REVELATION
By
Robert Ray
Copyright by Robert Ray 2002
All rights reserved
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Chapter 1 Nowhere To Run, Nowhere To Hide
Chapter 2 Regrets
Chapter 3 Humid June Night
Chapter 4 Guessing Game
Chapter 5 The Farm
Chapter 6 Staying Alive
Chapter 7 Washington DC
Chapter 8 Adultress
Chapter 9 Wraith
Chapter 10 Night Train
Chapter 11 Square One
Chapter 12 The Father's Files
Chapter 13 Doctor's Appointment
Chapter 14 Compact
Chapter 15 Near Miss
Chapter 16 Mistake
Chapter 17 Anna
Chapter 18 Revelation
Chapter 19 Nightmare
Chapter 20 Rhadamanthine
Chapter 21 Paradise Lost
CHAPTER 1--Nowhere To Run, Nowhere To Hide
Bendona felt that familiar cramping in his intestines. Sure, the grating pain was his constant partner, but it always intensified when he worked his second job. Sweat pooled along the edge of his hairline and at the back of his cap, and he strained to keep steady pressure on the garrote as life drained away from the form kneeling in front of him.
The ferocious struggling that had erupted when Bendona had first drawn the metal wire tight around the target’s neck was subsiding. It always came to this, stirrings of mislaid emotions; a moment when Bendona knew it was within his power to grant a boon, a pardon, to give back the life falling away in front of him. Lose it…not your call, he commanded and shed the thought as quickly as it materialized.
“Hold…on!” Bendona grunted as his neck and shoulder muscles locked tight. In another few gasping, gagging moments the reflexive kicking and twitching would subside and eventually stop.
Come on…come on. Stop fighting it. Die, you bastard. “Finished!”
Every time Bendona fulfilled his function, he could see eyes, the back of a head, or a pair of flailing hands grasping futilely at the wire, fingers moving in unison as though they had been switched to fast forward—the other victims of his mandate.
Sick—I hope the same ice pick is trying to dig its way out of every one of their guts too. Forget it, don’t be so naïve, you know they’ll sleep like babies tonight. How in God’s name did I come to this?
“What a mess,” he growled to an imaginary companion as he looked down on the lifeless form. Any life? Dead. I hope the sons of bitches are happy for a while. You can never have too much blood on your hands, you know. Bendona continued his silent complaint, sarcastically chiding the moment as he wiped beads of sweat from his forehead and tried to un-kink his back and neck.
With his hands shaking from muscular strain, he disassembled the garrote, placing the two stainless steel writing pens that had acted as the weapon’s handles into his shirt pocket. Goddamned ironic, concealing the wire like this, he thought as he carefully slid the killing wire back into the seam of his jacket collar.
Out of the front window, cold mist was forming light halos about each street lamp. Figures, only one place is always warm, he thought, watching steam waft slowly up through the grate of a fermenting sewer opening.
He bent down and firmly grabbed the dead man’s wrists. “Shit!” he mumbled disgustedly as his sweaty hands slipped inside the exam gloves. He readjusted his grip and dragged the body into the back bedroom.
He had spent days burning candles down to nubs, leaving solidified puddles of wax in various areas about the house and scattering its interior with fast food wrappers and empty beer cans taken from teenage street hangouts. He had also placed minute amounts of methamphetamine in the cracks of the floor and on the few pieces of furniture around the residence. Some weeks earlier, he had even been lucky enough to find a used condom with fresh semen in it at a well-known lover’s lane and had transported it to the residence, where he deposited its contents on the sofa. Why couldn’t it have been clean, simple—explosives or rifle he groused arranging the body with its arms spread wide on the pentagram he had drawn on the floor prior to the victim’s arrival.
That should be about right. He nodded his head with satisfaction then retrieved a small, leather-bound volume from the coat pocket of the body. After circling a passage, he tore the page from the book and placed it on the chest of the body. A little rat’s blood and we’re almost done. Bendona pulled a jar containing the sanguine liquid from under the bed mattress and poured a small pool into each of the open palms of the dead man.
That should keep ‘em moving in the wrong direction, he thought, using his gloved finger to brush an upside down cross onto the forehead of the lifeless form.
The thermostat, no surprise, was off in the carefully chosen, vacant, almost abandoned house. But, he cracked open a few windows to further hasten cooling of his victim’s body, staving off the inevitable putrid odor that would eventually envelop the structure.
A trickle of water from the faucets to keep the pipes from freezing and we’ll be able to get the hell out of here. A mumbling shadow coursing through the flat, he hurried from darkened room to darkened room.
Finally, he made his way to the backdoor and quietly stepped out into the small corridor between the house and the windowless brick wall of the two-story flat next door. Nothing, he calculated, slipping through the gate at the end of the narrow passageway. Quickly relocking the padlock, he drew in the cold night air and sighed deeply.
Bendona placed a call on his cell phone and pressed “M-N-O” on the keypad. The call was immediately acknowledged by the same keypad response and the call terminated.
Just fuckin’ great…I need a john.
“Varrick…Varrick! Bendona, wait up!” Greg Samuels’ voice was muffled by the weight of the air of the warm spring night as he scurried behind Bendona in the parking lot. “Varrick!” Samuels yelled once more. This time, Bendona decided to give the kid a break and stop.
“Let’s get on over to Brenda’s as quick as we can,” said Samuels. “I wanna get there before the rest of the second shift crowd shows up and nail down a seat close to the queen.”
Bendona walked toward his truck without glancing back. “Samuels, you know that drunken gamesmanship that goes on at those bullshit parties isn’t worth a crap, don’t you?" Samuels idolized him—not uncommon for a rookie partner, especially with Bendona’s flawless record no matter what luckless shit case came along. But Bendona knew his rep wasn’t as good with the other officers, who figured he had more luck than most should.
“You are goin’, Varrick, aren’t you?” Samuels pressed.
“What did I just say? No, I’m not.”
“You know, you got to, just to see Brenda in street clothes.” Samuels broke into a broad smile. “It’s spring, and it’s warm, and you know what that means?”
