by Sam Jones
“He is...” Cassie replied.
Cassie waited for him to strike. She was kind of hoping he would. Lately, she felt herself resisting the urge to kill her brother and was aching for an excuse.
But I won’t do it.
Because he’s my brother.
It’s that simple.
“And is Martin Black in our custody as I requested?” asked Roenick.
“No. He is not,” replied Cassie.
Roenick smiled and continued on towards the house, not a string of the news given to him seemed to break his stride.
“Is that it?” Cassie asked him. “No tirade? No punches to be thrown?”
“It would be pointless to scold you. My expectations of you are starting to go down.”
Oh, brother.
Fuck. You.
“Also,” Roenick said, “Martin Black may have done us a favor by killing King.”
Roenick opened the front door to the house and stepped inside, Prophet right behind him.
Cassie followed in after them, her teeth grinding with angst at Roenick’s unrelenting sense of theatrics. Once inside, she saw O’Reilly escorting Amanda out of the hallway, hand gripped on her elbow, Amanda clearly having just overstepped her bounds.
The doors closed, and Amanda, O’Reilly, Prophet, Roenick, and Cassie found themselves standing in an unplanned semi-circle. The circling, combined with the Roman-themed architecture around them, painted a play-like setting with Shakespearian undertones.
Roenick turned to O’Reilly and Amanda. “What’s going on here?” he asked.
“She’s just snooping around,” O’Reilly replied.
Cassie stepped into Roenick’s field of view.
“What do you mean Martin Black may have just done us a favor?” she asked.
“Exactly how it sounds, my dear,” he said.
“Cut the smoke and mirrors bullshit, Roenick…” Cassie responded, loud.
Roenick looked back to O’Reilly and Amanda. “Take her upstairs. I’ll be there in a moment.”
O’Reilly jerked Amanda towards the stairwell.
It was that one, brief physical motion that would end up going down in history as the moment that caused Amanda Dubin to finally reach her breaking point.
Two simple words popped into her mind—
That’s it.
O’Reilly’s simple tugging of her arm prompted her to spin around, bury her elbow into O’Reilly’s temple, unsheathed the Colt pistol from his waistband, and shoot him four times in the chest.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
His body fell to the floor, his blood sprayed the walls like a Pollock painting (a little landed on Roenick’s face), and the crowd split apart and fell to cover.
Prophet was the first one to line up Amanda in-between her sights as the rest of them pulled out their firearms, save for Roenick, who yelled out, “DON’T SHOOT!”
Amanda fled with a cheetah’s stride up the stairs before disappearing into the upper level of the house. She fired three more rounds blindly over her shoulder as she retreated.
As the smoke settled, the crew engaged the safety switches on their weapons, came out from their cover spots, and rallied around Roenick.
He pointed to Prophet and then pointed to O’Reilly’s body, a small punishment for her having drawn down on Amanda and nearly shooting her. It was reactionary, on her part, and it may have saved his life.
Roenick didn’t care. “There’s nowhere she can go,” he said. “There are no telephones in here. No other ways out.”
His eyes stayed glued to the staircase. Cassie thought she saw him sniffing the air.
“Give her time,” Roenick said. “Let her blow off some steam.”
“She has a gun, Roenick,” said Cassie. “What if she—”
“She’s fired seven rounds. She has one left. I’ll retrieve her myself.”
Prophet kept her pistol at the ready and her eye line on the stairs as she pulled O’Reilly’s body into the hallway with one hand, the blood from the chunks of flesh torn out of his chest smeared against the marble and caught the light.
Roenick sighed as he looked upon the corpse.
“I’d prefer to not lose any more people, if we can help it. I draw the line when a hostage starts killing my own men…”
“Answer the question, Roenick,” Cassie said. “How does Black killing King do us any favors?”
“King was FBI,” Roenick told her just as Prophet dropped O’Reilly’s lifeless corpse to floor with a thud.
Cassie closed her eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me…” she said. She then looked to Roenick for validation and saw a twinkle hiding just behind the corners of his eyes.
“You already knew,” she said.
“I had a suspicion.”
“And when was I going to get a fucking memo on that?! How did someone from the FBI work their way inside, Roenick?!”
Roenick began walking up the stairway as he motioned with a trailed hand for Cassie to follow. “Come with me.”
Cassie followed after him, hot on his heels, doing her best not to inconvenience him with a flat tire to the back of his shoes.
Down below, Prophet went to retrieve plastic sheets to wrap O’Reilly’s body in.
“Tell me how the FBI infiltrated us,” Cassie said to Roenick as they ascended the stairs.
“Because of my history with The Trust. The FBI has been sniffing them out since well before I was a part of the organization.”
He pulled out a silver Walther PPK and took a turn to the right when he reached the top of the stairs. Cassie followed suit and pulled out her SIG.
He then began to tread lightly through a hallway that branched out into a twisting, maze-like corridor filled with closed doors.
One of which Amanda was seeking refuge behind.
