Snatch

SOMETHING INCONCEIVABLE.    

SOMETHING SO HORRIFIC TERRORISTS FEAR IT.

ONCE UNLEASHED IT CAN’T BE CONTROLLED.

Brutal  kidnappings,  escapes,  huge ravaging  terror cells  from NYC  to Grand Cayman Island,  sex,  violence,  romance,  a secret Black Ops Presidential  agent,  a mole,  a biker  bar for terrorists ,  drug runners,  thieves and innocent bar patrons,  and  a  conflicted  killer  forging an  unimaginably  catastrophic  climax one mile beneath the earth.  

1.

He creeps  over the wall and freezes.  The woman is to be kidnapped, which means he probably has to kill the man inside. The night is calm. Peaceful as befits the dead hour.  

He’s usually best at quick hits. like killing from a distance with his sniper rifle. But he’s also expert at close up work. This  job though will take more time because two people  are to be dealt with instead of just one, and the woman being kidnapped  must not be harmed in any manner . This concerns him because  more time completing a job adds to the chance of something  going wrong. And something  going wrong  can get him killed, either during the hit, or later by the ones who hired him. They might try to rectify mistakes or wrong doings by killing him  afterwards to protect their own involvement.  Plus they are paying him twice his already exorbitant fee not to make mistakes.

His normal deep and meticulous private research reveals nothing alarming about his targets. They seem interesting, but in the end rather mundane.  Everything else about this job is a mystery.  Everything’s  a secret. He can dig up nothing about who is paying him or why. Not a word.  This bothers him.  To him nothing always means something bad. Even minimal instructions are passed to him in seemingly innocuous code, which then must be painstakingly deciphered.  All is handled through  individual cells or units in which no one in any cell knows anything about any other cell. It’s as if a ghost is instructing everything about this hit. It adds to a scary feeling he’s getting. And he doesn’t scare easily.

The house’s only other occupant is a dog. He loves dogs.  He tries to avoid killing anyone not  targeted, but will if he has to, even a dog.  

He eases away from the wall and  slinks  towards the slate patio running the length of the house. He stops  just outside the eight-foot French doors leading to a huge living room. With the overhead awning, he’s  in almost total darkness. Everything is quiet. The only loose cannon is that dog. It’s a Pit Bull and like all terriers, big or small, they don’t back away from anything.

Lately he  can’t  seem to focus. He’s  been killing for thirteen years, slowly building a perfect reputation. Now  he only takes big hits paying millions of dollars in advance.  But   he’s  getting sick of it.  All  he wants to do is disappear  with his  girl and forget everything. She’s only sixteen, pure in thought and deed. She knows nothing about his dark side. And he knows  thinking  about  her tonight  is foolish and  counterproductive. He collects  himself:  neutralize man and dog,  kidnap the woman. With that in mind,  he  slowly turns the patio door handle and steps  into the house.

The sound of a gun cocking registers just before lights blaze on.  

2.

EARLIER

MAY 15th

Craig Prescott  belongs to the Ocean Lawn and Tennis Club,  built at the end of the Civil War. It is located smack in the middle of vintage multimillion  dollar homes.  The area exudes quiet wealth.

He  goes  out back to the brick terrace stretching the full length of the Club. From there  he can see the grandly presented  tennis courts and a full cricket course. At one of the smaller tables  he  sees  his  ex-wife, Aileen, having a drink and discretely waving to him. We occasionally bump into one another as neither see any reason to give up our membership.  He walks over to her table.

"Aileen, how are you?"

"Hello Craig. I’m fine."

"I’m surprised to find you alone.”

" I’m waiting for my date. You?" Aileen  incongruously  toys with her tennis bracelet, given to her on their first anniversary. She looks directly at Craig.

"I’m just stopping  for a drink on my way home.”

 Aileen bites her lip,  and with a  heavy lidded look stares hard  at her former husband.

“Didn’t I hear you’re dating  Sally Thompson?  Where is she tonight? Straying with someone else?"

“Aileen,  as the queen of straying, I imagine you would know best.”

Aileen continues  toying  with the bracelet on her bare arm. “You were always working. What was a woman to do?”

Just then Dorman Mabrey, to me an overbearing  member of  the club,  sidles  up to press chaste lips to Aileen’s cheek “Am I interrupting?” he asks  as we  shake  hands.

