Body Count

by mike Evans

  “Okay then, do you have a jacket in the back or something you can slide on and cover that little arsenal that you got going on there? I know it’s probably your Monday through Friday business suit, but for the rest of us, it might seem a tad bit strange that you have all of that on you.”

  Gabriel leaned forward, pulling out a hoodie he’d been using as a makeshift pillow and slid it on, making all things deadly out of sight. He motioned for Shaun to get going. He drove through the guard’s check in, telling him that they were there to meet a plane. There weren’t too many questions when it came to the small airports. He knew the people that operated their own planes didn’t even need to talk to anyone, they simply would go and get their plane out of a hangar, talk to the tower to make sure they were good, and be off, simple as that. He knew it was an expensive hobby and therefore knew plenty of people that did it regularly in his line of work because they had no shortage of money.

  Shaun drove around slowly, searching for a hangar that housed a plane that looked like something Patrick would be flying. He drove to the executive parking area where the high end planes were then saw a plain black plane with two white pinstripes on it. Gabriel saw the plane and reassessed Shaun and said, “Seems you have some fucking connections. Christ, you must have done some bad shit to be able to get a plane like that delivered within a couple hours.”

  “No, remember it’s a club, anyone rich can get anything sent to them in a short time period if you just know the right people, which I can assure you….I do. Is that going to work for you?”

  “Yeah but is it a jump plane or is it for flying long distances?”

  “I'm not a pilot Gabriel, he’s probably around though, so you can check the plane out and then ask whatever you need to. The pilot's name is Patrick. If you could give me a few minutes to get them paid, we can have him at our disposal. It’d be a good time for you to check the plane out though.”

  Shaun went around and saw Patrick sitting at a table full of other pilots. He hit his horn once and Patrick grabbed his pack of smokes and the current one he was puffing on then went towards the waiting car. Patrick waved and indicated towards the side of the building where Shaun should park the car. A minute later they were having introductions. Patrick smiled uneasy when Gabriel climbed out of the car and gave Shaun a look of concern. Gabriel held out his hand, saying, “My name is Gabriel. Thank you for coming to pick us up on short notice. I appreciate it. It’s very useful, I'm sure, having a flight company at your disposal. I imagine that you get a lot of weird requests in your line of work.”

  “You have no idea. Maybe once we get up in the air I can tell you a few stories. Everyone always seems to love how the other half lives, they really do some crazy shit.”

  Gabriel found it odd that the pilot would assume that a man that had the money to hire a personal plane would be traveling with someone who didn’t. Gabriel smiled and said, “Sure that’d be great, I’ve honestly had a long day though, I'm going to sack out in the back if there’s a couch in that thing.”

  Patrick nodded, motioned for them to follow him then opened up the sliding door that was behind the wings. He said “Well, why don’t you let me give you the two dollar tour Gabriel.”

  The plane, which Gabriel had assumed was not a fancy plane from initial look, was completely gone from his thoughts upon entering it. Gabriel looked inside, seeing a sink and wet bar, a small bathroom, as well as couches and plush chairs that he could only assume were made of the finest leather. It was as clean as a surgical room would be and it was just for the two of them to share.

  He thought about Forsyth’s plane, thinking the only thing it had on this one was jets that enabled it to travel across the ocean. He didn’t know much about planes, but wasn’t stupid and could tell when and where money had not been an issue. Gabriel was well aware how the rich love to travel well. He took a moment to imagine Mikey in one of these planes and how he would probably love the wide open floor plan and the space to move around easily. Gabriel whistled and said, “I’m gonna get a drink, I assume that fridge is well stocked?”

