Warning to readers: this chapter contains a certain amount of rather graphic violence. Reader discretion is advised.
Also, this is the last chapter that I would characterize as "dark". The story will return to a certain degree of light and fluffiness in the next chapter.
4:45 A.M.
July 13th, 2018
9000 N. Central Avenue
Phoenix, Arizona
The old blue Ford Crown Victoria blazed north on Central Avenue going at least 30 mph over the posted speed limit of 40. Casey had commandeered the car at gunpoint, taking the keys to the car from the lobby security officer.
“Old cop car,” he said, sitting down in the driver’s seat. “Not quite as shiny as my old Crown Vic, but it’ll do.”
Jayne looked at him curiously. “Did you just call your car shiny?”
“Yeah,” Casey replied, turning over the Ford’s big V8 engine. “I’ve called stuff that I liked ‘shiny’ for years.”
Jayne turned and looked at Mal. Mal shrugged.
Casey had gone flying out of the Chase Tower parking garage with enough velocity to catch a little air. Slamming down onto Monroe Street, he had powerslid the Crown Vic to go west bound and then again to head north on Central. He looked in the rear view mirror and noticed Captain Reynolds’ pale face, with no small satisfaction.
“Talk to me, Larkin,” he had said to his Bluetooth, trying to get a fix on the helicopter.
“The chopper’s headed north,” he heard. “Just head straight north and follow it.”
Casey had gone blazing up Central Avenue, but now, as he flew past Dunlap Avenue, he began to notice something disquieting. He wasn’t the only one.
“Uh, John, the street’s getting really narrow really quickly,” Zoe said from the backseat.
“Yeah, I can see – shit,” he said, as Central came climbing to a dead end. “Larkin! We’ve run into a mountain!”
“Yeah,” Bryce replied. “Uh, your GPS is showing that you just passed Dunlap Avenue?”
“I think so,” Casey said. “I have no idea.”
“Okay, well, turn around, and go back down to the intersection at Dunlap,” Bryce instructed. “Then turn right, go… looks like one point five miles west to Nineteenth Avenue, and turn right.”
Casey wheeled the Crown Vic around, and that’s when he noticed a couple of non-standard switches on the dashboard. Flipping them, he was rewarded with flashing lights lighting up in the grille and back window, and sirens blaring.
“Once a cop, always a cop,” he muttered with a grin. “Shiny.”
He now appeared to have justification to drive like a maniac as he weaved his way in and out of the very early morning commute on Dunlap. As he swung a hard right to head north onto 19th Avenue, the sun was beginning to peek its way over the mountains.
Casey’s phone rang. “They’ve landed,” Bryce said. “Deer Valley Municipal Airport, and they’ve gone inside a hangar.”
“Think it’s the same trick as they pulled on us in Redlands?” Casey asked.
“I don’t know,” Bryce replied. “I don’t think so – they didn’t have any advance warning on this one.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Larkin,” Casey growled. “This is Fulcrum we’re talking about here.”
“Yeah, well, you’re only six miles away,” Bryce replied as they crossed over Cactus Road. “Just keep heading north, and the hangar will be the fifth building on your right just north of Deer Valley Road.”
Casey disconnected. The only noise in the car for the next few minutes was the blare of the siren and the roar of the engine. Mal and Zoe carefully checked their guns, making sure they were properly loaded and ready. Jayne had his finger resting on the trigger guard of his gun – he had called it “Vera”, even made sure to introduce “her” to Casey.
When Casey reached the right hangar at Deer Valley Airport, he didn’t bother with driveways – he just yelled, “Hang on!”, hung a hard right, and plowed through the chain link fence onto the airport grounds. One of his tires was punctured, but it didn’t seem to matter as they spun around the front of the hangar and the car skidded to a stop.
“Federal agents! GET ON THE GROUND!” Casey boomed as he leapt out of the Crown Vic and crouched behind its driver’s door, the car’s high beams illuminating the interior of the hangar.
