“Swenson.” “I have Margo Dell. I’m taking her to my home for safe keeping.” “Good. There’s been a change of plans. I have to pay a visit to one of Dell’s colleagues, so he will remain with the Eagle.” Jim had a thoughtful look on his face and asked, “You don’t have Dell with you, do you?” “I have him. He’s just not in my truck. I need to grab Trent Hameln.” Jim stepped away from the car and asked in a low voice, “Who the fuck is that?” John laughed on the other end of the line, “You’ll learn that soon enough. You will be happy to know that Mrs. Dell was very, very close friends with Jill Makin. You remember Jill, don’t you Jim?”
A smile grew across Jim’s face, and he asked, “How close?” “Oh, now Jim…if I tell you that it will take away the surprise you’re going to get when you get home. I know that Barbara knows Margo Dell well.” “How the hell do you know so fuckin’ much, John?” There was a slight laugh, and John said, “I know what I know. Look, you are going to have the rest of the night before I will be calling on you, so use it well. In the meantime…who runs TOR in your office?”
“You mean the ‘onion?’” “Yes.” “Fuck, man, I don’t know shit. That’s all part of our cybercrimes unit. Why?” “Find out who’s running it and have them start a search using the names of the four kids we are seeking.” “What the fuck for?” “I don’t have time to explain…it’s deep web stuff, Jim…hell is about to come to dinner at a local high school unless you and I figure out what’s happening.”
Jim hung up the phone and called his office and passed the information on to his cybercrimes unit. He got in the car and drove off headed for Malibu and home. Margo was sitting in the seat next to him, smoking a cigarette and chatting him up. Based on the conversation, Jim knew she had no idea where her husband was, and he was not about to get into that.
The only sound was the crashing of the waves outside the bedroom window where Chris lay wide awake staring up at the ceiling. He was nude and laying on top of the blankets, his eyes in a dead stare through the glints of moonlight that entered the room off the sea outside his window. There was a light tap on his bedroom door. He answered it with his head sticking out the door. Karen was standing on the other side. “I can’t sleep,” she said and asked Chris if he could. He shook his head. “Neither can I.”
“Want to talk?” said Karen. She was dressed in a pair of skimpy shorts and a short cut tank top. “Let me put some clothes on.” Karen giggled and said, “I’m a big girl, Chris. If you’re comfortable in the nude, I’m a doctor. It’s no big mystery. You all have the same equipment.” He grabbed a robe off the end of his bed and his cell phone and walked out into the lightly lit hall. He followed Karen to the kitchen, and she poured a glass of juice, offering him one. He nodded, and she poured some for him and then the two sat down in the breakfast nook staring at each other.
“Where’s Sara?” Chris asked. “I would assume asleep, but then again who knows. She and John keep strange hours.” “Have you seen or heard from John?” Karen asked. “No…I’m getting stressed out, too. I fucked up, and a young girl’s dead.” Chris took a drink of his juice, and Karen asked, “Has anyone ever told you how I came to know John and Sara?” Chris shook his head, and Karen said, “Let me tell you a story.”
It was two thirty a.m. when Jerry and Tim pulled up to Jerry’s house. They looked around, and all was quiet. Tim asked, “Is there anyone home?” Jerry shook his head. “Then let’s get in and get your shit before anyone else does.” They got out of the car, and Jerry walked up to the front door, unlocked it, and walked in. The house was dark, and Jerry made his way to his bedroom and turned on the light. Tim was behind him when he hit the lights, and both men were surprised to see Jerry’s father sitting in a corner of the room with a Glock nine millimeter hand gun in his lap. Tim froze as did Jerry.
His father looked on at the two young men and said, “I found this gun in your dresser, loaded and everything. Where did you get it?” Jerry walked slowly over to his bed, and Tim stepped into the room. Jerry’s father pointed at him and said, “You…get into the room where I can see you.” Tim walked in and stood next to the closet door. Charles Pinskey, thick in the middle and nearly completely bald, was sitting in Jerry’s leather recliner, and the three men were separated by at least thirty feet. Charles looked at Jerry and asked, “Where did you get the gun, son?” “I got it from Tim.” Tim shot him a dirty look, and Charles asked, “Is that true?” He nodded slowly, and Charles asked, “And where did you get the gun?”
