Phoenix

by Roy A. Teel, Jr.

  John had placed the mask of the Eagle into his right inner coat pocket. He had his body armor on under his suit, which made him look bigger and boxier than usual. The mask had its own built-in gas mask, but as Jim had pointed out to him before they left the house, in all cases where the Eagle had used the sarin gas, he was never in the room. Jim had asked John how much protection he had from the gas, and John had told him about two minutes. He had his tablet in his hand and was looking over the seating chart as well as the blue lights of the gas canisters.

  A man entered the green room and invited him to join him. John followed him to the ballroom, and as he walked up to the podium, he looked down at his tablet and the two nearest exits to him that would only open once for the Eagle’s escape.

  He ascended the podium where a small USB cable was plugged into a monitor unit, and he pressed a button on the podium, and a light tan wall raised to show a large screen with the Los Angeles skyline at night on it. John stepped up to the microphone and said, “Good evening, and thank you for asking me to speak to you all tonight. I’m here to talk to you about corruption, the corruption that has had our city in its grip for some time, and what the FBI is doing to combat it.” John’s words drew a resounding applause from the audience as he launched into his speech.

  The yellow of Jim’s hazmat suit and his heavy frame made him look a bit like a weeble by his own admission as he stood looking at himself in the mirror. Chris laughed as did Philly and Lance and several others in the room, all in the same suits. Jim looked at Chris and asked, “Are Judge Walker and Mr. Green all set?”

  Chris nodded and said, “You know, Jim, I feel that there is some real friction between those two. I could feel the heat that they have for each other. They must make one very, very ‘HOT’ couple.” That got a laugh out of Jim as Sam stood next to the men in her own suit.

  She said through the respirator on her face, “I don’t see the humor, Agent Mantel. I really don’t see the humor. The Iron Eagle is about to kill over a hundred people, and you’re making jokes?”

  Chris nodded and said, “Sam, I received some good advice years ago from the man you are going to replace as Sheriff. He told me that humor is what carries us through the hard times. We’re all members of the same family. We are crime fighters. You might curse the Eagle’s methods, but when it’s over, you will see a very, very different system of justice, not just in Los Angeles, but in the country, perhaps even the world.”

  Sam shook her head and said, “I don’t care what anyone thinks. This is still the wrong way to deal with people no matter how bad they are.”

  Jim laughed and said, “You hold on to that thought, Sam. I have a feeling you will be eating those fuckin’ words sooner rather than later.”

  There had been multiple rounds of applause as John spoke. He talked about the past several years of trauma for the city and county of Los Angeles and the healing that needed to take place. He stood for a moment in silence as the applause quieted down and then swiped his hand across the screen of his tablet, and the seal of the Iron Eagle rose behind him on the huge video screen. The background on the screen faded to black with the cold steely eyes of the Iron Eagle looking out at the audience and the audience staring back at it.

  John pulled out his mask and said, “There is one other person who needs recognition for saving the city and county of Los Angeles all of these years. I as a FBI profiler have been hunting him since I came to the Bureau, and before me, it was my late friend and boss, Steve Hoffman.” John held the black mask in his right hand with both hands on the podium and asked, “How many of you in this room have seen this symbol before?” Hands started to rise around the room until all but two or three hands were in the air. John smiled and said, “Well, I’m glad this symbol is familiar to so many of you. And for those of you who don’t recognize it, it is the calling card of the Iron Eagle.” John looked behind him at the dead stare of the Eagle then turned to the room full of people and said, “Allow me to introduce my alter ego.” He pulled the mask on over his head, and the room filled with screams.

  The Eagle swept his hand over the tablet again. Only this time, the blue lights on the sarin gas turned to red, and as the gas was released, he said, “I wanted the last thing your eyes see in this world to be the face of justice … the face of the Iron Eagle.” He dropped to the floor as the screams in the room rose decibel by decibel. He reached the exit and put his body against it and exited the ballroom as the screams began to turn to unintelligible noises and gasps.

