by Alex Ryan
“Would you be open to a country western bar?”
“I don’t picture you as a country western person, but you are cowboy-ish, in your own way. Sure. I’m game.”
It was a part of life that he never experienced in his teens. Most of his teenage friends did. Arriving at the house. Knocking at the door, knowing that dad would answer and his default preconceived appropriate reaction to your presence is to beat you senseless with a lead pipe, ensuring that you are incapable of producing offspring, or even going through the motions. But it wasn’t a house. It was an apartment. There was no dad; just a girl with reddish brown hair, wearing a fresh pair of designer jeans, a light wool sweater, and a rain jacket.
It was nighttime and a light drizzle had come down continuously since dawn. She opened the passenger door. “A Dodge Reliant? Seriously? That is so Ward Cleaver.”
“Hey now, it’s a rental.”
She shut the door and fastened her belt. “What did you do when you were stationed here?”
“I was a Ranger.”
“Oh god. I mean, I should have figured as much.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“My ex was a Ranger. He was a complete psychopath. I thought he was going to kill me.”
“I’m sorry. Most of us are actually pretty cool, believe it or not.”
“Don’t worry about it. Where are you from, anyway?”
“Sheboygan, Wisconsin.”
Carol laughed. “Grand Rapids, Michigan. That’s where my family is.”
“What brought you out here?”
“I came to California first. Met my first husband. We moved up here. Then he developed some kind of brain condition. Became violent. We split up. It’s been a nightmare.”
“He still around?”
“No. I heard from his family he went to New York and died of a stroke.”
“Sorry.”
Rex wheeled the Reliant in to the parking lot of Whiskey Joes. “Here we are.”
“I’ve been here.” Carol said.
“You don’t sound too enthusiastic,” Rex replied. He stopped short of offering an alternate.
“It’s okay.”
Rex was toying around with the idea of bringing Carol to the country western bar since last night. He couldn’t see any downside to it. It was pretty tame. All he needed to do is track Mueller and Starr’s patterns. And certainly, he could do that just as easily while carrying on a conversation with a lovely girl. She was slightly older than him, but not as old as Kirsten. He guessed her to be in her late twenties to mid-thirties. She had a nice figure to her, and filled out those jeans quite satisfactorily.
They sat the same barrel table where Rex sat the previous night. “This is a dark corner... Let me guess. You brought me here so you could do your detective work.” Carol said.
“Shhh, don’t blow my cover.”
The man that was there the previous night walked in the door, and opted to sit at a small square table close to the barrels. He wore a scarf as well as the pulled down ball cap. Rex felt a chill go down his spine, as if the night was going to take an interesting turn of events.
Top Wilson showed up first. Just like these old time first sergeants, the man walks around like he has a pole up his ass. This time, he had a jeans vest with a confederate flag emblazoned on the back.
Then Mueller and Starr walked in together, and both stopped cold in their tracks, halfway to the bar. They both stared at Carol.
“Oh my god! I don’t believe it! My psycho ex is here!” Carol said in a panicked voice.
Fuck, Rex thought. What were the odds of that happening? The very girl he brings to the bar turns out to be an ex of one of them.
“Well lookie here,” Mueller said in a loud voice. “If it ain’t my ex-bitch, showing up with a puke asshole.”
“That ain’t right,” Starr said.
The man in the scarf and cap took notice of the altercation. And then he remembered seeing the Rex the night before. He lowered his head. At least Mueller, Starr or Top Wilson weren’t looking at him.
“We can go,” Rex said.
“Let me handle this.” Carol said. “I need to talk to him.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
It was too late. Carol walked over to Mueller, and they had a brief exchange, in hushed voices. Carol followed Mueller outside.
“God dammit!” Rex said aloud, to nobody in particular. He looked over at Starr, who had vanished. Where did he go? Top Wilson was still there.
After a minute, Rex started getting worried. He got up from the table and walked out the door. Then the man in the cap and scarf followed him out. Then Top Wilson followed the man in the cap and the scarf.
All Rex could see was Mueller and Starr forcing Carol in to the rear seat of a car. “Fuck!” Rex said. He ran towards the car. But it was too late. The doors closed and it started up. He immediately reversed direction and ran towards his parked Reliant. He nearly stripped the starter gears firing the engine up. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Top Wilson getting into a car. This is going to get real ugly, real quick.
He mashed the accelerator, and noticed the man in the cap and scarf running across the lot. He skidded to a stop on the wet lot and opened the window. “Get in!”
The man pulled off his ball cap. He had a Ranger haircut. The man did not recognize Rex. “Get in, now!” Rex ordered.
The man got in and slammed the door. Rex immediately lurched forward, skidded in the turn to get on the road, and desperately tried to catch up with the fleeing Toyota sedan. “Who are you?” The man asked.
“We don’t have time for a meet and greet. I have a feeling you are probably on my side.” Rex replied.
“You have a beef with those assholes too?”
“You could say that.” They tailed the car, then it disappeared around a corner. “Fuck, where did they go?”
“Stop. Turn around. There was a turnoff in the dirt about a hundred feet back. I see lights driving around through the trees.”
