Point of No Return

by Rita Henuber

  Well, Baby Girl had teeth and she knew how to use them. The room was silent.

  “You guys go ahead and start,” Honey said. “Kara and I are going to have a . . . conversation.” She took Kara’s arm, guiding her to the front room.

  “Sit.”

  Kara dropped onto the sofa. “Don’t think you’re going to chew me out,” she sputtered, her face hinting at a release of the family temper. “I meant what I said and I’m not a child. You don’t know how it feels to be treated like you don’t have a brain.”

  “I know how it feels,” Honey said solemnly. “I apologize for treating you like a child.”

  Kara blinked several times. “Really?” Her face brightened.

  “Yes. When what I’m doing now is finished, you and I are going to have a long talk about your future.”

  “Are you saying you’ll help me get into the Marine Corps because that’s what I—”

  “No.” Kara’s face clouded again. “There are better places than the Corps for you.”

  “You mean safer, away from any danger places.”

  “I mean places that are far more challenging and maybe dangerous.”

  “Honestly? You aren’t blowing smoke.”

  “Yes, honestly. Not blowing smoke.”

  Kara smiled big.

  “About them.” Honey stood, arms folded, in front of the fireplace and tipped her head in the direction of the kitchen. “They’re good people. They wouldn’t have teased you if they didn’t think you were okay. Hell, they wouldn’t have even talked to you.”

  Kara went all sunshine and Honey rained on her.

  “You’re here on a pass from me. Okay only because I say you are. Don’t ever speak to them like that again.” Honey’s voice was as harsh as she could make it. “Do. You. Understand?”

  Kara nodded. “I . . . I’ll apologize.”

  “Yes, you will.”

  They returned to the kitchen.

  “I apologize for the things I said and the way I said them,” Kara said.

  “Sure, kid,” Gunny said, breaking the awkward silence.

  “Let’s eat,” Buck said.

  They settled around the table and the conversation was about movies, sports, news. Mundane things, completely avoiding the topic of Global because of Kara.

  Honey had to either allow her to see what was going on or lock her in a bedroom while they worked. Locking her in a room would be ugly. There was no doubt she was trustworthy. Letting her in would give insight into what she could put to real work in the family foundation. She made her decision.

  “What did you get at Porters?”

  “Video,” Gunny said, grinning. “Good stuff.”

  Santiago nodded. “Real good.”

  The food was gone. Gunny and Santiago stood and cleared the table. Coop and Buck cooked so it was a given the others cleaned.

  “Already got the card in. Ready to watch anytime you are,” Coop said.

  “Let’s do it.”

  They crowded around a new thirty-inch monitor. The screen was in a freeze frame at the beginning of the video and showed three windows in the side of a building. A small kitchen window to the left. Through the center window to the living area were computer monitors taking up the far wall. The final window was to the bedroom.

  “Where were you filming this from?” Honey asked.

  “Across the courtyard on the roof of a similar building. There was a fire two months ago. The whole building is empty while they do the repair work.”

  “Start the vid,” Santiago ordered. “The entry to the place is between these windows.” She pointed to a space between the kitchen and living area windows. Coop hit a key and a woman, Porter, came into view. She went to the fridge, retrieved a can of beer and popped it on her way to power up the monitors. She sat and appeared to be working keys.

  “Something exciting better happen soon for me to get some return on the cost of that camera,” Honey said.

  “Wait for it,” Andrews said.

  Porter’s head twisted in the direction of the entry and she stood. A man came into view, they embraced, then kissed. The man was McKenzie. Honey pushed everyone out of the way and dragged a chair close, remembering the we don’t like each other act they’d put on this afternoon. “There sound with this?” she asked, watching the pair maneuvering around the kitchen.

  “No, ma’am,” Santiago said with amusement in her voice. “Wish we had. It gets better.”

  “I read lips,” Kara said. They all turned to look at her. “Not real good. The person has to be facing me and it has to be slow. But . . .” She shrugged.

