Phoenix

by Roy A. Teel, Jr.

  Larry sat back, trying to catch his breath and said, “Ms. Pritchard, you may not like the way the Eagle deals with justice, but I can tell you as a man who has been dispensing justice through our broken judicial system, the Iron Eagle has played a huge and important role in his nearly two decades of dispensing justice.”

  Sam stubbed out her cigarette and said, “Well, I must disagree, Your Honor. I don’t think that it serves the public or the judicial system justice to have one man deciding who lives and who dies. That is for a jury to decide.”

  The smile left Larry’s face, and he leaned across the desk and looked at her and said, “Deputy Pritchard, I have seen more evil in my time on the bench than I pray you ever see. I have been witness to some of the most heinous, brutal, cruel, and inhumane treatment that has ever been handed out by one human being to another. I can tell from your distaste for the Eagle and his methods, as well as my taste for him, that you have not been on the receiving end of the cruelty of man, either directly or indirectly.” Sam didn’t move, and Jim sat silent as Larry continued, “Let me tell you something, Sheriff elect Pritchard … I hope you get to keep that Pollyanna picture of justice and that right and wrong attitude about decisions rendered by a court, judge, and jury. I have tasted my own tears at the savagery of men and women, and in my years on the bench wanted desperately to turn those animals over to the Eagle and rid the world of them once and for all. You judge what you don’t understand, Ms. Pritchard, and you have that luxury. The Iron Eagle is a godsend to the people of Los Angeles, and I will support him in his actions until the day I die or the day he stops rooting out the scum that infests this city and county. I dread the day when there is no Iron Eagle for, on that day, the bad guys win, and this city will be once again transformed into the hell I watched it transform from in the late 90s.”

  Jim had the papers in his fingers and asked, “Are you invited to the dinner tonight at the Ritz?”

  Larry shook his head and said, “They don’t let honest crotchety bastards like me into their secret gatherings, Jim. You know that.”

  Jim stood up and said, “Well, John Swenson has been invited to speak to the group. And these lucky folks …” He patted his jacket pocket as he said the words, “are going to miss that dinner and speech. You want to come down and hang around with me and Sam and Chris for the festivities?”

  Larry laughed and said, “Oh … you bet your ass, I do. Hang on. Let me adjourn court for the day, and I will ride along with you two, if that’s all right.” Jim nodded, and Larry picked up his robe and put it on. He laughed and said, “Shit, Jim. I will even stop in and chat with John’s guests and explain that they are in protective custody for reasons that rise to a federal level.”

  “You can do whatever you want, Larry. Sam and I will wait for you, Your Honor.”

  “Oh, fuck you, Jim. ‘Your honor,’ my ass.”

  Jim laughed and said, “Hey, asshole, I was trying to show a little judicial respect in front of my successor.” Larry laughed and walked out of his chambers as Jim and Sam sat waiting for his return.

  Sandy Hyde had parked her car in the reopened parking structure at her office. Safety had cleared the building, and she met with city officials for a briefing on the status of the building. There was no structural damage, but the whole top floor would have to be renovated.

  Jade and Jessica had removed Aston’s body and were finishing up some last minute things when Sandy walked out onto the landing from the elevator. Jade saw her and said, “I’m sorry, ma’am, but this is a crime scene. You’ll need to leave this level. How did you get up here?”

  Sandy walked the floor slowly toward them and said, “I’m the head partner in this firm now, and I’m aware that it’s a crime scene, but you’re done here, aren’t you?” Jade walked toward Sandy, and Jessica looked at Jade’s posture and started walking behind her.

  “We don’t need a cat fight here. You must be Ms. Sandy Hyde?” Jessica said reaching out a gloved hand that Sandy refused to shake.

  She looked at Jade and asked, “So, who’s the kid? An intern?”

  Jade said, “No, Ms. Hyde. Dr. Holmes is a medical doctor who is doing her residency in forensics and crime scene investigation from the medical examiner’s side of things.”

