by Roman McClay
Any 1-2 step -a behavior by MO that led to a transgression of the rules- would be a protocol breach that had to be addressed and it would be outside of Steven or Tania’s ability to even question, much less intervene.
No, the only way was for him to remain as is, make no changes, and merely transfer saliva onto his fingers then onto the pages; then the trick would be for the saliva to be found quickly but not until MO had had his daily interview with the inmate, he thought, which was coming up in 44 minutes.
II. 2018 e.v.
He parked the truck and trailer on the south side of Cheeseman Park and unloaded the WR450; it was black and brushed aluminum with “RECON” painted on the side of the tank and frame. He kick started it, the electric starter worked but he like the haptic feel of the kick start. In his Police gear , with Caius by his side, they rode and ran through Cheeseman Park’s narrow road that led just adjacent to the building at 1300 Williams street in Denver.
He parked the bike and settled the dog; then slid his pack in front of him to retrieve his monocular headset. He had ornithology magazines in there as well to buttress his alibi of bird watching if anyone questioned him as he pointed the high-powered monocular device toward the penthouse of the southernly glass building. Each phase of the mission had walls, that if approached -interfered with- made it so he could abort without compromising the whole. The mission was made of three unequal sections; each contained; each unlocked the next phase.
It was a perfectly unobstructed view of the common room that the building management allowed its tenants to use for meeting and parties. Tonight, Thursday night, was poker night for Michael Swinyard, and several of his most wealthy friends; and Lyndon watched as they milled about snacking and peering out the large glass windows of the older -but luxury- building; its views of Cheeseman park were incredible , Lyndon thought and smiled just a bit at how clueless they all were.
He was making sure there were people up in the penthouse and that it was Michael and his friends, so he watched for 12 minutes until he confirmed several faces, including Frank Azar, the criminal defense lawyer who ran ads on local TV.
The mission was two-fold, execute Michael for his betrayal and take everyone’s cash. He had debated whether or not to leave anyone alive and came back with the rationale that they all needed to die in order to effect a smooth egress and leave no witnesses. He had many missions left to go; and witnesses were a luxury he did not yet have. He thought of how God spoke; he focused on exact words and phrases. He knew God did not speak ineptly, inexactly, without reason for each word.
Once Michael would be murdered there would be no legal reason to not murder everyone else; any sentence he received would be the same for felony murder during a robbery whether it was one or seven or 10 people. The lawmakers never thought of how they incentivized more murder not less. He did debate the morality of killing anyone but Michael, as they had not technically aggrieved him; but the Misanthropic Principle -a slight variation on the Anthropic Principle- obtained: people were universally evil. And, he reasoned, the closer they were to specific evil -e.g., Michael- the more likely they were to be evil themselves.
Had any of these people had the opportunity to do him wrong, they would have; it seemed of little relevance that they hadn’t yet. It was similar to the philosophic question of whether or not it would be ethical to strangle Hitler in the crib to avoid his rise to power. Unlike most people he took these questions seriously, and plus, God had not been opaque. He was to leave nothing left alive that breathes. Only cowardice would make him refuse his duty to kill such men. Only duty would force and steady his hand.
It did not place him beyond the pale to employ such logic; this was the logic of Yahweh, and each god as far back as Marduk and Oðinn, he thought. This was the logic of men who made a retributive God their highest ideal; the same ideal alpha chimps had in their red hearts; their pure hearts that matched their strong limbs, he thought. This was the heart real men and real women understood in their bones. He’d only be condemned by liars and the corrupt, not actual humans at all.
His suppressed pistol was in the pack, his suppressed carbine was still in three parts -upper and lower receivers apart and suppressor off- in a saddle-bag style pack on the working dog. He put the monocle away, slid the pack back into position and fired up the dirt bike and began to traverse the grounds until he -coming from the west- entered the building’s front parking area just shy of the front entrance. He shut the bike off, dismounted, lowered his goggles and adjusted his police style helmet and waited for the doorman to investigate the sound. Carl, the doorman, was like a clock that way, Lyndon knew from many reconnaissance missions and dry runs of today’s mission.