“My father, sir. He has an extensive collection of weapons, and we both are gun enthusiasts.” Charles nodded and said, “You and Jerry also seem to be killing enthusiasts.” Tim froze, and Jerry moved slowly and sat down on his bed and asked, “What are you talking about, Dad?” “You know damn well what I’m talking about. I hacked your laptop and got into TOR and looked at your posts.” Tim wasn’t surprised. Charles was a computer expert and worked for one of the largest antivirus software companies in the country.
Charles continued, “I hacked your chat boards in TOR. You killed Brian Donaldson the other night, and now you’re planning a mass killing at your school. What the hell are you thinking, son? I know what Donaldson and that rat pack of thugs he hung out with did to you and Tim as well as Mark and Alan. We discussed it. I understand you wanted revenge on Brian, and I would never say a word about it to anyone, but you boys are plotting to kill a bunch of innocent kids. What the hell for…what has a whole school done to you that would deserve that type of reaction?”
Jerry was sitting near the head of his bed and laid down on his pillow and said, “You wouldn’t understand, Dad. You could never understand.” “Try me.” Tim was leaning against a double set of mirrored closet doors watching Charles’s every move. “Look, Dad, even if I could explain it in a way that you would understand, you still wouldn’t. You are past all the high school bullshit. You’re a nerd who has a calling, and you’re a nerd who has a high powered job in the tech world. You’re a code breaker, man. You don’t live in the same world that we live in where the tormenting never ends, and everyone hates you. You hacked my TOR account, so I’m sure before you found that you hacked my regular computer. Did you read the posts and threats on my social media pages?” Charles nodded.
“How about it, Dad. Would you like to be living that nightmare? It’s not the world you grew up in. I know you work to protect systems and security, but you’re not getting hate email and social media posts constantly from anonymous accounts from people you go to school with who are telling you to kill yourself because you’re a worthless nerd. You don’t constantly have to look over your shoulder to see where the next attack is coming from. Hiding in alleys and walking in groups to hide from would-be attackers. It’s a whole new world, Dad, and I’m living in it. The rest of our group is living in it. There are only two options as we see it: do what the pretty and popular people want us to do and kill ourselves or fight back, and that means with brutal and deadly force. I choose to make examples of the pretty people and let them suffer the way we have suffered.”
Tim looked on, and Charles said, “You know that I can’t let you do that, right? You know that I have to do the most difficult thing a parent would ever have to do. I have to report you and your friends to the police.” Jerry moved his hands quickly and came up with a small shotgun from under his pillow. He shot his father in the chest before he could move, and Jerry rushed him and took the Glock from his lap. Charles looked at him in shock and horror. Tim stood silent, watching the whole situation unfold. “Who have you told, Dad?” Charles was struggling for breath, and Tim could see into Charles’s chest, blood squirting out onto the chair. “No one, son. I just hacked your system an hour ago.”
Jerry pulled back on the Glock and said raising it to his father’s head, “Good. Dad, I’m sorry for this, but there is no other way.” And with those words, he put a bullet in his father’s head then grabbed his laptop and other equipment and said to
Tim, “Let’s get the fuck out of here. There’s no doubt that someone heard the shots.” They ran across the yard to Tim’s car as the sound of sirens could be heard in the distance. Jerry said, “Fuck, man. I know who made the call, and I know that she’s sitting in her front room window hiding behind the curtains with her little note pad with your license plate number on it, Tim.” Jerry put the Glock in his waistband and ran two doors down from his house.
Tim watched as Jerry pulled the Glock and yelled, “You nosy fuckin’ cunt,” and emptied the gun into the house. Tim heard breaking glass and saw Jerry reach into the darkness and then come running back to the car screaming for him to start it. Jerry jumped in as the sirens grew closer, and they sped off into the night. Jerry handed Tim a little note pad and said, “You see what I mean…that’s your license plate number on that piece of paper. All that the cops will find will be my old man with two gunshot wounds and that old fuckin’ bitty, who’s been a thorn in my side since I was a little kid, with two bullets in her gray haired fuckin’ head.”