  Patrick said, “If there’s anything in there that you don’t like or that you need replaced, you let me know and I will send a runner to go get it. There is no saying ‘no’ when it comes to our service sir, that is why we are number one in-”

  Gabriel climbed in, ignoring the rest of his speech and grabbed a bottle of water and found a cabinet that had much needed ibuprofen. He grabbed a few packets, taking some pills now as well as setting himself up with some extras for later. He found a couch and rested his head. Gabriel could not get over how heavy his eyelids were, it’d been almost six years since he’d had a head wound of that magnitude and wished that seeing a doctor wasn’t something out of the question. He did know that once they made it onto foreign land and free from the leash of America, that hopefully that he would be able to look up a decent doctor to examine him and give him an idea of what he was looking at. He thought of the old saying, how time heals all wounds, but with his kid with a stranger in Paris, no longer with his mother, he didn’t want to sit around a minute longer than he needed to. He thought if he could just make it to Paris, they could shack up in a five star hotel for a month for all he cared, if it meant that he could get back into fighting shape. He knew that if you pissed someone off enough that they would go to immeasurable distances to try and take a target out, regardless of where in the world that person was.

  *****

  Patrick handed a laptop to Shaun, who took it quickly while looking around nervously. “Wouldn’t you feel better, knowing that I have pending legal issues, getting us up in the air where I could do this better and much quicker I am sure?” Shaun asked.

  “You know Shaun, since I'm barely employed at this point, I gave up my savings on your recommendation and my life is in the shitter right now, so no, no I would not feel better. What I want is my god damned money and I want it now. The minute that my bank account improves drastically, you will see an amazing look on my face. But until then, we’ll keep the wheels on the ground. So get typing, or get walking, but do something because I'm nervous enough sitting around here. I had to give a bullshit story about who I was here to pick up and being this close to D.C. does not in any way make me feel better about lying with what is happening and why I am here. It takes one small red flag and you’ll see F-16’s flying overhead, armed to the teeth, as well as squad cars driving across the runway with police exiting with full auto machine guns more than happy to shoot the shit out of us, and that ain’t no joke!”

  Shaun tapped on the keyboard and replied, “You know, you could have written a book with your little threat.” He logged into his offshore account, typing in the numbers from memory. He sent ten million dollars to Patrick’s account number that he had written down. He completed the transfer and closed out of his account then flipped the computer over to Patrick who took it greedily.

  Patrick logged into the homepage of his bank account and looked up slowly while mouthing ‘holy fuck’ to Shaun. “I thank you very much but holy fucking shit, this is amazing. I never thought that I would hold this much money in my entire life,” he said with awe.

  “Well just remember, you won’t get to hold it until you land somewhere that you can take it out all at once. I have a few banks I can introduce you to that will happily take your money and set you up with a place to view and or hold it as well. Do you think that we can take off right now?”

  Patrick said, “We can, but is that guy making the entire leg of the trip with us?”

  “Yes and no. I need you to slip something into his drink, I'm sure that you’ve got something to help him rest for a part of the fifteen hour trip, correct? I would like him relaxed while we prepare.”

  Patrick looked over his shoulder, smiled and gave Gabriel a thumbs up. Gabriel saw him and simply sat back in his seat. Patrick checked his pockets, found what was requested, and handed three of the small white pills to Shaun. “He doesn’t seem like the type that is goi
ng to think that drugging him is very funny. I mean, is he that bad of a conversationalist?”

  “Oh some days I wonder how you ever became my go-to pilot.”

  “Because I'm always there for you, and it doesn’t matter what you need done, I'm always there to help you through, regardless of whatever crazy thing you need me for. So being that is the exact kind of circumstance I’m referring to, what do you need to do today with him?”

  “Pretty simple, drug him, bag him, and then we exchange him for not having to worry about the CIA coming after me at a later date.”

  “Will they actually make a deal like that or are you just randomly guessing right now? What if they don’t let us exchange him?”

  “Well if they aren’t interested, we dump him out of the side of the plane.”

  “What if he comes for us?”

  “He won’t if he’s been drugged, he’s just going to fall Patrick, and then die.”

  “You don’t think that when he wakes up from being thrown out of a plane he won't be just the least bit pissed off?”

  “Will it matter,” Shaun asked, “if he is tied to a chair and thrown from the airplane door? I like to think if we do it over the ocean, there won’t be any chance of anyone ever finding him.”

