by Frank Stein
“I don’t know, Frank. We don’t spend much time researching sovereign debt funds—those are usually the safer instruments. It’s the stock and real estate and private equity funds that we worry about the most. Why, are we out of compliance on our allocation weighting? Did you find something in the reports?”
We were now on the second floor. Just one more flight of stairs. One last chance for me. I stopped at the top of the flight and took a deep breath. “Let’s wait for a minute, Mr. Wesley. I’m tired. I don’t want you to fall down the stairs again.”
Wesley nodded. He looked pale, was breathing irregularly, and appeared to be close to passing out. It would be so easy now. I wouldn’t even need to push. All I had to do was let go. I thought about death row in Texas, but that seemed so unreal, so far away. Too far away, in fact. No way I was killing Wesley.
I carefully took him down the last flight of stairs. He was almost unconscious now. I pushed open the door to the parking lot, and heard the sirens as I walked out into the sun. A few people saw me stagger out with Wesley almost on my back, and they ran up to us. They laid Wesley down on a patch of grass while I waved my arms to get an ambulance over to him.
The paramedics put Wesley on a stretcher. He was barely conscious, but managed a smile as they took him past me. As the ambulance door closed, Wesley pointed at me and spoke in a surprisingly loud voice.
“That man—Frank Stein. He saved my life. He’s not a monster after all.”
I smiled as I heard Wesley’s silly laugh ring out from behind the red metal doors. No, I wasn’t a monster yet. But I knew that soon I would be. It would only be a matter of time before I crossed that last line.
FOURTEEN
She was waiting for me in the hotel lobby when I got back that night.
“Mo? I thought you were in California.”
“Well, I’m not.” She smiled. “How are you, Frank?”
“Fine.”
“Good.” Mo was sitting on one of the cheap multicolored couches in the lobby. She pointed at the thinly cushioned armchair next to her. “Let’s talk.”
I sat down without making eye contact with Mo. I was scared, maybe even a bit guilty, like I had done something wrong. Good lord—guilty for not committing a murder.
“I flew in when I heard that Wesley was injured.” Mo paused until I looked up at her. “Frank, did you try to kill him?”
I wasn’t sure what to say.
“The truth, Frank.”
How does she do that? I shook my head. “No. I couldn’t do it. I waited for him at the top of the stairs. I was going to push him, but I chickened out.”
Mo exhaled. “So Wesley getting injured was an accident?”
I nodded. “I startled him, and he fell.”
Mo smiled. “Whew.”
“What?”
“I was starting to think I had made a mistake with you.”
I stared at her.
“Remember when I said there were two other reasons you were perfect for this work?” said Mo.
I thought back to the conversation in Texas about job satisfaction and the meaning of life. “Yes.”
“This is the second reason.”
“What is?”
“Your conscience. The fact that you have one.”
I was quiet. I wasn’t sure if it was conscience or cowardice that had stopped me from killing Wesley.
Mo continued. “Wesley didn’t deserve to be killed. He had no clue where that money was going. And once he finds out, he will drop those funds from his list.”
“How will he find out?”
“He’ll get an anonymous but credible tip. You don’t need to worry about it.”
“So that’s it for this assignment? What about those hedge funds?”
Mo shrugged. “They’re still targets, but we don’t have access to them at this point. Another cell will pick them up.” She nodded. “Yes, so that’s it for this assignment.”
“So it was another test?”
Mo nodded. “You can call it that. Conscience is important in this work. We’ve had too many cases where an Alpha or Beta loses it and becomes an undiscerning killing machine. Remember, our members are driven, ambitious, highly-capable men and women. When they do something, they do it well. When they start learning something new, they are motivated to become really good at it really fast. And that works with killing, too, unfortunately.”
I let out a short laugh. “So it’s a good thing I chickened out?”
“You didn’t chicken out. You made a call. Your gut told you that he didn’t deserve to die, and you held back.”
I shook my head. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I made no such self-righteous call. I was scared, pure and simple. I even puked in the restroom before going out onto the stairs. The same fear would have stopped me from killing Miroslav or one of his cronies.”
Mo leaned back on the couch and gave me a long stare. “Let me ask you this. As you were helping Wesley down the stairs, did you still think about killing him?”
I waited before answering. Then I spoke softly. “Yes.”
“And why didn’t you?”
“I asked him about those funds. He didn't seem to remember them. And I don’t think he could have been lying—he was too woozy.”
Now Mo leaned forward. She was smiling. “What if he had said that he knew about those funds? And what if he said that he didn’t care where they were putting the money as long as they got their profit?”
I thought for a moment, but I didn’t say anything.
“Would you have pushed him?”
“I don’t know. Probably not.”
“But it’s possible.”
I sighed. “Yes, it’s possible.”
“So then you did make a decision.”
I nodded. She was right. I rubbed my eyes and yawned. “Fine, you win.”
