SHE IS RISEN

THE GUN CONTROL CASE STUDIES

BY TRAVIS ADAMS IRISH

Cover Design by Tierney Roberts

She Is Risen. Copyright © 2013 by Travis Adams Irish. All rights reserved.  Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Twitter account: @isiahsskirmish

FIRST EDITION

Dedication:  For Tatyana Alexandra Khorishko, a brave and magnificent woman whom I admire more than anyone; my inspiration for the priestess character, and someone I love very much.

To my mentors Jacque Turner-Schettler and Don Miles.  I hope this work does justice for the strong wisdom you have shared.  I’m very grateful.

To Lonna Marie for performing a beautiful, original song, as featured in the audio version of this book. Please visit: www.LonnaMarie.com for more great music.

Twitter: @LonnaMarie

Performance and Editing by Lonna Marie

Song Lyrics by Travis Adams Irish

To Tierney Roberts for your beautiful and inspired cover artwork.  Please visit:  www.TierneyRoberts.com for some incredible artwork.

Twitter: @TierneyRoberts

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I.                    NATIVITY OF THE CALDERA

II.                 PER DIEM

III.               WHAT HAPPENS IN THE JUNGLE

IV.              PARANOIA – RESERVATION FOR ONE

V.                SUNDOWN

VI.              REFLECTING ON THE DEVIL’S PROTÉGÉ

VII.           THE CASES – LORABELL CARDIGAN

VIII.         CARTEL ALL

IX.              THE CASES – MAN OF MANY MANIPULATIONS

X.                 CARTEL EXODUS

XI.              THE CASES – DEVLIN IN THE DETAILS

XII.            ARMANI – DOES THIS MAKE ME LOOK DEAD

XIII.         DON’T TALK TO STRANGERS

XIV.        LET’S TALK PRESSURE

XV.           THE CASES – NOT YOUR ORDINARY BLOCK PARTY

XVI.        STATS & STRIPES – BRIEFING THE EAGLE

XVII.      IT’S BEEN A PLEASURE

Part I. Your Move

I. Nativity of the Caldera

The earth shakes in the shadow of the massive Popocatepetl Volcano just a few miles outside of Mexico City.  Beneath the surface stones are turned to dust as the earth wrestles with powerful forces of nature.  From the crater, white plumes of smoke and ash shoot over 1,000 feet in the air.  A fury is building deep within the center of the mighty mountain.  Within its core, the decades of brutality and slaughter of innocent people have created the rebirth of a forgotten martyr.  The dark mountain begins to quake with violent bursts of tectonic rage, and soon a plume of ash erupts nearly half a mile into the air as the crater bursts forth an unforgiving amount of pressure, exploding off the summit of the volcano, as if kicking open the doors of hell.

In the intensity of the blast, those observing below can only witness with despair as the massive juggernaut unleashes its deadly payload into the cloudy, black sky.  From just above the rim of the volcano, a pyroclastic flow of gas and ash begins to descend on the Mexican valley in its path.  Like a deadly hand, it moves rapidly down the mountainside at 175 feet per second, extending its fiery fingers over every living thing, turning the earth bare and black.  As the flow begins its descent toward the valley, raindrops start to pelt the ground, and a fierce wind blows against the deadly cloud of gas.  Soon the wind speed reaches over ninety miles an hour, and drops of rain fall thick as the sea, thrown down from the enormous dark rainclouds above.

An elderly woman stands less than a mile from the volcano.  She is wearing a torn, straw hat that is now fully drenched by the deluge of violent rain.  Her eyes are fixed on the 1,200 degree cloud of gas and ash that is barreling down the mountain to claim her home and family.  She looks on with acceptance; not a hint of fear in her deep, blue eyes.  Her thick, weathered skin shows the strength of a people who face death on a daily basis.  The incendiary cloud approaches closer, and she puts her hands on her hips atop her tattered, salmon-colored shirt, standing proudly in her gray, home-made pants, waiting for the volcano to finish her.  Her entire body is drenched in cold rainwater, and the chilly winds rip the straw hat from her head, carrying it into the massive cloud just 500 feet from her face.  She purses her lips together hard after watching the treacherous cloud incinerate the hat.

When the cloud is within 300 feet of the woman, it slows to a halt, like a dog being ordered by its master to stop attacking.  Soon afterward, the heavy rains pour down amidst the hurricane-force winds, pounding the ash back to the earth, and extinguishing the deadly heat of the massive volcanic flow.  Once the rains have drowned out the deadly eruption, brilliant rays of sunlight are cast through the thick, ominous clouds.  The woman looks up at the heavens in awe, amazed to be alive, but also enjoying the spectacle of over a dozen beams of light breaking through the cloud cover, shining down on the wider, newly formed crater of the mountain.  The black volcano no longer appears foreboding in the late afternoon sky; its summit is illuminated with brilliant white light, like a nativity of hope and righteousness.

“My God!” The woman exclaims in Spanish, showing an expression on the verge of tears.  “The holy mother has risen!”

After the ash clouds abate, the earth is shown bare beneath the destructive forces of the volcanic eruption.  Over 4,000 feet of scorched earth, laid out like a black towel of ash to welcome a new, and equally violent visitor.

II. Per Diem

‘This is a horrible way to start the week,’ Devlin thinks to himself as he strides cautiously up the bustling Chicago city street on his way to a private videoconference.  He looks down at the ink on his hand, the smudged numbers drawn with a fine-tipped black marker just a few hours ago.  The IP address on his palm is as misshapen and mysterious as his life has become these past few days.  As a former US Army Colonel he is no stranger to living on the edge, but this week feels more like tiptoeing alongside The Grand Canyon.

Devlin twists his head from side-to-side, allowing his long blonde hair to swing a bit as he tries to gather his wits, feeling out of place, and needing a cathartic reprieve.  His bright blue eyes are lit with determination as he walks through the city wearing an unflinching poker face.  He rolls his tongue over his teeth like a tropical fish flailing on corral, frustrated to have not recently gone to the gym.  His body is strong and tall, something reminiscent of the olden cowhands that used to work from sunrise to sunset.

As he moves, his feet feel comfortable in a pair of Dover Split Toe Shoes from Edward Green, and his Armani Duster Coat keeps him warm under the expanse of gloomy rain clouds.  He keeps his head down as he walks, admiring the smooth, red silk tie that bounces under his black polyester jacket.

After traversing a few blocks, and checking to ensure he is not being followed, Devlin enters the tinted glass doors of the Time Is Money company; a host for virtual offices and executive suites.  He steps up to the front counter, intrigued for a moment by the wall-mounted waterfall to his left amidst the faded lighting and modern interior design.

“Can I help you?” The young receptionist asks, brushing back her short, red hair, which emphasizes her fair skin and sporadic freckles.

“Yes, I booked a videoconference at eleven under Mr. Stinson.” Devlin says with a winning smile, pretending everything is business as usual.

“Sure thing,” the young lady says with a smirk, flashing her blue eyes at him, “I have you booked in C3.  Do you need support?”

“Excuse me?” Devlin asks with a bit of confusion, resting his right hand on the sleek, black countertop that is nearly level with his chest.

“Do you need technical support?” The woman inquires with a confident grin and the stare of a tigress as she hands him a small, round key fob.

“No, I’m good. Thanks.” He responds quickly, feeling himself starting to perspire at the thought of engaging the CIA on its own terms.

Devlin ignores the flirtatious, smiling redhead, and with some hesitation, shuffles down the hall, across the expensive black carpet to a door marked C3.  As he reaches the stainless steel doorknob, his right hand passes the fob above it while he uses his left to open the heavy, decorative oak door.  The conference room opens up to him with delicate incandescent lighting, and there are six tall, black ergonomic chairs spaced evenly around an oak conference table.  He wastes no time, closing the door behind him, and moving to the seat at the head of the table where a keyboard and mouse are waiting for his use.  Devlin looks up at the eighty-inch LCD display to his left, watching a cursor move as he slides the mouse around on the conference table.  He pulls up an Internet browser and looks down at his right hand as he types in the IP address with his left.

“Hello, Devlin.” A woman says as she appears on the screen, looking at him in a manner that is halfway friendly and half otherwise.

“Linda Rosenfeld.” Devlin nods at the screen with sudden surprise, looking up at her and then at the earpiece on the side of her head.

Linda is seated behind an expensive cedar desk, watching him cautiously with her suspicious brown eyes.  She is sporting a rich, red shade of lipstick and heavy makeup beneath her dirty blonde hair, which is pulled back into a neat ponytail with the long bangs draped over her forehead.  The tall woman looks at Devlin like an objective in her day planner as she straightens her body to engage him.

“I would say that I’m confused…” Devlin begins with a snide expression.  “As to why Henri would connect me with his PR manager at a time like this, but I guess that makes sense…  I’m sure The Congressman is listening, so let’s keep this short.”

“Don’t worry about us tracing you,” Linda begins with a confident gaze, “we know that you’re at Time Is Money, just a few blocks from downtown…  I also know that you just checked into room C3 for this conference bridge.”

“What do you want, Linda?” Devlin demands with fading patience, surmising that the CIA has the upper hand.  “Or, what does your MASTER from Henri Edwards North America want?”

“Devlin, this is a delicate situation, but let me make you aware of a few ground rules.” The savvy business executive states, clasping her hands together on the shiny, glass surface of her desk.  “We have already killed your passport, so that will prevent you from going Edward Snowden on us.  All of your accounts and lines of credit are frozen, as I’m sure you’ve ascertained over the past few days.”

“Right…” He replies with a slight nod, embodying a lack of enthusiasm.

“However, at this time, you are still an employee in good standing with Henri Edwards North America.” She continues with a bright smile, placing her hands with palms downward on the glass.  “We feel that this misunderstanding can still be rectified, and no one needs to cry foul, or breach of national security.”

“Misunderstanding!?” Devlin raises his eyebrows with an incredulous stare.  “Would you still call this a misunderstanding if that were your daughter at the hotel?”

“Devlin, I’m well aware of the…” She raises her hands for a moment and lets them flop back down on the glass. “Situation here.  We all have eclectic tastes when it comes to pleasure, and nothing that you saw happening was illegal.”

“Right, it’s not illegal to deceive someone if they have no idea what the hell is going on…” Devlin spouts off with building rage.  “I mean, for instance, if someone can’t see… If they can’t identify you, then they don’t know a crime was committed.”

“Devlin, all the participants were well compensated for their time and everything that happened prior to your interruption was consensual…” Linda mutters with an electric stare.  “The only person who could have faced charges for their actions that evening was you.  And you should be more concerned about Yulia, and your future in this country…”

“Is this how we go forward?” He replies with a serious demeanor.  “An explanation, then a threat, and around we go...  You’re worse than Henri, Linda, because you’re the enabler.  How the hell do you live with yourself?”

“Devlin, I’m here to broker a deal to get this train back on the rails.” She retorts with an earnest look, as if begging for a compromise.  “Henri thinks of you like a son, and he really enjoys working with you… Don’t let one of his… quirks get in the way of what could be a promising career with H.E.N.A.”

“A promising career doing what!?” He fires back, folding his arms in an indignant manner.  “Pushing hardworking Americans over the edge by scaring the shit out them?  …So that you can have more ‘data’ for your gun control case studies?  I don’t really know what my job is supposed to accomplish, and I didn’t see that until now… If a woman is scared of being abducted, and we keep making that possibility seem real to her- just to trigger a potential… episode of gun violence? I mean is that what we do now for national security?  Drive people past their breaking points until they shoot up their neighborhood?”

“What you’re telling me is classified information,” she says dismissively, “and I can’t engage you on it further.”

“Well, the project is what it is,” he admits, “but that doesn’t change what Henri did.”

“Are you so perfect?” She erupts with a bit of passion.  “Look at your record after you got back from Iraq; you cheated on Yulia with a stripper or two.”

“That wasn’t about sex, you pinhead.” Devlin says with a fierce stare, narrowing his eyes and gripping the edge of the table as he looks up at her.  “I needed someone to dump my war stories on, and the strippers were just convenient.”

“Because you didn’t want to dump that on your wife?” Linda responds with a slight smile.  “Not every man can get what he needs at home… Whether it’s someone to talk to about the war… or other things…”

“Don’t fucking compare me to Henri!” Devlin says immediately, raising his left hand and pointing at the screen in a threatening manner.  “Why am I talking to you, anyway?  You’re no better than him…  As long as you’ve got money in your purse and a shit ton of expensive shoes in your closet; you’re good to go.”

“That’s bold talk from a man who used to kill people for living…” Linda says calmly, resting her chin on her hands as she leans forward.  “Look, Colonel, I’m not playing games with you here.  Henri has made a generous offer to wipe the slate clean and let you come back to the CIA.  You can forget about what you saw, and reengage after having a face to face discussion with him.”

“No.” Devlin says, shaking his head slowly, pushing back against the easy temptation that comes with her offer. “That’s the difference between us.  I don’t forget what I saw in Iraq, and most of all, what I did there…  When it comes to Henri, that image will always be burned in my mind, and no matter how you try to garnish it with words like consensual, and compensation; I know better.  If you’d been in a war, you’d understand, everything catches up to us eventually…”

“Devlin, I can see you’re going to be stubborn on this…” She says with an irritated expression.  “You have twelve hours to accept Henri’s generous offer, or we’re going to bring the hammer down on your head…  You’ll be marked as an enemy to this country; a traitor...  There will be charges of stealing government property; our bomb sniffing dog, and your communications equipment.  We’ll take your home, put your wife in the street, and destroy your reputation; all in the name of preserving national security.”

“Everything you’re doing is to protect Henri’s reputation…” He begins with a hateful grimace.  “First, you were his campaign manager, now you’re his public relations cleaning lady… He gets blood on his hands, and you’re right there to lick it from his fingers.  We’re done here!”

“I urge you to consider the offer.” She says with a fake ambience.  “You have twelve-“

Devlin disconnects the videoconference by closing the browser window before she can finish her sentence.  He looks down at the delicate chrome and green arms inside his expensive silver wristwatch, breathing out with a slow, frustrated gasp.  Within twelve hours, his life will turn into a manhunt, or he can go back and pretend that Satan doesn’t exist while they all cleanup at the craps table of life.  ‘I hate you, Henri,’ he thinks to himself as he gets up from the large table.  ‘I hate you more than ever; for putting this option at my feet.’  He decides to make the best use of his time, walking out toward the lobby as he thinks of a dozen ways to lose the surveillance team.  Devlin tightens his hands into large fists, trying to decide if a clear conscience is worth all the devastation that will be coming his way in just twelve short hours.

III. What Happens in the Jungle

Antonio wipes the side of his face as droplets of sweat emerge; partially due to his body trying to cool itself, but more likely caused by his overflowing guilt.  A white bandana is fixed to the top of his head, still somewhat moist from the well water; the hot Mexican sun drying it rapidly.  His brown eyes and short stature make him appear unremarkable, and Antonio’s natural demeanor seems pleasant, almost as though he could be a member of your family.

From the second floor balcony of a bright orange vacation resort, he gazes with disappointment at the jungle just a few dozen yards from his position.  His eggshell colored shirt is covered in dirt stains, as are his black jeans.  He puts his hands on his hips, staring down toward the black, leather belt that he procured from the father of a family of five several hours earlier.  Antonio raises his head again, looking into the jungle.  Just below his line of vision, he sees a warrior wasp hovering above the wooden railing right in front of his post.  The wasp moves its black body tactfully above the weathered, brown wood, seeking out anything useful to its colony.

As he looks at the wasp, he thinks about the cartel, and draws a strong distinction of common ground between the colony of deadly insects, and his organization of deadly smugglers.  There is a sinister connection, Antonio thinks to himself, regarding how The Federales setup a roadblock on highway 186, preventing them from getting back to their nest.  With over one-hundred million dollars in cocaine, they were forced to migrate north of the highway, pushing deeper into the old jungle.  When they found the bright orange resort and only a family of five protecting it, their colony of twenty wasps slaughtered the worker bees and took refuge in the new nest.

Antonio sighs with shame as his gaze raises back to the jungle, and he thinks about the five bodies that he just buried there.  Within the cartel, he has become known as Antonio ‘Gravedigger’ Espinoche; a man who has dug over one-thousand graves, and lost count a long time ago.  He ponders all the different graves he’s dug, and the various purposes for those graves.  Antonio knows that a sensible grave begins by making cuts into the earth using a shovel to make an oval shape.  Then digging about three feet down into the very center of the oval, allowing him to leverage the shovel and tear out large chunks of earth with little effort.  It is also important to layer the earth around the grave evenly so that it can be filled in faster.  Choosing the right earth with a flaky, moist consistency to dig the graves also drastically cuts down the burial time.  He even came up with a cocktail of herbs to throw off the dogs that might be looking for bodies.  His own mixture of chili peppers, cinnamon, and freshly ground coffee.  Though in emergency situations like this one, where bodies must go immediately into the ground; those ingredients rarely present themselves in time.

He glances over to his right at his amigo, Enrique, a senior smuggler who has seen the best and worst of everything in his thirty years with the cartel.  The fifty-year-old enforcer stands vigilant on the opposite corner of the balcony, watching the cache of drugs like a faithful dog.  He is clad in a light, soft material, tailored to fit his body, making him appear wise.  His pants and shirt are made from the same black and gold fabric, giving it the look of a uniform.  Enrique smiles wide at Antonio, unintentionally showing that he is missing all of the molars from his bottom jaw, and half the teeth in his upper jaw.  Although he is nearly twenty years older than Antonio, the veteran enforcer has a powerful body, maintained by daily exercises and a diet dictated by nature.

Antonio is amazed to see this man smiling after having lost his second son just a few nights ago.  He smiles back at Enrique with a great deal of respect, knowing that the man next to him has lost both of his sons; one from a rival cartel, and the other from a shootout with Mexican authorities.  Enrique turns away for a moment, scanning the jungle with the AK-47 clenched tightly in his arms.  As the older man turns away, Antonio sees the familiar machete slung over Enrique’s shoulder with the black sheath tight against his back.

Antonio looks out into the jungle again, remembering the five graves, but his heart goes cold as he sees a figure standing among the Taxodium Mucronatum Trees.  A woman with long brunette hair is walking along the tree line; her body is covered by a full-length red robe.  The robe is secured around her with what looks like a thick black rope.  Earlier in the day, the smugglers had chopped down a few trees, and cleared a path for the helicopter to land.  The woman walks around the outer edge of this new landing zone, seemingly oblivious to the men guarding the resort.

The young enforcer closes his eyes for a moment, and as he reopens them, the woman is no longer there.  His heart starts to beat fast as he remembers killing the mother of the family, and wonders if, in his haste, he neglected to finish her off.  He glances over at Enrique, but his comrade has obviously not seen anything that is attention-worthy.  Antonio closes his eyes again, grabbing his canteen and drinking with a remorseful thirst, trying to put the family out of his mind.  As he opens his eyes, he sees the warrior wasp staring at him, settled on top of his silver canteen.  The black, menacing little body is less than an inch from his fingers with its yellow eyes focused directly on Antonio’s brown eyes.  The young man holds perfectly still, breathing heavily and watching the wasp creep slightly toward his dirty hand.

Soon the sound of a helicopter approaches from the north, and the large insect takes flight, zooming around Antonio, and disappearing behind the resort.  The young enforcer smiles and breathes in with relief, screwing the cap back on his canteen as he looks out at the landing zone.  His eyes squeeze tight as he sees the woman in the red robe again, walking around the outer rim of their helicopter landing zone.

“Señorita, you cannot be out there!”  Enrique shouts to the woman.  “There is poison gas from a truck explosion on the highway. You need to leave!”

Antonio is relieved that Enrique can also see the woman, and he watches her carefully as the sound of the helicopter becomes louder every second.  In the distance, the woman reaches out and touches a large, one-hundred-and-twenty-foot Montezuma Cypress Tree.  Then she calmly and dutifully moves a few steps closer to the resort, staying at the edge of the tree line.  After a few seconds, there is a crackling sound of fresh wood breaking, and the enormous tree snaps at its base right where the woman touched the trunk.  The entire mass of branches and leaves crashes down behind the woman, falling away from the landing zone.

Antonio’s eyes grow wide with awe as he tries to understand what has happened.  Just fifty feet above his head, and thirty feet away, the black helicopter is descending to the landing area.  In the distance, the woman steps gracefully forward, and touches another large tree, strolling casually toward the resort as the approaching helicopter begins to blow her robe tight against her petite body.  The young woman’s hair flows backward in a wild whipping motion, but she remains uncharacteristically calm for someone near a helicopter.

When the helicopter is just fifteen feet off the ground, the sound of wood breaking is heard again, and another massive tree snaps from its base, falling inward on the landing zone.  Antonio watches with surprise, shielding his face instinctively as the branches and leaves of the heavy tree bear down on the vulnerable helicopter blades.  He hears two whacking sounds in quick succession before the bulk of the tree pushes the helicopter to the ground with a thunderous crash.  The top of the tree misses the resort, falling at an angle past the corner of the building where Antonio is standing guard.

With a confused expression, the young enforcer looks down at the helicopter that is now crushed under the weight of the tree.  Smoke rises from the wreckage, and he cannot hear any sounds of life coming from within.  Antonio looks over at Enrique, and the older man shrugs with a spooked expression.  Both men turn their attention to the woman approaching the resort from the tree line, feeling uneasy and confused.

As she encroaches within forty feet of the resort, Enrique aims his AK-47 at her and opens fire.  Antonio watches with mixed feelings, waiting for her body to hit the ground.  But his face displays concern as he notices that Enrique’s bullets are pelting the earth halfway between him and his target.  This is impossible for the angle of fire, and the velocity of the bullets, but nonetheless, they are striking the ground as if bouncing off a wall of steel.

Enrique stops firing after also noticing this unnatural occurrence, and lowers the rifle, staring at the woman with the contempt of a seasoned killer, but the fear of an intelligent hunter.  When the woman gets within twenty feet of the resort, she holds up her palms toward the two men with her fingers outstretched, and then rolls both hands into tight fists.  Antonio feels his body go limp, and hears Enrique fall onto the wooden balcony in unison with him.  For a moment, he tries to pull himself up from the rough, dark stained wood, but his mind feels immediately exhausted, and he loses consciousness.

“SAN PEREZ, YOU SONOFABITCH!”  Enrique shouts through gritted teeth.

Antonio opens his eyes to see Enrique charging toward him with his machete gripped tightly in his right hand.  The older man’s pupils are dilated with hatred as he moves toward Antonio shouting the name of his son’s killer; the rival cartel chief.

“I am not San Perez!” Antonio pleads, glancing at his own AK-47 just ten feet away, leaning against the corner of the wooden railing.  “Enrique, it’s Antonio; look at me!”  He pleads with a respectful gaze, hoping the older man will come to his senses.

Antonio realizes that Enrique is not backing down, and he begins to shuffle backward clumsily, half crawling and half walking to where his rifle is resting.  Enrique approaches closer, staring him down as if he were an abomination, rapidly closing the space between them.  When Antonio is only three feet from his rifle, Enrique strikes with the machete, bearing down hard with his sinewy muscles.  Antonio raises his right arm to protect his face from the blade, and the machete connects, slicing deep into his muscle just above the elbow.  The younger man screams in agony as the blade impacts his bone; he can feel the heat of freshly cleaved flesh hanging from his arm, and the warm blood is saturating his chest.  Antonio kicks with his legs and lunges for his rifle with his left arm, feeling his heart pounding in his ears as Enrique bears down on him with intense rage.

Antonio grips his rifle as the older man raises the machete again, and brings it down repeatedly toward the younger man’s face, trying with all his might to finish him.  He protects his face with his right arm for a second time, and the machete cleaves into it just below the elbow.  Antonio grits his teeth as the blade lands another strike against his bone, and to his horror, it comes down a third time, hitting in almost the same spot, instantly breaking the bones of his forearm.  The pain is unmerciful, and Antonio uses all of his strength to raise the rifle across his body at an angle.  However, the machete connects a final time with unrelenting accuracy, slicing through the remaining flesh as the young man helplessly watches his right arm fall onto the filthy surface of the walkway.

Antonio shrieks in pain as he fires a burst from his AK-47 into Enrique’s torso, causing the older man to fall straight backward from the force of the gunfire.  The young cartel enforcer winces in agony, watching the blood shoot from the remaining upper half of his arm.  With desperation and panicked movements, he lays down on the walkway, releasing the rifle, and using his left hand to remove his black leather belt.  Once he has the belt in hand, Antonio uses it to apply a tourniquet to his wounded right arm.  With his left hand and teeth, he cinches the belt tight around what remains of his limb, shaking all over from the intensity of the pain.

As Antonio looks up from the walkway, he sees the woman standing in front of him.  She has beautiful olive skin, and unforgiving green eyes.  He doesn’t recall at what point she arrived, or whether she was there the entire time.

“Tell Miguel Horatio to stop hurting my people.” The woman begins with a sinister tone, staring evenly at Antonio.  “If he harms another of mine, I will claim his firstborn son.”

“Who are your people?”  Antonio asks with a shaky voice, feeling suddenly cold as his heart begins to pound from the loss of blood.

“You are not my people, Antonio.”  She declares with a powerful stare, showing ancient strength and wisdom.  “All those who have been deceived and abused; living or dead… are my people.”

“Antonio!”  A voice calls out from within the resort.  “Enrique!”

Another cartel enforcer steps out onto the walkway and beckons for the two men.  His aging face shows panic from the recent helicopter crash, but this is further aggravated when he glimpses the bloody scene on the balcony.  After a quick mental inventory, he realizes that Enrique is dead, and rushes to where Antonio is lying on the floor.  He then uses his strong, sturdy frame to lift him up on one shoulder and carry him into the resort, being careful not to touch his severed arm.

“Did you see her?”  Antonio asks in a weak voice as he fades in and out of consciousness.

“Did I see who?”  The enforcer asks quickly.

“The woman in the robe?”  Antonio demands eagerly.

“There was no woman,” the man replies dismissively, “we need to get you a doctor.  The helicopter has been destroyed, and everyone is downstairs.  What happened to Enrique?”

“He went mad.  She makes you see things… that aren’t real…”  Antonio mutters before passing out from blood loss.

IV. Paranoia - Reservation for One

:: Begin Encoded Message ::

H.E.N.A.

D2vl3n McC4nn2ll6 3s N4 L4ng2r P1rt 4f H.2.N.1.

1tt2nt34n t4 1ll f32ld 4p2r1t3v2s, D2vl3n McC4nn2ll6 3s n4 l4ng2r fr32ndl6 w3th H.2.N.1.  645 1r2 t4 c1pt5r2 4r d2t13n h3m b6 1n6 m21ns n2c2ss1r6 4r t4 5s2 d21dl6 f4rc2.  W2 1r2 4ff2r3ng 4v2r $100,000 3n b4n5s m4n26 t4 1n64n2 wh4 c1n br3ng h3m t4 th2 4p2r1t34ns c2nt2r.  1ll f32ld 1g2nts w3ll r2c23v2 ph4t4s 4f th3s 1g2nt v31 s2c5r2 2m13l.  C4nt1ct 4p2r1t34ns 3f 645 g13n s3ght 4f h3m 3mm2d31t2l6.  F13l5r2 t4 c4nt1ct 4p2r1t34ns f3rst w3ll r2s5lt 3n t2rm3n1t34n.

Maxwell Out

:: End Encoded Message ::

Gloria walks across the patches of grass in a local Chicago suburb, smelling here and there at the ground as she gets ready to relieve herself after a day of waiting for Devlin.  The Golden Labrador is special, having trained for six months in Auburn University’s vapor wake bomb detection program.  The dog raises her head, smelling the air for threats.  She picks up the scent of a woman’s perfume in a signature that carries over one-hundred yards down the sidewalk to the left.  Her ears stand on end as the Labrador detects another unique odor that is uncommon to everyday life.  Over forty feet away, across the street, a bottle of solvent has leaked through a cheap toolbox into the trunk of an old car, but the dog soon dismisses this as not being a threat.  After assessing the area, she soon finds a nice place to do her business, while Devlin stares off into the distance.

As the afternoon traffic passes them by, Devlin’s hair stands on end, and he is filled with conflicting emotions.  Just a week ago, he was in the employment of the CIA, working on a program to isolate and monitor unstable people who might commit gun violence.  After the movie theater shooting in Colorado, The Speaker of The House, Henri Edwards, commissioned a team of experts to help gather data for The President.  According to Henri, they would be creating the foundation for a new organization similar to the TSA, but specializing in gun control screening.

He feels the sun and wind on his face, closing his eyes for a moment of peace, trying to stay alert despite only sleeping two or three hours per night.  The black leather leash tightens in his hand, and he looks down with a smile at his furry protector.  Gloria is watching him with her head turned sideways in a curious manner.  Devlin grins as he looks at her face, feeling like this is her way of telling him to man up and stay strong.  After taking a quick glance around the area, Devlin leads the dog back to the hotel just fifty yards away.  He keeps his head down as they move, watching for Gloria to signal that a threat is nearby.  The dog’s sense of smell is 44 times greater than a person, because she has more than 220 million olfactory receptors in her nose, whereas Devlin has only 5 million.  This means that Gloria can detect scents for hundreds of yards, long after the odor has passed.  She can even smell a urine sample to determine if it contains bladder cancer cells.

As they get near the hotel, Devlin pulls the leash to the left, even though the dog is trying to maneuver right.  He wants her to smell the car again, ensuring that no tampering has taken place since they were gone.  When they approach the stolen black Escalade, the dog takes a short lap around the SUV with Devlin in tow, wagging her tail to show that she doesn’t detect any danger.

Now that he is satisfied with the vehicle, Devlin signals the dog back onto her original course, heading for a side door entrance of the hotel about thirty feet away.  He admires the foliage and fresh smell of the grass after a recent rainstorm, enjoying everything around him, and trying to avoid arousing suspicion.

Soon Devlin and the dog reach their familiar hotel room door, a nice, solid white oak with inlayed wood and a brass handle.  After inserting his card, he steps into the entryway with Gloria, seeing that she is clearly excited to be home, wagging her tail briskly as he undoes the leash from her collar, allowing her to roam free in the room.

Devlin steps over to the edge of the bed near the window and leans down to an ice chest where he retrieves two bottles of cold water.  He then pours one bottle into Gloria’s dish, and places the other bottle against his neck, feeling the soothing moisture and cool plastic.  As he sits down on the corner of the bed, Devlin realizes how much he misses his wife.  This is the first time in over a year that he has been away from the lovely brunette Russian since he was serving the Army in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Although they talked a few days ago, he feels stressed thinking about her now.  His mind wanders a bit to what Henri could be plotting against the love of his life, but he decides not to consider it anymore.

He unscrews the cap from the cold bottle of water, taking a much needed drink, and breathing deeply to calm himself.  The sound of the dog lapping up the fresh water near him is strangely soothing, as if he isn’t so alone.  Devlin unzips his black Armani jacket and tosses it toward the opposite side of the bed near the closet.  He then sets the bottle of water on the floor and lies back on the mattress.

The orange silk shirt and red tie are a bit too warm on his body at this time of the day, but under the circumstances, he elects to be prepared rather than comfortable.  Devlin stares up at the blank white ceiling, remembering the events that brought him here.  Thinking again about his lovely wife Yulia, he wonders if he has made the right decision.  Just a week ago, he had financial success, a great home, and a job with Level IV Security Clearance.

After his eight-year stint in the military, Devlin had come home with a lot of problems, and drinking was becoming his soul means for dealing with those problems.  Unfortunately, after enough drinking, he found himself slapped with a third-degree felony for DUI and another for assaulting a police officer.  The court was lenient due to his posttraumatic stress disorder, but he still served over ninety days in jail.  It was right after his release from jail that Henri approached him to work with his team of ‘rejects’ on a CIA project to gather intelligence data for gun control.  Devlin was listed as a civilian contractor, but given top secret access to the database of criminal behavior so that he could perform analysis, and help to develop the program.

His mind ventures back to the insanity that took place just a few days ago.  It always seemed odd that Henri wanted to hire convicted felons for his operations.  Devlin never questioned the fact that he was logging into the CIA database with credentials belonging to someone else when he needed access to Level IV classified information.  He also never asked why every member of the team seemed to have some type of baggage or misconduct in their history.  But after having seen Henri for what he truly is, and now fully understanding his need to hold power over people, the team of rejects makes perfect sense.  Henri had been able to secure a group of talented people, including Devlin, that were all thrown away by the armed services for misconduct.  They were veterans placed in high-paying jobs, many of them so grateful to provide for their family, that they would do almost anything for a paycheck.

He turns on his side, staring out the window, watching the breeze blow the cheap cotton drapes here and there.  In this silence, Devlin lets out an angry sigh, knowing that he is doing the right thing.  He forces himself to remember the beast and the blind woman.  His stomach becomes nauseous, wishing he could scrub his eyeballs after witnessing the devout sickness of Henri and his followers.  As Devlin continues to think about Henri and his colleagues at the CIA, he considers all the people they have tracked, monitored, and apprehended over the past few months.

The young man sits up in bed, feeling a sudden need to take inventory of all his actions.  He thinks back to his check-in at the hotel, and the stolen driver license that he used to get this room.  His gut scrutinizes the cash transaction, and he realizes that the CIA could soon be connecting the dots that he stole the man’s driver license.  He puts his head down in shame, pressing his thumbs tight between his eyebrows, realizing his foolish mistake.  After one more night in this room, he would look at renting duplexes and private residences on a monthly basis to stay off the grid.  No background checks, credit checks, or anything else the agency could use to nab him.

He feels panic creeping up in his throat, realizing it may be good to leave the Escalade as well, deciding that a stolen vehicle would be viable for less than forty-eight hours, even if it were taken from the airport’s long-term parking facility.  Devlin decides that public transportation is best for now, along with payphones, prepaid cell phones, and anonymous email addresses.  Stealing a car would only be done in the case of an emergency.  He closes his tired eyes, trying to put these thoughts out of his mind to get some rest, but they continue to bombard him with anxiety.

After he realizes that any effort to sleep is futile, he gets up from the bed and moves over to the small pinewood desk near the television on the opposite side of the room.  He takes a seat and uses a piece of hotel stationary to write a letter.  Devlin smiles to himself as he realizes that calling it a letter would be making light of the situation.  The document before him will more likely become his last will and testament.

V. Sundown

Beneath the cradle of a godless, bloody red sky Joshua Warnholt labors more intensively than ever in his life.  Through the rays of a brilliant sunset, tears of agony stream down his face shamelessly from the corners of his bright blue eyes, despite his former proud stance of manliness and independence.  His expression shows defeat below tufts of curly brown hair and he appears much older than his true age of fifty-two.  Joshua’s clothing has been stripped from him and his white body is badly sunburned, covered in canola oil and white sand from the beach he has been detained on these past few days.  His pelvis is shrouded by a red ceremonial garment tied loosely around his buttocks.

Joshua winces with the strong alabaster horns of hell pressing deep into the flesh of his thigh muscles; the burning sting of two prongs continually stabbing his inner legs.  He staggers slowly, carrying a heavy stone with both hands, watching the wind blow fine, white dust off the top of the stone’s surface, whilst drops of sweat from his brow and blood from his legs saturate the hot, white sands below.

As he carries the stone, a group of Mexican natives watches from either side of him.  Several of them are solemnly drumming on small, wooden cylinders covered in leather while he makes his way across the ten-yard span toward the priestess.  The natives are also wearing red ceremonial loincloths, glaring up at him with mob justice in their eyes as they kneel at both sides of his treacherous path.

Joshua closes his eyes in an instant of teeth-grinding pain from the calcite horns digging deep into his thighs as he presses painfully forward.  He stops moving for a moment, breathing heavily, looking down at the leather ropes tied firmly around his leg muscles to secure the alabaster stakes of torture to his inner thighs.

The stakes penetrate over three inches into each of his thigh muscles, sliding in and out of his flesh every time he moves.  Each of the white stakes is made of fire-tempered alabaster with the long pieces protruding eight inches past his knees, pointing at the ground.  At the top of each stake is a sharp end pointed straight up the inside portion of his thighs toward his genitals.

While the short pieces of the stakes are extremely painful digging into his thighs, they have been whittled down to a thin base so that they can easily break away.  Joshua bows his head for a moment, looking down at the stakes, his body starting to convulse with fear as he feels his legs getting weaker.  He closes his eyes wishing he could be anywhere else right now, and then stares down in disbelief at the instruments of his demise.  If he loses his footing, the long end of the stakes will hit the ground, breaking off the small end of each piece inside of his thighs, and sending the large end of the alabaster shaft up through his genitals and into his abdomen.  Falling backwards or sideways is not an option either as there are six alabaster spikes mounted around his upper torso.  They form a strong, cage-like frame around his shoulder blades and up underneath his arms, ensuring that if he falls on his back; all six spikes will be driven into his upper back and underarms.

He closes his eyes tighter, shaking, trying not to break down.  The weight of the stone in his hands and the heat on his back are helping him to accept that the end is near.

Joshua imagines his wife back in The United States; the lovely, plain girl he met in Virginia at college.  His face manages a half-smile as he thinks about when he asked her to marry him, despite the rainy day that nearly ruined his perfect plans.  He recalls her grabbing his hands and pulling him close to her, saying yes to his proposal amidst the chaos, the cold, and the thunder.  Joshua’s smile instantly fades to defeat when he realizes that he will never touch her soft face again.  As this thought enters his mind, he shakes his head as though something foul has just invaded his mouth and nostrils.

He stops shaking his head and opens his eyes, staring straight at the Mexican priestess in front of him.  His eyes glaze over desperately with humanity, begging her for mercy from this torture that has made him feel more alone than a comet drifting endlessly through space.

The priestess glares back at him with a demure melancholy; a fierce look of ancient ruin and ritual, unmoved by his plight.  Small waves of smoke rise up from just below her ears where long, fluted earrings hold large pieces of burning incense just two inches above her shoulders, giving her the appearance of both necromancer and goddess.

Joshua looks over her strong body in dismay.  She is wearing his clothing, her arms folded across her chest with the small skeleton of a bird clutched in her right hand.  Joshua’s white dress shirt is two sizes, too large for the athletic, Mexican priestess, but it is tucked neatly into his jeans, which she has cinched tightly around her waist with a leather rope.  Most of her beautiful face is covered in white clay except for dark, greasy black circles painted around her eyes, and two black, skeletal anvils on her nose.  There are ten black stitches painted across her lips, expanding slightly onto her cheeks.

Her cold stare is cast upon Joshua through unflinching green eyes, and he begins to sob, taking in the reality of her owning him, and showing it by wearing his clothing.  She observes with ruthless pride, waiting for him as each step gets closer to his inhumane death.  He looks back at the large pile of stones behind him, noticing the lifeless stares of the tribe as they meet his gaze.  There are easily over one-hundred stones at his back that he will need to move to earn his freedom.  The tortured man returns his gaze to the front where he notices that there is no other living thing behind the priestess; just coarse spans of rock cliffs covered in the whimsical colors of sunset.  Below her bare feet, he focuses on the small formation of stones that have been placed through his arduous and painstaking efforts; an attempt to build a wall in exchange for his life.  Without counting, Joshua knows that there are exactly twenty-eight stones laid on the small foundation, barely enough to take the shape of a wall.  The tears of failure flow hard from his eyes now, and he drops the stone as the sunset fades to its deepest hues of faint evening orange and red.

The priestess smiles at his defeat with a face full of wisdom and justice.  She immediately raises the skeleton of the small bird horizontal in front of her body and snaps the spine in half, then casts the broken bones at Joshua’s feet.  When the skeleton hits the ground near him, Joshua is shocked and terrified as his legs go immediately limp against his will.  A sickly terror grips his throat as he stares at the priestess in hateful awe; the alabaster stakes hitting the ground, pushing upward under the leather ropes and into his abdomen through his pelvis.

Soon his crying turns to raw animal screams as the sharp calcite pushes into his body; making his lower jaw tremble with repulsed dread.  He flails spastically into the space before him, reaching out desperately toward nothing, trying to pull himself off the stakes with the air itself.  Within less than a minute, his convulsions of terror and raucous screams come to an end, and his body falls lifeless onto the sand.

The young priestess gestures toward the thick drops of blood draining into the earth beneath the fallen businessman.  She then turns her palms up toward the sky and raises her arms high above her head; a gesture of ceremonious respect.

VI. Reflecting on The Devil’s Protégé

:: Begin Encoded Message ::

H.E.N.A.

L4c1t2 D2vl3n McC4nn2ll6 1nd 3mm4b3l3z2 H3m

3s4l1t2 th2 wh2r21b45ts 4f D2vl3n McC4nn2ll6.  H2 h1s pr4c5r2d f5nds thr45gh th2ft 1nd d2c2pt34n; w2 w1nt t4 k22p th2s2 f5nds 1ct3v2 t4 tr1ck h3m 21s32r.  F5rth2r, h2 h1s 1n 1nx32t6 d3s4rd2r th1t c15s2s h3m t4 sp4nt1n245sl6 g4 45t sh4pp3ng.  B2 4n th2 l44k45t f4r br1nds l3k2 1rm1n3, 1nd 4th2r l5x5r6 cl4th3ng 4r j2w2lr6 st4r2s.  W2 1r2 tr1ck3ng 1ll p5rch1s2s.  D4 n4t 1ttr1ct th2 1tt2nt34n 4f l4c1l 15th4r3t32s.

Maxwell Out

:: End Encoded Message ::

Devlin jogs steadily next to the traffic during the heavy Chicago rush hour.  Gloria follows closely behind as he looks to procure a new vehicle after having to dump the Escalade.  His hands are tense as he traverses across American soil, preparing to commit another crime, adding to the list of necessary deeds this week, including other thefts.  With only six hours left in the twelve-hour deadline, he elected to ditch the hotel room, abandoning everything except for his clothing and the letter; not wanting to leave any breadcrumbs for the CIA.  He located a duplex for rent in the newspaper, but the owner insisted on meeting today, which means procuring a car to make the appointment on time, and safely transporting the dog.  His breathing is uneasy as he looks from car to car like an ancient predator of the Midwest.

In his black jacket and dress pants, he can move rather stealthy, pretending to be a casual jogger.  Soon he sees what he is looking for; a man in his early forties, out of shape, and by himself in a pickup truck.  Devlin sets his sights on the large, blue F-150, and moves around closer to the driver side window.  The vehicle is creeping through traffic slowly, which will make it an easy target.  His right hand darts out and grabs underneath the driver-side door handle.  As soon as he touches the handle, a tiny head pops up next to the driver.  Devlin’s eyes widen as he realizes the man has his daughter with him.  He releases the handle and starts to jog faster, moving expediently away to avoid any backlash.

“What the fuck do you want!?” The man screams toward Devlin as he rolls down his window a bit.  “Were you trying to steal my truck, asshole!?”

Devlin pretends that nothing happened and quickens his pace.  He enjoys getting his heart rate up to ease his anxiety.  His eyes begin to seek out other vehicles to potentially carjack, looking for men who are traveling alone; old enough to avoid a fight, but young enough not to have a heart attack if things become violent.  There are a few good prospects, but each of them is wearing a seatbelt; not ideal for a carjacking.  He looks back to see Gloria trotting faithfully behind him.  Devlin laughs to himself when he sees her cheerful expression; the dog would chalk this up as an adventure regardless of his crimes.

After another fifty yards, he approaches a silver sports car that is driven by a small man in his early thirties.  Although this man is a bit young, Devlin has no choice but to get off the street before sundown.  He quickens his pace, catching up with the Hyundai Genesis, still pretending to jog and mind his own business.  The cars are moving a bit faster through traffic now, which forces him to jog harder, almost sprinting to keep up.

When he is finally in position next to the silver sports car, Devlin rapidly grabs the door handle and yanks upward, opening the door while the car is still rolling.  As expected, the driver hits his brakes, coming to a complete stop.  Devlin reaches over the man’s chest to grab him by the shoulder and roll him out of the vehicle.  When his hand touches the soft fabric of the man’s white dress shirt, Devlin feels a sharp pain in his throat as the driver delivers a swift jab to his windpipe.

The jab is fierce and precise, leaving Devlin choking and a bit disoriented.  He begins to back away, protecting his face out of instinct, looking down in bewilderment at the driver, a man with short, brown hair and pale, blue eyes.  The man has a firm body and veins poking out of his neck from hours of intensive exercise.  As Devlin catches his breath, the driver rises up out of the car, his face bearing the stare of a fighter.  He is dressed in business formal attire with a starched white shirt, black slacks, and a black snakeskin belt.

The man moves toward Devlin with the fierceness of a scorned warrior.  Devlin raises his hands in a protective boxing stance, using his military training.  The small man turns sideways as he approaches closer and kicks with his left leg toward Devlin’s abdomen.  When Devlin moves his hands to protect his abdomen, the man stops short with his kick, snaps his leg against the back of his thigh, and uses the momentum to kick Devlin hard in the face.  The instant pain from the side of a foot impacting his face catches Devlin unaware.  He spins slightly with the momentum of the kick, and then drops to the sidewalk on his chest.  As he falls to the hard cement, his right thumb gets twisted backward too far under his weight.  Devlin rolls onto his side to avoid dislocating his thumb.  The man continues to advance, approaching with anger and a cool confidence; the look of someone who trains to fight on a daily basis.

Devlin peers up in disbelief, wondering if this man works for the agency, but soon realizes he was lucky enough to find the one pissed off black belt in rush hour traffic.  Once the man is within a few feet of his body, Devlin sweeps quickly with his right foot, trying to knock his opponent over and provide an opportunity for escape.  The small man reacts instantly, pivoting his body upright, he uses his right foot to kick Devlin’s shin, forcing his leg back, and blocking the sweep.

On the sidewalk Devlin winces in fresh pain as his shin begins to sting and throb simultaneously.  He reaches down immediately to protect his injured leg, but the man anticipates his reaction, and comes down at full force with a heavy punch to his right cheek.  Devlin rolls over on his back, feeling like he has been clubbed in the face by a gorilla.

The short man immediately gets back into an upright position, kneeling next to Devlin on the sidewalk.  He then twists his body left, and swings back to the right, bringing his right elbow down on Devlin’s mouth at the end of his spin.

