Original Sins

by Rick Jones

  “I’m glad we’re on the same page then,” the senator told him.

  Kimball looked over the record. The man pictured was smiling enough to show rows of ruler-straight teeth. He also sported a mop of hair rather than today’s conservative cut and wore thick black-framed glasses. To Kimball, it looked more like a high-school photo of someone taken a decade or two earlier. It was that type of picture that always appeared outdated.

  Kimball held the sheet towards the senator. “What exactly are you asking me to do,” he asked, “while performing under the auspices of my organization?”

  The senator hesitated, then said, “People like Peter Savange who try to make a name for himself under the guise of ‘great reporting,’ unfortunately has the power to influence and mislead the masses as well. That is something we cannot allow to happen, Kimball. Things must change. Are you getting my message?”

  “You want me to make him disappear, is that it? He’s a targeted killing?”

  “No,” the senator stated while shaking his head. “I want you to make him see another alternative. Another way for him to bring his column to life in a different light.”

  “I don’t understand. It’s not what I do. I’m a wetwork operator.”

  “I know exactly what you do. And I’m not saying that your skillset will be relegated to reshaping what can and cannot be reported by the media. They will, at times, become necessary for the good of the nation. Believe me.”

  “You want me to do in-house work?”

  “When necessary.”

  “Then what is it that you want me to do with Savange?”

  “I want you to change the man’s perspective about me,” he answered. “I want you to get Savange in my corner. I need him to retract all the statements about me with a published apology, admitting to wrongdoing. Then he will publish a stellar review about my history and quantify that with an article regarding me as a qualified candidate who’s worthy of the highest political seat in the land.”

  “And how am I supposed to do that?”

  “You’re a man with a very special skillset, Kimball. Or so I’m told. I’m sure you can find a way to use these skills to promote a desirable outcome.” And then: “I need you, Kimball. The country needs you. People in my esteemed position cannot and will not sit back and allow the media to tear us to pieces with misleading lies. It undermines democracy. Misguided reporting is a tool of the Russians, something taken directly from their book of propaganda, don’t you think?”

  Kimball nodded, even though he marginally agreed.

  Then from Senator Rhames. “I ask you to do this as a favor to me, Kimball. And as a favor to your country. We need men like you to act as our savior, an unsung hero, a person who can protect those who cannot protect themselves. Are you that savior, Kimball Hayden?”

  After a long pause, he said, “I’ll see it done. But I may have to call upon you to get what I’ll need to see the operation through.”

  “Done.”

  “Anything else, Senator?”

  This time Rhames didn’t correct Kimball on the use of first names. Instead, he stood up, proffered a hand to Kimball, felt the iron grip of the assassin’s handshake which nearly made him cry out, then told Kimball that he’d be eyeing his every move with a high degree of expectation.

  Once Kimball left the office, the senator retook his seat. Then he called out: “You hear all that?”

  A man came from behind the door of a connecting room, Senator Shore, who, unlike Rhames, was physically fit. With his hands dug into his pockets, he said, “I did. It looks like we finally have our wetwork guy.”

  Senator Rhames nodded. “He looks like a kid.”

  “Yeah. Maybe. But he’s a kid who’s capable of leaving a trail of bodies a mile wide behind him. Even better, he knows how to keep his mouth shut.”

  “We’ll work him until he’s not needed anymore . . . Then we’ll find a way to terminate him before he becomes a liability.”

  Senator Shore wondered about sacrificing an elite operative.

  Then from Rhames: “Now I have to sit back and wait for the outcome,” he said. “And we all know that waiting is the hardest part.”

  “And what about the girl?” asked Senator Shore.

  Rhames knew that he was talking about the central point of the matter, which was the under aged girl whom he allegedly bedded. “I didn’t know she was fifteen,” he answered. “She looked much older.”

  But isn’t that what they all say? he considered immediately. Isn’t that how they all try to ‘plead’ their way out of a conviction? By looking for a defense no matter how strong or weak it may be? And then: “We can always undermine the words of a teenager,” he added. But he wasn’t entirely convinced since reports were now emerging that there was a video, something Savange was trying to get his hands on. Whether this was true or not Rhames didn’t know.

  “And if there’s a video?” asked Shore, who appeared to intuit Senator Rhames’ thoughts.

