Chapter 7

"Indeed, it's always a paltry, feeble, tiny mind that takes pleasure in revenge. You can deduce it without further evidence than this, that no one delights more in vengeance than a woman."

[Latin - Vindicta Nemo magis gaudet quam foemina.]

Juvenal (Decimus Junius Juvenal) Satires (XIII, 189-191)

On the face of it, things seemed really hopelessly screwed up. The very first light of dawn was beginning to glow on my upstairs curtains and unless I managed to get my head out of my ass and come up with a plan fast it was very likely to be my last living day on earth. But I had a surprise new partner, a so-called Foole ... and for some reason I now felt a lot better about the chances. The odds were better now (if still not exactly good) ... but the goods were rather odd indeed as he seemed to be at least as crazy as I was!

I'd been in private security for a few years and knew a thing or two about good locks and the one I'd had installed at my front door should have been unpickable, but my early morning guest had opened it in a few seconds, and without leaving a scratch ... Scary. DeeDee had hinted that his friend was a bit of a ghost, but stories get exaggerated and professional resumes often get more than a bit inflated. The Foole was apparently quite for real and oozed cool confidence.

As far as he was now concerned, he was the senior partner in this new relationship and I was just local backup support. This suited me fine ... it wasn't like my clever planning so far to date had amounted to much anyway. My idea of battle planning tended towards 'Hey diddle-diddle, let's run straight up the middle' anyway, to put it in football terms. In other words, I preferred to trust to fate, luck and superior firepower and go charging in head-first with guns blazing. Screw subtlety!

Simple but stupid. Yeah I know ... but it's worked for me for years so why change up a perfectly good strategy now! On the other hand, unlike the Foole, I'd never had an entire criminal organization after my nicely tanned ass before. This situation of now playing second fiddle to a virtual stranger ought to have annoyed me, but instead it was a huge relief ... a twenty ton weight was now off of my shoulders.

The Foole seemed to have the vague outline of a plan as to how he was going to penetrate the high security Watters compound and plunder (or rather recover) this immense collection of black stolen art and since it didn't seem to involve me making any suicidal 'diversions' to clear his way, this suited me fine. Besides, I hadn't slept in days and was already way too brain dead to be even remotely clever this early in the morning.

Neither of us was used to working with a partner though, and things did seem a little bit strained here at the start.

"Pack up now anything you're ever going to want or might miss, because I've got a bad feeling that after today you're not likely to be returning here ever again, assuming that the house and its contents will even still be here, let alone in one piece. Do you own this place or rent ... and do they have full coverage property insurance?" He inquired, while helping himself to a second pint of deep dark delicious premium chocolate ice cream.

Yeah, I'd already been mulling that thought too! Too many people now knew where I lived and what my normal habits were. I was never going to be arrested or ever see the inside of a courtroom concerning Wally-Boy or Steve Morrison's disappearances, or concerning Chesty's too, for that matter. No, like that murderous threesome, I would just quietly disappear to be never seen again, but after a prolonged period of rather unpleasant interrogation probably involving unhygienic rusty dental equipment.

Thanks to the Miami-Dade police, and that fucktard Captain Roderick Baker, I was their prime suspect numero uno. Watters' money was being paid out by the truckload now to gunsels, mercs, private rent-a-cops, and the word was certain to filter down to street level to the thousand or so Miami area street gangs. If that wasn't enough, fat bonuses were already on the way to their well-paid police flunkies to help corral me up into their clutches and then turn a very blind eye to any irregularities that would occur afterwards.

Even if I skedaddled now and drove away in my car non-stop until I was at least three states away I could never stop looking back over my shoulder. That kind of money never sleeps and eventually one of the bastards would track me down, sooner or later. No ... it was better to face them down here and now!

Besides, I was just in the mood to kill a few dozen of these bastards and take them all down with me when I go! Snuffing Wally-Boy and his friends hadn't quenched my thirst for revenge much, if at all. The utterly insane idea of taking down probably the largest, richest and most powerful criminal organization in Southern Florida just made me tingle all over once more with anticipation. My odds of surviving this debacle still weren't good, but assuming I had a tomorrow (or even more unlikely a day or two after that) there were a few things here I'd want again someday ... assuming this place didn't get burned down to the coral bedrock!

