Cold Blooded Assassin Book 7: Hell on Earth (Nick McCarty Assassin)

by Bernard Lee DeLeo

  “Details! What did you do with… oh… sorry, Muerto,” Cala apologized. “I lost my train of logical thought. Finster and every trace of him disappeared, huh?”

  Nick gritted his teeth as he walked. “He preyed on families, with young teenage daughters. Fin left nothing behind in evidence. He abducted the daughter of a California congresswoman. She demanded everything under the sun until placed in contact with Frank. He gave her options for revenge. Frank told her Angela, the daughter, would be dead. He explained he could only offer revenge. The congresswoman told Frank she’d sell her soul to get Fin. Frank contacted me. I researched the scenario, until I understood all the angles before contacting Gus. I needed a boatman without rose colored glasses.”

  “It took us eight damn days of grueling fishing boat excursions, coupled with one of us using range finder gear only hinted at in fiction. We kept watch in shifts,” Gus added. “We found him. Muerto rolled on Fin in the middle of the night. Then, the question and answer session began. It turned out the mountain man Finn didn’t understand the phrase ‘watch out for real monsters’.”

  Nick remained silent, with Gus and Johnny enjoying Cala’s bloodthirsty side. “Damnit, Muerto! What the hell happened?”

  “I punished him for what he did. The miracle was Angela lived. That was the moment Frank and I split for all time. He ordered me to kill her and we’d present it as an act of revenge. Gus and I brought her home. We had her walk into the US Embassy in Vancouver. They took over from there. Angela understood how important her rescue would be if kept secret. She never uttered a single word other than she’d been released. She kept her mouth shut but I never forgot old Frank. Gus and I fixed him real good at the end, after my family gathering mission.”

  Cala clapped her hands. “You saved her! Muerto, the fuzzy bunny of rescue, saves yet another innocent!”

  “Even Muerto has to admit our mission brought Congresswoman Atolli away from the dark side. I believe Angela told her everything.”

  “Angela has three kids. Her IT husband makes a bunch of money dealing with computer issues in a profitable furniture type conglomerate. Congresswoman Atolli retired from public democratic politics. I wish she had stayed,” Nick added. “I agree with Gus. Angela set her straight on a lot of facts.”

  Gus shrugged while walking. “We do know the coast of Canada – not because of the story, but because we sailed there on the down low. It took time and money to reveal there was a vicious serial killer and his whereabouts. Even the locals were afraid to speak of the killings or any hint of Fin.”

  Johnny pumped a fist. “Yes… Muerto, with sidekick Payaso, end the serial killing rampage of the Finster Dumas. I want to be volunteered, with Cala, in ending anything we can get information on.”

  “We will, Johnny.” Nick continued walking, keeping the kids in sight, and formulating different scenarios they might face. “This superhero crap is for the birds.”

  “Get over it, Muerto.” Gus gripped his longtime friend. “Your decisions everywhere have been logical in pursuit of American ideals.”

  “I know we’ve been having dark humor fun with the cartoons. I want all of us on the same page. As you know well, I kill people, Payaso. Now would be a good time for everyone to know I’m not a ‘fuzzy bunny’. I am, indeed, a killer without conscience or regret. I trust you three without hesitation. Speak freely without hesitation about my feelings, because I don’t have any.” Nick chuckled as Deke retreated to do his business near a traffic sign. He cleaned it up with his waste bag.

  “Deke, of course, speaks in his own sphere of influence. It highlights my message though. We do what we can. In many instances, we’re involved in, we have to kill. The only guide you’ll have will be me. Does that alter anyone’s perception. It ain’t black and white, my friends.”

  “We go with you in all things,” Cala declared.

  “You know I’m with you, brother,” Gus said.

  “And I,” Johnny added. “We have much work to do on the Gree case.”

  “I’ll need to be available here until Neil gives me permission to leave the area. Once the initial investigation ends, I can consider the DC excursion. Dale helped a lot, so we go full bore on all background research into the six families as we talked about. If the connections between the hostage takers and Chicago are the only family ties, we can allow the Rivers to return home. I’m hoping that’s the case.”

