“…Seven, six, five, four, three, two, ONE!”
The T3 phone rang, causing me to flinch.
Don’t answer it! To hell with them and to hell with Gabriel. Nothing changes. No matter how I try to live better, to help others, nothing changes. In the end, it doesn’t mean shit. In the end, we just end up dead like Dedra. Like the priest. Like everyone else already gone.
The phone rang again.
My head snapped up upon hearing the sound of Celtic New Year coming from the bar’s sound system. It was the same song requested by the priest as he died inside of Bruce Morehouse’s mansion, and the same song I heard playing in my head as I watched a bullet tear through the skull of Magnus Tork.
The T3 phone rang for a third time.
Bennington, you pansy ass little bitch! Take the damn call!
The voice of Father Barnes thundered in my head.
The phone rang for a fourth and then a fifth time.
Six rings Mr. Bennington?
It was Dedra’s voice the morning she woke me to a horrific hangover from far too much drink the night before. It was that morning call that led to my trying to help her to move the fast track cancer research legislation forward in Congress. She was already dying, but hiding it well. I didn’t notice the severity of her pain then, like I hadn’t noticed so many other things around me during my sixty-four years of life. And how many years, did I have left? How much time do any of us have? Dedra spent her final weeks not fighting for her own life, but the lives of others. In a way, I’m pretty sure she was fighting for my life too.
Maybe it was time I was finally willing to do the same.
Six rings.
I took the call…
1.
“Mr. Bennington, I need you to listen to me very carefully.”
The voice wasn’t familiar to Frank. The man sounded older, even older than him, and that was saying something. There was a hint of a vaguely familiar accent as well, though the private detective was having trouble placing it.
“Who is this?”
There was a several seconds pause before the unknown caller spoke again.
“That is not important at the moment, Mr. Bennington. What is important is that you decide one of two things. Your first choice is to walk outside and remain at the entrance until a black limousine with New York plates arrives. Enter the back seat and say nothing. You will be taken to a private airport twenty minutes from your current location.”
It was Bennington’s turn to pause. After several more moments of silence, he pushed for more information.
“Ok, what’s the second choice?”
“The second choice is simple – do nothing. We are not about forcing people to do something against their will, in fact, just the opposite. I must warn you though, that limousine is not the only vehicle now approaching your destination. I believe others are following close behind, mere minutes in fact. These others have been ordered to terminate you, Mr. Bennington. It seems you have succeeded in becoming both a valuable asset to my organization, as well as an increasing annoyance to theirs.”
Bennington looked toward the stairs leading from the lower level of the Off the Record bar to the main lobby of the Hay-Adams Hotel and its within walking distance location to the White House. When the unknown voice spoke again, it included the subtle addition of urgency.
“Thirty seconds, Mr. Bennington. If you are not outside in that time, the limousine will not wait. We must consider your choice made, and whatever awaits you after that to be your fate and yours alone.”
The bar was growing louder, corresponding to the already consumed alcohol of the assembled patrons. It was Washington D.C. at night, in all its well dressed, power mad, increasingly uninhibited glory.
“I’ll ask again – who is this?”
“Fifteen seconds, Mr. Bennington. The only way to have your question answered is to get into that limousine. Ten seconds…”
Frank Bennington found himself moving to the street outside the hotel without consciously thinking to do so. Perhaps it was his own protective instinct that sensed impending danger, or the seemingly never ending need to simply take up a challenge.
The late model black limousine with New York plates came to a stop adjacent to the hotel entrance. The dark privacy glass made it impossible to see who was driving, or if anyone sat in the back.
“Either get into the vehicle, or make your way elsewhere, Mr. Bennington. Staying put is no longer an option for you.”
Frank saw movement to his left. An impeccably dressed man some fifty yards down the street was making his way toward him while whistling to himself. Even from that distance, Bennington was able to note how dark the man’s eyes were – a coal black stare fixated on the former D.C. politico. The stranger wore a crisply tailored dark grey suit, white dress shirt, and blood red tie. The man’s dress shoes were now close enough Frank could hear their hard heels clicking atop the sidewalk. Less than forty yards now separated them.
Something about those eyes…
“NOW, Mr. Bennington, MOVE!”
Frank opened the limo’s back door and slid into the immaculate, dark leathered interior. The interior privacy glass was up, shielding the view of the driver. The soft clicking sound of the vehicle’s doors locking echoed in the otherwise silent confines of the back seat.
“I’m glad you made the choice to accept my invitation, Mr. Bennington.”