Rex turned up the muddy road, and followed it. Then the road branched. “Ah shit. Now where.”
“Shut the engine off and let’s listen.”
Rex pulled off the road, shut the lights off, and they got out and listened in the darkness. “I hear something, to the left!” Rex said. The two men carefully negotiated the road in the darkness on foot. It took an agonizingly long time to reach the sound. It was the sound of crying. And punching. It got louder. Then it got softer. Then the headlights of an approaching car silhouetted Mueller and Starr. Top Wilson was behind them. Clearly visible was Mueller, kicking Carol’s limp body. Both men broke in to a run towards the two, and abruptly stopped, when Starr pulled a gun and leveled it at Rex’s head.
Top Wilson stopped the car but left the lights on, marched past Rex and the other man, and joined Mueller and Starr.
“I’ll be god damned,” Mueller said. “If it ain’t Captain Woods himself. And, and, wait a minute, Dahl? Is that you? That is you! You was supposed to be dead!”
“It was you that shot Lewis, wasn’t it?”
Mueller was silent. Top Wilson went over to Carol, and checked for her vital signs. In the beam of the headlights, you could see her eyes were lifeless. “Boys. She’s gone.”
“Shit,” Starr said. “What do we do?”
“Fuckin’ Captain has a hard on for us. Take his ass out!” Starr shifted the small revolver over to Woods. “Then take Dahl out.”
Rex calculated that if he simultaneously drew the Sig Sauer P226 between his belt and the small of his back and did a combat roll, Starr wouldn’t be able to re-acquire the target with the small snub nose before Rex could unload a couple shots from the Sig, placed accurately.
“What are you reaching for?” Starr asked.
It was like slow motion. Rex lurched to the right, drew the pistol, aimed, and fired one shot before he hit the ground. Starr fired one round towards him and missed. Rex’ round, however, impacted Starr’s
forehead, and he fell backwards, dropping the pistol. They teach you to shoot a double tap the head on the first volley. One round contacting the head is instantly disabling. Torso shots can take too long. Shoot to the head if you can. Mueller went for the gun next. Rex didn’t quite have the opportunity to have the same precision of aim as he rolled out and acquired Mueller, and fired five shots into his torso. He slumped over forward before he could get a round off.
“First Sergeant Wilson.” Rex said. “The man that ripped my stripes off before they confined me to the gallows. You knew, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. I knew. Goddamn Captain Lewis wouldn’t mind his own business. Rode them boys the same as Woods here. Wouldn’t back off.”
“What the hell is going on?” Woods asked.
“Personal business. Yeah, you were right about those drugs. Well, guess what, they’re dead.”
“It’s over Top.” Woods said.
“Let me go with honor. Take me out.” Wilson asked Rex.
“You don’t deserve it.” Rex walked over to the first sergeant, re-cocked the hammer of his pistol, and placed it on the ground in front of Wilson, who was sitting cross-legged in the mud. Wilson picked up the pistol, placed the barrel in to his open mouth, and pulled the trigger, giving his head a slight snap to the rear, and then he slumped over sideways.
“What about the girl?” Woods said.
Rex knelt down and felt her vitals. She was turning cold. “We can’t do anything for her.” Rex knelt down and spoke to her. “Wish I could have known you.”
Woods was in shock. “What now?”
“Best thing for both of us? Leave. I’ll drop you off at the club. You don’t know shit.”
“Who are you?”
“Your guardian angel. Other than that, don’t ask.”
Woods couldn’t sleep all night. He was a wreck. It was all in the news this morning. He came in to work on a Sunday, barracks empty, save for Private Chang. He heard a knock on his open door.
“Yes?” Woods asked.
“Sir you have a visitor.” an MP reported, as he escorted a civilian in a suit through the door.
“Captain Woods?” The visitor asked.
“What can I do for you?” Woods replied.
“I’m Detective Marston with King County Sheriff’s Department. I’m assuming you are aware by now of what happened to three men in your unit?”
“I heard about it on the morning news.”
“We’re trying to piece things together, so we’re going around canvassing persons involved with these individuals. I guess I’ll get down to the basic question. Let’s start with the facts. There was a girl, beaten to death, preliminary investigation suggests that one of the shooting victims is responsible. We have two shooting victims, shot with a nine millimeter handgun, one of the victims was holding a revolver with shots fired, and a third victim, dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Do you have any idea what may have been the cause of this violence?”
“I don’t know, but I suspect that drugs may have been a factor. I don’t know enough of the details to render a judgment on how.”
“Marijuana was found in the car, as well as cash. What lead you to believe drugs were involved?”
“We’ve had a problem with drug use in our unit and I suspected that one or more individuals in my own company were selling drugs. In fact, I busted a PFC to a private a week and a half ago for drug use.”
“What’s the name of this individual, and where can we find him?”
“Chang. He’s restricted to the barracks. You can find him upstairs on the second floor.”
“Anything else you can add, that you can think of?”
Woods contemplated the question. He figured out who it was that picked him up in the car last night. They said he was dead, but it had to have been Alex Dahl. But he heard Mueller straight out confess to Captain Lewis’ murder. The problem is, go there, and you get dragged in to it. “Nope. Not that I can think of.”
