Private Detective: BENNINGTON P.I.: A thrilling four-novel political murder mystery private detective series...

by D. W. Ulsterman

  Madsen turned to point the assault rifle at Frank. The bartender turned assassin appeared nonchalant regarding his deadly betrayal.

  “I did what most anyone else would in my situation - I went where the money was. There’s big changes coming, Bennington. I for one don’t intend to be caught standing on the losing side. Nagato would never see that. He had to go.”

  Frank felt shock quickly giving way to rage.

  “Money? That is why you killed him? For money?”

  With the rifle still pointed at Frank’s chest, Madsen glanced back down at the street below where he saw Stasia Wellington struggling to break free of her bonds while August Hess loomed over her smiling.

  “I think you might want to see this, Bennington. Your beautiful friend is about to discover why my choice is the right one.”

  The private detective knew Madsen was speaking of Stasia. In the aftermath of the murder, he had momentarily forgotten she was the one the guardian had just given his life for in the hopes of saving.

  “Go ahead, take a look.”

  The thin smile on Madsen’s face was the only hint of emotion from the man. His eyes remained cold and indifferent to what had just happened, and what was likely to happen to Stasia below.

  Bennington saw Nagato’s body being dragged into the church. Stasia’s eyes glistened with tears as she watched the guardian’s body disappear inside the structure. One of the Illuminati operatives held her from behind as Hess placed his right hand against her face and then gently removed the gag that had covered her mouth.

  Frank turned to Hugh Madsen, his expression pleading with the other man not to let the Illuminati harm Stasia.

  “It’s not too late! Take the shot! Kill them! Do it, dammit!”

  Madsen appeared somewhat amused by the thought.

  “No, Mr. Bennington, that won’t happen. There’s no going back now. Not for any of us.”

  Frank considered charging Madsen, taking his weapon and using it to kill Hess and the other Illuminati on the other side of the street, but as quickly as the thought was formed, it dissipated. Madsen would easily kill him first, and then Stasia would be left entirely alone and without hope.

  For now I stay alive and wait for the right moment.

  Bennington again looked down toward the church entrance just as Stasia spit into Hess’s face. Hess’s right hand formed a tight fist and then catapulted itself forward. Fist met flesh with a powerful wet thud against Stasia’s mouth, causing her head to snap back hard enough Frank feared her neck was broken.

  Even Hugh Madsen winced at the violent nature of the blow.

  Frank watched in horror and awe as Stasia slowly lifted her head upward to stare back in defiance at the man who had nearly knocked her unconscious. Her voice carried up to the rooftop of the T3 clubhouse.

  “That the best you got asshole?”

  Hess’s mouth curled into a snarl as he hit her again. Stasia’s legs buckled as blood from a broken nose washed over her mouth and chin and then turned the concrete beneath her into a shallow, crimson puddle.

  Once again the T3 member’s head rose upward to meet Hess’s enraged stare. This time Stasia spit a wet glob of blood and remnants of her front teeth into her attacker’s face. She let out a satisfied, croaking laugh as she watched Hess scramble backward while trying to wipe her blood from his own mouth.

  “You pathetic little man! Two free shots and you still can’t put me down.”

  Stasia’s legs gave away once again, causing the Illuminati operative behind her to grunt from the effort of keeping her standing.

  Hess pointed at the operative while hissing his order between clenched teeth.

  “Hold the bitch up!”

  The third punch was the most violent, powered by Hess’s hatred of anyone who made him feel less than the powerful man he demanded others know him as. The knuckled ridges of his right hand tore into Stasia’s left cheek, shattering bone and causing that side of her face to begin swelling almost immediately.

  Stasia finally gave herself over to the darkness that took her.

  Frank watched as she too was dragged corpse-like into the Illuminati compound. The street below was once again empty.

  “It’s your time to choose, Mr. Bennington. I have my orders.”

  Bennington stood to his full height, feeling the New York night air growing colder around him.

  “Who are you taking orders from, Madsen? Is it them - the Illumaniti?”

  Madsen moved his head slowly from side to side as if he was trying to work a kink out of his neck.

  “Not exactly, but that’s not important. I’ll give you over to those clowns down there though, and they’ll pay me well for doing so.”

  “So if you’re not working for them, who is it? You can at least tell me that much.”

  Madsen shook his head while keeping the gun pointed at Bennington.

  “You’re delaying the inevitable, Mr. Bennington. C’mon, let’s get moving.”

  He wants the money bringing me in alive will get him. He won’t kill unless he feels he has to. Keep him talking.

  “I’m just asking for some answers. You have the gun. You’re the one in charge here. Is it Berg? Is he the one responsible for what happened here tonight?”

  Madsen remained unreadable, but Frank was pleased to see him willing to keep talking.

