Book II Chapter 15

The third floor window of the old row house held two sliding panes in wooden frames, one above the other. Tom knew that without his armored suit he had to be careful of shattered glass, which could cut him like razors. When he dove through the window he hit with his forearms first against the wooden sides of the glass frames. The old wood of the window was not designed to take over two hundred pounds of lateral force, and both windows popped out amidst a spray of splinters. The panes briefly tangled in the heavy drapes, before falling to the floor with a shattering crash.

Tom shot a full twenty feet into the room, and did a mid-air somersault that landed him on his feet. He used his momentum to propel himself forward, sprinting to where the half naked man stood gaping at him. The blond raised his arms in a belated attempt to protect himself, but it was too late. Tom hit him with the force of a charging fullback, knocking him across the room to smash at the foot of the old man struggling to rise from his chair with a thud that shook the old attic.

Anger like a wave boiled up inside of Tom, rolling off of him like heat. He strode forward, unstoppable, barely pausing to mercilessly kick the man on the ground between his splayed legs. The guy screamed, jackknifing his body into a fetal ball and rolling onto his side, his bare feet drumming hollowly against the wooden floor. His screams tapered off into choked sobs as Tom stepped around him.

The old man had risen from his chair and retreated, his face and wide eyes mirroring his shock. He was trying desperately to raise his pants with one hand while still holding onto the video camera with the other. He squealed as a backhanded slash of Tom’s cane knocked the camera from his hands, while the return swing looped the hooked end behind his neck. A quick tug and the old pederast was jerked forward to the ground, with Tom’s knee meeting his face halfway there. There was a bright spray of blood amidst the sound of breaking teeth, before the monster hit the floor in a boneless sprawl.

Tom stepped back to survey the scene, the rasp of his own breath harsh in his ears, a counterpoint to the heavy pounding of his heart. His body still shook from the combination of rage and adrenalin, as he looked down on the two enemies at his feet. Too fast, the fight had ended way too soon. Part of him still wanted to vent itself by pounding the two moaning child molesters even more, but the saner part that felt his pain and weariness was just as glad they had folded so easily.

Tom looked to the boy, who still lay huddled in a ball on the cot. The boy now clutched a pillow to his chest, peering over it fearfully at Tom. Eyes wide, waiting for whatever new terror he now faced. Tom quickly looked away, thinking about the kind of frightening image he must be. He spotted the boy’s clothing, a T-shirt, jeans and ratty looking sneakers, casually thrown into a corner. He picked them up and turned back to the cot, slowly approaching. The boy drew himself into an even tighter ball, watching Tom warily as he gently set the clothing on the foot of the cot and then backed away.

Tom turned around to give the kid some privacy, and to also look as none threatening as possible. He turned his attention instead to the boy’s abusers. The old man had managed to get his pants back up and fastened, and was trying to lever himself into the chair he had been sitting on. Blood dribbled from his mouth, his breath making a harsh gurgling sound. The younger man, the half naked blond guy, had managed to pull himself to all fours. Tom stepped forward and put a foot against the guys ass and pushed hard, sending him sprawling. “Stay down!” he snapped, his voice an animal’s snarl.

He looked down now at his two prisoners and wondered, now what? He could have Murray call the cops, they would come and take these two scumbags away, but what about the kid? Social Services would get a hold of him for sure, and then he’d end up in the system. They might put him into protective custody like Ming Yu, but that wasn’t likely. She had personally seen Ricardo Wing commit murder, she was a threat to the big boss man himself. The most this poor kid could do was testify against Taktarov and Delger, and with nothing to corroborate his testimony it would be totally worthless.

So the kid would end up shuffled from one foster home after another, by a system too overburdened to really give a damn. And crap, he was probably a foreign national, too. Blond and light skinned, probably one of those Eastern European children that Bennett said the Wings were getting from the Russian mob. Which meant he was either kidnapped off the streets of bought from some impoverished farmers out in the boonies. How were they going to deal with something like that?

Tom spared a glance at the source of his worries. At first the boy had dressed slowly, too busy warily watching him and the two lowlifes, fearful of what other dangers they held. But once he started dressing, feeling the comfort of clothing over his nakedness, he quickly finished as fast as his small shaking hands could do so. T-shirt, jeans, socks and sneakers. When he was done the boy hesitated, slowly raising his eyes to see what was going to happen to him next.

