Chapter 14

A protection assignment surfaced the next morning. A woman in Houston, Texas, feared for her life. Her husband had threatened her and had made one attempt to make good on his threats. The woman had left him for another woman and, at the moment, wasn't happy with the male of our species. She'd requested female protectors.

"Although you said you wanted to hear about any possible protection assignments," Sherry said, "I almost blew this one off, but then remembered you had some chicas working for you now. If you take this job, tell your chicas to take care. The brother they'll be up against is mean clean through to the bone."

With Ruben sitting by my side in a training capacity, I called the referral source, and then spoke with the principal. Her husband was a linebacker for the Houston Texans and had a history of violence not only with his estranged wife but also others.

I called Claire and Wanda into my makeshift office and asked them two questions: one, did they want the assignment, and two, could they handle a three hundred pound behemoth with a violent temper?

"Hell yes, I want the job, Morgan," Wanda said. "Regarding the man-mountain, a bullet knows no gender and could care less about the size of the assailant."

I said, "What about you, Claire?"

"I'm in. I've handled subhuman, misogynist sociopaths like this one before - alone."

Ruben and I worked through the preliminaries, spoke with the principal again, plugged the support team into the contract, and talked to Gordy about the money. Two hours later, Protect & Serve had a new contract with a sizable retainer. I turned the contract over to Ruben to fine tune and manage, and sought out Michelle. I found her on the telephone. That woman lived on the phone.

While I waited, I reflected back to the ten o'clock news last night when Myra had informed Channel Five's viewing audience about Karsh's housekeeper and cook, how these women were also wanted felons, recidivists who had defied the conditions of their paroles, how they'd suddenly disappeared under the radar, further embarrassing the LVPD.

The tide was turning. The muck was starting to wash over Karsh and his thugs and tame cops, leaving me standing, mostly clean, on a littered sand beach. Would I hold the recently gained beachhead, or would I be washed back into the muck with Karsh?

While Michelle talked on the phone, she handed me a newspaper. "Below the fold," she said to me with her hand over the mouthpiece.

Why is the LVPD Protecting Wanted Felons? the headline read. I scanned the article. It repeated the salient facts Myra had announced on television the day before but added much more detail regarding the wanted men and women. The reporter also referenced Lieutenant George Delgado as the senior police officer handling the case. The reporter had tried to speak with Delgado but had received only the ubiquitous, "No comment."

Michelle hung up and said, "Myra wants to interview you. I told her that wasn't in the cards."

"You've got that right. Anonymity is necessary in my business."

She chuckled. "Then why do you tend to make such good press? The media loves you, Morgan."

"Argh! What are your plans for today?"

"Unlike you, Captain Johnson isn't camera shy, so I sicced Myra on him, with his prior consent, of course. Channel Five will air her interview with him at five o'clock, instead of with you." She winked. "I believe he plans to announce Lieutenant George Delgado's arrest and hint about more arrests to come."

I grinned and relaxed. "Michelle, late today or tomorrow, my crew and I will vacate the mansion. I'll leave you here to guide the stream of publicity in my favor."

"Who's leaving and who's staying?" she asked.

"You and Tim will stay, and Horace and Dean will move here from their hotel rooms. Ruben, Colleen, Heather, Maria, Gary and Leo will leave with me. Whether Robyn stays or leaves is still open to question. The armed guards at the gate, as well as the security personnel monitoring the video feed will stay, and I've instructed Gary to bring in two senior operatives from the security company who supplied the gate guards to manage the guards and further provide for your security. Because Karsh's kids are still on the loose, it's best to be prudent. Jasper has arranged for vehicles and drivers for you and the support staff to use after we leave, but Jasper and Sifu will leave with us."

"Sounds workable," she said.

Captain Keith Johnson sat in my makeshift office at the mansion. He hadn't requested the meeting. He'd demanded it.

"Contrary to what you believe, Morgan, this is not the Old West," he said with a stern voice and a manufactured self-righteous expression.

"I've been in a battle for my life, Keith. If I hadn't stretched or bent a few laws, I'd be dead."

He snorted derisively. "Stretched and bent hell! You smashed some of them to smithereens." He sighed. "You've put me in an untenable position. I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't. I should arrest you right now, but if I did, I'd be painted with the same brush the media is using on Karsh and his vile bunch. If I don't arrest you, I'll be breaking my steadfast commitment to the rule of law."