  The fire alarm was blasting as people in the hotel were being escorted floor by floor by hotel staff and fire officials. The top floors had been sealed off by order of the Sheriff and the FBI, and fire officials were desperately trying to contact those in charge in order to gain access to the upper floors. Jim was looking at the clock in the room where everyone was waiting and said, “Something is fuckin’ wrong. The Eagle has sent no sign, and there is no water coming out of the sprinkler system.”

  Chris said in a calm voice, “It’s only been three minutes. The Eagle knows what he’s doing. Give him time.” Jim was watching the second hand on the clock tick by in what seemed like hours rather than seconds. It was nine forty-five p.m., and Jim made a dash for the manual override of the fire sprinklers as Chris grabbed his arm and said, “Just wait!”

  Jim began shouting obscenities at Chris when the sprinklers went off, and the room went dark and the emergency lighting came on. The whole of the room had an eerie red glow, and Chris said, “Aren’t you the one who has told me to be patient?” Jim nodded his head as the small group exited the small maintenance room and entered the hallway outside the ballroom.

  Jim put his ear to the door and said, “I can still hear fuckin’ screaming.”

  Chris listened and said, “No. You hear the sound of the sprinklers hitting glassware and tables.” Chris put his finger to his respirator and opened the door. It was blocked, and Chris had to force his way in, but no one was prepared for the carnage that they would see on the other side of the door.

  The sound of the sirens and the red light from the emergency lighting had dimly lit the cold concrete that Alice Walker lied on with Paul Green laying over her legs. She lifted her head to look around but was pinned by Paul, who was still unconscious. She called out with a weak voice for help, and when she did, she saw a tall, dark figure enter into her line of sight. She looked up to see a masked man towering over her and Paul, and she asked, “Who the hell are you? Where am I?”

  “You would know me best by my nickname, Judge Walker. I’m the Iron Eagle.”

  Paul must have come to as the Eagle spoke because he began screaming and crying and said, “I can’t feel my legs.”

  The Eagle leaned down and drove a small knife into Paul’s right calf, and he screamed in agony. “You can feel the pain, Mr. Green. You just can’t move your legs because I snapped your lower spine with this steel pipe.” The Eagle threw it on the ground in front of the two and said, “I wish I could stay longer and chat, but I have serious business to attend to. As for you two, you are going to die as your victims died.” Alice let out a scream as did Paul as the Eagle pressed the small black remote that Philly and Lance had liberated when they abducted him. Alice’s bag was on her chest, and in an instant, the two were engulfed in flames. The Eagle threw the remote down and said, “May God not have mercy on your souls.” And with that, he walked away as the fire consumed the screaming pair.

  Cell phones were ringing all around as bodies were being removed and stacked in a freight elevator off the ballroom. The Eagle walked in with his head uncovered and asked, “How many are left?”

  Chris counted out quickly and said, “Twenty … probably less.” The sprinklers had been turned off, and John picked up two bodies and threw them on the pile.

  He walked the room, seeing that there was bodily fluid everywhere, and he heard Philly call out and say, “Last car going down.” The E
agle looked at his seal emblazoned across the screen as he walked out of the ballroom and stood on top of the bodies of those removed after the mass killing. The elevator doors shut, and as they did, he answered his cell in a monotone voice, “Swenson.”

  The ocean was choppy, and the small barge that would carry the bodies rocked and bobbed against the pier. Jade, Sara, Barbara, and Karen were each taking turns pulling the materials that the Eagle would need to send his prey to the bottom of the sea. Sara asked Barbara, “Where’s Violet?”

  “Oh … she was a little tired, so she’s taking a nap.”

  Sara put her hands on her hips with a look of disapproval on her face and said, “What did you give her?”

  Barbara laughed and said, “Four shots of Patrón laced with twenty milligrams of Valium.”

