The Killing Collective

by Gary Starta

  She couldn’t believe her luck tonight. “What about my friend?”

  “Unfortunately, there’s not enough time to meet all the new members personally this evening. The Silver Man can see the audience on the monitors from his broadcast location. He noticed your enthusiasm while he was speaking and specifically asked that we hear more about what brought you here tonight. It’ll only take a few moments of your time.”

  Alison looked at Jeannie. “Sorry, Jeannie, but I can’t pass up this opportunity. It may never come again. Don’t leave. Remember, you’re taking me home.”

  ***

  A scant fifteen minutes later Alison was back. She picked up another glass of champagne, bursting with excitement. “That was wild! Everyone was so nice to me! They wanted to know all about me and how I felt about the speech. The private office was beautiful, all decked out in red and gold. I think the border detail is real gold leaf! We talked about the Silver Man’s dreams and plans while we drank champagne. There were petit fours and cappuccino, and…it was the single greatest experience of my life, Jeannie.”

  Jeannie rolled her eyes. “I know you didn’t meet the silver-haired, blue-eyed mystery man back there, so who did you talk to?”

  “His executive assistant. Everyone who becomes part of the executive community is in danger, so even she wears a disguise.”

  “Really. What kind of disguise?”

  “She wore the mask of a woman, a beautiful woman with a white face like you’d see in a museum – you know, like a statue or something. She was dressed in a floor-length black Chanel gown with a back that plunged all the way down to there! The funny thing is, she didn’t talk at all; maybe she had a cold or something. Someone else asked the questions and answered mine in return, but she sat across from me and listened to everything. I felt so important!”

  “Uh huh.”

  You want to murder him. You can’t wait to murder him.

  Alison looked around. “Who said that?”

  “Who said what?”

  “Didn’t you hear that?”

  “Alison, give me that glass; you’ve had enough to drink. Let’s get outta here. This place gives me the creeps.” She walked away to find their coats, muttering to herself about revolution, silver-haired men and masked women with no voices.

  Suddenly, the room seemed to get smaller. The music faded away, and the voice she heard a moment ago spoke again, only it didn’t belong to a person; it was inside her own head. For some reason she wasn’t very concerned about it. She was used to talking to herself and figured she’d just had too much champagne.

  He’s a threat to the community. Kill him to protect us!

  Alison felt a little faint. A choir was singing somewhere, and she strained to hear the words. It was beautiful - the most beautiful song she ever heard. A second later, her brain flooded with something that made her feel very good and very mean all at once. Fragments of thought travelled at breakneck speed and leaped across synapses in the attempt to keep up with far too many neurons firing simultaneously. The song seemed very important to Alison, so she paid very careful attention to the words that would become the actions contained in the last chapter of her life.

  You are with the community. You have promised to protect it. You know a man who wants to prevent you from finding friendship and acceptance. He wants you to die in poverty so that he might prosper. David Florio will kill you unless you kill him, first. You hate him, Alison, and you want to murder him with your bare hands! We will come to you in your dreams tonight so you may know exactly how to commit this sublime act of allegiance.

  You will contact this man by tomorrow afternoon and make a date for the same evening at his apartment. You will come straight home when your job is completed, and you will not remember anything. You will not remember anything. You will not remember…

  Jeannie snapped her fingers. “Alison? Alison! Anybody home? Come on, snap out of it, stupid!”

  Alison blinked her eyes. “I thought you were getting the coats.”

  Jeannie looked up toward heaven. “Allie, I told you a thousand times all that drinking and drugging was gonna rot your brain – if you ever had one to begin with. Let’s go; we’ve wasted enough time here.”

  ***

  During the drive back to Jersey, Alison stared silently out the window at the night. She was very hurt by the low regard Jeannie felt for her.

  No one likes me. And I try so hard! I’m not giving up on the community now that I found it. I don’t care what she thinks.