  “Uh oh,” Cala muttered, as the kids and Deke retreated to the adults’ position. The school had just come into view.

  “Dad! There’s something going on at the front of the school. They saw us.”

  “I’m calling Neil right now,” Johnny said.

  “Get behind us, kids. Hold onto Deke for me, Jean,” Nick said. “Maybe we’ll be able to solve the connection problem right now. If all these jokers are worried about is the usual racist, vindictive crap, we’ll consider the case of Chicago at an end.”

  “And if not?”

  Nick shrugged at Cala. “We may have to make a few adjustments. Loosen your marshal IDs, guys. We’ll try the official way until Neil can get here. What’s the ETA, Johnny?”

  “He’s on his way with two squad cars.”

  “We have to figure on ten minutes,” Nick said. “I’ll lead this confrontation, wherever the hell it’s going.”

  “Why don’t you let Uncle Tom do it,” Gus suggested to suppressed humor. “I can placate my people with ‘mediocre Negro’ talk.”

  “The jackass on the Commie News Network, spewing racist crap like that, is exactly why we have to deal with these Munchins on the ‘Yellow Brick Road’ to school,” Nick said. “Here they come.”

  The crowd of women and men, shouting slogans and waving signs, halted as Nick, Gus, and Johnny waved their federal IDs. “C’mon, folks. We’ve been through this. The police are on their way. They will arrest any troublemakers we pick out.”

  The woman who spoke at the board meeting surged in front of the group. “We know you bastards and your lifestyles! The privileged!”

  “Lady,” Cala called out. “If you knew these men, you and your bunch would be running down the street.”

  “Is that a threat? We know McCarty murdered three more men seeking justice last night. They were family!”

  “They were vicious thugs, holding a little boy and his mom at knifepoint, and a gun under the chin of his father,” Gus said. “If we learn any of you others instigated the hostage taking, you will be prosecuted under federal hate crimes.”

  “Fuck you, Uncle Tom!” The speaker ran at Gus, who promptly planted him with a side-kick to his chest. “That’s one going to jail! Anyone else?”

  Johnny and Cala flipped the groaning and gasping attacker. They restrained him with hands behind his back, while Nick watched hands and eyes with professional caution.

  “You attacked him!” The original woman speaker cried out.

  “Oh please, idiot. This is not our first rodeo.” Cala straightened, holding her iPad for the group to see. “I have this soon to be incarcerated, jail-man, on video attacking a federal officer.”

  Nick pointed at a young man at the fringe of the group on the left. “You there! If you reach into that jacket, I will kill you. Everyone keep their hands visible at all times until the police arrive.”

  Sirens wailed in the distance, nearing the scene. Nick approached the young man he had spoken to. “Kneel on the sidewalk with your hands laced behind your head. Do it now or I will do it for you!”

  “I didn’t do shit!”

  “I plan to keep it that way. Did you know it is a felony offense to be within a thousand feet of a school area with a loaded firearm? Will you do as I ordered or do I have to help you? Last chance the easy way.”

  The man knelt, muttering racist accusations. Cala hurried over to restrain the man’s hands behind his back. She helped him to his feet. “You are very lucky. You will live.”

  The squad cars arrived moments later. Neil Dickerson approached Nick first. “Marshal McCarty?�
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  “We have one assault on a federal marshal by the man restrained on the sidewalk. This other man has a concealed weapon illegally within a thousand feet of the school. We left him alone for an officer to search. We are all within a thousand feet of the school. My advice would be to frisk everyone in this group. You have a female officer with you.”

  Neil put two of his officers on detail to do as Nick requested, starting with the young man Nick had confronted. The officer doing the frisk found drugs and a Sig Sauer P210 handgun. Neil sighed. “Okay, that’s it folks. Lace your hands behind your heads. You will all be searched immediately with the three federal marshals overseeing. Resist in any way and you will be arrested immediately. Keep your mouths shut and your hands laced!”

  Fifteen minutes later, five men were arrested under the concealed weapon law near a school. Two of the women were arrested for possession of methamphetamine near a school. Neil called in reinforcements and an arrest van for transport.