That question was troubling Tom, also. What was he going to do with the boy, and almost as important what was he going to do with the two baby-rapers? Calling the cops was out, but if he just took the child and left his abusers behind, they’d go straight to the Dark Wing Boyz and let them know that someone was after them. He’d already figured out where that could lead. There had to be something he could do, some way to save this situation, but what? Shit, what would the Batman do?

Tom froze, standing stock still as the answer suddenly came to him. What would Batman do? Oh yeah, divide and conquer.

Tom turned around to face his two prisoners, an almost evil grin forming under his mask. But the smile froze as his eyes fell on the young blond man he had put down five minutes earlier. The shirtless guy who was now bent over the open drawer of a small table in the corner of the room. Who was swinging around with a gun in his hand, bringing it to bear in Tom’s direction. Tom, and the little boy he was supposed to be protecting.

Time suddenly slowed to a walk, then to a crawl, as Tom’s newfound power shifted. He saw the gun, a short barreled revolver, swinging towards him in slow motion. It would have been so easy to dodge the coming bullet, but that would have left the child behind him exposed. Instead Tom threw himself backwards, covering the boy on the cot with his own body.

The gun fired, and Tom would swear he could see the bullet erupting from the barrel and racing towards him. The slug ripped through the space he had occupied an instant earlier, missing him by less than a hands width. The roar of the shot sounded muffled, while the beating of his heart thundered in his ears. The blond man was still riding the recoil of the snub nosed pistol as Tom whipped the cane in a backhanded throw, that sent it pinwheeling across the room towards the shooter. It struck the other a glancing bow, but it was enough to keep him from firing a second shot for a few precious seconds, and that was all Tom needed.

With a burst of redirected gravity he launched himself from the cot and across the room, once again aimed at the shirtless blond man. At the last instant he dodged left, his right hand slapping down into an iron clamp on the gun wrist. In a hap kido move Dieter had drilled into him with a thousand repetitions he whirled, bent the other’s wrist and levered it backwards, wrenching his elbow in a direction it was never meant to take. The gun was sent spinning off into a corner, as with yet another twist Tom rode his opponent face first into the ground.

Tom crouched on top of the man underneath him, his knee in the other’s shoulder joint, his arm levered back and hyper extended almost to the point of breaking. The guy was howling and making threats, but it was obvious he was helpless. But Tom had had enough! With his free hand he struck the baby raper’s elbow a quick, sharp blow that snapped the joint like a piece of dry kindling. The guy screamed, something Tom thought might scare the boy. Another palm strike to the back of the head ended that problem.

Tom rose to his feet, breathing hard, glancing at the old man to make sure he wasn’t a threat. He wouldn’t have thought so, but then again he had thought the blond guy was out of the fight, too. But the porn director was cowering in the corner, hands clutching his bloody mouth, his pants hastily pulled up over skinny hips. White bunches of his underwear peaked out over the edges. From the look on his face the old man was about to wet himself.

Good. Tom sure as hell didn’t need any more surprises this night. With three long strides he crossed the distance and grabbed the old guy by the shirt and swung him around. He pushed, and the man squealed as he found himself bent backwards across the railing over the stairwell. Tom could smell his fear even through the musty scent of the heavy wool mask. “Do you know why you’re still alive?” he hissed.

The baby-raper’s eyes widening in fear was his only response, so Tom gave him a hard shake that rattled his newly broken teeth, then asked the question again. The old man finally managed to gasp out a weak “no”.

“You’re alive because I want you to deliver a message. Tell Delger that I want my money. He gets the boy back when I get paid, plus ten percent for my time and trouble. Do you got that?”

Only when the terrified man had repeated his words back exactly did Tom pull him away from the railing. He dragged him across the floor and threw him on top of the blond guy, who had managed to sit up but was holding his arm across his chest and moaning. He paused to pick up the cane and slide it into his belt. Only when he was sure there was nothing near by they could use as a weapon did he turn away and approach the boy. He found him still on the bed, rolled up into a little ball and clutching the pillow to his face. His frail little body trembled like a leaf, and Tom felt a sharp flash of guilt. Because of his carelessness the little boy had been exposed to even more violence, and this was the result. He could hear the child moaning a single word over and over in a trembling accented voice, probably the only English he knew. “Pliss, pliss, pliss..”

