by Mike Dagons
Luckily, his brother, Ice, was as skilled in silent assassinations as their father, but he had a small window of opportunity, which was going to require him to change his vacation plans.
Melvin made contact with a former colleague at the Bureau that he sometimes used for special favors. He was dependable, confidential, and dealt in cash only.
He arranged for Ice to get inside to see Lincoln Scott without having to go through the normal channels. He thought that Lincoln was scum, so he had no problem with what was to be done.
Ice was told to pose as one of Lincoln’s attorneys, and show up at the federal facility at a specific time.
This was a job he did not want traced back to him or Genesis, so he dressed in a very expensive designer suit, and wore theatrical makeup to change his appearance.
Tanning foundation made his light brown complexion a few shades darker, and he used dental caps to change the shape of his teeth and alter his smile. Silicone mold putty packed inside his cheeks squared up his jawline and gave his face a new shape. He wore a wig that made it look like he had a receding hairline, and contacts to give him hazel eyes. He used invisible sealer on his hands, so he wouldn’t leave any fingerprints, and he took a cab to the facility.
When Ice climbed out the cab, his gait was different. He walked with a noticeable limp, and rounded his shoulders to give the appearance of being shorter than 6’2”, and much older than his thirty six years.
He looked nothing like Isaak Charles Edwards when he walked into the building. He put his briefcase on the conveyer belt, and then took his loose change and keys out of his pockets and put them in a tray before he walked through the metal detectors.
His contact was waiting for him on the other side, and he took him down a long hall, and used his passkey to take him upstairs using a back elevator.
He bypassed the check in process normally used to record attorney visits, and put Ice in a room to wait for Lincoln to be brought to him.
Ice only had to wait a few minutes until his contact escorted the big man into the room. Lincoln Scott was a wealthy man, and since the wealthy were afforded special privileges. He wasn’t wearing a prison uniform, or ankle bracelets. His hands were cuffed in front, and he looked well groomed and comfortable.
Ice was sitting facing the door, and when Lincoln walked in, he sat down in the chair across the table from him.
Lincoln was tall with a shock of natural rusty blonde curls covering his head. He had the deep brown complexion of the Aborigine. His eyes were like blue ice gemstones, and their contrast to his skin color made him look mysterious and crafty. His teeth were perfectly white, and his broad smile deceptively friendly.
“Who are you?” he asked, after the guard who had escorted him in left them alone.
“I’m your new attorney, Eric Lipton. Mr. Nettles has met with an unfortunate accident.”
“What kind of accident?” he inquired.
Ice placed his elbows on the table and leaned over it, indicating that he wished to whisper conspiratorially. As expected, Lincoln automatically mimicked his actions, putting his cuffed hands on the table in front of him, and leaning forward.
“He was fatally injured in a hit and run accident,” Ice reported.
It was true. Valow had run him down in front of his Canal Street Penthouse, which the morning news would confirm were he to check.
“Was it really an accident, or did someone deliberately run him down?”
“I don’t know, sir. I’ve been told that he was a personal friend as well as your attorney, and I am sorry for your loss.” He gripped Lincoln’s fists in his hands as a show of heartfelt sympathy. The pressure of his grip pushed poison pinheads into the back of Lincoln’s hand administering deadly toxins into his bloodstream.
Lincoln snatched his hands back, and looked at it when he felt the scrape on his skin. He rubbed away the tiny beads of blood with his thumb, and then looked up at Ice.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Scott!” he apologized excitedly. “My ring must have scratched you.” He held up the finger wearing the thick band of silver with deeply carved sharply cut etchings, and showed it to him. “Please forgive me. I can have the guard bring you a bandage,” he stood up as if to go look for help.
“Sit down, dammit! It’s only a scratch,” he shouted, annoyed by the suggestion that he would make a fuss about a little scrape. “I want to know what’s going on. Who hired you, Xena?”
