Ice Cold

by Mark Graham

  “I did get my nose out of kilter,” Ackerson went on, “and before I knew it I found myself escorted to a separate room where your Director was. He told me what was what, and the reality of what he did. We argued for a while and ended up shaking hands and being friends again. Of course I never talk about my brother. Especially since my brother doesn’t even exist.”

  “There is only one officer here who is a lieutenant who knows about Steve. He just surmises it, but hasn’t said anything so we seem to ignore it.”

  “I would recruit the guy if he wasn’t married,” Steve said.

  “Yeah, well he is doing us too good of a job for us, and we don’t want to lose him,” Ackerson said.

  “How about we recruit him and his wife?” Steve asked his brother jokingly.

  “That would hurt,” the older brother said, “besides I don’t think the Director would go for it. It would be too dangerous and actually fit into the rule that an agent can’t be married. Hell, with the three of you, and you including Joyce, you could take over the country and you know we can’t do that.”

  “Yeah, it’s a bitch not being an entity who is alive, but dead to the world. Uncle Preston still thinks I was killed in Desert storm?”

  Yeah and it’s good to remember it needs to stay that way. He would brag it to anybody and everybody.”

  After leaving his brother, the two of them went to a nice little Italian restaurant Steve liked. Both of them enjoyed their meals very much and ordered a latte.

  “There is something,” Ice started, “well, actually two things. The first is that there is someone who has called my personal home phone and threatened me with death”

  What Ice said got Joyce’s full attention.

  “The scary part is that he knows my name, and my personal phone number. His calls can’t be connected to any where; so we know he has some good intelligence on electronics, phones, or computers.

  “One of your jobs, and I’ll teach you how to do it, is to be aware of everything around you. For one of your assignments your job is to improve on these skills. We will be going several places in the next couple weeks. Pay attention to anybody within sight, remembering the faces. Then, when we go other places if you see the same person he might be our guy.”

  “What do we do if that does happen?” Joyce asked.

  “You’d think that I would just do away with the person as soon as I could,” Ice continued, “but if I don’t feel we are really in danger, we will try to identify the guy. I’d hate to hit a guy if he’s part of another agency spying on me. It’s not hard to turn it around. However, if or when we determine he or she is a threat, the person will be dead in short order.”

  “You seem quite confident in that,” Joyce said.

  “I just know my capabilities,” stated as a matter of fact.

  “What’s the second thing Steve?” Joyce asked.

  “Well, we think that if people are going to get their feet wet we might as well immerse them,” Steve stared. “We have two assignments. Each will cause death, but also torture. Hope you’re up to it,” he said.

  “No, but what can I a say?” She asked.

  “I think with your expertise and experience you will be able to separate yourself from it and take on an outside in look at it. The test, so to speak, is in how you deal with it,” Steve stated.

  “I do understand it, Steve. It’s like, it isn’t what happens to us, it’s how we deal with it.”

  “Right on,” Steve said giving Joyce the thumbs up.

  Time seemed to go so fast for Joyce and she was amazed that before she knew it she was sitting in another rental vehicle in an area close to Los Angeles. They had at least a half hour before they would get to their hotel room.

  “Don’t let this bother you Joyce,” Ice stated, “but on this job we are going to appear to be a married couple. We’re at the age where people aren’t surprised when a married couple seems to be in their own little world.”

  “We will share a room, however there will be two beds in it, and more than likely queen sized beds. Can we deal with that Joyce?” Ice asked.

  “I think so,” she responded, “I guess within the next year we will be a little uncomfortable with several things we will need to do.”

  “Good,” Steve said smiling. “Our assignment here is a middle aged man. An executive type and full of a lot of self importance. Once we get to our room I’ll show you a picture of him.”

  “He started out in just obtaining child pornography. He then graduated to having sex with children. We have him on video tape nailing a young boy, probably five or six years old. There is other evidence too that I’ve seen. Let me tell you, at this point you don’t even want to see it. Over a year ago he somehow got himself into marketing young boys and girls to quite a few people throughout the world, who have this sick thing going on.”