Please.

As gently as he could Tom picked up the edge of the blanket and folded it over and around the traumatized child, whispering reassuring words he knew the kid didn’t understand, hoping his tone would relay the message. He slowly picked the boy up into his arms and cradled him to his chest, then covered his face with the blanket. The boy trembled, but otherwise did not respond. Tom thought about catatonia, and felt an overwhelming urgency to get the hell out of that place.

He spared the two beaten pedophiles a quick glance as he passed them by, but that was all. He had more important problems to worry about now. He looked at the window he had entered by and hesitated, then decided it probably wasn’t a good idea to leave that way in front of two witnesses. Instead he walked down the stairs, followed them down two flights to the ground floor. He made his way through the darkened house more by instinct than by sight, and found a backdoor in the kitchen. It let him outside into the small backyard, lit only by the stars above and the reflected light of the city. He held the boy to his chest tightly, made sure his face was covered, and then as gently as he could he rose into the starry sky.

Inside the converted attic, forgotten where it had fallen into a corner, the digital camera hummed softly. It’s single indicator light glowed like the red eye of a night time predator.

*****

Tom found a nearby rooftop and landed long enough to make another call to Murray, who had been waiting anxiously to hear from him. He explained the situation quickly to the Special Effects man, and then told him what he needed to do.

“Call Sawbones, tell him and his wife to meet us on their roof. And I don’t give a damn if she doesn’t want to get involved, they owe me, and you can remind her of that if you have to.”

Fifteen minutes later, Tom floated high over the Noe Valley neighborhood where the Dray family now lived. It had been easier to find this time, but he still needed to use the GPS unit to get there. All the events of that whole screwed up night seemed to point out to him just how much he depended on the weapons and equipment the Planning Committee had created for him. He made a quick resolve never to let himself be caught so unprepared ever again.

Sam Dray was once again on the rooftop, only this time he wasn’t bothering to use his flashlight as a homing beacon. His wife now clutched it tightly in her hand, nervously drawing broad sweeping strokes of light across the wide expanse of the widow’s walk. Tom briefly wondered how much Sam had told her about what he could do, and how much she believed. He decided he’d find out soon enough, as he homed in on the beam of light and settled to ground as gently as he knew how.

Margarithe Dray stood next to her husband and held his hand in a death grip, as she kept the flashlight holding steadily on Tom’s advancing form. She didn’t bolt and run, he thought, so apparently Sam had told her what to expect. Still, she held the light as if it were some sort of icon to ward off evil. The last thought brought a sour taste to Tom’s mouth.

So it was with his own feelings of resentment that Tom crossed the roof and stopped before the doctor’s wife, the gritty sound of his footsteps echoing. The boy hung limply in his arms, he had been like a sack of grain throughout the entire flight. He hadn’t once tried to look out past the blanket tucked over his face, and most likely did not know that they had ever left the ground. No curiosity, no life, and no hope. It was as if he had given up and surrendered himself to whatever horrors would next be visited on him, knowing that he was completely powerless to change a thing. Carefully Tom freed one hand and unwrapped the blanket, exposing the blond haired little boy and his lifeless eyes.

“Pliss.”

Meg Dray gasped, letting go of her husband to bring her hand up to cover her mouth. A child! He was holding a child. The mother’s heart that had been so worried about her own family suddenly turned on her, reaching out and ensnaring her with that tormented blue gaze. She found herself stepping forward without thinking, reaching out. She hesitated when the masked man spoke.

“Mrs. Dray, this is one of those people you couldn’t afford to be concerned about. I don’t know his name, and I don’t know where he comes from or who his people are. But I know what was done to him. That’s all anyone should need to know.”

The masked man made a move, as if to hand the child to her. Meg Dray hesitated, then started to accept. She took the limp bundle into her arms, then moved away and gently set him on his feet. She kept her arms around him, taller than her Jordan but still so small, his head barely coming up to her chin. She gently stroked his cheek, tried to get him to look at her, but he pulled away. She was aware of her husband and the masked man watching them in silence, but only just. All of her attention was totally focused on the beautiful, damaged little boy.

