The Unification Chronicles

10: Friends and Enemies

“Why was it good that I left my phone behind?” Susan said as they watched the featureless concrete speed past the train windows.

“How do you think they found us?” Daniel said. “Even cheap disposable phones can be triangulated by law enforcement, and fancy smartphones like yours can do even better with built in GPS. Once they figured out you were meeting me, it was trivial for them to find out exactly where you were.”

Susan felt like a grade A stooge, but she reminded herself that she wasn’t used to this cloak and dagger stuff. She was a blogger, not an investigative reporter for the Post. “So now what?” she asked.

“Now I guess we find somewhere to lie low and plan our next move. Assuming you’re still with me.”

“I pretty much have to be at this point, don’t I? I’m your accomplice.”

“Not necessarily,” Daniel said. They were coming up on Van Ness-UDC, the third station past Dupont Circle. Seemed like a good place to turn around. “I’m going to switch trains at the next stop and head back into town. By the time I leave the Metro, I should be well away from anywhere they’re likely to be looking for me. You and I could part company at a hub, say, Metro Center, and you can tell the cops I coerced you. I kind of did.”

“You dragged me out of the restaurant, across the street, where men shot a large gun at us,” Susan said as they got off the train and made their way around to the other side. “I have a better idea,” she said.

She walked over to the banks of fare card machines and paid cash to two cards. Then she handed one to Daniel and they used them to exit the station. As they rode the escalator up, Daniel said, “What was that?”

“They’re probably looking for people jumping the turnstiles to get out, and they probably have marshals flooding the Metro system looking for you riding around. They don’t know where you’ll exit, but they know where you’ll be coming from. So let’s not be there.” Maybe I can do this cloak and dagger stuff, Susan thought.

They surfaced and Susan hailed a cab. “Do you know Bob & Edith’s on Columbia Pike?” she asked. The driver nodded. “Take us there, then.”

Daniel got into the cab next to her. “Where are we going?”

“You’re still new in town, right?”

“I, uh…”

“Well, we need to find a place far enough from where either of us live to regroup and figure out what to do next, and I know a place that has amazing waffles. You owe me. I didn’t get to finish my corned beef.”

The taxi sped away.

#

After their waffles, Daniel and Susan got a room at the Days Inn up the street. It was cheap and it was across the street from a McDonald’s, so it seemed like a good place to hole up for a while. Susan was taking a shower after all the running they’d done, and Daniel was sitting in on the bed flipping through TV news, trying to see if there was anything about him when he heard a knock at the door. It was a gentle knock, not the pounding he expected if it were the cops. He’d paid cash for the waffles and for the room, so there shouldn’t have been any way to trace them.

He peered through the peephole to see a fisheye view of an elderly man peering back at him, or at least peering at the peephole. The man had a scruffy day’s growth of white beard. Seemed harmless enough. He opened the door.

“Can I help you?” Daniel asked.

“Hey, how ya doin?” the man asked. “I’m Jeff Frankel, got the room next door. You wouldn’t happen to have any soap, would ya? Management neglected to give me any, and I think the bastards are hiding from me now. If they’d answer the damn room phone I wouldn’t have go over there, but what’re ya gonna do, you know?”

Daniel suppressed a grin. “My friend’s taking a shower, so I’ll have to wait until she gets out. Come on in." He watched as the old guy limped in, and Daniel noticed he had a steel left leg from the knee down.

“Friend, huh?” Frankel asked. "Well, don’t let me interrupt—"

Daniel heard the water turn off in the bathroom. "No, really, it’s not like that. We—"

"You don’t have to explain to me, son. I’ve had friends before. Not so much now, you understand, but I still get friendly every once in a—"

"Daniel?" Susan said from the bathroom. "Who are you talking to?"

"Just our next door neighbor. Do we have an extra bar of soap?"

"Hang on," she said. She reached a hand out the door and handed Daniel a little cardboard box containing a tiny bar of soap.

"Thanks," Daniel said, and handed the soap to Frankel. "There you go, sir," Daniel said. "Enjoy the soap."

"You have no idea." They both paused. "Well, anyway," Frankel continued, "I’ll be on my way. By the way, didn’t catch your name, friend."

"I’m Dan. That’s Sue in the bathroom."

"You Viet Namese?"

"No," Daniel said. "Korean, actually."

"Hmm," Frankel said. "That was before my time. I only ask because like thanking Viet Namese folks for my government pension. Best thing that ever happened to me."

"Well," Daniel said, "if I see any, I’ll be sure to pass that along."

"Heh! I bet you will. Okay, tell your friend I said hi." He shuffled out the door and out into the parking lot.

"Who was that?" Susan said. She was wearing a bathrobe and toweling off her hair.

"Said his name was Jeff Frankel. Weird old guy."

"So," she said, sitting down on the bed. "We’re kind of hosed."

"What do you mean?" They hadn’t been able to do much planning at the diner, because the place was packed and they didn’t want to be overheard. Susan had jumped in the shower as soon as they checked in, so this was really the first chance they had to discuss their situation.

