Portals of Infinity: Reprisal

by John Van Stry

  "He told me all about what went on at Garrison, and up in Boston. I've also heard about South Africa. You've been a busy man, Will."

  I nodded, "Very. Almost done too, which is good because time is running short."

  Addison sighed, "This whole thing has blown up into a rather large investigation, when I took it to my boss, he had a fit. There are people on the staff of the Whitehouse involved in this thing! We had to bring in the Treasury Department."

  "What does the Treasury Department have to do with it?" I asked rather curious.

  "The Secret Service is run by Treasury," he explained.

  "Oh, didn't know that. Were any of the officers implicated?"

  "No, thank god, that would have been a complete meltdown. We've been pulling agents files, authorizing wiretaps, the whole nine yards. It's been a complete headache, but so far we think we've identified them all."

  "Just how many are there?"

  "Thirty-six so far. Four are junior staffers over at the Whitehouse, they look to be recent recruits. Nobody with access to the president, thankfully. We have over a dozen at the Pentagon, three of which are active duty military, another four over at the DOJ, one of which is a senior attorney, five here in the FBI, two congressmen, a senator, and five more civilians, all of whom are lobbyists."

  I nodded, "How many of them know it's a religion?"

  "About half, most of them think it's just a secret society of rich powerful people. Even the ones that do I think are fairly cynical, after all, their 'savior' or 'god,' or whatever the hell Gatwick was calling himself, hasn't been around for a decade now."

  "And once we get this all stamped out, he won't be around ever again," I said. "Have you seen anyone wearing one of these?" I asked and showed him the ring.

  "No, what is it?" he said picking it up and looking at it.

  "The leaders of the different groups wear one. You boss didn't have one, and I need to find the guy that does."

  Addison gave a small laugh, "Kind of brings new meaning to the word 'ringleader' doesn't it?"

  I groaned, "You didn't strike me as the sort for puns, Mister Executive Assistant Director."

  Addison grinned, "Just the good ones. But whoever they are, they're not wearing this around when they're working."

  "Well, give me your list of people, and I'll see what I can find out."

  "You're not going to go on a killing spree, are you?" he asked looking at me.

  "I don't really have the time, and if they're as cynical as you think, once I removed the ringleader, they'll all drift away from it on their own."

  Addison walked over to his briefcase, opened it, and pulled out a manila folder and handed it to me.

  "These are them," he said. "Do me a favor?"

  "I'll try, what do you want?" I said sticking it inside my shirt.

  "Make sure that you leave a lot of incriminating evidence around the body, when you kill them. Without proof of criminal activities or intent, I won't be able to stick those five agents in the pen where they belong."

  "You'd put your own men in jail?" I asked surprised, "I thought the FBI took care of their own."

  "Well, they're not working for the Agency anymore, no matter what they might think."

  "What do you mean?" I asked him

  "You don't have to say that you quit a job to quit it. Not showing up is the most common way, but if you stop doing the job you were hired for? And start working for someone else?" He looked at me, "Then you've quit, regardless of whether you gave notice or not. These agents don't work for us any more, they're just pretending to, and I'm going to hang their asses out to dry the first opportunity I get."

  I nodded slowly, "Interesting way to look at it. Well, I need to get going," I said and headed for the door.

  "It's not just interesting, it's also the law. So when will I hear from you next?"

  "Hopefully, never." I said as I opened the door and left, closing it behind me.

  "So which one do you think is the leader?" Laria asked me as I went over the files.

  I shook my head, "No idea. This being the capitol, everyone is pretty paranoid about getting caught at something they shouldn't be, so they never referred to this guy by his real name, they just called him 'Alexander.'"

  "'Alexander', I wonder why he picked a name like that?"

  I shrugged, "Maybe he thought he was great."

  Laria looked at me, "I don't get it."

  I laughed, "Local history, a thousand years ago we had a very famous conqueror who was named 'Alexander the Great.'"

  "Oh."

  "Well, might as well start with the lobbyists," I said looking over their profiles. Each of them was worth a considerable amount of money; hopefully one of them would know something.

  "Why start with them?" Laria asked looking over my shoulder at the pictures.

  "Because they're influence peddlers."

  "Hmm?" she asked looking confused.

  "They influence the congressmen and senators to vote certain ways, by using their money."

  "Okay, who tells them what to do?"

  "Huh?" I asked looking up at her.

  "My father was one of the village leaders, when people came with bribes to try and influence him, they were always asked to by the people who really wanted something done. They knew if they went to my father, he'd ignore them, so they would pay friends of his to talk to him, and offer him things."

  "So you don't think the guys handing out the bribes are the ones to go after?"

  "Of course not, they'll sell themselves to whoever has the money. You want the guy at the top."

  "And that would be?"

  "Who has the most powerful position there? When Gunis was in charge, he always knew who was really behind what was going on, whether it was a storeowner, or one of the other leaders. You don't stay on top long, otherwise."

  I nodded, it kind of made sense to me. Politics was never my strong suit anyway.

  I shuffle through the files and laid one out. "That would be this man."

