The Djinn (The Order of the Knightshades Book 1) Page 25

  That might sound unusual to the uninitiated. It’s not. The fact is, ENIGMA, which stands for ENtity Identification and Global Management Agency, is super-secret. Not too many people outside the President and a handful of congressmen even knew we existed. Established in the late 60s by President Nixon when an outbreak of cryptid sightings terrorized several communities throughout the world, ENIGMA was developed to investigate such sightings. On paper, it was created to track down these cryptids and study them. Sometimes, we’re expected to contain them.

  But like most institutions, it lost sight of its goals. Began developing strategies and scenarios in which the strange creatures we investigated might be used for more…unsavory…things. Military. Living weapons. Really nasty stuff.

  I know firsthand how nasty. It was one of ENIGMA’s own experiments that killed someone very dear to me two years ago. I shuddered at the thought, just as the elevator slowed to a halt and the doors opened once more.

  I heard Polk shouting the moment I stepped through them. I heard Landers’ name. As well as my own. Well, the Director didn’t actually use my name in his profanity-laden tirade. But I was quick enough to put the pieces together of a few catchy expletives I could tell were being used to represent me.

  My grin broadened on my face. I can’t explain why I take such a perverse pleasure in making that man so miserable. I suppose, it’s just one of those simple joys in life.

  Arnold and I hobbled through the long corridor until we came to the doors leading to Polk’s office. I tapped on the door and poked my head in. Arlene, his secretary, looked up from her desk and threw me a wide smile. I swear, you could melt the entire Arctic region with those pearly whites of hers. Arlene was a looker. An ex-runway model in her younger years. Now that she was just south of fifty, she looked even more amazing in my opinion.

  “Hey, gorgeous,” I winked and nodded over to Polk’s interior office doors. “How’s he doing?”

  “Oh, you’ve really outdone yourself this time, Jack,” she said. “I’ve never seen him this upset before—” Her speech cut off when she saw the bruises all over my face. I could imagine I didn’t look in the best of shape. Cuts. Scrapes. And though the swelling had gone down enough for me to see through it, my [right or left?] eye was still six shades of blue. “Dang, Jack. We need to get you some Kung Fu lessons or something.”

  “Well, you should see the other guys.”

  “Landers was there, right?”

  I moved over to Polk’s door and rested my hand on the knob. “Yeah, but what’s that got to do with it?”

  “Because with Scott, it means the other guys all have bullet holes in their heads. It doesn’t count. You still need lessons.” She gave me a compassionate smile again and nodded toward the office. “You better get in there. And I’m not so sure you should take Arn—”

  Before she finished the sentence, I turned the handle and stepped into the Category Five hurricane that was Anton Polk’s fury as he turned to glare at me.

  “Jackson.” He was standing, or rather pacing the floor before he turned to spot me. His eyes burned as he pointed his spindly index finger at a nearby chair on the other side of the long conference table. “Sit.”

  My dog plodded victoriously into the room, his head held high as if he was the guest of honor. The Director’s eyes widened simultaneously with the reddening of his face. I half expected steam to shoot out his ears like Elmer Fudd in a Looney Tune cartoon.

  “And he stays outside.” His heat-seeking finger targeted on Arnold. “You know better than to bring him…”

  “Anton, calm down,” came the gruff voice of Senator John Chesterton Stromwell, or J.C. if he liked you well enough. I hadn’t even noticed his presence as I’d entered the office…which is saying something when you consider how large the man is. He was seated at the far end of the table. His bushy Theodore Roosevelt mustache barely contained the obvious amusement of seeing the Director so upset. Or maybe it was from seeing Arnold, who trotted over to the larger-then-life politician and pounced up in his lap. The senator cooed in his ear as he scratched the terrier’s underbelly. “We’re not going to get anywhere with you acting like a bad imitation of Old Faithful. You need to settle down.”

  At the senator’s words, Polk drew in a breath. His face lightened a little as if he’d been oxygen deprived and had finally taken in enough air to ventilate his brain. He stared at Stromwell for several seconds before leaning forward and resting his hands on the table. His head dropped as he continued his breathing exercises, something he’d been instructed to do by his cardiologist whenever his blood pressure rose to volcanic proportions.

  Landers sat quietly in a chair next to him. His back rigid against the seat. His head held high, almost stiff, at perfect military attention. The freakin’ boy scout. I guess the years since leaving the Marines would never quite remove the spic-n-span gleam to his razor sharp discipline. He’d been getting a royal chewing out before I stepped into the room, yet his demeanor was as calm and placid as if he’d been having afternoon tea with my elderly neighbor Gladys. He shot me a knowing look and then let his eyes fix on the chair next to me. A silent plea for me to take a seat.