She spoke to him, first in one language, and then another. He did not recognize the words, she could tell, but the familiar rhythms of the Slavic tongues seemed to strike a spark of recognition. She felt him start when she finally hit the right one, the language of his home and family. Hesitantly he answered back, she responded, and the healing began.

Tom and the doctor came together and moved for a corner of the roof, giving the woman and child some space and privacy. They watched as Meg sank to the rooftop and pulled the boy onto her lap and held him close, working the mother magic for all that it was worth. They could hear the murmur of their voices, and eventually the sound of sobbing.

“Crying,” Tom said. “That’s a good sign, right?”

“Yes. Yes, I think it’s a very good sign,” Sam answered, watching the miracle that was his wife in action. It never ceased to amaze him. He was one of the best thoracic surgeons in the country, he routinely performed incredible things with his hands, saving lives and repairing bodies. But Meg performed the same function with nothing more than the sound of her voice and the compassion in her heart. It was precious moments like these that humbled him, keeping the world and his place in it in the proper perspective.

Sam hesitated, not sure how to frame his next question. “You said… before, when you tried to tell Meg about what you were working on. The thing you wanted my help with. Are they…?”

“Like him? Yeah, probably. Kids, mostly under ten years old, turned into sex slaves.”

Sam swallowed. “How many?” he asked, dreading the answer but having to know.

“In this city, maybe forty more.”

Sam looked stunned. “Forty! My God, that many?”

“That’s what we’ve heard. Those kids are our number one priority, we have to get them out first before we go after the gang, or it could be very, very bad.

“That little boy isn’t the first child we took away from these people. A few months ago we rescued a little girl who was being sold out of the trunk of a car. We turned her over to the police, who put her in protective custody. But somebody sold her out, again, and they killed her. I’m not about to give them another chance with the rest of them.

“That’s why we need you, Doctor. When we get those kids we’re going to need a place to house them. We’re going to need medical personnel, therapists, translators, and everything that goes with them. They have to be good at their jobs, but most of all they have to be trustworthy. They’ll all have to be able to keep this a secret for at least three or four days. So can you do this or not, Sam? I need an answer, and I need it right now.”

Sam Dray felt his breath catch, as the import of the masked man’s words struck him in the pit of his stomach. Responsibility for another’s life was nothing new to him, he did it every day when he donned his surgical greens and took metal blades to frail human flesh. But the complexities of the thing! The people he would have to find, professionals with lives and practices of their own. People who would have to trust enough to follow him blindly into something that they would have to keep secret from everyone that they loved and worked with. Maybe even risk their lives in the doing. How could he do this? It was absolutely insane how much he would be asking of them.

He turned, feeling his gaze pulled to the sight of his wife and the child she cuddled to her breast. From here he could just barely hear the soft sound of Meg crooning a song that spoke of far Eastern Europe. He recognized the lullaby, one that she used to sing to Jordan when he was just an infant. Sam sighed and bowed his head, knowing the decision was already made.

“I’ll do it. I don’t know how, but I’ll do it. Just tell me when I’ll have to work this little miracle you’re asking for.”

The big man in the mask chuckled. “I don’t know. No longer than absolutely necessary, though. I’m not sure what the gang will do after losing that boy, but we need to get them out of there as soon as possible. I know we’re asking a lot of you and the people you’re going to have to talk into this. If it helps you can tell them that you were asked to do it by elements of the SFPD. We’ll actually have someone there with a badge when this does go down.”

Sam nodded, considering. “Yes, that will help. At least no one will be too worried about losing their medical license over this. And by saying the police are involved, I can probably get most to commit to help without telling what it will be about before you finally call on us.”

The other nodded, approving. “Good. The longer we keep them from knowing, the better chance we have of keeping it under wraps.”

“You realize, whatever we do will only be a stop gap measure at best. Those children will need professional long term care, we can’t keep them hidden forever. How long will you need us to hold them?”

“I’m hoping no more than two or three days. Don’t worry, Sam,” he said, his voice gone grim and cold. “As soon as those kids are out of the line of fire, I’ll be going through those bastards like the black plague.”

Sam looked at his guest, hearing the oath in those few words, and nodded. For one of the few times in his life the healer of the sick contemplated violence and death, and was not bothered in the least.

