Lilith Cohen Retribution

by William Manning

  “Get in the car and drive. Take us to your wife’s house.” I sit in the back seat with my Glock trained on her head. “If I sense you are rolling me into an ambush, I will paint the windshield with your brains.”

  She glances over her shoulder with a scowl. “Yes! You made it abundantly clear you’ll fuck me up.” She cranks engine and heads to her home.

  Chapter 12

  We arrive in the South Hamptons, New York. She drives through a ritzy suburb with well-kept lawns and trees planted in every yard — typical Home Owner’s Association bullshit. Zasha abruptly slams the breaks jerking me forward. Her eyes saturate with despair as she starts bellowing.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I snap. “They’re already here. They’ve killed them. Oh, no my girls.

  I lean forward. “Stay here. I’ll go in and get them.”

  She sniffs mucus up her nose. “There’s an MP5 in the backseat with three mags of armor piercing rounds.” She sobs.

  I grab the MP5 and slap a mag in and cocking the bolt. I recon the area; there is an ESU armored truck blocking the driveway with three Mercs standing guard outside of the house wearing NYPD-ESU uniforms.

  I can see the headlines now police raid gone bad when drug dealer moms open fired on police resulting in their child killed in a crossfire. Well played Colvin, well Played.

  I notice there is nothing but woods on the backside of Lauren’s home. “Zasha.” She is not responding she is too busy bawling. I slap the back of her seat “Zasha!”

  She gasps. “What!”

  “Stop acting like they’re already dead. If you don’t see their corpses, they aren’t dead. Now, I need you to get me on the other side of those woods can you do that?”

  “Ye-yes, Lilith. I can.”

  Arriving on the other side of the woods, she stops. I burst from the car with my SMG in hand, heading into the trees.

  This is a riot I’m trying to save the life of the woman who attempted to kill my friends. I must be losing my damn mind, but Connie is right. Lauren is vital to eroding Colvin’s organization.

  I kneel at the edge of the tree line. They’re two mercs on her patio guarding the rear entrance armed with tactical shotguns. Taking the distance into account, I’m well within the effective range of a submachine gun. I fire off several rounds. The bullets decorate the wall with red spray.

  Not sure Lauren will appreciate the new décor on her patio.

  I switch the MP5 to three-round burst. Three mercs storm out of the back door. I shred two of them and duck under the railing as a shotgun blast the railing into splinters. Footsteps inch closer to the edge of the porch. The cocky bastard vaults over the banister and tries to flank me, but I step under the porch hiding behind the support beams.

  Nice try.

  He crosses in front of me, and I extend both my wrist blades and plant them in his stomach. The merc shrieks as his face contorts with agony. I rip one blade out and slice his Adam’s apple. The blood flows from his neck like a scarlet waterfall. Kicking him away, I retract the blades and unsling the MP5.

  The rooftop is not that high. Now let’s hope there is a skylight for me to insert from.

  I leap to the roof noticing a skylight in the center. Peering through the sunroof, Lauren and a skinny black haired little girl looking to be 12 or 13, on their knees with a gun to the backs of their heads. Four mercs guard the man in the suit as he speaks to Lauren while holding a gun to her daughters head. I don’t recognize the suit. It’s definitely not Colvin though. The schmuck has a Beretta pushed against her daughter's temple, taunting Lauren. The child's cries send a surge of rage through my body.

  Garbage like this deserves nothing short of death.

  The sunroof appears big enough for me to fit through. I fire a round shattering it and drop through the ceiling. I pull my Karambit on the way down and land on the suit. Piercing the top of his shoulder, knocking him to the floor. I raise my SMG shooting three in the head. I draw my Glock hammering two in his chest and one in his head. Holstering my 45 Lauren and I lock eyes. She’s in shock at who came to her rescue.

  The feeling’s mutual.

  The asshole in the suit lets out a shrill as I rip the blade out of his shoulder. He reaches for his, gun but I slam my foot on it and kick it across the room. I cut Lauren and her child free with the bloodied knife.

