Tainted Robes

by Joe Nobody

  “And the phone number used to call in?” Kit asked.

  “We are trying to track it down, but none of the wireless carriers list it as a valid number.”

  “Don’t bother,” Griffin interjected, waving his arm through the air in frustration. “You won’t find it.”

  The two cops exchanged puzzled looks but decided not to press the angry marshal further. Assuming they were dismissed, both retreated quickly back to their side of the street.

  “All this is connected to software and computers,” Kit stated. “I think we need to go back to El Paso, get a clean change of clothes, and find us a programmer or two.”

  “How did they know we were here?” Griffin finally responded. “That’s what is troubling me the most. Your phone was protected. I don’t have mine. We didn’t use a credit card. Hell, I even had the cabbie drop us off a few blocks away. How did they track us?”

  “I don’t know,” Kit admitted, her voice becoming soft to settle his nerves. “We’ll figure it out. Together. If anyone can catch these monsters, it will be us… working as a team.”

  He considered her statement for a moment, and then a huge grin broke out on Griffin’s face. “I’ve just had a great idea,” he said.

  Without warning or discussion, Griffin pivoted and made a beeline for the captain. “Oh, shit,” Kit hissed, thinking his brainstorm involved murdering a SWAT officer.

  “Captain! Captain, a peaceful word, please,” Griffin requested as he approached the local cop.

  “What?” the officer gruffly replied, bowing up for combat.

  “A favor, if you could, sir,” Griffin proposed, looking like a man approaching a bicycle rack with a pair of bolt cutters.

  Now suspicious, the SWAT commander waited with a leery squint.

  “Could you please arrest Assistant US Attorney Carson and me, Captain? I would certainly appreciate it,” Griffin announced with glee.

  Smiling for the first time in hours, the SWAT commander nodded. “That, sir, would be the highlight of my day.”

  Chapter 10

  Sebastian read the arrest report with a nod of satisfaction. After double-checking that one Ms. Katherine Carson and one Marshal Griffin Storm had been detained on multiple charges by the Indy police, he scanned the laundry list of offenses with glee. “Conspiracy, assaulting a police officer, attempted capital murder, unauthorized use….”

  Quickly bored with the assorted charges against the two federal troublemakers, Sebastian felt only a small sense of gratification. He had other mischief and mayhem to produce. “This will keep them busy for a while,” he whispered. It was time to move on.

  Turning from his computer, Grome rubbed his eyes in preparation of taking in the view. He was quickly disappointed.

  As was common this time of year, the trade winds had spoiled the perspective. From his elevation, the normally soothing royal blue of the sea looked like grey television static. Even the horizon was denied him by the low clouds. Pivoting with disgust, his mind reverted to the campaign.

  The false flag operation in Indianapolis had been successful. It was a time-proven tactic that perhaps warranted repeating. In Sebastian’s game, there were no points for creativity, only results.

  Answering his always active sense of curiosity, Sebastian decided it was time for a deep dive into the situation in El Paso. He had obtained the files created by the police department’s investigation, but he hadn’t had the time to examine the pages of notes and observations.

  His eyebrows shot skyward when he studied the detective’s recommendation to the district attorney. “No charges are warranted. Mr. McCann and his deceased son, as well as the fallen officer, were simply victims of bad timing, misidentification, and the confusing, chaotic circumstances surrounding the riot in process at the critical moment.”

  “This won’t do!” Sebastian snapped at the monitor’s black and white characters.

  After a few moments of thought, Sebastian brightened.

  It required 18 minutes of searching before he found Silas McCann’s home computer, another few circles of the clock to view the rancher’s browsing history.

  Sebastian’s keyboard shook with the impact against its keys as its master typed with a fury. “Mr. McCann, you naughty, old rancher. You’ve been visiting white nationalist websites and reading articles about how to overthrow the government. Why, you even read one blog about how to kill a police officer and get away with it. Shame on you, sir. Shame!”

