Black Ghost

by Freddie Villacci Jr

  “You’re nothing like your father,” Caroline said definitively, sitting up. “You’re just human. We all have issues, and we all fail.” Caroline looked back over her shoulder. “Trust me, you can’t let your failures define who you are. It will ruin you.” She paused, as if the weight of what she’d just said was now crushing her.

  “Samantha?”

  She nodded. “Mm hm. It was a sex trafficking case. One of our wealthiest existing clients was accused. Samantha was his accuser. I’d convinced myself she was just some spoiled little brat with a predilection for bad choices. And we spun it that she knew what she was getting herself into. So, I defended the guy under the pretext that I was protecting the firm’s billable hours. I was good, Mack. We got him off.”

  “You did what you thought was right,” he said, feeling instantly ashamed for so trite a sentiment.

  She shook her head. “I should have known. Samantha was the daughter of a family friend, a little girl I knew for—” It took a moment for Caroline to collect herself. “Anyway, her sister confronted me outside the courtroom after I won the case. The awful things she called me. After the trial, I did a little digging and found out that I’d set a monster free. He’d done this to a bunch of girls. Used them up, sold them. He wound up killing one of them.”

  Something was tugging at the corners of her mouth. She fought it by pursing her lips. “They found Samantha hanging in her closet.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “After that, I quit practicing law and joined the FBI, determined to save the world in a day. You know?”

  “I think sometimes you’re driven to try and save everyone,” he offered.

  Caroline gazed into his eyes. “Right. But I realize something now. After meeting April. I understand the patience it takes, and how rewarding it is, if you can help one person. Anyway, the point is, nothing can change our mistakes, but our failures can change us for the better. They make us stronger, more capable, more determined to make things right.”

  “If I choke again, more people could die.”

  Caroline reached for him, locked eyes, “The man I know as my partner, the man I—” here she paused. “I believe in, won’t.”

  He went to her and gave her a gentle hug, then kissed her cracked lips.

  103

  Bic boarded the Lear jet his employer had arranged for him to fly to Seattle. He was a soulless zombie, a preprogrammed killing machine. No control, no agency. Completely locked in. In order to save Gracie, he had to keep killing until he finished the list.

  All he had left was Number Ten. After Number Ten was done, he wouldn’t kill again. Somehow, after Number Ten, he would try to make right all the evil he had done.

  How had this happened? Was it the Braddick family?

  Was it the sight of those kids munching snacks and watching movies? Or the look in Guy and Lindsay’s eyes when they turned away from their children for the last time?

  What would his Mama think of him?

  The hand of the devil was what he was. He knew that now. So perhaps he did have some agency. This is what he was at his core. His father’s fault or not, the second he had made a choice to kill innocent people was the second he became a doer of evil. He wasn’t just created by his father, he was his father. Evil in his heart, nudging him toward a dark desire that needed to be satisfied. After this job was done and Gracie was safe, he would find the next excuse to continue to kill.

  A tingling numbness walked down his spine as his subconscious blurted out a question that echoed though his mind: Am I a serial killer for hire?

  He drove through steady rain in downtown Seattle, the Templetons’ home address punched into the car’s navigation system. He had a wrapped pork chop lying on the passenger’s seat. He could smell the thing, growing more rancid by the minute. It made him want to bring up his lunch.

  Just get through the next couple of hours, and then this thing, whatever it was, would be over.

  His burner phone rang unexpectedly. He kicked himself. He had forgotten to call Gracie back.

  “Yo, Bic, it’s Hawk. I’m in Chicago.”

  Bic’s breath grew ragged. If his employers had hurt Gracie or kidnapped her or added her to the list, he would kill all of them in the most violent and gruesome ways he could imagine.

  “Gracie okay?”

  “She’s fine, buddy, relax. I’ve got some news for you, and I didn’t know how you would react, so I wanted to be in Chicago before I gave it to you. I found him.”

  Bic almost crashed the car upon hearing this. His temples throbbed. He could feel the rage coursing through him like lava.

  “Where?” was all Bic could ask.

  “New Orleans.”

  To New Orleans, thought Bic, and straight on through to Hell.

  104

  At 1:45 PM, the chopper descended toward the landing platform of Ralston Templeton’s estate. Mack had figured Templeton’s house was going to be enormous, but he hadn’t expected the property to resemble a small college campus. More than one roofline popped out of the dense pine cover blanketing the lakefront lot.

  He analyzed the area. All these beautiful landscaping features were bad news when you’re trying to protect someone from being attacked. This wasn’t going to be easy.

  The property rose about ten feet above the lake. Dark, unworked rock lined the shore, and the ten-foot wall of jagged stone created hundreds of good hiding spots. That area would be impossible to survey from land, so someone would need to regularly inspect it by boat. Then you had to deal with the multitude of trees and shrubbery. An experienced sniper would be all but impossible to find in this environment. If he had to, he would be able to wait for days, undetected, until he got his shot. And then there was the sheer scale of the estate. If a man wanted to get lost on these sprawling acres, he could.

  When the chopper landed, he was met by a fiftyish man dressed in green fatigues and holding an M-16.

