by Bella Knight
“All dead,” said Janine. “School shooting. Lost friends. Got real scared. My mama drank, left us. Dad did crystal, died a few years ago. I had to do something. Won a few beauty pageants, got married.” She sniffled. “Now I’m gonna die, or probably leave with nothing.”
“The thing is, you are not nothing. You must value yourself first,” said Sigrun. She finished the second, then the third braid. “The first bruise is on him. The second bruise is on you, for not running like hell.”
Janine’s face got tight. “You blamin’ me for…”
“For not running the first time it happened,” said Sigrun. “Men like that do not change. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.”
Janine made a fist, then nodded. “Could set his bed on fire.”
Sigrun nodded. “You could, then spend twenty years in prison. I’ve got a better plan.”
“What is it?” asked Janine.
“Men like him don’t change. He had to have done stuff to other people.”
Janine’s face got still while her green doe-eyes teared up. “I listened to his phone calls. He’s done plenty.”
“Then tell me, I tell the club, and someone sends a phone call or a text to someone. He home now?”
“No. He’ll be in Fredricksburg for lunch, then golf. Won’t be home until after seven.”
“Then, we’ve got time,” said Sigrun. “Time to get your stuff. Time to go. Time to get one over on him. Possibly prison time.”
“Will I have to testify?” asked Janine.
Sigrun shook her head. “What happened to you is small potatoes compared to what men like him really do. Can we get him locked up for what he did to you? Absolutely. But, then you’ve got a target on your back. No, we just take your stuff —or not, if you don’t want to go back…”
“A few things,” said Janine. “Not much. Stuff my mother gave me, stuff like that. I can’t get into the safe. He changes the combination every week.”
“No problem,” said Sigrun. “Does he have cash in there?”
“Some. Only ‘bout ten thousand.”
“That’s enough for a ticket to a warm place and a cold drink,” said Sigrun.
Janine’s eyes lit up, then dimmed. “How will I live?”
“Bartender school,” said Sigrun. “New name, new social security card. Sound good?”
“Take me to your leader,” said Janine.
Sigrun laughed. “Don’t know which friends are meeting us, but you’ll be on the road in a few hours, I guarantee. Dinner in truck stops, long hours. Be sore. But, we’ll get you enough states over by nightfall that he can’t locate you.”
Janine held up her cast. “Can’t ride with this.”
Sigrun asked, “When were you supposed to have it off?”
“Tomorrow,” said Janine.
“Tomorrow just became within the hour,” said Sigrun. “Now, let’s meet our new friends, shall we?”
A braided Valkyrie and her Gearhead lover met them on identical blue Harleys around back, both riders with nut-brown skin and toothy smiles. They rode a few blocks to a gardening store. The Valkyrie ran in, and then came out with flattened shears. The fiberglass cast went into a dumpster, and the shears went into a saddlebag.
They picked up a duffel bag, then waited around the block while Janine went in, then came out with the duffel stuffed. “Sorry,” she said. “Hid some stuff from him, old pictures, stuff like that. He’d get coked up and tear them up,” said the woman.
“Let’s go,” said Sigrun.
She handed Janine a headset, and then taught her how to use it. Sigrun took the time between Interstate 66 to Woodstock and Knoxville on the US Interstate 81, to catch up on Gary Walker Thomas’ life, whispers of deals on the phone. Sigrun would switch channels, and then relay the info to Daisy Chain. As the tidbits added up, Sigrun learned a lot about shady real estate transactions. They switched to Interstate 40, just before Knoxville, and ended up stopping over in Fort Smith, Arkansas for the night.
Janine got a soft, wavy hairstyle and blue-black hair, making her creamy skin stand out. “I kinda like it,” said Janine. They got the fake nails and eyelashes off her, and then bought her jeans and a jacket, and some western shirts that made her look nothing like her (bottled-blonde) former self.