“This is going way too far, Jerry. You just killed your own fuckin’ father. Do you know what that’s called in psychology circles? Patricide. Mother fuckin’ patricide. When the fuckin’ cops see that you killed your old man, they’ll know you will kill anyone. You just heaped a world of hurt on all of us.” Jerry smiled and put the gun to Tim’s head and said, “Well, if you believe that then you won’t do anything to piss me off, right?” Tim nodded as a chill came over him.
Jerry said, “This plan is going to happen with or without you, Tim. They are going to pay for what they have done.” Tim drove on down Balboa Boulevard heading back to Northridge, his eyes on the road and Jerry holding a gun to his head.
Chapter Eleven
“I know there is hope in the darkness.”
In the fourteen hundred block of Valley Vista Boulevard in Sherman Oaks, it was half past three, and Trent Hameln was out walking his German shepherd, Roscoe. He had told his wife he was going to take a quick quiet walk as he couldn’t sleep. He and Becky had lived in the upper middle class neighborhood for two decades. She was a middle school teacher who taught special education. Trent never understood how she could put up with the “little pieces of shit’ as he had just told her after backhanding her upside the head for back talking him before taking off for his walk. Becky Hameln was lying on the floor, unconscious, with a small pool of blood trickling from her right eye.
“Dumb ass cunt. After twenty years together, you would think that you would have learned never to sass me.” Trent was talking to himself and Roscoe under his breath as he rounded the corner a few doors down from his home when he saw a tall dark figure hidden in half darkness near a street light. Roscoe started barking and tugging on his chain and choker collar. Trent crossed the street away from the figure all the while trying to calm Roscoe down. “It’s okay, boy, relax. One of the neighbors probably had one of their costume parties, and it’s a late departure for one of their guests.” He continued walking on past the figure that stood not moving in the darkness. Trent made his way a few more houses down when he realized that the figure was moving on the other side of the street behind him. He pulled his cell phone from his sweatpants and held his thumb over the red panic button that would call a 911 operator. He walked a few more steps then turned around in a confrontational pose only to see that the figure was gone.
Roscoe was eerily quiet and was standing at full attention looking straight ahead. Trent turned back around and said to the dog, “Jesus Christ. I’m scaring the hell out of myself, Roscoe. Relax. There’s no one there.” He took two more steps before he felt a sharp sting in the back of his neck. He released the leash, and Roscoe took off into the darkness, barking and growling as he went. Trent slumped on two plastic trash cans in front of one of his neighbor’s homes. He looked around, but there was no one there. He was starting to black out as he pressed the red button on his cell phone, and a pair of headlights approached him. He waved a weak arm, and the vehicle stopped in front of him.
“Help me…please help me.” He felt a strong pair of arms grab him and lift his two hundred and fifty pound six foot tall body into the air and then felt the soft touch of leather on his face before he blacked out. The Eagle pulled the passenger door closed and took off down the street headed for his lair. Roscoe was running behind the truck, barking, and continued until the Eagle turned the corner headed for the freeway and his lair.
Jim and Margo walked through the doors of his house at a quarter to three. The lights on the patio were on, and Margo and Jim walked through the living room and out to the deck where Barbara was sitting, drinking a glass of scotch with her back to them. Jim had not uttered a word when Barbara said, “Good evening, Margo.” Jim stood in stunned silence. “Good morning, Barb. How have you been?” “I have been doing very well thank you. How about you?” “I’ve had better mornings; I have been taken into protective custody by your husband who thinks that I’m in danger.” Barbara stood up and walked past the two on her way to the wet bar in the living room.
