by Larry Hoy
Time to get this over with.
He marched to the security desk and smiled with a confidence he didn’t feel, knowing he’d likely been monitored the entire time he stood outside the door. The receptionists didn’t bother to hide their suspicion as he approached, squinting with barely suppressed contempt. Heat flushed Sweetwater’s cheeks as he read the judgment on their faces, as if they knew he’d screwed everything up.
“Luther Sweetwater, PS4213,” one receptionist said before he could speak. “How may I help you today?”
Her clipped tone and officious manner made her seem middle-aged, her dark hair pulled back in a bun and wearing a simple black suit coat over a white blouse. Her face was at his level, five-foot-six, with a posture that suggested she would probably have been more comfortable in a uniform.
“Do you know all your people by sight?” he asked, in a lame attempt to start a conversation.
“The ones in the city, yes.” Her face gave nothing away, as if she were reading a weather report. “The ones I don’t recognize the computer does. Now, please, how might I help you? We are very busy at the moment.”
Sweetwater let his eyes roam from side to side around the empty lobby. Busy?
“I was working a contract today and, well—”
“Yes, Ms. Witherbot is expecting you. Room 4-C, please. Down the hall on your left.” She cut him off and turned back to stare at her computer terminal.
“Why didn’t you just say that to begin with?” His voice was louder than necessary, but a quick glance confirmed the reception area was still nearly empty. “Thanks,” he said, managing not to let his resentment inflect the words. He wandered through a maze of hallways in search of the elusive 4-C without finding it. On what he could have sworn was the third time walking past the same spot, it suddenly appeared on his left.
The doors were made from a thick layer of frosted glass. He pushed through them a little too hard, trying to make a tough guy impression. The doors slammed against the office wall. The stern face of Ms. Witherbot scowled at him from behind a paper-covered desk.
“PS4213, I’ll thank you not to slam doors in this building,” she said, her accent becoming stronger as she enunciated each word, as if speaking to a toddler.
“I’m sorry,” he said, not really all that sorry.
“I understand matters got beyond your control?”
“You know that’s not what happened!” he shot back. “I had things under control, but you two screwed it up.”
“Really? Please explain, Probationary Shooter 4213, how your inability to execute your contract was due to my error.”
“I, uh, well, yours and the spotter. Probably more the spotter’s fault.”
“I was the spotter.”
“Uh…you were?”
“I perform multiple duties, but, please, you were about to explain how today’s loss was not your fault.”
“You told me not to shoot. You told me Cooper was in Canada.”
“How do you not already know the answer to your implied objections? Did you not just complete the training course on rules and regulations? Per federal law, a probationary Shooter must have his targets verified. This is for your safety and ours because until you receive your credentials LEI accepts responsibility for your work. We must verify your competence, and we have Federal inspectors who routinely examine the execution of every contract. This isn’t a nuisance animal species we are dealing with here at LEI, like armadillos or coyotes, these are human beings with constitutional rights. We have to be right every time. So, with probationary shooters we use an abundance of caution to verify targets.
“One method you witnessed was voice pattern recognition, and as we confirm the voice pattern, we triangulate the phone signal. That is exactly what I did for you, which is how we learned Mr. Cooper was—is—in Canada.”
Sweetwater’s temper flared, as it did when he felt he was unfairly challenged, and he slapped the table without thinking first.
“Are you calling me incompetent?”
“I wasn’t, but upon reflection perhaps I should have been. You are an untested element who was unable to fulfill a contract due to circumstances beyond his control, but self-control is something within your power. Please see that you exercise it in the future!”
“Sorry…and…?”
“And here you are. I assume you want me to give you another opportunity?” She leaned back in her chair and rested her elbows on the arms, steepling her fingers.
“Yes, I do.”
