by Sean Liscom
“Are you freaking kidding me?”
“Like I said, bro, you need to get to know ‘em,” I reached across the desk and closed the journal he had open. “C’mon, let’s go help the girls get dinner ready. You need a break and it’s gonna be a big night at the ole Sterling dinner table.”
“Why’s that?” he stood from the chair and stretched again.
“Me n Jack are gonna have us a little pow-wow tonight and he’s either gonna blow his top or I’m gonna get the answers I need.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I guess you could say it’s just going to be another fun filled meal at the Sterling dinner table,” I chuckled and led the way back to the dining room.
Dinner tonight wasn’t going to be anything special. Reheated pork chops, corn on the cob, and a garden salad. The women were hard at it in the kitchen, so Braden and I made ourselves busy setting the table. Jack knew dinner wasn’t going to be served until around 7pm and he showed up right on time.
“Hey Jack!” I greeted him as he stepped into the dining room.
“You’re in a good mood!” he remarked as he took his seat. “You must be enjoying this retirement thing.”
“You heard?”
“Word travels fast around here.”
“Yes, it does!” I chuckled. “To answer your question; I am enjoying my semi-retirement. You should try it sometime; you might find it to your liking.”
“I did try it. No, I didn’t like it,” he grumbled. Between watching his facial reactions and his body language, I could tell he was tense.
“Well, I guess it’s not for everyone. Some folks find it hard to step back and let others take the reins,” I went into the kitchen and brought the platter of pork chops back to the table. The other thing I noticed is that the banter that had been going on in the kitchen had disappeared as soon as Jack had walked into the house. It was obvious to me that my sisters were afraid of the man sitting at the table.
“How was your day?” I asked.
“Busy.”
“Still working on your rigs?” I asked as I returned to the table with the corn on the cob.
“Yeah.... What are you doing?”
“What?”
“Are you the help or are you the leader of this ranch? Let the women do their jobs and sit down!” he ordered. All activities in the kitchen suddenly stopped and you could have heard the proverbial pin drop in the room.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me!”
“Let’s get something straight right now, Jack. I don’t know how you run your ranch in Fortuna, but this isn’t Fortuna and you most certainly will not order me around here. This is my ranch and you will NOT refer to the women of MY ranch as “the help”! Are we crystal clear about that?”
“You really have gone soft!” he started to stand from his chair.
“Sit down, Jack! We’re not done here!” I barked and moved to block him from leaving again.
“You think you can stop me? You think you can order ME around? I’m not one of your people so you better just stand aside!” he stopped walking when our chests were nearly touching. Through the smug look on his face, I could see something else. His eyes were different. I don’t mean a different color or anything like that, I mean there was outright contempt and defiance in them.
“Don’t make me kick your ass in front of the rest of your family, Kenshaw,” there was a flash of confusion and I took advantage of it. “They killed Olivia and if you want my help with what you’re planning, you will sit your ass in that chair, and you are going to answer every goddamn question I ask you!” I growled. He tried to push past me, and I blocked his move. He then got even closer to my face.
“Don’t you dare screw with me, boy! I’ve killed men bigger and badder than you’ll ever be!” the venom in his voice was like nothing I’d ever heard. I pressed the issue and him. Using both of my hands I shoved him backwards. Braden jumped out of his chair to intervene, but Jill grabbed his shoulder to stop him.
“Sit down, Kenshaw! Ain’t gonna be no killin here tonight! If you want my help killing the bastards that killed Oliva, you’ll sit the hell down, NOW!” that was the second time I used his alias and it was the second time I saw that flash of confusion.
He straightened his uniform shirt and continued to glare at me. It was as if we were the only two people in the room for what felt like an eternity. Finally, he dropped his eyes and picked up his chair which had toppled over when he stood from the table.
“I need some answers, Jack. Are we gonna brawl right here, right now? Or are we going to sit at this table and have a civilized conversation about your plan to take out the ARK? It’s your call,” I could see his jaw muscles flexing.
“You changing your mind about helping me?” he finally asked.
“I don’t know yet. It all depends on how honest you are with me.”
“I see.”
“No, I don’t think you do, Jack,” I stepped back a couple of steps. “You haven’t been completely honest with me and I know that for certain because I know things that you don’t. Now’s your chance to set the record straight.”
“Fine, let’s have this conversation,” he said as he sat back in his chair.
“One more thing, Jack.”
“What?”
“You will apologize to the women and you’ll be sincere about it,” he looked from me to the ladies that were still spread around the dining room and kitchen. Neither Isabella nor Kari would hold his gaze.
“Ladies, I apologize for my comment. It was rude and out of line, it won’t happen again,” he turned his gaze back to me. “Satisfied?”
“Not really but I imagine it’s the best you got,” it was my turn to smirk as I sat in my chair.
“What do you want to know?” he got to the point.
“After Olivia died, you didn’t go home with Kari and Isabella. You stayed in L.A., what were you doing?” I asked.
“I was planning and plotting just how I was going to kill every piece of shit inside the ARK. I spent a lot of time calling in markers and putting things in motion.”