  "Oh? And who is he?" Laria said looking at his picture, "He looks kind of cute for an older man."

  "That is Senator Doland," I said. "And he will not be an easy man to get to."

  "Oh, I'm sure you can do it," Laria smiled and leaned into me, giving me a hug.

  I shook my head smiling. "Well, tomorrow we can start figuring things out, for now, let's get some dinner and relax."

  The plan turned out to be incredibly simple; I dressed Laria up in a Catholic High School outfit, gave her a tape recorder and a stolen press pass from the local Catholic High School, and sent her in with a list of questions to interview the Senator.

  Laria was already a pretty attractive woman, and in that outfit, she was stopping traffic. Why so many guys are hung up on Catholic High School girls, I honestly don't know, but she did look pretty hot in it.

  As soon as the Senator saw her, he was quick to give her an interview, and when Laria started to flirt with him, after asking him questions about what it was like to be such a strong and powerful man, he took the bait and started to flirt back.

  Twenty minutes later, when she left the interview, she had his phone number, the address of a 'private' apartment of his on the west side, and an invitation for tonight at seven pm.

  "Well, that was easy," she laughed when I picked her up out front.

  "His file did mention that he has a weakness for young girls," I grinned at her.

  "I'm not a girl, I'm a woman!" Laria protested.

  "In that outfit, you look like a sixteen-year-old virgin," I laughed.

  "Is that a good thing?"

  "It's the kind of thing that gets him going. Come on, let's find this place, then I have to get ready for tonight."

  "What about me?" she asked.

  "Oh, I think you're already ready for tonight," I smirked.

  When we got there I drove around the building twice, it was a pretty standard apartment block, with his little 'love nest' on the top floor. Security was pretty
good, so I wouldn't just be able to walk in. But I was fairly certain I could climb to the top in my champion form, it was an older building with a brick facade and a lot of balconies for the apartments there.

  We went back to our own hotel room to get ready, and I showed Laria that yes, I too could be motivated by her outfit, and impressively so! Then we got cleaned up, she put on something that was a little less outlandish, but still the kind of outfit we'd noticed the young women around here wearing and I dropped her off in front, then I parked in a parking structure we'd found earlier in the day.

  It was dark enough that I was able to sneak over there rather quickly, and climbing up the building probably only took me fifteen minutes. Then it was a matter of going around balconies and peeking in until I found the right one.

  Considering the number of older men with younger women, or even boys, that I was seeing, apparently there were a lot of congressmen and senators with apartments here.

  When I finally found the right one, he had her down to her panties, and was seriously going to town.

  That didn't sit very well with me, even if this had all been my idea. I walked into the room from the balcony without stopping to even open the glass door, the sound of the breaking glass caught his attention and he turned to look at me, rather shocked.

  "Oh dear, I was afraid he'd be jealous," Laria said grinning at me. I got the distinct feeling that she was enjoying my possessiveness.

  "What the hell is that?" the Senator gasped, as I was still in my champion form.

  "My boyfriend," Laria said and threw her top over his head, blinding him.

  Two steps later and I had him in my grasp, and I tossed him down on the bed, "Get me something to tie him up with," I told her.

  She nodded and went to look in the closet, coming back with a bunch of short ropes all cut to the same length, and a black hood with a gag, and several pairs of handcuffs.

  "Looks like the senator is a pretty kinky one," I sighed, and using the ropes I bound him up fairly quickly, then gave Laria her top back and prepared to slip the hood over his head.

  "I'm a US senator!" He said, "Let me go, or you'll be spending your life in prison!"

  I stopped took out the ring and dropped it on the bed, in front of his face.

  "Where did you get that?" he demanded.

  "Off of one of your priests, after I killed him. And you're going to tell me where the one is you report to around here, so I can kill him too!" I growled.

  "Never! I'll have your ass! Gatwick will save me."

  "Don't you count on it," I laughed, and pulled the hood down and stuck the gag in his mouth.

  "Now what?" Laria asked me,

  "I'll climb down with him on the outside; you can just go out the way you came in."

  "I had to sign in when I came here, they'll know I was the last one with him," she pointed out.

  I shrugged, "Can't be helped. But no one knows who you are, so I don't think it will matter."

  "I have a better idea," she grinned.

  "I'm all ears," I said.

  "Give him to Feliogustus. Let him question him. You can carry me down, and no one will know what happened to either one of us."

  I looked at her, and then I looked at him. Then I opened a gateway and tossed him through.

  "I didn't want to interrogate him anyway," I sighed, "he probably would have bled all over me."

  We searched the place then, just in case he had any kind of evidence there about who 'Alexander' was, and then took the time to clean things up and make sure there were no traces of either one of us having been there. The only thing of interest we came across was quite a bit of cocaine; apparently the good senator was also a bit of a cokehead.

  Then we left.

  § §

  "I told you I liked her," Fel grinned at me, "she's smart."

  I nodded, "Yeah, I wouldn't have thought of doing that on my own."

  "So, who is the local priest? Who is this Alexander?"

  "Will, I have some good news, and I have some not so good news," Fel told me.