"If you arrest me, I'm a dead man walking, and the vile bunch wins."

He nodded. "There's that."

His statement surprised me, and he noticed my surprise. He huffed a laugh and said, "You expected me to say that I could and would protect you. Right?"

"Yes."

"I could, but I'd have to isolate you at a secret place for an indefinite period, which would be cruel and unusual punishment. Your lawyer would get you cut loose. The rock and the hard place, that's what I'm between."

"Over the years, Keith, the rule of law has been subverted. We're a compassionate people. We believe the innocent should be protected. That's a good thing. But in our quest to protect the innocent, we've created laws that also protect the guilty. That's fine by me. What isn't fine by me are the laws that say I can't protect myself or those I care for, laws that demand that I must abrogate this responsibility to law enforcement officials, the very same authorities shackled by the laws that protect the guilty, an untenable position for victims. I'm a protector. That's what I am, what I do. If I can't protect myself, then I am nothing."

"Some innocents died in your battle with Karsh."

"I didn't kill them."

"But the possibility was there."

"I admit to that possibility. If I harm an innocent I should be prosecuted."

He won't arrest me, I thought, but he wants me to back off and leave Brogan and Karsh's kids to him.

I didn't come to that conclusion from experiencing his thoughts. His thoughts were difficult to follow. He was seriously conflicted. He knew I was on the right side of right and wrong, but I'd messed with the sanctity of the rule of law, which for him put me on the wrong side of right and wrong. I'd also denied his right to protect me and mine, a right he believed was his, not mine.

His jumbled thoughts cleared, and he decided to hit me with a compromise, a compromise I could not accept.

He said, "Tell me if I'm mistaken, but I think you know who hired Karsh to kill you and where he is."

"You're not mistaken."

"If you'll turn him over to me, I won't arrest you. I'll put on my Old West Sheriff's hat and tell you to get out of Dodge, which in this case is the State of Nevada."

"I'd do just that, Keith, if I believed you could get the job done. You can't. You can't touch him."

"Why not?"

"Shackles. Probable cause, constitutional rights, reasonable doubt, rules of evidence." I paused. "Proof."

"What gives you the right to run roughshod over these rights?"

"My will to live. Karsh's kids have holed up with him. That won't last long. They'll come after me again, wherever I am, and they'll locate me, at which time, this fiasco will start all over again. They can't back off; I'm too dangerous to them to be left alive."

"Why did he hire Karsh to kill you in the first place?"

"I don't know. I know his name. I did some research to determine his whereabouts. That's it. My memories associated with his name remain elusive. Keith, I'll work with you on this, but I can't turn everything over to you and walk away."

He sat back and pushed all the air from his lungs. "He's in Nevada?"

"Yes."

He shook his mop of dirty-blond hair. "I wish he wasn't."

"Me, too. Discounting the rule of law, subverted or not, I consider you a friend. More importantly, you're an honest cop. You take your commitment to protect and serve seriously. In that, we're alike. We do, however, differ in the methods we'll use to achieve that end. You are an officer of the court and of the law and as such must abide by the letter of the law. I'm a private citizen who has made a personal commitment to protect the good guys from the bad guys. This case is a little different. In this case, I'm one of the good guys, and I'm protecting myself instead of someone else."

I paused and looked Johnson in the eye. "Keith, you knew Mr. Bart. Until his mind took a permanent vacation, Mr. Bart and I discussed this issue at length. When he died, I had a choice to make, but the choice wasn't whether to protect and serve. That was a given. The choice was how I would protect and serve. One of the alternatives was the path you selected - to become an officer of the court and the rule of law. I chose a different path. Looking back, the path I chose was a given, too. I chose the path Mr. Bart wanted me to take. I became a protector, and as a protector I assume various roles. Sometimes I'm like a Secret Service Agent, but I protect private citizens from harm, not the President of the United States. I also pick and choose the citizens I protect. I won't protect bad guys. Sometimes, I become a Swat Team when I release hostages held by bad guys. Sometimes, I assume the role of an FBI Agent and extract kidnap victims from their abductors. Sometimes I'm a Police Detective when I search for and find missing persons. Because I do these things as a private citizen, and also because I'm very good at what I do, I piss off the members of the path I didn't choose. I'm not in their fraternity, your fraternity, Keith, so I'm labeled a vigilante. I chose the path I took because I refused to be shackled by all the laws you must and should obey. My guiding force is not the letter of the law. It's the spirit of the law. Yes, I know the name of the man who hired Karsh to kill me. If I gave you his name, with the restrictions placed on you by the rule of law, you couldn't touch him. I can and will. Work with me, Keith, or arrest me. Those are the only two choices you have."