  “Sir, can I see your credentials for verification?”

  Mack handed the man his ID.

  “Agent Maddox, I’ll need your weapons.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Sergeant’s orders. No one on the premises except security will be armed.”

  “I can’t have a weapon?”

  “You’re here as a consultant, sir. You’ll need to leave the fighting to us.”

  Mack handed the man his 9mm. “I just had it cleaned.”

  Ten minutes later, Mack was taken to the five-bedroom guest house on the south end of the estate to meet with Sergeant Keith O’Donnell. The guesthouse was detached from the main house, which was located north and slightly west of their position. To the east was the lake. The sergeant and his men had already converted the guest house into military barracks. The great room had been turned into a sophisticated surveillance center, full of communications equipment and flat-screen monitors. The perimeter of the estate had already been salted with sophisticated sensors and video surveillance cameras. All the windows had been blacked out to prevent sniper fire. The dining and living rooms had been converted into supply rooms storing an array of impressive weapons, combat gear for both land and water use. They even had a fire-retardant bomb suit hanging from one wall.

  Mack’s talk with Sergeant O’Donnell was short and to the point: the sergeant made it clear Mack was there to provide real-time, FBI-vetted intelligence, period. If he or his superiors didn’t like the arrangement, they were more than welcome to leave. Mack’s phone rang as he concluded the short, harsh instruction.

  “Mack, it’s Tom,” Walton said.

  “Yeah, Tom. Find anything good?”

  “I can’t talk long right now, but wanted to let you know I found a lot of good information on where to go hiking in Utah.”

  “Utah?”

  “Yeah, Utah, remember? You asked me to find the best spots for hiking. I did, but they’re not cheap.”

  “Right, but you found some—good. I’ll talk to you later.�
��

  Mack hung up, his mind troubled. Tom had found a match on Phil Utah for the insider trading.

  And Utah was an old buddy of Bender’s.

  105

  The Big Easy, the Birthplace of Jazz, the City that Care Forgot—just the things that would have drawn his father to New Orleans. Bic stood in front of rustic, white-washed St. Augustine Catholic Church in the Tremé neighborhood. A fat, full moon, still low in the sky, threw his shadow over the church doors. He rechecked the text message to make sure he hadn’t given the cab driver the wrong address.

  This was the place.

  His mind wandered as he stood before the church doors, but what drew him back to focus were quick, vivid flashes of his father bashing his mother’s skull in with that hot iron skillet. Swing after swing, thud after thud, he once again watched that murdering bastard end his mother’s life.

  Then he remembered his turn, and felt a cold chill squeeze his neck as the evil man choked him, while shaking him so hard the back of his head smacked repeatedly against the concrete floor.

  With the phrase his father had given him ringing through his thoughts, he kicked the large wooden church door open, knocking it off its hinges.

  He marched into the church, the fury completely consuming his mind as he screamed, “Clarence Green, it’s pork chop-eatin’ time!”

  For a long, quiet moment, there was no response.

  His breath rasped from his chest. The silence of the place enveloped him totally as he darted several glances around. Tears were flowing down his cheeks.

  Behind the altar on the back wall, a single light shone on a simple crucifix. The eyes of Jesus Christ captured him.

  God Himself was telling him it was time to forgive.

  “I don’t think I can,” Bic mumbled.

  The eyes drew him in, and Bic suddenly found himself kneeling in front of the altar, his arms extended like the arms of the Lord.

  An elderly black man with a fringe of gray hair appeared. Bic hopped to his feet, his tranquility replaced with a surge of adrenaline.

  “Is it you?” Bic’s voice shook with a deep anger as he took several steps forward. “Is it you?”

  The old man didn’t answer. Bic reached out with his massive hands to grab hold of him. The stiff white clerical collar on the man’s neck stopped him.

  “You’re a priest?” Bic asked numbly. As his vision cleared he began to realize that rage had superimposed his father’s face over this priest’s.

  The man nodded, the quickened breath of panic coming from his nose. His trusting light brown eyes never looked away. Bic now saw this man was in his fifties—not in his eighties, as his father would have been.

  “I’m sorry, Father.” Bic let go of the man, reached into his pocket, and brought out a bundle of hundreds. “I’ll pay for the damage.”

  The priest shook his head. “I’m not happy about the door, but I understand.” The priest extended his arm and guided Bic to the front pew. Bic hesitated, then sat, and the priest joined him.

  “I’ve been expecting you, Bic Green.” The priest’s face lit up when he saw Bic’s reaction. With a calming smile, he said, “I knew you would come looking for your father someday, as did he.”

  His confused numbness turned to red-hot fury at the priest’s words. “Where is he?”

  “I’ll show you in a moment,” the priest said. “But would you indulge me first?”

  Bic rose to his feet, “No. I won’t let him get away.”

  “He has nowhere to go, Bic. Please, you’ll have your way.”

  Bic stood, his rage muddled by the priest’s tranquility.

  “Bic, you came here to kill the man who took your mother’s life. I can understand your anger, but what would killing him accomplish?”