Devlin’s head smacks into the sidewalk with a hollow thud, and he feels a tooth break loose on the top left side of his jaw.  He closes his eyes, grabbing his forehead, and feels blood seeping from his mouth.  There is a tremendous throbbing all through his skull as he tries to recover.  In his dazed state, he realizes that this man could easily kill him.  His heart is pounding rapidly with adrenaline, and for some reason the man’s white shirt suddenly gives him an idea.  Devlin swishes around in his mouth and spits blood on the young businessman’s shirt and face.

His attacker instantly backs off, looking at the blood on his body with horror.  He frantically begins to wipe it from his face, taking another few steps backward in the process.

“You’re infected now!” Devlin shouts at the man through gritted teeth.

The powerful, Tae Kwon Do instructor now bears a look of shock and dystopian mortality.  He glances down at the blood again, and then raises his head to stare in awe at Devlin.

“What do you have!?”  The man asks with elevated concern.

“Get the fuck out of here before I have you arrested!”  Devlin bluffs with an authoritative voice.

“You tried to steal my car!” The man says with frustration, wiping the rest of the blood from his face with his inner shirtsleeve.

“Is that the same story they’re going to tell?” Devlin asks, gesturing to a crowd of people who are watching the fight less than twenty-yards away.  “Most of them only saw the part where you were beating on me; I can easily have you tossed in jail.”

The man looks down at the blood on his shirt with horrified eyes, and he wastes no time in bolting straight for his car, nearly tripping over himself as he goes.  Once he enters the vehicle, he forces the sleek sports car through rush hour traffic, cutting off one vehicle after another to get away from Devlin.

As he gets to his feet, Devlin feels like his pride is still laid out on the sidewalk.  His left jaw is throbbing, along with his shin and throat.  He spits a fresh mix of blood and saliva onto the sidewalk, admiring the spray pattern for half a second as he turns to see Gloria sitting on the grass a few yards away.

“Seriously!?” Devlin asks the bomb sniffing dog as he holds his hands out to his sides.  “You’re not trained to help me when this happens?  Bad girl!”

The dog stands up and begins to wag her tail; not understanding him, but happy to get the attention.  He smiles at Gloria as she obediently steps in front of him and looks up at his battered face, waiting for him to lead the way.  Devlin peers further down the sidewalk, then back toward the rows of heavy traffic.

“You’ve got to be shitting me!”  Devlin exclaims as he sees a police car mixed in amonst the rush hour traffic nearby.

In the driver seat of the police car a black officer is using his radio to give Devlin’s description to his dispatch team.  His redheaded, male partner is also staring directly at Devlin, and watching him with extreme suspicion.  When the officers realize that Devlin has spotted them, they turn on their lights, flashing blue and red to clear traffic, creeping ominously in his direction.

With an overwhelming kneejerk reaction, he spins around, putting his back to the police car, sprinting quickly away from them and surveying the streets near him.  Gloria also picks up her pace with a spirited gait, the dog adapts to his uneasy demeanor, sniffing the air for threats as they go.  Devlin sets his eyes on a Marriott Hotel just 200 yards away.  His pace quickens when he realizes that he’ll need to traverse one city block to get there.

CIA Black Site - Chicago

Inside a reinforced concrete building, just a few miles away, Max Maxwell listens to some interesting news coming from the police scanner.  A smile forms on his pale face as he realizes that the description being given matches that of Devlin McConnelly.  He leans back in his chair with intense satisfaction, grabbing his bald head lovingly with his right hand, as if groping a piece of fruit to extract something sweet.

“Are you listening to me!?”  James Richins demands as he stares at Maxwell with a look of disenfranchised betrayal, his blue eyes seemingly innocent, projecting frustration.

“No, I’m not, you dickless tool.” Maxwell replies with a sneer, displaying his typical contempt for all things not relevant to him. “Did you hear that the police scanner just picked up Devlin?  We need to get someone over there now.”

Maxwell is wearing his typical black eye-shadow and a black Megadeth T-shirt that reads ‘Peace sells… but who’s buying’ on the front.  He turns immediately to a Macintosh laptop on the desk at his right and begins to search the CIA’s proprietary asset management system.

“Should we call Henri?” James asks with a bit more backbone, placing his left hand under his chin and leaning forward with his tall, thin frame.

“I’m doing that right now!” Maxwell snaps, glaring at James with tired eyes, his gaze drifting over the younger man’s bright blue dress shirt and pressed black slacks.  “Yes, I have eyes on Devlin McConnelly,” Maxwell announces into the microphone of his laptop while holding a small wireless receiver firmly inside his left ear, “I’m sending the address to your phone.  No… That order has been revised.  We need to take him out, and it’s okay to go dirty.”

“Are you insane!?” James stares at Maxwell with an open mouth, his neatly polished teeth illuminated in the brightly lit room.  “You’re authorizing a dirty op?  You haven’t even talked to Henri.  What are you doing, you control freak?”

“Check that last order,” Maxwell begins, rolling his eyes at his colleague, “you are authorized to go dirty, but don’t use standard tactics, Devlin will be ready for that.”

“I can’t believe this!” James concedes with helpless frustration, looking at the floor and placing his right hand on his forehead in a fit of anxiety.  “You know that Henri is going to feed you your intestines for this, right?  A dirty op in the middle of downtown… I wish you’d just leave your balls in the car when you come to work.  You know, like a dog?  Let them roll around on the floorboards, stop to lick themselves, and maybe lie down for a nap in the afternoon sun?”

Maxwell smiles wide, feeling like he has asserted his dominance effectively, and that his colleague is onboard with the plan.  He enjoys James’ analogies during his moments of anxiety; the man displays panache under fire.  Maxwell’s face now bears a look of enhanced pride as he continues listening to the police band, and relaying the information to his asset via text messages.

Downtown Chicago

Devlin approaches The Marriott Hotel sprinting like a fawn being pursued by a lion.  He spits out more fresh blood, not remembering a time when he ever had a tooth bleed so much.  The blood is coursing rapidly through his temples as he looks over his shoulder at the approaching police car.  From just a few yards away, the siren is deafening, and the police officers are close enough that their blue and red strobes are flashing on the sidewalk under his feet.  As he hears the vehicle stop, and both doors open, Devlin increases his speed; his long blonde hair swinging wildly across the back of his jacket.

An older woman has stopped near the side door of the hotel, watching the pursuit with intrigue and terror.  She stares frozen in fear for a moment, her eyes opening wider, noticing that Devlin is moving in her direction.

“Oh shit!” The woman exclaims, realizing that she may be in danger.

With shaky hands she immediately removes her hotel key card and swipes it across the reader, pulling the door open in desperation.  As he sees his opportunity fading fast, Devlin dives and grabs the woman’s tanned legs.  His left hand misses badly and gets tangled on her thick pink skirt, but his right hand gains a firm grip on her right calf muscle.  Despite this small victory, the rest of his body lands heavily on the ground and his left knee smacks the hard cement surface, inducing a surge of pain that forces him to close his eyes for a moment.

“Get away! Get away!”  The woman shouts, slapping at his hands feverishly and swinging her jade purse wildly at his head.

The small bag doesn’t deter him, but as the woman pulls back with her weight, he strains to keep his grip, raising his head.  Soon he feels a strong thud on the bottom of his jaw from a solid object, and realizes that the woman just kicked him with her high heel.  Devlin rolls backward, protecting his face without thinking, and releases his grip on the woman; however, he quickly moves his body to the left, and uses his weight to push the door closed.  From this position, he reaches up and snatches the key card from her hand.  The woman screams with astounding pitch as her escape route is blocked and she runs toward the corner of the building to safety.

Devlin swallows hard, knowing that the throbbing in his jaw will have to wait.  He looks back at the police officers approaching from less than thirty feet away.  The muscular, black officer looks intimidating, his eyes are locked on Devlin like a heat seeking missile, and his redheaded partner bears a similar expression, treading only a few steps behind.

Devlin uses his stomach muscles and arms to get back on his feet, clumsily moving in an unbalanced panic.  He swipes the key card across the reader, watching the small light turn green as he opens the steel door and strafes sideways behind it.  From this position, he holds it open with his right leg against the frame to let the dog inside.

“Gloria, come inside!”  He shouts to the Golden Labrador as he leans sideways and pushes the heavy, steel door further open.

The dog looks confused for a moment, but runs under his leg through the half-open door.  He is about to join her in the hotel, but the steel door suddenly slams into his thigh.  Devlin’s jaw opens in surprise as both officers crash into the door with their weight, pinching his leg at the middle of the thigh muscle, causing tremendous pressure on his bone.  He grits his teeth, not knowing if the bone is going to snap.  His hands are shaking against the metal surface of the door as he absorbs the powerful blow.

Despite the pain, Devlin looks up in desperation, thinking fluidly as the door continues to compress his leg.  The momentum suddenly reverses, and as he feels the two officers trying to pull the door open, he seizes the steel handle with both hands.  Devlin looks up to see their hands wrapped around the steel, with fingernails turning white from the strain.  For half a second, he pulls hard on the door handle, feeling their resistance from the other side as the door begins to slowly open.  Then he releases the handle and kicks the center of the door, which forces him flat on his back.  The rough hotel carpet gives Devlin some loving burns on his arms and elbows as he slides backwards.

Outside the hotel, the officers have both dropped to the ground from the combined force of Devlin’s kick and their own resistance.  They scramble to their feet feverishly, trying to grab the door before the spring closes it automatically, but it is just out of their reach.  As the door shuts and locks, Devlin feels a bit of relief.  He rises painfully to his feet, having experienced severe bruising all through his right thigh muscles and bone from being compressed between the door and the doorframe.  His heart is pounding in his ears as he looks for the key card, and soon finds it on the floor a few feet away.

After scooping up the key card he forces himself to move forward, trying the card in one door after another; all of the lights coming up red.  Devlin knows his time is short and moves to the second floor, hoping the card will work on one of the rooms closest to the side door where he entered the building.  He rapidly climbs the stairs with Gloria, pushing himself to move a bit faster as he ignores the nagging pain in his right thigh.

When they reach the second floor, Devlin has no luck trying another ten doors.  Just when he is about to try a few others, he hears voices coming from the bottom of the stairs.  The voices sound angry and authoritative, but he can’t make out what they are saying.  Devlin shakes his head in frustration, moving quickly to the third floor, praying that the card will work in one of the doors nearby.

As he reaches the third floor, he sees a family of six approaching from further down the hallway.  Within a split second, the four children notice Gloria, and quicken their pace to inspect the large, golden dog.  While the children make their way toward Gloria, the parents stop near the elevators, staring at Devlin with suspicion, and eyeing his dog with more curiosity.

From the husband’s long, red Hawaiian shirt, the wife’s bikini, and children all dressed in swimming suits, Devlin ascertains that they are headed for the pool.  The group of children is giving off a lot of noisy chatter, talking about the dog as they move faster to invade his space.  Devlin pats his leg, signaling Gloria to follow him to the far end of the hall and away from the curious group.  As he reaches the far end of the building, Devlin continues using the card on door after door, hoping to find one that opens.

“Did you forget your room number there, buddy?”  The large man asks, his face becoming red as he realizes they will have to wait for their children to pet the dog.

“Yeah, I was talking on the phone when I checked in,” Devlin begins closing his eyes for a moment of nervous irritation, “and I just can’t remember what the clerk told me.”

When he finally tries the seventh door, the light turns green, and he breathes a heavy sigh of relief.  Devlin opens the door, urging Gloria to get inside before the mob of little people is upon her.

“I apologize,” Devlin says quickly without remorse, “she’s a service dog and we’re not supposed to let anyone touch them…  Have a good day!”

Devlin disappears into the hotel room, closing the door behind him as the group of children approaches within just a few feet.  He shuts his eyes for a moment, leaning against the door, realizing that he can’t stay here for long.  After taking the proper amount of time to clear his head, he steps over to the window and the balcony, but the drop is too far, and he decides it will serve as a last minute alternative, especially with Gloria.

Devlin strides into the bathroom, leans over the sink and uses the small faucet to run some cool water, which he immediately splashes on his face.  He stops for a moment to gaze at himself in the mirror, realizing that he is going about this all wrong.  Every man who is being hunted makes exactly these same mistakes, and the end result is that they all die in a violent shootout with the police.  As he looks into his blue eyes and examines his long, blonde hair in the mirror, it reminds him of home, his wife, and everything that makes his life real.

He steps out of the bathroom towards the large windows of the upscale hotel room.  For the first time in a few days his mind feels clear and he has a sense of freedom and duty.  Devlin thinks back to his studies from the The Art of War by Sun Tzu, and knows that the goal is to destroy his enemy from the inside.

As he takes a seat on the bed, Gloria steps over and puts her head on his right knee.  He strokes her soft, golden fur, staring out the window, and formulating a plan to hurt Henri Edwards in the most meaningful way.

He recalls the case studies: a badly burned car accident victim, an older man whose young daughter died in a bus crash, the war veteran who returned to a wife assaulted by a gang, and a paranoid schizophrenic woman still in love with her husband after twenty years.  Devlin puts his head down in shame, knowing that he would have followed through under Henri’s psychotic influence to destroy those people.  The callous nature of what is being done to them in the name of safer streets is something that numbs the soul, and grieves the heart.

His thoughts caress different topics, searching for the right means to harm the operation.  How does one man injure and spite a veritable army?  Devlin considers the possibility of leaking the story about the blind woman.  Although this would ruin Henri’s political career, if it worked, it still may not stop the operation to study gun violence.  He ponders the novelty of getting the police and other local authorities involved, but who will listen to him after he has been labeled as an enemy of the United States?

Devlin breathes deeply, clearing his head and forcing himself to focus.  He closes his eyes for a moment, fearing that his ultimate conclusion might be remiss.  The last thing he wants to do is give up the life he has built with Yulia after fighting so hard to get back from The Gulf War.  He looks at Gloria and considers the consequences, concluding that there is no other way; his approach must begin with a direct assault on the CIA black site.

Gloria raises her ears and turns her head toward the solid, white door of the hotel room.  Devlin follows her gaze, and is not surprised to hear a knock a few seconds later.  He gets up from the bed, treading cautiously across the carpet, fully alert with fresh adrenaline still pumping through his veins.

When Devlin is only five feet from the door, standing just off to the right, he decides to engage the mystery visitor.

“Who’s there?”  He asks, shouting a bit so that his voice carries through the solid pinewood.

“Room service, Sir;” a sickly male voice replies through the door, “I have some champagne and strawberries for you.”

“What’s the main number to this hotel?” Devlin asks the mystery visitor as he pulls out his cell phone.

“The number is one eight-hundred, six two seven, seven four six eight.  Is there a problem, Sir?”  The waiter asks, raising his voice at the end of the question.

Devlin looks up the number using the Internet on his Smartphone and sees that it matches the main reservation number.  His suspicion fades, realizing that the waiter replied too fast for someone who would have been searching for the number on the Internet, or having it relayed to them.  He steps up to the door and peers through the peephole.  There is a young man standing alone in the hallway next to a white food cart with a bottle of champagne on ice next to a domed, stainless steel serving dish.

After a moment of introspection, Devlin decides to slowly open the door.  He looks upon the young waiter with suspicious eyes, inspecting his facial expression and uniform for authenticity.  The young man is tall and well-groomed with bright orange hair and pale skin.  He sniffles somewhat, indicating that he has a cold or allergies.

Devlin keeps his eyes fixed on the waiter as he opens the door just enough for the cart to enter.

“Stay out there and push it to me,” Devlin orders with a half smile, “I don’t want you getting me sick.”

The young man twists his face somewhat, feeling rejected in a way, but he complies with Devlin’s request, pushing the cart delicately into the room while he waits outside.

From inside the room, Devlin exhibits tension as he oversees the young man making his delivery.  After the cart enters through the doorframe, he feels as though he just invited a Trojan Horse into this equation, and it could cost him everything.  When the waiter has pushed the cart as far as it will go, Devlin waves him away with his right hand.  Then he pulls the cart the rest of the way with his left, and simultaneously swings the door closed with his right foot.

Gloria immediately trots over and sniffs the cart, but does not detect any explosives.  He knows better than to eat the food; poison has not only been a useful tool of the CIA for many years, in some cases, it has created foreign policy.

Devlin carefully removes the stainless steel cover from the bowl of strawberries, setting it gently on an empty space of the freshly-cleaned white, linen topper.  He steps around the cart slowly in a clockwise circle, watching it as if an evil spirit has just entered the hotel room.  After he takes a few steps to the left, Devlin sees a familiar long-range CIA communications transmitter.  He picks it up from the cart, inspecting the surface of the headset for any moisture or other possible threats.  As a cautious man, he decides to clean the surface with some spit and the corner of the tablecloth.

With a hesitant sigh, he finally mounts the headset to his earlobe, positioning the small microphone in front of his mouth.  He then flips the switch at the base of the unit to enable communications.

“Who is this?”  Devlin asks with a deep look of betrayal and caution.

“This is Ming.  I’ll go ahead and assume that you’re Devlin.”  The young woman states in a self-assured manner as she asserts her intention to control the conversation.

“That’s possible.” Devlin replies, feeling suddenly vulnerable as he takes cover between the bed and closet, kneeling on the soft carpet.

“I have been authorized to kill you, and they said I could make this a dirty op.”  The young woman conveys in mysterious tone.  “But I thought it might be more interesting for us to talk first.”

“I knew that twelve-hour window was bullshit!  You think I’m going to surrender?”  Devlin inquires through pursed lips, feeling insulted and somewhat intimidated.

“Maybe,” Ming begins with subtle confidence, “but first I want to ensure we’re having the right conversation.  Hold on for a moment…”  The young woman falls silent, her voice sounding as though she has already captured or killed him.

“Hello?  Devlin, are you there?”  A familiar voice beckons from the small headset.

“Holy shit!” Devlin answers, putting his head down and closing his eyes.  “Jenny, get off the line!”

“Devlin, what’s going on!?  This woman says that you’re trying to kill her and that you’ve already killed several people?”  Her voice is shaky, almost desperate as she questions him with concern that is bordering on hysteria.

“My fucking sister, Ming!?  Are you kidding me?”  Devlin responds in a blur of frustration, disgusted by this melee.

“Yes, your sister,” Ming redirects boldly, “I want her to know what you’ve done and what you’re planning to do.  She needs to understand that you’re an enemy of The United States Government.”

“I’m the enemy of a man who is perverted; a liar who enjoys touching young, blind women.”  Devlin fires back into the headset, rolling his fingers into tight fists.  “Jenny, get off the phone, these people are dangerous, and I don’t want you involved!”

“Wasn’t it you though, Devlin,” Ming asks with contempt in her voice, “who touched the young blind woman?  Isn’t that why we’re after you?”

“Jenny, you need to get off the phone right now!” Devlin demands with a rush of anger, his spine tingling as he becomes instantly nauseous by what Ming just said.  “I have not done anything wrong; this person is using you to distract me...”

“Jenny, please stay on the line,” Ming orders in an official tone, “we are going to break through the door of your brother’s hotel room in less than five minutes.  If you stay on the line, his chances of survival are increased by 80%.”

“Oh my God, Devlin, what have you done!?” Jenny begins to cry, feeling immediately afraid for her brother’s life.  “I just came into work today and started making calls; now I’m in my office bawling, and I have no idea what’s going to happen to you… All these people are staring at me…”  Jenny continues to sob, breathing in panicked gasps, her thoughts dominated by fear as she feels instantly numb with the shock from this situation.  “Devlin, please just stop this so that we can get you some help.  I love you!”

Devlin feels sick as he stares at the blank, white wall, feeling scorned in the worst way by his former employer.  He rubs his eyes like a prisoner who has endured many nights of torture.  His hatred is renewed for Henri as the social-engineering tactics from the CIA’s gun control case studies are now being utilized on him and his sister.

“Ming, when you come through that door, I’ll be waiting for you.” Devlin promises as if speaking to a member of his tribe who deserves ancient justice.  “Devlin, out!”

“Devlin, please don’t…” Jenny pleads helplessly from her office in Seattle, Washington.  “I need to see you this Christmas.  Whatever is going on isn’t worth your life.  What about Yulia?”

“I’m so sorry, Jenny,” Ming resonates with plastic empathy, “your brother is beyond our reach.  We’ll do our best to save him, but we need you to appeal to his sensible side; just as you’re doing now.”

“Devlin, please, think about Mom!” Jenny cries with a voice of deep hurt and helplessness.  “I need to know that you’re alright, bro.  Nobody needs to die today; no matter what happened…”

“Jenny, your brother is like a cornered animal now,” Ming continues her manipulative rant with careful precision, “we had no idea what the war did to him.  Unfortunately, many veterans come back exhibiting antisocial behavior; the toll on their minds is just too much.  I need you to be strong for him now so that we can get him some therapy, and help him to recover.”

“Why is all of this happening?” Jenny asks, feeling alienated from the entire event.  “I don’t understand why he would do this; Devlin was fine last time he came to visit us…  Please don’t do this, Devlin, you’ll break Mom’s heart, and Dad will never forgive you!  I need you to be a good man!  We need you to be a good man!”

Ming brushes her delicate, black hair aside with her left hand as the elevator doors open on the third floor.  She steps out into the hallway with her pistol drawn, moving slowly sideways like a jungle predator stalking a helpless ape.  The hallway is empty except for one young woman talking on her cell phone en route to her hotel room, oblivious to the gun-toting CIA agent behind her.  Ming’s oversized, light blue shirt does its job in concealing the bulletproof vest underneath as she steps forward with vigor.  Her muscular legs are hidden by a pair of loose fitting dress pants, and her white running shoes move silently across the soft carpet.

The deadly CIA assassin looks like someone who would be babysitting for a living; young and approachable.  Her pulse is elevated as she nears the hotel room where Devlin is hiding.  With her left hand she retrieves a Smartphone from her pocket and stares at the tracking data being displayed.  A small, white dot on her screen is moving about fifteen feet from her position, showing the location of the headset she sent up with room service a few minutes ago.  Ming smiles wide despite the fear, her Japanese features emerging with a look of satisfied anxiety, knowing that she is close to a kill.

“What’s happening?” Jenny asks with desperate concern.  “You both stopped talking.  Is everyone okay?”

“He’s going to be just fine.” Ming says quietly into the microphone to comfort Devlin’s sister.

She checks her pistol to ensure the safety is disengaged and then takes one last look at the Smartphone screen before placing it back into her pocket.  With her pistol held firm at a forty-five degree angle, she retrieves a hotel key card from her pocket and slides it quickly into the reader.  As the light turns green, she twists the door handle until it unlatches, then conceals her body behind the doorframe and uses the tip of her foot to push the door open.

The door slides open with ease, and she waits patiently for thirty seconds before moving.  After giving Devlin time to react, she gathers that he is not going to take the bait, and points her pistol into the room, wrapping her body around the doorframe, exposing only her right arm and one eye.  She waits another few seconds, and then enters the room in a crouched position, keeping her pistol at the ready.

Inside the hotel room, Ming hears the shower running, and glances to her left to see water seeping into the carpet as it moves across the pristine, white tiles.  The shower curtain has been positioned with its material draped across the tile floor, allowing water to flow freely all over the bathroom.  She realizes that Devlin is trying to distract her with the shower setup, deciding to focus instead on the other side of the bed and closet nearby.  Ming’s heart suddenly goes cold as a fast movement catches her eye at the other side of the bed near the windows.  She begins to gasp with anxiety, not understanding what could be moving so fast.  Her grip tightens on the pistol, and she takes aim, rising up from the carpet slowly.

In an instant of terror, Ming realizes that she is pointing her pistol at a dog.  The Golden Labrador is wagging its tail at her, looking up from the other side of the bed, and the headset is dangling from her collar.

“Oh my God!” Ming exclaims in a full panic, looking around the room for Devlin.

She hears the thundering footsteps of a large figure sprinting across the carpet into the entrance of the hotel room behind her.  Ming’s body seizes up with terror, realizing that Devlin concealed himself in the stairwell while she was talking to Jenny.  As she spins to react, her entire world is shrouded in darkness.

Devlin throws a queen-sized sheet over the young assassin’s head, draping her completely in fabric before she can turn around.  He then tackles her without hesitation, forcing her petite body down onto the large bed.  When she is down, he delivers three sharp elbows to her head through the sheet, allowing the adrenaline to work in his favor.  Although she doesn’t make a sound, a large amount of blood begins to soak through the white fabric, and Devlin wastes no time, knowing that she still has the pistol.  Ming begins to struggle wildly as he climbs atop her almost completely wrapped body, pushing his knees into the small of her back, and using his weight to hold her down.  He grabs a pillow, and wraps it around the blood soaked portion of the sheet where her nose and mouth are protruding.  Devlin closes his eyes, holding the pillow around her face with all of his strength as the young woman writhes inside the sheet for what seems like eternity.

Finally the athletic woman stops moving, and Gloria lets out a disturbing, high-pitched whine, knowing that something is horribly wrong.  Devlin slowly climbs out of the bed; his insides are filled with nauseated terror from this sinister deed.  The dog walks over to him in a state of fear, hiding her head under his leg between his thigh and calf muscles.  He reaches down to comfort her and feels the headset dangling from her collar.  Devlin closes his eyes for a moment, placing his hand on his forehead as he recalls that his sister was patched into Ming’s headset, and may still be on the line.  He takes a deep breath, the foulness of his crime still a haunting reality.  The guilt creeps slowly up the backside of his throat as he removes the headset from Gloria’s collar and reattaches it to his right earlobe.

“Jenny?”  Devlin asks, hoping for no response.

“Oh my God, Devlin!  What have you done?”  Jenny demands with a trembling voice, through tears of intense agony.

“What do you mean?”  Devlin asks, pretending that nothing has happened.

“I heard you kill that woman, Devlin…” His sister begins to cry with uncontrolled horror and shame.  “I heard her… gasping for breath… I heard the sound of something moving around her face… What did you do to her, Devlin?  Is she gone?  Please tell me she’s not gone!?”

“She’s not gone!” Devlin says, feeling tears streaming down his face as a sharp pain starts to burn inside his right abdomen.

“Then put her on the phone!” Jenny begs with a sincere desire to believe him.  “Just put her on the phone, and let me know that you didn’t hurt her…”

“I can’t, Jenny…”  He replies in shock, just now realizing the full weight of what he has done.  “I can’t!”

“Oh my God, Devlin!” She cries out as the gruesome finality of what he has done impacts her as well.  “That was someone’s daughter; it was someone’s sister or wife… How could you..? How could you!?”

“Jenny, there’s a letter… When I’m gone, make sure they let you read the letter.” He says slowly, closing his eyes in shame as tears spring forth, mourning the woman next to him who didn’t need to die.

“Devlin, please… no…” Jenny cries in hysteria, sounding like the little girl she was long ago.

His insides are shaking as he flips the switch on the headset to end the call.  Devlin crawls on his hands and knees across cold water that is soaking the tiles of the bathroom floor, not caring if more CIA agents are en route.  He lifts the lid of the toilet seat and vomits, his stomach violently emptying its contents into the clear water below.  Every muscle in his body is shaking as he hovers over the toilet seat, staring at a floating mass of regurgitated sustenance that has become the repulsive truth of his life.  He shuts his eyes, remembering moments like these from the war, and finally understanding how far removed he has become from his former self.  With all of this death, and these dreadful feelings consuming him, he wonders if he is doing the right thing.

VII. The Cases – Lorabell Cardigan

:: Begin Encoded Message ::

H.E.N.A.

Pr2ss5r2 C44k2r Pr4t4c4l

Pr4c5r2 L4r1b2ll C1rd3g1n 1s Ch32f Ps6ch4l4g3st. 2x2c5t2 c1s2 st5d32s f4r g5n v34l2nc2.  1cc2l2r1t2 th2 pr4c2ss 1nd r2p4rt b1ck thr45gh s2c5r2 ch1nn2ls.  G1th2r 3nf4rm1t34n t4 pr2s2nt t4 Th2 Pr2s3d2nt w3th3n n4t m4r2 th1n 60 d16s.

Maxwell Out.

:: End Encoded Message ::

Professor Lorabell Cardigan stands before her college class of over forty students with a wide smile and pride in her gaze.  She pushes her glasses snugly onto her face, showing off her deep brown eyes, and then brushes her sleek, black hair aside, letting it dance lazily behind her shoulders.

“What are the control factors in psychology?”  The Japanese professor asks her class, stepping casually to her right, playfully engaging them in this new lesson.  Lorabell holds up her fingers one by one as she continues, her white lab coat drowning out most of her short frame, going halfway past her knees to the point where her black slacks are barely showing.

“The common control factors are:  water, food, sex, pain, emotional bonds, spiritual beliefs, and what I like to call ‘X Factor’ needs.”

Professor Cardigan courts a young man in the second row playfully for a short moment, causing him to grin sheepishly and lower his head.  She is holding up five fingers on her right hand and two fingers on her left, representing the seven major control factors for human behavior.

“Now I have an assignment for you,” Professor Cardigan beams, letting her hands drop lazily to her sides as she walks around the podium to the whiteboard at the head of the class.  “First, I want you to outline where your life is right now,” she instructs, writing her words almost verbatim on the shiny, white surface in small, neat black letters.  “Then I want you to imagine a scenario where you would be tipped over the edge.  I want to see what it would take to push you to a state of primal survival.”

“There has been a lot of talk about gun control in the news lately, and you have seen many scenarios where people went ‘off the rails’ or ‘off the chain…’  Whatever your terminology.” The professor states boldly, turning back to face the class. “We need to discover what it takes for a person to get to that point in their lives where they feel they have no choice but to harm others or themselves.  So my assignment for you is simple…  If you were to go ‘off the rails’ and use a firearm to harm others, how bad would your life have to be at that point?  Using these seven control factors that I have outlined; how badly would you need to be affected in each area before you felt the urge to pick up a gun and take action?  So your goal in this exercise is to create a scenario that is so severe… by the time you have it all laid out, your only option will be to commit some sort of gun violence.”

Professor Cardigan raises her hands with her fingers outstretched and lowers them slowly, speaking softly as she continues.  “I know this is a sensitive topic for some of you, and it can be very personal especially when you have been the victim of gun violence, or witnessed gun violence.  Please trust me that all of your papers will be kept confidential, and you are welcome to talk to me at any time about these personal experiences.”  She lets her arms drop back to her sides and smiles, while turning slightly, looking at the faces of the students for signs of angst.  “Remember when we discussed psychological hot buttons that people have?  What I would like you to do is identify your personal hot button; something that makes you enraged more than anything.  Then I want you to use those seven psychological control factors to create a scenario where gun violence is your only answer.”  She stops for a moment, holding up her right index finger toward the class to take a drink of water from a clear, plastic bottle at the podium.

“Now, in this scenario, I don’t want you to go to extremes; we’re not talking about the Nazi camps from The Holocaust.  I want you to describe the bare minimum amount of events that would trigger you into a primal state of rage, where you would feel the need to commit gun violence.  You often hear people say, ‘if someone hurt my kid, I would,’ and they follow that statement with some very basic or extreme form of murder.  That’s what we’re talking about here today.”

She turns back around and steps lively to the whiteboard again, writing as she speaks. “We are asking the question: if this event, or series of events, happened in your life; what would it take before you finally submitted to a primal state, and committed gun violence?  Then we’re asking the even bigger question which is: at what point does a situation become so severe that emotion overtakes logic?  Please be as detailed as possible, I want over 1,000 words, and you have two weeks to bring me your papers.  Once again, enjoy your break, I will be unavailable for questions, working on a special project until classes resume.  That’s it… You’re dismissed.”

Lorabell winks at the young man in the second row as the students rise to depart the class.  He pauses for a moment to gather his books, leaving her waiting for affirmation, and then boldly winks back, carrying his backpack in the air like a champion as he struts out of the class.  Professor Cardigan uses her hands to conceal a naughty smile, watching his rear end as he makes his way out to the halls of the university.

After he has left, she returns her attention to an important, upcoming afternoon appointment.  Lorabell feels a strong sense of accomplishment after being hired by the CIA to assist in developing their new gun control program.  She looks at the empty class with the satisfaction of having something to do over the break.  A romantic relationship that crashed and burned three days ago has the young woman feeling unwanted, and she is ready to entertain new adventures in her life, especially those that keep her busy.  After four months of background checks to receive her security clearance, she is eager to finally see the wizard behind the curtain.

Professor Cardigan retrieves a card from her lab coat, reading the expensive, embossed logo ‘H.E.N.A.’ on the front with only a phone number and email address.  Lorabell looks at the card like a mysterious new lover; perhaps something to keep her company during the lonely nights ahead.  She looks down at her attire, realizing that she should probably eliminate her fifty shades of nerd appearance.  The young professor smiles to herself, thinking about what type of cute men she might meet at the CIA.  After contemplating this for a moment, she puts the card back into her pocket, grabs a black leather briefcase from under the podium, and moves up the classroom stairs with excited anticipation for her new assignment.

CIA Black Site - Chicago

Henri Edwards walks briskly through the heavy double doors at his research facility in Chicago.  The black, tinted glass of the bulletproof doors prevents the world from seeing anything that happens past them.  When he walks behind these concealing shields, Henri feels as though he is entering another world; somewhere safe and exclusive.  The tall Congressman runs his fingers through his graying hair, ensuring that it is righteously slicked back, giving off the image of dominance that he wants to portray.

Henri steps up to the large, oval shaped security desk, his pale, blue eyes fixed on the young man entrusted with watching for stray dogs trying to wander into his chicken coop.

“Tom, is Cardigan here yet?” Henri asks the young security guard, clearly too busy to care about pleasantries.

“Yes, Ms. Cardigan arrived about an hour ago, and we created a temporary pass per your instructions.” The young man responds quickly, looking up from his computer screen with hopeful eyes beneath his short, curly hair.  “She’s been talking with Maxwell for the past little while…”

“Oh, that’s just fuckin’ great!” Henri churns with bitter cynicism, his mixed Italian and European temper displaying lines of tension on his tanned, aging face.

“I could ask her to meet you in the conference room.” Tom offers with a guilty expression, his thin, pale chin quivering a bit.

“Ya’ think!?” Henri retorts with acidic dissidence.  “No…”  The Congressman pauses for a moment, staring at the black, solid steel security door just off to the right.  “Have her meet me in the OBDAT.”

The young security guard wastes no time in following orders and soon has a phone receiver pressed tight against his small, muscular shoulder.

“Maxwell, this is Tom, I have a directive from The H.E.N.A. Chief.”  The young man speaks with systematic poise.  “He wants Lorabell Cardigan in the OBDAT right away for a briefing…  Sounds good…  Thanks.”

“What did he say?” Henri asks with a slow burn already building in his crystalline blue eyes as he leans down closer to Tom’s young face.

“He was mostly respectful…”  Tom says looking uncomfortably around the room, and then up into Henri’s piercing eyes.

“What did Maxwell say!?” Henri demands, raising his voice as if trying to command a domestic animal to start being wild.

“He said ‘sure thing, we’ll be there before his Viagra kicks in.’” Tom relays the insult with a nervous stare, as if being forced to tell his own mother about his sex life.

Henri doesn’t say another word.  He turns his wrist over above the green marble surface of the security desk, tapping the material slowly with the top of his watch as if deciding how to reward this insult.  After a brief pause, he exhales in a controlled fury, and then makes his way to solid steel door, grabbing it with ferocious anger, and slamming it so that his rage echoes through the deep hallways of the concrete building.

High on the solid, black catwalk of the OBDAT, Maxwell and Lorabell are waiting for Henri, talking casually and sipping coffee.  The large, black catwalk is the eyes of a massive datacenter project.  Below them, there is heat rising from over twenty massive racks of servers.  There are cooling units in the opposite corners of the room, both as large as a two car garage.  These units also clean the air of dust particles, or any smoke that might enter the facility.  The floor below is covered in immaculate, white panel tiles that can be easily removed to run power or data cables.

Above the observation catwalk is a host of seventy-inch, flat panel LCD displays, each of them showing crisp, high-definition video surveillance from several projects taking place across the country.  There are two rows of six displays, able to switch between a network of over one-hundred-and-fifty high-definition surveillance cameras.

“Great to meet you, Lorabell!” Henri Edwards says with a dry smile as he approaches her and Maxwell on the observation catwalk.  “Welcome to the OBDAT.”  He shakes her hand with a pleasant demeanor after joining them next to the control panel.  “Oh, and Maxwell,” Henri continues, showing his upper teeth and raising his eyebrows, “Tom gave me your message… Fuck you!”

Lorabell looks at the two men for a moment, smiling at first, but then feels suddenly awkward, being caught in the middle of this exchange on her first day.

Maxwell smirks in his typical demonic defiance, showing a morbid disrespect for the aging Congressman.  In his efforts to become ‘the bad boy of technology,’ Max Maxwell has completed the look by breaking every dress code in the building.  His head is shaved and his eyes are coated in thick, black eye-shadow.  He is wearing loose, white cargo pants, and a black, short sleeve T-shirt with a ‘Grip Inc.’ band logo, and the word ‘Ostracized’ printed on the front.  His ears are pierced with stainless steel studs, and he has black and red tribal tattoos running down both of his forearms.

“Anyway, moving on,” Henri continues, gesturing for Lorabell to turn toward the screens, “we call this the OBDAT because it is an Observation Datacenter.  All of the information you’re seeing on these screens is collected and analyzed by the enormous computing power below us.”

Lorabell stares with a bit of naughty excitement at the two rows of large, colorful screens hovering just five feet in front of her, and over fifty feet above the datacenter floor.  Her delicate, Asian features display a knowing smile as she looks from one monitor to the next, feeling a clandestine thrill for the voyeuristic aspect of her new job.

“We know you like to watch.” Henri declares with a wicked smile, causing Lorabell to look at him and turn her head slightly to one side.  “But we also know that your research into behavioral science is highly evolved beyond your peers, and is also the closest match to the data that we’ve gathered.”

“But my peer reviews have been awful!” Lorabell exclaims with a look of both vindication and surprise.

“Anyone who is on the cutting edge of their field will always be two things to their peers, and nothing more.” The Congressman says reassuringly, putting his left hand delicately in the middle of her back.  “Hated and misunderstood.” He says briefly, holding up the index and middle fingers of his right hand in front of her.

Although she appreciates Henri’s supportive tone, his thick fingers on her back make Lorabell feel uncomfortable.  She is starting to regret wearing such a sexy lime green skirt with white stockings and a royal blue blouse.  Ever since she arrived, the technicians below are seeming to find reasons to perform ‘maintenance’ right below the open end of her small skirt.  Despite the obstacles, Lorabell ascertains that this will be a great opportunity for her, and she decides to shake off the glaring perversions, focusing instead on the positive benefits.

“Well, let’s get started.” Henri says with excitement, watching her reaction to the scale and scope of their operation.  “Maxwell, will you introduce the subjects of our case study for Ms. Cardigan?”

“This is May Ivory.” Maxwell begins, gesturing toward the LCD panels at the far left. “She’s 25 years old, and has been living in Virginia for the past year.  As you can see here,” he points to the screen with a laser pen, “May has suffered burns to over forty percent of her body.”

Lorabell shows a sudden concern and shared connection with the lonely, young woman up on the screen.  The video feed depicts May Ivory working quietly at her computer, taking drinks from a bottle of water ever few moments.  Her deep blues eyes display emptiness under her long mane of delicate, blonde hair.  She has fair skin, pale and beautiful, except in the places that are severely burned and scarred.  Her face was mostly untouched by the fire, except for under her jaw, and the area surrounding her left eye and cheek.

“She was involved in an accident while traveling through The Needle’s Eye on Needles Highway, South Carolina.  May was riding on the back of her boyfriend’s motorcycle when he tried to pass a pickup truck.  Apparently, the driver of the pickup didn’t want them to pass, and sped up.  Her boyfriend tried to go faster on the motorcycle, the pickup truck responded, and they crashed into the entrance of The Needle’s Eye.  The tunnel is famous for being one of the narrowest roads in America.  Anyway, the truck caught fire shortly after impact with the tunnel and pinned the couple against the rocks.  Her boyfriend died, she suffered burns over forty-percent of her body, and they later found an engagement ring he was going to surprise her with on the trip.  The couple was on their way to visit Mount Rushmore.  Now today, she is considered a risk for gun violence because she frequents the shooting range at least three times a week… It seems to help her get out the aggression.  We’re also concerned about an incident involving a dog that used to wander around her luxury home, barking during the night, sometimes for hours.  We know that she suffers from migraines, and our video surveillance captured her threatening the dog just a week ago with a revolver.  May is also considered a risk for gun violence due to her heavy use of pain medications… and susceptibility to depression.”

“Next we have Ned Lawhorn,” Maxwell continues with a nonchalant expression, pointing at the next set of LCD Displays, “and… it looks like he’s out somewhere right now, probably the general store…  Well, the guy is 62 years old; a retired oil worker who lives just outside of Houston, Texas.  His wife died from cancer over fifteen years ago, and his fourteen-year-old daughter died a few years later…  It was a bus accident.  The school hired a substitute driver who had a few shots in him, in an effort to take the edge off from the kids screaming during the drive.  Although the driver was convicted of manslaughter, his attorney found a way to present new evidence during an appeal hearing, and was successful in getting the case dismissed.  The bus driver now works as a parts delivery driver for a small automotive service center.  One of the last things Ned taught his daughter,” Maxwell chokes up for a moment, his voice cracking as he holds up his index finger, then continues in a dry voice, “was how to tie a lasso.”

Maxwell stops to pick up a bottle of water from the control panel and take a quick drink before continuing.

“Do you have any questions so far?”  Maxwell asks, holding his left hand out to Lorabell.

“No, not yet.” She replies, smiling and nodding for him to continue the briefing.

“Lately, we’ve seen him spending time tying lassos on his daughter’s bed and quietly staring at the floor…  Anyway, Ned Lawhorn is your typical Texas badass,” Maxwell says with satisfaction, “he has been a bullfighter, volunteer firefighter, and served in the Marine Corps during The Vietnam War.  He now spends a lot of time buying and drinking whiskey.  We consider him dangerous because he has already been seen stalking the man responsible for his daughter’s death, and using photos of him to practice shooting at his barn.”

Maxwell stops to take another swig of water, gesturing silently to the next set of LCD displays; one of them showing a muscular, black man watching television at home.  A second display depicts a young, black woman doing laundry in another part of the house.  She is slams down a bottle of detergent, and throws the washer and dryer doors shut in a controlled state of rage.

“The next subject is Phillip Belfort,” Maxwell leads off by pointing his laser at the man on the sofa, “he is a 35 year-old Marine who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and stayed overseas for his full eight years.  Unfortunately, while he was away at war, his wife was gang-raped by a group of young men after visiting her family in Inglewood, California.  The assault was very brutal, and took place about six months prior to Sergeant Belfort returning home to Anaheim.  Now, the Military insurance did cover some limited therapy sessions for her, but she hasn’t fully recovered.  Since Sergeant Belfort has returned home, she has refused to be intimate with him, and has repeated nightmares of the assault.  When she gets really angry, she also blames him for not being there to protect her.  They have both become heavily dependent on alcohol, and Sergeant Belfort has not been able to find a job since he returned from service over three months ago.  We consider him a risk because he packs up his firearms, and tells his wife that he is going to the shooting range with some buddies, but drives to Inglewood instead.  When he gets to Inglewood he stalks the streets in his truck for hours.  Our theory is that he’s looking for the rapists, who are members of a local street gang.”

Lorabell has been strong to this point, but seeing the couple in their misery touches the deepest section of her heart, and she covers her mouth with both hands, staring with empathy at the screens.

“Are you all right?” Henri asks with what would measure up to be a teaspoon of concern and a pound of irritation.  “I thought you said you could handle this?”  The Congressman asks, turning his head to the side a bit as if surprised by her display of weakness.

“No, I’m fine.” Lorabell sighs quietly. “It’s just that seeing them, and knowing what has happened in their lives is so much harder than just reading a case study.”

“Well I’m going to need you to grow up fast, Professor.” Henri snaps in a campaign-dictated tone of voice. “America needs you to be strong.  We are trying to solve a problem here and help these people, and I can’t do that if my asshole analysts feel like you’re watching Oprah all day…  Do you understand what’s at stake here?”

“Yes, I do,” Lorabell states with pride, rapidly gathering herself back to a state of immunity from her natural empathy, “we’ll stay focused on the objectives.”

“Do you know what we’re trying to do here?”  Henri asks in a tone that displays his lack of confidence in her statement.  “About a year ago, a young man dyed his hair orange and burst into a movie theater with assault weapons.  The public was horrified; as they should have been.  Now, after Nine Eleven, we implemented the TSA, but we don’t have any program like that for gun control in this country.  We have no way of tracking these maniacs who are buying 6,000 rounds of ammunition on the Internet, along with body armor, and other bullshit you don’t need for hunting.  What I’m trying to do is build a solid case for The President so that he can give me the security authorization that I need to make this happen across the board…  I can already get the funding; all I need is a green light from The Commander-In-Chief.  We are trying to make history here by stopping the shooting sprees… long before they happen.  Can you help me do that?”  Henri stares at her evenly, displaying his expectation of compliance with the objectives at hand.

“Yes, I can help you.” Lorabell states with conviction, gesturing back to Maxwell. “Please continue your briefing.”

“Our last subject is Julia Welheim.” Maxwell starts speaking by pointing at an LCD screen that displays a woman alone in a dark home, listening to the radio, and pacing from room to room.  “She is 46 years old, a disabled mother who has been confirmed as paranoid schizophrenic.  Twenty years ago, she was doing really well until she had a relapse with her therapy, which triggered a violent episode that was minor.  Anyway, the episode involved a kitchen knife and a frightened neighbor who blew things out of proportion.  This caused her marriage to fall apart, which led to another episode, and soon after, her husband married Julia’s younger sister who is mentally stable, and they took her five-year-old son to live somewhere in the Midwest.  Get ready for some bad news…” Maxwell says slowly, watching to see if Professor Cardigan is still strong enough to hear the rest of the story.

