by Finian Blake
“Is Henry the one that sent those Mercs?” Rhonda said considering bring out some of her old habits from the sweeper program where she originated from.
“From what I can tell by digging into the computer the Mercs were reporting directly to Salvador Ardent,” Nick said confidently. “It appears that Salvador invested a lot of money in upgrading his operation in anticipation of landing the NSA backup contract which never came up for bids. He hired Russian Mercs after researching our operation to make it look like a foreign retaliation. Salvador was drooling over the prospect of receiving a lucrative government contract that carried minimum oversight.”
“I see,” Cherry said so quietly that everybody almost missed the answer.
“That’s all,” Rhonda, Boris, and Nick said at the same time.
“Yes, THAT… IS… ALL…,” Cherry said firmly. “And I don’t want anybody doing anything independently. My father Alex taught me never to make threats. THE MATTER WILL BE DEALT WITH.”
“Come on give us a taste,” Rhonda pushed.
“As you know from experience,” Cherry started wanting to provoke Rhonda. “These teams are extremely expensive to build, and Salvador did not give the right information to whoever dispatched the teams, so they lost two irreplaceable four man teams. I am calculating that whoever dispatched the teams may exact retribution from Salvador, but that may include sending another team our way.”
“So how is this good news,” Boris asked.
“We know that they will almost certainly come and this time we will be looking for them,” Cherry said. “The last two times were an accidental discovery and we most certainly would not have found them if it had not been for Nadia plus this time we will be hunting the dispatcher. Killing the teams is one thing but we really have to do is kill the person that is sending them.”
“So you do not want me to play even the smallest trick,” Boris expressed his disappointment. “I have some very fine tricks that I can play on them. It would not take me very much time at all to attack their mainframes.”
“Forewarned is forearmed, or so the saying goes,” Cherry said grimly. “We know that they are coming just not when they are coming. On the other hand, they have no idea that we even know about them.”
“What do you mean,” Rhonda exclaimed, “we have killed eight of their people.”
“Oh really, where the bodies,” Cherry said coyly. “What they do have are eight missing people that might be dead or might have run off with the payment without doing their job. Boris there is one more thing that you need to do for us.”
“And what would that be?”
“You need to find out who the dispatcher is if we can get to the dispatcher before he can send another team I believe that will end it.” Cherry gave Boris a big hug smashing her breasts against his chest.
“Then I shall not rest,” Boris said brightly. “In that case leave us, Nick, I have work to finish.”
Lloyd was going crazy in his hospital room. His male nurse Max looked like a nose guard from a professional football team. At six foot six and weighing 290 pounds the idea of sucker punching Max and taking his clothes seemed like a really bad bet. Around one o’clock a neatly dressed man walked in the room carrying a notepad. Lloyd noted that he was wearing a dress shirt but had no tie or suit coat. The man walked up to him smiling and handed Lloyd his card.
“Hi, my name is Felix Owens. Your friend Steve called and told me that you would need a lawyer. Your friend did not have a great amount of information for me he just said that I might be interested in the case. Perhaps you could fill me in.” Lloyd then went into a long explanation of how he came to be at the hospital and how Cher McKenzie had kicked in the side of his head.
“That is one vicious little bitch,” Felix said not trying to hide the venom in his voice. “And that German shepherd, I would like to put a bullet in that thing. He tore the zipper right out of my pants thank God he didn’t take any meat with it.” Lloyd’s jaw dropped when Felix put his hand to his mouth pulling out a three tooth partial plate.
“It is almost exactly what happened to me except for the fact that she didn’t kick my teeth out.” Lloyd was mumbling because of his bandage.
“Well do you see that mountain of a male nurse,” Felix asked not waiting for an answer. “Don’t tell Max that she kicked you unconscious. He has a daughter her age and that was the worst seven months of my life.”
“Seven months,” Lloyd howled in disbelief. “They kept you in here for seven months!”
