Malin had known that little bit of digging would be found out as soon as he disappeared, so he had to get gone and stay gone. The world was crazy, and after the election, it was going to get worse. Much worse. The riots in Kenosha and Memphis were nothing compared to what he prayed never came, but thought would.
“One month, maybe two. Hopefully, I can get in witness protection,” he mumbled to himself and shivered.
It was cool in the storm shelter. He thought about leaving the doors cracked upstairs, letting in warmer air and sunlight, but being stationary right now was making him nervous. He’d given his burner phone and all the info he could to Daniels. He knew if the folks at the state police were clever, they could warn the folks at the farm and get them all into hiding. He’d been pissed when he’d been tarred and feathered by their group, but he didn’t really blame them.
He’d been a double agent, for all intents and purposes. He just felt glad he hadn’t been killed. Having volunteered for that operation he’d thought he’d thrown a red herring in the way of his boss. Would the mole volunteer to go on a raid? With giving them a heads-up warning, he knew the raid was doomed to fail, but he’d not been expecting having to spend days scrubbing his skin raw to get the stink of the rancid pig lard off himself, and the subsequent infections he’d fought from where the solution had gotten into a shaving knick and a busted open knuckle.
“After the elections, it’ll be all chaos. I can make my way to Mexico.”
His voice was comforting to him. He hadn’t dared bring any electronics with him, and this side of the country was so quiet. He’d even ditched his car at the airport and stole a rental to make sure his car hadn’t been bugged. With flights halted, unless somebody saw him on the security cameras, nobody was going to miss the car for days and days. When they did, he would probably still be underground. Literally.
“I wonder where the tote is that he said had food and water in?”
Malin Thomas started digging through supplies.
Thirty-Seven
Doc Khamenei and Sammy were going over satellite images in the small hotel. They wanted to do their final prep and staging away from the usual command center. This wasn’t a mere snatch and grab, or a black bag takedown. This would be full out war. The agents were being assembled, and in the morning, he would do the final briefing. They were at a chain hotel, spread out a little bit. He felt naked without all the extra cameras and security that came with working out of a secured area, but he’d done it so much it was a worry, not a fear.
“First sniper team will set up here, second and third, here. Now they have many shooters that are good, probably as good as our team, so our first shots will have to be on the money. If that hellion with the tats gets her hands on a big gun, those snipers can kiss their ass goodbye. I hear Rob is nearly as good as her at range,” Khamenei was explaining to Sammy, who had heard this before already. “Snipers open fire, our MRAP crashes the gates, followed by a troop carrier and—”
Khamenei’s voice cut off as they both heard the sound of shattering glass nearby, then some shouts. Both men jumped up from the desk and made their way to the windows that faced the parking lot and looked out. Smoke was coming from a room a few doors down, but they didn’t see anything.
“Call the front desk, if they have to get the fire department here, we’re all going to have to leave and regroup.”
“I’m on it—
The explosion knocked both men into the far wall. The shaped charge and been placed by Rob only an hour earlier, and the FBI’s HRT team tossed in flash bangs. Up and down the hotel, more booms and bangs followed, and suddenly there was shouting.
Khamenei came to slowly as the sedatives wore off. He kept his eyes closed in case his captors were nearby. He could feel the cold metal restraints on his wrists and ankles. He was in a soft bed, so he guessed the hospital. The last thing he remembered was the explosion, and bouncing off the cheap sheetrock. He’d fallen on his side and had remembered seeing the blank eyes of Sammy. Something had been sticking out of the back of his head. At one point it had been wood, but in the end, it had been shrapnel that had killed his favorite toady.
“He’s awake. Good. Bring him into the other room,” a voice said out loud.
Khamenei faked it for a few moments more, then opened his eyes. A dark-skinned doctor stood next to a pair of suits. He recognized the doctor immediately.
“Doctor Dante Weaver. So nice to meet you. Who are your friends here?”
“Special Agents Korey and Gorman,” Korey explained, pointing to the others.
“So, I take it I’m at the farm’s medical facility?” he asked, looking at Weaver.
“Nope,” Dante said, “I’m just here in case your heart stops. I’m pretty good at what I do, you dig?”
“I dig,” Khamenei said.
He knew he was dead. Not only had his mission failed, he’d been captured by the FBI and agents who worked at the farm or owned it. It had to be the mole, he even thought he knew of three people the mole could have been… but that didn’t matter. His failure would ensure his death. Talking to these folks would ensure his death, and he didn’t discount that they might just kill him themselves. They’d been willing to tar and feather his agents once, and had told them that if they kept the nonsense up, the locals would be given hunting permits for feds. Khamenei decided he was fucked.