  Buck cleared his throat. “You might want to stop the chatter and look at this. I think it’s at the gets better place Santiago was talking about.”

  All eyes went back to the monitor to see McKenzie stripping off Porter’s shirt. Porter’s arms went behind, unsnapping her bra. The bra went adios. They kissed, if you could call it that. It looked more like a feeding frenzy. His hands massaged her breasts. She undid his pants, disappearing as she pushed them down. The top of her head bobbed into view every few seconds.

  “Dude, why the hell don’t they close the blinds? You think they know you’re watching?” Buck said.

  “Nope,” Andrews answered. “We watched it twice. They never glanced at the window. Even in porn flicks somebody glances at the camera.”

  “He’s right,” Kara chimed in. “It’s a psychological thing. If it was for show, it’d be very difficult not to check if they were being watched. And he”—she pointed to the screen where McKenzie was pumping his hips—“is oblivious to the whole world right now.”

  Honey looked at Kara with a new appreciation.

  “We’ve determined they are into each other.” Watching was creeping Honey out. She’d have to interact with these yahoos the next few days. “Do we need to see any more?”

  “Gets better” was all Santiago said. They kept watching. Porter got to her feet. They stumbled and twisted, everything swinging in the breeze, on the way to the bedroom and stopped. Their gazes went to the other side of the room.

  Flaming fish balls. Verna stepped into view.

  “She said, something, something, wait for me,” Kara shared. The threesome went in the direction of the bedroom. When they came into view Verna was sans shirt, braless, and hopping on one foot to strip out of her pants.

  “Damn.” Coop flopped back in his chair. “A video to launch a thousand lunches,” he said to a chorus of ohs and ews.

  “Advance it two hours,” Santiago said.

  “Two hours? Seek medical attention if an erection lasts more than . . .” Coop said in a deep voice, and Honey thumped the back of his head as he tapped keys.

  “Two hours. What are we looking for?”

  The screen showed the naked backs of Porter and McKenzie sitting in front of the monitors, and Verna, quite naked, smoking and puttering in the kitchen.

  “Look at the monitor screens in the room,” Gunny said. Honey leaned closer. He leaned over Coop’s shoulder and circled an area with a finger. “Enlarge this.”

  “Fuck,” Honey said. “Global files.”

  “Looks like it.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Kara said. “I mean except for the eww part they’re just working at home.”

  “Big-deal government contract says no telecommuting,” Santiago said.

  “The plot thickens.”

  “So people are doing extra work at home. I mean, that’s a job application for a Filipino public works department. And there,” Kara said and pointed to another monitor and squinted, “I can’t make out the form but the title says Police of Bruges and it’s in Flemish.”

  Oh, yes, she and the talented Kara were going to have a long talk very soon. “It isn’t so much what they’re doing, it’s the fact they lied about it.”

  “I get it,” Kara said. “Little lies cover big lies.”

  “Eggzackerly,” Santiago said. “We have to uncover the big lies.” She looked to Ho
ney. “We left a camera on the roof to see what else we can catch. Go back at dawn to pick it up.”

  “I’ve got a hike in the morning. I need to get my gear ready and hit the rack. You find anything earth-shattering, call me.” She looked around. She was running an off-the-books covert operation, relying on high-tech equipment and elaborate deceptions. Her own Mission Impossible. Flaming fish balls, they had gone Hollywood.

  Chapter 12

  The morning hike went well. Honey headed for her car to drop her gear and get a change of clothes. The course was challenging enough. It took the men through a wooded hilly area, across three knee-deep watercourses, two natural creeks and one man-made with a swing over. And, of course, the ever-present fifteen-foot wall climb. Everyone passed. Even the steroid triplets and the handful of veterans who’d come in suffering from wicked hangovers. It went fast due in part to running commentary and snarky bantering. All in fun, until Bear started in with the leatherneck Barbie crap. In the company of others, she didn’t keep her mouth shut.

  He quickly found she wasn’t an easy mark and he was no match for her comebacks. She’d had years to build a playbook of snarky comebacks and easily put him down to the glee of the recruits, who outright laughed.

