The Sin Keeper

by Gary Winston Brown

  The driver smiled. “Works for me.” The cab pulled away from the curb.

  Taras opened his briefcase, removed his passport and placed it in his jacket pocket.

  Tonight, he would leave Taras Verenich behind in the United States. Taras Antipov would start a new life in Central America.

  The anxiety he had felt in the bar began to ease. Pent–up tension began to leave his body.

  He would soon be in the air.

  He felt pleased with himself. He had had the foresight to pay attention to his instincts and it had paid off.

  On the radio, a talk show host blathered on about the situation at Cal State and ‘how I would handle these terrorist bastards it if it were up to me.’

  Taras tapped on the divider. The driver glanced in the rear view mirror.

  “Does that thing play music?” Taras quipped.

  The cabbie didn’t respond. He leaned forward and selected a soft rock music station.

  Def Leppard played ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me.’

  Taras laid back, closed his eyes and fantasized about better days ahead.

  He could feel the warm Costa Rican sun on his face.

  CHAPTER 45

  TERROR REIGNED on the university campus as Merrick went in search of his target.

  For months he had watched the youth, knew everything about him: his daily schedule, the buildings in which he attended class, local hangouts, extra-curricular activities. Ilya Puzanova attended Cal State University as a mathematics prodigy. He was also one of the most talented players on the Long Beach men’s basketball team, the 49ers. In the university sports complex, known as The Pyramid, a championship game was underway.

  LAPD had cordoned off all roads leading into and out of the campus. Beyond the police barricade, an emergency triage station had been set up. Teams of paramedics busily attended to the wounded. On the road a cue of ambulances idled, waiting to transport the seriously injured to hospital.

  Merrick walked calmly through the panicked crowd in the direction of the Pyramid. On his wrist, Channeler glowed. He could feel the energy of the device pulsing through his body. Incredible, he thought, this feeling of invincibility. Never in his life had he felt so fueled by hatred and motivated by revenge. He hungered for vengeance. Ahead, a student watched him approach. The girl froze in mid-step and stared at Merrick, her pupils wide with fear. As Merrick walked closer she began to tremble. Terrified of the stranger who had come into her life, without provocation, and proven himself to be capable of committing the most heinous acts, she lost her grip on her leather knapsack. The satchel slipped out of her fingers and dropped to the ground. A stream of urine ran down her legs and pooled at her feet. Her pretty face was gray, expressionless. The young woman’s legs gave out from under her. She fell to her knees.

  Merrick walked up to the coed and placed his hand against the side of her face. Through Channeler, he sensed her thoughts. Her mind was busy processing her circumstances, helping her to rationalize the inevitable and accept her fate. Merrick experienced the rush of her blood as it drew away from her extremities and pooled in the center of her body; a physiological process to protect her vital organs in preparation for death.

  Merrick picked up the woman’s knapsack and placed it in her hand. “I’m not here for you,” he said. He took her by the elbow, helped her to her feet and held her until she regained her balance and could stand on her own without assistance. The light began to return to her eyes. She refocused, took a shallow breath. Her body shuddered. A second, deeper breath followed the first.

  “Can you walk?” Merrick asked.

  The woman said nothing.

  “Try.”

  Merrick slowly released his grip on her arm. The student took a tentative first step, then a second.

  “You’ll be fine,” Merrick said. “Go. Live your life.”

  In stunned silence the woman watched Merrick walk away.

  The Pyramid.

  Above Merrick, a Los Angeles Police Department helicopter approached. The pilot angled the aircraft toward him, descending and drifting closer, narrowing the distance between them. A sharpshooter readied himself in the open doorway and settled into position. As the officer steadied his rifle to fire, Merrick responded. A stream of energy left Channeler and struck the aircraft, tossing it wildly in the air. From the ground Merrick could hear the steady meep-meep-meep of its operational warning system announcing the malfunction. Its tail rotor began to turn out of sync with the main rotor. The helicopter began to spin wildly in the air. Merrick watched the chopper pilot struggle with the joystick, fighting unsuccessfully to regain control of the falling aircraft. The bird plummeted from the sky and crashed on State University Drive, it’s shattered blades slicing through the air and lodging into the walls of the surrounding buildings. Thick gray smoke poured from the wreckage as Merrick approached the downed chopper. Its unconscious occupants made no sounds or displayed signs of life. An eerie silence settled over the crash site.