“I always win.” Mo laughed. “Anyway, you didn’t really believe I would send you on your first kill just like that, did you? Without any guidance or training or instructions? What kind of operation do you think we’re running here?”
I was almost offended. “Actually, I think I had a pretty good plan. It would have looked like an accident.”
“You’d be in jail right now, I guarantee it.”
I thought about the security camera footage of me jogging from the bathroom to the stairs. I thought about emerging into the parking lot from the stairwell a good ten minutes after everyone else. I thought about Wesley’s blood that had stained my poorly selected white shirt without my even noticing. She was right again.
Mo stood up. “Anyway, I’ll let you get some sleep.”
I nodded.
“Oh, and change your flight plans. I’ll be here through the weekend, and you should stay too.”
“Why, what’s going on?”
Mo smiled. “We’re going to do a little training session.”
FIFTEEN
The rest of the week was uneventful. Wesley didn’t come in, so I didn’t have to deal with my own guilt by acting normal around someone I came so close to murdering. Mo didn’t show up at the All-American offices at all, and I didn’t hear from her until Friday evening.
She was waiting for me in the hotel lobby when I got back from work on Friday. She wore a dress—something I hadn’t seen her in before. She smiled at me. “Hey. Drop your stuff off upstairs and meet me in the lot in ten minutes.”
“Okay. What’re we doing?” I was apprehensive. The last time I had met her in a parking lot the trip had ended with fourteen murders.
“Relax. We’re just going to dinner.” She smiled again. “I promise.”
We went to an Olive Garden down the street. The food wasn’t bad, and the conversation was surprisingly light and engaging for the entire dinner. Then we ordered some coffee, and when it came, Mo took on a serious expression.
“Three things for this weekend: contact, communication, and covertness. We call it the three Cs.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sounds li
ke the Network is run by management consultants.”
Mo smiled. “I admit, those terms are a bit hokey. Here’s what they translate to: how to kill; how and when to explain why you’re killing; and how to get away with it.”
I nodded. That sounded less hokey. I looked around at the families gorging themselves on Olive Garden’s free salad and breadsticks. I somehow felt powerful and heroic, like I was sacrificing my own peace of mind so these people could continue to stay fat and happy.
Mo sipped her coffee and then continued. “Let’s start with weapons. First, no guns. Too much crap to deal with—getting licenses, transporting them, leaving bullets and casings. Not to mention the noise.”
“Okay. I think you mentioned that before. But explosives are obviously fair game.”
Mo nodded. “Yes, but we don’t use them much. They’re also hard to transport, and they can be traced. The warehouse in Texas was a special situation. Besides, most Beta members don’t handle explosives themselves.”
“Fine with me.” I smiled as the waitress refilled my cup.
Mo waited until the waitress left. “Obviously knives are good, and you’ll need to learn how to use them.”
“Like that folding knife you use? Or do I get to pick my own favorite one?”
Mo shook her head. “I wish I could say that you should find a kind of knife that suits you and then stick with it.”
“No pun intended,” I said.
Mo paused. She didn’t get it.
“Sorry.” I cleared my throat and nodded. “Right, we don’t want to make it easy for someone to find a pattern connecting a bunch of unsolved murders.” I thought for a moment. “But what does that mean? Should I buy a wide range of knives and then use them randomly?”
She laughed. “You really need to stop watching those ninja movies or whatever it is that you get these lame ideas from.”
“Sorry.”
“No, you won’t have a set of state-of-the-art killing blades. Good lord.” She laughed again. “You’ll find it’s best to use cheap knives that are easily available at either a hardware store or a kitchen supplies store. That way you can inconspicuously buy a new one in every town you visit. Cash always, of course.”
“So I’ll buy a new knife for every job?” I felt a chill run up and down my spine. What scared me was that it wasn’t fear; it was excitement. Like a child being told he could buy a new toy every few weeks.
“Something like that.” She nodded. “We can go through some knife techniques back at the hotel, but to the point about not leaving a pattern, you won’t want to use a knife every time.”
“Okay. That makes sense.”
“You’ll need to learn some free-hand techniques.”
“You mean like how you smashed Miroslav’s kneecap?”
Mo nodded. “Yes. I’ll give you a rundown on the best spots to target for immobilization. Or worse. And then we can talk about ad-hoc weapons.”
“Which are what?”
“Stuff that’s not really designed to be a weapon, but which can be used to kill, depending on the situation.”
“Like what?”
Mo shrugged. “Almost anything. Let’s see . . . I’ve used umbrellas, knitting needles, mechanical pencils, the wire from a spiral notebook, stainless steel water bottles, tablecloths, forks, a tennis ball—please don’t ask me about that—pillows, and . . .” She looked down at her feet. “The heel from one of the shoes I have on right now. I saw that in an old movie, and was curious to see if it could really work. Turns out it’s not very efficient.” She smiled at what must have been an indescribable expression on my face. Then she shook her head and commented on how she should probably get rid of those shoes, but she knew she looked hot in them.
