Borderline

by D B Steward

  In fact, if it weren’t for the difference in the music floating around in the air, she would be hard pressed to tell the difference between Monterrey and the south side of Chicago. The smog was thicker though. She mused that most of the rusted out vehicles she saw on the road would never pass emissions in the states. As the two women walked along, Kelly became acutely aware of the looks they were getting from the locals. It was obvious that this area of town didn’t see a lot of tourists.

  “Kinda wishing I had a gun.” She muttered to Sonny. “I don’t think we’re going to be welcomed by the rotary club around here.”

  “Relax. We’re only a block from the car.” Sonny said calmly. “Besides, I have a blade in case there's trouble.”

  ​Kelly looked at her, completely perplexed. “How the Hell do you do that? Sneaking through customs with a knife? Where the Hell do you keep them?” Sonny turned to her and winked. Kelly held her hands up in surrender. “Nevermind, I don’t want to know.”

  After encountering a few more unwelcome glances, they made it to the car. It was a late model Jeep, old enough not to attract attention but new enough to be reliable. Sonny reached under the wheel well on the rear driver’s side and produced the key. Opening the doors, they both climbed inside.

  “Once around the park James and then home for tea.” Kelly tried an upper class British accent that made Sonny groan.

  “Quiet or I leave you here.” Sonny pulled away from the curb and into the heavy traffic.

  “So, are we heading to The Red House?”

  “No, we’re going to the storage unit to get the gear first.”

  Kelly shook her head. “We should check it out first. Get a sense of the place. It’s still early and it probably won’t be too busy this early.”

  “Going in there without weapons? That sounds like suicide to me.”

  ​Kelly leaned over and spoke in baby talk. “Aw, is the big bad assassin scared to walk into a bar without a gun?” She pouted her lips. “Besides, didn’t you just say you have a weapon?”

  Sonny’s cheeks colored. Kelly King had a particular skill in getting under her skin. “I do but I don’t like my chances trying to fight and protect your sorry ass with only a blade.”

  Kelly harrumphed. ”Well excuse my sorry ass, but I think we would have a better chance of blending in if we didn’t come in armed to the teeth. Besides, we don’t even know if they frisk you for weapons before you go in. This kind of situation calls for a little reconnaissance, Rambo.”

  Sonny gripped the steering wheel tighter and set her jaw so hard that it was almost painful. She hated to admit it to herself but Kelly was right. They didn’t have any information about the place besides the name. They didn’t even know the layout on the inside.

  “Fine.” Sonny hissed after a time. “We’ll do it your way.”

  Kelly hit her playfully on the arm. “See there? I’m not only a pretty face, I have a brain too.”

  “He actually dropped in out of nowhere!” Reggie snapped his fingers and couldn’t believe that the answer had been staring him in the face the whole time. He looked over the crime scene photos again and the puzzle pieces all snapped into place. Izzy’s body had been found in the middle of nowhere in the woods. There were no tracks leading to the body, not even Izzy’s own footsteps. Izzy had to have been placed in the woods from the air. He wasn’t dropped. There were no branches broken or disturbed above the body, so he wasn’t tossed from a plane or a helicopter. He was flown in by a drone and laid onto the spot where his body was discovered.

  ​“He’s using drones Ken.” The blonde agent looked at his dark skinned superior for a moment and then nodded in agreement.

  “Makes sense. But this isn’t the kind of drone you can get at Walmart. Izzy may have been a tweaker, but that’s still a hundred and ninety pounds you’d be carrying.” Ken offered up.

  “You’re right. And carrying that much weight and setting it down like that isn’t the work of some weekend warrior in Pierpont’s militia. You need training for this. Especially if the kind of drone we’re talking about is military grade. Which I believe it is.”

  Ken leaned back in his chair on the other side of Reggie’s desk. He blew out a breath ; the wheels turning in his mind. “What did Pierpont do in the Army?”

  Reggie didn’t need to look in the file, he had everything about Pierpont’s life memorized. “Mechanic for eight years and then dishonorably discharged for a DUI while he was on duty. Nothing remarkable.” Reggie looked at the scowl that was growing on Ken’s face. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know.” Ken leaned forward and looked at one of the pictures of Pierpont in uniform they had in his file. “Look at the guy. Does he look like a mechanic? He’s lean and strong. Look at his eyes. This guy’s a killer. We are supposed to believe he spent eight years in the Army fixing jeeps? I don’t know Reggie, it doesn’t sound right to me.”

  Reggie took the picture from Ken and gave it a second look. “Pierpont’s always claimed to be a patriot who is fighting for his country.” He turned his thoughts over. “You might have a point Ken. A guy like that? Built like he is? A dishonorably discharged mechanic managed to assemble a militia that the FBI has been chasing all over the country for over a year?” Reggie placed the photo down and looked at his friend. “You’re right. I don’t think we’ve been told the truth about Noah T. Pierpont.”