“Good. Now, we want to know who you report to, what your orders are and all that kind of stuff,” Special Agent Korey said.
“I want my lawyer and my phone call, right now,” Khamenei said, knowing it was a long shot.
“If you weren’t a wanted terrorist in half a dozen countries, you’d probably get one. Now this isn’t Gitmo, but it’s about as close to it in the states as we can get, outside of most federal reach.”
That confused him, but he didn’t spend too long pondering it.
“If I refuse to answer your questions?” Khamenei asked. “You what, plan on torturing me? Waterboarding me?”
“Worse,” Gorman said with a shrug.
“Call me if you need me, I have my radio on,” Dante told the agents, then walked out.
Before the door closed, Khamenei saw several people walking past his doorway. They were all wearing white clothing like the doc, but they were all dark skinned like Khamenei was, just a different ethnicity. They were American Indian or a mixture if he had to guess by their features alone. He was about to ask about that when a big man, a former football player and politician, pushed open the door.
“Is he talking yet?” Governor Christian asked.
“Not yet,” Gorman said. “He honestly just woke up. We kept him out for a day before we got here, and he’s probably still a bit foggy in the head.”
“If he wasn’t already,” Korey said.
Khamenei fumed. “I’d wondered where you’d escaped to. Where is this?”
“Oh, when you guys snatched me, my wife bugged out to family and friends. Her tribe was more than happy to help us out. When the agents of the FBI here needed a place for you to recover before questioning, the tribe again offered their help. Welcome to the rez.”
Khamenei didn’t understand it, until he did. That happened about the same time as Governor Christian left, closing the door behind him. He wasn’t great at American History, having grown up somewhere else, but he knew the Native Americans on the reservations had their own police force and treaties with the government.
“You think you can get away with this?” Khamenei asked. “You cannot understand the forces you are challenging right now.”
“I’m guessing you’re not going to cooperate?” Gorman asked.
“Not a chance in hell,” Khamenei said.
Both agents looked at each other, then shrugged. As they turned, Khamenei struggled against the restraints. He didn’t have enough room to do any of the tricks he knew to get out of handcuffs.
“Don’t say we didn’t warn you,” Korey said, then shut off the light and walked out the door with hi
s partner.
“These fucking amateurs think they can psych me out? This is stupidity.”
“They say people who talk to themselves wet the bed.” Angelica’s voice came out of the dark.
Khamenei jerked his head to the left where the voice had come from, and winced as the light turned on. Rob and Angelica were at the foot of his bed.
“You…” he seethed, seeing the woman who had more than likely ended his life.
“It’s me, sugarplum. How are you doing? Feeling good? Restraints too tight? I hope so.”
“You’re so dead. You’re all dead. The orders were given to wipe you all out. Kill me, somebody else will come. You’ll see.”
“See, if you keep talking, we won’t have to hurt you none,” Rob told him.
Khamenei laughed out loud for a few moments, then turned serious. “I’m not telling you anything.”
“Hey hun, how many bones does the human body have?” Angelica asked her husband.
“Two hundred something,” Rob answered.
“Two hundred and six, you fucking ignorant dead assholes,” Khamenei said, his voice quavering.
“Ok, I’ll get to work,” Angelica said, taking a Hello Kitty pink backpack off, and putting it on the bench next to the bed.
“What are you going to do?” Rob asked.
“I’m going to teach him what a monkey stomping ass kicking is,” she shot back, looking at him in surprise.
“Then only break 205 of the 206,” Rob answered.
“Why?” she stopped, she’d been taking off her outer shirt, leaving herself in a tank top and jeans.
Rob sighed as she pulled out some wraps from her backpack and started wrapping her knuckles. He helped her tie them off, then tape them up.
“The stompy boots, really?” Rob asked.
Khamenei looked down and saw she was wearing what looked like steel toed work boots.
“They make me taller,” she snapped back. “Which one don’t you want me to break?” she asked, putting her arms around her husband's chest.
“His jaw. Can’t talk good if his jaw’s broke.”
“Goodie, that’s 205 I can work on for a while. Do you remember that song about the bones and what they connect to?”
“No,” Rob said simply.
“Well shit, I’m going to have to wing this. This shithead kidnapped me and is responsible for untold horrors. What connects his penis to his body?”
“It’s called a boner, but not because it’s a bone,” Khamenei said, feeling the first hints of fear.
“I’ll cut his clothes off,” Rob said. “You save your energy for now. When you’re done breaking things, I want my turn. Nobody lays a hand on my wife.”
“You’re going to kill me anyways, why does it matter?” Khamenei asked.
