Headcount: v5

by Frank Stein

  “It’ll go well,” she said. “The first two meetings will be smooth. The last might get messy, but we’ll be warmed up by then. And I guarantee Hildebrand isn’t as tough as she looks. No need to worry.”

  I smiled, but it was a fake smile. “I’m not worried.” I took a drag and turned and looked out over the sea. “Maybe just a bit sad. I was just starting to get good at this, you know.”

  Mo laughed. “Well, well, well.” She laughed again and walked up close to me and leaned on the terrace railing. “I love that I was so right about you.”

  I smiled again, this time for real.

  Mo looked at me with a serious expression. “You know, I didn’t mention this to you earlier because I assumed you’d want out, but there is another option.”

  “Oh?”

  “I can give you a phone number.”

  I paused. “You mean for the Network?”

  She nodded. “If you want to continue once I’m gone, they’ll assign you to a new Alpha.” She smiled. “Hell, after today, they may even make you an Alpha.”

  I laughed. The thought had crossed my mind earlier, but I hadn’t found the right time to bring it up. But now that the topic was in play, I found myself not wanting to talk about it.

  Mo shrugged. “Anyway, I guess you have a couple of days to decide.”

  A gentle warm breeze came in from over the water, and I suddenly felt sad. I turned to Mo, and for a second I was afraid I’d burst into tears. “Mo,” I said.

  She smiled and turned her face into the breeze. “Don’t,” she said.

  “Don’t what?” My sadness was quickly transforming into rage, and I looked around when I realized how loudly I had said those last two words.

  “You know what.” Mo was calm.

  “Mo, you are not going to kill yourself. It’s insane. It’s stupid. It’s cowardly.” I waited and took a deep breath. “And I don’t think you’re actually going to do it.” Although I didn’t believe my last statement, after saying it I began to wonder. What if Mo was in fact planning to run? What if she was planning to fake her own death like Simone had?

  Then I sighed. Simone had only needed to fool me, not anyone else. It would be hard for Mo to fake her own death without leaving a body behind. Ramona Garcia wouldn’t be fooled by a car crash or random explosion.

  When I returned to the moment, she was smiling at me in that all-knowing way. “Frank, don’t kid yourself. I’m not trying to fake you out.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know about that. After all, the best way to keep a secret is to tell no one, not even those closest to you. Especially not those closest to you.”

  Mo laughed. “True. But I’m not going to argue with you. You’ll see for yourself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Monday night. Stop by my place in Westchester.”

  I didn’t get it until I remembered the lie Mo had told me about how Simone died—carbon monoxide poisoning. One of the most painless ways to go, and a common cause of death for entire families. Every winter there are stories of how a family tried to heat a house using a charcoal grill. Since the house is sealed for winter, the grill quietly sucks in all the oxygen and spews out carbon monoxide. And nobody wakes up.

  Now I felt she was serious. I was quiet for a bit.

  “What about your husband?” I said.

  “Ex-husband.” She shrugged. “He’ll get over it. I’m leaving some stuff for him, and that should ease his pain.” She nudged me. “I’d put you in my will too, but it might look weird. I want you to have a chance for a clean break.”

  “If I want it.”

  “If you want it.”

  We were both quiet now. Our cigarettes had long since burned out, and as we looked at Miss Liberty standing in her blue-green majesty, our thoughts began to drift back to the task at hand.

  “Anyone got a light?”

  The voice was thick, but distinctly female. We turned. Lori Hildebrand stood in the doorway. She was in a sleeveless blouse, and the sight of her sinewy arms cast serious doubt on Mo’s earlier comment about Hildebrand not being as tough as she looked. As I moved close to her with my lighter, I noticed her nails. They were unpainted and closely trimmed. The nails of a killer.

  SIXTY-SIX

  “So how did you end up in the hedge fund world after the army?” said Mo.