  With the false evidence planted, Sebastian then turned his attention to the city attorney’s email. Using one of his fake press accounts, he sent the public servant an inquiry about the investigation. “Was there any history of radical behavior on Silas McCann’s home computer?”

  Satisfied, he sat back in his chair and contemplated the next phase of their operation. He, as well as the Komitet, had one primary goal – to destroy the American public’s faith in their justice system. It was the thread, that when pulled, would unravel the broadcloth of their democracy. Sebastian knew of his master’s plans for a new type of government but didn’t care. Men were tribal, prone to war, and competitive. No amount of technology or skullduggery would ever change the nature of the species. “Asking mankind to live in harmony is like ordering the bees to stop making honey.”

  Yet, he had a job to do. For a moment, he pondered what the Komitet do with the world after Gravity Well’s goals had been accomplished. “I know what I would do,” he chuckled.

  The flight back from Indianapolis was via another prisoner transport, Kit and Griffin sharing an aircraft with several convicted felons, most of them from the federal penitentiary outside Terre Haute.

  After a stop in St. Louis and another in Little Rock, they finally departed the last leg of their trip with stiff backs, wrinkled clothes, and bad attitudes. It wasn’t the fastest mode of transportation, but it kept them under the radar and allowed them time to conjecture, compare notes, and chat about current events. They had been floored by the news out of Chicago and spent the first segment of their trip hypothesizing a possible connection to their investigation. But once they lifted off the Arkansas tarmac, they moved onto less professional pursuits, Griff breaking out his deck of cards. Before arriving in the Lone Star State, Kit had accumulated quite a large gin rummy debt. Griff figured any US marshal could use a federal prosecutor who owed him, and at minimum, he was due several years of free lunches.

  Still, as far as any official computer record knew, they were still in Indiana and under arrest. Kit thought Griff’s idea had been pure genius.

  Kit’s Jeep was right where they’d left it, and after a drive through the desert, they were sitting in front of his apartment.

  “Come by in the morning,” Griffin instructed as he exited the passenger door. “We need to figure out a way to research that software company without anyone knowing what we’re up to.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” she replied. “I’ve got an idea, but I need to sleep on it.”

  Nodding toward his building, Griffin responded, “I’m out. I need beer, hot water, and clean underwear, in that order. Sleep would probably help a little, too.”

  She laughed, adding, “Good night, Griff,” and drove away.

  Arriving home, she checked her mailbox, finding nothing but junk. “And the good news is there are no bills I forgot to pay,” she mumbled, trudging up to her front door.

  Once inside, she decided Griffin’s list wasn’t all that far off. “Wine instead of beer,” she chuckled. After a long session of stinging, hot water and shampoo, she settled in with a hunk of cheese, her favorite crackers, and a bottle of Foxglove Chardonnay. It was heaven.

  She browsed the TV channels, finding her favorite show about house decorating and flipping properties for profit.

  The program featured a couple who would buy and then remodel an older home. The central theme of the program was always the comedy, drama, and teamwork involved in the process. Each dilapidated
, run-down, rat-infested bunch of boards with a roof was merely the backdrop of the couple’s journey. Kit had a secret dream of one day renovating her own Bedford stone ranch.

  Tonight, she was intrigued by a particularly entertaining episode; the home being refurbished reminding her of the bungalow in Indianapolis from the night before. This particular property, however, wasn’t suffering from damage due to a war with the local SWAT unit.

  “I should call Griffin and tell him to turn this on,” she found herself whispering, smiling after a clever quip by one of the stars. Then, after wrinkling her brow and blinking several times as if to clear her own embarrassment, she found herself perplexed. “What did you just say, girl? And just where did that come from?” Then, frowning with disappointment, she cautioned, “No. We are not going to go there. Nope. No way.”

