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Violet Darger | Book 8 | Countdown To Midnight
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Contents
Title & Copyright
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
CHAPTER 69
CHAPTER 70
CHAPTER 71
CHAPTER 72
CHAPTER 73
CHAPTER 74
CHAPTER 75
CHAPTER 76
CHAPTER 77
CHAPTER 78
CHAPTER 79
CHAPTER 80
CHAPTER 81
EPILOGUE
AUTHOR'S NOTE
MORE FROM THE AUTHORS
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
COUNTDOWN TO MIDNIGHT
Violet Darger Book 8
L.T. Vargus & Tim McBain
Copyright © 2021 L.T. Vargus & Tim McBain
Smarmy Press
All rights reserved.
Version 1.1
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
PROLOGUE
Gavin Passmore waded through a cluster of decorative grass, a place where the foliage had overgrown the stone footpath in the yard. Blades of green brushed at the calves of his jeans. He’d have to get Daniel to give the landscaping a fresh manicure, get the shaggy stuff looking clean and prickly again.
Wait. Daniel? Or was the gardener’s name David? Shit. He couldn’t remember just now. Distracted.
He adjusted the phone against his ear and trudged up the hill toward the house. His eyes glided skyward from the ornamental grass to take in the mansion before him — his mansion — though he wasn’t really seeing it fully, the details remaining distant. His throat was dry. Palms clammy. Heart thudding in his chest.
He reached the brick facade of the house and stopped in his tracks. Then he spoke into the phone, interrupting the drone of his agent trying to ditch the call.
“No, Jerry. I don’t want you to call me back. I want an answer now, OK? Right now. I’ll wait on the line. I want to know. This is… this is everything.”
The producer would be calling any time now to let the agent know. The answer impending — his life, his career, hanging in the balance.
Gavin’s agent clicked off the line to take the call.
He swallowed. Told himself he hadn’t sounded desperate with the “this is everything” bit. That little waver in his voice at the end of his speech? Passion. That was all.
God. If he got this part… Cold bolts of adrenaline shot down his arms and snaked through his hands at the thought. Made his chest suck in a big shaky breath and hold it.
If they could settle on the contract terms, this part would make his career. It’d be what Fight Club had been to Brad Pitt, what Taxi Driver and Raging Bull had been to De Niro, what Han Solo and Indiana Jones were to Harrison Ford. No more talk about a sitcom reunion, no more underwear modeling on the side, no more villain roles in bullshit Lifetime romcoms, no more fucking coffee commercials. He’d be the megastar he always thought he would be. Should be.
He’d earned some money in his career. Enough to support his lifestyle in any case. Now he had a chance to get what he really craved: Respect. Reverence. Oscar noms. Magazine covers. Fame of the highest order. Just like all the people at the agency had promised him over and over.
Mark. The gardener’s name wasn’t Daniel or David. It was Mark. Jesus. Who had he been thinking of? Maybe the car detail guy. He was here now. Gavin turned his head to see the small figure in the driveway in the distance, waxing the Mercedes.
He licked his lips. Blinked a few times. Listened to the screaming silence of the phone in his ear. Then he started walking again.
Gavin had paced up and down the length of the yard a few times as he waited for an answer. Milled around the gated section of the grounds. Now he changed his path. Walked toward the driveway to check on his wheels. He liked to look at his reflection in the silver surface of the hood whenever it was freshly waxed.
His face was beginning to show some signs of age at long last. It’d grown longer, or so it seemed to him. A slight droop creeping into that skin between his nose and cheekbones. Nothing too bad yet.
In his profession, his face was his calling card. Headshots were sent around. The image of his visage piled up with the eight-by-tens of all the other wannabes at the various casting calls. Stacks of glossy photos for the casting director to sift through. An actor’s voice was in many ways where their real talent either existed or didn’t — but with the wrong face, it didn’t matter. The director, the producers, they’d all look on that promotional shot when they decided who succeeded and who failed — stare at the eyes, the complexion, the smile, the bone structure. One face got plucked out of the pile, the rest got thrown away.
Fresh butterflies swirled in his gut as he stepped foot on the brick driveway. The sound of his footsteps grew grittier, bits of stray gravel crunching and scraping.
The smell of the car wax hit then. Acrid. Chemical in a medicinal way. The cleanest aroma in the world as far as Gavin was concerned. Beautiful.
But then the worker’s technique caught his eye. He scrubbed a microfiber towel back and forth, smearing a film of wax around.
Gavin lifted the phone away from his mouth.
“Whoa… Hey, uh…”
Was this Daniel? David? Wait. Manuel? Something else? Fuck.
