The Harbinger of Change

by Timothy Jon Reynolds

  Hard decision-making had never been one of Matt’s shortcomings, so he knelt, set his breath, and squeezed the shot off as the bastard was raising his head in what looked to be climax. Matt wasn’t used to the powerful gun, and the shakes were bad, so the shot hit the rouge agent off to the right, and made the impact look like the Kennedy headshot. The shot caused a nasty brain spray that splattered the inside of the plane’s door, which had been left open.

  What also reminded Matt of the Kennedy scene was how quickly Vera shed herself of the corpse. The whole thing had a dejá vu feel about it as it played out in slow motion. He opened the electronic roll-up door and found that outside the hanger was well-lit by the full moon. Matt fought having to throw up the contents of his stomach for a good thirty seconds straight.

  It wasn’t that the man’s exploding head grossed him out enough to lose it mentally. It was more like his nerves were on such high-alert mode. He felt like a quarterback before the big game. He turned back on the grisly scene to see Vera in a semi-conscious state and the pilot waking up.

  The pilot looked up at Matt and muttered, “What the hell is going on?”

  Matt wiped the saliva of his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt and pointed the gun at him as he re-entered the hangar bay. “You’re flying us out of here.”

  The moonlight through the window illuminated the pilot’s face, and Matt could see the cobwebs clearing in the man’s head. “The fuck I am,” was his response.

  Matt’s shot hit five inches from the pilot’s hand. With the shakes gone, Matt’s accuracy returned, combined with anger at the audacity of the pilot’s statement. The cement exploded everywhere. Luckily, none of it hit the pilot in the eye. Matt wondered, what the hell is this thing loaded with? He re-pointed the gun at the pilot, who was rubbing his hand. “Apparently you thought that was a question. Now I reiterate, you’re flying us out of here, or I will kill you right now. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” Doug retorted, unsteadily putting his hands up and shielding his face. “Please stop pointing that gun at me.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Doug.”

  “Okay, Doug. According to her”—he pointed toward Vera—”she called and had that plane fueled yesterday, even though she couldn’t fly it. I need you to go make sure that happened. I also need you to forget the dead guy that knocked you out and carry her into the plane.”

  Doug froze. He looked like a man who just had an epiphany. “It’s you two! You’re the two from the news, I just know it!”

  Matt saw him backing up. He closed the gap and raised the gun, letting Doug in on a little secret. “Your life, like ours, has become a series of events that has led to this moment. Every decision you make from this point on is going to take you on an immediate path of continued life or instant death. There is no negotiating with me, and there is no going back.

  “You either do exactly as I say, or your life on this planet is over immediately, are we clear now? You need to shake off the pain, clear the cobwebs, and get working for me right now, not one hesitation. Make up your mind now, because if you live, it will only be because you’ve decided to let it all hang out and get us to our destination.

  “I swear to you if you listen to us, we will spare you, and then we will secretly find you, and make you never want for money again. This isn’t a country thing so don’t listen to that shit on the news, this is a ‘corporations’ thing. Apparently they’re stealing each other’s secrets, and then stealing them back, nothing more. So Doug, now is the time, are you in my command?”

  Doug nodded. His first order was to get in and check the fuel. Matt changed his mind and said he would take care of her.

  Matt came up to Vera, her face caked with all sorts of horror, her pants suit revealing another. That crazy son of a bitch, what was he doing? She wasn’t unconscious he could see, as she was pulling her eyes closed harder at times.

  “Fuel’s good,” was Doug’s response.

  “Okay, help me get her in.”

  “I can’t do it,” was his response. But it wasn’t disobedience, it was terror. Matt was able to scoop her up and get her in, but not before letting Doug know that his next refusal would be his last.

  His newest dilemma began as he was lifting her. As he got her up, it revealed that she was lying on her small satchel. He told Doug to buckle himself in while he moved her. He had no time to wipe her face, or cover her exposed crotch. They were in survival mode, which meant seat belt only for now.

