The Mike Black Saga Volume 2

by Roy Glenn

“Now,” Leon said. “Who hired you?”

  “Look, I gave you Bart. I’m gonna assume the reason I didn’t hear from Swan is because he’s already dead. I can’t give you anything else. You don’t know how these guys are. They’ll kill me.”

  “What you think I’m about to do if you don’t tell me what I wanna know?” Leon lied.

  “I know, but they won’t stop at me, they’ll kill my wife and kids. Of course it will all look like an accident,” Rosstein pleaded. “But they won’t stop there. Once they’re through with me, they’ll take my brother’s farm. They’ll do all kinds of stuff, they’ll ruin my whole family, Please,” he begged.

  “Diamond.”

  Diamond zapped him again. But this time Diamond got a little carried away. Rosstein, who was already weak from the session with the ladies, screamed out. Diamond didn’t let up as his back arched, his eyes widened in horror and he suddenly stopped moving.

  “Oh shit! I think Diamond done killed him,” Pearl said.

  “Great!” Leon said.

  “I’m sorry,” Diamond shrugged innocently.

  Leon snatched the taser from Diamond. “Pearl!” Leon said shaking his head in disgust.

  “Yes, sir,” Pearl said quickly.

  Leon grabbed Rosstein’s briefcase. “Get the handcuffs and let’s go. Diamond, you wipe this place down. No fuckin’ prints.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Palermo, Italy, Friday Morning 2:45 Am

  Kip Bartowski sat dressed in all black, in his vantage point in the hills across from the house of Giovanni Falcone and waited for the appropriate time to move. He took another bite of his tuna fish sandwich and looked at his watch.

  “Won’t be long now,” Bart said and picked up his binoculars. He had been there for the last three hours, getting a feel for the property. “Glad there are no search lights.”

  By that time, Bart knew how often Falcone’s men swept the grounds and in what time intervals. Based on the location and angle of the security cameras, he had figured where the blind spots were. Bart had identified the control room, or what passed for one, where the security system was housed. It was a small shack, about twenty meters west of the main house. His first objective would be to make it there without being seen. If things happened the way he planned them, “And they usually do.” He should be able to make it to the house without being detected.

  Bart finished his sandwich and washed it down with a bottle of water. He stood up and began to gather his gear and policed the area, so there’d be no trace of him ever being there. With that task complete, he picked up his binoculars and turned his attention to the ten-foot wall that surrounded the house.

  “Right about now,” he said as almost on cue, two men with AK47’s and dogs walked by. They were followed by a jeep with two more armed men, cruising slowly behind them.

  Once they passed, Bart put on his night vision goggles and began an all-out sprint to the wall. He moved very well for a man his size and had made it down the hill and to the wall in under a minute. He stood motionless with his back pressed against the wall and waited for any evidence that his move to the wall had been noticed. Confident that he had not been detected, he took off his backpack. He took out a rope with a grappling hook attached to it and preceded to scale the wall.

  Now that Bart was on the grounds, he checked his position against the angle of the camera’s before moving toward the house. He stayed low to the ground and began his approach to the house. Once Bart made it to the house, he heard somebody coming. He quickly ducked into the shadows. As the man passed, Bart stepped out of the shadows.

  “Ha preso una luce?” Bart said in Italian.

  “Sicuro, nessuno problema,” the man replied.

  He reached into his pocket for a lighter and turned around. When he looked up, Bart shot him.

  Bart dragged the body behind some bushes. He looked at the lighter the man had. It was nice so he kept it. He could use a cigarette right about now, but he knew that he didn’t have time for a smoke break.

  Bart stood outside the window of the control shack and peeked inside. There were two men seated in front of a console. One was playing solitaire, while the other fought sleep. He made his way around to the front of the building. Once he was in position in front of the door, Bart kicked it in. He stepped inside quickly and fired two shots. He moved toward the two men and fired again, this time it was two to the head to make sure they were dead.

