Talion Justice

by Rick Bosworth

  I told Robinson to cut some lengths of CAT-6 wire and motioned for Doyle to tie up Prisha and Ahmad. Prisha stayed silent while Ahmad again cursed in Arabic.

  Without instruction, Doyle slid over to Karlsson. He approached from behind and grabbed at his hands. Fast as a cobra, the big man spun to his feet, grabbed his ankle knife and pressed it to Doyle’s neck. He had his left arm wrapped around Doyle’s chest. His right hand held a six-inch blade.

  Karlsson was smiling now. A wide-open smile that displayed his big white teeth.

  “Your move,” Karlsson said.

  “Shoot the bastard, Frankie,” Doyle shouted. “Shoot him!”

  Karlsson had the knife hard against Doyle’s neck, enough that a slow trickle of blood was already running down his neck. One slice and his carotid artery would go, spewing like a fire hose. He’d be dead in minutes. I had my gun sights trained on Karlsson; he was so much larger than Doyle that there was enough of him showing to provide a good target picture.

  Doyle drew my attention to him by repeatedly flashing his eyes to his side, the side opposite the knife. I flashed back to when I was a child and Doyle and I would play street football with the neighborhood kids in Southie. Doyle was always quarterback, me his favorite receiver. We got so attuned to one another that we could change pass plays at the line of scrimmage with a look. Like the look he was giving me now.

  Doyle had just changed the play. I backed more slack off the trigger and waited.

  Doyle slammed the heel of his shoe into Karlsson’s instep while spinning his body away from the knife.

  I saw it all in slow motion. My vision tunneled to the left half of Karlsson’s chest, which lay open now. That’s where I put the three rounds. He fell like a tree.

  Doyle grabbed at his neck. I saw the blood through his fingers. He said, “I’m all right” or something to that effect. I saw his mouth moving but didn’t hear the words. I heard Prisha and Ahmad screaming, saw them writhing around on the floor. I shook myself back into real time.

  I screamed “Let’s go!” and Robinson raced ahead of me towards the staircase. I put an arm around Doyle, and we followed. We raced up the basement stairs and flung the steel door open. The Arab family were on the other side of it. I raised my gun to them, shouted for them to back up. They did. At least the mother and father did. The teenage boy, the one I had seen in the window, held his ground, saucer-eyed. His face was cut and bruised.

  Robinson raced through the bodega, knocking boxes over in his wake. I pushed through to the back door, Doyle pinned to my side. We raced to the white panel van and jumped in. Philly was a stand-up guy and had waited for us through the gunshots.

  We rolled down the street. Lights and sirens approached in the opposite direction.

  Chapter Forty-One

  December 9, 2016

  MedStar Trauma Center

  Washington, DC

  Prisha heard her phone vibrate and fished into her Gucci bag. It was her secret encrypted sat phone, not her CIA work phone. She flinched. She hadn’t gotten more than a few hours of sleep in the past three days and was on edge. It was a text from Ahmad. More bad news. Robinson had inflicted grave damage on ODYSSEUS. His virus had ruined their network and corrupted most of the data. Much of it would eventually be recoverable, but some key pieces were gone forever. Ahmad boasted that he would soon have a patch to fix the devastation Robinson had wrought, but Ahmad’s bluster was well known to her. Prisha knew this would set her and ODYSSEUS back for many months.

  The waiting room at MedStar, the level-one trauma center where Karlsson had been taken, was nondescript. Off-white walls dotted with watercolor landscapes. The steady hum of the vending machine in the corner. Prisha ignored the others waiting for news of their loved ones and kept her eyes down. Karlsson’s false identity had held up to scrutiny. The bodega family had untied Prisha and Ahmad, then helped drag Karlsson out to the street. They made good police witnesses. Just another random, senseless mugging in the neighborhood.

  Karlsson had been admitted with life-threatening injuries. One of the bullets had nicked his aorta, and he had lost a lot of blood. The surgeons had patched him up good. Karlsson was strong as a bull, and he would make a full recovery in a week or so. This was not Prisha’s pressing problem at the moment.