“During your aptitude interview, you told our agent you understood the delicate nature of our work, yet you argued with me when I told you to stand down and initiated a foot pursuit that may or may not have contributed to the death of a non-target. Collateral damage may be acceptable when executing a valid contract, but not merely to ascertain a target’s identity. You were insubordinate and sloppy, and you opened the company to a punitive lawsuit. In our business, we simply can’t accept anything less than perfection.”
“I completed the contract,” he said, consciously keeping his teeth clenched.
“You did what?” Now she sat forward with her thin eyebrows climbing up her forehead. “I authorized you to collect additional identification. You were not cleared to execute the contract. If you’re saying you killed that man, then you could be in serious trouble, PS4213. That would be murder.”
“Only if he wasn’t Cooper.” Sweetwater considered tossing the dead man’s phone on her desk, but remembering her admonition of a moment before, he reached over and carefully put it on the gleaming wooden desktop. As he did so, he couldn’t help glancing up at the lady who held his fate at LEI in her hands. She had a heart-shaped face behind stylish glasses, and despite the severe bun, he realized she was really very pretty. Maybe even damned pretty.
“What is this?” She waved her hand at the phone. For the first time, he noticed dried blood spots along its face. “Are those bodily fluids?”
“Sorry, I didn’t see that. I think it’s just blood.”
“Just blood…and how is HIV transmitted, Mr. Sweetwater? Isn’t it by blood or other bodily fluids?”
“I guess it is.”
“And you took this from the dead man, I presume?”
“That’s his phone—Cooper’s, I mean. I figured you could open it up and find out why he showed as being in Canada.”
She paused for a moment, holding his eyes like an owl that has spotted prey. She turned and pressed a few buttons on her computer. “Jason, could you come up here for a moment?” Her eyes did not leave his.
“Sure thing. What’s up?”
“I have a cellular phone I need you to look at.”
“Be right there.”
“You could just lift his fingerprints,” Sweetwater offered.
She clicked a button on her keyboard as she continued lecturing. “If this turns out to be what you say it is, then perhaps we can identify the technology the target used to hide his location. Perhaps he knew someone wanted him dead and this was to throw them off the trail, or perhaps he was having an affair and wanted to throw his wife off the trail. If there is something that will do that, it could be a valuable tool for us to have. Of course, that is, if this turns out to belong to the target. Do you know the consequences if we find out this did not belong to your contract?”
“If it’s not Cooper, I’m screwed.”
“Yes, you would be a murderer. We would be legally obligated to report you to the Dallas Police.”
A young man appeared in the office doorway. Thick dark hair covered his cheeks, but his chin was shaved bare. “Hello?”
“Jason, could you examine this phone, please?” She still didn’t touch it, merely gestured toward it. “This man believes it has software that can spoof the users’ location to our system.”
“Yeah, sure, but if it does, I’m not surprised. Some of the really hard-core black hats can spoof almost anything. I’m betting it has some new VPN program on it. Movie pirates use them to hide w
here they work. It’ll only take me a minute to know for sure.” He picked up the phone, careful to only touch the sides. “I’ll call you as soon as I know.”
The British Bitch had obviously not expected that but kept up her stony façade without a twitch. Only a slight narrowing of the eyes gave her away.
“Very well, thank you, Jason.” She paused long enough to let Mr. Muttonchops clear out of the room. “Where were we? Oh, yes,” she continued, her accent becoming even more clipped as she continued what Sweetwater realized was a scolding. He also noticed her tone wasn’t quite as accusatory as before. “I asked you to retrieve a secondary form of confirmation of identity, and yet you still executed the contract, without authorization?”
“Well…all right, I didn’t exactly kill him,” he finally admitted.
“You did, or you didn’t, which is it?”
“He got hit by a car.”
“I knew that much, but you said…so you did not complete the contract?”
“Not technically, but I know how this works. If he was fleeing, you guys still get paid all the same.”
“That is irrelevant. And even if you’re correct about his identity, there is no reason to credit you with the contract. If he spotted you, then you might have a case to be paid. Perhaps we should send a bonus check to whoever was driving the car.”
