Another report featured an agent at a major talent agency, whose rumored reputation for sexual harassment was considered an open secret around town, getting shot in what looked like a failed carjacking. He was in critical condition but expected to survive. He was unable to provide the LAPD with a description of his assailant.
“Why are you showing us this?” I asked.
“I’m bored,” Ariel said. “Just wanted to see how you’d react.”
“All this happening during the same time period is probably not a coincidence,” Julia said.
“Guess who was reading up on all these guys for the last few weeks, since she arrived in the States?” Ariel said.
“So what?” I said. “Kareena and every woman in LA must have been reading up on all these bastards and keeping track on who was being named or about to be named.”
“Homegirl is the only one who set up a forum on the Dark Web where she was putting out calls to people who thought the cops were taking too long to do anything, if they bothered to at all,” Ariel said.
I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach.
“How do you know this?” I asked.
“ ’Cause I’m the one who set up secure access to the Dark Web for her when I was babysitting her,” Ariel said. “And she’s been dipping into a bunch of hidden bank accounts she had access to. Not enough to fund a revolutionary army, but more than enough for beer and pizza and the occasional hit job.”
“Resources and motivation,” Julia said.
“Homegirl’s taking my advice about starting small and stealthy, after all,” Ariel said.
“Oh shit,” I said. “She’s crowdsourcing hit squads.”
“Every girl needs a hobby.” Ariel shrugged. “Gotta hand it to her. She knows how to get shit done.”
“Are we sure it’s her?” Julia asked.
“Who else would have the strategic mind to do this?” Ariel said. “This is an op, through and through.”
“Shouldn’t we stop her?” I asked.
“We’re not the cops,” Ariel said. “And it’s not the job. Our job is to babysit her and keep her out of trouble. So far she’s not in trouble. Those guys are.”
“And us reporting her to the authorities exposes us,” Julia said. “Too many questions we can’t answer.”
“And there’s no hard evidence to tie her to the deaths,” Ariel said. “Her messages to the hit men are all in code. None of them say outright, ‘Hey, this studio exec is a rapist asshole. Go kill him and make it look like an accident.’ Both she and the people she’s been messaging on her Dark Web account don’t use their real names. Her ISP is masked. She hasn’t directly met any of these people, and you can’t prove the ones behind the usernames she’s replying to went out and whacked those guys.”
“Not to mention she’s not even in the country right now,” Julia said. “She was on the plane when those bastards got hit, and now she’s unconscious getting surgery. She never left our sight all that time. We are her rock-solid alibi.”
“I knew there was going to be a shoe dropping with this job,” I said. “We can’t just get a simple babysitting gig, can we?”
Ariel’s phone pinged.
“Oh hey,” she said. “That TV director, the one who’s been accused of sexual assault? They found him drowned near Santa Monica. Boating accident, they said.”
“You set up an alert for stories like this?” I said.
“A girl’s gotta keep up with current events,” Ariel said, grinning.
Kali threw back her head and laughed.
TEN
As soon as Dr. Kim declared Kareena was fit to travel, we were off. The bandages hadn’t even come off yet. We were never going to stay in Seoul long, it was always going to be in and out. We took Kareena in the Mercedes to the airport, where Hamid’s private jet was waiting and flew us back to Los Angeles. Kareena spent the flight sedated and sleeping, which spared us another long debate about revolution and politics.
Hamid had arranged for us to stay in a house in a gated community in the Pacific Palisades, overlooking the sea. The community consisted of two movie stars, at least one tech tycoon, and three multimillionaires. The neighbors left each other alone, so we could spend our days there without anyone disturbing us, and they were used to armed guards patrolling the houses. The neighbors would just assume that Kareena was one of Hamid’s mistresses and not ask any questions.
Hamid stopped by, partly to maintain that cover, and also to look in on Kareena.
“She’s still asleep from the sedatives and painkillers,” Julia said.
“Oh good,” he said. “We don’t have to listen to her speeches.”
“That’s what we said on the flight back,” Ariel said.
“I have people drawing up a set of new papers for her,” Hamid said. “New name, new life, new biography. She won’t even be Middle Eastern anymore.”
“She’s going to be an American,” Julia said.
“Her new name is Karen Radley,” Hamid said. “Born in Irvine, California. Parents deceased. There will be a birth certificate, social security number. Adopted. Grew up in boarding schools in Europe. Degree in journalism. She’s going to have a quiet life, a quiet job, a house someplace where she can disappear. She can meet some boring middle-class chap, get married, and have children if she wants.”
“I don’t think she’s suited for that kind of life.” Julia said. “You know how she is, committed to revolution and social change.”
Hamid sighed and buried his face in his hands.
“What, then? I take it she already hasn’t been quiet all this time.”
“She started a new campaign even before we left for Seoul,” I said.
“Oh God, who did she send after me this time?” Hamid said.
“She’s not trying to kill you anymore,” I said.
“That’s a relief,” he said.
“She’s been collecting all the reports about sexual predators and sexual harassment in the media industry,” Julia said.
“Oh?” Hamid said, a curious look on his face.
“And she’s been sending hit squads after predators,” I said. “All under cover of anonymity.”