The two men talked for several minutes more, working on the logistics and the part each was to play in the next few days. When they were done they turned their attention back to Meg Dray and the boy, where they still sat huddled at the far end of the widow’s walk. They approached slowly, Sam taking the lead and showing a gentle smile, Tom hanging back so as not to frighten the child who had already been through so much. The boy looked up at them, then hurriedly buried his face into the shoulder of the only safety he had known for such a long, long time.

Tom stopped, watching as Meg murmured soft words to the child, waiting patiently until she turned her attention back to him. When she did, her eyes were wide with sorrow and compassion.

“He is from Bulgaria, a farm. His name is Teodor. Greek derivative. It, it means ‘gift of God’.”

Tom shared a long look with the woman, who had maybe found that there were some things worth fighting for after all. He gave her a brief nod of acknowledgement, made sure the boy was still not watching, then turned away. He took two steps and lifted off of that rooftop, and disappeared into the night.

*****

Lt. John Burke finished the last page of the report he had just read and closed the folder, dropped it onto the tray on the right side of his desk, then picked up another one from the tray on the left. He paused, comparing the Out tray on the right to the In one on the left. He worked on reports like this every damned day, and had done so for the two years since he had been put in charge of the Violent Crimes unit. So why was it that the tray on the right never seemed to grow as fast as the one on the left?

Burke sighed, rubbing the back of his neck where the knots seemed to breed. He looked at the open file, skimmed through it for the salient points. Tourists, a man and wife, arrived in the states three days earlier from Portugal for a three week vacation. Three male perps, one with a knife. All money and jewelry taken, the husband beaten and the wife manhandled. Groped, but not raped. Inspectors assigned, Casissi and Ramirez. Five potential suspects, two being brought in for lineup later that day…

A short trill of music, muffled, broke into his thoughts. Burke reached into the desk drawer and fished out his cell phone. Without taking his eyes from the file before him he flipped the cell open and brought it to his ear. “John Burke.”

“Good morning, L.T.,” a familiar voice answered him. Burke straightened in his chair, feeling his breath catch, his divided attention suddenly sharpening to a knifepoint edge.

“I need a favor.”

*****

Tom called the next meeting of the Planning Committee three days after the rescue of the boy, which was the longest he was prepared to wait before taking action. As it was he had spent two days in bed letting his body heal, under Holly’s carefully watchful eye. Most of the time that he had slept, she informed him, he had done so hovering six inches above the bed. Whether it was the super conductor in his back somehow boosting his metabolism, or simply the increased circulation from the weightlessness, the fact was that Tom had healed from his injuries more than twice as fast as normal. It hadn’t been a conscious act, so apparently his body was adapting to his new condition all by itself. The only visible sign of his ordeal was the splint taped over his still broken nose. Apparently bone and cartilage still took longer to heal than bruises and contusions. Eventually even Holly and Mike had to admit that he was ready to go back to the mission.

As before, the meeting was a teleconference. Holly sat on the couch next to Tom in the large warehouse loft, her long legs curled beneath her, while her father sat across from them in one of the matching chairs. The three of them together watched the big screen TV, hooked up to the secured computer terminal that connected them to Pablo Murray’s loft, and Mike Blackwood’s home office.

Dieter watched Tom covertly, his face it’s usual mask, keeping private whatever he was thinking. But behind the mask the big German was feeling very satisfied with what he saw. The younger man had, in a few short months, gone from a naïve crusader with a unique gift to being both a tested warrior, and now a leader. Tom Blackwood had come a long way in the short time that Dieter had known him, an incredibly long way, and by the looks of things he was destined to go farther still.

“So it looks like your little bit of improv worked, Flyboy,” Pablo was saying, his image taking up the left side of the big screen. “According to Bennett, Taktarov and Delger were in one of the clubs last night and things were pretty heated. He said it was the first time he’d ever seen them so pissed about anything. At one point some of their crew had to pull them apart, when they started yelling at each other in Russian. Didn’t take much to get them at each other’s throats, did it?”

“It usually doesn’t, Pablo,” Dieter put in, smiling grimly. “Vermin like those are always dangerous when they can put away their differences and work together. But it never takes much to make them turn and feed on each other.” For a moment the old German’s eyes focused on something far away and long ago, making some of the other’s wonder briefly what memory from his counter-terrorist days had been raised by the comment.