  Sandy nodded weakly and asked, “So, when will I be able to get a crew up here to gut this place, so we can remodel it?”

  Jade looked at her and said, “Howard Cohen is still in my locker at the coroner’s office, Ms. Hyde, and you want to gut the apartment? We don’t know who the victim was that we found here. It will be up to the FBI to release the scene, and I can’t tell you when that might be.”

  Sandy frowned and said, “Well, it’s for the best, I suppose. It will give me a clean slate to work with now that all of Howard’s shit is burned up.”

  Jade just shook her head and said, “You need to leave this level, Ms. Hyde. We still have work to do.”

  Sandy gestured as if to speak again when her cell phone rang. She pulled it out of her jacket pocket and said, “Saved by the bell, Doctor Morgan. Sandy Hyde.” She was silent for a moment then said, “Okay, okay. I will be right down.” She hung up the phone and looked the women up and down and said, “I read that you two are a lesbian couple. Is that true?”

  Jade looked at her sternly and said, “I don’t think that is any of your business, Ms. Hyde.”

  Sandy laughed and said, “Jesus! You’ve been in the papers and interviewed about your lifestyle choices. I didn’t know it was all of a sudden a state secret.” She paused then turned to walk away and said, “Well, I’m not a fan of lesbians. The ones I have known and represented in the past have all been bitches. I don’t get the fascination with eating pussy. That’s what men do. I would never put my lips on another woman’s cunt.”

  Jessica cut off Jade before she could speak, “That’s our choice, Ms. Hyde. It’s who we are and how we love each other. Now, I suggest that you make your way to the elevator and off this floor before you accidently fall out a broken window from this very, very high level. Get my point?”

  Sandy just chuckled a little under her breath and said as she walked away, “If you two only knew.”

  When the elevator doors had closed, and Sandy was gone, Jade looked at Jessica and said, “You have a mean streak in you, kid.”

  Jessica was staring at the closed elevator doors and said, “You don’t know the half of it.”

  Tom Koswick had just pulled into his designated parking spot at his office when he saw a tall man in a dark suit standing off in a corner of the building waving to him. He waved back and then pulled his briefcase out and closed and locked the car door only to see the tall man still waving excitedly. He started to walk for the entrance when an unfamiliar voice called to him from the corner and said, “Tom, Tom. Come here. I have something I just have to show you.” He looked around but didn’t see anyone else and nodded his head and walked over. As he approached, he noticed the man was very, very tall, and upon entering the darkened corner, he recognized him.

  “Agent Mantel?”

  Chris nodded and pulled out a small gun and shot Tom in the chest with a tranquilizer dart.

  “What did you do to me?”

  Chris said, “You have an invitation to a meeting with someone this evening, and I knew if I told you without drugging you, you would most likely turn it down.”

  Tom was almost out but was able to ask, “A meeting with whom?”

  “The Iron Eagle, Mr. Koswick, the Iron Eagle.” Tom slid down the wall to the ground, his face gripped with horror. Chris lifted him up then threw him in the trunk of his car.

  Alice had been alone long enough, and the exhaustion of the night caught up with her, and she dozed off. She heard Paul’s voice calling to her, “Alice … wakey.”

  She opened her eyes to see Paul staring back at her. She sat up and said, “Jesus. I must be exhausted.”
>
  Paul nodded and said, “Yes, you must be indeed.” He sat down in a chair across from the small loveseat that Alice was lying on and asked, “So, what are your plans, Your Honor? Who’s next on your hit list?”

  Alice shook her head and moved a bit on the couch and said, “Um … we need to rid the world of Sandy Hyde and Tom Koswick.”

  “So, you want me to make a bonfire with the two of them?”

  Alice coughed a bit and asked Paul for a drink of water. He stood up and walked to a small wet bar behind him, and as he did, he heard the click of a firing pin. He didn’t turn around as he took a glass and filled it with water and then walked back over to Alice, who was holding the gun in her hand and staring at him with terror in her eyes.

