Mind Kill- Rise of the Marauder

by Peter Casilio

  Mitchelli turned and walked out the door, leaving four of Freed’s FBI instructors bloodied on the floor. One cadet yelled, “Way to go grandpa,” and then they respectfully applauded.

  Freed and MacJames, watching all of this on TV, stood with their mouths opened wide in total shock. The entire incident recorded directly to the buildings internal security system. For all they knew Stuart could have been watching; he knew of and was interested in Mitchelli’s training. Mitchelli had just gone through four highly trained physically fit instructors in less than a minute. Four against one, and the four were no match for the reserve deputy.

  Freed turned away from the TV screen and whispered, “GEEZ…Where did the Erie County Sheriff find this guy?”

  MacJames stared at the screen. She watched as the cadets attended to the instructors.

  Freed yelled as he moved quickly out of the room, “Christ, find Mitchelli before Stuart finds out what happened. Call him and make sure he doesn’t hop a plane back to Buffalo! I’ll have to get our instructors to the hospital.”

  CHAPTER 9

  A severe migraine headache exploded in Mitchelli’s head. He was rushing to get back to his hotel room to swallow a handful of pills before he passed out. He could barely see. The pain behind his eyes prevented him from keeping them open. His head tilted to one side from the pressure building in his skull. He stopped, his body buckled at his hips as sharp pains shot through his abdomen. His head torture had nothing to do with the physical beating he had taken. Mitchelli’s beating was self inflicted, pathological stress. His mental anxiety was debilitating.

  He had just made it back to his hotel room when MacJames called him on his cell phone. “Peter, are you all right, where are you?”

  “I’m fine, are the instructors OK?” His words were slurred; he had not yet taken any medications and the pain was affecting his ability to speak.

  MacJames noticed his slurred speech back in Buffalo the first time they met. “You sound terrible you can barely speak. Where are you?”

  Mitchelli quietly said, “Boss, I’ll call you later . . .”

  “Don’t hang up! Are you at the hotel?” The phone went dead.

  MacJames rushed to his hotel room. The door was open; when she entered the dark room she found him in bed. At first, she wasn’t sure if he was unconscious. She quickly checked Mitchelli’s pulse. She was about to call an ambulance when he began to mumble. He was asleep.

  MacJames was responsible for his recruitment and training. The cold professional obsessed with the thought of having to face Mitchelli’s children, telling them they no longer had a father. Tonight she decided she would not leave his side. She could see the bruises on his face: they were beginning to swell. She ran down the hall for ice, wrapped it in towels, and held it to his head and throat. She cleaned the blood off his hands, and wrapped his knuckles with bandages. She studied his features while he slept. His hands were large, his fingers slender. Numerous scars covered his hands probably from manual labor as a child. His wrists were small compared to his forearms, as if he was meant to be a small slender person, but there was a change in God’s plans and his body ballooned in size, and his joints never caught up.

  She moved the ice around his face, attempting to control the swelling. MacJames had been divorced three times. It had been many years since she had been this close to a man. She considered her personal life a failure and instead devoted her life to her career. Though he was sleeping, she could feel the tension in his body. Attempting to ease his anxiety, she gently rubbed cream on his forehead and face. She studied his long eyelashes and full lips. It would be a stretch to call Peter Mitchelli a beautiful man; he was not. His distinguished characteristics blended with his gruff personality. She put cream on her fingers rubbing onto the wrinkles around his eyes and forehead.

  Mitchelli mumbled as he opened his eyes and MacJames leaned over him. “A . . . AA . . . Ann,” he spoke softly.

  Her heart fluttered, was he calling her, “Angela”? She had not felt this sensation for a long time, too long. Mitchelli needed MacJames; a call for comfort, not a demand or question regarding work. Then she remembered his wife’s name was Ann; surely, he was calling his wife. That had to be it. She felt silly and her face turned red in embarrassment.

  Her cell phone rang and she answered it in a whisper, “MacJames.”

  “It’s Freed. Did you find him?”

  “Yes, we’re in his room, he’s passed out. How are the others?”

  “The others!” Freed sarcastically responded, “Oh well, quite well considering Asshole O’Shid has both his arms in a casts; three broken ribs, and a broken nose. Junior Asshole one has a broken jaw. He will have his teeth wired together for six months. The other ass has his nuts in an ice diaper; they are swollen the size of grapefruit. He also has a broken nose. The smart one, chicken shit, has a sprained wrist and will be on mental disability for the next three months, that’s if he comes back at all. He pissed his pants when Mitchelli ripped his pistol out of his hand and dismantled his gun six inches from his head.”

  “Does Stuart know?”

  “Does he know; you’ll love this, he calls me while I’m in the hospital checking on our professional mutilated instructors. His aide had him watch the little training event--why not? It took only 74 seconds; it would have been less, but it took our civilian helper 14 seconds to disassemble a Sig Sauer pistol with one hand.” Freed laughed, “‘Does Stuart know?’--he loved it, he thinks we’re two geniuses. Our little civilian ride-along may end up being the next frickin’ Director of the FBI. My son will have Mitchelli’s poster on his wall, breaking O’Frickin’ Shithead’s arms!”