  “Yo. Leatherneck Barbie,” Bear called in a bad Rocky Balboa voice from behind her. She kept walking. “I didn’t like those things you were saying.”

  You gotta be shittin’ me. She stopped and turned to see Bear, Ferret Face, and Squeaky strutting toward her. Bear was in the lead; sand-colored skivvy shirts were stretched to the limits over their chests and biceps, their greasy hair slicked back, no gear. They looked like a PSA for avoiding steroids. She tipped her head to the right then left, stretching her neck, and kept her eyes on Bear. This had all the signs of getting physical.

  Bear narrowed the gap between them, stopping a few feet from striking distance. His big hairy hands knotted in fists at his side. He was looking for trouble for sure. This was bullshit. She’d put him in his place. She could understand him being a little pissed. Being mad enough to get physical over a few snarky exchanges wasn’t reasonable. She checked the other men’s positions. The man to her right, Ferret Face, the tallest of the three, stood with his legs spread wide, his arms crossed, hands tucked under his pits. The third man, Squeaky, was farther away, thumbs jammed in his waistband, smirking like he’d just received a lifetime pass to a whorehouse. Whatever they had planned would be today or another day. Okay, guys, be careful what you wish for, you may get it. She put her pack down and moved a couple steps. Might as well get it over with. Experience as far back as grade school taught her it was unlikely the two other pukes would join in once she fought back. Still, she checked their body language. They were relaxed, confident in what was about to happen. No sign they expected trouble or expected her to fight back.

  “Leatherneck Barbie. Why you trying to make things difficult?”

  She slowly removed the Kevlar helmet and said nothing.

  “I’m talking to you,” Bear said.

  “I know,” she said in a condescending tone, “it’s making it really hard to ignore you.” His head tilted and his expression looked like a large dimwitted dog trying to figure out his owner’s command. When he got it, his face went purple.

  Breath whistled out his nostrils. “Answer me.”

  “Sorry, Bear”—she shook her head—“forgot the question.”

  His fists came to waist level. What was he waiting for? He glanced up. Then she got it. The cameras. The s-o-b wanted her to make the first hit. Striking first and hard gained you the advantage. Not today. No way. Today she’d give that up. She still had an advantage. She knew what they were capable of. They had no idea she was capable of going Mount St. Helens.

  Fuck. “You really want to do this?” She felt obliged to offer them a chance to back out. There was probably some rule you had to give dumbasses a chance to run before having a can of gratuitous violence opened on them. “You think I won’t say anything, you’re wrong. You’ll never get away with it.” She looped the helmet strap around her left hand, not so tight that she couldn’t lose it quickly.

  “Away with what?” Bear snorted, looking at his buddies and rubbing his pimply chin with a thumb and forefinger. He took a step closer to striking distance. “We just want to get to know the leatherneck Barbie better.” He grabbed his crotch. A thin, creepy smile spread across his face. She glanced at the other two, who held their places in the dust.

  “Ehh. We’ll say something about how being over there, in the war, messed us up.”

  There was nothing in the fucker’s record he’d seen combat. Only support duties. The other men nodded their approval of his explanation.

  “We’ll say you attacked us.” Bear took a step. The man farthest away tossed a three-inch blade into the dust. “We had to defend ourselves.”

  “Why would I attack you? What about the cameras? They’ll show it was you.”

  “All they’ll show is what we say happened.”

  Whatever. She was more interested in Bear’s primo attitude. For her it was confirmation this harassment had been endorsed and perhaps even ordered by Bristol.

  Flaming fish balls, why? Fuck it, she didn’t care anymore. She allowed her anger to build like molten lava, pushed to the surface by the rush of adrenaline preparing her fight-or-flight response. There would be no flight. Something else these assholes didn’t know. Her response gage needle was stuck on fight. The muscles in her thighs tensed.

  “We’ll say we regret the situation and we’re sorry.” He made a ridiculous sad face. “Of course, it will be from an undisclosed destination. This afternoon we’ll be on a company jet, headed to a high-value security job.”