  “Why haven’t they arrested him,” Joyce asked. “Seems like an asshole like that needs to go to jail forever.”

  “That’s where we come in Joyce,” Ice responded, “He has been charged a number of times. A lot of times his case gets thrown out for lack of evidence. Some of the good evidence was either missing or misplaced in another file, so couldn’t be used. The feds thought they had him six months ago. It did go to trial but some basic evidence was thrown out because of how they said it was acquired. It went all the way and the trial ended with a hung jury. A week later his business donated a hundred thousand dollars to some child protection agency. It was enough to get the crap off his back.”

  “So he is free to continue on?” Joyce asked.

  “Yes, the day after he was released he accepted a delivery truck full of little children. Our sources watched them taken into a building, then later one or two at a time were escorted out, put in a car and driven off. I think you can put the pieces together now.”

  “I guess I can,” Joyce said, “so this is how this type of thing is handled?

  “Yes,” Ice said, “All orders come from somewhere and come through the Director to us. We are to torture this guy for a day and a night, not killing him until the next morning. I have been told he has to suffer tremendously for his sins.”

  “Damn,” Joyce quietly said, “guess I kind of understand more now. Not something I am looking forward to, but hey, I need to get through it so let’s do it.

  A half hour later the two were in the hotel room. Ice laid back on the bed and Joyce sat in one of two comfortable chairs. Iced kicked his shoes off, hoping they didn’t stink.

  “How we going to do this?” Joyce asked.

  “The guy we’re going to do lives right across the hall. In fact he owns the whole half of this floor. He’s been on some kind of trip and is returning late afternoon, early meeting. I’m hoping he is awake enough to have his supper down in the restaurant. If so we can both kind of eye-ball him a little.”

  “What if he doesn’t have supper down there?” she asked.

  “You’d be surprised what a hundred dollar bill will do,” he said with a smile. “When he arrives I’ll be called, and when he checks into his room we will get another call. His apartment has already been bugged with several cameras in there too. We can watch him from over here.”

  “You guys know how to plan your work and work your plan,” she said feeling she was learning more all the time.

  “Yes, we do,” Ice said. “In about half an hour I have to go down and pick up a package. It is a box or bag with my tools in it.”

  “Tools?” Joyce asked.

  “Yeah, tools,” Ice returned. “I have very good tools for us in the practice of torture.”

  “Oh shit!” she said and settled down into her chair and just kind of twilighting as Ice had already started to do. The next thing she knew Ice was coming through the door from the hall.

  “Damn, I guess I really did fall asleep,” she said sheepishly.

  Ice put the box, which was rather larger than Joyce thought it would be. He opened it and pulled out two cell phones. He played with both
of them.

  “Here,” he started. “This is your first throwaway phone. All you have to do is hit the down section of this button and you will see the name of Nick.” He showed her the phone as he did it. Then he took the other phone and showed her how to do it again. This time the name that came up was Sarah.

  “Cool,” she said with a smile, “you think of everything.

  “Well don’t get too used to it. It might be destroyed or thrown away in the next twelve or twenty-four hours. If for some reason we get separated, we can contact the other. That is all this phone is good for and once we’re away from the scene we will destroy both of them.”

  After a while his personal phone rang and Ice took it out of his pocket and listened. He responded with a “thanks,” and hug up.

  He jumped up and motioned Joyce to join him and said, “He just walked into the hotel and is approaching the elevators. We will walk toward the elevators and be able to see him as we approach.”

  Both grabbed their key cards and went out the door. Half way down the hall they could see the man walk out of the elevator and toward them Ice said, “hi” as he passed the man and the man responded with a “hi” and didn’t even slow down.

  Let’s go ahead and go down to supper. Don’t eat too much because I don’t want you getting sick on me,” Ice said with a smile.

