Charles said, “I’m writing a narrative log. Matt taught us to have a written summary of our day and how many odd things we saw or heard, or just had a gut feeling about. We all read each other’s narrative logs at the start of our shifts. We believe in it as it has yielded cases; so we’ve kept it going. And don’t forget, we used to work with Matt before at Macy’s.”
“Right, makes sense to me, Charles,” Ray said. His mind was spinning on the information that they wrote daily narratives. Ray Callahan was a decipherer of peoples’ thoughts—and Charles was saying they had all of Matt’s thoughts right here. How had they missed this the first time? “Charles, we saw no such log when we went through this place, and believe me, we went through it.”
Charles spun in his chair and pointed, “We keep them right there in that stacker, but one day a week Matt brought the binder to the Store Manager to review. It must have been that day.”
Sure enough, right on the desk in the corner was something in plain sight, his trained men had either missed, or it was in another office. As it turned out it was this treasure trove that helped Ray to later sway Kim, as the narratives therein clearly showed the kind of cognitive thought process that he believed Matt to have.
Next, Ray tracked down the Cadet who Matt had gotten into the altercation with, ultimately leading to his dismissal from the Sheriff’s Academy. The search didn’t end as he’d expected. The Cadet, who later became a patrolman, was released from duty right after he cleared his probation period of one year after several prostitutes in his new patrol area complained that he had them perform services for free. His name was Roland Wilkerson and he was now a security guard for the Los Angeles Convention Center. Ray was allowed an interview room by the Manager on site, but the interview was going nowhere. Wilkerson was a black man and his whole story made no sense. He insisted that Hurst was riding him the whole way, calling him “Spear Chucker,” and other racist epitaphs until he just had it and couldn’t take it anymore. That’s when the two of them quarreled.
“Nice story, it has all the right catch words and phrases, Roland,” Ray quipped. “The only problem is, I’m profiling Hurst and know that he isn’t a racist.”
That brought silence to the room. So he tried another approach,
“Listen, Roland, I don’t believe a word you’re saying, and here’s the funny part, I could care less about the ‘right and wrong’ of whatever caused this. I don’t know what really happened between the two of you, but if you tell me the real story, I promise you two things. One, it will stay between us, and two, it will earn you what’s in this envelope.”
Ray revealed an envelope full of one hundred-dollar bills, “Nothing short of the truth Roland, and I don’t care how it makes you look. And believe me, I’ll know if you’re lying, and you don’t want to lie to me, Roland.”
Wilkerson hesitated and then asked, “I can’t get in any trouble here?”
“How? It’s just us two and I don’t even have a pen on me. This is not going in any report. I’m responsible for knowing everything there is to know about this guy, and I especially need to know what makes him tick.”
“Okay. Okay, I’ll tell you.” Ray detected some relief from Mr. Wilkerson, as if this was some long pent up thing and Ray was prying it open. This might be an unscheduled visit to the shrink here for Mr. Wilkerson. Ray instructed, “Go ahead, Roland.”
Wilkerson sized Ray up before he spoke, apparently believing the last threat, because he had no attitude, “Okay, well, me and some of the guys went out one Friday night. Matt was one of us. So we hook up with some primo tail and the guy bails on us. Apparently he was getting married and wanted to be a good boy.
“So the next day we was ribbing him about being a good Boy Scout, and some Brady Bunch shit, you know, making life hard on him in the locker room. We was also talking about all the shit we did with those freaky girls. I guess I went too far and he flipped out on me.”
Ray Asked, “Do you remember exactly what you said that sent him over the edge?”
“That’s the thing, it wasn’t all that bad. I just said ‘boys will be boys’ when he asked me if I felt guilty.”
Wilkerson thought hard to recollect and continued, “Before attacking me, he was asking how can I be trusted with a badge when I was cheating on my own woman.” Ray could tell Wilkerson was doing his hardest to recall this, maybe he’d had too many beers and late nights out since then, but he started again after the long pause, “He was really mad at me, then I said some stupid street thing and ended with ‘boys will be boys’ and we were at it. I just didn’t know he was that strong. If Dwayne wouldn’t have gotten him off of me, I was going to black out. He was really choking me out.”
