Spies Lie Series Box Set

by D S Kane

Lee sniffed under his arms. “Sorry. They didn’t let me shower. Waterboarding destroyed my sense of smell. Hope it’s temporary.”

  Cassie wrinkled her nose. “Before anything else, I’m filling the bathtub with hot water. I want you to steam a bit before we herd you into the shower.” She squeezed him, so very gently.

  She walked toward the bathroom, looking over her shoulder. She saw Lee hold out his hand, palm up, to the kitten. Ann held back but seemed interested. Maybe this would work out after all.

  Lee sat in the tub, his mind spinning out of control. He could barely stand the pain from the steaming swirling water, tinted pink and brown from his blood mixed with the detritus washing off his skin. As the blood, pus, urine, and grime dissolved, he could see the damage. Red welts, black-and-blue broken skin. Some of the memories of how they’d been inflicted. The damage to his mind was worse, injuries that left no marks. On his body, that is. He remembered the water forcing through the wet towel, starting to fill his lungs as they held his head. How could anyone believe waterboarding wasn’t torture? He struggled, his arms flailing in the bathtub in response

  All for nothing, he thought. I knew nothing, so I couldn’t tell them anything. And they just kept beating me, whipping me like a dog.

  Gizmo climbed the tub, walking delicately along the edge and mewed at him. Lee shook the water from his hand and reached to pet her. The kitten felt the water drop on her tiny body and fled. Cassie entered and smiled at him. Lee tried to smile back, but the effort caused him pain in his left cheek. He touched the spot and his hand came away with fresh blood. Lee dropped his hand back into the steaming hot bathwater. “I think I’m medium rare.”

  She examined him and nodded. As he rose out from the bathwater, she looked at the tub. Seeing the murky water, tears formed in the corners of her eyes. She gently touched his bloody cheek.

  “Cassie, I’m not very steady. ’Fraid I might slip.”

  She nodded again, and stripped off her own clothes before getting into the cesspool of a tub with him. She closed the glass shower doors, bent over to pull the plug to let water drain, and turned on the shower. Cassie held him up, moved him under the showerhead and began to wash him, starting with his hair. Cassie cried silently, her tears mixing with the shower spray. “Oh Lee, they mangled you.” When she got down to his genitals, she froze. “It looks like they tore you apart.” She handed him the soap. “I’m afraid to wash your penis. It’s so black and blue. And your balls look like someone battered them playing tennis.”

  Lee took the soap. “Feels like that’s what they did.” He winced as he lathered himself.” Yeah, it’s real bad. Sorry for both of us. No sex for a while.”

  When she helped him out of the shower, she towel-dried his broken body, applying cotton swabs dampened with alcohol to his open wounds. And then liquid bandage until the bleeding stopped. Once or twice he cried out as the alcohol touched his skin. “Lee, who did all this? Do you know any of their names?”

  “Nope. FBI nabbed me, put me on a CIA aircraft. Homeland Security drove me to the prison, Army guarded me. I was hooded until I arrived, and also when they brought me home. In captivity, they all wore headmasks. As for the beatings and the interrogations, their teams took turns.”

  She swore someday she’d even the score. Cassie handed him a bathrobe. For his broken body.

  Ann was sitting on the couch. The girl walked over and sniffed the air again. She stared at him.

  He said, “Hi, Ann,” and held out his hand.

  She took it, but Cassie could tell Ann was uncertain. When she faced Lee, Cassie noted that he too seemed to have his suspicions. She watched the standoff as each gave ground ever-so-gradually.

  Cassie watched Lee smile, to his credit, in her eyes. He limped over to the bed and sat. Lee flinched as Gizmo launched himself on to his lap.

  Cassie tucked him into the bed. “Ann, sorry but you’ll have to sleep on the couch.”

  Ann shook her head. “Sure. What the hell.” A second passed. “Sure, Cassie.” Gentler voice this time.

  Long after Ann and Lee drifted to sleep, Cassie got up and sat, hunched over at the kitchen table. Tears fell. She felt guilt. It was her fault that he’d been tortured. She thought it would take Lee several days before he could walk or bathe himself. Cassie wondered how long it would be until he recovered from what they’d done to his mind.