  Their supper was suburb, and they both finished their meal. “So where are we going to do this dirty deed?” Joyce asked.

  “In our room of course,” he answered soberly.

  “Really, in our room,” she sounded confused. ‘Where will we sleep?

  “Either in our room or over at his place if you want. I have this room reserved until the morning after tomorrow. We are going to be taking our time ya know.”

  “Where are we going to do it?” she asked.

  “In the bathroom,” Ice stated, “it’s easier to clean up.”

  Joyce thought she could see Ice changing in his demeanor and his eyes were getting to become a cold stare type of look. Under her breath she commented to herself, “Damn.”

  They went back up to their room and immediately Ice took his computer, turned it on and clicked a few things with his mouse. “Cool!” he said.

  Joyce got up and looked over Ice’s shoulder.

  Ice spoke up saying, see here, our man is just laying over there on his three thousand dollar couch with his shoes off.

  “When we going to do whatever it is we do?” Joyce asked.

  Ice clicked on his mouse a few more times, typed something in when getting to a different program. Then turned it off and put it under the bed.

  “Right now,” Ice said jumping up and heading to the door. “Come on!”

  In the three steps it took Ice to walk across the hall Joyce saw that he had some kind of handgun. Ice reached into his pocket, withdrew a card and immediately passed it over the key apparatus of the man’s door which clicked immediately. Ice quickly walked through the door, raised the gun and shot the man immediately. Joyce had a difficult time keeping up with him.

  She watched as the man seemed to gasp and got up into a sitting position when his entire body went limp.

  “Okay Joyce,” I want you to open the door for me, then immediately get over there and get our door opened. We’ll make sure no one is around and we can get this guy over there.”

  Joyce did what she was told, and within minutes Ice had the man on one of the beds.

  “We have to get the bathroom set up first, then we bring him in there,” Ice ordered her more like a boss then a friend or partner.

  Joyce kind of went into her own world, and didn’t even really realize it as she felt as all she could do was to watch. Ice knew she would start this way, looking almost like she was in shock. He had kind of felt that way the first time he watched a torture.

  “He’ll be out for at least an hour,” Ice said,” so we have plenty of time, but have to get it going in case he does wake up.

  Iced went over to the closest bed and reached under it. When Joyce looked she recognized it as a six foot table made out of really tough and strong material. Ice got it out and took it into the bathroom where he opened it. The bathroom was big enough so he could place it right next to the tub. He raised the top of the toilet and walked back into the room reaching under the bed again. This time he took out one large plastic tarp, and another tarp which was a little thinner which was more opaque.

  Joyce helped Ice first lay out the large tarp. It covered from inside the tub, over the table, down and laid over the rest. Ice took his knife and trimmed a few places so everything lay flat. He then took the white plastic and stapled the middle of it within two inches of the ceiling light, then brought it over to the wall adjacent to the tub and stapled it along the top, just under the ceiling, then down and stapled it just over the tub then laid it into the top. He took the original part of the blue tarp and laid it over the bottom of the bottom. He left the room and came back with a couple small packages containing plastic and covered both walls from the corner where it met the first plastic sheet and brought it back to almost the door, then the same the other wall. He had one more piece of plastic that appeared to have cloth on one side.

  “That’s an old shower curtain,” Ice said as he put it over the sink and counter top. He then gave Joyce a package that was actually coveralls in kind of a white plastic, with

  a pair of little footies to put over her shoes. He went back to the room and brought back a box of rubber gloves that would fit both of them.

  “Man,” Joyce said, “you are really prepared!”

  Ice answered, “You do many of these and you learn the best way to do it. Don’t you ever watch Dexter?” He asked chuckling.

  “Let’s go get him,” Ice suggested as he headed back into the main room. Ice grabbed him under the man’s shoulders and Joyce grabbed his two feet. They wrestled the man on top of the table and laid him out. Ice took his knife and cut off all the man’s clothing, leaving him completely naked.

