by Donald Wells
“My name isn’t White.”
“Excuse me?”
“Dr. White uses her maiden name for professional reasons, Michael.” Carly explained. “His last name is—.”
In his haste to apologize, Michael interrupted her.
“Sir, I’m so sorry. I meant no disrespect. I simply assumed, and I shouldn’t have.”
He waved it off.
“Relax, Michael, it’s a common mistake, I think half the people we know think of me as Mr. White.”
“You like it that way, it makes you anonymous,” Jessica said. “In fact, I’m surprised that you corrected him.”
“I usually only correct people I like, now tell me Michael, are you conversant in programming languages?”
“Oh, yes sir, and also assembly languages, logic-based, machine language and a few others, you have to be when you’re designing robots.”
He nodded. “We’ll talk more after dinner.”
***
After waving goodbye to their guests, they walked back inside and sat by the fire.
“Michael seems like a good man and I think he and Carly are in love,” Jessica said.
“The boy is a genius, but then, he would have to be to keep up with Carly.”
Jessica’s phone rang. She checked the caller ID and then showed it to her husband.
“Ramos,” he said. “I was wondering when she and Burke planned to strike.”
Jessica put the call on speakerphone.
“Hello?”
“Dr. White, this is Federal Agent, Theresa Ramos. Dr. White I need you and your husband to meet me tomorrow morning at ten in the federal building downtown. I’ll text you the address, and doctor, this meeting is not optional, goodnight.”
The line went dead.
“Well, that was very formal sounding. Do you think that they’re planning on charging us with something?”
“I don’t know. I’m just tired of playing a game when I don’t know the rules; perhaps tomorrow we’ll learn what they are.”
***
The following morning, as they approached the doors of the federal building, Agent Ethan Burke came at them swiftly from the right, while Agent Ramos closed in from the left.
He stepped in front of Jessica and faced Burke.
“What’s going on?”
Burke raised his open palms in peace as Ramos came to stand beside him.
“Whoa! There’s no trouble, we’ve just moved this meeting outside.”
“Why outside?” Jessica said.
“We’ll explain,” Ramos said. “Follow us please, our car is at the curb.”
“We’re not getting into any car with you. Now tell us what this is about or we’re leaving.”
Burke sent him an annoyed look, but then gestured to his right.
“There’s a park down the street. Why don’t we talk there?”
He nodded in agreement and the four of them began walking.
They traveled to the park in silence, once there, the foursome gathered around a wooden bench near a small man-made lake and, after glancing about, Burke got down to business.
“You two are vigilantes and we can prove it.”
“What is your game, Burke?” he said.
“You don’t deny the accusation?”
“I don’t care about the accusation.”
“Why not?”
“Tell us what you want, Burke.”
“Does the name Kari Shaw mean anything to you?” Ramos asked, and then she and Burke both smiled as they saw the look on Jessica’s face.
Kari Shaw was Sandra Jenkins’ friend, and when Jessica and her husband helped Jenkins get her daughter back from the pedophiles who had taken her, Kari was with them.
“That’s right, folks,” Burke said. “We have Kari Shaw and she’s willing to testify against you.”
“What did you do to that girl?” Jessica asked.
Burke chuckled.
“We didn’t waterboard her if that’s what you’re thinking. She sold you out on her own. Ms. Shaw has a brother who was a member of a motorcycle gang. He gave up two of his fellow members in order to get ten years off his sentence. The trouble is, once he gets out next month, the gang will kill him. Ms. Shaw came to us saying that she wanted to make a trade. She said that she would tell us everything she knew about Sandra Jenkins if we would place her brother in the witness protection program. We took the deal and she talked.”
“She told you that we helped Sandra Jenkins?” Jessica said.
“No, she only knew your first names, but when she described you, Teresa here put two and two together and showed her your picture. She tried to lie, Doctor, but then we threatened to cancel her brother’s witness protection and she verified that it was you.”
“There is no witness protection,” he said.
Burke stared at him.
“How’d you figure that out so quickly?”
“If the deal was legitimate, there would be layers of bureaucracy behind it, but there isn’t, there are just you two. I’ll ask my question again, what’s your game, Burke?”
“My game, is catching vigilantes, you might say I have a knack for it, but you two, you in particular, you’re exceptional. When Shaw told us that one man did the damage we found at that house outside Atlanta, that one man had killed eight, I didn’t believe her, but Theresa did, and reminded me that you took down an armed serial killer at the tender age of seventeen. And then last week, in Bel Rey, the way you killed those men, well, let’s just say I’m impressed as all hell.”
He cocked his head as he scrutinized both Burke and Ramos, and then the truth struck him and he spoke it.
“You’re recruiting us,”
“Yes.”
“Recruiting us for what?” Jessica said.
Ramos walked up to her and took her hands.
“For justice, Jessica, for honest to God justice, you think that we don’t share your disgust for the way the legal system works? Well we do, we see the guilty walk free and the innocent punished all the time, and like you and your husband, we want to change that.”