  “Then I’ll use my weaponized puppet,” he answered calmly. “Kimball Hayden is a man who doesn’t appear to have any boundaries when it comes to killing women or children. Once we clear the hurdle of Peter Savange, and if the girl and her mother choose to take another course of retaliation, I’ll simply set my puppet on a string to handle the situation.”

  “You’ll have to be careful,” said Shore. “Their eradication might draw suspicion.”

  “Not unless it’s done wrong,” he told the senator. “We’re already setting up red herrings to make the girl appear as a depraved subject through social media, which can be a beautiful thing.”

  Senator Shore finally took a seat. “Look, Jeff, ordering assassinations scare the hell out of me. I’m afraid that Hayden will back out at the last minute.”

  But Rhames disagreed as he lifted the manila folder off his desk and displayed it to Shore. “Have you read his biographical record?” he asked, shaking the file. “This man’s psychological profile insists that he has no moral compass while performing within the scope of his duties. In the course of his missions, Kimball Hayden has murdered women and children, if he thought they would compromise his mission.” He continued to shake the folder. “Everything’s here in black and white.” Then he tossed the file onto the desktop. “People like Kimball Hayden are easily molded to see what people like us want them to see, that he’s doing good for God and country. If there’s an obstacle, then he’s the bulldozer that’ll clear a wide and beautiful path for political achievement.” The senator then lifted his hand and started to wiggle his fingers, as if he was manipulating the strings of a marionette. “He’s my puppet,” he added, then he rested his hand against the desktop.

  “Even the strings to a puppet break,” Shore countered.

  That was when Senator Rhames slid the file across his desktop for Shore to handle. “Read it,” he said. “Read what this man is all about. I guarantee you’ll feel differently in the end.” Then he began to tap the point of his forefinger against the manila folder in emphasis. “Kimball Hayden is an animal,” he went on. “A vicious, by-the-book machine who will do whatever it takes to get the job done. He’s an equal opportunity killer who is blind to age and gender. And he cares little about piling up collateral damage, as long as he’s able to complete the job.”

  “We’ll see,” was all Shore said.

  As the hours passed by, the senators continued to speak about Kimball Hayden as a man who operated with the cold fortitude of a machine. He was a man with great promise who saw the mission plan written in his mind’s eye and followed it accordingly. But like most men with promise, people like Kimball had measurable life spans in these types of businesses where murder and espionage were often tied together. And when Senator Rhames bolstered the young man’s pride with terms of him developing into a ‘savior,’ he also made Kimball a pawn who would become expendable in the eyes of the political overlords, since there could never be loose ends with the magnitude of in-house killings.

  Ever.<
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  CHAPTER TWO

  Washington, D.C.

  Later that Evening

  Kimball Hayden’s apartment was in an upscale part of Washington, D.C. It was small and spartan, the residence no more than 500-square feet. But rents in this district were high. Nevertheless, he found comfort in such tight quarters since it made him feel less of a target, the area a cubbyhole of existence whose windows were covered over to give the impression that he was safe behind closed doors. And he always maintained the room within veils of thick shadows, as if he was choosing to be bound to his own personal darkness.

  Beneath the dim glow of a night lamp, Kimball was reviewing the records of his black-op unit. He had a stack of folders on the nightstand to his right. After picking up the first binder and opening it, he realized that he was reading the biographical record of Victor Hawke, or ‘Ghost,’ a Native American who lived within the myth that his target would see nothing but jungle, and then a flicker, only for the Apache to drive a knife across his target’s throat or a garrote around his neck a moment later. He was a large man about Kimball’s height, six five, with a gym-made body. And like Kimball, he operated with ice-cold fortitude.

  Kimball set the file aside.

  File number two, a man by the name of Sim Grenier. Kimball didn’t have to skim through the pages. He knew the man to be calculative and vicious, someone who always sought perfection in every undertaking.

  Kimball set that file aside as well and opened a third. Here was a man by the name of Marshall Walker, an incessant talker who knew everything about everything instead of knowing a lot about one thing, a trait that burned Kimball to no end. But the man’s skillset was undeniable as a master of the quick kill.

  These three men were a part of Kimball’s specialized black-ops team within the CIA, a black-arm unit that covertly operated under the designation as the Pieces of Eight. Though his team was made up of eight elite operatives, he would only need three for the upcoming mission.