“No, Greg, I don’t. What does that mean?” answered Bendona dryly and patiently.
“She’s going to be dressed for a warm night. That girl has the biggest set in the district and an ass that won’t quit. Even though you were in Vegas, I’ll bet you never had anything like Brenda running around a Clark County metro station house,” bragged Samuels.
Bendona smirked as he thought about the last six months with Brenda. But there was no point in telling. It would only solidify Samuels’ inflated view of Bendona and his seamless luck—and once Samuels opened his mouth, the others would be even more jealous of Bendona. No one else had gotten sexual favors from Brenda, especially after only nine short months at the St. Louis Police Department.
Besides, there was already reason enough for the standoffish Third District’s veterans to dislike Bendona. He’d heard the rumors that he had some kind of “suck” with the higher ups in the department, that his application and move from Nevada had been greased by someone in administration.
While in Bendona’s experience, professional competitiveness had always been part and parcel of police work, he’d never felt such palpable tension as in the Third District. It seemed it had something to do with his infallible luck, his undeniable skill set, and his magician-like ability to talk his way out of a gunfight—if he wanted to. During his first six months as a uniformed patrol officer in the district, he had cleared as many cases as some detectives.
Bendona was the de facto alpha male, and, so far, no one had dethroned him. When Bendona looked at the vets, unless they were among the very few that he trusted, he purposely looked through them as though they were already dead. He was a man who was going to stomp your anthill and, although he was not a large man, had the figurative foot to do the job.
“Sure you won’t go, Varrick?” Greg asked. “Come on, it’s not going to hurt to have a little fun.”
Bendona noted the pathetic, puppy-dog look on Samuels’ face. Aw, what the hell—couple of beers. “Yeah, all right, Greg, I’ll meet you there.”
Samuels’ voice faded as he jogged off toward his car, “Good, let’s get movin’.”
Bendona fumbled for his truck keys. I hope that dick-head, Dix and his butt kissing entourage don’t show—that would be the perfect ending to a perfect day, thought Bendona fastening his seat belt.
Bendona’s drive to Brenda’s place was mechanical as he revisited the initial confrontation he had with Officer Dix four months earlier. How in the world that burned-out mother fucker ever thought he was going to claim one of my arrests as his is beyond me. I thought his cronies would shit a brick when I called him a bullshit liar in front of the LT, recalled Bendona staring hard ahead. I guess he really thought I’d back down.
From that day forward, Officer Dix took it upon himself to be the standard bearer for the angst directed at Bendona and had made a point of instigating several other confrontations with him. And, if I don’t miss my guess, I don’t believe he or the rest of his crowd are goin’ to drop their silly shit anytime soon, thought Bendona yawning as he turned into Brenda’s driveway. They’ll keep it up until they think they can force me down in the pecking order. Plus, Bendona was aware that Dix wanted to humble him for one more reason: Carl Dix suspected that Bendona had beaten him to the prize—Brenda.
“Yeah, I guess we’re just yesterday’s leftovers compared to Studly,” drooled Dix in an overly loud voice. Seated in a stuffed chair with a beer between his legs, Dix stared unblinkingly at Bendona. Greg Samuels, Brenda Spencer, and Bendona stood across from Dix in Spencer’s den and attempted to ignore him.
The drunk swilled more beer and leaned toward a group of his friends. “I don’t think his balls are any bigger than anybody else’s, see,” he said, feeling his own crotch with his thick, stubby hand.
“Bet they’re tiny. Hey Brenda, how big are they?” bellowed Dix as his friends burst into drunken laughter.
Brenda flipped her middle finger at the drunk. “Fuck you, Dix. You’d make a perfect poster boy for a male neuter clinic.”
Dix frowned and filled his mouth with more beer.
“I’m going to hit the road before the assholes start throw’n up and you hand me the paper towels,” said Bendona smiling.
“Yeah, I guess I will too,” Greg added.
“Sorry about the bullshit, Ricky. Dix is just a slob. He gets this way and just can’t help being an asshole. It’s the last time I’ll invite the jerk-off,” promised Brenda glaring across the room at Dix and his cronies. Just as quickly, Brenda’s gaze returned to Bendona and softened. “I’ll get your jackets,” she said, touching his arm.
Greg winked at Bendona. “I’ll help ya,” and followed Brenda to the bedroom.
“Hey, Bendona, you ain’t gonna get a chance to put handcuffs on that before I do,” said Dix nodding his head toward Brenda’s bedroom and suggestively licking his lips. “I’ve got a long list of things I wanna try out on her,” he bragged looking toward his friends for supporting laughter. “Hell, when I get done with her she’s not even gonna let you have your turn. She’ll be too tired,” crowed Dix, smiling and making a face like a panting dog.
“Leave it alone before you get yourself in too deep,” responded Bendona leaning calmly against the wall.
“Too deep with who—you?” spat Dix, angrily bolting to the edge of his chair. “You prick, maybe I’ll put handcuffs on you and ride you around for a little while just to warm up for my swim with Spencer,” said Dix red-faced.
It was then that Dix grabbed his Beretta from his waistband, pointed it at Bendona, and pulled the hammer back. “Fuck you, Bendona. Maybe I’ll cook you right now.”
The room fell silent and exceedingly still.
Bendona had no intention of using either luck or skill to pacify the situation. A statement was needed, and he walked across the room, stopping directly in front of the muzzle of Dix’s pistol. Neither man spoke as each stared into the others’ eyes. Dix’s jaw moved as if he was chewing a cow’s cud and, in the absolute silence of the room, the partygoers could hear the enamel on his teeth grinding.
With his eyes locked on Dix, Bendona bent closer to his adversary’s red, swollen face and the muzzle of the gun came into contact with his chest. “Well, asshole?” Bendona asked expectantly.
Bendona saw Dix’s eye twitch. Fuck you, thought Bendona and, in one lightning motion, Bendona picked up the lamp next to Dix, broke the shade and the frame, smashing the bulb on the edge of the table, and rammed the electrified and broken remainder of the socket into the cheek of the hapless asshole.