The pretentious pizzazz of the downstairs architecture had shifted into a flat-toned, jigsaw puzzle of a layout. The air smelled sweet and the walls were an asylum shade of white. Lining them were a variety of paintings that illustrated hyper-elated depictions of holy wars between angels, demons, and man. It seemed that no matter the battle, the humans were the ones who suffered the severest of casualties. God-fearing looks of absolute horror were etched in their faces as they were impaled, tortured, and in some cases fed upon.
Cassie had seen real death during the course her life, but the unholy compositions on the walls were making her feel nauseous. To her, it felt like her body was projected into another, slightly more uncomfortable universe.
Roenick’s universe.
“Do you remember the murder of Elizabeth Short?” Roenick asked.
Cassie said nothing. She kept her eyes on the paintings as Roenick continued with his story—
“Elizabeth Short,” he said, “or ‘The Black Dahlia,’ as she is more commonly recognized by the general public, is still a fairly well-known case. She was murdered, quite brutally, as you may already know. What was most baffling to the investigators was the lack of hard evidence. It was severely astounding to a particular member of the FBI whose attention was caught by the case, an agent by the name of Melvin Purvis.”
“He was part of the team that killed John Dillinger, correct?”
“He was the team.”
“I thought he retired not long after the Dillinger case?”
“This country has a talent for misleading and misinformation. I could go into details, but rest assured: Melvin Purvis did not retire when they claim he did.”
Roenick stopped by one of the closed doors and flattened his palm against it. He ran his hand across the wood like he was feeling it for signs of a pulse.
“Mister Purvis became obsessed with the case. It was the lack of fingerprints on the body that intrigued him. Granted, that wasn’t a first in a murder investigation, but something about it boded wrong to him. That, along with Miss Short’s elusive and intriguing history.”
He peeled his hand off the door and stepped back. Whatever his sixth sense was attempting to
sniff out, it wasn’t in that room.
They continued walking, Cassie checking the corners for a surprise drop-in from Amanda.
All she saw were more paintings.
Jesus…
“There was another series of murders in Cleveland,” said Roenick, “executed in the same fashion as the Dahlia case: mutilation, et cetera. Now, while there were hundreds of suspects and theories, the Cleveland lead stuck with Purvis. He believed that whoever killed Elizabeth Smart had also committed the murders in Cleveland. The more he investigated it, the more the similarities started to seem like fate.”
They came upon another door. This one Roenick rejected fairly quickly after he tilted his nose up, followed by what looked like him, inhaling and analyzing the air for any traces of Amanda’s scent.
His canine sense of smell stumbled upon nothing.
“One suspect,” Roenick said, “among the hundreds of them, was never brought to the attention of the public. A man by the name of Herbert Silver.”
“Sounds a lot like Marcus Silver…”
“Herbert Silver was a Cleveland native that worked as a local physician. But that was his retirement job. His prior profession, however, was being one of the very first members of The Trust, back when their methods of psychological induction for the program were more, how shall I put it? Archaic. He was assigned the surname Silver. That’s another thing, my dear: The colors palate The Trust used for our names holds significance. The shade or hue you are given is indicative of some type of class or ranking system.”
“What kind?”
“That I had never discovered. It’s something I’m hoping they can answer for me, should the opportunity arise.”
They rounded another corner, a single door at the end of the hallway.
It seemed to beckon to Roenick. “Back to Herbert Silver,” he said, his voice lowering and pace slowing.
“As I said, when The Trust first began exposing their Contractors to programing and training, the subjects were far more prone to certain psychological deformities and side-effects. They bred killers of the most efficient, lethal, and thorough kind, but they ended up also being the types of killers with a knack for not being able to turn that switch off. The end result was someone like Herbert Silver: a trained assassin whose rigorous tutelage in torture had somehow branched off and developed into a twisted obsession for mutilation after he had retired.”
On her left, Cassie spotted a framed painting of a demon crouched on the chest of a woman laid back on a lavish, colossal-sized bed. Jagged teeth that protruded from the devil’s black face were buried into the neck of the wide-eyed woman who was adorned in flowing, white robes that were being torn at near her heart by the charred and contorted claws of the beast.
What it meant to Cassie, she did not know.
Roenick continued on with his diatribe—
“It actually was fairly easy to connect the dots. Agent Purvis, as well as others, knew that the killer in Cleveland and in Los Angeles had extensive medical knowledge. Physicians and doctors were logical individuals to inquire. When Agent Purvis went to question Silver, a gunfight immediately ensued and Purvis ended up killing him. It was almost as if Herbert Silver knew he had been boxed in and chose the easy way out. Then again, he was losing his mind, so maybe his judgment had been slightly tainted. Anyway, he died before there was a chance to ask him any questions, so a solid link was never established between him and any of the murders. What sold Purvis on Silver being responsible for them was the fact the Silver had no fingerprints.”
Roenick held up his print-less fingertips and waved them at Cassie.