  Victor Hawke, Sim Grenier and Marshall Walker would become his field technicians to set Senator Rhames’s assignment in motion. Plans had to be made and finalized with every detail spelled out, with every design created to exactness and performed to perfection.

  Setting his handpicked team aside, Kimball went to the window to watch spangles of city lights twinkle. Here lies the metropolis that sits the highest political seat in the land, he thought. Maybe even the world . . . And I’m a part of it.

  I make a difference.

  And as he stood there reflecting on moments of his life, he could see mental images within his mind’s eye, such as the last looks of those he killed for the good of the Company, and the way their eyes detonated with horror knowing that their life was about to come to a brutal and awful end. Then he recalled how he would relish these moments of having the power to steal away the life of another. With glacial slowness, he watched his past play out like a slow-motion loop of a movie reel, with the scenes of him killing for the good of a nation making him feel righteous. He had purpose, which made him an idealist that he was shaping the will of a country upon others, so that agendas could move forward for the good of the whole rather than the good of the few.

  I make a difference.

  With the vanity of deep-rooted pride, Kimball Hayden couldn’t hold back the light smile. I kill people. It’s what I do . . . It’s what I’m good at.

  Throughout the night as Kimball stood by the open window with the incoming air slightly warmer than normal to work out the mechanics of the upcoming operation, hours moved rapidly by until he was welcomed by a predawn cool. Then as the first streamers of citrus-colored light began to rise along the horizon, Kimball already had a plan in place.

  Tonight, he would have a plane to catch.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Washington, D.C.

  Early Evening

  The sun was beginning to set when Michelle Woolery exited the Post. Her day was often filled with time-consuming edits and had little to no time for breaks. But her efforts centered mainly on the political arena with articles that dealt with Washington corruption. Senators, Congressman, Representatives were all legitimate targets, all people with tendencies to bend the rules to serve a legitimate goal through illegitimate means. But her drives were not rooted by exposing stories of closed-door dealings about those who sat upon Capitol Hill. Her energies were spent on spotlighting certain individuals within the public eye from accusers who claimed immoral behaviors by incumbents before election time.

  Her current victim on the card: Senator Jeffrey Rhames, a man with an alleged appetite for younger women, with some as young as fifteen. The allegations were damning for sure, since the senator was planning to make a run for the presidential seat come next election, with the process of his campaign already underway. But the polls indicated that the allegations against him, though they had yet to be founded, were beginning to weigh his chances down. Instead of the 50-plus percent he expected considering his long tenure as a senator, he marked no higher than twenty-seven percent, with percentages continuing to freefall.

  As she walked down the street with her mind still thinking about her last edits and suggestions regarding Peter Savange’s latest report, a panel van pulled into a vacant spot about twenty feet ahead of her. It was a nondescript vehicle with a bland color, a muted shade of black. Though a well-dressed man exited from the passenger side—even when he was outfitted to drive a more fashionable car like a Lexus, especially in D.C.—she did not recognize the incongruity of it.

  As she was passing the van the man smiled in salutation, which she reciprocated with a smile of her own. The man was handsome, she considered, with dark eyes and darker hair, which shined like fresh tar.

  Just as she was about to pass him, the side door to the van slid open to reveal an empty bay. The man’s smile turned into a contorted grin, something that jellied her enough to quiver with a gelatinous tremble. And then his smile turned from something rictus to pure and unimaginable evil, something she could feel rather than sense.

  With speed too fast for her to put up a defense, the well-dressed man lashed out, grabbed her by the forearm, and before she could utter a sound, took a blow to the chin that knocked her cold. Falling limp into the man’s arms, he carried her into the van, closed the door, and told the driver to ‘move.’ And just like that, Michelle Woolery had been taken from the streets of Washington, D.C. without so much as a witness to confirm that she had disappeared at all.

