Executioner's Lament

by Justin Rishel

  Following the silver haired man dressed in the traditional black cassock, they passed through a door into a familiar space. The massive circular room with a floor and roof made of glass was a space Jacira never thought she’d see again.

  Looking down into the bowels of the prison, her gut tightened. At least this time it was her choice to be here.

  “Wait here,” Sarazin said. “I have to speak with Jacobi.”

  She and the others nodded and watched Sarazin strut across the glass floor to where Member Principal Jacobi stood smoldering. When Sarazin reached him, Jacobi verbally berated the man. She couldn’t make out what was said, but the nonverbal clues were indication enough. His hands flew around like serpents lashing out. Many times, he pointed back at Jacira and the others then down at the prison.

  Sarazin remained stoic. He listened to the man and made no reaction, then spoke. When he finished, Jacobi seemed to melt into a more compliant state. His shoulders sagged, he stared at the glass floor and he shook his head softly.

  Jacobi left Sarazin for a moment to enter a room behind him. Shortly after, he emerged with a stack of white linens.

  “Weird to be back,” Balthazar said, his deep voice breaking the silence between the three of them. His hulking form looked almost too big to be held by the glass floor.

  The red-haired woman said nothing.

  Jacira nodded.

  Sarazin rejoined them with the stack of white linens, tossing them to the floor.

  “Put these on so you’ll blend in,” he said, turning to walk back toward Jacobi.

  Jacira realized the linens were uniforms, inmate uniforms.

  “I don’t do white,” Jacira said. Sarazin stopped and turned.

  “It’ll help you blend in. You’ll need it,” he said.

  “We’re going down there?” Balthazar pointed at the prison below.

  “Yes.”

  “We have hair,” Jacira said. “And no barcodes, no ID numbers. We might as well go down there like this.” She gestured to her outfit. “We’re never going to blend in.”

  Sarazin regarded the three of them and inhaled a deep breath. “Everyone will be too distracted, don’t worry. But you’d be noticed like this.” He waved a hand at them, indicating their clothes. “The uniforms aren’t foolproof, but it’ll go a long way. Trust me.”

  “Distracted?” Balthazar asked, but Sarazin had already turned to cross the floor once again toward Jacobi sulking on the far side.

  Jacira stripped to her skivvies and protective vest. Whatever the distraction was supposed to be, she felt confident it would involve violence. Violence in prison meant blades.

  She reached into her bag and pulled two rolls of thin material ribbed with stiff panels. Unrolling each she strapped them to her upper thighs, protecting her femoral arteries. She pulled out two smaller versions and wrapped them around her biceps.

  “Got any more of those?” Balthazar said, as he removed his own clothing. He also had on a protective vest.

  “No.”

  * * *

  As Member Principal Jacobi rambled on with his complaints about the three unexpected guests, James Sarazin nodded. He had to placate the man for now. He did his best to give the impression of concern for the man’s objections.

  “I just don’t understand, James. Why them? Couldn’t you find any other killers in a city with millions of people?” Jacobi gritted his teeth and pointed at the three of them across the room. “They don’t belong here. Their very presence is an insult …”

  James tuned him out. He’d perfected the art of tuning people out during countless conference room meetings over the course of his career. Jacobi was just another dissatisfied partner. He would object at first, then slowly realize he had no choice in the matter. That was another skill of James’s—convincing others they were stuck. That they had no choice. That they would do what must be done.

  James watched the man gesticulate, reasserting his point again and again. The veins in his neck bulged, protruding so far above his skin that James thought it might be possible to kill the man by simply grabbing ahold of one and squeezing.

  He’d never killed anyone in person. The notion made him curious. Was he capable? Of course, he was capable. But much like running a business, it was best to hire others to do the dirty work.

  At the end of this day, he would do what he had to do. If that meant making a personal, gruesome goodbye for his old friend Jacobi, so be it.

