On The Black: (A CIA Thriller)

by Theo Cage

  Sonya would rotate her hips, lift her arms up to the sides of the doorway when the traffic was inching along, and watch the heads turn. At her street corner, only a few buildings away from the lights, traffic would move a little slower. Some of the drivers just weren't in quite the same hurry anymore to rush home to their newspapers and the six o'clock news.

  Within a few minutes a man, maybe two, sometimes a woman, would wander into the store - the White Street Trading Shack. They would ask politely about an old chipped armoire, the framed copies of old pages out of Life magazine hanging crookedly on the walls and priced at $50 each. Or even an old coke bottle collection. But they really came for Sonya. Sonya in the tight black dress, her hair teased too high; her rouge too red; what they used to call "fuck-me" boots, laced up high on her chunky legs.

  She smiled and bent over slowly when they asked to see something. Then they opened their fat wallets and she would separate them from their hard-earned cash. That was her job. Her husband just didn't understand. And it was all so sad in a way. It was pathetic too, and so obvious, but sexy at the same time in a way she hardly understood.

  What knocked her over was how the other wives in the neighborhood acted like they found her husband so sexy. Sonya couldn't understand that. He had never been romantic. He was pushy and hard and demanding. Maybe this looked masculine from a distance - all that snorting and bluffing.

  These other men though, her customers, their faces perspiring in the un-air conditioned heat of the musty store, were like children being led to some uncomfortable sticky fate they couldn't resist. That felt right to her. It was the only power she wielded.

  This morning, it was hotter than usual in the tiny store. Humidity had drawn ugly circles under Tony's arms while he worked, moving furniture around in the back room.

  Sonya snapped her gum and sneered. The front counter was a mess; a new box of 78's spread across the top in mid-inventory. Dust was everywhere, and Tony was stirring up more with his useless reorganization.

  She wanted to sit down, but couldn't find a clean enough spot.

  Today she wore a bright pink halter-top, which left her shoulders and mid-riff bare, but it didn't seem to help with the humidity. Washington was a hell of a place to have to spend summers. Anyone with money was gone till September.

  Sonya was just about to take up her position in the open doorway, when someone stepped in, his body so wide and high he almost blocked out the sunlight. He was a human eclipse. He wore a worn, brown hound’s-tooth jacket, a plain white shirt and a pair of jeans he probably bought at Wal-Mart, judging by the rest of his outfit.

  The visitor swung around his big wide head covered in short blonde hair. He hesitated while his eyes adjusted to the gloom, but she caught the slightest expression of curiosity in his facial features when he brought her into focus. This didn't surprise her much. In fact, it still gave her a lift. Men found her physically attractive; it was that simple. They just never seemed willing to take her home to momma.

  Tony didn't have a momma so that about explained her present situation.

  This customer looked right at her, which was unusual. Typically they had their heads down, avoiding any eye contact that might lead to a quick sale.

  The man turned down an aisle and jabbed his hands into his pant’s pockets. She watched him for a minute, then clicked over on the worn hardwood flooring.

  "You a Big Band fan?" she asked. He was staring at a signed photo of the Tommy Dorsey Band. She had caught him off guard.

  "No. Just surprised to see some of this . . ." he waved his hand at the wall. “I thought you just sold furniture."

  "Tony's a pack rat. That's him over there." She pointed, purposefully like a five-year-old. Her eyes never left his. "He wouldn't know a big band from a Big Mac." She picked up the dusty framed photograph. "This is priced way too low. You could steal it, you know, if you buy it quick before his IQ goes up any higher." She was standing close, way too close for his comfort. She liked that. She liked to give big guys a woody and a heart attack all at the same time.

  "Is there a Sonya working here?" he asked finally, tired of avoiding the reason he came to this House of Junk.

  She smiled. "I'm Sonya. You heard about me?"

  "You're Sonya Ellis?" She frowned when she heard the surname.

  "Used to be. Now it’s Catelli." She nodded her head in Tony's direction. "Like the noodles."

  “I’m Detective Hyde,” he said simply, showing her his badge. Her cheeks suddenly reddened. She stepped back on her high heels. “I’m here to ask you about your father,” he said.

  "Oh," was all she said, her smile going flat. "Well, that's too bad."

  "Too bad?"