Dix reflexively pulled the trigger of the pistol in rhythm to the alternating current that was jarring his teeth. However, Bendona had anticipated Dix’s reaction and jammed the web space of his left hand between the hammer and the firing pin of the pistol. Although Bendona’s left hand was bloody, the weapon did not discharge and he wrenched it from the twitching hand of Dix.
Bendona’s eyes went blank—like a doll’s eyes, cold and lifeless—and he could see only death. He was a moment away from letting his instincts take control. As far as he was concerned, Dix was merely a thing that needed killing. In the next breath Bendona would embody swift and complete anathema.
At that moment, between the shadowy difference of living and dying, Brenda Spencer somehow inserted herself against his body. She looked up into his eyes and very softly said, “Rick, it isn’t right to kill a dumb animal.”
Blood retuned to Bendona’s eyes and he could see her, and the room, and it was over.
Dix would require time off for his injury, officially reported as the result of a home accident, a fall from a stepladder onto an unshaded lamp. As is the custom in police party brawls, silence would be maintained and supervisors and command staff would never hear of the incident. And, after having his ass kicked, Dix knew he would have to transfer to another district to avoid the social stigma of being an abject loser.
Bendona closed the front door of his apartment and moved across the freshly waxed hardwood floor of the uncluttered and sparsely furnished living room.
He grabbed his bottle of Bushmills from the kitchen counter, poured two fingers into a glass, and retired to the bathroom to clean up his bloody wound.
With his hand bandaged, he tried to talk himself into feeling hungry. “I’d put my cannelloni up against any Italian on the Hill,” he said, pridefully retrieving the casserole of pasta from the refrigerator. With dinner warming and a bottle of red airing, Bendona plunked down on the sofa and pulled the rubber band from the evening paper.
“MISSING PRIEST FOUND! VICTIM OF CULT MURDER.”
I’m surprised some Lois Lane type didn’t find a cop willing to tell everyone that the dicks sat on the story for the last two days. I’d of loved to have been there when the media found out about the delay. I’ll bet Tedford the homicide dick used every catch phrase in the book to explain why he held the information release. Yep, he did. ”We hoped to gain some investigatory momentum before exposing the details of the murder to the public,” Bendona read aloud.
It’s good they bought the cult motive. But, investigatory momentum? Momentum my butt! Tedford bought time for the white shirts and chief to put on their media faces. And, they’re going to need ‘em—tough questions still to come—with him being a priest and all.
Bendona thought about the house, the condom, and the priest’s feet thumping against a wooden floor and lost his appetite. With whiskey in hand, he headed to his bedroom.
“This is a joke, right?” Bendona muttered in a low, breathy voice. His feet hopelessly tangled in the hot sheets knotted about his ankles, he drifted somewhere between waking and sleeping. He could hear his own unintelligible verbalizations but was unable to leave the time and place within which he was mired.
“They call them what?” he said aloud in a garbled voice.
A younger version of Bendona and another older man were seated across from one another, both resting their perspiring forearms on a severely marred wooden tabletop.
“Village People,” replied the man. Bendona’s dream associate was dressed in a baggy, bleached-muslin shirt and tan trousers. With his salt and pepper hair closely cropped, a square jaw, and unemotional, unblinking eyes, the man had a disciplined, authoritarian appearance.
Bendona’s companion threw his head back, downing the double shot of tequila in his glass, and spoke with narrowed eyebrows, “Just after World War II, we found that there were, let us say, certain security issues. Those at the top believed that, if left unchecked and uncontrolled, any one of the issues could potentially destabilize the socio-political fabric of the country.” The older man pushed back from the table and motioned for the waiter to bring more tequila. “Dos tequilas, por favor,” he ordered.
Bendona glanced down at the first unfinished drink that the man had ordered for him and continued to fumble with the tall, thin tequila glass still filled to the brim.
“What do you mean, Ritter, the Communists?” asked Bendona.
“Well, sure, but not just the Commies...there were concerns about small regional wars and, of course, the proliferation of terrorism. Plus, organized crime had aligned itself with foreign influences and was attempting to control the domestic political arena.”
Eyelids fluttering, Bendona grunted and rolled onto his back once more.
“Ritter, I still don’t get it. What’s so hush-hush about that?” asked Bendona as the waiter approached the table.
Ritter sent a quieting expression at Bendona, and both men pushed back from the table as the drinks were placed onto its rough, gouged surface.
Ritter pulled close again. “I’m not finished,” he said as he threw the second drink back. When his head came back to level, Ritter nodded toward Bendona, indicating that the young man should slam his tequila down as well. Bendona complied, and Ritter resumed his line of conversation.
“There was a fourth issue, the most problematic and unmanageable of them all. Its bedrock was fear of the unknown—that we had not adequately prepared for an unpredictable future.”
Bendona wiped sweat from his forehead. “Every security guy is always afraid that they’ve missed something.”
“But these people did something about it,” retorted Ritter. “They began by brainstorming ideas about catastrophic future events. The secret forecast they developed indicated that a possible threat could and would arise from within our own society, rather than from without. They believed the event would be an outgrowth of one of our greatest strengths—technological innovation.”
Bendona’s restless physical state wormed into his dream, and his dream self began to fidget in the hard wooden chair in which he was seated.
“Ritter, this is rudimentary stuff. What are you driving at?” Bendona squinted at his companion.
“Just listen,” demanded Ritter. “Throwing darts at a dart board while blindfolded is a waste of time. Although the potential security issue was unidentifiable, they knew they could at least take steps to create a mechanism that would be able to respond more effectively to such an event.”
Bendona slammed down his second tequila and motioned for the waiter.
“The CIA quietly created an executive committee with a two-pronged mandate: find means to successfully interdict the three tangible threats with extreme prejudice, and develop a mechanism to account for the advent of the ghost liability, the one they feared loomed on the horizon.”
