Murray Hill || A Superhuman Tale - 1

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Within minutes, they pulled away. Tommy was behind the driver. Zach was shotgun, and the surly Ryan sat beside Tommy. It was rush hour, but they made passably good time through the city. Tommy had a good sense of where they were the entire time, and at no point did Philly's scent ever escape him. They were on the right track.

A few brief questions while they travelled showed that the men knew nothing of where Sam had been taken or how his trail had been so thoroughly effaced, but Jason did indicate they'd remained at Philly's offices to wait for someone to "sanitize" the place. The agent didn't know what that meant, and Tommy believed him. Snatching people apparently wasn't a part of their regular duties.

The drive took roughly 35 minutes, at the end of which Jason pulled up in front of a large brick building that probably was once a small warehouse that had been converted either to office space or apartments. There were many such structures throughout the city, but nothing about this one stuck out. Except that Philly recently had been on the street outside of it.

"It doesn't look very official," said Tommy. It was an innocent jab, to which none of the men responded. "Special Services Administration?" The look of surprise on the faces of the men answered his question even before Jason and Zach nodded to the affirmative. "Okay, everybody out."

When the men were assembled on the sidewalk, Tommy thought for a moment. He noticed on the drive that he'd crushed Zach's fingers and hand far worse than he originally had imagined. The man was in great pain.

"Who's senior, here?" Tommy asked.

Two men looked to Jason.

"Alright," he continued, "Ryan, you and Zach give me your word not to notify anyone about what's going on here for at least three hours, and you can take Zach to the hospital. After three hours, you can call whoever you want."

Ryan looked at him with surprise. "Okay," he said, "I give you my word."

Oddly enough, Tommy believed him and said as much. Zach likewise promised his silence.

"Good. But I want to remind the two of you of one thing. If a SWAT team comes storming into that building, well ... I'm not gonna get hurt. The people you'll be protecting with your honesty and integrity are your own co-workers. You onboard with that?"

Both men nodded, and Jason gave Ryan the keys. The young man and his injured colleague departed.

Tommy turned to Jason, about whom he still had a few reservations. "Okay, what're we walking into, here?"

Jason hesitated.

"Look," Tommy said, "everything I said before still holds. I don't want to hurt anyone, but I am going in there, with or without your help, and I'm taking my friend. I just want to make sure nobody does anything stupid. So, what am I walking into?"

"There should be five to seven people in there. Only three will be armed."

"Okay, is it five or seven?"

"There're five, the station chief and four clerical, technical-support personnel. The station chief is armed. There might be one other agent, I don't know—he was on another assignment today. And there's one guy in from Washington. I think he's there. If he is, he's armed, too."

"What's your boss's name?"

"Cynthia Welty."

"Is she a good boss?"

"Yeah," Jason replied. He'd seemed surprised by the question. "She's a real good boss."

"Tell me about the others."

Over the next five minutes, Jason sketched out who was who in the office. He had no information on the agent in from Washington, other than to say he was senior to Cynthia and seemed to be some sort of political appointee.

The agent also gave Tommy a layout to the facility, which consisted of a single open room, split by dividers, with some storage areas in the back and the basement. Jason suspected the property had been seized by the US Marshal Service, as part of some criminal investigation, but didn't know where Philly was being held in the facility, or even if she was there, but suggested several of the storage areas might do for holding someone.

"We've never done anything like this before," the agent volunteered.

"You mean, what?" asked Tommy, "snatched a U.S. citizen from her home without warrant or probable cause."

The words seemed to sting the man. "Look, what do you want me to tell you?" He seemed sincere. "We do surveillance. We've never done anything like this before. We all assumed it was legitimate."

Tommy didn't believe the last part, but opted to overlook it. "Okay, Jason, let's head on in." Tommy had no plan. Part of him hoped he didn't have to hurt anyone, but only a part. He again calmed himself.

As they reached the front door, Jason swiped a card he had in his wallet and punched in a code. The security door popped open.

"How many security doors?"

"One more after this."

They entered the building. Tommy saw they were in a small foyer about eight feet deep by 15 wide. The window of what looked like a bank-tellers cage, with a blind pulled down inside, was in front of them. There was a sturdy wooden door with a key card panel just to the right of it. Jason repeated the entry procedure, and the second door clicked open.

Tommy entered first. The facility consisted of one enormous room with a high beamed ceiling, sturdy brick walls, and a wooden floor. There were high partitions that separated various workspaces, but, for the most part, the entire large room remained open, like the warehouse floor it'd once been. It was quite stylish, and in its current design, it looked more like a huge space some wealthy technocrat had tried to turn into an enormous loft than it did a working government office.

Far to the right, there was a large conference area that was separated from the rest of the room by large wooden and glass partitions. Its two broad double doors were open. Inside, six people sat around a long central table. They'd not yet noticed the presence of Tommy and Jason.

The place was richly laden with Philly's scent, so heavy in fact that Tommy couldn't pick a single direction to follow. There were another 15 or so people close enough for him to sense, but those were far enough away he couldn't make out their details. They may or may not have been within the building.

Tommy knew he was taking a chance, but couldn't go for Philly and watch the office staff at the same time. He decided to trust Jason, a man in whom he'd sensed no real malice.

"Jason, please go find my friend and bring her here to the front. I want to talk with your boss." He paused to catch the man's eyes and spoke in an even and trusting tone. "I need your help on this."

The husky agent nodded and began moving to the rear of the building.