“Then we’re back to my original question,” Brother Francis offered mildly. “An independent actor who rubs shoulders with the Red Flower Tong, and the Thirteen, and who now shows up on our doorstep with an incredible offer to ‘do in’ the leadership of the Civic Circle. Note, I mean that in the literal sense… incredible as in ‘lacking in credibility.’”
“They got that place locked up good,” Bulldog gestured back toward the Jekyll Island Club Hotel. “Guards at all the entrances, and two quick response teams – one active and the other on reserve at all times. You’d need at least a company of MOUT-trained troops to take the place. Best case, they’d take significant casualties, slaughter dozens of civilians, and by the time they finally broke through to the Sanctum, the Thirteen would be long gone through some rat hole to a safe house.”
“Mowt?”
Bulldog looked at me and snorted in disgust at my ignorance. “Military Operations, Urban Terrain: MOUT. Jesus.” He shook his head.
“Do not take the Lord’s name in vain,” Brother Francis admonished Bulldog, and then looked back at me. “You understand our skepticism?”
I was going to have to build trust by offering them a bit of the truth. “I already knew the Civic Circle was behind my parents’ murders,” I acknowledged. “I’ve been working for this moment for over a year.”
“Still,” Brother Francis pointed out, “you’ve made some truly remarkable progress. I was particularly impressed at how you managed to make the late Professor Graf vanish without a trace after so casually allowing her to be poisoned.”
Perky Girl – it was going to take time for me to think of her as “Caitlin” – got daggers in her eyes again.
I started to explain, to offer the same story I’d already told Caitlin, but Brother Francis held up a hand to silence me.
“I’m honored by the trust you placed in us,” he continued. “We told you the poison was lethal and you made the good Professor vanish so she could live out her remaining days in peace. That’s what you told Caitlin here, after all.”
“Yes,” I confirmed my lie.
“Instead of taking the good Professor to the hospital? Instead of checking to see if perhaps we might possibly be mistaken and the marvels of modern medical science might cure your Professor or at least ease her pain? Your confidence in us is truly inspiring.”
He was looking through me again. I remained silent. He smiled at me.
“Professor Graf isn’t really dead, now, is she?” Brother Francis asked.
“What?” Caitlin asked in an almost shriek of surprise.
Bulldog looked shocked, too. He glared at me in the realization that I had fooled them.
“Your silence is all the confirmation I need,” Brother Francis explained.
“Did you…” Caitlin seemed almost incoherent. “You turned her over to the Tong, didn’t you?” Her anger was back.
He was wicked clever, figuring it all out. I’d give him that. I took a deep breath. “She is alive and well in a place of her own choosing, not with the Red Flower Tong. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind my extending her thanks to you for your efforts on her behalf and for your offer to provide her with sanctuary. Even though you imperiled my own plan to save Professor Graf by delaying my arrival until the last possible minute.”
“Too many cooks plotting in the kitchen,” Brother Francis chuckled. “Sometimes an occupational hazard in our line of work. Now what is your relation to Red Flower Tong?”
“I met them when I saved Professor Chen,” I explained. “Chen made the introduction.”
“And they felt in your debt for your having saved their ‘nephew,’ Professor Chen,” Brother Francis concluded. “I take it Miss Ding Li has been repaying that debt to you?”
“No.” Now it was my turn to be embarrassed. “Not exactly. The Tong helped me implicate Professor Gomulka.”
“That was your doing?” Now Brother Francis actually seemed surprised. “I thought Gomulka was merely dirty. It’s happened before. I should have known the Red Flower Tong had their fingers in that mess.”
“You arranged for that human trafficking?” I’d exhausted Caitlin’s outrage. She was cold and hard. “You monster.”
“No,” I insisted. “I thought they were going to incriminate him with a load of drugs…”
“…and they substituted those people instead,” Brother Francis nodded. “A container full of illicit narcotics would have cost them a considerable amount of money. They probably made enough money off charging those youngsters passage to America to turn a profit on the operation as well. Typical. What’s more, they’re probably planning on diverting their ‘cargo’ into their network of massage parlors and brothels.” Brother Francis was a couple steps ahead of me.