“I was getting the ID like you told me, but I lost him in the crowd and the next thing I knew he got hit by the car. I pulled his phone so you could close the contract.”
“Yes, but that is not what we pay for.”
“You wouldn’t let me do what you pay for, remember?”
“Again, irrelevant.”
“Not to me!”
She opened her mouth to reprimand him but was interrupted by a chirp from her computer. She closed her mouth, her lips pressed into a thin line, and hit a key. Jason’s voice came from the speaker.
“I got the phone open, and I was right; the guy has a VPN on his phone. It’s pretty simple. I should be able to adjust our interface. We won’t get fooled by this program again. And, for the record, I confirm this was Robert Cooper’s phone.”
“Thank you.” She clicked the button on the keyboard to end the call. “Well, Mr. Sweetwater, it appears that you have earned your second chance.”
“So now it’s ‘Mr. Sweetwater’?”
“Would you prefer I use your number?”
Sweetwater realized that it was a serious question. She was trying to be accommodating. He noticed, for the first time, the slight upturn of her nose, and how at just the right angle it gave her a pixyish look. She was also younger than he’d thought, maybe 45 or so.
“No, that’s okay. So, I’ve earned a second chance for what? Didn’t I fulfill the contract?”
“Don’t be absurd! Stealing a dying man’s phone does not fulfill a contract, even if we get paid for it. A Shooter does not earn his or her credentials through an accidental death. If you would like another chance to properly execute a contract, I will allow you that.”
Well, aren’t you a sweetheart? But the truth was he really didn’t have much choice, so he gave her his best smile and hoped it didn’t look as fake as it felt.
“Fine, thank you. What do you have?”
She faced her computer and typed and clicked for several seconds. “Yes,” she said to herself. “This will do nicely.” A printer on the corner of her desk hummed to life. She snatched up a single sheet of paper the instant it finished printing and slipped it into a manila envelope. She handed it over like it was an X-ray which indicated whether or not he had terminal cancer. “Here is your new contract: Grace Allen Tarbeau. Let’s hope this one goes better than the last; it is most lucrative. Your fee will be most handsome, even at the reduced rate of a Probationary Shooter. Now, if you don’t mind, I have several other duties to perform.”
“Sure.”
After leaving the office, Sweetwater rolled the envelope into a tube and stuffed it into his back pocket. It was LEI policy that subcontractors always review offers in private and that all such offers be delivered as hard copies. Before he headed back to his hotel room to read, however, he stopped at a liquor store with thick black bars on the windows and graffiti outside. Money was tight, so he got the biggest bottle of the cheapest stuff he could afford. After putting it on the checkout counter, he laughed and pointed at the bottle.
“My favorite brand,” he said, “Old Hangover.”
Chapter 5
Downtown Dallas, TX
Sweetwater had been on a high school field trip to DC on September 11, 2001, when the world changed forever. The tour bus was a mile from the Capitol when the first plane hit it. Most of the kids screamed, and the bus driver tried to turn around, but the traffic was too heavy. Instead, they abandoned the bus and ran, scattering when the second plane struck the dome. Another plane flew into the White House. Everybody else ran away from the flames, but he ran toward them.
Even years later, Sweetwater still didn’t know why he did what he did next; teenagers do weird stuff. He guessed that he somehow felt it was his duty as an American to help clean up after the attack. Once his teachers finally located him, covered in smoke and rock dust, they locked him in his hotel room with three roommates, but Luther Sweetwater was not a kid to meekly follow orders he didn’t agree with. It got him in plenty of trouble in high school. He pried the window open and climbed down the brick wall two stories to the ground.
Even years later, he could remember the stink of burning jet fuel as he climbed over debris looking for survivors. One memory in particular haunted his dreams. He’d scrambled over a big chunk of marble when his foot slipped, and he slid onto a pile of glass. Luther fell across the body of a man with a “Vietnam Vet” tattooed on his upper arm. Luther delicately rolled the body over to check if he might still be alive. The man’s face was cut from the glass-covered painting he had fallen across. A look of pain was pressed onto the man’s face from when he passed.