Ritter’s forearms were halfway across the table now. “To those sitting on the committee, the need for a domestic spy organization was self-evident. That’s when the idea of the DCO—deep cover occupations—unit, hit them right between the eyes. Government contractors, high-ranking military folks, political candidates, and even bikers and police officers, people like that. Ergo, the Village People. You know, the characters in the ’70s rock-n-roll band.”
“That’s just crazy, Ritter—it’s illegal. They would have to keep it quiet from everyone. I mean everyone.”
Ritter sat quietly smiling as his image dissolved into black.
His face buried in the pillow, Bendona had difficulty drawing-in a deep breath and awoke from this encounter. “Fuck heads,” he whispered in consternation as he stared into the darkness. Suspended in thin air…no one knows we’re here, not the FBI, the CIA at large, or the real NSA. How’d they ever get away with hiding it from everyone?
The next morning was stuffy, humid, and so overcast Bendona cast no shadow as he left his apartment. Summer had not yet arrived, and already there was nowhere to hide from the humidity.
“What a shit day, wet from shower to shower again,” mumbled Bendona as he strode through the apartment complex. “No wonder I tried so hard to get out of here.”
Bendona shook his head, as if trying to simultaneously shake the weather—and the memories of too many humid, horrible childhood days in south St. Louis. From the meager living his mother’s account-clerk salary afforded the twosome, to her death during his sophomore year at the University of Missouri-Columbia, there was little he cared to dwell on.
And yet, as he drove to a small airport located on the Missouri River bottoms, past the landmarks of his youth, Bendona recalled a time when his life experiences and his senses had seemed more acute, when there had been time enough to realize his dreams. The remnants of that peaceful time only occasionally moved in and out of his consciousness now, usually when casting about for its replacement. Life’s bad taste, lingering in his figurative mouth, resulted from biting into the worm inhabiting the apple of his “second job.”
It didn’t help that Bendona never intentionally chose his second job—rather, it had been chosen for him by a psychology professor who had recognized not only Bendona’s intelligence, but also his latent psychopathology.
“Varrick, you’re a capable, instinctually intelligent, and introspectively curious individual and I think you are going to go a long way in your professional life. I’m going to personally mentor your educational regime,” Professor Simms had said—and Bendona had been drawn in by the man’s seeming kindness after experiencing a couple difficult years.
While openly engaged as a university professor and NSA consultant, Simms was secretly an active DCO Unit member and culled Bendona from the general population of students. Driving through the overcast pall to the airport, Bendona recalled a similar day when he drove into the gloom of secrecy and death. “Professor, I don’t believe I would have finished college or amounted to very much without your help,” thanked Bendona bidding Simms farewell. “You’ve been part father, part friend, and my teacher and I won’t forget you.” The two men embraced and Bendona, drawn in by Simms’s lies about a career with the NSA, embarked on a two year tour of duty as an authentic NSA analyst in Central and South America. “There was still time,” chided Bendona aloud. “You knew there was something wrong, an entire other person resonating within Ritter. You knew and drank the poison anyway.” After an impromptu resignation from the NSA, Bendona was inoculated with the psychological serum he’d need to perform as an assassin—a seemingly patriotic duty, thanks to Ritter, that involved another three years of training in the jungles of South America. Bendona learned, at Ritter’s knees, the art of deception, circumvention of law enforcement systems, application of military weapons systems, the practicalities of flying, the details of counter-terrorism and social destabilization, and most importantly, the science of infiltration and killing.
Bendona emerged from his metamorphosis with a false personal history to account for his absence from life’s mainstream during Unit training and an order to apply for a position as an El Paso police officer. From that point on, his movement through life appeared as practical and as normal as any other person. Even Bendona couldn’t figure out why he was an El Paso everyman…until Fort Bliss, the general—his first operation.
“You doofus son of a bitch, turn your damn blinker on before you try to run me out of my lane!” shouted Bendona no longer fixated on the past. Get me off this circus ride. Finally, the damn exit.
Once at the airport, he breathed a sigh of relief—no more worries about ground surveillance. As usual, the aircraft had been prepped, fueled, and checked out per his prior instructions, and in minutes he turned the Cessna 152 into the wind. He flew west and passed along the south side of the Missouri River and into Franklin County. He took a new heading, turning more southwesterly, and, about forty minutes into the flight, dropped down to look for his landmark, a barn with one red stripe on the roof.
CHAPTER 2--Regrets
There goes the security caretaker. Just like a deer, melded into the shadows and trees like he was never there. The caretaker, a well paid transplant from the city, believed the lessee was a businessman and his family, wanting a summer ranch but requiring to fly in associates on occasion. Part of his ample remuneration depended on his ability to follow orders, stay out of sight, and never make contact with the lessees. In small towns, information travels fast—so locals already aware that a businessman would be flying in guests suspected little about the true purpose of the property—a staging depot for equipment and a remote, secure meeting place.
To date, seeing the caretaker at great distance had been as close as Bendona had come to contact with non-couriers while on the job. In his entire career, he had never met, or even so much as seen, another Village Person. All communications and physical contact with other Unit superiors and personnel were via phone calls or the infrequent physical, face-to-face contacts with a courier, such as today’s unusual meeting with Krakou. Otherwise he worked alone, in a vacuum.
Bendona sighed aloud as he approached the barn. Wouldn’t you know my sole human contact would be Louis Krakou? Well, contact anyway…I think the guy is actually part machine, Bendona corrected himself. Jesus, I hope he doesn’t go on and on.
While Krakou was not a superior and had no real authority over Bendona or his mission, procedure would require Bendona to endure one of the courier’s egotistical diatribes. And they call it a briefing, groused Bendona silently, rolling his eyes.
As Bendona entered the barn, Krakou began humming the melody to the tune, “YMCA” by The Village People. Upon first hearing Ritter label the Unit with the name years earlier, Bendona had thought it not only appropriate, but an amusing metaphor for the Unit’s convoluted lineage and method of operation. With time, however, he’d come to see it as an insult—and Krakou deliberately was using this against him.