  Ann dreamed of Joshua and her mother. She watched mom suck a lungful of crack from the pipe she held loosely in her hand. Sarah took another, deeper dose and coughed, smiled, and suddenly fell sideways to the floor, the grin still decorating her face.

  But, as the teenager watched, horrified, her mother’s color turned red, then gray. Her eyes glazed and her chest no longer moved with breath. Ann screamed but no sound came from her lips.

  Her eyes popped open. Shit, my dead mom was here with me just a second ago. And my dead brother, too.

  She raised her head and saw the bed across the room where Cassie and Lee slept. She listened to the sound of their rhythmic breathing and found comfort there. She lay, forcing her breathing into the same pattern as theirs.

  As he walked down the hall, Congressman Thomas Dillworthy, Republican from Indiana, felt the vibration of his cell phone. He pressed the Talk button and listened. “Yes, Ms. O’Toole, I understand completely, but what you think, it’s just plain wrong. I refuse to believe it unless you can supply hard evidence.” He entered his office suite on the second floor of the Senate Building and closed the door behind him.

  The caller said something and Dillworthy’s expression changed. “You’re sure of this?” He listened carefully. “You want me to give you an exclusive comment? And you want to meet with me before we begin the hearings? Well, in return, I want to meet your source.” He walked to the window and looked out at the Capitol Building. Intense sunshine made him blink and he turned away.

  He listened to her response. “How can I tell if it’s the truth if your source won’t meet with me?” He paused. “Then ask.” He listened again for a moment more. Then he hung up the phone, looking satisfied.

  Democrats didn’t call him “Doubting Thomas” for nothing. The evidence would have to be shatterproof before he would even think of pulling the trigger.

  The Congressman told his staff to leave for their lunch break. Once he was alone, he called the woman back and told her to send the intel via email within forty-five minutes.

  It didn’t take more than four minutes before his cell phone buzzed.

  Dillworthy read a few pages

  His jaw fell open. He mumbled to himself. “Damn. That reporter was right.” He thought, how could POTUS be so stupid? If this is true, the Chicago explosions were funded from the West Wing of the White House. Right under the President’s nose. The Congressman shivered. Did the President know? Did he help plan it? He shook his head, reviewing the source of the intel. But it was no use. There was no way around it. The head of his party would be convicted of treason and murder. He forced himself to not think about the horrible deaths of thousands of innocents.

  As Dillworthy considered his own options, the office door opened and one of his staff, a shy woman, returned from lunch. He turned away and walked into the private room of his office, closing the door behind him.

  He sat down. As the Chair of the Congressional intelligence oversight committee, it was his duty to decide what matters were important enough to deal with in the light of day.

  The question is, will I be a traitor to my party or a traitor to my country?

  Chapter Four

  September 15, 5:28 p.m.

  Dr. Alvin Kantro’s office, 12720 Hawthorne Avenue,Columbus, Ohio

  In one of the examining rooms, Harry Aimes felt like a distant mirror of the late afternoon: gray and cold. He stood next to the examining table, certain the news his doctor had was bad. From the window he could see across the street to the students playing on the lawn outside the Champion Middle School. It was after school and he saw they were unsupervised. Cuts i
n the education budget. Angry teachers left school after their last class.

  He sighed. Those youngsters had their entire lives in front of them. He suspected his was nearly at its end. He thought back to when he was as young as them, and grinned with the memory.

  But then he scowled, the bitter taste of Medicare cuts the outgoing President had endorsed and turned into law having made his life a nightmare.

  Dr. Alvin Kantro knocked on the door and reentered the examining room. “Mr. Aimes?”

  Aimes nodded. “What can you tell me, doc?”

  “How long have you felt the symptoms you reported to my nurse?”

  “I told her. Four months.”

  “And you didn’t think it was serious enough to come in and see me before?”

  “The company I worked for before I retired, uh, doc they stopped paying medical. Cut my pension by over half. Didn’t have the money.”

  The doctor shook his head. “It’s something I’ve heard a lot lately.” He paused and reset his stance. “Well, Mr. Aimes, it isn’t good news. Sorry. The tests show that you have stage four cancer of the esophagus. It’s untreatable, terminal. I wish you had come to me earlier. Even two months ago you might have had a chance.” Kantro pointed to the CAT scan. “As you can see, it’s metastasized. I think you might get two or three months, but this is a very aggressive cancer. I can’t promise you more than that.”

