Devlin's Defiance: Book Two of the Devlin Quatrology

by Jake Devlin

  - 49 -

  November 22, 2012

  11:57 a.m. local time

  13,000 feet over Prien am Chiemsee

  “Good so far?” Tori shouted in her client's ear as they dropped thru the 3000-meter mark on her altimeter at nearly 120 miles per hour. She got no answer. “Guess you can't hear me, what with the wind. Well, now you can check this off your bucket list – oh, wait, this is the last one you'll get to.”

  She reached around his head, grasped his chin and snapped his neck. Then she opened her wingsuit and flew them out over the Chiemsee. When they were still nearly 2000 meters above the lake, she unsnapped the clips from the client's harness and watched his lifeless body plummet toward the cold water, but she turned back toward land before she saw the splash.

  When she passed the shoreline, still maintaining altitude at about 1500 meters, she saw her landing zone about a kilometer south and headed directly for it, pulled her ripcord and glided in on her chute to a perfect landing in the middle of the zone. Quickly gathering her chute, she dashed to one of three matching gray sedans parked under the nearby trees, threw the chute, wingsuit, helmet, wig and harness into the open trunk, slammed it shut and climbed into the driver's seat. She waved to the drivers of the other two cars, and they all drove off, one going south, one west, and Tori heading east toward Salzburg.

  - 50 -

  November 23, 2012

  9:38 a.m. local time

  Bonita Beach, Florida

  “Well, that added a few years to my life span. Whew!”

  “Well, maybe a few months, Ro.”

  “Or multiples of a few months.”

  “Really? Hmm.”

  “Yeah, really.”

  “Well, that's good, I guess.”

  “Wonder if it works that way for men, too.”

  “If it does, I'm right up there with you.”

  “But you'll always be three years behind.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Not to me.”

  “Nor to me.”

  “Hmm. Maybe I can help you catch up.”

  “Yeah? How?”

  “I've got an idea.”

  “What?”

  “No, no, no; I'll show you a little later.”

  “Hint?”

  “Nope,” she whispered, smiling.

  “Okay, okay. But you've got me curious.”

  “Hungry?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Me, too. How about some turkey and dressing?”

  “For breakfast?”

  “Sure. Why not? Or are you some kind of traditionalist?”

  “Me? Ah, Ro, you're getting to know me too well.”

  “Maybe. But today we can get to know each other even better,” she whispered, nuzzling his neck.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, gently caressing her shoulder blades.

  “Y'know, Gordy, I think I'll start catching you up now.”

  “Before breakfast?”

  “I'm not really that hungry yet.”

  “Me, either.”

  “And with this rain, we've got all day.”

  “What, you're not rushing out for Black Friday?” he said, smiling.

  “'Me? I've got everything I need,” she whispered, nuzzling his collarbone.

  “Me, too.”

  “Ready to start catching up?” she asked, starting to nuzzle his chest, then his stomach and then sliding her head even lower.

  “Ah-ha, so that's – wohhh.”

  “Mmmm.”

  “Ohhhh.”

  - 51 -

  November 26, 2012

  11:27 p.m. local time

  Ballarat, Victoria, Australia

  The Stringer had confirmed the target's identity inside Runners Bar and Cafe on the corner of Webster Street where his contact had said he could find him. Now he had spent half an hour sipping a beer at one of the outside tables, waiting for the man to appear.

  When the target finally left the bar, the Stringer reached up to scratch his cheek and whispered, “Target acquired, crossing Webster, heading west.”

  A female voice responded in his earbud, “Copy that. In place.”

  When the target had walked a block from the bar, he couldn't help but notice the statuesque blonde sauntering across his path after coming out of Parade Court.

  “Just my type,” the target mumbled to himself, as he began following her.

  When she crossed the Wendouree Parade toward the lake, he followed, slowly closing the distance between them.

  When she reached the Steve Moneghetti Track along the lake, the target picked up his pace and caught up with her as she paused to light a cigarette next to a small, low-walled brick hut between the Track and the Parade.

