It was unlikely anyone saw Tommy when he launched—he'd at least had the wherewithal to slip into the alley and look both ways before bursting into flight—but it wouldn't have mattered if they had. He was, by that time, as desperate and frantic as Philly had sounded on the phone. He was not going to lose another friend.
Sam's disappearance two days before had deeply shaken him. Afterward, he'd taken stock. He was confident Rhonda was safe—his anonymity and hers guaranteed that. Surrounding her with security likely would be counterproductive, merely drawing attention to her. Philly had assured him that the new security measures at her office/home where well underway, and she never went anywhere alone.
So, he'd swallowed his doubts and worries. But every minute of the last 48 hours had left him on the jagged edge of losing his temper and releasing his fury. He wasn't normally like that.
As Tommy soared, he reached into his pockets and recovered his keys, wallet, and phone, the indispensables. It was not a time for patience or modesty. He calmed himself and flew as fast as he'd ever flown in his life.
In just under 15 minutes, he touched down in Philly's San Francisco backyard, as naked as the day he was born, his clothes blown from his body by the tremendous velocity at which he'd just travelled. Looking up to the window where her office was situated, he realized it was open. He calmed himself, hopped up the 25 feet to the ledge, and was in the window in a flash. He again calmed himself as he recovered his spare clothes. Seconds later, he was jogging down the staircase into the central office area of Philly's small enterprise, still dressing as he went.
Three people were in the office, all of them noticeably shaken, and one was crying at her desk. The other two looked up at him in surprise.
He took a steadying breath. "Where's Philly?"
None of her colleagues spoke, but one looked over to the half-open door that led to the outer lobby. His sixth sense told him there were three people in the lobby, and two more seemed to be idling on the street outside the building. Philly's scent was still fresh in the air. Without pausing, he strode toward the lobby door.
The sound of his voice apparently had attracted attention. The lobby door moved, and a large, thirty-something male entered the office. The man wore slacks, a button-down shirt, and a windbreaker that read Homeland Security.
"Sit down and be quiet," the new man said sternly. He was looking directly at Tommy, who continued to walk toward the door through which the man had just emerged.
"Where's my friend?" Tommy said with as much composure as he could muster.
The man took two steps toward him, extending his left arm as he did. His right hand went behind his back, as if reaching for something.
Tommy ignored the man's motion, but stopped when the agent's hand met his chest. "Where is Phyllida Mettouchi?" he asked again.
"Young man, I am not going to ask you again. Sit down." The agent's tone was firm and his voice loud. This was a man accustomed to having his commands obeyed. A collapsible baton now appeared in his right hand. "That's an order."
Tommy did his level best to calm himself before he spoke. "And I'm not going to ask you again. Where's my friend? You're either going to tell me ... or you're going to take me to her."
The agent drew back and struck Tommy across the left thigh with the heavy baton. It was a blow that would have put a normal man on the ground. Nothing happened.
Tommy took another long breath. Displays of force take different forms, he reminded himself.
The agent redoubled his effort and struck the same thigh, to the same effect. A look of fear came into the man's eyes, and, whether through instinct or training, he aimed his next strike at Tommy's head.
The blow, which Tommy made no effort to dodge or deflect, did little more than muss his hair. But when the now-panicked agent dropped the bent baton and reached for the sidearm beneath his windbreaker, Tommy thought, Enough is enough.
A stray round might hurt someone. He reached out and snatched the firearm from the man's hand, as an adult might take something hazardous from a tiny child.
The agent stood there without a word, staring in disbelief, as the young man before him dropped the magazine from the weapon, emptied the firing chamber, and crumbled the semi-automatic pistol in his hands, as someone might wad up a piece of typing paper.
Tommy looked hard at the frightened and deflated man. "If you don't know where my friend is, maybe your associates outside do. I gotta tell you, though, if they behave half as badly out there as you just did, I can't guarantee I'll be able to maintain my temper. Do you understand?"
The man didn't speak.
Tommy calmed himself and looked the man in the eyes. "Do you understand?" he said evenly, as if talking to a toddler.
The man nodded.
"What's your name?"
"Elam," was the man's shaky reply. "Jason Elam."
He tapped the man gently on the shoulder and motioned toward the door. "Okay, Jason, let's go." He turned back to Philly's employees. "Wait 20 or 30 minutes. Then you can go home. I'll have Philly give you a call once we've sorted this out."
The three nodded, their eyes filled with shock at what they'd just beheld.
Passing through the building's large lobby, Tommy saw two more workers. He told them the same thing he'd told the others. A brand-new security gate on the front door had been propped open—the best security system in the world only works if you actually shut the door—and Tommy and Jason passed through it to the small front yard. They walked together, side by side.