  MacJames began to laugh and she tried to gather her composure.

  “Are you laughing?” Freed yelled.“O’Shid was my friend. His instructing days are finished; when he recovers, he’ll be investigated for striking our civilian ride-along and verbally assaulting him with a flurry of ethnic insults. His career may be over.”

  “Your friend is an arrogant ass, what he did was uncalled for, let alone unprofessional. If he’s not investigated I’ll insist on it. I hope you had nothing to do with this, Bob.”

  “Stay with Mitchelli. We have to fly him out tomorrow. Stuart is thrilled; he wants to throw more money at Mitchelli’s company to buy more of his time from his family. Hell they don’t even know what the hell is going on. This is crazy, Angela. He beat the hell out of three of our best defensive tactics instructors and scared the fourth instructor enough he dirtied himself.” Freed’s voice fell silent.

  “Bob, are you ok?”

  “O’Shid kept asking me if I’ve looked at Mitchelli’s eyes. Angela, he kept repeating, ‘You’ll find it in his eyes.’”

  “Find what?”

  “He kept saying it over and over again. The four of them were shaking with fear.”

  “Bob, he’s in shock; it’s the pain killers.”

  “Angela, he grabbed me and pulled my face against his and begged me not to look at Mitchelli’s eyes. He said he saw the devil’s domain, the obis of hell.” Freed paused. “Remember what Stuart said? ‘You need a criminal to catch a criminal.’ We should feel uncomfortable around our civilian operative.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing…You’re right, he’s probably just in shock. Forget about it, I’ll stop by in the morning.”

  Mitchelli woke about two hours after Freed had called spoke into the dark room, “Ann? Ann is it you!”

  “Peter, it’s Angela, Angela MacJames. I wanted to make sure you were alright, you took quite a pounding.”

  Mitchelli still had some pain in his head and was slowly attempting to get out of bed. “Boss, I’m sorry…Ann was…”

  MacJames interrupted, “I know, Ann is your wife, I understand. Don’t call me boss.”

  “You don’t understand; you couldn’t.” Mitchelli closed his eyes. “Your looks are similar in the dark.” Mitchelli shook his head and looked at the bruises on his hands, “I mea
n . . . I got a little crazy, damn it, things got out of hand. That son of bitch O’Shid!” His face was visibly swollen and he had marks shaped like fingers around his neck.

  MacJames explained the injuries he inflicted on the instructors. Mitchelli was embarrassed; he felt like a fool, unprofessional. “I reacted emotionally,” he said. “I should have kept my cool. Why did he push me, was harassing me part of the training?”

  “No, definitely not: he was wrong, it was uncalled for. He was way out of line.”

  MacJames calmed him down, she knew he was in pain; he could not keep his eyes open, and kept putting his hand to his head.

  “Lay down, Peter. I’ll order dinner. I don’t want your kids seeing your face beat-up, I can’t believe how swollen it is. We have to keep ice on those bruises. I‘ll have a doctor stop by in the morning.”

  “No doctor. . . we don’t want any records of this, right?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “I get migraines, I’ll be fine.” He struggled to speak.

  “I know.”

  “Chief, how would you know about my migraines?”

  “Don’t call me chief, just Angela remember? We had this discussion before we flew down here.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “I could tell, the first time we met in the conference room. I dumped a pile of information on you, baiting you with pictures of the missing men and their families. I was wrong Peter. I could see you getting ill immediately.”

  “I’ll be ok in the morning. I just need to rest. You can go, boss, I’m ok.”

  “Absolutely not. Stay in bed; I’ll get more ice and we can eat in an hour. The secretary thinks you’re some sort of secret weapon and does not want you going AWOL. How many years have you trained in martial arts? It never came up in your background check.”

  Mitchelli smiled. “I took a semester in college for gym credit; I never considered it formal martial arts training. We couldn’t even hit each other. My temper, my mother always said . . . I need to rest.” MacJames grabbed his hand as he collapsed back on the bed.

  He was glad to have MacJames there. He struggled to speak as he asked if she could call his mother-in-law and check on his children–something he did every night. MacJames wondered what his mother-in-law would think of a strange woman calling to inquire about the children. However, she gathered her composure and explained that Peter had a migraine and had asked her to call so his family would not worry.

  Mitchelli ate half a sandwich while discussing the case with MacJames. She made frequent trips for ice and ordered him to lie down in bed. Throughout the night, she continued to place ice on his neck, face, and hands. He was oblivious to the cold. He never flinched. MacJames was determined to have him looking good for his children the next day. She did not sleep.

  Freed showed up the next morning to take Mitchelli to breakfast, relieving MacJames to pack for the flight back to Buffalo. He could not believe how good Mitchelli looked. He spent half the night in the emergency room listening to doctors piling up injury reports on his colleagues and Mitchelli looked fine, other than a few bruises on his neck.

