But whenever he entered the security control room now, after having been away from it for nearly three years, he always felt a bit of nostalgia for those easy-going days, days when he got paid to sit on his ass doing nothing but watching fat tourists hoping to strike it rich. The job he enjoyed the most when working the casino was walking the floor. The sole purpose of walking the floor was nothing more than to look intimidating so as to make it clear to any potential cheaters that the consequences for their illicit activities just might be them ending up in a back room alone with him. Not that he ever had the opportunity to run a rogue gambler through the back-office drill; but he sure liked the thought of the gamblers knowing that the possibility existed.
Through the busy lobby, past the row after row of slot machines at play, and behind a corner in the back was a door with a large sign over it that read, Staff Only. He badged himself in through the secure door, walked past the operations center on his left as if he didn’t notice it, and kept on walking right past the closed door to the office of where his meeting was to be held. He didn’t bother stopping at the door since everyone knew that if the door to the office was closed, its occupant, the resort’s chief of operations, was not to be disturbed. So, instead of reporting to his meeting, he took a turn into the break room down at the end of the hall and popped a pod of dark roast into the coffee maker.
With cup in hand, he leaned against the counter and drank the coffee while thinking about all the years he spent working in this building, and about all the coffee he drank in the break area, and about how much more demanding but satisfying his job as the head of DeBlanc’s personal security detail was compared to his job when he was just one of the many slugs working security for the resort. After several minutes had been spent reflecting on the past, he looked at his watch and figured he had kept his boss waiting long enough. Still, he took the time to make himself another cup to go before leaving for his appointment.
The door to the office was now open so McKnight walked right in. The chief of operations wasn’t at his desk; he was standing at the large one-way mirror on the office’s left wall that allowed him to look in on the operations center’s activities.
“What’s up, Ham?” McKnight said by way of announcing his presence.
“You always keeping me waiting, that’s what’s up, mother fucker,” Larry Hammond said without turning his short but powerfully built frame around to look at McKnight.
McKnight laughed. “Just making up for all those times you steady busted my ass back in the day.” He joined Hammond at the window. He wasn’t surprised that he didn’t recognize anyone on watch.
Hammond turned around and smoothed down the silver, closely cropped mustache that matched his silver, closely cropped hair. “Someone had to bust your big black ass to try to keep you in line.”
“Yeah, look how well that worked out,” McKnight said.
“Hey, even my abundance of charm is no match for a knuckleheaded soldier like you, son.”
“Yeah, but who’s the knucklehead who hired me even after I did my time?”
“Fair enough,” Hammond said with finality, putting an end to their ritualistic banter and getting down to business. “Let’s go down to the dead end.”
McKnight followed his former Sargent First Class out of the office and down a short distance to the door at the end of the hall where a short but very thick man wearing the same blue blazer, khaki pants uniform as McKnight stood guard.
When the guard saw the chief of security head toward him, he stood taller. “Good morning, Mr. Hammond,” he said in a manner indicative of his military background.
Hammond grunted out a response and McKnight nodded to his colleague. McKnight didn’t have access through the door, but Hammond did. Through the door was a small closet of a room with another door, this one unguarded. Both men took out their cell phones and placed them in a basket that set on a small table next to the door. Hammond punched in the security code and the door popped open, allowing them access to a stairwell that led only down.
At the bottom of the stairs were yet two more secure doors to which McKnight did not have access. The door straight ahead led outside to the back of the resort. The door on the right, a large reinforced door that reminded McKnight of the doors used to secure the sensitive compartmented information facilities that all the army spooks worked in, more places where he never had the clearance to enter, led to a room affectionately referred to as “the dead end,” a room very few others knew existed.
Hammond badged them in and, after they both had entered into the dead end, the door closed automatically behind them with technical precision and emitted a stiff swoosh of air as its airtight seal was set. McKnight imagined it was probably the same air-blown sound astronauts heard when the hatches on NASA spacecraft closed. Anyway, it was a sound that he knew had great effect upon those unfortunate enough to be brought into the room involuntarily. The thick concrete walls and the raised floating floor were covered with layers of black mass loaded vinyl, so when words were spoken, it sounded as if they fell straight to the floor soon after leaving the mouth. The only things in the room was a bare metal table bolted to the floor and one metal chair. Hammond sat on the edge of the table. McKnight took the chair.
“How’s Henderson working out?” Hammond asked.
McKnight wanted to tell him his partner’s constant talking was driving him crazy; but he knew Hammond wouldn’t give a shit about that. He was concerned only with whether McKnight felt Henderson was getting the job done that needed to be done.
“He’s solid,” was all McKnight said as his assessment.
Hammond nodded. “Good, because it’s time for the boy to really prove himself. And you think he’s ready, right?”
“Well, boss, you’re the one who did the deep dive on him, and you’re the one who knows all the angles on knuckleheads like Happy and me so, yeah, he’s ready as far as I’m concerned. I mean, he hasn’t had to do much more than open and close doors for DeBlanc and his gal, but hell, he knows all about Lazlo so, if he fucks up majorly, he understands the consequences.”