After she gives him a quick, irritated nod he continues. ”Every day for the past twenty years, Ms. Welheim has been setting the table with three placements for dinner, waiting for her husband and son to return.  When about an hour passes, she breaks down, and sometimes locks herself in the closet for several hours.  Other times, she goes upstairs and retrieves a pump shotgun that her husband left behind when he left the Florida with her sister.  She then sits with the shotgun in her lap for hours, rocking back and forth.  We consider her a threat for obvious reasons, but her behavior becomes much worse when she doesn’t take her antipsychotics.”

“Thank you, Maxwell, that’s all we need.” Henri interrupts with a stern voice, gesturing for his colleague to take up his work elsewhere.  “Also, one more thing, work on your encoded messages.  The cipher you’re using now is so simple; an eighth-grader could break it.”

Maxwell sighs, twisting his head like a scorned tiger as he snatches his water bottle from the control panel and moves briskly toward the catwalk stairs.

“Do you understand what I need?”  Henri asks with concern, looking at Lorabell as if bringing her on may have been a mistake.

“These people all need serious help!” Lorabell declares with outrage, gesturing in a spirited motion at the LCD displays.  “I can’t believe we let people slip through the cracks like this; how could we become so cold?”

“Look, my dear, let’s be honest with one another,” The Congressman says in a sweet, salt of the earth tone, “there are, unfortunately, millions of people going through life just like this.  Now we can’t afford to give all of them the help that they need, but hopefully, with the right program, we can save thousands of lives every year when these people finally explode and decide to commit gun violence.  You’re the expert in the field.  You knew that people like this existed.  Now you’re surprised to see the reality?  Grow up, Professor!  I need to know if you’re on my team or not…  Right now!”

Lorabell watches Henri with the trained stare of a psychologist, and can see that there is something disturbing hiding behind his eyes.  His false gestures of concern send up red flags that he is extremely manipulative and predatory.  She observes the subjects on the LCD displays for a moment, her inner-voyeur enjoying a veritable playground of stimulation.  Then Lorabell looks back at Henri, deciding it is better for her to be involved than to leave this whole operation in the hands of someone who gleefully broke his moral compass years ago.

“Yes, I’ll help you.” Lorabell agrees, holding out her hand in a gesture of good faith.

“That’s excellent, my dear.” Henri replies, surprising her with a friendly hug; both of them feeling uncomfortably close for a few seconds.  “I know you’ll be able to get the results we need,” Henri predicts with a smile as he steps back from the hug, “and just in time.”

The young professor smiles and turns her head to the side, feeling angry that she allowed him to invade her personal space.  She takes a few awkward steps backwards and to the left toward the LCD displays, thinking to herself that the one thing you should never do is turn your back to a predator.

VIII. Cartel All

Antonio Espinoche feels the ghost pain creeping up in his right arm.  He looks down at the stump in disbelief, realizing that there are so many tasks his body can no longer perform.  It has been only two days since Enrique cut the arm off with a machete just below the elbow, and Antonio cannot stop staring at this missing part of his body.  He closes his eyes for a moment, feeling like God has punished him for his service to the cartel; all of those bodies put into the ground. Every ounce of his creativity focused on ensuring that they cannot be located by authorities.  Antonio ‘Gravedigger’ Espinoche has devolved into ‘The Gimp’ Espinoche.

Antonio thinks about the priestess, turning his head slowly from side-to-side in discomfort as he stands tall on the brightly lit marble flooring of Miguel Horatio’s mansion in Costa Rica.  He raises his eyes to the ceiling like a small child beholding something marvelous.  The ceiling has been hand-painted to resemble that of The Sistine Chapel, with vibrant colors telling Catholic stories from The Old Testament.  His eyes descend from the artwork of the ceiling to the lavish staircase that ascends high to the second floor bedrooms of Miguel’s wife and teenage daughter.  The heavy wooden staircase railing was hand carved by skilled carpenters from all over Central America, and the floor is carpeted in a fine gold and red pattern.  These dark wooden railings also have a deep history rooted in the area, with carvings of many legendary figures that are meant to bless the home and keep out evil spirits.

Antonio feels a lump in his throat as he thinks about evil spirits, looking down at his arm again in shame.  He is certain that he saw the priestess, feeling his forehead begin to perspire as he remembers her unnerving stare and ominous message for Miguel.  After the horrors of their first meeting, the last thing that Antonio wants is to tempt the wrath of someone who has crossed over from death.

“Miguel has finished his phone call,” a humble Mexican butler announces quietly as he appears from the corridor to Antonio’s right.  “He’s ready to meet with you, Señor.”

Antonio dips his head somewhat in a display of respect, and then steps over to where the butler is standing, waiting for him to lead the way.  The butler is dressed in a dark, forest-green uniform.  His body is strong and his hair and nails are well-kept.  Antonio appears a bit mismatched in his attire, wearing a nice black dress shirt and red tie, complimented by khaki slacks, and expensive leather dress shoes.  The look loses something with his large, short-sleeved, green flack jacket.  It seems bulky and tediously out of place over the top of the more formal clothing, like a Mexican gentile deceptively encased in the duds of a soldier.

After a short trip down the hallway and around a corner, the two men emerge into the large game room of the Horatio estate.  Antonio immediately sees Miguel playing pool at a deluxe, red billiards table with his nineteen-year-old daughter.

The forty-year-old cartel boss is bent down on the table like a jackknife, eyeing the cue ball as if it is not to be trusted.  He is clad in a bright orange suit and a white dress shirt, which is complimented by a pair of shiny, black leather boots.  The aging cartel chief has blue eyes, a muscular frame, and a head full of graying hair.

“Come and have a seat, Antonio.” Miguel shouts through the game room with the throaty confidence of a roaring jungle cat. “We’re almost finished.”

There is a full bar to the far right of Antonio with a fancy white and blue marble top.  Just a few feet to the left of the bar, in front of the billiards table, is an inviting round end table with a brass reading light positioned on its surface.  There are two, hand-carved, blue leather chairs on either side of this table, and Antonio decides to sit in the chair on the right, facing the pool table.  As he takes a seat, Antonio watches Miguel miss his shot on the six ball, his eyes glazing over menacingly after this failed attempt.  His daughter Patra then moves closer to the table, swooping in on her father’s missed opportunity like a dragon hovering above the small wooden huts of a Costa Rican village.

Patra is wearing a sexy, white dress, showing off a tall and curvaceous body.  Her right hand bears a diamond ring with a titanium band, and an emerald ring with a gold band.  She also has exquisite diamond earrings dangling shamelessly from both ears.  These fine pieces of jewelry contrast with her frizzy party hairdo, with strands of dyed red hair coming down from her bangs, standing out oddly from her natural black hair color.

The young woman looks as fierce as her father, bending down to examine the table with her bare feet firmly planted on the floor.  She sizes up the shot carefully, aiming her pool cue directly inline with the eight ball, which is resting against the fourteen ball.  After sliding the cue through her fingers a few times, she hits the cue ball with finesse, tapping the fourteen ball into the side pocket, and simultaneously sending the eight ball into the corner pocket.

Miguel remits a cold half-smile to his daughter, and she returns this gesture with an added spike of malcontent.

“So what happened in Becan, Antonio?”  Miguel asks in a dry voice as he sets the pool cue down on the table.  “I heard that you killed Enrique.  The men told me you encountered a devil woman in the jungle?”

“Devil woman?” Patra says with iron rhetoric, rolling her eyes at Antonio.  “This is new!  I’ve never heard of a devil woman in the jungle… Unless it was me...”

Miguel glares at Antonio, signaling that he must answer his daughter as if she were also a boss.

Antonio begins to feel a nervous sweat forming on his brow and behind his ears.  The stories of Patra’s ruthlessness are far beyond those of her father.  He always wanted a son, and she had to fill that role for many years, suffering a callous childhood laden with horrors.  Some of these included: broken legs, handling deadly spiders, and unfair fist fights with stronger female leaders in the cartel.  Her lack of empathy is displayed in a pair of cold brown eyes, showing the face of a young woman who has grown up, and grown cold, far too soon.

“I saw a woman in the jungle,” Antonio begins, dismissing Patra’s cynicism.  “She was wearing a full length, red robe; the type you hear about in rituals.  Enrique fired his weapon at her, but his bullets… flew to the ground.  She stepped up to us, held out her hands, and we both fell unconscious on the walkway.  When I awoke, Enrique was running toward me, screaming and calling me San Perez.”  Antonio grimaces and chokes up a bit before continuing, glancing down at his arm.  “I told him that I was not San Perez, but he rushed at me with his machete.  I pulled away from him, and moved toward my gun.  After he cut off my arm… I was able to shoot him and stop his attack.”

“Is that all?” Miguel asks, showing a smile of wicked contempt as he folds his arms and leans back against the pool table.

Patra looks at her father and they both shake their heads in disapproval, turning back to Antonio, and waiting for him to continue.

“No…” Antonio replies with some hesitation.  “The woman told me to give you a message.  She said that you need to stop hurting her people.”  His hands begin to shake as he delivers the message; feeling like the devilish spirit dammed him from the beginning with this request.

“We should take his other arm right now, Father,” Patra declares immediately, looking sideways at Antonio in disgust.  “I have a machete in the pantry.  We just used it to chop up a hen…  I won’t even need to clean the blade for this asshole!”

“She’s joking, of course,” Miguel says standing up straight from the pool table.  “It’s actually a meat cleaver, but it will do the job.  Tell me, Antonio, why should I stop my daughter from chopping off your other arm?”  The cartel chief asks with a hard stare, folding his arms as he waits for an answer.

“I have served you for years, not as many as Enrique did, but I respect the Horatio family,” Antonio announces with a great deal of pride.  “But this,” he adds, holding up the bandaged stump on his right arm, “is not my imagination.  The woman was there, and she also said… that she will claim your firstborn son… If you don’t stop hurting her people.”

“She will claim my son!?”  Miguel asks with a pair of fiery blue eyes, glancing at his daughter with outrage.  “Do you know how long I have waited to have a son?  Are you trying to threaten me, Antonio… but you just don’t have the balls?  Is that what this is!?”

“It seems to me that both men have been stealing your drugs,” Patra declares, glaring at Antonio as if he were a three-legged, stray dog standing in the middle of her game room.  “Why else would they be hallucinating in the middle of the jungle unless they were taking your drugs?”

“That makes sense,” Miguel states, placing his hands on his hips.  “Did you enjoy some of my drugs?  Maybe you and Enrique wanted to have a little party after taking the resort from that family?  Or was it hard for you to forget about burying them, so you had to take some of my cocaine!?”  The cartel boss lowers his thick, gray brows, staring evenly at Antonio, and feeling confident in his daughter’s assessment.

“I have not had any cocaine!” Antonio says, raising his left hand to plead with Miguel.

“Shut the fuck up!” Patra screams as she swings the pool cue hard into the side of Antonio’s head.

As the compressed wood smashes against his skull, Antonio is engulfed by intense pain.  The crushing blow snaps his jawbone, and he drops onto the fine carpet, feeling helpless and consumed by the young woman’s brutality.  He steadies himself on his knees with his left palm flat against the carpet, trying to recover his wits after having his jaw broken.  Despite his obvious agony, the young woman isn’t finished. She uses the heavy end of the pool cue to batter his left hand while his fingers are outstretched against the carpet, breaking them with tenacious accuracy as blood spurts from his fingernails.

Antonio immediately rolls onto his side, curled up in the fetal position as his nerves are overloaded with extreme pain.  His broken jaw feels raw and exposed, as if a cross section of the bone has been gnawed on by a wild animal.  Meanwhile, his fingers are starting to swell about three times their normal size, and his middle finger is spurting blood every other second in perfect timing with his heartbeat.  The young cartel enforcer steadies himself on the carpet, his extremities shaking, and eyes closed tight as he tries to deal with the overwhelming agony.

Miguel and his daughter begin to circle Antonio like hungry wolves, trying to decide what to do with him.  As the young woman raises the pool cue a third time to strike Antonio in the head, Miguel signals with his right hand for her to stop.  The cartel chief kneels down next to his young enforcer, looking at him with sympathy for the first time.  His eyes are hard-focused on the stub of Antonio’s arm that was cut off by Enrique.  After all of his years of torture and murder, Miguel knows that a man in this much pain would have told the truth by now if there were more to tell.  As he considers this and looks at where the right arm was cut off, he decides that Antonio is telling the truth in some form.

“Let’s put him in the storage room for two days,” Miguel instructs his daughter.  “Then we’ll know if he’s had any cocaine.  If he hasn’t had any drugs, and we can’t find anything in his system, then maybe he’s telling the truth.  Maybe Enrique did attack him, and the pain caused him to go mad...”

“Okay, I’ll get the storage room ready.” Patra states in a professional tone, following her father’s orders without question as she leans the bloody pool cue against the empty leather chair and walks away.

“Oh, and get him some painkillers… for now.” Miguel states with hateful eyes, staring down at Antonio’s arm as if it were some ancient work of art.  “If someone is threatening to kill my son… I will take the time to create new hells that have never been experienced on this earth.  As for not harming her people… I will do what I like!”

IX. The Cases – Man of Many Manipulations

:: Begin Encoded Message ::

H.E.N.A.

P5sh 4#2 4% Tw4 S5bj2cts P1st Th23% B%21k3#g P43#t B6 1#6 $21#s #2c2ss1%6

W2 1%2 g2tt3#g cl4s2% t4 th2 d21dl3#2 wh2%2 45% d1t1 $5st b2 p%2s2#t2d t4 Th2 P%2s3d2#t.  1ll 1g2#ts $5st p2%f4%$ 1t $1x3$5$ 2ff3c32#c6.  W2 $5st d2p%3v2 s5bj2cts f%4$: p21c2 4f $3#d, sl22p, l4v2, c4$f4%t, s1f2t6, 1#d 1#6 4th2% f5#d1$2#t1l h5$1# %2q53%2$2#t f4% %2l1x1t34# 4% bl3ss.  B%21k th23% 13% c4#d3t34#3#g 5#3ts.  3#v1d2 th23% p%3v1c6. T%6 t4 s2d5c2 th23% l4v2%s.  Th%21t2# th23% l4v2d 4#2s.  %2$2$b2% th1t 1ll 4f th3s 3s b23#g d4#2 3# th2 #1$2 4f 3$p%4v2d #1t34#1l S2c5%3t6 1#d 1 b2tt2% 5#d2%st1#d3#g f4% h4w t4 k22p 45% c3t3z2#s s1f2 f%4$ g5# v34l2#c2 3# th2 f5t5%2.  Th2s2 s5bj2cts w3ll b2 th2 5#s5#g h2%42s f%4$ 1# 3#v3s3bl2 w1%.  K22p 645% 262 4# th2 b1ll, 1#d p5sh th2s2 p24pl2 1s h1%d 1s 645 c1#.  D4 #4t l2t 5p f4% 1 $4$2#t; w2 #22d t4 k#4w h4w 2ff2ct3v2 45% ps6ch4l4g3c1l d1t1 3s 3# 1 f32ld-t2st2d 2#v3%4#$2#t.

Maxwell Out

:: End Encoded Message ::

“Tick tock!” Henri says as he leans over and stares at Lorabell, his pale blue eyes filled with pressing questions.

“We’ve made some good progress.” Lorabell replies slowly, stretching and yawning from a night of reading case study data.

“What progress?” Henri asks, expressing his dissatisfaction by waving his hand at the large LCD monitors in front of them.  “None of these people are distressed, or even close to violence.”

Henri watches Lorabell as she grabs a cup of coffee from the control panel, her soft, feminine lips immersing the edge of the black plastic lid.  His eyes wander down to her plump little bum in a pair of tight-fitting, black jeans.  He continues his journey up her body over the white and orange striped sweater, admiring her shapely breasts and glistening black hair draped halfway down her back.

“We’ve made progress… I… I have given your team a list of potential triggers that will allow us to gradually elevate their distress levels.” She glares at him from her right eye, feeling his eyes perusing her body as though staring at a mannequin in a display window.

“That’s not progress! Shit, I don’t need you for a gradual elevation…” Henri sneers at her as she takes him out of his fantasy world with her glare, making him feel old and ugly in his black, tailored suit and yellow tie.

“Well what kind of progress do you want?” Lorabell asks in frustration, her shoulders heaving with contempt and exhaustion.

“There you go, get angry!” Henri states in a bold fashion, recovering instantly from her blow to his ego as he uses his right hand to brush back his sleek, graying hair.  “We need to show The President results in about two weeks. I can’t have a gradual build up…  Now let’s end amateur hour, shall we?”

Lorabell glares at him again, but this time he feels empowered knowing that she is his dancing bear, and he can still enjoy her on other levels.  Henri leans forward and uncrosses his legs, placing both of his designer shoes flat on the floor and pressing his fingertips together deep in thought.

“Look, I didn’t hire you for your pretty, round bum;” Henri begins in a slow, unfiltered manner, “I hired you because you get it; your research is years beyond anything we’ve ever used before.  Another reason I selected you is because you’re a voyeur; you love to watch other people and that’s okay…”

Lorabell slams her coffee down on the control panel and spins around to confront her new boss, getting ready to deliver a rant about equality.

“That’s great!” Henri exclaims, holding out his right  hand with the palm facing her. “I want you to get angry.  You need to be emotional.  You need to be involved, and I don’t care if you get off watching other people; it’s not my place to judge… Now what I need you to do is focus on these cases- with your gut and your heart.  I didn’t hire a little college girl to come here and enjoy all my technology and resources.  This is not a tour for you to sit and watch; it is a tour that you need to guide!”

“I’m trying!” Lorabell half shouts back at him.  “What exactly is it that you want from these people?  You want me to put them through more hell?  Is that what you need; you insensitive bastard!?  Haven’t these people been through enough already? Don’t these stories break your heart?”

“There was a shooting in Colorado last summer; it created nightmares for the whole country.  Men, women, and children- indiscriminately dead.”  Henri stares into her eyes with sincere concern.  “Now all of that… was from one man.  Yes, he was lonely, and yes he was disturbed.  His story was heart-wrenching, but it doesn’t EVEN COME CLOSE… to the pain he caused all those families and their loved ones.  Take a look at those screens; we are tracking four unstable people who have a tendency to use guns when they feel pain.  Each one of them could potentially impact the lives of 150 to 200 people… forever!”

They both turn to the look at the LCD displays that are hung high above the datacenter floor, and Lorabell feels squeamish as she considers what Henri is asking her to do.

“No, they haven’t been through enough,” Henri states boldly; “to answer your question; these people haven’t been through enough until we’ve learned something valuable.  I hired you to push… no… to shove these people into a darker place- to see if they’ll snap and go on a killing spree.  Now you don’t have to worry about a bunch of innocent people getting hurt, we’ll stop that from happening.  But I need to know if: May, Ned, Phillip, and Julia are capable of the violence we suspect they are.  I hired you… from a list of over 50,000 candidates because you know what makes people behave in different ways.  Is this any different from you manipulating that young science major to install hidden cameras?  You know…In the dorm rooms of those athletic college guys?  We know you like the show; not just sex, but in general… That’s one of the major reasons I hired you…”

Lorabell turns to Henri with a look of shock and shame, closing her soft brown eyes and feeling nauseated by how much he has penetrated her life.  He puts his hand on her back gently with his fingers near the tips of her fine black hair, and despite his bad intentions, the warmth of another person is comforting.

“How far are we going to push them?” Lorabell asks with concern, showing that she is ready to compromise.

“We’re going to push them off the cliff… over the sonofabitch.  We are going to push them until there is nothing under their feet but empty air, and the terror of falling into their worst behaviors.  …You risked losing your tenure so that you could have your own private shows from the men you crave… Now I’m asking you to risk your conscience to save American lives…”  Henri looks at her with intense passion, showing his true, albeit slightly twisted patriotic side.  “You know they told me that you couldn’t do this?  They said that I shouldn’t hire a woman because she’ll go soft… Everyone told me you have the most brilliant concepts in psychology and sociology at your fingertips, but don’t have the cajones to use them… I want to see some results in two weeks.  Show me that you know what you’re doing.  These are nothing more than human bombs.”  He says with an arrogant smirk, waving his right hand at the LCD displays.  “It’s your job to locate the triggers for these bombs and set them off so that we can disarm them before they do damage…  We can stop them safely, and give them the help that they NEED.  Like I said, I’d hate for you to lose your tenure, wind up working as waitress somewhere… Maybe in a situation similar to our test subjects.”

Lorabell rolls her eyes at his threat feeling betrayed and defiant.  Henri smiles at her as he sees the emotions displayed on her face, and ventures a guess at those festering beneath the surface.  Before she has a chance to object, he walks to the edge of the OBDAT platform, making his way down the small set of metal stairs.

“You’re in charge, Lorabell.” Henri commands as he walks away.  “Be creative and make me proud!”

Lorabell clenches her hands into white-knuckle fists and stares up at the LCD displays; no longer seeing people in need of help, but dangerous creatures in need of a cleansing.  The haughty professor grabs a notepad and pen from the console, sketching quadrants on the large sheet of white paper.  Then she proceeds to take detailed notes in each of the four sections, pausing every so often to press the pen against her lips.  After a few moments of deep thought, Lorabell hears footsteps coming back up the short flight of metal stairs behind her.

“So Henri was kind enough to tell me that you’re the boss..?” Maxwell asks in a disappointed tone.  “He TOLD me to give you everything that you need.”

Maxwell sits down next to Lorabell at the control panel of the OBDAT and folds his arms.  His bald head looks extremely pale under the large, fluorescent lights, which also create a reflective sheen on his dark eye makeup.  He is wearing torn jeans and his standard black, heavy metal T-shirt, which bears some type of snake on the front that she cannot see fully behind his crossed arms.

“So what can I do for you, boss?”  Maxwell asks with contempt, staring sideways at Lorabell and slumping in his chair.

“I need agents on the ground in Virginia to buy these postcards.” She orders dismissively, tearing off a piece of paper and handing it to the younger man.

Maxwell sneers momentarily, and then takes the paper out of her hand with a curious expression.  He finally decides that working for a hot Asian woman will be much better than a self-absorbed Congressman.

“Okay, postcards…” Maxwell replies slowly, displaying doubt in her ability to think under pressure.  “What else do you need?”

“We need to get Letisha Belfort out of the house.” Lorabell says with a cocky smile, having no intention of failing this assignment.

“Letisha was just raped six months ago and she’s never gone anywhere.  How are we going to get her out?”  Maxwell asks, rubbing the top of his head in confusion.

“I’ll handle that.”  Lorabell replies with total confidence.  “Let’s also get some people close to all of the subject’s homes; we’re going to be working a lot today and tonight…”

“We call them assets… CIA assets… And they will be doing what?” Maxwell asks, holding his long pale arms out to the sides and exposing the words ‘don’t tread on me’ above the coiled snake on his black T-shirt.

“We’re going to shake up the hornet’s nest tonight!” Lorabell grins, feeling the power of her position for the first time.

Maxwell returns her grin, but raises his eyebrows with concern, then grabs the dispatch microphone and starts issuing orders to the four teams out in the field.

PHILLIP & LETISHA BELFORT:

Letisha sits in front of her small, bathroom vanity as she curls her long, black hair delicately at the ends.  The young housewife looks at her soft, light brown skin in the mirror, feeling better that the scars are fading from around her eyes.  Her small frame is clad in a demure gray outfit, something her grandmother would have worn.  The outfit consists of a pantsuit with a thick dress shirt; several layers of clothing that are too hot for the spring weather in Anaheim, California.

Although her hair was looking great an hour ago, she loves the feeling of it in her fingers, and has been playing with it like a little girl.  Letisha thinks back on the many hours she has spent learning all the finite techniques of styling hair over the past six months.  This tedious styling gives her refuge from the painful memories of her assault, allowing her to feel beautiful in the way that nature intended.

“I am a black woman!”  She says to herself in the mirror with conviction, feeling her strength rise a bit.  “I am a black woman!” Letisha repeats, feeling empowered and a bit happier.  “I am a broken woman…” She says as tears begin to roll forward from her eyes, unable hold back the memories.

The twenty-eight year-old sobs spastically as she recalls the gang members pressing her face hard against a brick wall.  These memories cause her to shake as she thinks back to those horrible acts of men, wishing that she’d never taken that left turn… She hated Phillip for not being there… for being on the other side of the world protecting other people.

“Not today!” She says to herself, shaking her head in the mirror as she clears her mind of the pain.  “They don’t get to take today from me!”

Letisha turns sideways and begins to compulsively style her hair again, pulling it up into what she likes to call ‘the warrior’s braid.’

“I AM A STRONG WOMAN!” She shouts at the mirror with joy, expelling the darkness from her mind, and standing tall in front of the vanity.

Her cellular phone breaks the silence of the morning with a soft tune from Nina Simone, singing about ‘a new dawn, a new day, and a new life.’  Letisha picks up the familiar silver iPhone®, pausing briefly as she attempts to recognize the number on the display.

“Hello.” She answers the phone reluctantly after a moment.

“Yes, Letisha Belfort, please?” A young female voice asks in a professional manner.

“This is she.” Letisha replies, putting her free hand on her hip and waiting for a sales pitch.

“Letisha, this is Kara with the Roscoe Group, we’ve received your resume and would like you to come down for an interview.”

“An interview for the hair and makeup position?” Letisha asks feeling suddenly excited.

“Yes.” The woman replies with scintillating charm.  “There is a new movie that will start shooting in two weeks and we’d like to see if you’re the right fit for this position.  Are you someone that can handle doing hair and makeup for leading ladies?”

“Oh my gosh! I would love that!” Letisha replies with an elation that she’s not felt since before Phillip went off to war.

“Fantastic!” The woman replies with satisfaction. “Can you be at our offices in an hour?  Do you need the address?”

“Yes, I can be there!” Letisha announces with a clenched fist and a smile, holding her right hand up in a victory pose.  “One hour will be no problem; I don’t need the address.”

“Excellent.  Just come to the thirty-seventh floor and check in with the receptionist at suite 115.”

“That’s great! I will see you soon.  Thank you so much!”

“Likewise, Letisha.  We look forward to seeing you.”

The Roscoe Group – Downtown Los Angeles

Forty-five minutes later, Letisha breathes heavily with anxiety as she walks across the warmed concrete slabs of the sidewalk in front of a tall office building.  Her eyes are covered with sunglasses, and her chest feels as compressed as a submarine in a deep sea dive while she moves daintily forward.  The sexy orange dress makes her skin crawl and the expensive heels make her feel vulnerable and cheap.

Letisha closes her eyes and counts to ten, having not dressed anything like this since the attack.  She puts her right hand out and steadies herself on a large, blue mailbox, letting the tension drain from her body as a woman on a bicycle passes from behind, followed by a curious couple that crosses her path from the front.  As these people approach closer, it inspires Letisha to panic, but she breathes in low, careful gasps, telling herself that everything will be okay.

Once she is alone on the sidewalk, the young woman looks up at the fifty-story building, thinking of all the glamorous people she could meet, and the incredible lunches to be had near Wilshire and Rodeo.  She takes in one solid, deep breath, forcing herself to move forward, staying focused on the money and satisfaction that this job will bring.  A smile forms on her thick, red lips as Letisha regains her courage, and the sun reflects on her light, walnut-colored skin, filling her with warmth.  She builds confidence with every step now, making her way through the lobby to the sleek, black glass doors of the elevator.

Letisha continues to grin with her back resting gently against the false wall of the elevator, just to the right of control panel.  She holds her breath with a bit of nervous energy, staring down at the circle of light around button number thirty-seven, and feeling unmistakable butterflies in her stomach.

She begins to consider what she might say during the interview, but her thoughts are interrupted as a large, athletic man strides into the elevator in front of her.

The tall redhead has deep blue eyes and he wears a grimace on his face, displaying to the world that he ‘stopped giving a shit’ a long time ago.  He turns quickly to his right, pausing to take a mental picture of Letisha’s breasts, and then presses the button to close the doors.

Letisha stares at the back of the elevator to her left, ignoring the man as he ogles her chest, and waiting uncomfortably for the doors to close.  She has become immediately sick inside, putting her mind elsewhere to avoid panicking.  Out of her left eye, she watches the man press a button that is further down on the control panel than floor thirty-seven.

“So what brings you here?”  The man asks with sudden, small-town cheerfulness.  “Are you taking over the marketing position with Sutter & Meiers?”

“No, I’m just here to interview with The Roscoe Group.” Letisha announces, displaying a nervous smirk, feeling proud of herself for putting together a strong resume.

“Oh, wow, you’re going to be keeping Hollywood… looking Hollywood?”  The man asks rhetorically, watching the progress of the elevator on the digital display above the doors.  “Congratulations!”

“Thank you!”  Letisha beams with a warm smile, starting to feel comfortable in her own skin.

“You know what I’d like to do!?” The man snarls unexpectedly, placing his right hand next to Letisha’s head as he leans close to her face.  “I’d like to bend you over, squeeze your ass, and rip your panties off!”

Letisha backs up against the elevator wall, her heart is racing and tears are emerging from her soft, brown eyes.  To her surprise, the athletic redhead returns to his position in the center of the elevator, wearing a pleasant expression as if nothing happened.

“It should be a good interview,” he says with a reassuring smirk.  “I wish you luck!”

“Take your luck and shove it up your ass, Sir!” Letisha responds with disgust as the elevator doors open on the thirty-seventh floor.  “Don’t you ever talk to me that way again, motherfucker!”

The man looks at her with confusion as she steps past him, seeming innocent and betrayed.

“I beg you pardon?” He asks with more confusion.  “You don’t want me to wish you luck?”

“You just stay the hell away from me!” She commands with a firm gaze as the elevator doors close, watching his perplexed expression.  “Get it together, girl.” She whispers to herself as the elevator doors close all the way.

Letisha bends down to check her dress, looking for any wet spots, knowing that she peed a little bit when the man slammed his hand against the wall.  After a short inspection, she notices a small dark circle on the back of her dress, about the size of a quarter, and exhales in deep frustration.  She takes out her cell phone and looks at the time, realizing that she won’t be able to step into the bathroom and inspect her dress further.  Instead, she retrieves a small bottle of perfume and gives her dress two spurts on the front below her belly, and two more below the small of her back.  The scent of the perfume gives her confidence to move forward, and she decides to keep her backside pointed toward the wall during the interview.

With rejuvenated strength, Letisha steps across the sleek, glossy tan and black tiles, looking for suite 115 as she goes.  After passing a few neat glass entryways with beautiful frosted windows, she locates the familiar logo of The Roscoe Group to her right, toward the end of the hallway.  With her delicate right hand she grips the smooth round steel of the chrome-plated door handle, having a difficult time restraining the childish excitement that is bursting forth from within.

As she enters the office, Letisha struts with her best Hollywoodesque ambiance, wanting to appear strong and desirable.  She approaches the high-profile reception desk with supreme confidence, allowing herself to own the room.

“May I help you?”  A sexy brunette asks from behind the desk, showing off her glamorous hair and makeup that compliments her Latino cheekbones and short, curly hair.

“Yes, I’m Letisha Belfort, and I have an interview at eleven.”  Letisha conveys with a broad smile, resting her elbows on top of the smooth oak desk.

“We’re not… interviewing for any positions right now…” The young woman declares with a lost expression.  “Let me check the calendar…  No, we don’t have interviews or open positions right now.”

“Well, I spoke to a lady about an hour ago,” Letisha begins with a soft voice, losing her confidence a bit, “and she asked if I could be here within the hour for an interview.”

“Can you give me her name?”  The receptionist requests optimistically.

“Yes, she said her name was Kara.” Letisha responds with a slight smile.

“Is this some kind of joke!?”  The young Latino demands with a brazen voice, folding her arms and glaring at Letisha.  “Kara died over two years ago.  She was the Senior Vice-President, and everyone loved her!”

“Well… That’s what she said her name was…”  Letisha replies with a shocked expression, staring off to her right.

“I think you should leave!” The receptionist says in a blunt manner, showing that she’s dealt with all types of crazy in Los Angeles.  “Look, maybe someone played a joke on you here, and if that’s true, I’m sorry, but you need to leave.”  She emphasizes her position by putting her hand on the receiver of her desk phone and staring Letisha down.

Letisha nods, slowly accepting this terrible news, and walks instinctively to the door, moving hastily away from this awkward situation.  As soon as she gets a few feet away from the suite, tears burst forth from her bright eyes, and a flood of emotions seep back into her heart like putrid waters engulfing a once clean and dry boat.

Her stomach is aching with fresh knots of pain as she makes the dizzying journey back down the elevator, through the lobby, and out of the building.  When Letisha finally reaches the outside air, her emotions come forth with the destructiveness of a hurricane.  She finds herself in the secluded smoking area near the building, alone in a small maze of concrete, walled off from the world in a place where she can release her anger.  Letisha leans against the large concrete wall, not caring about getting her dress dirty as she lets the tears roll forward, shaking her abdomen with convulsive sobs from her bowels to her chest.

“You know what I’d like to do!?”  A male voice asks, approaching her from behind.  “I’d like to attack your naked body!”

Letisha spins around to see a jogger in a black shirt and shorts running past her through the maze of concrete.  He smiles and waves as though nothing happened, checking his watch briefly and continuing his route around the building.  She closes her eyes, not knowing what is real anymore; the job interview; the disgusting voices in her head; the memories of her assault.

“You know what I’d like to do!?”  A female voice asks, as a frail figure steps around the side of the cement structure.  “I’d like to hold you down and taste your sweetness!”

“Stop it! Stop it!” Letisha cries out, covering her ears as she turns halfway around and sees an older woman approaching from the right.

“Oh my God, sweetheart, are you okay?”  The older woman asks as she steps closer to comfort her.

The woman is wearing a black pantsuit and white blouse, looking smart and approachable.  Despite her motherly intentions, Letisha wrenches away in a violent manner, holding her arms near her chest to protect herself.

“DON’T TOUCH ME!” Letisha screams, placing her right hand on her forehead in anguish.  “Don’t fucking touch me; I don’t know who you are… I don’t know who I am…”

The older woman is shocked by these words and instantly takes a detour toward the back part of the building, her expensive heels clicking the sidewalk with nerve-fueled urgency.

Letisha takes out her cell phone, feeling hysterical and panicked, suddenly wanting the comfort of her husband.

“Hey, baby, is everything okay?” Phillip’s gentle voice comes through the phone like a water supply truck showing up at desolate refugee camp.

“Hello, sweetheart.” Letisha says with impulsive laughter, feeling childish joy just from the sound of his voice.  “I’m having a bad day, and I really need you.”

“Baby, what’s wrong!?  Is everything okay?”  Phillip asks with authentic concern, his voice filled with tension.

“I’m okay, just scared and confused.”  Letisha replies, pouring out her emotions in waves of tears and heavy breathing.  “This lady invited me to an interview with The Roscoe Group, and when I got here, they said the lady has been dead for a few years.”

“What!?” Phillip asks with bewilderment, clearly still a bit distracted by his work.

“On my way up to the interview, a man said he wanted to rip off my panties.”  She explains with the terror of a four-year-old.

“What man, Letisha?  Who said that to you!?  I’ll beat his fuckin’ ass!”  Phillip’s voice is ablaze with rage, and his breathing becomes elevated.

“Another man just said he wants to attack my body and this old, white woman told me she wants to taste my sweetness!”  A piece of saliva is trailing across Letisha’s right cheek as she feels herself reduced to the vulnerability of a child.

“Baby, you’re sick…” Phillip says in a calming tone, realizing that what she’s saying isn’t possible. “We need to get you to a doctor.”

“It happened, baby!” She whimpers into the phone painfully, leaning into the cement and covering her face.  “It all happened… I promise… Please believe me…”

“I believe you, sweetheart…”  Phillip says with hesitation, trying to sound convincing.  “Did you call back the number of the lady that invited you to the interview?”

“Holy shit!” Letisha replies, sounding much more like a grown woman.  “I’ll call that bitch back right now!  Thank you so much, Phil… I love you!”

“I love you too, baby!  As soon as I finish painting this building, I’ll be home… I promise!  Kiss, kiss!”

“Kiss, kiss.” She responds with an empowered smile and hangs up the phone.

After a brief pause, she looks at her call log and swipes her thumb to the right across the phone number of the woman who invited her to the interview.  Letisha holds the phone tight against her head with her right hand, placing her left hand gently beneath her right elbow.

“Hello, rape crisis center, this is Karen,” The woman’s voice answers in a pleasant tone.

“Don’t you mean Kara?”  Letisha asks with fiery eyes.

“No, this is Karen with The Rape Crisis Center.  How can I help you?”

“This is Letisha Belfort; you called me about an appointment today?”

“Oh, yes, Letisha, we are expecting you right now.  As I said before, I wasn’t able to get you a job at The Roscoe Group, but we can meet and discuss other career options.  Are you nearby?”  The woman asks in a sincere voice, sounding relaxed and professional.

“Oh my God, I’m going crazy…” Letisha says as she pulls the phone away from her ear.

“Letisha-” The woman’s voice begins before the call is ended.

With this new information, Letisha doesn’t know what to think, she grabs the side of her head as if to inspect some broken thing.  Her face is a work of hopelessness as she stares down at the small cell phone in her hand, feeling as betrayed and alone as she did the day of her attack.

The OBDAT - Chicago

“You are so full of shit!” Maxwell utters as he sneers at Lorabell with shock and dismay from the control panel of the OBDAT.  “Karen with The Rape Crisis Center?  Why are we pushing Letisha over the edge?  Our objective is Phillip.”

“There’s no way we’ll be able to push a soldier over the edge.  Not directly.” Lorabell answers with a knowing smirk.  “The only way to put Phillip on edge is to push her into a raw state of agony.”

“What does that mean?” Maxwell asks with disgust.  “I really don’t feel comfortable playing games with a rape victim!”

“We got her out of the house,” Lorabell begins, “she made some big steps today.”

“Yeah, she made two steps forward… and five steps back…” Maxwell retorts with judgmental eyes.

“She’ll be okay; we’ll get her some help.” Lorabell declares with a degree of guilt in her voice.  “The important thing is that she is reduced to a raw state of agony, which will force her into Phillip’s arms and make him feel like he needs to do something.  When she is that distraught, to the point where her actions are like a little girl- that’s when he’s going to take action.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing because this doesn’t feel right…” Maxwell looks at her with mixed concern, showing that she has violated the red line of his conscience.  “We’re assaulting her all over again…”

“Exactly!” Lorabell says with a wicked glare, exhibiting the eyes of a predatory lizard that is eager to strike.  “We are assaulting her all over again… so that he feels the need to assault them in return…”  She looks up at the next set of LCD displays, taking a sip of her coffee, secretly excited for another round of people watching.

MAY IVORY:

The cold feels pleasant on May’s skin as she stands next to the open freezer door, enjoying the sensual fingers of a fake arctic breeze in her large kitchen.  She retrieves a carton of orange sherbet from the freezer and holds it against the scar tissue on her face, serving an irrational notion that the cold will undo the damage that was created by the heat five years ago.  Her face blooms into a smile as she holds the sherbet up in the air, dancing with it a bit on the smooth, white tiles like a lover that has come to replenish her soul.

She twists her head from side-to-side seductively, waving her left index finger at the sherbet, and then she playfully smacks the side of her bum with the same hand.  May stops for moment to giggle and winks, feeling alive and uninhibited by her scars in the privacy of the large Virginia home.  At this fantastical moment, she is dancing in a ballroom filled with admirers; a vast sea of approving faces, looking at her and applauding as she embraces a debonair gent.  In this fantasy; however, she doesn’t have scar tissue covering forty-percent of her body.

May takes a deep bow in her silk nightgown, and then kisses the side of the sherbet container, laughing at herself in this moment of lonely, social survival.  As she sits down on a large, white barstool her eyes glimpse the invitation that inspired her preemptive dancing fantasy.  The invitation is for a party in her honor, and just arrived through the mail today, sent by her amazing publisher from California.  May smiles wide again and sets the sherbet container on the smooth tiles of the island in the center of her kitchen.  The young woman glimpses down at her left leg for a moment, seeing the horrible pink scar tissue that covers over half of her outer thigh and calf, all the way down to her toes.  She places her left leg on the floor and brings her right leg up, resting her foot on the steel prongs at the bottom of the barstool.

Her heart sinks a bit as she compares the scarred left leg to the beauty of her right leg; a constant reminder of the life she lost in The Needle’s Eye.  May shakes her head and grins, refusing to be defeated by the past.  She grabs the invitation that her publisher sent, feeling the coarse texture of the stout stationary between her fingers and admiring the gorgeous font.

“Dear Ms. May Ivory,” she begins to read aloud with pride, “due to the recent success of your children’s book series Honey Badger and Duck, we would like to invite you to a party in your honor.  Please R.S.V.P. via email or call our offices to accept our sincerest gratitude and humble recognition of our mutual success.  We will hold this event at the venue of your choosing with a guest list that you select personally.  With Congratulations & Regards, Seth Hagenmeir, -Your Friend & Publisher.”

May smiles with radiance, feeling overwhelmed with love for the first time in a long while.  She looks at Seth’s amazing signature, wishing that he liked women, but enjoying his effervescent flamboyance nonetheless.  She breathes deeply, wondering if the party could actually become a reality.

After a short pause, she gets up from the barstool and makes her way across the tiles to the familiar plush carpet, enjoying the squish of the padding beneath her feet.  As she steps up to the darkness of the bathroom, May grits her teeth and closes her eyes, moving forward with some hesitation until her hips and nightgown press up against the small bathroom sink.  Her hands begin to tremble as she feels the cool, white marble beneath them.  She reaches out with her left hand and flips on the lights, keeping her eyes closed tight; not wanting to see the horrible truth in the mirror.

May holds her breath for a moment, feeling dizzy and nauseous; both of her hands starting to tremble.

“It’s just one party.” She says to herself with fading confidence.  “You can have one party in L.A., and nobody will remember your scars… You can have one party and just be radiant and intelligent all night long.”

She turns and steps to the doorway of the bathroom, forcing herself to stop as she rests her scarred face against the inner doorframe.  The white wood feels firm and cold on her face, giving her the strength to turn back around and confront the mirror.  As May opens her eyes, she begins to tremble and covers the left side of her face in shame.

“There’s no fucking way, Seth,” May whispers with her left hand shaking in front of her face, “I can’t go to a party like this!  Why do you want to show me off to the public!?” She asks with a raised voice, beckoning the mirror.  “Do you need a freak to help you sell more copies of my books?  Are a million copies not enough, you fucking bastard!? …Come in and see the freak who writes books, ladies and gentlemen… Step right up and witness the freaky author who rights books for your children… Get a picture… Take some video on your cell phones so you can laugh at her during lunch with your fucked up friends!”

May looks at herself in the mirror now, feeling more pain every second as she mourns the loss of her social life.  Her delicate, blonde hair is draped over a mixture of beautiful and odd looking features.  The skin on her left cheek is deeply burned with vivid lines where the steel and glass of the truck cabin cut into her.  In the places where the skin was melted, she looks unnaturally aged, with the tissue near her mouth creased over in a half-scowl.  Even when she smiles, her expression is slightly twisted; a lovely girl on the right side and a witchy, horrid thing on the left.  She raises her head, inspecting the scar tissue surrounding her neck as if Satan himself had grabbed her with his searing hot hands.  May begins to shake and cry, wondering if Seth is a true friend or someone just taunting her like all the rest.

As she witnesses her fresh tears spattering the marble countertop of the bathroom vanity, May feels a sudden thumping from deep inside the earth.  There is a bombastic sound of music and heavy bass pounding her luxury home from a vehicle outside.  May decides to leave the mirror for now, gratefully turning off the light as she steps into the living room to peer outside through her large bay window.

Her chest begins to tighten and throb, almost in rhythm with the bass as she steps up near the closed drapes.  May hears the lyrics of a familiar song being blasted through her neighborhood.  ‘Feeling like a freak on a leash… feeling like I have no release,’ the song thunders from outside.  She opens her curtains to see a large, black truck parked near the curb in front of her home, but is unable to determine the make and model from this angle.

“Holy creepy, Dude!” A young teenage boy screams from immediately in front of her window, holding up a cell phone to get a picture of her.

“Oh my God!” May exclaims as she closes the curtain.  “Why me!? Why today, you little fuckers!? GO AWAY!” She cries out, burying her face in her left hand as she feels the lyrics of the song tearing away at her soul.  “GO AWAY BEFORE I CALL THE COPS, YOU LITTLE ASSHOLES!”

May bemoans her insides getting queasy as the young men snicker outside her window, showing no intention of leaving.  She backs up against the wall, enjoying the cold comfort of its pristine surface, allowing herself to slide down to the soft carpet.  As her backside reaches the soft padding of the plush carpet, May places her hands in her lap, crossed over one another, with the palms facing upward, damaged by the cruelty of this moment, feeling helpless and humiliated.

“SHE’S TOTALLY FUCKIN’ SCARED, DUDE!” The teenager shouts over the music from outside her living room.

When she hears the young man’s cocky voice, May raises her head, instantly personifying the honey badger character from her children’s books.  She gets up quickly from the floor, showing renewed, brilliant, blue eyes that are empowered and vengeful.  With newfound strength, May stomps through the home to her bedroom, making her way to the closet.  When she reaches the closet, she opens the slatted, white wooden doors, looking for her purse.  She soon finds the familiar black, leather bag and pulls it up from the floor by its thin strap.  Her eyes are afire as she fishes inside the purse with her right hand for the .38 Special Revolver.  When she grasps the familiar Hogue Grip, May removes the pistol and drops the purse on the bed.  She then holds the barrel safely up in the air and makes her way back to the living room.

May feels powerful as she grips the small revolver in her right hand, stepping coolly up to the long, tan drapes.  With a sharp swipe of her left hand, she throws the drapes aside and points the pistol at the teenager on the left.  May is immediately shocked to see that he is mooning her from the front lawn, his pants pulled so far down that she can see his penis and scrotum dangling above them.

“OH SHIT, DUDE, SHE’S GOT A GUN! LET’S GET OUT OF HERE!” A teenager with spiked, blonde hair shouts as he begins to sprint toward the large black truck from his position at the right of the bay window.

