Painless

by Derek Ciccone

  Naqui remained quiet, allowing Rutherford to continue waving his pompoms, “We will be cheered for saving the day, but in the end, you and I both know the only thing we did was guarantee another 9/11, or worse.”

  Naqui’s thoughts traveled back to the beginning, trying to focus on the lives they had saved. But he kept returning to the present. “What about all those at the camp? And the children?”

  “Dash, we must eliminate all the evidence. It is for the greater good.”

  Naqui’s stomach slipped. They were like his children. He felt conflicted, just as Lincoln had spoke of, but was no longer sure he had Honest Abe’s Teflon resolve. He forced himself to push on. “Can Stipe’s men be trusted?”

  “Stipe overestimated their loyalty. They are now working for me. But I’m going to need you to take care of Stipe, so he doesn’t become a nuisance.”

  The idea of taking care of Stipe almost brought a smile to Naqui’s face.

  A long silence filled the phone line, before Rutherford made his closing argument, “Mourning the sacrifices is counterproductive, and should be left in the rear-view mirror, Dash. We performed a heroic service, but all things run their course. We must focus on all the lives saved, and freedom preserved, all thanks to Operation Anesthesia.”

  Naqui looked out the window at the quiet grounds. The quiet before the storm. He listened to what Rutherford said, but he wasn’t so sure anymore. Just as the black and white had turned to gray, the shades of gray had now tuned to darkness.

  Chapter 91

  Wednesday morning began with overcast skies and a slight drizzle. Naqui sat behind a desk in Jordan’s former office, the one on the lower level of the manor house that was once Sir Quincy’s bedchamber. Another member of the Jordan lineage with dreams of grandeur, who died a youthful death.

  He looked out the window at the gloomy weather, thinking it was fitting. It was the final day of Operation Anesthesia, and endings were usually gloomy. Naqui fell into a melancholy trance, his mind waging an inner debate on the merits and morals of the last twenty years. Was it really for the greater good? Or was Jordan right; were they just slaves at a five star resort, the very thing Lincoln would have fought against?

  An aggressive knock rattled him back to reality. Before he could even respond, the door flew open and Franklin Stipe arrogantly limped into the office. He wore a blue Stipe Security rain slicker and a cocky smile. For a man who failed to capture a four-year-old girl, he was sure pretty confident.

  “You rang, doc?”

  Naqui sat with the cool of an assassin. “Please sit down.”

  “I’ll stand.”

  “Would you like some coffee?”

  “Can we get to the point? Unlike you doctors, I actually work for a living. I’m in the middle of interrogating André Rose.”

  “Speaking of which,” Naqui began matter of fact, “we have decided to replace you as head trainer.”

  Stipe’s face roared. “Then you better start praying to your imaginary friend Allah because you’re going down with me.”

  “Just calm down, Franklin.”

  Stipe pulled out his loaded Glock. “No—I won’t calm down. I built this place and I’ll decide when I leave. And if you try anything, I’ll put a real dot in your head. Then who will take care of Shakes?”

  Stipe performed a cruel imitation of Claire. Naqui remained calm, focusing on how much he was going to enjoy watching Stipe die.

  “If you’d let me finish, what I’m trying to say is that lately I’ve been examining my future. I could never bring myself to step down the last few years, but Samuel’s death has forced me to face my own mortality, and made me realize there are other things I want to focus on in my later years. So I talked to our contact in Washington, and we both agreed I would step down as Chief Managing Partner. I will continue to consult on the medical side if asked, but it will be up to you, since you will be the new CMP of Operation Anesthesia.”

  Stipe never trusted. “What’s the catch?”

  “There is no catch. Truth be told, I think you’re an arrogant son of a bitch. But I grudgingly have to admit you’ve been the blood and guts of this place for as long as I can remember, and a change should have been made a long time ago. I no longer have the same passion. My focus these days is solely on Claire.”

  An “about time” grin leaked out of the corner of Stipe’s mouth. “Well then, doc, I say we have a toast with the Naqui Cocktail. My leg has been killing me.”

