Of course, they never knew about the missile, or the firing of Rose Magruder. The missile launch had been quietly buried within the military and NASA. The Palomar observatory personnel had been ‘strongly requested’ by the Secret Service and the FBI to forget about the incident.
After her firing and reinstatement, Rose received a promotion. When the facts were in about how Rosen had put his plot together, it was decided at the highest levels that the “Killer” technology series needed a new security organization. Thus was born Killer Security Group or KSG. This organization would be responsible for securing the Killer assets and ensuring that the assigned personnel were loyal to the projects. The Killer series included Storm Killer and a new project, Night Killer, which was being formed and created. A third project was already underway and was named simply “Killer”.
Rose Magruder was named KSG Director. She reported directly to the President.
She was responsible for carrying the basketball. The basketball was a code name for a device similar to the one called the football that was always near the President.
The football could launch a nuclear war. The basketball could destroy the various Killer stations. It had been decided that the technology used for any application could be misused as a weapon as the Storm Killer crisis had demonstrated. So the basketball was developed. With this device the President could selectively trigger a very large detonation on any or all of the Killer stations. This ensured that if any station were hijacked as a weapon, it could be destroyed instantly.
This was the public description of what the basketball was for. The confidential addition was that the President could also use the basketball to use any one or the entire complement of Killer stations as a weapon. The basketball effectively locked out station personnel control and overrode it with a master control residing in the White House Situation Room’s Joint Chief’s operation area.
Rose had become the single most powerful woman on Earth, or in space.
90
Kim And The Lieutenant
“Randall, pass me the jam, please,” Kim asked her new husband. Lieutenant Randall James reached for the jam and handed it to his bride. They sat on the veranda of a plush resort in Cancun. The bridal suite had been given to them as a wedding present by the government of Mexico for ‘outstanding service to the Mexican state.’
Actually, it had come from the efforts made by one Antonio De La Cruz, the Mexican government’s newest state senator. He’d sent a note with the certificate presenting the bridal suite to them. The note simply read, Thank you for keeping your word. You were right, inevitable discovery got him. I’ll miss him, but he did something very wrong. Via Con Dios, Antonio.
They had been married for almost fifteen hours. This marriage had come after an excruciating and agonizing stint at one of the world’s best drug rehab centers.
The cleansing of Kim’s system of the drugs and the long-term battle to keep her off them had tested their relationship to the limits. She called him every name in the book, curse at him, and even spit at him. He, though, was true to his word. He stayed by her until she was clean and healthy.
Earlier, Kim had called room service and placed their breakfast order while her new husband showered and shaved.
Room service promptly delivered a breakfast of waffles with strawberries and whipped cream while Kim luxuriated in the whirlpool bathtub.
She came out of the bath toweling her hair dry and saw her husband reading a note. He looked up and waved at the table where a pitcher of orange juice and a magnum of Tattinger Blanc De Blanc 1993 nestled next to their breakfast plates. He said, “It appears we’ve received a honeymoon gift from Rose Magruder. This do-it-yourself Mimosa kit arrived with our breakfast.”
Kim laughed, “And what does our new boss have to say.”
He passed her the note and she read:
Dear Randall and Kim,
Happy Honeymoon!
Please accept this small gift as a token of my regards for you. I wish you every happiness!
Your new jobs await you when you get back from your honeymoon.
Randall, as my new Commander of the KSG Enforcement Division, I have a short assignment for you in Tokyo working with the management team for the development of the Japan/China Storm Killer station.
And Kim, my dear, as my new Commander of the KSG Investigations Division, I have an equally short assignment for you at the new Washington, DC Night Killer station.
So enjoy your honeymoon, and get ready for some hard work when you get back.
Love,
Rose Magruder
Kim folded the note and tucked it away. She made a Mimosa for each of them and they enjoyed the fresh drink as part of the wonderful breakfast.
After breakfast, they stood by the railing looking out on the blue Caribbean Ocean. She grabbed him tightly around the waist and said, “I never thanked you.”
“For what?”
“For being there for me during my cleaning up and my rehab.”
“I told you I would be there, didn’t I?”
“Yes. I was terrible to you. You should hate me for what I did and said to you.”
“I forgive you. Now shut up and kiss me.”
And they did. They kissed passionately for a very long time.
91
Francine’s Lover
Francine looked out the window at the Potomac River moving swiftly beneath her. The plane was on final approach to Washington’s Reagan Airport. It has been an uneventful flight from Orlando in very good weather.
The plane landed with a screech of tires. Francine always griped the arm rests when landing at this airport. It was an old airport with very short runways. She always feared they would run off the runway into the Potomac.
Luckily, this trip, the planes brakes were sufficient and the plane taxied to the gate without getting one drop of water on it.
She stood and gathered her things. Shortly. She would be seeing her lover for the first time since the Storm Killer incident and Francine’s six-month detention while all of the facts was sorted out.
She had had many days to think through her emotions, and feelings.
She had finally been able to put her brother’s death into perspective. He had done it to himself and tried to take her with him. But, at the end, he had tried to protect her.
She was very concerned. She would shortly be facing her lover. They had been together ever since college. The last five years had been very rough, what her lover in Washington and Francine in Florida or on the Strom Killer station. They only managed to steal kisses and hold embraces for quick moments afraid that someone would find them out. While they were both free, unattached adults, they simply had not wanted to become fodder for the inside-the-beltway rumor mill.
Now, it was all out in the open about how Francine had been sleeping with Brad Bolino and how she provided her brother with aid and assistance. She was not concerned what people thought about what she had done for her brother. After all, he was family.