"Nope, I’m just leaving,  Good to see you both.”  

Moving back inside to the bar,  I  spy  what has to be an apparition entering from across the room.  Christ ! The closer she gets the more I  can’t believe my eyes. It’s my  college flame,  Faye Riordan. The one who still occasionally haunts my sleep, even though I haven’t  seen her since college.  

We both  graduated  from a small,  New England college. While there we’re inseparable. She was  two years behind me and we probably would have married right out of college if we had been in the same class. Standing here now, I  feel  the same pull  towards her I felt all those years ago.

"Craig, is it really you?”

"It’s me, Faye. My God.  Where did you come from? Why…” My voice tapered into nothingness.  I must have  sounded  as incredulous as I  looked.

But by then we were hugging  and  kissing  enthusiastically, much to the delight of those at the bar.  

Faye still looked  like a tall Elizabeth Taylor,   a beauteous five foot nine to my six five,  making  us  a perfect fit.
But I had no time to look at her any longer. We had parted on the most mysterious of times and ways.

“ Where the hell have you been?” I said.   “Where did you go? What happened? Tell me and tell me now.”

For my part I didn’t need any help remembering the last time I saw her. We were attending a football game, surrounded by friends and family galore,  seated almost on the grass  in stands near the enemy’s goal line. Our team scored  and we roared along with everyone else, this being our home coming game and being underdogs as well. At cheers end, Faye leaned close to me, kissed me on the cheek and said she was going to use the ladies room. I said I’d stay and save our seats.  I saw her disappear into the crowd.

She never returned.

……

Shaking myself back from that remembrance,  I seated us at a small table in the rear of the club’s bar. Faye looked  down.  She couldn’t  meet my  eyes. “Craig I know I owe you an explanation,  more than I can say right here. What I’ve got to tell you will raise your hair, believe me. I just can’t tell you about it until we’re  alone.” She fiddled with her drink.  “ And even then I won’t be able to divulge  much.  At least not to your satisfaction. Before even doing that I’ve got to have authorization to do so. And I can’t  say who must give me authorization to go beyond any details, including  the who, what, where and why.”

She looked at me beseechingly. “ If  you can bear that, fine. If that’s not enough, I’ll have to say goodbye again. I don’t want to, but I’ll have to. Do we have a deal ?”

“Jesus , Faye. What did you get yourself  involved in?”

3.

Hours  after Faye’s  disappearance  from the football game, the police were still  baffled. Days passed and no signs or clues about Fay’s disappearance  were uncovered.  Years passed.  No results. And now I  see her at the Ocean Lawn and Tennis  Club. For Christ’s sake, what kind of coincidence is  that?  

The fact is, even before Faye’s  explanation of our running into each other at the club,  I knew it was no coincidence.  My last year of my three tours of duty  in the Middle East was spent in one of our intelligence branches. While there I learned there are no coincidences,  just accidental timings sometimes. And these never. So say my instructors.  And they were gods.

But I’ve got to have answers now. The hell with Faye’s reluctance to explain. No stalling. No holding back. No excuses.  Just the plain truth. At my insistence we hurriedly finish  our drinks and rush  out of the club.

As another  further coincidence,  we discover  we live on Dune Road just blocks away from each other. It seems Faye just moved in a couple of days ago. This  coincidence almost stymies  my mind,  but I’ll deal with that later.  Impatience is burning my skin.

Neither notice a non-descript  tan  car. Inside,  the hit  man,  the sole occupant,  has been studying them with binoculars.  Watching  them go into Faye’s home, he drives to Craig’s house  reconnoiters  it and the surrounding  houses. He finishes by climbing over Craig’s  back  stone wall  and going to the tall French patio doors leading to the living room. Then he hurries back to his car.
The only thing he can’t understand or get the smallest grip on, is why whack and kidnap these people?  In the few earlier hits he performed where he didn’t know the why’s and wherefores about his quarry,  the hackles on the back of his neck always stood up. But now the hackles really bristled , for he had further researched  these two and still came up with nothing that warranted such dealings from him. And as for the ones paying him, forget it. They left nothing he could even begin to research. This did nothing to lower his hackles.            