  Naqui flashed his assassin smile as he pulled open the top drawer of the desk. His weapon was already loaded.

  Stipe first removed his rain slicker, and then his T-shirt, revealing his burned torso. Naqui found a vain on his arm and applied the needle, just as he’d done so many times in the past.

  But this time was different. This time the syringe was loaded with a lethal combination of drugs. It was death by lethal injection. Naqui waited calmly as Stipe’s shield of arrogance withered away. But before he died, he became like many of the children he’d kidnapped over the years...

  A scared child.

  Chapter 92

  Mitchell Jones wore a black Harley Davidson T-shirt and camouflage pants as he led a squad deep into the plantation grounds. Ironically, their mission this day was to destroy the place they spent years building and protecting.

  The first stop was the old slave quarters that rested in a wooded area behind the Jordan Family Memorial Cemetery. It was where the Anesthesia soldiers were housed. Since all they knew was taking orders from trainers, it would be the easiest suicide pact since Jonestown. This would be Mitchell Jones-town.

  As his first act as head trainer, replacing the late Franklin Stipe, Jones was determined to get it right. Rutherford promised him a job as his personal assistant after the mission was complete, and assured him any investigation into the security guard he shot at the school in Schenectady would magically disappear. Mitchell Jones was going to the White House—who would-a thunk it? He was surprised the weather was so gloomy. Usually gloomy weather represents an ending, but for Jones it was a new beginning.

  He moved to the housing quarters of the Anesthesia soldiers. As expected, they flawlessly executed his orders. They torched the slave quarters and set themselves on fire. It was what they were trained to do, and they didn’t feel a thing.

  Jones’s next move was to send two of his men—Regan and Poindexter—to torch all the other buildings on the property. Rutherford made himself very clear he wanted no evidence left behind. Not even a fingernail!

  Jones then moved toward the water where the stables were located. The place where the men, or stallions, as that freaky doctor Jordan would call them, were housed. He was sure they would put up more of a fight than the children. He hoped so—he loved a good fight. But he knew he’d come out on top in the end. The laws of nature dictated that he would. He was the fittest, and therefore he would survive. A lesson Franklin Stipe had just learned the hard way.

  Chapter 93

  Chuck sat in his stable apartment, ready to strike the monster. Strangely enough, Operation Anesthesia had helped prepare him for his battle against them.

  The stables were originally built by a horse breeder who once owned the plantation. They didn’t have a trough or hay on the floor anymore. The building had been converted into small housing units that reminded Chuck of the closet-sized apartment he shared with Beth in Albany, only much cleaner.

  Chuck could smell the smoke and hear the crackling of fire. He wasn’t sure what was going on, all he knew was that he had to get to Beth. But then he started to recognize the sounds. It was the sound of the doors opening, followed by a gunshot, then the short-lived shriek of a male voice. They were shooting his fellow “stallions.” It was death by firing squad.

  The sounds grew closer.

  Chuck held tightly onto his weapon of choice. He was good with a rifle, but he was deadly with a hockey stick.

  When they provided him the stick upon his arrival, Jordan told him they wanted to make
all the “residents” comfortable with their new surroundings, so they would be at their best when “performing.” Operation Anesthesia meticulously researched each of their lives, and since Chuck was a hockey player, they felt the stick would be a form of positive reinforcement. Of course, Jordan’s henchmen also mentioned that if he chose to use the stick for the “wrong” reasons, he would be one man against an army and an inescapable wall. And if that wasn’t deterrent enough, they had his wife as collateral.

  He got the message, but now he was going to deliver one of his own. He wasn’t going to die without putting up a fight that Beth would be proud of.

  Three doors down—open—shot—shriek. Then two. Then his neighbor, a nice guy from Sweden named Mats Lerner, who liked soccer, and had a son named Petr at the camp. Chuck was next. He fought himself to remain patient. He tightened the grip on the stick, thinking of Beth. He was channeling her—she was his self-control.