A package was waiting for them, along with Janine’s new ID and nine thousand dollars in cash, at a mailbox place in Oklahoma City the very-next day. Sigrun paid the riders for their time, and she got a quick wave as they rode out. They walked to a nearby pancake house, and had pecan waffles, crispy bacon, and orange juice. A trucker at the end of the breakfast bar gave the correct signal, and took them to Albuquerque, New Mexico. They sat in the cab of his truck.
In Albuquerque, Sigrun got Janine, now “Mary Price,” into a bartending school and then took her to a temporary apartment where she paid for two months of rent, in advance.
“Take the course, get a job, put up first and last, move in, keep your head down. Spend as little of your money as possible, to make it last. Memorize your data sheet. Still a small-town beauty queen, so not a stretch. Watch YouTube videos to get your accent right, so you blend in here. It’s your homework. No getting drunk or high for at least two months to get your Mary Price persona intact. Then, have at it. Just, no more guys who hit, or you’ll lose your new life, too. Take some online courses, see what you like.” She handed “Mary” a tablet computer and a cell phone. “And, for Odin’s sake, don’t fuck it up.”
“Got it,” said the new Mary Price. “If I do, you’ll kick my ass yourself.” Sigrun nodded, and they hugged. “Will I ever hear from you again?”
“Not a peep,” said Sigrun. “Unless you become a Valkyrie, but you need a Harley to do that. There’s people that refurbish them, sell them for less. Save up, then you can go wherever the fuck you want, just stay west of Missouri. This is as good a place as any to start over.”
“Will I ever hear from Gary again?”
“Not a peep,” said Sigrun. She waved, hoofed it down the stairs, and walked out of the complex. She called an Uber and got a business-class ticket back to Vegas.
Meanwhile, Phase 3 was in play. Daisy Chain was delighted with Janine’s information. “This is golden data; I ran it all down. I sent you a new packet —a very helpful list of account numbers is inside. There are other records Evil Asshole worked very hard to keep hidden. And far more property than the one in Staunton. A numbered list which are the numbers of soldiers, with codes for the crimes that he covered up. It’ll take military intelligence about six minutes to figure it out. Our girl’s code is hidden in there. Group rape will get their attention. Assaults, other shit he covered up for his own personal, sniper-spotter team. Their codes are hidden in there too, as the perpetrators, along with dates. It will look like he kept it for insurance, in case they turned on him and didn’t know that they suddenly got dead. You’ll need to lift his prints and get them on there. I used gloves and standard printer paper, and then a printer like his. Same make and model.”
“You rock,” said Wraith. “We on for the lawyer gig?”
“Go,” said Daisy Chain.
Saber and Wraith pretended to be a scummy lawyer and his client. They met him at the bar of his favorite club, where he was sipping a caramel-colored liquid, neat. Saber sat on one side of him, and Wraith on the other. Gary Walker Thomas (AKA Mr. Evil Asshole) had close-shorn gray hair, and a squashed nose with hints of red, all set into a florid face. His head was a little too large, and it sat on a tight neck, his white dress shirt open at the collar and dampened with sweat. He wore black slacks, a silver and black Tag Heuer Carrera, and spit-polished, shiny shoes. He had the gravitas of a two-star general. He had narrowed dark eyes and a mouth sagging from too much sun and alcohol on the links.
Saber spoke with a perfect Australian accent. “G’day, mate. Looking for a General Thomas. That you?”
“It is,” he said. “Who are you?”
“I’m from the Caymans. Represent some clients there.” He
handed over the business card with the name of the general’s bank and a phone number on it. “Call it if you like. I’m here to get you interested in a little deal.”
“Who are you?” the general asked Wraith.
“Trina Jones. I am an investor. I have had thirty-six percent returns. They sometimes go down to ten percent. One month, they hit seven percent. A change in banking regulations, I believe. I have invested in the same bank as you have. I never invest more than thirty percent. I have twenty-eight percent invested now.” She handed over a printout that showed eighteen months of profits.
The bartender came back. “What is this gentleman having?” asked Wraith, in a highly cultured voice. Her hair was in a complicated series of braids that were knotted in the back, and she was wearing the blue top. She had very understated, expensive makeup, courtesy of a trip to a department-store makeup demonstration. She looked expensive, but not stupid.