  "He forgot to send me a Christmas card," she said.

  Hyde squinted at her. A wave of discomfort had hit him. A sense of something not right. "I'm sorry?"

  "Yeah, Christmas 2009." She wiped a line of dust off a display of cracked dishes. "And 2010. And 11. Most of that decade actually. And the rest in between. What did he do now?"

  "I usually ask the questions, Mrs. Catelli."

  "Well, no big deal, Mr. Hyde. It's not like you found a Russian mole or a super-spy or something. All you found was me." She brushed her hands on her jeans. "Is Harry trying to make up again, because if he is . . ."

  Hyde swallowed. "I’m sorry, Mrs. Catelli. Harry Ellis was murdered last night." She looked at him for a few seconds, her mouth open and uncertain, then her eyes rolled back, and she fainted dead away.

  An excerpt from Theo Cage’s

  BUZZWORM

  Under an icy sliver of a partial moon, the bloated black body of the Mott’s Run reservoir seemed to be taunting me. Across its oily surface, about a quarter of a mile away, a mist clung to the far shore. My destination. But I had never learned how to swim and I hated water.

  One chilly autumn, as a kid, my father had thrown me off a dock into a lake very much like this one, greenish-black currents and a hidden bottom. I slipped below the surface without so much as a splash. He almost drowned rescuing me.

  Now I was standing on a rickety pier, looking across the reservoir at the back end of Xavier’s property. Or was it Buzzworm’s? Whoever the fuck he was today, he was making me cross a body of water that made my skin crawl. The property description that Med had given me only offered two options. I could drive right into his front yard via the one main road or take the back route by crossing over the reservoir behind his property. He would be watching the main road, which didn’t leave many options.

  I looked down at my transportation, a flat-bottomed rowboat, one paddle and no lifejacket. I stepped down into the boat, the hollow bump of the soggy wood against the dock enough to wake the dead. I swore. Just take one step at a time was all I was thinking. Push away from the dock into the inky water. Keep your eyes on the opposite shore. Don’t think about what was underneath you, the shiny surface swirling around you like there was something deep in the reeds and moving around. Just think about Kyla.

  It seemed to take forever to scull across the reservoir. As I approached the tree line of the opposite shore, I realized that getting out of the boat wasn’t going to be any more fun than getting in. The high water obscured the shoreline and the banks, the water crawling up the soggy sides of the trees. I pushed up to the tree line, unable to penetrate the submerged forest around me. I looked down. I had no clue as to the depth of the water at this point. What choice did I have? I crawled down into the dirty water, feeling the cold crab up my legs and into my crotch. I touched an uncertain bottom with my arms held high, the waterline now up to my armpits.

  The submerged ground was mushy, all buried roots and rotten logs. I tied the row boat to the closest tree with a frayed old rope and pushed my way up the buried embankment, pulling myself along from trunk to trunk. After a few yards, the water was only a foot or so deep. I checked my position. There was a vague glow, a sodium-colored yard light buried in the distant forest. Xavier’s. He had the lights on for me. How nice of
him.

  I pushed my way through the heavy brush that sheltered the back of the property, hoping to make it to the clearing without losing an eye. I had my arms up to protect my face from the whip-like willow branches, my wrists already bleeding. Roger was working on killing the power; luckily that hadn’t happened yet. I would be aimlessly plodding in the dark without the lights of the farmhouse to guide me. There was no path, no obvious direction to follow. I was cold and my shoes were ruined, but somewhere ahead, in the farmhouse or one of the surrounding buildings, I would find my daughter. It was impossible to think of any other outcome right now.

  Within a few hundred yards of the farmhouse, a small clearing of uncut grass ahead, I heard a distant shotgun blast echo off the building. Almost instantly, the yard light went out, as did the lights on the porch and all the interior illumination. I stopped to listen; the only sound my ragged breathing. If I was Xavier, the first thing I would do is check the breakers, just to be sure. But if he heard the rifle blast from inside the house, he might jump to another conclusion about the source of the blackout. I figure he would then head to the generator to see why it hadn’t cut in. After all, he had spent a lot of taxpayer’s money to buy the best. He’d want to know why the backup didn’t kick in. The generator was a distance through a path in the woods west of the main house. That’s where we predicted he would head and that’s where I would follow once he started out.