  “I obviously recognize them. Did you think I wouldn’t? Did they tell you about their time here? They must have.” Jacobi shook his head. His jowls vibrated and rippled like a pond in the wind.

  James nodded some more. He wondered how long he’d have to hold that vein before Jacobi would pass out, how long until brain damaged started, how long until the man would suck in his last rattling lungful of air.

  He understood the man’s complaints. He even empathized with him. Were James in his shoes, he’d feel the same way. It was a disrespectful intrusion. James understood. He just didn’t care.

  Pushing people off balance was another skill. How to get the job done while also adding a little bit of an extra advantage for yourself was the mark of efficiency. James had always been exceedingly efficient.

  “I just don’t understand how, of all the people you could bring here, you’d pick …” Jacobi eyes widened. His face fell. “Unless …” He stared at James slack-jawed, his face growing pale. He pointed a shaky finger at James who was tempted to bend it back on itself. “You did it on purpose,” he whispered. “You knew and you brought them here for some twisted reason. Was it to spite me? I thought we were partners in all of this.”

  James held up a hand. That had always been his move. Stay quiet and let the other person come to the conclusion on their own, then throw up the hand. Everyone who knew him well knew that the hand meant all discussion would now cease. It was time for James to talk and time for them to listen.

  “I brought them here because they are the best at what they do. And I need the best today.” True enough, he thought. “And yes, we are still partners.” True for now. “I didn’t bring them for any other purpose than cleaning up this mess. The rest is an unfortunate coincidence.” Not true.

  “Okay, okay.” Jacobi’s eyes fell. He nodded softly.

  “I need to brief them. You don’t have to talk to them if you don’t want to. In fact, it might be best for you to go back to your quarters.”

  “Yes. Yes, good idea,” Jacobi muttered.

  James left Jacobi and strode across the glass floor toward the assassins; as he crossed, he looked down into the prison. It was like looking into the gullet of some foul creature. The three assassins he brought had been spit out by the beast, but now they were back. They’d been forever sullied by it, and it bound them to the place. They could leave, but it would always call them back.

  James also thought about how fortuitous this day turned out to be. By the time he left, all of the loose ends would be tied up. When he boarded his plane alone later that night, he would be free of all this mess.

  No one would know the truth but him. His life, his fortune, his legacy would remain secure.

  A terrorist was not something he ever imagined he’d end up becoming. He only started acting like one out of necessity. Now, however, if he really thought about it, he enjoyed it. And, like everything else he’d tried in life, he excelled at it.

  23

  Eruption

  Brother Rudolfo slid the thick book across the table to Aubrey. The Tapper’s hands remained on the book and his eyes locked on Aubrey’s.

  “Mr. Aubrey, no one outside our Order has ever seen what is inside one of these books. It’s a journal of every assessment of every inmate that has been under a Member’s charge. This is essentially a summary of a Member’s life. All that he or she has done.”

  Aubrey’s skin prickled. How many deaths were recorded in this tome? He knew the Tappers didn’t execute every inmate, but he had no idea how many they left a
live either.

  He reached out and took the heavy book from Rudolfo. Before opening it, he said, “Why are you showing me this?”

  Rudolfo asked Aubrey to examine a few random pages toward the front of the Tapper’s book. He then showed Aubrey the last four entries.

  It clicked for Aubrey instantly. Four pages, totally blank except for their inmate numbers. Uncharacteristic of the Tapper in question, that was obvious. Four pages for four inmates. Was it the four?

  “What happened to these four inmates?” Aubrey bent over the book, glaring at Rudolfo through narrowed eyes.

  “They were selected for the Sacred Task,” Francesca replied.

  “What is that?” Malina asked.

  “It means they were Tapped,” Aubrey continued, glaring at Rudolfo. “When?”

  “April 29th,” Rudolfo said.

  For a moment, no one spoke. Aubrey saw Malina through the corner of his eye looking from him to Rudolfo.

  “Oh, shit.” She jabbed a finger at the book. “This is them. The Ventana four. This is their record.”