The worker turned and stared at Gavin, a deadpan look on his face. He had a bony brow, pitted cheeks over a big angular jaw. His head looked gigantic atop his scrawny cross country runner body, all sticklike. Couldn’t be more than 25.
Gavin lifted his free hand and pantomimed a circular motion in the air.
“Circular motion. Um… Shit. Circular-o? What’s the Spanish word for circular? Or, like, motion?”
“I speak English,” the kid said with no trace of an accent.
Gavin gaped at him.
“Oh, right, of course. Sorry, I, uh…”
“We’ve met a bunch of times, Mr. Passmore, but… My name is Mark.”
Wait. Shit. This was Mark. Who the hell was the gardener?
“Just, you know, use a circular motion. With the wax. That’s the, uh, proper technique.”
“You wax a lot of cars?” Mark said, his voice coming out as droll as the look on his face.
“Yeah.” Gavin felt his head bobbing up and down. “Well, not personally. No.”
“Got it. Consider it done. Circular motion.”
Mark went back to waxing the car, and Gavin turned toward the house, his mind already replaying the awkward exchange. Was that racist? Assuming the car guy didn’t speak English? Imagine if the tabloids got ahold of that. Should he try to say something else? Maybe suggest he was practicing for a role with a language barrier? That could bury it. Make Mark forget all about it.
Before he could go into damage control mode, he noticed a package on the stoop near the front door — a cardboard cube thrusting up from the marble slab. He must have been out back when the delivery was made.
Curious. He couldn’t remember what he’d ordered, but that happened often enough. Late-night Amazon shopping got forgotten so completely that by the time the items arrived, it felt like he’d sent himself a present. Especially if he’d taken one of his sleeping pills. A little surprise, courtesy of Ambien. Still, this didn’t look like an Amazon package. No smiley pointing arrow etching a black curve on the side or anything.
He scooped it up and tucked it under his free arm, grabbed the rest of the mail out of the box near the door, and took the pile inside. Flipping through the envelopes provided nothing of excitement — mostly junk mail to do with insurance and mortgage rates and the always thrilling electricity bill.
He passed through the foyer and living room, making his way into the kitchen as he picked out which mail to toss. Then he set the box down on the gleaming quartz of the island and looked it over again. The return address wasn’t familiar and didn’t feature a name. A P.O. Box in Dover, Delaware. Certainly not from Amazon then.
He realized, as he plucked a knife from the butcher block, that the phone call had mostly been forgotten now. The phone still smashed his ear flat to the side of his head, shifted over to the left side for the moment, but its silence seemed less important just now.
The tip of the knife probed the tape encasing the corners of the box. Then it slit down the seam at the top.
He held still and looked at the wounded package, at the freshly made slash that parted now like lips. He couldn’t help but hold his breath as he went to peel the thing open.
His shoulder now pinned the phone to his ear to free both hands. His fingers approached the cardboard in what felt like slow motion, something delicate in the way they touched the thing at last.
The phone clicked back to life then, and Jerry’s voice chirped in his ear. Something jubilant in his tone.
Gavin ignored him. Just for a second. His hands were already moving now. Sliding to that part in the center.
He stripped away the top flaps. Then unfolded the second, smaller set of flaps to lay the chamber bare at last.
Or not.
A crinkled flap of packing paper still shrouded the contents of the box, the brown contours of wrapping material hinting at the knobby shape of what lay beneath.
He narrowed his eyes and leaned over the parcel now. Peered down into the compact cube. Rested his hands on the counter on each side of it. Moved his head closer as though zooming in on this open package until its open maw filled the frame of his vision.
He was breathless now. Rapt. Totally unsure of what this could be. Somehow drawn in by the mystery of this box.
He licked his lips. Pinched the papery sheath covering his boon, whatever it might be.
The voice in his ear sounded concerned now.
“You there, Gav?”
“Just a second.”
He peeled the paper out of the way. Heard the faintest click as the detonation was triggered.
All that suppressed energy unleashed in a fraction of a second. Discharged. Set free.
The explosion thrust upward. Ripped outward. Impossible concussive force.
Shrapnel flung out of the box. Miniature nails leading the wave. Each one 10mm in length. A little more than a third of an inch. Tiny.
The flash came next. Impossible white fading to orange the color of flames. Flaring. Radiating in a halo from the focal point of the box.
Heat.
Violence.
Overwhelming.
It buckled the quartz countertop. Shot cracks up and down its length. Cratered the place beneath the package. Punched a blackened pit into the cabinets beneath. Smoke coiling up from the ruins.
