From nowhere, Aldo produced several sets of plastic cuffs. He secured Brenda’s arms over the back of the chair and then went after her legs. She tried vainly to stop him by kicking at him. She was grunting and straining like she was in mortal combat. No words were spoken while they wrestled. But it was to no avail. Aldo soon had each leg secured to the chair. He stood up and admired his work. Brenda sneered at him.
“Am I allowed to punish her just a little?” Aldo asked in a lust-filled voice as he grinned at the helpless woman. He had waited a long time to put the bitch in her place.
“I have things to tell her yet,” Bernard replied in a husky voice. “She needs to be conscious. Don’t leave any marks.”
As Aldo moved close to her, Brenda spat at him defiantly. He easily danced out of the way and then moved in like a professional boxer. He slapped her across the face with his open hand. Brenda gasped from the sudden pain. He laughed.
She realized she could not stop him from hurting her and he intended to inflict much more pain. She knew he wanted payback for all those years she had spent treating him like a piece of dirt. She began to cry which got her another slap across the face.
“You care about her clothes?” Aldo asked Bernard over his shoulder in his Spanish accented voice.
“No,” the old man managed to croak back.
“Good,” he grinned evilly at the crying woman.
Then he reached inside the top of her blouse and pulled. Buttons, material and her bra ripped open. She gasped at the violation. Her front was now totally exposed.
“Bernard, please make him stop,” she pleaded like a little girl between sobs.
“I will slap your breasts now,” the servant said evilly.
“Please, Bernard. I promise to listen to you. Please stop him. Don’t let him hurt me,” Brenda begged. Aldo slapped her across her breasts making her scream out in pain. The sound was all that Bernard wanted to hear.
“Enough,” he roared. Aldo hesitated for a second, consumed with his own lust. He was breathing heavily, but heeded the old man.
“Maybe later then,” he grinned evilly at Brenda as he stood his ground. She wasn’t worried about going to the barn with Aldo; she was worried about what he would do to her after he was finished.
“Leave us now,” Bernard ordered.
Bernard allowed her a minute to stop crying and calm down, all the time watching her pleasant body shudder and struggle against her bonds.
Once she began to breathe normally, Brenda looked at the old man with suspicion in her eyes. “You planned this bondage act all along. Aldo doesn’t ordinarily carry plastic cuffs in his pocket.”
“Let’s just say I took precautions,” he smoothly replied.
“You knew I would react badly to the news about you having a son. You knew I would realize he will inherit everything and not me. You just wanted to dominate me one more time before you got rid of me.”
“You know so very little my dear,” he answered smugly.
“What’s going to happen to me then?”
“Brenda, Brenda you are always in such a rush,” he replied calmly. “You have forgotten your roots.”
“What in hell do you mean? You asshole.” She attempted to struggle against her bindings. It gave Bernard another jolt of lust.
“You have always dispensed pleasure for a monetary reward. Nothing has changed,” the old man answered coolly.
“Nothing has changed,” she screamed. “You’ve taken away the inheritance you promised me — that’s what has changed.” she spat out. “And now you’re talking about sex.”
“You promised to listen to what I have to tell you,” he warned her in a soft voice. She recognized the implied threat. She didn’t want the creepy Aldo to return.
“Okay, I’ll be good and listen,” she reluctantly agreed.
“You have been loyal to me all these years and despite all your feistiness, I intend to reward you handsomely. You will be well compensated. I promise you, but you have to listen to what I have to tell you. We haven’t much time,” Bernard said.
Brenda’s silence had lasted all of thirty seconds. “Much time before what?”
“We are leaving the farm at six o’clock. It’s part of the plan,” Bernard told her.
“Why?”
“Law enforcement people will probably be crawling all over the place shortly. We need to move to a new location.”
“But what will happen to the farm?”
“I’m afraid that no one will inherit it. The farm and its secrets will become evidence against us. Certainly, my son will not get it.”
“You planned for this too, didn’t you?” Brenda reacted with new hope in her voice. Maybe there was still something for me, she thought.
“The first wave of killings will start tomorrow. We must be far away from here by then,” the old man said.
“But didn’t you tell the President in your letter that he had two days?” Brenda was confused.
“I lied.” He said with a smile.
“Oh!”
“As soon as the authorities start to investigate the killings, they will discover that all the dead people were sent credit cards. That will eventually lead them to the farm. We must be gone long before then.”
“So, the farm is another diversion. Very clever,” Brenda offered as she became more comfortable in her bondage chair.
“It’s a small sacrifice to make to take over the country and the world,” Bernard said like a true fanatic.
“And I’m still getting some money, right?” She was already starting to recover to her old greedy self. How much am I getting?
“When this is over, you will be very rich. I have valuables you don’t know about,” he explained as he nodded his head.
“But you need me to continue being the woman of the household for now, right?” Brenda quickly understood where Bernard was going with the conversation. I can do that, she thought.