  “Shit. I knew something was wrong. Damn. I’ve got to keep Nancy from finding this out.”

  The doctor nodded and Harry pulled out a stack of cash. “I told your receptionist I can’t afford to pay your whole bill. This is all the money I have. She said I should talk to you.” The doctor nodded, smiled, took the cash and left the room. Aimes was alone. He paced the room before dressing.

  On his way home, he passed the playground, stopping to watch the children playing games in the yard, again, then looked away. He and Nancy had never had any children.

  Walking the three miles to his home, he remembered his first job, a bouncer at a nightclub, pounding drunks flat. Maybe he’d have been better off if he’d stuck to that.

  As he turned onto his own block, he thought that his life had no meaning, so a meaningless death wasn’t so bad. He began to cry, wondering what would happen to Nancy. She’d never worked a day in her life. He worried she’d become homeless. Close to home, he could see their modest cottage, in need of painting. The lawn was brown and ragged. He couldn’t be bothered with working around the house anymore.

  When he unlocked the front door and entered, Nancy was there, a bubbly smile on her lips. She closed the distance, her ample body pacing slow. She asked, “Where were you, Harry? It’s been hours.” He stared at her, frozen by a truth he dared not speak. She waited, then shrugged and walked toward the kitchen.

  He watched her as she retreated into the kitchen. “I needed to walk about a bit. Exercise.” But he avoided talking to her after that, fearing that she might conclude something was wrong. Instead, he removed the manila folder of bills from the living room’s desk, sat at the dining room table, and reviewed their remaining cash. The worst outcome seemed more likely to him now and he cursed, full of anger. He cursed the union. But he knew it wouldn’t help him. He damned National Motors. The auto manufacturer had made his life a living hell and soon even that would end.

  Nancy popped her head through the doorway, wearing an apron. “Dinner’s ready. Your favorite, spaghetti and meatballs.” He entered the kitchen.

  She smiled, settling into a kitchen chair. “I remember, just a few years ago, when you’d come home after a hard day at the factory and see me at the stove, cooking. And every year a new car. You were so proud of your work on the assembly line.” She spooned sauce onto pasta and placed a bowl before him.

  He sniffed but his stomach revolted. “Nance, don’t. What they did, it still leaves a bad taste. They forced my retirement. Gave us crumbs. A miniscule pension and lousy benefits program. I could have stayed, and waited to get laid off. Bad choice either way. Then the bastards reduced my pension to half. I can never forgive them. Now the scum have cut the medical benefits altogether. Like I should forget seeing a doctor.” He glared at her.

  She shushed him. And he felt like a child being scolded.

  He pushed the plate away. Maybe the dessert wouldn’t upset his stomach as much. As he ate a bite of cherry pie, he remembered the old days, when he could brawl in bars unconcerned it might cost him a weekend in jail. He’d even served a term in prison for wrongful death thirty-eight years ago. The labor union never found out about it or he’d have lost his job long before his forced retirement. It might have been better for him. After all, who knows what he might have done instead of sweating his life away at the factory.

  Harry had also been a bail claims bounty hunter before his days at the factory. He thought about the money he’d made finding escaped felons and returning them to justice. Too old for that now.

  She talked as she washed the dishes, and he simply nodded saying, “yes dear,” when he thought she wanted a response. Where would she find the money she needed to survive after he was gone? What work could she do? He needed answers, but instead, after dinner he scraped together the few dollars Nancy had hid away and went out to the bar located at the corner of their block.

  Harry’s intention: get drunk. Very seriously drunk.

  Over his fifth beer, he saw one of the other corporate casualties. Aimes didn’t consider James Madlin a friend. But, when drunk, many people appeared to be his friends. “Hey, Madlin. How you doin’?”

  Madlin looked to be in his early sixties and out of shape. He walked over and sat down at the next bar stool. He ordered a beer. “Not well. No money, and Ruth is sick. Can’t afford her medicine. What a crock the union sold us, negotiating our pensions down to shit.”