A small album of family photos was packed first, then a few of my favorite t-shirts and other clothes items (nothing fancy), but for the most part, most of my two boxes of salvage were from the kitchen including my favorite cookware, baking pans and my set of good German hand-forged chef's knives. Other than that there really wasn't much in the small house that I'd miss. It was a rental and my landlord did have full insurance!

I couldn't take any of these things with me right now, but they could safely be added to the upper shelves of Mrs. Elliot's garage where I could quietly retrieve them someday. The rest of my stuff was all eminently replaceable. I added a few more last moment items into my boxes and stuffed the remainder of my ex-military equipment that Miami-Dade hadn't already taken into my work backpack. It wasn't much, but I could now move fast and light ... albeit mostly unarmed.

For the moment I was completely gunless, the Miami-Dade County PD having cleaned out my entire small arsenal of handguns and an old shotgun for testing, but I was hoping that reliable old DeeDee would soon have a friend located who could arrange an opportunity to purchase a replacement or two. The Foole seemed quite happy to be running around completely unarmed but I needed the cold comfort of a gun by my side. I didn't even have my taser anymore as it had gone with the other evidence into the deep waters of the Gulf.

This left me with nothing but my old Ka-Bar I'd gotten in Iraq from an old Marine Recon friend. I loved that knife enough that I didn't really want to be getting blood-stains all over it, but needs must when the devil drives ... or when Ree gets too pissed to care!

Packed and ready to run, it was now time to sit for awhile further and wait. The Foole still seemed in no hurry to dash off just yet and since I'd decided that I couldn't 'brain today', being too mentally and physically exhausted to think my way out of a wet paper sack, I took the time to just shut my eyes for a minute or two to take a power nap until he was quite done plotting our next step and was ready to go.

"You want Watters to still make the first overt move? To draw the first blood ... hopefully just figuratively?" He asked, and I nodded, eyes collapsed shut but too tired even to fall asleep.

"Very foolish! But I agree!" He laughed. "However, would your honor be equally upheld watching and waiting for the inevitable explosions somewhere else other than here? I'd rather not wait for the first strike and be still here in the house when it burns down. Perhaps a few hidden cameras could suffice for our actual presence, while we take some hot breakfast and make our plans elsewhere. Besides, you're packed and ready ... and I'm unpacked and ready, so let's blow this joint, figuratively now ... literally later!"

While I had been packing, the Foole had been rather busy as well. He'd come equipped with several small wireless cameras and motion sensors that he strategically placed to cover all of the entrances downstairs. Furthermore, from the way he giggled when he placed a pair of nondescript suitcases under both my desk downstairs and my upstairs living room sofa it wasn't hard to get the impression that 'blowing this joint' wasn't just a figurative term.

"I'm ready," I sighed, arising from the sofa to collect my two boxes and backpack, "or as ready as I ever will be. Let's go before the bad guys decide to blow everything up for us while we still have a ringside seat." I was dead-tired, still hungry and more than a little annoyed ... but none of these meant that I had to just sit here and wait for a few rocket-propelled grenades to come flying through my windows, or for a mercenary assault team wearing body armor to come crashing through both the front and back doors. Especially while I was still unarmed. I was used to being outnumbered, but I didn't like being outgunned at all!

"No worries.' He laughed, "Nothing will go boom, prematurely or otherwise, until we're a good ways away from here. Besides, I'd rather save that sort of rather personal reception for just the right variety of intruders. Now, scoot out the back door quick and make sure you haven't left anything that you don't want incinerated in a 5000+ degree conflagration!"

I was ready, and we almost even made it out the back door when the telephone rang just about the time the first real rays of sunrise starting coming through the windows.

I almost didn't answer it but I was right next to the phone in the downstairs kitchen with my hand almost on the back door knob. I was flat out of friends now and was pretty sure that my enemies weren't going to waste any time gloating or taunting me before trying to kill me. Still, knowledge is power ... and I was damned curious about who would be trying to call me at 6:30am in the morning. So I answered it.