He arrested me. He recited the Miranda warning from memory and cuffed me.

Colleen, Captain Johnson just arrested me. Ask Tim to join me in my office.

Arrested you!

"What's his name?" Johnson asked as he started to march me out of my makeshift office.

At that point, I could think of no valid reason to keep Brogan's name a secret. "Glen Brogan. He owns a ranch near Ely, Nevada."

As thoughts go, Johnson's silent, sustained curses were loud and expressive, and his face mirrored his fury.

"Turn around," he growled.

I turned my back to him, and he removed the handcuffs.

"I've been after that no-account son-of-a-bitch for years," he said. "You're right. I can't touch him." He gave me a hard look. "But you can. I'll work with you."

Colleen, I've just been un-arrested.

I sensed her sigh of relief. Do you still want Tim there?

No.

"Sit down, Captain Johnson," I said, motioning him toward a chair. I sat facing him. "Please, tell me what you know about Glen Brogan."

We talked for an hour, and what Johnson told me about Glen Brogan jerked memories from sinister, dark places in my mind where I'd hidden them. They came forth from the dark screaming and kicking like thwarted children throwing a fit. For the first time, I considered the possibility that my memory loss following surgery had not been caused by physical trauma. Had I merely sequestered the painful memories to purposefully avoid dealing with them? Had I been in denial? The possibility was very real. My Brogan memories were nearly the last memories to surface to a place where they could be retrieved, and even with what Johnson told me about him, combined with the events and facts I remembered, I intuitively felt that I hadn't retrieved all my memories related to that sick and perverted miserable excuse of a human being.

Glen Brogan trafficked in children.

Also for the first time, I understood the connection between Karsh and Brogan. It wasn't merely a principal/agent/assassin relationship. Karsh trafficked in children, too. He'd taken Joel, Linda and Nick out of orphanages, fucked them and conditioned them to become assassins. That's why Karsh had referred to Brogan as a friend. They were colleagues, partners committing like crimes.

I was a boy under Mr. Bart's tutelage the first time I heard Glen Brogan's name. Mr. Bart had taken me for a shooting lesson. He'd been my instructor that day, not Keith Johnson. As Mr. Bart pulled the car to the curb to let me out after the lesson, I noticed a look of shock and dismay on his rugged face, and then abject anger filled his green eyes. Anger, I'd observed, darkened Mr. Bart's eyes from a smoky green to almost black.

Alarmed, I said, "What's wrong?"

"That man! That vile, perverted sociopath that just left the orphanage."

I twisted my head left and right but saw no one, only a car driving away. "What man?"

"Glen Brogan." He spat out the name as if it left a bad taste in his mouth.

Instead of leaving as planned, Mr. Bart turned off the car and went inside with me, marching directly into Ms. Lang's office. Ms. Lang ran the orphanage then. He didn't' come out for a while, and when he left, he didn't look any happier than when he'd arrived.

About three years later, I overheard Mr. Bart speaking with Keith Johnson, and Brogan's name came up again.

"Proof, Mr. Bart. I need proof," Keith said.

"You know what he's doing, Keith. Do something about it, goddammit!"

They noticed me then and changed the subject.

Later that day, I asked Keith about the man.

"You have no need to concern yourself with the likes of Glen Brogan," Keith said. "Concentrate on the task at hand, Luke. You're dipping your shoulder as you move from one target to the next. Stop it."

"What does he do that Mr. Bart wants you to stop?" I said, pressing the issue. I also stopped dropping my shoulder.

"Mr. Bart believes he's a pedophile and traffics in children."

"I know what a pedophile is. What do you mean by traffics in children?"

"Through various means he gains control over children, uses them to satisfy his perverted sexual needs, and then sells them to others with like perversions."