Given the huge fees he charged, there should have been some inkling, some publicity. something that would give him at least a clue as to why these two had been selected, one for kidnapping and the other probably requiring killing. True, the woman travels a lot, but always professionally,  and always  with her father, an archaeologist.  So her father study’s  ancient ruins and is a fully tenured professor.  So what?

The guy he probably would have to kill before the woman could be snatched,  Craig Prescott, served three tours of service in the Middle East. But again, so what?  Lots of guys  did. Craig  had  a fistful of medals, but all combat related. He either killed his adversaries or saved a couple of other buddies. Certainly nothing to whack him for. And now he was living quietly on Philadelphia’s Main Line.

All this bothered his gut. Plus there was the ultra secret codes and instructions  as what he was to do and how he was to do it. Why all the overdone secrecy? It wasn’t necessary. He’d  enumerated to his handlers  quicker ways to do things.  Why turn them down in favor of such  difficult and extreme secrecy methods?  The CIA  probably couldn’t even penetrate these.  What was going on?  

More worrisome, now that he could give it his full attention, was  such secrecy might encourage his bosses  to eliminate him to guarantee all secrecy. Of course he went to extreme pains to inform his bosses of his many fail safes guaranteeing his safety before, during and after any engagement with him. He was  so talented,  once a contract was in play, it was inviolate.  So the best way  to guarantee safety and secrecy was the old MADD principle. Mutual Assured Destruction of each other if anything, anything, resulted in either side trying to get cute. Better to live with the professionalism they knew rather than take unwarranted  risks. Still, his instincts told him if there was the perfect opportunity arising in front of these bosses, whoever they might be, they’d be sorely tempted to take it and kill him.  To them, secrecy seemed to matter the most following a successful hit.

……

Back at Faye’s house,  Craig remembered the long days and nights following her disappearance.  There were no sightings or signs of Faye at all. The earth seemed to have swallowed her. Craig  and all others were beyond bafflement.

 He  entered a kind of nether world where everything and anything was possible. Such as people capable of dissolving, or developing the gift of flight. And that old catch all: alien abduction. Friends told him later he seemed to enter a temporary functional coma.

But now that Faye was back,  he followed her to her house for answers.  Once there, Faye hurriedly poured  drinks and we finally sat down to talk.  Mainly she talked a little and I asked a few questions.  Soon he discovered the questions she couldn’t or wouldn’t  answer were governmental in nature,  and she was forbidden to discuss anything further under the strictest  sanctions. She promised Craig she’d probably be able to disclose all in a few days, but until then she mustn’t talk about hardly anything related to her disappearance,  or what she’d been doing these intervening years. All she could  say is POTUS, the President Of The United States, was personally involved.  And this country, indeed the world, is to face an imminent terrorist threat this month,  probably on May Day.  And Faye’s disappearance was originally linked to this threat during that long ago football game.  Faye doesn’t know what kind of terrorist threat it is, only that it must be newer and  deadlier than anything ever encountered  or even thought  about before.

We had more drinks while Faye, now enthused to a fever pitch,  went on and on, occasionally deviating from a coherent time line. We were  both exhausted from the day’s  rigors and the drinks that now hit us forcefully, since  neither has  had dinner. I called a halt to asking and getting nothing.  So I  whispered  we go to bed and call it a night. This, of course,  despite our exhaustion,  got us into a fever pitch, and added to more activities,  leading to a deeper than normal sleep.

4.

Early next morning the doorbell rang. Excessively and forcefully, but probably necessary to awaken us. Then I didn’t  see Faye until she entered  the room, wearing sandals, Bermuda shorts and a loose blouse.

Faye went to  a window and looked  out.

"There’s a uniformed man standing out there with an oblong box. He’s at the front door. It looks like I have to sign for something. I’ll run down and get it.  Why don’t you jump in the shower and join me downstairs.  I’ll make you a big breakfast. Judging from last night you probably need it." With that she exaggeratedly hip swayed  out of the room.

"It’s probably just Tom Hanks with his ball, Wilson. Still trying to  deliver his Air Express package. I’ll be right down," I yell.

Shaving and showering, I’m forced to wear last night’s clothes.

" Here I come" I sing out as I descend the stairs, “ready or not." I feel a pleasant breeze blowing through the bottom floor. For some unexplained reason,  a knot forms in my stomach.

5.

