Chapter 2: Missouri

Mike bought a nice house, located on two sections (two square miles) of land. The land was hilly and rolling. Trees were on most of it, as there were few places level enough to grow more than a garden. The house had five bedrooms and three and a half baths. There was a small one-bedroom apartment over the garage.

Teresa Bainbridge lived in the apartment. She was the tutor they had hired to get the girls through high school, and be ready for college. Her story was similar to the girls in a way. She had been walking to her apartment from the campus library where she had been doing research on her masters.

On her way home, three attackers decided, she was cute enough to be the victim of the evening.

Mike was attending orientation and was staying in one of the dorms. He couldn't sleep. He left by virtue of the backstairs and was walking around the area.

He heard her screams from three blocks away. He ran to where the sounds were coming from. The assailants had her clothes off, and her hands tied. They were taking their own clothes off, and were getting ready to have fun.

He was upon them before they knew he was there. From their tattoos and clothes, he guessed that they were gang members. He put all three down, hard, before they could respond. He pulled out his sheath knife, and walked over to the girl. At first, she screamed again, thinking he was going to cut her up. He got her calmed down, and cut her loose from the zip ties that bound her hands.

He took off his shirt, and gave it to her, to wear home. She was a little surprised by the wrist sheath and the holster at his waist. He found out she was graduating at the end of summer session, with her masters in education. He offered her a job, on the spot.

She couldn't believe her luck. She had been the subject of a date rape in her sophomore year and now this turned her off men. When she found out they lived out in the sticks, she accepted instantly.

At home, Mike's situation was a little different than he imagined. Officially, Susan, Melissa, and Janie each had their own room, and their clothes were kept in their rooms. Mike never could get Susan to sleep in her room. The two or three times he brought dates home for the night Susan slept on the floor in a corner behind an overstuffed chair. The rest of the time, she slept in his bed or on the floor by his bed if he was mad at her. Most mornings he woke up with three bedmates. There were days it taxed his willpower looking at them but he never touched them sexually much to the chagrin of his teen-age sex drive.

A typical day had the three kids in the classroom with Teresa all morning. Mike had a T3 connection installed so all of their computers were very fast. Mike took college classes all afternoon online. For exercise, they had a pool, tennis courts and a running track. Twice a week Mike went on a five-mile trek through the woods.

Sandy would visit occasionally and a friendship was growing.

On one visit, she had a particularly grim expression. She handed Mike a packet of information and left. Mike immediately went into his office in the basement. It was keyed to his thumbprint.

Opening the packet, he received his first assignment. One of the assistants to the governor was dirty. There was enough proof to indicate it was true. There was some state legislation that was going to be voted on, in about six weeks estimated time.

Before then, the man needed to be discredited in such a way, that he would never work in politics again. Any form of discredit was acceptable, including suicide with a note.

Looking over the evidence, Mike really didn't like the idea of this guy breathing, tomorrow. He was a predator.

When he got to the capital, he followed the guy for a week, to make sure the schedule he had was right. Wearing gloves, a stocking cap and a hospital facemask so he didn't leave any DNA behind, he broke into the guy's condo. Sure enough, there was a gun safe there. It contained several rifles and pistols. Several of them had their serial numbers removed. That was pretty damning, but even better was a photo album on the top shelf of his victims. There had been eight of them.

Mike let himself out, without leaving any signs that he had been there.

Mike's target liked to go drinking on Friday nights. Mike put on a disguise to make himself look older. He took an herbal compound that "made fire water lose its affect on the body." Mike joined his target at the bar, dribbled a drink on his clothes, and challenged the guy to shooters. Forty-five minutes later, Mike acted pretty drunk but he kept the challenge up. Finally, the target was blind staggering drunk. Mike drove them both back to the condo.

Mike opened the gun safe and took out all the pistols. He got out the gun cleaning supplies and thoroughly cleaned and oiled three of the pistols. He partially disassembled one more pistol he put the man's hands on it in all the places needed to dismantle the gun. He managed to jam a bullet in the receiver. He slammed the receiver against the table a couple of times with the gun in the man's hand.