“Yes, now let me tell you about my next secret,” Bernard announced.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“F
irst, tell me about your son,” Brenda suddenly asked while interrupting him.
“The less you know about him the better, at least until this project is in full swing,” Bernard replied off-handedly.
“Did you have him since we have been together?” Brenda, despite being mostly exposed to the world, was jealous.
“No, no,” he responded with a wave of his hand. “He was actually a mistake. It happened a long time ago. You see, before you, there were other women,” he replied. “My wife was incapable of any passion. I got one of my employees pregnant. To keep her quiet, I promised to pay her so she could raise the child.”
“Why didn’t you just kill her? That’s more your style.”
“As I said, she worked for me and was a valuable asset. I didn’t want to throw what she could do away. Besides, I decided I might have some use for him some day.”
“You saw him as a possession?” Brenda replied in horror.
“No, I saw him as a possible ally,” Bernard explained. “We had virtually no contact until his mother died, about twenty years ago. I’m his only living relative. No one knows that but me and him. And now you know too.”
Brenda realized she had just learned some valuable information and Bernard would not have told her if he was getting rid of her. But as usual, she could not help herself from being impulsive. “And let me guess. He sought you out to find out about his father — not because you are filthy rich,” she said with sarcasm.
“You have it all wrong, Brenda. I sought him out because we have many things in common,” Bernard responded. “In fact, we have worked together over the last several years. But don’t worry, he will not inherit any of my holdings, he doesn’t need them.”
“Why, is he already rich?” Brenda measured success and happiness by what she had in the bank.
“He seeks control and power over money,” Bernard explained patiently. “He has both already.”
/>
“But you have all three,” Brenda pressed. It was beyond her thinking to believe that anyone didn’t cherish money like she did.
“He is after a higher calling,” Bernard said evasively.
“And you just raise horses,” she replied with added sarcasm.
“I can not tell you anything more until after I talk to him. It will be sometime today,” Bernard said in sadness.
“Are you saying you talk to him often?”
“We have talked to each other for the last twenty years. Sometimes a couple times a week. We have visited each other as well.”
“How were you able accomplish that without me noticing? Until now, I had no idea you had a son. And I certainly didn’t know you were talking to him on a regular basis.” Brenda screeched.
“Brenda, I am a spy remember,” he replied as a reason.
“I want to meet him,” she quickly demanded like a petulant child.
“I believe you will someday. After all, he is part of this plan,” he told the stunned woman.
Chapter Forty
B
ernard’s son was actually a “lifer”, but he wasn’t an inmate in a prison. He was in the military, specifically the Navy. He had spent most of his life at sea on a variety of ships. During those years he had no home port and stayed on military bases between assignments. He never came home to visit his uncaring mother, who lived in land-locked Chicago, Illinois — they just didn’t seem to get along.
She had raised him the best she could, but without a father, he had run wild as he grew up. She could not control him and was not prone or able to punish him when he did something wrong. She just went about fixing things for him. She just didn’t seem to want to be bothered raising a child. He often thought it was because of the guilt she felt about being an unwed mother and the fact that she was frequently not home. He often wondered what she was doing while she was gone, but he never learned what kept her away. As a result, she couldn’t stand up to him and he didn’t respect her at all. He grew up being very spoiled, demanding and self-centered. She always gave in to his demands, no matter what they were just to keep the peace in their dysfunctional home.
When he was still a little boy of about four years old, he asked her about his father. She told him his father was a merchant seaman and was still at sea, but would be home soon. At about the age of eight, he figured out he didn’t have a real father. He had noticed there were no pictures of any man in the house. There were no family photos like he saw in the houses of his friends and she never received a phone call or letter from a man. This time when he asked, she reluctantly told him his father had died at sea, in a shipwreck off of the Cape of Good Hope. That satisfied his curiosity.
As the boy grew, he gravitated to the water. He wanted to be like his father. He took up sailing and scuba diving and spent much of his time on Lake Michigan. By the time he was a teenager, he decided he wanted to spend his life at sea, just like his phantom father had.
He was a good student in school, but was also a bully and was often in trouble. His mother worried about his prospects for college. Her concerns were washed away when, out of nowhere, he received an appointment to the Navy College at Annapolis. He packed his bags and left home that fall. He never returned while he attended school. When he graduated, he went straight to a commission on a destroyer in the Indian Ocean and still never returned home. His mother didn’t seem to care.
When she died, in the mid-nineties, he finally came home, but only to bury her and dispose of her things. On the day of her funeral, he noticed there were only a few people at her funeral. There were some old friends from the neighborhood but no relatives. The friends said nice things about his mother, but when he asked them, none could offer any information about her life. She was a mystery to them.
After the funeral, he returned to his mother’s lonely house and began the process of shedding himself of her things. He decided to keep the small house. It would become his home base, but he also wanted most of her possessions to disappear. His first task started with the large desk which was in her bedroom. He figured his mother must have some assets as she never seemed to have a job and maybe there was a record in the old desk.
