Without Wrath (Harbinger of Change Book 3)

by Timothy Jon Reynolds

  The firecrackers were still playing out while Matt had Vargas under scope, his finger starting to put pressure on the trigger. He was about to go a place he could never come back from and then it hit him. This was the same strategy of the two people he killed in Ecuador. Vera and Pablo thought they could change the world with such heavy-handed tactics and what did it bring them?

  Vargas tried to console her and tried to move closer to the fence to show her there was nothing to fear, but she just buried her head deeper in his chest and started crying.

  The time was now for the shot, but it was never going to happen. Matt just imagined the dime-sized hole in his head spurting brain and blood all over this little girl. If this is what Chase Viana wanted, then he’d picked the wrong man. He looked one last time at the villain who seemed to be a pretty good grandpa and shut it down. He only killed to imminently save lives and even then, his past hesitation in Ecuador cost a lot of people their lives when he failed to react in a timely fashion. He’d had to live with the guilt that his reticence cost many a life, and if he would have acted sooner back then, a carrier group would not be on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

  TJAC didn’t need to do this if they knew who Vargas was, there was a million ways to do it; they didn’t have to destroy the lives of his family for his machinations. Plus, killing someone in front of a church? Well, this was the end of his career at TJAC, he was sure of it. He wondered if they would now try to kill him? Probably not, as he still had friends in high places now. If he disappeared, his new friends might do some investigating—he thought of Ray Callahan—but Chase wouldn’t be happy nonetheless and Matt wondered what the true fallout of this would be?

  His movie mind went back to the scene in Scarface when the guy wanted Tony to blow up the car of the informant with his wife and kids in it. Tony wouldn’t oblige and the Colombian Lord, Sousa, brought the whole drug army down on him. Matt was thinking of the actor’s rage at Tony letting an opportunity get away, and he wondered if there was any Sousa in Chase?

  For months Matt had been toiling inwardly over the concept of violence, and he was now sure that no matter what the Divine plan for him was, the path to answering God’s Will would not have violence involved. If he’d taken that shot, he would forever be one of “them,” a person who killed without provocation and without conscience. He was not that person.

  He repacked and locked the suitcase. He went back to the window and watched the Vargas entourage walk down the block. If he was an evil shit, then Karma was going to catch up to him. Matt believed that to his bones. In a kind of stunned silence, he left the hotel and blankly walked back to the car, forgetting all the training he had on tails and how to move through crowded streets to ensure that he wasn’t followed.

  He popped open the trunk and threw the suitcases in and before he knew it, he was gone. He needed to dump the gun and he finally found a modern looking market that had dumpsters in the back. He took the ammo and threw it onto the building’s roof, and then he placed the rifle under some rotted garbage, covering it with some boxes, hoping it made it to the landfill. Afterward he went around to the front to make a call to Jan from the payphone there.

  She answered it on the second ring and she knew right away something was terribly wrong. He cut off her million questions and told her, “I promised I would never leave you in the dark again, so take the first flight you can to Cancún. Take a taxi to the Americana Fiesta. No questions, pack for a week, get cash, no cards, don’t forget your passport, you need them for Mexico just like Vancouver. She said, “Okay” and hung up with no questions.

  She was getting better at learning to trust him and not try to lead the dance all the time. He got in the car and headed for the airport. If they were going to kill him, he was at least going to get some snorkeling in beforehand. Jan hated when he became flippant in the face of calamity, but if she’d seen half of what he had in his life she then would have known that things would play themselves out.

  If he were meant to die, then a second shooter would have done in Vargas, and his car would have went boom when he started it (he checked it anyway, not forgetting all of his training). He really needed to think and he wanted to see and feel the sun for a few days. No computers, no phones. Then he had another thought and reminded himself to look for the BofA logo—they couldn’t track cash so easy. If they both went only cash for a while, it might give him time to think.

  He pulled into the airport and as he got out of the car at the rental return building, the punch came out of nowhere. He stepped back in shock and reminded himself, if he ever came here again to bring a respirator. As his AeroMexico flight lifted off and pulled through what Matt knew now to be pollution, not haze, he was amazed once again to see the giant volcano jutting up like a hidden monolith, literally towering invisibly over the masses. Adiós, Mexico City.

  2 – Acceptance

  Located in the heart of Los Angeles was the Garment District. It was just southeast of downtown and covered a good five square miles, the many businesses offering numerous types of wares. The alleyways and the streets were lined with vendors on both sides, some selling clothes they’d made, some fabrics so the masses could make their own clothes, others selling brand names for less, and then there were those who sold “knock offs” which the cops were always pointlessly trying to stop, as if . . .

  John Fernandez worked as the Store Manager for the local supermarket, Alberto’s. He grew up in L.A. in one of the roughest areas in the nation. His childhood was a mixture of joy and terror, but he had a great family. His father working at a local brickyard since the Sixties and when one worked in a brickyard, one tended to be strong. His father was John Senior and John Senior did not own one power tool. He bought the house in 1969 right after he’d returned from two tours in Vietnam.