  “Was it you?” Aubrey said in a low voice.

  Rudolfo shook his head.

  Aubrey sat back in the chair and crossed his arms. “Where is he? Where is the Tapper that did this?” It seemed unlikely that the Tapper in question was the puppet master, merely a puppet. But if they could get to him and question him, it could lead them to the man, the voice.

  “Brother Wilcott, Member of the Order, is dead,” Rudolfo said with no emotion. “He self-selected weeks ago.”

  “Self-selected?” Malina asked. Aubrey had been thinking the same thing, but he had a hunch what it meant.

  “Brother Wilcott selected himself for the Sacred Task; performing it, with some variations,” Rudolfo shifted in his seat, “on himself.”

  “Why did he kill himself?” Aubrey asked.

  “I believe Brother Wilcott wanted us to figure that out.”

  “What makes you say that?” Aubrey leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table.

  “He self-selected in a very public manner.” Rudolfo stared at the wall. His voice had gone quiet. “He made himself a display, in front of the inmates. He looked at me just before he did it, I think, to convey some kind of request of me. I want to fulfill that request.” His voice trailed off; his face grew blank.

  Francesca finished his thoughts for him. “That, plus the blank pages and several more …” She looked around, apparently searching for the right words, “irregularities led us to believe there was something more.”

  “Irregularities?” Aubrey and Malina asked the question in unison.

  Rudolfo didn’t speak as Francesca explained all they had discovered. Four inmates selected in a single day was not only unheard of, but impossible. She told them about the Taint, the effect their killing potion, as Aubrey thought of it, had on a Member’s body, physically incapacitating them for a short time.

  They believed he used a glove to shield himself from the solution. She went on to explain the taboo nature of this decision. This sacrilegious act would be inexcusable for any Member and would only have been done out of extreme desperation. Someone had pressured him.

  Of the four scientists, one was female belonging to an all-female ward not under Wilcott’s purview. Members were basically allowed to do anything they wanted, including killing inmates from another ward, but the practice was not common and not well-liked.

  Finally, all three male prisoners were assigned to Wilcott’s ward on the same day. The ward was already near capacity but assigned to him anyway. Wilcott would have had some degree of influence over assignments and could have prevented it.

  “Once we realized their deaths were connected here, we checked on their lives out there.” Francesca gestured to the walls. “We saw the stories about the bombings, the child poisonings, and that group One Front for the People. In the midst of all that we saw a picture of your friend Aaron Lewis.”

  “And he led us to you,” Rudolfo said in a low voice. He hadn’t spoken throughout Francesca’s description of their investigation. Aubrey had the sense he was deeply disturbed by all of it. “And now you are here.” He lowered a flat hand to the tabletop.

  Aubrey cleared his throat. It was time to return the favor and share the information he had gathered while working with the police and everything he and Malina had uncovered in the weeks since he left the hospital.

  First, he told them what he knew about the scientists’ arrest for stealing from their company, Ventana, Inc. Despite being paid very well and most of the them having amassed considerable wealth over their careers, the entire team was somehow convinced to embezzle millions of dollars. Alkorn held lost money due to a bad gambling habit but still had plenty of cash savings and other assets. The team used a program that took fractions of pennies from various transactions throughout the company’s business lines.

  The last raid, when Aubrey and the police battled the OFP bombers, they found no evidence linking OFP to the scientists, but they also found no evidence linking the bombers to BSS. The police still held the belief that the OFP men killed in Aubrey’s firefight were the mastermind’s behind all the bombings and BSS. No expert had yet been able to explain how OFP had deployed Boarding School Syndrome to the infected children, nor how it was possible.

  Next, he described finding the confusing statements from OFP detainees and how they always used “them” and “they” as words to describe the bombers, indicating a separation between the bombers and the rest of OFP. The fact that the bombers turned out to be mercenaries supported his theory that the real terrorists only highjacked the OFP name in order to pass blame.