  News of the attack had not yet reached the ravenous basketball fans inside the Pyramid. Merrick crossed the grounds. Around him lay the remains of the structures which had been decimated by Channeler as well as the fallen and the dead. Inside the Pyramid, the boisterous crowd chanted Long Beach! Long Beach! Long Beach! as they counted down the last ten seconds of play.

  “9!... 8!... 7!”

  From behind Merrick came a massive boom as the doomed police helicopter exploded, it’s death cry sending a plume of fire high into the evening sky.

  “6!... 5!... 4!”

  Merrick engaged Channeler and pointed it at the ground. The ground beneath his feet began to rumble.

  “3!... 2!... 1!”

  The blare of the game-ending siren marginally drowned out the roaring crowd.

  Inside the Pyramid, the concrete floor of the sports complex began to vibrate and shake. Ceiling lights began to flicker, the eighteen story angular aluminum walls of the facility to buckle and split.

  The congratulatory fanfare ceased.

  Elation gave way to confusion.

  Had an earthquake struck the campus?

  Fearing the worse, the anxious crowd made their way to the exits and began pouring out of the doors.

  Nothing could have prepared them for what they saw.

  Before the game, their campus had looked pristine, perfect, proud. Now the grounds were now covered in rubble, the smell of death hung in the air, and they found themselves facing a phalanx of police and emergency vehicles.

  Sometime between tip-off and dropping the game-winning basket, California State University at Long Beach had become a war zone with the Pyramid Ground Zero.

  The response was immediate.

  Confusion morphed into panic.

  Panic escalated into hysteria.

  Hysteria gave birth to chaos.

  The students fled the Pyramid and ran for cover wherever it could be found.

  Merrick forced his way through the screaming crowd and into the building. The coaches had gathered both teams at center court.

  One player stood away from the rest of the team. He was looking up, examining the crumpled metal walls of the structure. The nameplate on the back of his jersey read PUZANOVA.

  Merrick walked across the hardwood and grabbed Ilya.

  Ilya struggled to break free as his coach and teammates ran to his aid. Merrick responded with Channeler. With a sweep of his hand, he threw the men off the court and onto the sidelines.

  Coach Wallerston yelled to his players, “Get out! Run!” The shaken athletes scrambled to their feet and bolted for the exits.

  Ilya Puzanova fought to break free of Merrick.

  Merrick wheeled the frightened teen around, grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off the ground. Ilya gasped, choked, tried to kick and strike back, couldn’t. Merrick tightened his grip. The fight soon left him. The teen’s body relaxed.

  Merrick dropped him. Ilya fell to his knees, grabbed his throat.

  “Who are you,” Ilya gaspe
d. “What do you want?”

  “What I’ve wanted for years,” Merrick replied. “For your slut mother to watch you die.”

  CHAPTER 46

  BEN EGAN stood on the front steps of the Molecular and Life Sciences Center and watched as the police helicopter spun out of control, fell from the sky and crashed to the ground.

  Students and faculty broke through the doors of MLSC and streamed past him, flooding the campus, screaming and fleeing at the sight of the carnage.

  Granger was here. Egan reviewed the download of the objective in his mind, saw the woman clearly, then turned and entered the building.

  The halls were filled with faint whispers and hushed cries. Doors slammed around him as those too frightened to venture outside barricaded themselves inside classrooms, labs, offices and meeting rooms.

  Egan tested several door handles. All locked.

  Wall signs provided direction to the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. At the end of the hall a reader plate read ‘Prof. Ashley Granger, Director.’

