by Finian Blake
“Tell me about your Day,” Winnie asked as if she were sitting at the dinner table. Her calm demeanor relaxed Winnie.
“Marvin came to my office before the hearing to make sure that I would put up a decent fight without getting ugly. Marvin and I were both surprised by Wayne Haggard the CEO of Titan Shipyards, but by the time he found out that Wayne was in the gallery it was too late to stop me, although I was not inclined to hold back anyway. Mister Haggard could be heard muttering obscenities in the gallery, so he was ejected, and Paul Devon was ejected because he could not stop laughing. After the hearing I found a corner with a view of Senator Belight’s door. About ten minutes after he went into his office I saw Mary Lee go in the office dressed like she was going clubbing carrying a brief case, and ten minutes after that I saw Wayne Haggard run out of the office like a scalded dog carrying the same brief case.” Tamar listened to Winnie’s account intently with her eyes closed.
“Did he run or was it a fast walk?”
“It was more like a sprint, and he clutched that brief case to his chest like it was something precious.” Winnie was worried. “Do you think that they did something to Mary Lee?”
“Did you see her leave the office,” Tamar asked.
“No, I couldn’t hang without being obvious, so I sent my secretary down to his office for some bullshit reason, and she was told that that he would be in conference for the rest of the afternoon.” Winnie could see no sign of concern on Tamar’s face. “I am worried about Mary Lee!”
“It seems that they have a thing for each other,” Tamar said calmly. “Did you see the gossip column in the Post?” Winnie studied the photo seeing Marvin Belight holding her by the back of Mary Lee’s head kissing her passionately and she seemed to be kissing him with equal enthusiasm.
“He is in his late fifties and she is twenty what,” Winnie was stunned. “What could she possibly see in him?”
Tamar wondered if she should tell Winnie about Mary Lee’s story about being ‘a woman trapped in a man’s body’ deciding to hold off until it was absolutely necessary. She liked Winnie, so she did not want to tax her sensibilities all in one swoop. Fortunately, their dinner arrived and Tamar rolled the cart into the room setting the plates on the side of the hot tub hiding the utensils under the table cloth and setting the ice bucket with a bottle of wine in between the plates. Winnie was surprised by the nonchalant way that Tamar handled the service while she was nude pouring herself a glass of wine, and neglecting to fill Winnie’s glass.
“After your surprise siesta are you sure that you should have more to drink,” Tamar teased. Winnie flicked the rim of her glass causing it to ring in the form of a wordless answer, so Tamar filled her glass. Winnie looked around the edges of the plate.
“There is no dinnerware.”
“It must have fallen off the cart on the ride over,” Tamar shrugged. “I guess that we will have to eat Viking style.”
“Viking style…,” Winnie quired, and Tamar took three fingers picking up a morsel of food holding it up to her lips. Winnie accepted the food hesitantly returning the gesture for Tamar following it with a sip of wine. Between the hot water and a bottle of wine both women were soon quite drunk. Tamar stood up taking a towel from a warming cabinet handing it to Winnie.
“Dry my back darling and I will dry yours,” Tamar said as she turned her back to Winnie, so that Winnie could comply with her request. “The only way to top out an evening like this is a massage. My Masseur Peter is waiting for me in my room and your masseur is waiting for you in your room.”
“I don’t know…” Winnie started to say.
“If you don’t want a massage just send him away,” Tamar interrupted. They walked down the hall arriving at Tamar’s room first. Winnie looked in the room to see a tall muscular young man in his twenties standing next to a massage table. Tamar pushed her down the hall giggling as she stepped in the room.
Winnie opened the door to her room finding Xavier sitting on his Massage table. She blushed nearly telling Xavier to forget about it, but she remembered that he did mention that he was a part time masseur. Before she could say anything Xavier spoke up.
“I do a full Qi Gong massage that takes around an hour. If you are interested, you should wash the chlorine from the Jacuzzi off using the herbal wash that I have placed in the shower. As Winnie left the room Xavier handed her a sheet.