As he waited, he took notice of the perfect ambient air conditions, it was dusk now and the temperature was a perfect 70 degrees, he watched as joggers ran on the path 10 meters from him and the building.
“Can I help you?” Carl said as he approached.
“Yes sir, Carl, I got a call from upstairs and I’d like me and Charlie here to follow you up in the elevator if you don’t mind,” he said.
“What’s the problem?” Carl asked.
“Carl, I don’t know if you remember me but I’m officer Stan Kowolsky and my boss, Jeff Messangelo is upstairs at that card game and I need to get up there and speak to him; now, in all seriousness I would appreciate an escort,” Lyndon said firmly but with a smile.
“Oh, ok, the dog too,” Carl asked tentatively.
“Charlie too; you have your keys on you?”
“Yeah, yes right here,” Carl said and held them in his hand.
“Great, let’s go straight up,” Lyndon said. He and Caius walked behind Carl into the building through the vestibule and the lobby to the elevators. Carl pushed the call button and they waited for one of the elevators to open .
“After you,” Lyndon said as the western set of doors opened and Carl had hesitated.
They all entered the elevator and Lyndon and Caius went to the back; as Carl looked at them, Lyndon said, “Penthouse, card game remember?”
“Yes,” Carl said and turned the key that gave access to the top floor. He knew something wasn’t right, but he had no courage to challenge authority. He rode the elevator with the ersatz lawman at his six.
As the elevator rose, Lyndon knelt by his dog and began retrieving the carbine; he ignored Carl who took glances but refused to stare.
He assembled the rifle between floors three and nine and by the time they reached the 14th floor, he had it locked and loaded and attached by lanyard to his LBE.
Carl seemed more and more nervous and began taking more and more looks back until Lyndon said, “Carl can you put the key in the elevator panel and keep the doors open and the elevator locked on the top floor for me?”
“Uh, yes, why?” Carl asked.
“Carl, this is official police business, and I’ve been patient with you; but now I’m going to be frank, do exactly what I say, when I say it, understand?”
“Oh, yes, sorry,” Carl said. He had been testing the limits of control and now found them as he faced the doors. The elevator reached the penthouse and settled, dinged, and the doors parted perfectly like curtains to a grand opening on Broadway in fall.
“Place the key now Carl and turn it,” Lyndon said.
Carl complied with some nerves; a slight tremble to hands -hands that were no longer his- as Lyndon realized this was his destiny: to control lower beings by sheer moral force; this is what God had expected all along. He thought of the scar on his face and the mountain cat that had put it there and his place in the chain of all things.
The doors remained open, the hallway was empty, and the main room was not visible from here; he could not see the men; nor could they see him.
“Now kneel down in the corner of the elevator and close your eyes,” Lyndon said.
Carl lowered himself awkwardly due to his age and general lack of corporeal health and placed his hands on his lap; he bowed his head as Lyn
don fired one suppressed 9mm round into it. The rounds were low-velocity bullets to help the suppressor perform its noise-reduction function and reduce the over-penetration that could damage the elevator. A small fragment of the jacketed hollow points did exit Carl’s skull and lodge in the elevator wall but it did no damage to the mechanism; the damage to Carl was, however, irreversible and he slumped onto himself and bled in the corner as his CNS went offline. The clack of the slide was all that was heard. No one paid any attention to it.
Lyndon holstered the 9mm on his cross-draw LBE and raised up the suppressed M4 carbine; he entered the hall. He turned left toward the kitchen and scanned it for people; it was empty.
He positioned himself between the main room and its large table and the bathrooms; he looked on either side of this structure that stood in the middle of the large room and obscured him from them and them from him. He noticed at the west end of the room a man was turned toward the wall and on a cell phone; he scanned east and saw no one.