  Jeannie snorted derisively. “You look like I just shot your dog or something, Allie. Jesus H. Christ! The man’s trying to start a God damn revolution! How can you possibly take him seriously? He’s deranged!

  “Seriously, I worry about you. This is just the kind of thing you’d go for. Don’t you realize how needy you are? It’s sad, Allie, really, really sad. You drive people away with all your whining and begging and pleading for their approval. You agree with anything anyone says. You have no mind of your own! I’m telling you right now, do not allow yourself to be led by that Silver Man and his bunch of red-coated goons. Didn’t you notice how many people left during his rant? Didn’t you see the disgust on their faces? Honestly, if you hadn’t been hanging on his every word and looking like you’d had an epiphany, I would have left, too.”

  Alison kept her head turned toward the window. She didn’t answer; there was nothing to say.

  Why do I let her bully me? She walks all over me, and I just let her do it. The people at the meeting tonight liked me. I know they did. She’s wrong. There are people who like me; I just never met them until tonight.

  The old Alison Whiteway disappeared, and in her place was a woman seduced by acceptance but baptized with venom. It was as though she’d slipped through a tiny crack in a wall and discovered all the secrets of the universe on the other side.

  She turned her head toward the woman who was quickly passing out of her heart. “I am absolutely not going to argue with you about this, Jeannie. The concept is too big and your mind is too small. We have a chance to make our country a better place and to live better lives. The Silver Man has a concrete plan on how we can do it. I’m standing on the brink of change, Jeannie, and with or without you, I’m jumping.”

  Chapter Two

  Six months earlier…

  Stanford Carter whisked a hand across his thigh, smoothing out the blended wool fabric of his pants. His wife, Jill said just this morning that the clothes made the man, but the former captain of the Boston P.D. felt the universe favored substance over fashion. As discretion is often the better part of valor, he kept his mouth mercifully shut. Today, fashion ruled, no matter what he thought.

  Carter was a devoted student of Zen Buddhism. It helped give him peace of mind and an understanding of the universe so that he could operate within it. For a lifetime cop, this was no small undertaking. So far, he’d found neither one, but he kept trying, believing the answers were there if he looked hard enough. What he hadn’t yet learned was that an attractive philosophy offering solace didn’t necessarily help one find any answers at all. Or peace. Carter was on a journey wearing blinders. He staunchly refused to analyze thoughts he wasn’t prepared to face. He was, therefore, neither equipped to face the future nor able to fully enjoy his life in the present.

  Carter sat outside the office of New York F.B.I. Deputy Director William Fischetti. The deputy director invited Carter and his wife, Jill Seacrest, to join the Bureau hoping they could solve a string of murders that changed all the rules of the game. Carter was offered the rank of a seasoned agent and would also act as a team leader.

  Seacrest, a scientist at the very top of her profession, was to work directly under the supervision of the director of Forensic Sciences. They’d heard the deputy director was notoriously capricious in nature, so he was determined to meet Fischetti on high ground and keep it. That’s why he was more than a little surprised to be greeted by a middle-aged, balding man, about six inches shorter than him
self and twenty inches wider around the middle. He greeted Carter with clipped speech and a curt manner while he scribbled something on a piece of paper. It was rude to multi-task during a meeting, especially with a new hire, and Carter was already starting to have second thoughts when Fischetti finally looked up and spoke to him.

  “Come in, Agent Carter. Have a seat. Welcome to the fold.”

  “Already in and sitting, sir. Thank you.”

  “I’ve wanted you for here for some time now. Your dossier is very impressive. Let’s see; you’ve been with the Boston P.D. for your entire career; you became a cop because your cousin was the victim of a particularly heinous crime; your nose has always been clean; apparently, it is not possible to make you lose your temper; and you’re a spiritualist, yet you chose a career that is frequently violent and requires you to understand how criminals think, capture them, and enforce the law rather than judge or change it. Tell me, why did you finally decide to join us here in New York?”

  “Expanding my horizons, sir. At least that’s what my wife says.”