“Yes sir, she ordered me to get the information to you right away, and to tell you that Geo has disappeared.”
“I thought he was being tailed? Did he deliver the package before he disappeared?”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Scott. I am still very shaken by your injury. I feel like a fool for not delivering the message properly. What she said was, it’s not safe to use the phone because Geo delivered the package, and he and his wife have disappeared,” he exhaled, like the exact words had been difficult to recall.
Lincoln slammed his hands down on the tabletop and let out a roar of laughter. “This is good news, Eric. How soon will I be getting out of here?”
“I’m preparing the papers, and hopefully I can have you out in a few days.”
“This is very good news. Tell my sister not to worry. She has done well for our family, and I will not forget her sacrifice. I want you to make arrangements for Josh’s funeral. He will be missed.”
The door opened, and Ice’s contact stepped inside with another guard. “Time is up, gentlemen,” he announced.
“This was an unauthorized visit, Mr. Scott. Your sister did not want me to wait to give you the news,” he explained to Lincoln. “You will hear from me soon.”
Ice had been instructed to bring two money envelopes. He opened the briefcase, and removed the envelopes. He gave the one containing five thousand dollars to his contact, and the one containing two thousand to his accomplice.
Lincoln was escorted back to lockup, and Ice was escorted out of the building.
Ice walked ten blocks to the motel where he had a cheap room rented for the purpose of removing his disguise.
Inside, he took off the ring he wore to administer the poison. It belonged to his father, a poison connoisseur, who was always developing new methods of dispensing his venoms.
The ring looked like heavy beaten silver, but it was actually plastic. Ice pushed the clasp and opened it, and then he rinsed the insides with soap and water to remove the lethal residue.
Next, he put it in the sink and held a flame to it. The plastic melted into a small shapeless ball, which he flushed down the toilet.
The poison he had injected Lincoln with was one of his father’s special brews. It was lethal, but it produced few noticeable symptoms; a mild headache, and an even milder upset stomach that a macho man like Lincoln probably wouldn’t even mention. It would infect his system slowly, and eventually cause his heart to stop. He’d be dead by dinnertime and the trace evidence out of his bloodstream in less than twelve hours after his death.
Ice removed the facial makeup, showered, and then dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. Bender would make sure he wasn’t caught on any of the surveillance cameras in the area, but he left the motel with a baseball cap pulled down low on his head to hide his face as an extra precaution.
Ice had taken the Lincoln contract pro bono as a favor to Choc. It had to be done quickly, and without any signs of foul play. Unless they called his father out of retirement, he was the only man on the Genesis payroll who could do it within the time restrictions.
After leaving the motel, he took public transportation to Midway Airport, and then got on a flight to California. When he arrived at LAX, he transferred to an international flight to Osaka, Japan, to close a more important contract.
The Osaka contract was off the Genesis books, and it would yield him a cool ten million. Melvin had turned it down after his investigation revealed there was a woman involved in the hit. It didn’t matter that the bitch was a kiddie porn dealer. She was a woman, and he had a strict rule against contracting
to kill women. Ice thought that his idealism was antiquated, and pointless. Especially since he would kill a woman, he just wouldn’t contract to kill one.
Melvin also didn’t like the client. He called him shady, and he didn’t accept business from shady people. Another rule Ice thought was stupid.
Since he wasn’t as particular as Melvin about who he accepted money from, or who he killed. He accepted the contract as a freelance hit. He didn’t tell Melvin about it because he didn’t want him to tell their father, and he knew that he would.
It didn’t matter that he was a grown ass assassin, who had been doing the job for fifteen years. His father would lecture and bitch about him taking this job until he wanted to slit his own throat. So, he’d planned to sneak away for a week. Do the job, and nobody would be the wiser.
The buyer wanted to make sure the mark suffered before she died, so he talked his friend, Anakin, into lending a hand. He had one week to complete the job, and the Lincoln job was fucking with his timeline. He was supposed to have been in Osaka two days ago, but it was still doable.