  “We plan to press charges, Lieutenant,” Nick said. “Have no doubt about that. We plan to make it safe for kids to attend school and the Rivers family to return home.”

  “I’m right there with you.” Neil turned to the remaining people in the group not under arrest. “If you are seen congregating near anything in this city, I will arrest you because of probable cause due to this confrontation near the school. You will not be released until we see valid identification as to your identity. Show your IDs now or be held until we identify you.”

  A tall, thin black man, Nick recognized, jogged to Nick’s side. Nick shook his hand. “Officer Dickerson. I met you once before during the flag demonstration. I’m Jim Amos. My two boys attend this school. I’ve followed this bunch for the last month when they all mysteriously appeared from nowhere, entering their six hoodlum brats into the school. They’ve been threatening and harassing my boys too. I heard Nick’s daughter, Jean, and her friend Sonny Salvatore schooled all six when they attacked a boy. Something’s wrong with this picture, Lieutenant.”

  “More than you know, Jim,” Nick told him. “An uncle and two cousins held the boy’s family hostage last night at knife and gunpoint – the same boy, Justin Rivers, the bully offspring of this bunch attacked.”

  “No shit!” Jim Amos glanced at the sullen group showing their identifications to Dickerson’s officers. “Something stinks, Lieutenant! Those so-called children have been making my boys’ lives miserable, trying to get them to join in on their bullying crap.”

  “I will take your statement personally in a moment, Jim,” Neil told him. “You’re right about this. I’m going to make it my business to coerce Marshal McCarty into finding out what exactly is going on here.”

  “We’re on it,” Nick stated. “That hostage taking was to lure me into an ambush execution. With what Jim noticed about this group’s arrival at the same time here, months after the school year started, en masse, makes everything they have done suspicious.”

  Nick pointed at the woman spokesperson for the group. “This loudmouth walks point for the rest, both here and at the school board meeting. I think it would be interesting to know which bully belongs to her. I have a sneaking suspicion she not only doesn’t have a child attending this school, she also isn’t related to anyone of the group.”

  Neil smiled, seeing the shocked expression on the woman’s face. “You will be coming with us, ma’am. Take her.”

  “On what charge! You…you can’t arrest me!” Two female officers handcuffed her immediately. “I’ll sue this department! I’ll own this city.”

  “Shut up, you little gangbanger enabler,” the black female officer ordered. “I’ve heard what’s been said. You’re in deep shit if you came here for the purpose to incite a riot. I’m betting Marshal McCarty called this exactly right. Listen to your rights as I read them to you.”

  Neil gestured both Jim Amos and Nick to the side as the Miranda warning was read once again. “Seriously, what’s this all about, Nick. You’re beginning to scare me.”

  “You’ve read plenty about the Chicago killing fields and the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement. BLM is funded at thousands of dollars per person by donors, hell bent on destroying our nation. This is logically the next step. They can’t make headway on their mission of anarchist/globalist destruction without infiltrating active participants into places where they can generate chaos and murder. Look at Salinas. They are a heartbeat away and on track to become a little Chicago. The entire Monterey Peninsula is under a creeping plague of chaos venders.”

  “Damn, brother, that sounds exactly right,” Jim said. “It certainly seems the proper course of action is finding out where all these turds over here came from, especially Ms. Bigmouth.”

  “I hate to say this, but I never thought our little coastal paradise would ever need to deal with gangbangers and terrorists.” Neil gazed at his prisoners and their enablers, shaking his head. “Last night’s attack on the Rivers’ home turned the mayor and police chief upside down. For the first time since I’ve known you, the mayor no longer mutters wishes to exile you.”

  “Gee, thanks. I’m with you on the surprising rise of terrorism we could easily prevent. We have open borders, importation of the very same monsters we’re sending our young people to fight overseas, and billionaires establishing the one world order through domestic terrorists like the BLM.”

  “It makes me ashamed reading about BLM cop ambushes and riots,” Jim admitted.