“This is a hemp sheet it has the proper charge. This is an energy massage, so the herbal wash the sheet and many other things are absolutely necessary.” Winnie was sure that she would dismiss the masseur, but Xavier sounded hard core technical and she had to find out what he was talking about. She went into the bath finding the soaps and body oils along with printed detailed instructions. She came out wrapped in the hemp sheet. Xavier picked her up laying her on the table face down arranging the sheet so that he could uncover one area at a time.
“I am not going to touch you for the first few minutes please keep your tongue in contact with your hard pallet. This is an energy massage. Xavier started to move his hands an inch above Winnie’s body. She could see in the bedroom mirror that he was not touching her, but it felt like he was lightly brushing her body.
“I would swear that you had your hands all over me,” Winnie said in dreamy disbelief as Xavier started to gently knead and stroke her muscles. An hour later, Xavier woke her up helping her off the table.
“It’s time for you to rinse off. Use the herbal soap and there is a gallon container of a special rinse that I recommend.” Xavier started to close the door when Winnie stopped him.
“I’m sorry,” Winnie said. “When Tamar and I were in the hot tub I told her how sexy I thought you were. She pumped me full of wine and set up this massage. I truly believed that you were going to get me on the table naked and then screw the shit out of me.”
“So why did you get on the table.” Xavier was now holding the door open.
“It sounded like a good idea,” Winnie blushed.
“You need to wash all of that oil off. Would you like me to wash your back?” Winnie nodded silently. Xavier picked her up like a feather carrying Winnie into the oversized shower.
Ted turned off of the two lane highway down a dark tree lined road. Dimitri looked out the window not able to see lights of any description.
“Hey you guys, you haven’t changed your mind have you,” Dimitri said feeling more than a little uncomfortable.
“Relax,” Ted said turning left through a remotely controlled plank gate. Within a hundred yards Dimitri could see a low one story building come into view. Ted pulled the car in front of a building that appeared to be twenty feet long. Dimitri noticed a single sign which read ‘SPA’ there was no other information on the sign, especially not a name. Cherry was out of the car and to the door holding it open for Dimitri, Rhonda, and Nadia. Ted stayed with the car driving off quickly as soon as the doors were closed. Dimitri could smell the hair spray, shampoo, and perfumes of the salon. She led the way back through the spa stopping at the showers tossing Dimitri a robe.
“There are three bottles of soap labeled one, two and three. Shower once with each bottle in sequence, using the cloth provided, then step into the dryer and don’t step out until it stops,” Cherry pointed to a glass enclosure that looked like a shower stall. “Please do not use a towel.”
“I suppose that you have a reason for the specific order.” Dimitri asked.
“The first is a PH specific soap, the second is a dye that is invisible in normal light, and the third is a fixer. That’s why we don’t want you using a towel.” Cherry pointed to Dimitri’s clothes. “Remove anything that is personal to you because we are going to burn your clothes including your shoes.” Dimitri took a small pouch out of the waist band of his pants spilling several diamonds into the palm of his hand.
“Diamonds are more portable than gold. I assume that you have a safe place to put these.” Cherry accepted the pouch tucking them in her cleavage taking Dimitri’s clothes and placi
ng them in a metal container as he stepped into the shower.
When Dimitri was finished Cherry led him down a series of hallways stopping at a heavy metal door. She swiped her ID badge placing her face in front of a sensor causing the door to open. They entered a small room that was lined with computer monitors except for a glass wall at the end of the room. A man of medium build was typing madly on a keyboard. Cherry bent over his neck trapping his earlobe between her teeth pulling at it playfully.
“Boris darling this is Dimitri. He has been preparing for the picture.”
“This is Boris,” Dimitri said expecting to meet a more virile looking man.
“Cherry is your wife?”