His files on Angelica suggested she might also be a sociopath. Both of them, actually. He would have loved to have recruited them, they’d make good agents. That’s what had him starting to get scared though. No matter how tough you are, everybody has a breaking point. Training and pain tolerance could only get you so far. Both of the Littles would keep him at the brink of death until they got what they wanted. He knew what he had to do.
“If we do it on accident, we have the reservation’s doctors, as well as a compliment of specialized emergency room and trauma doctors that we imported from a state over. We’ll just bring you back, give you time to heal up, and then start breaking you all over again. Unless one of your other agents tells us what we want first. The feds and rez police are offering amnesty to whoever spills the beans. The sheriff’s murder, ADA Winters, the attacks at the farm, who’s calling the shots… the first to give us the details will remain on the reservation in hiding, out of the feds’ reach.”
Khamenei considered that, then shook his head. He didn’t believe them.
“Your funeral. Hey, you guys recording this?” Rob called to the doorway.
The door opened and Gorman poked his head in. “We have it in 4k, man.”
The reality of what was about to happen was starting to sink in. Rob backed up to the doorway after snagging the half empty backpack from the bench. He knew his wife might use it as a springboard at some point, and didn’t want her makeup to spill. She might decide to use her eyeliner pen on him if she saw it, and not in the traditional sense. That’d be a waste of makeup.
“You know if I talk, they’ll kill me,” Khamenei said.
Angelica’s hands blurred, and Khamenei felt something around his left eye socket snap. He started to scream, but her next punch was to his Adam’s apple, and suddenly he was choking. He looked up with his good eye and saw her bouncing on her feet, a smile on her face.
“Left zygomatic arch. Not sure if the Adam’s apple counts since that’s all cartilage. I pulled my punch, so it won’t kill you. I’m sure there’s lots of fun places that aren’t bones I can test that theory out on though.”
She bounced closer, looking every bit like a tiny MMA fighter.
“Stop,” he croaked, one finger going up on his restrained right hand as he gagged and choked.
Angel went still and then shook her arms out. “You going to talk?”
“You said the first person who speaks gets amnesty, yes?” Khamenei asked, not really believing it, and not really intending to talk.
“Yes.” Rob had been leaning against the door. He stepped forward and put his hands on his wife’s shoulders.
“Fine, I’ll talk. Get me the doctor first.” Khamenei was playing for time, but the others didn’t know that.
“That’s fair,” Rob said, then handed Angel her shirt and Hello Kitty backpack.
“No Hun, you hold onto these. Just because he wants to talk doesn’t mean he still doesn’t get his ass kicked. I owe him at least a minor monkey stomping for the shit he did to me.”
Rob considered it, then nodded and walked out into the hallway, closing the door behind him. The agents were on the other side of the one-way glass, recorders on either side of the door filming. The governor, agents and half of the farm were there.
“What’s a monkey stomping ass kicking?” Agent Gorman asked.
“You don’t want to know,” Anna told him. “It’s something so special that Angelica learned it from a book, and has used it ever since.”
“Yup,” Rob said by way of agreement.
“So, is it like a regular ass kicking, or does she start counting the bones she breaks?” one of the reservation doctors asked.
“Both,” Dante and Leah answered as one.
“Ouch…” he said, then wandered off. He’d get the highlight reel later on.
“Something’s happening,” Gorman said, straightening up.
“What is it?” Rob asked.
Angelica ran to the door and threw it open. “He chomped down on something.”
On the bed, Khamenei was convulsing. There was a bitter smell in the air, for a moment, then his body went still. White foam ran out of the side of his mouth.
“If the threat of a monkey stomping causes that, I don’t want to ever see it,” Korey whispered.
“Me too,” Gorman whispered back.
The doctors were already moving as the monitors started sending off alarms. The crash cart was wheeled in, but Dante had a pretty good idea of what had happened. But he’d only seen it on the old spy movies and read about it in pulp novels.
“Don’t give mouth to mouth. We might be dealing with cyanide.”
Leah backed up, as did the other doctors in the room.
“But I wanted to monkey stomp his ass, skull fuck him, and make him my bitch,” Angelica whined from the doorway.
“Maybe next time,” Rob said, pulling her into his arms.
“Dammit Boyd,” Angelica whispered.
-The End-
About the Author
Boyd Craven III was born and raised in Michigan, an avid outdoorsman who’s always loved to read and write from a young age. When he isn’t working outside on the farm, or chasing a household of
kids, he’s sitting in his Lazy Boy, typing away.
You can find the rest of Boyd’s books on Amazon here.
boydcraven.com
[email protected]
Behind The Curve-The Farm | Book 3 | The Farm Page 24