“Is she paying them?” Hamid asked.
“Many of them are actually volunteering,” Julia said.
“Though she’s reimbursing them for their expenses and tools,” I said.
“She does it all through the Dark Web,” Julia said.
“What is all this?” Hamid asked.
“While you were in Seoul, Herb Shelberger, the head of the KidTime network, was found dead by apparent suicide. He’d been rumored to be a pedophile and sexual predator for years. His alleged former victims were speaking out.”
“Kareena would have seen their posts on social media,” Julia said. “Then read up on him.”
“And arranged to have him taken care of,” Ariel said.
“Huh,” Hamid said. “She’s actually done me a favor. Judy Yosemite is taking over as head of the network, and she’s a friend of mine. She’s going to give me a better deal when they renew my variety show, even before we cast the new star.”
“Silver lining in every whack,” Ariel said.
Hamid groaned.
“We have to find something for her to do,” he said. “I’m off. Keep me posted.”
He went back to his suite at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. He preferred to live in the hotel and only come back to this house when he had to, especially now that he’d temporarily installed his sister there.
ELEVEN
Kareena was using her intelligence contacts, or rather she was probably blackmailing them, to gather additional information on sexual predators in the industry, and then targeting them for retribution. She obeyed Ariel’s orders to stay in the house. Two armed Interzone men were posted outside at all times. With her face wrapped in bandages Kareena haunted the house like a wraith.
Julia said she was the eyes without a face.
Kareena spent mu
ch of the day on her laptop corresponding with people on her Dark Web forum, exchanging information about sexual assaulters.
“There should be a sliding scale of punishments,” Kareena explained to Ariel and Julia. “Sexual harassers get beaten up. Rapists get crippled or killed. Depending on their profiles, it can be made to look like accident, random crime, or suicide. The worst, most undignified deaths should be reserved for pedophiles, since they’re abusing children.”
“Don’t tell me you’re posting those as guidelines on your site,” I said.
“It’s best if the squads know the rules,” she said. “We’re not an indiscriminate mob. I prefer to have professionals who know how to make it look like an accident or a robbery, or a random act of violence. That can remain a mystery, a burst of chaos in a violent and unpredictable universe. However, I think the victims of these men will know, deep down. You can’t achieve any change in society without justice being seen to be carried out. That’s the only way to move forward.”
“She isn’t going to stop,” Julia said.
“Well, considering a year ago she was ordering a hit on her brother,” I said, “this is a marked improvement.”
“Looks like we’re going to be helping her do this by not giving her up to the law,” Julia said. “Are you going to start feeling guilty about being complicit in whatever she brings down?”
“I assume that’s a rhetorical question,” I said.
My phone rang. There was a code on the Caller ID to indicate who it was.
“Olivia. Thanks for calling back,” I said.
Julia joined me in our bedroom. I told Olivia about my conversation with Roger.
“You really are a soft touch aren’t you, Ravi?” She sighed.
“I’m just the messenger here,” I said.
“All right, I suppose my poor old godfather has been punished enough.”
“So you’ll do it?”
“We can’t not do it. We don’t want to be on the run and looking over our shoulders forever,” Olivia said.
“Where are you now?” I asked.
“Tokyo,” Olivia said. “I’m helping out my dad with sussing out this bank here in Japan. I’m looking into them before my dad does any deal with them.”
“So you’ll be hacking into their servers, I take it?” I said.
“What I do best, darling,” Olivia said. “And I’ve got Benjamin with me. We really needed to get his arse out of London. He’s not well pleased about being a person of interest.”
“Do you know where everyone else is?” I asked.
“Mark’s gone into hiding with his anarchist squatter friends, moving from one place to another. I think he’s rather enjoying that, actually. Did you know his mates are squatting in a really posh building in Grosvenor Square? Used to be an embassy. Imagine that! Right in the heart of London! Probably only a matter of time before they get thrown out, but Mark’s been larging it up in there. They’ve been throwing rave parties. And nobody but us knows that Mark is hiding amongst them.”
“I actually had a dream about that,” I said.
“Did you? Interesting. Anyway, Marcie’s cover is intact. When she was questioned by the coppers, she played the chirpy American PR girl act and they bought it. Cheryl put up a good front of cooperating with the authorities and pleading ignorance about Roger’s coup scheme. Since there was no evidence of it in whatever files we didn’t nuke at Golden Sentinels, they had nothing on her.”
“What about David? He drew up the contracts and was at the meetings. They must want to talk to him.”
“David got himself a solicitor. The lawyer got himself a lawyer. Extra firewall. He’s answered their questions through his lawyer and is holding them off.”
“Do the authorities know about Roger’s investors, the ones at the party at the mansion?” Julia asked.
“They all lawyered up to the hilt, and the ones who could get out of the country have done so, just holing up in their tax shelter houses in places like the Caymans. I think they’ll keep their mouths shut because of what Roger has on them from the video recordings he had Benjamin make of them at Alfie Beam’s manor.”
“Fuckin’ Roger and his fuckin’ blackmail,” Benjamin muttered in the background.
“Benjamin,” Olivia said. “You better not throw another tantrum. If you behave, I’ll let you go buy some hentai anime at Akihabara with my credit card.”
