Operation

by Tony Ruggiero

  “But who—”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass where or who they get if from,” Stone said. “Just do it!”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll see to it.”

  “If it works, get them moved to the secure compound at the amphibious base. We might as well get our money’s worth out of it.”

  “Sir, with this congressional attention, do you think that this is a good idea—”

  “I don’t give a shit about the pencil neck assholes—just do it!”

  “Yes, sir. But there is one thing you should be aware of.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We’ve been getting some inquiries through the Joint Chiefs from some of the spooks.”

  That piqued Stone’s interest. “Which one was it? CIA?” he asked.

  “JCS wouldn’t say,” Scott answered.

  “Wouldn’t say or didn’t know?” Stone asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What are they aware of?” Stone asked.

  “We had to get spook involvement when we had the shipment back to the States of the two bodies. Apparently whichever agency was involved, traced them to SOCOM, and it raised a lot of eyebrows and now the questions are flying of why we brought back non-US citizen bodies at such a priority.”

  “Then they don’t know shit. Just more overpaid civil servants who don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground. Don’t worry about it. If they have any questions, they can come to me and I will deal with them.”

  * * * *

  Reese and Barkley gathered their things from their quarters and were awaiting the duty van to take them back to their vehicles. As they waited, they talked of different things to pass the time.

  “Back to Kosovo for you?” Reese asked.

  “No, the general was able to get me orders back stateside. I guess it was a form of payback. You?” he asked Reese.

  “Back to my desk job right here, business as usual. I’ll finish out the last couple months of my tour and then retire. Time to move on to something new.”

  “That’s great,” Barkley said cheerfully. “Congratulations. What a note to end a career on. Wasn’t this whole thing bizarre? Right down to the cliffhanging ending. Yeah, interesting…”

  Reese heard the hesitancy in Barkley’s voice.

  “What’s wrong, Sam?” Reese asked.

  “Something’s bugging me.”

  “What’s that?”

  Barkley looked at Reese and said in a serious tone, “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not insinuating anything, John, but when did you have the extra remote device made—the one that you used to activate the collars? I thought I had all the spares with me in medical.”

  “You must have missed that one,” Reese said. “I have been known to have sticky fingers at times.”

  Barkley looked at Reese with a questioning look, but then smiled. “You Navy guys are all the same, aren’t you?”

  “How’s that?” Reese asked.

  “Thieves at heart,” he said and laughed. Reese laughed along with him.

  “Damn, you figured me out,” Reese said and clapped him on the back. He then turned away from Barkley and let out a sigh of relief.

  Chapter Sixty

  Several months later, John Reese, recently retired commander from the U.S. Navy, was looking through the evening addition of the Virginian Pilot and stopped when he read the heading of an article: Abrupt Decline of Crime in the Norfolk Ocean View Area. As he read further, the article explained that the once crime-ridden areas of Ocean View had become devoid of hardened criminal elements that had used the area as a source for numerous criminal activities. Tourism was on a healthy recovery not seen for the past twenty years. Developers were lining up to invest in the area once considered the armpit of Virginia.

  This amazing turnaround of one of the most notorious areas of Norfolk was directly accredited to the police force, who commented, “The hard work of the vice branch has made significant contributions to the dramatic change. The dedicated men and women of the police force have taken back their city.”

  Further in the article, buried at the very end, there was an anonymous comment from a member of the force that claimed that the reduction of the crime was a result of a mysterious disappearance of the crime element and not from the direct actions of the police force.

  There was no comment from the police force on the remarks and they were attributed to a disgruntled employee looking to make trouble by insinuating something else had caused the decline.

  Reese put down the paper as he glanced toward the window. It was almost sunset and he thought he should probably get some rest. It was going to be a long night as he planned to go out and search for the nightmare of his own dreams that he had unleashed upon the city of Norfolk.

  * * * *

  It was close to midnight as Reese sat at a table in the bar called The Mad Sailor, the fourth bar he had been in this evening. It was one of several bars along the strip, an area adjacent to the Naval Station, which made it an opportune environment for drug dealers, prostitutes and assorted others to attempt to make sales to the thousands of sailors that claimed Norfolk as their home.

  “What can I get you?” the waitress asked, as she placed the napkin on the table.

  “How about a beer?” Reese said.

  “What kind?”

  “Whatever you have on tap will be fine.”

  The waitress hurried off to fill his order. Reese scanned the small crowd of people. He assumed it would have been more crowded for a Friday night, but not having been here before, he wasn’t really sure what to expect.

  “Here you go,” the waitress said, placing the beer on napkin. “Two bucks.”

  Reese gave her a five. “Keep it.”

  “Thanks,” she said, as she gave him a friendly smile.

  “Is this what you would call a normal crowd for a Friday night?” he asked.

  “It was crowded earlier, during the happy hour. But the past few weeks, it has been quiet.”

  “Why?” Reese asked.

