DEAD: Snapshot (Book 2): Leeds, England

by TW Brown

  “You know how Brent is with money.”

  “Bastard makes us pay for our own booze at the Christmas party…yeah…I know how Brent is,” Jerry grumbled. “I also know that he would mortgage his house and prostitute his teenage daughter if he thought it would garner him an ‘in’ with the national folks.”

  “I just want you to—” A loud crash from Jerry’s end cut her off.

  “Shit!” was all she heard before the line went dead.

  The dolt probably tripped over himself getting to the mirror to check his hair. He’d call back soon enough. She had a meeting to prepare for and needed to get to a mirror herself now that she thought of it.

  She flipped open the closet in her office and turned the light on above the mirror. Her hair was an absolute mess. How many times had she run her hands through it in agitated frustration today? She ran a brush through her thick brunette tresses and did an emergency triage on her lipstick. As always, her eyes looked great. They were her best weapon and she used the hazel orbs every chance she got.

  “Shelly?” A knock made her jump. Fortunately, her closet door was between her and the entry to her office. She quickly fixed her smile and stepped out to greet her visitor.

  “Brent,” she used that breathy voice honed during her years as an air personality on the radio station she now managed, “how nice of you to stop in.”

  “You said you have some footage that will bury everybody else.”

  Typical Brent; all business. She just hoped that Jerry wasn’t over-selling himself on this like he had his abilities as a lover.

  ***

  The door to the bathroom flew open causing Jerry to drop his phone. Two angry-looking, young, African-American men barged in. One of them had blood dripping from his hands and rushed to the sink.

  “Told you ya shouldn’t of hit that pig in the mouth, you already—” the uninjured one was saying.

  Both men froze when they noticed Jerry. There was a moment of silent tension as they each stared at Jerry who was bent over partway in the act of picking up his phone.

  “Hi, guys,” Jerry finally said while trying to keep the tremor out of his voice.

  “You gotta be mutha fuckin’ kidding,” the bleeding man said.

  “Thought all the white folks was cleared out of this place and hiding in their living rooms,” the other sneered.

  “And I thought all the fun was over for today,” the bleeder said through a wince as he suddenly seemed to remember his hand.

  “I don’t want any trouble,” Jerry said, immediately regretting how he sounded so incredibly weak.

  “None of y’all white folks do when we standin’ right in front of ya,” the bleeder said as he thrust his hand under a faucet. “But when we’s gone, then you all gots plenty to say.”

  “You pro’ly one of them folks run his mouth when the camera is on you asking if that cop shoulda got off,” the other added, taking a step towards Jerry.

  “Actually,” the gears began spinning in Jerry’s head, quickly displacing the fear, “I’m a reporter for KTKK radio. Maybe you two would like me to interview you; let you get your side of the story out for people to hear.”

  “How you gonna do that?” the bleeder asked, looking skeptical. Still, there was something in his eyes that Jerry recognized instantly. He’d been out in the field enough to see when somebody wanted to take a chip off of their fifteen minutes of fame.

  “I can ask you questions,” he waved his phone, “and record the interview on this. When I get back to the station, I clean it up and it goes on the air.”

  “Whatcha think, Cleon?” the bleeder asked as he wrapped his hand in paper towels.

  “I think you bumped your head, Tyree.” Cleon shook his head and continued to glare at Jerry.

  “Gentlemen, you could be the voice against injustice,” Jerry urged. “Millions will hear you, and it could be those words that change the course of events for a city. You could be famous.”

  Jerry let the word hang in the air for a moment before pressing a few touch screens on his phone. He was absolutely recording. However, he had also called Shelly. He just hoped she answered and paid attention so she would know what to do.

  ***

  Brian Hillis followed the two men down the wooded trail. They occasionally whispered amongst themselves, but at no point did they so much as glance back at him. Brian did his best to pick landmarks that would stick in his memory. Right now he knew that he was about five miles outside of Salmon, Idaho. The road—if a pair of ruts that led into the woods could be called such a thing—was just past a roadside tavern called Whitey’s. Fitting considering the main clientele were members of a local white supremacist militia group.