  We still had an hour before our first meeting, and Mo seemed to want to stay and talk a bit. I didn’t mind. By now it no longer seemed sick and twisted to have a pleasant conversation with someone just a couple of hours before murdering them.

  Hildebrand smiled. “Made a pit stop at Harvard Business School first.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I’ve heard that HBS likes to accept ex-military.”

  Hildebrand shrugged. “Well, there’s no bigger corporation than the United States Military. So we already come with a lot of management experience. And a knack for making decisions under pressure.”

  “I can’t even imagine,” said Mo. “You served in Iraq, right?”

  “Most recently, yes. And in Somalia before that. Along with a few other places that I can’t really talk about.”

  “Or you can tell us but then you’d have to kill us?” I laughed.

  Hildebrand smiled. “More likely someone else would kill all three of us via overhead satellite.”

  We all laughed now. I looked straight up into the cloudless sky and pretended to be afraid. We all laughed again.

  “But seriously,” said Mo. “I can’t imagine how tough it must have been in Iraq. Were there a lot of women there at the time?”

  “Quite a few. Not so many officers, but now there are a decent number.”

  “Did you have a lot of women under your command?” Mo asked.

  I glanced over at Mo, but her expression was casual and relaxed.

  “A few. I was one of the first female commanders in Iraq, and some of my girls were the first women to see some real action. So yes, it was tough. It’s not easy to gain the trust and respect of a bunch of men in that environment. You almost need to be tougher to be taken seriously as a woman in the army.”

  Mo nodded. “And tougher on the women under you as well?”

  Hildebrand took a deep drag and smiled. She looked at the ground and was quiet as she flicked the ash from her cigarette. Then she looked up at Mo. “You’re Sheila Hussein’s mother.”

  Mo nodded like she knew Hildebrand had known.

  I was surprised, maybe more so because I seemed to be the only one surprised. These women were way ahead of me.

  Hildebrand continued. “I’m sorry about your daughter. It’s hard on those kids out in the desert.”

  I held my breath and cautiously looked at Mo. But Mo could handle herself better than anyone. She didn’t even flinch, but I could see by the inch of ash on her burning cigarette that she had been standing absolutely still for several minutes now.

  Hildebrand sighed. “Look, I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I can understand what you must think. All I can say is that I was no tougher on Sheila than I was on anyone else.”

  Mo smiled and looked into the distance past Hildebrand. “Let me see if I can remember that comment . . . ah, got it: ‘Just because you have a vagina doesn’t mean you have to act like one.’ ”

  Hildebrand looked grim. “As I said, I treated everyone in my unit the same. If we give in every time someone complains about the pressure, the army psychiatrists will be the single largest unit on the ground.”

  “But she was talking about suicide. The signs were there for you to see.” Mo was still calm, but her voice had begun to waver.

  “Everyone talks about suicide after a while. Once you see enough killing, death is no big deal. It’s a normal psychological reaction that when you’re in a stressful situation, your mind looks for escape routes. For example, if you’re stressed at work, you fantasize about quitting. But when you’re in the army and are already desensitized to death, the easiest way out seems to be suicide. And when you see people be
ing killed in terrible ways out in the field, sometimes you can’t help but feel it’s better to die on your own terms.” Hildebrand paused to stub out her cigarette. “Again, I can’t say I wouldn’t feel the way you do had it been my child. But I stand by my actions. There may have been signs, but so many others display the same signs and don’t commit suicide. And Sheila killed herself while on leave. Weren’t there signs for you to see as well?”

  I stiffened.

  Mo looked down and nodded. She touched her left eye and then looked up. “Well, anyway, I have to run.” She smiled at Hildebrand. “See you at four upstairs?”

  SIXTY-SEVEN

  The conversation with Hildebrand had left me feeling uneasy. If the afternoon’s plans had been motivated solely by revenge, I might have tried to talk Mo out of it. Hildebrand certainly didn’t seem repentant, but her response was less defensive and more sensitive than it could have been.