“Oh God,” I said.
“Too right,” Olivia said. “So leave the server and the password to me. I built the whole protocol, after all. You don’t need to go through the hassle of sifting through it. There’s actually more than one, so it’s all rather complicated. Keep in touch, yeah, darling? We’re all in this together.”
“Either we all get out of this or we all end up in jail,” I said.
I suddenly saw an image of Kwan Yin, the Chinese goddess of mercy, sitting behind Olivia in Tokyo. She looked serene and utterly confident. Olivia was the other person in Golden Sentinels who had a patron god. Unlike me, she was a believer. Taoism was her thing, and she prayed to the moon goddess for luck and guidance whenever she got the chance.
“Oh ye of little faith,” Olivia said, and rang off.
TWELVE
If you’ve ever had to spend time with people who have had plastic surgery, you will have discovered that it takes time for them to recover before going out in public. For a full facial makeover like Kareena’s, where she had a rhinoplasty to reshape her nose, some cheek implants, and work on her eyes to change their shape, she was going to need a few weeks. When the bandages first came off, there was still a lot of swollen tissue all over her face.
But when she looked in the mirror, she was utterly delighted.
“I look like an orc who’s been in a bar fight!” She laughed. “Or an ogre! Or a bridge troll!”
“Or a mutant baby!” Ariel said, and the two of them laughed like a pair of mad banshees.
“What is this mutant baby going to grow up into?” I muttered.
Julia shushed me.
Kareena reveled in looking this grotesque, temporarily freed from the shackles of beauty.
“I wish I could look like this forever!” she said. “Let me be the Monstrous Feminine! Freed from the burdens of beauty! An avenging demon conjured up by all those abused women demanding retribution!”
“Perhaps it’s the drugs talking,” Julia said. “She’s completely off her head on the painkillers.”
“Great,” I said. “We’re getting a tour of her id.”
The gods loved it. They applauded and made gifs of her with their phone cameras.
She didn’t slow down her pace with the website she was running on the Dark Web. After all, it wasn’t as if she had anything else to do other than recover from the surgery. She continued to expose sexual predators and organize hit squads for them after studying surveillance reports of their movements so she would know when and where to send the squads, and they always made the deaths look like accidents, road rage, or random robberies.
Then there was the night a scream woke us all up.
Julia and I leapt out of bed and ran for Kareena’s room, where the scream came from. Ariel was ahead of us with her gun drawn.
When we got inside, we saw the two Interzone men wrestling a terrified man in denim to the ground just outside the window. He was screaming as his gaze was directed into the room, at Kareena. She was standing at the window looking out, her long black hair streaming down her back like a veil.
The Interzone men restrained the man and tied his wrists with zip-ties. Kareena just stood in her room, completely calm, watching. Later, when the police arrived to take the man away, we got his story: he was a meth addict who had been breaking into expensive houses up and down the Palisades for weeks. He’d managed to climb over the locked gates of the neighborhood and snuck past the Interzone men after noticing their patrol patterns. He was all set to break into this place via Kareena’s bedroom when she was awakened by his attempts to open t
he window and got out of bed to see what was going on. When he saw her in her white sleeping gown and grotesquely swollen face and eyelids, the poor bastard must have thought he’d wandered into an Asian horror movie and screamed bloody murder. Nerves already frayed from drugs and adrenaline, he was seized with a primal, uncontrollable, pants-wetting terror.
He was still screaming that he had seen a demon out to take him to Hell when the police packed him in the back of their car and drove away. Of course, we kept Kareena from being seen by the coppers or any of the neighbors who came out to see what was going on. After they left, Kareena and Ariel laughed their arses off.
“I wish I could be like this forever and haunt the streets as a demon, become an urban legend,” Kareena said.
That was the last bit of excitement we had. The days passed with a certain routine. When she wasn’t directing her army of anonymous avengers, Kareena would make a video call to Hamid just to watch him squirm at her swollen, discolored face.
“Look at me, brother! Don’t I look absolutely monstrous?” she would declare with glee. “I can be a monster of our times!”
“Oh my God, stop pushing your monster face at me!” Hamid would moan and quickly hang up.
Later, he would call me and plead, “Ravi, can you please stop her from calling me on video until she recovers?”
Louise leaned in and looked closely at Kareena’s swollen face.
“I think she can make it work,” Louise said. “She doesn’t have to, though. She’s going to look very nice when she recovers.”
I wondered if Louise had been this unflappable when she was alive. According to Julia, she was. Nothing would ever faze a trans goddess of glamour.
“Hamid,” Ariel asked. “I gotta ask, why are you protecting her anyway? She killed your dad and brothers and tried to kill you. You don’t owe her anything.”
“She’s the only family I have left,” Hamid said. “She and I were the only refuge from the rest of my horrible, murderous family. Our mother was no help. She checked out mentally long ago. I don’t take her trying to kill me personally. It was an abstract thing for her. Once I was no longer going to take over the government over there, she didn’t need to kill me anymore and she said she was glad about that. At the end of the day, she’s all I have and I’m all she has.”
Her Fugitive Heart Page 21