“Something I didn’t say on CNN earlier. I can travel anywhere in the world at almost the speed of light.”
Maggie yanked her hand from mine and stepped away. She stared at me incredulously. “You’re joking? No way.”
I nodded and reached to hold her hand again. “We need to be touching. You won’t feel anything, just maybe a little disorientation when we arrive.”
“You weren’t joking, were you? I don’t believe this.”
“Let me find a spot out of sight, okay. Ready?”
She bobbed her head once and I bounced us to a small park near Honolulu Zoo. The air was warm and the sun bright, a light breeze blew in from the sea. Maggie help my hand and stood still, with her mouth gapping wide open.
“Oh my God! I don’t believe it.” She looked around, there were local Hawaiian people along a pathway and towards the zoo.
“Come on, let’s get an ice-cream.” I pulled her out of her trance. We walked along Waikiki beach, watching the giant waves break on the sand, the surfers skimming the clear blue ocean. Maggie kept spouting expletives. I was taking my daughter on a trip and she was in awe. Every father’s dream. I’d jumped back in time to a period, long gone, that I had truly adored, when my children looked up to me and held my hand tightly. When an ice-cream or a new toy was enough for me to be the best dad in the world. My heart beat strongly and I savored this moment, I was as happy as I’d been for a long, long time.
We bought Ice-cream and sat on a wall watching the sun slowly set on the western horizon. I told Maggie the whole story, up to the pending disaster. I fought with myself if I should go that far. She believed me, everything. She said, how could she not believe me, we were in Hawaii, we traveled there in one second. Then I could see a frown appear on her forehead.
“Why Dad? If these aliens have been watching us for so long, why now?”
“The last thing I haven’t told you yet. I haven’t told anyone else, either. You would be the first to know. I was keeping it until I thought the people of the world could accept it and believe me.”
I had her complete attention. “What, Dad? What could be anymore nuts than all the stuff you’ve said?”
“Jo-el,” Sally voice blared in my ear. “That Russian billionaire has just found out about Pippa.”
“What’s he doing?”
“He has a crew in DC, he just instructed them to abduct her.”
“How long?”
“Fifteen minutes, max.”
“Okay.”
“Dad, what’s up?”
“Small problem, we need to go.”
“What about the last thing you were going to tell me?”
“I’ll tell you later, really. Come-on, we have to find somewhere out of sight.”
I almost dragged Maggie away from the beach to a hotel close by. We found an empty corridor, I grabbed her arm and we bounced back to my hotel suite in San Francisco.
“You better go home now, sweetie. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, I’ve got to go, life on the line.”
“Jo-el, I can take care of it.”
Of course, I’m not thinking. Maggie was looking at me, she was about to say something, but I raised my hand.
“You’re just going to kill them!” I asked.
“Yes!” Of course, that’s what I do.
I had panicked. “Okay, Sally, sure, do it.” I said it out loud.
Maggie was confused. “Who were you talking to?”
“My computer, I call it Sally.”
“Why?”
“Hang-on!” I said to Maggie, she saw I was absorbed. I pulled out the disc-monitor and threw it in the air. “Put it on the monitor, Sally.”
A Three-D image of three men exiting a car in darkness appeared. It was raining, the men were wearing heavy overcoats, their faces hidden by baseball caps. Two of the men had their right hands tucked deep in side-pockets, the other had his hand tucked under his overcoat. It didn’t take a lot of imagination to understand what they were carrying. The street in view was empty, nothing moved. I recognized Pippa’s building. Maggie stood by me watching.
“What the hell is happening, Dad? They’re carrying!”
“Wait Maggie, just watch.”
The first man reached the front door and hit it hard with his right foot, it crashed open. They rushed in. “Sally, do it!” I shouted. But nothing happened. Then the Three-D video flickered and came back on, I’d never seen that before. The men were taking the back-stairs, Pippa’s apartment was on the third floor. “Sally!” I shouted. The video went off. Shit!
“Sally, what the hell is going on?” I started pacing around the room. But Sally didn’t answer. Shit! I was blind, I felt naked, I was sweating. I imagined the scene, then I calmed down, even if they got her I could find them. Maggie had returned to the sofa. She sat with her hands in her lap leaning forward, watching her father stress out.
Then the video came on again. The men were lying haphazardly in the emergency stairwell of the apartment building. They weren’t moving.
“Is it done?” I asked the air.
“Yes, Jo-el. They are all dead.”
I breathed easier, I thought of Pippa and Billy. “We need to inform the authorities.” I said.
“I’ll do it.”
“What went wrong, Sally?”
“What’s going on?” Maggie asked.
“Maybe we should talk when Maggie leaves?” I heard Sally in my ear.
“You killed those guys, Dad! How did you do that? You can’t do that. I’m a police officer.”
I looked at her, my mind all over the place. My little girl. I’d just bought you ice-cream in Hawaii, on the beach, we held hands. My daughter the police officer, trained to uphold the law.
I sat on the sofa next to her and took her hands in mine. “I’ve told you about what happened to me, Maggie. You know my plan is to eliminate evil around the world as best as I can, to crush the criminal class. I’ll tell you why in a minute.” I bowed my head and told her about Yerchenkov and his billionaire friend. “Sally, informed me that Yerchenkov‘s friend had a team of thugs in DC, they were planning to abduct Pippa Moran, she’s a CIA agent who I met a few days ago. She knows a lot about me. She knows I’m Dave Murphy. Somehow they must have found out and they planned to use her to get to me.”
“So you killed them. Dad, damn, you can’t do that? That’s so illegal, I don’t know where to start. There’s a thing called due process in the States. You can’t take the law into your own hands just because you want to.”
Then I saw her face contort, wrinkles line her brow, her mouth drop open. She stood up and stepped away from me. I knew what she’d just figured out, what I didn’t know was how she would react.
She was at the window, as far from me as she could get in the suite. She turned and stared at me, the daughterly love had vanished, she had fear written across her face. “I’m at risk, aren’t I? If you try eliminating all the criminals around the world, they’ll come after me. And Sean, too. You must tell him. I’m not safe. Oh my God! They’ll do anything to get you and there’s people who know who you really are. Every criminal in the world will be your enemy and there are some nasty people out there. They have to kill you. They will band together to find you. Oh, my God!” she paused, then said. “My life is over.”
I went over to hold her in my arms.
“Don’t touch me,” she shook her arm as if I had a disease and moved away from me.
“I can protect you, Maggie.” But that wasn’t where her head was at. It was the fear, always looking over your shoulder, how could she continue to live the life she’d chosen with Adam? “Maggie, you need to hear why? Let me explain. But she wasn’t listening, she was close to the door. She didn’t look at me as she left.”