Ray handed him the envelope when he was done, “If you look back, Roland, that should have been your wake up call.”
“Tell me about it,” was all he could muster, and Ray was gone.
The last person Ray spoke to was Sgt. Russell Peltz, and he walked away from that meeting with the absolute belief in Matt’s innocence. Hurst and Peltz were more than just student and teacher; they had built a friendship and had even shared some after-hours shooting. Apparently Matt had gotten good enough to try to challenge the Master.
“Did he ever win?” Ray inquired.
Peltz responded with no ego, “No, he never beat me, but he was a fierce competitor and he even pushed himself to learn “off-hand” as I made that part of the competition. He is a good man, Ray, and there’s no way I believe he’s on the wrong side of the law. No way!” Ray asked Russell Peltz to keep his next words confidential, “Neither do I, Sir, and I’m going to prove it.”
* * *
As usual, right at eleven she was heading to her Yoga class. He was waiting on the street, and as Jan Hurst passed his SUV, he rolled the passenger window down and said, “Jan, can we talk?”
She was taken aback, “Do I know you?” After what happened, she had to be protected from the media by her father, yet to this day she was still understandably cautious.
“Kind of, but we need to talk nonetheless. My name is Ray Callahan and I’m an analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency. You might remember me if you think hard enough, as I was one of the agents inside of the safe house that secured you.”
“Do you have an ID?”
He produced it and she looked at it through the window, “What do you want with me?”
“I want a chance to sit down and talk to you. If not now, then choose a time, but our meeting is to be confidential and personal. I’m off the clock.”
That was more than Jan could handle and she jumped in this guy’s car right then and there. She figured, if he turned out to be a creep, she’d have a pretty good chance at taking his Rick Moranis-looking-ass anyway. Besides, one look at him and one could see he certainly was no threat. This has got to be about Matt!
Ray drove up into the hills off of Highway 85 and toward the coast on Highway 9. The road started off winding through some heavily wooded estates. There were small private roads that shot off every now and again, probably to some amazing properties, as this was not a low-rent district. She noticed one was a camp for kids.
Soon the populace was gone and they were in the middle of nowhere. Ray said, “You can never be too careful when it comes to the CIA.” He furthered that they would just drive and at some point make a U-turn. As the landscape turned to redwoods and the sun had to struggle to reach the earth, Jan sat and listened to this man’s incredible assessment of her husband.
Of course, she was none too pleased to hear the parts about the woman she’d seen in the news a thousand times, but she was mature enough to realize that Matt was in survival mode and Jan was over it in the time it took to process the thought. Ray finished his story and was impressed that she didn’t interrupt him even once, “Well, what do you think?”
“Ray Callahan, I think you just told me the only thing that’s made sense in the last two years. And God bless you for telling me, but why did it take so long?”
“Because it took a while to get the pieces in place and a while longer for my conscience to not allow the injustice anymore. I would lose my job for this, but regardless of the career consequences, it had to be done.”
“I guess that’s understandable, Ray, God bless you, but now I have to tell you something. We need to take another drive today. Matt’s father was a Korean and Vietnam War veteran and he’s near suicidal over this. The press has been merciless on my in-laws and they had nowhere to run like I did. They’ve lived in the same house their whole married lives.”
“I can’t do that, Jan, that’s why we’re driving out here, so I’m not seen.”
“Then you’ll have to trust me, Ray. This has to be done and there is no one more honorable than Don Hurst to keep a secret. Ray, he’s dying of cancer. You can’t let this war hero go to his grave thinking his kid was America’s ‘biggest traitor’ ever!”
“Okay, Jan, if it has to be done just make sure he knows that his kid’s life depends on things staying quiet. As well as my career.”
