Fear Factors

by Peter Sacco

  Ruth took another cigarette out of the pack and lit it. “What can you do for me?”

  “We can protect you if you help us.”

  “Help you with what?”

  “Well, for starters, telling us what you know.”

  “That’s easy. Sweet all.”

  Nagle shook his head in disgust. He could feel his impatience begin to well up again. “How the hell can we help you if you don’t want to help us?”

  A tear slowly trickled down her cheek and she wiped it with a sarcastic chuckle. “Why the hell do you want to help me? There is nothing you can do to help me! There is nothing you can do to help yourself. There is nothing you can do period! Let’s face it, you’re screwed!”

  “Are you still trying to protect Monger with the fear he has instilled in you? He’s not God.”

  Handley leant forward into Nagle’s face. “I know he’s not God. He’s the devil ready to unleash Hell. I don’t have to protect Monger. He’s got the world by the balls and he’s just about ready to squeeze.”

  Nagle sighed.

  “You think I’m funny, don’t you?” snapped Handley.

  “No, actually I think you’re pathetic, just like the rest of your gang.”

  Handley did not respond to his reply. Nagle got up and walked toward the door. “You’re on your own. You’re free to go back to your boyfriend.”

  “Wait... “ whispered Handley.

  Nagle closed the opened door, returned to the table and stood across from her. He looked at her and shook his head. A typical interrogation going a whole lot of nowhere in a hurry, he thought to himself. Her type always spoke in riddles. Perhaps she was here to make him snap. Make him confused to the point that he blew his top. “What is it?”

  Handley looked away as she tried to fight back tears.

  “It’s over anyway. What the hell? My life isn’t worth shit. I might as well do something to make my grandfather proud.”

  Nagle extended his jaw forward and gnawed on his upper lip in anticipation.

  “There is a large shipment coming into Buffalo.”

  “When?”

  “Within the next couple of days.”

  “Can you be more precise?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know what the shipment is? Guns? Weapons?”

  “It’s the size of a transport truck.”

  Nagle chomped down on his upper lip and grimaced. He turned away and faced the door. It had to be a warhead. Son of a bitch! Monger’s got a warhead. Nagle turned around and faced Ruth, who had started to sob. “Do you know how many of these shipments there are?”

  “I just know of one.”

  “How is it getting to Buffalo?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know? “ shouted Nagle impatiently.

  “I don’t know!” cried out Handley.

  “Surely you must have some idea. Plane, train, freight, boat?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Nagle stared through her and grimaced. “You don’t know.”

  ***

  It was a very mild Christmas Day in D.C.. Light snow had fallen throughout the day. Nagle was working in his office that late afternoon trying to figure out where and when the warhead would arrive in Buffalo. He replayed in his mind repeatedly the conversation he had with Handley. He still wanted to wring her neck. This was some kind of set-up. Monger was trying to trap him. The uncanny part was that Nagle wanted to be lured. He wanted a piece of Monger. His anger was kicking into high gear and he wasn’t thinking straight. He was running on emotion which was not good in his profession. He was isolating himself from the pack and did not want to share any of his findings with them. This was Monger’s and his game. He wanted the fun. He wanted the trophy. This would make up for the “bowl game” he never had the chance to compete in at college.

  The Queen city was pretty well spread out and Buffalo left a whole host of locations to pick from. There had been several suspected places, one which was the savings and loan building which was probably the least likely of places that the warhead would be going to. Nagle brainstormed about twenty places which would serve as potential locations for their operation. How and where would it be coming from, was the million dollar question. Buffalo had an airport and Niagara Falls, New York, had an airport not too far away, say a half hour or so. The railway system also came through Buffalo. And Buffalo also had a shit load of transports roaring through their interstate roads. And there was also the possibility things could be shipped in the back door through Canada.