Then Casey stood up straight. Those same high beams that illuminated the hangar’s interior clearly showed that there was nothing in it but an abandoned Phoenix Police helicopter.
Casey started to growl quietly, then his growl rose to an unintelligible roar as he stalked toward the helicopter, raised his gun, and put an entire clip through its windshield. “SON OF A FUCKING BITCH!” he bellowed, throwing his gun to the ground.
He was quiet for a moment, and then, “SHIT!”
Hanging his head, he dropped his fists to his side, clenching and unclenching them. The three Serenity crew all stayed by the Crown Vic, afraid to approach him. Finally, he lifted his head.
“Call: Bryce Larkin.”
Casey was still for a moment, and then he spoke again. “We lost them.”
6:02 A.M.
Abandoned CostCo store
27th Avenue just north of Bell Road
Phoenix, Arizona
Bob Richter cowered in the corner of the former warehouse store, hands over his ears, trying to block out the horrible noise.
An hour earlier, the helicopter they were in had landed at Deer Valley Airport, and parked in a hangar where a Fulcrum agent was waiting for them with a Lincoln Towncar. Frank Mullins had proceeded to tie up both the agent and the Phoenix PD pilot at gunpoint, and thrown them into the trunk of the Towncar.
He forced the still-restrained Sarah Walker into the backseat of the car, and then had to hold Richter at gunpoint to get him into the car. “I won’t tell anybody, I swear,” Richter had begged. “I just don’t want to be involved with this anymore.”
“Oooh, tough shit!” Mullins had replied, with a somewhat maniacal laugh.
Mullins had swung the Towncar around onto the driveway out of the airport. As he pulled out and turned left onto the street marked 19th Avenue, Richter saw what looked like an unmarked police car crash through the chain link fence right next to the hangar they had just been in.
"Idiots," Mullins muttered under his breath.
When they reached the old CostCo, Mullins had decided he was going to take his revenge on Director Walker not by killing her, not by beating her, not by torturing her – but by violating her as thoroughly as he possibly could. The first time around, she had screamed – a horrible scream, one that tore at your mind like a bulldozer tears at concrete.
At that point, Richter had had to go outside the store. A few minutes later, Mullins joined him outside. “Beautiful morning,” he had said. “Get your ass back inside the store or I’ll kill you.”
Now Mullins had started up round two. Sarah Walker wasn’t screaming this time. Just whimpering in pain and fear. And Richter couldn’t take it anymore.
Going as far away from Mullins as he could, he slid his gun out of the waistband of his pants and pulled his phone out of his pocket. With trembling hands, he dialed a number he knew by heart.
One ring. Two rings. “CIA Langley, this is the switchboard, how may I direct your call?”
“I need to speak with DDO Larkin,” he whispered.
“I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t simply connect calls to Director Larkin,” the woman who answered the phone replied.
“Tell him that Bob Richter is on the line.”
There was silence for a moment, and then another ring.
“Richter, you are in deeper shit than you could probably have ever imagined,” Bryce Larkin’s voice sounded angrily in his ear.
Richter didn’t reply. He just said, “Tell Casey that we’re at the abandoned CostCo. It’s on 27th Avenue, north of Bell.”
Then, he cocked his gun, stuck it in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.
Sarah’s mind had almost detached itself at this point. Her body was being brutalized, but her mind was acting as an outside observer. With every move that Mullins made, her mind analyzed his weaknesses, trying to figure out a plan of escape, and determining whether her body would be physically able.
When Bob Richter’s gun came off, it was a shock to both Mullins and Sarah. Mullins stopped what he was doing, stood up, and fastened his pants. Sarah heard his footsteps echo as he crossed to where Richter was.
“Aw, Bob, what the fuck did you go and do that for,” she heard him say. “You’re no good to me dead!”