  She checked for any movement from Ferret Face and Squeaky. None. They remained confident in what they thought was about to happen and made the number-one mistake in hand-to-hand combat. Never underestimate your opponent. Hand-to-hand was something she did on autopilot. Years of weekly, even daily practice with different partners and occasional real-life scenarios left her with bruises, scrapes and a freakish ability to judge an opponent’s move before they made it. Like a game of chess. Bear was a lefty, his first strike would be on her right. The vest would protect her ribs from the force of the hit but she would be forced back. She glanced around looking for obstacles, then moved her feet and positioned her body to minimize the blow and maximize her balance.

  “Back off,” she growled, offering a last chance.

  “Fuck you, Barbie,” was accompanied with an earnest crotch grab and leg wiggle that made it look like he had a serious wedgie.

  Honey laughed. “Now I think of it, with all the ’roids you take, your dick is probably so small a Barbie doll is the only thing you can fuck.” She turned her left shoulder to the big man.

  Veins bulged in his neck. “I fuck plenty of women,” he said from behind clenched teeth.

  “Please. I’ve had more women than you have.”

  He lunged, leading with his left as expected. “This is what you get for pissing me off.”

  She blocked the jab with her forearm, pushing it away and down, taking his right to her ribs with the vest absorbing the shock. The helmet connected with Bear’s face, snapping his head back and producing a sound thunk. His hands instinctively went to his face, leaving him open for attack. She lost the helmet and shot a fist hard into his throat.

  “Oooppph.” He gagged and staggered, hands going to his throat, then bent forward.

  She tangled her fingers in his greasy hair. “Bet your other women don’t fight back.” His face connected with her knee, the impact sounding like she’d stomped a pile of dry twigs.

  “Ahhh,” he moaned and gurgled.

  “Thought you’d say that.” She released him. As he went down, she turned to prepare for the next attack. She wasn’t fast enough. A steely arm snaked over her right shoulder and under her left arm as she watched Bear face-plant onto the hard-packed earth. Ferret Face. His other hand cupped the back
of her head, forcing her head to her chest. She grasped his arm but he had her on her toes, off balance, unable to leverage away. Squeaky came toward them with fist tight, arm cocked back. She’d been wrong. They weren’t pussies after all and fuck, she’d lost the element of surprise. She let go of Ferret Face’s arm and clasped her hands, pressing her forearms together to deflect a fist streaking at her face. Like Bear, Squeaky didn’t consider the prospect of being struck back. He left himself wide open and she blasted a kick, landing her size-nine boot in the deluded asshole’s stomach before he got in a hit.

  His eyes went wide, breath escaped in a loud “oomph,” and he stumbled, back arms windmilling. The man holding her staggered but maintained his grip. She kicked and scrambled, managing to get enough traction with her boots to push him against the building and slam an elbow into his side. He flung her down with such force her teeth rattled and she bounced.

  “Fucking bitch.” He lashed out with a foot. Oh, yeah. Now they knew who she was. She anticipated the kick and twisted, robbing it of its main force. Still, it lifted her, causing her own “oomph.” Thank gawd for the vest. His grubby fingers tangled in her hair, then he yanked her up and propelled her into the building. Stunned and vision wonky, she lashed out with a foot, connecting on his shin. He grunted, but it didn’t slow him. He gripped the vest lifting, once again forcing her head down and aiming to ram it into the building. Think again, asshole. Honey got her feet in front of her, planted her boots against the wall, and walked them to shoulder height. She bent her knees and heaved back, head butting him as they fell. Ferret Face took the brunt of the fall, landing hard and losing his grip. Honey scrabbled to her feet and delivered a going-for-the-winning-goal soccer kick up alongside his head. Spittle and blood spewed into the air accompanied by a bone-snapping pop. He was on the bench for a few. Bear stirred and she gave him an equally rousing kick in the ribs, lifting him off the ground. His reintroduction to the ground drew a groan and a cloud of dust.