  “Why? I-I kidnapped you and tried to kill your friend and your fellow Hunters.” She scoffs. “What kind of twisted mind fuck is this?”

  “You’re more useful to me alive at the moment. Plus, a little Russian birdie told me you and your kid was marked for death.” I turn to the asshole on the floor. “Now, let’s find out who the hell this monkey suit wearing asshole is.” I kick him over on to his back. “Vice President Cook?”

  He glares at me while clutching his shoulder. “Lauren, find something to bind his hands. Quickly the real cops will be here soon.”

  “With Pleasure, Lilith.” She returns with a pair of handcuffs from her bedroom. I stare at the cuffs grinning. She scoffs. “So what I like imagination in the bedroom.”

  “Mom, why do you have pink handcuffs in your bedroom?” The daughter says.

  And so begins the dreaded talk about the birds and the bees and kink.

  She awkwardly scratches her head. “Uh… I’ll explain later, baby.” After handcuffing the VP, Lauren grimaces. “How did you find my home?”

  “As I said, a Little Russian birdie told me. You know, the one you put in those cuffs sometimes to enhance the fun in the bedroom.”

  Picking up the VP, she glares at me and swallows deeply. “Zasha… Did you kill her?” her voice faint and on the verge of breaking.

  “No, I just put one in her knee. She’ll live. We need to get going before we end up getting arrested for treason.”

  “You fucking bitches! When I am rescued I'll have you both locked up and your kid thrown in the worst orphanage I can find!” He snarls.

  She smacks him in the back of the head with her Sig P226. “Then maybe I should just put a bullet in your fucking skull right now, eh? Get your fucking ass moving!” She shoves him out the back door.

  “Come on, kid. Stay between us,” I say to her. She nervously picks up the pace and gets between us.

  “Her name is Marianna by the way. Marianna, this Lilith.”

  I smile at her. “Nice to meet you, Marianna.”

  The kid turns to me and gives me toothy smile. “And you as well.”

  Arriving back at the car in the middle of the clearing, Lauren tells Zasha to pop the trunk. “Please, you can’t put me in there. I’m claustrophobic.”

  “You tried to kill my kid and me. Be thankful I'm not fileting you like a goddamn fish,” she says, throwing him in the trunk and slamming the door shut.

  “We need to get somewhere secluded, Lauren.” “Right, uh I know just the place. Zasha, head up to our boat.”

  At least she's useful I’ll give her that. Lauren cradles her child trying to calm her down after she starts crying.

  Poor kid, listening to her cry reminds me of the screams I heard from Muslim children in Yugoslavia. This is a fucked up world where kids have a good chance to be exposed to such horrors.

  Fog looms over the marina, and the brisk wind wafting from water is like needles on your face. I drag the VP out of the trunk, while Lauren readies her luxury speedboat. “Zasha, you stay here with your daughter. She doesn’t need to see this. Don’t go back to your house either it’s going to be swarming with cops.”

  “I’m not stupid, Lilith. I used to be Russian army.” “Well, you let me sneak up on you. Don’t be so oblivious this time.”

  “I won’t.” The kid climbs in the passenger seat. “Where is mother going?”

  I look at her flashing a smile. “Hey, don’t you worry about your mother, little one. Me and your mom are going to have a nice stern chat with this man who tried to hurt you and your mother. You stay right here with Zasha.”

  She leaps forward and embraces me. “T
hank you, Lilith, for saving us.”

  If only this kid knew my original plan was to kill both her mothers.

  I drag him out of the trunk and walk him down to the docks with my gun jammed against his spine. I toss him on the boat and pin him to the deck with my knee in his chest.

  “If you move without our say, we kill you. Got it?” “I am the Vice President of t he United States and you two just committed treason.”

  I smack him on the nose with the barrel. “You bitch!” he cries.

  “You will speak when told to speak.”

  Lauren cranks the engine, and we leave the docks. We glide across the water, heading far out into the frigid waters of the Atlantic.

  Lauren stops the craft where land is no longer visible. We’re in the middle of an ocean mist. Perfect no one will disturb us out here. She steps away from the wheel. “What do you want to do with him, Lilith?”