  Malina described finding the game “A Word With You” in the Ventana intranet and the messaging system therein. She described the coded messages and how she used a special program to decipher them.

  “That led us to what we believe to be the first two victims of BSS,” Aubrey said after Malina finished her description. “Owen Jorgetson and Polly Binns-Lourdes, both eight years old.”

  “And you believe Dr. Alkorn and his associates poisoned these children as well?” Rudolfo said.

  Malina began nodding and Aubrey looked at her, pausing to give his answer, reconsidering all he knew until now.

  “Maybe,” he said. “Someone did. They’re prime suspects as far as we’re concerned. But it’s becoming clearer and clearer that an outside actor is pulling the strings in all this.”

  Rudolfo nodded.

  Aubrey went on, “These two kids were not claimed by OFP like the others. Maybe it was a test to see if the poison actually worked, I don’t know. But the timing and how it was treated is suspicious.”

  He went on to explain how Dr. Randall McCalister treated the children, who were his only two patients other than James Sarazin.

  “And now, with this new information,” Rudolfo waved his hand over the book in front of them, “what are your conclusions?”

  Aubrey leaned forward, his elbows on the table. He rested his chin on his thumbs and took a deep breath, letting it out in an audible sigh.

  “I think this confirms that this outside actor is behind all of it: the BSS poisonings, the bombings, these killings,” he said laying a hand on the book, “and ultimately Wilcott’s suicide.”

  He stood and began pacing, his hand in his pockets. “I’m almost grateful he killed himself in such a fashion or we wouldn’t be here and wouldn’t have confirmation.”

  No one spoke. The implications of the recent discoveries settled on the room like a cloud. Aubrey’s mind swirled with the possibilities. It could be anyone, he thought. Who had the motivation to do all this? BSS, the bombings, these murders by proxy, and, he forgot to think about it until now, the woman hunting him and Malina—all orchestrated by someone. Who? Why?

  He refused to believe it was simple terrorism or a murderous psychopath. There were too many layers for bloodlust and too many attempts to keep people quiet. Whoever this puppeteer was, something drove him. He wanted
something.

  Aubrey stopped pacing. Malina pulled her tablet from her bag. Her eyes went wide.

  “We have incoming.” She looked at him. “Ted has the last of the messages deciphered, he’s sending them now.”

  “How long?” He rushed to her side, leaning in to view the tablet.

  “Hard to say. Signal in this place is garbage.”

  “Can you use our connection?” Francesca looked toward the monitors behind Malina.

  “No way. This has to be on a secure line. Locked down tight or …”

  A crash from somewhere outside. Muffled shouts and panicked yelling filtered through the door.

  Francesca sat in front of the monitors, not moving. “Everyone,” she said, “we may have a problem.”

  * * *

  Jacira Barretto lifted her shirt and inserted the three-inch dagger into a sheath attached to her body armor. Handle down and under her left armpit made for easy reach and relatively good concealment. The rest of her tools were nearly impossible to hide. The white linen shirt and trousers were a lot like the nurse’s scrubs she wore recently, loose and billowy, light and thin, betraying any foreign object under them.

  She decided she’d carry her pistol and pass it off as having stolen it from a guard. Inmates were dumb for the most part, they might believe it, she thought. Her hair was a different story; it would give her away at a glance. She’d settled on a makeshift do-rag to hide it as best as she could. No way she would cut it, not for this.

  She looked over her shoulder at Balthazar. He had the same idea as her on the do-rag, situating it and checking its placement in the reflection in the glass floor.

  The unnamed woman, who had apparently taken a vow of silence, did nothing to hide her long curly red hair. She pulled it back in a ponytail.

  Sarazin stepped into the midst of them, holding something in his hands. He handed each one of them a small cylinder about as long as Jacira’s hand was wide.

  She recognized it as a scroll tablet. The tech impressed her. She unrolled the thin flexible tablet and looked at it.