  Nagle could feel the stress building in the back of his neck. It had been throbbing like acid rain on cement the last couple of weeks. In essence, Nagle was dealing with two crises. There was of course Monger, the son of a bitch who was causing him to lose sleep and turn his hair gray. And then there were his own people. Trust was a concept being tossed around like a pigskin. Nagle felt like the quarter back who throws to the open man, only to have him run a different pattern at the last second and have the ball intercepted. Who could be trusted? That was the reason he chose to work alone. Trust no one!

  It was funny the way Nagle began to look at people. He looked at the world according to race, color, creed and gender, something he never thought he would do when he was younger. He didn’t trust the blacks or Jews because they were always trying to get even for what happened in the past. He didn’t trust religion because he believed what Marx asserted – a tool in the hands of the rich. He didn’t trust in loyalty to nationality because all were constantly backstabbing one another. And for sure he didn’t trust females. They were nothing but blood sucking vampires, this he based on his failed relationships. Most frightening of all he was even beginning to question his belief in himself. Monger and himself really were not that different from one another. He was certain Monger had the same short list of those who could be trusted.

  At five-thirty that afternoon, New York City was rocked by a blast which Monger felt all the way over in D.C. At a homeless shelter in Manhattan, two hundred people celebrating with a hot Christmas meal were blown to pieces when a bomb planted beneath the brightly-lit building detonated. There were no survivors. Monger had rid society of the lowest form of rodents, those who kept society from flourishing and growing strong. Monger did not personally hate these people. In fact, he felt sorry for them. However, Monger truly believed himself to be the martyr for whom they cried out. He did what needed to be done. He put them out of their misery, and his.

  Nagle heard the news at five-thirty five from his superiors. He stared at his reflection in the royal blue Christmas ornament he held in his hands as he stood in his apartment. His world was falling apart. He was letting things get out of hand.

  Nagle wound up and cocked his arm and hurled the ornament against the wall and started to tremble. Handley was right. There truly was nothing he could do to stop Monger’s efforts. He was more upset with Monger beating him, than he actually was about the loss of lives. The game was more important and he wanted Monger’s head for his mantel because he hated losing. The game meant more to him than did life. The game was further intensified.

  It was December twenty-seventh and all was calm. The U.S. made it through the day without anything being blown up. It was seven-thirty in the evening and Nagle had just sat down for dinner in front of his television set in his small apartment. Nagle chose to live in a small apartment, not to purposely save money, rather because he was never around. The lights were off in the apartment, and Nagle was able to see what he was eating from the glare coming from the television set. It was some kind of linguini and clam frozen dinner. Nagle had always enjoyed anything Italian.

  Nagle was about half way through his meal, when a scene on TV caused him to cease chewing. Another bomb had exploded in South Carolina at a Baptist church. There were many dead
and injured. Why had God let that son of a bitch put a bomb in his house? Nagle thought to himself The bombing had Monger’s typical signature. Perhaps even God couldn’t stop Monger. Nagle shook his head. He was not shocked at the barbarity of Monger’s action, but surprised how easy he made it look. Nagle dug the fork into the plate and resumed eating as he watched the news report. Soon his telephone would be ringing. He chomped on the pasta and deliberately gritted his teeth with each swallow. Monger was in his mouth and he was chewing him into little pieces. He would not spit him out. He would swallow him so he would drown in the acids in the pit of his stomach.

  Those assholes had called themselves Christians and used verses in the Bible to repeatedly justify their actions. How the hell do you use the Bible to justify killing your own people? Oh yeah! According to Monger they were not his people. They didn’t support the cause. Ever since Nagle had spoken with Handley, a song kept playing over and over in his head. U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” rattled on in his brain. It was becoming a broken compact disk on long play. Over and over were Bono’s words “ I can’t believe the news today....”

  As Nagle listened to the music play in his head his eyes focused on a remaining building shown on the television. A reporter was interviewing survivors in front of the building, but he saw it. He definitely saw it! A swastika with the words HAPPY NEW YEAR TERRY had been spray painted on the wall. Nagle felt his whole body heat up and the undigested pasta rush up from his intestine. U2’s song blared in his head.