What worried her was how sad her lover had sounded when she had been forced to admit that she had been having sexual liaisons with Brad. Francine knew her lover was hurting badly from her cheating.
Francine had tried to explain on several long and painful phone calls that there was no love involved. It had simply been sex. And when all the facts were out, Francine had pointed out that multiple people had manipulated her into the affair.
To this her lover had simply said, “If you really loved someone, nobody should be able to manipulate you to cheat.”
Francine had requested that her lover not toss the relationship away until they had a chance for a face-to-face meeting. Then, if Francine could not prove her love, they could split up.
Today was the day for that meeting. It was a viciously cold day. She pulled her coat tighter around her throat.
Francine had said she would take a cab from the airport to the townhouse they sometimes had shared. She had a key and would let herself in.
Her lover had to be with the President until 4 PM.
Francine looked at her watch as the cab wove its way through the DC traffic. It was now 1:30. She had time for a shower before the confrontation. Confrontation? Why did I pick that word? I hope it is more of reconciliation.
The cab pulled up in front of the familiar brownstone townhouse where she and her lover had been so happy for so long. She paid the cab diver and hauled her garment bag up the front steps. Dropping the bag, she pulled her key ring out of her coat and found the door key.
She opened the door, picked up her garment bag and stepped inside. She closed the door and looked around the lower landing she stood on. Ahead were the steps leading up to the bedroom and another set of steps leading down to the basement family room. Francine smiled as she thought about all of the times she and her lover had made love in both of those rooms.
She dragged her bag up the steps to the master bedroom and threw it on the king size canopy bed with the beautiful bedspread they had searched for so long and bought together.
The taxi ride had taken longer than she thought what with the awful traffic these days. She looked at her watch and saw that it was already after 3 PM.
Just enough time for a hot bubble bath, she thought as she peeled off her clothes.
Francine ran the water and slipped into the hot bath. She closed her eyes and lay back in the roman tub. She was startled awake by the sound of the front door closing downstairs.
She almost panicked. My God, I fell asleep.
She jumped out of the tub and began toweling her self off. She was turned toward the sink when she heard the door bathroom squeak open. She looked up in the mirror and saw her lover standing at the door.
She turned and ran into the welcoming arms. She looked up at the face and said, “My darling. I’m so sorry for all of the hurt I’ve caused you. Can you forgive me?”
The arms tightened around her body as those familiar soft lips touched hers.
“Of course I can. I’ll love you forever.”
Francine smiled as she looked into Lara’s eyes and kissed her. Together they walked back into the bedroom.
92
The End
Carlos stepped off the plane into the broiling sun of Riyadh. It was brutally hot as he walked across the tarmac to the terminal building.
He quickly cleared customs and grabbed a cab from the queue that formed in front of the taxi sign. He could have had a hired limo to be waiting to pick him up, but he wanted anonymity on this trip.
He instructed the driver to take him to an address in the Olaya District of the city. The district was the very heart of the city. It boasted being a thriving commercial and posh residential district, and offered plush accommodations, entertainment, dining and top-of-the-line shopping. It was a district only multimillionaires could afford to live in.
The taxi dropped him two doors down from a plush three-story home with a large gated security fence around it. He waited for the taxi to leave and walked to the front of his target.
He had worked for six months to find this house. His last assignment from his benefactor had been to find this house and its resident. Now, he had found it and his mission was almost over.
Carlos rang the bell on the gate. He waited. Nobody answered.
He rang again with the same result.
Looking around to see if anyone was watching, he took a plastic card with a wire attached to a device that looked like an Ipod. He inserted the card into the gate card reader, flicked a switch on the “Ipod” and waited. Ten seconds later, he heard the gate lock click open and the buzzer sound announcing the gate was unlocked.
He walked through the gate, tucked the card and device back in his suit coat pocket and walked to the front door. He crouched down and inspected the front door lock and latch. He snorted contempuously at the ancient lock, and, using a lockpick, had the door open in about the same amount of time it took to open the gate.
He had already obtained blueprints of the house and knew that there was a butler’s pantry connecting the dining room to the kitchen. In this pantry was a broom closet. He made his way to the closet and took up as comfortable position as possible. It should not be a long wait. The target should be back within the hour.
The target had been difficult to find. Carlos had traced him to Lima. He had been lucky there when he found a desk clerk that remember his man’s arrival and had also seen what he thought was the same man leave the next morning. He had provided an excellent description of the man leaving the hotel.
Carlos ensured he was the only one with this information by staging a traffic accident for the unlucky desk clerk. This effectively ended the trail for anyone else attempting to track his target.
Forty minutes after Carlos let himself into the house, he heard a key rattled in the front door. The door opened and closed and then footsteps approaching. Carlos reached in his pocket for the items he needed to complete his mission. He put on his gloves and waited.
He’d purposely left the closet door slightly ajar so he could see anyone passing the door.
A man passed the door on the way to the kitchen. He had a cloth shopping bag filled with groceries dangling from his hand as he walked by. Carlos immediately recognized the man even though the man’s hair was a different color than he remembered.
He had gone no more than two steps past the broom closet when the closet door flew open and, in one quick motion, Carlos stepped up behind the man. Carlos had wrapped the piano wire around his gloved hands and quickly twisted the wire around the man’s neck.
He lifted the man’s body completely off the floor through the amount of strength he applied to the garrote. The wire sliced through the man’s neck in less than a second. Blood began spurting from the open arteries. The dying man’s brain lived for a few more seconds.
Just before he died, Dr. Rosen heard Carlos whisper in his ear, “Senator Gutierrez sends his greetings.”
Storm Killer Page 26