  Seeing that the Track and the Parade were both empty, he grabbed her around the neck with his right forearm, squeezing as tightly as he could.

  But he gasped as the blonde deftly swung her elbow back into his gut and then continued the swing until her fist made hard contact with his groin. She pushed him into the hut and to the ground, turning him onto his face, quickly securing his wrists with plastic ties, gagging him with a deflated tennis ball and some twine, and then sitting on his legs to keep them still.

  “Target secured,” she spoke into her collar microphone.

  “Ten seconds out,” she heard the Stringer reply.

  As the Stringer arrived, wearing a pair of latex gloves, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small knife and a short coil of piano wire with a small wooden dowel on each end. Then he roughly turned the target over so he was lying with his bound hands under his back.

  Looking into the target's eyes, wide with a combination of terror and alcohol, the Stringer whispered, “You have less than two minutes to live, scumbag, and sad for you, you won't enjoy either of them.”

  He then reached down, unzipped the target's fly, and carried out the literal but limited dismemberment the client had requested, then waggled the severed object in front of the target's face; it looked rather like a wrinkled little Vienna sausage.

  “No wonder you did what you did,” the Stringer said, smirking at the target and chuckling. Then he stuck it under the twine next to the tennis ball gag.

  The blonde took a minute's worth of video as the target struggled, glared and screamed, but nothing more than a slight gurgling sound escaped through the gag.

  The Stringer then threw the offending organ onto the grass on the other side of the Track, where it was picked up and turned into a quick midnight snack by a winged nocturnal scavenger.

  The Stringer wiped the knife on the target's shirt and then slowly uncoiled the garrote, making certain that the target could see it. The target's eyes widened even further and he began shaking his head from side to side, screaming and gurgling even more frantically.

  The Stringer turned him over, more roughly than before, and wound the garrote around the target's neck. As he did so, he was viscerally excited by the impending death, and he felt an erection coming on, all in spite of the stench of the victim's loosened bladder and bowels.

  “Hey, wait, wait a minute!!! That's not right. I'm not feeling any 'visceral excitement' and I sure don't have an erection.”

  Are you talking to me?

  “Bet your ass I am. You're giving me emotions and sensations I just don't feel. I'm way beyond those when I'm doing a job; it's just a job. Now fuck off and let me finish this one.”

  The Stringer pulled and twisted the garrote tightly around the victim's throat and pushed his knee into his back, laughing with glee as he heard the spine crack and the gurgle of blood spurting from –

  “Hey, hey, hey! You hear me laughing? You hear any glee? No, you don't. Now quit fuckin' around with what you want to think is going on in my head. I've got a job to finish here.”

  Okay, okay.

  “Good.”

  Once the Stringer had ensured that the target was dead, he cut the ties away, coiled up the garrote, removed the gag, stripped off his gloves and stuck everything i
n a plastic bag, which he put in his pocket, then turned the corpse back over, propping it up against one of the stone pillars. The blonde took more video of the body and closeups of its bloodied, torn-apart throat and groin, and they walked casually out of the hut and back west along the Track, crossing the Parade about a hundred meters from the hut, weaving swiftly through the heavy traffic.

  “Hey, hey! There's no goddamn traffic! Zero! We're clear.”

  Oh, sorry; I wasn't watching. Rosemary's tickling me.

  “Well, if you're gonna write it, at least write it right.”

  Okay, okay.

  “Hey, Ro, just give me a minute, okay?”

  The Stringer then pulled out a sat phone and dialed.

  “Authentication 0000001. Yeah, all set here; no problems. We'll send the proof of death when we get back to the hotel. And I think we're gonna take a day or two in Melbourne and then a few more in Sydney. There's an opera and a sculpture exhibit we'd like to see. Everything okay on the yacht? No more attacks? Ah, good. Okay, give the captain our regards, let him know we'll be back in a week or two. Thanks, Amber.”