“That’s part of why I need assistance,” I explained. “The Civic Circle plans on making them all vanish on Pleasure Island, some Caribbean island resort where…”
“We know of the place.” Brother Francis looked at Caitlin who nodded. “It would be kinder to turn them over to the mercies of the Tong.”
“Can you help them out?”
Brother Francis paused. I could see he was troubled.
“I can help,” I offered.
“We will see what we can do.” He agreed finally. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the deviousness of the Great Deceiver’s plan.”
“Oh?” I asked.
“Sexual immorality. Licentiousness. Promiscuity.”
I wasn’t sure what he was driving at. I said so.
“You must never forget that behind the Princes of the Earth is the Prince of this Earth: the Great Deceiver and the Great Tempter himself, Satan.”
I must still have looked confused.
“I’ll put it bluntly for you,” Bulldog offered. “A huge proportion of young women today are f...” he glanced over at Brother Francis, “…are ‘hooking up’ with men who are way out of their league – men who are looking for an easy lay with a woman they’d never consider for any kind of long-term relationship. Men like variety. Women like the illusion that an important, powerful, handsome man takes them seriously.”
Relationship advice from Bulldog? Beneath his thuggish exterior there was a thoughtful mind – and another example why I should never underestimate anyone based on their appearance.
“When you remove the bounds of morality,” Brother Francis continued, “when you eliminate the stigma of promiscuity, you have a small number of top-tier men monopolizing the attentions of a much larger group of women. Have you heard of the ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma?’”
“I think so,” I replied, wondering how my attempt to engage the Albertians in a plan to decapitate the Civic Circle had meandered off into a discussion of the game theory of promiscuity. “If two prisoners refuse to rat out each other they face a minimal punishment. There’s some advantage to betraying the other, and the other is punished severely. So it might be to the personal advantage of each prisoner to betray the other, even though the outcome overall is worse for both. How does that apply here?”
“When men and women cooperate with each other,” Brother Francis explained, “they both benefit. Each gets a lifetime monogamous mate to love and cherish. The man gives up sexual variety, the woman holds herself chaste instead of giving herself to any attractive man who will have her. All too often, that’s not what happens.”
“The woman who chooses to betray that social contract for the sake of sexual attention from men above her league gets what she wants,” Caitlin offered, “but only in the short term. Women aren’t willing to accept a downgrade. Do you think an attractive ‘7/10’ woman is going to be happy settling down with a 7 guy when she’s been sleeping with the 9s and 10s? That’s not how it works. She gets bitter and angry that the 9 or 10 man is ‘too immature,’ ‘too much of an asshole,’ ‘too much of a man-child’ to commit to her.”
“And why should they?” Bulldog pointed out. “Those 9 and 10 guys are in pussy paradise. Why should they give it up to go ex
clusive with any particular woman? And if they do, it won’t be with the 7 who barely rises to the level of a one-night stand.”
“If a woman is exceptionally self-aware,” Caitlin continued, “she might realize that the 7/10 guy is all she can get and keep long-term, but he’s never going to be able to fully satisfy her. More likely, she’ll pass to the wrong side of 30 with nothing to show for it but a string of failed relationships, a mediocre job, and a couple of cats to fill the emotional void left by her failure to bear any children.”
“Think of it,” Brother Francis added sadly. “She will forsake a crown of beauty for ashes, and cast off a garment of praise for the spirit of despair. She will become the first genetic dead end in a line stretching all the way back to Eve.
“And what should men do?” Brother Francis asked rhetorically. “Suffer a passionless marriage to a woman who can never truly love him? Or worse, choose ‘betray’ also in the Prisoners’ Dilemma of life – a life of involuntary celibacy? Or join together with their brothers to master the tactics of ‘pick-up-artists’ to try to enhance their apparent status, to try to become one of the elite men at the top of the hierarchy and capture their fair share of the poisoned banquet of promiscuity?”