"Good morning Ree. This line is secure and we can speak openly, within grounds." An old unpleasant voice from my sordid and very unsavory past politely hissed, like an overly loud whisper in a foggy graveyard and I knew in an instant that there was now a new very powerful and extremely unwelcome player in this game.

"There's probably nothing at all good about hearing from you again Norman. Besides, isn't my phone currently tapped?" I tersely replied. Just hearing his voice alone was enough to turn up my internal warning senses to an eleven. "Also, I thought we had some sort of understanding between us."

That was a bit of an understatement. I'd worked for Norman's company, Blackwell Security Services for nearly two years in Iraq and Afghanistan immediately after leaving the Army, and had been involved in several increasingly squalid and unnecessarily violent operations both there in the Big Sandbox and then back here in the states. More 'bad me'! I was pretty mentally fucked up in those days and had my morality switch turned to the 'off' position until I'd been involved in one illegal operation too many. I'd mention that I was also drinking far too much in those days too, but that would just be an excuse.

I'd just started to find and reset my moral compass again, a few months before Tori's death and I found the willpower to say 'No'! I'd tried to quit and walk away but Norman took my rejection and 'disloyalty' towards him a bit more seriously and he hired two hit squads in an attempt to make my retirement a bit more permanent. I'd shot faster and straighter and pretty soon he decided that hunting me down further wasn't particularly cost effective. Norman babbles incessantly about god, duty and honor, but first and foremost he worships the proverbial calf of gold ... with him it's always all about the almighty dollar. We'd then worked out a sort of détente, where he'd leave my ass alone – and I'd keep my mouth permanently shut about certain Iraq and domestic atrocities and class-A felonies I'd witnessed... and not feel a compelling need to pay him a personal private visit in the early hours of some morning.

This truce had held for the last three years, the time I'd needed to live more or less out in the open and find Tori's killer, but now at once I could sense that things were about to change, and not for the better. Like they say, someday all of the pigeons do come back home to roost.

"No, your phone line is clear ... for the moment, and I need to know now where you stand Ree." Norman slowly but clearly stated, talking the way he always did – like Moses dictating to his followers after he came down from Mount Sinai. That was probably Norman's main problem with life, he thought he was a born-again Old Testament prophet, full of God's own personal admonition to go and smite the ungodly ... vigorously. In my personal opinion, this was all just an excuse, as Norman's rather narrow moral code usually dictated that the 'ungodly' were just pretty much just anyone he'd been paid to go kill. His private security company was more or less a private mercenary army, and it had left a long trail of suspected illegalities that Congress and the DoD were just now starting to show a investigatory interest in.

There were even recent internet rumors that Norman might be moving his private gang of thugs and enforcers overseas to some shithole in either central America or a country in the Middle East to evade indictments over his numerous blatant breaches of multiple US and international laws. The alleged murder of civilians was just a starter – the corruption, money laundering and political dirty-tricks and murder for hire were all very real and the orders came from the man at the very top. No one ever pulled a trigger without Norman's direct orders.

If so inclined, I'd make an especially interesting witness for some Senate committee hearing about certain excesses I'd personally witnessed that were committed while under a DOD government no-bid contract in Iraq or Afghanistan, but then I'd have a life-expectancy measured in minutes from the moment I'd verbally agreed to testify. No one, not even the military, wanted that Pandora's Box opened. Everyone had too many secrets to hide, especially concerning nasty little problems that the government couldn't legally or morally handle ... so they'd have a private security contractor resolve the situation. Usually using lethal force in the early hours of the morning and making sure that there were no witnesses. Even now, taking that public course wasn't going to be an option ... and we both knew it. Besides, my own private dirty laundry was soiled enough that I'd never want it exposed to the light of day on some witness stand either.

"I don't stand anywhere Norman ... as far as I'm concerned there is no change to our private little arrangement. You don't need to be involved in my current little problems and we don't need to even be having this conversation."