They made it back to civilization after a quiet thirty-minute drive devoid of further conversation on the matter. They talked about Jan and Jon Jon’s life. She guided him to her car and he let her out. Jan was able to hold it together long enough to make it into her car and watch him drive off. Then she had an absolute breakdown. It was the kind of crying that only comes from deep inside one’s soul, when one’s life had been ripped apart and the depression couldn’t get any worse. Jan sat crying, rocking back and forth. She was holding a stuffed bear named Matt that she took everywhere; she kept having panic attacks and the bear was her comfort in an ever increasingly mean and mad world. All she could do was cry his name over and over again. She was literally inconsolable. “Matt, Matt . . .”
* * *
Octavio Mendoza’s eyes opened to unfamiliar surroundings. Am I in the jungle? He tried to move, but couldn’t. He was zip-tied to a steel chair and it was an uncomfortable position for his rebuilt knee. But that’s not what disturbed him so. What bothered him most right now was the fact that he was covered by a Plexiglas cube—like a cake on a table? What the fuck is this? He scanned his thoughts in a panic. As had been the growing trend, the underground prayer movement for the boy had spawned another movement, one of armed resistance. Some of their mule lines had been hit and after the last attack, it was ascertained that there was nothing even taken, the men were just killed.
So Luis Calderon had sent him to Ecuador to stomp out another “sheep rising.” Yes, that was it. His head was clearing now, as Luis had sent him to Los Encuentros, where he and his men made quick work of the insurgents. Later they were in a bar drinking and being rough. There was a whore he remembered and he claimed her first. He took her back to his room, where they had a drink . . .
That’s all he could remember. Now he’d woken up here? There was movement and he looked over to see a beekeeper walking toward him. Was this real? Then the beekeeper’s mask opened, and Octavio exclaimed, “No!”
“Hey, my friend, how are you? Comfortable I hope, not too tight?”
“Fuck you, Puto. Let me free and let’s settle this like men!”
“Oh, you mean the kind of men that kill families in their sleep, even the little girls. Or how about the kind of men that shoot people in the back as they’re running away, those kinds of men? No Hombre, you have no honor to bring to the table.”
“So what do you want from me?”
“I only want to watch you die the slow death before my eyes. To know that at least one of you is going to suffer as I have; to know you will have time to think about all you have done as your life is taken one painful moment at a time.”
“Why me? There are others, more important than me. The man who ordered their deaths, I can take you to him!”
Pablo laughed a sadistic laugh, “Who Luis Calderon? He’s already dead. As is all your little army of evil, spreading your junk on the world. No, I have the right man and thank you for begging for your life because it brings me great joy to know that you want to live.”
Pablo Manuel put his mask back on and walked over to where his jeep was parked. He flipped the switch on the winch and the Plexiglas lifted off. That was the first moment Octavio decided to look down and saw the anthills. They were everywhere, “My friend here had this idea and I thought it to be a good one as well.” The man he was speaking of was short and had tattoos everywhere, even his baldhead.
He didn’t bother with the bee suit either, and was obviously being stung from time to time, as he would slap an area of his body. He was always smiling and Octavio thought his smile was right out of a horror movie, with a mouthful of teeth that needed an orthodontist but never saw one. The tattooed man lit the M-80 in his hand and threw it at Octavio’s feet. The concussion brought out more ants than Pablo had ever seen before in his life. They both climbed up on the hood of the jeep and watched what happens when a million stinging ants are mad at someone.
Felipe threw one more just for good measure, but unfortunately, it landed in the hombre’s lap and as he tried to flip it out using his groin muscles, it exploded over what would be his manhood area, “That might have hurt by the sound of it,” Pablo announced loudly, his quarry now whimpering softly, praying to die. He then inquired from the killer, “Are you trying to talk to God? Hah! God is not on your side my friend, just so you know.”
Felipe lit another, this one found the base of a hill nearest him and the ensuing hoard made a painful good-bye to a man the world would not miss. Pablo especially liked the part where they filled his nostrils and he had to open his mouth to breathe. In the end, his mouth was teeming with them, stinging his tongue and eyes. His whole face was now black from the mass of ants, yet even after his death, they were still pissed at him.