That last sounded disturbingly familiar. Before I could interrupt and try to get the discussion back on track, Brother Francis continued.
“Both genders are increasingly choosing ‘betray,’” he concluded, “trying to have it all, and in exchange receiving nothing. Lifelong monogamy is not a natural state for a man and a woman. It requires mutual sacrifice for mutual benefit. It requires social pressure to be enforced. If it’s not… the consequences are disastrous. Multiply this by millions. Plummeting birth rates, plagues of sexually transmitted diseases, epidemics of mental illness and depression, male rage that manifests in violent attacks. And it’s only going to get worse, much worse. Technology may improve every year, but society… and human happiness… are in decline. In large part, that’s because we have abandoned the notion of monogamy.”
I thought about what they’d been telling me. Something clicked. “Of course!” I shared my epiphany. “The Civic Circle doesn’t seek to rule our society.”
They looked at me, puzzled.
“The Civic Circle seeks to remake our society into one that is easily ruled. There is a difference. They aren’t attacking the 9s and 10s as you put it. The elite will still have their choices, their sexual access, and their ability to perpetuate themselves. They will be the 9s and 10s in the new order they’re building. Their goal is to wipe out the tier right below them: the middle class, that great band of aspiring 6s, 7s, and 8s who threaten their dominance. They want to secure their elite status and build a moat between them and anyone who could threaten their position. They want a society of the elite and the peasants, with no fractious strivers in between to curtail or limit their power.”
“A modern-day feudal society complete with a kind of droit du seigneur,” Brother Francis nodded.
“Fascinating as this is,” I cut him off, “our time is limited. If you’re serious about tackling the Civic Circle head-on, I can show you how to decapitate them.”
“Very well,” Brother Francis agreed indulgently. “Let’s hear about this grand plan of yours to ‘decapitate’ the Civic Circle.”
He still wasn’t taking me seriously, but at least it gave me the opening I needed. “First, we need champagne.” I handed a slip of paper to Bulldog. “Call and order this Krug vintage.”
Bulldog looked skeptical.
“Do it,” Brother Francis still seemed amused. “Let’s see what happens.”
Bulldog handed the slip to Caitlin. “I’ll stay here with our guest. Please bring me some ice water. And perhaps you could change into something less revealing.”
“I’ll take one too, please!” I added.
Caitlin didn’t look particularly happy at either Bulldog or me. As she departed, I reached for the map I had in my sock. I saw Bulldog’s hand go under his jacket. “Take it easy,” I assured him, pulling up my pants cuff to show him my sock with the scroll inside.
Bulldog relaxed a bit, but it was clear he was still wary about me.
I pulled out the map and unrolled it on the coffee table.
I let Bulldog and Brother Francis study it.
Caitlin returned in a few minutes, carrying a tray with the ice water, but still wearing the kimono. “The champagne is coming.” She offered us the ice water.
“Thanks,” I took a sip from my glass, observing her noticeably erect nipples pressing against the silk.
“Thank you,” Bulldog glared at me and cleared his throat. Then, he took a sip from his glass and turned back to Caitlin. “I thought you were going to get changed.”
“If this outfit is modest enough for me to wear when you introduce me to our guest,” she replied, “I see no reason why I shouldn’t continue wearing it.”
Bulldog paused a moment in surprise at Cailin’s comment. Then he looked at Brother Francis as if expecting him to intervene.
Brother Francis only smiled slightly and maintained a diplomatic silence. Bulldog looked back at Caitlin make no attempt to hide his visual survey of her revealing attire. The two locked eyes with each other and said nothing.
“Now that you’re back, Caitlin,” Brother Francis finally broke the deadlock, “this is a map of the area around the Jekyll Island Club from before it was built.”
“Indian mounds?” Caitlin studied the map. “This layout looks like…”
“Exactly,” I confirmed her hunch. “This ‘wall’ is now under Pier Road. Here’s ‘Indian Mound’ Cottage – that’s the one the Rockefellers built. The Goodyear Cottage is here. Dubignon Cottage is there, just on the far side of Old Plantation Road. This cottage we’re in? It’s right here, built on that mound. Finally, look at this big mound, here.”