  Flipping off the boob tube, she decided to clean her place. After picking up an armload of dirty clothes from the bedroom floor, she caught herself again. “Griffin is neat as a pin. He might have to come over in the next few days, and I don’t want him to….”

  “Stop this!” she barked at her own image in the mirror. “Griffin is a nice guy, but that’s all. He’s a coworker.”

  Yet, she knew there was more. It was a strange feeling, one she hadn’t experienced in years. Not since… Robert.

  She sat on the bed, eyes focused on an empty point in space and time. She missed him so much, would give anything to speak with him for just five minutes. How long had it been? Why did she still feel this empty spot deep in her very core? It was a vacuum that she was sure no one could ever fill.

  “How long has it been?” she whispered, a single tear sliding down her cheek. “Seven years?”

  She stood quickly, a burst of energy surging through her veins. After all, that laundry was not going to do itself. And what she needed was a diversion, an effort to distract her mind from replaying the images again, from hearing his screams of agony and smelling his burning flesh.

  Action was a proven therapy, a panacea for a damaged soul that had motivated her ever since that dreadful day so many years ago. It had driven her to graduate first at the FBI academy and compelled her to demand excellence from herself ever since. Inaction equaled pain, idleness quickly morphing into anguish.

  Inside her head, a battle began to rage, an epic contest between the part of her that wanted to unleash the memories, and the jail keeper who struggled to lock them away and out of sight.

  It was over in seconds, the warden winning again, just as it had in the past.

  “At least the pain is gone,” she whispered, wiping the sudden film of perspiration from her brow. “Now all I feel is emptiness. I’ll take a void over torture any day of the week.”

  She bent to retrieve the laundry she’d dropped and then wobbled to the dirty clothes hamper, still unsteady over the brush she’d just had with her past.

  Glancing around the sparsely furnished apartment for the next chore to keep her occupied, it dawned on her how few truly personal possessions she surrounded herself with. “You can never own a home because you will fill it with memories,” she sighed, her eyes taking mental inventory of the stark and impersonal space in which she lived. “It is better to steer clear of mementos and keepsakes because they bring back so many haunting mental images.”

  Uncomfortable with her own introspection, she cleared her head of the revelation and shuffled toward her kitchen – only to find that grim reality had followed her there. She pulled up short of the entry, taking stock of the room. “Well, this will never make the cover of Better Homes and Gardens,” she mused. Peering at her quaint, café style breakfast set, she admittedly detested the bistro furniture’s style and color. Its size was disproportionate to the space allocated… too small to enjoy a lazy Sunday brunch while working the local newspaper’s crossword. Yet, she had selected the dinette for what she considered a completely pragmatic feature – the armless chairs. “What mentally stable person chooses furniture as a coping mechanism?” she demanded of herself.

  The monsters who slaughtered Robert had taped his limbs to the arms and legs of the couple’s dining room seats. She had been forced to watch as they burned off his skin, layer by layer, remembering his body convulsing against the crude restraints that held him down. She would never forget the rancid odor of his sizzling flesh… the wretched and shrill sound that his throat emitted as the torch’s flame raked across his body. No, she would just have to tolerate the cheesy table arrangement for her own sanity’s sake.

  “Those few hours have quite literally framed every decision of the rest of your life. Everything from home furnishings to career moves has been considered with that horror in mind. You, my friend, can never escape this. You’ll never be with another man,” she stated, surprising herself with the admission. “Anything he does… his scent, his walk… the way he holds you… his voice… all those things will flood you with memories from Robert’s last hours with dreadful clarity. You are destined to die alone, girl. Your only option is to do the best with what you’ve been given, and pray the next stage is better. It’s how you have survived so far.”

  As the night progressed, the wine and exhaustion worked their magic, taking off enough of the edge that she eventually considered closing her eyes.

  For some unknown reason, her mind drifted back to Griffin. She wondered what he was doing, if his internal strife were as intense as hers? She replayed their day in Indianapolis, again amazed that her strongest recollections weren’t of the firefight, or the frustration, or the fear. Instead, she focused on the time spent with him – working side by side, sharing a meal in the pub, relishing their playful banter, savoring the comfort of his company.

