Chapter Twelve
The Executioner, waiting impatiently over his morning coffee, checked the text message as soon as it arrived. It read: ‘Your friend is with us. Come join us.’ An address for a house in somewhere called Maple Ridge was sent in the next message. It was going to take a while to get to this far-flung suburb. He assumed that this was the location of choice in the Vancouver area for disposing of people. The inquiry he voiced into his phone (‘Maple Ridge crime rate high?’) was answered with a murder rate per capita map of the Greater Vancouver region. Maple Ridge, conveniently located with its back to an endless forest, was shaded in a dark burning red on the map.
Walking out of his hotel and onto the street, he asked the doorman “Quick question: Maple Ridge…How would you describe that area, briefly…and honestly?”
“Really scary white people,” answered the Asian doorman.
“Great. Thanks.”
It was going to be a fun day. The Executioner could sense it.
An hour later The Executioner was on the streets of Maple Ridge. While walking the last mile of his journey, as was his habit, he was slightly disappointed at the white people he saw in what passed for downtown Maple Ridge. The hotel doorman and the Vancouver murder map had him expecting something vaguely hellish in a menacing Anglo sort of way, like London or Darwin or Auckland. But if anything, it felt far more American, with only some minor alterations. The people here were rednecks; there was no doubt about that. But they were like a strange combination of redneck and Los Angeles Persian nightclub bouncers.
The young men strutted to and from their trucks, their steroided, hormone-enhanced muscles prominently displayed. Their sculpted and gelled hair was impeccably crafted and dyed. And their necks and arms were covered with elaborate tattoos. He could see a few older men with faded tribal and barbwire tattoos. But the younger ones were sporting some sort of over-stylized faux Russian prison tattoos that were fused with what appeared to be Salvadoran street gang ink. Obviously, these men were neither Russian nor from Central America. The scene had the look of a prison clown cosplay convention. The Executioner decided that the scene was actually quite entertaining in some bizarre way.
Arriving finally at his destination, the door of the house at the end of a long driveway was answered by a haggard old lady who reeked of cigarettes.
“You here to see my boys?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“You gonna take that whiny little American bitch off our hands?”
“Yeah, within the hour if that’s OK with your sons,” said The Executioner, smiling.
“They’re around the back of the house in the garage. Watch out for the dogs. They bite.”
The disheveled lady went back to her couch, lit a cigarette and put her virtual reality goggles back on.
The Executioner walked to the garage and knocked on the side door entrance. A chorus of angry barking erupted on the other side.
“Just a second. I’m putting the dogs in the kennel!” a voice said from the other side of the door.
When the door opened, he was greeted by a man who looked like a slightly-toned-down version of the men he had been laughing at earlier in the hour.
“So,” the man said, “I’m ready to dump this guy in the forest. But my brother says that you want to talk to him for a while?”
“Yeah, for a bit.”
“This place is not sound-proof, but our neighbors aren’t close enough to hear anything if this guy makes a lot of noise. And even if the neighbors did hear anything, they are not the sort of people to call the police, especially considering that my brother’s a cop.”
“And your mother?” asked The Executioner.
“She’s used to this sort of thing. She’s cool. Plus she spends almost all of her waking day in VR.”
“Yeah, she had to take off her VR goggles for a minute or so when I knocked on the door.”
The Executioner’s new acquaintance then called over his older brother.
The older of the two definitely looked like a cop. He was basically the same as his brother, but with a normal haircut and far fewer tattoos on his muscles. This family had balanced the criminal/cop quota nicely. Hopefully for them, thought The Executioner, they had a cousin who was a lawyer.
After some small talk, The Executioner took out a fat envelope full of cash, saying “You didn’t say what sort of bills you wanted the fee in. But the exchange place downtown said that $100 bills are the largest notes that Canada circulates now. So that’s why the envelope is so thick. Don’t worry, I’m not overpaying you.”
“No problem. We just don’t like the 1000 or 500 Euro banknotes. Those scream ‘criminal,’ and we’re security consultants…at least on the side,” said the cop, laughing.
The younger brother cut in, saying “So, is this guy coyote-food after you talk to him? What’s the plan?”
The Executioner then laid out what he wanted to do to the imposter executioner who was at the back of the garage, zip-tied to a chair and gagged.