  Sara shook her head and said, “That’s a lot of alcohol with that drug. She better be breathing when you get home, or John will be furious.”

  Barbara nodded and said, “When I left her, she was sleeping like a baby. Well … a hammered baby but a baby all the same.” Karen stood up near the edge of the barge and was about to speak when three sets of headlights caught her straight in the face, and she lifted her left arm to block the light. Two large vans pulled down onto the dock, and Jade jumped out of one while John and Jessica exited the other. Jim and Chris were behind them along with Larry Robinson and some of the other men.

  Karen yelled out to Jade and said, “High fuckin’ beams, Jade? Really? Are you goddamn blind? This pier is lit up like a damn convention hall.”

  Jade laughed and said, “No. I could see just fine. I just wanted to blind your little ass.”

  Karen put her hand down as the headlights were turned off, and she looked at Jessica and said, “Your wife-to-be has anger issues. You two should seek couples therapy.”

  Jessica had the side door of the van open and was pulling a body out and onto a large hand truck that Jim and Chris had brought down and asked, “Why the hell do we need couples counseling? You think Jade has anger issues? You should try and get me on your couch for a half hour.”

  She paused, and Jade walked over to Karen and whispered in her ear, “Oh, you don’t want to do that … you really don’t want to do that. It will be a life changing event for you.”

  Karen looked at Jessica, who was now pushing the dolly down the pier, and said to Sara, “Is it me, or did it just get colder out here?”

  Sara laughed and told Karen to get a move on. “John and Jim have crime scenes to get to and to pretend to give a damn.”

  Jim was standing off to the side of the pier with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and had heard Sara speaking to Karen. He said, “You’re goddamn right. Fuck. John and I have to go to a mass murder scene and pretend that we give a rat’s ass about a bunch of dead and missing fuckin’ judges and lawyers.”

  Larry walked up beside him and said, “Yeah … I see how damn heartbroken you are. Get your lazy ass over here and help me and the others.” He walked over and helped pull bodies out of the second van. When the barge had been loaded, John walked out onto the pier and told Lance and Philly to keep a close eye on the cargo. He and Jim would be back.

  It was two thirty a.m., and Jim was in full uniform along with Sam, while the others worked the crime scene. John walked into the ballroom where several of his CSI teams were working, and Chris was leaning over one of his agents as he took photographs and filled crime scene bags. Chris walked over to John, and they talked away from the others.

  “So what about your guests upstairs?”

  John looked around and said, “Release them.”

  Chris looked at him and asked, “How are you going to explain all of this?”

  John looked around the room and said “Trust me, Chris. I won’t have to.”

  Chris laughed a little and said, “You think that a few dozen lawyers walking out of the hotel in their pajamas and robes are not going to be noticed and won’t want to talk about what happened to them?” John nodded his head. Chris looked confused look and asked, “Is that a yes they will talk or a no they won’t?”

  John waved him away and said, “Just release them and let the chips fall where they may.”

  Chris walked out of the ballroom and took the stairs to the presidential suite. He walked in and called out, “FBI. Is everyone okay in here?” There were quiet head nods all around and nothing more. Chris told them they were free to go, and in a quiet orderly fashion, people lined up to use the suite phone to call for taxies with no other conversation. The room was vacant in a half hour with not a question, comment, or complaint. He sat down on a small ottoman and asked himself, “What the fuck just happened?”

  John and Jim as well as Sam were at the upper level of the parking garage where the smoldering remains of Alice Walker and Paul Green were being examined by Jade and Jessica. One of Jim’s men walked over to him and said, “Sheriff, we have a note … well, it’s a hell of a lot more than a note.” Jim called for John and Chris. Sam was next to him, and the four walked over to a large suitcase that had been opened by the FBI bomb squad. In it were piles of manila files. John leaned down and pulled a few files out of the case with a gloved hand and read some of the contents then put them back and asked for an evidence tag. Chris handed it to him, and John put it on the handle and closed the case.