As Bendona closed the door and moved toward Krakou, the balding man continued his off-key humming. He rocked on his heels slightly, an action that Bendona found oddly comic in combination with Krakou’s roundish frame.
Bendona interrupted Krakou’s refrain. “Looks like your pen leaked in your pocket. Maybe you ought to use a pocket protector.” As Krakou looked down to inspect the breast pocket of his shirt, Bendona sailed a white plastic pocket protector at him.
Krakou jerked out of the line of fire and frowned. “Juvenile asshole,” spat Krakou under his breath.
“Krakou, if I didn’t like you so much I’d…”
"Let’s get down to business, Bendona. You do remember business, don’t you?”
Before Bendona could respond with another wisecrack, Krakou cut him off. “Listen up. The heads have finished with your second objective, and your schedule is set for June fifth at 3:45 a.m. As usual, you’ll have an emergency window of plus twelve hours. I hope you’ve completed your preliminary on the target, Bendona,” said Krakou, hands on hips.
Bendona smirked, “Done.”
“Don’t screw this one up like you almost did in San Diego,” chastised Krakou with the slight wave of his index finger. “You know they won’t stand for it, so you better have your shit together this time. Nothing would give me more pleasure than to tell the teacher on you.”
Even though Krakou was taking great pleasure in reminding Bendona of a nearly missed termination window, Bendona knew that the guy was not being a smart ass—he was just protecting his own ass.
“You love it, don’t you, Krakou?”
“Love what?”
"This little power trip—Krakou the teacher, Krakou the information giver, Krakou the psychotherapist. You must feel like a cross between Freud and Moses, coming down from the mountain with a Rorschach test in hand.” After all, Krakou wielded the sole decision-making power over Bendona’s supposed stability as an agent, not to mention his only face-to-face contact in the entire Unit.
“Shove it, Bendona.” And Krakou started pouring out information as if he were a recording. Under standard operating procedures, Bendona would have been given only the cumulative information necessary for him to perform his function—only what Krakou was currently detailing for Bendona’s next assignment. However, by mere chance, Bendona had conducted the original investigation into the case. When Krakou came to the end of the briefing, he abruptly stopped talking and stared at Bendona with a questioning expression.
“What?”
“Did you think that we’d be dealing with something like this fourteen months ago?” asked Krakou using an almost friendly tone of voice.
Bendona replied impatiently, “What dya mean?”
“I’m talking about our current, shitty situation, hung out here in this rat-infested barn sliding around on shit and straw.” Krakou gestured broadly at the interior of the barn.
“You know, Krakou,” responded Bendona with a sardonic smile, “if you weren’t playing the role of a starched, stickman attorney, wearing freshly polished Italian leather shoes, and doused with hundred-dollar-a-bottle cologne, it might not bother you so much.”
Krakou brushed aside Bendona’s sarcasm without responding to it. “You know what I think, Bendona?”
“No, and I don’t want to, but I have a feeling you’re going to tell me anyway.”
“I tend to think that it was more a case of shear coincidence than hard and fast intelligence gathering on your part that contributed to the discovery of the whole thing. I mean, our more visible brethren in the NSA initiated those new random behavioral pattern tests. You just happen to be supervising one of them, and, bingo, you get a positive hit.” Krakou sneered. “Those tests are pretty effective on their own, and it doesn’t take a genius to run one. You’re a testament to that.”
“This little smart ass session has been the high light of my day, Krakou, and way too much fun, but I gotta go,” said Bendona sourly.
“Now wait, come on, Bendona. I’ll cut the crap. Just answer a couple things for me. The tests are constructed in order to watch personnel in positions that could enable a third party to successfully maintain a covert spying operation, right?”
“Yeah, preventative maintenance, like practicing fire drills. They’re run on people in government research facilities, the military-industrial complex—sensitive operations like that.”
Krakou sauntered to a hay bale, spread out a newspaper and sat down.
Oh Jesus, I’ll never get out of here at this rate, moaned Bendona to himself.
“Go on, don’t let me stop you.”
“All right, what do you want, Krakou?”
“I simply want to know more—the story, that’s all. I’m tired of being the purveyor of facts but always in an information vacuum when it comes to the big picture. I never get the whole story, and I want it this time, all right?”
Bendona adjusted his ball cap, “Look, I’m goin’. You can sit here until tomorrow, but I’ve got things to do.”
Krakou’s face formed a sassy grin, “Bendona, you know thems not the rules. SOP says we’ve got to come to a consensus about the end of the briefing and my vote is to continue. Of course, I can report that you’re resistant to communication and uncooperative if you like.”
“Uh, huh.” Bendona eyed Krakou suspiciously. The asshole’s exercising the only little, real power he has. But, what the hell does he really want? Bendona looked for any sign that he was being led into another insult ambush, but finally figured he had no choice but to follow the rules.
“The real NSA made PT a matter of bureaucratic procedure,” started Bendona sharply. “Typically the test begins with a hypothetical, concerning active espionage. This PT scenario revolved around the theft of cutting-edge computer technology from a government laboratory by a third party, and the test construct required the assistance of an FBI agent as a co-conspirator. Good nuff?”
“No, I want the details.”
“Does SOP really require me to go as far as to kiss your ass like this, Krakou?”
“Humor me, Bendona.”
“Humor me, my butt. What’s up with you?”
Krakou smiled a broad smile and said nothing.
Let’s just get it over with and get out of here, sighed Bendona silently. “Three FBI agents fell within the pattern guidelines, having been theoretically identified as individuals with the potential organizational profiles and means to support the theft of such technology. The exercise took a turn when my surveillance effort revealed that one of the three agents was exhibiting unusually suspicious and aberrant behavior…and here we are.”
“You know, Bendona, I don’t get it. You were a retired VP, no longer an agent and no longer playing out your role as a copper. They kissed your ass and got you a nice cushy job at the NSA so you could live out your declining years in the white bread world, and poof, suddenly you’re reincarnated and sent back to your original deep cover role.”
Bendona grit his teeth and barely heard Krakou’s words. He was tired of the whole VP lifestyle and standing in the barn with Krakou—not to mention the convoluted means by which he had arrived at this moment—seemed idiotic. And Krakou’s line of conversation was not helping matters.