The Executioner walked back to the unfortunate young man sitting in the chair and released the cloth gag. He held up a clear plastic bag full of what the imposter had in his pocket when he was picked up off the street.
“Is this all your stuff?” asked The Executioner.
The man in the chair nodded.
“Mind if I take a look?”
The imposter said nothing – not that he had any choice in the matter.
The Executioner pulled out a passport from the bag and took a quick photo of the biography page of the passport. He then read the name out loud “Ruiz Clinton Mackenzie? You used your real name? That’s not very smart.”
“How do you know that I used my real name? Can you tell that it’s not a fake passport?”
“No, the fakes and the genuine passports are exactly the same. They are issued by the same people. But the fake ones cost a lot more.”
“Then how did you know?” asked Ruiz.
“Your name. It’s so stupid that the only possible explanation is that it’s the name your parents gave you. If you were to pick a fake name for an identity to use overseas, would you pick a name this ridiculous?”
“I’m not sure, I…What’s ridiculous?”
“That family name was once a fine Scottish family name. But now Mackenzie is a first name for middle-aged American suburban white women. And I’ve never actually seen a white guy with a Mexican surname for a first name. A presidential middle name, whatever…I guess. But, taken as a whole, I don’t believe that you would pick this name.”
“Oh.”
“Sorry, that was rude of me,” said The Executioner. “Let’s move on to business. Tell me what you are up to, running around dressed like The Executioner.”
“Are you FBI?” asked Ruiz.
“Uh…no. No I’m not. I’m an anarchist,” said The Executioner with a straight face.
The fear on Ruiz’s face was immediately apparent. The Executioner couldn’t help but to break into a laugh.
“I’m just kidding. I’m not an anarchist with a can of barbecue lighter fluid and a box of matches. You won’t be burning today.”
The fear on Ruiz’s face was now mixed with confusion.
“The truth is…I’m The Executioner – the real one. And I can’t say I approve of that video you uploaded recently. That’s my gear that you were wearing. And that was the iron bar that only I use. You, as a fellow debt collector, owe me the professional courtesy of not trading on a reputation that I took the better part of a decade building.”
The look on Ruiz’s face was now one of absolute dread.
“Now, what I want to know is this: who do you work for? Who is sending runners your way? And do they know that you are using my name? Also, why exactly are you wasting your efforts with the small time runners with a persona – my persona – that could be used to go after big debtors? No rambling. Quick answers only – straight to the point.”
“I…I, uh, I don’t know who I wor
k for, exactly,” said Ruiz. “I started by getting commissions for identifying debtors overseas. I was doing it in Europe a few years ago, then here in Vancouver and elsewhere in British Columbia – mostly at ski resorts. The commissions were OK, but then I started debt collecting myself because it seemed easy enough. The guy who hired me, I don’t know his name… He was sending me work, but he said that I had to work my way up to the really lucrative runners. All I was getting were small jobs. The runners that were sent my way had barely any money, and their families didn’t have any decent assets or savings either. I was planning on going back to Europe, there’s almost nothing worthwhile here.”
“Yeah, that’s just how the business is these days,” said The Executioner.
“But the important part is this: there’s a theory going around on the forums online, the one that runners use…”
“A theory? Online? Must be true,” said The Executioner, clearly unimpressed.
“But this one fits with everything that I’ve experienced. I tested it. It’s true.”
“What is it and how did you test it?”
“The theory is that the big debt collection agencies in the US are now employing most of the overseas debt collectors and that…”
“Let me stop you right there,” said The Executioner. “The revenue collected by overseas debt collectors like us is probably way less than 1% of what the domestic collection agencies back home take in. They don’t care about the overseas market.”
“Yes,” said Ruiz, “we only get a small number of the runners overseas, and it’s a marginal value for the big agencies, especially compared to the early days. But what they want is for people like us to scare the runners so badly that they return home – and to scare them away from ever leaving in the first place.”
“Keep going…” said The Executioner.
“They don’t know that I know, but I know. My job…our job is to round up the stray cattle and bring them back to the herd. And you know where that herd’s going to end up: sitting in the US making monthly payments.”
The Executioner continued to listen silently, showing no reaction.