The men outside were attired in the same conservative dress and Homeland Security windbreakers. The nearest looked up and spoke.
"Jason, what's up?" he inquired casually. Almost immediately, the man caught the significance of what was occurring. "Shit," he hissed and reached for his gun.
Jason said nothing to deter the man.
In one quick move, Tommy shot forward and caught the second man's hand, weapon and all, and gave a slight squeeze. Bones crunched, and he pulled away the now useless firearm, sticking it in his back pocket. The agent collapsed in pain, gripping his injured hand with the other.
A third agent, his right hand out of sight behind his back, attempted to rush up from behind. Turning, Tommy chose not to assume it was another baton, but was perplexed when the man's hand came into view, and it sported nothing more threatening than a black glove.
That agent, a younger fellow, reached for Tommy's forearm as if the former were a purse snatcher or street masher. Tommy's hand shot out and seized the other man's forearm in much the same fashion. His squeeze garnered a shout of pain from the young agent but broke no bones.
As a precaution, he nicked the third man's sidearm from its holster and with a single deft hand dropped the magazine and crushed the weapon before tossing it aside. He repeated that operation with the other weapon he'd seized.
The threats neutralized, he calmed himself. It was getting harder. Part of him desperately wanted to hurt these men, to hurt someone. Instead, he cast a disappointed glance at Jason, who he simply pointed to and said, "Sit."
Jason sat in the grass.
The glove on the right hand of the third agent, who now stood squirming in Tommy's grip, his toes barely touching the ground, drew his attention. It was a thick, black rubber-glove, the kind anyone might buy at the hardware store to use when handling garden chemicals. But there was something on it, something that gave off a distinctive smell.
Lowering the agent to the ground to get a better look at the glove, he spoke. "What's on this?" When the agent said nothing, Tommy raised his voice. "Jason, if I took this glove and touched your friend here with it, what would happen?"
"He'd go unconscious almost immediately," said Jason. The agent's voice was quiet and resigned.
"Huh," said Tommy. That explains a great deal.
He moved the still squirming man over to where Jason and the other agent were situated on the grass. Once there, he peeled the rubber glove from the man's hand without touching the coated section and sat the man, not ungently, next to his comrades.
Any or all of the men might still pose a danger to passersby or those inside the building. "I'm going to search you in a moment. Does anyone want to volunteer a weapon?"
Jason raised his hand.
"Good man. Just unload it and toss it over here at my feet." Tommy looked more closely at the glove, sniffed it, touched it to his tongue—one of the men gasped—and then lay it on his arm. It wasn't sticky, as he had suspected, and it otherwise merely gave his arm a slight tingle. He long had been immune to poisons, but realized this was some type of contact poison with which he was unfamiliar.
The glove, rolled inside out, went into his back pocket. He then reached down and disabled the firearm Jason had tossed him. Turning to the third agent, he asked his name. The man said nothing, and Tommy relieved him of his credentials.
"Agent Ryan Fyfe," Tommy said, "you wanna give me that pistol you have in your ankle holster?" He was only partly certain the man had a hold-away gun, but was proved right when Fyfe reached down, took out a small pistol from his right ankle, and tossed it on the ground. Tommy disabled the weapon and looked at Jason. "What's your other friend's name?"
"Zach Ruiz."
"Excellent. You guys wait here for a second." Tommy walked up and down the block 50 or so feet in either direction. He easily could make out Philly's scent and the direction in which she'd been taken.
To his surprise, the men hadn't tried to use a phone while he was gone. When he returned to where they sat, he spoke.
"Okay, here's what it is. For reasons I cannot fathom, you guys came here today and kidnapped a friend of mine, a woman who's never hurt anyone in her life. I'm guessing you did so without even a thread of legality. Now, the four of us are going to get in that car there." He pointed to the nearest SUV. "And you're gonna take me to where she's being kept. I'll know if you're lying to me."
He took a short pause and looked each man in turn.
"Here's the important part," he continued, carefully enunciating each word. "If I get my friend back, unharmed, everybody goes home to their families. If anything has happened to her, I cannot and will not be responsible for what happens next." Another pause. "Do you understand?"
Both Jason and Zach, who'd had the decency to look guilty when Tommy had mentioned the dubious legality of their acts, responded with a "yes" and a nod. Ryan said nothing.
Tommy bent down, looked the youngest agent in the eye, and snapped his fingers three times before the man's face. "Do you fucking understand?" he said in a voice that was much less patient.
"Yes," the young man replied.
"Let's go."
Tommy stood the three men and took their cell phones, wallets, and credentials. He glanced briefly at their drivers' licenses and official credentials, committing them to memory before handing them back. The cell phones he tossed into the second vehicle, the one they were leaving behind.
"Jason, why don't you drive."