“Fucking Lazlo,” Hammond said in disgust. “After all we went through together in the sandbox, I never would have thought he could be so fucking stupid.”
“Fuck him,” McKnight said dismissively. “So, what’ve you got for me and Happy then?”
“Well, DeBlanc has another girl coming in.”
“What? Already? Jesus, what are we doing with the one he’s got? Back on the market or fish food?”
“It’s not an upgrade. He’s bringing on a new one and keeping the old.”
“God damn, Ham, this little horny fucker’s getting greedy. Anyway, his greed is good for us. How much is this new one bringing in?”
“That’s just it,” Hammond said with a worried look. “He didn’t go through me for this one.”
“What do you mean he didn’t go through you? There’s no way that dumb fucker could ever get through the dark web on his own to find that auction site. And don’t tell me he’s back to dealing with the fucking cartels again, Ham. I ain’t going back to that shit. Those fuckers are too crazy, too unpredictable.”
“Rest assured it’s not the cartels,” Hammond said emphatically. “I made it clear to that little fucker that if he ever goes back to dealing with them, he would lose us both.”
“Good,” McKnight said. “But how then, Ham? Who’d he deal with?”
“Well, I’m still looking into how it happened, but I’m pretty sure that whoever it was that auctioned off Ruby Black hacked into the auction site, found out that DeBlanc was her buyer, and went directly to him for this sale.”
“God damn it,” McKnight grumbled. “You can never trust these criminal bastards.”
Hammond couldn’t help but grunt out a laugh at the irony of McKnight’s statement.
“And just like that we’re out our cut?” McKnight said, already knowing the answer.
Hammond nodded in sad concurrence. “Just like that
.”
“So, what are we gonna do about it?” McKnight asked.
“What can we do about it?” Hammond answered with his own question.
“Well, I could come down hard on whoever these punk ass sellers are. Make sure that they know they’re dealing direct with DeBlanc won’t be tolerated.”
Hammond reflected on the proposal for a moment before shaking his head. “Well, it sounds tempting, but that could go sideways fast. If Daddy DeBlanc finds out how much money his son is spending on whores and drugs, then not only will Petite Louie be cut off from his bad habits, we’ll be cut off from our skim of those habits. No, Mack, let’s just take this one on the chin and I’ll do everything I can to stress to DeBlanc how imperative it is he goes through us so we can limit his exposure.”
“Okay, okay, Ham,” McKnight said getting worked up. “But I tell you, cartels or not, I’m not going back to working directly with traffickers ever again. They all are shady mother fuckers. Either we go through the auction site to limit all of our exposure, or he goes without his blow and his constant pussy upgrades.”
“I know, Big Mack, I got this. Trust me, we’ll all get the happy ending we deserve.”
McKnight couldn’t help but grunt out a chuckle at Hammond’s attempt at humor. “Okay Ham, you convinced me you got Junior under control,” he said as he stood up from the chair and stretched out his back. “But what about the Russian? Isn’t DeBlanc working outside the pre-arranged system gonna piss him off? Doesn’t it increase the risk of his exposure too?” He considered sitting back down on the uncomfortable chair but opted to continue standing.
“I’ll keep the Russian briefed on all this like I always do, so don’t you worry about him,” Ham said looking up at his large subordinate. “But as long as we can assure him we got everything under control, he shouldn’t give a fuck. All he’s concerned with is us keeping little Junior DeBlanc happy and out of Senior DeBlanc’s hair. That way he can focus on keeping Senior happy so Senior will keep on feeding the Russians what they want.”
McKnight grunted again, this time without the humor. “That’s some crazy shit, boss. Lots of moving parts that have the potential to—”
“Well son, the only part you need to worry about is DeBlanc,” Hammond said roughly. “It’s my job to worry about the rest. Roger that?”
McKnight got the point. “Okay Ham, I hear you,” he said placatingly. “Roger that.”
“Are you sure?” Hammond shot back. “Because you’re in this crazy shit a bit too deep to start questioning things now. In for a penny, in for a pound, mother fucker.”
“Okay, Ham, I said I fucking hear you,” McKnight said, himself now getting riled up as well. “And I wasn’t questioning anything, I was merely making an observation. Jesus, lighten the fuck up, old man.”
Hammond, red-faced, nodded his head repeatedly as if he were about to erupt. Somehow he managed to contain himself and finally said, “Good.”
McKnight sat back down. “Well, if that’s all settled, what’s the logistics on the package?”
Hammond, the red slow to dissipate from his flushed face, stood up from the table and assumed a military demeanor. As if he were briefing a spec op team for their upcoming mission, he said, “Same logistics as the last one, except instead of Lazlo, you and Henderson will take the jet up north. A car will be waiting for you at the hangar. The girl will be at the same drop point as Ruby’s. Same park bench and everything.”
“Ah, so that’s why you think it’s Ruby’s sellers who went directly to DeBlanc,” McKnight said approvingly. “You got her tracking code?”
Hammond reached into his inside jacket pocket and brought out a slip of paper. He handed it to McKnight.