“Yes she is and Rhonda is my wife too,” Boris answered heading off the next question. “But right now I need you to go in that room, stand on that pedestal, hold your arms out, and remain very still.” Cherry led Dimitri into the room standing him on the target helping him out of his robe. Cherry picked up a light moving it around his naked body. Dimitri’s body lit up in various shades of red and purple.
“The dye has cured. Boris, we can pose him,” Cherry declared.
“Please stand as still as possible,” Cherry said as she placed several clear plastic supports into the pedestal placing Dimitri’s out-stretched arms at the correct angles. “Hold as still as possible this will take about five minutes. Please don’t worry when the platform starts to move there will be three passes to guarantee accuracy, so don’t move until we tell you to.” Having spent long hours of standing to attention the three passes went smoothly. Cherry motioned Dimitri into the computer room. Dimitri slipped on his robe taking a standing position behind Boris.
There were several computer screens mounted on the wall over Boris’s console. Dimitri was surprised to see a picture of himself on the floor of his motel room with shards of glass buried in his bloody face along with blackened spots. There were also several views of the hotel room along with pictures of evidence. Boris made a few key strokes and a new set of images of him in an autopsy room appeared on the screen. There were pictures of his face with the glass shards, pictures of his face with the shards removed, pictures of all his tattoos, and a rather gruesome picture of the body with the chest cavity cut wide open. Boris waved his hand at the monitors.
“Your dead meat Dimitri, just think of the irony, with all of those bounties on your head those sneaky bastards killed you with a computer bomb for free.” Boris allowed Dimitri time to digest the idea of being dead before continuing. “That is why we did those scans. Just a few years back we would have to use extensive make up and sets to get the same results. There will be a police report, and a coroner’s report that will be sent to every agency that holds a warrant for you. We have replaced your finger prints and DNA in every data base that has a file on you and the reports that we send out will have your replaced prints and DNA on them. You are dead to the world and your mother will be just as dead as you are right now.”
“My mother…?” Dimitri tensed.
“Yes your mother will have a convenient heart attack and die as soon as we can have somebody out there to talk to her. That way you can visit her as often as you wish.” Boris smiled, “Cherry tells me that you would like to live in Saint Petersburg.”
“That is true,” Dimitri acknowledged.
“Four Diamonds Security has an office there and we will show your new identity as having been working there for three years. You will select a new name and we will even do your mother’s papers showing her as the mother of the new you.” Boris leaned back in his chair waiting for Dimitri’s reaction.
“Why would you do all of this for a truce,” Dimitri asked stunned by the generosity.
“If we ignore the problem you will call in more help and continue our feud, so some of yours will die along with some of ours. If we achieve a truce our people will be safe from you and we will gain your services hopefully along with your loyalty.”
“What about Salvador and Henry,” Dimitri pushed.
“We take care of business and table revenge,” Boris said. “Right now we know who they are, but not what they know. I will watch their computers, Cherry will watch them, and as they find out which doors are open we will close them. You see Salvador is acting out of revenge and he is making stupid mistakes. Henry did not actually try to kill you if you remember Boris set off the charge when I told him to. He set up a situation where by they could kill you if it became necessary. We have no idea what he would actually do. We take care of business and do what is necessary along the way. Come Dimitri, Rhonda and Nadia are waiting to burn your things.” Cherry left Boris to work his magic taking Dimitri to the basement.
Cherry and Dimitri took a freight elevator to the basement level opening its doors to a modestly sized lobby that had three doors in it there were two regularly sized doors and a metal rollup door that was ten feet high and fifteen feet wide. Cherry took the door to the far right which was Nick’s forensic lab. As they walked into the lab Rhonda, Nadia, Ted, and Nick were pouring over the contents of Dimitri’s personal possessions.
“So far we have two tracking devices sewn into the lining of Dimitri’s back pack.” Nick smiled with pride, “It was in the first place that I looked. My three companions owe me twenty bucks apiece. We also found one in the heel of the boots that Dimitri was wearing, and one in his shaving kit. I sent Rene out with the boots giving her instructions to tie them under a UPS truck, and Ted is holding the other one to plant in our safe house next to Tipton Airport.”