  Bart sat down at the console and looked at the monitors, which appeared to cover all the halls and access points in the house. He shut down all the alarm systems that he could find and as quickly as he could, Bart made a five-second repeating loop of all the monitored areas, so all the monitors displayed the same five seconds. This way anyone looking at the monitor would see nothing. He looked at his watch; he had fifteen minutes to complete his task before Falcone’s men came to the control shack to check in.

  Now that security was disabled and with no camera’s to worry about, Bart moved quickly through the house, up the stairs and to the room of his victim, Pietro Brusca, who was currently being entertained by a dark skinned Italian beauty. He opened the door quietly and slipped inside.

  The lovers were so engaged in what they were doing that they didn’t notice Bart standing there watching them, watching the woman ride Pietro Brusca. The woman was breath taking, with her long legs and large breast. He stood looking at her for a second when suddenly the woman’s eye spring open.

  “Oh il mio dio!” she shouted. Brusca pushed the woman off of him and rolled out of the bed, as the woman tried to cover herself.

  Bart let out a little laugh and raised his gun. He shot Pietro Brusca twice in the head and then turn the gun on the woman and shot her too.

  With his task complete, He resisted his necrophilia tendencies and got out of the house. Once he was off the grounds, Bart made his way to his car, which he had parked two kilometers down the road.

  When he got to the spot where his car was parked, Bart found that all four tires had been flattened. “Shit!” Bart raised his weapon and scanned the area for movement. He didn’t see or hear anybody, so he stooped down next to his car to assess the damage. He thought that he heard a noise behind him. He was just about to turn when he felt a pin prick in the back of his neck. All of a sudden, Bart felt woozy, he tried to stand up, but he fell flat on his face.

  When Bart came to, he found himself alone in a room with a small desk lamp. His mouth was gagged with duct tape and his hands were cuffed behind his back.

  “He’s coming out of it,” Nick said and approached Bart.

  Freeze stood up. “About fuckin’ time.”

  Bart could hear their voices, but couldn’t see anybody, his head still wasn’t clear. He tugged on the cuffs. Bart was strong, but not strong enough to bust handcuffs. Bart looked around the room and tried to get a sense of where he was and how he was going to get himself out of this one.

  “Do you know why you’re here?” Black asked quietly and put on his gloves.

  Bart didn’t answer.

  Black hit him. “Do you know why you’re here?”

  Once again, He didn’t answer.

  “Maybe this will help,” Black said and punched Bart again before ripping the duct tape from his mouth. “Now, do you know why you’re here?”

  “I don’t know who the fuck you are, but you better kill me now, because if I get free I’m gonna cut your fuckin’ heart out!” Bart yelled, but he still couldn’t see anybody. All he could see was Black’s hands coming at him.

  Black hit him again.

  “That’s the one thing you can be sure of. I am going to kill you,” Black said and punched Bart in the face again. He started to walk away but turned right back and hit him again. “You know the whole time I was in jail I thought about how I was gonna kill you. I thought about you, on your knees, me looking in your eyes.”

  “Say goodbye,” Freeze said.

  Black turned and looked at Freeze, seemingly annoye
d by the interruption, then turned back and hit Bart again.

  “But then I thought, why shoot you quick like that? That’s not the way you would do it; is it Bart?”

  “Do whatever you want. Just get it over with if you got the balls. Come on!” Bart yelled. “Least ways I don’t have to listen to you.”

  For the first time, Bart began to realize that this wasn’t about Pietro Brusca, and he hadn’t been grabbed by somebody working for the Italians.

  “You won’t have to listen to the sound of my voice for too much longer. I promise not to say a word while I kill you. But I’m gonna do it slow. I’m gonna kill you the way you killed her. I’m gonna beat you until you pass out. Then I’m gonna have Nick here give you a shot of adrenaline, then I’m gonna beat you until you pass out again. I’m gonna beat you until my hands hurt and I run outta shit to hit you with and then I’ll shoot you in the back. How does that sound to you … Bart?”

  In the dimly lit room, Bart struggled to get loose. The look that covered his face was one of bewilderment.