  When his door swung open, Chuck uncoiled like a cobra. He used an old hockey trick: slash the forehead, causing blood to run into the eyes like a waterfall, and blinding the opponent.

  The man, who Carolyn had referred to as Osama Banana, looked stunned when the blade of the stick slit the area just above his thick eyebrows. He shot wildly, lodging a bullet into the wooden wall behind Chuck’s ear.

  Chuck went back to the great martial art of hockey fighting. While his opponent was blinded, he grabbed him with his left arm and dropped about twenty punches to his bloody head with his right. The left arm was the key in holding his opponent upright, which was easier in the stable than on the ice. Most fights ended up in wrestling matches on the ground, leveling the playing field. As long as they stood, Chuck held the advantage over his blinded opponent.

  Chuck released hold of the blood-soaked Harley Davidson T-shirt and karate-chopped the gun out of his hand. After kicking the gun away, Chuck grabbed him with his punching hand and went to his next hockey fighting tactic—pulling the jersey, in this case a T-shirt, over the head from the back. When he was fully debilitated, Chuck let the dazed man fall to the floor. He scooped up the gun and ran toward what he hoped was Beth’s direction.

  Chapter 94

  Beth and the other mothers were packed flesh-to-flesh in the “security room.” Their existence was no longer comparable to plantation life in the 18th century. It now resembled the concentration camps of Nazi Germany.

  The majority of the captives showed little emotion. But Beth wasn’t a member of the “living dead club,” so she gravitated to someone she knew still had some fight left—her mother. They hugged and cried the way they should have at Beth’s wedding and her father’s funeral.

  Nobody was sure what was happening, but it wasn’t good. Smoke streamed in from the vent. Within minutes, it encompassed the area like a morning fog in San Francisco. A symphony of coughing filled the room. Beth’s worst fears were coming to light through the haze of smoke—it was going to be death by gas chamber!

  As her lungs were contaminated with the poisonous fumes, she became lightheaded. She reached for her mother and held on with all her remaining strength. But as the smoke thickened, she could no longer fight it off. Then she lost consciousness in her mother’s arms.

  * * *

  Chuck was disoriented. The property was huge—five hundred acres, he remembered that bastard Jordan saying on their initial tour. And with fires burning everywhere, he wasn’t sure where he was headed. The horror and chaos reminded him of a movie he saw about Pearl Harbor. He just kept running. “Beth!” he shouted, hoping she would magically appear. It wouldn’t be the first time she came out of nowhere to save him. He kept screaming it, “Beth! Beth!”

  He arrived at the stone-built kitchen. Flames had taken it hostage, black smoke jetting out of its windows like an oil tanker ablaze. He tried to bypass it, but then he heard a woman’s voice. It was soft, and he wondered if he was hearing things. He listened closer to make sure. He had no idea if it was Beth, but he rushed into the dilapidating building, doing his best to avoid flaming objects falling from the roof.

  He looked to the floor and saw a woman. It wasn’t Beth—it was her friend Miss Rose. He ran to her and checked her vitals. She was still alive, but couldn’t survive much more smoke. He attempted to pick up the heavy-set woman and carry her out. Chuck was a strong as an ox, but she was testing his strength. The thick smoke blinded him as he attempted to navigate his way out of the inferno. By sheer luck he found the doorway out of the burning structure and they collapsed on a patch of grass, gasping for air.

  “What’s going on?” Chuck asked frantically.

  “I don’t know,” she said in a constricted voice. She could barely talk. She took a look at the grounds, watching Rome burn. “Holy Mary mother of God,” she muttered.

  “Do you know where Beth is?”

  “Probably in the tunnels under the manor house.”

  “Which way is that?”

  Miss Rose forced herself to stand, continuing to cough, but showing surprising strength. “I’ll take you there, but first we have to get André out of the stockade.”

  “We don’t have time, we have to get to Beth,” he pleaded. He would make no apologies for his selfishness.

  She rose from the ashes, literally, and waddled down a tree-lined path toward André. “He told me he saved your daughter.”

