Chapter 14

The hiding place that Fred Gottfried chose for me was pretty far out and off the beaten path. It wasn’t in the wilderness like Breaker’s valley, but it wasn’t someplace that you would find on an old Mobil Oil Company Travel Brochure.

We landed in the dark and were met and whisked away without losing a second. Fred and his two partners were very uptight as we deplaned and then I was grabbed under each arm and half carried to the regulation, black government Suburban. All three had their guns out before the jet was fully shut down and kept them out until we were inside the car and accelerating away from the hangar. Once we were clear of the airport, Fred dialed a number on his special phone and when a voice answered, he simply said, “we’re here,” and hung up.

Putting his phone away seemed to take a long time and I watched him to see if his hands were shaking, but there was no evidence of it that I could see. He saw me paying attention to his discomfort, and said, “We are not going to have any more of what happened to you and Breaker.” After the way we were pursued in the valley, I doubted his words.

As we were chauffeured by a nameless FBI Agent, to some secret place, Fred grilled me about the shootings. His questions always came back to who I shot and why. He had a sneaky way of circling back, but it was like he was always trying to catch me in a lie so he could dismiss Breaker’s reports of the first shootout and go back to thinking of me as a helpless, useless, child.

Even as he poked at my version of events, one of his partners produced a kit and took a wax sample off my palm and confirmed that I had fired some type of firearm in the last day.

I thought that being faced with the proof off my palms would put the whole subject to rest, but it turns out that disproving that I could and would use a firearm to defend myself, wasn’t the mission at all. “Breaker gave us chapter and verse about your courage and skills, Ross. I have a handgun for you, but you need to keep it hidden and pretend it doesn’t exist unless and until the wheels were to come off of this – again. Then you need to pull this puppy out and do whatever it takes to keep alive.

“If it comes to you needing this gun, we’ll be already dead, which means that you’re on your own. If you need to shoot, then shoot to kill. Do it until it’s done and you will survive like you did out in the desert.

“I can’t officially give you a firearm, but since none of us had any idea that you kept one of the attackers’ guns on your person, if you had to use it, you would naturally confirm that you carried the gun from the attack in the valley and none of us knew a thing about it.

“OK?”

Of course it was OK. I took the gun, checked to make sure it was loaded and safe, and tucked it away under the sweatshirt that one of the Army guys gave me against the night air.

No more was said about firearms after that.

We were driven to a farm, well out in the country. It looked like Kentucky, or Tennessee, but might have been in very rural, southwest Virginia. The farm house was stout and sturdy. It wasn’t much to look at, but neither is a battleship. In both cases they were built to be strong not sexy.

Once we were inside and safe, I was shown to a second floor interior bedroom, with no windows, where I found my wheelchair and some other things the FBI, or more likely, Sienna, thought I might need. Take-out food was delivered to my room still in the Styrofoam containers and I was left alone.

It gave me lots of time to think.

The days spent with Breaker out in the desert air must have been good for me, because I felt much better than at any time since I dropped into Ross’ broken body. The scars and evidence of broken bones, burns and gouges would never disappear but, as the days went by they began to lighten and fade.

Thinking about Breaker and how protecting me got him killed, led me down the road to all the people whose lives ended, or were damaged due to the lives I lived. Hazel Thompson was a ghoul, and deserved whatever ugly end fate and the universe decided to dish out to her. The people who paid for the chance to torture Ross were just as evil, and their deaths should be just as ugly. The world was an ugly place and ugly people did ugly things. It was hard for me as a man to care about the price evil paid for their sins.

However...

If the universe saw fit to allow me to throw the switch, pull the trigger, or otherwise end that bitch, I was all for it.

Thoughts of Hazel must have really gotten to me. When I shook myself out of the daze I was in, my hands were shaking with rage, not pain, or fear. Hazel started all of this, but every single person involved in coming after me deserved a painful end. I was thinking something very tricky to pull off. Maybe it was time to invite them to come closer and make sure they can’t walk away where we’re done. I spent the next four hours plotting out a plan.

For three days we sat around the farmhouse, kept away from windows, didn’t go out, and basically hibernated. Fred Gottfried received regular reports from his office, and I didn’t receive a single inquiry from Doctor Halberstadt, Sienna, or Jeanette. That surprised me, until I realized that they wouldn’t have been given a phone number to call for fear of tipping off the people coming after me.

On the fourth day I got a visitor.

Fred came to get me. “Ross, there is a very important person here to see you. The gentleman was brought here by my bosses and he says he must see you alone...” He said it like he couldn’t possibly understand how it could be true. His perplexed expression was enough to raise my guard, and I made sure I had my gun carefully hidden, but fatally available. Fred saw my fearful expression and promised to remain nearby, no matter what.

He was waiting for me in the front room of the farmhouse. “Ross, My name is Calen Arthur. I am the State Attorney General.”

He was older than he was in Ross’ memories. Calen liked to use his penis like a bludgeon against Ross’ unlubricated rectum and ride the blood all the way in. When Ross’ screams were louder than the ball gag could hold back, the tortured cries always triggered his orgasm, and he would come, screaming obscenities with a strangled groan.

If he was here, he came to find out if I could identify him, which meant he was prepared to kill me and all three FBI agents.

He sat down across from me, studying my eyes for signs of recognition. My face was as flat as Twiggy’s chest. The hate was seeping through my veins, but under control ... even if just barely. Calen Arthur was a monster and probably sent the people who killed Breaker and his brother.

He was speaking and I almost missed the worst news. “ ... Jeanette was shot while walking to her car at the State Attorney’s office...” Whatever came out of his mouth after that was lost to me. He had Jeanette killed! That meant Sienna and Sondra weren’t going to be far behind. And that meant they intended to kill both judges and Doctor Halberstadt.

The pressure was building up behind my eyelids and that meant that I was either going to shoot him in cold blood, right here in the farmhouse, or break down and cry ... maybe both. Fred was standing just out of Calen Arthur’s sight, behind the doorway. He already had his gun out. At least I had one person on my side.

At least I hoped so...

Eventually the monster stopped talking. He seemed to be waiting for me to say something that would give the game away, so he could start shooting.

Then I realized that he had this fixed ahead of time, which meant that someone in the house was here to make sure none of us survived. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t quickly think of a way to warn Fred and the others, but I wondered if I sacrificed myself, could he react fast enough to stop whoever else was there to kill us.

“ ... when you used to bang your thing against my bottom, I already knew you were getting ready to hurt me...” I spoke as softly as I could and still make sure that Fred heard. “It took me a long time to understand that you couldn’t get an erection without playing with yourself, while torturing me, before you could get hard enough to go to work on me.

“The pain you caused me wasn’t just while you raped me, Mr. Arthur. I didn’t only bleed while you sodomized me. I bled for days after you left your filth inside me...”