  He had been a combat soldier, but he didn’t seem to have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder like many came home with. Anytime he had stress, he went to work on something. To this day, he also did not own one power garden tool either, so his house was his mind’s retreat and it was the embodiment of his hard work. In the late Seventies the neighborhood changed and the gangs came in. That brought the terror.

  John was just a kid in his teens, so he was an easy target walking home. He started hanging out with a kid whose older brother was in the Vagos street gang and before he knew it, they were planning to initiate him. That’s when he ran to his dad. He was still not sure what exactly had gone on that day, but he’d once heard a spirited, rum-filled conversation with his dad’s friends at a party. John swore he’d heard the word grenade involved.

  Whatever his dad did, it gave him a pass that held up all these years. To this day, whenever he walked out and past the hangout near the corner, he was never bothered; he got a nod. In this neighborhood, that was bigger than one could imagine and he could only surmise that what his dad had done was of such bravado that he had became a kind of warrior legend and it just stuck.

  As long as he was in “his” neighborhood, he was safe, which was why he bought the house right across from his parents. He walked to work every day. He did live in L.A. after all and it rarely rained here, plus his car was too nice to leave in the lot at work. His ’69 Camaro was his dream car and it stayed in the garage unless they were driving out to Santa Monica Beach. He looked around at gridlock above at street level, why drive in this madness when my store is just two miles away?

  He started working there when he was just sixteen and now at almost fifty he’d known nothing else. Being a Store Manager in such a unique area was interesting because the store served his neighborhood and was also the only grocery store near the Garment District itself. So he was able to make sure his corner guardians got the right kegs of beer on Friday night and that he found the right caviar for his Russian clients, clients who ran the fur warehouse and loved to give their friends discounts. As a result, his wife got a fur stole that she cried over. He secured the right beer and bratwurst for the German couple who ran the textiles w
arehouse where he bought his clothes and the right carne for the Mexican taqueria owner around the corner. Not to mention the Filipinos—oh man, some of the stuff those guys ate made menudo seem tame.

  His own neighborhood was mostly Hispanic, but once you got into the actual Fashion District—as they liked to call it now—then it was all international, and he was the man that knew how to make them all happy.

  He walked under the Harbor Freeway by the Convention Center, headed east up Pico toward his store. He began to think about the blog. He hadn’t heard from El Conejo in about a week, ever since he went to meet his new boss. Same with Philly, and even though he was such an ass, things were not the same without either of them.

  John hated that about the Internet, one could make real friends and then they’d be gone, and you’d have no clue what happened to them. He made a mental note to get some phone numbers tomorrow morning. His wife, Miranda, told him, “Who cares, you don’t even know them.” Then she would ask if he’d read to their daughter yet and any thought he had of time for himself was pushed in the waste basket, just like all married men the minute they had kids. He figured that women got away with this because no man wanted to leave his kids. And if one’s wife was hot like his, then no guy wanted to leave that door open, either.

  John liked Tom Holsinger. He could tell that he was a white boy, despite the Conejo moniker; but that didn’t matter, his ideas were good. Tom had a way—even in writing—of carrying himself. He wondered if he was as enigmatic in person. He definitely was going to get phone numbers tomorrow. Miranda was wrong, he felt real concern and worry for his friends, cyber-world or not.

  If someone could stop pundits from clouding the issues all the time, real stuff could get done in this country, but like Tom said, it’s all being done on purpose. He walked across Broadway and into his store. He was expecting some special deliveries today for the German couple, and seeing today was Thursday, he needed to make sure his corner friends stayed happy for the weekend. He had the best home security there was—a gang that liked him. Such was life in L.A.

  * * *

  Lauren’s eyes opened to another room. How many had she been in? This one was more like what one would think a hospital room would look like. She went to scratch but couldn’t, her left arm was in a cast that ran from shoulder to wrist. She remembered somewhere from out of the fog that the doctors had said her arm was broken in three places. She’d been in and out of sustained consciousness for what must have been weeks. She had recollection of an emergency surgery and she remembered finding out from the doctor before they put her out that her spleen had been ruptured. They said they had to remove it right away. As she was going out, she literally thought she was never going to wake up again—but she did.

  They had to keep her on morphine, as five of her ribs were broken, as well as her spine bruised. Every day she became a little stronger it seemed. When they’d brought her in, she was near death as she was actually bleeding to death internally, yet some sharp doctor had saved her.

  She became terrified as she recalled bits and pieces of what had happened to her. The more they cut back the medications, the more she remembered. Currently she remembered enough to know that when she got better, there was one place she was going to pay a visit—the local Mercado where there currently worked a snake in women’s clothing.

  She wanted to adjust herself so badly, but her left arm was in traction and the right one had an IV line in it that ran from a bag on a pole next to the bed. Of all the things she loathed, being stuck in this entrapment was number one, as the need to scratch an itch was maddening.

  What I wouldn’t give for one of those telescoping back scratchers and the right man to do my bidding. Hell, even a woman. She’d gladly switch teams for a good scratch. She was about to try to wiggle her butt over a little bit, which of course meant she had to suffer the rib pain for her trouble, but at this point, satiating the itch in her ass crack was going to be an equitable trade off.