  The Stringer and the blonde walked to their stolen car, which they parked a few blocks from their obscure hotel, and walked into the lobby, where the strung-out desk clerk barely noticed them, then upstairs to their second-floor room, where the blonde removed her wig, revealing her long red hair, and they prepared to spend the rest of the night satisfying the visceral excitement that both of them finally allowed themselves to feel.

  “Well, at least you got that part right. And there will be erections involved.”

  Thanks.

  “Okay, Ro, I'm ready now – oops; one more minute.”

  The grisly death of one of Australia's most vicious serial rapists and murderers, who had made the mistake of randomly choosing the daughter of one of the country's richest and most powerful (and vengeful) industrialists as one of his victims, was never solved, nor was his passing mourned.

  “Okay, Ro, once more and then we'll get to the beach. But just one, okay?”

  - 52 -

  November 26, 2012

  7:43 a.m. local time

  Prien am Chiemsee, Germany

  Helmut Stambergheim had just opened his ferry business, which took tourists out to Herrenchiemsee, King Ludwig the Second's unfinished copy of the Palace of Louis XIV, the French Sun King, at Versailles, when his bellowing brought the local polizei to the dock, who immediately called his superiors to investigate the bloated and partially decomposed body that had floated to the surface of the lake and triggered Helmut's fairly accurate impression of the Mad King's screaming when in one of his violently abusive paranoid fits.

  The discovery of the body confirmed for the investigators the reports they had received five days earlier about a winged creature dropping something into the lake from a great height at about noon, which had led to three days of futile searching of the lake and its shoreline. It also was consistent with a report from a local skydiving school that two of its clients had gone missing on that day.

  The autopsy revealed compound fractures of nearly all the bones in the body, consistent with impact on water from a height of at least 900 meters, except for the broken neck, which had a spiral break consistent with a sharp manual twist made by an unknown second party. The death was ruled a homicide.

  The contents of the victim's wallet identified him as the owner of a large import-export business in New Jersey in the United States, specializing in furniture and electronics, but which Interpol and the FBI had long suspected of trafficking in drugs, weapons and Eastern European teenagers, both male and female.

  A desultory investigation led to no arrests, and only a vague description of a short-haired brunette female who had accompanied the victim, claiming to be his personal assistant, who had shown what appeared to be a valid skydiver certification card and then taken the man on a tandem dive. The school had not made a copy of the card, only recorded the name and number, but those both turned out to be false.

  The investigators never contacted one man who had observed and recorded on his cell phone a wingsuited figure opening a chute roughly a kilometer south of the lake. His video, however, ended when the chutist passed below the treeline.

  Interpol and the FBI kept the case open, but in a file they both labeled as “Who gives a shit.” The German police, being much more meticulous and obsessive-compulsive, kept the case in their open cold case files. But no suspects were ever found, nor was any arrest ever made.

  - 53 -

  December 8, 2012

  11:38 a.m. local time

  Bonita Beach, Florida

  “She's late.”

  “Hey, Gordy, we all run on beach time. And we've got all day.”

  “Yeah, I know. But something's off. I woke up kinda tense, a sort of sinking feeling in my stomach.”

  “Maybe 'cause you slept at your house last night?”

  “Maybe. But I needed to get some writing done. I'm sorry.”

  “No, no, that's fine. I understood.”

  “I hope nothing's happened to her.”

  “'C'mon; she's only seven or eight minutes late.”

  “Yeah, okay, okay. Maybe I'm just nervous.”

  “Nervous? You?”

  “Yeah; feels like I'm outa my depth with all this.”

  “But that's why we're meeting with her.”

  “Yeah; you're right, Ro, you're right.”

  “And you know you've got an idea for what you want, right?”

  “Yeah, roughly. And you've given me some ideas, too.”

  “I have?”

  “Yup.”

  “Well, I probably got some of those thanks to her.”

  “I sorta guessed that.”

