“Whatever.” Nathan’s response was automatic, his gaze distant.
“You okay?”
Nathan shook his head. “It’s just… I guess I’m just realizing this is real. I mean… I just met the Blurred Man. Do you know how long I’ve been gathering data on that guy? He was just an urban legend a few months ago. Now he’s here. On this ship, with us. I mean, what have I got myself into?”
Michael nodded. “How do you think I feel? I mean, in the back of my head I figured he’d show up. But I’ve spent so much time being convinced he was just a figment of my imagination. It’s just… surreal right now.”
“You think he’s right? That this is the endgame? All his time and work culminating into a single event?”
“I honestly don’t know.” Michael sighed. “Look, you don’t have to do this, Nate.”
“Do what?”
“You heard Guy. Whatever anyone else thinks, we’re headed for the worst possible scenario. I have to do this. For Cynthia and Michelle. And for me, I guess. I don’t have a choice. You do.”
Nathan was silent for a moment. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”
Michael snorted a laugh. “What’s not crazy right now?”
“Yeah, maybe.” Nathan appeared more uncomfortable than Michael had ever seen him.
“Just spit it out. Can’t be that bad.”
“One of the soldiers…”
“Yeah…?”
“I… know her.”
“Her?” Michael frowned. “Wait a minute — it’s that army chick you hung out with last night, right? No wonder you got back so late.” He threw back his head and laughed. “I can’t believe it. Not you. Forging fearlessly into certain death to prove your worth to your lady love. That’s the sappiest, most ridiculously stupid thing I’ve ever heard. I hope you at least got some, man.”
Nathan glared. “I knew I shouldn’t have told you. Look, Damon told me he’d put Elena in the front lines if I didn’t come along.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“Man, that’s cold. Hell, I didn’t realize you were so vital to the mission. After all, I’m the one they needed to—” Michael paused. “That’s why you were the one to make the offer. They wanted someone I was comfortable with and used leverage to force you to do it. It’s all a conspiracy, isn’t it?”
Nathan dropped his eyes. “I’m sorry, Michael. That’s what Chimera does. They take what you care about and use it against you. I just couldn’t let Elena pay the price for my stupidity.”
“No, it’s okay.” Michael clenched his fists. “They would have twisted my arm anyway. If not you, they would’ve gotten someone else to make the same offer. I wouldn’t have said no. Not to that. So let’s be sure to make them pay. After we get back, we tell the world everything. We’re going to make it, Nathan.”
Nathan looked up with a grim expression.
“Will we?”
Chapter 9: Promulgation
The knife easily cut through the skin, then the tender insides.
Cynthia Graham absentmindedly chopped the bell pepper into slices, then smaller pieces. The dish for the night was chicken cacciatore, straight from Giada De Laurentiis’ recipe book. Cynthia had never been all that great of a cook, but Wayne had suggested she take up a hobby to help her focus, and Dr. Wayne Crestor’s suggestions always made sense. She sighed and shook her head as she added three garlic cloves to the cutting board.
Poor Wayne.
She had been suspicious of his romantic advances at first; sure it was a trick he used on his vulnerable female patients. Gain their trust, then their panties, was what she had accused him of at the time. But to her surprise his interest had proved genuine. Wayne was handsome and charming. A bit like Michael, but more polished and professional.
She never thought he would fall in love with her.
She had left her childhood home to follow Michael. To fight for him. In the end, to just see his face, even if it was behind bars. But she had been rebutted at every angle. Every attempt was countered as if she played chess against a master opponent. She couldn’t understand nor believe why. Not the reasons they gave her in legal and psychiatric terms, expertly written and displayed to her in courtrooms and mailed to her home. Michael was not insane. He was not a murderer, not the raving psychopath they painted him to be in broad, ugly strokes. He couldn’t be.
He couldn’t.
But it became clear that Michael would never be a free man. The father of her child would not see his daughter grow up. He would miss her first words, her first steps, her first birthday. He would miss her first day of school, her first heartbreak, her graduation, her entire life.
He would miss her.
And as those points gradually sank in, it made more and more sense for Cynthia to follow Wayne’s counsel to move on. The sensible voice in her head told her that holding on to the impossible would not only ruin her, it would ruin her child’s future. A good man wanted to be a part of her life, a man both noble and patient. He overcame her rebuttals with grace and charm, always there. The romance had sprung from the shadows, perhaps because she just couldn’t say no anymore. Months whirled by, with Wayne making every effort to put himself front and center in her life. She almost wept when he proposed to her in front of his closest friends and family, completely vulnerable. She told him yes because she didn’t want to shame him in that situation.
But in her heart, she knew she could never love him in the same way. She would have to tell him soon. Tell him that she couldn’t marry him. Before things went too far.
A plaintive cry roused her from her thoughts. She wiped her hands on a towel and quickly strode to the nearby cradle, where Michelle had just awakened from her nap. Cynthia cooed to her child as she gently lifted her from the crib. Michelle stopped crying immediately and stared into her mother’s face with eyes too serious, too knowing. Cynthia nearly sobbed.
Michelle’s eyes were just like Michael’s.
“What’s the matter, baby? You got lonely?” Cynthia expertly checked for dampness. No soiled diaper for once. “Or you just want some noise?” She picked up the remote control and clicked the television on. “Maybe Mama can find Dora the Explorer for you while she warms up your bottle.”
A perfectly coifed reporter flickered on the screen. “Again, if you’re just joining us, this is breaking news. Every major news agency has been forwarded this video memo, which appears to be not only genuine, but alarming in its implications. We’ll run it for you again.”
The screen shifted to a video taken from a hotel room, where a young, well-dressed black man in eyeglasses gazed at the audience with a somber expression.
“My name is Nathan Ryder. Some may know me from my research that exposed government cover-ups and conspiracy, detailed in my book The Blurred Man Files. I am sending this video nationwide to every possible news network because I am currently engaged in an expedition that will not only further confirm my findings, but one of such danger that I may not make it back alive.”
He cleared his throat. “And I am not alone in this venture. Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to my friend, Michael McDaniel.”
A familiar face leaned into the recording area. “Hello folks.” He waved.
The remote dropped from Cynthia’s fingers and fell unnoticed to the floor. Michelle’s inarticulate gurgling sounded delighted as she stretched her tiny fingers toward the screen.
“If you believe you recognize Michael, you’re probably correct,” Nathan said. “This is the same man accused of heinous atrocities against his coworkers in the shocking mill explosion in Birmingham, Alabama last year. The same man who never received a fair trial, nor was given the legal rights due to any American accused of a crime. The same man taken from his home by operatives employed by Chimera Global, who held him prisoner in defiance of every civil liberty at the behest of our own U.S. government.”