  Carter leaned back in his chair. Fischetti was toying with him, so he broke the tension by invoking the name of his fearsomely smart wife, a woman with a temper even more fearsome than her I.Q. “We both needed more room to grow. She thinks New York is my next logical career move, and I think her talent and dedication deserves a post that will showcase her skills and prove her value in crime scene forensics, so, here we are.”

  Both were so much a part of the other that their relationship blurred the line of distinction at times. Lately, they’d been going through a rough patch. She wanted to talk things out and he didn’t, but he grudgingly admitted to himself that if he didn’t switch gears soon, he might lose her.

  “Let’s get down to cases, shall we? In the last several months, we’ve had a rash of murders committed by perpetrators whose sole motive seems to be the sick thrill of killing. Can you beat that? Did you ever encounter anything like that in Boston, Agent Carter?” The deputy director leaned forward with his fingers tightly woven. “I need someone who can tell the trees from the forest. I’m hoping you’re the man for the job.”

  “I appreciate your confidence, sir, but there must have been a host of capable candidates. Why me?”

  Fischetti showed a glimmer of admiration for Carter. “So there’s more to you than meets the eye. O.K., let me be frank. Special Agent Blumenthal trained some of my finest people over the past decade, but he recently retired, and I have an outstanding rookie who needs to be taken under someone’s wing until we can get the program running smoothly again. You’re a seasoned career cop and an ex-captain, so that gives you the edge on mentoring rookies. I’m also well aware of your conviction rate in Boston, but I’m more impressed with how you handled multiple serials, even when it meant taking down some of your corrupt brothers in blue.”

  Carter was suddenly very uncomfortable.

  Is he hinting at something? Am I here because he doesn’t trust his own people? It sounds to me like he doesn’t believe they’re thrill kills. He mentioned multiple serials, but the chances of them all being related to each other is astronomical….

  Fischetti pretended not to notice the look on Carter’s face and kept fishing. “How’d you ferret out the bad apples?”

  “I don’t have an exact science or game plan, sir. I rely more on gut feeling and instinct than on what I’m told in the briefing room or read in the files. I’m perfectly at ease with my own ability to know the individual from the team. Like you said, it’s all about being able to tell the trees from the forest.”

  Let him think about that one.

  Fischetti wedged his chin in between the forefinger and thumb of his right hand for a moment. “Good. That’s what I wanted to hear. Agent Carter, I’m going to have to trust you, because we don’t have the time to see if that trust is warranted. I hope you can do the same. I believe in the integrity and values of the Bureau. That’s a big chunk of the reason you and Agent Seacrest were asked here.”

  Carter nodded his thanks.

  He wants us here because he believes in the integrity and values of the Bureau. That more than implies there are those here who don’t.

  “What’s next on the agenda, sir?”

  “You and Agent Seacrest both have to complete training at Quantico.”

  Carter sighed. “You are aware I’ve spent the last few years behind a captain’s desk.”

  Fischetti was amused and sympathetic. “You’ll have to keep up with criminals and a rookie half your age. Her name is Shania Deeprose, and she’s from Alabama. She’ll have you back on the fast-track in no time and keep you there. Her enthusiasm knows no bounds, Agent. She could charm the clouds out of the sky, but be prepared for the accent. It’s slightly nauseating.”

  Carter remembered Seacrest’s intensity early on in her career, especially the times he heard her talking to herself in the lab. She may have seemed a little screwy to everyone else, but not to him.

  Carter was pleased to have a partner who still saw the glass half full, because it wouldn’t be long before reality set in. A bad disposition was nearly always a sign that a rookie wouldn’t last long. It took all his strength and every last drop of optimism to combat his own burnout. Meditation was essential to Carter’s ability to last, even with the enduring and indefatigable support Seacrest gave him.

  Fischetti stuck out his right hand. “Enjoy Quantico. It won’t be a cake-walk anymore, but getting back to basics is the best way to start.”