The other young man starts to run without looking backwards, pulling up his pants as he goes, his curly hair whipping in the wind.  May follows him with her pistol all the way to the truck, pretending that she is going to shoot him on the move.

As the blonde teenager gets to the truck, he throws himself into the driver seat, grabbing the gearshift, and putting the vehicle into drive.  The truck tires begin to squeal as the curly-haired young man dives into the back, grabbing tightly to the side.  May closes her eyes and shuts the drapes as the truck speeds away, enjoying the victory of winning her life back, and the blessed silence.

The OBDAT - Chicago

“They did all that for a case of beer?”  Lorabell asks with a stunned expression, looking up at May on the LCD display with satisfaction, knowing that a subject holding a gun is a big win.

“Yeah, agent Burton was able to work out a deal with them where they would play the most offensive song they could find on their iPod through the bass speakers.”  Maxwell states with a degree of pride.  “That was ‘Freak on a Leash’ by Korn…  She looks really pissed!”  He admits with a bit of guilt as he watches May from his comfy, leather chair on the left side of the OBDAT control panel.

“She drew her weapon and used it in anger; that’s a huge win for us!” Lorabell celebrates with a prideful smile.  “Don’t worry about her; she’s been dealing with these scars for five years, May is a lot tougher than you think.”  Lorabell reassures Maxwell, detecting his discomfort with the situation.

“Okay…” Maxwell says with uncertain eyes.  “What do you need me to do next?”

“Oh, look she found the postcard!” Lorabell proclaims with a smirk, looking back at the LCD monitor of May’s bedroom and ignoring his question.

On the display, May is shown standing in her bedroom holding a burnt postcard of Mount Rushmore.  She looks down at her bed in shock, putting her right hand over her mouth, not remembering ever having seen this.  The confused young woman looks around the room with a surreal expression, as the postcard shakes in the grasp of her left hand.  She is certain there is no one else in the house.  May experiences feelings of betrayal and terror that instantly rise up from within her as the image of the famous monument is burned into her soul… A vision of that horrible day on The Needle’s Highway driving through The Needle’s Eye; her deepest regret that they never made it safely to Mount Rushmore… Was Charlie going to propose?  She snaps back to life, staring down at the burnt paper with a demeanor marked by wicked suspicion.

“Where the hell did this come from!?”  May asks, tossing the postcard into the air and glancing around for signs of an intruder.

She retrieves her pistol from the bed and elects to inspect the home further.

“Where did it come from- indeed?” Lorabell asks with ironic dissent as she lowers her head onto her clasped hands, allowing her elbows to rest on the sleek, black plastic of the control panel.

NED LAWHORN:

‘I can’t be that guy,’ Ned thinks to himself as he sits on his coarse orange and yellow sofa staring at the television.  He rubs his gray eyebrows and glances down between his leathery hands at his beer gut that has grown outward over the years.  After this moment of introspection, he stretches briefly, looking over at his collie that is sleeping in the corner.

His chest is suddenly filled with tension as Ned recalls the show he just watched on television; the story of a man forgiving someone for accidentally killing his loved ones.  Ned breathes in slowly with the realization that he may be alone during the remaining years of his life.  His wife was taken down after a brutal struggle with stomach cancer, and a few years later, their daughter was killed by a drunken bus driver.

He stands up from the sofa in his small ranch house, stretching his tall frame to its full height, and nearly touching the ceiling with his long, pale arms.  His boots are off, giving him the comfy, relaxed feeling of wandering the house in his socks; like a small child, enjoying the creature comforts.

Ned shuffles into the kitchen and pours himself two fingers of Jack Daniel’s Whiskey, and swallows it with conviction, as any good Texas man would.  The whiskey burns his throat and makes his chest feel unusually warm, but it takes away the sting of losing his little Thelma.  He sets the whiskey glass down and shuffles into a bedroom at the back of the house, his royal blue shirtsleeves dangling with the buttons undone.  Soon Ned finds himself in Thelma’s bedroom, looking at a collection of wood carvings and leather crafts mounted to her walls or scattered about on white oak shelves.

He sits down on the bed, feeling the soft comfort of the mattress under his worn blue jeans, thinking about the many nights his little girl slumbered in safety beneath this roof.  Tears spring forth from his eyes as the recurring helpless feelings return; knowing that he couldn’t protect her despite his best efforts- is almost too much.

Ned reaches down and grabs a length of rope; a thin, ten foot strip of blue nylon typically used for climbing.  He breathes out hard and slowly begins to tie the rope into a lasso, moving his hands in steady, tedious circles as if performing a prayer ritual.

His heart rises with warm memories and he feels as close to Thelma as possible in this moment.  Many years ago, before she left for school, they were sitting on this bed, tying a lasso.  It was the last thing they did together… before she ran out to catch the bus.  The old Texan’s tears come forth naturally now as he clenches the rope tight in his fists, remembering the bus driver’s smug expression when they released him from prison.  As a Texas man, a hundred years ago, he could have simply blown the man away with his Colt .45 Revolver, and that would have been justice…  In today’s world he would be shunned as a criminal; a crazy person for not being able to forgive and forget…

Ned unravels the rope quickly, letting himself relax and forget the pain, feeling the whiskey work its wonders.  He rolls the length of blue nylon up neatly in clockwise, circular loops, and tucks it under the small bed, beneath the hem of the pink comforter.

After a few moments of silent mourning, he gets up from the bed and makes his way to the master bedroom where he retrieves his Colt .45 and a small, plastic container of bullets.  Ned tucks the pistol down the back of his blue jeans and makes his way out to the barn.

As he steps out of the house, Ned breathes in deeply the fresh country air, letting the flimsy screen door close behind him.  His short gray hair blows delicately in the mild breeze and he enjoys the warmth of the mid-afternoon sun on his brow.  He feels instantly calm without the memories of the house bearing down on him.  When he steps off of the rough wooden deck, the aged Texan feels the soft red sand under his socks and laughs inside at himself, having forgotten his boots again.

Ned shakes off his own stupidity and makes his way to the tractor that is exactly fifty yards from his usual paper target on the barn.  He observes the two bullet holes in the black and orange target, feeling no need to replace it with so few shots to track.  While the whiskey does wonders for his stress, it obviously is no help for his aim.

The familiar sound of a Jeep comes rolling down the drive just fifty-yards away.  Ned turns slowly and a broad grin forms on his weathered, wrinkled face, lighting up his deep, blue eyes.  The cobalt blue and white Jeep bounces to a halt next to him, and the welcoming face of a younger woman is soon smiling at Ned from the driver seat.

“Forget your boots again, Cowboy?” Sally asks as she gets out of the Jeep and closes the door behind her.

“Yeah, they’re in the house with Jack Daniel’s; keeping him warm.”  Ned retorts with a loving gaze, admiring her smooth, tanned skin and white blouse that is half covered by a brown, suede jacket.

“I just had a long drive,” she begins, stretching with her arms behind her head, showing off her well-endowed chest beneath the thin blouse, “maybe we can do some shootin’ another time?”

Ned smiles like a teenage boy as he admires his fifty-five year-old girlfriend, her slightly plump little bottom in a pair of expensive, black Wrangler Jeans.  He looks down at her dusty, black, suede leather boots, his eyes glazing over a bit in dumbfounded anticipation.

“So, Cowboy, how about we lose the gun?” She asks playfully, brushing her red hair to the side and looking at him with her light brown eyes.  “Also, the pants; you won’t be needing those!” Sally’s lips purse together, showing her slightly wrinkled, but still gorgeous, fair skin.

“Well, I just wanted to get a little target shooting in; was all…” Ned replies like a shy schoolboy; still uncomfortable with such a sexually aggressive woman.

“Well now, don’t you nevermind that target…” Sally whispers seductively into Ned’s ear as she wraps her arms around him.  “I have a target that you can hit… All night long, and every time you get in the bull’s-eye; we both win a prize.” She finishes by kissing him hard, pressing her mouth onto her lover’s lips with a bonfire of yearning.

Ned returns her kiss, wrapping his arms around her as well; his body ablaze with the legendary lust of a preacher’s daughter.  After a short round of passion on the red sand, Sally grabs his hand and leads him into the farmhouse, smiling seductively under her smooth, long red hair.  His breathing becomes shallow with anticipation as they enter the screen door together, closing the solid oak door behind them.  Ned tosses his pistol gently onto the sofa, eager for her kiss.

Sally presses Ned up against the door, kissing him with loving desire against the hard, thick wood, feeling it give a bit with their weight.  As he tries to kiss her more, she puts her right hand on his chest, holding him against the door.  Then Sally takes a few steps backwards and removes her suede jacket, throwing it on the sofa playfully.  After the jacket is gone, she unties the front of her blouse, exposing her breasts in a sexy, black bra.  She then steps towards the bedroom, beckoning him with her right index finger and giving her best naughty-girl smile.

Ned is officially tantalized and moves toward her like a bull, grabbing the small of her back firmly and kissing her with red passion.  The two lovers lock together in a session of intense affection, enjoying one another in ways that only a seasoned couple can.  They kiss more passionately as Sally’s lovely round backside gets closer to the master bedroom.

Sally is smiling and enjoying his teeth on her neck, but her smile soon fades as she looks to her left into Thelma’s old bedroom.

“Oh my God, Ned, what have you been doing!?”  Sally inquires with disturbed frustration as she pushes her eager lover away.

“What?” Ned asks with surprise as he follows her gaze and suddenly freezes in place as his eyes locate something unnerving.

He begins to shake immediately, trying to make sense of what is happening, as though an icy hand is brushing down his back, leaving him feeling haunted and betrayed.  Ned gently pushes Sally aside and enters Thelma’s bedroom wearing a face filled with suspicion.  His fingers reach out delicately to a length of blue, nylon rope hanging from a roof beam in the center of the room.  He opens his mouth wide in shock as he sees that the rope has been tied into a noose.

“Oh my God, Ned; are you thinking of killing yourself?”  Sally asks as she steps up next to him with her hands pressed together in front of her mouth.

“No…” Ned replies quickly with an anxious expression.  “I put the rope under the bed; it was a rolled up like I always do.”

“How much have you had to drink today, sweetheart!?”  Sally asks with heartfelt concern, appearing defeated and frightened.

“I… I’ve only had a few fingers of whiskey…”  Ned says softly with a remorseful demeanor.  “Some bastard must’ve done this; I put the rope away… I remember putting the rope away!”  He exclaims as his hands become fists and he stares at Sally in deep shame.

“There’s nobody for five miles, Ned!” Sally exclaims as she begins to cry.  “Take it down! Get it down, right now!”

Ned hops up on the bed with an urgent desire to help Sally relax.  He unties the rope from the beam and sits down on the side of the bed with a puzzled look on his face.  As he peers at the rope in his hands, he remembers Thelma and begins to weep spastically, rolling the rope in perfec,t clockwise circles.

“Ned, let it go!”  Sally demands, reaching for the rope.

Ned turns his back on his lover, continuing to roll the rope into a neat circular formation.  He then places it carefully under the bed as if performing an important ceremony.  Sally watches him with tears streaming down her face, never having seen him so vulnerable.  For the first time in their six-month relationship, Ned puts his hands on his knees and begins to cry, rocking back and forth as the pain overwhelms him.

“It’s okay, baby!” Sally whispers in a comforting manner as she pulls his head to her breasts.  “We’re going to help you get through this..!  It’s going to be okay!”

The OBDAT - Chicago

“That bitch!” Lorabell shouts suddenly as she watches Sally comforting Ned on the LCD display.  “We’ll have to get rid of her; she’s going to be a problem.”

Maxwell turns to look at his new boss in stunned silence, somewhat ashamed at her lack of humanity in this moment.  Lorabell glares at him, her eyes somewhat dark from working over fourteen hours after only three hours of sleep.  She takes a swig of her coffee, looking defiantly up at Sally from the control panel of the OBDAT.  Her fingers grip the coffee cup tighter as she considers this whimsical threat to her success.

“What kind of woman stands there in support of a man who is bawling like a little bitch?”  She asks Maxwell, not waiting for a reply.  “Rogers tied the noose and got out of the house just in time.  The girlfriend should have seen him for the screwed up, broken down piece of dog’s ass that he is!”

“Well, maybe in Texas people don’t give up on each other as easily…” Maxwell says with a shrug, still showing concern for her lack of empathy.

“Fuck Texas!” Lorabell barks back at him.  “She has to go!”

“Hey, I’m from Texas!” A technician shouts from the server room below.

“Get back to work; it was just a figure of speech!” Lorabell sets down her coffee cup and folds her arms, feeling suddenly overwhelmed by Henri’s deadline, and the burden of causing these people distress.

“We need to get rid of the girlfriend; he needs to be alone…” Lorabell suggests to Maxwell, raising her eyebrows as if to ask for feedback.  “Our job is to make him feel so alone that all he has left… is his pistol.”

“Whatever you say, boss.” Maxwell responds with slight irritation.  “I’m sure you know what’s best.”

“Tell Agent Rogers that we need to recruit another asset in Texas… ASAP!”  Lorabell orders with increased arrogance, due partially to her exhaustion, bad cramps, and the new position of authority.

JULIA WELHEIM:

“Awesome Mom!”  Julia reads aloud, gazing down with her piercing brown eyes at a faded bumper sticker on the back of her dusty, white minivan.

She leans against the back of the van, picking up dust on the front of her light blue sweatshirt, consumed by the desperation to hug something…to be close to anything.  Julia is swarmed by a torrent of emotions, tearing at her as though a tornado is swirling inside her head.  After a few moments of this empty embrace, she stands up tall in her white cargo shorts, pushing away from the van.  Her face is pale and wrinkled, more than most Florida residents, and she is thin for a woman of forty-six.

The anger soon fades in a jovial instant of psychosis, and she has a sudden spark of optimism.  With an unhealthy, happy smile, she walks quickly back through the side door into her small home from the garage.  Her pink running shoes make neat tracks across the tiles as she strides with purpose through the kitchen.

“I need to do my hair.” Julia announces to herself, grabbing at the mess of brown locks pulled up into a chaotic bun.  “John’s not going to like me if my hair is a mess.”

She steps lively over the faded kitchen tiles, surfing on a high of intense assumptions.  Her face bears a grin of anticipation as she looks at the small digital clock on her way through the living room to the soft, carpeted stairs.

“It’s five-thirty,” she says with a lighthearted grin, “John will be home in an hour.  Time to start making dinner, but first I need to fix my hair.”

Her heart rises with each stair step toward their cozy bedroom, the gentle ascent torturing her soul with pleasant memories.  Julia looks at the sunlight coming through the home with immense affection, knowing exactly the angle of the light beams when John would return home with Sammy.  She puts her hand on the smooth cedar railing leading up to the bedroom, excited by the thought of John’s strong hands caressing her body, leading up to a warm embrace.

When she reaches the top of the stairs, Julia freezes in place.  Her eyes are fixed on a television cart with an old twenty-seven inch, tube TV on top, and a DVD player on the shelf below.  She squeezes her eyes somewhat, squinting at a small yellow note taped to the front of the cart that reads:  ‘A message from John.’

As she reads the note, Julia smiles wide, showing off exposed, receding gums and a few missing teeth.  She turns on the power to the television and the DVD player, listening to the slight static flicker and watching the small green LEDs shining from the control panels of each.  The DVD player is flashing 12:00 pm as Julia presses the play button and waits for John’s message to play with humble enthusiasm.

Her smile is immediately wiped away as she sees an older man sitting at a fancy, wooden desk on the television screen.  He is dressed in a gray suit with a simple red tie and white button-down shirt.  The man is mostly bald save for a ring of gray hair around his head.  He smiles wide with his portly face, peering lovingly at the camera from his blue eyes with his hands clasped together on the desk in front of him.  Julia bears a look of confusion and betrayal, listening intently as the man begins to speak.

“Hello, Julia, I’m Doctor Wellsly, your therapist,” the man begins in a comforting manner that makes Julia eerily uncomfortable, “this video is here to help you with a technique called repetitive assimilation.  I know you’re probably watching this thinking that John is going to be home soon…  You probably thought this video was some type of romantic message from him.  Let me explain what is happening in your mind, and what has been happening for years…  Julia, first, you are a very sweet lady, and you deserve so much warmth and compassion in your life, so please know that- with the things I am about to tell you.  Julia… a long time ago, when you were twenty-five-years-old, your neighbor was peeping through your windows while you were getting dressed in the bedroom.  You had been diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic at the time, but treatment was going well.”

Doctor Wellsly reaches up and scratches his bald head with his left hand, showing a look of regret before he continues.  “Unfortunately… the neighbor was a very creepy person, and he sent you over the edge into a psychotic episode, rendering you in a primal state… where you picked up a kitchen knife to defend yourself.  Although you were justified in defending your privacy, all that the neighbors saw was an angry, naked woman chasing her neighbor with a carving knife.  This… caused some problems between you and John… and it led to a more severe episode… that required hospitalization.”

Julia begins to cry as she listens to the doctor, looking confused and destroyed as his words pour down on her like a cruel hailstorm.  She leans against the cedar railing, feeling a swath of angry emotions digging at her; a veritable hornet’s nest of stinging memories coming to the surface.

“You tried to kill yourself, Julia, and Sammy was in the home at the time.  What happened next is beyond me… and perhaps I should leave this part out, but you need to hear it from someone who cares about you.  Sweet lady, Julia…  John married your younger sister Evelyn, and they moved away to Baltimore over ten years ago…”

Julia puts her right hand over her mouth in a panicked silence, staring with wide brown eyes at the horrible message coming from the television.

“It’s a lie!” Julia declares, glaring defiantly into the television.  “He gave me the sticker that says awesome mom...” Tears emerge quickly on her cheeks, and a small stream of drool drips toward the floor as the renewed pain enters her consciousness.  “Evelyn stole my husband and my baby… My little Sammy!  Please, God, why are you doing this to me!?  WHY DO YOU HAVE TO TEST ME SO HARD!?  I PROMISE NOT TO GET NAKED WHERE ANYONE CAN SEE ME! I SWEAR TO YOU, GOD, I WON’T LET ANYONE SEE ME! Just give me my Sammy back…”

Julia crouches to the floor, holding her left hand against her forehead and rocking spastically, sobbing with intense agony.

“So the reason why you keep forgetting these things, Julia, is that you have a hard time making new memories since your suicide attempt.”  The doctor continues on the television as if someone is calmly listening to him.  “In your mind, you and John made love the night before, and you are waiting for him to come home and cook dinner, but your sister stopped by… and told you about the affair because John was too much of a coward.  This triggered your suicide attempt, and it’s created a loop of thoughts and emotions that has been running through your mind ever since.  Please call me at 555-333-2444 so that we can talk about this.  I am always here to help you!  Again, my number is 555-333-2444.  I am Doctor Wellsly; a friend who has been helping you for years.  Please give me a call, sweet lady, or go to the emergency room if you are in severe need…  I’m so sorry, Julia, please call me so that I can help 555-333-2444.”

The video ends in a black screen with the phone number displayed in white text.  Julia grabs the railing to pull herself up from the floor; she has a deep sadness about her now as she shuffles to the master bedroom.  Once she steps into her old room, the memories of John are still fresh, making the sting of betrayal that much more intimate.  Julia is embattled with suffocating thoughts as she steps over to the bed and sits down on the soft, padded mattress.  She looks at the shiny white phone on the nightstand near her, remembering the number from the television screen.  Without hesitation, her hand darts out to the cold, plastic phone, pulling it from the cradle and turning it over to punch in the number, before placing the receiver delicately against her ear.

After a few seconds of silence, there are three tones that grow louder as they play and a monotone, female voice says, “we’re sorry, but the number you have dialed is not in service.”

“No… No! No!” Julia hangs up the phone and frantically dials again, feeling the desperate need to connect with another person.

“We’re sorry, but the number you have dialed is not in service.”  The cold, robotic voice repeats.

Julia drops the phone on the floor, allowing it to screech in rhythmic, electric pulses on the carpet.  She lies back on the bed in an almost catatonic state, waiting for the nightmare to pass and bring forth a new tomorrow from yesterday.

The OBDAT - Chicago

“Can we claim that 333 phone number?” Lorabell asks with a stoic resentment that is directed up toward the LCD monitors as she watches Julia in her frozen state of anguish.

“Why?  What are you going to do to her?”  Maxwell admonishes with suspicion, looking at Lorabell like a young girl who has been allowed to play with a bag of deadly fireworks, lacking vital adult supervision.

“We’re going to study her… that’s our fucking job!”  Lorabell declares with exhausted frustration and a disappointed glare.  “I have every intention of helping this woman,” she continues, “but we can’t get funding to help them until the study is complete.  Henri promised that we’ll be able to help all of these people later.”

“Right,” Maxwell replies with a smirk, “Henri’s promises…  And if Henri were the Tooth Fairy, every child would wake up with dog shit under their pillow.”

“Whatever… I don’t have time…” Lorabell sighs dismissively before regaining her clout.  “I need a gift basket put together, and an agent on standby.  Also, we need to get that DVD… It’s keeping her somewhat stable.”

“This is stable!?”  Maxwell asks incredulously, pointing at the screen with a face full of doubt.  “How the hell is that stable?”

“Look, I need you to help with tech; psychology is my department, and you’ll just have to trust me.”  She retorts with dignified fury.

“That works for me,” Maxwell states, “whatever happens to them… is on you!  Now, what other assets do you need?”

Maxwell’s words hit Lorabell broadside like a reckless pickup truck stampeding through midday traffic.

“What happened with the doctor?” Lorabell asks, pretending not to hear his last comment.

“Doctor Wellsly went on a fishing trip a few years ago and has not been found.” Maxwell declares with a smirk. “They’re still trying to wrap up the investigation.  That’s why we started watching her in the first place.”

“We need contact info for the husband and son…”  Lorabell says with a short pause as Maxwell begins to shake his head.  “Yes,” she states with bold reassurance, “we are going to go there!”

X. Cartel Exodus

Large drops of tropical rain slam down repeatedly on the clay Spanish tiles of Miguel Horatio’s estate in Costa Rica.  The rain has been coming down for only ten minutes this evening, and large puddles are already starting to form on the grounds below.  The day is almost finished, and the sun is moving lower as if to be extinguished by the waters of The Pacific Ocean.  At the southwest corner of the grounds, a solitary watchtower rises up from the earth over seventy-five feet.  There are three guards on the top floor of the tower, each monitoring different aspects of the business.  An internal, steel staircase leads down to the ground floor below where two other guards are sleeping in cots on the concrete foundation, waiting for the next shift to begin.  They are resting peacefully, barely moving despite the constant rain and thunder.

At the top of the control tower, one guard watches a radar screen, monitors the weather, and listens to radio alerts coming from the Costa Rican Government.  There is a desk to his immediate right where another man is watching video feeds from over twenty-four cameras throughout the home and grounds.  On the far left, the eldest guard is monitoring distribution traffic on the cartel’s secure radio band.  As he looks out at the deluge pouring down on the estate, the eldest guard solemnly shakes his head, not remembering a fiercer storm during his lifetime.

Inside the estate, Miguel Horatio is too busy handling an issue with a business associate to care about the rain.  He projects a frozen stare toward Jose Lecroix, his deep blue eyes indulging a swath of hatred not seen since The Holocaust.  His graying hair is slicked back except for a few tufts out of place on the right side of his head.  The two men are meeting in the game room; Jose is seated in one of the hand-carved, blue leather chairs, and Miguel is standing just a few feet away.  The room is ominous with the sounds of the rain outside, and the only lighting shines from blue and yellow neon signs at the bar, along with a bright beam shone from the reading lamp that is next to Jose on the small, round end table.

“So you haven’t told anyone about our drop off location?” Miguel asks with stern conviction as he struts fiercely to the bar, leaning over with his muscular frame to grab a beer.  As he reaches across to the fridge on the opposite side, his black shirt pulls tight against the bar, exposing a silver, Desert Eagle tucked down the back of his dark gray pants.  “Would you like a cerveza?” Miguel asks quickly, still leaning over the bar.

“No, gracias, Señor Horatio.”  Jose replies immediately, putting up his hands with the palms facing out as he sees the Desert Eagle.  “And I haven’t told anyone about the drop off location.”

“Oh, you don’t need to answer that question;” Miguel declares boldly, turning away from the bar with a bottle of Corona Extra in his right hand, “that was a rhetorical question.  I already know that you told someone about the drop off tonight, and they paid you twelve million Colóns for that information…”

A spike of fear drives through Jose from his toes to his chest as though the lightning outside just pierced his flesh.  He sits back in the leather, designer chair, sweating a bit in his faded blue jeans and white button-down dress shirt.  Jose looks down at his small belly, trying to decide if he should run or attempt to ‘lie’ his way out of this.  As an older cartel member, he has seen some atrocious punishments for those who committed far less.  He runs his tongue over the back of his teeth as beads of sweat roll out from beneath his short cotton-like hair down to his weathered, dark walnut colored skin.

“You’ve been helping me for a long time, Jose, but do you know what I’ve learned over the years?”  Miguel inquires with a half-smile.  “I’ve learned that the young guys get it; they ARE afraid to fuck with me.  But you older guys… You’re the ones that grow a pair of big, apricot balls, and treat my business like it’s the running of the bulls.  El Toreador, Señor?”

“Miguel, I don’t know who told you that-“ Jose begins to formulate a lie, but is cut off by the cartel chief.

“No…  No, let’s not do that.”  Miguel says gently, holding up his beer.  “How about a toast..?”  The cartel chief looks around for a moment, as if scripted in a bad soap opera.  “Where is my bottle opener?”

Jose jumps up from his seat and begins to run towards the door, but Miguel easily catches up to him with his muscular legs.  The cartel chief grabs the older man by the throat and lowers him down to the floor on his back.  Then he stands tall and places his right boot on the man’s throat, pressing down firmly until he begins to choke.

“I’ve never actually put my boot in a man’s throat.” Miguel states with his wicked, dark eyes locked on Jose’s face.  “It feels very good… refreshing.  Like a cold beer.”

“No! No! No!” Jose screams as Miguel kneels down at his side and grips his forehead.

Once he has a firm grip on Jose’s head, Miguel puts his right knee on his chest to prevent him from moving.  His eyes fill with a murky satisfaction as he raises the beer bottle over his right shoulder, holding it by the neck.  The cartel chief waits for Jose to start pleading with him, and then swings the beer with tremendous force down at his mouth, hitting his teeth with the broadside of the bottle.

Jose writhes with incredulous suffering on the dark hardwood flooring of the game room, screaming as many have done at the hands of the brutal cartel chief.  After about ninety seconds of hellish punishment, Miguel opens the older man’s mouth to see how many teeth he has left.  Jose’s lips and cheeks are now a swollen mass, and the inside of his mouth is filled with saliva and blood from the beating.  The cartel chief is excited to see a pile of broken teeth still sitting at the left side of his mouth, doused in blood.

“It looks like you have three left on the bottom and four left on the top, Señor.” Miguel reports with satisfaction as if he is doing Jose a favor.

Jose turns on his side and spits out the broken teeth, a dark dribble of blood flowing from his lips to the floor.

“By the way,” Miguel admits with dry satisfaction, “I knew they paid you for the drop off location… because it was my money they used to pay you.  I don’t like thieves, Jose, but my days of killing experienced men are coming to an end.  It is too hard to train someone with your type of loyalty.  If you wanted that money, you could have asked me and we may have worked something out.”

Miguel stops for a minute deep in thought.  He steps over to the small, round table and uses the ledge to pry the cap off of his beer bottle, slamming the top with the palm of his left hand.  Miguel’s beer immediately shoots foam all over his shirt as the cap is released causing him to giggle a bit.  The cartel chief smiles down at Jose, embracing a more positive attitude.  He holds up the somewhat bloody beer bottle in a toast to his employee, and then drinks it down with voracious thirst.

“You know what I’m going to do for you?” Miguel asks, slamming the beer bottle down on the small wooden table as he steps over to where Jose is lying on the floor in anguish.  “I’m going to let you live…  Surprised?  Let me explain.  Someone recently came to me with a story about a woman who threatened to hurt my family if I don’t stop hurting her people…  Now, we can’t do business… cannot be number one without violence; it is just our way of life…  But I don’t need to be the face of that violence.  So let me explain your new position with the cartel.  You will become el jefe, and we will let everyone know that you are responsible for our group.  When a man’s wife is raped, he will know that Jose was responsible.  When a child’s mother is run over during a smuggling run, they will know that Jose was responsible.  When a man is beaten to death and left to be eaten alive by the rats, then will know that… Jose was in charge!”

Miguel looks on with pride, realizing that a death sentence would be like stroking Jose’s neck with a feather compared to making him responsible for over 10,000 murders a year.

“Smile, Jose, you are the new face of the cartel.” Miguel evokes with a grin of disturbed pleasure.  “I said SMILE!”

Despite his agony, nausea, and the feeling as though he will pass out from the pain, Jose manages to weakly smile from the floor toward his boss.  Miguel breaks out into a storm of belly laughter, clapping his hands together slowly three times.

A lightning bolt hits the grounds of the estate as if it were a javelin cast down by monstrous, Olympic Athlete.  Miguel shudders and cowers a bit as the thunder creaks its way through the earth, shattering the air with mighty electric force.  He holds his breath, waiting for the earth to stop shaking and give him peace again, but the earth does not stop shaking.  The symphony of tectonic grinding beneath the home goes far beyond lightning strikes, causing glasses to fall off the bar, and a power outage at the estate.  Miguel’s heart is now pumping vigorously as the result of a childhood phobia; lightning and thunder have always plagued him with anxiety.  Underneath the estate, the earth shifts in a very deliberate manner, a slow, churning movement, pushing upward from the furious interior beneath the foundation.

The priestess steps out of the jungle wearing a black, ceremonial robe that descends all the way to her feet.  Large drops of rain have soaked into the fabric, showing off her powerful body and ample breasts.  She fixes her green eyes on the outer wall of The Horatio Estate, walking with conviction toward the fifteen-foot concrete structure.  Her face is painted white with waterproof clay, and her eyes are coated with deep black circles of grease.  This ghastly display is softened a bit by her lips that are painted red with ten black vertical stitches drawn on them.  There are two dark spots on her nose, resembling the holes leftover on a skull where the skin is missing after the body has died.

The priestess smiles with universal confidence under her mask of death when she approaches the outer wall.  She holds out her right hand with the palm hovering just inches from the face of the thick concrete.  Her strength is felt and acknowledged by the earth, commanding the concrete to erode; it blows away with the ferocious winds of the storm and leaves a three-foot gap in the wall.  She enters the grounds like a deathly monarch, enjoying the rain on her face, but maintaining a deified stare.  After walking ten feet, the priestess puts her hand out toward the second wall, and again, the concrete erodes away in a three-foot section as if having been struck by the blast wave of a nuclear weapon.

When she steps through the opening in the concrete, her green eyes focus on the rounded balcony just twenty feet above her head.  The priestess looks to her left and sees a trio of Rottweilers watching her with dignified affection from their small shelter near the home.  All three dogs recognize her as their mother, and while they yearn for her embrace, they know that she is just as vicious in nature as any other wild animal.

From the watchtower, the eldest guard rubs his eyes as he looks out at the grounds.  A woman in a black robe is standing at the base of a hill that has recently appeared from out of the earth.  The new formation of sand and rock leads from the grounds up to the nursery; twenty feet from the yard…  Or what was twenty feet off the ground last time he looked.  The man shakes his head from side-to-side in disbelief, trying to logically explain how a mountain of earth grew out of the ground from the inner wall to the nursery.  He squeezes his eyes tight in confusion as he sees the woman climbing the mound of freshly formed earth toward the estate.  The old cartel guard recalls the tremors from a few moments ago, and gazes in awe at the large pathway of broken rocks and dirt.  It has the fresh appearance of something regurgitated by a mountain.

During her ascent up the mound of earth and rock, the water feels good running under her bare feet.  The priestess senses movement to her left, and looks up at the watchtower where men are pointing at her and screaming.  She closes her eyes, tightening her hands into fists as she points them toward the earth.

Beneath the watchtower, the foundation shifts violently upward, and the flimsy structure shudders under the pressure, swaying slightly in the wind.  All three men at the top are thrown to the floor or against their control panels as the power goes out in the seventy-five-foot structure.  The earth bucks once again, and the tower is stripped from its foundation, tearing in half as the top portion falls over the wall, with the security office crashing hard into the jungle outside of the grounds.  The two guards who were sleeping in their cots climb out from the bottom half of the tower with minor injuries.  They stop in the middle of the yard, looking up at the new mound of earth in wonder, and staring at the priestess with confused expressions.

The cold jungle rain pounds deftly in sloppy drips of various sizes, landing heavily on the two guards that just awoke.  They shiver and gaze at the ferocious eyes of the otherworldly being.  She glares at them from behind her death mask, displaying a formidable contempt for the two men; a lamentation of their service to the cartel.

After a few seconds of staring the men down, the priestess continues her climb up the mound of freshly formed earth toward the nursery.  As they watch the cryptic, beautiful creature from the grounds, the two men hear a slight snarl rising up over the sound of the rain.  They look down to see the Rottweilers approaching them from the front; teeth bared, and faces set with ominous gazes, their terrible, thin jaws ready to strike.

When the priestess reaches the top of the earth mound she hears the final screams of the guards from the yard below.  Her protective children waste no time in crushing their throats with eager mouths, gnawing and clawing the men to darkness.

The nursery is impressive under the majesty of the bleak, rainy sky.  It is a rotunda of glass and concrete with a cathedral ceiling that rises over thirty feet from the floor.  There is a decorative cement railing going around the outside edges of the structure, and a six-foot wide balcony that nearly makes a complete circle around the massive room.

The priestess closes her fists in a snap, watching a four-foot section of the cement railing explode into dust, crushed by the will of the earth.  She steps forward onto the balcony, her black robe fully drenched by the storm.  As she moves toward the cylinder of glass and concrete that makes up the nursery, her small feet leave muddy footprints on the balcony.  Bearing a dutiful sneer, she reaches out with both hands pushing her fingertips into the glass with her palms outward.  The ten-foot section of thick glass begins to respond, feeling the hands of the priestess, the silica inside moves with her will, bending open in a three-foot section as she spreads her hands apart.  The mysterious creature steps forward as the glass bends open around her body, creating a jagged hole in the middle of the large window with dozens of sharp spires pointing inward at the nursery.

From the center of the nursery a baby boy begins to cry, sensing that the room is quickly becoming colder, and an awful mixture of noise has entered his once peaceful shelter.  The priestess steps toward the small, gray crib, her body and hair dripping rainwater all over the white, marble floor as she continues to leave a path of muddy footprints.

When she reaches the crib, her electric green eyes peer down at the child with malice, the dark, black grease that surrounds them giving of an unusual sheen, accentuated by droplets of fresh water.  The priestess breathes deeply holding her hands up with fingers outstretched as if to claw the sky.  High above the estate, the clouds respond to her energy by sending a powerful pulse of lightning down onto the roof of the home.  When the lightning bolt strikes the roof, it breaks several Spanish tiles and causes the glass baby bottles to rattle on a wooden table near the door.

The child begins to scream, crying louder as he is terrified of the powerful sound.  She looks down at the small, brown-skinned baby, staring with jealous hatred and a yearning from days long in the past.  The priestess closes her eyes, remembering the horrible pain that brought her to this place.  She claws fiercely toward the ceiling like a tigress assaulting the air, and again the clouds respond with another burst of ear-shattering energy.  This lightning bolt pounds the ceiling of the nursery harder; an electric missile that smashes through more Spanish tiles causing the roof to crumble somewhat.

As the tiny pieces of roof bounce on the white marble near her bare feet the priestess indulges a wicked smile.  She reaches down and grabs the baby by the chest with one hand.  The child is feeble in her strong grip, almost naked save for a white cloth diaper.  Her mighty right hand holds the baby upward to the heavens as she walks toward the opening in the glass, and back out into the storm.

Miguel is rushing through the darkness, terrified by the sound of lightning hitting the nursery.  He moves sluggishly with his cumbersome black, cowboy boots, wishing he had worn his running shoes instead.  As he moves swiftly through the darkness in the halls of the second floor, his right knee catches the face of a large cement statue.  He immediately stops and grips his kneecap in pain, glaring at the concrete tiger for being in his way.

After taking a quick moment to recover, he stands up straight, and limps the remaining few feet to the doors of the nursery.  When he reaches the solid, walnut-stained doors, his right hand grips the pearl handle and Miguel emerges from the hallway into the large room.  His hands and face immediately detect cooler air in the baby’s room, and he gazes in shock at the formation of bent glass that opens into a large hole through a window at the front of the nursery.  The jagged hole is just a bit wider than a person, allowing the rain to spatter the floor somewhat.

Miguel looks into the empty crib with a panicked expression, patting the fabric hard in disbelief.  He shuffles across the white marble hastily, not caring about the pain in his knee.  The adrenaline and rage carry him through the large hole in the glass to a broken section of the balcony railing.  His eyes open wide with amazement as he spies the newly-formed mound of rock and earth, stretching from the inner wall of the grounds twenty feet below up to the cement balcony beneath his feet.

At the bottom of the mound, the priestess glares at him with disdain, her painted face and intense eyes full of malicious fury.  She is holding his son up in the air with her right hand as if just having claimed a prize in a game of chance.

Miguel retrieves the Desert Eagle pistol from the rear of his pants, pointing it at this ghastly new vermin in his yard.  He holds it steady for a moment, taking aim at her chest, but realizes that killing her might hurt the baby.  His hands begin to shake as the betrayal and pain of this act are like nothing he has ever known before.  Miguel heaves his chest, breathing steam like a mad bull, and his adrenaline piques as he sprints forward down the mound of earth, screaming like a fierce warrior protecting his young.

Under the sleek, black cowboy boots, the mud shuffles and slips, and as Miguel tries to stop, his body spins and he falls off the mound to his left.  Miguel feels a rush of terror after losing his footing, and he slides a few feet before dropping off the steep side of the large formation.  His eyes peer down helplessly at the earth as it draws unmercifully closer.  He is off balance when his legs hit the ground and Miguel feels an intense snap in his upper left leg.

The cartel chief screams as he feels a deep burning and breaking all at once.  His mind is overloaded with such pain that he bites his tongue without realizing what he has done.  Miguel rolls on the ground in agony, giving off a torrent of incessant cries.  He turns with a now horrified face to look at his left leg as he sees his femur bone sticking through his blood-soaked pants.  The middle-aged man rolls onto his back with his hands balled up into tight fists, shaking like an infant.  He looks up at the sky with despair, feeling betrayed by the world as the cold rain dances on his cheeks and forehead.

After his breathing calms down and the pain is reduced by adrenaline, Miguel sits up a bit in the mud, cautious about moving his freshly-broken leg.

“Hernando!  Pablo!  Jose!”  The cartel chief cries out in desperation, hoping that his guards will come to his aid.

Within a few seconds, as if answering his call, a Rottweiler approaches, trotting around the mound of earth to his right, snarling as it gets closer.  He looks at the dog with confusion, wondering why it is being aggressive toward its master.  Miguel inspects his badly broken leg and decides that the wound must have triggered something in the dog.  He searches the saturated grounds desperately for his Desert Eagle, and sees the silver handle sticking up from the mud just a few feet away.

The snarling increases pitch as the dog approaches him with its back arched, head down, and a full set of exposed teeth.  Miguel crawls slowly towards his pistol, knowing that this is how the dog behaves before it attacks.  As he drags his broken leg two feet forward, the intense pain returns, almost worse than with the fresh break.  He grits his teeth, closes his eyes, and continues to crawl forward, pretending that this is just a nightmare.

His Rottweiler is persistent and approaches with a bolder stance, still poised for an attack, growling louder now over the sound of the rain.

“Fuck you!” Miguel shouts as he retrieves the pistol from the mud, points it at the dog’s head, and pulls the trigger.

With his eyes closed tight, he waits for the blast of a round firing, but all he feels is a wet click as the firing pin doesn’t strike hard enough to ignite the gunpowder.  Miguel’s heart continues to throb as the dog closes in on his face.  His hands shake a bit as he opens the chamber and hits the side of the gun on a rock to get the water and mud out of the barrel.  He remains on his right side, keeping his neck away from the dog, but the Rottweiler lunges and bites his left arm, tearing through the skin like an unforgiving wild beast.  Miguel begins to scream, but quickly regains his senses, turning over a bit, he swings the Desert Eagle at the dog’s skull.  The first blow enrages the dog enough to shake its head from side-to-side.  This causes a painful tearing of muscles and skin that is too much, and Miguel repeatedly batters the dog with the side of the pistol until it lets go of his arm.

He holds his wounded left arm up in the air, feeling sick at the hot pain traveling through his veins and flesh.  His left leg is stinging horribly from all the movement and he is breathing visible steam in the extremely cold rain.  Miguel looks at the muddy ground with reinforced despair as the other two Rottweilers trot around the base of the earthen mound in his direction.

“Not you, Carlos.” Miguel states with sad eyes, speaking to the largest and oldest of the three dogs as it approaches.  “I raised you myself. We’ve been together for years…”

The large dog responds to his plea with a short snarl, and jogs around his legs in a half-circle to approach him from behind.  After the largest dog takes a position behind him, the other Rottweilers approach slowly from the front.  Miguel doesn’t appear intimidated on the surface, but his mind is filled with doubt, terror, and helplessness.  He quickly pulls back on the action of his Desert Eagle, ejecting a dirty round and replacing it with a clean bullet.

These panicked movements cause both dogs to attack him from the front, and Miguel fires his pistol at the smaller dog that bit his arm.  The Desert Eagle explodes with energy, sending a bullet through the dog’s skull and taking it down with tremendous stopping power.  The second dog snaps at his face and he lunges backward on the ground, laying flat on his back to get more distance as he points the pistol at the dog’s head and fires another round.  The Rottweiler is struck in the left side of its throat by the bullet, and it backs away instantly, gasping for breath in a sickening manner through a hole in its windpipe.

Just as Miguel tries to locate the larger dog by turning slightly, a set of sharp teeth clamps down on his throat.  In less than a second, he feels the hot breath of his demise, a torrent of disgusting betrayal from a dog he raised as a puppy.  The teeth break his skin and clamp down to crush his throat; however, the dog releases its grip for half a second, trying to get a better hold on him.  In that moment, Miguel’s instincts tell him to fire the pistol frantically at the dog.  He is able get three shots off before the dog reasserts its grip on his throat.  Miguel feels the hot breath again as the teeth puncture his skin with crushing pressure on his windpipe.  His eyes close tight as the Rottweiler’s powerful jaws begin to tear his throat completely, but then the pressure subsides, and dog’s body goes limp.

Miguel opens his eyes again, astonished to still be alive.  He is breathing in panicked gasps, and his stomach becomes uneasy as he can still feel the dog’s teeth puncturing his windpipe.  Each time he breathes there is the slight copper odor of blood mixed with a hint of putrid vapors from the dog’s mouth.  His chest is pounding with alarm as he gently grabs the upper and lower portions of the jaw, pulling them apart slowly to remove the teeth from his throat.  One of the canines has become lodged in his skin, and he squirms with discomfort as he has to close the jaws a bit, and open them again to remove the tooth without tearing his windpipe.  Miguel’s patience pays off as the extra spurt of blood lubricates the tooth enough to get it out of his throat.

He pushes the dog off of him with his right arm, and then uses his left hand to inspect his throat for bleeding or damage.  As he breathes, his trachea lets out a small whistle, indicating how close the dog came to ending his life.

Miguel lies on his back looking up at the gray sky and the many droplets of rain pouring down without mercy.  His left hand shakes fiercely from the trauma of nearly dying by the might of his once loyal pet.  He breathes the air slowly; feeling like each short gasp is a gift.  The pain in his leg is raw and deep; a throbbing reminder of his poor decision to pursue the woman.

As he gazes at the sky, savoring each breath, a face appears about twenty feet above his head.  Jose leans over the side of the earthen mound to look down upon the broken cartel leader and his three dead Rottweilers.  When he sees the cartel chief is this state, Jose cannot help but smile; an almost toothless, broken smile.

With a sudden feeling of panic Miguel tries to flee, but his badly broken leg only causes him to tremble.  He thinks about grabbing his pistol, but seeing the smile on Jose’s face causes him to cry with remorse, shaking and sobbing in the mud with the three dead dogs.

XI. The Cases – Devlin in the Details

Henri watches Lorabell as she bends over to retrieve her ID badge from a small, black gym bag on the floor at the far side of the OBDAT platform.  He gazes at her short skirt as it brushes lightly against the middle of her healthy tanned thighs.  His eyes move up her body to a white tank top and her youthful strands of dark hair pulled into a neat ponytail.  The older Congressman sits back comfortably in his black suit, facing her rear end without shame.  He glances down at his black-and-white, striped tie with a smirk and feels an erection forming within his custom-tailored pants.

“So what is the status of our operation?” Maxwell asks, feeling the need to interrupt Henri’s daydream and Lorabell’s naughty tease session.

Henri turns to look at Maxwell with a frustrated expression as if to say ‘can’t you see that I’m busy,’ but is also feeling exposed by the interruption, and a bit guilty.  Maxwell is clad in black jean shorts with a yellow shirt that has a black stick figure on the front with the letters ‘D.R.I.’ printed at the top.  He rubs his bald head nervously as Henri gives him a look of daggers, feeling like the third-wheel in a bizarre love story.

“There it is…” Lorabell says with a naughty girl laugh, bending all the way to the floor.  “These things are so hard to find sometimes.”  She turns around to face the two men and leans forward again in front of Henri, playfully twisting her hips while pulling the lanyard over her neck and letting the ID badge dangle to her stomach.

“For the love of God!” Maxwell mutters after she shows off her cleavage to Henri before standing up straight and fixing her hair.  “Would you like me to get you some ones?”  He asks with a sneer, glaring up at Lorabell.

“You’ll have to forgive Maxwell,” Henri says with a youthful smile, “he’s not used to working with powerful women.”

“Well, he’ll get used to it- I think.” Lorabell answers in a condescending manner as she takes her seat at the far right of the control panel.

