver the night the SWAT teams took Cole away. Deciding against leaving a message, she hung up.

Her car was barely up to full speed when her phone rang with Prophet’s caller ID notification lighting up her screen. “Walter,” she said without wasting time on a greeting, “when was the last time you saw those Gypsies?”

“Number one,” Prophet replied, “they don’t like it when we call them Gypsies. It’s insulting, but only when it comes from an outsider. Maybe a racist thing. I kind of lose track, but the proper name is Amriany, and that’s what they like to hear. They carry a lot of guns, so you might wanna keep that in mind.”

“Yeah, yeah. Have you seen them lately?”

“Number two,” Prophet continued calmly, “I haven’t seen them since Denver.”

“Can you get ahold of them?”

“Maybe. Why?”

“I’m in a jam. Rico and I went after the Nymar communication hub in Toronto. We got some leads, but Kawosa turned him against me.”

Suddenly, Paige felt like her stomach had imploded. If Kawosa had somehow tracked the bounty hunter down, she could very well be making the same mistake where Prophet was concerned. If he’d already taken Rico’s side, he could call the big man and send him to her. Unfortunately, it was too late to worry about all that. She needed to trust someone, and if Walter wasn’t trustworthy, things were even worse than she’d imagined. “I need help, Prophet, and I don’t know who else to turn to. You said the Amriany had serious funding and transportation. Is there any way you could convince them to get me to Denver? It’ll take too long for me to drive, and I’m not about to surrender my weapons to make it through an airport security check.”

“Don’t you know any other pilots? What about the guy who smuggled Cole out of Canada after Gerald and Brad were killed?”

That man was a Skinner, and she hadn’t spoken to him more than a handful of times in her life. Considering what had happened with Rico and the fact that Kawosa could be turning any number of the others against her, going outside the Skinners made the most sense. “He’s not available,” she said. “It’s got to be the Amriany.”

Prophet sighed heavily. “I can make some calls. Even if I can get them to pick you up, I can’t guarantee they’ll just drop you off wherever you want.”

“Thanks, Walter. Tell them I don’t expect a free ride, but I’ve got to get away from here. Tell them—”

“I’ll think of something,” he cut in. “Just let me get to calling before you talk me out of it.”