Anakin was leaving the States tomorrow afternoon to meet him there. They would close the contract, and then take a train to Tokyo to party before returning to the States.
Ice thought that Lincoln Scott was smalltime, and actually not worthy of his talent. Ordinarily, Melvin wouldn’t have ever accepted a contract on a person that insignificant, but it was for family. He understood family loyalty better than most, since it was the code to live and die by in theirs.
He respected Choc for standing for his brother, and he was happy to lend a hand.
He hadn’t expected the job to be anything more difficult than any common inconvenience, and it wasn’t. The only problem he’d encountered was getting Melvin to stop being so fucking meticulous, and put a rush on it.
The fact that he couldn’t tell him why he was in a hurry didn’t make it easier to sell. Being anxious only made Melvin suspicious of his motives, and he still didn’t put it into play until he was ready.
It had been a stressful two days, but now that it was done, and he was on his way to Osaka, he felt relaxed.
He’d have everything ready when Anakin arrived, and they would do the job and get paid.
When Ice boarded the plane, he advised the steward that he did not want to be disturbed until the plane sat down in Osaka.
He planned to relax in the cushy first class seat, turn off his cell, and sleep the entire twelve hour flight.
Chapter 20
The headline news was Lincoln Scott’s death, and it gave Trent a renewed sense of hope about his future.
The Genesis team had taken care of Josh Nettles, and buried any information that connected Trent Real to Geo Gardner too deep to be found. Since they were all dead, he wouldn’t have to testify, and he felt more relaxed about the whole situation than he had in days.
Choc had allowed him and Kenyah the use of his loft, and he had been bunking someplace else the last few days. He was grateful for the safe haven, but he wanted to get back to his life, and start trying to mend his marriage.
“Did you hear the news?” he asked Kenyah when she strolled into the kitchen area.
“Yeah, does it mean we can go home?” she asked in that dry, unenthused tone she’d been using with him.
Trent was trying hard to be patient. He ignored her irritable attitude, and answered kindly. “I don’t know, but I hope so. I need to talk to Choc, and then—”
“Then talk to him!” she went off. “I’m ready to get out of this fucking place.”
“And do what? Find Desmond Fox and have monkey sex in the bathroom?”
His words had bite, and she tried to cloak her shock by pouring herself a cup of coffee, but she couldn’t hide the slight tremor in her hand. He had been playing it cool, and had not mentioned it before now. She had even convinced herself that he didn’t know what really went on between her and Desmond in that bathroom other than talk about starting a relationship.
“What, you surprised to learn I know about it?”
She sat the cup down on the counter, and turned to face him. Since he’d admitted knowing about them, she decided not to lie about it. “Why didn’t you say anything about it before now?”
“I figured I owed you one slip. I’d been directly responsible for your degradation, and you’d just learned I’d been intimately involved with another woman for months. It earned you some leniency.”
“For years, Trent…you’d been involved with her for years, not months,” she corrected. “You were fucking her when you married me! You always belonged to her, and you were never my husband!” she shouted.
“Is that why you thought it was alright to fuck him?”
“I didn’t do anything that you didn’t do, Trent.”
“I never had sex with Xena while you were in the next room. I admit that what I did was wrong, but at the end of the day. It was only a job to me. I never had any emotional attachment to Xena.”
“She was having your baby,” she reminded him for the umpteenth time. “I’d call that an emotional attachment. That is until you killed it. What you did was barbaric and cruel, and it disgusted me,” she scowled.
“If she was planning to keep the baby, which I doubt, it was only to punish it for being mine. You didn’t know her. She was an evil woman with psychopathic tendencies. I’m sure she tortured small animals as a child. Condemning a kid to a life with her is what would have been cruel. What I did was merciful!” he stood up from the table. “I know that I’ve hurt you, but dammit I’m sick of apologizing for doing my job.”
