by Mark Graham
“If you look down that hallway over there it will lead you back to a back door of the motel. Half way down, or less there will be another double door just like this one. That is where the side entrance is.”
“Well, okay, and what do you mean?” Joyce asked.
“I’ve been to dozens of these things and it seems like they’re all set up, especially with this particular motel chain,” Ice responded.
“Here’s what we will do. In an hour or hour and a half they will take what they say will be for fifteen minutes. It usually turns into twenty-five or thirty minutes. But anyway,” Ice said, “When they go into break all hell breaks loose, It’s like people running over to meet old friend they see, people trying to get out to the restrooms before the lines are way to long, and other things that go on with such a crowd of people.”
“Got that?” he asked and she nodded yes.
“Well, if you’re okay with it,” he said, prior to the break you’ll start down the isle. If there is a seat on the isle, take it. Other wise just walk forward slowly. Keep your eye on Martha and get as close as possible.
“I will keep an eye on you from the side and slowly walk up near the platform. I’m a man and they won’t pay any attention thinking I am part of the motel management. When I see that you are near or next to her I will jump up on the stage and grab the mike and get everybody’s attention. And let me tell you, I know I can get their attention.”
“At the point when everybody is watching me you go in for the kill. Sound good?” he asked.
“Yeah, but I’m not ready,” she said. “The only weapon I have is my Glock in my purse.”
“No, that won’t work,” he said with a smile. “We’ll do it like in New Orleans. I have a knife and an ice pick with me. Which one do your prefer?”
“I guess at this point I could do more damage in a short time with the knife.”
“Okay,” he said as he gave her a folded newspaper. “That knife is very, very sharp, and it’s point is strong enough to go through bone.”
She took the paper, kind of shaking.
It will go well Joyce,” he said, “and as smooth as in New Orleans. When you get done you can either wipe off the knife handle, drop it or put it back in you purse. Calmly just walk out of the closest entrance and go to the closest door to our car. It is that door down there on that end, and our car is very close to it. If you get blocked off because the crowd, then go down that hall right over there where you see the women lined up waiting to get to the can. You can go out that door, out into the lot and turn left and you will find our car on the far right.”
“Okay,” she said, “I’m kind of shook up and nervous but I’ll make you proud.”
“A few minutes later they heard somebody start the meeting with a pledge of allegiance to the flag. Then general information was given to everybody, including to be patient and there would be a break at bout ten to quarter after the hour. At that time someone closed the doors, leaving the two in the hall except for three ladies who hung around the registration table for late comers.
“Hell, they let us know when the break was,” Ice said smiling at Joyce. “In a half hour go in there, letting the door close behind you and locate Martha. We know she is about half way down on the left side. That will remind you of what to look for. Her hair color and style, her blouse or jacket color and such. If you see a chair on or near the isle try to remember exactly where it is, and where in relationship to Martha. If she’s nearer the center isle she will more than likely leave by the central isle. If she sees someone off to the left and goes to meet her, take whatever measures you need to get over to her.
“So go in and check it out while I steal a name badge for you. You’ll need it if you go in and sit in a chair or have it on while doing the job. When leaving you will want to chuck the badge after you leave the building. If someone sees you and reads your name tag that is who will be the person the cops will be looking for.
“Okay, boss!” she said with a smile. She did what she was told and came back and sat back down. “That place is packed. There aren’t any empty chairs anywhere near Martha. But, she is sitting in the fourth chair over from the isle.
“Good,” Ice whispered, “Here’s a badge. At two minutes to ten go in and just stand by the door against the wall. There will be other women there. When they go on break, be aware, and get down that isle as fast as you can go and get near her. You wait a minute and that isle will be packed.”
She looked at him with wonder. Wondering where the man came up with all this and was able to even get a badge within such a short period of time. She didn’t know it but a woman wasn’t paying attention who had not fastened it right and it fell off dropping at Ice’s feet. He just bent down and picked it up and Joyce sat down immediately after that. She wondered why he had such a shit-eating grin.
Both waited and at exactly two minutes to the hour, each got up. Ice heading for the side entrance to the room; Joyce slipping through the entry doors and found an empty spot right to the left of the door. Ice had been right and saw at least a dozen women leaning against the wall beside her.
Ice got to the side entrance and opened the door to see how, where, and what he had to do to get to the microphone. He carefully let the door close but stopped it where it usually clicked. He then let go of the door and stood off to the side. He could hear everything while he stood there.
At approximately ten after both Joyce and Ice heard another woman step to the mike and announced a fifteen minute break.
When they heard again, a little few seconds later, “Ladies, fifteen minutes please. Fifteen minutes. Our next presentation is very important and you don’t want to miss any of it.”
By the time the woman has stopped her announcement Ice was already on the second step looking for Martha. He saw her and could see Joyce had already passed two or three rows.