Luther looked at the painting, stained with the dead man’s blood. It was the portrait of President Lyndon Johnson. Luther didn’t recognize the portrait at first, but years later he researched presidential paintings and found the restored image.
The days that followed were filled with endless hours of recovering mangled bodies from the rubble. He and his fellow workers lined them up in rows across the street from the Capitol. Hundreds of bodies were laid to rest side by side with nothing more than a sheet to protect them.
More volunteers came in to help, only to leave just as quickly. Digging out broken and burnt bodies took more mental and physical strength than most people possessed. Days in the rubble stretched into weeks. They ate whatever they were given, by whoever gave it to them, and slept anywhere they could. Unknown to Sweetwater, his parents had driven to Washington from rural West Tennessee, since all flights were still grounded, to look for him. Somehow, he hadn’t even thought to call them during the chaos. Nothing mattered except the digging, and sometime during all that chaos the desire for revenge turned into an obsession. He had trouble resting. When he stopped for sleep, ghosts turned his exhausted sleep into nightmares.
The high school senior had to do something or go insane, so the next day he found a Marine Corps recruiting station and enlisted. When his parents found out, they tried to squash it, but he was three weeks past his 18th birthday. It was barely a week later, and he was in basic training and, after that, Scout Sniper School. Like the right hand of God, Sweetwater vowed he would smite the terrorists who had struck at the heart of the nation.
The spring of terror turned into a baking summer in boot camp. While training on the shooting range, he was told he qualified for sniper training. He spent the days crawling through the North Carolina dirt with a .50-cal on his back. Evenings were spent waiting for his orders. It was accepted knowledge that the United States would be going after whoever instigated the 9/11 attack. However, the new commander in chief seemed too timid to commit the necessary troops or do much of anything.
Daily news reports stressed the frustration of the nation and the desire for retribution. While the military was sent to reinforce the borders, the skeleton government recalled most of the overseas military and their families.
After an exceptionally hot day of training, Sweetwater’s Marine division was gathered together in the base theater where they were patched into a live news feed. A dozen men were dressed in black, and all of them held automatic rifles. In front of them a lone Arab man knelt with his hands tied behind his back.
One of the men in black stepped forward and pulled down a scarf that was across his face. “My name is Turrell Smith. The people behind me are my brothers and sisters in the LifeEnders. We are not,” Smith paused for emphasis, “I repeat, we are not representatives of the United States Government. We are the hammer of revenge against those who dare to attack our nation.”
Smith looked side to side, meeting the eyes of each man standing beside him. “We could no longer stand idly by and watch our government cower before cowards hiding in caves on the far side of the world. Those who think they can destroy the United States will discover their mistake as they choke on their own blood, as will the traitors within our borders. Hatred for America will no longer be accepted.” The man put his foot on the back of the kneeling man and pushed him to the ground. The man fell flat to his stomach, unable to catch himself.
“This piece of filth is named Osama bin Laden. He is the man who orchestrated the attack on our country. This man sent a handful of terrorists to hijack a dozen planes and kill thousands of innocent Americans in cold blood. Since our government did not act, we did. We are Americans, and we will not allow our republic to die without a fight. We are LifeEnders…we are the hammer of revenge.” Smith pointed directly into the camera. “All you Marxists and terrorists and those who would raise your hand against the red, white, and blue should pay attention.”
Smith knelt beside the bound man identified as Osama bin Laden. With a jerk he grabbed a handful of hair, lifted bin Laden’s face from the dirt and angled it to the camera. “If you still dare attack us, then remember this.” Smith dragged the bound terrorist closer to the camera. Sweat and dirt mixed into mud on the man’s lean, bearded face. Smith continued. “If you attack our country, we will find you, and you will find out why we are called LifeEnders.”