“Why?”
“They killed my wife and I was going to kill them. It’s that simple.”
“How do you know they killed her? Where’s your proof?
“Back in 2006, a former Russian spy was killed in London. After having lunch with some of his fellow spy’s, he fell violently ill and was dead within just a few days. It was later determined that he was poisoned with polonium-210. He died from radiation poisoning. My Olivia suffered the same fate.”
“You told me it was cancer. You told your daughters it was cancer. So, either your lying now or you were lying when you blamed cancer. Which is it?”
“I lied about the cancer because it was easier to digest than murder. No one else needed to be bothered with the truth. The lie was sufficient at the time,” I took a second to look toward my sisters. Their eyes were filled with horror.
“How do you know Olivia was poisoned?” I returned my attention to Jack.
“The day before she fell ill, I had taken her out to dinner. It was her favorite restaurant in Fortuna. She loved the food there. We’d been there about 20 minutes when I recognized one of the wait staff. I only saw him for an instant.”
“Where did you recognize him from?” I asked.
“He came from the ARK. He was a member of the security teams.”
“Was?”
“I excused myself from the table and followed him into the back. He realized I was onto him and he fled. I gave chase and caught him in the alley behind the restaurant,” Jack paused for a moment before picking up the story again. “He swore he was only there on an observation mission. He’d been there for three months before we walked into the place. He died easy. Had I known his mission was something other than what he claimed it to be, he would have died hard. Very hard.”
“You killed him?” Isabella asked from the kitchen.
“Of course,” Jack was almost indi
gnant when he said it. “He was an enemy of the ranch and he was dealt with accordingly.”
“You made a mistake though….” I let the question hang in the air.
“Yes, I did. I assumed that he was there for me. It never occurred to me that he would go after Olivia.”
“What happened after that?”
“The next morning, she complained of being sick. I took her to our infirmary and Doctor Roberts couldn’t nail down what was wrong with her. Throughout the day she got worse and worse. He said she needed a facility that could give her a full workup, CT scan and all of that fancy stuff. I had a doctor friend that worked at Cedars-Sinai in L.A., so I gave him a call. He told me to get her there and he would do every test that needed to be done. Salvatore had helped me on numerous occasions, and I trusted the man with my life. So, I got my hands on a plane and flew her up there Monday morning.”
“Nobody even thought to test for radiation sickness. It was Wednesday before Salvatore made that call. He gave me the news that night and I knew exactly what had happened. I’d seen these very same symptoms in the human experiments the ARK was doing. It was their way of disposing of the survivors of their experiments.”
“They were still doing experiments while you worked there?”
“Yes, they were. It was ongoing right up until just before I left.”
“I see.”
“They killed her, Jason. They killed my wife and I will see every one of them burn in hell for it. I called Kari and Isabella and had them come to the hospital, so they could say goodbye. They arrived Thursday evening and she passed Saturday morning. She was cremated against our direction, which was their way of covering their tracks and trying to hurt me just a little more. A twist of the knife, so to speak.”
“You didn’t go home with the girls though, did you?” I asked.
“No, I didn’t.”
“What were you doing in L.A. after her death?”
“After the girls left on the 28th, I started to plan how I was going to kill everyone involved with Olivia’s murder. I started calling in old markers and old friends. Between the 28th and the 3rd, I’d gotten all the intel that I needed to make a quick, one-man, assault on the ARK and I had everything I would need....”
“This is where it gets a little weird for me, Jack,” I interrupted. “A one-man assault would only serve to get you killed, for real. There’s no possible way you could have hoped to kill everyone there. You may have been good in your prime, but nobody is that good.”
“I never said anything about shooting my way in. My plan was a little stealthier than that. I made it as far as the security office just inside the main door. That was as far as I needed to go to implement my plan. When I was done, I made my getaway. I needed to be home with my daughters. My mission was a success and it was time to walk away from the ARK and all the evil that came with it.”
“Okay, I might be able to buy that, but there is still one detail that is eluding me.”
“What?” he asked.
“The thumb drive that you had sent Paul Wesson. What you don’t know is that I had a little discussion with Paul a few days before he was killed in Las Vegas.”
“Okay? So?”
“He told me that an envelope arrived the morning of the 4th. There was a thumb drive in it and on that drive, you left a message just for him. Care to explain that?”
“I had a soft spot for that boy. He was a good kid in an impossible situation. He needed to know the truth of what was about to happen. He, Dana and their son deserved a chance. It’s as simple as that. I felt he needed to know the truth about his father’s death, and he needed to know what was about to happen.”
“So, you knew exactly when the EMP was going to happen. How could you have possibly known that?”
“When I made it to the security office, and I gained access to their computer. I was trying to find out where Ashton Blake was but stumbled across their plans….”
“Wait,” I held up my hand. “You accessed their computer and just happened to find out what they were planning?”
“Yes. Before I left the ARK, I left myself a way back into their mainframe, a backdoor that they couldn’t know about. Remember, Jason, I’d had full access to EVERYTHING, and I had left myself a way back in. It’s called preplanning,” he almost sneered.