  He wanted Monger. He could taste his blood. Only it was his own blood he was tasting as he bit into his tongue. The phone rang and broke into his daydream. It was the Office. They wanted him on the road immediately. It was time to go back to work. He was going to get the bastard.

  December twenty-eighth. Nagle arrived at the Niagara Falls International Airport on a shuttle. It was twelve-fifteen in the afternoon when his plane landed. He was the lone passenger. A rental car was waiting for him at the airport. Nagle insisted on doing this venture alone. He was becoming a desperate and impatient man. He told his superiors he was checking up on a possible lead and would call for back-up when he had more information. Nagel knew Monger was there and he was going to kill him. Monger invited him to the party and he accepted the invitation. Only Monger never included an address.

  Nagle climbed into the cockpit of the new Lincoln Town car. Boy, had technology come along way. Nagle decided he wanted to drive instead of the car. He pushed in a couple of commands above the digital dash and the screen read “manual drive.” Nagle had always loved driving and this was one thing technology was not going to take away from him, his right to drive. Sure it eliminated the amount of accidents on the roadways. People loved it because it reduced insurance rates tremendously. Insurance companies hated the new cars as much as they hated car pools. They were losing a lot of business, and even went so far as to air commercials depicting the fun and freedom of operating your own vehicle. In the beginning, most people weren’t keen on the idea of this novel feature. In time, however, auto pilot was becoming a standard feature in cars. People were able to do other things, like get ready in the morning in the car, while the auto-pilot took them where they had to go. And the design had been so simple. Perhaps that was what Nagle hated most about the cars. They were making life too simple.

  People were becoming more and more lazy. He hated lazy people. Technology was allowing people to be computer programmers. They never had to leave the house to shop, visit the doctor, visit friends. They just had to push a button and everything was there for the taking. One piece of technology Nagle despised were the bloody wireless headsets and microphones placed in football helmets. Players were using them to hear plays over the crowd noise. Technology was helpful in some respects, but degrading in others. It truly was taking the fun and purity out of the reason for doing some things in life. No wonder he was becoming so hateful toward everything.

  Nagle played around with the small television screen on the dash and switched on the football game. He would listen to the Washington Redskins battle the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC wildcard game.

  ***

  If Ruth had read the letter her grandfather found , she would have known Monger’s shipment had been delayed. There were several obstacles in shipping his freight from Switzerland to Canada. The date was changed to December twenty-ninth. It would arrive at the Hamilton Airport in Hamilton, Ontario and be loaded onto a transport. It was due to arrive in Buffalo at ten o’clock that evening.

  Monger had been excited about the arriving cargo. He had a warehouse prepared in Williamsville, a suburb of Buffalo. It had been an old wholesale store which had been abandoned for two years. Monger had his accountant purchase the building under the guise of a Goodwill headquarters. The real estate company was told it would be used to house all types of donations, such as clothing and canned goods the public offered. The building was updated with electricity on the twenty-seventh of December. Large transport trucks, with Goodwill labels on the sides, moved electronic and computer equipment into the warehouse. The building had been inhabited by mice, rats, roaches, spiders and whatever else could crawl.

  Many of the ceiling lights had either shattered or were not working. The building, therefore, was not very well lit. This was a circumstance to which Monger had grown accustomed. All that mattered was there was enough light to see what the hell was going on and enough electricity to power their awaited shipment.

  Dr. Hans Weitz, a Swiss physicist in his late seventies, was accompanying the cargo. He had overseen the maintaining of the cargo for the last twelve years.

  A white-haired widower, his wife had passed away fifteen years ago and this project had become his new partner. He couldn’t wait to use it. Monger had grown to appreciate Weitz’s work. Though they had only met once, when Weitz lectured at a conference at Columbia University a few years back, he had developed a deep respect for the man. He lived to support the cause Monger had strived for since the second World War. He held a strong Nazi patriotism, which only a handful of people knew. In his everyday life, Weitz, a retired physics professor, played the role of democrat. He used to laugh behind people’s backs and sigh, if they only knew. They would know soon enough. Weitz was a Nobel prize winner. He was about to launch his best work ever.

