Anne Fox - Camp Chaos

“Fuck that!”

“Then I suspect you’re going to like what Luigi will build for you.” He indicated the chair again. “Have a seat, Kat. This will probably take about an hour or so. Clara’s well-versed in wills for the soon-to-be departed. While you’re getting this done, I’ll go make sure we’ve got quarters ready for you. Clara will let me know when to gather you back up. Remember: anything you want here goes to David J. Garino. That includes anything you might want to decorate your quarters with, which you’ll find are quite spacious, so don’t be shy about that sort of stuff. Oh, and I need your handgun.”

“What the fuck do you need my 1911 for?”

“We’ve got to turn it over to the FBI, given it was issued. You see, it’ll get scraped up with the rest of your, quote, remains and go back to the Bureau. They’ll hold a nice ceremony for you, too.”

She was absolutely flabbergasted. “Do I get to go to this funeral?”

“No… way… in… hell,” he replied. “But we’ll get a video. We use it for our own little ceremony.” He held out his hand. She glared at him, unholstered her weapon, dropped the magazine and cleared the chamber, then handed it to him. “Thank you.” He smiled and ducked out the door.

“First thing you want to do,” Clara began, sliding a sheet of paper in her direction, “is write down anything you have that you want here.”

Shit. Can I even remember all the guns I have? “What if I can’t remember everything specifically?”

“It’s not a problem if it’s a collection,” Clara said. “So, for your guns, you can just say, ‘gun collection.’”

That simplifies things enormously. She wrote down “gun collection” on the sheet of paper. “Except for three of them,” she muttered. She indicated three of the guns to be set aside. Ruger Blackhawk, Stoeger coach gun, Winchester 1894 chambered for .45 Long Colt to Special Agent John A. Libbey, she wrote. He likes to go play cowboy at the range out in Edgewood, and he’s envied those guns forever, she thought . She sat back. What else? She tried to visualize her house, then wrote down the description of five pieces of artwork that hung on her walls, a set of woodcarvings that had been done by her father, and a mineral collection with the case that housed it. She was ready to slide the paper over to Clara, when she remembered something else. “And my down comforter,” she muttered, writing it down. She slid the paper across the table to Clara.

“These items go to David J. Garino,” Clara drawled out as she rapidly typed on a laptop in front of her. “Except for three of the guns, to Special Agent John A. Libbey.” Finishing typing, she announced, “Done. Now, what about the other things you own? I need to know everything except monetary items, like bank accounts, stocks, bonds, etc. We’ll handle those last.

“Let me tell you your options on your possessions. You can have them sold in an estate sale and have the money go to the R. J. Orozco Foundation, or if you like you can bequeath it to any charity you happen to like. Unless you have someone else you know who you’d like to give something.”

“I already mentioned the three guns. But what’s the R. J. Orozco Foundation?” Kat asked.

“That’s the account where we’ll be putting all of your money,” Clara said. “While you’re a part of the unit, you won’t be getting paid directly. That will be hard to do, as you won’t have your new identity until you resign or retire. So, we set up a dummy charity, which will at random times get contributions from people, quote-end-quote. That’s how you get paid. The money is invested in a secure portfolio, so by the time you either resign or retire, you’ll have a tidy nest egg to live off. Your pension will go into the foundation as well.”

“What if I want something?”

“Everything you need while serving in the unit is provided. Food, clothing, medical and dental care, and any tools of the trade. If you want something else, like, say, something for your apartment, then you order it from Mike, our quartermaster, and he’ll get it for you. The cost is then deducted from your pay.”

“Sounds good,” Kat said.

“Did Spud tell you what the pay is?”

“No. Just told me it would be more than I’m paid now.”

“Which I gather is around $140,000 a year, given you have six years’ experience as a Special Agent,” Clara said. “The pay for Field Team members is $250,000 per year, base pay.”

Kat looked at her wide-eyed. “You’re shitting me, right?”

“No, not at all.”

“And there’s practically nothing taken out of that?”

“Not even taxes,” Clara said. “It’s hard to tax someone who doesn’t exist.”

Kat shook her head. “That’s a… very nice pension plan.”

“The government doesn’t want unit members tempted. I gather you’ve been told that there are considerable risks involved in what you’re getting into?”

“Yeah, they strongly hinted that.”

“You’ve got a few days where the risk will be minimal, but after that you could die for real at any time. Training accident, mission-related event, or just plain natural causes◦– though the medical team is pretty good at determining who might fall into that last category. We did have one guy, though. Heart attack during a training exercise.”

Kat thought a moment, then said, “Sell it all. The house, too. Both my parents died of cancer, so give three quarters of the money to the M. D. Anderson Center, and if it can be earmarked for research, I’d like that. Give the remaining quarter to the National Endowment for the Arts.”

Clara looked at her and smiled. “Nice choices.” She tapped out more instructions on her laptop. “I’m going to assume you want any money, stocks, bonds, etc. to go to the Orozco Foundation?”

Kat thought a bit. “Yeah, I guess so. If that nest egg is as nice as you say it can be, I can always be a generous benefactor of some worthy charity when I retire.”

“Good thought,” Clara said, turning back to her laptop. “And just to let you know, if you were signed up as an organ donor, that will obviously be impossible to handle. The death scenes are always messy things, although fictitious. No organs in a condition to be donated. But if you want to donate your organs in the event you have an untimely death while serving in the unit, we can arrange that internally. Again, assuming you have organs in a condition to be donated and they can be harvested in time.”

Jesus, this is a gruesome topic! “Yes, I guess in the event of my untimely demise, it will be fine to use any organs capable of being used for someone who needs one.” She made a mental note to ask Spud about something when she got the opportunity.

Clara produced a document and said, “Then read this over, and sign at the bottom.”

As she read, she thought, God, I’m arranging my death. Deaths. I’m fucking twenty-nine years old, and I’m arranging my deaths◦– both of them!

Clara had turned her attention to a laser printer behind her, pulling sheets of paper from it as it printed. As she did so, she reached out and picked up a landline phone, punched out three numbers, and said, “Spud, we’re just about done here.”

Kat signed the organ donor document and observed, “Old fashioned land line? You guys don’t worry about it getting tapped?”

“The system doesn’t leave the building,” Clara said, turning with a sheaf of paper in her hand. “And it’s much more secure than cell phones. The unit doesn’t even want to risk the NSA knowing what they’re doing.” She passed the papers over to Kat. “Read this over, and if it’s to your liking, sign where indicated. If you want any revisions made, pencil them in and I’ll print up a new document.”