“Why Tipton Airport,” Dimitri asked.
“It is a safe house that has a cleared area around it of about two hundred yards, the runway backs to the property, with the front and side of it touching the Fort Mead toxic waste dump, so only one side of the property is approachable for surveillance.”
“Did the ‘Red Angel’ pick this place,” Dimitri asked with a wicked smile glancing at Nadia. “I will bet that there is only one good place for a stand. You know that they will come for me.”
“Yes my dear Dimitri, I plan, that is why I am alive and the others are dead. We will place the transponder in the house and wait to see who follows it.” Nadia caressed his cheek softly, “We try not to use live bait.” Nadia took Ted by the hand. “It has been a long day Rhonda can you handle the rest with Cherry?”
“We have to get some sleep. Boris works late anyway.”
“That sounds like a lot of trouble to go through just to get at Salvador and Henry.” Dimitri observed sitting down on the stool that Nick had been occupying.
“Salvador and Henry are not our targets,” Rhonda confirmed. “What we are most interested in is what they know about us. We want to see what doors they have discovered and put trips around them.”
“Trips…,” Dimitri was confused.”
“Yes trips,” Rhonda said, “much like a burglar alarm they give us notice that someone is looking and we can choose to block them or bring them in to a trap. We have a room full of servers that are holding one trillion terabits of out dated codes that will lock on to a request and dump while we retrieve the files from their computer. My Boris is very smart and so is my Cherry.”
Dimitri was sick of hearing what a man Boris was. He would show these women what a real man could do. He spotted the knife that Nick had been using to slice open his luggage, and when Cherry moved in front of him, he grabbed her from behind. Cherry kicked down hard on his arch with her stiletto heel breaking a bone in Dimitri’s foot, as Rhonda grabbed her purse pulling the .45 caliber derringer from the end flap drawing a bead on his left eye while Cherry spun away grabbing her purse from the bench behind her pulling the wrist cuffs from her purse and securing his hands behind his back. The whole explosion of action only took about five seconds.
“Were you planning on showing us what a real man can do?” Cherry opened his robe pointing at the little hearts tattooed on his chest. “Each one of those hearts represents a rape Nadia pointed them out to me on the other men. It looks like you
have seventeen rapes on your plate.”
“You don’t believe in revenge, remember,” Dimitri said with a false bravado. Rhonda called the security center Cherry and I will be taking the 109E for a long flight please top off the fuel. Rhonda and Cherry loaded Dimitri on the cart after securing his ankles. They drove it into the elevator and out to the helicopter pad.
Rhonda pulled the cart close to the helicopter standing Dimitri up and rolling him into the 109E. Cherry did the preflight while Rhonda parked the cart off of the pad, picking up four cinderblocks and returning to the helicopter.
“I figured that I would bring two, shit floats,” Rhonda laughed tossing the cinderblocks in next to Dimitri. Cherry saw Nadia come racing up to the chopper on a cart.
“What’s going on?”
“Do you see those hearts on his chest,” Cherry pointed to Dimitri. “Well he just tried to make us eighteen and nineteen.” Nadia silently turned to Dimitri.
“You said that you didn’t believe in revenge,” Dimitri said mournfully.
“Did they rape you with a donkey dildo and cut your balls off,” Nadia asked quietly.
“No…”
“Then it is not revenge they are taking care of business.” Nadia drove off in the cart as the 109e took to the air. Rhonda tied one cinderblock off above and below the knee with cotton cord on both of Dimitri’s legs as Cherry set the coordinates for the disposal site into the autopilot. Realizing how hopeless his situation was Dimitri decided to expand on what the hearts really meant hoping to inflame Rhonda into doing something stupid. Each heart represented not only a rape, but also a murder after the rape discussing it as if it were a sport.