  Chuck followed, the tug of her guilt trip too powerful. The stockade wasn’t far, maybe a few hundred feet from the kitchen. It was a small, run-down shack, once used to store farming equipment.

  André was constricted in a medieval-looking contraption in which his head and arms were locked to the device. They were popular in the US during the 18th century as a source of public humiliation for lawbreakers, the townsfolk often lobbing rotten tomatoes at the shackled culprit in the town square.

  “Get me out of here,” he squealed.

  “I’m here, baby,” Miss Rose said. She walked over and gave him a sloppy kiss on his trapped face. Then after another coughing fit, she turned to Chuck.

  “What are you waiting for? Shoot!” she ordered.

  Chuck looked at her with shock. “Eh?”

  “The only way he can get out of the stockade is to shoot the locks off. Hurry, we have to hurry!”

  “But they’re right by his head.”

  André interjected, “You’re Chuck Whitcomb.”

  “How’d you know that?”

  “Billy Harper described you perfectly.”

  It was like they knew each other. “How’s my daughter?”

  “She needs you—so hurry! Hit me in the limbs if you have to, I can’t feel pain. But you need to shoot off the locks.”

  Chuck aimed and fired at the locks. Sure enough, one shot skipped off the rusted lock and lodged in André’s shoulder blade. He didn’t even twitch. But the bullet also shattered the locks.

  Miss Rose helped raise the contraption off of André, freeing his head and hands. She once again had helped him to freedom. He couldn’t feel the discomfort that a non-CIPA person would feel from being locked in the same position for days, but his body appeared in need of a good chiropractor. He couldn’t lift his head up straight, and despite his best efforts, his arms wouldn’t raise.

  André and his mother then had an intense moment. It was like they were saying goodbye, Chuck thought.

  * * *

  André ran off as fast as he could, which wasn’t that fast. He fell numerous times, but kept going. He ran all the way to the burning slave quarters that housed the CIPA kids. He first ran to his brothers’ house. Many of them were already gone, but some were still alive. He pulled them out, one by one, with every ounce of energy left in his body. Then he moved his attention to the others. Some were on fire, some weren’t. Those on fire he rolled in the grass. Some actually fought him off, trying to carry out their orders.

  He went house by house, saving as many as he could until his body finally gave out. To nobody’s surprise, André sacrificed his own life to save others.

>   Chapter 95

  Chuck followed Miss Rose to the manor house. The good news was that it was about the only thing on the property that wasn’t swallowed up by flames.

  “They probably are locked in the ‘security room,’” Miss Rose said between coughs.

  “Let’s go!” Chuck shouted out, his voice desperate.

  “First we need to get the key card.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Dr. Jordan used to keep it in his bedchambers on the second level.”

  They ran into the house via the English basement. It appeared empty. Chuck had the gun ready just in case. They moved to the first floor, into the empty saloon, and then ascended the grand staircase where Carolyn had performed her “gotchya” joke during their earlier visit.

  “I’ll go get it, you stand guard,” she instructed.

  “Hurry,” he urged.

  Chuck waited outside the room until his patience grew thin. “C’mon, c’mon,” he mumbled. When what seemed like minutes went by, he got jumpy and burst into the room. What he saw was Miss Rose laying on the bed, a man about to inject her with a syringe.

  It was the Pakistani doctor from the plane, the one who paralyzed him and Beth. The doctor must have been hiding in the room. Chuck’s eyes filled with revenge. He moved behind the man and surprised him with a gun handle to the head. The doctor toppled to the floor.

  “I’m on your side—I am undercover,” the doctor groaned, looking up at his assailant.

  Chuck didn’t have time to investigate. “Do you have the key?” he asked Miss Rose.

  She nodded her head, but she wasn’t moving. Chuck realized it was because she was tied up. He quickly untied her, then gave Doctor Paralysis another kick to the head, which would put him in a deep sleep for a while. They then sprinted to the elevator that he hoped would bring him to Beth.