  “It would—” Bic began to say, but faltered. He had never thought past the act itself. It had shaped him, forged him. For his entire life, he had lingered in that precise moment, never venturing beyond. “It would help me,” he said at last. “Because I need it.” He almost blushed at how childish and hollow it sounded.

  The old man looked at him, compassion in his eyes. “You need it only to feed the darkness.”

  At an intellectual level, Bic knew the priest was right, but what did the darkness know about payback? He owed his father something, and he was going to give it to him in grand fashion.

  The priest took a deep breath. “But I won’t break through to you, will I? You were born in the darkness, and you’ll die in the darkness as well. Come, I’ll take you to your father.”

  “I’m not leaving this church until I see the priest holes.”

  The priest became enamored a bit, “You did your homework.”

  “A church this old, there’s bound to be one.”

  “You’re right, but there’s nothing to find.”

  “Show me.”

  “Fair enough,” the priest walked behind the alter and pulled up the green linen cloth to expose a metal trap door built into the floor.

  Bic bent down and opened it. He illuminated the light from his phone to reveal a small empty room made out of brick.

  “You ready now for me to take you to him?”

  The priest led Bic out a door at the end of the south transept.

  A moment later, Bic stood over a small headstone, and shined his flashlight to expose his father’s name scratched into it. The writing appeared to have been done by a child still learning to write.

  He regarded all the shabby homemade headstones and artifacts scattered throughout the graveyard. This was a poorhouse for the dead. Coffins jutted up from the ground in all directions like weeds.

  “When did he die?” Bic asked hollowly.

  “A couple of months ago.”

  Bic shook his head. He didn’t know if he was going to walk away, or start digging up his father’s grave with his bare hands.

  The priest touched his arm. “Bic, I knew your father for six years. I realize this may not make a difference, but the man I knew was much different from the man you knew.”

  Bic looked at the priest, silently urging him to tell him more.

  “When he came to our doorstep, he was nothing more than a scared little man at the end of a life filled with terrible sin. We got him off drugs, and he gained clarity on the man he wanted to become, and he gave himself to Jesus. Bic, I swear to you in this holy place that there wasn’t a single day I knew him that he didn’t regret what he had done to you and your mother.”

  Bic stared. His tears had stopped, clogged up by something—rage? Pity?

  “Do you know what I’ve done because of that man?” he said.

  “I couldn’t even begin to guess,” the priest said sadly. He pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Bic. “Take this and read it. It’s from your father. For you.”

  Bic unfolded the paper and shined the flashlight on the spidery scrawl.

  Dear Son:

  I know I changed the course of your life in the worst way on that horrible day, and for that I am sorry. I don’t want to insult you by asking for your forgiveness. Instead all that I ask is you forgive yourself for the sins you have committed. If I can teach you just one thing as your father, the most important thing, it’s never too late to place yourself in the hands of the Lord.

  IT WASN’T TOO LATE FOR ME - IT’S NOT FOR YOU!

  CLARENCE

  He folded the letter carefully and put it in his front pants pocket. “Why didn’t he find me to tell me this? The terrible things I’ve done… if only…”

  “Would you have forgiven? He talked about your forgiveness every single day I knew him, from the first day he showed up right up until the day he died. You came here for blood and broke my church door. Those who dwell in darkness seek refuge in self-deception. You’re no different.”

  Bic turned and walked out of the cemetery, feeling lightheaded. His mind raced out of control.

  He needed to spea
k to Gracie. She could soothe his aching soul.

  When he opened his phone, he saw he had an email from his employer.

  Attached was a graphic of a map. Pinpointed was the location where Hawk was safe-keeping Gracie. It read, simply:

  The job will be completed within twenty-four hours, or Gracie will substitute.

  Crazy thoughts flashed into his head, destructive and self-destructive.

  106

  Congressman John Alfred Tidwell sat in his office at nine in the evening, highly agitated, waiting for a response from his hired killer. He had sent him several emails over the past nine hours, ever since he had received intelligence from his people that the assassin had unexpectedly flown to New Orleans.

  Tidwell looked at the numbers on the list he had written down. With nine people crossed off the list, they were at a little over $200 billion in additional death-tax revenues for next year. But they had to hit $250 billion. Without half of Ralston Templeton’s $120 billion- empire, Tidwell’s bill would never pass, and the joint venture with Russia to harvest the world’s largest oil and gas reserves wouldn’t happen.

  Thinking of what Parelli had said—about what the Russian mobsters would do to him if he wasn’t able to get Templeton killed in the next couple of days—every passing minute without a response made Tidwell more certain the sonofagun had gone AWOL. With two days left, he couldn’t afford to waste another hour.

  Tidwell grabbed a pay-by-the-minute cell phone and placed a call.

  “This is Jones,” Parelli answered.

  “Mr. Jones, this is—”

  Parelli cut him off. “Where’s our fundraiser?”

  “Our main fundraiser, I believe, has left our campaign and unexpectedly gone to New Orleans.”

  “I’m going to pretend you just didn’t say that. You just didn’t tell me that, correct?”

  “We can fix this.”

  “Would you mind telling me why on earth he did that?”

  “My best guess is family business.”

  There was a frustrated exhalation on the other end. “I don’t suppose he said anything about this to you.”