The front door is wide open. Faye is nowhere to be seen. I call out. No answer. Thinking she’s in the kitchen, I go there. No Faye. And there’s no Faye anywhere else inside the house either.

This leaves the back yard. I can see a brick patio partially covered by an awning. This is where she is, I’m sure. She’s probably planning a breakfast on yon expanse.

Only one problem. No Faye anywhere. I start to feel more of that sickening wrenching in my gut. My God. Not again. Not after we’d found each other again. Surely it isn’t happening again. It can’t.  I go to the front door to check everything, to see if there’s an oblong box the delivery man  might have left in the driveway. No dice. No box. No delivery message stuffed anywhere. Nothing. Nada.

By God she’s vanished. Gone.

6.

I don’t know what to do. So I go home, deciding I’ll give it a little more time before panicking. I shave and change clothes. I feed Finnegan, my American Pit Bull Terrier. Then I think maybe Faye is at a neighbor’s house.  Or shopping for more breakfast rolls. Maybe it’s as innocent as all that. But my gut still thinks otherwise. She’s gone missing just like before.  And I don’t even truly know why or how she went missing then. I think I know,  but what has engrossed Faye these past years is largely unknown to me. And in  between making love and having more drinks all night long, we both fell into deep sleeps. We just drowned ourselves in the present. By morning, even our lips are numb, aching and swollen. But boy oh boy, what a great feeling.

Sheepishly, I call the police. I end up talking with a detective named Gene Rainville. He tells me a missing person’s report isn’t taken seriously until forty-eight hours have passed. So much for getting on with tracking the missing all at once. Why not wait for a year or more, I think sarcastically,  to make sure the trail  is really cold?

I get in my car and drive back to Faye’s. When I get there, I look around and then ring Faye’s front door bell. Just testing it. It still works fine. The front door’s  unlocked so I go into her house and futilely call her name. No dice. I look high and low for her. Still no Faye. I comb the backyard. Same thing. Nothing. I go onto the front circular drive. I see something I overlooked before, barely sticking out from under one of Faye’s car’s tires. I pull it out. It’s a casual shoe, a Top-Sider, almost completely covered by the tire. The fact that Faye is now half barefoot increases my dread.

I go back inside and see Faye’s purse sitting on a hall table.  Now what woman goes anywhere without her purse? No gal I know. I go through the purse looking for a lead, anything that will help me find her. I certainly am not waiting any forty-eight hours for the cops to get the ball rolling. I’ll start it myself.

I find Faye’s laminated social security card, driver’s license, health insurance card and the rest of the detritus women carry for God only knows why.  If Armageddon hit it wouldn’t only be the lowly cockroach that survives; it would also be women’s  purses and what is in them. It took Christ three agonizing days to come down from the Cross, and even He had help from his Father, God.  Yeah, the Big Guy. But women could come down in minutes if they had their purses with them. One would be the new Eve. Makes me wonder who the new Adam would be.

But I find something else, too. A .25-caliber pistol nestled at the bottom of her purse.

Loaded, Locked and Cocked. Ready to fire.

7.

Last night, when Faye and I met up again,  my former  wife, Aileen, and Dorman Mabrey,  went to dinner by themselves.  She returned  home with him around midnight.  He knew he’s going to spend the night.  Aileen’s dates always stayed  the night. She preferred this and can’t abide sleeping alone. She liked her coupling in continuous bursts from various burstees.

They go inside, made drinks and carried  them upstairs to Aileen’s bedroom.  Neither noticed the extra shadow in an adjoining bedroom.  This killer- kidnapper is apart from the one designated to hit Craig and his woman. Secrecy demanded they know nothing of each other and what has to be done.  This one’s  mission tonight is clear. No killing.  Just kidnap  Aileen.  The shadow  takes a cloth from his back pocket. The cloth is already soaked in chloroform, and if things get rough he also carries a sap. He steps into Aileen’s room.

Mabrey,  known for his extreme fastidiousness,  is in the bathroom and Aileen is turning down the bed, with her back to the bath. The intruder closes the gap between them and clamps the chloroformed cloth over Aileen’s face. She jerks upright and struggles mightily.  She claws, scratches, tries to turn, and throws an elbow backwards, catching him in the gut. She breaks free.