  “I need info from him otherwise what we say is going to be irrelevant to my bosses, and speaking of info I need you and Zasha to come with me so we can protect you from Colvin.”

  Mistrust blooms in her eyes. “Really? Your bosses want to protect me what’s the catch?”

  “You were Colvin’s right hand you must have a wealth of Intel you can give us. We can protect your wife and kid a lot better than you can on your own. Think about your little girl she deserves the best chance she can get right now.”

  Her expression becomes dull. “How do I know your bosses won’t have me killed?” She juts her hands out to her side. “I mean, I’ll be useless to your agency once they have everything, and my family will be thrown out in the cold.”

  “You don’t. But it’s a lot better chance than you’d have going it alone.”

  “I’ll think about it while you’re getting the info out of this prick.”

  He tries to wiggle away from us like a fish out of water, but it’s pointless. There is nowhere to go. I deliver a swift kick to his abdomen, forcing him to break into a spasm of gasping for air. I pick him up and slam him down in the chair. “You two are in such deep shit you know that? Kidnapping a public official you two will be executed for treason.”

  “Probably. Now you can save yourself some suffering by telling us how and when you and Colvin are going to assassinate the President.”

  “Go fuck yourself, bull dykes. I don’t answer to women. They answer to me.”

  A sexist politician and he is at my mercy. Shit, it’s not even Christmas yet.

  I grab his shoulder and dig my fingers into his wound, and he lets out a high pitched squeal. “You know for someone who looks down on women, you sure as hell scream like one.”

  He grits his teeth. “Insults will only dig yourself inna a deeper hole, little girl.”

  I lean down smirking. “And insulting me will only cause you more suffering.”

  He glowers at Lauren. “Colvin will make you pay for this betrayal. No one walks out on him. He made you wealthy, before him, you were just some war junkie who lost her shit in Iraq and got dishonorably discharged. He gave you purpose again. Saved you from selling your ass to feed your daughter, but when Colvin hears of this, he will kill you and your wife, and your daughter will be thrown in the blights. She will be turning tricks by the time she hits fifteen.” Lauren loses it and lunges on him unleashing a flurry of punches in the face. I sit back and let her get out some pent up aggression — two minutes pass.

  “Alright, that’s enough. He is of no use to us if you T.K.O him.”

  She spits in his face and snatches him by the neck, choking him her jaw pulses with rage. “When she’s finished, I’m killing your ass!” her voice sinks to a growl.

  I stand over him and grin. “You should see your face right now. It looks like grounded-up hamburger. Tell me how it feels to be done in by a woman. I bet it makes you feel like you have nothing between your legs anymore.” I place my pistol against his kneecap. “This is your last chance then I cripple you.”

  “Fuck you, you damn dyke.”

  He screeches as the gun fires blowing off his kneecap. Grinding my boot into his knee, he lets out a high pitched shriek. “Talk!” “No!” he gasps in agony.

  Holstering my pistol, I pull out my knife and place the point just below his eyeball. “Maybe I will stick this blade in the corner of your eye and start yanking. Or perhaps I’ll just take the whole fucking eye.”

  “No! Okay! Stop! I’ll give you the info you need.” Most people don’t want to endure having their eye carved out. So the majority of them start quacking.

  Lowering the blade, I grasp him by the neck. “If you’re planning to lie to me, I will continue to practice my optical surgery skills, and I fucking suck at it! So choose your next words carefully.”

  He scoots up on the bench. “The President has a press conference at the UN tomorrow at 12pm. She will have a one on one with a journalist on live TV about the crisis in Syria.”

  Why the hell was I kept in the dark about this? “What does the reporter look like?”

  He shrugs. “No idea.”

  My grip tightens on my talon. “One more lie and I’ll carve your goddamn eye out of your head. Do you hear me?” I snarl.

  His body tenses and he yanks his head away. “Okay! The Journalist is athletic built. Early thirties. About average height and sandy blond hair.”

  “What’s his name?”