Joyce stepped off as soon as the woman said her first word. She found it quite easy walking down the isle, but it seemed almost immediately that women were filling the isle behind her like the Red Sea was said to have done after Moses passed. She got within three rows from Martha. She worked her way forward and saw Martha get out into the isle. She seems to recognize another lady and they hugged. Then both stood there talking as a herd of women tried to get past them. Joyce saw the advantage she had only for a few seconds and found herself almost pressed up against Martha side and her back. The place was a wild house it seemed.
All of a sudden she heard a deep voice, and quite loud, “Ladies, ladies, please give me your attention for one minute. Ladies!” he repeated loudly. It appeared that everybody stopped and looked back. “Ladies, please give me your attention,” she heard and went to work. She heard Ice say something about a restroom not working, but that was about it.
Joyce didn’t have much space to move so she stabbed Martha through her side hoping she would possibly get a kidney and perhaps some other organ. She bent down and put the knife between Martha’s legs, which had a pair of slacks on them. She aimed up into the side of the woman’s crotch, and plunged the knife in as far as she could hoping she would get the big artery, and then plunged the knife into Martha’s back in an upward direction hoping and believing in got her heart. She had brought a paper towel with her and immediately wiped the knife off and dropped in her purse. She tried to fight her way out without getting attention. The crowd had become less compact because many had already left, with a bunch of women huddled together just like Martha had been with her friend. When Joyce had turned she took a chance to look down and saw a large pool of blood under Martha and widening quickly.
By the time Joyce made it almost to the door more people had discovered what was going on. Evidently Martha’s friend thought she was just passing out from the crowd and she didn’t fall because the force of the crowd was actually holding her up. Her friend grabbed and helped her to stand. Not until the crown thinned a little and Martha fell that her friend saw way too much blood and screamed. Then others saw and
they started screaming.
Joyce got out of the main entrance door and turned left. The crowd had all gone to the right. She didn’t know it but Ice had told the crowd the the restroom near the back door was out of order so asked them to please go to the right, then explained where they could find other women’s restrooms.
Meanwhile, Ice had gone straight across the main hallway having to push and kind of shove his way through, over to the hallway from the hall he had come and then was able to walk to the side door with no problem. He walked out, and over to the car, unlocking it as he approached it. He slowly opened the back door and removed his jacket and threw it over the seat. As he closed the door he watched Joyce come out the back door just like he had hoped. She must have listened. She walked over to the car and got in the passenger seat because Ice had already gotten in, shutting his door. They drove out of the lot with nobody around to even see them.
“Shit! Joyce said once they were away from the motel and heading to the airport. “I have blood spots on both my pants and and blouse. Damn! I have a lot of blood on my right knee.”
“Where did you get her?” Ice asked.
“Well, I wanted to be thorough Ice so I got her in the kidney, went down and attempted to get the femoral artery, then I stabbed her in the back, in an upward position trying to get to her heart. When I looked down there was blood all over the place.”
Ice snickered, and said, “Hell, if you got her good in the femoral artery every heart beat pushed a lot of it out. By the time you got to her heart she may have already bled out, or you did get her heart and it flowed from both. I would say that was a righteous killing!”
Joyce kind of smiled glad of what Ice said. “Yeah, the bitch deserved it!” she said,.
Ice was quite proud of Joyce and the way she learned so quickly to be able to project her deeds away from herself.
“Tell you what Ice,” if you see a rest stop or a gas station with a bathroom out back, stop, and I’ll get into the trunk and get a change of clothes.”
Ten minutes later Ice guessed and found his luck to be there and turned into a gas station where the restrooms were out back. He pushed the button for the trunk and it popped open. Joyce hopped out and found what she was looking for quickly and went into the rest room. Three minutes later she came out wearing a new set of clothes.
“I jammed the bloody cloths in the trash back there. Let’s go!” she said laughing.
They got to the airport in time to catch a direct flight to New York. They could figure out what to do and where to go once they got there.
Chapter Nineteen
They got to the staff meeting on Tuesday early, giving them a chance to talk to others, and have kind of a good time of fellowship with them. Both felt comfortable because they were amongst people who were doing exactly the same thing so they could be open, and not concerned about judgment. The only negative thing she heard was that from time to time an agent would suggest to another a better, or more efficient way to do something. Joyce could see that Ice was a little more relaxed with her, but not as much as when it was just her and him. He had a very hard time with trust and realized there was a rat amongst them.
The staff meeting went relatively well, except for a couple things. The Director told them as a group.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have come down to three people we suspect as the one who threatened Ice. We also believe we now know who killed all the agents a while back. On the first we have three drawings of an individual that is believed to be Ice’s pain in the butt.”
He went on, “all we can come up with so far is that we believe people of three countries, all of which seem to be Islamic, have kind of decided to commit terrorist attacks on the rest of us. There has been no repeating of any agents being murdered anywhere and believe they committed what they did to cause the intelligence people to do double work, and make us all to be less efficient believing we had a sniper behind every tree. Although we should always be careful, we think this a one time thing. They did get our attention, but not enough to see our agencies falter or lessen chances of success in any of our missions.