“What happens the next time you get a job that requires you to betray me and fuck some woman, Trent?”
“There won’t be a next time. Melvin Ryan offered me a job, and I’m going to take it. It’ll be more money and fewer hours.”
“I thought you were going to take the job in homicide.”
“I was only going to take the job because it was better suited for a married man. Kenyah, I’m tired of risking my life for peanuts, and I don’t want to do drone work in some corporate office.”
“Why did you marry me when you knew you were her man? Why did you think it was acceptable for you to keep sleeping with her after you did? You gave her a piece of you that should have been reserved for me. I feel like I’ve been robbed.”
“Then how the fuck you think I feel?!” he shouted. “I stood on the other side of that door and listened to you giving yourself to that arrogant muthafucka!” his voice trembled in rage. “Bitch, you ain’t innocent, and…” he paused to give himself time to beat back the rage that was taking over.
Kenyah could see him becoming Geo, and she cowered against the counter, afraid that he was going to hit her again.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called you that,” he apologized.
“You’re scary when you’re like this,” she said after he’d had a moment to calm down.
“I know, and I’m going to get some counseling. Kenyah, I put the job first, and I know it was wrong, but you’re acting like you had no culpability in that. If you remember, I wanted to wait to get married, but you gave me an ultimatum; marry you right away or get out of your life. I chose to marry you and juggle my personal life with the requirements of the job because I love you. I didn’t want to lose you. You feel betrayed, I get that, but so do I. The thing is, I forgive you for letting him touch you, and I’m not just talking about your body. You let him get inside your head. You miss him. It was never that way with me and Xena. I never loved her, and I never thought about her while I was with you. Now either you can forgive me for it, or you can’t. But I need your answer right now because I’m tired of being punished. Do we leave here as husband and wife, or not?”
The cell Choc had given him rang, interrupting them. “Yeah, Choc,” he answered coolly.
“We think the thing is over, but we learned that the dude has a brother who is really the man in charge of their operations.”
“A brother,
are you sure? None of our Intel said anything about him and Xena having a brother. And neither one of them ever mentioned him to me.”
“Apparently, it’s not common knowledge. As you know, we covered up our involvement pretty good, so I don’t think you have anything to worry about, but I’d like to play it safe and keep you locked down a few more days.”
“Ahhh come on, Choc. I’m going stir crazy in this place,” he whined.
“I know, and it’s why I’ve arranged for us to go someplace fun together like we use to do with mom when we were kids.”
“We grown now, so how much fun can we really have without women, and I have a wife,” he joked.
“Yeah, well I was planning on taking her and Rayce with us, so we don’t have to go hunting for the fun.”
“Ain’t you engaged to someone else?”
“Not anymore. I called it off last night, and I have the claw marks to prove it.” They took a moment to laugh about it.
“Alright, so where we going and when are we leaving?”
“Bender owns a tropical Island. I spent some time there last year. It’s a great place to lay back; fun, sun, and romance. He’s agreed to let us use it for a few weeks. I want you to stay low until we’re sure we’ve tied up all the loose ends, and his place is a perfect place to do it. We won’t have to stay cooped up inside all the time.”
“What about Desmond and his family? How y’all handling them?” he asked because he knew Kenyah wanted to know.
“They’re getting a two week trip to Disneyland Paris, courtesy of Genesis. He was not mentioned in the stuff we confiscated from Nettles’ place, and the few people who knew about him are dead. We made it clear how important it was for them to keep their mouths shut, and they’ll be safe as long as they do. We’ll leave tonight, if you want.”
“I want.”
“Then I’ll pick you up in a few hours. Don’t worry about packing, we’ll pick up anything you need when we get there,” he ended the call.
“Your friend, Desmond, is safe with his family. They’re spending the next two weeks at the Disney Park in France. Choc has arranged for us to spend some time with him and Rayce on a privately owned tropical island if you want.”