  Paul handed her the water and said, “Really, Alice? You really thought that you could just kill me? That you would get me to rid you and the world of Aston and the others then bump me off? I have to tell you, Alice. I’m very, very disappointed in you. Your list is still quite ponderous.”

  She took a sip of the water and asked, “How did you know?”

  Paul laughed and said, “I have been killing people for Aston and others for decades, Alice. The first rule of contract killing … never trust your client.”

  Chris had parked his car in the loading area behind Cohen’s building and took the service elevator up to the fifth floor where Sandy and Ken Miller had their offices with a few other partners in the firm. He saw the empty receptionist desk and heard voices down the hall. He walked quietly until he was in ear shot and could hear both a man and a woman in a heated conversation.

  “It’s not going to go like this, Sandy. Howard’s dead, and with him went our deepest secrets. There are a few dozen people who have bits and pieces of what has gone on in this firm for the nearly forty years we have been here, but they are under control.”

  Chris recognized Ken Miller’s voice then Sandy spoke up, “I’m not the one behind the killing, Ken. Jesus Christ! Do you hear yourself? And as a matter of fact, there is an old saying … ‘a secret is only safe between two people when one of them is dead.’”

  He could see Ken’s shadow in the doorway, and it was moving back and forth as if he were pacing. Chris was able to move to an office one door down where he could see Sandy standing with a gun trained on Ken Miller.

  “So, what, Sandy? You’re going to kill me in your office?”

  She shook her head and said, “No, Ken. I’m not going to kill you at all. You’re going to kill yourself.”

  Ken stopped pacing and said, “Really. And just how is that going to work? I’m not suicidal, and I’m not going to put a gun in my mouth, so how is it that I am going to kill myself, and what the hell is my reason going to be?”

  “You’re tired of all the corruption, Ken. You’ve been saying that in articles you’ve written and in the letters you’ve sent to everyone in law. Shit! The only person you haven’t written to or about is the goddamn President of the United States.”

  Ken said, “Look, Sandy, I don’t know what you have cooked up in that head of yours, but I’m not killing myself. You wouldn’t dare kill me here because you will be carted off to jail in a heartbeat, and because you know that all of the secrets of this firm remain with me. I knew Howard long before you were a twinkle in his legal eye. We went to law school together. We opened this practice together, and he confided everything in me, both good and bad. You’re losing it, Sandy. Losing your perspective. You’re getting paranoid.”

  She pointed the gun at him and said, “The only thing I’m losing is my patience, Kenny. You know too much. I have seen you talking to all kinds of law enforcement.”

  “Jesus! What’s this about? You’ve been talking to law enforcement, too. Our founding partner killed himself. You don’t think that there haven’t been just a few damn questions about his state of mind from more than one agency?”

  Sandy waved the gun and said, “You’re going to die, Ken, and it’s not going to be of old age.”

  Chris pulled out the tranquilizer gun from his right side holster, checked the weapon, then aimed the gun at Ken Miller. He pulled the trigger gently and watched as Ken jerked and fell in front of her. She stood staring at Ken for a few seconds and then let out a light laugh and said to herself, “I almost forgot that you have a weak heart, you dumb shit. I killed two birds with one stone, and I all I have to do is call nine one one.” She walked around her desk, speaking as she walked toward Ken’s body on the floor. “Once I make sure your heart has stopped and that you are truly dead.”

  She laid the gun on the floor as she leaned over Ken’s body and put her fingers on his neck to check for a pulse. She looked at Ken’s closed eyes and felt a strong pulse. She was pressing hard against his neck when Chris stepped into the doorway of her office. Sandy looked up and said, “Agent Mantel. Oh, thank God. Mr. Miller just collapsed. I believe of a heart attack. He needs medical assistance.”

  Chris walked over near her and placed his foot on the gun on the floor and said, “Really … or did you just kill him?”

  Sandy pushed away from Ken on the floor and said, “My God! Agent Mantel, whatever do you mean? Ken is one of my closest friends and colleagues. We are leaning on each other in this time of great sorrow.”