Panting, she views his face up close.  He curses, not knowing his fate is already sealed.  This  job  demands quickness for success. Plus  he’s been seen and that is not tolerated by the Pay Masters. His handlers will have him killed when he completes his job.  Aileen, of course, knows nothing of this.  Lips pull back from her mouth in a snarl as she obeys the fight or flight reflex flooding her body, the overwhelming urge of self-preservation. This strongest primeval call of all gets her to attack with a vengeance.  Only one problem here.  She attacks a guy much bigger and stronger, and seconds ago she’d inhaled a big dose of chloroform. But she still feels she’s got a shot at getting away anyway. She believes she’s trickier and can fool him.  She stumbles. The intruder grabs her.  She throws a jujitsu punch at his ribs, which are wide open. She connects and he howls in pain. She rips another hit into a sore rib just starting to heal from an earlier injury. He howls in pain even more,  cursing. But enough is enough. She finally collapses from the chloroform and falls right into the man.  He throws her onto the bed.  Her last coherent thought is she’ll call out to Dorman, but shower sounds and his singing in the shower tell her that’s no good.  Ohhhhhhhhhhhh . Of all the times for him to grt clean…

The intruder  pulls out a cell phone and barks one word into it.  A van parked two streets over obeys the command and drives slowly towards Aileen’s house. At this moment Dorman rushes into the room,  eyes distended,  face red , sweaty, and scared.

“You took long enough” said  Dorman to the intruder.

                              ……

Since Faye’s still missing, I decide to canvass the neighborhood on my own. But no one has seen anything out of the norm. Returning home, I spot Dorman Mabrey walking his dog, a big young Akita, very friendly.  Dorman  stops and says something odd. It doesn’t register with me until later that day when I am partaking of the soothing liquid from the juniper bush. Ahhh, but the sweet feeling it normally brings is lost today. I’m scared to death about Faye disappearing. What the hell happened to her to bring on such vanishing.

I review a comment Dorman  made, and about his Akita dog and Faye. He said  his dog is a real strong puller, but he bets that Faye could handle him even though the dog weighs about ninety pounds and is all muscle. Now how in hell  would he know Faye is uncommonly strong? The only time I’m aware Dorman  saw  her was  on the dance floor last night.

A little seedling started to grow within me. That and the rather opaque look Dorman got in his eyes when I told him I went to the police. That comment and his eyes sent  a quick involuntary flash to me, a message I don’t fully get  then. Only later does it scratch at my brain.

Scratch, scratch.

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

The following day Faye is packing us a picnic lunch while I sit cogitating about the best way to kick the bee hive at the biker bar. I soon discover that Faye packs a delicious and varied lunch. This is because it consists of going into the village to the Old Gourmet Shoppe and choosing varied goodies supplemented by a couple of bottles of wine.  She evidently decides the rule book on stakeouts doesn’t have to correspond with tastelessness. Ahhh, music to my ears to say nothing of my stomach.

We unpack our goodies onto an oversized blanket and settle back. We’re about a quarter mile away on a slight rise giving us a good view of the bar. Each of us is sporting binoculars to further enhance up close viewing. If discovered, we hope to be taken as bird watchers. We no sooner settle down then a car drives up to the biker hangout and out steps, of all people, Pam Barbie and her companion, Calvin Coolidge. Pam is wearing real short Hot Pants, while Calvin is wearing a cut-off shirt showing muscular tattooed arms. They go into the bar.

Talk about kicking the bee hive to stir things up. We no sooner unwrap the first of our goodies, when an unearthly shriek rips out the front bat wing doors. A second blood curdling scream, one combining rage and pain, comes out piercing the shriek. Then, like throwing a switch, all sound ceases.

I decide this might be the perfect time to penetrate the bar. I tell Faye to repack everything and get our own bike ready to roll. I trot down our tall grassy knoll and head right for the bat wing doors.

I enter hell.

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

Remembering my special ops training, I immediately count the number of guys in the room and weigh what they’re doing. This only takes a couple of seconds. There are eight bikers and most are lining up to rape Pam who is thrown onto the room’s pool table. Her shorts are pulled down to her ankles. She’s grunting and trying to kick a biker who is attempting to pull those  shorts over her ankles. Two other bikers are holding down each of her arms. A fourth biker is up on the table on all fours, waiting to enter her as soon as the shorts come off. He turns his head to look and see how the other biker is doing with those shorts, and this is when he sees me. He makes a gargling sound that is indistinguishable from the clapping and cheering rooting him on. His fat hairy ass is pointed straight at me now. What a target.