Frank was about to respond into the phone when a shadow fell over the passenger window to his right. It was the man who had been moving toward him from the sidewalk. A youthful, round and strikingly pale face peered into the limo’s back seat. While Bennington knew the privacy glass shielded him from being seen, the other man’s coal black eyes appeared to somehow be staring directly into Frank’s own, both mocking and challenging the private detective.
“Do NOT look into his eyes, Mr. Bennington!”
Frank had forgotten about the phone held to his right ear. In fact, he found himself unable to move at all, his body somehow frozen within the swirling darkness of the stranger’s gaze.
The limo’s rear tires chirped upon the pavement as it catapulted itself away from the curb and into the street. Bennington turned to face the rear window where he could see the man watching the vehicle’s swift departure. Just before he disappeared from Frank’s view, the man lifted his right hand in front of him and gave the private detective a slow wave goodbye as a flash of white from a faint smile broke across the street-lit distance between the two men.
If I never see that asshole again it’ll be too soon…
“I look forward to meeting you in person, Mr. Bennington. Until then, enjoy the trip.”
Frank ended the call and then smiled as he spotted a diminutive but well stocked bar in the limo’s backseat. He took one of four available shot glasses and poured himself a drink from a small, airline-sized bottle of Bushmills Irish whiskey.
The lightly golden-hued liquid fired its way down the private detective’s throat, both warming and calming him at the same time and requiring another shot to be poured so the process could be repeated.
Ok, that’s better. Thinking more clearly now. Just another typically untypical day in the life of me, so drink up asshole.
Bennington chuckled at his own internal conversation and then drank down the second shot of whiskey as the Washington D.C. landscape became a blur outside the limousine windows. The vehicle had entered one of the city’s primary freeways and now appeared to be heading south.
Decades of calling Washington D.C. home gave Bennington an idea as to where he was being taken. A small private airport was located just ten miles from the capitol that was utilized by various political and big business VIPs. The facility allowed the most powerful and elite to get into and out of D.C. as quickly, and most importantly, as privately as possible.
Frank saw a small intercom button located just below the privacy partition and reached across with his left hand to push it.
“Hey, are you takin
g me to the Hoover airstrip?
Hoover was a small, single runway facility that sat across the Potomac River upon what had once been U.S. military property. It served for a brief time in the early 20th Century as the primary access into and out of Washington D.C. by plane, but was soon vacated when it became increasingly clear a larger, more modern airport was needed to service the quickly growing D.C. area.
Bennington waited to hear a response from the unseen driver. The only reply that came though was the wind outside and the soft, thumping rhythm of the vehicle’s wheels over the pavement.
The P.I. and former political operative grunted at the non-reply and then did the only thing he felt available for him to do while waiting to arrive at whatever destination he was being taken to - he poured another drink.
2.
“Are you certain regarding this choice, sir?”
Alexander David Meyer offered his longtime assistant a familiar half smile. Peter Berg had handled the billionaire’s day to day affairs for the past twenty years, and had done so with an impeccable sense of both timing and good judgment.
“He’s proven himself, Berg - more than once.”
Berg sat down across from his boss’s desk while nodding his head several times.
“Yes, but why not simply keep him as an operative? Is it wise to offer him inclusion as a full member of the T3 Group? He’s old, suffers from a heart condition, and frankly, shows a determined weakness for both women and drink.”
Alexander David Meyer already knew the details of Frank Bennington’s file. While it was true the former D.C. politico had any number of shortcomings, there was something about the man that intrigued the billionaire.
“You know as well as I that time is no longer a luxury for us. We cannot afford to be so choosy, and membership will afford Mr. Bennington far greater privileges than merely being an operative for the organization, and those privileges may prove the difference between success and failure.”
Peter Berg inhaled and then exhaled slowly as his left hand lightly rubbed the stub that marked where his right pinky finger once resided. He had lost the appendage as a young man living in Brooklyn. A street thug attempted to rob him at knifepoint. Peter successfully fought the thief off, but the altercation cost him a finger.
Now a man of fifty-three years, of average height and build with thinning salt and pepper hair cut short atop a rounded face that housed Berg’s most striking feature – a pair of grey hawkish eyes that took in far more than most. Those eyes now stared intently back at Alexander David Meyer.
Berg knew once Meyer made up his mind, there was little hope of changing it. The son of a French investment banker whose family had survived the horrors of Hitler’s Holocaust, Alexander Meyer rose to the heights of international finance and investment by sheer force of will and the kind of instincts that had proven him right time and time again.
“Perhaps your focus in such matters grows less reliable as you near your departure from New York.”
The billionaire investor’s eyes flashed a warning to Berg. Such language bordered on disrespect.
“My departure has only made my focus that much sharper, Peter. Mr. Bennington is already on his way to us. I called him myself. The decision is made and I expect you to provide him with all the support and guidance his talents require.”
Berg nodded once, his lips creeping across his face in a thin smile.
“Of course, sir.”
Peter Berg’s verbal response did not mirror his private thoughts though.
You’re fleeing, leaving me with a mess you believe will be our last days. This Bennington cannot save anyone, so why bother with him?
Alexander David Meyer cleared his throat and looked upon his second in command with a mixture of sadness and admiration. He understood Peter’s uncertainty in these increasingly trying times. They were losing the battle, had been for many years. Perhaps it was unfair to place so much responsibility on the man’s shoulders. And yet, what choice was left to him?
“As always, I appreciate your input, Peter. I also understand the burden you are expected to carry is great, and my expectations of your abilities even greater.”
Berg shifted in the dark, leather bound chair as the corners of his mouth curled downward.
“It’s not my own abilities I question, sir, but this Bennington’s.”
The billionaire shrugged his impeccably tailored, suit-clad shoulders and then turned in his chair to gaze out through one of the floor to ceiling windows that made up the expansive top floor office that had been the epicenter of his empire for the last three decades.
New York gleamed all around him in the darkness, like a million sparkling eyes always open in the city that never sleeps. It had been his home for so long, but very soon would be no more. Dublin’s safety required the relocation. His granddaughter had become the new epicenter of the billionaire’s life. He would spend his last penny trying to ensure that some hope remained for her future, so that the coming darkness would not completely extinguish the light of a new world born from the currently dying one.
“They want him dead, Peter. For the very reasons I know him to be an asset to us, they want him dead.”
“Sir, that isn’t our concern. Of all the things we are facing, the life of a single man cannot be such a priority.”
Alexander David Meyer’s head snapped back toward Berg, his right pointer finger jabbing toward his assistant.
“You’re wrong, Peter. It may be a single life that saves us all. I did not rise to my current station by ignoring my instincts, and those instincts tell me Frank Bennington has a role to play in what is coming. We must save one if we are to have an opportunity to save many. I know this to be true. I know this, even if I cannot explain it in such a way that you will understand.”
Now it was Berg whose eyes gazed outside at the great city around them, his response to the billionaire a barely audible whisper.
“I hope to God you’re right, sir. For all our sake…”
3.
Frank Bennington turned his head to glance through the limo’s rear window. A pair of headlights approached from behind, indicating they were being followed.
“Mr. Bennington, please put your seatbelt on.”
The voice coming into the rear passenger compartment indicated a woman was driving the limousine. It was a voice both pleasant while also unmistakably authoritative. Bennington pressed the intercom button.
“We’re being followed.”
The driver replied without hesitation.
“I know. Hang on, we’re almost there…”
The limo’s engine roared to life as the massive vehicle threatened to reach triple digit speeds, pushing Bennington’s body further into the seat.
The headlights continued to grow closer.
A sudden turn to the right flung Bennington across the backseat, slamming his shoulder into the left passenger door with a painful thud. The car sped through a gate separating a simple chain link fence as it made its way toward a single steel framed building upon which a large and aged sign read, HOOVER AIRPORT.
The limousine took another sharp turn to the left, pulling up alongside the building. Frank’s right hand reached out to steady himself as he again looked behind him and saw the outline of a black SUV moving slowly through the same gated entrance the limo had just entered seconds earlier.
The right rear passenger door abruptly opened, revealing a tall, well proportioned woman who appeared to be a few years shy of forty. Her dark hair was tied behind a full lipped, blue-eyed face that perfectly complimented the firm yet friendly nature of her voice.
She was beautiful.
She also happened to be holding a gun in her well manicured right hand.
“Time to go, Mr. Bennington.”
Frank pulled himself out of the car at the very moment the sound of whistling broke through the dark silence that surrounded him followed by a voice calling out from where the SUV sat idling a short distance away.
“Nice to see you again, Stasia! I’m afraid this isn’t to be a friendly visit between old friends though. Mr. Bennington is to come with me. He’s been a rather naughty boy in need of a good spanking.”
The man’s voice caused a chill to run down Frank’s spine. It contained an oddly high pitched, almost hissing quality to it. Bennington watched as a body emerged from the darkness, bathed in the manufactured illumination of the limo’s headlights.
Private Detective: BENNINGTON P.I.: A thrilling four-novel political murder mystery private detective series... Page 55