  "And that is?"

  "His name is James Oakenbeck, I can give you his address, where he works, and where they meet, and a much longer list of members."

  I nodded, "What's the bad news?"

  "He goes by Alexander, because that's the man who founded the Treasury Department, of which he is now the head."

  "Damn," I swore, "so he knows everything that Addison knows."

  Fel nodded, "And they also know about you."

  "Well, considering that the former assistant director fingered me, we already suspected that much."

  "But now they know you're in town, and looking for them. Everyone is going to have a photo of you, and they're going to be watching."

  I nodded, "That is going to complicate things. So, was the senator really a true believer?"

  "He was." Fel laughed, "He's since learned the error of his ways."

  "Couldn't happen to a better man, I'm sure. I can just imagine the furor when people realize he's missing."

  "Oh, I wouldn't worry about that much," Fel said.

  I looked at him, "What does that mean?"

  "William, a U.S. senator is not something you just throw away!" Fel said grinning, "Doland is going to be very useful to me, plus once you've dealt with Oakenbeck, he will be there to very publicly and loudly throw Oakenbeck under the bus, which will help Addison when he moves to clean up the mess."

  I shrugged, "If you say so, that's fine with me. I did promise Addison to try and keep the body count low."

  Fel gave me the information I needed then, and there was quite a lot of it. Oakenbeck was going to be a tough one to crack, but I had a few advantages that they didn't know about. After all, they still thought I was human working by myself.

  § §

  Now that I knew they were actively watching for me, I restricted all of my activities until after sundown, which this being November, wasn't that big of a deal. I bought a couple of sweatshirts with hoods, and made sure I wore hats a lot, and added a pair of fake glasses sometimes.

  It may sound simple, but anything that made it harder for people to get a look at your face, helped. They weren't putting my picture up on the news of course, or spreading it around with the police, because that would get back to Addison, who'd then know he'd been comprised.

  But I was sure the Secret Service and other Treasury agents had it, so I did my best to be careful.

  Oakenbeck had a nice estate outside of D.C. in the nicer part of town, one of the more expensive suburban areas, it had pretty extensive security as well. But I also knew that he didn't do his dirty business there, or keep any traces at his house. That would be the first place people would go search, if he ever came under suspicion, after all.

  Their secret meeting place was actually in one of the older basement storerooms of one of the Smithsonian Institution Buildings, the one known as 'The Castle'. This had several benefits, the first was that if anyone accidentally came upon the storeroom, when there wasn't a meeting going on, they'd just assume the items there were of some historical merit and being stored for future exhibition.

  The second was being on the Capitol Mall made it close by to all of the major government buildings, no one would have to travel any distance, which might draw suspicion, and they could easily walk there, and get lost in the general press of people while doing so.

  Third, being over a hundred years old meant that it was well connected to the underground rabbit warren of steam tunnels and other utility access ways that also existed under Washington. This latter point made it easy for everyone to show up unnoticed when necessary.

  I had to admit, that I was impressed. I was a bit surprised at first that there was little security, you'd think they'd have a few cameras set up to watch the approaches, and maybe even some hidden access ways, but apparently the best way to draw attention to something was to try and hide it. Also, when it came to cameras, the last thing any of these people wanted was a record o
f what they were doing, because those could easily fall into the wrong hands.

  So now I knew who they were, and I knew where they were. I even knew when the next meeting was going to take place; I just didn't have an idea of how to best solve this problem. Oh I could kill Oakenbeck, and if there was in fact an altar down there, I could destroy that too.

  But the issue, the real issue, was how to ruin all these people? And how to ruin them all at once? How do you get them in trouble? Put them in jail? What kind of scandal can you expose a politician and all the rest of these government workers to, that will actually ruin them?

  It took me a while to come up with a solution to that one: Prostitutes. And not just female ones, but male ones as well, all preferably underage ones to boot.

  I had thought about that for a while, if Addison and the FBI were to suddenly bust in, while a party full of underage boys and girls, all nude, with the men there also in various states of undress, well that would ruin all of them. Assuming that the press got pictures.

  So I just had to arrange for about thirty underage prostitutes, or at least kids wild enough to pretend that they were, the FBI, and the press, to all show up at about the same time. Nobody would actually have to be having sex; just appearances alone would do the damage.

  I'd also have to get the attendees to get into the swing of things as well, but considering the morals of most of the denizens of D.C. these days, I suspected it wouldn't be all that hard. Still, I'd need to find a little something to help with the mood.

  I sent Laria off to find my group of morally lacking youths, ones who'd be willing to do this kind of thing for money, and willing to lie that they were having sex with the men there.

  Addison, I figured I could prep with a visit, and then give him the location when things got rolling. As for the press, with the way things worked in this town, I suspected they could be on the scene ten minutes after they got the phone call. Especially if it was a juicy scandal.

  So that just left me with how to set the mood.

  I knew from the coke I'd found in Doland's apartment, and from what Fel had told me he'd learned from him, that these guys were already heavy drinkers and drug users and were always just looking for an excuse to party, so I just had to give them one.