Everyone else must be standing or seated at that table , he thought.
Caius stood on his right flank and waited.
Lyndon moved around the west side of the bathroom walls and toward the man on the cell phone and placed two 5.56 rounds into his back, and as he fell, he fired one round into his head; the over penetration of rifle rounds moving at 2,400 feet per second now didn’t concern him as the building itself -and not his escape mechanism, the elevator- could suffer damage and he didn’t care.
He turned immediately to the right and the table and scanned it; five men, four seated and one kneeling on the farthest eastern chair, none of them were on cell phones, and he could see all their hands except the man closest to him who was seated, back turned and draped in dark blue blazer and pants.
“Hands up now,” he barked.
They were non-responsive, in shock no doubt over the quick and non-sequitur violence that had dropped their compatriot three seconds earlier. The rich and bourgeoisie are always surprised by violence; they assume it has been banished -like all entropy of capitalism- to the periphery.
“Hands up now,” he barked again and they began to jerkingly raise them; including the fat man in blue that was closest to him. He counted men clockwise again and counted hands: five men, ten hands; and he moved clockwise to his right so that Michael who was seated at the 6 o’clock position to the elevator, was now directly in front of him and the fat man in blue was to his left at the 9 o’clock seat.
They were quiet, and their hands were various shades of beige, he noticed. These were middle aged men, men in their 50s and 60s and they were rich and tanned and almost stylish, they had some accountments of style: the watches, the shirts. One man, Francois , he recognized was younger, in his 30s and was wearing Ray Bans indoors.
“Glasses off Francois ,” he said, and the Frenchman of dubious origins complied.
“Frank,” he said to the man in blue who he now recognized as indeed Frank Azar, “stand up; everyone else remain seated.”
Frank rose and lowered his hands as he did so to push himself off his chair. Lyndon waited until he was standing then said, “hands back up; ok, now lower your right hand only and empty your right front and rear pockets.” Frank did so and laid some money next to the pile of cash he already had on the table in front of him, and then said something Lyndon could not understand. He asked him to repeat it.
“My back pocket is empty, my wallet is in the left pocket, left rear pocket,” Frank said.
“Ok, right hand up and with your left hand empty your left front and rear pocket,” Lyndon said. Caius remained seated at Lyndon’s 8 o’clock.
Frank complied and Michael in a rather unlettered way said, “what are you doing; you want what? ”
“Michael, shut the fuck up or I will murder right now,” Lyndon said without taking his eyes off Frank as the items kept coming from his pockets.
“You obviously know all us, but we,” Frank said and placed some business cards from his left front pocket on the table and a set of keys; then his brown wallet.
“Frank, no talking. If you people stay quiet and do as I say you will remain alive; I only killed your comrade over there because he was on the phone. Frank where is your phone?” he said as everyone wanted to believe him.
“It’s in my bag, in my car,” Frank said.
“Sit down and keep your hands flat on the table, Frank.”
“Ok, next, you,” he pointed the M4 at the man at the 11 o’clock seat and made him do the same thing leeside and starboard side separately; this man had a phone.
“Turn it off,” he said, “sit down, hands flat,”
“Jacob, your next,” Lyndon said.
Jacob complied.
“Francois , your turn,” he said and scanned the room again.
As Francois finished emptying his pockets, Lyndon said, “Francois , you hiding anything in your socks?”
“No,” Francois said.
“I’m going to check now, if you have even one dollar in there I’ll shoot you for lying. Now, if you want to amend your answer I’ll allow it without repercussions,” Lyndon said as the dog growled just slightly.
“My left sock I have, some,” he said weakly; not finishing the sentence.
“Raise your left leg up to the table and with your right hand remove the cash and place it on the table,” Lyndon said and was glad he’d already decided to kill them all; they were as sinister and stupid as he imagined.
Francois complied with some awkwardness; lowering his leg once finished; without permission. Now the money was all on the table; he need not rifle through pants and socks for what was now his.