“If Jimmy has taken you, you can be sure that you are in danger. He doesn’t get involved in cases like this unless he has some very good intelligence, isn’t that right Jimmy?” Jim just looked at Barbara in her white robe putting ice in three glasses and then pouring scotch in them from a decanter. Jim said, “Yeah…she is in fuckin’ danger. I don’t know just what the danger is, but I have been given good intelligence that Margo Dell needs protecting.” Barbara turned to the two of them and handed each a glass of scotch. Margo took hers and dropped her bag on a love seat next to the sliding doors. Jim watched as the two women walked out onto the deck and sat down on two lounge chairs and started chatting. Jim took his glass and joined them.
Barbara was asking Margo, “So…has Brad come out of the closet?” Margo shook her head, taking a cigarette out of the pack that Barbara had on the table. She looked at Jim and said, “Can I have a light, please?” Jim pulled out his Zippo and lit her cigarette. Barbara grabbed one as well, and Jim lit it then took one for himself. There were a few moments of silence, and Margo asked Barbara, “Do you mind if I take a dip in your pool?” Barbara laughed and said, “Not at all, kid. Strip and swim.” Margo stripped off the sweats and put the cigarette into an ashtray on the table and jumped into the water.
Jim got up and sat down on the lounge chair next to Barbara and asked, “You two know each other?” Barbara took a deep drag off her cigarette and said, “Oh, yes, Margo and I know each other very, very well.” “Would you care to fuckin’ enlighten me?” Barbara laughed as Margo got to the steps of the pool and started to walk out and asked Jim for a towel. He pulled one off the back of Barbara’s chair and handed it to her. “So…what’s the topic of conversation?” Margo asked, picking up her cigarette and sipping her scotch. “Oh, Jimmy wants’ me to ‘fuckin’ enlighten’ him as to how we know each other.” Margo looked over at the two of them sitting and said, “So, you want to tell him or should I?”
Barbara stood up and said, “I’m going to bet that you haven’t had a good fucking in at least a year, maybe more.” Margo said, “I haven’t had a ‘good fucking’ in five years since I married Brad.” Barbara said, “Well, come on. If there’s one thing that my Jimmy does well, it’s fucking, and the two of us will give you one hell of a fucking, isn’t that right Jimmy?” Jim stood smoking his cigarette and staring at the two women, now both nude and walking toward his bedroom. He stubbed out the cigarette and then slapped himself hard on the side of the face. “Well, I’m not dreaming because that hurt like hell.” He heard Barbara calling him, and he walked on into the bedroom where the two women undressed him and began working on his cock.
He felt Margo’s hungry arms pulling him down to the bed, and he groped in the darkness for a few minutes until the three were entwined with one another, and the sweat was dripping off his face onto Margo’s nude back.
The Eagle had placed Trent on a gurney
next to the bodies of Mark Rubio and Brad Dell. He tied Trent down and prepared his instruments of torture. Hameln was still out cold, and the Eagle left him in the operating room tied to the gurney as he moved into the conference room. He opened his laptop and logged in with his fingerprint and retinal ID then pulled up TOR and started to work on a program to find Jerry Pinskey, Tim Elliott, Alan Marks, and Debbie Atwater.
John started a program that only he and three others at the Bureau knew how to operate. He began to do SEO with the names and the plots that he had learned about, allowing the program to run its own auto sequencing and searches looking for the three men and the girl. Sara coughed under her breath, and John looked over to see her standing in the conference room doorway and asked, “So, did you get Vickie Delgato’s killer?” John shook his head. “Do you know where he is?” He shook his head again. She walked in and put her hand on his shoulder and bent down and kissed the back of his neck. “You will, sweetheart, you will.” John kissed her bare arm and said, “I hope the hell so, Sara…because if I don’t there’s going to be a lot of dead students and teachers.”
Sara pulled on his arm and asked, “How many guests does the Eagle have?” “Three but only one is alive.” “How long will the live one be out?” “A few hours.” Sara took his hand and said, “Then come with me. You need some sleep if only for a few hours.” John followed Sara as she held his hand and pulled him out of the lair and toward their bedroom. They both noticed that the light was on in the kitchen, and they walked over to see Karen and Chris sitting at the table in the breakfast nook. Chris looked up at John and Sara with tears in his eyes. Karen was sitting across from him and looked over with tears in hers as well.
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