  Frank Luce was. And now Prisha had only eleven days left in which to maneuver. Luce was sending her a countdown clock text message every day at eight a.m. to remind her. She’d tolerate him in her life for the time being. But her time was running out, and she knew it.

  Prisha was unaccustomed to holding the shit end of the stick. She had to find a way to spin this the other way, to reverse gravity. She had no intention of submitting to Luce’s demands, his bumbling attempt at blackmail. She would play chess to his checkers. Her biggest problem was the criminal ODYSSEUS data they had downloaded. Her fingerprints were all over it. If they released it now, it would ruin her. She had to find a way to neutralize that data. She knew she could not simply retrieve it, as Robinson would have a million copies hidden in a million different places. This was what had kept her up the past three nights and put those dark shadows under her eyes.

  Prisha could discredit Luce to such a degree that anything he said would be ridiculed as paranoid conspiracy theory. This was a tried-and-true CIA tactic that had worked well in the past. And Prisha already had a nice head start with this, her ongoing effort with Linda Webb and some corrupt cop friends of hers to frame Luce for the murder of Charles Hewitt. And Luce did have that five years of homelessness. A good start, perhaps, but not the mortal wound she needed. She wanted more.

  Prisha happened to look up as a fit blonde approached the reception desk to her left. Of course—the blonde! Frank Luce’s blonde. Sarah Reyes was her name. Linda Webb had said she and Frank had acted like a married couple. Prisha knew Luce to be unmarried, but maybe there was enough between these two to leverage. Luce and his sidekick Doyle had gone underground; Karlsson’s men could not find them anywhere. But Prisha bet Sarah Reyes had not. For the first time in three days, a smile crossed Prisha’s face.

  The receptionist called Prisha to her desk. She said the doctor had cleared her visit with Karlsson, but only for a moment. He was still weak and needed his rest.

  Karlsson looked much better than he did two days ago. He was sitting up in bed and the color had returned to his face. He was still hooked up to machines and monitors, tubes in his arms.

  “How you doing, Henrik?”

  He shrugged. “They say I’ll be out in a week.” He motioned Prisha closer to his bedside and regarded her with a blank, impassive expression. She pushed a chair against his bed and sat down.

  “Did they find him?” Karlsson asked.

  “No,” Prisha responded. “They’re still looking.”

  “I’ll find him. And kill him.”

  “No!” Prisha said, more loudly than she intended. She leaned into Karlsson and lowered her voice. “We kill him now, and they release their ODYSSEUS files. They do that, we all go down.”

  “So we’re just gonna submit to this guy?”

  “No, of course not. I ruined this guy once, and he resurrected. Time to finish the job.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We frame him for Hewitt’s murder. Discredit him for good. And get rid of this unsolved case before it can come back to bite us in the ass.”

  “Discredited isn’t dead,” Karlsson said, rising up in his bed with difficulty. “And how the hell’s that going to help us? If we can’t find the guy, what chance do the cops have?”

  “I’m still working on that,” Prisha said. “But he’s got a blonde that may be more than a friend. I might be able to use that to smoke him out.”

  “Then I kill him.”

  “No!” Prisha said. “You’re not following, Henrik. We slap a life sentence on Luce for Hewitt’s murder, and he dies in prison. Happens all the time. No one will notice or care. Then we take out his sidekick, the old guy. I think that will be the en
d of it. You’ll kill the sidekick, okay?”

  Karlsson didn’t agree with this plan and said so. He said they should try to lure Luce to a meeting and he would kill him there. Prisha now saw this for what it was: pride. Karlsson had never been bested on the battlefield, and he wanted revenge. A simple matter of testosterone and misguided honor.

  Karlsson, too, played checkers. Prisha would stick to chess.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  December 19, 2016

  Sarah’s WRY Office

  Dupont Circle, WDC

  “Tomorrow’s the big day,” Sarah said to Frank over their burner phones. She was between meetings in her office at WRY. “What do you think she’ll do?”

  Not sure,” Frank responded. “Hoping she goes our way on this. I haven’t talked to her in almost two weeks.”

  “How’s Karlsson?” Sarah asked in a whisper.

  “He’ll be all right. He’s out of the hospital now. Got out a couple of days ago.”

  “And you and Quinn are safe?”

