by Ballan, Greg
Erik went to her side and stared at the check, dumbfounded. “My God, baby, they’ve given us a down payment for a house, EJ’s college fund and then some.”
Shanda handed him back the check. “They were serious about keeping you, my love.”
“Let’s get this in the bank and go out and celebrate. We can go house hunting when we get back from Paris.”
Day 21 0145 a.m.
Richard Pendelton sat in his new Jaguar by Pier 6. The call he had received from Conrad had said that it was an emergency. Someone was going to the press with evidence that could link his company to the fraudulent military contracts.
Richard swore to himself. How could they have missed something? Conrad insisted they had covered every angle and paid off every subcontractor to assure their cooperation. Since the government had discovered their little enterprise, they were being monitored continuously. Conrad had suggested the meeting place and time to assure privacy. Richard had managed to lose his tail in order to make this rendezvous.
He spotted Conrad’s Mercedes parked next to a dumpster. “What in the hell are you doing over there?” he asked aloud as he got out of his car. Richard walked over to Conrad’s car and peered through the glass. He could hear the stereo playing the classical music that his associate was so fond of listening to throughout the day. Richard grabbed the handle and opened the door. Conrad’s unconscious body slumped out of the car and landed at his feet. Pendelton saw a flash from behind him and spun around quickly. There were two more camera flashes coming from a distance.
“Who’s there? Call an ambulance!” he screamed toward the source of the strobe.
“You needn’t bother Mr. Pendelton, he’ll live,” A voice in the darkness called out. “You’re very savvy, I have to give you credit for that. You’ve hurt a great many people over the past few years, not to mention the person who put this mark out for you,” the voice commented absently.
“Who are you?” Richard asked as he checked Conrad for a pulse. The voice had told the truth, his second had a strong pulse, but he had been brutally battered. “If you have a beef against me, why take it out on him?”
“Why Mr. Pendelton, how out of character for you; concern for your fellow man,” the voice replied, laden with sarcasm. “I baited your unconscious friend there with a bogus news story, knowing he would call you. We tapped his cell phone so we’d know where your little impromptu gathering was taking place. He served his purpose and needed to be silenced. I haven’t been paid to kill him so there’s no incentive for me to bloody my hands on him. I should actually credit my clients for that idea; they knew you’d come running if you believed your precious empire was threatened – company first everything else later.”
Richard heard movements in the darkness coming from all around him. Four large men emerged from the shadows. They were all dressed in black and each man carried a blunt weapon. Richard could see the anticipation in their faces as they closed in on him.
“Look, whatever you’re being paid, I’ll double it, triple it, just don’t do this.” He pleaded to the four men as they closed in on him.
Silence was his answer.
“Please!” he begged as a wooden club slammed against the side of his head.
Pendelton staggered then tried to escape, but two of the men grabbed him and forcefully threw him back into the fray of fists and blunt weapons. Richard saw the baseball bat swinging toward his head and raised his arm instinctively to protect himself. Bone and aluminum collided with a sickening snap. Richard cried out in shock and pain as he cradled his broken arm. He was defenseless, and the four men circled him like vultures over a kill. As a pack, they simply began raining blows upon blow against his fallen body as a series of strobe flashes illuminated Richard’s pummeling.
He soon screamed in agony for several more seconds then his yells turned into whimpers as several dozen more blows hit him. Richard had curled up into a fetal position in a last desperate attempt to protect himself from his attackers, only to have his back and exposed ribcage punished. After two minutes the four men stopped their merciless beating.
* * * *
A spotlight fell upon Richard. His face was bleeding profusely and his right arm was bent in an unnatural manner, indicating a severe break. At some point he’d vomited and was now lying in a mixture of blood and regurgitated dinner. There was a faint sign of breathing, indicating that he still had a spark of life left within his tortured body. The light stayed on him for several seconds. It was evident that he had lost consciousness.
“Shall we do more?” the voice asked two forms silhouetted in the darkness. “Honestly, I don’t think he’d survive another round, but you’re paying. I really don’t care if he dies or not,” the voice added nonchalantly as he casually lobbed a digital camera toward his clients.
“Your memento, as you requested,” the voice added.
One of the ‘clients’ walked to Richard’s unconscious body and spat on him. The client examined the body carefully for almost a minute appraising the multiple cuts, breaks and abrasions, savoring each individual mark on Pendelton’s body like a connoisseur. The client suddenly kicked Pendelton solidly several times before she turned back toward the darkness and the other ‘customer.’
The client that had kicked Pendelton counted out one thousand dollars and placed it in the man’s outstretched hand.
“I’m quite happy with the service you provided. You do excellent work, thank you. I may be calling you again if he steps out of line.”
The man smiled and shuddered as he pocketed the money. “Man, you’re cold…. No offense lady.”
The client turned toward the man, her face wore the sadistic, satisfied look of one who had just exacted her much needed vengeance.
“Hell hath no fury like that of a scorned woman,” Margaret Pendelton recited as she turned and walked back to her companion.
“C’mon” she whispered to Brianna, “You’ve got to be up early and at your father’s before six.”
Brianna Knight nodded as she joined her mother. The two women walked in silence toward the waiting limousine at the other end of the harbor.