  I took the cue and sat down.

  “I’m just tired of him, John,” Polk wheezed, still pointing furiously at me. “I’m tired of his insubordination. I’m tired of his constant lack of respect for me and this office. I’m tired—”

  “We’re all tired, Anton,” Stromwell said, leaning back in his seat. Arnold repositioned himself to lie squarely on the man’s oversized belly. Perfectly content. “Including Jack. He was put into this position for a very special reason. To keep an eye out for anything that smacks of unethical behavior toward cryptids…whether within the organization or out. When you prohibited him from going to Queensland to look into the bunyip poachers, you were effectively telling him not to do his job.”

  “That’s exactly what I told him two weeks ago,” I said, raising my hands in the air.

  “Shut up, Jack,” the big man glared at me as he stroked the top of Arnold’s head. “We’ll get to you in a minute.” He turned his attention back to Polk. “I’m not sure where this animosity you have for the boy comes from, but you’re going to have to…”

  My phone chimed, alerting me to a text message. Stromwell’s eyes glared at me for the interruption. Apologetically, I pulled the phone from its clip and flipped it open.

  “We’re in the middle of something here, Jack.” The senator’s voice left no room for misinterpretation. He wanted my full attention.

  The problem was, I’d already seen who the message was from. And since I hadn’t heard from him in about five years, I couldn’t very well just put him aside. If Kenneth Stephens was trying to contact me…especially by text…then it was probably important.

  “I know, Senator,” I said, glancing down at the digital display on my phone briefly and scrolling down to the meat of the message. The breath was almost knocked from my lungs as I read it. Hospital? “But this is important.”

  “Whatever it is, it can wait,” Polk spat. “See, this is exactly the rotten attitude I’ve been telling you about. He just won’t listen to reason.”

  I stood up and cradled the phone back in its clip.

  “Sorry, Senator, but I’ve got to go.” I patted my thigh and Arnold leapt down from Stromwell’s lap and moved over to me, his tail wagging happily.

  “We’re not done yet, boy,” Stromwell all but growled the sentence. Though he liked me, especially since I’d saved his daughter, Nikki, from an ENIGMA experiment gone horribly wrong, he had been none to happy with my people skills while working for his pet agency. “This meeting will determine whether you should be scheduled for a disciplinary hearing. It’s not something to be taken lightly.”

  I walked over to the doors and opened them before turning back to the room. “And I can’t take a friend lying in a hospital bed right now lightly either. You want to put me before the disciplinary board. Go ahead. Right now, I’m
going to see my friend.”

  “Jack, wait…” I heard Scott say as I slammed the doors behind me.

  I waved a curt goodbye to Arlene and made my way out of the building. I had a plane to catch.

  Kenny, my friend, I thought to myself as I hailed a cab. This had better be good.

  ****

  Oddly enough, considering I’d been to every continent on the planet and darn near every country, it was my very first honest-to-goodness visit to New York City. Something that, as a Southerner, I secretly prided myself on. Oh, sure, I’d been here before…for airport layovers before catching my next flight to Lord only knew where. But I’d never really stepped foot onto the bustling sidewalks of Manhattan.

  And what an experience I’d been missing. The buildings towered on all sides of me, like a thousand giants looming into the sky. It was almost suffocating, if not intoxicating. But I had no time for sightseeing, as I strode up the majestic steps of the New York Presbyterian Hospital in northern Manhattan. The automatic doors slid open for me as I stepped toward them and I made my way to the front desk to inquire about Kenny’s room. After being given the directions, I quickly moved to the fifth floor and walked down a long, busy hallway until I came to room 514.

  I stopped. It had been so long since I’d last seen my old childhood friend. We’d grown up together in the foothills of the Appalachians in eastern Kentucky. From opposite worlds, Kenny was from a poor black family. The middle child, in a household of seven kids, he’d always had a hard time fitting in…even within his own family. Maybe that’s why I’d taken an instant liking to him. He had been as much at odds with his own parents, as I had with mine. But where I had come from two middle-class University professors who were also devout Bible-believing Christians, his was an uneducated farming-class family. He aspired for greater things. I just wanted to stay home from church every once in a while.