  I crouched and made my way around the back of the farmhouse, my soggy shoes crunching on broken twigs and dried leaves. I expected at any second to confront at least one of the hired hands or bodyguards. But I was ready for them, gun in hand. Med had guessed there might be two, but that could have changed; Xavier could have increased his security now that he guessed we might be after him.

  Rounding the west wall, I heard voices on the porch. I crouched down in the shadows.

  “I think I heard a gunshot just before the power went down.” A man’s voice. Older.

  “I don’t give a shit about what caused it. Why didn’t the generator kick in?” I recognized the voice immediately. Xavier.

  The other man replied. “We went through the check list yesterday, sir. Everything was tickity boo.” I could see a moonlit shadow of the two men, one of them clearly carrying a rifle.

  “Obviously you missed something. We finally get a blackout and what happens? Someone forgets to turn on the system. Go check it. Get it running. I’ll keep an eye on things here.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “And where’s Rupert?” asked Xavier. I figured Rupert must be one of the other guards. But just by the way he said it; it seemed to imply there was only one person missing,

  “He’s finishing up chores,” answered the other man.

  There was a long pause. “What about the kid who crashed the ultra-light?”

  “He said he’d bring him with him when he was done.”

  “Damn. That was over an hour ago, Jake. Bring them all back here. But get the power back up first. If this outage goes on for a while, I don’t want it to affect my plans.”

  From the sound of things, it looked like the BATF agent had probably disarmed one of them and would shortly take out the second. It sounded like they had Roger, but Goodyear was still undercover. I watched as Xavier’s employee jogged off into the darkness.

  Xavier was standing on the porch, his eyes on the distant out buildings. I waited for his hired hand to get out of listening distance. Then I stepped around the side of the farmhouse and looked up at him. I had my 9-millimeter aimed at his chest. Change of plans.

  “Where is she?” was all I said. He looked down at me. I was moving carefully around the railed deck of the porch, his eyes following me.

  “I thought we had a deal, Hyde?” asked Xavier, expressionless.

  “Our deal was I keep the Avion running. And the Avion is running, you just don’t know it. Your blackout’s not my problem.”

  Xavier lifted one eyebrow. “So you’re responsible for this? I should have known. Hyde, the juggernaut.”

  “I asked you where she is. Kyla. And put the rifle down or I’ll shoot you were you stand. ”

  Xavier laid the rifle down on the deck of the porch and put his hands up. As I came around to the wide steps that led up to the porch, he sat down slowly in a wicker chair by the wall. “That’s a bit of a problem, detective. You’re not going to find her in time. And right now, her safety depends on a power source. So you are killing her, you just don’t know it. I’d get the power backup if I were you.”

  I moved up the stairs and across the porch to where he sat. I swung the Glock hard across his face, feeling the gun connect with his cheekbone. He twisted his face sideways with the blow, his body rigid and his teeth clenched. He had just said that Kyla’s safety depended on power. So she must be somewhere on the property.

  “You’re going to take me to her,” I said, trying to keep the emotion out of my voice.

  “I wish I could. It’s too late for that, detective.”

  I swung the gun again, angrier now, the weight of my body behind the blow. This time when I struck him, his head banged back against the wall of the porch. He closed his eyes momentarily and spit out blood.

  “Fort Bragg. Anti-interrogation training. Head of the class,” he growled. “You think you can beat the truth out of me, Hyde? Well, you better have the stomach for it.”

  “This isn’t torture, Xavier. And I’m not the CIA. I’m all about the rule of law. I’m just trying to shave some years off your prison sentence.”

  Xavier laughed, spitting more blood into the palm of his hand. He held it up for me to see. “You call this rule of law?”

  “The feds are on their way with their trained dogs and their infrared guided helicopters. The power going out was their signal. You can make it a lot easier on yourself by giving her up and saving us doing a search.”

  Xavier touched his cheek where the skin was broken. The blood looked inky black in the moonlight. “Their dogs and helicopters won’t help. You’ll never find her without me. And if they get even close to her, this whole place will go up. You know me, Hyde. If anything, I’m thorough.”

  As he said this, almost as if on cue, the night sky lit up to the west of us. From the direction of the generator shed, a yellow mushroom cloud of flame and smoke rose up over the tree line, followed by a booming roar that shook the deck under our feet.