“How?”
“By working together, that’s how. Ethan and I, we’re insiders; we see the real corruption, the power brokers, the politicians for hire. These people are the true evil in the world, their dereliction of their duties causes untold pain. The people that took Sandra Jenkins’ daughter were saints when compared to these people, they ruined lives one at a time, these people do it by the millions. Through legislation designed only to enhance certain corporate interest, through legalized bribery called lobbying, through ways too numerous to mention, people in and out of government are ruining this country and getting away with it, but not for long, not for long.”
“How could we possibly affect such things?”
Ramos’ eyes burned into hers.
“There’s only one solution.”
Jessica yanked her hands free.
“You’re talking about murder. We’re not assassins, Theresa, granted, we sometimes work outside the bounds of the law, but we’re not butchers.”
“Your husband is, Doctor,” Burke said. “He’s a natural-born killer, a one man wrecking crew, and I know only one other man like him. Join us, we’re on the same side, we just have different ideas about who the true enemy combatants are.”
“And if we refuse?” Jessica said. “What then?”
“Then we bring forth Kari Shaw and have her testify for real, we’ll do the same if you tell anyone about this meeting. That will place you two on the hook for that DEA Agent that Jenkins’ killed. Even if we lack the evidence to bring you to trial, you’ll be ruined, and you’ll be watched for the rest of your lives,” Burke looked at him carefully. “You’ve grown quiet, why is that?”
“I was wondering how many people you’ve blackmailed like this.”
“You don’t understand; we’re not enlisting every two-bit vigilante we come across. What we need done takes a certain type of man. We have one other man who... we
ll, let me put it this way, he’s even deadlier than you are. Now take five minutes and talk it over.”
As Burke and Ramos moved away, Jessica looked up into her husband's eyes.
“What do we do? I mean how do we get out of this?”
“We have no play here; for now, we’ll just have to react to whatever they throw at us.”
“They scare me.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re zealots, in a sense, they’re trying to build their own secret police.”
They walked over to Burke and he said one word to him.
“No.”
Burke gave both of them a hard look before marching away.
“Let’s go Theresa; they’ve made their decision,”
Ramos stared at them with pleading eyes, but afterward, she shook her head in disgust and followed Burke.
He took out his phone and dialed.
“Hello sir, how may I help you?”
“I need the location of a woman named Kari Shaw, Carly, and I need it now.”
***
When they got back to the car, Ramos watched as Burke slammed his palm atop the roof in frustration, before climbing inside.
“Such a waste, such a damn waste,” Burke said. “I knew that there was a chance that they’d refuse, still, we had to try. He would have been perfect.”
As Burke started his car, Ramos put a hand on his arm.
“Couldn’t we just let them go? I’m ninety-nine percent certain that they’ll never say anything to anyone.”
“I agree, but then there’s that one percent chance. My way, they can’t talk.”
“I like Jessica, Ethan, and I like her father too.”
“Our personal feelings have nothing to do with this, what we’re trying to build here takes commitment, a level of commitment that I thought you shared with me.”
Ramos leaned over and kissed him.
“I do, forgive me; it was just a moment of weakness,”
Burke kissed her back.
“There’s nothing to forgive, honey; this shouldn’t come easy to us.”
“When will you give Tyler his assignment?”
“I’ll call him when we get back to my place.”
“Jessica’s husband, he won’t be an easy man to kill. Are you certain that Tyler can handle it?”
“He’s impressive, but it’s all based on trickery, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know what you mean?”
“Well, think about it. With Stiletto, he misled him into believing that he was injured by leaving a blood trail. In the Sandra Jenkins’ case, Kari Shaw said that he used a fancy car to distract, and in Bel Rey, more trickery. His whole shtick is misdirection. If he wants you to look one way, we’ll then, you’d better start looking in the other. I’ll warn Tyler about that, and without that advantage, he’s less impressive.”
“So you think Tyler has a good chance then?”
Burke let loose a chuckle.
“Tyler Davidson will eat him alive.”
***
Detroit, Michigan, five months ago,
The street gang called Diablo moved into a house in a quiet suburban neighborhood and turned the other homeowners' lives upside down. Cars came and left at all hours of the night and complaints to the police brought no relief.
When several neighbors banded together to run the gang off, two of their number were shot, one fatally, and it was after that, that their plight made the news.
Three gang members were out on the steps drinking beer one night, when they spotted the figure coming down the street on foot.
From half a block away, they could tell that the man was huge, from two houses away, they could spot the body armor and ten seconds after he reached the front steps, they were all dead from knife wounds.
The figure tossed a tear gas canister inside before entering and then flipped down his protective facemask.
Sixteen people were inside the home when the man entered and began firing, when he left the house forty-six seconds later, there were eleven corpses inside and five people outside running for their lives.