  Freed kept asking himself what is with this guy? He had reviewed his background, no military, no real police work, other than directing traffic and throwing people out of football games. How could an out of shape contractor systematically dismantle four FBI agents, starting from a huge disadvantage--held in a chokehold? What really got under Freed’s skin was that Mitchelli was unintentionally starting to intimidate him. Mitchelli had always conducted himself as a professional with Freed; even in awkward situations, he was respectful. Freed had to forget about the incident. He had to get over his feelings of being intimidated and focus on organizing a strategy to solve the case. All of them would have a day off before they were required to meet at the FBI building Monday afternoon to implement their new civilian operative.

  CHAPTER 10

  The flight back to Buffalo was uneventful. Mitchelli reunited with his children Sunday; they kept rubbing his stomach and asking if he lost weight. For the children’s sake, his mother-in-law said he looked relaxed and well rested, but she knew something was wrong. He was extremely sore. He had difficulty swallowing. His hip and shoulder joints were inflamed and he winced as he walked, attempting to hide the pain from his children. He could not pick up Kaitlin and struggled to bend over to hug her. The FBI doctor in Baltimore gave him powerful narcotic pain pills. The same prescriptions movie stars overdose on, ending up in the morgue. They did nothing for his pain, but they did make him appear very relaxed. The winds were too high for boating so Mitchelli took his children to the country club pool for the afternoon. He hoped a fresh suntan would help conceal the bruises on his neck.

  Monday morning, Mitchelli attempted to catch up on his business workload. He spent two hours in the company’s weekly operations meeting. After the meeting, he immediately got on the phone to check in with his customers and superintendents. He wrote several contracts and sent a partial invoice to the Department of Homeland Security for his consulting work. By three o’clock, he was on his way to Freed’s office for their first meeting.

  Freed, Moss, and MacJames brought Mitchelli up to speed on the investigation. The information was slim. They could only review the last known locations of the missing agents presumably kidnapped, and the discovery locations of their vehicles. They went into detail on the areas they had under surveillance and why. Freed briefly discussed several locals they had been tailing; Mitchelli knew none of them. Freed then told Mitchelli he was going to be working surveillance with both Moss and himself.

  Mitchelli objected, “I want to work with Sal Buckala.”

  Freed calmly replied, “Look Peter, I know you have been through quite an ordeal in the last several days. But we’re the professionals with real training; we’re not one-week wonders. We want you close to us for your protection. We are the experts. We know what we’re doing. I wouldn’t tell you how to pour a concrete floor. Who is Sal Buckala anyways?”

  Reservists hated when full time law enforcement officers treated them second rate. Mitchelli was cold and precise; he did not like being told what to do. The large dose of painkillers made him irritable.

  “Your expertise has gotten most of your professionally trained agents kidnapped. If you know what you’re doing, why am I here?”

  “Let’s stay on task. You’re assigned to work surveillance with Pat and me. Accept your assignment like a professional.” Freed clenched his fists squeezing his pen.

  “I am working with Sal Buckala, or I’m working by myself. I’ve spent the last four hours being briefed on just how well you don’t protect your agents. If this investigation wasn’t tits up and taking on water, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “For Christ sake,” Freed yelled. “Can someone tell me who the hell is this Sal Buckala character! Never mind, I’d don’t care who he is. No way are you coming into my office and demanding who you’re going to work with. I don’t even want you caring a sidearm and you think you’re going to insult me and the FBI with your week one rookie bullshit demands! I’ve got twenty years with the bureau, ten letters of commendation you don’t feel safe working with me? Who the hell do you think you are?”

  Mitchelli leaned across the table towards Freed, both his hands on the table’s edge as if he was going to push it against Freed and drive him into the wall cutting his torso in half. His face grimaced, “You tracked me down; approached me, outside my office, asking for my help. I don’t give a damn whether I was part of your plan or not, or how many merit badges you have, or how many years you sucked off the tax payer’s tit. The lives of the surveillance teams and twenty-one other poor dumb bastards are hanging, depending on what you do next. You need the best cop who knows the street and all its scum bags, including those wearing a badge, and that’s Buckala.”

  Moss was taken aback; he had never seen his friend Freed yell. Moss had no idea what had happened in Baltimore. MacJames was nervous; she knew what Mitchelli was capable of
when he was mad. She also knew that he was on target with everything he said. Freed’s back was up against the wall, for the second time he misjudged Mitchelli, and he knew Stuart would side with the Italian. He could not count on MacJames for support; she would back Stuart all the way. He was stuck with Mitchelli. It was Mitchelli’s first day on the job, and Freed already was finding himself struggling for control over his rogue rookie. He had to play Stuart’s game and hope that no one would get hurt in the process. Freed put his hands over his face, and held them there. He then moved them up over his forehead pulling his hair back. He was clearly shaken. Mitchelli not only cast doubt on Freed’s work for the previous two years, but his entire career. He looked at MacJames, as if she was going to bring some sensibility to Mitchelli’s demands, and then turned back to Mitchelli. His eyes were black, looking through Freed as if he was not there. Mitchelli had no doubt, no fear, no apprehension.