  Brian had spent the last eight months infiltrating this group. It was rumored that they had big plans: assassinate the president. They were part of a wave of discontent blaming the new administration for everything from the economy, to the lack of tourism in New Hampshire. There were a lot of groups out there that made brash claims around a few beers and a bottle of whiskey. The problem with this group was that they had apparently made a practice run on the governor of the state of neighboring Washington.

  It had been a very efficient operation. They had covered their tracks so well that it was really only a fluke that led the boys at Langley to this particular gang. A video camera in a pawn shop across the street from where the governor made his last fund-raising speech caught two men leaving the scene amidst the chaos. After some enhancement, one face was identified: Bill Hayes.

  Bill Hayes had been a member of an elite Marine task force and served with distinction in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. His field of expertise was the elimination of high-priority political targets. His work had made national news more than a half dozen times, only, he was never credited. The deaths were usually attributed to some local group that the United States wanted to see gain prominence. That almost always meant that they had somebody that the American government could put in power that would “work towards a new democratic beginning.”

  “You guys taking me to Canada?” Brian asked after another hour of walking. He was slightly amused at their assumption that walking him in circles and criss-crossing the same area for this long would disorient him. If he was correct, and he was confident that he was, then they weren’t more than two miles away from where they’d parked the truck.

  “Just a bit farther,” the fat one with the forked beard, Jessie Klemm according to the files he’d studied before going undercover, replied.

  Jessie was a book you didn’t want to judge by its cover. He looked like a typical rednecked moron; he was anything but. Jessie had earned his Expert Marksmen status with the Navy SEALS. He’d eventually been dismissed from service for assaulting his lieutenant. According to reports, he shattered the man’s jaw and cheek with one punch. His only words of defense to the inquiry and court-martial had been, “No nigger is gonna tell me what to do.”

  “You gots someplace to be?” the skinny one missing his top and bottom front teeth snorted. That would be Will Tomkins. His book was more like a pamphlet. High school drop-out and juvenile delinquent with a lifetime of petty crime on his record, Will was a flunky and nothing more.

  “Nope,” Brian made sure he sounded as bored as possible, “but if I wanted a tour, I’d have called the chamber of commerce and asked for one.”

  “You sassin’ me?” Will stopped and spun around.

  That’s the problem with flunkies, Brian thought, they’re always trying to prove they belong. “Does it show?” Brian stopped walking.

  He knew well enough that groups like this had certain codes of ‘honor’ they lived by. One of the biggest ones was a bizarre sense of what they classified as respect. What it basically amounted to was being the bigger bully. If somebody gave you any crap, you busted them in the mouth or they passed you in the organization’s status.

  “We ain’t got time for this,” Jessie grumbled.

  “But he—”

  “
Then take it up later,” Jessie cast a glance over his shoulder at Brian and smirked. “This is gonna be done today one way or the other.”

  Brian kept his eyes locked on Will, but he didn’t like the sounds of things. There was something in Jessie’s voice that portended something very ominous.

  They resumed walking. About ten minutes later, Brian spied a clearing. They had finally stopped walking in circles. This was a new area that they hadn’t already tromped through a dozen times. A moment later, they were walking through a small complex of cabins. It was obvious that nobody was here…or at least anybody that wanted to be seen.

  They stopped at what looked like an old-fashioned well. It was about three feet high and circular. It even had a little wooden roof over it and a spool of rope with a bucket dangling just above the open hole. However, there was also a nylon cord that vanished into this well. It was tied to a stake that was driven into the ground.

  Jessie put on a pair of gloves and began hauling on the cord. His arms bulged at the effort. Whatever was at the other end of that line wasn’t light. It still took Brian a moment to realize what it was when the payload finally came in to view.