“Let’s get up to speed, shall we?” Henri asks Lorabell with a playful smirk, showing that she has won his favor.

“Yes,” Maxwell begins with a sigh of relief as he turns back to the control panel on the left side of the OBDAT platform, “I’ll bring you up to speed on the activities of Doctor Mindfuckenstein- as she has become affectionately known…  Julia Wellheim, age 46, suffered her daily trauma with no implicit or explicit distress beyond the norm.”

“We’re going to change that today,” Lorabell retorts with a sober gaze, “it’s on the docket first thing this morning.  She won’t know what hit her.”

“Fantastic.” Henri says to Lorabell with a warm smile, and then turns back to Maxwell with his fingers intertwined and resting on his stomach.

“Ned Lawhorn had an impromptu disruption to his lovemaking when a noose was found tied to the rafter in his daughter’s room at his Texas home.”  Maxwell reads dispassionately from his notes.  “It was a nice parlor trick, and had some impact that resulted in a bit of distress.”

“That was more than a parlor trick!” Lorabell sits up in her chair with eyes aflame, raising her right eyebrow as she looks at Maxwell.  “I exposed his weakness to his girlfriend; it is the first step in removing her from the picture so that he is abandoned and alone.”

“Next we have Phillip Belfort,” Maxwell begins with a dismissive sigh, “who is now only mildly distressed after his wife suffered what appears to have been a psychotic episode.  We used three field operatives, and remote surveillance to achieve some very basic results.”

“That’s just bullshit!” Lorabell argues with sincere fury.  “Phillip wants to hurt the men who raped Letisha.  By making her regress into a childlike state, she is going to seek him out for comfort.  From there, it’s only a matter of turning the screws to move him towards action.”

“I’m going to have to agree with Maxwell on this one.” Henri says with a grin that begs preemptive forgiveness.  “Just because you pulled back your arm into a fist; doesn’t mean you’ve hit anything yet.  The Belfort’s need more distress in their lives.  Please continue…” He says with a calm confidence, watching a smile grow on Maxwell’s face with the knowledge that his female counterpart is seething in frustration.

“May Ivory was accosted at her home, which did result in her using a weapon to deflate the situation.”  Maxwell continues to read from his notes slowly.  “But the risk to assets in the field with local authorities was too much for that type of response.  Also, a direct assault on the subject is not part of our protocol since it construes self-defense rather than crimes of passion.”

“I think you mean diffuse the situation, dipshit!” Lorabell retorts with a smug expression.  “Jesus, where did you go to school?”

“Let’s stay on topic; shall we, children?”  Henri interrupts with frustration.  “Look, Lorabell, it was your first day, and I threw you right into the frying pan.  Let me establish a few ground rules for assets in the field and proper use of case study protocols…  We cannot do anything that involves the local authorities having to interrogate our agents.  If that happens… the operation is blown.  Secondly, I need to ensure that we are trying to deliver on crimes of passion instead of acts of self-defense.  The only way I can make a strong case to The President for this program… is if these turn out as crimes of passion.  Lastly, I hear you loud and clear on Phillip Belfort, and perhaps making his wife distressed will lead to him riding in on a white horse… Just be sure the narrative unfolds that way.”

“Let me ask you something, Mr. Edwards,” Lorabell inquires with a motherly tone, “do you trust me to run this op?”

“I do,” Henri replies, “but now that you know the ground rules, I can trust you even more.”

“Fair enough,” Lorabell asserts with a look of radiant pride, feeling empowered after this perceived trial by fire, “then let’s get back to work so I can show you the tidal wave of distress I have lined up for our subjects today.”

Henri raises his eyebrows and winks, feeling a great deal of confidence as Lorabell gestures for him to watch the LCD screens while she issues orders to assets in the field.  Maxwell folds his arms over his chest, leering up at the large screens with a pouty, callous expression.

JULIA WELLHEIM

“Risperdal,” Julia reads the label of her antipsychotic medication before popping two of the light orange pills in her mouth.

She looks over at the clock and reaches for a glass of water with her right hand to wash down the long, round pills.  Julia drinks from the large glass, glaring at the bright green digital numbers on her alarm clock from across the room.  ‘It is only three-forty, and John won’t be home for three hours,’ she thinks to herself.

Her hands grip the bottle of medication tightly as she gets up from the table and carries the glass of water to the kitchen sink.  Julia is wearing a pair of gray cargo shorts and her infamous pink, running shoes, while her torso is covered up by a black, hooded sweatshirt.  Although the afternoon sun in Florida is making her feel uncomfortable, she refuses to show any skin above her knees during daylight hours.

The doorbell rings, and Julia freezes, holding the half-empty glass of water just above the kitchen sink, mortified at the news that might be waiting outside the door.  She sets the glass down quickly, and tosses her medication against the backsplash of her kitchen countertop.  The bottle bounces a bit and rolls into place between the grout of two tiles.  Julia holds her breath for a moment, feeling like the person outside the door can hear her breathing, and stopping will make them go away.  The doorbell chimes again and she opens her eyes wide, showing an expression of shock and discomfort on her pale face.

After a few seconds, she breathes easy and makes her way to the front door, watching her pink sneakers as she walks, gathering strength by looking at their consistent colors.  Once she reaches the front door, Julia uses her right hand to undo the deadbolt and pulls gently on the handle.  The heavy, cedar door opens just enough to show a bit of the world outside before it is stopped by a short, gold chain.

“Good day, ma’am,” a cheerful FedEx delivery driver states from the patio, “I have a package for you.”

“This is not good!” Julia says immediately and closes the door, putting her hands delicately against the familiar wood with its carefully carved indentations.

“Ma’am, do you want me to leave this package out here?”  The driver asks, waiting for a response.  “Look, this package is pretty heavy; I can carry it inside if you want?”

The driver waits on the porch, counting to sixty as instructed by his supervisor, and the door opens when he gets to forty-one.  He turns to the side with relief, his young frame strained under the weight of the large box in his arms.  An older woman appears as the door opens, looking left and right suspiciously as though the world is going to come crashing into her home all at once.  The young, Hispanic FedEx driver walks dutifully into the home and sets the box on the soft, brown shag carpet.  He stands up straight, looking with curiosity at the woman’s black sweatshirt in the eighty-five degree heat.

“Please sign here!” The young man says with urgency, handing his digital tracking unit to Julia after scanning the package.

“What is it?” Julia asks with an uncomfortable stare, looking at the box as if is about to give birth inside her home.

“I have no idea.” The young man says with a smile, gesturing for her to use the small digital pen and sign for the package.

“Is it something bad?”  She asks with fear and confusion, looking at the young man through a cloud of helpless psychosis.

“Not on my truck,” the young man says with a crafty smile, realizing that she is fragile and ill, “I only deliver good things from my truck.”

Julia smiles and scribbles on the digital tracking screen at the signature line, handing the unit back to the young Hispanic driver as she stares at the large box.

“Thank you, ma’am,” the young man responds with a smile, “have a great day!”

The young driver walks with spirit and strength out of the home, closing the door gently behind him.  Julia moves carefully over to the kitchen, seeking out the drawer where she keeps all of her knives and utensils.  After a bit of fishing in the drawer, Julia finds a small steak knife that feels safe in her hand, and carries it with her back to the package in the middle of the living room.  After a bit of hesitation, she bends down, holding her right hand tight against her stomach in a fist as she uses the steak knife in her left to saw through the clear tape on top of the package.

Within a few seconds, the box pops open, released by cutting through one last strand of clear tape.  Julia sets the knife down gently on the carpet, and then kneels next to the package, staring at it with wide eyes like a little girl.  Finally, after a few moments of contemplation, she pulls open the folds of cardboard to reveal what lies inside, flipping each panel open rapidly as her patience fades to inane curiosity.

There is a red, wicker gift basket inside the large cardboard box, its round handle protruding up to the top of the space.  Julia grabs the handle and gently lifts the adorable basket, placing it on the carpet at her side.  With fresh excitement, she lays down on her belly, staring in awe at all the gifts presented by the red wicker, holding her hands under her chin with childish delight.

The first thing she notices is a photo of John within the basket, balanced against the backside of the wicker oval.  She snatches the photo with her right hand like an eagle snapping up a fish from the water for sustenance.  Her eyes immediately moisten with tears, admiring the happy expression on her husband’s loving face.  The photo paper separates a bit in her fingers, revealing another photo of a young man in his twenties.

“Sammy!” Julia says with a shocked expression, amazed at how her child has grown over the years, but certain of his facial features.

The basket also contains a few boxes of assorted chocolates and candies, a stuffed dog, and white envelope labeled ‘Julia.’  She knocks the stuffed dog out of the basket as her hand darts in and clutches the white envelope.  Julia tears through the decorative white paper, still staring with tremendous affection at the photos of her husband and son.  As she pulls the card out, the front cover depicts a beautiful flower arrangement and the words ‘For Mom.’  She closes her eyes with relief, holding the card tight to her chest, basking in the intense satisfaction of being wanted by those she loves for the first time in over twenty years.

Julia is blossoming with excitement as she opens the bi-fold card, enjoying the glossy paper between her fingers.

“Dear, Julia,” She reads aloud as tears roll out of her delicate eyes, dripping like innocent rain on her black sweatshirt. “Sammy and I have missed you a great deal over these past twenty years.  I am sorry that I ever left you, my love.  It was my mistake to put you in such a cold, dark place for so long… I don’t know if you’ll ever forgive me?  Sammy has been talking about you and we’d really love to spend the Holidays with you again; to be together as a family.”

Julia stops reading and wipes the tears from her eyes with the sleeves of her sweatshirt, unable to see through the deluge exploding out of her tear ducts.  Her hands are shaking as she holds the card, a miracle of love fashioned on glossy white paper, near her chest.

“It was a mistake for me to marry Evelyn,” Julia continues reading despite the immense amount of tears, “she was not the right woman to raise our family.  I hope you will forgive my betrayal, and want you to know that Sammy and I are coming home.  We are coming home to you, my love.  Sincerely, -John.”

Julia releases a cavalcade of frustration from her eyes, feeling vindicated for the first time in two decades.  She enjoys these loving words from her husband; having wanted them for so long like a life-saving fire in the middle of the arctic night.

“I forgive you, John!” She nearly shouts with jubilation.  “I forgive you, just come home to me with my Sammy!”

Julia begins to laugh, holding the card up like a piece of her soul; a tribute of glory after years spent waiting for love to reenter her life.  She buries her face into the shag carpet, feeling her strength return as she smells the familiar odors of a home once filled with love.  Her whole body begins to shake with excitement, and she doesn’t feel the steak knife when it cuts into the side of her left knee.  The elation is so powerful, she fails to notices that blood is streaming in steady drops onto the brown, shag carpet.  After a long, spiritual session of rejuvenation, Julia gets to her feet, carrying the card up the stares like a bold soldier returning home from war.

At the top of the stairs she smiles, noticing a television cart with an old tube TV and a DVD player on the rack space below.  A yellow note on the black TV cart reads ‘a message from John’ scribbled in unfamiliar handwriting.  Julia powers up the television and DVD player, waiting for the familiar red and green lights to appear, and then she presses the play button, watching the screen with anticipation.

She gazes forward with confusion as an older man appears on the screen sitting at a fancy wooden desk.  His bald head bears a ring of gray hair, and his appearance is distinguished in a charcoal suit with a red tie, complimented by a white button-down shirt.  The man smiles at her sickeningly sweet with his wide face, a pair of blue eyes gleaming from the pixels of the old television screen, haunting and familiar.  His hands are clasped together on the desk as he begins to speak in a gentle, yet condescending tone.

“Hello, Julia, I’m Doctor Wellsly, your therapist,” the heavy man announces with a fake smile, “this video is here to help you with a technique called repetitive assimilation.  I know you’re probably watching this thinking that John is going to be home soon…  You probably thought this video was some type of romantic message from him.  Let me explain what is happening in your mind, and what has been happening for years…  Julia, first, you are a very sweet lady, and you deserve so much warmth and compassion in your life, so please know that- with the things I am about to tell you.  Julia… a long time ago, when you were twenty-five-years-old, your sister had you diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic so that she could marry John and leave town with your son…  Evelyn arranged for your treatment because she wanted John for herself.”

The doctor scratches his bald head with his left index finger, displaying a demeanor of shame as he speaks.  “Unfortunately… your sister was successful in taking the family away.  Since that time, we have found out that your sister is the one with the schizophrenic disorder, but we were unable to warn John.  Julia, you were blamed for her actions, and committed to a mental institution for some time… this caused some problems between you and John… and it led to him leaving with Evelyn…”

Julia stares at the television; her brown eyes appearing black in this lighting as the raw contempt becomes clear within them.  She looks down at the carpet beneath her pink shoes as she listens to the rest of the message, unaware that the doctor’s lip movements are not always consistent with the message being played.  Julia clenches her hands into tight fists as the story continues, exacerbating an intense rage toward her sister.

“So the reason why you keep forgetting these things, Julia, is that you have a hard time making new memories since your suicide attempt.”  Wellsly remits with a prerecorded affection.  “In your mind, you and John made love the night before, and you are waiting for him to come home and cook dinner, but your sister stopped by… and told you about the affair because John was too much of a coward.  This triggered your suicide attempt, and it’s created a loop of thoughts and emotions that has been running through your mind ever since.  Please call me at 555-333-2444 so that we can talk about this.  I am always here to help you!  Again, my number is 555-333-2444.  I am Doctor Wellsly; a friend who has been helping you for years.  Please give me a call, sweet lady, or go to the emergency room if you are in severe need…  I’m so sorry, Julia, please call me so that I can help 555-333-2444.”

The video ends in a black screen with the phone number displayed in white text.  Julia glares at the screen for a moment, and then stomps into her bedroom toward the nightstand, reaching for the phone with purpose and dignity.

The OBDAT – Chicago

“Who is going to answer that call?”  Maxwell asks in confusion, looking at Lorabell with concern.  “Don’t you need a male voice to pretend that he is the doctor?”

“I have a male voice.” Lorabell answers with a smirk, winking playfully at Henri and Maxwell before returning her gaze to the LCD displays.

“Hello, this is John,” a male voice answers after a few rings, “is this doctor Wellsly?”

“This is Julia… John, it’s so great to hear your voice!” Julia smiles wide brushing her hair back in a bit of self-conscious embarrassment.

“Julia, why are you calling from doctor Wellsly’s number?”  John asks in voice filled with awkward guilt and remorse.  “Can you put doctor Wellsly on the line, sweetie?”

“I know the truth now, John,” She begins with an excited voice,  “Evelyn had me committed so that she could take you and Sammy away from me.  That bitch stole my life away and told horrible lies about me!”

“Doctor Wellsly, are you there?” John asks, pretending not to hear a word Julia has said.  “Doctor Wellsly, you are supposed to keep these episodes under control; that’s what Evelyn and I pay you for…”

“John, Evelyn is not well.  She’s dangerous to you and Sammy.  Doctor Wellsly told me everything… I got your gift basket, and your card. I am SO EXCITED to see you and Sammy again!”

“Julia, what the fuck are you talking about?” John asks in a cold, hard tone for the first time.  “You tried to commit suicide while our son was in the house.  You chased after our neighbor naked, with a kitchen knife.  Evelyn and I have been paying for your care for years…”

“That’s not true!” Julia pleads into the telephone receiver. “Evelyn made all of this happen… The doctor told me… I want to see my Sammy…”

“Well he doesn’t want to see you,” John responds with more anger, “Sam has a family of his own now, and he doesn’t need his crazy mother scaring his children.  Doctor Wellsly, are you there?  What the fuck!?”

“John, please don’t do this to me!  I’ve been waiting a long time for you.  I read the beautiful card you sent…  It made me feel so good!”

“What are you talking about, Julia?  Take your medicine or call 911.  Just don’t ever call here again!  I don’t want you in my life, and Sam doesn’t want you in his. It’s OVER!”  John finishes this last statement by hanging up the phone, turning twenty years of longing and pain to dead silence.

After the love of her life utters these words, Julia is consumed with the frigid fist of fate plowing into her chest.  She sits on the mattress of her queen-size bed for a few moments, staring out the window.  But the psychosis soon kicks in, and with renewed strength displayed on her face, she gets up and steps over to the closet.  Julia opens the white, wooden closet doors and the sight of her shotgun inspires a feeling of uncanny power.  She reaches in and grips it tightly with her left hand, while her right hand darts high above her head to a shelf where she grabs a box of twelve-gauge shotgun rounds.

With these two items in hand, she shuffles back to the bed, dumping out the box of bullets onto her comforter as she takes a seat next to them with the shotgun cradled in her lap.  With a despondent melancholy, she begins loading the shells into the shotgun; feeling her years of waiting coming to an end as each round is pushed up into the magazine.

“You rerouted the doctor’s number to John’s cell phone?”  Maxwell asks as he continues to watch Julia from his seat in the OBDAT.

“That’s very clever!” Henri beams with proud eyes, looking sideways at Lorabell like his champion husky, swiveling back and forth in his chair as if he were an excited twelve-year-old boy.

“Thank you!” Lorabell replies after witnessing the glory of her second subject taking up a gun in an effort to relieve their pain.  “John doesn’t know that Doctor Wellsly went missing on a fishing trip several years ago.  Julia has been living on state assistant with no psychiatric care since then.  We’ll have some agents watching her… You didn’t change very much on the DVD, Maxwell… I thought we were going to go deeper into the details of her sister’s affair with the husband?”

“Are you kidding me!?”  Maxwell asks with outrage.  “It took six hours just to make those edits and burn a new DVD.  My guy at Langley is good enough to do whatever you want, but this asset in Florida can barely find his dick with both hands.”

“Guess that makes two of you…”  Lorabell says as she rolls her eyes in a snide manner.

“Bite me!” Maxwell deadpans, raising his middle finger. “I also had to have an agent sneak back into a house where someone is awake half the night, walking around like the living dead.”

“Children please!” Henri begins with a frustrated gaze turning from side-to-side as he sits between them. “We’ve made some good progress here; now let’s just continue with the next case while we keep Miss Welheim under observation.

NED LAWHORN

“So you used to date Ned?” Sally asks uncomfortably, brushing her long red hair back as she begins to fold her panties on top of a commercial-grade dryer.

“Yeah, that old hound dog!” Mary says with a naughty, shy smile, holding up her delicate red thong underwear above a basket of laundry to Sally’s immediate right.

Sally glares at the younger woman’s thong, feeling somewhat threatened by this gorgeous, busty bartender who used to date her boyfriend.  Her eyes move toward Mary’s tiny waist and a pair of perky breasts that every man in town has stared at from time to time.  The younger woman is wearing traditional cowboy boots with tight fitting jeans and a sports bra that leaves little to the imagination.  Sally gazes at her with disgust; feeling like a Barbie Doll is standing next to her with a bottom half that is traditional Texas and a top that screams Satan’s Whorehouse.

“I don’t usually date guys twice my age,” Mary continues with a smirk, and apparent satisfaction in her blue eyes, as if pounding a stake into a vampire’s heart, “but Ned was just so sweet… He just is a really nice, comfy lover… Like a good country song between your legs.”

“Are you shittin’ me, girl?” Sally asks with jealousy and disbelief, placing both of her hands on the laundry basket in front of her.  “What is this all about?  Nobody gossips on my boyfriend like that unless she has an axe to grind!”

“I’m sorry…” Mary replies slowly, putting her head down in shame as she begins to cry.  “Did… he… tell you?”

“Tell me what!?” Sally asks with strained patience, pursing her lips together as she stares into Mary’s deceitful blue eyes.

“I’ve got the… warts.” Mary says with a whisper.  “Ned was the only man willing to be with me… Like a wife…”

“Are you telling me that you screwed my boyfriend with your diseased little coochy, and now I have to worry about that..?  Did he wear a condom!?”

Mary shakes her head back and forth, a single tear dripping from her left eye after Sally’s cold words.  She quickly stuffs her half-folded pile of laundry into the basket and begins to carry it out to her car.

“Wait!” Sally demands, grabbing the younger woman by her wrist.  “Why are you telling me this now?  When was the last time you were with him?”

Mary tries to pull away, but Sally reinforces her grip, showing off the strength of a bonafide farmer’s daughter.

“When WAS THE LAST TIME!?”  Sally half shouts at the young woman, glaring at her pretty, young face like a lioness being tempted by a zebra that is stuck in the mud.

“I haven’t had an outbreak for a while…” Mary replies, trying to free herself from Sally’s iron grip.  “He took me… last week in the back of my car.  Now let me the fuck go!”

“Was he wearing a condom?” Sally asks as she releases her grip and watches Mary stomp toward the door.  “WAS HE WEARING A CONDOM!?” She shouts hopelessly as the younger woman leaves the Laundromat.

Several people are staring at Sally now, and she locks eyes with a woman that is only ten years her senior who is issuing a scalding look and shaking her head.  Sally scoops up her basket of laundry and bails out of the small building as if it is on fire.  Her heart drops as she realizes that the question of Ned wearing a condom or not is the least painful part of this whole betrayal.  Sally tosses the basket of laundry into the passenger seat of her Jeep and takes out her cell phone, feeling an urgent need to consult with her doctor.

A few miles away, Ned is shaking a bit of red Texas sand through his fingers, standing next to his tractor as he thinks about how retired life sucks.  He remembers his days as a stout oil man, working hard on the rigs, pumping thousands of gallons of black gold from beneath God’s green earth.  His face blooms to a smile when he remembers all the great times he used to have with his wife Holly and his little Thelma.  He closes his light blue eyes, feeling the gentle breeze whipping through his plaid shirt; nearly knocking the large cowboy hat off of his head.

In response to the wind, Ned pulls the hat down snug onto his head, ensuring that it won’t slip away, as too many things over the years have been taken in this manner.  His neck stiffens suddenly as he hears the sound of a vehicle roaring down the road toward his farmhouse.  Ned turns around to see a large Dodge truck rumbling across the dirt road that leads to his home, the rear bed of the truck bouncing as it traverses the uneven earth.

Soon the truck is rolling recklessly across his driveway, the Ned sees the driver looking panicked and honking his horn as he approaches.

“Whoa, shit! STOP!” Ned cries out as the truck nearly hits him and his tractor.  “What the hell are you doing, boy? You damn near killed me!”

“Sir, I was driving up the road here, and think I… ran over a deer.”  The man says as he stumbles out of the truck, using his right hand to steady himself against the door.

“You’re driving drunk?  You piece of goddamn shit!  My daughter was killed by a drunk driver.”  Ned growls at the bearded stranger, watching him with disturbed rage.

“I am not drunk, asshole!” The man asserts, raising his chin, and displaying a full beard that has only been growing for a few days.  “I came here for a vacation, and this fuckin’ deer ran under the wheel of my truck!”

“You take a seat right there while I call the police to come and straighten this out!” Ned orders in a threatening tone, pointing with his left index finger at the wooden porch in front of his home.

“Fuck you, dude!” The man roars back with scathing disrespect, slurring his words a bit.  “I’m here on vacation and I’m not going to jail over some miniature deer…”

“Get over here and sit your ass down to sober up!” Ned commands as he strides over to the man and grips his right elbow.

The younger man looks at the retired oil rig worker with belligerent superiority, then pushes him backwards with his right hand and delivers a powerful haymaker to Ned’s right cheek with his left fist.  Ned drops onto his back from the sheer force of the blow, feeling weak after taking a punch from a man in his early twenties.  He gets a jolt of pain as his back impacts the ground with unmerciful force.  The heat from the punch is radiating through his face as his head hits the ground and his cowboy hat comes off, taken away by the wind.

As the man stumbles back into the driver seat of his truck, Ned looks up at the right tire to see blood and patches of white and light brown fur on the treads.  The truck fires up with a rumble, and the driver hits the accelerator, speeding off before Ned can get to his feet.

“Chemo!” Ned calls out in a hopeful voice.  “Chemo, come here, boy!”  Ned stops to listen as he clambers to his feet, feeling a throbbing sting on the right side of his face.

He turns to look at the license plate, but can’t make out any of the numbers.  Ned feels a sudden despair, thinking that the fur on the tires was very similar to that of his collie.  The dog had been name Chemo after his wife began chemotherapy for her cancer.  He soon became a part of the family, and his affection was known as her other form of ‘Chemo’ therapy.

“Chemo!” Ned cries out as he begins to run up the driveway toward the dirt road, feeling a panic wash over him as the dog doesn’t respond.  While he is running, Ned feels a warm drip coming straight down from his right nostril, realizing that the punch also left him with a bloody nose.

“Chemo, come on, boy!”  Ned continues to call as he jogs up the road, feeling an overwhelming need to be close to his dog.

The blood continues to trickle down his face, dropping from his chin in a sickly manner, spattering on his light plaid shirt and the dirt road below.  Without his cowboy hat, Ned’s white hair whips in the wind, wildly flailing just like his aching heart in this moment.  The heat of the sun feels menacing as he makes his way across the rough dirt, jogging for a half-mile before he notices a dreaded trail of blood, followed by a lifeless animal by the side of the road.

Ned slows his pace; looking at the small body near the bend of the road, knowing it is too small to be a deer.

“Chemo!” He cries out one last time in helpless desperation, hoping that the dog will come bounding down the road full of life again.

“Oh dear God!  Oh my God; not my dog!” Ned screams into the sky as he rushes up next to the body of his best friend.

He drops to his knees in the sand, reaching down with a pair of trembling hands to grab his lifeless pet, gazing in terror at the large tire tracks that pushed his body off the side of the road.  As he touches the dead collie’s fur, the full shock of Chemo’s death is upon him.  Ned glances at the dog’s crushed legs and mid section, forcing himself to look away the moment he realizes what he is witnessing.

“That drunk… fuck… killed my dog!” Ned says through a series of small tears pouring from his pure blue eyes.  “Piece of shit drunk drivers.  Fucking cancer!  Fucking drunk drivers.  Damn you! Goddamn you…”

Ned turns away from the dog, clenching his hands into fists, and he begins to pound on the sand, releasing his fury into the earth.  After two minutes, his hands are swollen and bleeding, and he is out of breath, feeling ashamed that he couldn’t protect his daughter, or the rest of his family, from the world.  Ned looks at the fresh blood on his wounded hands as he gets to his feet, his knuckles filled with stinging heat and pieces of coarse sand.  He stumbles helplessly over the uneven ground, making his way back to the farmhouse for a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

His cell phone begins to ring, and he barely notices that it is making a sound.  Ned pulls the phone from his pocket, looking at the display and seeing that Sally is calling.  He presses the button on the side to ignore the call, thinking only of a shower and a bottle of whiskey.

The OBDAT - Chicago

“Why did you have to kill his dog!?” Maxwell demands with his traditional, disturbed expression.

“Killing his dog and ending his relationship with Sally is the best way to ensure he is alone in this world.  Doing both at the exact same time just makes it more effective.” Lorabell says, without taking her eyes off the LCD screen where Ned is shown walking up the road from a handheld camera.  “We have reopened the wound of a drunk driver causing havoc in his life, and the little slut from town was happy to tell that story about the warts for five-hundred dollars.”

“Does she really have herpes?”  Henri asks, clearly not disturbed by the death of the dog.

“Does it matter? It’s a rumor in the town, so we went with that.”  Lorabell replies, shrugging her shoulders, feeling frustrated that Henri has not paid her a compliment.

“How did you run over the dog like that?” Maxwell inquires with a confused expression.  “It’s not like a smart dog is going to hold still while a big truck rolls up on him.”

“We put the dog to sleep with some veterinary drugs,” Lorabell proclaims, “and agent Louis ran it over shortly after it was already dead.  The dog didn’t feel any pain!”

“Well it would be nice if you keep me in the loop on everything,” Maxwell orders with a sinister glare, “I only know what is happening with Julia Welheim and The Belforts.”

“Yeah, please keep Maxwell apprised to what you’re planning.” Henri says after a moment of thought.  “But don’t interfere with what she has planned.” He continues, turning toward Maxwell, “I know you don’t have the stomach for some of this, but it is necessary… So what’s next for Mr. Lawhorn?”  Henri asks, turning back to Lorabell.

“If all goes well,” Lorabell replies, “then Mr. Lawhorn and his drunk driver will have their final dance…”

MAY IVORY

“This is for you, beautiful lady.” The suave young man says to May, looking deep into her eyes as he begins to strum his guitar.

“I don’t… I don’t really feel comfortable with you calling me that.” May says with a concerned stare, sizing up her attractive neighbor from across the living room of her luxury home.

May observes Ted with curious suspicion, this hero who appeared out of nowhere after the teenagers harassed her the other day.  His muscular arms looking great wrapped around the smooth, black acoustic guitar.  She can feel a deep animal yearning inside of her as she admires his healthy biceps and short-cropped black hair.  He is wearing a tight black T-shirt and designer jeans with a pair of expensive basketball shoes.

May sighs with repressed frustration, looking at the scar tissue covering the outside of her left leg, feeling overly exposed in her long sundress.

“You don’t want me to call you beautiful?”  Ted asks with a winning smile, looking like a man on an underwear billboard.

“No, I fucking don’t!” May snaps back with the manners of an orangutan.  “I mean… what is really going on here?  Why are you being so nice to me?”

“May, I’m not here to feel sorry for you… I’m here to hang out and get to know my neighbor a bit.”  He replies with a sincere stare, strumming the guitar a bit as he talks.

“Why?  Do you work for a newspaper?  Are you trying to write a story about the ‘burned freak’ so you can cash in on my fame?”  She asks with contempt, gazing hard at the soft carpet.

“First off, May, you’re not a freak-“ He begins, but is unable to finish.

“How the fuck do you know!?” She erupts with rage.  “If your daughter looked like this; what would you say to her?  Would you tell her that she’s normal?”

“No…” Ted replies softly, realizing that he is dealing with someone smarter than himself.  “I would tell her that she is beautiful, and that the world… is ugly.”

“So much bullshit for one man…  You haven’t even had anything to drink…”  May stands up with a nervous expression and begins to pace back and forth in the living room.

“Do you have any wine?”  Ted asks with a wise expression, feeling her doubt and desire fighting one another.

“Oh, so that’s what you want?  You want to fuck me?  An easy lay for a tired man who hasn’t gotten any yet because he just moved to a new neighborhood?” May asks in a manner that surprises them both.

Ted looks at her with a bit of concern, turning his head to the side slightly.  He doesn’t say anything, but sets down the guitar and uses his powerful muscles to rise up from the soft carpet.  With a vivacious grin he approaches her, holding out his hands to his sides in a nonthreatening manner.  As he approaches, she stops pacing, looking at him as a real possibility for the first time since she met him over a day ago.  He steps up to her and gives her a warm embrace; nothing perverted or aggressive, just a nice embrace of someone who really cares.

Despite her defenses, the hug feels good, and right for so many reasons.  She immediately returns his hug, savoring it like a woman who has been drifting out to sea for days with no food or water, feeling her first loving shower of relief.

“I’m sorry,” she says with a sudden shyness expressed throughout her body.  “Let’s have some wine…”

Although she wants to continue the embrace, her heart is fluttering with nervous fear, knowing that his seeing her scarred body will likely be the end of the romance.  She steps back out of his arms and briskly makes her way to the kitchen, enjoying the cold tiles under her bare feet.

“Do you like red or white?”  She asks with a playful smile; words that she has uttered alone in this home a hundred times over the past five years.

“Red would be great!” Ted replies, returning her playful smile as he takes a seat at a barstool next to the decorative island near the edge of her large kitchen.

“So you’re a personal trainer?” She asks, pretending to be interested in his job as she retrieves two tall wineglasses from the cupboards.

“I am a personal trainer.” Ted confirms with a half-smile.

“So have you… been with a lot of women?” May asks sheepishly as she retrieves a bottle of wine from the pantry on the other side of the kitchen.

“You know… maybe it is getting late..?”  Ted responds with a sudden painful look, showing that her question is unappreciated.

“I’m sorry.” She begins quickly, putting her right hand against her brow.  “It’s just a habit for me to ask; that’s definitely your business…  What do you like in a woman?  Do you have any… favorite qualities?”

The young man looks at her with lustful intent as he watches her pour the wine.  She has the eyes of a predatory jaguar as she watches him from across the island.  May lifts his glass and swirls the wine around inside, sniffing it with scintillating desire before she passes it over to him.

“It smells really good,” she admits playfully, “I really think you’ll enjoy this.”

“I’m sure I will,” Ted says as his face becomes flush with desire, “it does smell good…”

May takes a hearty drink of her wine, almost finishing the entire glass, but stops short and sets it back down.  She then steps back from the island with a lovely smile, and to Ted’s surprise, reaches up under her sundress with both hands to slide her panties down to her ankles.  With a seductive chuckle of embarrassment, she steps out of her panties and kicks them to the far side of the room.

“I think we should take our wine back here,” she declares with an electric stare, “you’ll really enjoy the view better… from the back…”

Ted picks up both wineglasses and follows her down the narrow hallway toward the bedroom.  She giggles as she pulls the straps of the dress off and teases him by looking back seductively.  He follows her into the master bedroom, setting the wineglasses on the oak dresser near the door as he follows her to the bed.

“Wait!” She orders, holding out the palm of her hand as he starts to peel off his black T-Shirt.  “Drink this, it’s a magic potion!” May holds up his glass of wine, watching him eagerly to ensure he finishes every drop.  “And now this one…” She says with her fragile blue eyes staring at him, holding up the remaining wine from her glass.

He drinks this down as well, realizing that she will be more comfortable knowing that he is a little drunk for their playtime.  She smiles at him with an innocent shyness in her eyes as they move over to the side of the bed.

“Will you get me from behind?”  May asks with a polite smile, not wanting to expose her entire body to anyone during her first sexual encounter since the crash.

He smiles and nods, pulling off his T-shirt as he watches her raise the back of her dress and bend down toward the king-size bed.  She places her hands on the pink hem of the black comforter, waiting eagerly for him to enter her.  He walks over quickly to the delicate, young beauty before him, noticing the scar tissue that covers the outside of her left leg all the way up to her exposed bum.  Ted undoes his pants slowly, watching the young woman rock her hips with anticipation, thinking about his wife as he pulls down his jeans and boxers in one movement.

From the bed, May is watching him with eager suspicion, her expression is a mix of desire and distrust, but desire is clearly a priority in this moment.  He rubs the tip of his member on her, helping her to feel at ease.  To his surprise, she is dripping wet with anticipation, and she quickly reaches back and starts to rub him against her like a lioness in heat.  He immediately begins to control his breathing, not wanting to climax before they begin.  She only rubs him for a few seconds before pushing him deep inside of her.  Again, he is shocked by this lovely creature who has wanted a man for so long.  Her desire erupts all over him as he slides deep into her soft tissues.

“OH-MY-GOD that feels… so good!” She says as her body trembles with pleasure.  “Please don’t turn out to be an asshole…” May mutters as she backs her labia into his powerful member, eagerly demanding more thrusting as she pulls at the backside of his right thigh.

Ted is having mixed feelings despite the overwhelming ecstasy.  His body is also starting to tremble as he feels the tight warmth that takes him in like a deified creature, trusting someone with a sacred treasure.  He moves in and out of her with a different level of passion than he has for his wife.  This woman feels so warm and approving under his slender abs.  Every movement is a testament to her desire to live life again, and every thrust from his body is an admission that she is still a creature of intense desire.

She rolls over on her back, finally trusting him to look at her face as he enters her again from the front.  Soon the two lovers have removed her dress completely, and for the first time in half a decade, May feels the comfort of being nude with a man.  They lock their bodies in pleasure, enjoying an afternoon of sinful delight, and a playful celebration of life.

“At least we didn’t have to order him to fuck her!”  Lorabell says with a jealous stare, thinking about her recent breakup and looking up at the LCD monitors with a jealous fervor.

Maxwell and Henri turn to gaze at her with shocked expressions, feeling a bit guilty as they watch the scarred beauty engaged in deep pleasure with one of their CIA operatives.

“Wow, you’ve evolved to the Olympic sport of home wrecking…” Maxwell says with a dry smile.

“Is there a reason why we’re having agent Thompson put his marriage on the line here?” Henri asks as the young couple finishes their intense session of sex up on the display.

“Just watch and learn…” Lorabell says with a confident stare as she puts on a headset and looks back up at the LCD panel.  “Agent Thompson, good work; now I need you to excuse yourself to the bathroom and await further instructions.”

“Where’s the bathroom?” Ted asks, kissing May deeply from his position next to her on the bed.  “I just need a minute.”

“You can leave if you want…” May says dismissively, trying to hide the intense fear in her eyes.  “I understand…”

“I’m not leaving.” He promises with a smile and a deep kiss. “I’ll be right back.”

“It’s back down the hall; second door on your left.” She replies, enjoying the warmth of her new lover’s kiss, and holding his arm tight around her breasts, not wanting him to leave.

Ted puts his hand deep into the small of May’s back and gives her a loving kiss that lasts several seconds, staring into her eyes the entire time.  After the powerful kiss, he gets up from the bed, both of them smiling at one another with approval.

He stretches his legs as he walks down the narrow hallway, feeling pain in the tip of his penis from the intense orgasm.  Ted looks up at the camera as he enters the bathroom and turns on the light, closing the door behind him.

“Who am I speaking to?” He asks with defiant frustration; not understanding what he is doing in this woman’s home.

“This is Lorabell Cardigan, and I am in charge of this op.”  Lorabell confirms from her position at the control panel of the OBDAT.  “Now that you’ve seduced the subject effectively, I need you to reject her!”

“Are you out of your fucking mind?  How does that help the mission?” Agent Thompson asks with disgust, glaring up at the camera.

“Agent Thompson, I need you to reject her and tell her this whole thing was a joke setup by yourself and the young man who works at the local market.”  Lorabell orders with cold precision.

“I‘m not going to say that to her; she’ll kill herself!”  The muscular agent exclaims with a face full of confusion, staring at the camera in horrified disbelief.

“You are going to say what I want,” Lorabell commands, “or I will send a copy of this video to your wife… Not only that, but I will have another agent seduce May and reject her for her body without giving her any sex.  Do I make myself clear!?”

“I am not fucking doing this…” He replies with an ashamed expression, feeling dirty as he leans against the wall, his naked body shivering a bit.  “I want to hear this from Henri or Maxwell.  Until then, you can shove it up your ass!”

Lorabell breathes out heavily with a frustrated sigh, removing the headset and handing it to Henri at her left side.

“Agent Thompson, this is Henri Edwards, please proceed as instructed.” Henri says with relaxed tenacity into the small headset before handing it back to Lorabell.

“Oh my God, this bullshit!” Agent Thompson says to himself, grabbing the short hair on the back of his head as he looks down in shame at the bathroom floor.  “What do you want me to say..?”

A few moments later, Ted returns from the bathroom, his stomach wrenched with discomfort as he realizes what must be done.  When he gets near the bed, he reaches down and puts on his boxer shorts, then wastes no time in pulling his jeans up around his waist as well.  May looks up at him from the bed with confusion, pulling the comforter up close to her chest.

“What are you doing..?  Come back to bed.” She says in a meek tone, not wanting to believe her eyes.

“I’m leaving… This was fun… But it’s not my dig.” Ted replies arrogantly as he sits down on the bed with his basketball shoes held together by his right hand.

“Come on, just for a few minutes?” May asks playfully, wrapping her arms around his muscular upper torso.  “You can go back to your chores later.”

He throws her arms off of his body and continues to tie his shoes like a military robot.  May starts to tremble slightly, terrified of what this means about her and the future of her romantic life.

“Look, we had some good sex; it really took care of my needs… like you said.”  Tom finishes his sentence as he scoops his T-shirt up from the floor and pulls it over his body.

“We had some good sex!?” May asks in a betrayed tone.  “I told you that I wanted this to be more than sex!  This is the first time I’ve been with anyone since the accident, you asshole!”

“You know, that doesn’t surprise me?” Tom says with an icy smirk. “I mean look at you; it’s a good thing your beaver wasn’t burned or it would have felt like I was pounding the bride of Frankenstein.”

“You SONOFABITCH!” May shouts as she covers her body and begins to cry from his painful, judgmental comments.

“This wasn’t me… It was that guy Jeffrey at the grocery store you like so much.  We had a bet to see who could get between your legs; all the guys in town want to know what you’ve got under the hood… Now I can tell them… It isn’t much.”

“Get out! GET OUT!” May screams as she gets up from the bed with her body covered by the long blankets.

“See, this is why nobody wants to date YOU!” Ted quips, pointing a finger at her enraged face.  “Your mind is just as burned up and disfigured as your body.  Good luck ever getting married; you pan-fried freak!”

Ted bolts for the door, stomping out through the hallway as tears start to flow from his eyes.  As a soldier, he has done many terrible things, but this is the first time he’s been asked to kill someone’s soul.  He walks out of the house in a hurry as he begins to cry harder, deeply shamed, and feeling evil all over.  His mind cannot erase the image of this woman looking so destroyed by someone who pretended to love her.  He sees his motorcycle, but decides to walk back to the bedroom window and find out if May is all right.

“Agent Thompson, what are you doing? You have orders to leave the premises.” Lorabell instructs boldly through his headset.

Ted ignores her instructions, and moves over to the corner of the home where he can peer into the window.  As he looks inside the bedroom, he sees that May is on the floor in a nearly catatonic state, punching the scarred portion of her face with her left hand, and smashing her head against the door every thirty seconds.  Her right hand grips the blanket tightly around her body while her left hand continues to do damage.

He takes a few steps backward from the window, shaking his head and clenching his fists in shame from what he has done.

“Agent Thompson, the damage is done!” Lorabell exclaims into his headset.  “There is nothing you can do to help her now, other than leave…”

“You’re a piece of dog shit, lady.” Agent Thompson responds back with a warrior’s fury.  “Mark my words, the venom of this snake is going to come back and bite you; I’ve been in the field long enough to know…  Tell Henri I’ll never work with you again, and to reassign me to something else… Something that helps our country!”

“You’ve got it, Agent Thompson.  Thanks for your cooperation!” Lorabell says robotically, staying focused on the LCD monitors as she carefully watches May in her state of emotional shock on the bedroom floor.

After forty-five minutes of emotionally draining hurt and self-destruction, May gets up from the floor, letting the blanket fall from her naked body.  She walks through the house like a ghost, disconnected by some of the best and worst feelings of her life during the past few hours.  Her left bicep is sore, along with the scarred side of her face.  May steps slowly to the bathroom, feeling dehydrated; her legs still sore from a session of intense sex, and a night of unmistakable betrayal.

She looks in the mirror at the swollen, bleeding mass of scar tissue from all of the time she spent hitting her own face.  With a sudden cry of terror that is immediately muffled, she lurches forward and vomits into the sink.  The red wine comes up with a nasty, fruitful texture, feeling acidic in her throat as she watches small pieces of grape washing down the drain.  May watches with distracted interest as drops of blood from her face mix with the wine in the white marble sink, and the writer inside her sees something poetic in all of this, but cannot fathom it at this moment.

The exhausted young woman grabs a towel and soaks it with cool water, using the soft fabric to carefully treat the wounds on her face.  She stops looking into the mirror, trudging forward with heavy feet, the soaked towel wrapped loosely around her head.  As she enters the living room, May walks over to check the front door, ensuring that it is locked, and there will be no more visitors this evening.  Her next instinct is to return to the bedroom, but as she is walking, an object catches her attention on the island at the edge of the kitchen.  May moves toward the island with curiosity, wondering if her mentally-abusive lover was kind enough to leave a goodbye note.

She freezes in her tracks, focusing on a small postcard of Mount Rushmore placed strategically for her to find.  May reaches out with her left hand and lifts the postcard from the smooth tiles, her arm shaking a bit as she turns it over to read the back.  A tear immediately streams down her cheek as she lets the postcard drop to floor, watching it spin end over end as though it just tore all hope away from her.

May stomps clumsily back to the bathroom, hovering her head over the sink to vomit once more.  As the card falls on the kitchen floor with the message side up, anyone could clearly see that it reads: ‘Thanks for a freaky evening. I would offer you a ride on my hog, but I already won the hundred bucks.’

In the bathroom, May has stopped vomiting, and is resting against the cupboards near the floor, sobbing like a woman who just walked out of a Category 5 Hurricane.

“What did I do to you? What DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS!?” May asks, screaming at the ceiling.

The OBDAT - Chicago

“You didn’t do anything, sweetheart…” Maxwell says to the LCD screen as his eyes begin to water.  “You didn’t do anything; just some sick bitch screwing with your life.”

“That’s enough!” Henri says with authority, looking a bit disturbed himself by what he just witnessed.  “Lorabell is the expert here, and we will trust her judgment.”

“You wanted me to push these people over the edge?” Lorabell asks, looking at Henri and Maxwell as she gestures up at the screen.  “This is what it takes.  That woman is too strong to ever break and go on a rampage unless we push her to this level.  You want a crime of passion?  Well guess what; it takes one to make one!”

“Point taken,” Henri says, feeling sick to his stomach as he straightens his body, “let’s move on to the next case.”

PHILLIP & LETISHA BELFORT

‘There is nothing that destroys a man faster than a woman,’ Phillip thinks to himself as he sits on the steps of his concrete porch in Anaheim, California.  Immediately after thinking this, he places his hand atop his smooth, bald head, regretting that it ever crossed his mind.  The young ex-marine stares out at the street, considering what a peaceful and chaotic place it can be sometimes.  Living near Los Angeles, many people get used to the idea that one block can make them, and another can break them.  Phillip closes his eyes for a moment, flirting with old habits, deciding whether he should light the cigarette in his hand or not.  The story that Letisha told the other day was incredible by any standard, and he wonders if her episodes will become bad enough to have her committed to a hospital.

Phillip sits up suddenly as he gazes at the street again, sticking his chest out in a protective posture as he sees two young gang members throwing signs at him.  He immediately gets to his feet and steps across the yard to confront them on the public sidewalk, casting the cigarette aside.  His black, USMC polo shirt sways delicately over his powerful muscles as he approaches the two young men.  They stop walking as his black running shoes and matching sweat pants touch down on the sidewalk in front of them.