"Think about it. We’re cut off. We can’t get online to look for anything. We can’t use anything but cash, and we can’t hit an ATM to get more cash. I’m down to around forty bucks. You?"

Daniel had been thinking about this himself. "Eighty seven fifty."

"How far are we going to get on a hundred and twenty bucks? Damn those waffles!"

"It’s obvious we’re not going to leave the city. At this point, neither of us can even get a car."

"The key to clearing your name is proving that Hendriks isn’t dead. Whether he was dead or not is indeterminate at this time. But he got out of that car, you saw him walking in that alley. He’s out there somewhere, and if we can find him, the FBI won’t be worried about you."

Daniel thought about this. "I say we head back to Hendriks’s house and try to find something I missed the first time. Evidence that he’s not really dead. Anymore. Shit."

"I know, Daniel. But we’ll find out the truth."

#

Daniel woke up in a sweat. He’d been dreaming again, but thankfully he didn’t remember the dream. He’d dozed off in the chair by the window while Susan snored quietly on the bed.

He’d been amazingly lucky to find her, someone willing to go to such lengths to help him find the truth. She had her own reasons for doing it, of course, but he didn’t begrudge her a way to advance her career if she did it while helping him. He got up and stretched. No more sleep for me, he thought. He thought about going for a run, but the last thing he needed was a beat cop to recognize him. Plus, he wasn’t familiar with Arlington and didn’t want to get los—

The hotel room door exploded into the room, clipping Daniel on the shoulder and knocking him to the floor. He pushed it off and looked up into the doorway. Even though the man was in silhouette, Daniel recognized him instantly. “Hendriks.”

Hendriks strode into the room as Susan scrambled off the bed and looked for something to use as a weapon. “You should have left well enough alone, Cho,” Hendriks said. “All you had to do was forget you saw me. It’s happened hundreds of times. But you didn’t. You went poking around. And I can’t allow that.”

“People know we’re here. They’ll come looking for us.” Daniel said.

Hendriks almost, but not quite, smiled. “No, they won’t. No one knows you’re here. If anyone did, you’d be arrested, or worse. By morning, the FBI will think a group of patriotic hicks found you and ran you out of town. But it won’t matter much to you by then.”

Daniel stood, and positioned himself between Hendriks and Susan. “Any why won’t it matter to me?”

“Because you’ll be dead.” Hendriks struck, blindingly fast, and despite Daniel’s best attempt to dodge, connected solidly with the same shoulder that got hit by the door. Daniel felt tingling in his left arm, then it went numb.

Not a good way to start a fight, he thought. “Susan, get ready to run!”

Susan held a lamp out in front of her like it was going to bite her. She didn’t seem to know what to do in a fight.

“Miss Richardson isn’t going anywhere,” Hendriks said. “You’re both going to disappear, and the FBI will waste months looking for you.”

“I really wish you’d just shut the fuck up,” Daniel said as he lashed out with a snap kick to Hendriks’s head. The kick connected, but didn’t seem to phase the man. That should have knocked him out, Daniel thought.

“Good, you have some fight in you. I was worried this wouldn’t be any fun.” Hendriks spun around and nailed Daniel in the stomach with a roundhouse kick he barely saw coming. Daniel crashed through the front window of the hotel room and into the street.

As Daniel was picking himself up, he noticed the lamp Susan had been holding come sailing out the window after him. Shit, no, he thought and vaulted back into the room.

#

Damn those kids! Jeff Frankel thought as he sat up in bed. He’d half expected, this, and damn it, he couldn’t even go over there and tell them to get a room, because, hello, that’s exactly what they did. But still, did everyone in their twenties have to have sex like they were trying to break the damn furniture? He’d been trying to avoid the pounding and slamming sounds, but there was just no getting back to sleep—

Crash!

Wait a minute, Jeff thought. That was glass. Big glass, like a window. He was no longer sure what was going on over there, but damn it…

He strapped on his steel leg and threw on his clothes. He didn’t know what was going on over there, but he was going to put a stop it one way or another.

#

Hendriks grabbed Susan by the arm and flung her at Daniel, with seemingly no more effort than tossing a pillow across the room. She smacked into Daniel before she could even shout “look out!” or something similarly obvious, and it occurred to her than their situation had definitely not improved by finding the subject of their search.

“Are you okay?” Daniel asked. It struck Susan as funny.

“I—“

“I don’t know about you kids, but I’m having a blast,” Hendriks said. “I needed to blow off some steam, and I just can’t think of a better way to top off the week I’ve had than to make you both disappear.” He shook his head back and forth, as if cracking it, loosening up his shoulders. Christ, that was before he warmed up?

Susan started edging towards the door, without actually getting up. Daniel stood and vaulted himself at Hendriks in some kind of martial arts move. He looked good, but Hendriks met him with a perfectly timed backhand that redirected Daniel in mid-air and sent him smashing into the wall.

“Susan!” Daniel said, blood gushing from his mouth. “Get help!”