  Jim had been looking at a few files as had Sam and Chris. When the case was locked and in evidence, Chris asked, “What the hell is this? This was not with Green when he was grabbed, and it wasn’t with Judge Walker.”

  John looked hard at the bag and then at the area where it was found and said, “It’s a legacy bag.”

  Jim looked at John and said, “What the fuck is a ‘legacy bag?’”

  John grabbed the name tag on the side and flipped the leather wrapped tag open to reveal a name. All looked at the tag, but only Jim and John understood what it meant. Chris looked at the tag and said, “‘Property of Howard Cohen, Attorney at Law.’ But how?”

  John looked at Chris and the others and said, “Howard Cohen put the bag here before he died.”

  Jim took a cigarette out of his left top pocket and put it in his mouth and said, “The fucker was planning this all along?”

  John nodded and said, “In the notes that Howard left, he referred to a larger bag of evidence that would be unveiled at a lawyers’ meeting, but he didn’t give any detail or the location of the bag. Howard’s autopsy reports are under seal at my request.”

  Chris asked, “What’s in the damn report, John?” Jim lit his cigarette and then handed one to Sam and walked off with her in tow. Chris looked as they walked away and asked, “Don’t you want to know, Jim?”

  Jim never looked back through a puff of smoke rising up into the garage air. “I don’t need to hear it from John. I already know.” Jim and Sam disappeared back into the building, and Chris turned to John and asked, “What was wrong with Howard Cohen, John?”

  John said, “He had an advanced form of brain cancer called glioblastoma.”

  Chris looked at him and said, “So, he was dying?”

  John nodded and said, “It was diagnosed on autopsy, but in notes that he left that I read he knew something was going wrong in his mind and body, so he acted quickly because he wanted the record set straight.”

  Chris looked on at the devastation and asked John, “He couldn’t just tell you this, hand you the damn suitcase, and let you deal with it? Jesus! What if someone had found the case before we did?”

  John shook his head and said, “He had no idea. He just knew something was wrong. I imagine as I go over more of what’s in the files and what’s in that case we are going to get a really, really good picture of what was happening in the Los Angeles legal markets, and I think the serial killings started by Walker and Green are but the tip of the iceberg to a much larger scandal that’s going to take out even more lawyers in LA and around the
country. As for anyone else finding the bag … Howard hid it well. I found it because of some clues in his notes.”

  Chris shook his head and said, “So, Howard’s legacy has been to make it so that justice would be served and those responsible punished?” John nodded, and Chris said, “Justice will never let this go public, John.”

  John leaned against a wall and said, “You’re right about that. The DOJ will bury the whole thing if they get the chance to, but they won’t.”

  “Then how is it going to get out?”

  “That’s for the Iron Eagle to know and you to read about in the papers.” John put his hand on Chris’s shoulder and said, “We still have two guests to deal with at the lair, and we have a barge of bodies that have to be disposed of.”

  They cleared the scene and left it to their investigators as did Jim and Sam. John told Jim to meet him back at the house. The Eagle had some last minute business and then some chum to dump at sea. Jim laughed as he and Sam walked out of the hotel.

  “Chum … that’s funny. John doesn’t have much of a sense of humor, but every once in a while he really nails one!”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “I got some of that from

  him as I was ‘drilling’ home

  my point about mistreating

  his female clients.”

  It was seven fifteen a.m. when John appeared in the kitchen for breakfast. Sara sat on one of the barstools with a cup of coffee in her hands and asked, “Well, what did the Eagle do with Hyde and Koswick?”

  John walked over to the refrigerator and took out a Coke Zero and said, “The Eagle didn’t need any information from them, so he dispatched them quickly.”

  Sara stood up and poured another cup of coffee and stood leaning against the counter in her robe and said, “That is very unlike the Eagle. I’m sure they had some torture or torment coming?”