  “Look at him,” Black said. “He’s all curious and bothered now. He’s wondering what the fuck did he do to piss off somebody that much that they’d wanna kill him like that.”

  “Why don’t you tell him? You know you want to.”

  “Thank you, Nick. I was just about to get to that,” Black said and hit Bart again. “You have no idea what this is about, do you?”

  “No, I don’t. So why don’t you tell me so we can get this over with,” Bart spit out.

  “Don’t be in such a rush.” Black looked at his watch. “My flight to New York doesn’t leave for another eighteen hours. But I really do need you to know why you’re gonna die in this room tonight. You were in New York not too long ago, weren’t you Bart?”

  Bart didn’t answer, but the look on his face confirmed that he knew exactly what this was about.

  “Did you catch a show while you were there? I guess not; you had work to do, didn’t you Bart? You were in town to kill my wife. You beat her and then you shot her in the back.”

  “That was just business. I was just doing the job I was paid to do,” Bart said although he knew it wouldn’t change anything.

  “I know, ’cause you’re a professional, right? It was all just business, I understand, but it was very personal to me.” Black hit him. Then hit him again. “She was my wife!” Black shouted as loud as he could and continued to hit Bart in the face. “She was my wife! And you took her from me.” Black turned and walked away from Bart. “Gag him and blind fold him,” he said to Nick.

  Nick stepped up and immediately put duct tape over Bart’s mouth. Once he had the duct tape on, Nick put plugs in Bart’s ears and blindfolded him to deprive Bart of the sensory stimulation of sound, light and sense of time. Nick then ripped the sleeves off Bart shirt. Nick took out his knife and made long cuts on his arms to get him bleeding. Nick stepped out of the way and Black began.

  The rest of the time went pretty much as Black said it would, with one exception. When Black’s hands began to hurt and he had hit Bart in the head with a phone until it was in pieces, and a wooden chair, it broke on the first swing, but Black used the pieces to beat him, and then Freeze took over.

  Freeze had Nick to help stand Bart up. They walked him into the bathroom, where Freeze hooked the handcuff up to the shower head.

  “What do you think this is; Scarface or some shit?” Nick asked as Freeze stepped back and went to work on Bart’s face and stomach. When he got tired of hitting him, Freeze turned to Nick. “You want some of this?”

  “Nah, kid. I know how much you been looking forward to this. Have fun.”

  Bart was one tough mutha fucka. He took the vicious beating that Black and Freeze dealt him and never did pass out. It was as if Bart wanted to prove to Black that even though he was going to die for what he had done, that he wasn’t going to give Black the satisfaction of breaking him.

  Four hours into the beating, both Black and Freeze had grown tired of beating Bart and were ready to kill him.

  “You ladies had enough yet?” Nick asked.

  Neither Black nor Freeze said anything.

  “Y’all don’t know how to torture nobody.”

  “And you could do better?” Freeze said.

  “Yes.”

  “What would you do?”

  Nick smiled at Freeze. “Son, I forgot more forms of torture than you’ll ever know.”

  “He’s probably right, Freeze. You know ain’t nobody better at torture than good old uncle Sam,” Black commented.

  “Like what, Nick? Give us a little demonstration,” Freeze suggested.

  “Okay,” Nick said and stepped up to Bart. He hit him a couple of times and then he said, “This is called blunt force trauma; punching, kicking, slapping, whipping, or beating him with wires or any object,” Nick said as he demonstrated. “Then there’s positional torture, like what we did in the bathroom. Using suspension, stretching limbs apart, prolonged constraint of movement, forced positioning.” Nick took the pack of cigarettes out of Bart’s knapsack. He lit one. “Then there’s burning him with cigarettes.” Nick pressed the cigarette against Bart’s skin. He recoiled from the pain. “Heated instruments, scalding liquid or acid.”

  “That used to be one of your favorites, Nick. Even before you joined the Army,” Black commented.

  “Then there’s electric shock, asphyxiation, smashing fingers, chemical exposures to salt, chili pepper or gasoline in wounds or body cavities, amputation of digits or limbs, surgical removal of organs. I could go on and on,” Nick said and continued to hit Bart. “There’s psychological techniques to break him down. Exposure to ambiguous situations or contradictory messages.”