  “Don’t be, brother,” Nick replied. “We’re Americans. The BLM are terrorists. It doesn’t matter what color anti-American gangs call themselves, they’re predators and saboteurs, hell bent on putting America into the ‘Dark Ages’. We won’t go quietly.”

  “Amen to that. I have to get to work.” Jim turned to leave. Nick grasped his arm.

  “You have my number. Don’t hesitate to call if you see anything developing, including retaliation for helping us.”

  “Thanks, Nick.” Jim went over to shake hands with Gus, Johnny, and Cala before walking away.

  “We’re going to my house to pursue this immediately after we walk the kids to the doors. Call when you need us for the arraignment. We’ll be there. I may be able to give you substantial ammunition to use in negotiations with these jerks.”

  “That would be helpful. Go on about your business. We’ll take care of the social justice warriors. I’m hopeful you find something that makes sense of all this.”

  Nick grinned. “I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for just the facts, brother. I doubt sense can be made of what’s going on in the hunt for the new world order. I have a bad feeling the Sand people are involved.”

  Chapter Eight

  Threaded Chaos

  “I was hoping you were wrong, Muerto.” Gus turned his satellite laptop toward Nick. “The three you stopped last night, Jerome Selder, Dawan Reed, and Salman Bodie are family alright. Selder is bigmouth’s uncle. Her name’s Audrey Lantos. She’s not related to any of the six boys or the parents. Reed and Bodie are cousins of the guy you nailed with the gun, Derek Colding. The guy who ran at me is Calvin Woodsmith. He’s a cousin to Selder.”

  “Check the money trail from Lantos, Woodsmith, and Colding,” Johnny flashed his findings onto the other laptops networked together. “All of them, and the dead men, received a substantial amount of money from a Belize offshore account belonging to a business consulting firm owned by guess who?”

  Nick’s mouth tightened. “Ray Worthum. I see you have Rackson-Gree’s name on this dummy firm’s board of directors. The families all moved here at the same time along with the band of miscreants who tried to take me out. Chicago wasn’t involved, but Washington DC surely is. All of the group came from Columbia Heights and Washington Highland. I see the three single moms are housing all of the extra players in this parade, including Lantos.”

  “Lantos pays the rents and paychecks from the account fed by Worthum’s dummy firm,” Johnny said. “How do we proceed with this?”

  “Proving
collusion without revealing we’re hacking the shit out of private servers will make us a laughing stock,” Gus added. “We’ll be in prison. Lantos will be set for life in Pacific Grove. Check Selder, Reed, and Bodie’s records. All of them were arrested in DC on suspected homicide charges, amongst a myriad of other assaults. They were the Trojan Horse killers Worthum and Rackson-Gree hoped would take you out.”

  “We play the legal route here all the way,” Nick replied. “At the end of the week, I’ll go to DC in my army major identity as planned. I’ll do everything we discussed in learning all about Gree from her two staff members. While I’m in town though, Worthum gets the full treatment. I will make him into a video example of what happens when you get too close to the fire.”

  Gus pushed his laptop away. “What about, Gree?”

  “Either I find enough to put her in prison for a long time guaranteed or Cala and I will have another traitor to deposit in the ocean. I’d love to bring Ray to our room of doom but we’re already handling too many complications here. I have a delightfully vicious idea for Worthum and Gree. Those two sending a squad of BLM zombies to cover for my inadvertent murder stirred my juices a bit.”

  “Do we dare ask the details of this Muerto plan,” Gus asked.

  “We know where Ray gets his money. I thought I had convinced him the Al-Kazar money tree would not be worth a particularly horrific ending. I failed. Before I deal with the moneylenders, I’ll deal with their money conduit in a way Rackson-Gree should be made aware of. I promise to research my planned move on those two with caution. I don’t think it’s a good idea right now to share the details. I will share them as an after mission report with Reaper and the Unholy Trio.”

  “We will protect everyone until your return, Muerto,” Johnny said.

  “I wouldn’t go otherwise, brother. What say we have a small taste of the good stuff before our laborious task with Deke to escort the kids home. I bet Deke would like a beer, right Deke?”