  Then she smelled it. And it was unmistakable. It was a slight drift of many light scents, but the one that stuck out was the sandalwood. She knew someone that used to use a very expensive and rare sandalwood perfume once upon a time. Although she hadn’t been talking much, she mustered a pain-free throat clearing and managed to get out, “Hello, Mother.”

  The reply came from behind the bed, so she didn’t see the respondent, “Hello, Dear,” was all that was said.

  “Did you come alone?”

  With an expulsion of air to signify the insanity of the question, Elizabeth answered, “Of course not, Dear, do you think I would come to this ghastly place on my own? I would be terrified beyond my wits. No, of course not, Dear, your father brought me.”

  Lauren thought about her next words carefully, “Why are you here?”

  Her mother came into view as Lauren spoke, “I just meant that if you’re here to take me home, then save yourself the speech and effort. Please go now because it will not be happening.”

  Her mother looked at her in anguish. She was seeing what a mirror revealed to Lauren the day before when the nurse held it up for her. Her beautiful face was broken. Aside from two broken teeth, she had a fractured eye socket and it looked horrible.

  The doctors confirmed that she would get her vision back, but it would be a long road to recovery, as would her spine injury. Tears started rolling down her mom’s face. Elizabeth was a strong woman and sometimes a very cold woman who was capable of writing people off that she truly loved in order to grab a better position in life. She finally spoke in a calm but convicted voice, “You can’t keep this up, Lauren. You were nearly killed; this is no longer healthy.”

  “I understand your concern, Mother, I do, but do you realize that the people who did this to me were stopping me from looking for him? I was close, Mom, and I won’t stop until I find him.”

  “And then what?!” Her mother suddenly snapped, her voice way too loud for the setting. In more of a hushed tone now she reiterated, “And then what, Lauren? He’s no longer a fugitive. President Caulfield exonerated him, and the world is focused on what happened to that madman/sheep leader who attacked us. Meanwhile you’re focused on a ghost.”

  “That’s not fair and you know it, Mother! You know why I can’t stop.”

  “Lauren, he’s dead, you need to let it go.”

  Lauren could only hope the feelings that she had raging inside of herself right now were being conveyed through her facial expressions, as well as her words, but her face was so lumpy that she could only hope for the best, “You know never to say that to me, Mom. You left them, but I never did, I never turned my heart off and left them. So when Matt Hurst killed Joe, he only killed half of the team, the other half has a score to settle.”

  “Lauren, listen, you don’t get this now because your young, but J.P. doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want more blood to flow. He would never forgive himself if something happened to you.”

  Her eyes were tearing up; she was unable to think about her half brother without welling up. Matt Hurst had put a bullet though Joe with his own partner’s gun. He was cut down in the Stanford Shopping Center in front of a women’s clothing store called Stor. They shot him and he died right in the parking lot.

  Stor was where Hurst worked and where her investigative reporting led her to believe he was guilty. Her time spent with Bill Westinghouse confirmed that even a man with his connections and insight didn’t believe Hurst just fell into this. She was going to pay back the man who killed her brother and there was nothing anyone could do to stop her. “Mother, I think it’s time for you to go.”

  “Well now, is that any way to talk to your own mother?” J.P. walked in holding two coffees and handed one to his ex-wife. “Your mom tells me you fell down. Looks like you scraped more than your knee.”

  Lauren could see J.P. hadn’t changed a bit. He still had straight long blonde hair, less illustrious than his youthful days though, she noted. She wiggled a little bit and the pain shot through her like
a bolt. Her face told the tale and J.P. ran over quickly to help her out adjusting herself. He shifted her ever so gently and asked if that was okay?

  She smiled and said, “Yes, that’s fine, but one more thing, can you scratch my ass for me?”

  The next few minutes were not so intense and they caught up a little. J.P. admitted that he climbed in a bottle until Elizabeth had recently dragged him out of it. The death of Joe was too much to handle and he just didn’t care anymore. She was crying while she listened, as she knew what was coming next.

  “We came here to take you home, Lauren, this is over. You don’t need to do this.”

  She sobbed and looked into his broken soul and said, “No, J.P. We all have something we need to do in this life that defines us, molds us into what we are to become.” Her mom moved in and grabbed her right hand, “Mom, listen to me, those people would have never bothered to scare me off if they weren’t hiding something. This is actually a break.”

  Elizabeth looked at her battered daughter and said, “You call this a break? You call this scaring someone, Lauren? What will happen when they’re done scaring you?”

  The room focused on a man with a familiar voice when he appeared from her blind side. He was tall, dark haired and was dressed in slacks, a button up short sleeve shirt with smart leather loafers. He was fit, with no stomach bulging out like many of his contemporaries, and had the air of a man used to success. He wore only a watch and a wedding band as jewelry and J.P. noticed the band with a bolt of pain.

  Two hours prior J.P. had finally met the man who’d broken his family apart and stolen the only women he’d ever truly loved. The man signaled with a nod that he wanted to spend some time with his daughter alone. J.P. noticed that the man had no compunction as he had called Lauren his daughter earlier. It was painful to swallow for any man, but a man so freshly out of the bottle was already one leg back in it at the sight of this obviously prosperous man.