  * * *

  Damien Lovecraft couldn’t have been more pleased or elated. He was a student at Georgetown University who was studying journalism and on the fast track to greater glories at the age of twenty-one. He was wide-eyed and full of enthusiasm, his dream of the Pulitzer Prize a lofty goal but achievable, now that he was interning at the Post under the tutelage of Peter Savange. Damien was always a gifted writer who found meaning in his stories or articles written as a child, with the ‘boy wonder of wordsmithing’ becoming the lead editor of his high school paper. Even there he exhibited a great talent for the ‘less-is-more’ style of writing by outlining everything that needed to be said in condensed form. He received local accolades, which fueled his hunger, and pats on the back for jobs well done. Then came Georgetown, the university close to the hub of America’s greatest political battlefield between the Republicans and the Democrats, and the land of greatest opportunity with Washington, D.C. filled with major topics of news reporting. Savange had taken him under his wing to teach him the ropes, such as how to attain the confident informant. Then he showed him the D.C. front and introduced him to people who were considered high in the political industry, though not the captains of it. Here was the base for establishing communication with the ground level, those firsthand witnesses who would become your eyes and ears within the Capitol and places beyond, even the White House. He was an African American from the mean streets of Detroit who avoided gangs like kryptonite, with that lifestyle capable of weakening his resolve and dismantling his dream. So h
e studied and excelled at school while under pressure as hostile elements surrounded him like the walls of a vise, always closing in and squeezing. But he stayed the course and earned a full scholarship to Georgetown, one of America’s elite universities, where he maintained a GPA of 4.0. Tonight, he was celebrating with friends, three women and a male, all students, at a bar close to the university. They purchased pitchers of beer, drank and laughed and told jokes. They spoke of future endeavors and dreams of the future. And then they expounded on how they were going to make a difference in life whether their platform was in medicine, law or politics. Here were the Saviors of the New Tomorrow. They had spoken of current events and of goals they were working on.

  Damien had touched upon his function as an observer who sided with Peter Savange, a noteworthy name who took on the biggest names in politics but refused to detail his current investigation regarding Senator Rhames, since the examination was ongoing. Like magicians, we can’t tell our secrets. As time continued at a tempo that was too quick for everyone’s liking, Damien finally had to cut his enjoyment short, saying that he had ‘work’ to complete. Leaving the bar, he discovered that the night had an unseasonal chill to it. So he hiked the collar of his sports jacket around his neck and hunched his shoulders forward as he made his way to his dormitory. On the sidewalk underneath the light of a sodium-vapor streetlamp stood a large man who wore a khaki-green military coat and faded jeans. There was a logo of the American flag sewn on his shoulder, the jacket a hippie throwback from the 60s. The man, though he was young, appeared like he had just stepped out of Woodstock. He wore long braids whose reach ended at the small of his back and wore a red bandana around his head. By his features, Damien determined the man to be of Native American heritage, which wasn’t odd since Native Americans often held peace rallies in Washington. What was odd, however, was the way the man stood within the light. He remained regimentally straight and as still as a Grecian statue, with the palms of his hands flush against his thighs. As he did when he was a youth trying to avoid gangs, he erred on the side of caution and crossed the street to draw distance. As he walked on the other side, he would give sidelong glances to the man who was standing at attention across the street. The man never moved, nor did his eyes appear to follow Damien as the student moved across the man’s range of vision. Taking the next turn, only then did Damien feel a slight easing of discomfort. But it wasn’t complete as he continued to look behind him to see if the man was shadowing him. He wasn’t, which caused the student to inwardly sigh. After taking a network of streets with the buildings of Georgetown beginning to show themselves, he saw the man once again standing regimentally straight beneath the light of a distant streetlight, waiting. Damien looked behind him, confused. How was it possible for this man to get ahead of him? The Native American who wore the khaki-green military jacket with its American-flag emblem remained unmoving. He was staring straight into the shadows across the street like before, and not at Damien. He was standing oddly at attention with his arms by his sides and his palms tight against his thighs. For a moment, Damien was stricken with paralytic terror and couldn’t move. Is this guy playing a game? Then the student began to backpedal. He would find another way to the university. As he rounded a wall of tall privet hedges, he started to run away from the Regimented Man and away from the university. He had no idea what the Native American was doing. All he knew was that he needed to respond with self-preservation. Damien, who was not much of a runner and had little lung endurance, quickly found himself gasping for air about two hundred yards into the run. His chest was burning as he wheezed with an awful sound. He turned his head. The Regimented Man was nowhere to be seen. Nothing but dark shadows that were mixed with cones of illumination being cast from the lamps of streetlights. Still, Damien found enough reserve to walk-jog to his next location, which was back to the bar where he would pick up a cab. As he rounded the bend his heart nearly misfired inside his chest. The Regimented Man was standing beneath the streetlamp and staring into darkness, waiting once again. How the man was able to move from location to location to cut off Damien’s route of escape was beyond the student’s understanding on so many levels.