“What’s up, chocolate-raspberry?”  The nineteen-year-old gangster asks in a threatening voice as Phillip approaches him.

“I think you’re mistaken, there’s no raspberry-chocolate here… Only dark chocolate!” Phillip replies in a sinister tone, folding his arms with a display of authority and disapproval.

“What’s up, soldier boy? We knows who you is… An’ that fine ass wife uh yours!” The young man continues, laughing with his friend as they fidget nervously in their sagging cargo pants.

“Don’t fuckin’ talk about my wife!” Phillip threatens, grabbing the young man by the throat with his powerful right hand.

“Better back away, cuz…” The other gang member warns from under a blue do-rag.  “It gonna’ get messy up in here if you don’t let my boy go!”  He stares eye-to-eye with Phillip and pulls up his shirt, showing off a nickel-plated 9 millimeter pistol.

“You find your own bitches; don’t be sniffin’ around my neighborhood again.” Phillip declares, trying to reach them on their own level.  “Or next time you won’t be the only one with a gun, and your moms will have a story so sad; it will make Oprah cry.”

“Whatever, soldier boy!” The nineteen-year-old replies with noticeable fear in his dark brown eyes, walking quickly away from Phillip as he throws up a few more gang signs.

The OBDAT - Chicago

“You seriously fucked up!” Lorabell snarls at Maxwell, slamming some papers down at her station and pointing up towards Phillip on the LCD displays.

“What are you talking about?” Maxwell asks.  “You said we needed some gang members to approach him and make perverted comments about his wife.”

“Those were Crips, asshole.” She says, rolling her eyes in exhaustion.  “His wife was attacked by a gang of Bloods; it severely limits the impact of the threat…  Bloods wear red colors and Crips wear blue colors… A Goddamn nine-year-old would know that!”

“Look, what’s done is done!” Henri says in an irritated fit.  “Clearly this wasn’t your only play, so whatever comes next we can make an adjustment, right?”

“Yes…” Lorabell admits, glaring down at the servers fifty feet below them; three rows of metal cabinets pushing warm air upward that is causing the bottoms of her legs to sweat.

Two men in suits approach briskly from the rear side of the OBDAT, looking serious as they climb the small set of stairs from the catwalk up to the observation platform.

“Congressman Edwards, we have a situation and need to escort you and your team to the conference room for safety.”  The young, black CIA agent reports as he looks at the Congressman with respect and urgency.

“What’s going on, agent Leatherby?” Henri asks calmly, watching the intelligent, ebony security agent and his older white counterpart for signs of alarm.

“There’s been a breach, Sir,” the young agent continues, “Ming’s credentials were used to access the building, which sent up a red flag.  Devlin McConnelly may be here.”

“How long ago?” Henri asks, looking around the datacenter with a bit of suspicion.

“About ten minutes.”  The agent snaps back immediately.  “That’s all I can tell you for now; we need to move your team.”

Maxwell and Lorabell gaze at one another with ambiguous expressions, slowly rising from their seats to follow Henri and the security agents.

“Why weren’t Ming’s credentials disabled after she was killed?”  Maxwell asks sarcastically under his breath.

“Because after YOU got her killed,” Henri growls, “I knew that might be a useful piece of cheese to bring our rat back into the wall.”

“He didn’t get in with those credentials,” agent Leatherby says with a stern expression as they make their way through the hall, and down the stairs to the first floor, “a homeless woman was trying to get in with Ming’s ID badge.  We’re trying to figure out what the play is here.”

“Make sure that we have all badges accounted for.”  Henri orders as they continue their short journey to the large conference room.

Agent Sharpe makes his way down the long corridor in the west wing of the small building.  He is a balding man in his early forties with a bit of a beer belly.  His black suit and lime green tie are a dead giveaway that he works for the agency.  There is a black janitor mopping about fifty feet from his position on the right side of the hallway, and everything else seems clear.

“I’ve got cleaning staff here, but all the doors in this section seem to be secure; checking a few more things, and I’ll be right back.” Agent Sharpe relays into the microphone near his wrist.

The hallway floor is covered in laminated tiles, illuminated on either side by expensive incandescent lights.  Agent Sharpe passes several locked doors as he maneuvers through the space, watching for any signs of a break in.  He picks up his pace as he gets closer to the janitor, wanting to clear the area and rendezvous with his team again.

“Excuse me, I need to see some ident-“

The tall CIA agent loses his footing on the freshly mopped floor just ten feet from where the janitor is standing.  His feet slide quickly on the unusually slick surface, causing him fall hard on his back, continuing the slide even after he falls.

“Sorry about that,” Devlin says in a whisper as he leans over the agent, “I guess this mixture of soap is bit slippery… You need the right shoes for it!”

Agent Sharpe has only a moment to peer at Devlin’s face, noticing that he has painted it black to make himself look like their African-American janitor.  He is wearing a baseball cap with his long, blonde hair tucked beneath the janitor’s blue overalls.  The world around Agent Sharpe soon goes dark as Devlin places a large, black garbage bag over his upper torso, and he feels the horrible sting of a mop handle slamming against the left side of his head.  After a few heavy blows, the agent feels blood seeping from his head just above the left ear, producing intense ringing before his vision fails.

In the conference room, just twenty yards away, Henri is about to commit a murder of his own, bored and disenchanted as he watches Maxwell and Lorabell fighting for his affection.  It has been thirty minutes since an agent came to tell them that a body was located and they were ‘searching the building for the suspect.’  Henri sits at the end of the cherry wood conference table with his arms folded, staring at the vast array of incandescent lights blooming delicate rays within the ceiling of this cement fortress.  His feet are resting on the rough, industrial carpet, and he can feel his toes starting to sweat at the discomfort of waiting.

The door opens abruptly and agent Leatherby approaches Henri at the head of the table, causing Lorabell and Maxwell to stop arguing.

“Congressman, it’s safe to move around the facility now,” agent Leatherby says urgently, “there’s something I need to show you!”

“Great!” Congressman Edwards says, drumming his fists on the table as he gets up from his chair and follows the CIA agent out into the hallway.

Henri walks behind the agent and slightly to his right, while Lorabell and Maxwell follow them just a few steps back.  After about forty yards, agent Leatherby opens the door to the first floor break room and gestures for everyone to file inside.  As they walk through the doors, every member of the party turns a sickly pale color, their eyes glazed over in mortal terror.

Agent Sharpe’s naked corpse is displayed on the break room table; his feet are secured together with gray duct tape, and there are screwdrivers sticking up from the palms of his hands.  From their vantage point, the man is in the pose of an upside-down crucifixion, with rolled up documents tucked into his mouth.  The screwdrivers have punctured his hands completely, allowing blood to drip slowly through the cherry wood, into multiple, gallon-sized pools on the industrial carpet.

Lorabell places her small, feminine hands over her face, appalled at the sight of a desecrated body where she just had coffee a few hours ago.  Maxwell steps closer to the body, feeling uneasy for the first time in his long career.  He looks at the side of agent Sharpe’s head where there are signs of internal hemorrhaging, and a distinct trail of blood leading from just above the left ear to the back of the skull.  The odors of the body are already wafting through the room, including: various gases from the corpse, the copper scent of fresh blood, and a hint of manufactured chemicals.

“How long ago did he die?”  Henri asks a technician that is taking pictures at the far end of the room.

“It looks like about thirty to forty-five minutes.” The man replies as he steps around the body ten degrees at a time, taking digital photos every few feet.

“What are these documents?” Henri asks, pointing to the rolled up papers in agent Sharpe’s mouth.

“I was just about to find out.” Agent Leatherby declares, putting on a pair of blue, latex gloves.  “Are you good for me to take the documents, Donald?” He asks of the agent that is shooting photos.

“Let me get two more shots…” The tall, curly-haired man replies from behind the camera.  “Yeah… you’re good to go.”

Agent Leatherby steps over to the table and retrieves the rolled up documents from the mouth of the corpse, rolling them open carefully to retain any forensic evidence such as body hair.

“It looks like we’ve got some decoded messages that were written by Maxwell, stamped Henri Edwards North America.” Agent Leatherby announces as he begins to thumb through the documents.

“I told you that your encryption was easy to break!” Henri says with budding dissent as he points his right index finger at Maxwell.

There is a sudden commotion at the far end of the room as Donald falls flat on his face, smashing the digital camera when his body hits the floor.

“Donald!  Are you okay!?” Agent Leatherby asks, instinctively drawing his pistol.

Henri looks around the room with a keenly trained eye, knowing Devlin’s jacket back to front, and remembering an attack bearing strong similarity to this one.  His ears pick up the sound of fluid being pushed through the coffee maker, and he sees that the coffee pot is filled with a pale yellow liquid.

“Get out of the building!  He’s poisoned us!” Henri shouts as he starts to run for the door.

Lorabell and Maxwell waste no time in following his lead, but agent Leatherby instead moves rapidly to where Donald has fallen, bending down as he tries to save his fallen colleague.  After a few seconds, he too falls to the floor face first and motionless.

“EVERYBODY OUT! Tom, get everybody out of the fucking building!  WE’VE HAD A CHEMICAL ATTACK!” Henri shouts at the young security guard as they make their way out of the lobby.

The older Congressman feels his breathing constricted as he makes it to the fresh air outside of the building.  His heart is palpitating hard as he lovingly takes in the sweet, natural oxygen.

Henri lifts his head for a moment, feeling paralyzed with fear, remembering the report from Devlin’s file on the operations in Iraq, where he reported making a deadly chloramine teargas by mixing ammonia with bleach.  When the terrorists ran from the building to get fresh air, he used a .50 caliber sniper rifle to finish the job.  There were no survivors.

Henri also recalls that the mixture of ammonia and bleach is deadly and toxic if you breathe in the fumes for too long.  He looks at Lorabell and Maxwell, watching them both breathing at least twice as hard as they would normally.  Their necks are red with the onset of asphyxiation, but all three of them are able to take in oxygen on their own.

“We need to go to the hospital,” Henri admits as his knees slowly sink toward the sidewalk, “back in The Middle East, Devlin was trained… His job was to scare the shit out of the enemy…”

Henri bends slowly toward the ground as the sound of sirens approach from the long, concrete security drive of the CIA black site.  Maxwell and Lorabell also drop to the ground, the trio soon unconscious and vulnerable on the sidewalk.

XII. Armani – Does this make me look dead

‘It has been two days since the attack on their so-called secure CIA facility,’ Lorabell thinks to herself as she sits waiting in Maxwell’s shared office to meet with Henri.  Her fingers are gripping the chair with white-knuckle intensity as she recalls the hellish events that were brought right to their doorstep by a tactical genius.  The young college professor has toned down her look, electing to feel safer and more mobile in her clothing, wearing a long turtleneck sweatshirt with large, orange and white stripes, and a pair of black jeans.  With so many questions swimming through her mind about Devlin, Lorabell barely notices the new replacement agent, Sarah Hearthstone, seated in the chair next to her.

She smiles at Sarah briefly, admiring the young woman’s long brunette hair and delicate Hispanic features.  With her athletic body, the woman looks much younger than her true age of 33.  Although Lorabell is not in the habit of being competitive, she admits to herself that Sarah’s sexy body is a threat to her within the social hierarchy.  Sarah returns the smile, more with her green eyes than with her face, showing off a deep-seeded intellect and strength.

“All right, let’s get started.” Henri says gruffly as he walks into the office with Maxwell in tow, wearing his standard black suit and a dark blue tie.

“What did you want to talk abut first?” Maxwell asks, as he takes a seat behind his own work desk, setting a large drink next to his Macintosh laptop amongst several pewter figurines.

This office has a simple layout containing two desks that face inward with ten feet of space between them.  The ladies are seated facing east in front of Maxwell’s desk, while Henri takes a position just opposite them, to the left of small desk.  There is a large window above each workstation, providing a feeling of warmth from the natural lighting.

“Well, let’s introduce the new girl.” Henri begins as he takes a seat in the black, ergonomic chair.  “Everyone, this is Sarah, she is here from Langley to help us with operations and to provide a bit more security.  Her specialty is in geo-political tactics, but she’s also good at messing with people’s minds… or so I’m told.”

Everyone smiles and nods at Sarah, feeling good to have a new team member, but also pessimistic that she has no idea how deadly a threat they are up against.

“Another piece of news,” Henri begins, adjusting his tie as he speaks to reinforce his authority, “General Mason will be joining us to take over the military leg of our operations.  Since Ming was killed, and we lost three agents just two days ago, The President has decided to send in a more experienced military leader to help us out.”

Maxwell raises the forty-four ounce drink to his face, letting the ice slosh around a bit as he places the straw in his mouth and sucks down the dark-colored soda from within.  He stares down at the twelve-inch pewter figurines on his desk: a wizard, a dragon, and a dwarf.  His eyes wander over Sarah’s tantalizing body when she is not looking and then back to the short figurines near him.  The young man feels suddenly sheepish and geeky wearing his black T-shirt and a matching pair of jean shorts.

“Now the purpose of this meeting is to get us all up to speed so that we have a better chance of finding and capturing or… killing Devlin.” Henri says with a disgusted stare, chewing his bottom lip a bit.  “What I do know is that Devlin painted himself in blackface and entered the building pretending to be a member of our janitorial staff named Toby.  Since the front desk was preoccupied with a homeless woman, trying to enter with Ming’s security badge, he was able to slip through easily.  Devlin then created a slippery mixture of soaps and waxes that caused agent Sharpe to fall and injure himself on the floor.  He then used a mop handle and some garbage bags to dispatch agent Sharpe… We all saw what happened next… with the poison.”

“Yeah, he also killed Ming a few days ago; that’s why Mason is here!” Maxwell spouts off in an arrogant tone, trying to impress the new girl, but realizing halfway through his statement that he has made a mistake.

“Right…” Henri begins, appearing vicious at first, but relaxing into a smile. “You had an idea for catching Devlin quicker.  Why don’t you run and get your notes on that?” Henri asks with a bright smile, glancing at Maxwell in a fatherly fashion.

Maxwell returns Henri’s smile, feeling a sense of pride, like a more important member of the team.  He bolts up from the desk and steps lively out to the hallway, allowing the door to close automatically behind him.

“Now, ladies,” Henri says as he rises coolly from his chair and steps over to Maxwell’s desk, “sometimes things just have to be done a certain way.”  He reaches out and grips Maxwell’s drink with his right hand, popping off the small, flimsy lid before setting the large, plastic cup back down on the desk.  “I don’t always enjoy what needs to be done,” Henri continues, removing his aged penis from his slacks as he lowers it into Maxwell’s drink, “but I have always been able to get it done.”

The sight of his member in the workplace does not resonate well with the ladies, and their faces transform to immediate disgust.  He watches the stunned expressions of the two women as he urinates into Maxwell’s drink, filling it almost full with a mixture of his body waste and diet soda.  Sarah and Lorabell look down at the flaccid penis in Maxwell’s drink with shock and queasy frustration, and then they look away, waiting for Henri to finish in discomfort.  Both ladies cringe from their padded, leather swivel chairs as the man in his fifties taps his penis to get the last few drops of urine out, each of them thinking about walking off the job.  The Congressman delicately puts his member away and pulls his zipper back up, restoring decency to the room.

Henri finishes this repulsive deed with a nonchalant expression, systematically putting the lid back on the drink and returning it to the desk near Maxwell’s laptop.  He then holds his index finger up to his lips, indicating a need for secrecy.

“I want you both to watch this carefully,” Henri continues, looking down at their mortified faces as he takes his seat again, “Maxwell got one of our female colleagues killed a few days ago.  He sent her after Devlin without my permission- and Devlin… Devlin beat her to death!  That same smug sonofabitch, just sat here and bragged about that woman being killed.”  He pauses and looks at both of them, hoping they understand the method behind his madness.  “Just remember as you watch him enjoy a big drink, that it could have been you that was killed in the field.  I had to explain to her mother that she’s dead, but I couldn’t tell her that it was for no good reason!”

“You’re going to love this!” Maxwell says as he steps back into the room, pausing to see Henri talking to the two women.  “Did I miss an important part of the meeting?” He asks, returning to his desk with a DVD-ROM in hand, which he pushes into the slot at the right side of his laptop.

“No,” Henri says quickly, “we were just telling Sarah how deadly Devlin can be.”

As their colleague takes his seat to join them, Sarah and Lorabell don’t say a word, feeling justified by Henri’s story about the dead agent.  Their eyes are locked on Maxwell’s drink, watching in repulsed fascination, and swallowing with instinctive empathy every few seconds.

“Okay, so I found something great!” Maxwell begins, gesturing toward the screen of his laptop.

All three of his colleagues watch his hand as it gets closer to the large cup, wondering how long it will take for him to realize their betrayal.

“So you know that dog Devlin stole was from Auburn University’s training program, right?” Maxwell looks around the room with excitement, feeling like a genius, and enjoying their stunned faces.  “Well, all of those dogs were equipped with tracking chips at eight-weeks.  What I’ve done is contacted the systems admin at the university to get me the GPS tracking login for Gloria’s chip.  As soon as we know where the dog is, then we’ll be able to zoom in with the GPS coordinates and catch Devlin.”  Maxwell reaches over and picks up his drink, surprised at first by the weight as he brings it toward his lips.

“How long will it take to get the tracking info back?” Lorabell asks, feeling her stomach churn at the idea of watching Maxwell drink fresh urine.

“It should be by the end of today,” Maxwell says, pointing his drink at her as he pulls it away from his face, “but I have Langley’s best hacker working on their firewall, and he may be able to get it for me within the hour.”

“How close of a proximity will that give us?  Those chips are small; will it… Will it, uh, give us a… good location?” Lorabell asks, stammering a bit to come up with another question.

“I’ll answer that.” Henri interrupts, putting his hand out in front of Maxwell.  “These are third-generation chips, and we should be able to lock down Devlin’s location within a one-hundred foot radius or better.”

Maxwell nods as he presses the bright red straw against his tongue, sucking the fluid out of the large, white plastic cup while watching Henri speak.  Within a few seconds, his eyebrows come together with a look of concern and confusion.  He pulls the straw out of his mouth and starts to gag, removing the clear, plastic lid from his drink to peer inside.

“That’s what you get for Ming, Motherfucker!” Henri growls as he leaps from his chair, letting it tip over on the floor as he grabs the cup from Maxwell and dumps it down his face and chest.

The young programmer is shocked at the behavior of his superior, and as the scent of urine hits his nostrils, he is altogether confused and disgusted.  Henri grabs him by his black Metallica T-shirt and pulls him backward in his chair, tipping it to the ground.  He then snatches the pewter wizard figurine from the desk and uses it to bash Maxwell in the head several times.  On the second strike, there is a loud, hollow thud, which causes both ladies to jump a bit, and is enough to make Henri stop his attack.  Everyone holds their breath during the few seconds of silence that follows, looking at the figurine in Henri’s right hand, noticing that the wizard’s pewter head is smudged with blood.

“Well at least I don’t like to have sex with young, blind virgins!” Maxwell cries out as he grabs his head in pain.  “Did you tell them about your fetish, Henri?” He asks, rising slowly to his feet and stumbling around clumsily to regain his balance; a small stream of blood running down his face onto the urine-soaked T-shirt.  “Your boss here,” Maxwell snarls, pointing at Henri with his left hand while covering his head with his right, “pays a guy to seduce young, blind women so that he can sneak into the room… and take their virginity!’

“That’s not true!” Henri says with a somewhat flustered, reddening face, suddenly eager to help his colleague up so that he can leave the room.

“It is true!  That’s why Devlin left the operation; he caught you in the act…  Fucking look into it, Lorabell!” Maxwell exclaims as Henri leads him by the arm to the door of the office and out into the hallway.

After the two men walk outside, Lorabell and Sarah stand up in a flighty panic, also wanting to vacate from the urine smell, disturbed by the thoughts expressed within these walls.

Blood is trickling from the right side of Maxwell’s skull as Henri escorts him through the hallway to the first aid clinic.  He gazes ferociously at the young man’s pale, bald head, eyeing what appears to be a small section of freshly broken bone, resulting with an indentation a bit larger than a quarter.

A few minutes later, Henri is sitting on the expensive leather sofa near the door of General Mason’s new office.  His temples are throbbing with a migraine reminiscent of The Grand Canyon; echoes of pain shrieking off the vast walls like the cries of eagles.  Lorabell is seated in one of two matching, brown leather chairs directly in front of Mason’s desk.  Her legs are crossed, and hands are clasped together in a display of professional concern.

General Mason is an older man with a gruff voice, having spent most of his life acting as the authority over others.  His green uniform bears three stars with several medals awarded from the United States Army.  The General’s eyes are a shiny blue-gray and he has neat tufts of brown and gray hair on his head, appearing healthy and intelligent for a man in his late forties.

“So are we going to address this claim that you have sex with young blind women?” Mason asks, looking up at Henri with discerning eyes.

Lorabell turns to her left, looking back at Henri on the sofa and carefully observing how he responds, keeping her hands clasped together in the vigilant pose of a classy lady.

“It is well documented by the CIA that I have had relationships with a few blind women; all of them consensual, and every one of them over the age of eighteen.” Henri admits with some hesitation, breathing slowly as he tries to relax the throbbing in his head.

“Were any of them virgins?” Lorabell asks, turning further to look at her new boss; wanting to see his eyes.

“Did any of the young men who went down on you at the university have their virginity?” Henri asks with renewed poise and strength.  “Isn’t it true that every time you take a man into your office to give you oral sex; he’s even younger than the last?  Should we compare notes on this matter?  Do we want to talk about the cameras you had installed in the dorms..?  No… None of the women I’ve ever engaged with have been virgins…”  Henri says, showing bitter contempt for the young Asian woman, ensuring that his tone is threatening and personal.

“Okay, you’ve… satisfied my curiosity on that question…  Thank you!” Lorabell replies as a sudden shockwave of fear resonates through her.

“What about this claim that you urinated in Maxwell’s drink today, and hit him over the head with a statue?  Did you witness any of this, Ms. Cardigan?” Mason asks with a monotonous stare, giving her no opportunity to read him.

“No, Sarah and I didn’t see anything like that.”  Lorabell blurts out with an empty gaze.  “Maxwell is just… feeling the pressure from the attack the other day.”

“Well, what the hell should I do with all this?”  The General asks, looking at Lorabell and Henri with his hands outstretched.  “Either you’re all really bad liars, or you’ve decided that you want to take care of everyone in your unit and give it another chance?  Lorabell, do you have anything else you want to tell me?”

“No, Sir.” Lorabell says with a repressed smile, looking a bit exhausted just from the effort of holding up her head.

“Henri, do you have anything you want to tell me?”  The General asks, appearing somewhat annoyed from behind his desk as he goes through the motions.

“Yeah, I’d like you to review Maxwell’s personnel file before listening to anymore testimony from him.” Henri explains with cool confidence.  “He does have a history of being rather dramatic, in a deadly sort of way.”

“I’ll take that under advisement.” The General states dispassionately, brushing the comment aside in a political fashion with a lack of patience now showing in his eyes.  “Ms. Cardigan, you’re excused, we’ll touch base with you after Devlin is apprehended, which might be as soon as today… Oh, one last thing…”  General Mason begins, holding up his hand for Lorabell to stay. “Julia Welheim committed suicide while under your supervision.  Now despite the gas attack, it was our responsibility to keep her safe.  This is something we’ll have to discuss when you get back.”

“Julia is dead?” Lorabell asks, as she grabs at her forehead in shame and her eyes begin to water with emotion.

“Yeah, she ended her life with a shotgun while you were in the hospital, which goes a bit of the distance to prove Henri’s theory, but it doesn’t look good for the program.”  Mason confides with a somber stare.  “Again, the attack by Devlin will let you off the hook for now, but we WILL be investigating deeper when you return.”

Lorabell forces herself to maintain composure, falling apart beneath the surface at the news of the fallen woman who was in so much pain.  The young professor rises from her chair, feeling like the Hitler of her generation, and watching Henri with suspicion as she walks past the leather sofa to exit the large corner office.

“So The President sent you in to babysit my sorry ass?” Henri asks in devious manner once Lorabell has left the room.  “…Nothing better than being watched by a guy who has more dirt on him than you.”  He adds with a wide smile.

“The President sent me in here to deal with your level one threat,” General Mason begins with a smirk, “but I can take care of your sorry as too.  How have you been, old friend?”

“I have been nearly dead.” Henri says, sitting up with a sober expression, looking squarely at General Mason.  “That man is more dangerous than I ever gave him credit for… and I gave him a lot of credit before this most recent attack.”

“We have good news for you then,” General Mason replies with a smile, “the tracker that Maxwell found on Devlin’s dog is active, and we’ve traced him to a mall just outside of Chicago.”

“I’ll be dammed,” Henri says with a slight grin, “Devlin still has a compulsion to go shopping when he feels a lot of pressure.  He’s got some weird, posttraumatic stress- deal that can only be calmed down by spending money on expensive clothes… How are you going to take him down?”

“No worries,” The General says with a reassuring expression, “I have a very large team, and they’re almost the best we have for a domestic terrorist like this one.”

The Mall

Devlin struts through the mall with his ‘service dog’ as he looks for new and expensive outfits to quench his desire for extravagant spending.  He already has changed out of his street clothing into a new Armani jacket that makes him feel like a Bond villain.  His mind is racked with the pressure of having taken down several of his fellow agents these past few days, and the shopping keeps him moving and feeling normal.  Gloria trots along obediently in front of him, her wagging tail reminding him to be strong no matter what happens.  As they pass through the various shops, he is able to get a comfy pair of designer shoes in the black Italian leather that he loves.  These shoes compliment his casual dinner jacket with its gray microfibers and distinctive, soft interior fabric.

As Devlin walks out of the Sunglass Hut with a new pair of Oakley shades on his head, he notices that Gloria has picked up a scent, and is pulling at her leash for him to follow.  He becomes immediately paranoid, remembering that the dog only behaves this way when she is certain to have smelled some type of explosive material.  Devlin allows Gloria to lead him through the south corridor of the mall, moving briskly across the glossy, black and white flooring designed to keep shoppers enchanted and in a buying mood.  He watches the stores for suspicious movements, careful not to give away his position by seeming too anxious.

Devlin is amazed when the dog quickens her pace, apparently following a young man with long brunette hair and a loose-fitting, blue fleece jacket.  As they approach the man, Devlin begins to look him over suspiciously, but the dog moves past him, trotting around to his right.  Gloria leads Devlin to an opening in the crowd where an older man is talking on a cell phone.  This man is easily in his late fifties, appearing more interested in his phone conversation and the leather jackets on display in front of him.  He has a large, silver shopping bag dangling from his left wrist, which bears the logo of a popular clothing store.  Gloria walks up behind the older man and sits down on the shiny black, laminated floor, keeping her nose pointed toward his back.

Devlin looks the man over carefully, uncertain of what to do next.  The older guy expresses himself in a manner that is sweet and homely; he doesn’t fit the profile of an agency asset, but the dog is certain that he has some type of explosive material.  Devlin’s body begins to prepare for an assault, but his mind is exercising restraint, watching the delicate gestures of the man, and thinking that he could never be a killer.  This man could be just another father out buying a birthday present, or he could be a dangerous CIA asset looking to kill him like the woman at the hotel.  Beads of sweat form on Devlin’s brow as the preemptive guilt sets in.  He pulls Gloria’s leash back, feeling certain that she has made a mistake and that all the different scents from the shops in this place have confused her senses.

To his astonishment, the dog pulls him back toward the man and sits down behind him again, indicating that he has explosives on his person.

“God forgive me!” Devlin says aloud as the man stops talking on his cell phone and turns halfway around to see who is behind him.

Devlin pulls the dog aside and, in a demonstration of ruthless, brute force, uses his left foot to kick the man square in the back, sending his body face first through the display window of the leather clothing store.  After the man is down, he lets go of Gloria’s leash and carefully steps across the shards of broken glass to frisk him for weapons.

“Don’t move!” Devlin commands.  “I have a pistol!”

Several shoppers are standing around watching this violent scene with amazement.  A few of them have pulled out cell phone cameras to capture this moment for their family and friends.  Devlin doesn’t feel anything unusual when frisking the man’s torso, and is about to walk away until he notices the gift bag tipped sideways on the floor.  His instincts tell him that the solid shape bulging from the inside looks nothing like clothing.  He uses the top of his expensive leather shoe to turn the bag upright on the floor, peering inside to see a submachine gun and two flashbangs.

“South corridor.” The man whispers into a receiver on his right hand while Devlin is distracted by the gift bag.

Devlin throws the submachine gun into the rafters, watching it disappear behind the support beams.  With a fresh taste of anger for his enemy, he removes a flashbang from the bag, pulls the pin, and drops it next to the CIA agent in the display case.  The moment this diversion device leaves his hand he grabs Gloria’s leash and starts to sprint through the mall.  Within three seconds the device explodes, shattering windows within ten feet and setting off glass break detectors, which engage the blaring store alarms.

Gloria dips her head at the sound of the blast, giving off a high pitched whine as Devlin escorts her through the south corridor towards a large sporting goods store.

“Does anyone have eyes on Devlin?” Mason asks from his position in the food court.

“It looks like he may be in…” Maxwell pauses to look at the GPS data from the dog’s chip.  “He’s either in: the department store, cell phone store, sporting goods store, or the Victoria’s Secret in the south corridor.”

“Master Sergeant Couture, are you all right?  We heard an explosion.” General Mason inquires, waiting for a response.

“I can’t hear you very well; my ears are still ringing from that flashbang.” Sergeant Couture shouts into his headset; his face now scratched and bleeding from being kicked through the display window.  “I’m going to pursue him in these shops nearby; will let you know what I find.”

“Sergeant Couture, please stand down and wait for backup!” Mason orders, holding for a response.  “Couture, I said stand down and wait for fucking backup!”

The mall has become pandemonium.  Most people were cleared out of the south corridor after the explosion, but there are a few shoppers running and screaming the names of their loved ones with cell phones pressed to their ears.  Couture ignores Mason’s order, feeling the fresh sting of glass cuts all over his face and the front of his body.  He retrieves his backup pistol from a leg holster, evading the screaming shoppers as they gain sight of his gun.  Couture pulls off his jacket and uses it to wipe the blood from his face, then drops it lazily on the floor, allowing his arms to move freely.  His body glides with powerful, stealthy steps as he enters the sporting goods store, keeping low to the ground and maneuvering around the perimeter to the left.

Couture slows his pace as he gets near the various racks of clothing amongst the vast array of sports merchandise.  He kneels down, pausing to survey the weight and golf equipment at his right, deciding there are no places to hide in that area.  His gaze moves upward to a loft where displays of hunting supplies and archery equipment are housed.

“We have visual of the security cameras.” Maxwell announces through his headset.  “I don’t have eyes on Devlin yet.”

From his position on the west side of the store, Couture hears the slight grinding sound of something hard rolling back and forth near the area marked ‘employees only.’  He hunkers down low, his tall frame close to the carpet, making his way to the display case where the guns are sold.  As Couture rounds the corner, he notices that the glass has been smashed in at the center section of the case.  With his pistol gripped tight in his right hand, he belly crawls near the front of the display case, stopping to listen for movement as he gets closer.  The sound of a heavy pendulum smashing something ceramic has abated, but he remains silent, waiting to hear footsteps.

He raises his muscular frame somewhat to inspect the broken gun case, noticing that a few boxes of shotgun shells have been opened.  There is a curious, colorful object in the back that doesn’t appear to belong.  Sergeant Couture moves in closer to inspect the small, red and green items at the back of the case, noticing that it is merely a bag of fly fishing lures.  As he identifies the lures, there is an immediate, suppressed sound of CO2 discharging in front of his face, and Couture is instantly blinded by a shot of ceramic powder.

“Oh my God, I can’t see.  It hurts!  IT BURNS!” Couture shouts into his headset.  “I have glass in my eyes.  I can’t see shit!”

In disbelief he grabs at his eyes with his free hand, feeling the fine shards glass scrape and cut the entire surface of his pupils.  His breathing elevates as panic sets in, and he shakes his head from side-to-side like a wild animal.  Couture hears movement to his left, turning suddenly with his pistol.

“Who the hell is that?” He asks in desperation.

He listens carefully, trying to ignore his pain as the sound of someone sprinting behind him registers.  Couture opens fire in a vigorous melee, training his weapon aimlessly on the sound.  After firing three shots, he hears two shots in response; one that misses and a second that tears through his left thigh muscle.

“Mason, I just shot Couture, he was firing blindly into the mall and almost hit us.” Agent Sampson relays into the headset as he approaches the blinded CIA agent.  “It looks like a flesh wound, but he’ll live.”

“Any sign of Devlin?”  General Mason asks.  “We know he was in the sporting goods store a few seconds ago.

Two short bursts of gunfire explode systematically from underneath the racks of clothing.  Agent Sampson and his partner drop to the ground with wounds to the neck, head, and arms.  A single shot pierces the air in the opposite direction, and Sergeant Couture falls lifeless to the carpet.  Devlin moves quickly to inspect Sampson’s body, removing a few select items and some tactical gear before bailing out of the store.  He looks around for Gloria, but soon realizes that she fled during the barrage of the gunfire.

“Agent, Sampson, is there any sign of Devlin?  Did you see a body?” Henri inquires eagerly through the headset from the safety of the OBDAT platform.

“I’m here, Henri,” Devlin replies coolly, speaking with labored breath as he moves through the mall, “mind and body still intact.”

“You know that you’re gonna’ die for what you did to us the other day?” Henri evokes with rhetorical pride.

“I know there’s a good chance that I’ll die today…” Devlin admits. “But you’ll be exposed one way or another.  Every member of this task force should know that you like to take the virginity of young blind women.”

“Disregard all comments made by the target,” Mason chimes in quickly, “he is desperate to throw us off our mission.  Keep searching the south corridor until you have him cornered.  Maxwell, do you have eyes on him yet?”

Maxwell looks at the LCD screens from his position at the control panel of the OBDAT.  He rubs the fresh dent in his head, running his fingers slowly over the damage in obscure, counterclockwise circles.  His chest bears a flood of deep emotion; mostly the fresh wound after Henri bashed him in the head for making a mistake.  He looks up at the screen, watching Devlin in the department store with unmistakable clarity.  His eyes dart to the left watching a team of CIA agents closing in on the space.  Maxwell places his fingertips together and closes his eyes, knowing that he has the power to trap Devlin and possibly end him right now.

“Yeah, I see him,” Maxwell responds slowly as he opens his eyes, “he’s moving between the cell phone store and the bathrooms.”

On the LCD display, Maxwell sees a smile form on Devlin’s face as he looks up at the camera with gratitude.

“That’s a choke point,” Henri says after a few seconds of examining the schematics of the mall, “don’t send your men in there, Mason.”

“We have him outnumbered seven to one, bearing down with superior firepower.  Explain to me why we should stave off our attack?”  General Mason asks with a genuine concern for the safety of his men.

“Mason, that’s a perfect operational choke point.  The sonofabitch has made his career leveraging this type of scenario.”  Henri replies with alarmed suspicion.

“All team members move in,” Mason orders, ignoring Henri’s theory, “seal him in, and take him down.”

“This is Sergeant Burke; I have eyes on the dog.  She’s standing here alone.” The young Sergeant moves in close to the golden Labrador, visibly terrified and sweating from the anticipation of a gunfight with Devlin.

“That’s an ambush. Don’t go near the dog!” Henri warns in a motherly tone.

Sergeant Burke feels a sudden flash of panic and squeezes the trigger of his pistol, hitting the Labrador just below her left ear.  The dog bolts upright at the dreaded stinging pain, yelping and trying to escape on the slick laminated flooring.  Her body convulses twice before she drops lifeless in front of a large display window.

“The dog is down…” Sergeant Burke reports in a relieved fashion, hoping to draw Devlin out with this sacrifice.

“What the fuck are you doing!?” Henri scorns through his microphone.  “That dog is a CIA asset; she was never a target!”

“Congressman Edwards, please remain silent on this channel until the operation is complete.” Mason orders with more than a hint of frustration.  “All units move in on the hallway with teargas and flashbangs… smoke him out.”

A team of seven men converges on the hallway in advance of the restrooms, each of them wearing clear, plastic gas masks.  They file in slowly, four men on the left and three on the right.  As they open the double doors, the large white hallway is exposed, about eight feet wide with plain white walls and cheap eggshell tiles.  They maintain their formation, stepping into the entrance of the hallway with the faces of proud hunters.  The men in front kneel down to toss flashbangs and teargas canisters towards the far end of the structure.  Meanwhile their colleagues cover them from behind with submachine guns in a standing position.

Amidst the array of flashbangs and billowing smoke at the far end of the hall, a more faint sound emerges from behind the counterinsurgency unit.  Within seconds, a small, black metal box slides across the floor between the two teams of men, appearing deadly with red and blue wires protruding from the ends.

“We have a device! Get cover!” One of the men shouts from his standing position.

Both teams begin to scurry forward in the hallway to escape the blast radius of the device, moving almost over the top of one another as they go.  From the entrance of the hallway, behind the seven men, Devlin appears holding a pump-action shotgun.  He fires in quick succession, taking down one team member after another as they stumble toward the smoke with their backs to him.  The men scream in terror as they find themselves caught between their own diversion and a volley of shotgun fire.

Devlin drops the shotgun after all of the rounds are spent and maneuvers quietly to where the panicked crowd has gathered outside the mall.  He makes an effort to conceal his perspiration and rage, trying to blend in with the people and fade back into anonymity.

“This is Razor,” a young Chinese agent says to Maxwell through a private intercom connected to the OBDAT, “I’m following Devlin away from the building.”

“Stay on him, Razor,” Maxwell instructs, “and keep your distance.  Don’t communicate on the main channel, he is listening, and so is Mason.  We’ll give you further instructions soon.”

“Good work, Maxwell! I don’t want Mason capturing our guy; we’ll deal with him our way.” Henri says with a serious expression, watching Maxwell closely from his seat at the center of the OBDAT.  “You confirmed that the dog is dead and Mason won’t be able to track her anymore?”

“Yes, the dog is dead; I talked to Burke before they went out.” Maxwell replies, looking down at the servers below the OBDAT platform.  “What if Mason figures out that we screwed his op?” He asks with a concerned stare, rubbing his bald head nervously near the fresh wound.

“We warned him about the choke point, didn’t we?  …Now Devlin thinks you’re a friend, which makes him vulnerable.” Henri says with satisfaction.  “Get Lorabell on the phone, I’d like to see her in the OBDAT as soon as possible.”

Devlin’s Neighborhood - Chicago

‘The dog is down.’ This statement echoes in Devlin’s mind, haunting him as he makes his way back to the duplex he rented a few days ago.  No more credit cards or snooping hotel managers, just one rental payment a month to run this vengeful operation as he pleases.

His heart is heavy as he travels the public transportation route, staying away from stolen vehicles, and keeping clear of the grid.  Through his long journey on elevated trains and buses, he has had time to think about his lovely wife Yulia.  He misses the softness of her skin and the welcome embrace of someone who wants to be with him.  It has been only a few days since they talked last, but seems like years.

Devlin gets off the bus and makes his way up the street, moving slowly, block by block on his way back to the duplex.  His ears are still ringing from all of the flashbangs and gunfire.  He clenches his hands into fists, releasing them slowly, and curling them again, trying to find his humanity after taking so many lives in just three days.  Finally he lets the tears come forth, beckoning from deep inside his soul.  ‘I killed a lot of good men today,’ he thinks to himself, ‘men that would have stood by my side in the heat of battle, and taken a bullet to save my life.’

Devlin starts to jog, realizing he is close to home, enjoying the release of sweat dripping from his brow and the cool air cleaning his lungs.  This gives him time to consider whether he is doing the right thing by interfering with the gun control case studies.  His mind is filled with conflict, much more than back at the hotel a few days ago, when Gloria was still alive and nobody had died.  Devlin realizes that he has to ask himself the hard question now: ‘what does Henri Edwards deserve for his crimes?’  It would be easy to blame all of the death and pain from these past few days on Henri, but his conscience is too bold to let him escape those deeds.

Devlin stops running now, standing in a small parking lot at a corner near his new home.  He knows that movement means safety, but realizing how fast this has escalated begins to weigh him down.  His body and mind don’t want to move anymore.  There is no rewind button or visit to the proverbial priest that can clear this up.  He puts his hand on his forehead, thinking about where everything started to come apart.  When he tried to carjack the short man, and drew the attention of police; that was when his train went off the rails.  From that moment, it has been a trail of death and deception: Ming, the CIA agents, and the counterinsurgency team.

He remembers the screams of the men just a few hours ago, cornered into his trap like cattle, some of them not going home to their families.  Devlin looks up at the deep crescent moon, feeling ashamed and wanting to end this as soon as possible.

‘There are only two courses for Henri Edwards now; death or exposure.’  He thinks to himself.  ‘What does exposure mean to a United States Congressman?  Would anyone believe him if he told the whole story?  How could he ever get the chance?’  A half-smile forms on Devlin’s face for the first time in several days.  He realizes that catching Henri in the act is the only way to prove to the nation what he has known for several days; the man is twisted and dangerous.

“Shut up, you little shit!” A man cries out from a car just off to Devlin’s left.

Devlin turns his head to see a late-model, brown Cadillac pulled over to the side of the road.  Inside, an older black man is yelling from the driver seat at what appears to be a young boy on the passenger side.

“Where’s Mom? I want to go home. I’m hungry.” The young boy complains to the driver, looking at him with tears in his eyes.

“Quiet! Quiet! Quiet!” The man shouts at the boy, raising his hand and smacking him each time he utters the word, knocking the young man’s head back against the door with the third strike.

“Stop hitting that boy!” Devlin orders before he realizes that the words have left his mouth.

“What the fuck did you say to me, white boy!?” The older black man asks with clear disdain.  “I am his uncle, and when I tell him to shut the fuck up… He gonna’ shut the fuck up!”

Devlin steps over to the car, clearly not intimidated by the man’s posturing.  He kneels down on the passenger side next to the boy, leaning in to take a closer look at the situation.  His eyes move to an open bottle of alcohol between the man and the young boy.  The driver is wearing a white tank top and shorts with flip flops, indicating he probably left the house in a hurry.  He is a balding man in his early fifties, looking unbalanced and somewhat afraid in his cheap car.

“Where’s your mom, son?” Devlin asks compassionately, looking the young boy in the face, as he admires his gentle brown eyes and short, curly hair.

“Oh, this is some bullshit! You mind your business, Sir!” The driver commands with a look of repressed rage.

“Shut the fuck up… This IS MY BUSINESS!” Devlin replies, giving the man a hard look.

“He’s not bad if he isn’t drinking…” The boy says in a quiet manner, turning his head to the side to show a small bloody cut from the brief beating he received.

“Why don’t we let your uncle enjoy his beer and we’ll go get you some dinner and call your mom?” Devlin asks with a confident gaze.

“You ain’t takin’ my nephew nowhere, Sir!” The man says with an obnoxiously loud voice, consistent with too much drinking.

“Come on, get out of the car.” Devlin says immediately, pulling the door open to let the young man out.  “I promise I’m a good guy, and I’ll get you back to your mom.”

The young man steps out of the car onto the sidewalk, hesitating with each step, and looking up at Devlin with distrust.

“Get your ass back in the car!” The older man yells, opening his door and getting out of the driver seat, staggering in a bit of shameful protest on the street.

“There are two ways this ends.” Devlin says with a sinister gaze.  “Either you leave and see your nephew again when you’re sober, or I whoop your ass, and leave you here to be picked up for a DUI.”

The older man weighs out his options for a moment, then waves at Devlin dismissively, slamming the door as he gets back into the car and starts the engine.

“Don’t you come back, boy; your momma can’t take care of ya’ anyhow!” The man shouts as the noisy, unkempt car merges quickly into traffic.

“No worries,” Devlin says with a wink, “we’ll get you some food and call your mom.  I promise.”

The twelve-year-old is short for his age.  He looks up at Devlin with a streetwise fear, but seems calm enough to walk beside him.  They make good progress walking side by side as Devlin keeps him talking, asking him about school, his mother, and what he wants to be when he grows up.

When they reach the duplex, Devlin opens the door, turns on the light, and gestures for the young man to step inside.  He stands at the entrance of the small home like a wild creature looking into a deep, dark cave.  The young man is wearing a blue Levi jacket, black and yellow striped shirt, and a pair of white cargo pants.  His feet look small in the youth basketball shoes as they tread softly over the carpet of the duplex, and he makes his way into the living room.

“It’s not the greatest place.” Devlin admits as he closes the door behind them, feeling genuinely embarrassed.  “But it’s home for now.”

He looks down at his young friend with a pleasant smirk, watching him take in the new surroundings and wondering where this place falls on his scale of decent to trashy.  The young man glances at the television for a few seconds, then at the coffee table, and finally leans over a bit to see into the kitchen.

“Why don’t we clean up that cut on your face and give your mom a call?” Devlin asks as he kneels down to look the boy in the face.

As the two lock eyes, the young man reaches out and wraps his arms around Devlin’s neck, seeming desperate for affection.  Devlin smiles and hugs the young man in return, patting him on the back to let him know that everything is going to be okay.  After this short embrace, Devlin stands up tall again and gestures toward the hallway where a door leads to the small bathroom.  The boy walks pensively across the carpet, dragging his feet a bit as he goes.

Once they reach the bathroom, Devlin flips on the light and points toward the toilet.

“Go ahead and have a seat.” Devlin says as he begins to look through the medicine cabinet for rubbing alcohol and some cotton balls.  “Do you have your mom’s phone number?”

“Yes, Sir.  She works late, but she might answer…”  The young man replies nervously, taking a seat on the closed lid of the toilet.

“No need to be nervous…” Devlin says, feeling suddenly dizzy; his heart pounding with thunderous energy as if he were sprinting at top speed.  “I don’t feel so great…” He says slowly, falling to his left against the bathroom sink, taking a bottle of cologne and other toiletries to the floor with him.