  “I have no idea what Berg’s up to, but he’s not nearly as powerful as he thinks he is. What happened tonight is just a very small part of a much bigger plan, a plan that has been in the making for some time now. The Illuminati, the T3 Group, all of that is old news. They just haven’t realized it yet. We’re at the dawn of a new world, Mr. Bennington, and I intend to be living quite well in it. Now for the last time – MOVE.”

  Frank made his way slowly toward the door that led from the roof back downstairs, his mind racing to try and find a way out of the seeming inevitability of his being turned over to the Illuminati.

  “Don’t try anything stupid, Bennington. Just keep walking. Our business together will be over soon.”

  The private detective thought he saw a shadow move from just inside the door directly in front of him, though he didn’t know if it represented friend or foe, or if he in fact actually saw anything at all.

  Well, if there is someone in there I need to give them a chance. Madsen’s a trained soldier and serious business.

  Once he was several feet back inside the T3 clubhouse, Frank pretended to stumble. Madsen was unimpressed by the attempted ruse.

  “Try that again and I will shoot you dead. You might be clumsy, but you’re not that clumsy. Downstairs, let’s go.”

  As his hand reached out in the dimly lit third floor hallway to grab the stair railing to his left, Bennington heard a noise that reminded him of a piece of thick, wet paper being torn in two. This was then followed by a loud grunt and then the sound of violent struggle.

  “A bit of help would be nice!”

  Frank saw the form of an older man fighting to rip the assault rifle from Hugh Madsen’s hands. The younger and more powerful Madsen pushed the man backwards toward the doorway leading to the rooftop.

  Bennington launched himself forward, wrapping his hands around each of Madsen’s arms. The bartender was now lifting both Bennington and the other man off their feet as he struggled to shake himself loose from them.

  He’s too damn strong!

  In the same moment Frank’s mind issued its panicked warning, Madsen’s body began to go limp, first falling onto one knee, and then the other until finally it rested face first and unmoving on the hallway floor.

  “Ah crumbs, he’s got me shirt all bloody!”

  Bennington looked up to see the famously haggard, deeply lined face of Teague staring back at him. In the musician’s right hand was the same switchblade he had been using to clean his nails with earlier. Hugh Madsen’s blood now covered the blade as well as the front of Teague’s shirt, the result of a deep cut across the former T3 bartender’s throat.


  “Guess I’m lucky you know how to use that thing.”

  Teague grunted his agreement as he slowly wiped his blade clean on the back of Madsen’s shirt. The musician paused while looking over Madsen’s body, then muttered to himself in his low, raspy voice.

  “Damn shame. He poured a good drink.”

  When Teague stood back up, the uncertainty and guilt in his eyes was clearly evident.

  “I never killed a man before. I’ve cut a few a time or two, but that was just bad manners, and it was never deadly. Terrible thing to see someone I knew lying there like an empty bag of meat, even if he did prove himself a betraying prick in the end.”

  Frank knew exactly what Teague meant. The private detective was still haunted by the experience of shooting a man dead during his last T3 Group assignment. The FDA bureaucrat certainly deserved to die for his part in Dedra Donnigan’s death, but Bennington was certain the taking of another human being’s life was not something that would ever come easily to him.

  “You likely saved my life. Thank you.”

  Teague took Frank’s extended hand into his own and shook it warmly.

  “We all have our parts to play, mate. I’m merely playing mine, though I have to admit to more than a little apprehension over what the next act has in store for the both of us.”

  Bennington took a deep breath and gathered his thoughts. The Illuminati would be expecting Madsen to deliver him to them soon.

  When that didn’t happen, they were sure to come looking for the reason why.

  “I was told this building could be put on lockdown. Is that correct?”

  Teague nodded.

  “Yeah, the system is downstairs in the same panel Madsen took that weapon from.”

  Frank had almost forgotten about the M-16. He reached down and picked it up, inwardly cringing at the distinct, acidic-smoke smell of the recently fired weapon - the same weapon that had just murdered Guardian Nagato.

  “I don’t know if Stasia is alive or not, but I’m gonna find out, and if she is, get her the hell out of there. We can’t just go walking on into that church, though. We need a plan, and for that, I need just a little more time to think without having those Illuminati bastards coming over here and marching their way inside. So, let’s get downstairs and activate the lockdown, and then we can figure out what our options are.”

  Teague glowered at Bennington with newfound respect, pointing a gnarled finger at the private detective.

  “I was in another room watching what they did to Stasia. If anyone deserves some hard served justice, it’s those piles of shits over there. You lead, mate, and I’ll follow you to hell if I have to.”

