Gone

CHAPTER 83

The Skype image was showing a dead marshal on the porch when I stood and walked out of Downey’s office. I walked over to the corner desk Emily and I were sharing and just sat there rigidly, with my feet on a plastic file box, gazing steadily forward at a blank spot on the wall.

Emily rushed over to me.

“The image cut off, Mike. They kicked in the door of the house, and the image went blank. We’re sending everybody there. Everybody.”

I didn’t reply, didn’t look at her. I kept staring at the wall. I needed to be there for my family, and yet it was impossible for me to be there. This did not emotionally compute for me, apparently. It was like being tied to a chair and having to watch your two-year-old climb out and off the ledge of an open window. I felt beyond confused, beyond disoriented. I felt disintegrated inside.

I don’t remember much about the next twenty minutes that went by. I vaguely remember a lot of activity around me, Emily making a lot of heated phone calls and Downey coming over to me a few times in order to assure me that every available unit was on its way to my family.

And what will they find when they get there? I kept thinking.

The next thing I knew, I was being guided by Emily up onto my feet. I followed along obediently as she took me out into the stairwell. But instead of heading downstairs, she led me up.

“What’s going on?” I mumbled.

“They’re bringing you up there to Susanville, Mike. A chopper is going to take you to a plane waiting for you back at the SoCal Logistics Airport. I’m going to be right beside you the whole time, OK?”

I suddenly stopped on one of the landings.

“What have you heard?” I said, breaking her hold on my elbow.

“Nothing yet.”

“But it’s been a while. Someone should have gotten there already,” I said, grabbing her wrist. “They’re all dead. Just say it now. Don’t lie to me.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you, Mike. I’m not sure why no one has responded. All we know is that the US marshal on scene is not answering the radio or his phone, and neither is your family. I swear to you, the second I hear anything, I’ll tell you, Mike. Let’s just get up there and see what’s going on, OK? You need to be up there,” Emily said as we went out onto the roof.

Five minutes later, an MH-60 Black Hawk swooped down out of the night, and a burly young soldier guided me aboard and strapped me in. I would have said it felt unreal as we lifted off, out over the lights of Wilshire Boulevard, with the wind rushing in through the chopper’s nonexistent doors, but it already felt unreal. I’d felt like I was outside my body ever since Perrine had shown me the video of my family’s not-so-safe safe house.

At the airport, an air force jet was already gassed and waiting. A couple more unbelievably gracious and young, competent soldiers strapped me into this new aircraft, and we took off. Emily didn’t tell me to sleep or calm down or talk to her or anything. After a while, I turned away from the window and found her hand in mine.

We touched down less than an hour later at Susanville Municipal Airport. When they dropped the jet door, I could see marked town-police and state-trooper cars parked alongside the tarmac, their lights wheeling. A trooper car rushed us to the state road where Cody’s farm was. There was another clog of official vehicles just in front of the driveway turnoff. There had to be twenty cars, but why weren’t they up at the house? My mind felt like it was exploding. Why were they just sitting there!?

A lanky, brown-haired FBI agent rushed out of the black Chevy Tahoe as we came to a skidding stop.

“What the hell is going on?” I said before he could get a word out.

“I know you’re upset, Detective,” the agent said. The young agent was handsome, square jawed. Instead of the MIB suit, he wore a tweed jacket and jeans, like a popular young college professor.

“My family is up there!” I screamed as I grabbed his tweed lapels.

He tried to shake me off. He wasn’t trying hard enough. I swung him around into the road. “Four boys, six girls, my grandfather and nanny. Why aren’t you helping them?”

The fed was finally able to dislodge one of my hands by punching down on it. I retaliated by punching the agent in his mouth. I was about to do it again when the state trooper who had brought me there linked his big arms around mine from behind.

“Is my family dead? Tell me!”

“Jeez,” the young fed said, thumbing his lip. “We don’t know, OK? We don’t know yet. We can’t get up there because of the fentanyl. We have a hazmat team on its way.”

I went really nuts then. I elbowed the trooper in his ribs and started running for the driveway. Then I was tackled by two more troopers and another agent.

“Get off me now, or I swear to God, I will shoot all three of you!” I snarled as I writhed and fought them in the dirt alongside the driveway. I lost it then. Some wall inside me broke, and I was bawling. My face filled with tears and dust as I sobbed.

“Get off me. Get off me, you fucking cowards,” I said as I wept.

“It’s poison up there, Detective,” said one of the troopers, with a Barney Fife twang. “I know you want to get to your family, but if you go up there unprotected, you’re going to die.”

“I know,” I cried. “I want the poison. Give me the poison. I just want to be with my kids.”