“All right. Thank you for your time.”
Investigators have concluded that a bizarre murder-suicide involving four victims, which occurred last Saturday night in a wooded area south of Seattle, was the result of a combination of a relationship triangle and a dispute over drugs. The names of the victims have not been released yet pending full notification of next of kin, however, officials at the King County Sheriff’s Department confirm that three of the victims, who died of gunshot wounds, were service members stationed at Fort Lewis. A fourth, civilian, female victim died of blunt force trauma as the result of a beating administered by one of the shooting victims.
Rex read the news clip. You have to ask yourself, at what point does it become not worth it? All he could think of was that there was an innocent girl that would still be alive if he had not made the journey. It wasn’t his fault, but it was his fault. But on the other hand, at the same time, there was an Army captain that was alive, that probably wouldn’t be, if Rex had not made the trip. It’s a horrible, terrible choice to make, should he have actually had to make the choice. For that matter, if it was actually up to him, it would have been unfair, but he knew the girl a lot better than he knew the captain.
One thing that did occur to him, and it was both a comfortable feeling, and a horrifying feeling, depending on your perspective, is that it gets easier. Oh, the girl’s death will haunt him for life. Those Cuban soldiers in Grenada? It was hard at first. Mueller and Starr? He’d do it again, right now, no questions asked, except, he would have preferred Mueller to depart in a more painful manner. And he had nothing but disdain for Top Wilson.
He looked in the mirror. The same way after he looked in the mirror that first day of liberty after returning from Grenada. He looked different. Now, he looked even more different. There was a message waiting for him at the safe house. ‘Come in. New assignment.’
Chapter 13 – Minding the Store
Rex walked in to Arrow headquarters. Carly was sitting at her desk talking on the phone. She held up her finger, indicating for him to wait. She hung up the phone after several minutes. “Simon is in the hospital.” She began.
“What happened?” Rex asked.
“Heart attack. They say he’s going to be okay but he’s going to be out of commission for a while.”
“I got a message that there was a mission for me.”
“There is. You need to mind the store.”
“Mind the store?”
“Yes, you need to help me. I know enough about the accounting and projects, but I can’t do everything by myself.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll train you.”
“Why me?”
“Simon doesn’t really have anyone else. At least, not that he trusts.”
“Tac ops?”
“Are you joking?”
“I’m willing to give it a go.”
“Good. You can start by talking to the man on line three. He wants to hire us for a job.”
“I’m not much of a sales person.”
“Then wing it. Particularly if you enjoy getting a fat paycheck.”
Rex had done a lot of things by the time he reached his eighteenth birthday and went into the service. He had been an auto mechanic, printing press apprentice, forklift operator, and even an assistant football coach, but nothing that resembled the business management end. Except for that one illicit hooch production operation he and Tommy toyed with in Junior High. Pops was not happy at all when he found out. He was meant to run around in fields and play soldier, not sell vacuum cleaners. But what he was learning, as time went by, was that vacuum cleaner salesmen actually make crappy vacuum cleaner salesmen. They rely on volume and bullshit to make their margins. If you actually need to make a sale every time, you have a janitor or a soccer mom sell your vacuum cleaner. People that need to hire covert paramilitary and espionage services don’t want to talk to a sales person. They don’t want to talk to the office admin. They want to talk to an
experienced soldier, field operative, or mercenary. Not that Rex was all that bad of a bullshitter, he could be great when he needed to be, but he didn’t have to be in order to sell the firm’s services or take care of client’s complaints.
This was actual work and he gained an appreciation for the effort that Simon put in to creating it. It wasn’t physical work, but it was long hours, somewhat mental, and it seemed like he spent nearly every waking hour with Carly.
“Damn, I’m exhausted. When is Simon coming back?” Rex asked.
“Tuesday.” Carly replied.
“Oh dammit, I was going to switch motels today. I checked out but didn’t have time to check in to another. I hope one is still open. Maybe I’ll just sleep here; I’m practically doing that anyway.”
“You can come home with me.”
“Wow. Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
“No, I think it’s a terrible idea. But I’m only going to offer once.”
“Just in the spirit of full disclosure, if you were able to read my mind, you might have second thoughts.”
“Just in the spirit of full disclosure, I can read your mind perfectly. It’s me that you can’t read.”
The Mercedes sped out of the parking garage. They must make all of these chicks out of the same mold, Rex thought. In many respects, she almost seemed like a clone of Kirsten Maples. Except for the British accent and her sometimes slightly eccentric style of dress. But there was no mistaking it. Rex plain and simple had nasty fantasies about Carly.
She lived in a high rise condo not that far away from the office. Her view was spectacular. They took an elevator up to the second to top floor, and led him in to the living room. “Have a seat on the couch. We need to talk.”
‘We need to talk’ ranks up there with the four words men fear the most in male-female relationships. “Can I ask you something first?” Rex asked.
“Sure.”
“Did you and Simon ever, you know...”
“No. I’m not Simon’s type. And I’m not your type either.”
“You brought me all the way over here to tell me that?”