  Matt quickly dragged the scumbag out of the way, his head leaving a snail-trail of nasty, his pants still down in shame. I’m sure they’re going to get the message in this one. If they don’t, they’re blind and screw them. Don’t employ scum and you won’t have to clean them up. He retrieved the purse and had a strong urge to look inside to see what this was all about, but this was hardly the time.

  Although this wasn’t the time, this was also the perfect time. It just depended on what his government would do if he turned himself in. That was the big unknown. Only he knew that he was a self-inducted soldier at war with an enemy of his country. So if he carried this through, he might have a chance to get in on the inside, if he was right about her being part of their core group. And there he was, a big old tomcat that had gotten chased up a fence by a dog. Now he was walking down the middle of the fence in another tomcat’s territory, not sure which side to jump to, and very uncertain of what lay ahead.

  No matter how many times he considered the various scenarios in his mind, the one thing that still trumped all was the threat to his family. Before he left this world, someone was going to pay for that. Yet the best way to hurt them would be to help them, and she was his key to his survival.

  This happening to her was the best thing that could have happened to strengthen his odds. Yet he was oddly torn as a patriot on one side and a lover on the other. He resisted the urge to leave one thing behind as a clue, figuring that she must have done inventory already, and that would be an inconsistency if something were found missing that she had already reported having.

  Matt, the tomcat, made it to the next figurative yard. Guess I’m going to find out what’s ahead rather than jump off the fence. As Matt turned back toward the plane, he spotted the fallen CIA agent with the ruined head and had not one ounce of remorse for whoever that asshole was.

  He put the purse in the backpack, telling Doug to get out and help push the plane out of the hanger. Then he had a very serious thought. It was like he had been telling himself on the way to the hanger earlier, if I make one mistake, I’m not going to live to see tomorrow. He instructed Doug with an air of knowledge meant to demonstrate that he wasn’t asking about something he knew nothing about, although he really was. What he knew of transponders was only what he’d seen in the movies.

  “You need to disable the plane’s transponder.”

  Doug had the look of a man who had just had his big plan ruined, and his face did not hide it well. “Okay,” was all he could muster.

  They pushed the plane out onto the roadway between the hangers, a hundred yards from the runway, and of course Matt had never been in a prop plane before. Tonight was just full of firsts.

  Doug entered the plane first and buckled in. Matt followed suit after securing both the hanger and plane door, being careful not to look at the bone-flecked flesh adhering to the door’s interior.

  Doug asked with an air of haughtiness, “Do you have a flight plan?” Matt searched her backpack. Soon he found the pocket with the map and handed it over to Doug. Doug studied it and his response was a muttered word, “Suicide.”

  Matt looked at him hard and said, “Sounds better than murdered.”

  * * *

  Pablo was trying to have faith. Faith was what had gotten him here. To waiver in his absolute belief of her escape would be a betrayal of his conviction. He steadied himself, assuring himself that she would make it out. Having no family left, his trips to the past inside his head were vital to him, because t
hey were the only place he could visit his family, remembering all their words in an effort to stay balanced. Of all the times past he recreated in his head, the only memory Pablo had trouble recreating was the day immediately following the death of his family.

  He didn’t remember arriving at the chateau or how he got into bed. That always ate at him with a nagging feeling of lack of control. He just felt grateful that James had understood him and filled in his gaps with such detail, recreating and recounting, redundantly, so that Pablo could have peace. James had known that there could be no peace in his mind until the last piece of every puzzle he encountered was placed.

  That next day, Sandy and James had settled down in the alcove off the kitchen. It had offered the most amazing views of Lake Geneva, truly one of the most beautiful places on earth.

  “Nice view,” Sandy had said, and James had drifted off for a second.