  “What? You didn't think they were original?”

  “Oh, no, no, no, no, no; they were very, very original. But a little out of character for how I thought of you … in the past.”

  “You still think of me that way?”

  “Oh, no, for sure not.”

  “I'm glad.”

  “Well, I” –

  “Hi, Ro; hi, Gordy.”

  “Hi, Dallas. You made it,” Rosemary said, glancing at Gordy.

  “Yeah. But the lot was full, so I had to wait for a space to open.”

  “Yeah, season's here, and it's only gonna get worse.”

  “Gordy, you okay?”

  “Yeah; sorry. Hi, Dallas.”

  “Hi. You looked a little out of sorts there for a second.”

  Gordy glanced at Rosemary as he said, “Sorry; maybe something I ate.”

  “Okay. You sure you want to do this now?”

  “Yup; don't mind me, I'll be fine. So how do you want to start?”

  “Let's see. You said you'd make up some notes when you called me. Have you got those?”

  “Yup, right here.” He reached into his bag and withdrew a sheet of paper and gave it to Dallas.

  “Thanks. Let's see. Okay. One guy, 67 or 68; two girls, twins, 50, gorgeous … ah, ex-CIA?”

  “Yup.”

  “Honey-trappers in the Cold War, sometimes worked as a team, not lesbos” –

  “Did I write 'lesbos'? I meant lesbians.”

  “No, you wrote 'lesbians.' 'Lesbos' is our jargon.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  “Hmm. Luxurious suite, shower scene, blah-blah-blah, graphic but not obscene, euphemisms, not – okay; I can do that. But you do want people turned on when they read it, right?”

  Gordy glanced at Rosemary, who nodded.

  “Yup.”

  “Both men and women?”

  “Yup.”

  “Now, you know men are visually aroused, but women are a lot more complicated in their arousal, right?”

  Again, he glanced at Rosemary. “Yeah, I guess so.” Rosemary nodded again.

  “Do you want an intro and outro?”

  “A what?”

  “The stuff that happens before and after they go at it.”

  “Oh. Ye
ah, I guess so.”

  “I mean, you know, sex is just sex, the nuts and bolts, anyhow; bolt into nut, turn, done. It's what you write around that that makes the difference.”

  “And that's why Gordy wanted you to do it,” Rosemary said.

  “And I'd love to; piece of cake. But he told you I have to stay anonymous, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Gordy?”

  “Oh. Right. We'll use the name Dallas, no last name, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Oh, good name,” Rosemary said.

  “We'll be sure to do that; promise,” Gordy said.

  “How's this? I'll do a first draft and email it to you by Wednesday, okay? And then you can look it over, make any suggestions that you want to, and we can get together next Saturday and go through it all, and then it's yours.”

  “You can do it that quick?”

  “Sure, no problem. In fact, I think I've got something already written that I can adapt to what you want in maybe an hour or two.”

  “That one I read last time?”

  “I could pull some of that in, sure, but I've got a bunch of others just sitting on the” –

  A high, squeaky voice cut in, “Hey, Rosemary, Janet's got a question for you.”

  “Hold on, Ron,” Gordy snapped at him. “Can't you see we're in the middle of a discussion here?”

  “So what, schlub?” Ron snapped back. “I wasn't talking to you.”

  Rosemary glared at Ron. “Go away, Ron. I'll talk to Janet when we're done here.”

  “And who's this pretty lady? And why are you talking to a schlub like this?”

  “Oh, can it, Ron,” Rosemary said, still glaring at him. “Ignore him, Dallas.”

  “If you can,” Gordy added, starting to get up from his lounge.

  “But” –

  “No buts. If you don't” --

  “Ronald Cecil [last name deleted], get your ass back up here!” his wife, Jenny, yelled at him. “Now!”

  Ron looked at her, then back at Gordy, now fully standing up, then at Rosemary, then Dallas, then back at his wife, his fists clenched.

  “I said now!” Jenny yelled.