“Johnnie Walker Blue,” the bartender said. She held up three fingers.
“We’ll take a round.” She handed over her black card, courtesy of Daisy Chain. The card got the general’s attention.
“So, what do you want from me?” asked the general.
“A signed agreement. Five percent.” That amount came to several thousand dollars, chump change to the general.
“What are you investing in?”
“Currency trading, mate,” said Saber. “We have a computer program that does it. A super-secure server. An egghead with magical coding skills created it. We call it GROT, Gets Rich Over Time.” He chuckled. “The program takes advantage of time zones, runs twenty-four hours a day. Like the sheila said, changing in regulations may show a down month. The profits roll into your account. Haven’t lost money yet. The day we do, we cash everyone out, the full amount goes into your Cayman account, and we go program something else.”
“Tell me more,” said the drunken man. Saber said a bunch of things Daisy Chain had told him to say. “So, I can’t lose much?”
“No,” said Wraith. “No more than thirty percent. No use in being stupid.” She waved a warning finger at the general. “That way, even if a month is bad, you’re still good. The thing is, you also get bank interest.”
The general sat up a bit straighter. “I what?”
“This is through the bank. The money is sort of in your account, but not, but is. Kind of a virtual thing. So, you get a little more interest there.”
“Where do I sign?” he asked. Saber handed over a paper and an expensive gold pen. Saber’s fingers and palms were covered by latex, keeping his fingerprints from getting on the papers. The same couldn’t be said for the general.
“Do you want your lawyer to look it over?” asked Wraith. “Make sure you meet privately, no recording devices are involved, and that you invoke attorney-client privilege.”
“No,” he said. “I’ll sign.” He grinned. “Free booze too. One more round?” he said.
“Why not,” said Wraith. She handed over her black card again.
Back in the car, they took prints from the Cayman Islands bank paperwork, and put them all over the documents, thumbs on top at an angle, fingertips curved underneath. They also had the gold pen with the fingerprints, and carefully lifted the inky signature up with special tape and moved it to another document, a land deed. Saber wrote over it, millimeter by millimeter, with the pen, careful to not smudge the prints with his latexed fingers. They put everything in a brand-new manila envelope from an office supply store, Wraith with leather gloves. They slid in the documents, slid in the pen, sealed it, changed into black clothes and masks, and made their way to the townhome.
They used the security codes Daisy Chain had given them to enter the huge, split-level house. They turned off the security cameras, made a loop for them to see nothing, and eeled up the stairs. They ignored the artwork —violent and disturbing scenes in crimson and blue. Just to get into the safe in the bottom of the closet. Saber used a tool to find the code, using a chemical that lit up the oils from the general’s fingertips on the keypad. He got it open on the third try.
“The last for digits of his father’s social security number,” he said.
“Nice,” said Wraith. “Hurry it up.”
They slid in the envelope, took less than ten thousand dollars out of the hundreds of thousands of dollars in the safe, and locked it back up. Wraith found the server with information from the bedroom cameras, and found a Best Hits —literally, proof he’d beaten his former and current wives, and prostitutes as well. She copied several of the digital files onto a USB, and then slid them into another envelope. She backtracked to the safe and slid them in. She made sure the false wall that hid the server had a tiny flaw that would be seen by a tech on a search of the townhome.
They slipped out past the vaguely disturbing art of a clown in blue and crimson, reset the alarm, and got into their rental car. They were long away before the loop showed a real-time camera picture.
ATF in the form of Saber met with the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. He had pictures, stills of his ex-wife Janine’s bruises, to show the investigators. Special Agents Bruce Coleman and Willa Pershing looked at the stills.
“She willing to testify?” asked Pershing, a woman with a wide face and brown eyes as sharp as tacks.
“No,” said Saber. “But she mentioned conversations she had overheard.” He played back some of the recorded conversations between Sigrun and Janine. The agents took notes, then nodded as they seemed to have information confirmed.