"I agree with Mr. Bart. I think you should stop him."

"Nothing would please me more, Luke, but I need more than Mr. Bart's suppositions to arrest him. To bring him to justice, I need evidence, physical or circumstantial, preferably both, or I need an eyewitness to his crimes. I have nothing. Possible witnesses to his crimes, including the children he abuses, have a habit of disappearing, never to be seen again. Glen Brogan is a careful man, and his political and financial clout in this state, not to mention his connections with organized crime, make him nearly bulletproof unless I can come up with some real evidence."

Much later during some half-lucid mental states, Mr. Bart raved about Brogan by name and deed, but by then Mr. Bart was raving about a lot of things and individuals, so I discounted most of his ravings as byproducts of his disease.

After Mr. Bart died, the name didn't resurface until about two months before I woke up in the hospital without any memories. In December the previous year, I'd accepted a recovery assignment. My principal, a single mother named Gladys Esterly, hired me to locate and bring her eight-year-old son back to her. Within hours of taking the job, her son was found in another city. He'd been brutally raped, beaten to death and dumped in a playground. He'd also been abducted from a playground.

Feeling like she had no reason to go on living, Mrs. Esterly committed suicide. She'd paid me a substantial retainer, so I felt obligated to stay on the job and bring her son's murderer to justice - my kind of justice. Besides, I'd seen the boy's broken and bloody body where the killer had dumped it. I'd have stayed on the job with or without a retainer.

I went on the hunt.

Two weeks later, I heard Glen Brogan's name again, and Mr. Bart's word's resonated in my mind: You know what he's doing. Do something about it, goddammit!

I wasn't in Nevada when I heard Brogan's name. I picked up a string attached to his name in St. Louis, Missouri, where the Esterly boy's body had been dumped. When his name surfaced, I remembered my discussions about Brogan with Keith and Mr. Bart. I knew I'd found the Esterly boy's killer, but I didn't have proof. I rolled up that string until it broke in Shreveport, Louisiana. The string was broken, but I had direction. I had a name and some repeated associations from his cowardly crimes: Brogan, boys, playgrounds and sometimes orphanages.

In Houston, I figured out one of his methods for gaining control of his victims. Unlike Karsh, Brogan didn't adopt. When visiting an orphanage, he pretended interest but left apparently dissatisfied with the boys he'd seen. Not immediately, but within a month or two following his enquiries at an orphanage, a boy at that orphanage disappeared. The boy was reported missing, but not much effort was made to find him. No one of any importance pressured the police.

I put myself in Brogan's head. As distasteful as it was, I became him. I visited an orphanage pretending I was a predator pedophile, and I saw what I believed he saw: a blond boy, beautiful and needy, starved for affection. I selected the boy as surely as Brogan would have selected him. I returned to the vicinity of the orphanage a few days later and spoke with that boy at a playground without any authority figures around him. With the slightest encouragement, the boy would have gone away with me without looking back.

Sick at heart, I drove away, leaving the boy where he stood looking forlorn and rejected. What Brogan did wasn't difficult or particularly dangerous, but it was evil, the epitome of evil.

You know what he's doing. Do something about it, goddammit!

I missed Brogan by two days in El Paso, Texas, and by a day in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Then I lost him. He didn't stop at the orphanage in Flagstaff. Upon reflection, I figured the trip through the South was probably his cruising phase. If he followed the methods of most predators, the next phase would be the stalk and takedown. I figured he'd doubled back on me, returned to wherever he'd started cruising a month ago. He'd finished cruising and started his stalk, but where? Would he stalk and take one boy? Or would he take more than one before he returned to his lair. Or would he, to satisfy some sick inner need, entice a boy from a playground, and then rape, murder and dump the boy's body like he did the Esterly boy?

I rented a room and worked the telephone, calling all the orphanages I'd visited that I knew he'd visited.

"Have any of your boys gone missing?" I asked.

"No."

"If one does, call me, please," I said and gave them the phone number for my room in Flagstaff.

And that's where Brogan's hired thugs took me. That memory proved one thing. I wasn't telepathic before Doc Birch operated on my brain. Had I been able to experience the thoughts of others, they wouldn't have blindsided me like they did.