Devlin lands sideways on the bathroom tiles, feeling the cold flooring beneath him as his heart rate continues to increase.  He stares at the obscure patterns in the wood of the bathroom cabinets for a moment, waiting for his life to end.  After a few seconds, his heart rate slows down, and he forces himself to his feet, but then falls immediately to the floor again.  His face just misses the young man’s shoes as his body drops to the tile; this time on his right side.

“What the fuck did you give me?” Devlin asks breathlessly, reaching up under his long blonde hair to find a microdot on the back of his neck.

“I don’t know, dude.  These people showed up while we was playin’ basketball and offered my uncle two grand.  They said you shot up a mall today, or somethin’… and needed my help to catch you.”  The young man says as he pulls out a stun gun from his pocket, bearing a face of paranoia, and steps carefully into the tub at his left.

“I’m not the bad guy…” Devlin mutters as his heart begins to pound again and his vision fades.

The OBDAT – Chicago

“Just under an hour of prep work and Voila.” Lorabell says with a smile, listening to the transmission from the young man’s earpiece.

“Impressive.” Henri says with a relieved expression.  “How did we get the uncle to play the part?”

“They weren’t acting.” Lorabell replies caustically.  “There was no mother.  The boy and uncle live alone in a shitty little shack near downtown.  Agent Chavez spotted them at a basketball court.  The uncle was drunk in his car, parked by the side of the road, yelling at the boy like he always does.”

“No acting?  I like it!  Are we compromised?” Henri asks with a satisfied grin.

“Nope,” Lorabell answers with a reassuring expression, “Chavez gave the boy a headset and some instructions on how to hug someone, and to place the microdot.  Then Razor gave the uncle driving directions, and continued to relay instructions through headsets.  We ran the op completely through radio, and now… You’ve got your big fish.”

“Thank you, Cardigan.” Henri beams with confidence. “Now we can work in peace, which is good because I am not partial to chloramine poisoning…  Don’t tell Mason that we have Devlin in custody.  I’ll deal with him my own way.”

“Sir, about Julia Welheim…” Lorabell begins with a guilty expression and flat tone.  “I didn’t mean for her to die… We could have stopped the suicide if Devlin hadn’t attacked us.”

“Don’t worry about it, sweet lady.” Henri says with kind eyes, putting his right hand on her left shoulder.  “Just focus on the mission at hand, and stop thinking about things that are outside of your control.  We need to get those numbers for The President.  You’re doing a great thing for this country!”

XIII. Don’t Talk to Strangers

If I live past Thursday, then I will find a way to bring the roof down on their heads.  The CIA, NSA, and FBI will all be coming to collect my head, and if I die before the truth comes out, may God forgive me for the things I’ve done.  My name is Devlin McConnelly, former counterinsurgency expert, and Colonel in the United States Army, recently recruited by the CIA in the private sector after serving my eight years.

One thing the world needs to know from all this death and deception is that Henri Edwards is an evil man.  Although I am not religious, I can swear that I have seen the Devil, and I know his capacity to do terrible things.  For the past few months, our teams have been performing a series of exercises to develop case studies for gun violence, tracking the activities of various people, and learning their hot buttons for violent behavior.  During these exercises, I saw some disturbing things take place, and I’m sure if I had further details, it would be even more disturbing.

I will be attempting to expose the corporate secrets behind Henri Edwards North America; also known as H.E.N.A.  While I do know that the man himself is evil; I still don’t know what his agenda is with these exercises.  Mr. Edwards has a direct line to The President.  He has dominant support in The House of Congress, and as The Speaker of the House, he has the freedom and power to move mountains within days.  If I succeed in my mission to expose this evil house of cards, force them all to show their hand, everyone will be able to breathe easier.  I pray for the safety of my wife and family.

Whoever may find this letter after I am gone; please take care of my love, Yulia McConnelly.  I love you so much, my dear, and I am sorry for the things that have happened these past few days.  Please stay strong, my love.  I have stumbled my way into the lion’s den, and now I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again.  If I die, please do not try to investigate, just move on, and be safe.  We’ll meet again, I promise.

Love,

-Devlin McConnelly.

Colonel, United States Army.

“Now that’s a very touching letter; I must admit.”  The Congressman says with a look of resentment in his eyes, leaning back a bit.  “Do you really need to call me ‘The Devil’ after all this?  I mean, hell, we barely know each other.”

Henri rolls his left hand into a tight fist, then gently folds the letter, and returns it to his jacket pocket as he straightens his six-foot, four-inch frame. A wicked smile forms as he releases his hands, letting his fingers dangle lazily down near the hem of his sleek, black designer pants. His face shines with radiance under the expensive lighting of the formal Federal Government office, contrasting heavily with his expensive black suit.

“I’m pleased to have you here tonight, Devlin,” Henri begins with a cold stare from his pale blue eyes, running his fingers gently over his graying hair, “you really are a dog of war, aren’t you?  But you’re in my house now, and we’ve have more security in this building than you’ll see anywhere within ten miles.  If you want to try the stunt you pulled back at that mall, they’ll have to use an industrial magnet to get all the lead out of your body that these boys can shell out.”

Henri glares down at Devlin as the young man kneels on the floor gasping for breath.  His right eye and lip are badly cut from a beating courtesy of Henri’s security team just moments ago.  He looks up at Henri from the floor, his soft blue eyes showing that he has the desire to fight, but not the strength.

Devlin is half-slumped over, gasping for breath.  He is dressed in a formal white shirt, a blue and peach striped silk tie, and dark gray slacks.  The white shirt shows off Devlin’s muscular frame with strands of long, blonde hair hanging halfway down his back over the pristine cotton.  He wipes some blood from the side of his mouth as he listens to Henri from his position on the floor, being careful not to smudge the shirtsleeve.

“You’ve left one hell of a trail of carnage; a mess The President will be expecting me to cleanup.  I really don’t appreciate how you crucified my agent and left him naked on the break room table either…”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Devlin asks with fiery eyes, staring at the Congressman as though he is a shark out of water.  “I didn’t crucify anyone…”

“Bullshit, son, if you’re going to judge me for MY sins, then let’s both be honest about OUR sins!” Henri demands with a passionate and twisted sense of honor.  “You took my agent down, bludgeoned him with a mop handle, and crucified his naked body on our break room table by sticking two screwdrivers through his hands.  That’s pretty damn sick, Devlin!”

“I took him out,” Devlin begins, shaking his head in disagreement, “but I covered his body in garbage bags and carted it to the break room.  Then I just uncovered it and left it on the table for your agents to find... With some decoded messages.”

“So you’re just a white knight in all this?” Henri asks with a discriminate gaze, wanting Devlin to acknowledge that he is just as dirty.  “I saw the body, Devlin, no one else in the building would have done that.  Why can’t you just admit that you brought back some head trauma from Iraq?”

“I killed the man!” Devlin says with frustration, wiping more blood from the side of his mouth.  “But I’ve never crucified anyone in my life.  You need to look deeper into that… if it’s true.”

“Are you saying that you didn’t try to poison me and my team with a deadly concoction of ammonia and bleach?” Henri inquires with a troubled expression.

“No, I don’t deny that,” Devlin admits with subdued hatred, “unfortunately it probably killed some people who didn’t deserve to die, and left you… to exploit the world.”

The Congressman looks at Devlin for a moment, half believing that he’s telling the truth.  He rubs his fingers hard against his temples as he contemplates this, watching the younger man carefully for any signs falseness.

“It’s funny to think,” Henri declares with a smirk, showing a few wrinkles on his clean shaven face, “here you are on the end of a losing battle, trying to fight History in the making. And yet… you’re a good man, Devlin.  I’ve got to hand it to you; you’ve really become an apple pie and honest-to-God husband.  The only problem is… you don’t know how to manage your paper trail, and you don’t know how to manage your anger.”

Henri kneels down and winks at Devlin, putting one knee on the soft, red carpet as he continues talking face to face.

“It’s funny to think,” Henri repeats, rolling his tongue over his teeth, “of all the vile shit I’ve stuffed down inside of me that they can’t see… People feel safe having me in their homes; they trust me with their deepest secrets, and give me their hard-earned money.  Every day I ask myself, Devlin, do these blind sheep have any idea what type of alpha wolf I am?  Do they know that I don’t value anything above my desire to succeed?  That I would tear them to pieces if they got between me and my goals?”

Henri smiles and shakes his head for a moment, the bright lights shining on his forehead under his silver hair.

“But you know what I am… You caught me pissing on a tree in the forest, about to do my dirty deed.  It’s sad that you’ve done such a poor job managing your paper trail.  With two felonies, Devlin, I could lock you up in the deepest darkest pit in these United States.  No one would miss you; not a convicted felon with a history of violence.  It would just be business as usual.  Goodbye baseball husband and apple pie.  Hello playtime in the showers.  Three strikes… and you’re out.  You see, it doesn’t matter that you’ve changed, Devlin, or that you’re a ‘good man. ‘  The American people only believe your paper trail… and my paper trail.”

“I guess your paper trail is easy to manage when you’re victimizing someone who can’t see your face!” Devlin snaps back in a threatening tone, eyeing the older man like a cobra watching a mouse urinate in his nest.

These words cause a shiver to flow through Henri’s body, and his stomach begins to burn with guilt, feeling a sudden need to leave the room.  He stands up slowly and adjusts his suit, being sure he looks good enough to make an appearance, checking his clothing and skin carefully for any blood.

“When I come back here, Devlin, we’re going to get you ready for an assignment in Mexico.  With your felonies, and recent appetite for violence, you’ll be a great subject for my gun control lottery.  In the meantime, you should be thinking about how you’re going to impress me, and whether you want prison showers in your future… or apple pie.”

Henri stares into Devlin’s eyes for a moment, ensuring his threat hits home, and then he turns his attention to the door where his security agent is waiting to escort him.  He squeezes his eyes a bit with irritation, smiling wide as he walks with a brisk stride to the door, his long legs making him appear wholesome and ready to lead.  One agent steps out of the office with Henri while the other stays behind with Devlin, closing the door to keep him contained.

XIV. Let’s Talk Pressure

Henri Edwards and a member of his security detail emerge from the outer doors of The House of Representatives where a crowd of reporters have gathered.  He smiles wide as he steps forward to a makeshift podium and pseudo press conference that has been organized at the top of the stairs.

“Thank you all for coming on such short notice.” Henri speaks warmly with a friendly gaze, waving his right hand respectfully at the reporters.  “I know you want a follow-up on the speeches that I have been giving regarding the horrible gun violence that has been festering in America these past few years.  This is an important priority to me as The Speaker of The House, a responsible citizen, and a father.  I have committed to make radical changes for gun control that will limit collateral damage and bloodshed in our streets, while still allowing God-fearing Americans to bear arms and protect their families.

Today, I ask you ladies and gentlemen of the press why we didn’t catch the gunman in the Colorado theater shooting.  Why have we missed so many of these folks who go out and shot up schools?  How could we, with such a large budget for national defense; have missed such terrible people who were stocking arsenals with ammunition purchased on the Internet?”

“I’ll tell you why…” Henri’s voice becomes quiet for a moment, and then builds back up.  “These men were not caught ahead of time… because they’re white.  Since Nine Eleven, our country has focused strictly on bad men with turbans, or bad men with dark skin.  We have become so ethnocentristic in our approach to security and profiling, that we are letting psychopaths slip right through our fingers.  A man shouldn’t be able to buy full body armor on the Internet and over 3,000 rounds of ammunition without popping up on some sort of screen… as a red flag.  This should be the case regardless of the color of his skin or his religious beliefs.  It’s time for us to all sit down as Americans and realize the hard truth, that… there are bad Americans among us, and we need to find them… before another school gets shot up, or a movie theater, or a football game.  The violence is not going to end until we look for the violent people stalking our own backyards.  This type of action doesn’t require any new laws.  All I need from The President of The United States is the funding and the executive approval to make it happen.  And as a father, The Speaker of The House, and a citizen of the greatest country on earth, I feel it is my right to know these protections are in place.  No one has questioned random screening and checks at the airports, and look, we haven’t had a hijacking or incident since those policies were put in place.  Let’s keep doing our job to keep America safe, but not just from men in turbans or people of dark skin.  Let’s agree that every color of people and every religious group possesses the potential for evil, and we need to monitor them to keep our children… and our future… safe.”

XV. The Cases – Not Your Ordinary Block Party

“We’re working late!” Henri says with an ambitious stare as he hangs his jacket on the back of the leather swivel chair at the center of the OBDAT platform.

“I gathered that…” Lorabell replies with frustration as she stretches in her seat on the right side of the control panel.

“We’re still a few weeks out,” Maxwell says with drastic pessimism from his position on the left, “even having our teams on the ground, there’s no way we can get three subjects to boil over in two days!”

“We’ll be getting some extra hands.” Henri beams with childish energy.  “Mason is on the ground in Texas with Ned and Sally.  He’ll be helping us to quarterback assets in Virginia and California as well.  With him commanding the assets on the ground, our time will be cut in half.  He also has the ability to improvise, so all we need to do is tell him what we’re trying to achieve.”

“When did Mason leave for Texas?” Lorabell asks with some confusion.  “I thought he was still here in his office…”

“Nope, he flew out to Texas last night after The President ordered him to assist us by any means necessary.” Henri affirms with a supplicated ambition.  “All you need to do is tell him what effect we’re trying to have on the subjects and he’ll add enough aggression to the formula to put this baby to bed.  So where are we?”  Henri asks, clasping his hands together in preemptive triumph.

“May and Ned are in severe states of depression; they could easily be pushed over the edge if we do it right.” Lorabell reports with a bit of doubt in her voice.  “Phillip was jacked up after the gang members drove by his home last night, but he’s not as broken as the other two.”

“How do we make him as broken as the others?” Henri demands with an intense glare, showing off his lack of patience.  “I know you have an idea… Tell me!”

“There is something I was planning to do, but wanted to wait a few days to see-“ Lorabell stops short as The Congressman blares over her like an emergency vehicle.

“Do it!” Henri interrupts, not wanting to waste another minute.  “Whatever you’ve got to make Phillip vulnerable- use it!”

“I don’t know that I feel comfortable-“ Lorabell begins with a look of despair and shame, still feeling overwhelmed by the loss of Julia.

“You’re not here to feel comfortable!” Henri retorts with a scornful stare.  “I don’t know what kind of creampuff you’ve turned into, but we’re very close to getting the results that we need.  Here you are; standing on the edge of a psychological breakthrough, afraid to take a leap from the lion’s head because someone got hurt.  Well, what happens when these people go nuclear on us, Lorabell?  Will you feel sorry for Ned when he guns down an unarmed man for a crime that was already passed through our courts?  Do you want to watch him shoot someone who already spent years in prison for what he did?  What about when May snaps one day and starts to shoot up her neighborhood because the only thing she has left is to spread her misery across the entire community?  How about our dear Phillip?  An ex-marine who can barely hold a part-time job?  How are you going to explain to Letisha’s mother that Phillip went over the edge and killed her baby girl because some primal part of him wanted to end her suffering?”

“How does this really help the case study data?” Maxwell inquires, looking at Henri with suspicious eyes.  “I don’t really understand how the data is useful if we are manipulating these people into-“

“Because if these people,” Henri interrupts, gesturing toward the LCD displays, “execute an attack on American soil, without it being self-defense… Then we have a legal reason to suspect all such people.  I don’t hate Phillip, Ned, and May, but I do know that they are emotionally unstable.  Julia already demonstrated how volatile they can be with only a little bit of coercion.  You people need to realize that life can be as bad… as it can be good.  For one person who is winning the actual lottery, and watching all their dreams come true; another person is losing the emotional lottery, and watching their nightmares come true.  It takes a strong stomach to serve your country, and that’s what I expect from both of you…”  Henri glances at Lorabell and turns slowly to gaze at Maxwell, looking inspirational and patriotic in his tall chair.  “But I’ll give you a choice…” Henri says with sincerity in his pale blue eyes.  “If you believe that it’s impossible for someone to lose the emotional lottery, and have a life filled with shit on top of shit, then go ahead and walk away.  If you’ve never heard a story about someone getting hurt over and over again because of the lifestyle or place they happen to grow up in, then go ahead and leave.  If you feel that there is no such thing as ultimate despair, sure as there is ultimate bliss, then you are welcome to go…”

Maxwell and Lorabell look at one another; both of them knowing that Henri is playing an emotional game of chicken, but neither wanting to flinch.  They consider his words for a moment, weighing out the possibilities of how much pain life could deal out to one person.  After perusing through so many case studies, reading snippets from history about mass genocides, and understanding the nature of evil; neither dares to walk away.  Lorabell considers The Holocaust, thinking about what she would have done during such dire circumstances; there is no way to predict human behavior under that type of pressure.  Maxwell thinks about his own past, the things he put people through in the name of pride, realizing what he might have become had Henri not recruited him for this program.

“It looks like you’re both onboard.” Henri points out after a few minutes of silence.  “This is your show, Cardigan; let’s see how far we can go… and if these people are strong enough to withstand the worst pain that we can dish out…”

NED LAWHORN

‘A steady hand breeds a reliable cowboy,’ Ned thinks to himself as he drinks down another shot of Jack Daniel’s Whiskey.  The house is silent without Chemo running around; his tail wagging that typical canine greeting.  Ned looks down at his hands, holding the shot of whiskey out in front of his face as he lets the hours go by, ticking away at his life like a train barreling down the tracks towards an inevitable last stop.  He glances down at his recent text messages from Sally who has been calling him so many names, but not saying what she really means…  It’s over.

Ned pulls his head back hard as he shoots the whiskey down, wanting to finish poisoning his soul after a long bout with hope.

“Hope is the worst thing in the world…” Ned announces in a whimsical, drunken slur.  “The world is a beautiful mess… I wonder why people get rewarded for going off the rails like they do…”

He looks down at his recent log of text messages, wishing for some last echo of hope coming from his beloved redhead.

Ned thumbs through the messages slowly, which read:

7:43 am: WHERE ARE YOU? I KNOW WHAT HAPPENED WITH YOU AND THAT SLUT, TRAITOR!

7:56 am: ANSWER ME! IF YOU EVER WANT TO SEE ME AGAIN YOU BETTER ANSWER ME!

8:19 am: YOU’RE A COWARD, NED LAWHORN, AT LEAST BE MAN ENOUGH TO TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED.

9:27 am: WHAT DOES IT MATTER..?

Ned uses his thumb to flip the last text message to the right, triggering the phone to automatically dial Sally’s number.

“Where have you been!?” Sally demands, answering her phone with a mix of concern and rage.

“Chemo is dead…” Ned says slowly, holding the bottle of Jack Daniel’s tight against his forehead.  “A drunk driver ran him over.”

“Chemo was not run over, Ned,” Sally says quickly, dismissing his claim, “you’re just drunk and reliving old, painful memories.”

“No,” he replies softly, shaking his head from side-to-side, “the dog is dead.  He’s still up on the road… Got run over by a drunk driver yesterday afternoon.” Ned begins to sob as he continues to speak. “It’s so quiet here without him, Sally; too quiet without anyone...”

“Ned, I need to know something,” Sally asks, holding the phone tight to her ear, “did you have sex with Mary recently?”

The elderly oil worker begins to laugh at the thought of having sex with a woman half his age; even in his drunken state, it seems impossible.

“I didn’t call for you to humiliate me and laugh, Ned,” Sally replies with outrage, “you could have just said yes or no!  I guess you’re not the man I thought-“

“Sally, you must be drunker than me…” Ned says with a flattered smirk, staring out at the evening sky, “if you think that a woman like Mary would ever be with me.  Who the hellll, told you that tall tale, anyway?  Some old gal that I used to date, trying to get your goat..?  Guess she fooled you!”

Sally begins to chuckle as she holds the phone pensively to her ear, realizing how ridiculous the whole story sounds when discussed aloud.

“Yep,” Ned says with a broad, intoxicated grin, “I got with: Mary, Danica Patricks, and that sweet little country singer- old whatersname… Just can’t keep my hands off all the young women folk that show up on my doorstep these days.”

Sally’s eyes begin to water with pure joy, realizing that she was deceived by the angry, young vixen.

“But it don’t matter none,” Ned declares with an open mouth, “this ole’ cowboy is getting on the road tonight… Gonna’ find out what all this excitement is about- drunk driving-”

“Ned!” Sally interrupts, trying to get his attention.  “Ned, please listen to me, this isn’t you, honey; someone is pulling your strings.”

“A drunk driver took my daughter… A drunk driver took my dog.” Ned says with a hopeless stare, holding up his index finger and thumb above the bottle of Jack Daniel’s.  “It’s time for ME to go out drunk driving and destroy someone’s life… Maybe that’s what it’s all about; just learn to be free and reckless behind the wheel… To hell with everyone!”

“Ned, please stop!” Sally commands with frustration.  “I’m getting in my jeep and I’ll be there soon.  Just stay there so we can find out what’s going on!”

“It’s over, Sally, this world is too painful for an old boy like me.” He says with a wild stare, leaning away from the table and almost losing his balance.  “I’m going to pay Ralph Epperson a visit… maybe shoot him down, run him over, set his house on fire… I’m not sure yet…”

“Sweetheart, don’t go anywhere,” Sally urges him in desperation; “you still have me!  You’re not alone!”

“Goodbye my lovely little Sally; my red hen…” Ned says with despair as tears stream down his face.  “I’m no damn good.  I’m a coward; like you said!  I should have finished this with Ralph a long time ago!  Goodbye, baby…”

“Ned, please!  Don’t destroy your life, we can figure this out!”  Sally pleads as the call ends and the phone goes silent.

From inside her jeep, Sally tries to call Ned over and over again, driving rapidly to reach his farmhouse as she continually gets his voice mail.  When she is making the last bend to the left on her way to Ned’s home, Sally sees a small, brown and white, fur-covered body off to the side of the road.  Her headlights are aimed directly at the animal as she comes to full stop.  With a distraught expression she exits her jeep, stepping over toward the lifeless animal.

“Oh my God!” She exclaims, immediately recognizing Ned’s half-crushed dog pushed off to the side of the road.

Sally looks down at the massive tire track that ran over the dog, thinking that there is something odd about Mary’s recent lies and this sudden tragedy.  As she walks back to her jeep and jumps into the driver seat, Sally ponders any potential enemies who would do this to Ned.  Her heart leaps in her chest as she realizes that Ralph Epperson may be involved, and if so, Ned might be in serious danger.  Sally puts the gas pedal to the floor; she drives a few hundred feet to the farmhouse and slows down to see if Ned’s truck is outside.  She inspects the area and speeds up immediately after noticing the truck is not there.  Sally proceeds down the road in earnest, trying to reach the Epperson home in time.

Ralph Epperson is seated in a comfortable lounge chair with his feet propped up on an old wooden coffee table.  He is holding a beer in his right hand and has a black remote control at the ready on the left armrest of the padded, brown chair.  His small fingers grip the beer bottle with lazy satisfaction as he watches a boxing match on HBO.  The forty-five-year-old looks a bit grim with swollen, bloodshot skin under his eyes, thin tufts of messy, sweaty hair, and a wide face with beady brown eyes.  There is a half-eaten can of beans on the nightstand to his right, and an old photo from his married days that came to an end over ten years ago.

His pale complexion is for the worse, having not spent quality time in the sun for months.  The man is short in stature, but has a wider stance than most.  His blue overalls help him to appear a bit larger, which is why he wears them even after he is done fixing cars for the day.

“Hell yeah!” The throaty southerner says with a smile as he watches the two men battle on the television.  “Get him, Sanchez, knock that boy on his ass!”

The doorbell rings, and Ralph looks over at the entryway in infamy, having a serious dilemma about getting out of his chair to miss any of the fight.  When it rings a second time, he takes a swig of his beer, removes his feet from the coffee table, and gets up to find out who is disturbing him this late.

Ralph scratches his head as he approaches the front door.  After unlocking the deadbolt with a quick twist, he reaches down and pulls on the corroded, silver doorknob to open the large cedar door.  As the door opens, he is shocked to see Ned Lawhorn standing on his porch pointing a .45 caliber Colt Revolver at his chest.

Sally drives like a mad bat out of hell, her jeep bouncing along the winding dirt roads as if she is filming a commercial.  Her mind races with the possible scenarios that could be played out by her drunken boyfriend.  She has been spinning her wheels on the plausibility of Ralph doing these things to get even with Ned after being sent to prison.  Her face turns to a cavalcade of hatred as Sally considers a reality where Ralph would ever try to harm her boyfriend again.  Although there is one thing bothering her as she weighs out the situation.  If Ralph had been smart enough to send Mary with her bullshit story, and run over the dog, then who did he hire to run over the dog, and how was that orchestrated?

Sally racks her brain for an answer as she nears the Epperson home on the other side of town.  Her foot presses down hard on the accelerator as she notices that Ned’s truck is already parked out in front.

“Just like that…” Ned says as he staggers around the rear side of Ralph’s car within the small garage.

Ned stands over Ralph, looking down at him with pride from his bright blue eyes.  The mechanic is lying under his own car with the rear end jacked up enough for him to fit his chest under the heavy frame.  His assailant is holding the jack handle, staring at him with a victorious smile, having wanted this for so long.

“That’s exactly how she was!” Ned confirms with a drunken misconception of authority, still pointing his pistol at Ralph’s head.  “My little girl was pinned under your bus just like this.  She laid there as it rolled over and crushed her chest.  Assfixing her… Assfixying her to death.”

“I spent two years in prison!” Ralph evokes with a great deal of emotion and fear.

“And I spent ten years in hell!” Ned growls back, twisting the jack handle a bit to lower the car onto Ralph’s chest.  “So what do you think will happen when this comes down on you?  I think… I think it’s going to crush your heart.  You know how they say... The breadbasket in karate?  Well, this car is going to come down right on your breakbasket.  I mean… breadbasket.”

“Don’t do this, Ned, I never meant to hurt your little girl!” Ralph pleads in a terrified panic, looking up at the frame of the two ton Chevrolet Corvette hovering just an inch above his body.

“You never meant to hurt her?” Ned asks with an irritated, drunken hatred.  “You never meant to hurt her… You just had some beers, and decided you were good to drive a dozen or so kids home from school?”

“I was weak and I had a problem!” Ralph pleads from underneath the heavy steel as Ned begins to lower the car slowly.

“No, you’re wrong!” Ned says with a slur. “You are weak, but you haven’t had a real problem yet… not until now.  Take a look at this heavy ass car coming down to crush your chest… This is what it feels like for a parent to lose their child… So if you can balance a car on your chest, and live, then I guess God has decided to spare your irresponsible ass?  Or maybe we’ll just collapse a lung, and you’ll live on a breathing machine forever… Either way, it sounds like fun!”

Ned twists the handle further, watching the vehicle lower until the frame is compressing Ralph’s chest to the point where it is nearly snapping his ribs.  At this point he stops lowering the car, watching his daughter’s killer suffocate and squirm, feeling like he is doing the righteous thing.

“Ned don’t!” Sally warns as she steps up to him in the garage.  “He’s paid his debt to society; it’s not our job to decide his fate.”

“This is poetic justice, Sally, stay out of it!” Ned warns as he looks at her with a bit of confusion.

“Ned, you can’t end your life this way!” She insists with strong confidence.  “Don’t you realize that someone has been playing us?  These past few days with the rope, your dog getting run over by a drunk driver, and Mary lying about having sex with you?”

“I have wanted this for so long… Sally.” Ned replies with a selfish plea, her words barely registering in his mind.  “If you know so much about justice, then why don’t you tell me what he deserves?  Come on, Ms. Morality, tell me what he deserves for getting drunk and crushing my baby girl under his bus?”

“Forgiveness, Ned!” Sally says as she reaches out, pushing the pistol away from Ralph’s head and toward the ground.  “He deserves your forgiveness… and so do you!”

Her words hit Ned like a sour batch of grapes from the bottom of a wine bottle.  He closes his eyes for a moment, weighing out the importance of his rage versus his love for her, and then he looks down at Ralph’s terrified face.

“I forgive you.” He says slowly, reaching down to pump the jack handle a few times and release the pressure from Ralph’s chest.

“Thank you!” Ralph says with tears flowing from his eyes, feeling a deep wound closing after years of self-punishment.  “I never wanted things to go the way they did… I think about it every day, Sir!  It haunts me every day of my life!  I’m so sorry!”

Ned begins to release a series of healing tears that are long overdue as he uses the jack to free the man from under the frame of the car.  Then he dutifully places the pistol in the leather holster at his right side, and steps over to Sally for a drunken bear hug.

“I love you, my red hen.” Ned whispers with a sweet smile.

“I love you too, my crazy cowboy!” She replies with a wildly passionate kiss, grabbing her man by the shoulder.  “C’mon, let’s go home.” She says after the kiss, grabbing Ned by the hand and leading him out of the garage.

“Thank you for coming to get me, Sally.” Ned says with an exhausted smile, turning a bit to watch Ralph make his way back to the house behind them.

“Ned, I think something very strange has been happening in town these past few days.” Sally says as they walk down the driveway hand in hand.  “I think someone in town has been messing with your head because they want you to kill Ralph.”

“Oh, geez, woman,” Ned laughs with a broad grin, “who would want me to kill Ralph?”

“The CIA!” A voice says quickly from behind Ned’s right ear as a gunshot explodes through the night sky.

Sally has only a moment to watch as Ned’s Colt .45 Revolver is pointed at his own face and fired, knocking off his cowboy hat and sending him backwards to the ground.  The killer is in his late forties and has blue-gray eyes.  His tufts of gray and brown hair blow a bit in the wind as he stares at Sally, and the young woman gets a good look at his face just before he shoots her in the right side of the head with Ned’s pistol.

After Sally drops in a lifeless heap to the concrete driveway, Mason steps up closer to the dumpy white house on the Epperson property.  He watches the front windows for a few seconds, turning every so often to see if anyone is coming out of the garage.  Within a few seconds, Ralph’s round face appears in the window to investigate the gunshots, and Mason quickly makes it disappear with another shot from Ned’s pistol.  He watches through the window for a moment longer, ensuring that the short mechanic isn’t moving, and then steps cautiously over to Ned’s body, kneeling down to place the pistol in his right hand.

Once the murder weapon is in place, Mason flexes his hands inside of his black, latex gloves, feeling a rush of pride from a job well done.  He looks over the scene briefly, and then begins to jog back to his silver rental car that is parked nearly a hundred yards up the road.  Mason makes good time as he returns to the car, his arms and legs moving swiftly in a pair of loose-fitting jeans and a matching navy blue sweatshirt.

THE OBDAT – CHICAGO

“We’ve had a murder-suicide in Texas.” Mason announces from his headset.

“What happened?” Lorabell asks with a shocked expression, appalled at the thought of another suicide.  “I didn’t even know that our subject was in play!”

“Yeah, I’m still trying to sort this out, but it looks like he went over to attack the bus driver that killed his daughter.” Mason confirms in a shaky voice.

“Did you have a chance to stop him?” Henri asks, turning to watch Lorabell’s reaction.

“Negative.” Mason reports with an uneasy tone.  “We didn’t know anything was going down until it was done.”

“Okay, we’ll talk more when you get back from Texas.” Henri says with slow affirmation, shaking his head from side-to-side.  “Good luck out there…”

“That’s fucking crazy!” Maxwell offers with wide eyes.  “Two suicides this week!?  Holy shit!”

“Now let’s calm down until we have all the details.” Henri reassures them.  “We know these people are unstable; that’s why we were given permission to run this op.  I just want to ensure that we don’t make the same mistake on the next case.”

PHILLIP AND LETISHA BELFORT

‘The war in Iraq and Afghanistan was so much simpler than this life of hell,’ Phillip thinks to himself, dangling the cell phone in front of his knee with his right hand.  The young man keeps his eyes closed, trying to erase the horrific image from his mind, gripping the phone firmly as his heart begins to thunder with an unearthly fury.  The text message he just received is by far the most foul and disturbing thing he has ever witnessed in his life.

In the war, there were men getting gut shot, with intestines hanging from their bodies.  A few heads were torn apart by wayward bullets, and soldiers lost limbs at random intervals throughout the day.  However, none of that compares to what he holds in the palm of his now trembling right hand.  Tears of sorrow, pain, and fear stream in thick lines down his chiseled black face.  For the first time since the war, Phillip buries his head in his hands and begins to rock back and forth, weeping spastically like a small child.

He thinks back to the previous night, a few hours after the Crips walked through his neighborhood; a car full of Bloods drove past his home with their stereo pounding.  The men inside the car were making obscene gestures with their hands and tongues, thrusting their hips toward the home.  Unfortunately, Letisha saw them through the window, and his wife went straight for the medicine cabinet, forcing Phillip to stop her from taking a bunch of pills.

“Oh my God..!” Phillip says to the emptiness of his front porch, biting the knuckle of his left index finger to repress the agony. “My baby! Look what they did to my baby…”

His biceps are tense with extreme hatred, feeling a raw surge of animal malice that festers from his jaw all the way to his toes.  After a long period of denial, he finally decides to face the horror in the palm of his hand, knowing that the war never ended for him and his family.  Phillip opens his eyes, showing the courage of a soldier as he turns the cell phone over and looks at the abomination that was text to him less than half an hour ago.

As the screen turns bright again, he sees the photo of his horribly battered wife, lying naked in the street and left for dead.  The message that came with the picture reads: ‘Talkin’ to the cops won’t make it stop.’  He shakes all over inside as the fresh pain explodes from his center, stripping away every ounce of happiness he has ever known.  His lovely flower and soul mate, stripped down and beaten like an animal by a pack of cowards in the street.

The photo had been described to him during the trial six months ago, but his loving wife had refused to show it to him, knowing he didn’t have the strength to see her in that much pain.  Phillip’s stomach is twisting in knots, an empty, biting pain, raw and visceral; paramount to the suffering of that most sacred to him.

With renewed fury, the ex-marine gets to his feet, moving like a man on a mission, feeling like a predatory animal whose lair has been invaded.  He moves back inside the house with the intensity of a heavyweight boxer, keeping his eyes to the ground and realizing what battle lies ahead.  Phillip walks to the back bedroom and checks on Letisha, ensuring that she is still sound asleep from the pills that he did allow her to take.

After verifying that his wife is safe, he blows her a kiss, immersed in horrible regret for not being at home when the attack took place.  With steady, powerful hands, Phillip grabs his cell phone and dials a familiar number, hoping for someone to answer.

“Dotty, this is Phil,” he says in a whisper, “you said I could call if we needed anything… Well, tonight I need you to come over and be here with Letisha…” He pauses for a moment, watching from his kitchen window as the neighbor’s bedroom light turns on.  “Yeah, come on in the front door, I need to go take care of something…  If you see anything strange or anybody tries something, I want you to call the police… No, nothing to worry about, just being careful… Okay, love you too, I’ll see you soon! Bye…”

The streetlights come toward Phillip’s blue, F150 Pickup Truck in perfectly symmetric rows as he drives across town to Inglewood.  He keeps his eyes open for the familiar, spray-painted tags that will let him know when he has reached gang territory.  After a few blocks, he begins to see black and red paint, showing off symbols on concrete walls created by the local Bloods.  His chest seizes up with aggression and pain as he makes his way from one block to the next, something he has done many nights before.  Unlike previous nights, he has the terrible image of his wife’s brutal assault burned into his mind, sent to him right after dinner by some anonymous coward.

Phillip notices a few drug dealers on the corner, but they are only around the age of thirteen, and he is not in the water for small fish tonight.  His instincts tell him that there are much larger and more dangerous creatures somewhere just around the corner, lurking in the darkness behind their younger recruits.  The .45 caliber pistol feels good against the palm of his hand.  He grips it with the hollow desire for revenge, imagining the damage that he can do to these pieces of trash with one quick swipe of his hand.  Gun violence is nothing new to this battle-hardened marine.  He won’t be needing any liquid courage tonight, not with the proof of their evil deeds in his right pocket.

Phillip pulls over to the side of the road, hearing the familiar sound of rap music blaring through the neighborhood.  He looks to his right in the side view mirror, watching a house just a bit to the rear of his vehicle.  The place looks to be filled with gangsters, as it has been most other nights when he traveled this deep into his revenge fantasy.  Almost everyone in the yard is wearing some form of red shirt or a singular bandana tied around one of their limbs.  These are the big fish he has been looking for, the smarter, stronger bunch of hardcore thugs that run operations from the heart of Inglewood.  In just the six short months since his return, asking questions and doing surveillance from his truck have helped him to pinpoint their center of operations.

Phillip pushes the pistol down the front of his pants near his stomach, wanting the option to draw if he winds up on his back.  He checks his tactical knife with the serrated edge, flipping it open using the single action, and then folding it back into place before putting it away.  Phillip closes his eyes, taking a few deep breaths in preparation for the attack.  His hand gently clutches the door handle and he opens it slowly, slipping out of the truck to the sidewalk.  He immediately closes the door, pushing it just enough to hear the click.  Then he starts to walk forward to the other end of the block; away from the house and loud rap music.  Phillip knows that the gang members are watching him as he moves through their territory, especially for the fact that he is in their neighborhood, driving a large, blue truck; the color of their sworn enemies.  He makes his way around the corner, ducking down behind a brick wall where he can wait for their suspicions to fade.

After a few minutes pass, Phillip crouches down and moves stealthily behind a row of parked cars just two houses down from his target.  He keeps his body hidden, squatting and moving from vehicle to vehicle, watching the gang members as they socialize with animated hand gestures on the front lawn.  Phillip closes his eyes for a moment, realizing that he might not make it back to Letisha.  He meditates silently, crouched behind a classic, black jaguar.  His feet feel uncomfortable with the rough asphalt pressing hard into his toes, bearing the full weight of his body.  The cool breeze makes him shiver as he makes his way up the line of cars, watching for any sudden movements in the yard that is now just twenty feet to his left.

As he reaches the tail of a yellow H2 Hummer, Phillip notices a six-foot gap between this vehicle and the black, Volkswagen Beetle that will provide him cover to make his assault.  He gets down on his stomach and starts to crawl slowly toward his next hiding spot.  To his surprise, a white beam turns the corner up ahead and he sees a truck driving casually up the street in his direction.  Phillip rolls to his left, hoping that no one has spotted him, placing himself between the Beetle and Hummer.  He scoots his body back toward the VW Beetle when the truck gets closer, feeling the asphalt tug at his pants.  Soon the truck passes him, creaking its way down the street with a rough-running engine and a gray, rusted-out frame.  Phillip holds his breath as the truck exits the street, leaving just the sound of the rap music and gang members talking incessantly behind him.  He rolls back around to the driver side of the Beetle, crouching next to it as he closes in on his target, feeling less exposed behind the shiny, black Beetle.

As he crouches near the rear of the small car, Phillip retrieves the pistol from the front of his pants, grateful that it won’t be able to chafe him anymore.  He puts one knee against the ground next to the rear tire, leaning over the back window to spy on his targets in safety.

There are five men talking and laughing in the front yard.  Three of them have gathered into a semi-circle, smoking cigars as they tell jokes and try to one-up each other with their stories.  Two more gang enforcers are sitting on the steps in front of the home; one with his arms folded, and the other expressing himself with lucid hand gestures, engaged in a more serious conversation.

Phillip grips his pistol tight, trying to decide how many men he can take down while still having enough time to make it back to the safety of his truck thirty feet away, and on the other side of the street.  He puckers his lips and blows out a smooth stream of air, allowing his body and muscles to relax.  His training taught him that tension leads to poor marksmanship.  A loose, steady shooting hand will provide superior accuracy to a robotic, anxious grip.  Phillip takes a moment to check the action of his semi-automatic pistol, pulling back on the slide to insert a round in the chamber.  His stomach begins to growl as he turns the weapon in his hand to ensure the safety is off, licking his lips as he knows the moment is approaching.  The young man takes another moment to plan his escape route, watching for any obstructions between himself and the truck, deciding that he’ll only have time to fire upon the three men at the front of the yard.

The evening air is suddenly filled with the premature and unwelcome sound of gunshots, firing in bursts of three rounds.  Phillip instinctively leans back into the safety of the steel car, feeling panic spread through his body as he looks around to see where the gunfire is coming from.  He rotates his head with alarm to the left and right, not seeing anyone near him.  Another three-round burst erupts from the shadows of the street and Phillip stares into the distance with a guise of genuine shock.  From the flash of the barrel, he can see that the gunfire is coming from a shooter across the street, resting their hands on the hood of his blue truck.  He gazes up hopelessly, mortified by the knowledge that the bullets are flying over his head at the gang house behind him, alerting everyone inside.

His heart rate begins to accelerate, and he breathes out in deep, anxious gasps.  In his state of shock, Phillip almost fails to notice that his truck engine is running, and glances back across the street to see someone sitting in the driver seat.

A group of ten young gang members comes pouring out onto the street from behind the parked cars as the blue F150 speeds from of its parking space and disappears around the corner to the right.  The young men are all armed, most of them carrying pistols similar to what Phillip holds in his hand.

The ex-marine looks up with a haunted expression from his position on the ground next to the Beetle, knowing that someone has effectively betrayed him.  There are more armed men standing in front of him now than he has bullets in his gun.

“This is for you, baby!” He says aloud as he gets to his feet and begins to fire on the group of men from behind.

There is a brief and deadly volley of gunfire, crackling through the streets like an electric current, exterminating that one element which does not belong.  Phillip finds peace for the first time since he came back from the war, a bath of fiery pain, putting a tortured soul to rest.

THE OBDAT – CHICAGO

“Welcome back!  Henri says with a satisfied expression, holding a mug of coffee across his chest as he waits for his colleagues from his chair at the center of the OBDAT platform.

“Last night was insane!”  Lorabell says with fervent pride, still rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she walks to her position on the right side of the control panel.

“I read the report about Phillip,” Maxwell begins as he strides to his station with a tall cup of coffee, “that text message… pushed him over the edge.”

After staying up working until two in the morning Chicago time, the three of them are somewhat ragged.  Lorabell and Maxwell returned to work wearing the same clothing from the previous day, while Henri is the only one who bothered to put on a fresh suit and tie.

“Where were we?” Maxwell says with a blank gaze, still worn out from the emotional roller coasters of the previous day.

“We’ve got three down and one to go.”  Lorabell says with a yawn.  “I have a little bit more for May Ivory, and then The President will have his data.”

“Let’s get started!” Henri says, slapping his hands together in the air hard as if this one action will bring the entire operation to life.  “Mason is still coordinating from Texas, cleaning up the murder-suicide, but he’ll be helping us to manage assets in Virginia too.”

MAY IVORY

May lies on the cool surface of the brown leather couch, staring at the ceiling.  Her face is still sore from a few nights ago, and she feels betrayed, like a mother hedgehog dug up by an ignorant farmer.  The young woman is clad in a wrinkled, blue T-shirt that drapes far past her waist and a pair of cozy, black sweatpants while her feet are adorned with simple, light blue slippers.

“I am the ugly duckling,” she says to herself; “not the honey badger.”  Her words fall flat in the air, providing a confessional for her unattractive scar tissue.  “Life is an accident borne in a kingdom of lies” she mutters lazily, shifting her legs on the lengthy, leather couch, “and I am the court jester…”

Her cell phone begins to ring from a few feet away, likely a call from her publisher about the party.  She rolls over on the couch, burying her face inside the soft, aesthetically pleasing leather, wishing she could use it to fix her disfigured body.  May begins to cry, which she has done repeatedly over the past forty-eight hours; not understanding what would cause a man to be so cruel.

She envisions Ted having drinks and playing pool at the local bar; discussing the things he did to her and what he saw while they were together.  May grits her teeth, thinking about the young man at the market whom she had grown to respect and care for over the years- just another phony.

The young woman tries to push it all down, washed away like the pain from the accident five years ago, but it’s impossible to deny oneself love when feeling so enamored… even for a short while.  Her anger erupts again as she pounds the couch cushions with her fists, displaying the distaste she has for her own stupidity.

“What did you do to yourself, you stupid girl?” She asks aloud, removing her left hand from her eyes to look at the ceiling again.  “If it’s too good to be true… Then it probably is…”  Her eyes begin to shed tears as she clenches her teeth in ultimate sorrow, realizing that the fantasies have betrayed her.  “Why are we programmed to believe we can have the fairytale life?  Even when there isn’t the slightest hope of anything close to that..?”

BANG! BANG! BANG!  Hammering sounds break the silence in her comfy home, causing May to jump backwards on the couch.  She stares at the front wall of her home in stunned awe, listening to the familiar laughter of the teenagers who harassed her the other day.

“Come on out, freaky lady!” One young man yells over the laughter.

“We want to see you naked again, beef jerky!” The other boy shouts immediately afterward.  “Did you have a good time with my older brother last night!?”

May closes her eyes, knowing that this is all just an attack on her image; two hapless bullies trying to get a rise out of her.  She lays on the couch and remains calm, pretending to be a vampire sleeping in her coffin during the daylight hours.  BANG! BANG! BANG!  The hammering resumes.

“Come out, freaky!” The young man yells again, sounding more whiney and obnoxious.  “Freaky! Freaky! Freaky!”

“YOU LITTLE SONS-OF-BITCHES, GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE I CALL THE COPS!” An older man yells from the house next door.

“Whoa, dude, okay, we’re just having a little fun!” The young man shouts to May’s elderly neighbor.

“WELL YOU’RE NOT GONNA’ HAVE ANY FUN WITH MY FOOT UP YOUR ASS!  LEAVE THAT POOR WOMAN ALONE!” The man decrees with passion.

“Shit!” The second young man says quietly to his companion.  “I don’t want to deal with the cops.  Let’s get out of here!”

After a few moments, May hears the thunderous bass sounds from the stereo of their large truck in front of her home.  She sits as silent as a crocodile, oblivious to what is happening above the surface; thick skin and razor-sharp teeth beneath the serene waters.  Several minutes go by as the bass music continues to pound the walls of her home, and then the teenagers finally depart, allowing the tormented soul inside to breathe deeply in relief.  She closes her eyes tight, refusing to open them, and soon passes out from an exhausting, sleepless night.

Several hours later, May opens her eyes slowly, noticing that the sun is still up.  She pushes the world out of her mind for a moment, wondering if there is a peaceful place anywhere for someone like her.  The remnants of the accident; a few minutes of fire, broken glass, and twisted metal, have left her life a wreck.