“I made a few mistakes along the way. It was the second time I was in here. I escaped once, and then the second time I sucker punched that mountain of a male nurse,” Felix said dropping his voice down to a whisper. “Do you know what it’s like to hit a man with your best punch and the net result is that he laughs at you?”
“No, I have never had that happen.” Lloyd said being thankful that he had not followed his first inclination. “What happened?”
“Well, Max laughed and walked out of the room without doing anything,” Felix said dejectedly, “and then every day for the next six months Max gave me a hypodermic shot twice a day that felt like he was harpooning Moby Dick. I swear to God that he dulled the needle before he came in.”
“But seven months,” Lloyd said sounding sour, “did you fight it in court?”
“I was committed in a County Court and the judge hated my guts because I violated three restraining orders. The last violation was breaking into Tom Thomas’s house, and they committed me. As a matter of fact, I believe this was my room when I was in here.” Lloyd was feeling seriously screwed.
“I don’t know…” Lloyd said sounding panicked.
“Oh, I am not going to represent you,” Felix said with an understanding smile. “Since I was not family the only way I could get in here was claiming to be your attorney. If I ended up in front of that one judge you would probably get the electric chair for jaywalking. Be very careful with that Boris we had a disagreement and after that I couldn’t get anything electronic to work right for a year. I still think that he’s peeking in on me. Every time the cable TV goes out I think that he is screwing with me again. Then you have her aunt Cherry Newly. I sucker punched her one little tap, and the whole thing happened because of that incident.” Felix was starting to sound completely unnerved. When Max walked in the room Lloyd thought that he could see Felix physically shrink.
“Mister Owens how nice it is to see you,” Max said sounding overly polite. “Is it true you will be representing Lloyd?”
“No…! Lloyd’s normal attorney will be representing him after all. I don’t even practice law in this county.” Felix’s blind panic was obvious. It became worse when he saw the hypodermic needle in Max’s tray. Felix skirted around Max sprinting down the hall claiming his suit jacket and tie at the gate.
“I hope that Felix hasn’t been telling stories about me,” Max said in a friendly tone. “We might be together for a while. I have an order from the court that you will be staying with us for a psychological evaluation. I hear that a sixteen-year-old girl did that to you.” Max pointed at the bandages covering half of Lloyd’s face. “Right now we have no idea of what the court is charging you with. We have impounded your clothes and everything that you were carrying as evidence.”
“No, she was riding a horse and a horse kicked me,” Lloyd lied thankful for Felix’s visit.
“Your friend Steve brought you some clothes you can have the sweatpants and sweatshirt. We will have to hold the rest until you are released or you move to minimum security. I hope that we can be friends Mister Owens always seemed to be angry. Anyway, here is Steve.”
“Wow, they really patted me down before letting me in,” Steve complained. “I saw Felix Owens leaving was he any help?”
“I think that he saved me a lot of grief. As a lawyer I think he’s a fuck up,” Lloyd complained. “Did you look up his record?”
“Yeah, I’ll give you the short form,” Steve started. “He was hired by
Senator Belight to find out whether a certain file existed or didn’t exist, and in the process he beat the shit out of Cherry Newly, told Rhonda Savage, the director of the NSA, the director of the FBI, and the AG to get fucked. Along the way he violated four restraining orders capping it all off by breaking into Tom Thomas’s house using a 9 mm pistol to assault Cher McKenzie, and Sue Thomas. Oh yeah he also beat the shit out of his wife putting her in the hospital which landed him a seven month stay in this very room.”
“Holy shit, the way he was talking this whole thing was just one big mistake,” Lloyd said not believing his ears. “At least I’m not that bad.”