  They walked out of the office and into the common area where a pair of elevator doors opened on an out-of-breath Seacrest, whose hand immediately shot out in introduction. “Sorry! I was parking the damn car. Boy, it’s murder out there!” She smiled exuberantly. The men turned to glance at one another.

  Fischetti whispered in Carter’s ear, “Interesting choice of words.”

  ***

  One week later…

  Carter held his gun with both hands around the grip. It was cocked skyward.

  He mouthed silently, “On three…”

  Flanking Carter to his left was hopeful Adam Royals, and just behind him was Seacrest. He barely mouthed “two” when Royals charged. Carter made a desperate grab for Royals’ shirt, but he couldn’t stop him. Earlier, the squad experienced a major telecommunications failure, leaving them at odds with the demands of the bank robbers inside the building Royals was already charging. They had very little hope of getting assistance from a S.W.A.T. team now.

  Royals skirted around the corner of a brick building, but his shadow fell across the sidewalk in full view.

  “He’s going to get himself killed.” Seacrest stated the obvious.

  “We’ll have to change the plan to compensate.” Carter rose, but his breath rate did not. He sprinted with a fluid grace most men nearing forty only dream of. Seacrest tagged behind him darting to the left and right, each pivot carrying her forward on a horizontal plane, in case there was a sniper aiming at them from the top of the building. It was a beautiful dance, a rhythm born of their long, hard years of partnership, and it was a breathtaking sight to see.

  Ahead, Royals was bearing down on the bank’s front door, gun drawn. Carter willed him to succeed.

  You’ve already committed yourself, so move with purpose; move as if you are an army of one…

  The young man, glory-bound and out to make his mark, instantly abandoned every protocol taught to him in the classroom. He made a wild card of himself, but Carter thought he could work around it. It made life a little more interesting even if it was also a little more dangerous. The outcome was not likely to be a good one, though. Royals had been counting on the element of surprise. Unfortunately, he was the one surprised.

  You made your mark, all right - a big, red one all over the pavement.

  With the advantage lost, the enemy’s strength was in numbers. An armed man standing guard just behind the door’s small window was not the first hostile to see Royals. A coded message transmitted by
a hand-held communication device on the roof across the street had already warned him to cut the head off the snake. It was done with technology as high-grade as the agents chasing them.

  The guard was prepared to kill Royals, but before he could fire his weapon, the blinding light of a Personal Halting and Stimulation Response rifle, better known as a PHaSR, threw Royals to his knees. The laser light bounced off the bank’s windows blinding both of them. It was a one-for-one chess move well played by Seacrest, but whoever had been behind the guard now had direct aim on her and Carter.

  It was two against God-only-knew how many holed up in the bank, mainly because their infrared imaging scan could not distinguish enemies from innocents. Carter was going to have to rely on good old human ingenuity, instead. If he failed, the hostages would be killed.

  He grabbed the rifle out of Seacrest’s hands and threw it at the bank window, another wild-card play meant to throw off the enemy. Shots rang out from the inside, shattering glass that made Carter and Seacrest leap this way and that. They were forced to separate to maximize the odds that one would survive to save the innocents.

  Carter was on one knee to the left of the entrance. Negotiation was out of the question. He and Seacrest were the only ones left on the Bureau’s defensive team. Because their attempt to radio for help had gone unanswered, Carter couldn’t blame Royals for his early charge. Nevertheless, they had very little time to wait in the shadows. The squad had to become offensive fast; every moment the enemies held the hostages at gunpoint increased the likelihood that their lives would be lost.

  “I surrender! We’ll meet your demands!” Carter yelled at the top of his voice. Seacrest watched in horror at the sacrifice, but no one was more surprised than Carter when the shooting actually ceased.

  Carter held his arms above him like a pair of eagle’s wings. “We’re ready to give you a helicopter in exchange for the hostages, but our radio is jammed. We need to find another way to signal them.”