McKnight put the paper into his inside jacket pocket without looking at it and laughed. “As much as a technical nerd as you are, old man, it seems to me that you could upgrade from slips of paper to sending me this info in an encrypted text or email.”
“Hey, why make things more complicated than they have to be,” Hammond said. “Besides, I didn’t think a grunt like you even knew what encrypted comms were.”
“Yeah, yeah...” McKnight said, used to the ribbing. “Anything else I need to know?” he asked as he stood up from the chair.
Hammond rubbed his fingers through his close-cropped silver hair. “Well,” he said with a sigh, “there is one more thing...”
“Goddamn it, Ham, what the fuck is it now?”
“The package... it’s Ruby’s twin sister.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
A
staghfirullah! Astaghfirullah! Astaghfirullah! Astaghfirullah! Astaghfi—
The screams stop suddenly and the door at the end of the hall opens slowly. Where just seconds before there were the red waves of screams, a bright ugly light now pours out from the room. The sudden silence sounds as deafening to him as did the screams. He compels himself to move his feet, to begin walking toward the room, the light. It feels as if he’s walking through an atmosphere of wet cement. After what seems an eternity of time, of effort, he reaches the door. He hesitates; something is holding him back, trying to keep him from entering the room. He grabs hold of the doorframe and pulls himself forward until he’s standing in the room. The bright ugly light shining down from the ceiling is blinding. He feels along the wall looking for the light switch. He can’t find it. He unslings his submachine gun from his back and fires a burst of rounds at the light. The light goes out and he can see lying all around him the naked bodies of young girls. Their eyes are wide and staring. Their mouths are frozen in the shapes of their final screams. Blood from their slit throats pools around his feet. He kneels down to the girl closest to him. He shakes her, hoping to bring her back to life; but instead, he shakes her head loose from her body. In a panic, he goes to the next, and the next. Each time he tries to wake them, their heads tear completely away from their bodies. The blood begins to rise and quickly subsumes the girls. He goes to each of them, pulling them up out of their own blood, but as he brings them to the surface, they are headless. The blood is now up to his chest and rising fast. He begins swimming through it searching for the girls, but it’s getting harder and harder to find them. The rising blood is nearing the ceiling. He gulps in one last gasp of air and dives down. Down near the floor, the blood is a dark red. Almost black. Nearly blind, he searches desperately. He finds a girl. He can’t tell if she’s living or dead. He grabs her by the arm. His lungs burning for oxygen, he swims as fast as he can, pulling the lifeless young body with him, as he searches through the black blood for a means of escape...
CHAPTER THIRTY
Toni woke up afraid that she had overslept and had missed her only opportunity to find her sister. She leaned up from her pillow and looked over Savage’s back at the clock on the nightstand. It read 4:44 a.m. She lay back down, relieved that she still had several hours before Blackman would arrive to pick her up. She was relieved, but the anxiety that she had been experiencing ever since she learned she would soon be meeting her sister had blossomed into a tight tension headache over her brow. Her mind raced with so many disturbing and stressful thoughts that it increased the tension even more.
These past months with Savage had been hell, worse than hell. She knew she was doing the right thing trying to find Whitney, to save Whitney, but she had grown to despise her sister for drawing her into a lifestyle she was trying to save her from. And she despised herself for despising her sister. However, as much as she wanted to get away from it all and return to her self-indulgent life of books and solitude, she also despised Savage for how easy it was for him to let her go. After being together every day and night, after dancing for him, after making money for him, after him taking away her innocence, her virginity, and after him having her whenever he desired and demanded, it pissed her off that he could discard her so easily.
Her head pounded from the thoughts. She despised the thoughts and the pounding they caused. She wished they would stop beating up her mind so she could s
leep. She rubbed her arm, the bumps of the tiny needle scars brought on a craving. She needed a hit. She rolled over onto Savage, her naked breasts pressing against his naked back. Her hand found its way between his legs and began working to wake him up.
“Hey, baby,” she whispered. “You asleep?”
Savage tried to shrug her off.
“Come on, Hollywood,” she persisted, “I’m too anxious about my sister. I can’t sleep. Let me get a little high on, baby. Do me up and, in return, you know I’ll be good to you.”
Savage pushed her off violently and rolled over on his back. He threw an arm across his eyes. “Set your own self up, bitch, and let me sleep.”
She curled herself up around his midsection and went down on him.
“Give me my wings, boo,” she said between kisses. “You know I hate having to stick myself.”
“Look, bitch,” Savage said as he grabbed her by the hair and pulled her off him. “Don’t mother fuckin’ play me. You get your lazy ass up and get your own high on. And then you get your ass back here and finish what you started, you here? If you’re too much of a pussy for the needle, there’s fent down in the freezer.”
“But baby, you know how appreciative I can be when you fix me up on that Black Tar like I like.” She tried to curl herself around him again. “I’m leaving in a few hours, boo, can’t you do this one thing for me? Do me up right before I go?”
He answered by kicking at her until she fell off the bed. “Now get the fuck out of here before you make me do some shit to you I don’t want to have to do,” he said through his teeth. He rolled over on his side with his back to her. “And I better not hear you banging around down there fucking my shit up.”
The Good Kill Page 17