  In the end, we both ended up where our parents had wanted us. Though Kenny had never taken up the family farming business, he remained a man of the earth. Living off the land like he’d been sculpted from the very soil his bare feet had so often tread. Last I heard, he made a decent living as a professional hunter and tracker. Winning numerous competitions and becoming somewhat of a celebrity back home.

  What he was doing in New York City, I had no idea. And how he’d landed himself in a hospital suite was an even bigger mystery. Standing an easy six and a half feet tall and build like the Colossus of Rhodes, he’d make even the meanest of street gang punk think twice before attempting something stupid against him. But in this city, it was the only thing I could think of.

  His text message had been cryptic to say the least: IN NYC-PRESB HOSPITAL. NEED YOUR HELP. It’s all it said. Leaving my over-active imagination to concoct a whole diorama of possible scenarios. Seeing as how NYC-Presbyterian was a teaching hospital, housing one of the finest trauma units in the country, I had quickly dismissed any notion that he was here for a more “mundane” reason.

  I grasped the door handle and prepared for the worst. Turning it, I took a breath, and stepped into the room.

  Though it was semi-private, the only bed that was occupied contained the obviously battered form of my childhood friend. He’d definitely seen better days. The lumps, bruises, and lacerations covering most of his body made my recent injuries look like a playground brawl.

  His right arm was slung up in a harness hovering above his bed, encased in a stiff fiberglass cast. Enough bandages to enshroud an Egyptian mummy adorned his head, left arm, and both legs. His left hand clutched the TV remote control as he cycled through channels like he’d forgotten to pay his cable bill and was waiting for them to shut it off.

  When he noticed me standing in the room, he stopped his surfing and grinned brightly at me.

  “Boomer!” he said, using his old nickname for me—don’t ask where it came from. But anyone who knew me long enough quickly learned that using my given name was anathema to me. My parents had thought they were being very clever in naming me after Obadiah, one of their favorite of Old Testament prophets. To a boy growing up in the wilds of Kentucky, the name quickly became a sore subject. Most people just shortened my last name by calling me Jack. Kenny had never been “most people”. “It’s good to see you, man.” He tried to sit up in his reclining bed and looked over my shoulder expectantly. “What? Randy’s not attached to your hip this time?” he chuckled.

  “Nah. Left him back home working on a project.” I smiled. Back in the day, the three of us had been a force to be reckoned with. Though truth be known, neither Kenny or Randy wouldn’t have ever hung out together without me. They just didn’t have enough in common. Got on each other’s nerves too much. “And it’s good to see you too, Kenny,” I said, moving over to his bedside and sitting down in a chair. “You’ve seen better days though. From the looks of things.”

  He eyed his cast before turning to me, his smile broadening. “Nah, it ain’t any big deal, really. Just me being stupid. Looks like you’ve gone three rounds lately yourself.” He nodded at my face.

  His avoidance of the matter at hand was telling. He wasn’t comfortable yet explaining to me what had happened, nor letting me know why he’d call me. Appalachian pride. It was both admirable and infuriating. But I knew he’d get around to telling me everything when he felt right, so we spent the next twenty minutes in idle chit-chat. Catching up on old times. It felt good. It would have felt even better if he didn’t wince every time he turned his head. The brick wall of a black man was in unbearable pain.

  And he never once applied pressure to his morphine drip. A testimony to his pain threshold…or maybe, once again, that infernal pride.

  “Kenny,” I said, when I couldn’t take any more of beating around the bush. I’d never been good with subtle small talk. Of course, he knew it and would expect nothing less from me. “Let’s cut the bull. What’s going on? What happened?”

  His eyes looked away, gazing past the opened window to the majestic glass buildings surrounding the hospital. It looked as though you could just reach and touch the one directly across from us and I involuntarily imagined just how easily Spidey might actually be able to webswing around town.

  I shook my head of the image and leaned forward.

  “Come on, Ken. You called me here for a reason. If someone did this to you, I need to know who.”

  He looked back over at me, drawing in a breath before shaking his head.

  “Not who, Boomer. What.” I watched as an involuntary shudder rippled down his traumatized body. “Something big. Scary as all get out.”

  For Kenny to admit something was scary is saying a lot. Back in our early teens, I’d seen him stand stock still as an enraged black bear charged him from fifty yards away. He’d casually put a bullet between its eyes before it was able to pounce on us.

  “What was it? Maybe I can help.”

  His eyes flickered down to his chest as his good hand scratched at the back of his head. He was shaking.

  “You’re not going to believe me.”

  “Try me.”

  He took another breath and looked up at me.

  “Okay,” he said. “How ‘bout…the devil.”