“You go after the runners with huge overdue debts,” said Ruiz. “But the bulk of the debt is held by people with lower amounts. And you don’t touch them. The people that hired me want collectors who will go after the small fish, to scare them back home where the collection agencies can scoop them up.”
“Your cattle and fish metaphors…or analogies or whatever, they make sense,” said The Executioner. “A lot of sense. But do you have any sort of proof?”
“Yes. That’s the test that I was talking about. I thought, if they are focusing on scaring the 95% of the runners that debt collectors like you ignore, then I needed to do a test. Basically, I picked out a bunch of American expats here that I didn’t like, and I started to inform on them, for a commission. I used a bunch of different anonymous apps and websites so that it would look like it was different people doing the informing.”
“Did these Americans you informed on actually have debt…and family assets back home?” asked The Executioner.
“I doubt it. But that’s not the point,” said Ruiz. “When I informed on them, I lied and made two-thirds of them out to be low value targets. I said I knew them and that their debt load was low and that their families were broke. But the other third, I lied again and said that they had massive debt and that their families owned vacation homes and traveled to other countries where they had condos and stuff. The truth is…all of the Americans were a low-rent sort of people. They wash dishes and clean toilets in Vancouver. That sort of thing.”
“And how is that a test?”
“Well, I kept an eye on the guys I informed on,” said Ruiz. “They started to disappear. Debt collectors were grabbing them. But not the ones I said had family assets that could be liquidated. The debt collectors were nabbing the ones that didn’t have money. And they were executing the runners immediately without even asking for a ransom. I know that before, debt collectors wouldn’t bother with someone that had no family assets, and if they grabbed one by accident, they would throw them back onto the streets, not kill them.”
The Executioner thought this over. He was almost convinced.
“Also,” said Ruiz, “when I talked to the debt collectors, I…”
“Wait, stop,” said The Executioner. “What do you mean by ‘talked to the debt collectors?’”
“Oh, I had been doing such a good job informing on people that I started to work regularly with one guy who would send debt collectors up here. I would help out the debt collectors while they were in Vancouver. This guy now wants me to move to Toronto and do the same thing there – work as a half debt collector, half informer.”
“Does this guy have a name?”
“No, but I met him once in Los Angeles.”
“The man you met in Los Angeles. What does he look like?”
Ruiz’s description sounded familiar. Very familiar. It was a clear physical outline of Marv.
The Executioner didn’t show any surprise. The system that he was a small part of was now coming into focus.
“And these debt collectors you met, what were you about to say before I cut you off?” asked The Executioner.
“I was going to say that they are not trying to collect money,” said Ruiz. “They are just executing the runners to intimidate the rest into going back home. I started to pry, and I asked them how they were making money when they never seem to collect a ransom. They all gave a similar answer: they have a base salary and they are now being paid a bonus for every kill. The guy we all work for, he’s obviously working for the domestic debt collectors who want to scare the overseas runners into returning.”
The Executioner continued to think. He was not surprised that Marv was now working for the domestic debt collection agencies. And he understood that Marv was a perfect contractor to do their dirty work.
After a pause that seemed to signal the end of this line of questioning, Ruiz raised his voice and asked “How did you find me?”
“You want me to tell you how I managed to catch you? Well, I can’t say I’ve ever gloated victoriously and explained everything about my tactics in an extended monologue. The boring answer is that I paid an online private investigator, and he found you. He tied the video of you wearing my gear to some earlier videos based on upload patterns, or something. I don’t know the technical terms. All those videos were of runners killed here in British Columbia. Then he put me in touch with the two nice fellows who picked you up earlier this week. A friendly cop ran your videos through a government database of uploads from Canada…and there you were sitting at your computer in Vancouver: no proxy, no encryption, nothing. And the hardware you used was tied to your credit card. Kids these days…unbelievable. Anyways, I was hoping my employer would have done that all for me, but now I realize why he didn’t even try. But none of that is your concern. All you need to know is that I’m not killing you. I’m letting you go.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Why?”
“You might not like the answer.”
The imitation executioner did not say anything in return.
“I’m exiting this line of work,” said The Executioner. “You’re going to take over my identity. You’re The Executioner now. Congratulations.”