Pablo thought, he looks like one of the wolf boys from Mexico I’ve seen. How cathartic. He turned to Felipe with renewed vigor. “Are you ready to change the world my friend?”
* * *
Harpreet Singh worked many hard hours as the Project Manager for Tanjotti. The rewards were massive by Indian standards, although he had to keep his earnings secret from his family, especially his brother Raj, who was an out of work engineer and currently desperate for money.
Raj wanted to be the “Next Great Comedian” out of India. The only problem was, most Indian comics sucked and Raj was in the majority. Raj was fun to drink with though, and after a nice twelve-hour day, his amusement was worth buying the drinks to watch. They sat at a table of a crowded New Delhi bar and chatted.
“You know they are idiots, brother.”
“They pay me okay, Raj; where else would I work?”
“They’re stupid dude, I’m telling you.”
“Okay, Raj, I’ll bite, why? Why are they stupid? They kept their production time frame out of Brazil and we launched nearly on schedule. We’ve kept our service end of the agreement up and currently we’re the cheapest, most profitable phone company in South America. So how is the Tanjotti Corporation stupid?”
“I saw the specs for their latest satellite and it’s twice as big as it needs to be. They put all kinds of lame safety features on it that were unnecessary and then the Russians killed them on launch costs. Seemed kind of crazy, I heard they didn’t even haggle. The Russians will never respect you if you don’t haggle.”
“Yeah, well, Raj, when the original company was bought out, things changed, and we don’t get to say what’s what anymore. They built it, the Cosmodrome launched it, and we’re servicing the hell out of it. Besides, what other company is going to give you a free phone with unlimited text and data for as long as you work there?”
Raj perked up, “Free phone, huh? That’s a great perk, you should let me know when there’s an opening.”
Harpreet inwardly laughed at his brother’s idiocy before he watched him put his foot up on the adjacent chair exposing the hole in his shoe. And there you go; one has to love The Raj show.
* * *
Pablo looked at the furrowed brow of his right hand man, “You’re not on board, I can tell.”
“It’s not that I’m not on board. It’s just that it’s my job to make sure nothing goes wrong—that you deliver God’s Will with no interruptions.”
“Yes, Felipe, and for that I’m eternally grateful. But the gringo is of little or no risk.”
“You can’t be sure of that!”
Pablo was taken aback, as no one here had ever talked to him like that. It made him realize he was making a mistake. Not listening to a close advisor was a mistake, so he capitulated, “Okay, you can decide where he will be. If you think it too risky, then that’s your call. You can also be the one to tell Vera, too.” Those words hung in the air. Pablo used a cadence of over exaggeration, “Oh, you expected me to do it? No, Sir, that’s one job that’s NOT my job around here.”
Felipe was a stubborn man, but he was no match for Vera and he knew it. “We’ll talk about it later,” was his reply, obviously not ready to give up this fight as to where the gringo should be during the event. He stood before Pablo, “I’m going to leave now.”
Pablo walked over to him, placed both hands upon his scarred and tattooed face and said, “God bless you.”
Felipe was a true believer, and when Pablo touched him he could feel that God had really tapped Pablo, he was truly anointed. His hands were so soft and he felt the presence of more than just a man as they lay upon him. As he was leaving he turned and stopped, looked deeply at Pablo and said, “You didn’t lie to me.”
“Pardon?”
“You didn’t lie to me. You told me that we would have our revenge against the world that shut us out and enslaved us. You told me that I would be a huge part of it, and you didn’t lie to me. That makes you the only person to ever trust me and not to lie to me. I will die for you, Pablo.” Felipe looked at the screens over Pablo’s shoulder that revealed the rest of the Anthill, all in their own rooms and all with their individual screens, ready to play “The Game.” Felipe pointed to them over Pablo’s shoulder and said, “And they will, too.”
And the Meek Shall Inherit (Harbinger of Change Book 2) Page 2