“No, you just broke into private property caring an assortment of weapons including a pistol, and duct tape. Your camera had more than a few pictures of those girls on it. There is one saving grace, and that is that the girls both say that you did not have the pistol out but you were just trying to control their mounts. The zipper was torn out of your pants and there was a considerable amount of blood. Other than that there isn’t much against you except for the fact that we both got busted two days earlier trespassing there. From what I was able to find out by hanging out at the cop bar is that they can decide whether to charge you with simple assault, assault with a deadly weapon, assault on a minor, or attempted rape of a minor. The really bad news is that Ted McKenzie and Tom Thomas are trying real hard to get the DA to dismiss all the charges even trespassing.”
“How is that bad news,” Lloyd exclaimed.
“Both men will be waiting for you as you come out of the hospital to discuss why you were attacking their daughters with a backpack of rape equipment and a camera. Tom is the former MP that is six-foot-tall, 200 pounds, and Ted is a red headed giant with biceps the size of my thighs.” Steve made his offer, “when the time comes I will pull the car around front and wait for you. While they’re watching me you should be able to sneak out the back door.” Max walked in the room with the bag that Steve packed, and a wheelchair.
Steve waited patiently until Lloyd was fully dressed and Max had unfolded the wheelchair.
“I’ll run down and get the car.” Steve hurried out of the room finding that the guard at the gate was holding it open for him. Lloyd went to walk out of the room and Max put a hand on his shoulders pushing him into the chair fastening a locking seatbelt around his waist.
“Hospital regulations state that I must take you to the door in a wheelchair, it’s how we discharge our patients.” Max grabbed the back of Lloyd’s neck holding it like a vice. “We never did get a chance to talk. I would like to tell you about my sixteen-year-old daughter.”
Steve was waiting in the drive by the front door when Max rolled Lloyd out to a windowless white Van. He watched as Max undid the seatbelt lifting Lloyd out of the wheelchair by the back of his neck. Steve watched as a huge hand came out of the Van accepting Lloyd and dragging him inside. He watched as the vehicle pulled out of the drive. Steve could not figure out why he did it, but he threw the car in gear following the van. Inside the back of the Van Ted roughly pulled Lloyd’s sweat pants down around his ankles while Tom opened a white Styrofoam cooler. Lloyd recognized the driver as the very tall lady from the other day. Tom and Ted each took an arm forcing Lloyd’s ass into the cooler. Ted ripped a piece of duct tape off the roll roughly forcing it over Lloyd’s mouth. The first bite came almost instantly as Lloyd’s eyes went wide, and Tom holding up a watch started to explain.
“There are two hundred Maryland blue point Crabs in that cooler. Your ass is going to stay in a cooler for a full five minutes no more, no less. I am not going to threaten you. You will never again go on my property or come within a mile of my daughter.” Tom held the watch up so that Lloyd could read the digits as they counted down. Nadia pulled over on the shoulder of the road when there were just fifteen seconds left. Steve pulled off the road on the shoulder about 50 yards behind the windowless van. The rear doors opened and Lloyd came flying out. Nadia threw the van in gear driving off rapidly. Steve pulled the car up behind Lloyd before getting out. Lloyd had just pulled the tape off his mouth starting to scream incoherently with his pants still around his ankles. As Steve approached he noticed countless red marks on Lloyd’s buttocks and genitals.
“Crabs… fucking crabs, who would think of fucking crabs,” Lloyd bent over to pull up his pants picking out three crabs before he did. Lloyd followed Steve to the car opening the back door lying down on his stomach. “They had me sit in those damn crabs for five minutes. I thought that I was going to lose my mind. That was the longest five minutes of my life it seemed like a whole month.”
“What did they say?”
“Tom told me to stay away from his property and his daughter,” Lloyd said bitterly.
“What did they threaten you with,” Steve asked. “How are you going to get the message if they don’t tell you what they’re going to do?”
“I’ve got the message there is no doubt in my mind of what they want me to do.”
“Now that you understand what they want. Are you going to do it?”
“Nobody does that to me and gets away with it. I WANT SOME ASS!” Steve could not believe what he heard coming out of Lloyd’s mouth.