  Egan turned the handle. The door opened freely.

  The office was dark. Egan flipped the wall switch. Fluorescent ceiling lights flickered to life.

  He stopped and listened. All quiet.

  A mug of coffee, still warm to the touch, sat on Grangers’ secretary’s desk.

  A second office door ahead: Granger’s private office.

  Egan called out. “Dr. Granger?”

  No reply.

  He tried the door. Locked.

  Egan stepped back. “I know you’re in there, Dr. Granger,” he said. “Please come out.”

  Inside the room, something fell to the floor, followed by the sound of scattering papers. A woman gasped.

  “My colleague would like a word with you, doctor.”

  Egan tried the door handle again.

  A woman’s voice called out. “Go away!”

  The target Granger was inside.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Egan replied.

  “I have a gun!” Ashley Granger yelled. Her voice shook, fear challenging rage.

  “And I’m sure you’ll use it,” Egan said. “But for your sake, I’d prefer you didn’t.”

  The bullet tore through the door and missed Egan’s head by inches.

  Channeler glowed. Egan placed his palm against the door.

  “I wanted to make this easy for you,” Egan said. “I guess that’s not going to be possible.”

  The steel door to the professor’s office blew out from its frame. Egan stepped into the room. From beneath the safe cover of her desk Ashley Granger screamed, then sprang to her feet, leveled the weapon at Egan and pulled the trigger.

  The gun failed to fire.

  She pulled the trigger again and again and again yet was unable to execute a single shot. Finally, she stood frozen in fear, hands shaking, her body wholly incapacitated by fear.

  Egan walked up to the terrified woman. He pried the weapon out of her hands and took her by the arm. “Come with me.”

  Ashley Granger tried to resist. “I never wanted any part of this,” she said. She began to cry.

  “Let’s go,” Egan said.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “Be quiet.”

  “I have money,” Granger pleaded, “Plenty of money. You can have all of it. Just let me go. Please!”

  “Not my concern.”

  “Wait! Wait,” the mathematics professor begged. “I know things… important things… about important people…”

  “I’m just the courier, lady” Egan replied. He pulled the professor down the hallway.

  “They call themselves The Company…”

  “Stop.”

  “I can take them down.”

  “Quiet!” Egan said. He clasped his hand over her mouth.

  A parabolic mirror, mounted on the wall at the end of the corridor, revealed the approach of a

  six-man assault team. LAPD SWAT had begun a floor-by-floor sweep of the building.

  Textbook, Egan thought.

  The police officers rounded the corner, advancing slowly, weapons at the ready.

  Ashley Granger looked up and saw the advancing heavily-armed tactical team.

  She pulled away from Egan and used the only weapon available to her.

  She screamed.

  CHAPTER 47

  ILYA PUZANOVA sat on the basketball court and massaged his bruised throat. He looked up at Merrick. “What the hell are you talking about?” he said.

  “Your whore mother murdered my daughter.”

  “My mother… a murderer?” The teen scrambled to his feet. “You’re out of your damn mind, mister. My mother is a real estate broker.” Ilya leaned over, caught his breath. “The only thing she’s ever killed is a bottle of wine.”

  “Ten years ago,” Merrick said.

  Ilya regained his composure. He looked past Merrick. The Pyramid’s open emergency exit doors were open. Clouds of dust billowed into the entranceway from outside of the building. Loudspeakers announced unintelligible commands to the fleeing crowd.

  “Ten years ago… what?”

  “Her name was Paige,” Merrick said. “She was a student here. She’d just started to live her life.”

  “Here?” Ilya said, “At Cal State?”

  Merrick didn’t reply.

  Shadows ran past the emergency doors, silhouetted against the streaming sunlight.

  “She was beautiful,” Merrick continued, “just like her mother. She had the most incredible eyes. Blue as sapphires. No one could say no to Paige. She could have been a fashion model. But she wanted more. She was a gifted mathematician, just like you. Which brought her to Cal State. She wanted to study under Granger.”