  ​The world’s leading manufacturer of routers had just announced that they were ready to go to market with their latest product. At the same time Trace finished designing a code that would be invisible to the developers and piggyback onto their first, inevitable, aftermarket patch. This code was similar to hundreds of other codes that she had designed. This one would allow her access to the information that the routers would be transferring. Trace was plugged in to

  everything that used the internet. And she was always trying to make her penetration complete.

  While she was waiting for the code to finish compiling she grew bored. King and Moretti had not checked in yet so she did not have a lot to do. So she decided to go snooping. She had made it something of a hobby to go looking into things she was not supposed to look into. Sometimes it was boring enough to put her to sleep, but sometimes she got lucky and found a treasure.

  This time she decided to look into the life of Senator Sanchez. He had a family. Thinking about the massacre started to make her angry all over again. But she reminded herself that Kelly and Sonny were in Mexico right now to get justice for them. It would never be enough, but at least they were cutting the head off of the MH4 organization.

  Trace continued to look into the Senator’s background. She decided to ignore all the family stuff. It was too depressing. She saw that the Senator had been in the military and that he even served under Colonel England, her boss’s boss. Interesting. Was that why he sent Kelly and Sonny down to Mexico? A little payback? She couldn’t blame him for that. The way the Senator and his family had been slaughtered demanded retribution.

  The more she dug into Colonel England’s past, the more she was intrigued. It appeared that the colonel ran a black ops team before. The colonel had sent his team everywhere. Iraq and Iran of course. But they had also been to places like Germany, Japan, China, and even Venezuela. These guys had done everything in the black ops playbook. Kidnappings, assassinations, inciting.

  It appeared that the colonel ran a black ops team before. The colonel had sent his team everywhere. Iraq and Iran of course. But they had also been to places like Germany, Japan, China, and even Venezuela. These guys had done everything in the black ops playbook. Kidnappings, assassinations, inciting unrest, espionage. You name it they had done it. More importantly they were good at it. But then she saw that something happened in Iraq. Something bad. So bad that the powers that be put the kibosh on the whole operation.

  Everything about the operation was heavily redacted. There were black lines through almost every sentence. She was able to decipher what was visible. Trace began to piece
together what happened. There was a murder and a cover up. It involved Colonel England, Sanchez and another name she didn’t recognize. A captain by the name of Noah T. Pierpont.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Nancy Timmerman’s apartment was spartan and clean, like her personal life. To her, work was the number one priority. Her apartment was a place to sleep and eat while she waited to go back to work. It was a little after eleven o’clock at night when her key hit the lock for the one bedroom flat in Aurora Hills. Turning on the light revealed a couch, a small kitchen, a television, and a small bedroom. Reflexively she swept her small dwelling. After a moment she felt satisfied that it was secure from any unwanted visitors.

  She slipped off the sensible and professional flats she wore everyday. With a deep exhale she felt the pressure of her work day lifting from her shoulders. In about twenty minutes she would begin her nighttime rituals and get ready for bed. But first she wanted to see if there had been any progress from her operatives in Mexico. She opened her laptop and accessed the secure email account that Trace had setup for the operation. The inbox was empty as she had assumed it would be. It had only been a few hours since King and Moretti had landed. There was no possible way that they would have engaged the brothers that fast. There would be a status report tomorrow afternoon, unless there was some emergency.

  She checked the national news sites and wasn’t surprised that the senator’s murder was still the top story. While scanning a particular article she stopped. There was a mention that the Dallas medical examiner had been removed from the investigation. The bodies of the senator, his family, aides and security detail, were on route to D.C. The wreckage of the vehicle had been confiscated as well. The investigation was being turned over to the federal government. The autopsy results would be classified.

  Using her security clearance, she was able to access the forensic investigation of the crime scene. It was perplexing. The FBI was not releasing much information. What they had shared with the public didn’t match what she was seeing. The ballistic report showed that the bullets had come from above the senator and his family.

  Nancy’s mind was reeling. Were there snipers involved in the assassination? Did MH4 even have snipers? Something was being covered up. Nancy Timmerman decided that she was going to get to the bottom of it.

  Kevin Jackson hated the United States of America like poison. But he would never share that with the voters of the great state of Illinois. Those people had elected him as their senator twice and most likely would do so again in the upcoming elections. His hatred began when he was only a child. Kevin had watched his father suffer through crippling injuries after returning

  from the Vietnam War. He never knew his father as the idealistic patriot he was before the war. Kevin had been born after the war. He got to grow up with the embittered man that his father had become after he returned from Vietnam. His father had lost both his legs and two of his friends. He carried those scars with him for the rest of his life. Shunned by the American public upon his return, his father found himself ignored by the Veterans Administration as well.

  Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was looked down on then, so his father had withdrawn inside himself. He was a laconic man when he was sober, detached from any emotional connection with his son. Yet when he had been drinking, which was a regular occurence, he would tell Kevin how his own country had abandoned him. The young impressionable child began to harbor a deep hatred for the United States. Hatred for the country that forced his family to live in a trailer in southern Illinois. Hatred for the government that fed his family on food stamps and disability which barely allowed them to survive. And then that same country had the gall to make him stand up at school and pledge allegiance to the flag? The government’s hypocrisy sickened him.

  Kevin was determined to change things. He was going to make the United States live up to its promise to its people. The pursuit of happiness? Laughable. He would bring down the corrupt capitalist system that lorded its power over its people. There would be a new system where the downtrodden received the same standard of living as the privileged. Kevin had started as a communist. But he changed his ideology to socialism as he worked his way through college.

  He knew that socialism was the dirty word that the federal government used to scare its citizens. So instead he ran as a moderate Democrat. Kevin Jackson would be all things to all people as he worked his way up the ladder of power. He sounded all the right notes. He was on the right side of all the hot button issues. He was a media darling and a rising star with unlimited potential. And it was all a complete lie.

  Keeping the illusion going all the time wore on him. Impulses began to grow inside him that he couldn’t keep in check no matter how much he tried. Kevin began to drink like his father. Soon he found that alcohol did little to beat back the feelings that had begun to metastasize inside him. Something dark was rising in his soul.

  He tried escort services. Then he grew nervous that he was opening himself up to a sex scandal. He started picking up street whores. Kevin began to feel a release when he started to get rough with them. The violence started to become more satisfying than the sex. He soon found that he could orgasm by beating them.

  One day he found a business card with a phone number on it. On the back of the card was written the words 'satisfy yourself’. It had been placed on his desk in the Senate chambers. It took him two weeks of mulling it over in his mind before he finally worked up the nerve to call the number.

  That was how Kevin Jackson met Amina Golovkin.

  Two years ago

  The business card rested in his left hand and the cell phone in his right. Kevin took a deep breath. He was sitting in his private study. He was nervous, and he usually prided himself on his ability to stay calm in pressure situations. This situation was different. He wasn’t giving a speech to a bunch of fawning idiots. He wasn’t angling for support from a colleague on the year. He was calling a mysterious number in the hopes that it would lead to a way to satisfy his urges.

  He keyed the number in and waited. It only rang twice before a female voice answered. She had a thick accent that sounded eastern european. “My name is Amina Golovkin. You received this number from a business card. You have called a phone that is untraceable, it will be destroyed as soon as this call ends. Security is my number one priority. I’m sure the same applies to you, senator.”

  His mouth went dry. “How did..?” She cut him off before he could finish.

  “I told you I take security seriously.” She said. “The number you called was only given to you by an acquaintance of yours. Each number is unique. I take these precautions because what I offer is illegal.”

  He felt his temperature rising and sweat beading on his forehead. He was toeing a dangerous line. This conversation, if it progressed further, could destroy his career in politics. It might even send him to prison. But his curiosity was piqued. He had to press on.

  “And what is it that you offer?”

  “I offer what you are searching for Senator Jackson.” Her voice was tinged with amusement. “You enjoy women, which is quite conventional. But you have a particular predilection that is not so conventional, yes?”

  Kevin was stunned. “How do you know so much about me?” He could hear her soft chuckle on the other end of the line.

  ​“It is okay senator Jackson. Your secret is safe. And it will remain safe with me. As long as you keep my organization secret.” He was silent and Amina assumed that he was interested. “I provide services for men like yourself. Powerful men. Important men. Men that would suffer a great deal if their secrets were uncovered.”

  Kevin was sitting on the edge of his chair. Was this woman saying what he thought she was? Could there be a place that he could satisfy his desires and not have to worry about being discovered? It seemed too good to be true. But the urges were getting stronger and he knew that if he continued the way he had been, he would be found out.

  Amina continued. “I have an unlimited stabl
e of women who will serve my clients in any way they desire. These women are disposable senator.” She paused to allow her words to sink in.

  “Some of my clients can only find satisfaction if their craving is taken to its natural conclusion. Once that happens, I take care of disposal and clean up and nothing is ever traced back to you. These women are anonymous. They will not be missed.”

  Could this be true? His mind was reeling. He had been dreaming of a scenario where he could completely cut loose. To do what he wanted and not have to worry about the resulting carnage. If he did this, however, he would be crossing over into serious territory. He would be opening himself to more than just black mail. He could be facing serious prison time if he was found out.

  But the urges were too strong to ignore. “So how does this work?”

  Amina smiled. She had him. “This phone number is now your personal line to me. Whenever you feel the need to take advantage of my services you will call it. I will answer and arrange a time and place for a car to get you. You will then be taken to one of my properties. These places are secure and private. There you will enjoy yourself and then driven to wherever you would like to go. And that’s that.”