“We have been… concerned,” said Coleman, a man with a shaved head, thin lips, and piercing blue eyes. “Things that got covered up, shouldn’t have been. The townhome could have been purchased with his salary, and maybe the Staunton place, but it’s iffy. He travels in the course of his work. He teaches at the sniper school in Quantico, and heads over to Arlington, too. He’ll be a hard one to take out.”
“Wait until he’s had a few rounds of golf,” Saber said, dryly. “He likes to drink before, during and after.”
“Good to know,” said Pershing. “Why did you come to us? What set you off?”
“He covered up a group rape of US soldiers on a third soldier behind enemy lines,” he said, sliding over a sticky note with a single military identification number. “And, she’ll testify, but it won’t help you. The rapists are dead. You should be able to find paperwork to show that he covered it up. Guy like that, drinker, he will keep records. May or may not be able to keep it all straight in his head.”
Pershing nodded. “I’ll get a warrant.” She grimaced. “He’s kind of a dick. That, in and of itself, isn’t illegal. But, it’s kept him from moving up. He thinks he’s fantastic, can’t understand why he hit the top deck and can’t move up.”
“Not a people person,” said Saber.
“Not actively incompetent, but, apparently, bad at covering his tracks,” said Coleman. “We’ll get him.”
Saber shook their hands, stood, and left. He met Wraith, now back in her side braids and leathers, in the coffee shop where he’d left her. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. “Missing home.”
She kissed him and stood to pay the bill. “Me too.”
Two days later, Saber and Wraith drove to Arlington to visit Danielle Kasamsun, the girl that got away from Saber and died, who’d burned alive in a tank. Saber brought a single white rose. Wraith stood by, watched the grief playing across his face as he laid the rose on her headstone. He reached out, stroked her headstone, then stood, and gave a wild cry. Startled, Wraith stepped toward him.
“She was funny,” he said, tears streaming down her face. “Sly fun, though. A throwaway comment you had to think about before you laughed. I still laugh at some of the things she said.” He gasped, wiped away some of his tears with his thumbs. “Dani wanted everyone to be competent. Would work with someone having trouble until they could do that task in their sleep. Drove everyone nuts, but we all got high marks. Because of her.” He choked, wiped away more tears. “She h
ated smokers, would rag guys in her unit mercilessly about it. I never started because I knew she’d hate it.” He gasped again. “She would hate it that she died in smoke and fire.” His face twisted. “Burned alive. With three others. Her best mates, she called them. Woulda been glad they were with her, then. Kamasawa, Daran, Etos. Went to every one of the damn funerals. Visited with all of their families, told each one stories that Dani told me. They were all just so… stricken. So devoid of… of hope, I guess.”
“But you’re not,” said Wraith. She handed him a wet wipe. “She the reason you went ATF?”
“Yeah,” he said, and wiped his face. “She always said there needs to be less weaponry in the world.” He laughed. “Hell of a thing for a tank gunner to desire.”
Wraith let him squeeze out more tears before embracing him. “I am really glad she lived, really glad you got to know her.”
“Her family won’t talk to me,” he said. “Bad memories. She has a sister, Paula. The family wouldn’t take money, but I made up some scholarship she had to apply for, and she ‘won’ it. A fake Thai-American foundation. Three other girls applied. The rest of the unit covered them when I ran out of money funding Paula.” He choked. “Every single one of them graduated, with honors. Took two weeks off and went to all of their graduations.”
“That’s awesome,” said Wraith. “Dani’s legacy.”
“Yeah,” he said, balling up the wet wipe and slipping it into his pocket. “It was. Four girls went to college, and I became an ATF agent.” He sighed, looking out over the green, dotted with thousands of white headstones. “Rather have her back, but she’d be proud of the girls.”
“And you,” said Wraith. “And you.”
“I have to do it,” said Saber. “Even though it’s like oil in my head, polluting my life, my thoughts. Those people are so far past horrible they can’t see the line. But, it’s what Dani was fighting for. A world free of assholes like the one we took down today.”
“The military found stuff we didn’t,” she said. “He won’t get out of it.”