Some good news I learned yesterday is that the terrorist groups think they believe our agency is up and working fine. In fact they think there might be a hundred of us. Their story has grown where they have come to agree that we are out there to get and kill them. Which of course means the tables have been turned on them. Now they are hunkering down, and outright fighting has gone down in the last two weeks. Although good news, it reminds me to tell you that one of us, probably right here in this room, is a rat.
The agents looked around at each other wondering who it could be. If it were possible they would see smoke coming out of every ear in the room as their minds thought, played tricks, concluded, then decided that it couldn’t be ‘that’ person.
When we leave I want my senior intel group to remain. When we are excused the rest of you can go do what you want. Joyce by the way is going to go down and learn how to operate her new toy I have already for her.” The grouped kind of clapped and hoorayed for her.
“Okay, here’s the list,” the Director said passing out a page to everybody.
This was the first time Joyce didn’‘t hear Ice being the first one up to volunteer. In fact he didn’t volunteer for any of them.
“Well, well, well,” the Director said, “Ice didn’t jump on it so he has the two remaining ones to do. You might enjoy these,” the Director said, “You get number one and number eighteen.”
“Yes sir,” Ice said, with Joyce being silent at what they would be doing next.
They all broke, and most left, leaving the five senior agents going to the coffee pot and grabbing another donut, then settle down in seats immediately to the Director’s right and left.
“First of all, let me fill you in on something. Number eighteen on this list is a fake,” He said with a smile. Ice smiled too. “If you didn’t read it, it was to kill two complete families including mother and children. It also said to torture everybody in front of their dad and husband before putting him out.”
The five, four men and one woman were relieved. Nobody liked this kind of job and even hated to see Ice have to go through it.
“Instead, Ice and Joyce are going to go out to her new place. It is done and three people will be available when they get there if the place doesn’t meet their expectations,. Ice here will insure all security things work. With Joyce getting her own computer, Ice can show her how things work, and get her up to speed with all the gadgets she will have just in reach of her hands. He’ll also walk the fence line with her showing her what to keep an eye out for.”
“Now, the guy we think is after Ice,” the Director said, “we believe is getting closer and so any time soon there might be an ambush set up for him. So keep your ear to the ground, and if you see this guy anywhere, before taking him out of the picture, contact me, and if he’s our guy you just do what you have to do. Meanwhile, please don’t grab some innocent knot head and put them through all that shit for nothing. Understand?”
Around the table could heard, “yeah, yeah, yeah,” The Director knew his people liked to just mess with people sometimes.
They went on talking about the people of the entire department and any support personnel. After thinking about it none of them could come up with who might be the rat or if it was actually an agent and not part of the support staff.
“Also, and you’re going to hate this,” the Director said seriously, “and especially you Ice. They found five bodies with the same symptoms of the people you wiped out with the gas.”
“Fuck!” Ice holleared. “Two cents to a penny I bet it’s Mosely,” he said shaking his head.
“I agree,” the Director said, “but why do you think this?”
“Well, he’s a little mousy motherfucker,” Ice said, “and when I first talked to him he was mighty proud of his new gas, and how well it would work. I think he’s on a different level, and lives in another world, and has f
ound something to kill easily without getting his hands dirty.”
“Okay,” the Director said, then asked, “Who wants number one. I want Ice freed up to find this guy.”
Agent Bennett raised his hand and said, “I’ll be one city over and it looks like I can free myself up for it.”
“You should have a second, or a back up on that one Bennett,” the Director informed him.”
“Hey!” Sid spoke up. “I will make myself available and meet Bennett wherever he wants to meet me.”
They continued to talk about a number of other small subjects, and came up with a consensus. Some of the things would wait for the next staff meeting when the Director would bring it up.
Ice walked out of the room and saw Joyce sitting there with a smile on her face and her brand new computer open while she played with it. It was later than Ice had thought. They left there and got two rooms at a nearby motel.
In the next three days they went to Joyce’s new house, and Ice helped her check things out. She was really surprised at how fast these people must have worked.
Everything she wanted was there. One of the men opened a door that had been an extra closet and Joyce could see stairs going down into what appeared to be a basement. The man led her and Ice down, turned the lights on and pointed her to several computer screens and a big so-called desktop computer. He clicked it on and showed her all the cameras that were around the perimeter, around the house, and in the house. He showed her how to operate the cameras that were installed to be telescopic, and how the recorded system operated, and how she could go back in time to find out what might have crossed what camera, and what she had to do to record anything she wanted from the camera system to her hard drive, or memory tag. “Ice will show you how to do this from your laptop,” the man said.
He then took her outside and showed, mostly pointing, to all the lights around the perimeter and the yard and how to operate them. He showed her a lot and she was actually finding it hard to remember everything.