  But I also suspected that Mo wasn’t burning to kill Hildebrand to avenge Sheila. The only person Mo really blamed was herself, that was obvious. In some perverse way, I think Mo wanted to bring herself to blame Hildebrand, but couldn’t. Mo wasn’t the type of person who hides from accountability. Now I began to worry about whether Mo would be able to kill Hildebrand at all. Perhaps she would question her own motives and hesitate.

  And if she did, I’d have to step up. Although the thought of killing a woman still didn’t sit right with me, I had no doubt that Hildebrand deserved it as much as anyone else on the agenda for that day. Perhaps even more. Of course, after spending some time with Hildebrand, I didn’t really want to kill her. But I couldn’t let that play into it. All of us in the Network were dancing on that line separating morality and insanity, and if we started to dirty up the objective criteria we had set for picking victims, then we’d be lost. If we started to segregate our victims and only kill the ones we didn’t like, then we’d be nothing but common serial killers, and eventually we’d fall into that downward spiral where we’d start to kill based solely on our own tastes. Mo had once talked about Network members who fell into that hole. Such people quickly became Network “assignments” themselves.

  As I took the elevator up to the 23rd floor, I had to remind myself that the sickening feeling rising within me was part of the deal. There was no glamour in our kind of righteousness. We all knew that murder was always wrong at some level, and each one of us would pay the price in any number of ways. One of those ways was to live with the knowledge that we had intentionally violated one of humanity’s inviolable rules: live and let live.

  I stepped off the elevator just as I remembered that humanity itself had violated that rule. More specifically, my own government and my fellow citizens and other voters had individually and collectively decided to violate that law. In some sense, Mo and I and the Network were ahead of the majority of the others because we were facing the consequences of those decisions. Yes, we were righteous after all.

  That odd feeling of synchronicity hit me again as I snapped on my gloves and reached for the door handle just as my inner monologue had gotten me to the point where I no longer felt sickened at what I was about to do or sorry for my poor lot in life. Then my head buzzed as the adrenaline poured into my bloodstream, and I knew I was ready.

  Nine more kills and it would be over. Nine more, and I would be free.

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  Mo was on the couch and the television was blaring. It was a strange sight, and I walked around her and up to the window so she could see me. She flipped off the TV and stood up. I noticed she had already donned her clear surgical gloves.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  She nodded and smiled.

  “You handled that conversation with Hildebrand pretty well. For a minute there I thought we’d have to take her out on the terrace itself in front of about seventy people.”

  Mo laughed for a second, and then gave me a distant smile. “I’m sorry. I should have warned you I was going to bring up the topic. I wanted to get it out of my system before we got up here, because, to be honest, I wasn’t sure how I’d react.” She moved up to the large window and stood beside me. “And this can’t be about revenge.”

  I smiled. “I don’t think it will be. You’re too strong and self-aware for that. I know you take full responsibility for Sheila. Not that you should, of course. But I know you do.”

  She smiled at me. “Thank you.”

  My smiled faded and I touched Mo’s hand. “But you’re still planning an act of revenge. A self-directed act of revenge. If this can’t be about revenge, then it means you can’t kill yourself either.”

  She ripped her hand away like I had burned her. “I’m well aware of my motives. And this conversation is over.”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  Mo walked over to the bedroom door and opened it. The room was large, with a king-sized bed, a writing desk, two chests of drawers, and an attached bathroom. I had noticed another bathroom connected to the living area, which meant there would be no reason for our guests to enter this room. At least not while they were still alive.

  “So we’re just going to dump the bodies in here? In a pile on the carpet and bed?”

  Mo shrugged. “Why, you have some ideas for an artistic arrangement?”

  I let out a dry laugh. “No.” I looked down at the set of black plastic ties Mo had given me. “The murders will be artistic enough. Where are these from? K-Mart?”

  “Rite Aid, smartass.” Mo seemed to be cheering up a bit.