“I understand why they wanted to salvage some of you scrapped field guys. It really was a waste of trained talent, but to bring you in to the NSA as assistants…that’s just way too risky and downright bizarre,” exclaimed Krakou. “Damn, Bendona, you’ve got to be mid-forties. Couldn’t they have found somebody else and left you at your desk? What the hell are you doing back out here on active status?”
Hands in his pockets, Bendona paced in front of a horse stall. “To tell you the truth, Krakou, I don’t know how it happened, it just did. One minute I was walking through life an accomplished detective and, well, just like everything they do. I got a call and was told I would be retired from the field and my roll. The Unit artificially constructed the NSA’s need for an experienced investigator with a behavioral psychology background, and the next thing you know I’m parading down the waxed hallways of the NSA in an almost visible, lunch-pail existence.
“And you know what really frosts me?” Krakou nodded in knowing affirmation. “Yeah, you know. They got me in even though I resigned from the NSA years ago on not-so-good terms. And then the pattern test came along.” Bendona ended on a disgruntled humph.
“Aaand…?” queried Krakou with an expectant tone.
“Jesus, Krakou, you should be able to make a calculated guess,” barked Bendona. “I conducted surveillance for weeks, sifted through records, and went through their trash. I checked their financial records, listened to their phones, and followed their movements.”
Krakou nodded his head once more as if to urge Bendona to continue.
“I’d been compiling information on the three FBI agents for seven weeks when I completed a socio-gram on one of them that included a German foreign national with a PhD in computer science, a Chinese national working as a research chemist in a pharmaceutical company in Virginia, and, most surprisingly, another man’s wife.
“March of 1999, I was sure the guy was involved in something and turned the case over to my superior at the NSA. Seventy-two hours later, the NSA unceremoniously relieved me of the investigation and reassigned me to a useless administrative, paper-pushing job.”
“Reassigned? That seems unusual,” Krakou ventured.
“Yeah, seemed as odd then as it does now,” answered Bendona. “Not for my reassignment, but that it happened so quickly. Never even got personally debriefed on the investigation, by the real NSA guys or the Unit.”
“So?” questioned Krakou rhetorically. “There would have been no reason to do so. You were no longer a working VP. As far as either the NSA or the Unit were concerned, you were simply an administrative resource, and there was no reason for you to be privy to classified information.” Krakou directed a satisfied smile at Bendona.
“Well, it’s obvious they didn’t just drop it,” Bendona shot back, “or we wouldn’t be here now. Besides, there’s more. In February of 2000 the Unit re-contacted me and surprised me with a VP briefing appointment concerning that investigation. I had all but forgotten the incident.”
With an overly exaggerated gesture, Krakou rubbed his chin and looked up at Bendona. “Ah, let me guess, they told you to resign your position and gave you your marching orders back to the field again.”
“I was given no further explanation, and the resignation was to be immediate,” said Bendona, affirming Krakou’s sarcastic guess. “I had no room to maneuver and no inkling about the real nature of the case until reactivation. When they told me what was involved,” Bendona snorted, “I knew we’d be shoveling shit again. Krakou, the dumb asses in the real world were secretly and illegally developing a damn biological weapon, and the sons of bitches let the thing get away from them! And, well, you know—Knowles—a freakin’ priest was in on it, of all people.”
“Yeah, typical of the real world, huh?” interjected Krakou drolly.
“A, viral weapon, of all things—that’s why I never heard a thing about the investigation,” concluded Bendona. “It’s a miracle we latched onto Knowles in the first place and a good thing that we didn’t wait to take him. Oversaw the halfway house and acted as if he were saving the world one teen at a time.”
“One bright spot, Bendona—at least you didn’t have much trouble making contact with him.”
Bendona nodded in affirmation. “It was relatively easy getting close to him…easier than I thought it would be—for someone involved in what he was involved in, almost seemed too easy.”
“The heads weren’t exactly happy that you couldn’t discover more while you were with him , Bendona, but with what was at stake—the abduction of all those girls—guinea pigs for experimentation and all that—they decided to act sooner than later. If it were my call, I guess I’d have done the same thing.”
“And, lucky me, I get activated to get rid of the guy.”
“So, here we are, Bendona, caught between a coalition of terrorists, operating in large numbers and extensively entrenched through out this country and the world, and a bevy of real world national security people and military intelligence folks. That’s really sweet.”
“You know who’ll get to them first, don’t you, Krakou?”
“Lucky us.”
Bendona looked into the dim recesses of the barn and wished that it had been something as clean as the theft of computer technology. If life had been complicated before, this new mission is a nightmare.
After a moment passed, Krakou regained his smirk. “One last thing,” he said as he pointed to Bendona’s face and torso. “I’ve got to know what in the world they made you do. You’re looking younger than when I last saw you.”
“Ahhggh,” sighed Bendona with a long, slow, exasperated release of air. “They had to get me ensconced back into a deep cover role, and that wasn’t going to be easy. I was forty-five and looked it and couldn’t just waltz into a police department and get hooked up with a badge. Plastic surgery and falsified documents did the trick, along with some influence pedaling by a Unit operative and a favor between chiefs of police." Krakou shook his head in mock disbelief.
A freakin tummy-tuck for Christ sake, cursed Bendona silently. But then he realized what was going on, and his exasperation fell away. “Now, I get it!” he exclaimed. “One of two things: either you’re getting some cheap, vicarious thrill from listening to me talk about the field or you’re checking my mental state regarding this crappy situation, aren’t you?”
“Both,” responded Krakou smiling.
“You’re an asshole, Krakou. But you already knew that.”
“You know, Bendona, I would have been more worried about you and reported your condition as tenuous if you had told me everything was ok with you. But your honest anger and frustration are normal. So you will be continuing on with your mission responsibilities and I’ll be turning in your report card, marked good to go. Since there is no point in continuing with a check of your mental status, you can go on telling me more about your further activities with the investigation. I haven’t quite come yet.”