  “I wouldn’t want to say...but we had some bad kind of people hanging around, if you know what I mean.”

  “Like?”

  “Oh the usual, druggies, prostitutes, drunks—you know.”

  “So what happened?”

  “They all just...went away.”

  “Disappeared?”

  She leaned closer to him and spoke in a lower voice as to not be overheard. “I think the cops have some kind of thing going on. Like forgetting about due process and just rounding the bad guys up and taking them away like to another town or...something to get rid of them.”

  “I think I read about that in the paper just today,” Reese said.

  “You believe what you read in the paper?” She laughed. “You’re a—”

  “Sally,” the bartender called the waitress.

  “Got to get to work. Nice talking to you. Maybe I’ll see you around?”

  “You never know. Thanks.”

  Reese watched as she walked away. She was kind of cute, he thought. Maybe he would—

  “Mind if I join you?”

  Reese jumped at the voice. His shock was not from the surprise of hearing a voice, but that he immediately recognized it. His own reaction confused him and made him think that perhaps he had made a mistake by coming to this bar.

  “Mind if I join you?” the voice asked again.

  Reese turned in the direction the voice had come from. His eyes came to rest upon who he had sought, the vampire Dimitri.

  Reese’s first reaction was that the civilian clothes Dimitri wore were a change for the vampire. Reese had usually seen him dressed in the camouflage uniforms the Navy SEALs had issued them. Now he wore jeans, a sweatshirt and bright white New Balance running shoes. Even in the dim light of the bar, he could make out the vampire’s prominent Slavic features that even his vampirism could not change. The dark black hair, the hawk-like nose and the dark eyes on either side.

  He would blend into a crowd and
never be noticed—how convenient for a killer.

  “Have a seat. I’ve been looking for you,” Reese said, trying to keep the calm in his voice.

  “I know.” Dimitri said, as he sat in the chair next to Reese. “We are more alike in our ways of thinking then you can imagine, or should I say, than you want to believe. We are not very different.”

  “So, how have you been?” Reese asked, ignoring his statement of their similarities.

  “Adapting,” Dimitri said, as if one word would suffice what Reese wanted to know. He smiled, showing his perfect white teeth.

  “So it appears. I read an interesting article in the paper today. Seems the criminal element in Norfolk is suffering from an amazing attrition rate lately.”

  Dimitri smiled. “Yes, I saw it too. The wonders of the free press.”

  “You find it amusing?” Reese felt his anger flare. What evil have I loosed? What have I done?

  “Yes. It is as you say, amusing in a way—from my perspective. I am over one hundred years old and the one thing that never changes is the mortal perception of things.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Even when you get what you seek, you still find a problem with it. We have transformed this city in a few months. We have made it safer, tourism is on the rise and everyone is happy.”

  “Not everyone. What about your victims?”

  “They are just that…victims. Victims of a society that has cast them away. I don’t think the general public would agree with your position, at least not openly. They have their streets back again. They can go out and walk in safety without fear of being preyed upon. The undesirable element has been removed. As you say, the cleaner the better.”

  “I didn’t let you escape so that you could come into where I live and kill people.”

  “What did you expect would happen?” Dimitri said, slightly raising his voice. “We must survive, just as we would have if we were back home in Kosovo. Need I remind you that it was your military, with your assistance, that brought us here? We did not come on our own. Your military sought to use us to kill your enemies—these drug cartels. You, unlike them, saw this for what it was—slavery. You freed us from our incarceration, for which we are grateful. But you knew what would happen in the end. As my kind has done for thousands of years, we prey on what society throws our way.”

  “Yes,” Reese answered. Dimitri’s logic and rhetoric is so convincing. It was slavery and it was wrong. General Stone intended to continue these creatures without any concern for them as to their own existence. “I knew it. But—”

  “No, my friend. Do not try and argue your conscience. You punish yourself for nothing. You know all the facts about us; you who have studied my kind and know that we occupy a place in society. We live as we have always lived throughout all these centuries. Our existence will go on. The only thing that has changed is our location.”

  “You make it sound…so simple, so matter-of-fact like.”

  “It is. Are you so naïve to think that my kind does not exist here already?”

  “What do you mean by here?”

  “Do you believe that we would limit ourselves to only the Balkan region? My kind has been in this country for centuries. You know of your literature and film, your Interview with a Vampire.”

  “Yes.”

  “It is not far from the truth. It has the over-glorification that Hollywood does to these things, but there are some truths in between the…how do you say…the bullshit.”

  “But how have they gone unnoticed?”

  “Ah…you seek more information for your book?”

  “Well…I…”

  “Your quest for knowledge is admirable. However, I will not relinquish it to you. I won’t take the thrill of discovery from your grasp. That is what keeps us alive, both mortal and immortal—the thrill of learning new things. If it was easy, there would be no reason to go would there?”