  “Yeah,” Frank said. “They won’t find us. Quinn’s been through this kind of thing before. He knows what to do.”

  Sarah fell silent. She had her hair up the way she always wore it for work. She twirled the wisps that hung down and framed her face. She wore a finely cut navy jacket and skirt with red lipstick and light eye makeup. To anyone who knew her, she looked a touch haggard, not her usual radiant self.

  “What’s wrong?” Frank asked her.

  “I don’t know…” Her voice trailed off. “I’m scared, Frank. What if Prisha doesn’t do what we want her to do? What then?”

  “You’ve got nothing to worry about, Sarah. We’re going to—”

  Sarah was distracted by a commotion outside her office. Rough voices, the shuffling of feet. The protestations of Sarah’s secretary. Her office door flew open, slamming against the wall with a bang that to Sarah, in her current frame of mind, sounded like the report of a gun. The loud noise caused a spasmodic jerk of her hand. The burner phone dropped to her desk. Her nerves had been taut for two weeks, ever since Frank and Doyle had told her of the events that transpired in the bodega basement. She started to shake.

  Two cops marched across her office and stood in front of her desk. One was a young Hispanic guy in uniform, the other a squat guy in beige pants and an ill-fitting sports jacket, tie undone at the neck.

  “Sarah Reyes?” The squat guy held out his Washington Metro PD detective shield at arm’s length.

  Sarah rose to her feet behind her desk, too dumbfounded to speak. The detective repeated his question. All she could muster was a nod.

  “My name is Detective Macias, and I’m here to place you under arrest for the murder of Charles Hewitt.”

  Sarah felt herself grow light-headed, like the floor had tilted and would swallow her up whole. She gripped the desktop. This could not be happening.

  “Ma’am, what I’m going to have to ask you to do is walk out from behind the desk and keep your hands where I can see them. Officer Cruz here will handcuff you.”

  “No!” Sarah’s secretary screamed. She had followed the cops into the office and was being wrangled by Officer Cruz.

  “Julian,” Macias said, turning to address him. “Get her out of here.”

  Officer Cruz escorted Sarah’s secretary out of the office. She was in tears now. She looked back at Sarah and tried to speak, but could not.

  Now alone, Macias took a step closer to Sarah’s desk. Beads of sweat dotted his shaved head. He smiled, revealing jagged yellow teeth. He smelled like potato salad that had spoiled in the sun.

  Macias leered at Sarah; his eyes ran over her body. Up and down, slowly. Then again.

  “Sarah Reyes.” He paused. “I know your husband, Victor. He’s an asshole.” Macias laughed himself into a coughing jag. “I sure respect his taste in women, though.” Macias looked over his shoulder for Officer Cruz. They were still alone. “I’ll tell you, sweetheart, you’re in a world of hurt. This is big girl shit—felony murder.”

  “What?” Sarah stammered. “What are you talking about? I didn’t do anything!”

  “Save it, sweetheart. We got a witness puts you in the getaway car outside Hewitt’s house at the time of his murder. All we gotta do is prove the killers broke into Hewitt’s house with intent to steal, and pow! We got burglary. Now you’re part of a burglary that went bad. Now we got you for murder. Don’t matter if you didn’t pull the trigger. Hell, we don’t even have to prove you went into the house. And because this Hewitt guy was such a big shot, DA’s gonna file this as first-degree murder.”

  “I wasn’t there!” Sarah shouted. “This is bullshit!” She studied Macias’s face and saw the blunt arrogance. He wasn’t kidding. Sarah’s field of vision began to narrow and darken at the edges. Her knees buckled. She splayed her fingers on the desktop for balance.

  “The DA’s got a hard-on for this case,” Macias said, his eyes roaming again. He stepped closer. “Me too.”

  Officer Cruz returned and stepped up next to the detective. Macias’s eyes didn’t leave Sarah.

  “Book her, Julian.”

  Officer Cruz issued his commands, which Sarah followed robotically. He walked her to him, hands up, and had her turn around. She was cuffed in the back, like the felon she now was. Cruz was professional and apologetic. Macias was not. He insisted on searching Sarah himself, and did so with open palms, not the backs of his hand. Macias’s hand shot between Sarah’s legs, lingered over her breasts. His fingers kneading, exploring. Sarah retched stomach bile into her mouth. She felt tears threatening but caught herself. She would not give Macias that gift.