He raised the carbine and fired twice into Francois , over Michael’s head and then twice into Jacob’s center mass and twice into the stranger in the same area and then twice into Azar as he tried to rise up; effecting a fall that made him slide onto the floor.
Michael cringed, his shoulders raised up, as his hands remained in the air. Tension was coming off him so much that Caius moved closer towards him; eager to subdue him.
“Sitzen, platz, ” Lyndon said to the dog and the dog complied sitting to his left flank.
“Michael,” Lyndon said as he moved counter-clockwise to Mike’s left and lowered the rifle so he could take in the man’s whole countenance of fear and dread .
“What, man?” Michael said with anger.
“How much money, how much of your friends’ money is on this table you think?”
“I don’t know,” he was obstinate.
“I bet it’s 100 large,” Lyndon said thinking it was maybe $80,000. “Now, do you have the money that you owe me on you?”
“Who the fuck are you?” Michael lied; he knew exactly who Lyndon was.
“Do you have 25 large on you, well, 28 large if we include the $3,000 you stole via check from me three years ago. Or do we need to go down to your apartment to get it?”
“I have maybe five on me,” he lied. People are what they are to the end, if you see a man at the end you will be fascinated by this, Lyndon thought. They have no capacity to be anything other than what they are, even with all motivation, inducements to change .
“And the apartment or the jewelry store or Lana’s wooded leg?” he said with a laugh as Michael remained fierce in face, but weak in body.
“Look, if I give you the keys to the Aston, all my cash and promise not to tell the cops who you were; in fact I haven’t seen anything; you’re all covered up and I don’t even wanna know who you are; just let me go,” he said with almost no commitment to truth; merely to survival.
“Look, I came here to kill you; it’s my entire task , my raison d’être . But, you can go out like a man or you can die without having resolved your debts. Now, is there any cash in the apartment downstairs?”
“No, there’s no cash there.” Michael said.
“Ok, stand up and empty your pockets,” Lyndon said.
“Don’t shoot me man, I’m sorry, ok, I had a hard time selling that
place and I didn’t even get 50 grand so your half wasn’t even 25; and then you kept the dope so that $3,000 wasn’t a rip off,” he said as he pawed at his pants.
“Michael, you promised not to cash that check and yet you did; and you sold that place for something and never paid me anything,” Lyndon said.
“I couldn’t find you, you dropped off the face of the earth,” Michael said.
“Yeah I did. How much is there?”
“Uh, maybe $5,000” Michael said as it was just under $3,700.
“Michael when you get to Hell you tell them you still owe me $23,000 and that when I arrive many, many years from now that I’ll expect it,” and after he said this he pulled the trigger to the M4 three times hurling jacketed hollow point 5.56 nato rounds into Mike’s head at 2,400 feet per second as a blood signature, a small pressurized mist of blood -like a blowhole of a sperm whale- ejected from Mike’s leeside. The last round had streaked red, a tracer round he had loaded at bottom to signal he was getting low -half way down- on rounds in that mag. Lyndon had moved clockwise as he shot to avoid the blowback as much as possible and to watch the little Italian criminal fall and bleed from the head all over the floor .
Lyndon circumnavigated the table picking up each pile of cash and left the wallets, watches and other accountments. Caius barked a little and Lyndon told him to quiet down.
He loaded it all into his dog’s side pouches and checked each body for signs of life; there were none.
He walked back to the elevator; turned the key and pushed the lobby button as he, Caius and Carl’s body rode down; he hoped nobody would be waiting to go down from a lower floor otherwise he’d be forced to kill them too. But he reached the ground floor without incident and walked out and into the lobby -which was empty- and out into the portico and kicked started the bike. He slung his carbine in front of him and rested it on the tank as he and Caius rode and ran away through the park to his van; loading the bike and then -quietly, without anyone taking any interest- drove away at 14 miles per hour on the park’s road.