I could feel my breathing quicken, and I felt flushed and panicky. I pushed the cup of coffee away from me and leaned back in my chair. After taking several deep breaths, I stood up and walked outside. Mo joined me a few minutes later.
“You okay?” she said.
“Of course not.”
“Sorry. It’ll get easier. Soon this won’t appear surreal to you. Soon it’ll be normal.”
“That’s what’s making me sick,” I said. “It’s already starting to appear normal.”
SIXTEEN
We spent that night holed up in Mo’s hotel suite talking about things that two management consultants shouldn’t have been talking about.
Mo started with knives. She laid out maybe thirty different blades on the glass coffee table—it looked like she had raided the entire knife section of some kitchen supply place. Later she told me that she had made several trips to a bunch of stores in the Chicagoland area. No patterns.
“Knives are obviously messy,” she said. “So you only use them in situations where you can get cleaned up afterward. But if you follow the rule of buying cheap knives that you get rid of quick, they are virtually untraceable, so it’s not a bad trade-off.”
I nodded.
“Stand up,” she said.
I did. Mo spent the next two hours showing me the most lethal strike zones for a knife attack. She told me what to expect in terms of blood spatter, victims’ flail reactions, how long before unconsciousness, how soon to death. I was wired by the end of it.
“These strike zones are what you should aim for even when using an ad-hoc weapon,” she said. “But remember, don’t play favorites. You don’t want the police to suddenly notice a string of murders committed by umbrella or lightbulb.”
“Lightbulb?”
Mo shrugged. “Sometimes a situation gets messy and you need to improvise.”
I gulped. I didn’t like the images associated with an improvised murder.
“That’s why it’s good to know some immobilization techniques. Stand up again.”
Mo showed me a series of moves that targeted the more sensitive parts of the body: throat, eyes, joints, ears, groin, chin, temple, and kidneys. She also gave me a run-down of certain holds, throws, punches, and kicks. I had taken a couple of months of mixed martial arts while in business school, so some of the moves were familiar. But I took them a lot more seriously now. After all, if I was going to do this, I would do it well. If I was going to become a killer, I’d damn well better be a good killer.
The next C was communication: guidelines for how and when to explain why you are killing your victim. Of course, the idea was that the victim should understand why he or she was being put down, especially since our targets usually hadn’t had much exposure to physical violence. Most of them lived peaceful lives while other people suffered for them and because of them. So yes, it made sense for them to experience a bit of realization before the end.
“But there are limits to the risks we will take,” said Mo. “Remember, each target has been vetted and validated, so if you’re in a situation where stopping to explain your actions could compromise the kill, then screw it. Our first responsibility is to get rid of these people. We’re doing them a favor by taking the time to point out their crimes. Don’t ever forget that.”
I nodded. “So if Wesley had really been a target, it would have been okay to have taken him out without a discussion about those hedge funds?”
“Yes.” Mo was quiet for a bit. “But you’ll have to see how it goes. See what works best for you in the beginning. Maybe it’ll be easier for you to try and explain your actions first. Or maybe it’ll just be easier to first kill and only after you’ve gained some confidence take the time to pontificate. Again, our job is physical and practical first, and only then spiritual or moral.”
“Okay,” I said.
Mo smiled. “Which is not to say that the physical act has no spiritual or moral significance. You are sacrificing your own humanness for the sake of humanity. And that is profoundly significant.”
“Okay,” I said again as I stared at the row of knives on the table.
Mo yawned and sat back down on the red sofa. She lit a cigarette and looked up at me. “I think we’re almost done for tonight. We’ll
go through most of this again tomorrow, and then again on Sunday. I’ll also write down a practice routine for you to do on your own every morning and evening.”
I nodded. “What about the third C?”
Mo laughed. “Covertness? We’ve covered some of it already with the attention to not creating a pattern and so on. Yeah, we’ll talk about fingerprints and cleaning up the crime scenes and handling the bodies and some of that crap tomorrow. But the general rule is this: paranoia is king. When in doubt, follow up on the doubt. If you are worried that something might go wrong, then assume it will go wrong, and account for it. If something doesn’t feel right, then get the hell out and save yourself for another day or another kill.”
“Great. That rule pretty much guarantees that I’ll never do anything.”
Mo nodded. “You’ll be nervous and hesitant at first. That’s normal, and it happens because you haven’t started to trust your own instincts. But soon you’ll know how to distinguish between the normal adrenaline-fueled anxiety and the feeling that something is really off. Like what some people call ‘jungle sense’—when you can tell what’s hiding in the bushes even though you can’t see or hear it.”
I didn’t say anything. I suddenly felt tired and drained, and I wanted to go home to my parents and hug my mum. I looked at Mo and thought about her daughter. I tried to imagine what it would be like to go to your garage and find your child with her head blown off.
And then I didn’t feel like a baby anymore. I felt like a man who had made choices and who was about to step up and pay the price for those choices. And that price would be my sanity, freedom, and the ability to sleep through the night.