Chapter 669

In his suite, the assassin settled back to review the happenings during the last weeks.

His hit was living with a Jeff Matthews, and this Matthews complicated the hit enormously. He was an enigma as far as the assassin was concerned. Matthews had been a Lieutenant in the army, but, even with the assassin’s contacts, he could find little detail about Matthews’ career. He did discover that the man was an electrical engineer who had at one time traveled a lot, both in completing engineering projects as well as selling law enforcement-related merchandise. He had no record, not even a traffic ticket.

There were some trade articles that mentioned Frank Wainwright, a multibillionaire who, according to the trade magazine, had purchased the patents to several of Matthews’ inventions. He had found another article about Wainwright that said he had sold Matthews a multimillion-dollar conference building located high in the Rocky Mountains near Denver.

The assassin had spent much time and money to learn everything he could about Matthews, but there were things that were obviously missing. He couldn’t find anything about Matthew’s discharge from the army, but none of the current pictures — and there were few of them — ever showed him in uniform. Yet, reportedly, there was an army facility on what had to be Matthews’ property. There were multiple articles about an underground fortress he had built that the public had used during the Miadax raids, but it seemed that no one ever mentioned being inside the conference building that was once owned by Wainwright.

Apparently, Matthews had deep pockets and had freely shared his apparent wealth with various charities as well as individuals in need, yet no one seemed actually to know him. The assassin picked up some interesting information in an overheard conversation in a café in Winter Park. Some of it had to be exaggerated by the two old guys who were talking, but if half what they said was true, Matthews had an enormous harem of the most beautiful women on the planet. One of the old men had sworn that he had seen him at Martha’s Restaurant several times with an entourage of what was obviously his women.

Tanaka had said that his wife had run to her lover and was living with Matthews on this mountain. According to Tanaka, Matthews had somehow lured Tanaka’s wife from their marriage, and she was now living as a sex slave with him. Usually, the assassin wouldn’t care about the details, and this had started the same way, but as he learned tidbit by tidbit, and he spent more and more money in learning those tidbits, he had become engrossed with the whole thing. Any idiot could tell that Tanaka was a lying bastard on his good days — if he had any — and normally, the assassin would not care one way or the other as long as he received his pay. He had contracted to kill Tanaka’s wife, and she was just a target, but the more reports he read, and the more contact he had with the man, the more he detested the little bastard.

The only possible way to take out my target, as far as I can determine, will involve Matthews, since she lives in his home and seems always to be around him. That will mean taking him out first. Yeah, right. Piece of cake — fucking not. My investigations have turned up two more attempts by professionals trying to take out Matthews, and there were two more rumored to have happened. It seems that if the cops are even called, they have no jurisdiction because it’s an army facility.

The house I rented in Winter Park is only a couple of miles away from Martha’s, and I go there frequently as well as a really small “Mom and Pop” restaurant in downtown Winter Park. I struck a gold mine in both restaurants when I mentioned that I’m a writer who needs solitude while I finish my next book. I dropped a couple of quotes from a book written by an author who writes under a pseudonym. One waitress at Martha’s picked up on it, and suddenly I’m this mysterious author. That’s all it took, well, that and sitting there drinking coffee and taking notes seemed to seal the deal. Since I always leave a little extra when I stay awhile, neither the owner of either restaurant nor the waitresses seem to mind if I hang around for an hour or so, and I never do it when they’re busy. Suddenly, I’m one of the group, in part, because of their curiosity. I told them that my asking questions was because I want my books to be realistic about daily life. They, particularly the old guys, have been a fantastic source of rumor information. With Matthews obviously having a harem, he and his group are always high on the guys’ gossip list. I guess old people, particularly in a town of Winter Park’s size, have little to do other than gab about what’s supposedly going on.

Since I wear hearing aids, they assume I can’t hear well and probably say more around me than they normally would. If they knew how sensitive the hearing aids can be set, there would be some embarrassed people. The aids were designed to help gather information, and they can be controlled by an app on my phone.

The assassin was in Buenos Aires on business — a bribe to pay a government official — and as he lay there thinking, his mind shifted to that subject. No telling what they think I do, but the locals never bother me or question my comings and goings. I do not use drugs — any assassin who does is a fool — but they probably think I bring them in with my trips about the world. Whatever, they leave me alone and don’t meddle in my business, so the bribe and the resulting misdirection are worth it.

Now to gradually accelerate my visits to Martha’s until I’m deeply ingrained as a regular, but before I return to the States, I have some very pleasant things to do at home. One of those things involves Antonia, he thought as a smile crossed his face as sleep overtook him.

The Retreat

Jeff, Ann and Arlene sat in Jeff’s office, the two girls with soft drinks, while Jeff had his usual coffee.

One look at their husband’s face, and they knew something was wrong. “What’s wrong, Husband?” Ann asked.

“I ... uh, nothing serious to the most of us, but it will certainly be important to you two.”

“You’re going to cancel the parade,” Arlene said while staring hard at Jeff.

The Prime let out an audible sigh. “I know how much you two have worked on this, but ... Well, after we became involved in trying to locate Selina’s Mom and Dad, the General and I both began to realize that it isn’t time for a victory parade just yet. I don’t imagine that those who have lost loved ones to the Miadax, or the ones who have no place to live and have to look to the military for food, think much about us having won the war. If you look at the overall picture, there wasn’t a large loss of life compared to the world’s population. However, I’ll bet that those places that were hit hard, such as the area where Phillip and Dessie supposedly are, will disagree — mightily.”

“So, all the training was for nothing?” Arlene said barely loud enough to be heard.

“I think there will be time for a victory parade, but not just now. I suppose it brought it home to me when we talked about having you search for Dessie and Phillip with the interceptors. It is guaranteed, as Fred pointed out, that someone would eventually look up and scream, ‘Aliens.’ Cooler heads would eventually come to the fore, I suppose, but once the rumor was started, no telling where it would wind up. It takes little to nothing to panic a crowd.

“Besides,” he said as he came from behind his desk, “you have had some valuable training in your interceptors. Arlene, you excelled at managing your Wing in combat, and now you have had your first real dose of managing personnel under other conditions.”

“You might not feel that way if the bastard calls me out,” Arlene grumbled.

“What?” he growled with his attention now locked on his wife.

“Somebody left Arlene a computer printout in the aviators’ training room,” Ann broke in as she handed it to him, “that says Worthington is going to call her out to a duel.” After a second, she added, “Just the way that Colonel did you.”

Jeff’s face paled as he read the note, something neither wife had ever seen happen to that extent.

“When did you get this?” he asked, his voice cold.

“Yesterday,” Ann got out.

“Ann, I told you that I would handle it. You shouldn’t have shown him the note. It will get the person who sent it in trouble. He has already run a fairly steep risk just doing what he did. Besides, we don’t have any factual evidence that Worthington is going to do anything. He could just say that someone has it in for him and is trying to set him up.”

“Yeah, I can see your point, but I’ll make sure he understands that retaliation against the person who sent the note will be a very bad idea. Either way, you’re out of it, Arlene. I’ll handle it from here,” the Prime said with finality.

“You can’t, Husband,” Arlene protested. “What would that look like to the rest of the crews?”

“It would look like a Colonel straightening out a troublemaker,” he snapped. “I would damn sure do it to him if he had tried his shit with anyone else. Why not you?”