  James had remembered the first time he had seen the chateau. He had been so full of promise about his first remission, and he had thought the house would be a good thing to look forward to when he got better. Of course, because of his treatments, he had to be closer to Zurich much of the time, but he had gone there whenever possible.

  He had first been drawn to Yvoire for its medieval appeal. Oh sure, he had scented out and avoided the tourist part of it, but this place had been truly ancient, and he had just loved the feel of it. He had paid cash, the transfer done with a wave of his hand. In this neck of the woods, the fact he didn’t haggle hadn’t even been noticed by his very happy realtor.

  “Are you sure, James?” Sandy has asked. “All of it? That’s a god-awful amount of money to leave to a kid. He’s not even of age yet.”

  “Sandy, you know as well as I do that Zurich doesn’t operate like that,” James had replied. “Plus, he’ll be of age when I’m gone anyway. Look, my parents are very well off, I have no ex’s, no kids. Sure I have a few charities that I like, but this kid is owed, and I have enough tabs out there that I need to pay up. So look, these are my wishes. No second-guessing me past this point. The kid gets it all!”

  “Okay, James. I’m glad you flew me here and I got to hear it from you with such passion, because a hundred and ten million is an awful lot of money.”

  Pablo had been in James’s computer room, and it had been impressive. It’d had all the bells and whistles of a good-sized agency. Evidently James had been running this massive system through a proxy server, then another and yet another. It had been untraceable, and all controlled remotely by him. It had been pure genius. James had set up a number of lofts around Europe to make it happen.

  Pablo had recalled having an epiphany that day, as he had come to the realization that as long as he was with James, he no longer had a monopoly on genius.

  Before ensconcing himself in the cyber world, James had given him the pass codes he needed. Then he had cut him loose. James had known him well enough to know that he had to seek answers on his own and get the real story of his own accord. Once Pablo had started, he had become an information-gathering machine, scouring the local news articles, blogs, and police documents in a way no other human could. Ultimately though, it was an e-mail he had come across that had stopped him in his tracks.

  Thanks to James, Pablo had been able to look at an e-mail sent to the CIA Station Chief in Guayaquil. Apparently James had had a friend who had given him some access codes. That e-mail had sent a chill down Pablo’s spine. It had been from a field agent in Quito who had said the hit on the Manuel’s was ordered by the Shimmering Way Terrorist Organization in retaliation for the bloodbath in Gualaquiza.

  The word had been that one of Octavio Mendoza’s relatives was killed in that attack, and Luis Calderon had ordered a scorched-earth type of retaliation.

  Pablo had jumped at the words he was reading. That’s my entire family the guy is nonchalantly writing about, like it’s an everyday thing, just some common thing for an entire family to get wiped out. Pablo had traced the news about the massacre in Gualaquiza, and that thread had led to a hundred more stories. Soon he’d had all the information there was to know. His uncle had stolen from a cartel. Only this cartel had been more than just a regional cartel—they had been a military organization, apparently not one to mess around with.

  Julio had been involved with the people who had attacked this cartel, and somehow in the aftermath of a horrible gun battle, he must have ended up with all the drugs or money, or both.

  Pablo had just sat and stared at the screen. How could his uncle have lived with himself knowing that he had created all these lies from blood money, money that Julio knew his parents never would have taken if they had known of its origins? Regardless, what kind of people would kill everyone in my family because of the actions of one man? These type of people had no place on earth, Pablo had decided, and he had not been afraid anymore. His mindset had shifted to vengeance.

  That day in James’s basement, he had been forced into many new realities. Sitting down there alone, he had come to the sad realization that whatever childhood he had had was now over. He knew James had loved him, it was obvious, but James was not his family. James, being a single man his entire life, could never have begun to understand the bonds shared in the Manuel household.

  The Shimmering Way hadn’t just killed his family. They had extinguished a very bright light of good that had existed in the world, the bright light that had created him. So this had not been a simple matter of revenge against bad people. Pablo had seen his plight as truly a battle of good versus evil.