  He exhales and turns back to me. “Brian Coldwell. Look I wasn’t there for the in-depth briefing on the attack.”

  That makes sense because god forbid a politician actually do his own dirty work.

  “Tell me how and why?”

  “Ever since President Kimura took office two years ago she has put Black Reign under investigation for war profiteering and financing criminal and terrorist organizations and see this is a problem. It would put a lot of powerful people under investigation as well, Congressmen, Senators Prime Ministers. She has backed us into a corner. It’s only a matter of time before she can prove any of it and Colvin that greedy fucking idiot wants to harvest those nanites from your blood. We got into a big argument over this.”

  Men of shared power turning on each other like children fighting over a toy is as old as humanity itself.

  “I told him to kill you, not turn you into some lab experiment. I told him the Hunters are not to be fucked with, but he wouldn’t listen. So the goddamn idiot sees you as a product rather than a threat to everything we are working toward. And Colvin ordering the killing of your husband only made President Kimura that much more aggressive in her investigations. But, our fearless leader didn’t see it like that. He saw it as a way to bring you right to us, but he hadn’t planned on you to start attacking his infrastructure first.”

  “My husband worked for Colvin. He was one of the lead scientists on trying to replicate the nanites inside me. Colvin didn’t kill my husband just to lure me out; he killed him because he’s doing what Lauren is doing.”

  Either way, the death of my husband was the catalyst it seems for the investigation of Black Reign to pick up steam. Colvin’s gain, Connie’s’ gain, and my loss.

  “What the hell are you getting out of playing the Brutus of the President?”

  He stares atme blankly. “Power. Colvin kills Kimura I take her place granting Colvin immunity. I am sick of her ruining the fabric of this nation.”

  Little does he know, the people investigating him are not bound by the laws of any government.

  “Why? Because she’s trying to fix the job market and bring back government aid to American citizens instead of throwing them in the Blight Districts; cut the bullshit! The only reason you want her out of office is her plans will dig into yours and others pockets and expose people like you for the evil parasites they are. People like you and Colvin don’t give a fuck about this nation or any other nation.” I cross my arms and give him a sidelong glance. “All you people lust for is power and what you can make a dollar from. So don't sell me that I’m saving America shit.” I sit in the driver's seat and le
an forward. “That twinkle in your eye. That’s your world crumbling around you, but continues to cling to life as if there is still hope it will endure the inquisition Connie is about to unleash upon you and Black Reign.”

  He chuckles. “You have no proof of any of this. The president will dismiss this as slanderous rumors nothing more, and you will be charged with treason.”

  I dig in my pocket and hold up my phone with a deadpanexpression. “Everything that was said here has been recorded. In just a few minutes, President Kimura will know everything. I’m going set your entire fucking world on fire because unlike the president; I don’t give a damn what I can prove. You’re gonna die horrible deaths regardless.”

  “Okay, look wait, Mrs. Cohen. We can work out some kind of deal what do you want? You want me to have Colvin killed is that it? I can arrange that.”

  Listening to his pathetic attempts to bargain with me I came to one conclusion, he’s fucked, and he knows it. So he’s trying to sell out Colvin in a pathetic attempt to save his own ass. A last-ditch effort by most corrupt politicians when they realize it’s time to pay the bill.

  “Unlike you I’m actually loyal to the people I work for.” I pull out my cell and dial up Connie.

  “Yes, Agent Cohen. How can I help you?” she answers.”

  “I have some info you’ll want to hear on Black Reign.”

  “Why isn’t Lauren standing here in front me?” “You may want to hear this.” I text the recording to her phone and she listens to it.

  “God... if Black Reign can get to the VP then who else have they gotten to in the White House or in other governments for that matter. Agent Cohen, see what else you can get out of him and then dispose of him.” her voice cold with anger.

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  I hang up the phone, flashing a cocky smile. “Listen to me, Connie is willing to cut you a deal if you tell her who else is involved in the assassination plot?”

  “What kind of deal?”

  “You step down as Vice President and leave the country and never return.”