  The body fell to the ground with an unceremonious thud. Will stepped close and nudged it with his booted foot. It stirred and made weak coughing sounds. Brian tried to conceal everything he felt. Will might be a clueless idiot, but Jessie was another story entirely.

  “So?” Brian looked Jessie in the eyes. “You keep a nigger in the well…big deal.”

  “Time for you to join the organization, Chet,” Jessie said, producing a .22 pistol.

  Chet Atkins; that had been the name he chose as his cover. As a boy who grew up in Chicago, that sounded about as backwoods as he could imagine. Chet just felt like a good old boy’s name.

  “Okay.” Brian glanced at the body that was beginning to stir and make strangled pleas to be let go. “So what do you want me to do? Shoot the guy?” He was glad he hadn’t decided to add a laugh at the end of that question. Jessie wasn’t smiling.

  “If you’re with us, then this is no big deal.”

  “Of course,” Will piped up, he’d produced a six-shot revolver and was spinning it on his finger by the trigger guard, “you back out now and we have to go through the exit interview.” He laughed way too loudly at his own joke, no doubt thinking that he was being witty.

  “So I pop this guy, and then what?”

  “We go meet up with Bill and the rest. There is a meeting tonight,” Jessie said, thrusting the small handgun at Brian.

  Brian took the weapon and stepped up to the man sprawled at his feet. He was told to “infiltrate at all costs” when he was given this assignment. He knew that this would be buried by the department when he revealed it during the debrief. And it wasn’t like this group was being infiltrated to be taken in; there would be an order to eliminate with “extreme prejudice” at some point. That’s how the department stayed out of the news. After Waco, there had been an organizational shift in how extremists were dealt with in order to avoid media backlash. The department had learned that, even if you are dealing with nutcases that are willing to torch themselves and their followers, the government would be the scapegoat.

  Brian took the weapon and stepped up to the man. He quickly discerned that this was some poor, homeless wino. All the telltale signs of chronic alcohol abuse were present. There would be nobody looking for this guy. That didn’t make him feel any better about what he was supposed to do. He hoped desperately that, when he pulled the trigger, it would fire a blank or something. Somehow, he didn’t think that was likely. This group really hated people of color. Not just blacks, they were known to be involved in actions against illegal immigrants. Well, Brian didn’t think these guys cared if they were legal or not, just as long as they were Mexican.

  “Please—” the man rasped.

  Brian pulled the trigger. There was a soft pop. At first he thought he might’ve been wrong. Maybe it was only blanks. Then, the small hole in the man’s forehead began to ooze blood. The man rocked back and fell on his butt. He sat, legs splayed out in front of him for a few seconds. His hands came up to his face and pulled away. The man looked up at Brian, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.

  A loud boom sounded, making Brian jump. He spun to see Will blowing across the barrel of his revolver in dramatic fashion.

  “Can’t stand to see ‘em suffer.” Will shrugged. “Just like putting down any sick animal.”

  “What the fuck is wrong with you!” Brian strode over to Will in three quick steps and slapped the big .357 out of the man’s hand. While he was upset at what he had just basically been forced to do, he had no way to get it out of his system; Will had provided the perfect diversion. “I was standing right there, you stupid bastard!”

  “It was an easy shot!” Will defended himself weakly. “My four-year-old kid coulda made that shot without comin’ anywhere close to you.”

  “Then maybe he should be here!”

  “Enough!” Jessie barked. “Will, hand me your gun.”

  “But—” the man tried to protest.

  “Chet did what he needed to do in order to be accepted. You didn’t have any right poaching his kill.” Jessie walked up to the much smaller man and held out one big hand.

  Will handed over the revolver, his eyes downcast like a scolded dog. Jessie stuffed it in to one pocket and turned his attention back to Brian. “You just cost me twenty bucks.”

  “Huh?”

  “I bet that you were a fed,” Jessie said with a shrug.

  “And what made you think that?”

  “First it was just an impression, but then you seemed to be too tailor-made for our organization.”