  The groping search complete, Macias stepped in close behind her. “This is my favorite part,” he said, his breath moist in her ear. “The perp walk.” His right hand gripped the handcuffs, pulling down slightly to alter Sarah’s balance. Macias turned her towards the door, then pushed her forward. Sarah began to move, Macias pressed tight against her back. Officer Cruz fell in behind them, a look of disgust on his face.

  Sarah’s secretary was standing right outside her office door, her face pale and blotchy. Her eyes went wide at the sight of her boss in handcuffs.

  “Call Victor,” Sarah said in a steady voice. “Tell him I’ve been arrested.”

  Macias jerked Sarah forward, preventing this conversation from continuing any further.

  The long hallway was filled with Sarah’s co-workers. Her CEO, Peter Smith, pushed through the crowd and strode forward. He had the look and comportment of a well-dressed mannequin. A silver fox, with not a hair out of place.

  Macias whispered in Sarah’s ear. “The show’s about to start.” He chuckled, exhaling his warm, fetid breath on the nape of Sarah’s neck. She recoiled from him.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Smith demanded.

  “Sarah Reyes is under arrest for the murder of Charles Hewitt,” Macias announced in the voice of a carnival barker.

  This stopped Smith in his tracks. As it was intended to. He swallowed hard.

  “This must be some mistake,” Smith said with less vigor. He glanced around the hall at his staff. All eyes were on him.

  “I’m gonna ask you to stand aside, sir, and not interfere in official police business,” Macias said.

  Smith silently did as he was told. Two more paces and Sarah was now beside Smith, less than eighteen inches from her boss of over a decade. Their eyes met. Sarah had expected to see fire or defiance, or, lacking that, compassion at least. But all she saw behind Smith’s eyes was deliberation and calculation. It was as though a mask had been peeled away, showing him for what he was, had been all along: the CEO of a multi-billion-dollar consulting firm, not Sarah’s longtime mentor and friend.

  “You know me, Peter!” Sarah shouted, her voice cracking. “You know I didn’t do this.” She looked wildly around at her co-workers, who shifted uneasily and looked at their feet. “You all know me! This is a mistake.”

  CEO Peter Smith straightened his tie an
d leapt into damage control.

  “WRY will fully cooperate with law enforcement in this matter,” he told Macias in his level CEO voice. “Our lawyers will be in touch, Detective. Anything you need.”

  Sarah gasped. “Peter! No, please!”

  Macias yanked up on her handcuffs again and pushed Sarah past Smith and forward through the gauntlet of co-workers. Most gave her the dead-eye. Their boss had chosen a side, and they would follow.

  Their indifference struck Sarah almost like a physical blow. It knocked the air from her lungs. She shrieked and struggled to regain her breath. This beautiful office. These beautiful, accomplished people. None of it ever mattered. Sarah saw that now. How false and fleeting it all had been. She had given everything to her career, this company. And in the end, it had shown her no loyalty whatsoever. The promotions, the coffee clutches, the Friday lunches; congratulating each other on milestones and mourning each other’s losses—it had all been an illusion. Her colleagues—her friends. She’d been at their homes for cookouts and cocktail parties. Attended children’s birthday parties and parents’ funerals. And when it all mattered most, it mattered not at all. Not one goddamned bit. Sarah choked back a sob.

  Macias marched her into the elevator and placed her tight in the corner, eyes facing the wall. The three people already in the car immediately looked away, staring at the floor numbers as they descended to the lobby.

  Sarah tried to focus. Life as she knew it was over, that much was clear. Peter Smith would fire her by day’s end, she was sure, in a succinct statement written by the lawyers and approved by the WRY board of directors. She was going to jail now. Sarah had never even visited a jail before. The thought of being behind bars with real criminals terrified her. She had to contact Doyle as soon as possible. He had a lifetime of experience with this sort of thing and would know what to do. And she desperately needed to see Frank. Needed to be tight in his arms. Needed to hear him say everything would be all right.