  A large spider came down on its web in front of the window, momentarily bringing Pablo out of his trance. Back then those pendejos had done everything they could to make sure he didn’t live. But he did. The thought of revenge had always seemed so tiresome to him, especially seeing all the people throughout history that had fallen to its siren song.

  He always thought those people were weak, ruled by such emotion as to blindly walk into their doom willingly, all in the name of “honor.” He now understood it, he had to admit. Now that he knew what it was like to be last person in his bloodline, the act of revenge was a foregone conclusion. He was going to have his revenge. The rage was building inside of him, and God help those responsible.

  The spider decided that its new web was going to be in front of Pablo’s office window. He watched it carefully design the trap that the next unsuspecting insect would find. Its web, much like his plan, was intricately woven to perfectly catch whatever prey haphazardly came its way.

  The great Bobby Fischer had won his World Chess Championship by aggressively thinking outside the box. That was the same type of ambitious attack Pablo was going to use to extract revenge for his family while immersed in enacting his intricate plan for the world.

  It wasn’t easy changing the way his thought process normally worked. But knowing that justice had to be served, he obtained the knowledge to help him understand how to deal with this quagmire.

  To achieve his purposes, the one book that really grabbed him was War and Peace. There were so many words and accolades one could give the greatest book ever, but none can ever match it. Tolstoy was able to make his readers part of the families he wrote about.

  One of the lessons that Pablo had been unable to shake was the lesson in honor that that book revealed. He had read the novel before the atrocity to his family. At that time, he couldn’t quantify its profoundness, because he had not yet endured the type of hardship that one must endure to truly understand the need for protecting one’s “Family Honor.”

  Pablo remembered the momentous day when he had shut off the monitor on James’s computer system. He had read enough. His family had been desecrated and someone was going to have to pay. He had known then that he would do as he always did. He would align his pieces, then he would attack, and there would be a checkmate—one way or the other.

  At lunch later that day, James and Sandy had made their revelation to Pablo. The boy had listened, and the tears had started to run down his face as
they concluded. Sandy had reached out to the boy and put his hand on his shoulder, saying, “I know, Son. It sure is a lot to take in. You’ve been through so much, and becoming so rich overnight like this, it must be a big burden for you, especially at a weird time like this.”

  Pablo had been about to correct him when James had spoken. “He’s not crying because of the money, Sandy. He’s crying because I’m dying, and you just reminded him of it, one hundred million times.”

  James had held his arms out for the boy, and soon had had him sobbing in his clutch. Life could be so unfair, so cruel in its decisions on who gets to live and who gets to die. All three of them had cried together for a very long time. Lunch had barely been touched.

  They had tied up all the loose ends, especially the part where Pablo would become the sole heir when James passed. They also had determined that no one was to be notified of his death. James had been about to become Amelia Earhart. Sandy hadn’t liked that part, but James had told him he had his reasons, and that had been good enough.

  Sandy had checked his bank account that morning and had discovered a transfer of five million deposited the day before. Five million! Whoa man, is the Taxman going to love me.

  Sandy had felt the manifesting hardship of parting with them. James had been such a good man. He is going to die soon and leave this boy behind, and also leave a lot of people wondering what ever happened to the greatest mind of all time. Well according to James, that mind is trying to pop a pimple in the mirror right now.

  James had made sure that Burroughs had understood he was to be Pablo’s lifeline. He had also made Sandy vow that he would honor his memory by looking out for the kid. James had assured him that he was on board to help Pablo, no matter what. Sandy had accepted his “knighthood.”

  They had taken Route D’Excenevex, the short drive to the Ferry Building in Yvoire. There, Sandy had dropped off Franc LaForte and Arturo Castanada, both with dual Swiss and French citizenship. James had mastered the fake passport game long ago, and he’d had several aliases already set up. It had taken all night, but by morning, Pablo’s new identity had been ready.