“To other agents and superiors in the Bureau it was a reach, and they believed they had more grounded theories explaining the lack of fingerprints: Silver burned them off, he possibly had a genetic disorder known as adermatoglyphia, so on. But what Purvis ended up outlining on his report after the death of Herbert Silver was a connection to the Dahlia and Cleveland cases laced with an inner-lying conspiracy theory that proposed the idea of Herbert Silver being a part of some sort of assassin’s guild. It was Silver’s absence of fingerprints, his somewhat obscure history, and lack of family that drove Purvis’ theory in that direction. It was too far-fetched for the FBI, so it was disregarded, and no one ever mentioned Herbert Silver or Purvis’ ‘assassin squad’ theory again… until Purvis died in 1960. The Feds knew it to be murder, though they told the public it was an alleged suicide. But the FBI, and those of us who worked for The Trust, knew the hands of the ever-so-talented Sherry Bleu were responsible for the demise of Agent Purvis. She had a knack for faking suicides, if I remember correctly. Anyway, the one thing that stood out on that crime scene? A lack of fingerprints.”
They came to the last hallway, a single, closed door at the far end. The air was stale, and it felt like someone unseen was holding their breath.
Roenick stopped and ogled the door with his eyes and his chest rose outward with a deep inhale.
“It wasn’t until seven years ago when the case file on Herbert Silver was opened and Purvis’ theory was brought back into play. Somehow, someone at the FBI found out about a man with no prints in Texas with the last name ‘Silver,’ on his driver’s license. Cocky bastard stumbled upon it. An FBI agent named Eddie Flint. He wanted to question the man in Austin. Out of curiosity. How he found him, I do not know. When Flint arrived to speak with the young man, he had found him shot in the back of the head and left for dead outside his apartment. A man with no fingerprints…”
Roenick reached up his hand and parted the hair on the back of his head. He turned around and showcased to Cassie a white, scarred spot of skin near the base of his skull that was once an open and life-threatening bullet wound.
You’re never short on secrets, brother.
Memories plagued Roenick and made him turn slightly inattentive. “The rumor on my death was because I had a Re-Val…” he said, the playback causing his eyes to inadvertently gather with water. “But that’s not what happened…”
He shook the feeling and looked back at the door. “I was on life support. For a good amount time. Somehow… I woke up… I managed to have recouped just enough, so I escaped the hospital before Mister Flint had a chance to start asking questions. Ever since I disappeared that day, they’ve been looking for me. He’s been looking for me.”
His thoughts turned to King. “I guess he found me.”
Roenick approached the closed door. Cassie chose to stay behind him.
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“It means me have to move fast.”
Roenick inched closer towards the door handle; his reflection in the brass was twisted and made his body appear to be made out of elastic. He stepped to the side, and pressed his head against the doorframe.
“Amanda,” he said with a soft resonance against the wood. “I know you’re in there, my dear.”
Seconds passed. Silence held sway.
“I’ve got the gun to my head,” Amanda said from the other side. “You try and open that door, and I swear to Christ I’ll blow my own head off.”
Roenick let out a tsk through his front teeth.
“I don’t suppose you’re planning on coming out then, are you?” he asked.
“If I’m going to die, it’s going to be on my terms, not yours.”
Roenick stepped three paces back from the door.
“Did Black tail you here?” he asked Cassie.
“No, I lost him.”
Roenick raised his Walther and aimed it at the door in front of him.
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t take you at your word,” he said.
BAM!
He fired a round through the door, creating a hole the size of an olive, followed by a small spray of wood chips.
“Roenick!” Cassidy shouted. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Between Martin Black and the Federal Government, I’m starting to lose my patience.”
BANG!
Another bullet
through the door. More splinters of wood.
“No more games, Amanda,” he said. “Come on out—”
BOOM!
Amanda answered Roenick back with a round through the door that ended up planting itself into his left shoulder. He jerked back and went to fall but managed to brace himself against the wall.
Cassie raised her SIG towards Amanda’s direction in reply—
“No,” Roenick said.
He emitted a light yet still maligned laugh as he stood up.
The chuckling sounded, to Cassie, like a noise that the demon in the painting she saw would be making during its act of depredation on that woman.
Roenick stood up, cracked his neck, and showed no signs of visible pain. No attempt was made to cover his wound as it began to drain the color of roses.
He approached the door, lifted his foot, and kicked it in—
Amanda stood before him in what appeared to be a linen closet. He looked over her left shoulder and saw that the bullets he fired had missed her by a simple distance of centimeters.
The two of them honed in on each other’s gazes.
“You’re out of bullets,” Roenick said.
Amanda flared her nostrils and threw the depleted gun overhand in Roenick’s direction, straight towards his face with form that would make a major league baseball player blink twice.
Roenick, former Contractor, caught the thing mid-air, examined it, and tossed it on the ground. The chunk of metal hit the floor with such brute force that it cracked the marble tiles.
Still, Amanda didn’t flinch.
“You better kill me now, asshole,” she said.
Roenick reached into his pocket and produced a small brick of leather that looked like a case for reading glasses. “I was going to do this later,” he said. “But I guess we’ll have to do it now.” He opened the case and removed the contents – a syringe filled with liquid.
“I’m serious,” Amanda told him, not a shred of bullshit in her tone. “You better kill me.”
“I admire your heart, my dear,” he said. “But it’s not going to save you.”
He gripped the needle and moved towards Amanda, his shadow swallowed her as she stood her ground and prepared to tear him to shreds.