As Sarah’s mind analyzed this, it realized that the curled-up position she had been left in on the floor placed her in a spot where her left hand could reach the stiletto concealed in the heel of her right boot. Straining her fingers, she managed to release the weapon. Very carefully, so as not to stab herself, she used the point to pick the lock on her handcuffs, releasing her hands – and then she just lay there.
She tensed her arms as Mullins returned, and then, when he was in range, she struck like a snake. Moving quickly despite the severe abuse her body had been subjected to in the last eighteen hours, she plunged the stiletto into the back of his right knee. Mullins howled in pain, like a wounded dog, and collapsed to the floor.
He had left his gun belt on the floor. His TASER, his stun gun, and his 9 millimeter Beretta were all holstered on it. As he writhed in pain, Sarah slowly got to her feet, and limped over to the gun belt.
Drawing the TASER, she spoke. Her speech was slurred from the damage her nervous system had endured, but Mullins still understood her just fine when she said, “Well, lookie what we have here.”
Carefully, she aimed the TASER, and then pulled the trigger. The dart flew straight and true, penetrating Mullins’ pants and delivering 20,000 volts of electricity directly to his crotch. He screamed in pain, an unearthly scream like Sarah had never heard before. But she didn’t care.
The next thing she drew from Mullins’ gun belt was the stun gun. “I cannot begin to count the number of times you’ve zapped me with this thing since noon yesterday,” she slurred, a growl beginning to form in the back of her throat.
“SO LET’S SEE HOW YOU LIKE IT!”
She dove to the floor, careful not to touch him, and slammed the stun gun against his right cheek – where the metal plate was. As she pulled the trigger, the electricity flowed out of the gun directly into that metal plate, frying any tissue it touched. Her eyes grew wild and an animal intensity filled her. A primal scream ripped involuntarily from her throat as Mullins was electrocuted. His scream grew higher and higher in pitch, until finally, he could scream no more.
When the stun gun’s battery ran dead, Sarah had crossed the line of sanity. She began to beat Mullins with her fists, not caring if he was alive or dead – this was revenge, plain and simple.
6:11 A.M.
When Casey entered the abandoned store, the only thing he heard was the distinctive sound of flesh hitting flesh. “Federal agents!” he called. “Put your hands in the air!”
Lifting the Maglite that had been in the security agent’s car, he saw what appeared to be Sarah Walker whaling on what he wasn’t sure was a living human or a corpse. “Director Walker!” he called as he approached. “Walker! You need to stop!”
But she wasn’t listening. He could hear sobs of frustration and rage tearing out of her as she continued to pound away. When he reached her, he carefully and gently touched her left shoulder.
“Sarah.”
She stopped instantly. She pulled away from the body, sat down on the floor heavily. She raised her blood-covered hands to eye level, looked at them, and then looked up at Casey. “You never called me Sarah before,” she said softly, almost sounding like a little girl.
Casey looked from Sarah to the body next to her. “My God,” he gasped. “Is that Mullins?”
Sarah just nodded.
Casey was astounded at what was left of the former Fulcrum agent. His eyes had burst out of his skull, his trachea had exploded, and Sarah seemed to have beaten the left hand side of his head into a bloody pulp. “Jesus Christ,” he breathed involuntarily.
Sarah looked over at what was left of Mullins, and began to shake violently. “I didn’t have a choice,” she sobbed. “He… he… he raped me… he was going to do it again… and again…”
Mal, Zoe, and Jayne had walked up behind Casey. Zoe and Jayne stared in shock and horror at Frank Mullins’ corpse, but Mal crouched down by Sarah, removed his jacket, and wrapped it around her shoulders. Then, he wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her tight against him.
Sarah’s hands grasped his shirt lapels, and she buried her face in his chest. “He… he… it… it hurt so bad,” she cried softly. “I had to…”
The hardened, trained, long time CIA agent, assassin, and deputy director turned into a quivering mess as she totally lost control in Mal’s arms. “Shhh,” he said gently. “It’s okay. You did alright.
“He’s not going to hurt anybody anymore.”
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