“Yeah, well, it looks like it’s just about supper time,” Mike put in, his voice going grim. “And I think we better push it as soon as possible. Bennett says he bought some of the Russian crew a few drinks, and they groused a lot that they haven’t been making any money. Taktarov and Delger might be at each other’s throats, but they both agreed that someone’s making a run on them. They shut down all operations and haven’t been working any of the kids at all, but that’s not going to last much longer. We have to hit them hard and soon, Tom.”

“Rockstar’s right, no argument there,” Pablo said, nodding. “But the problem is still the same; where do we go? We still have to find the crib, the place where they’re keeping the kids.”

“And we’re definitely not going to try following them again after they start back up,” Holly put in, looking at Tom. He nodded briefly but did not meet her gaze, looking inward instead. “Not after rescuing Teodore the way you did. If we find anyone in their hands, we can’t leave them there, not even for a minute.” Holly knew how much the enforced inactivity of the past few days had worn at Tom, the way he had worried over his actions and the repercussions they might have generated. Repercussions for the forty child slaves that he had not been able to save, because he could not bring himself to stand by and allow even one child to be abused. Hearing now that the others were not being harmed in the boys’ stead had only too obviously lifted a weight from his soul. She wondered if everyone else could tell what was so plain to her, just how much this news meant to the man they were all so dedicated to.

“I’ve got an idea about that,” Tom put in. “I made a phone call this morning, and I think we’ve got another way to find the crib. But before then we’ve got to make sure we’re ready to take advantage of it. Has Sam gotten his people recruited yet?”

“I talked to him today, Tom,” Mike reported. “Doc Dray says he’s already got six or seven people agreeing to come on, and he thinks he can get another two by tonight. I think that should be it, any more and we can probably kiss any operational security goodbye. As it is, if nothing breaks soon then the fact that Sam is recruiting for something secret will be common knowledge.”

“You’re probably right. No way can that many people keep a secret, not for any length of time. What has Sam told them so far?”

“Just what you told him to. That someone high up in law enforcement asked him to arrange off the books medical care and treatment for a large group of illegal aliens sometime real soon. Nobody asked too many questions, and he never mentioned that it was going to be a boatload of pre-teen sex slaves. Besides, it’s pretty close to the truth, isn’t it?”

“It’s a tribute to Dr. Dray’s reputation in the medical community, that so many people would blindly agree like this on his word alone,” Dieter remarked.

“Let’s hope we don’t drag him into something that will tarnish that reputation,” Tom replied. “What about the logistics? Sam and I also talked about the need for someplace safe to hold the kids once we find them. Has he found anything yet?”

“Sounds like it,” Mike answered. “One of the guys he approached to help has keys to an old sanitarium up in the hills, about a half hour outside of the city. It shut down five years ago, but he’s on the board of the group responsible for looking after the place. He called and had the electricity, heat and water turned on in one of the wings, and he says they still have beds and bedding there in storage. He and Sam and some of the other volunteers are out there today, buying food and getting things set up.”

Tom nodded, and Holly could almost see him marking off one more item on his list. “Perfect. So how about transportation? When we get the kids how are we going to get them to the sanitarium.”

“Got it covered, Tom,” Pablo cut in, grinning. In his workshop in West Sacramento, he held up a set of keys and waved them proudly, making them jingle. “There’s a lot out in Oakland where some of the studios store vehicles for film shoots in the Bay area. No guards, just a security company that comes around once on the weekends, to make sure the chains on the gates are still locked. They don’t even do an inventory of the cars!” Pablo snorted, showing what he thought of such a lack of professionalism.

“Anyway, two days ago me and Dieter ‘borrowed’ a couple of school buses from the back lot. We checked ‘em over carefully, changed the oil and gassed them up. Then we drove them around for a few hours, just to make sure they’re sound. We got them parked in a warehouse a couple of blocks from here.”

“I have never driven a school bus before. It’s surprisingly like driving a deuce and a half in the Army,” Holly’s father commented.

“What’s a deuce and a half?” Mike asked, puzzled.