“Damn you, Krakou. When you report back to them, you tell them that if you ever become a liability and they need me to mark you, I’d be more than happy to oblige.”
Krakou sneered and turned his attention to his brief case. In silence, Bendona headed toward the barn door. Fuck me! Now what? thought Bendona hearing Krakou’s voice once more.
“Nice touch, Bendona.”
“Huh? What?”
“Nice touch—the priest, Revelations, the page from his own Bible.”
Without a retort, Bendona opened the barn door and stepped out into the oppressive pall of the afternoon. He looked up into the endless gray of the sky and could feel its weight pushing down on him. It was as though he was deep under water where all color is washed away: green turned to black and red to gray. As he headed across the lush, grassy field, he recited the passage he had circled and left on the priest’s chest. And in those days shall men seek death and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.
Its contradictions to the scene had confounded homicide detectives and the media, but Bendona had chosen the verse not for the living but rather for those who might eventually have to face the effects of a horrific biological weapon.
The horrible words stoically spoken by the computer-encrypted voice at the re-activation briefing were indelibly marked on Bendona’s mind: “The terrorists miscalculated and have prematurely stolen the bio-weapon. Its development is seventy percent complete, and although the necessary recipe is available to them, reaching the point of practical use and effective application of the weapon requires extensive animal experimentation.
It is a slow-acting, body-fluid-borne virus genetically designed to colonize in the meninges of the brain and spinal cord. It destroys the outer cortex of the brain and the myelin sheath surrounding the nerve bodies and leaves the victim an immobile, unthinking lump of flesh, barely alive.”
Bendona had kept this knowledge, and the biblical verse, foremost in his mind during the planning stage of the priest’s execution.
Bendona had no pity for the priest, then, or now. The gut pain that he had experienced the night he murdered the priest was more a matter of practical disgust. He had caught one too many last, exhaled puffs of breath in the face, smelled the odor of urine and had seen too many stunned and frightened looks to ever feel clean again. Yet what little notion of morality remained within Bendona’s psyche manifested itself in his satisfaction for removing a stain from the vestments of the church.
Lately, the satisfaction gained from ridding the world of its preying mantises and eliminating enemies of the State wasn’t enough, no matter how well his coping mechanisms had previously shielded him from the intensity of his inner thoughts. As he reached the plane, cool hatred welled up inside him. Cruel, animal bastards!
Bendona belted himself into the seat of the Cessna and got into the air as quickly as possible. He wished that he could seal himself in his apartment and drink until he no longer had the ability to sense the room.
The drone of the little plane’s engine forced Bendona into his daydream world, and he recalled his first meeting with the Father.
He had been formally introduced by Sister Huff. She had stood so stiffly in front of Knowles’s desk and crisply said, “Officer Bendona, this is Father Clifford Knowles, the managing director of our very own Safe City.”
“Officer Bendona, on behalf of Sister Huff and our other volunteers, I would like to thank you for donating some of your off-duty time and giving us a hand with our kids,” Knowles had said, stepping from behind his desk to shake hands with Bendona. “It’s not often that we get help from someone with your maturity and experience.”
“I’m glad to help, Father. I don’t have family of my own, and perhaps I can make some kind of contribution here,” Bendona had replied with a smile.
“Well, Sister Huff, it looks as though we’ve found a friend.”
“I’m sure we have and thank God that at least one of our prayers has been answered, Father,” Huff had said confidently.
Old Huff. What a terror she was around that safe house, thought Bendona whimsically as he adjusted his air speed. If it hadn’t been for her, I wouldn’t have gotten as close to Knowles as fast as I did. I got more information from her in the few, brief talks we had than I would have snooping around the place for a year.
Although, on the record, no juveniles had apparently stayed at the safe house, Bendona knew that many underage children often lied about their age. And Sister Huff had even mentioned that these kids—or “young people,” as she called them—often disappeared “just when she thought they were making a difference”—sometimes leaving without their jacket or a single belonging. Looking back, he wished that he could have finished Knowles sooner than later, but he also knew that an attempt at gathering intelligence had been necessary. Even if by chance no juveniles were involved, he still had had no choice but to wager the lives of seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds against the time spent gaining the trust of the priest.
To be honest, Bendona had to admit the time was worth it. He’d gathered two valuable pieces of information about the priest’s work habits: his preference for personal involvement in handling runaway situations and his propensity for punctuality. On those occasions when Knowles had been called to provide aid to a runaway, his response had been firsthand and invariably prompt.
On the night of the termination, Father Knowles had received an anonymous phone call from a concerned, neighborhood mother explaining that a band of male and female runaways were living in deplorable conditions. The rest was history. Knowles had been lauded posthumously as a saint while the community was outraged by the inhumanity of a group of devil worshipers who would kill a clergyman, one who apparently had come to help save them from themselves.
Two things I regret, Bendona decided as he brought the plane down. To keep up appearances, I had to attend the funeral, and I failed to learn the location of the abducted teens.
Bendona secured the plane and got to work just in time.
Samuels and Brenda were on their days off, and Bendona missed Samuels’ green face and Brenda’s “I want you” look. After roll call, he found his assigned vehicle and headed out to his beat, along Grand Avenue.
Bendona’s mood was reflected in the patrol car’s melancholy pace as he drove slowly through the neighborhood.
“2335!”
“This is 2335,” Bendona answered.
“2335! Respond to a disturbance and fight in progress at the White Castle, Grand and Gravois…Two adult black males fighting in the parking lot. It’s not known at this time if there are weapons involved.”
“That’s clear, 2335, en route. Dispatcher, if you have the caller on the phone, please ascertain if there are weapons involved.”
Bendona lit up the car, making his way through a jumble of traffic and pedestrians.
“2335!”
Bendona answered again, “2335…two blocks away from the scene.”
“2335, there are no weapons visible at this time. There is no one currently available to assist you.”
…As if anyone would assist, he thought. “2335, that’s clear. Go ahead and show me out at the scene.”