He was shocked when he discovered his mother was a diligent record keeper and had extensive files on everything she cared about — including him. He found a file with his name written in her flowing script.
In going through his file, he realized she had followed his career very closely and had news clippings and pictures of him. He didn’t remember anyone taking most of the pictures in the file. It seemed like someone was spying on him and reporting back to her. He was shocked at the details in the folder. They even included an emotional assessment. “He is a closet racist,” one of the reports said. Another said he had a “Napoleon complex”. He was concerned that the information would be damaging to his career if it got out, but was amazed when he realized that he knew both reports were true.
After reading his own folder, he picked another one to read. That one was labeled “Prospects”. The folder was filled with pictures of men at several race tracks from around the country. The men all looked prosperous and happy. Some pictures even included shots of his attractive mother. She usually appeared to be flirting and was dressed to attract men in those shots. What’s this about? He wondered.
On the back of the pictures, he found dates and the names of the men in her careful handwriting. Was my mother a whore? He had no other conclusion.
Once he recovered from that mental blow, he noticed another very thick folder. It simply said “Projects”. He quickly set aside the picture folder and picked up the new one. He was mystified by what he found. The folder was filled with single paged typed reports. They were detailed descriptions about the men in the pictures in the prospects folder. The reports covered their personal lives, their vocations, and their weaknesses. His mother had carefully written in pen the progress she was making with each of them. My God, he thought. My mother was a spy, but for whom?
The light was now fading in the old empty house. He turned on the green bookkeeper lamp on the desk and sat back in the chair to ponder the question. Could she really have been a spy? He remembered her as a beautiful woman with loads of blond hair. She was often dressed up and going out somewhere, especially during the day. She appeared to be well educated and smart, but never talked about her past. She spoke in good English with just a hint of a European accent. He also remembered that her personality was outgoing and flirty, but to him she was as cold as a fish. Was it the description of a successful spy?
Hours later the question was still unanswered. Things became more confusing when the sailor found a ledger hidden in the back of the file draw in the desk. It detailed all the money his mother had received over the years. Everything was lined up in perfect rows with an explanation alongside. There were several large sums listed which he was able to cross-reference with the project folder. There was no mention of where the money came from, nor could he find any checks or receipts. She was probably paid in cash, he thought, which means the money came from someone locally.
As he studied the ledger he noticed there were also monthly listings going back for over thirty years. They were for a set amount of two thousand dollars. Child support, he realized. So, my father is still alive. He then leaned back in the chair and this time put his feet up on the desk as he thought about what he had learned. Everything I believed has been wrong, he thought as he drifted off to sleep.
***
He was awoken when he heard a doorbell ring somewhere in the small house. He struggled to his feet and went in search of the front door. When he opened it, he found a smiling middle-aged man standing regally in the doorway. He was dressed in an expensive black suit, behind the man stood a servant in a white jacket.
“Good evening Captain Michael Meyers,” the man said happily in a cultured voice. He leaned on a gold colored cane.
“Who are you?”
“Why, I’m your father, of c
ourse. I know you didn’t expect me, but here I am,” he said cheerfully. “My name is Bernard Schultz.”
Captain Meyers was stupefied. He didn’t know what to do. He wondered if he should embrace the man, or maybe kill him. He couldn’t decide if he should slam the door in his face or call the police. Is this man really my father? Why else would he be here? His mind went through the ramifications as he stared at the man. He had seen a younger version of the man in several of his mother’s pictures in the folders, but he wasn’t sure if the man was one of her “marks” or was he the head of the spy ring.
“I don’t know you at all,” Captain Meyers managed to croak. “I don’t believe you are my father. I have never known one.”
“Yes, yes, I suppose that is true,” the stately man replied nonchalantly and waved his hand. “May I come inside? We have much to talk about.”
“What would you have to talk about with me?” Captain Meyers suspiciously inquired as he firmly stood in the doorway.
“Well, mostly about the future, I would imagine,” Bernard said reasonably. “I think we could both help each other. Wouldn’t it be nice to have father and son working together towards a common goal?”
“You say you are my father,” Captain Meyers started. “But my mother never mentioned you, ever.”
“Yes, I know, but please believe me, I knew your mother quite well.” the gentlemen replied.
“I’ve never had a father,” Captain Meyers replied with bitterness in his voice. “You’ll have to prove who you are.”
“I assure you, I am your father,” the man said. “Aldo, here has several documents which will prove it. You just have to take the time to read them. I’ll sit quietly,” Bernard said with a warm smile.
“Let me see the proof,” Captain Meyers spat out and held out his hand.
“May I call you Michael? You may call me Bernard if you like. Although father has a nice ring to it,” he said.
“Show me the proof before I toss you off my yard,” Captain Meyers threatened and clinched his fists.
A Dubious Device: The Nanobot Terror (A Colton Banyon Mystery Book 10) Page 13