  “I don’t follow.” Brian did his best to look confused. Yes, he was going to have to be very careful around Jessie.

  “You have a few things on your criminal record, nothing major, but all involving incidents with niggers or spics, not so much else as a speeding ticket. It was just a bit suspicious. And you know what they say…if something is too good to be true.”

  “And now?” Brian asked, careful to watch the bigger man’s eyes.

  “Now you’re in…and I’ll still be watchin’ ya.”

  There was a long silence. Will continued to sulk from his reprimand and, therefore, had nothing to offer. Brian was suddenly certain that he was going to have to kill this former SEAL. He just hoped it wasn’t going to be a hand-to-hand situation. He was confident in his martial arts skills, but he was equally certain that this man was better.

  “So,” Jessie finally broke the uncomfortable silence, “let’s go meet the boss and see what has his panties so bunched up.”

  ***

  Sacramento, California—Russell “Trix” Clay sat at the recording studio’s massive mixing console. The girl on the other side was proving that there wasn’t a voice in existence that Auto-Tune couldn’t fix. She kept looking out at him through the glass between each verse and giving him a “thumbs-up” gesture with the accompanying look that begged for approval. On cue, she finished another verse and flashed him the look and the gesture. Russell plastered on his biggest grin and popped his own thumbs up in return.

  He had to admit, this was so much easier than porn. He’d spent most of the 80s making cheap video tapes and pimping. Now, he could make a demo for some no-talent girl who thought she was the next Madonna or Janet Jackson, get a few weeks of having his dick sucked, and then move on to the next potential “star”.

  The blond in the studio was simply the latest in a string. She was eighteen, or at least claimed to be, and had the five hundred bucks for the price of the “Rising Star” package. That was another thing…the bitches were paying him to suck his dick. Of course, they thought they were paying for studio time and a promotional package; and he always gave them a CD of their session when he was finished with them and ready to move on to the next one.

  The generic sample track faded out and the girl pulled off her head
phones. Russell flipped the switch to open the intercom. “That was great, Sheila.”

  “You’re supposed to call me “Sheba Street” when I’m in the studio, remember?” The girl had an even worse talking voice than she did a singing voice if that were possible. “You said that if it helped me get into the vibe, you would refer to me by my new stage name in the studio.”

  “Sorry, Sheba.” Russell made at least a minimal attempt to sound like he meant it. That was okay, tonight he was gonna take it out on her ass…literally. “So maybe you should run through the song again, but this time try to put some anger in the hook.”

  “You think I need to sound more gangsta?”

  God, Russell thought, nobody said that word anymore, did they? Well, nobody but suburban white kids who thought that saying it made them one. Most of these kids would actually shit themselves if they came face-to-face with a real Hard-timer.

  Just then, the door to the studio opened. It was his so-called business partner, Tremont Epps. Tremont played the role of record label executive when it was Russell’s turn to be the studio producer. They switched roles every month or so depending on how long they wanted to bang the new prospect; and that of course depended on which “Star” package the girl bought.

  “Trixie,” the man came in and flopped down into the other leather seat, “I been calling your cell all day.”

  “Yeah, well you know I turn it off when I’m in here, Tre,” Russell pronounced it like “tree” because he knew it pissed Tremont off. He wanted it pronounced “tray”.

  “Man, you ain’t been seein’ what’s going down in Seattle.”

  “They finally get an expansion team to replace the Sonics?”

  “No, man, they’s riotin’,” Tremont said with a big smile that showed of his gold front tooth.

  “The fuck you mean? You mean rioting as in a bunch of stupid white folks wearing bandanas on their faces and spray painting that stupid anarchy symbol on the fronts of banks, or you talking South Central?”

  “I don’t think they got enough bruthas up north to pull the real deal, but they got it bangin’ up there.” Tremont fished out his phone and his fingers flew as he navigated the screens until he found what he was looking for. “Check this shit out.” He handed the phone to Russell.