On my second stride, I grab a pool cue from its rack, and as luck would have it, it’s already been shortened into a fine weighted weapon. A club supreme. Holding it by its lighter end, I smash it into a biker who’s closest and starting to turn into me. I hit him with a hard-backhand smash right across the bridge of his nose. He drops like a stone in water. Such a hit might well be a kill shot, possibly driving bone right into his brain. At the very least, his life’s going to be a teeter totter one from this moment forward. One down. Seven to go.

The guy who’s been trying to get Pam’s shorts over her ankles, finally succeeds. He raises those little white things over his head and roars with accomplishment. The remaining six roars with him. He blindly swivels his head around, and at the apex of his holding the shorts aloft, I swing as hard as I can and connect with his chin. Bone cracks and teeth spew over his feet. Not pausing, I use my backhand again and catch another biker squarely across his throat. This guy’s Adam’s apple is ruined, and he too drops, trying to get any air anywhere down his wind pipe. Two more down, five to go.

Of the two bikers, each holding an arm of Pam’s, one is facing me and one isn’t. The one facing makes a move towards his belt, which he never finishes. I’m two long strides from him, and I know if he finishes his move towards his belt, I’ve probably had it if out comes a gun. So, I flip the shortened end of the pool cue towards him and jam it into his left eye. He lets out what I have never heard before: a squealing shriek. That’s the only way I can describe it. I’ve heard pigs squeal and all sorts of animals and men make ungodly sounds when wounded or dying, but nothing like this. It makes the sixth biker jump with fear. This gives me an advantage over him. One on one I can probably take anyone. I reach this guy who’s still confused over the squealing shriek. I put him out of his confusion by viciously smashing him across the back of his neck, then kneeing him as hard as I can in the face as he slumps towards the floor. Five and Six accounted for. Only two to go.

These two have been holding Calvin against the wall. His face is a bloody lumpy mess. The two bikers see me coming towards them and without even looking at each other, bolt out the back door. Without waiting for them to cross the threshold, I whirl around to protect my back. No one coming. No threat from any quarter.

I go over to Pam who is still lying on the pool table on her back. She seems to have passed out. Her head is ringed in blood. I look at it and it seems limited to a scalp cut. They bleed a lot but are not life threatening. From her mouth oozes drool and spittle. I shake her gently and she seems to come around. I retrieve her shorts and give them to her. I turn my back while she gets into them, with her lightly holding my shoulders while she does so. At this time, Calvin staggers toward us. I say we all should get out in case reinforcements are on the way to help their brothers. They both nod a vigorous yes.

Just as we get to the front bat wing doors, Pam stops. She spies another shortened pool cue, grabs it and heads back to the pool table. The biker who was about to be the first to enter Pam once her shorts are torn off, is still there on all fours. I evidently over looked him He looks with blubbering horror at the approaching Pam, who reaches him and delivers a vicious stroke across his ass. The swing is so hard it drives into the biker’s testicles. His face turns ice white and without making a sound he collapses onto the table. Pam steps around to his head and delivers a Mickey Mantle swing to the guy’s head. Not content with that, she delivers six more pile driving swings to each side of the guy’s head. When she finishes, he’s finished.

We all leave the bar. Calvin loads Pam into the front passenger seat of their car, then gets into the driver’s seat and slowly drives away.  I decide to go back into the bar and see if I can collect identities or any intelligence papers. Anything that might point us toward the bomb or the central cash pool and its inhabitants.

As I go back in, the first guy I hit upon when I entered the bar a couple of minutes ago, is starting to try and get up. With no time for niceties, I kick him in the temple and he goes out. Not wanting to raise further speculation about who we are and why we’re there, I go through any back-pocket wallets and cell phones I can. After a quick examination, I leave them where I find them. At one of the bikers near the pool table, I strike gold. This dumb ass has an Arabic identity card behind his American driver’s license. Oh, well, who said all or any of the terrorists doing wet work operations are smart. If they were, they wouldn’t be brain washed into doing this.

I reach into my own fake identity wallet and extract tiny stickers. I insert these into the depths of as many billfolds as time allows. These will electronically enable us to track and see these guys virtually anywhere they go.