  “You sure you are going to be able to do that to him? I mean, didn’t he save your ass?”

  “We saved each other's asses, if I hadn’t kept my mouth shut he wouldn’t have had a chance of getting out of the building. Between the two of us, I say we are even. Now you slip a couple of those in his water, once we go out over the ocean you open the door we tip him out and we don’t have to worry about him anymore. He seems like the type of guy that is going to hold a grudge if we fuck it up. I’d rather go first and not let him get the jump on me,” Shaun said.

  “Well if we just go and fly then we wouldn’t have to worry about anything. We land in a foreign place, drop him somewhere and then we put wheels back in the air and we leave him in the distance. There’s really no reason we need to kill the son of a bitch is there?”

  Shaun thought about it, not knowing that Gabriel was listening on the opposite side next to the window. Gabriel moved to the back of the plane far from earshot. He looked in the closets and saw that there was no shortage of parachutes. They must have made plans ahead of schedule with the flight operation to make sure the rich assholes would never have anything to fear if worse came to worse. When Shaun and Patrick came into the plane they wore smiles as if they were Gabriel’s best friends in the world. Gabriel smiled back, thinking that he couldn’t get a rig this fancy off of the ground to save his life if he wanted to and knew he for sure needed Patrick. He’d seen the two men hovering over the computer and knew from the look of relief and pleasure on his face that he was now a much richer man.

  Patrick said, “Should we get this beauty up in the air? I don’t think we need to waste any time here, unless any of you need anything before we leave?”

  “Well, I’d say that the way we are going today, there isn’t anything we can’t get that we are going to land in. Unless you need anything Gabriel?” Shaun asked.

  Gabriel shook his head no and gave a thumbs up, pointing into the air and indicating that they needed to most definitely get going. Patrick walked past him, giving Gabriel plenty of room as Gabriel found his seat. He said, “So exactly where are we going boss?”

  Shaun laughed at this, shaking his head he answered, “No sir, with the moves you got, we are either working together, or I'm working for you. I’d hate to upset you.”

  “Probably a good idea, now where are we going?”

  “We are going to a beautiful city in Brazil, first thing we need to do is grab new ID papers. If we want to be able to move around the city, we need to have papers we can show people, and currency they can fold. We can live like kings down there for the right price.”

  “I just want to hit a doctor and see what kind of damage I have. I know there’s something that isn’t quite right here. Too many shots to the head doesn’t treat a skull to well,” Gabriel replied.

  Shaun nodded and motioned for him relax in his seat. “You want a water, or soda from the fridge Gabriel?”

  Gabriel shook his head and held up a fresh bottle of water, he was glad now he’d grabbed one as well as a few extras. He wouldn’t accept a single thing from this man going forward, with exception of a hotel room key. Patrick’s voice came over the intercom asking them to be seated and that they would be on their way immediately to Brazil and once they flew through North Carolina that they would be over the ocean and home free.

  Gabriel could not stop staring at Shaun’s wedding ring, “So, are the kids going to meet you down in Brazil? Are you going to send for them?”

  Shaun was busy typing on a laptop, trying to get things arranged, and was not thinking about his answer before he spouted it off. “They aren’t around anymore. Seemed easier that way.”

  Gabriel asked, “What seems easier that way? What do you mean they aren’t around anymore?”

  Shaun stopped typing looking up. “I apologize, what was it that you asked me Gabriel?”

  Gabriel leaned forward on his elbows and quietly repeated himself, “I asked you a simple question. I wanted to know if your kids were going to meet you down there. If you were going to send for them? Earlier you said that your wife split, leaving while she could still be in the high society, so where exactly are they now?”

  Shaun said, “I don’t have to answer to you. You were the one that said I was in charge, and that I could be the one to make the calls.”

  Gabriel smiled while unzipping his jacket, exposing a work rig like this man had only seen in the movies. Gabriel pulled out a knife and laid it flat on the table between them. The tanto cut blade sparkled from the sunlight coming in the plane’s window. He rolled it back and forth on the table for Shaun to give it the respect that it deserved.