They didn't kill me. They beat me senseless, but they didn't kill me, which confused me. I couldn't understand why they didn't kill me. Instead, they threw me, bloody and bruised, and bound and gagged, into a cargo van and drove me to Las Vegas, where they beat me senseless again.

The next thing I remembered was waking up in the hospital after brain surgery with no memories.

Why didn't they kill me?

"Why didn't you use your support staff?" Colleen asked after I related my Brogan memories to her.

"Because I'd personalized the hunt, but mostly because I was on my own nickel. Dumb, huh?"

She chortled. "I'll say. You wonder why they didn't kill you. I think they believed they had killed you. The doctor in Vegas told you he believed that whoever had given you the beating had left you for dead."

"There's that," I said. "If that's the case, then it was an accident. Only my skull was broken, no other bones. I think the thugs were holding me for Brogan. I think Brogan wanted to kill me himself."

"Maybe. Are you sure the thugs who took you in Flagstaff were in Brogan's employ?"

"Yes. They mentioned his name once when they believed I was unconscious."

"Perhaps they'll be at Brogan's ranch."

I nodded. "I hope so."

She chuckled. "Revenge is a bad motive, cowboy. So says Sifu. When will we leave for Ely?"

"Two or three days. I want vehicles staged before we arrive, and Jasper is looking for a helicopter. I'm sending an advance party tomorrow, Gary & Leo, probably, to do some scouting on some ATVs. They'll be staying at the Ward Mountain Campground in a large RV. The rest of us will be staying at a guest ranch. I polled everyone." I knew my next words would please her. "We can't arrive at the guest ranch looking like city slickers. Shopping for western wear is the order of the day."

Yep, her eyes shined bright.

What came out of the planning session altered what I'd told Colleen and dramatically changed what I'd told Michelle. Logistics and reconnaissance requirements dictated the changes, and Captain Johnson's input created the major shifts in our plans.

We decided that we'd vacate the mansion in three days. Michelle unabashedly announced that she and Tim would only need one room at the Bellagio when the rest of us headed north. "Two rooms would be a waste of money," she said.

Tim blushed. I didn't think the large man capable of blushing, but he did. A few quiet snickers turned his eyes hard. The blush faded - as did the snickers.

"Unless you call on me, Morgan," Blount said, "I'm off the clock. Jerry can handle any legal work needed here, but I'll hang around in case you cross swords with the White Pine County Sheriff." Ely was the county seat for White Pine County.

"Which is not only possible but also likely," Captain Johnson stated. "I suspect but can't prove that Brogan has Sheriff Canton in his hip pocket, which brings up another change I strongly recommend. Stay away from that Duck Creek Guest Ranch. The man who operates that ranch is Brogan's friend."

"Crap," I grumbled. "We can't stay in Ely. We'd be spotted in less than a day."

Johnson grinned. "Yep, but Brogan isn't the only man with friends in White Pine County. Troy Mayfield at the Lazy M Ranch is a friend of mine. You can set up your headquarters at his ranch."

I walked to the large map of Nevada hanging on the wall. "Show me Mayfield's ranch," I said.

Johnson put his finger on the map. "Right there. It's northeast of Humboldt National Forest, and here's Brogan's place, southwest of Humboldt Forest."

I nodded. "Good. The Lazy M is better situated logistically for us than the guest ranch, but..." I paused and looked Johnson in the eye. "Keith, we'll be marshalling quite a few personnel and a lot of equipment in that area. I'd planned to send Leo and Gary in an RV to the Ward Mountain campground to..."

"Uh-uh," Johnson said. "There's a campground here." His finger pressed the map, pointing out an area just north of Highway 6 at the south end of Humboldt Forest. "And another here at the north end of the national forest just below Highway 50. Put an RV at each campground with ATVs."

"That works," I said.

"Better than you think," Johnson said. "There's a trail through the forest from both campgrounds that will take you to Brogan's ranch."

"Can we use the ATVs to negotiate the trails?" Gary asked.

"Yep. The lower trail will take you to a bluff that overlooks Brogan's ranch buildings. It's an excellent viewpoint for recon. The upper trail skirts the edge of the national forest along its western boundary. The ranch buildings are about ten miles south of the ranch's northern boundary."

"Jasper," I said, "We'll need two RVs, not one."