The man spray painted the symbol of a rival gang on the back door and then strode away from the home in as calm and as efficient a manner as when he had arrived, while carrying a satchel full of drug money, the spoils of war.
He reached his vehicle, a ubiquitous white van, and drove it into the city. After exchanging his body armor for a suit, he left the stolen van abandoned near the train station, and with a duffle bag in his hand, caught the train that would take him home.
He left his house four hours later and drove towards work. On the way, he stopped frequently, while dropping envelopes stuffed with cash into the donation boxes of various churches and charities.
As he walked down the hall to his office, the janitor called out to him.
“Good morning, Professor Davidson, early class today sir?”
“No, John, I’ve just come in to catch up on some paperwork.”
“Oh, well, better you than me,”
“Right, see you around, John,”
Professor Tyler Davidson was black, six-foot-ten and muscular from a lifetime of lifting weights. The former Marine was an economics professor and renowned in his field. He was also devoted to his wife, a woman who has been in a coma for nearly a year, after being felled by a drug dealer’s stray bullet.
When he opened the door to his office, he found the computer already on, it was on and it was playing video of him that must have been taken the night before, film that showed him marching towards the drug house, knife in hand, film that showed his face clearly. The camera followed him up the steps and recorded his frenzied attack with the knife and the deaths of the three drug dealers.
The video ended, and that’s when he noticed the man and woman standing in the corner.
“Where were you filming from?”
The man answered.
“The house next door, the owners abandoned it when their neighbor was killed.”
“I would guess that you have other film too?”
“Hours of it,”
The man was six feet tall, thirties and looked to be in shape, he had a pageboy haircut and a goatee, the woman was Hispanic and good-looking.
“Am I under arrest?”
Ethan Burke walked over and stared up at Davidson.
“Let’s talk, Professor, let’s talk,”
***
Bronx, New York, present day,
Kari Shaw answered her apartment door and found Jessica and her husband staring at her. A moment later, she was crying.
“Oh God, oh guys I’m so sorry for talking but if I didn’t my brother would be—”
He raised his hand and Kari immediately hushed.
“We’ll talk later, right now there’s trouble coming.”
***
Tyler Davidson moved along the hallway of a three-story apartment building, and then sprinted up the stairs to the third floor.
Burke seemed certain that his targets would show up here, in the apartment of a woman named Kari Shaw, and he was right. Tyler had watched them enter the building just minutes before.
This was the sixth mission that Burke and Ramos had sent him on, the sixth, and he hoped his last.
According to Burke, the man he was sent here to kill was deadly. The two FBI Agents had sought to recruit the couple and failed, and so now they knew too much and had to be killed.
Tyler had other plans though, plans to make this new man an ally and then turn the tables on Burke, but first, he had to take him alive.
He wore no body armor tonight, just a simple shirt and slacks, the body armor was employed to not only protect him, but to also intimidate his foes, but tonight, tonight he hoped to make friends. He wasn’t even carrying a weapon.
Tyler rounded the corner of the stairs and peeked down the hall. The door to Kari Shaw’s apartment stood wide open and bright light poured into the hallway.
Tyler recalled Burke’s warning.
There were six apartments on each floor, three on each side of the hall. Shaw’s apartment was the last door on the left. The sounds of a TV filtered from the apartment directly across from hers, and on the floor in front of the apartment next to hers, someone had received a package, but had yet to come home to retrieve it.
The open door beckoned, but Tyler declined, and instead stayed at the top of the stairs. Down below, voices carried upward, as a family returned to their second floor apartment.
Twenty minutes passed, then thirty, and not a sound came from the apartment. Tyler decided to take a chance and began creeping towards the door; when he was right outside it, he spoke.
“Whoever is in there, listen to me, we don’t have to fight each other; we can turn the tables on Burke.”
“And just how would we do that?”
Remarkably, the voice came from directly behind him and he jerked around, only to find no one there. The only thing in sight was the package by the other door.
Tyler understood what had happened just as the needle sank into his neck.
This time he turned and saw the man standing in Shaw’s doorway, the man holding the empty syringe.
Tyler sank to his knees, to then fall back upon the hallway carpet.
“There’s a speaker in the box, isn’t there?”
The man nodded down at him with eyes of death, and then the blackness came, and Tyler whispered one last word.
“Trickster...”
***
“He’s coming around,” Kari said. She was a petite redhead with blue-green eyes.
They were in a van and Kari was turned around in the passenger seat, watching Tyler awaken. Seated next to her in the driver’s seat was Jessica, while her husband sat on a wooden crate in the rear.
On the floor of the van was Tyler, propped up against a corner. He was handcuffed behind his back by two sets of connected cuffs, and his ankles were manacled. After giving his head a shake to clear it, he looked around the van and smiled.
“Hello, you don’t know how happy I am to be alive.”
“Burke sent you to kill us, didn’t he?”
“Yes, but that’s not why I came here. I came here looking for an ally.”