“Hey Lloyd, I think it’s time to cut your losses and get away from these lunatics. It could’ve been a lot worse.”
“How could it have been worse? Your ass wasn’t sitting in that cooler for five minutes!” Lloyd was, so mad that he was actually turning purple.
“One thing comes to mind, and that is that they could of duct taped your ass to the inside of the cooler and those blue points could’ve dined on your tender parts all day.” Steve grabbed Lloyd by both arms trying to get his attention. “Lloyd, these guys are for real nasty dudes. Personally I can take some humiliation, but if you want to play with them you can do it on your own. I kept my word and bailed you out but now I am going to apply my common sense and get the hell away from you. Where would you like to go?
Salvador Ardent poured two glasses of whiskey giving one to Henry Archer and drinking half of his glass before sitting down. The Ardent Building had an excellent view of the inner harbor. Salvador’s office seemed sterile and modern. The furniture was mostly brushed stainless steel, glass, and leather. The computers on his desk were arrayed in a functional order without trying to disguise the wires.
“I don’t understand it,” Salvador said in a sulking tone. “We didn’t even get to bid on that NSA contract. Two years ago the company didn’t even exist and today it doesn’t even have a name. How do you fill out a multimillion dollar contract when you don’t even have a name? I would buy one of their employees if I knew where I could find one.”
“Maybe it’s a black op.” Henry offered as he took a slow sip of his drink.
“I might agree with you, but they’ve taken a full third of the global private sector.” Salvador slammed down his drink moving over to the counter to refill his glass. “Who can buy four mainframe computers and God knows how many servers without arranging any finance. That is somewhere around $50,000,000 worth of hardware, plus all of that facility. Where the hell did they come up with money?”
“All of the private business is going to a company called Four Diamonds Computer Security. If that’s the case, you are talking about an international company with offices in seventy countries. Have you heard anything from those Russians that you hired,” Henry asked.
“No I haven’t heard one damn thing from them. I hired Russians because you said there are some Russians working over there. I left out the contract with a promise that he would have them shut down before the end of the week, and that was last week,” Salvador said still sulking. “That goofy Russian Ivan hasn’t contacted me yet.” Salvador picked a laptop off of the table that was next to him typing in Ivan’s Skype address.
“Mister Ardent what may I do for you?”
“Ivan you were supposed to have their operation shutdown before they started up. Why are they still operating,” Salvador said not trying to hide
his impatience?
“They are still operating because two of my teams are missing. I think that you might have neglected to tell me something.” Ivan’s real name was Dimitri Ivanoff, but Salvador called all of the Russians Ivan.
“All right, they are missing, so they are at the bar.”
“Each team has four members all very well trained,” Dimitri started to explain trying to hold his temper. “It makes eight men who went out and disappeared without a trace. If they had been taken out that completely it means that the people that they’re up against her much better than you let me to believe. I’m still trying to figure out why none of the eight were able to report in.” Dimitri forced himself to remain calm.
“Ivan you are in a dangerous business, now you have been well-paid while delivering no results. I am paying you for results not excuses.”
“These men are Spetsnaz which is like your Green Berets or Seals they are all professional and having eight of these professionals turn up missing without so much as the message is a very bad thing,” Dimitri said trying desperately to maintain control. “Is there any chance that we have been betrayed?”
“No there is absolutely no chance. We gave you laptops for Skype communication and Henry and I are the only people that know about you. You better believe that we are not going to brag about hiring Mercs to take out our competition.” Salvador’s sarcasm finally got to Dimitri.
“I do believe you are that stupid,” Dimitri flared. “You can’t even get my name right. My name is Dimitri not Ivan. They call Russians Ivan’s because it is a popular name much like John in your country. So John, I have eight dead men because you have not given me the correct information. I am sending for eight more men they will take care of business and then…”
“And then what…” Salvador asked.
“And then you will pay, John.” Dimitri broke the Skype connection and punched the wall leaving a hole.