David Golemon - Ripper

“Alright, whoever you are, that’s quite enough.”

The man stopped and looked over at the very angry Alice Hamilton.

“Do what you came here to do and leave off with the cheap bad-guy antics. We’ve seen it all before and it hasn’t worked yet.”

The large man took a step back with a smile. “Just who in the hell are you people?” he asked.

No one at the table answered. Sarah bit her cut lower lip but held strong, even though for the first time in her life she didn’t feel it. As for Collins, he was now glaring at the man in front of him. He hadn’t muttered a single word.

“No matter,” he nodded at someone behind Jack. The next thing Alice and Sarah heard was the sound of a crack and Jack falling out of his chair. He hit the floor and tried to rise back up. Another man stepped up and slammed the collapsing stock of his weapon in to the back of his head once more, and Collins hit the floor, out cold. Sarah jumped from her chair and went to Jack’s side. She looked up and through the haze of her bruised and mangled eyesight started to glare at the man just as Jack had a moment before.

“Quite unexpected, wasn’t it?” the man said as he reached down and took McIntire by the arm and lifted her free of the floor. He shook her and then brought her close. “I am full of the unexpected, miss. Now, if you want to see these two alive again, you’ll do what needs to be done, or you’ll lose far more tonight than just your two friends here.”

“If you think—”

Sara stopped as suddenly as she had started when another man stepped up to the back of Alice and placed a gun to her head.

“I do think, miss; I think I have gained your full support in my endeavors here tonight.”

Alice snorted and then laughed. “Have you ever noticed these assholes have practiced speeches and smart-ass little soliloquies for moments in which they wish to impress people?”

The man smiled and wanted to laugh at the old woman’s bravado. “Jesus, lady, it would be a pleasure to shoot you right in the head.”

“Be my guest dickhead.”

The man allowed his mouth to go ajar for the briefest moment and then caught himself. He pushed Sarah into the arms of two men and then looked over at Alice.

“Please try something stupid. You will have the deaths of many people on your conscience if you do. I admire your spunk, but in my business ma’am, it gets your buddies killed. This isn’t a fictional setting where the colonel here is going to come off the deck and save the day.”

Alice smiled as the words were said. She could see that it made the man uneasy. He turned to follow Sarah and her escort out. He stopped and looked back at Alice Hamilton one last time and then whispered to the man following him.

“We’ll leave you one of the transport vehicles. I didn’t want to do this if I could help it, but leaving this man behind is something I would later regret; I know this for a fact. I’m afraid we have to kill them both. Wait fifteen minutes after we leave so we have time to get to the pawn shop and then meet us there after your duty is completed.”

The man, with Sarah in tow, left with the others following close behind.

The remaining mercenary raised his hood and looked at the unconscious Collins and then over at Alice. He raised the noise-suppressed handgun and smiled at her.

She returned the smile with one of her own.

Outside of the house the men entered three Chevy Tahoes and then left heading south on Flamingo Road.

Lynn Simpson walked past the assistant sitting at his desk and strode straight into Hiram Vickers’s office. She immediately saw the man wasn’t in. She slapped the file holding the report on Jack twice into her left hand and then turned to face the assistant as he came up behind her.

“He’s not in,” the smallish man said looking at Lynn.

“Did he go home?” She took a menacing step toward the man and he retreated.

“Uh, he checked out, that’s all I know.”

“Then I guess my next stop is the director of operations,” she said squeezing past the assistant. “I’m sure I can get the information I need from his immediate boss.”

The man swallowed and watched as Lynn quickly made her way to the hallway and the elevator beyond. Then he pulled his cell phone out of his coat pocket and selected the correct number. “Sir, the North American Desk was just here, and it looked like she had the Cassini tracking report with her. She said she was on her way to the ADO’s office. Yes, sir, let me see,” the man said and then crossed over to his desk and the rolodex there. He quickly spun the reel and hit on the name Vickers wanted. “Yes, sir, I have her cell phone number right here.”

Lynn was almost to the third floor when her cell phone chimed. She reached for the phone and saw that it was a private number. She shook her head and came close to not answering. She thought about Jack and Sarah and decided it may be one of them.

“Hello,” she said as the doors slid open on the third floor. She stepped out and waited.

“Ms. Simpson? Hiram Vickers, I understand you were looking for me?”

“Yes, we have some things to discuss, or rather you, me, the director of operations, and possibly the director himself. Does the ADO know that you are tracking a possible confidential military asset?”

“Military asset? Why no, we just picked a person at random, or rather Cassini did.”

“Mr. Vickers, if you think I’m going to buy that, you don’t know me very well or the duties of my desk.”

“Okay, I better come clean. Go to the director of operations and tell him what you found and he will explain everything. He’s new to the job, but he has been briefed on this tracking operation. Then we’ll sit down and discuss the test subject. How’s that sound to you?”

Lynn said nothing as she closed the cell phone and continued across the expensively decorated foyer. She saw the door to her own boss’s office, the director of intelligence, but his assistant wasn’t there and the area looked closed down for the night. She started to walk to the right side of the large office area and saw that the director of operation’s assistant was still on duty.

“Ms. Simpson, the director of operations is expecting you. Please go right in.”

Lynn looked at the woman and knew she had never seen her before. She and her boss were both new to the job. She was an older-looking lady whose smile never reached anywhere else on her face other than her lips. As Lynn walked past, she quickly lost her smile and then raised her right, well-groomed brow.

Lynn stepped into the office and a man of about fifty-five or so stood from behind a large desk. His hair was gray and he wore half-rimmed bifocal glasses, which he removed as he stepped forward. Lynn and everyone else at Langley had heard about Samuel Peachtree’s appointment from the Overseas Desk in London. And the placement of the man had infuriated not only CIA Director Harlan Easterbrook, but the president of the United States as well. The man’s appointment had been pushed through by the Senate Oversight Committee on Intelligence, led by Senator Giles Camden, one of the president’s staunchest enemies.

“Well, we finally get to meet,” Peachtree said as he came around the desk with his hand held out. Lynn saw the expensive suit, the harmless-looking bowtie, and the way the man stepped gingerly, as if he were walking on a cloud. Nonetheless she held out her hand. “I apologize for this thing getting past you, but being new to the job and all that—”

Lynn shook the man’s hand and felt uncomfortable when he placed his other hand over her own as his left hand shook hers. She didn’t like the feel of it.