  Chris lifted the tranquilizer gun and aimed it at Sandy’s chest.

  “Oh, dear God. What the hell are you doing? You’re a federal agent.”

  Chris smiled and said, “Yes … yes I am, Ms. Hyde, but not right now. Right now, I’m a messenger and delivery man.”

  Sandy scooted across the floor until her back was against her desk. She looked into Chris’s eyes and said, “You’re here to give me a message at the end of a gun?”

  Chris laughed and said, “Not so much a message as an invitation, and the weapon in my hand is merely a tranquilizer gun. The person I am assisting asked me to invite you to a meeting with him, and I have found in my time working with him the damnedest things happen when he extends an invitation to someone.”

  Sandy had a quiver in her voice and asked, “Who are you delivering the invitation for?”

  Chris pointed the gun at her and said, “I need only tell you his nickname, and you’ll know why people don’t want invitations from him.”

  Sandy looked at him and said, “You’re him. You’re the Iron Eagle?”

  Chris shook his head slowly and said, “No, Ms. Hyde, but I do work for him, and, yes, the invitation is from him.” Sandy opened her mouth to scream just as the dart struck her in the left breast. The blow of the weapon took her breath away because what should have been a scream came out more as a light yelp. Chris leaned down and grabbed her by the arm and lifted her over his shoulder and began to carry her out of the office. He stopped in front of Ken Miller’s body on the floor and pulled the dart from his chest and then dialed nine one one and left the phone off the hook.

  Sandy was almost out and asked, “Why did you call for help for Ken?”

  Chris was walking to the cargo elevator with her over his shoulder and said, “Just a precaution. Also to make sure that everyone knows that you’re not in the office. Now hush. You’ll want to save your strength. The Eagle wants to talk to you.”

  There was a light fog over Malibu when John pulled into the underground parking garage of the Eagle’s lair. He pulled in next to two other vehicles, one was Philly’s and the other Chris’s. He walked into the foyer where there was a small gathering. Chris was seated with Karen. Philly and Lance were sitting on a couch across from the two, and Sara was walking into the foyer from the long dark operating room hallway. She had a pair of latex gloves on and walked over to John, and he bent down and kissed her cheek.

  “How are the guests?”

  “Asleep for now, honey. What time is your talk at the Ritz?”

  John walked over to the others and said, “Eight p.m. I will get there at seven thirty. Chris, you follow
me over.”

  He nodded, and Karen said, “We are set for all of the people at the event, John.”

  He stood staring out the window where the sun had set, and the light pinks and darker blues of evening were fading to night as they grew on the horizon. “They will be eliminated in a most brutal manner.”

  Karen looked at Sara and asked if she needed any help, and she shook her head.

  Philly asked, “Do you need Lance and me for anything?”

  John nodded and said, “I need you for the event, then I want you two to take my truck back to your shop and do my usual upgrades, please.” Lance nodded, and John threw him the keys.

  Philly asked, “What time do you want us there?” John looked at the room full of people and said, “It has become old hat, hasn’t it? All of it has become so nonchalant that we just chatter about general things as the lives of the guilty and innocent hang in the balance.” Sara and Karen sat staring at John as did Lance and Philly. It was quiet for several seconds until Jim’s voice broke the silence.

  “No, John. It’s not nonchalant. It’s not taken for granted what the Eagle does.”

  John looked over at him and said, “I thought you were with the guests in protective custody at the hotel.”

  “Larry and Sam are dealing with them. They’re not happy, and most were even more unhappy to see Larry, but he dealt with them, and they’re all having a bite to eat, so I decided I needed to get over here. Oh, and most of your guests are calling it a hostel not a hotel.”

  John looked around and said, “Well then, let’s get to work. These people aren’t going to kill themselves.” He walked into the dark hallway and headed for the armory with the men behind him. He loaded several duffle bags with gas canisters, and he looked at Jim and asked, “I have the head count in the banquet room at a hundred and twenty. Does that sound right to you?”