“Two and a half ton truck. You’ve seen them in every war movie set after World War I, it’s pretty much the standard size transport in most of the countries in NATO,” Tom answered. He paused, then leaned forward, his hands clasped and forearms resting on his knees. Newly earned muscles bunched under a T-shirt that had grown too tight in the chest over the past six months. He looked at the image of his brother on the big screen TV against the wall, coming to them from his home office over a hundred miles away. “Mike, you said you talked to Sam. I know he’s in, and committed. But what about his wife? When I first left that rooftop, Mrs. Dray was pretty adamant about him not getting any more involved with us. How does he think she’ll handle all of this? Is she going to be a problem?”

“Don’t worry about Meg,” Holly spoke up, confidently. “I had a long talk with her, and her attitude’s changed a lot since you brought Teodore to her. She’s in, too.”

This was the question Holly had been waiting for, and the response had been easy to predict. There was silence in the loft, as all eyes both real and electronically imaged, suddenly froze on her. She waited patiently for the bomb to drop, all her arguments prepared.

“Jesus Christ, you called her?”

“Hilda! Operational security—”

“God damn it, Holly! Of all the stupid, crazy, dumbfuck—!”

“Mike!” Tom snapped, and like a switch the explosion was aborted, leaving a tense but expectant silence in the room. Even Holly, who had been prepared for a confrontation, found herself unable to speak.

Tom cast a quick glance around the room, meeting every eye briefly before moving on. When he turned back to Holly she expected to see anger and accusation in his gaze, but was surprised instead to see only a level patience, a look that promised only to listen to what she had to say before making a judgment, if any.

“Holly, when you and Dieter first joined the Committee, we all agreed to follow a set of rules regarding security. You helped write those rules. Now you’re telling us that you talked to Meg Dray on your, without consulting the rest of us. I’m trusting that you had a good reason for calling her, and I think we’d all like to hear what that reason was.”

Holly opened her mouth, then closed it again. Dammit, she had been totally prepared for an argument, and now Tom had turned it all around by being reasonable. It was like she had been thundering down a road, and somebody else’s foot had jammed on the brakes. How dare he be reasonable! Inside her head she sputtered in outrage, but even as she thought the words she knew how ridiculous they were. She paused and drew a deep breath, to give her time to mentally switch directions.

“Alright. First of all, despite what everyone thinks, I did not break security with Meg Dray. I didn’t tell her anything about Tommy or the Committee that she didn’t already know. Sam had told her everything the day after he first met Tom, I mean he had to tell her something when she saw Jordan running around in his old Spiderman pajamas and carrying that toy bear of his. And after you left Teodor with them, you didn’t even try to keep her from seeing you fly away. So my just calling her didn’t put us in any more danger than before.”

Mike started to object angrily, but Dieter held up a hand and forestalled him. To his daughter he said, “Did you follow proper procedure for contacting someone outside of the Committee, Holly?”

She nodded, “Yes, Poppa, I did. I used one of Mike’s secure lines, one of the throwaways. And I used a voice modulator, too.” And she had, for the first five minutes or so. But her mechanically altered voice hadn’t done a thing to reassure the doctor’s wife, and Holly had quickly given it up. But nobody here had to know that just yet.

“But why did you do it in the first place, Holly?” Murray asked, his voice almost querulous. He’d known her for years, trusted her, and now he needed to know why she had seemingly broken faith like this.

“Because none of you would, Uncle Pablo!” She said, exasperated. She turned to Tom, trying now just to make him understand. “These past three days while you were healing we talked a lot about what happened with Meg, and what she was going to do about you, about us. These three kept talking in circles; how could she hurt us, what kind of threat was she, what should we do about her. Around and around, the same arguments, never getting anywhere. Everybody just waiting for you to get up out of your sickbed and tell us what to do.

“But none of them wanted to talk about Meg, about what she was going through. I tried to get them to see her as a person, but all they saw was a potential threat. I mean… dammit, we’re not at war, we’re supposed to be helping people. Aren’t we? So who was going to help Meg?

“She lost everything in her life, you know. Twice. First when men with guns came in the night and took her parents away. But then again for almost an hour, when her home burned down and she thought she had lost Jordan, too. Her child. And then a few months later we come along and try dragging her husband into something that could threaten everything all over again. Can you blame her for the way she reacted?”

Holly sighed, turning away for a moment. When she looked back the earnestness in her eyes had softened into something sad, a tired empathy for someone else’s pain.