The boom seemed to come just a beat later. A breathy whoosh trailed the force, almost a whistle.
A clicking bang interrupted it. Percussive. Sharp. Metallic.
And then that sigh of wind finally brought the full-throated rumble, drawing it out. It roared. Bellowed. The subharmonic thunder shook the house on its foundation, made the floorboards moan, made the windows rattle. Its vibration felt through the earth up to a mile away.
Gavin’s face came apart even as the blast flung him back from the kitchen island. The bridge of the nose smashed flat to the skull. Cheekbones collapsing. Torn asunder. Hot nails ripping through teeth and eyes and flesh.
A human face going to splinters. A completed jigsaw puzzle fragmenting back into all those tiny pieces.
Shards of bone. Flaps of skin. Tattered meat.
Blown to bits.
By the time you read this, I’ll be dead, but what I’ve set into motion will only be beginning.
The first bomb has gone off by now. So it begins.
Starting at midnight tonight, a bomb will go off roughly every eight hours, and a target will be neutralized.
The targets are of no significance politically.
They are cultural icons. Celebrities. Actors. Reality TV figures and the like.
Be honest. Fiery death could make some of these folks more likable.
Doesn’t that bland host of the karaoke show become more compelling after he’s been blown to pieces?
How about the fashion model trying to break into the mainstream taking shrapnel to her jugular?
The juicy lead role of her dreams.
You piggies have a chance, however, to stop some of the carnage.
What better way to get attention to my message than to invite the police and public alike to play a little game?
Here’s how it works:
Chunks of my journal are strewn about the city. Hidden. Each one contains clues to the next chunk, and likewise, each one divulges the details of one of the little toys I’ve prepared for one of America’s sweethearts.
Clues for names. Clues for places.
Everything you’d need to locate and disarm one of the bombs is there.
All I ask in return is that you read the journal. Really read it. Consider what I am presenting.
Ironically, killing celebrities will make me a celebrity.
For the next 24 hours or so, as my bombs either go off or don’t, I may well be the most famous person on the planet.
An unflattering photo of my face will be plastered in a box just over the news anchor’s shoulder.
It will be worth it.
My ideas will be dissected and debated the whole world round, chunks of my journal translated into damn near every language on the globe.
The game begins.
Pour yourself a cup of coffee. And if you must sleep tonight, be sure to keep those DVRs rolling.
From Hell,
T. H.
CHAPTER 1
Violet Darger squirmed in her seat, walled in on all sides by auditorium seating fill
ed to the brim. She swiveled her head to get a better view of the room full of cadets.
A little over 250 bright-eyed faces stared up at the stage, their bodies packed down in the theater-style seats. Smiling. Fidgeting. Coughing. Soft chatter filled the space with a whispery drone even as the ceremony continued on the platform at the front of the room.
After over twenty excruciating weeks of training, graduation had finally arrived for this class of FBI agent trainees. They’d earned it.
Each cadet had shot approximately 5,000 rounds of ammunition in the firearms course. They’d been punched in the face. Sprayed with mace. They’d spent hours being grilled by instructors on every possible procedure in class and also in practical settings. They’d run through the Capstone counter-terrorism exercise. They’d even investigated a kidnapping and a bank robbery in the mock town on campus known as Hogan’s Alley.
Some hadn’t made it. Two cadets had quit, and another pair had been dismissed.
Darger tried to imagine what that would feel like. Washing out of the program would be a brutal reality check. It was difficult to envision sacrificing so much, only to be found “not suitable” by the powers that be. And often, trainees were forced to quit their previous job before they began the grueling field training program. They’d have nothing to go back to.
Still, it might be worse to be one of those who had dropped out of training of their own volition. No one made it to this point without a tremendous effort. There was no waffling your way into the FBI. Being an FBI agent was a dream for every person in this room. Giving up on that dream would be heartbreaking.
Darger bounced her knee up and down. Let her eyes scan over the taut faces, the jittery smiles, the restless body language.
The tension in the room was beyond that of a normal graduation ceremony for good reason. The grads wouldn’t just be receiving diplomas today. They’d each get an envelope containing their first assignment. Anything from Anchorage, Alaska, to Milwaukee to Honolulu to Jasper, Wyoming, was possible.
She watched the final trainee cross to the podium. Darger recognized the woman from the class she and Loshak had taught on crime scene profiling. Venus Jackson. She had the most upright posture Darger had ever seen. Spine straight, shoulders square. She already looked the part of an FBI agent. Subconsciously, Darger sat up taller in her seat.