David Golemon - Ripper

“You bet,” she said returning the smile.

Everett watched her leave to follow the CDC people being herded by Mendenhall back to laboratory number 700-2—the chemical and viral containment clean room.

Everett only hoped the expensive laboratory held up to its impressive name.

Director of Operations Samuel Peachtree angrily closed his door and turned on Hiram Vickers. He paced to his desk but didn’t sit down. He made sure to reach under his desk and switch off the office recording device.

“Do you think that was low key?” he asked angrily, placing his hands squarely on his desk and leaning far enough forward that Vickers thought he would fall over.

Hiram took the anger in stride. “I did what was necessary.”

“Those two people were not only citizens of the United States, they were fellow agents. How could you allow this to get to that level of dysfunction? All you had to do was follow protocol and inform her desk of the fucking test!” Peachtree angrily straightened and turned toward his office window, looking out into the woods surrounding the complex at Langley. “It’s such a natural function of your office that she probably would have ignored it.”

“Not her type. She’s one of those people who happen to take her job seriously, thus we couldn’t allow her to see we were tracking a possible American military asset.”

Peachtree turned so suddenly that Vickers was impressed with the old man’s agility.

“That is exactly my point you idiot. She was good at her job, which was why trying to sneak this test by her desk was a moronic move! We could have explained it far better if a goddamn spotlight hadn’t been placed on it.”

“Regardless, the problem has been solved.”

“May I remind you that our job with this new department is to gather corporate intelligence through the use of the Black Teams, not the killing of innocents? If you can’t do that without killing people you work with, we obviously chose the wrong man for the job,” he hissed as he glared at Vickers.

“If that’s the case we better stop our Black Team in Nevada because they just eliminated one hell of a lot of American citizens for the same exact reason I did — self-preservation, Mr. Director of Operations. Sometimes the money collected comes with hidden costs,” Vickers countered.

The director of operations managed to ignore the comment about money, as that was the dirtiest part of their covert operations — the gathering of wealth. It wasn’t just for themselves for their hard work and patriotism, but because utilizing the Black Teams was an expensive proposition. The older man calmed visibly as he tried to put his house back in order.

“Now, this Lynn Simpson just happened to be a favorite of Director Easterbrook.”

“You sent her to me in Georgetown. How was I to interpret that?”

“You idiot, I knew what you had planned; the point is you let it get that far!”

“Do you want to cancel with the British?”

Peachtree exhaled and slowly sat down in his large chair. “Of course not. Things have progressed too far for us to end up with nothing. Who in the hell would have thought that the CDC had a lab in place in Nevada? Order Mr. Smith to get this business over with and get out of there, preferably without anyone else dying.”

Hiram Vickers stood while buttoning his jacket. “Have you a list of this Simpson woman’s next of kin? We don’t want someone coming out of the woodwork asking too many questions. As it stands she was ambushed in Georgetown by unknown elements and the technician just disappeared — happens all the time.”

Peachtree looked down at a file on his desk and opened it.

“Well, the girl has parents living in Wyoming; they shouldn’t be a problem. Ms. Simpson has a mother in Texas, no other next of kin.”

“See, if you don’t panic everything works itself out.” Vickers smiled and then turned and left the office.

The director of operations watched Vickers leave and then looked at Lynn Simpson’s picture in her file once more. He shook his head as he remembered the beautiful face of the young woman.

“At least she’ll only leave behind a grieving mother and no one else.” Peachtree closed the file and slid it away from him.

“Pity.”

The man talking with the four Las Vegas police officers didn’t feel the eyes on him from across the street. Jack Collins ripped the bandage away from his forehead, not feeling the pain of the tape Alice and his mother Cally had applied earlier. He watched as another man came from the deepest reaches of the pawn shop to join in the conversation with Las Vegas’ finest. Jack watched as another policeman examined the large hole in the wall on the left side of the shop with a flashlight and then walked back around the building to join his fellow officers. The two strangers were gesturing and laughing with the officers as if they had merely had a break-in at the Gold City Pawn Shop.

The employees signed a report and Jack watched as the police returned to their cars, shut down their overhead lights, and then drove away, being watched until they were out of sight down the road. The two men turned and reentered the shop, placing the closed sign in the door. With one last look around they locked it and pulled down the shade. It was completely understandable after a break-in to shut the doors for repairs. There was only one problem: Jack knew these men weren’t a part of his security team.

Jack ducked back behind a large van, reached behind him, and pulled the nine millimeter from his waistband. The weapon had been given to him by Alice, and Jack had taken it with the knowledge that Alice was one of the better-armed elderly ladies in Las Vegas. Before he left the house he made sure both she and his mother Cally were properly armed. Jack pulled back the slide and made sure the weapon had a round in the chamber. Then he straightened and crossed the street after a short burst of traffic passed by.

In the twenty minutes Collins had watched the shop, he had only seen the two men inside the shop. He realized that the kids he had spent the past five years training for their security positions were all more than likely dead. He just hoped they had taken as many of those bastards down as they could. As he made it across the street, he slid past the overhead street light, made his way to the right side of the building, and slid along the brick wall toward the first of the two blast holes in the building. He stayed on the far side of the three-and-a-half-foot break and stayed against the wall, waiting.

He knew that the imposters would have to cover the hole eventually, and as he didn’t just want to knock on the front door, Jack waited. It didn’t take long. As the light inside the shop filtered through the man-made hole, he saw a shadow, and then as he leaned forward slightly, a piece of cardboard was placed over the hole. Jack reached out and with his left hand made a scratching noise on the makeshift patch the man was using to seal the hole. Suddenly the light inside flared as the man pulled the cardboard away. Jack almost had to smile when the mercenary stuck his head through the hole.

“Hi,” Jack whispered as the man’s eyes widened to the point of popping free of his skull. The momentum of the barrel of the heavy nine millimeter caught the mercenary squarely on top of his head. He collapsed and Jack easily pulled him free of the hole. With one look toward the street, Collins raised his right foot and brought it down on the unconscious man’s neck, crushing the windpipe and severing his spine just below the jawline. Collins reached down and pulled the man along the alley and then placed the lifeless and broken body beside the Dumpster, silently covering him with discarded cardboard and newspaper. He then returned to the hole.