  The sandman finally overtook her, and for once, the nightmares were kept at bay.

  The following morning, with a bag of breakfast burritos in her hand, the federal prosecutor knocked on Griffin’s door.

  He answered, rubbing his eyes and squinting from the sudden burst of sunlight invading through the open door. “Damn, you’re up early,” he grumbled, waving her in and turning back toward the darkness of the interior.

  “Early bird gets the hackers,” she teased, feeling just a touch of sadistic gratification at having caught the Marine off guard.

  He moved to the stove, trying to align his brain on a pot, water, and coffee. He was struggling.

  As she began unpacking the sausage and egg goodness from the paper bag, she noted the trash can contained a considerable number of empty beer cans. She decided not to say a word, recalling the two empty Moscato bottles in her own garbage – her justification being that it had been one hell of a week.

  Instead, she turned her attention to the marshal. As he worked shirtless at the kitchen counter, she spotted two ropy scars across his back. A quarter-sized indentation perched on his shoulder blade, the skin there twisted and bumpy. A bullet hole, she realized. That one had to hurt.

  What really drew her attention, however, were the cords and ridges of sinew rippling across his back as he worked at the counter. Every muscle was accented, every movement a ballet of human anatomy. I knew he was a gym rat, but I had no idea, she thought. No wonder he’s so fearless.

  “I’ve had a revelation of sorts,” she announced, helping him watch as the coffeemaker started spitting and dripping.

  “Do tell,” he mumbled again, thinking more about the need to brush his teeth than her mental creativity.

  “I have a cousin who is a computer guru. We became really close when I was in college, because she had this program that allowed her to take over my laptop whenever I had issues, kind of like a remote control. And I did catch a computer virus or two,” the federal prosecutor chuckled. “I thought we could ask her to help us research Cyber Ace.”

  Growing impatient with the slow brewing progress of his ingestible caffeine, Griffin held up his hand and declared, “Hold that thought. I need to use the facilities for a second.”

  “Hurry,” she giggl
ed, “I might end up eating all of these yummy burritos if you take too long.”

  Five minutes later, Griffin returned to the kitchen, almost a new man. With his morning breath defeated, hair combed, and face freshly splashed with water, he made a bee-line for the now-brimming pot.

  “Okay, so you were saying?” he managed after two sips of the steaming java.

  “My cousin works for a software provider, helping their customers out whenever there is a problem. She can take over your computer remotely to fix it. I assume that same concept could be used in reverse. That way, we could do some online research concerning Cyber Ace without anyone being able to directly tie it to us.”

  “Hmmm,” he managed, trying hard to clear the cobwebs and pay attention. It was difficult to do while he was chewing and drinking coffee.

  “Look, Mr. Sleepyhead,” she teased, “Why don’t you follow up with Detective Royce and leave the computer-sleuthing up to me? We can meet back here this evening and debrief.”

  “Okay. Sounds like a plan. I’ll go see Royce this morning, right after I pick up my new company car,” he replied, starting to emerge from the fog.

  She stood, smiled, and suggested, “Might want to shave before you go.” Then throwing a look at his lower half, she added, “And put on some pants.”

  Griffin looked down, his head snapping back up in shock and chagrin after realizing he was clad only in his boxers. “Damn. Sorry. I didn’t….”

  She started laughing, then waved off his stammering. “At least they’re not Dick Tracy issue. Now we’re even.”

  After she’d left, Griffin pulled out his no-contract phone and dialed Detective Royce as a courtesy. “No sense in dropping by unannounced on the local po po,” he chuckled. His call was connected to the El Paso homicide department, another cop answering the phone. “I’m the only one here,” the officer replied. “The chief has called an all-hands-on-deck for the protests. We don’t want any more corpses.”