  “Enough!” Black said and stood up. “Take the cuffs off him and stand him up.”

  Freeze took off the handcuffs and he and Nick stood Bart up. Once he was on his feet, a beaten and bloody mass, who was unable to lift his arms. Black stood behind Bart and took out his gun. He closed his eyes and raised his weapon. With his eyes closed, he could see Shy’s face.

  “Rest in peace, Cassandra. I love you,” he said softly and shot Bart four times in the back.

  Chapter Thirty- Nine

  DEA Headquarters, New York City

  Monday Morning 9:12 Am

  Detectives Kirkland along with his partner detective Richards sat patiently in the lobby of the DEA offices. Kirk had come there that morning to ask a question that he already knew the answer to but was determined to ask anyway. They had been there for over an hour when agent Pete Vinnelli came into the area.

  “Detectives,” Vinnelli said and extended his hand. “You two keep showing up down here, I’m gonna start thinking that you want to come to work with us.”

  Richards laughed and accepted Vinnelli’s hand. Kirk shook his hand too but didn’t laugh. “I just got one or two questions that I need to ask you, Agent Vinnelli. I won’t take up a lot of your time, we both got bad guys to catch,” Kirk said.

  “Ain’t that the truth, and they’re getting badder every day,” Vinnelli commented.

  “Tell me about it,” Richards said.

  “Can we talk in your office, Agent?”

  “Sure, follow me,” Vinnelli said and led the detectives back to his office. Once everybody was seated, Vinnelli asked, “So tell me what I can help you gentlemen with today?”

  “You know we’ve been investigating the murder of Cassandra Black. You know, Mike Black’s wife.”

  “Yes, how’s that going?”

  “We had run into a brick wall and it had us confused for a while. But we got some information this morning that put it all in its proper prospective. Anyway, I had planned on getting down here last week to ask you about it but, shit, there just ain’t enough hours in the day.”

  “Tell me about it. If only we didn’t have to sleep,” Vinnelli commented smugly.

  “You probably don’t know this, unless you’ve been keeping up for some reason, but we had originally ar
rested Black for the murder.”

  “Yes, I heard that.”

  “Yeah, but we had to let him go. All of the evidence pointed to a contract killer.”

  “You’re kiddin’ me. A contract killer, huh? Now that’s something,” Vinnelli joked.

  “Yeah, something huh?” Richards said, barely able to hide his contempt for Vinnelli.

  “It seems that it was set up to look like Black had come home, beat his wife and shot her in the back. Most cops would have taken the case at face value, bloody perp, found at the scene of the crime, with the murder weapon. Ballistics matched up,” Kirk said.

  “Sounds like it. What led you to believe otherwise?”

  “ME found evidence that suggested that it didn’t happen that way. Make a long story short, we found a cigarette butt in the house and we were able to pull a partial print off it. But what we got back kind of threw us for a loop.”

  “How so?” Vinnelli asked.

  “The print we pulled came back as a match to this man,” Kirk reached in the folder he was carrying and handed Vinnelli the report. “His name is Kip Bartowski. United States Army, Special Forces. Killed in a training accident, October twenty-seventh nineteen ninety eight. Helicopter went down, body was never recovered.”

  Kirk took a second to observe the look on Vinnelli’s face as he stared at Bart’s picture.

  “At first we were wondering how a dead man could smoke a cigarette at a crime scene.”

  “This sort of thing happens all the time, Kirk. These black opts guys are ghosts, and the government treats them like they don’t exist.”

  “So I’ve been hearing. I also heard that you guys sometimes hire guys like this to do the dirty, off the reservation kinda stuff.”

  Vinnelli sat back in his chair and laughed. “You’ve got us confused with the CIA.”

  “I’m sure,” Richards said.

  “I can assure you that this agency doesn’t sanction those types of operations,” Vinnelli said firmly.

  “So you wouldn’t know how one would even begin to look for one of these ghosts?” Kirk asked.