  The cargo, along with Weitz, arrived at the warehouse at ten-twenty-six. The weather had been nasty north of the border and their drive was impeded by the cautious drivers along the QEW highway. They were in and through the Peace Bridge in no time. Nagle would surely wonder to himself why something that large came through customs and was not detected. Surely, there would be at least one official who was not part of W.A.S.P. who would question the nature of the freight?

  They worked like hell to get things set up in the warehouse. The shipment was unloaded with extreme care. It had come this far and it would have been a disaster if it had been dropped or damaged. The cargo was towed into the warehouse by two very large tow motors. It was covered to prevent it from precipitation and the cold. The canvas tarp jutted out at the corners of the large wooden freight. Monger finally arrived at the scene once the freight was inside the building and bellowed out orders to his troops. He was very happy to see Weitz and shook his hand enthusiastically. Weitz informed him it would take two days to get the cargo into working order. It would be ready for New Year’s Eve. Monger almost pissed himself in anticipation. What a loud bash it would be!

  Meanwhile, Nagle lay on his stomach on a bed in a room at an inn. He studied road maps and compared them to a list of buildings he had written on a separate piece of paper. Nagle sipped from the carton of chocolate milk. He had loved chocolate milk as long he could remember. Anything chocolate, Nagle loved. It seemed to give him an instant rush. He already checked out some possible sites. They had been as clean as a whistle. Monger was becoming an incredible magician. He was making things disappear very quickly. Nagle certainly had to rank him u
p there with David Copperfield. Nagle was worried about the rabbit Monger was sure to pull out of his hat. The proverbial shit was going to be hitting the fan and there was not a thing Nagle could do to fight the sleep which was attacking his senses.

  On December thirtieth, Nagle woke at five-ten to learn that several car bombs had gone off in cities across the U.S. during the night. There had also been a couple of bombings in the city of Toronto. Nagle chuckled to himself knowing these were nothing but fireworks compared to what was coming.

  The rest of the day was less than productive. At ten that evening an old friend from the FBI got in touch with him. Nagle griped about not wanting to trust anyone, but Vance was the exception. They met in college and had kept in touch ever since. Vance learned about Nagle’s latest escapade and decided to give him a ring with the latest gossip. It appeared someone who had been photographed with Monger in the past had purchased a large warehouse. Furthermore, the purchaser claimed to be a representative from Goodwill. After getting in touch with a Goodwill representative, definitely not one of Monger’s puppets, it was found the purchase was a front. Goodwill knew nothing about the purchase. Monger was so eager to carry out his assault on the world, he was slipping. He was neglecting the little things. Nagle had the possible break he was looking for. Nagle was going to investigate the warehouse alone. It was his move. He would match Monger. He would go in for a quick peek and perhaps bust Monger’s ass in the process, checkmate!

  The damn route to the warehouse had been anything but easy. Nagle, who normally had a pretty good sense of direction, almost wound up heading for Albany, New York. The trip to the warehouse took a little longer than expected. If Nagle would have used the car’s electronic map and auto-drive, he would have been at the warehouse fifteen minutes sooner. It was just shortly after eleven-thirty when Nagle stood alongside the east wall of the warehouse. There were no windows at all. There were several metal doors paralleled along the side of the building. Of course they were all locked tight like tins of beans. Nagle removed two objects from his overcoat. In one hand he held a stethoscope. In the other hand, he had what looked like some kind of tiny transistor radio. He put the stethoscope on and placed the cup on the door. He listened intently for five minutes. The side of the building was very dark. There was no lighting for several hundred feet. Even if Monger had the place under surveillance, he would never pick up Nagle’s shadow-less body.