“Right next door to the Jekyll Island Club Hotel – where the Sans Souci stands today,” Caitlin completed the orientation.
“Only these aren’t Indian mounds,” I explained. “This is the layout of the Civic Circle’s underground refuge. They first built a base on the northern end of the island, under the Horton House. Later, they moved the main center here,” I pointed to the location of the Jekyll Island Club,” and they built the hotel next to it to provide an excuse for important people to come and go. Then, J.P. Morgan built the Sans Souci right on top of the refuge. These “walls” are buried tunnels. The grade has been raised over the years to give them better cover.”
“What’s the plan?” Bulldog asked. “Spook ‘em into sneaking out into this tunnel and frag ‘em?”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” I noted. Just then the bell rang. “Please invite the caterer in with the bottle of champagne.”
Caitlin came back with Uncle Rob.
“Who are you?” Bulldog asked Rob.
“You aren’t getting my name,” Rob replied with a confident smile, “but you can call me ‘Gunny.’”
“Gunny, huh,” Bulldog replied. “You a Marine?”
“Maybe,” Rob sidestepped the question. “What’s your name?”
“You aren’t getting my name, either,” Bulldog insisted.
“What should I call you, then?”
“Make up something.”
“I’ve been thinking of him as ‘Bulldog,’” I told Rob.
“Heh,” Bulldog snorted. “Bulldog. I can work with that.”
Entertaining as it was to watch the two of them try to out-alpha each other, we had work to do.
Caitlin looked intently at the map. “There are three ways out of the central complex: to one of the cottages north along the river, along this tunnel to one of the cottage south, or inland, right under our cottage here, terminating in the old stables – The Jekyll Island Museum.”
“That’s where they’re hiding the quick reaction force,” Bulldog noted thoughtfully. “They have a third Hummer and two Canadian LAV III vehicles hidden away in there painted black with
‘SWAT’ on the outside. Each is manned by three security guys.”
I’d seen the two Hummers they had out in plain view on the grounds for security, but I hadn’t realized they had another force hidden in reserve. “What’s a LAV III?”
“Canadian armored vehicle,” Rob explained. “Probably one of the ones the Army was evaluating. By now, they’ll have been declared surplus and made available to civilian law enforcement and Feds. Same vehicle as a Stryker APC.”
That didn’t mean a lot to me, but I could see Bulldog raise an eyebrow in respect of Rob’s expertise.
“So, the quick reaction force is sitting right on top of the exit, ready to defend and evacuate the VIPs, but they’ve left us here right on top of the evacuation route through the exit tunnel.” I could see Bulldog working through the tactical implications of our position.
“Why don’t you present the plan, Gunny?” I suggested to Rob.
“You’re familiar with the Nakatomi Plaza incident in Los Angeles? Back in the mid-1980s?”
What? I’d studied tactics and small-unit operations under Rob’s tutelage for a couple of years now, and I didn’t remember hearing of any such incident. Bulldog was apparently better informed.
“A bit before my time,” Bulldog grinned, “but I’ve heard of it. You want to get inside, cut off their comms, shoot the boss, simulate some kind of a hostage standoff to slow down the response teams, finish off the Thirteen, and exfiltrate back here while they think you’re bottled up in there. You think maybe they got some bearer bonds, too?”
“Something like that,” Rob said. “I have the equivalent of a platoon of light infantry under my command. I’ll place two sniper teams here,” he pointed to the bank opposite the Jekyll Island Club, “across the Jekyll River, and the rest of a squad to cover them. They’ll shoot out some windows, create a reaction, and provide covering fire if needed.”
“Not much cover over there,” Bulldog pointed out. “And the range is pretty extreme. That’s got to be a mile or so.”
“My snipers can make headshots at that range, but they don’t have to,” Rob pointed out. “Just enough commotion to convince the targets to stay inside and evacuate inland through the tunnel – right into our ambush.
The Brave and the Bold Page 26