  “Dr. Granger?”

  “The bitch Ashley Granger. She recruited Paige and introduced her to your mother.”

  Ilya looked confused. “My mother doesn’t even know Dr. Granger. She’d have told me if she did. And what do you mean… recruited?”

  “To The Company.”

  “The what?”

  “Granger and your mother run the biggest prostitution recruitment ring on the West Coast out of this campus and have for years. My daughter was one of their girls.”

  Ilya stepped forward. “You know you are one-hundred-percent-psycho-freak-shit-brained, right?”

  Merrick raised his hand. Channeler glowed.

  Ilya stared at the strange bracelet around the man’s wrist. He would not be intimidated. “Fuck you,” he said. “You’re lying.”

  “Your mother’s a broker all right. But she sure as hell doesn’t sell real estate.”

  “You’re fucking insane,” Ilya yelled.

  “What do you know about her?”

  “Who?”

  “Granger. Her lifestyle, how she lives…”

  “What do I care? She’s my professor.”

  “Did you know that her personal net worth is ten-million dollars? Or that she owns three homes in Malibu and four in Florida, plus a villa in Tuscany? That she drives a Maserati and a Porsche? You think she can afford all of that on a professor’s salary?”

  “So she’s rich,” Ilya replied. “Big deal. This is the Gold Coast, pal. She probably comes from money just like ninety-percent of the people who go here do.”

  “The only reason Granger has what she has is because of The Company and her relationship with your mother. And don’t expect Blaire to stick around much longer. Granger’s been priming her for weeks.”

  Ilya was angry. “How do you know about my girlfriend?”

  “Let’s just say you’ve been under surveillance for months.”

  “Surveillance? What are you, a spook? CIA? NSA?”

  “It doesn’t matter who or what I am. All that matters is what I plan to do.”

  “Why me?” Ilya said. “I’ve got nothing to do with any of this.”

  Merrick’s anger flared. He grabbed the teen by his jersey. He thought of Paige and the pain of her loss. He held in his hands the
filthy spawn of Marina Puzanova, living, breathing, alive. The unfairness of it all was almost too much to bear. It took all his resolves not to activate Channeler and drain the life out of the bastard right then and there.

  Merrick threw him to the ground. “Sit there and wait,” he warned.

  Ilya saw the hatred in his attacker’s eyes. This was not the time to challenge him.

  “For what?” Ilya asked.

  Merrick connected with Egan’s brain neural interface.

  Do you have Granger?

  Confirmed.

  The Pyramid.

  On my way.

  Merrick finally answered the youth. “Payback.”

  CHAPTER 48

  AT THE request of the FBI, California Highway Patrol motorcycle cops sped ahead of the motorcade, stopping traffic at all major intersections en route to California State University in order to facilitate the team’s statewide emergency passage.

  Hallier, Ridgeway, Jordan and Chris arrived at the Long Beach campus to sheer pandemonium. Most of the students had fled the grounds. Those who obeyed the emergency loudspeaker warnings yet remained on campus had locked themselves inside classrooms. Parents who had heard the news of the unfolding event had rushed to the grounds. Attempts by police to hold them back failed. In a collective act of desperation, they forced their way through the barricades and ran into the University in search of their children.

  The CHiP motorcycles slowed at the outer perimeter security checkpoint and were directed to a tactical staging area. Heavily-armed FBI SWAT and Hostage Rescue Team members were gearing up, preparing to be deployed. Above the University, a throaty shoop-shoop-shoop sound filled the air. The military helicopter sighted a position within infiltration distance of the Pyramid and descended. DARPA soldiers jumped from the chopper as it touched down, weapons at the ready. The eight-man black ops team dropped to one knee and claimed a perimeter around the bird. As the chopper lifted off the ground the soldiers maintained a tight ground formation, then slowly backed away to join the assault contingency and receive their instructions.

  Jordan and Chris quickly exited their car, opened the trunk and slipped into their bulletproof vests.