The second time it went off. The bullet went through the target's lungs. The powder burns were on his hand. Everything looked like a drunk had done something stupid. Letting himself out the back, he slowly walked a couple of blocks and reached his parked car. He drove towards the condo, and sure enough, there were several police cars and an ambulance. He slowed down to look, as most people would, and was flagged to move on by a policeman in the street.

The news the next morning had the story. The man, who was the killer they had been looking for, had killed himself while drunk.

When he got home, he found Sandy waiting for him. They went into his office. The gold for his payment was is the trunk, along with two bonuses one for speed and one because the Company did not realize his target was also the serial killer and there was a contract for him as well. Mike received that bonus as well.

Mike shared one thing with Sandy before she left. That was that Teresa was now on his list of protected people. Sandy smiled at that and they went upstairs to socialize.

At the end of his third year of college classes, he got his first questionable assignment. Jessica S. was in trouble as a juvenile multiple times including problems with drugs. She was suspected of being the victim of an abusive father ... no proof. In college, she was known to have been a party girl. One party went wild with booze and drugs, when the cops busted it her bag had lots of drugs in it. She did jail time but the note in her file was that she claimed to have been innocent, even in jail.

Out of jail, she managed to marry a wealthy individual. Two years later, he died in a racing accident. Since that time, her wealth has seemed to grow with no explanation. The contract states she is blackmailing people and living on those proceeds.

Mike followed her for several weeks. He wasn't sure who all her victims were but he thought he knew how the information was obtained. He was fairly sure she had several businesses bugged. He had her retrieval route figured out. He found she would occasionally work as a temp in a cleaning agency. He guessed that was how the bugs were planted. It looked likely that she was guilty.

Mike had to find out. He refused to kill her if she was innocent. He broke into her house and waited for her. The first that she knew there was a problem was when she felt a wire about her neck after she opened the front door and walked in.

"I don't recommend that you struggle. The razor wire cuts quickly with almost no pressure. If you even turn you head too quickly, you will cut your own throat. The only reason it is still attached is that there is a tiny chance you are innocent of the reason I was sent to kill you. I want you to walk slowly into the dining area attached to the kitchen and move to sit in a chair. One struggle tells me you are guilty and you will loose your head, which would make an ugly stain on this nice carpet. I don't think you should do that, do you?"

"No, I hate stains," she said with more courage than he expected.

Once situated at the table, he zip tied her arms to the chair arms and ankles to the chair legs.

"Comfortable? I hope so. You get to tell me a story about how you manage to have plenty of money to live on, with no job, when your husband's estate should have run out long ago."

"Do you want the short version or the long version? I'll even give you the short version right now. Insider stock trading."

Mike stopped suddenly. It fit everything she did. She probably bugged executive meeting rooms and when they talked about problems or new and upcoming products, she could sell or buy stock before the market changed. He totally removed the wire, which was already loose. He even released her right hand.

"That just bought you some breathing room, and maybe a little more comfort. Are any of your ties binding you badly enough they really hurt? Would you like something to drink?"

She was floored. She was doing something highly illegal and she was being treated nicely? This obviously was not someone in law enforcement.

"I am fine, really. Umm, could I have some ice tea? There should be some made up in the fridge. Does that mean you are not going to kill me?"

"I really didn't like the contract. You didn't seem like an evil person to me. There is a very small chance that I will feel compelled to terminate you. In fact, I might be in a position to help you on certain things. You get to tell me the story of your like. I may ask a few questions. If I feel I am being lied to about anything, I will be compelled to use a truth serum I have. Unfortunately, it is slightly painful and if I have to give you too much, it has this sad tendency of making you extremely submissive. There is a small chance it could be a permanent affect. Therefore, unless you really want to risk being a slave permanently you probably want to stick to the truth no matter how bad or embarrassing. Fair enough?"