  Frank Bennington could see the dark outline of the Illuminati church structure looming across the street from the T3 building, its spire reaching up into the cold night sky like some demon’s taloned appendage hungrily clawing at another victim to drag back with it into the underworld.

  Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that…

  26.

  Stasia Wellington found herself enveloped in darkness.

  For a brief moment she panicked, fearing she was inside a tomb. As a child she had watched an old black and white movie where the film’s protagonist was buried alive, and since that time, she had harbored the same fear, never entirely able to overcome its grip upon her subconscious.

  She was lying down on something very cold and hard, likely some kind of stone. The air around her was dank, heavy with moisture and the scent of rodents. The old fear rose up within her, but she refused to scream.

  Keep your shit together, woman. Losing it won’t help one damn bit.

  The former Vatican operative focused on the air going into and out of her lungs - slow and steady breaths. This helped to calm her, push back the shadows that threatened to overcome her mind’s clarity, and thus, her ability to act when the situation presented itself.

  Stasia’s mouth throbbed in pain, as did the right side of her jaw. She ran her tongue gently over the ragged edges of two broken front teeth.

  Guess I won’t be entering any beauty pageants any time soon.

  As she continued to focus on her breathing, Stasia realized something else.

  She wasn’t alone.

  Her ears detected the very soft movement of fabric. Someone, or some thing, was silently sitting no more than ten feet from where she lay.

  She slowly blinked her eyes several times and then squinted, attempting to try and better determine who it was sitting so still next to her. There was the outline of a face, shoulders, and then her nose filled with the familiar smell of burnt tobacco.

  “Hello, Stasia Wellington. I’m pleased to see you rejoining the world of the living.”

  There was a slight suggestion of French in the man’s accent.

  Gabriel.

  Stasia had read numerous reports on the enigmatic Gabriel, a name that had been surfacing within T3 Group documents for decades. He had worked with Stasia’s own Vatican Intelligence mentor, Father Victor Barnes, allegedly assisting the combative priest in realizing his dream of finding a cure for cancer.

  “Why are you here, Gabriel?”

  Though she couldn’t see his face, Stasia sensed Gabriel’s smile and heard his shrug.

  “I’m not sure. It appears Malthus, for whatever reason, has deemed it necessary.”

  Stasia knew Malthus as yet another name from the T3 files that also stretched across several years.

  “Why would they put us in a cell together?”

  “I’m sorry, Stasia Wellington, I don’t know the answer to that question either.”

  Stasia sat up slowly, trying to determine if she suffered from any broken bones or internal bleeding. It appeared that besides the damage to her face, her body remained in relatively good working order.

  “What do you know of August Hess? I don’t recall seeing that name before.”

  Gabriel shifted his sitting position on the floor of the stone cell.

  “Ah, now that is a question I can offer some insight to. August Hess is what some might regard as a catalyst, a thing which precipitates a greater event. His presence here is something quite purposeful, a plan in the making for some time. To have both he and Malthus together…I fear we have finally arrived at the turning of the tide.”

  Stasia found Gabriel’s words very similar in both tone and content to comments spoken by Alexander David Meyer in recent months.

  “What greater event are you talking about? A move by the Illuminati to take over, to finally come out into the open?”

  “No, not the Illuminati, their time is passing, much like your T3 Group. They are being used like so much of everything else in this time – for a greater intent.”

  Stasia remained silent, wanting Gabriel to continue.

  “The Illuminati will be, or likely already have been, absorbed by the globalist beast. And while they think themselves the masters of their own fate, the truth of that false premise will likely be revealed to them soon enough.”

  “But where does Hess fit in with this? Are you saying he isn’t Illuminati?”

  Stasia could see the outline of Gabriel standing up, and heard the sound of a hand fumbling for something in his jacket.

  “Do you mind if I smoke?”

  Stasia shook her head, trying to find out how well Gabriel could see her in the dark. Gabriel immediately struck a match and lit a cigarette, taking several slow, deep draws. The light from the match momentarily illuminated his pale, gaunt face. His abnormally dark eyes regarded her with an odd mixture of childlike wonder and the wisdom of someone much older than their years would suggest.

  Then the flame died out, and Gabriel’s face retreated back into the darkness, followed by his continued response to Stasia’s last question.

  “Did you note anything unusual about Hess’s attire?”

  Stasia recalled the light blue uniform with the New United Nations emblem on the shoulder.

  “New United Nations – what’s that?”

  Gabriel t
ook another draw from his cigarette, the burning tip providing just enough light so that Stasia was able to see the deep sadness that fluttered across his eyes.

  “That is the future of this world, Stasia, the machine by which the globalists will rule you all.”

  The sound of approaching footsteps interrupted the conversation between the two captives. Overhead lights flared to life, causing Stasia’s eyes to close tightly from the unexpected pain of illumination.