  “Knives don't intimidate me Gabriel. I’ve seen a million of them.”

  Gabriel said, “You know, I've heard that before, to tell you the truth I've heard that from men with more money and power than you could count, literally. The reason you aren’t scared of this is because you haven’t learned respect for them. You haven’t been injured by one in such a way that you could count the minutes you have left to live on one hand.”

  “So are you threatening me right now with that? I don't understand what you want to know?”

  “I want to know what you did to your wife and kids. You see, when I was working full time I had one rule, no women or kids. I didn’t have many rules about what I would do or how I could take care of the job; but that was one that I stuck to religiously.”

  “I’m sorry, what was your previous employment?” Shaun had the nerve to ask.

  “Well let’s get back to the first question and then we can answer that one. I’m sure it’s something that you are going to want to know,” Gabriel instructed

  Shaun reached quickly for the knife, Gabriel was almost surprised that he did, but wasn’t amazed at the stupidity of men like this. Shaun was not fast enough and when he did reach out, Gabriel grabbed his wrist tightly while spinning his hand so that the palm faced up. In less than the blink of an eye, Gabriel had gripped the knife, flipped the blade to point straight down, and drove it hard into and through Shaun’s outstretched hand. The knife stuck an inch deep into the high gloss table that acted as an in-flight office desk.

  Shaun opened his mouth to scream but Gabriel cupped it. Tears ran down Shaun’s face, his body shook violently from the pain, this was something he was in no way used to experiencing. Gabriel got close enough that their eyelashes touched. He quietly murmured to his captive audience, “Now I'm going to let go and if you scream I'm going to punch you so hard in the throat that you are going to die. Do you have any misunderstandings about that?”

  Shaun shook his head slowly no. Gabriel released and all he asked was one question. “How?”

  “How what?”

  Gabriel gave him a
look of discontent. “You must enjoy pain Shaun, is that it? Are you a pain junkie?” Gabriel pulled out a second knife running it across the table while gripping Shaun’s other hand. He ran the knife blade over the top of it and casually said, “Now I’ll ask one more time, play stupid and this is going to hurt. Remember Jesus died for our sins, are you willing to die for yours?”

  Shaun looked down at his hand, thinking of the second one and seeing that he was going to be stuck to wood much like Jesus, with the knives in place of spikes he answered, “I knew that I was going to be arrested, they all hated me, the money that I made was never good enough for any of them. My wife said she’d take the kids and I’d never see any of them ever again. She told me that she’d make sure that my life would be a living hell until I die or until they turn eighteen years old. So I decided that it was better that they just disappear.”

  “Again Shaun, how?”

  “I took them for a flight, they loved planes. The wife especially, none of her friend’s husbands ever took them anywhere, because much like me, they hated their guts. So I took them up and out over the ocean.”

  Gabriel held up a hand, shaking his head. He needed a second to keep himself calm as he could feel that he was going to kill the man now before hearing what he needed to. “Can I guess who your pilot was?”

  Shaun motioned towards the front of the plane. “It was Patrick, he will do anything for money just like anyone in the world will.”

  Gabriel leaned forward on the table, secured the man’s free wrist and slammed it hard on the table after Shaun attempted a feeble punch at him. Gabriel then gripped it with both hands, maneuvering it past its natural bending point, slow and steady until it snapped with an echo around the cabin. When Shaun opened his mouth to scream, Gabriel sent a sharp and quick knife hand strike to his throat, collapsing his windpipe temporarily and keeping him from making any noise. Gabriel placed a finger over his mouth hushing him then brushing the now very sweaty hair out of Shaun’s eyes so that he would miss nothing. Shaun was shaking his head no as Gabriel brought down the knife hard and true, through his other hand. Shaun’s hands quivered, he could do nothing and could not move them. If he tried, the blade only shifted around and his wounds grew in width. He knew that cutting his hands further open would not be good. He was stuck in the seat regardless, the lap belt securing him so he had no option but to sit there. He still could not speak, the pain in his throat was paralyzing.