  “No I guess not,” Reese said. He couldn’t help but feel admiration for this creature; to have lived so long and seen so much. He knows us better then we know ourselves. “So what’s next for you, Andre and Illiga? If as you claim, most of the bad people—the society castaways, as you put it, have been taken care of, what will you do? Resort back to cattle and livestock?”

  “As I said, we are adapting to our new environment. The article in the paper means someone has taken notice. The police will of course believe they are responsible for a lot of the cleaning up, but eventually someone will disprove it and another explanation will be sought. It is time for us to move on before it gets to that point.”

  “But how? You need money here, it’s not like it was in the back country of the Balkans.”

  “We have money. Part of our adaptation has included creating bank accounts, the spoils of some our clients. Money has always been the solution to many of our problems. Regardless of the century, we have used it to buy our secrecy. Everyone has a price. We have already begun investing in real estate all around the country.”

  “Well, you certainly have become wise to our ways. So where are you going?”

  “Somewhere,” Dimitri said. “We have one more issue we need to take care of before we move.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s best you don’t know,” Dimitri said sternly. His calm facial expression changed to a serious and perplexed look of deep thought.

  Reese caught a momentary glimpse of the red glow in Dimitri’s eyes as he thought about whatever the issue was he needed to resolve. He had seen that look to many times before: that red glow of their eyes before the kill.

  “And what shall you do?” Dimitri asked, returning to his normal calm and casual demeanor.

  “Me?” Reese asked. “I have a book to finish.”

  “Ah…that is good, your quest for knowledge. This book, it is about things that most people do not believe?”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “It is your passion...or as you say, in your blood.” Dimitri smiled. “You seek to prove what many do not believe because you believe that people created these things for a reason, and in many cases it is based on truth of some sort.”

  “That’s correct,” Reese agreed. “The book deals with myth and folklore. I hope it will be used in a class as the textbook. Young people need to know of these things.”

  “These things you refer to, do you not mean human nature?”

  “People do things for a reason,” Reese began. “When we examine those reasons, we learn to understand people, their motivations for creating the legends. Whether out of fear, social turmoil, climatic changes or dozens of other reasons, people react to these changes.”

  “And how would you describe vampirism?” asked Dimitri.

  “What all of mankind has always feared…the penalty of living an evil life and the consequences that it brings, while for others, the escape of death for life immortal by the loss of one’s soul; a double edged sword that can cut you either way.”

  “Interesting. I should like to read your book. I am curious to see how you portray me and my—how would you say, perhaps my outlook on life.”

  “Will I see you again?” Reese asked, ignoring Dimitri’s statement.

  “Perhaps,” Dimitri said, as he rose from the table. “However, if we should meet again, let us hope it is under better conditions then when we first met in my country. I remember the soldiers with their machetes posed to remove my head as well as their sprayers of the elixir poison, and of course, the collars.”

  “I remember,” Reese said. “They were following my guidelines.”

  “You redeemed yourself when you set us free and for that we are grateful. However, I and the others have agreed that if we ever find ourselves threatened with capture again, we will fight to the death, no matter what the cost. I assure you, we will kill anyone who tries to enslave us further then we already are.”

  “I understand,” Reese said, acknowledging the threat.

  “We will meet again,” Dimitri said.
“Our paths are destined to cross each other. Until that time then.”

  Dimitri walked slowly from the table he and Reese had shared and disappeared into the night.

  Chapter Sixty-one

  It was almost midnight when General Stone walked into his apartment in MacDill, Florida. When he shut the door, he slammed it a little harder then he normally would have, considering the hour and being conscious of his neighbors. However, tonight he didn’t care who he disturbed because it had been a bad day. In his thirty-three years in the military, he couldn’t remember ever feeling this way—unappreciated for his service to his country.

  He unbuttoned his dress uniform jacket and draped it over the dining room chair. His eyes looked at the rows of decorations on his jacket and he felt a longing for the days when he had earned them. The real medals—not the bullshit medals they gave out today, but the ones earned for combat and real courage. Forcing his eyes to look away, he immediately went to his bar and grabbed the bottle of Scotch and filled a glass almost to the top.

  “Damn fools,” he muttered and then drank deeply. “Civilians. They don’t have a fucking clue how to win a war.”

  He walked back into the living room and sat down in his leather chair. He tried to not think about it, but the events of the day kept resurfacing in his thoughts, keeping the fire of his anger and frustration well stoked and burning hot. In particular, the pencil-necked accountant or whatever the hell he was from the General Services Administration who wanted to know where all the money had gone. Stone gave him a one-word answer to most of his questions: classified. This infuriated the little man even more and he kept pressing. Stone kept answering: classified.

  If any error had been made on Stone’s part, it was his treatment of the little man. He had things he could have told him that would have satisfied him and his little Congressional committee; they did it all the time. Cover stories to explain the expenditures of money to keep the government weenies happy. It had been going on for years and years—you told people what they wanted to hear and they went away happy—the wheels of democracy kept on turning. Life is good.