Susan felt like an electric shock went through her, and she bolted upright and ran out the door. As she crossed the threshold, she heard Hendriks laugh.

#

Jeff had just walked out his door when the girl from next door plowed into him. Poor thing looked terrified. And that Korean kid had seemed so nice, too—

“Please, help us!” the girl said.

Us?

"What in the Sam Hill?" Jeff said.

He heard the sound of a struggle coming from the open door and shattered window of the motel room. "Who the heck is in there?"

"Please, he’s trying to kill us!"

Jeff peered in the window. He saw Dan, the Korean kid, fighting an older man with sandy hair and a suit. For a guy wearing a suit, he was wiping the floor with the kid.

Dan got slammed into the wall, then bounced back on the attack. He ducked under a punch from the guy in the suit, then grabbed the man’s wrist and brought the flat of his palm up to snap both bones of the forearm. Well, that oughtta do it, Jeff thought.

And then the guy in the suit smiled.

The guy whipped his broken arm out to his side, and Jeff heard a distinct double pop as the bones snapped back into place. Then the guy hammered Dan with wicked hook from an arm that was supposed to be broken.

Holy shit, Jeff thought. I know what that—

"Please!" Sue said, tugging on his arm.

"Come on," Jeff said. "I’ll help you."

#

Well, that explains a lot, Daniel thought. But he’s so fast! He dropped with the punch, trying to roll with the impact to rob it of some of its power, and the roll took him down to the floor and across the room. If he’d stood there and tried to just absorb it, it likely would have taken his head off. A punch from a broken arm.

Daniel rolled back to his feet, only to have Hendriks lay him out again with a roundhouse kick. “You don’t get it, do you, kid?” Hendriks said.

“Depends on what you mean,” Daniel said, more blood spilling out of his mouth when he talked than he expected. “I get plenty of vitamins and minerals.”

“It never ceases to amaze me, you know,” Hendriks went on, throwing another punch that Daniel had to leap for the bed to dodge. The guy was just toying with him now, and Daniel knew it, but he wanted to buy as much time for Susan as he could, and that meant keeping the guy talking. If he was lucky, he might even learn the man’s secret before he died.

“Compound interest?” Daniel said. “Yeah, that’s a bitch.”

“The tenacity of your race,” Hendriks said. “Your ability to joke while staring at the end of your brief lives. It’s something my people have never fully understood.”

“And which people would those be,” Daniel said, shoving the dresser out in front of him. “The Village People?”

Hendriks lifted the heavy wooden dresser and flung it aside with one hand. Daniel took the opportunity to nail him in the side of the head with a spin kick, then jumped away again before he could retaliate.

“This is what I mean. We’ve lost our sense of humor over the millennia, and I think we’re poorer for it.”

“I think you’re underselling yourself,” Daniel said, edging around the room. He almost had Hendriks where he wanted him. “Maybe all you need is a little practice. I know a comedy club that has an open mic night.”

“Do you even understand, human, what is going on here? The mortal peril in which you find yourself?” Hendriks, circling to keep Daniel in front of him, had just stepped foot in front of the shattered window.

“Really,” Daniel said, “I’d just be happy if you’d shut the fuck up.” He launched himself at Hendriks in his best football tackle and the two of them tumbled out into the parking lot. Columbia Pike was quiet this early in the morning, but he heard a distant mechanical rumbling.

Hendriks brought up one knee into Daniel’s midsection, then extended the leg to kick him backwards. “I suppose you’re right,” Hendriks said as he got up. “It’s time to end this and go find Miss Richardson.”

“Leave her alone!” Daniel launched himself in a flying kick, but Hendriks, now appearing more bored than ready to fight, reached out, grabbed Daniel’s leg in mid-air and slammed him into the wall of the motel. Daniel slumped to the concrete, then pushed himself back to his feet, leaning against the wall for support.

“It’s over, Cho. All the bravado in the world won’t save you now. You meddled in the affairs of the gods, and you must pay the price.”

Daniel threw a punch, which Hendriks again caught.

“One good turn,” Hendriks said. He brought the flat of his palm across, snapping both bones in Daniel’s forearm. “Deserves another.”

Daniel started to slide down the wall, but Hendriks caught him with one hand around Daniel’s neck. He lifted him back up, and Daniel’s broken arm flopped against the wall. The pain was blinding, and Daniel saw everything going white. “What… what are you?”

“I would have thought it obvious, Cho. I’m a demon. My name is Batarel. And now, you, Cho, are dea—“

The noise and white light drowned out everything as Hendriks—Batarel—disappeared from Daniel’s vision with a clanging thump. He heard Susan’s voice. “Daniel! Get in!”

Soft but strong hands grabbed him by the shoulders and he half stepped, half fell through the aluminum doorway that had suddenly appeared where Hendriks used to be. “I’ve got him!” he heard Susan shout. “Hit it!”

Daniel lurched to the side, heard and another loud thump, followed by a crunching noise and jarring bumps that set off new fireworks of pain from his arm. They were moving, he thought. How were they—

And then, mercifully, Daniel passed out.