As she feels these thoughts starting to pull her down, May decides to get off the couch and resume a day of healthy activities, which she has done so many times in the past.  Her arms stretch toward the ceiling as she stands up from a long bout with depression.  She shuffles over to the kitchen to get herself a bowl of cereal and stop the growling deep inside her stomach.  May places her right hand over her abdomen, feeling foolish for not eating this entire time.

With renewed pride she shuffles across the tiles toward the kitchen cabinets to retrieve a bowl, thinking about her accomplishments since the accident, and remembering to stay positive.  A smile forms on her face as she thinks about the crazy variety of breakfast cereals she has in her luxury home.  Most of the cupboard space is dominated by various colorful breakfast flavors that she has enjoyed since childhood.

May’s smile soon fades as she looks at the back door of her home, noticing that there is some splintered wood around the doorframe near the handle and the deadbolt.  She steps over with a confused demeanor, pushing the door gently, and feeling an arrow of fear pierce her heart as the door swings open.  Her face becomes an instant portrait of terror as she discovers that the door has been pried open from the outside, and someone might have been in the house while she was sleeping on the couch.

The young woman begins to tremble, her lower jaw shaking now as she recalls a dream about someone standing over her while she slept on the sofa.  She looks out at the thick green grass in her backyard, instantly petrified by the sight of her panties strewn all over, along with some papers that she cannot identify.  With a feeling of intense panic, she turns on her heel and moves briskly toward the master bedroom, wanting to check on her clothing and other personal items.  ‘The seeds of betrayal have bloomed into a garden of poisoned fruit,’ May thinks to herself as she sprints through the hallway.

She brushes the bedroom door aside with her right hand allowing it to strike the wall and rebound back toward her body, tapping her backside as she enters the large room.  Her eyes move to the dresser, noticing that the underwear drawer has been emptied.  She feels the cruel jab of such an intimate trespass, and immediately thinks of the perverted high school boys that have been harassing her.  May steps over to the closet and throws open the slotted doors, hearing them rattle as she looks at her other clothing to ensure that nothing is missing.  Her mouth opens wide in shock as she notices that her small gun case is lying open on the floor, and her pistol is missing.  A horrific thought occurs to May, as the liability of a minor committing a crime using a pistol registered to her is now a possibility.

She places her hands on her hips and looks at the floor, disgusted by this blatant invasion into her life.  As May steps back to leave the room and call the police, she notices that a small, gray box is also missing from the top of the closet.

“NO!” She shouts into the empty air, diving into the closet frantically, pulling clothing and sleeping bags aside as she tosses them onto the floor behind her.

After several minutes of frantic searching, she sits down on the corner her bed and begins to cry.  The small, gray box had contained: all of the photos with her and Charlie, the engagement ring he never had a chance to give her, and every blessed memory of life before the accident or her permanent scarring… These precious memories are gone forever, stolen by a stranger while she indulged in a dance of self-pity.

May begins to shake, infused with anxiety and emptiness, knowing that the most important parts of her life were preserved in that small box.  She turns her head slowly to the left, thinking that the world is an unforgiving place, and her face suddenly grows cold with concern.  The small desk where she normally does her writing is empty, and the shiny white laptop that has been used to create all of her best work is no longer there.  May jumps up from the bed, looking for her backup hard drive with a grievous expression.

“Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.” She repeats in rapid succession, holding her right hand over her mouth as it dawns on her that she is missing over nine months of work, all of which is needed to meet her publisher’s deadline in sixty days. “Sonofabitch! You pathetic little assholes!  You miserable motherfuckers!” May shouts with a defeated stare.  “How could you do this to me; I’m just trying to rebuild my life..?”

With a flood of desire to recover her stolen work, May bolts to the closet, her eyes now anvils of rage.  She slides her dresses and shirts aside to reveal a large, black rifle case in the back of the closet.  May reaches out and grips the familiar hard plastic handle of the solid case and lugs it over to the bed, tossing it on the mattress.  Her delicate fingers are nimble as they unclasp the two locks on the front side of the case.  She flings the top open, looking at the gray, egg carton padding inside that protects her silver AR-15 semi-automatic rifle.  She picks up the empty, black magazine, embracing the cold metal in her soft hand as she steps back to the closet to retrieve a box of ammunition from the shelf.  May grasps the box in a hurry and dumps the munitions onto the empty side of the soft foam in the gun case.

With an extreme gaze of purpose, she loads the rounds into the magazine quickly, ensuring that it is filled to capacity.  Once the magazine is full, she pushes it securely inside the bottom of the rifle, then pulls back and releases the bolt to insert a round into the chamber.  A sense of fear springs up within her as May lifts the rifle from its case with both hands.  She removes the clear, plastic covers from either side of the scope, and looks through the eyepiece to ensure the view is not cloudy or distorted.  After checking the scope, she turns the rifle over and looks at the small black button next to the trigger, being certain that the safety is engaged.  ‘I’ll just scare them,’ she thinks to herself, knowing that on some level this is irrational and irresponsible.

May holds the rifle close to her chest with the barrel pointed toward the ceiling as she steps out of the hallway to the kitchen.  The weight of the rifle in her hands causes the young woman to think twice, realizing that this is a crazy course of action; she decides to call the police.  May sets the rifle down on the island at the edge of the kitchen and steps over to the wall a few feet away to retrieve her white, cordless phone.  With a feeling of rational foresight, she slowly dials 911, and places the phone against her right ear.

THE OBDAT – CHICAGO

“Nine-one-one operator, what is your emergency?”  Lorabell asks through a headset from her position on the right side of the OBDAT control panel.

“Yes, I live at sixteen fifty-nine, Alpha Bryo Lane, in Prince George.”  May begins with an excited tone, running her fingers through her hair as she looks out at the backyard with suspicion.  “My home has been robbed and my pistol was taken.”

“Are the suspects still in the area?” Lorabell asks with a smirk, watching May use the cordless phone on the LCD display above her.

“I don’t know,” May says with a shiver of fear, “they broke in when I was asleep, and it looks like they went out the back.  They threw my panties and paperwork all over the yard!” She admits with a grimace, turning her head to the side for a moment before returning her gaze to the backyard.

“Can you give me an idea where they went?” Lorabell presses in an urgent voice. “If we know the general area they fled toward, I can send an officer there to apprehend them.”

“Do you want me to go outside and look for them?” May asks with a bit of surprise, showing concern for her safety.

“Not if you feel that you’re in danger, ma’am,” Lorabell replies with a sneaky smile, “but the more information I can provide the responding officers- the better.”

“Okay, I’m carrying a rifle for my own protection.” May confirms with an innocent gaze.  “Will you tell the officers not to shoot if they see me?”

“Yes, please be careful.” Lorabell instructs with a genuine smile.  “Can you describe what you’re wearing so that the officers can identify you?”

“Yes, I have blonde hair, and I’m a white female, wearing black sweats and a blue T-shirt.” May relays nervously over the phone.

“Okay, can you step outside and let me know what you see?” Lorabell asks.  “I have an officer on the way.”

May picks up the rifle with her left hand, cradling it with her lower arm and holding it by the forestock beneath the barrel.  She holds the phone against her right ear as she moves out into the backyard, stepping slowly down the cement stairs to the grass below.  Her slippers brush through the thick grass with dutiful ease as she makes her way to the edge of the yard following the trail of panties and papers.

“Oh my God!” May says quietly as she freezes in her tracks at the edge of the lawn.  “I see them!  They’re sitting at the top of a hill about fifty-yards away- going through my shit!”

“Okay, ma’am, I have officers on the way.” Lorabell advises in a slow, condescending tone.  “Please keep an eye on the suspects until my unit arrives, but maintain a safe distance.”

“Hey, you little motherfuckers!” May shouts, pulling the phone away from her ear.  “I’m on the phone with the police right now.  You need to leave my things right there or you’re going to JAIL!”

“Holy shit, dude, she’s got another gun!” One of the young men says with genuine alarm as he stops rummaging through a small, gray shoebox.

“Let’s get the hell out of here!” The other young thief declares in a hurry as he snatches her laptop from the grass and begins to sprint down the other side of the hill.

“GET BACK HERE WITH MY COMPUTER!” May screams as she begins to run toward the young men, dropping the cordless phone as she grips the rifle with both hands on her way up the hill.

“Shit! Shit!” The young man says in a panic as he sees May approaching with a formidable expression and an assault rifle in her hands.

He reaches down and retrieves the gray box from the ground, along with her external hard drive and the pistol from her closet.  The young man then bolts upright and clumsily follows his companion down the other side of the hill.

“That’s danger close!” Maxwell says with a motherly look of concern as he watches May from the view of a handheld camera, “I wouldn’t let her get too close; we need to stop her!”

“Yeah, let’s take some precaution.” Henri agrees from his position at the center of the OBDAT control panel. “Mason, what do you think?”

“I’m looking at the map now.” Mason replies through a headset from within the safety of his rental car in Texas.  “There’s a school about another seventy-five yards away.  Have them lead her through the alley between the apartment complexes.  I’ll have Eisley pop smoke at the end of the alley.  That will ensure nobody gets hurt, and our young friends can easily escape through the trees at the backside of the high school.”

May strides with renewed fury, her hands gripping the rifle in strong affirmation, focused solely on retrieving what belongs to her.  When she reaches the top of the hill, her eyes follow the two young men as they sprint into an alley between two apartment buildings.  A quick glance at the ground near her feet brings forth a jolt of pain; the precious photos from her past are scattered all over the grassy hill.  She sucks in air through her nose like a mad bull, pulling the rifle firm against her chest as she begins to sprint at top speed after the teenagers.  During her short jaunt down the hill, she glances from side-to-side, watching for the police who are supposed to be helping her, but is discouraged to see that there are none.

When she reaches the buildings, May slows down to a steady walk, confused at the sight of white smoke billowing out from the end of the alley.  She is gripped with a sudden sense of caution as if there is a larger force at play here.  With a look of disbelief, her eyes move down to the trigger guard of the rifle, and she presses the small button to disengage the safety.  As she approaches the smoke, her mind begins to form wild theories about who might be responsible for engineering this robbery.  Her heart begins to throb against the inside of her chest as the circumstances are clearly not adding up.  ‘Where are the police?’ She asks herself as she steps within three feet of the white wall of smoke.

Before she can contemplate these things, a gunshot rings out from behind the veil of smoke.  May ducks down on the asphalt and places her right knee against the gritty, hard surface as she pulls the rifle up into a firing position, aiming the barrel at the center of the smoke.  Her mind is racing with theories as she holds the stock tight against her right shoulder, watching for any movements and immediate threats, hoping that the police will arrive soon.  She begins to tremble, feeling awkward and afraid; a writer of children’s books kneeling in the street like a soldier before a wall of mysterious smoke.

She hears another shot that flies above her head, forcing all logic to escape her as the terrified woman begins to return fire.  At first May only shoots two rounds, but corrects her aim slightly based on where the shot came from, and fires five more times.  Her ears pick up the slightest sound of someone in pain, and she zeroes in on the sound, aiming her rifle as close as possible to that one spot within the plumes of smoke.  She fires three more times for good measure, then retreats back to the safety of the bricks behind the corner of the apartment complex to her right.

May feels instantly sick inside as she considers what might have happened through the smoke.  Her stomach is in deep physical pain and she is trembling all over, afraid for her life, and the life of the young man who has been firing upon her.  She puts a shaky right palm to her forehead, feeling nauseated and wanting to throw up, still watching for the police to arrive.

May is filled with the dread of not knowing what is happening, and she looks around in a state of shock and terror, hoping to soon see another human being.  She wants to scream as the tension continues to build; the smoke is starting to clear, but not enough for her to know what is happening.  Finally, she leans back against the building and begins to cry, the rough bricks gripping her T-shirt like so many tiny, demonic hands.  Her entire body is shaking as she turns to look around the corner.  The smoke has cleared enough for her to see the outline of a large building about twenty yards away.  She squeezes her eyes tight for a moment, trying to identify the shapes in front of the building.

A surge of energy hits May in the back, and she finds herself sprawling to the earth with intense force and frightening speed.  She instinctively grits her teeth, wondering if, for a moment, she has been shot from behind, but then the young woman feels a heavy weight bearing down on her.  Two powerful hands latch onto her wrists and press her to the ground face first, forcing the rifle out of her hands.

“Face down! You’re under arrest!” A man shouts as he holds her wrists and uses his knee in her back to prevent her from moving.  “What the fuck are you shooting at; you almost hit me!?” He asks with brazen concern and self-righteous outrage.

Agent Eisley watches for a moment as the police officer tackles May and restrains her.  He feels suddenly terrible for his role in all of this, observing from a position near the tree line.  Beads of sweat are streaming across his face as he hunkers down next to a small boulder to catch his breath.

“Did you leave any evidence behind, Agent Eisley?” Mason asks through the headset.

“No, Sir,” The young man says with labored breath, “I retrieved both smoke grenades and my shell casings before the police arrived.  It looks like they have the subject in custody.”

“What about our young friends from the high school?” Mason asks with concern.  “Did they get to the safety of the tree line?  Please confirm!”

“Yes, Sir, I’m looking now…” Agent Eisley replies quickly, pulling up a pair of small binoculars to survey the school grounds to the right.  “Yeah, it looks like they made it okay.” He announces, watching the two young men as they make their way to the east side of town.

“Can either of those boys connect this to the agency?” Mason asks, wanting to be thorough.

“No, they think I’m a jealous ex-boyfriend,” Agent Eisley replies with confidence, “we’re good to go.”

The young agent smiles with satisfaction, brushing his dark hair back and enjoying the nice breeze as it drifts through the tall pine trees that are providing him cover from the police down below.  He takes a seat on the small rock that he was using for cover from gunfire, and pulls out a pack of cigarettes, casually looking down at the school as he taps the smokes against his leg to pack the tobacco in tight.  After a few seconds, he stops shaking the pack of cigarettes and his entire frame freezes; the young man’s German features showing a sudden ghastly, pale color.  Agent Eisley opens his mouth in horror as he uses his binoculars to look at the grounds again, this time further to the west.

“Oh my God, Sir, we have a serious problem!” Agent Eisley reports slowly into his headset.

“What problem?”  Mason asks with refreshed concern, waiting patiently for a response.

“This is not a high school…”  The young man replies as a tear streams quickly down his right cheek and drips from the side of his face.  “This is an elementary school!”

“But it’s just after two, right?  Everyone should be in class.” Mason inquires as he looks at his watch from his rental car in Texas.

“It’s two O’ clock central time, you fucking retard!” The young agent replies as more tears begin to slide down his cheeks.  “Virginia is on Eastern Time, it’s after three here… The kids just got out of school… I heard the bell when I was popping the smoke, but I thought… they were changing classes.”

“Eisley, what happened?” Mason demands with concern, feeling his gut sink at the distress he hears in the young man’s voice.  “Eisley, what happened out there!? Report in, son!”

The young agent falls to his knees, looking away from the school as his face turns red with anger.  He begins to bawl with his mouth wide open, grieving and shaking from the inside out, wanting to pull out his side arm and shoot himself in the temple.  He reaches down to the earth, gripping the soil in his hands with fury, feeling the delicate pieces of dirt pushing beneath his fingernails.

“Eisley, I need you to vacate the area…” Mason orders, wanting to regain control of the situation.

“Oh my God, Sir!” The agent says into his headset.  “Oh my God…”

After one last look of shame, the young man proceeds up the tree line toward a truck that is waiting for him near the side of the road fifty-yards to the north.

More police cars begin to surround the elementary school as dozens of students stay frozen on the grounds, covering their heads for safety.  At the playground, a young black boy is holding his right leg, crying in agony as he rocks back and forth in the dirt.  His classmates are hiding behind the thick pillars and sturdy bars of the jungle gym.  They look on in confusion and terror, crying openly for their wounded classmate.

On the sidewalk in front of the school, a little girl is cradled in her teacher’s arms; her lifeless body struck through the chest with a rifle bullet.  The teacher is sobbing in a state of shock, his white dress shirt and brown jacket saturated in fresh blood.  He kneels over with the girl in his arms, hanging his balding head in shame, unafraid of more gunfire.

“Agent Eisley, what happened?” Lorabell asks with concern from the control panel of the OBDAT.

“I would say some kids got hurt at the elementary school… Or worse!” Maxwell replies, glaring at her with building fury.

“We don’t know that yet,” Henri interrupts, holding his hand up to silence his analyst, “and if someone fucked up here; it was probably Mason.”

“She wasn’t supposed to leave the yard…” Lorabell says quietly, looking up at the LCD displays showing images of May’s empty home.  “Why would she shoot like that without provocation?”

“I don’t know.” Henri replies with a quick shrug.  “We can only setup handheld surveillance to cover the area immediately around the house.  The rest of it is a blackout zone.  I still have no idea what the story is in Texas.  We’ll have to get that from Mason.”

“You pushed her too far!” Maxwell states indignantly, continuing to scorch Lorabell with his stare.  “I hope you’re happy with yourself…”

“Enough of this bullshit! Henri snaps, glaring at Maxwell from his left eye.  “Ming’s death is still on your head, and if one of us is responsible for these people, then all of us are… You’re welcome to leave now, we don’t need you anymore.”

“Okay… whatever.” Maxwell says with a frustrated expression as he gets up from his seat and begins to walk away.  “One more thing though, Henri…  When I play MY video games, people don’t actually die.”

Henri turns toward the younger man, locking eyes with him for several seconds.

“MING!” Henri says with a growling rage, like a wild boar, before turning back around in his chair.

Lorabell looks up at the LCD monitors and then back down at the control panel of the OBDAT, placing her forehead on her right hand as she contemplates her actions.

“Don’t worry about it!” Henri orders, still amped up from his conversation with Maxwell.  “If it’s a problem, then it’s my problem.  Go get some rest.”

XVI. Stats & Stripes – Briefing the Eagle

“So where did we finish out? Henri asks, walking briskly through the halls of The White House, eager to be on time for his meeting with The President.

“Two dead and two arrested.” Mason replies, handing Henri a manila envelope full of classified reports.

The Congressman is dressed in his most lavish black suit with a pearl-colored tie and his gray hair is slicked back in neat, wavy lines.  Mason trails one step behind him on his right side as they move through the historic halls of the White House on their way to the Oval Office.  The General is wearing his ceremonial hat and green uniform, with three bronze stars shining bright on each shoulder, standing tall and looking optimistic beside The Congressman.

“What about Julia Welheim?” Henri asks, scratching his head instinctively as he peruses the materials within the envelope.

“She’s been committed to a mental hospital in Florida for now.” Mason says with a vindicated smile.  “Why did we have to tell Cardigan that she committed suicide?”

“Because I needed these to be real people, and I wanted her to feel attached to them; like puppy dogs.” Henri states with an arrogant and fiery stare, feeling more powerful as they get closer to the Oval Office.

“What about the situation in Virginia?” General Mason inquires with a fearful gaze, almost wishing he didn’t ask the question.

“I’ll take care of Virginia; that’s no problem!” Henri reassures the younger man with a brief wink from his right eye as the bright lights from the ceiling create an impressive sheen on his forehead.  “How about the murder-suicide in Texas; is that all cleaned up?” He asks in a somewhat malicious tone, looking at Mason with a gentle half-grin.

“Everything in Texas is buttoned up.” Mason answers, not knowing how to react to Henri’s mixed vocal and facial expressions.  “We also cleaned up the forensics in California.  Phillip’s truck was found just around the corner, and the insides were apparently torched by a gang.”

“It sucks when that happens…” Henri declares with mild amusement, clearly annoyed by the long walk to The President’s office.

“What about Devlin?” Mason pries in a worried manner, his voice raised with a bit with urgency.

“Devlin is still at large,” Henri fires back, “but don’t worry, I’ve got everything tied up in Chicago!” He smiles wide, displaying a full set of bright, white teeth and places his right hand gently on his colleague’s back, giving him a comforting tap.  “When we capture him, we’ll send him back into the field on a new assignment… A nice meat grinder in some hellhole outside the states.”

“Torn The Langley Contour?” Mason asks, leaning forward with a confident smirk. “You’re sending him on a suicide mission. I’ll be glad when that problem is off our radar!”

The two men pass through the corridors leading up to the Oval Office, and submit to a final security screening by The Secret Service before making their way to the reception area.  During this short security screening, Henri passes the envelope back to Mason, having learned all he needs to know.

“Hello, Ilene,” Henri says with a winning grin as he rounds the corner to the desk of The President’s personal assistant.  “I’m here to meet with President Kirkland.”

“Yes, Congressman Edwards, how are you?”  The young Asian woman says by returning a sharp smile, looking astute and classy in her royal blue dress.

“I am phenomenal, but not nearly as much as you.” The politician evokes in a savory tone with expert delivery, bowing slightly toward the young woman.

“I’ll let the president know you’re here.” Ilene acknowledges, feeding off his energy before she steps through the side door of the Oval Office, closing it behind her.

“Well, thank you so much for escorting me down here, General Mason.” Henri offers, reaching out with his right hand to his suspicious colleague.

“What do you mean?” Mason asks with a disgruntled look of concern.  “Am I not going with you?  That’s bullshit, Henri!”

“Now, Mason, the president wants this confidential, and the results are my ass, so this is my brief.” Henri answers with a self-assured stare.  “He only wants one man on point for this project!”

“Don’t screw me, Henri.” Mason says with a bold stare. “I can screw back.”

“The President will see you now.” Ilene confirms as she returns to the reception area with a polite demeanor.

“Of course you do, Mason, and I look forward to it!” Henri says with a sinister grin; not really looking at the man, but more through him.  “Thanks again for walking me down the aisle on this one, buddy!”

Mason turns his chiseled face back toward the corridor they just walked through, wishing he could say more to Henri, but deciding instead to keep the faith and smile.  He continues to smile for a moment, then takes his leave in an awkward fashion like a corpse coming to life on the expensive blue and red carpet.

Henri turns back to the lovely receptionist, gesturing with a wink for her to lead the way.  As she opens the door to the Oval Office, he feels the air burst forth into his lungs, sucking it in with excitement like a spoiled child inside the world’s largest toy store.

“Good evening,” Vice President Trent Iverson says with a wholesome expression, approaching Henri to shake his hand, “I hope you weren’t waiting long.”

“Good evening,” Henri replies with clear dissatisfaction, “is President Kirkland running late?”

“No, not at all,” Iverson jokes with an austere grin, borne from years of professionally not giving a damn, “he’s busy with the family, and wanted me to give you some feedback on your data.”

“Okay…” Henri says with a betrayed smirk, looking like the bride who was left standing without a groom at her wedding.

“Have a seat.” Iverson offers, extending his right hand out to an expensive, leather chair in front of the main desk, while he takes the chair opposite of Henri.  “You want a drink?  I’m sure as shit having one.”

“No thanks.” Henri declines with a pouty stare, realizing that Kirkland has already denied his proposal, and that this meeting is somewhere between a formality and a hand job.

Iverson takes a moment to get comfortable in his custom-tailored black suit, straightening his peach and blue striped tie as he finds a suitable position with his left leg crossed over his right.  The former Navy Admiral looks healthy, sporting his clean-shaven, bald head and a pair of kind blue eyes.  With his strong body and well-groomed appearance he looks young for a man in his early fifties.

“Okay, well let’s just get right to it!” Iverson says, pouring himself two fingers of bourbon as he continues.  “The President went through your data, and doesn’t like the fact that you featured people who were under the influence.  Hell, every person in this case study has some type of drug in their system; either at the time of death, or for long periods prior to that.” He retrieves a sheet of paper from his jacket pocket and unfolds it to read off a few facts.  “For example: May Ivory, pain medication and marijuana; Phil Belfort, marijuana; Ned Lawhorn, whiskey; and Julia Welheim, antipsychotics.”

“Those were all red flags…” Henri begins, “We flagged those behaviors as part of the evaluation criteria.”

“That’s bullshit!” Iverson says without flinching.  “I have the evaluation criteria right here, and it specifies that ‘people under the influence of drugs and alcohol are to explicitly be excluded.’  Now we feel that you chose people with addictions because it would be easier for them to go sideways, but these are not good results...”  He confirms, holding the unfolded piece of paper up for a second.

“Why not?” Henri asks, twisting his head uncomfortably in the expensive fabric of his suit jacket.

“Because violent behavior for people under the influence has already been established in psychology.” The Vice President replies with a bit of sarcasm, shaking his head somewhat.  “We thought you were going to break new ground in gun control research so that we could make a decision based on hard facts, and then we’d get the support to move forward.”

“What about the violence that took place?” Henri retorts quickly, fencing with his fellow politician.  “Those were all crimes of passion.”

“Yeah, we have some questions there, and the DOJ is looking into how that all went down.  We have: five dead in California, three dead in Texas, and one little girl gunned down in Virginia… That is about the most heartbreaking thing we’ve seen in a long time…  This is YOUR MESS.  Care to explain yourself, Congressman?”

“Mason had operational control of all military personnel, and if you look at the files from the time he took over, you’ll notice that the body count has grown geometrically… And it was you… That sent me Mason.” Henri replies with a sharp grin, staring Iverson right in the eyes.

“Is that how you want to play this?” Iverson asks returning Henri’s stare with added frustration.  “The President is already going to be under attack for what happened here, and now you want to bat this into the administration’s ball court?  What about the casualties you had before Mason took over?  Weren’t there three or four?”

“I’m taking care of that problem.” Henri replies with a cold tone.  “If you think bringing down an Army Veteran with counterinsurgency training is easy, then you’ve been hitting that bourbon too hard.”

“Why did you need to take him down in the first place?”  Iverson asks with a subtle smile.  “We’d really like to know all the details here because this is ONE HELL of a mess, and it’s going to be swirling around for months.  Why didn’t you stop the woman in Virginia before she opened fire?”

“That was Mason’s call; it was his guys on the ground.” Henri states with a confident gaze.

“Okay, so that’s one.” Iverson says, holding up his index finger.  “What about California?”

“Crime of passion.” Henri says without breaking eye contact.

“Okay, that’s two.” He continues, holding up his thumb and index finger.  “What about-“

“Texas was Mason’s call; it was him personally on the ground.” Henri interrupts Iverson before he can ask a third foolish question.

“What happened there?” Iverson asks, giving Henri a hard look.

“Your General fucked up, Mr. Vice President, which he has been doing since you sent him to me.” Henri states with corrosive fury.  “Now, I’ve answered all your questions, and based on the number of deaths alone, I’d like another shot at getting this program off the ground, so why don’t we get the boss on the phone?”

Iverson stares at Henri with contempt and curiosity, tapping his finger lightly on the heel of his shoe as he contemplates this.  After a brief pause, he gets to his feet, straightening his jacket out of habit, having been a man in the public eye for six years now.  He steps over to the desk behind Henri and presses a button to call the receptionist.

“Ilene.” Iverson says quickly into the phone, leaning forward on the desk with both palms down.

“Yes, Sir?” A voice asks immediately from the speakerphone.

“Please get President Kirkland on the line; we need to speak with him.” Iverson remits, appearing doubtful and holding his head down a bit at the idea of participating in this phone call.

“I have President Kirkland for you.” Ilene reports after a long pause.

“What can I do for you?” The President asks in a dignified and irritated manner, his rough voice pouring out of the speaker like a shovel filled with beach sand.

“I have Henri Edwards here, Mr. President.” Iverson says slowly, hyper-focused on the desk front of him as he calculates every word that is uttered. “And he’s telling me that Mason has been the source of our woes in these shootings.”

“Mason, huh?” President Kirkland laughs. “Are you blaming the administration for this, Henri?”

“No, Mr. President,” Henri says softly, turning in his chair to face the phone, “I’d like to think that this is more proof that we need intrusive gun control screening, and a highly-evolved system of red flags.”

“This is America, Henri, people are not fond of red flags or red tape.” President Kirkland retorts immediately. “Myself included.”

“Are people fond of seeing their children shot on the playground?” Henri asks, standing up from his chair to approach the desk in a more dramatic tone.  “Do people like going to the movies and being shot at by some emotionally unbalanced man who thinks he’s a comic book villain?”

“Yeah, I saw your speech the other day, Henri.” President Kirkland reflects sarcastically.  “Thanks for that, by the way…  This is one hell of a mess, and I thought your program was meant to stop that sort of violence.  Now we have the worst series of gun tragedies in the history of this country.  Worse yet, they happened within such a short time of one another, the conspiracy theorists are already getting their camera crews ready to make a movie.”

“That’s a good point, Henri,” Iverson says as he folds his arms across his chest, challenging The Congressman’s position, “I also thought your program was supposed to contain this type of violence?”

“The program works.” Henri replies with a dignified stance.  “Our goal was to red flag and monitor people who might be a threat to this country.  Given that all four of our subjects have either been arrested or killed for such acts, I’d say the program is fairly damn airtight.”

“Yeah, and we can see that,” President Kirkland admits, “but how do you explain three shootings in two days?  I mean, what type of circumstances led up to that much violence- all within a few days?  It just doesn’t make sense, Henri.  So help it to make sense for me?”

“Well, it’s like you said, they were all under the influence…” Henri begins with a serious demeanor, his pale-blue eyes showing stone cold under a slicked-back mass of fine, silver hair.  “I think it’s well established that people under the influence are prone to violence, don’t you?  That said, I do know the program works, and I’d like to go back to the drawing board to get you the hard data… With some subjects who are free of drugs and alcohol.”

“We’re not going to have another mess like this here.” President Kirkland declares, slapping down Henri’s proposal like a deflated volleyball.  “I do agree with the theory behind people being under the influence… There is a lot of hard data that will support what happened this week.”

“I agree with you, Sir.” Henri replies immediately, flicking his jacket nervously with his fingers.  “This cannot happen again on American soil.  That’s why I’d like to run some studies with subjects who are not under the influence,” he continues, holding up his index finger, “and in an environment that is outside of our borders.”  The Congressman displays his index and middle fingers for the Vice President, showing him that their major concerns will be addressed.

“Okay, Henri,” President Kirkland agrees with cautionary authority, “you have your hunting party, but only if the DOJ doesn’t find anything that points to your involvement in this mess.  Further, I want hard data, not something that comes from people being watched from hundreds of miles away.  We need intimate details, and I want your people as close to this as possible to see how it mushrooms out, and how we can prevent it in the future… Don’t manage this from an ivory tower like you did in Chicago!”

“Yes, Mr. President.” Henri says with a convincing smile toward Iverson. “Thank you, Sir!”

“What about your rogue agent, Devlin McConnelly?” Vice President Iverson asks with a keen appearance, raising his eyebrows at The Congressman.

“Yes, I’m glad you asked about that,” Henri says as he reaches into his jacket pocket to retrieve a piece of paper folded neatly into thirds, “I’m afraid Devlin McConnelly is a domestic terrorist.  We found this letter in his duplex rental with statements that are anti-American, and with promises of violent action against The United States.”  He takes a step closer to the desk and hands the letter to Iverson, pointing at it as he confirms his report.  “Now that letter is signed by Devlin, and it bears his fingerprints.  It is the one piece of evidence you need to get that mall shooting off of the administration’s back.”

“Thank you for this, Henri,” Vice President Iverson says as he looks the letter over in his well-manicured hands, “this will be extremely helpful.  I believe Devlin’s actions also led to some of the other gun violence we had… Because he poisoned your team and kept you from doing your job?”

“That’s right,” Henri says with rogue austerity, immediately understanding what Iverson plans to do, “he attacked us with chemical weapons on American soil, which prevented us from responding to these shooting threats in time.”

“Good work, Henri,” President Kirkland evokes proudly from the speaker, clearly sounding more relieved, “you’ll have all the support you need for a new series of studies.”

“We’ll take care of Mason.” Iverson adds with smiling eyes, looking at Henri like the savior of the city as he walks up to shake his hand.  “Go have some fun, Congressman, you’ve had a hell of a day.” He asserts with luminous satisfaction, gripping Henri’s hand tightly.  “The country appreciates your service.”

“Yes, we appreciate your service, Congressman.” President Kirkland parrots in a flat tone, his voice fading fast.  “Good luck on your new operation; just get me the hard data that I need… Well, time to get back to my family.  Is there anything else?”

“No, Sir, have a good night!” Iverson exclaims formally.

“Well, good night then.” President Kirkland replies.

“Good night, Mr. President.” Henri says with a satisfied grin.

“Bye.” Iverson mutters as he hangs up the speakerphone, raising his head to look at Henri with a calm smile.  “We’ll take it from here, Henri.”

“Good night, Mr. Vice President.” Henri concedes with a dispassionate stare as he walks toward the exit of the Oval Office.

“Ilene,” Vice President Iverson speaks into the phone on the desk, waving Henri away casually, “get in touch with our contacts in the media, I want to hold a press conference tonight… We have a domestic terrorist on the loose.”

XVII. It’s Been a Pleasure

‘Her eyes look up at him filled with love, but they don’t see anything,’ Henri thinks to himself as he stands naked in the corner of the bedroom.  The Congressman is watching Maurice and Leslie with intense desire, feeling the need to release some pent-up frustration.  After investing over $20,000 on dates for these two lovebirds, and waiting over six months, the young lady has finally conceded to give up her treasure.  His head twists slightly to the right as he gazes at Maurice with admiration, a man that women can truly fall in love with.  Maurice has a tender heart, and a gentle way about him, like a protective shepherd wanting the best for every member of his flock.

As a French artist in his mid-forties, Maurice has a build very similar to that of Henri.  His eyes are brown, and he has a full head of hair that is akin in texture to the Congressman’s, except for the short ponytail that lays even with his shoulder blades.  The younger man has a distinct crucifix earring from his 80s hair-band days; a shiny silver relic from the decade of excess.  His soft eyes are focused on young Leslie in the bed beneath him, lying there in a welcoming state of warm affection.  She rubs her hands up and down his chest, feeling nervous about being with a man for the first time.  During the past half-hour, she has been extremely vocal with her concerns, ensuring that Maurice tells her that he loves her every step of the way.  Although she cannot see Maurice, her affection has grown for him over these past few months.  With time and effort, he has been able to convince her that they can be intimate without getting married, and he loves her so much that marriage is inevitable.  She feels a bit of discomfort, lying on the bed in just her panties, unable to see her magical love, but knowing that he is unmistakably real.

Henri watches the two with eager anticipation as Maurice removes her panties and displays the incredible beauty between her legs.  The old wolf can feel the tension in his throat along with a throbbing erection that is more prescribed than inspired.  He looks down at her small eighteen-year-old body, feeling waves of shame washing over him for the first time.  A cold sweat begins to develop on his brow as Henri remembers Devlin’s interruption of his last session.  His heart is racing, and he feels a distinct fear creeping down the back of his neck like some ghastly force is coming for him.  He remembers the horrified look on Devlin’s face when he saw him touching the young, blind woman in the most intimate way.  Henri’s hands begin to tremble, and he is suddenly enraged at Devlin, realizing that he never had these thoughts in previous encounters with other women.

He recalls that night when they were at a five star hotel: Henri, Maurice, and a young blind woman named Giselle.  They had already made the switch after Maurice got the young woman worked up enough to perform, and Henri was just starting to indulge himself in the fine pleasures of her tight, young body.  However, before he was able to get to the main event, Devlin burst through the door with his pistol drawn and forced The Congressman to the floor, bringing the festivities to an immediate halt.  ‘Sit your old, fat ass down,’ Henri recalls Devlin saying as he pointed the pistol between his eyes.  He thinks back to the objectionable stare that Devlin gave him when he saw what was happening.  The look of both a betrayed son and a judgmental father, taking away Henri’s most prized source of pleasure and emotional satisfaction.  Devlin called him a ‘coward’ and ‘pathetic puke,’ which would not have bothered Henri if he didn’t respect the man so much.

Henri is having a hard time breathing now; thick drops of sweat are running down his neck and chest.  He doesn’t know what is causing him to feel so terrible.  ‘There is nothing wrong with what we’re doing here,’ he tells himself, ‘the girl is consenting to intercourse.  She can say no up until the point of penetration,’ Henri coaches himself silently, continuing to feel sick inside.  He looks down with a terrified revelation; his erection has gone away.  Henri tries to stare at the young woman to make the flesh willing again, but his body is shivering with anxiety, and he feels this overwhelming coldness in his stomach and the back of his throat.  ‘I’m feeling guilty,’ he thinks to himself, watching his hands starting to tremble.  The shaking becomes spasmodic, as though he has Parkinson’s disease.  His entire body feels cold, sweaty, and peppered with shame.  As he stands in the corner; he can see himself for the first time as a predatory pervert, remembering Devlin’s horrified stare.  Henri tries to calm himself, but his heart and lungs are pumping like the engine of a steam train with a fully stocked fire.

He looks over at Maurice, his young brown eyes staring at Henri with confusion.  Maurice gestures toward the young, naked woman with his face, raising his eyebrows at Henri and tipping his head to the side, indicating it is time for them to switch places.

Henri looks down at the young woman as she writhes in the bed.  She is clearly turned on, with both of her hands between her legs, moving in a sensual manner, but still cautious and fragile in this new act.  He nods his head for Maurice to exit the room, and walks over to the bed, kneeling down to wipe the sweat from his face and chest with the bedding and sheets.

The young woman is ablaze with lust and love.  Henri tries to calm himself, watching those loving eyes looking up at him as he caresses her.  His heart is ablaze with the desire for another person to look at him with so much sincere affection.  He places his hands on her beautiful knees, feeling the soft skin and hoping that his internal conflict will soon dissipate.  His hands move down the soft skin of her inner thighs, slowly massaging her muscular legs.  He looks up at her beautiful, young face, and curly brunette hair, watching how inviting her movements are.  Henri basks in the overwhelming approval of her soft touch on his shoulders, this incredible sensation of belonging somewhere, as though someone cares whether he lives or dies.  He kisses the young woman’s knee and begins to caress her stomach, enjoying the dream of being wanted and adored.  His eyes move down to her perfectly formed labia, knowing that a man has never been there before; a place sacred and exclusive.  He smiles wickedly, knowing that he will be her first, and $20,000 is well worth the price of admission.

She begins to pull his hands further between her legs, and Henri pulls back, wanting to be immersed in this feeling of love and adoration.  He continues to touch her slowly, massaging just her muscles and soft skin, needing to have a pure moment of mutual, sensual desire.  The young woman begins to shake her hips a bit, impatient that he is not touching her most sensitive areas.  Henri sneers with frustration at her animal desire, wanting to spend a few more minutes being adored and admired by her light touch.

“Stop teasing me, Maurice!” She begs, rocking her hips as she rubs herself between the legs.

“Slow…” Henri mutters in his best impersonation of Maurice.

“No, I want it now!  Give it to me now!” She begs in a very unattractive manner, looking novice and weak with her inability to contain her lustful libido.

Henri feels a sense of rage building up inside of him, wanting the young woman to just enjoy this sensual massage.  He needs her to look at him with that singular face of pure, unconditional love, but she is already demanding the hot and dirty sin.  His mind starts to race, realizing that this may be another wasted $20,000, and more of his valuable time gone.  He tries to massage her slowly and get her to cool off, but she refuses, and starts bouncing more lustfully on the bed, making sexual noises that break his concentration.

As he raises his head, Henri is met with a haunting scene, just inches from his eyes.  The young woman’s head has been severed at the neck, grisly, jagged cuts, with blood dripping all around the cylinder of skin.  The severed head is being held in front of him by an older woman with her entire face painted white, bearing dark black circles around her eyes, and ten black stitches painted on her lips.  As the intruder turns her sinister green eyes upon him, the black paint on her nose is illuminated by the soft lighting of the hotel bedroom.  She looks at him with fierce rage, holding the young woman’s head in her left hand and a bloody knife in her right.  This ghastly creature is wearing a long, black, ceremonial robe, with knots tied over her shoulders and fabric that droops all the way to her feet.  Her hair is wild; a mane of long, strong brunette locks that completes a beautiful and deadly woman.  She is kneeling on the bed to the right of Leslie’s body, holding the severed head just six inches from Henri’s face.

“You will never touch innocent flesh again!” The woman threatens with her furious gaze and a voice that would cause lions to tremble.

Henri jumps backwards off of the bed, slamming his buttocks hard against the rough carpet.  His vision suddenly goes dark, and he blinks several times, horrified by the realization that he cannot see.

“Maurice?”  Leslie calls out from the bed.  “Maurice, what’s wrong, we were just getting started?”

Henri begins to tremble as he hears someone get up from the bed and approach him.  He slithers backwards until his shoulders and head smack into the wall.

“Maurice!” The young woman says unexpectedly from within a few inches of his face.

Henri is terrified now, feeling that the demon woman is pretending to sound like Leslie so that she can kill him more easily.  His breathing elevates as she puts her hand on his chest, seeming compassionate and concerned.

“I am Henri! My name is Henri; not Maurice, and if you’re going to kill me, you twisted bitch, then let’s go!” Henri spews out with enraged satisfaction, waiting for the knife to come down on his chest.

“Who the hell are you!?” The young woman asks in a voice full of betrayal as she stands up and takes a few steps back.  “Where is Maurice?”

Henri begins to breathe easier as he realizes that Leslie was not decapitated, and the vision he saw was just a hallucination.

“You’re still alive!” He says with a smile, feeling a small foot come down hard on his chest

“You sick bastards!” Leslie yells, as she begins to stomp on Henri’s naked body, delivering strong blows to his chest, stomach, and genitals, forcing him to gasp and protect himself.

Henri rolls onto his side, protecting his organs instinctively, and the young woman stops kicking after a few seconds.  He remains curled up on the floor, still unable to see anything but darkness as he listens to her stomping through the room while she gathers up her clothing.  His pain is much more than physical, as being rejected by the young woman destroys his fantasy completely, leaving him in a catatonic state of emotional abandon.  Henri begins to cry as she slams the door, feeling cold in his aging skin, and knowing that his erotic adventures will never be enjoyable again.

Within a few minutes, he rolls over and sits up on the floor, feeling a bit better as he gets ready to return to regular life after another wasted $20,000 investment.  His vision returns as he leans forward, and the devil woman is right there, leaning over him with her eyes fixed upon his.  She grabs his throat with her mighty hand and slams his body against the thick wall of the hotel bedroom.  Henri feels his larynx being constricted, and he tries to pry her fingers away using his left hand while jabbing her in the face with his right fist.

She releases his throat and punches him in the stomach with both hands, causing him to double over.  Then she grabs the back of his neck, squeezing with the strength of a powerful man, dragging him into the bathroom where she smashes his head against the hard surface of the tub.  Henri feels an immediate sting on his brow and forehead, echoes of pain reverberating through his skull at the speed of light.

There is a ringing in his ears now and he senses that the end is coming soon.  Henri gets to a position on all fours, looking wildly at the woman’s powerful legs.  He opens his mouth in a fevered panic and bites hard into her thick calf muscle, feeling his teeth tearing through her skin and sinewy muscle tissue.  Like a ravenous dog fighting for survival, he shakes his head back and forth, and continues to tear the flesh of her leg, watching blood flow down his chin and smear his cheeks.

As she drops to her knees, Henri rises to his feet and leaps onto her back, wrapping his arms around her throat and squeezing with all of his strength.  She spins around fiercely, rising to her feet again, despite the bite wound in her calf.  Her muscular legs send them both into the wall of the shower.  Henri holds on tight, constricting her airway further as the powerful, demonic creature continues to smash him into the shower with her back and legs.  As she does this for the third time, he feels the stainless steel handles and shower head smash into his back and skull.  The Congressman winces at the intense sting of blunt metal hammering against his spine and kidneys like a reverse battering-ram.

Henri screams like a wild man, squeezing as hard as he can until his muscles begin to tear from the effort.  Finally, the hellish beating stops, and the woman drops to the floor of the large, white tub with Henri on her back.  As he raises his head, Henri realizes that his vision has gone dark again.  The cruel sting of being blind makes him shiver.  He begins to cry with the immediate shock of lying naked next to a dead body in the tub.  His hands are trembling as he reaches out to grip the wall, but he grabs the woman’s short ponytail instead.  Henri freezes for a moment, not recalling that the ghastly creature had a ponytail.  His mind goes numb when he realizes that the body next to him in the tub is also naked.

“Maurice?” He calls out in vain, hoping to hear the familiar response from his friend and employee.  “Maurice!?”

Henri moves his hand around from the ponytail to the right ear of the body, feeling a familiar crucifix earring.  He leaps out of the tub with the sudden cold sting of reality in the center of his gut, falling onto his back atop the surface of the cold tile.  Henri lies there, shaking on the floor, horrified by what might come next.

“She’s still alive… Just finish me; I don’t want to suffer anymore!” Henri concedes, with tears streaming from his blinded eyes, feeling her presence in the room, immersed in fear and defeat as he waits in silence for his inevitable end.

END OF VOLUME I.

COMING SOON: She Is Risen: Torn The Langley Contour

Other books by this author:

Isiah’s Skirmish

The Golden Goose of Los Angeles

From the author: Thank you for taking the time to read my work, I hope this experience has been useful and exhilarating. Any reviews you might post will help me to better hone my skills.

Cheers,

–Irish.

Follow Irish on Twitter: @isiahsskirmish

Table of Contents

Dedication:

Part I. Your Move

I. NATIVITY OF THE CALDERA

II. PER DIEM

III. WHAT HAPPENS IN THE JUNGLE

IV. PARANOIA – RESERVATION FOR ONE

V. SUNDOWN

VI. REFLECTING ON THE DEVIL’S PROTÉGÉ

VII. THE CASES – LORABELL CARDIGAN

VIII. CARTEL ALL

IX. THE CASES – MAN OF MANY MANIPULATIONS

X. CARTEL EXODUS

XI. THE CASES – DEVLIN IN THE DETAILS

XII. ARMANI – DOES THIS MAKE ME LOOK DEAD

XIII. DON’T TALK TO STRANGERS

XIV. LET’S TALK PRESSURE

XV. THE CASES – NOT YOUR ORDINARY BLOCK PARTY

XVI. STATS & STRIPES – BRIEFING THE EAGLE

XVII. IT’S BEEN A PLEASURE

Other books by this author: