The Castle: A Ripped-From-The-Headlines Thriller

by Jason Pinter

  They came and they went and sometimes they left impressions, but most of the time those impressions lasted as long as an impression in a pillow. Once in a very long while one would leave a small crack in her heart, but never anything large enough that it couldn’t be healed with a bottle of Malbec and a movie marathon.

  And then Paul came along. He was different. Funny and smart and charming, and it happened totally by accident. There was no artifice, no pretension. Paul didn’t carry himself like the other men, that slow, deliberate walk most of her suitors had, the unhurried gait that suggested the world would come to them. Paul was fun and funny and sexy, and he was hers.

  And that was the Paul she tried to remember. The man she could lie in bed with all day, laughing and kissing. Not the man who’d faded away, who’d come to resent her and her family and everything she’d ever loved.

  Alena had hoped Paul’s personality would rub off on her father. Lord knew he needed some more levity in his life. Instead, Paul’s personality was dissolved like powder in a glass of water.

  And now she was a widow.

  Widow.

  That word, always spoken with a mouthful of glass. Barely thirty and tasked with starting over again. At night, when she couldn’t sleep, Alena thought about the horror of having to date while one, a Griggs, two, a young widow, and three, very potentially the next First Daughter. Alena figured she might as well sail off into the Atlantic Ocean on a small raft and never return.

  And then there was Remy. There had been something between them from the start. But she stemmed it, pretended it wasn’t there until it killed her to do so. She’d wanted him before last night, wanted to feel naked in his arms, but couldn’t face the aftermath. What would happen next?

  And then, when it finally did happen, when she went to sleep, his bare chest beside her, she woke up with everything changed. She was foolish to think she could just start a new romance with Remy. Maybe another time, another life. But not this one.

  Her father had made passing attempts to get her back on the campaign trail. He had practically begged her to accompany him to Salt Lake City to woo prominent Mormons. Utah voters tended to place extra emphasis on morality at the voting booths, and Rawson wanted to showcase his daughter as proof of his commitment to the nuclear family. Alena declined.

  Alena knew her father would offer Remy a job. Rawson could see the value in everything, people especially. Remy had value to him, to the campaign. He couldn’t have foreseen how it would end. Maybe Alena wanted him to hire Remy. Maybe she needed something—someone—new.

  But she couldn’t hide her fear at what the campaign had become. Who her father had become.

  What Remy had said about Paul was insane. Insulting. Horrifying.

  But she couldn’t get it out of her mind. Maybe that was why she enjoyed her time with Remy. With him, she could just be Alena.

  She couldn’t ignore it. She couldn’t forget him.

  So she sent Remy a text.

  I need to see you. Tell me when and where.

  And then she waited.

  She was convinced he wouldn’t write back. When she left the hotel, that would be the end of it. And she would have to live with that. They both would.

  And then her cell phone rang. Alena answered it. Immediately, her hand went to her mouth.

  The conversation lasted less than thirty seconds. Her hand shook so much the phone clattered to the floor. And when Alena picked it back up, she was crying.

  Jeremy. Oh god, Jeremy.

  She grabbed her coat and ran out the door. She had no idea if he was still alive.

  Remy tried to let go of the anger, but it rubbed against him like a stone in his shoe. How dare Grace lecture him on responsibility. Was he the only one who saw the danger of a Rawson Griggs presidency?

  He was tired, fed up, angry with himself over Alena, and decided to hell with it all. He was tired of the cloak and dagger nonsense.

  It was bitterly cold outside. When he got back to his hotel, Remy took a hot shower, threw on a Comfort Inn bathrobe—which was about comfortable as a straitjacket—sat in bed, and watched the news. Every network followed Rawson Griggs around the country like groupies, broadcasting every moment of every speech. Remy remembered what Rawson had said about the value of free media, and felt a white hot rage when he thought about the millions of dollars in free publicity networks were basically throwing at Rawson by broadcasting him nonstop. He owned the airwaves.

  Remy watched a solid five hours of cable news before starting to feel sick. He thought about texting Alena, but didn’t know what to say. How did you come back from accusing someone’s father of murder? Remy needed a drink, and not one that came out of a bottle the size of his thumb.

  He cleaned himself up, threw on a pair of jeans and a V-neck sweater over a button-down, put on a hat, strapped the tasers back on, and left the hotel. There were a dozen bars within walking distance of his hotel, but Times Square was all tourist traps serving crummy frozen burger patties and charging nine dollars for a domestic draft. He needed something a little more familiar.

  Remy took the 6 train uptown to 86th, then walked east towards the river until he got to Bailey’s. The bar he’d been drinking at the night he met Alena Griggs and Paul Bracewell.

  Ian was behind the bar. Remy slid in and ordered an IPA.

  “Well, lookie here. By Abraham Lincoln’s ghost. Thought we’d seen the last of you, Remy.”

  “Still here,” Remy said, “for better or worse.”

  Ian poured two shots of Jameson and put them on the bar along with Remy’s beer.

  “Let’s see if we can’t make it more better than worse,” Ian said.

  They clinked glasses and downed the shots.

  A basketball game was on. Remy sipped his beer and tuned out. Nobody approached him. Nobody noticed him. He ordered a plate of nachos and wolfed them down.

  “Beast this, motherfucker,” he said, shoving four goopy chips into his mouth.

  Remy felt his phone buzz. He took it out and saw a text from Grace Rivas.

  He read it and a smile spread across his face.

  Confirmed with Hayes Benson that the Griggs tax return pages are authentic. Eric and I will be writing the story tonight. Should go up tomorrow or the day after. Thank you for all your help, Remy. I can’t say whether this will have the effect you want, but it’s the truth, and that’s all we can do.

  Grace

  That was worth another drink.

  After he finished his second beer, Remy paid and left a ten dollar tip. It was a gorgeous evening, a cool wind coming off the East River. Sometimes the city took his breath away. Part of him missed being just another guy living amongst the concrete jungle. Before he had to worry about matters of national security, before he knew anyone named Griggs.

  Ten more minutes either way that night and Paul would have died and nobody would have been any wiser and Remy’s life would have continued just the way it was. Instead, he was living in budget hotel in the middle of a tourist mecca, trying to stay hidden from some of the most powerful people in the world. If Remy had a chance to go back, choose the other path, maybe he would have been better off.

  He headed towards the subway. It was a nice night out and he needed the air. He was tired of it all. He walked slowly west down 85th Street. He saw a teenage girl walking her dog, a young couple necking in a doorway.

  Remy smiled.

  He did not notice the man come up from behind him holding a metal bar. All he heard was a faint whoosh before the bar cracked across his shoulder blades, driving the wind out of him and forcing him to his knees. The second blow glanced off the side of his head, knocking him unconscious before the pain even had a chance to register.

  And he felt nothing when they picked him up and tossed him into the back of a waiting van.

  When Remy opened his eyes, he had the headache to end all headaches and his upper back screamed in pain. It took a minute for him to focus, and as soon as he realized where he was, the
terror set in.

  He was lying on his side on the floor of a van. The floor was covered in clear plastic sheeting. A black curtain cordoned off the rear of the van from the driver. On the sheeting, next to his head, Remy noticed a few drops of blood. It was red and fresh. His blood.

  Electrical tape was fastened over his mouth. His hands were bound behind him with what felt like a plastic tie.

  Remy managed to pull himself into a seated position. His breathing was ragged, and his heart jackhammered in his chest. The tape forced him to breathe through his nose, but the clotted blood forced the breaths to come in quick gasps. He felt like he might hyperventilate.

  Two men sat on the floor of the van across from him. Their faces were hidden under ski masks. Their eyes were fixed on Remy. They said nothing. He tried to reach his left pocket, but could feel that it was empty. They’d taken his phone. He looked down at his ankle. They’d taken the taser. His trigger bracelet was still on, though. They probably assumed it was a fitness tracker.

  Remy tried to speak, but his words were unintelligible through the tape. The men did not move. The windows were covered in black tape. He couldn’t see where they were or where they were going. Counting the driver, there were three people in the van. And Remy didn’t get the sense that they were taking him to a hospital.

  One of the men held a metal pipe in his gloved hand. In the other hand, he held the taser than had been strapped to Remy’s ankle.

  Remy wondered if that pipe was the same weapon that was used to break Trevor’s ankle. There was a good chance they were the same men. The fewer people in the loop, the fewer fuck-ups. And wherever the four of them were going, it was very likely only three would be coming back.

  Remy tried to speak again. He struggled against his bonds. The men didn’t react. They weren’t concerned about him escaping and didn’t seem to be in a conversational mood.

  Every bump in the road sent a jolt of pain through him. The van bumped along, every pothole jarring his head, causing him to yelp into the tape covering his mouth. His head pounded. Panic was setting in, adrenaline coursing through his veins. He was being driven to his death.

  Then Remy saw a light flash. It was his cell phone. Someone had texted him.

  One of the men picked up the phone and looked at the screen. Remy saw the man’s eyes widen.

  He leaned over to his partner and whispered something in his ear. Remy couldn’t be sure, but he swore the second man said something that sounded like shit. Remy figured anything bad for them had to be good for him.

  The second man crawled over to Remy and flicked open a switchblade. Remy forced himself back against the wall of the van. He struggled, tried to scream, tried to twist away. The man grabbed Remy by the neck. Remy closed his eyes, sure his throat was about to be cut.

  But instead, he felt the knife slip between his hands and cut the plastic tie.

  Then the man sat back against the opposite wall. He folded the knife and put it in his pocket.

  Remy brought his hands forward. He rubbed them together to get the blood flowing, get his circulation back. The tape was still on his mouth. He reached up to remove it, but the man closer to the door said, “Don’t touch it. If you do, I’ll cut one of your eyes out.”

  Remy stopped. The man held out Remy’s phone.

  “You got a text from Alena Griggs.”

  He mouthed Alena? through the tape.

  “She said she needs to see you. Now, obviously, that’s not going to happen.” The man had a slight accent. Hispanic? Remy couldn’t be sure. “Problem is, it’s Mr. Griggs’s daughter. So if she gets suspicious, she tells her father, she starts asking around, and that’s a problem. And so it’s in all of our best interest that little Miss Griggs doesn’t get suspicious. Hear what I’m saying?”

  Remy nodded.

  “So what you’re going to do,” he said, “is write back. You’re going respond so she doesn’t get suspicious. That’s it. No signals. No calls. I’m going to watch you type it out. You type anything else, or try to call or text anyone other than Alena, after I cut your eye out, I’m going to find that reporter friend of yours and cut her tits off. You get me?”

  Remy nodded.

  The man handed Remy the phone. He smelled like sweat and cotton. As Remy opened the text area, the man looked over his shoulder like a suspicious spouse.

  Remy figured he could probably type and send the word help before they could stop him. But he also believed them that they would harm Grace if he did. He had one chance. He had to time it perfectly. And if he didn’t, he was dead.

  Remy wrung out his wrists and began to type.

  Hey Alena. No can do. Busy. Rain check?

  The man took the phone from Remy and deleted the text.

  “Don’t be so casual,” he said. “Asking for a rain check would make her suspicious. Don’t be stupid. You want to play with your friend’s life?”

  Remy shook his head. He took the phone back and wrote: Hey Alena. I’m busy right now, but I’ll drop you a line later.

  The man nodded and pressed send. Then he showed the phone to his partner.

  The moment the man held the phone up for his partner to see, Remy pressed the buttons on his trigger bracelet.

  Bright blue sparks shot out of the cell phone case. The man holding the phone shrieked and fell backward, his body convulsing on the dirty van floor. The second man, his face just inches from the taser when it went off, was knocked back against the door.

  “What the fuck is going on back there?” the driver shouted. “Diaz? McGuire? The hell?”

  Remy launched himself at the second man and knocked him off balance. He straddled the man and punched him in the face. He heard a crunch and a spurt of blood jetted from the man’s broken nose. But when Remy raised his fist once more, the man blocked it with his forearm and backhanded Remy across the head.

  Remy’s head spun as he fell over. He was dizzy, unbalanced. The van sped along.

  The man with the busted nose pushed Remy off of him and reached down towards his ankle. Remy saw a glint of metal. The man had a gun tucked into an ankle holster.

  Remy grabbed the armed man’s hand. He tried to push Remy off, but the lurching vehicle sent Remy sprawling to the far side of the van. Remy saw the man unstrapping the gun from its holster. Remy had mere seconds before he would die. Then he saw the reflection of another piece of metal. The pipe. It was trapped under the downed man’s leg.

  Remy yanked it out just as the second man freed his gun. As he raised the weapon, Remy cracked the pipe across his forearm. He heard a snapping sound and a scream as the man’s arm broke. The gun clattered to the floor.

  While the gunman howled, Remy went back to the man who’d been debilitated by the Yellowjacket. He grabbed the Lil Guy taser from the floor. The gunman man was holding his broken right arm, gingerly reaching for the gun with his left.

  Remy went over to him, said, “Fuck you,” charged the taser, and jabbed it into the man’s sternum. He let out a shriek, convulsed, then lay still.

  Remy picked up the man’s gun. It was as a Glock G19. He grabbed his cell phone from the floor. He found his wallet in the man with the broken nose’s jacket. Remy turned on his cell phone and opened the camera app. He went over to each man, lifted their mask, took a picture of their faces and texted them to Grace Rivas with the message:

  Find out who these assholes are.

  The driver yelled, “Diaz? Talk to me! McGuire?”

  Remy ripped the electrical tape from his mouth and took a long gulp of air. Then, holding the gun, he climbed through the curtain into the front passenger seat. There was a shovel on the floor. Remy knew exactly why they’d brought it along.

  “Hey there,” Remy said, holding the gun to the driver’s head. The driver was a white man, mid-thirties, dressed in cargo pants, a flannel work shirt, and a down jacket. He was not wearing a mask.

  “What the fuck is going on?” the driver yelled.

  “Sorry. Diaz and McGuire aren’t
available to take your call right now. But you’re going to stop this van, right now, before I blow a second hole in your dick.”

  “The hell I am,” the driver said. “You see where we are?”

  Remy looked out the window. They were driving across a bridge. Traffic was sparse. The speedometer read forty-five miles an hour. Remy recognized where they were headed. They were taking him across the George Washington Bridge on the upper roadway towards New Jersey, where he would be killed and buried. He only had moments before Diaz and McGuire came around, and at that point, unless he wanted to figure out how to incapacitate three very angry men, he was as good as dead.

  “Stop the car now,” Remy yelled, jamming the gun against the driver’s head.

  The driver laughed, kept going. “You ever fire a gun before, kid? Careful before you shoot your balls off.”

  Remy looked at the gun and said, “Good thing my Dad kept a Glock in the house and never bothered to lock his drawer.” Then Remy deftly released the three internal safety mechanisms and fired a round right between the driver’s legs.

  “Jesus Christ!” The flash from the gun blinded them both, lighting the entire van up like a firecracker. The noise from the round discharging made Remy’s ears ring. A trail of smoke wafted out from the bullet hole in the seat cushion.

  “Ow, that fucking burns!” the driver yelled.

  He jammed on the brake, bringing the van to a screeching halt. Remy had to brace himself to avoid being flung into the windshield.

  Once the van had come to a complete stop, Remy put the gearshift into park, then turned the ignition off and grabbed the key.

  “Hey, you little shit, you can’t just…”

  Remy jabbed the charged taser into the driver’s shoulder. He saw a cell phone in the man’s pocket. Remy took it.

  He unlocked the passenger side door and stepped out into the middle of the upper roadway of the George Washington Bridge. Between the cold, fright, and adrenaline, Remy was shivering uncontrollably.

  Two cars stopped short, horns blaring in the night. Remy cut through the traffic to the eastern side of the bridge, where he tossed the gun, the car keys, and the driver’s cell into the Hudson River.