The Executioner pulled out his phone and took a close up photo of Ruiz’s face and eyes. He then instructed him to put up his hands so that he could get an image of his finger prints. Finally, he made a rapid fire succession of shots as he moved the camera from one side of Ruiz’s head to the other, getting a photo of his face from every angle.
“I don’t understand,” said Ruiz.
“Time for a buccal swab, Ruiz.”
“What?”
“A DNA swab. From the inside of your cheek. I need to collect DNA.”
“Oh, OK.”
“Don’t bite the hand that wants to help you to learn how to fe
ed yourself,” said The Executioner as he took out a small DNA kit and ran the swab stick across the inside of Ruiz’s cheek.
“Are you going to kill me now?” asked Ruiz. It was a reasonable question.
“If this was an elaborate plot to kill you and then have everyone think that I, The Executioner, had died, I would have straight up killed you and then collected your DNA.”
“So, you’re not going to kill me?” asked Ruiz.
“I just said that I’m letting you go. Like…literally letting you go – it’s not a figure of speech.”
“I don’t understand.”
“OK, long story short: I will no longer be using The Executioner identity. I am not working as a debt collector anymore. You can wear the gloves and the goggles and the hoodie and all that. You can whack them with an iron bar. You can tell people that you are The Executioner and that their families better pay the ransom. I understand why you are using my identity. It’s effective. If the family has money, they will pay. Absolutely. You’re the new Dread Pirate Roberts.”
“So I can continue to do what I’m doing?”
“Yes, but you need to get better at it. You were too easy to find. What you need to do, for a start, is read the entire Blue Team website, including the forums, and reverse engineer everything. It’s a resource and advice portal for runners. But it is also a resource for debt collectors if you look at it from a different angle. And for god’s sake, please read through a tutorial on how to keep up-to-date with the newest techniques to be anonymous and untrackable online. OK?”
“OK. Yeah. I’ll do it.”
The Executioner took out a lighter and walked around behind Ruiz.
“I’ll do my best not to burn you, but I can’t guarantee that some melting plastic won’t drip onto your skin.”
The flame worked quickly and the zip tie strapping Ruiz to the chair melted through and broke.
“So, you need to get back to work. I’ll hold on to your DNA and these photos for insurance. But know that now I can find you whenever I want. And I’ll be keeping my eye on you...”
“Thank you,” said Ruiz meekly.
“These guys are a little upset that I’m not killing you. They would rather not have anyone leave this place alive. But I’m paying them quite well for all of this. So, I said that you are going straight to the airport and that you are never to return. And keep in mind that the uglier of these two men is a cop. That badge that he flashed when he picked you up is real. He will be looking in the system to see if your biodata is entered on your way out of Canada. If not, they kill you and I have to pay an extra fee. And, finally…don’t ever come back to Canada. Got it?”
“Yes.”
“Is your phone working and do you have credit for a taxi and for a last-minute plane ticket?”
“Yes.”
“Go straight out the door,” said The Executioner. “Go down the long driveway and then go to the right. Walk up the street until you get to an ugly little strip mall. Take a taxi from there. You can stop wherever to pick up your belongings on your way to the airport. But you need to be gone by the end of the day. Is that all clear?”
“Yes.”
“And one more thing. These people you work for… They will kill you for what you just did, giving me all this information. You better forget this happened and start thinking up some lie about why you left Canada. Is that also clear?”
“Yes.”
“Then go,” said The Executioner, nodding towards the exit.
He yawned as Ruiz scurried out the door without a word. The Executioner had no intention of actually spending anytime whatsoever monitoring him. He figured that within a year Ruiz would be dead, and thus The Executioner would be dead. Whatever anarchist killed him would immediately claim credit and many would send their congratulations to the Insurrectionary Anarchists. Of course, any serious background investigation on Ruiz would come up with many inconsistencies. But what anarchist would, several months later, invite such embarrassment by telling the world that they had in fact got the wrong guy? The Executioner thought his plan had a reasonable chance of granting a new and anonymous life with no pursuing anarchists.
The Executioner felt relieved. It was not the feeling of relief that a person gets when danger passes; rather it was the feeling they get when a tedious and boring chore is finally completed.
The Executioner could see outside through the door that Ruiz had left open. It was raining again.
Department of Student Loans, Kidnap & Ransom Page 28