  Joyce was shocked when she heard the man grumble something. By then Ice had brought his package in and put it on the counter top. He took a syringe out and jabbed it into the man’s throat right where his voice box probably was.

  “That will keep him quiet,” Ice instructed. “He will be whispering for about a half hour then will only be able to talk in a quiet voice. Later we’ll have to tape him up when his voice starts to come back.

  Joyce was amazed as Ice cut two holes in the tarp next to both sides of the table where the man’s feet were, at his stomach line, and again next to his shoulders. He pulled three very strong looking straps out, and the man was tied very tightly onto the table. He then took what looked like two leather wrists straps with cotton on the inside. Ice attached one hand to one then maneuvered it so the strap went under the table and he attached his other wrist, then winched it tight.

  “Come on,” Ice said motioning her out of the room. He went and sat in one of the chairs and she sat in the other. He took his gloves and cap off and she did the same.

  “What we are going to do next,” Ice stated, “is start slow. Usually I start by breaking something, or maybe a couple things. That is a good start of my plan. Then we can return in here and take a break, then go back and do things as we go. Remember this isn’t real easy because we have to take our time and be careful he does not die too quick. We need to provide whoever it is with something of proof for out dirty deeds.”

  “We’re not getting rid of the body?” Joyce asked.

  “No, not in the way you think,” and that’s all he said when both of them heard quite a whine.

  “Okay, we are going in there and yes he will be able to see us. Remember his name his James Roggsman. He corrects people who call him Jim or Jimmy. Well, hell, you know this . . . we will be calling him Jimmy so as to play with his mind.” Ice got up and walked to the bathroom, putting his cap back on and putting a new pair of gloves on.

  When they walked in they could see James had his eyes ope
n but wasn’t really awake yet. They took up a position like a doctor and his nurse would beside an operation table.

  “Hey Jimmie,” Ice started, “what the fuck you doing here?” Joyce was learning and observed that Ice used enough verbiage to piss the man off but sound kind of caring.

  “J-i-i-i-m-i-i-e,” Ice said a little louder and put his face so his eyes were only inches away from Jimmie’s. Joyce jumped when suddenly he yelled very loud, “JIMMIE!!!! WAKE THE FUCK UP!!! The man actually tried hard to wake up Joyce thought.

  Ice played word games for about five minutes before the man laying before them came back to life. “Where am I?” What are you doing?”

  Ice snapped Jimmie’s dick with a finger and it got the man’s attention a little more. “We are here to fuck with you Jimmie. Remember all those kids you abused and had sex with?”

  A tear slid down the man’s cheek and into his ear. “I-I-I didn’t do anything to any kids,” Jimmie cried.

  Ice brought a photograph where Jimmie could see it. “You remember this little boy you destroyed” Ice asked.

  “I didn’t destroy him,” Jimmie stammered. “The last I knew he was doing good in third grade.

  “You know Jimmie, I am starting to lose my patience with you. I’m trying to make a statement here and all you want to do is cry and deny. Don’t you know there’s a lady here and the way you’re acting makes you sound like a real sissy boy.

  Jimmie looked over beyond Ice and saw Joyce for the first time. His eyes got big and he started crying and slobbering.

  “Well, my little man,” Ice threatened, “I am going to destroy you in as many ways as possible. You better be ready for some long ending shit.” To both the man and Joyce Ice sounded really angry.

  “We’re going to take a break Jimmie and have a coke,” Ice said sarcastically. The man actually nodded to the affirmative. But first I want to leave you with something to think about, and when I return I expect you to stand tall and answer my questions. Do you understand?” Ice asked severely.

  The man nodded yes. As soon as the man did that Ice reached over and grabbed the mans right hand. To do so Ice had to lean over the man’s body forcing him down even more. Both Jimmie and Joyce heard the same. There was a snap and the man winced and tried to yell out but couldn’t.