“I tried to understand how she must be feeling, and one thing just jumped out. How lonely she must be. Her whole world turned upside down and dropped kicked, and she has no one to even talk to about it to. Just her husband, but what could she say to him? He’d already made up his mind about us. So I called her, and we talked.”

Tom nodded, thoughtfully. “So what did you two talk about?” he asked.

Holly drew a breath, considering her words carefully. “Her fears, mostly. Her nightmares. The emotional conflicts she was going through. Her confusion. Right and wrong, moral obligations, and all the strings that go along with them. We cried a lot, but sometimes we laughed a little, too.”

“And in your opinion, in your very best judgment,” her father asked, going to the root of the problem, “What will Mrs. Dray do? Will she help us, or try and stop us to protect herself and her family?”

“I already told you, Poppa. She’s in, all the way,” Holly said with certainty. She glanced around the room, meeting Mike and Pablo’s gaze just long enough for them to see her confidence, her eyes then settling on the one person who could judge if she had been right in her actions or not.

“What Meg had done was to dig a hole, climb in, and pull her family in with her. She not only locked the whole world out, she turned her back on it. And that was her metaphor, not mine. Ever since her parents had been arrested, she’s been haunted by one question. How could they have done that? Thrown away there lives, and her, for a bunch of strangers. How were their principles more important to them than she was? She just couldn’t understand it.”

“But when I took Teodore, and shoved him into that hole with her…” Tom said slowly, and Holly felt like sighing as she saw the understanding come into his eyes.

“You gave her something she couldn’t turn her back on anymore. She saw what had been done to Teo, and heard from him what was being done to the others. And suddenly she knew how her parents could risk everything. So she’s scared, but believe me she’s also in, all the way.”

As she finished Holly leaned back with a sigh, looking around the room. It had turned out harder than she had thought, but now she finally saw understanding in all their faces, with maybe a little bit of guilt thrown in to make it sweeter. She turned back towards Tom, with one eyebrow raised in a question.

“So, what happens now, boss man? Am I still in the club, or are you gonna kick me out again?” she asked.

Tom snorted and shook his head, one corner of his mouth twisted wryly. “Yeah, right. Like that worked so well before. You’re still in, but that isn’t the end of this. First you owe everyone here an apology, and you’d better make it good.”

“Apologize?” Holly said, her voice rising. “What about them? I tried to tell them about Meg, but they wouldn’t even listen to me! Meg was hurting, I had to do something to help her. What else was I supposed to do.”

“You could have come to me, Holly. I’m supposed to be the one who has final say around here.”

“You were unconscious!”

“I was asleep. You could have woken me up at any time, and we could have talked about this. So why didn’t you?”

Holly started to answer, but hesitated instead. Finally she dropped her eyes, and Tom nodded.

“Yeah, I thought so. You didn’t want to risk me siding with Mike, Murray, and Dieter. So instead you snuck around behind everybody’s back and endangered our lives without telling us. You don’t have the right to do that, Holly.”

“But I told you, there wasn’t any risk!”

“There’s always a risk, whenever we get exposed. Secrecy is the biggest asset we’ve got, it’s the only thing that’s keeping you guys out of prison and me off of a dissection table. Holly, I am the only one in this group allowed to make decisions like that, without consulting everyone else. Do you understand me?”

Holly swallowed, and felt the sting of tears beginning. She looked away as she nodded, but almost came undone when Tom reached out and took her hand in his.

*****

As Holly was giving her apologies to the other three men, and receiving theirs in return, Tom rose to his feet and made his way around the couch. He stood in front of one of the large, slanted picture windows that made up the western wall of the loft, looking out over the city.

It was just before noon, and the view showed mostly the rooftops of other warehouses. He knew that just a few stories below the streets teamed with wheeled traffic, and the sidewalks with pedestrians. But up here it was as still as a photograph. The rain had cleared two days ago, and San Francisco was experiencing another one of it’s strange shifts in winter weather. Today it was clear and sunny, with temperatures climbing into the high seventies. It was a Friday, and the unseasonably warm weather was supposed to remain like this throughout the weekend. The nights would be slightly cloudy, with few if any stars.

You couldn’t ask for better flying weather.

“We go tonight,” he announced, as he turned back to the room, to his friends and partners, and to the mission.