The two pugilists were trading well-placed punches into each other’s faces and stomachs. Bendona thought, Not bad.
Pulling out his old straight stick, Bendona approached the clinched combatants. “Let go of each other; I won’t say it twice,” he ordered tonelessly.
One of the men complied while the other loaded up his fist and let it fly at Bendona. Ready, Bendona rocked gently to one side, brushing the punch past his face. He was so fast that he actually had to wait for the puncher to regain his balance and expose his throat before launching his counter attack.
For a split second, Bendona thought, how easy it would be… But instead, he caught the poor soul with his stick, cleanly under the chin, just above the killing zone of his throat. The puncher flew backward, hitting the asphalt as though his heels had been hinged to the parking lot.
By this time, the other combatant had moved further away and his eyes were wide. He gasped, “Looked like he was runin’ full-on an hit a clothesline!”
“Whew! That looks like it hurt. Just goes to show you, never touch a uniform,” said Bendona, wearing a perfectly sardonic expression.
The remainder of the shift was relatively mundane: a few theft reports and a recovered stolen car. When Bendona reached the station at the end of his shift, Lieutenant Fallon, the shift commander, was standing near the open back door.
“You better be careful, Bendona. Half an inch lower and you would’ve killed him.”
“Sorry, Lieutenant…won’t happen again. Next time I’ll aim better.”
“Watch your mouth around me, Bendona. You may have some kind of push downtown in administration, but here you’re only an empty magazine away from being a bad memory. You’re already the most friendless bastard I know. Get out of here before you piss me off.”
Bendona had just finished clearing the dinner dishes when the doorbell rang. Surprised, he looked through the peephole. A smile overtook his face as he opened the door. Without speaking, and with her hips gently swaying and pushing against the fabric of her thin, cotton dress, Brenda sauntered into the apartment. As she passed, an exceptionally good aroma, innocently clean and fresh, like pure white gardenias, washed over Bendona. But her fragrance had more to do with her aura than an application of perfume. She glowed with the scent of eagerness and exquisite sexual anticipation.
She doesn’t even have to try hard to look good, but Jesus, when she breaks out the high heels and lipstick—she could tempt the pope.
As she walked past him, she tossed her short, thick, coal-black hair and, with an almost imperceptible but tempting swipe of her tongue, moistened her perfect, full lips. Her knowing smile was framed by her smooth, unblemished complexion and, as she passed close by, her skin seemed to invite the sensation of sexual friction.
Damn, she could seduce somebody using just her eyes, thought Bendona as she glanced at him and batted her long, thick eyelashes.
The languid green light that emanated from her eyes seemed to bathe anyone within their focus in the essence of her hormones. The coup de grace was her body, a five-foot, seven-inch vehicle defining the noun—sex. Her simple, loose fitting, dangerously short sundress belied the serious nature of all that was packaged underneath it.
Once again, Bendona realized that she didn’t need a gun or stick to accomplish her job—the manipulative body language, the relentless eye contact. She could make a perp beg to be handcuffed.
Without saying anything, Brenda turned, faced him, and pulled the sundress up over her head and dropped it onto the floor.
She was completely naked and apparently unconcerned that Bendona had not yet closed the front door. She stood in the middle of the room with her long legs slightly apart and her arms draped lazily over her head. She slowly arched her back, so that her butt rose proudly into the air and her breasts projected forward.
“I want you to look at me, Ricky. I want you to get very, very hungry for me, and then I want you to take what you want, however you want.”
Bendona ran his eyes from her ankle-strap, high-heeled sandals to her creamy, unlined forehead.
“Rick, I have a serious need; I’m going to work very hard for you tonight,” she said in a breathy whisper.
Bendona finally closed the front door.
Waking before Brenda, Bendona almost had the eggs Benedict finished and found himself deep in thought about her. Don’t deny that you like her, Bendona, he thought. Yeah, all right but what kind of like? Her body and trademark repertoire of steamy, sexual theatrics aside why? he argued. Because she likes you back and... Bendona resisted the thought momentarily. Because she makes you feel normal like a man sharing a healthy relationship with an exciting, young woman. Don’t be so parochial or naïve, he chided in his silent tug of war. Bendona had never been able to bring himself to trust the women in his life or the emotions that they brought with them. They had been mere toys for his libido and nothing more.
But Brenda’s different. The only message she seems to send is that she genuinely likes me and, God knows, wants to please me and... Bendona stopped himself in mid-thought. He had not thought about someone as a potential friend—or possibly more—since he had been at the university.
What if she knew that I had been made wealthy by the DCO and that I’m almost done with this filthy chapter of my life? We could run away from all this shit, into the proverbial sunset, and share good feelings and good times. If things were indeed different, she could be my friend and—no, no, no, he chided once more.
He turned his attention back to finishing breakfast and had just poured coffee when she strolled into the kitchen wearing one of his old Clark County Metro Police T-shirts.
“You’re a witch, you know that?” he greeted her.
“Me?”
“How many other men have you actually tried to break?”
“Ricky, I just know what I like, and I like you. For some reason I trust you, like I’ve never trusted any man before…and besides, you’re good in bed. I feel like I want to be under you all day and night.”
Bendona pushed her down into her seat at the table and served the eggs Benedict. “A little Irish in your coffee?” asked Bendona as he poured a stiff slurp of Bushmills into his coffee cup.
“No, but I’ll have a little Bendona if you don’t mind.”
“Girl, you have a one-track mind.”
“Well, the others would say that’s good.”
“The others have foreskin for gray matter. You know, your initials fit you; you’re full of BS. You’re a good police officer and underneath that Lolita-like exterior you promote, you have some serious intelligence. When are you going to wake up and move on?”
“When I’m done playing, Ricky, not before. You know I plan on living forever, and there’s all the time in the world for that serious crap.”
Bendona felt a twinge of jealousy at her flippant attitude and her wasteful, injudicious lifestyle. It went directly to the heart of his regrets about his own life. Maybe that was why she was so incredibly attractive to him. She was having fun and didn’t care to discuss the antithesis of her current amusement.