  “Yeah. But what can we do?”

  “Aimes, I found a way to fix it so Ruth gets some money, even if it kills me.”

  “Huh?”

  “Yup. I found this website that takes bets on any subject.”

  Harry wondered what good that would do. He opened his mouth to say so, when Madlin leaned close to Harry’s ear and whispered. “I’m gonna kill John Cragmore. I don’t care if he is the friggin’ CEO of National Motors. What he did to us, shit, it’s all his fault. If he and his stockholders weren’t so fuckin’ greedy, we could all get by.”

  Madlin took a swallow of the beer that the bartender brought him. He stayed close to Harry and kept his voice down. “Recently, folks have been betting that union leaders and manufacturing company CEO’s can’t be assassinated. So if you can bet they can, and then if they die, you win. And if you’re the one who kills ’em, there’s usually a bonus bounty from the bet’s initiator attached to proof of death. Bets with bounties are windfalls if you have proof that you’re the one that pulled the trigger. So, you use your cell to video the murder. It’s difficult and dangerous. But, all you need is a gun and a cell phone. There’s no bounty attached to the Cragmore bet, and that’s too bad. As far as killing that bastard is is concerned, I’ll just collect along with everyone else.”

  The fog around Aimes’s head started to clear. “Huh? You’ve gonna do what?” Then he thought about what Madlin had just said. Even through his alcoholic haze, it made sense. “What’s the website’s name?”

  “There’s a few. One’s GrayNet.com. Another’s Intrade. com. They call the folks that do these killings ‘zombie patriots.’ No one knows why. I guess it’s because many of the people taking out the country’s trash have terminal cancer. Almost everyone thinks with all his bodyguards Cragmore can’t be killed, so I’m gonna win this bet.”

  Aimes eyes squared to Madlin’s. He took a sip from his mug and nodded. “How does it work?”

  Madlin grinned. “With the odds on him surviving now at 200,000 to one, if I put up twenty-five bucks I stand to get five million dollars, even if I’m not the one pulls the trigger. The odds are coming back down fast as more people bet that he can be
killed, but even if they come way, way down, it’ll keep Ruth in meds for a long time.”

  Later that night Aimes sat down at the computer in the den. He could hear Nancy snoring in the bedroom down the hall. Just after 2 a.m., he visited both websites and was astounded at the sheer number of people who were hated enough for people to wish them dead.

  He fantasized that he actually killed Cragmore and found that made him feel better. God knows, the asshole deserves it.

  He decided to borrow some money from his brother to place the bet, and some more from his sister to buy a gun.

  Harry Aimes was an instant convert.

  When Lee awoke the morning after Cassie had reclaimed him, he found Ann in the kitchen looking toward their bed. He didn’t want her to see the mess of his body and dragged the duvet over his injuries. But he was awake now. He rose and grabbed a bathrobe.

  Cassie stirred and her eyes opened to slits. The clock showed 5:47 a.m. She said, “Lemme just sleep a bit more,” and rolled over, covering her face with the pillow. Lee slipped the robe on and gently draped the duvet over her. Slowly, he moved off the bed, hissing with pain.

  Ann smiled at him. “Can I get you something?”

  “Not yet. Got to go brush my teeth,” Lee said. He closed the bathroom door and took off the robe. What a wreck he was. He finished washing and brushing his teeth and tried to smile in the mirror. He’d seen cadavers that looked better. But he remembered what he’d seen in the mirror last night. The open wounds had scabbed closed. Some of the red welts had gone black and blue. He thought of a life with Ann, Gizmo, and Cassie. Then he remembered Gitmo and stifled a scream. Too much, way too soon. I’m absolutely fucked.

  He closed the robe, opened the door and tried walking casually into the living area of his studio.

  Cassie sat at the kitchen table with Ann. As Lee hobbled toward them, Cassie handed him a cup of coffee. He both looked and acted more like the man she’d lived with for over six months. He walked more deliberately into the kitchen, was slower to sit, but drank the coffee she’d brewed with the enthusiasm of someone content and happy. Lee remained silent, probably encased within his own thoughts and feelings. When he flinched, trying to get up from the tiny kitchen table, she saw a glint of the anger he must be feeling.