  We prepared the plastic strips by positioning the ends into their loops so they could be easily slipped over someone’s head. I stepped back to the foyer near the main door and surveyed the room. The large window was dead center, and was the first thing that would grab anyone’s attention. The couch faced the window. A granite-topped table lined the back of the couch. Mo had cleared the table, and we placed the plastic loops on the cool black surface. The specks of gray on the granite provided just enough visual noise to render the ties virtually invisible to someone walking past and around the table to sit on the couch.

  We quietly went through the suite and disconnected all the phones and hotel intercoms. Then we placed our own cell phones in a desk drawer so they wouldn’t be accessible to anyone in a struggle. Due to the barely-legal nature of the meeting topics, the plan was for me to request our guests to leave their cell phones on the table near the entryway. I didn’t expect anyone to resist the suggestion. After all, the thought of being murdered by a couple of management consultants was unlikely to have crossed anyone’s mind, including Hildebrand’s.

  It was almost two. Jake Jessup and Paul Chin from MacroResearch would be arriving soon, and there was nothing else to do but wait. Mo and I stood near the window and stared out at the tug-boats and barges and tourist cruise-boats that were leaving little white trails of foam as Lady Liberty smiled at us. Vive la liberte, I thought, and then came the knock at the door.

  SIXTY-NINE

  Jake Jessup and Paul Chin were dressed in jeans and sport jackets, but their expectant and anxious expressions made it clear that they were taking the meeting seriously. When I asked them to leave their phones near the door, they smiled and nodded, seemingly thrilled at the air of secrecy. We stood far enough away from them that handshakes didn’t seem necessary. We didn’t want them to notice our rubber gloves, even though I’m sure we could have explained that away. Again, being murdered by a couple of management consultants in a sunny room in the Ritz is not something that even the most paranoid hedge fund guys would expect. This was going to be easy.

  “Wow, nice view,” said Chin.

  “Damn. We should get some office space down here,” said Jessup. “It’s nice to see some water and sky instead of gray buildings.”

  They both walked up to the window and stood there for what seemed like a long time. I lingered near the entryway, and Mo stood casually off to the side, near the small bar.

  “Please have a seat,” Mo said. “We’ll be with you in a minu
te. I’m just going to grab some water.”

  I noticed that Mo didn’t offer them anything. She didn’t want to risk them turning around or coming up to the bar. She waited until they both sat down, and then she looked up at me and nodded. I moved forward at a normal pace. Mo timed herself so we got to the table at the same time. We couldn’t afford to stall behind the couch, because our presence might make them turn. As it was, they were still enamored by the view.

  My adrenaline had settled down to that steady level that I was getting accustomed to, and I picked up the plastic tie with neither hesitation nor haste. I was now oblivious to what Mo was doing, but had no doubt that we were in complete alignment.

  The thin plastic loop dropped down over Chin’s head like one of those rings falling over a prize at the carnival. I yanked hard on the free end, and then simply jumped back and out of the way.

  After the initial muted gagging sounds, things were quiet except for the simple acoustics of their fingers clawing at the thin smooth lines of plastic that had reduced their windpipes to the size of threads. At first they turned violently around while seated, then they stumbled to their feet, tripped over each other and the low coffee table, fell down to the thick carpet, and finally began to writhe and thrash like those first two fish I had caught many years ago.

  Of course, those fish stayed alive for almost thirty minutes. These two guys went limp after three. Mo and I were silent but unmoved. There was nothing to do but watch them die, and so that’s what we did. As their movements slowed and finally stopped, I glanced back up at Madame Liberty through the window. She was still smiling, and I turned to Mo and shrugged.

  We dragged the two bodies feet first into the bedroom and placed them at the far end of the room near the writing desk. We shut the door and walked back out into the living area. I grabbed their cell phones and turned them off before dropping them near the bodies in the bedroom.

  When I rejoined Mo, she was looking at the wall-clock. It was seven minutes past two. Our first meeting had lasted eight minutes.