“Alright,” I conceded.
“I used the backdoor to gain access to everything to find out where Ashton was. He’s the one I really wanted to kill. I found his itinerary and he was off-site until the 4th of July. A little more digging and I found that they were moving the ships into position and they would be in optimal firing positions that same day. It didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out what was about to happen. Hell, with enough time, you probably could have figured it out.”
“So, you warned Paul?” I ignored his dig at me.
“I did. Before I hopped on my plane, I made the message on the thumb drive and had it sent to him via courier.”
“You also wanna explain how you sealed the doors of the ARK’s?”
“I’d left the coding in the system. All I had to do was activate it. When they launched the EMP attack, the doors would close but there was no way for them to reopen them.”
“Alright….”
“Why didn’t you see fit to warn anyone else?” Braden spoke for the first time.
“Nobody else needed to know,” the ice in his reply froze the blood in my veins and I’m sure I wasn’t the only one in the room feeling the same thing.
“You son-of-a-bitch,” Braden whispered.
“You got a problem, Braden? Since we’re clearing the air, why don’t you get it off your chest?” Jack barked at him.
“You KNEW when it was going to happen, but you left me and my family swinging in the wind! You could have warned us, and we could have been here when it happened!”
“You were given a choice after I died! You’re the one who made the bad call, not me!” Jack argued. Braden bolted to his feet and sent his chair sliding across the floor. Jack came out of his chair at nearly the same instant. Jill reached for Braden’s shoulder again but missed.
The two charged at each other like raging bulls. They collided in a fury of swinging fists. Braden scored one solid hit, smashing Jacks nose and sending blood flying. Jack blocked the next punch and quickly counter-attacked with a series of body shots that ended when he shoved my brother toward the dining room table. Silverware and plates crashed to the floor. Jack stopped his advance and waited for Braden to get to his feet again.
I was out of my chair and moving to separate the two before it could escalate any further. Jack was now moving toward me; his eyes were wild with rage. Suddenly a single gunshot rang out and everyone ducked in surprise. Jack and I both looked toward the source and I think both of us wore the same look of shock.
Isabella was standing with her handgun pointing toward the ceiling. The slightest wisp of smoke could be seen curling from the barrel. Her hand was shaking ever so slightly. Slowly, she lowered the weapon but stopped when the barrel was pointed at Jack. Her sister started to move toward her but quickly stopped and looked back to Jack. No one else in the room made any move at all.
Less than 30 seconds after the shot was fired, Bill Butler came racing into the dining room with his .45 drawn. Dan Hawkins and Jeff Owens crashed through the front door with AR-15’s leveled. Everyone was confused and switched their aim between Jack and Isabella. I signaled Dan, Bill and Jeff to lower their weapons. Isabella’s hand had steadied and the look on her face was completely unreadable.
“C’mon, Izzy. Put the gun down,” Jack said quietly holding his hands in front of him. She continued to glare at him with tears forming at the corners of her eyes.
“Isabella, please. There’s no need for this to go any farther,” Kari said as she stepped in front of the gun. No one else moved or said anything. The standoff continued for another minute before Isabella finally lowered her weapon.
“Thank you,” Kari whisp
ered and embraced her sister who was now sobbing violently.
“Shit, the kids,” Jill muttered with concern and made her way down the hall to the bedroom that Luke and Tara were sleeping in, Megan was hot on her heels.
“Boss?” Dan asked from behind me.
“Arrest him and secure him in the security office,” I pointed at Jack. “I don’t need any loose cannons on deck.”
“Sir?” Dan questioned.
“You heard me, Dan. Arrest Jack Sterling and hold him in the security office!”
CHAPTER 10
Saturday, September 2nd, 2017
I had my eyes locked with Jacks as Dan put a set of heavy-duty zip ties on his wrists. With his hands secured behind him, he was led out of the dining room and out of the house. My brother was still collecting himself off the table and I reached my hand out to help him.
“He may be old, but he can still hit hard,” he said as he rubbed the ribs on his left side.
“Yeah, that escalated a whole lot faster than I figured it would.”
“You called him “Kenshaw”, what was that about?”
“I played a hunch and it looks like I was right.”
“A hunch?”
“Well, after listening to Kari on our ride today and putting it together with something he said the very first night, I figured out that he has a split personality.”
“What?”
“Jack Sterling and Jack Kenshaw are two personalities in the same person. Sterling is a lot more laid back, fairly easy to get along with. Kenshaw is the guy that totally took over after Olivia was killed,” I explained.
“No way? Seriously? How could you have known she was murdered?”
“I played a hunch. Trust me, I was hoping I was wrong. I’m pretty sure the Jack Sterling all of us knew is long gone. Kenshaw is in control now and he’s got the ARK in his sights. I don’t think there’s anything that can stop him.”
“So, now what do we do?” he was still rubbing his ribs.
“You need the Doc?” I asked.
“Maybe. He might have broken a couple ribs,” he grimaced every time he put any pressure on them. I turned my attention to Bill who was still standing in the kitchen.