“Our secret,” Margaret whispered to her daughter.
“Our secret,” Brianna replied in a shaken voice.
Brianna looked back at her mother as they made their way back home, “Are we just going to leave him there?”
Margaret shook her head, “No, they’ll call an ambulance shortly – part of the service. Your stepfather’s made use of these types of services before, though I doubt he’d ever been on the beating side until tonight. I want him alive so I can soak him in court for alimony. I’ve only begun with my dear husband; I have a lifetime to pay him back for what he’s done to us and I intend to make the most of it.”
“Here’s to your long and prosperous life.” Brianna added as she toasted her mother with a bottle of Perrier.
Day 21, 04:40
The silver warrior moved through the treetops like a phantom and touched down at the outskirts of the Rolling Hills Cemetery. The hybrid walked the quarter mile to the headstone that belonged to his wife. He had taken her here when they first returned because Shanda had insisted on seeing the marker. She hadn’t been prepared for the overwhelming emotions as she saw her name and date of death on the headstone.
Shanda broke down as she relived the horrors of the past months. He held her tightly as she purged the grief from her body. Ross had delighted in taunting her, but now he faced the ultimate judge.
The monument disturbed his wife; it wasn’t a tribute to her life, only a reminder of the terrible wrongs that had been done to her and her child. Erik would get some sense of closure by destroying it. He focused his will and concentrated; his right forearm glowed with intense heat and energy. He gestured toward the granite slab and the blue-white energy flew from his arm and engulfed the marker. The red polished stone withered and crumbled, leaving only the base stone and cement foundation behind. Erik ripped the 1,600 pound base stone fro
m the ground and carried it into the nearby woods. There he placed it on the ground and with one blow smashed it to rubble.
He looked down at the shattered fragments and picked up two of the bigger pieces in his silver hands. Slowly and methodically he squeezed both of them into powder and let the dust fall between his fingers.
The physical act of destruction allowed him his own personal sense of closure. Shanda was alive and they had a child together. He had been given a new lease on life and a fresh beginning. There would be no more mistakes and no more long missions. The price of his absences at the beginning of his marriage had been too great a price to pay for their ‘normal’ life.
The threat against his family had been eliminated. The threat against Monique LaSalle had been eliminated and now it was time to take a well-earned vacation and bond with both his children and his bride.
Erik Knight, father, husband, CIA/OSA agent, detective and hybrid warrior looked up at the fading stars with comfort, knowing that there were friends out in the heavens. He looked back toward Hopedale with the knowledge that his entire world was right here in this small Middlesex suburb, barely a blip on a map. He also realized that he wouldn’t want it any other way.
He leapt fifty feet into a nearby oak tree and began the trip home. If he moved quickly enough he could still get a few minutes of rest in Shanda’s arms.
DAY 21 10:45 a.m.
Eunice Kim sat at her desk studying the by line for her latest story while she nursed her morning coffee.
“Eunice” a voice called. “There’s a package here for you.”
The reporter walked over to the mailroom. She took the large envelope from the clerk and brought the package back to her desk.
“What do we have here?” she whispered.
The reporter opened the envelope affixed to the box and withdrew a handwritten letter.
Eunice,
I don’t have the words to thank you for helping me find Shanda and EJ. I hope you’ll accept this as a small token of my appreciation. The enclosed documents make for some interesting reading and only tell a small part of a much bigger story. I’ll be back in six weeks and we can go over the particulars together. I know you’ll wait before you go to press until we’ve talked. These documents should give you something to do in my absence.
Enjoy.
Erik
Eunice Kim quickly glanced through the materials. As she did her eyes popped out of her head and her jaw dropped.
“Yeeehaaah!” she shouted for joy. “Pulitzer prize here I come.”
Author’s Biography
Greg Ballan is a graduate of Northeastern University holding Bachelor’s degrees in Marketing and Management. He lives in Hopedale with his patient, tolerant and sometimes bewildered wife, Teresa and his three children; Tom, Rachel and Christie. Greg enjoys several outdoor activities such as hiking, archery and shooting. When he’s not working his full time job as a Financial Analyst or getting lost in some unknown woodlands, he’s crunched over his laptop putting his warped imagination into words or penning a column about politics, hunting humor or his latest tale about avoiding house work and yard work.
Table of Contents
Also available from this author:
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2: Gestation Day 11
Chapter 3: Gestation Day 11
Chapter 4: Gestation Day 29
Chapter 5: Gestation Day 32
Chapter 6: Gestation Day 34
Chapter 7: Gestation Day 35
Chapter 8: Gestation Day 36
Chapter 9: Gestation Day 39
Chapter 10: Gestation Day 41
Chapter 11: Gestation Day 43
Chapter 12: Gestation Day 44
Chapter 13: Gestation Day 45
Chapter 14: Gestation Day 46, 0630 hrs
Chapter 15: Gestation Day 47, 0430 hrs
Chapter 16, Birth Date +1, 0730 hrs
Chapter 17: Birth date +2 days, 0830 hrs
Chapter 18: Birth date +3 days, 0730 hrs
Chapter 19
EPILOGUE
Author’s Biography