"No problem," he said. "Besides the RVs, I've lined up two Kawasaki Mule Utility Vehicles. I figured you'd need to do some hauling as well as negotiating some trails."

"Besides hauling, you might need some sport or sport utility ATVs for incursions," Johnson said.

"How many?" Jasper asked.

"Four," I said. "Okay. Gary and Leo can take the lower campground, and..."

Heather interrupted me. "A man and woman pretending to be a couple would be less conspicuous. Besides, macho male campers in the area will hit on two women camping together. Gary and I will take the lower campground, and Leo and Maria the one to the north."

I let my eyes wander from Heather to Gary, and then to Leo and Maria. They all nodded. "So be it. I like it. Two recon teams instead of one, and it'll reduce the size of the crowd at Mayfield's ranch." I turned to Johnson. "That still leaves Colleen, Ruben, Sifu and me at the ranch."

"Me, too," Robyn said. "I'm in this to the end, darn it."

Ruben nodded but didn't look happy about Robyn's announcement. Truth be told, I wanted Robyn at the ranch with us. The intel she'd gathered for the Karsh siege had been invaluable.

"That's six of us at the ranch when Jasper joins us," I said.

"Seven, counting me," Johnson said.

"Ah,... Keith, you might want to distance yourself from this battle."

"I will be at the Lazy M, Morgan. I won't... can't be involved in the battle, but I will be involved in the mop-up and arrests." He grinned. "You'll need someone around to trump Sheriff Canton."

I nodded. I knew I couldn't change his mind if I tried, and he made sense. "Let's talk about logistics and staging. Dean, we'll need to move our armory, and Horace, we'll need your surveillance gear, and after some recon, we might need some weapons and equipment we don't have."

"Except for perhaps the final incursion, the communication gear we used against the Karsh compound won't work over the distances I'm looking at on that map," Dean said.

"Speaking of communication," Horace said, "I can get my hands on up to two dozen encrypted cell phones. No one, and I mean no one, not even the NSA, can listen to a conversation from one of those phones to another one. They're called CryptoPhones, and, they use AES256 and Twofish for encryption, two algorithms considered among the best available. They'd be a good addition for Protect & Serve's ordinance and communication supply, Morgan."

"How much?" I asked. Sometimes Horace got caught up in new technology and ignored the cost.

"$2,000 each, maybe a little more."

"Gulp." Then I remembered I could charge them off to other jobs. "Buy sixteen of them. We'll use the encrypted phones for communication except for the final battle when we'll revert to the communication system we used for the Karsh operation."

"Does Mayfield's ranch have a heliport?" Jasper asked.

"Yes," Johnson said.

"The pilot brings the crowd at the ranch to eight," Jasper said.

"Carlos makes nine," I said. "Until the takedown, I'll want the ambulance van staged at the ranch. Jasper, besides the RVs, the ambulance van, and ATVs, what other rolling stock are you recommending?" I asked.

"An eighteen-wheeler, three SUVs and a pickup truck. Dean can drive one of the SUVs, Horace another, which means we'll need a driver for the other SUV, and yet another driver for the pickup truck. I'll be driving the eighteen-wheeler to haul the ATVs, the armory and surveillance gear."

"Can't the RVs tow the SUV and pickup?" I asked.

Jasper grinned. "Good idea."

"Why the pickup?" I asked.

"For inconspicuous hauling capability like moving the ATVs and other equipment around as needed," Jasper said.

I nodded. "Is one of the SUVs for Dean and Horace?"

"Yes."

"If Dean and Horace rented rooms in Ely, would they be noticed," I asked Johnson.

"Probably. Let me check with Mayfield. It'd be best if they stayed at the ranch. I know he has a bunkhouse, but..."

"Can you call him now?"

"Sure." Johnson checked a small address book and dialed his cell phone. Five minutes later we were good to go. Mayfield had room for twelve: six in the main house and six in the bunkhouse.

"Joel Hall knows Colleen, Ruben, Robyn, Sifu and me by sight, and I assume Brogan would recognize you, Captain."

He nodded.

"Which means the six of us should fly directly to the Lazy M in the helicopter. What's more, I think we should give our advance team a couple of days for staging the rolling stock, weapons, and equipment, and another day for preliminary reconnaissance. It's Monday. The six of us will descend on the Lazy M Friday morning."

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Paul Phenomenon

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