Misguided: The Jesus Assassin
Page 24
Jack was a bouncer. He was just getting off his shift, and had finished saying his good byes to the bartenders and bar backs at Chicora Alley. He had parked his car on the other side of the river, and he was making his way back as he crossed the walking bridge in the middle of the park. As he was walking, something pale in color caught his eye off to the side of the bridge. He stopped and took a closer look over the top cable railing. His eyes got really big as he said a four letter word to himself. He immediately took out his phone and dialed up Greenville City’s dispatch center. He had several friends in law enforcement. He didn’t feel like this situation warranted 9-1-1, so he dialed the direct line to Dispatch; he happened to know their number by heart.
“Greenville City Dispatch…do you have an emergency?”
Jack replied, “Not an emergency, but there is a dead body lying face-down underneath the walking bridge at the park.”
He gladly gave his name and number, and even waited for the coroner and cops to show up. The county coroner thanked Jack for his report, and sent him on his way. The area at the bottom of the bridge was cordoned off with the usual gaudy yellow CAUTION tape, and the crime scene was processed. Later a shell casing would be found untraceable, along with the untraceable slug that was somewhere in the middle of Brady’s head.
Two hours later, a security officer by the name of Josh was manning the gate at the local hospital close to Downtown. As the coroner showed the clipboard to the officer, describing the contents of the coroner’s van, Josh raised the gate and waved in the vehicle containing the body of Robert C. Brady. A delivery truck had pulled up behind the coroner, so another security officer by the name of Brad made a special trip down to sign off on the correct paperwork for a certain dead body under the name of John Doe. Nobody would ever know the true identity of the body that came in to that hospital morgue in Greenville, South Carolina that morning. Nobody would ever know that so ended the tale of the Jesus Assassin. No – Robert Brady hadn’t died on that bridge in Greenville. Robert Brady had already died a little over a year before – when a crazed jihadist took the lives of his wife and daughter…a daughter who’d had the most beautiful, brilliant green eyes.
EPILOGUE
Detroit, Michigan
FBI Field Office
Jones McCoy stood behind his desk, sipping his cup of coffee - with two agents sitting in the chairs that always took up the space on the other side of his large oak desk. Agent John Knox occupied the chair on the left, and a not-quite-ready-for-the-field Agent Malik Sharif sat in the chair on the right.
McCoy started, “Well, it’s official. I had to pull a few strings, but the folks in D.C. informed me today that I can officially make you two boys partners. So, Malik…welcome to the Bureau.”
He held out his right hand for Malik to shake as he balanced his coffee in his left; Malik stood up and pumped McCoy’s hand vigorously.
“Sir, I won’t let you down. Neither will my partner over there.”
Malik shot a quick wink over to his new partner.
Knox just smiled and laughed.
“Thanks, McCoy, for pulling that off. We owe you a big case for that one,” Knox offered.
SAC Jones McCoy responded. “It was the least I could do. You guys worked hard on that case. By gosh – you almost had the assassin in North Carolina.”
There was a moment of silence before Malik said, “So SAC…whatever became of the case? We haven’t heard. Of course we know why we had to be taken off the case, but we haven’t heard anything.”
McCoy shook his head, “That’s because there isn’t anything. Anything relating or pertaining to Robert Brady is virtually non-existent. Any mention of the Jesus Assassin has disappeared from the media. This goes far beyond us, boys – and there isn’t a thing we can do about it.”
Knox looked at Malik, then back at McCoy.
“Oh there’s one thing we can do about it. That night in North Carolina, we lost a good agent. That agent wasn’t taken by the Jesus Assassin, but by someone else. That same someone else just about killed my new partner right there. I swear right here and now – that as long as I am alive, I will catch the man who killed Beth,” Knox finished.
Malik spoke up, “You can count me in, too, partner.”
McCoy put down his cup of coffee.
“Well, I don’t know how you’re going to do that…but somehow, I believe you’ll get it done. In the meantime, I forgot to mention one thing.”
The two new partners looked at each other curiously, then back at McCoy.
“There was one stipulation regarding Malik’s lateral transfer from Interpol to us.”
Knox grinned and said, “Oh great…what is it this time? There’s always something those big wigs want down in Washington.”
McCoy cleared his throat, “Um Malik, my lad…you have to go to Quantico.”
Malik simply replied, “Say what?”
McCoy just nodded, “That’s right son…you’re going to the FBI Academy.”
Knox just had to laugh, all the while keeping Beth’s last wishes in mind.
Riker’s Island, New York
Riker’s Federal Penitentiary
The Russian mobster, Nicolai Roschevensky, had all sorts of connections – the kind of connections that gave him his own personal cell without a cellmate. It was for this reason that he slept so soundly. What Nicolai didn’t know, and had no way of knowing, was that during the day, when all the prisoners were out in the yard, someone had found a slightly different way into his cell. Certain arrangements had been made. Someone – namely, the Activity – wanted Nicolai dead. The man slept on the top bunk. This had been noted by the Activity’s other sources within the prison, and the Arbiter had been made aware. So as Nicolai slept so soundly up top, and snored so loudly…the mattress on the bottom bunk began to slide away. A hooded figure emerged slowly from underneath the mattress. As he stood up, he took a brief glance through the bars of the cell and saw no need for panic. He withdrew a small blade from a small sheath attached to his wrist. As he stood up and slowly approached the snoring Russian, Roschevensky snorted violently, almost making the hit-man poke him in the nose. Then, with surgical precision, the Arbiter cut the man’s throat.
He pulled gently on the back of the toilet in the cell, and it gradually slid away from the wall. There was a hole on the other side that the Arbiter had been given permission to make by certain powers-that-be. As he weaseled his way into the small hole, he pulled the toilet back to the wall behind him. The Arbiter had tied up the first loose end with the Russian Mafia. He had several more members of the family to go – and if anyone thought they would stop him, they were terribly …mistaken.