The Retrieval... Ch. 03

Finally, she wiped her face off and reached in her pocket and pulled out a zippo lighter. She held the lighter in one hand and reread the last few lines of the letter one more time. She sparked the lighter to life and then set the edge of the paper on fire. She held it up and watched it burn until it was mostly ash and too hot to hold any longer.

She let it go and watched the ashes flutter away and fall into the water.

"Okay, Rack," Leah quietly said out loud. "I promise."

****

Epilogue:

"That is simply unacceptable," Mr. Smith sighed into the encrypted cell phone.

He continued to listen to his lawyers talk over each other into their speaker phone. These last three days had been a nightmare. He probably should have seen this coming. Earlier in the week he was shocked when the evening news reported that the Congressman had dropped dead of a stroke. His first selfish thought had been that the old man's death might not be a good thing for his future. Wow...had that been an understatement. The old man kicks the bucket, nobody from The Council bothers to call and let him know and before the body is even cold - every fucking aspect of his life starts turning to shit.

First his accountant called that next morning and announced that the IRS was hitting him with a full scale audit - both professionally and personally. Okay. Not the end of the world, but the timing seemed odd. Later that same morning he gets a call from the local authorities in New York informing him that his summer home in the Hamptons had burned to the ground. Not a single item in it salvageable...which of course he assumed included the 1.25 million in unreported, untraceable cash that he had hidden in the wine cellar. Oh, what was that? You say the blaze had been so intense and burned so fast that the Fire Department was going to go ahead and launch an arson investigation? Of course they were.

That was followed up the next day with a call from the manager of his distribution operation in Maryland. It seems that OSHA had stopped by for an unannounced full-scale inspection. Not completely unheard of, but not exactly standard operating procedure either. Surprise, surprise - they just happened to find multiple safety violations. Major violations. The kind of major violations that totally shut down his operation pending further investigation. Perfect...just perfect.

Smith had absolutely no proof, but every bit of his recent 'bad luck' smacked of the ever so subtle backlash from The Council. Well, he wasn't going to just roll over. He made phone calls. He sent emails. He showed up in person demanding a face to face meeting....and nothing. He finally received one return phone call. He was advised by an anonymous attorney that the associates from his social circle thought it was perfectly reasonable to expect him to weather this storm on his own before accepting any more social engagements with the group. So...all of the members of The Council were distancing themselves from him.

He didn't understand. What had he done wrong?

"No, you listen to me..." He started to argue as his meandering walk carried him over to the large picture window of the second floor hallway. He pulled back the curtains an inch to make sure his security personnel were still in place. "What? How is that possible?"

Smith turned from the window and continued walking down the hallway until he was in his bedroom, the one room in his spacious house that wasn't decorated in the rustic motive of the rest of the place. He stopped pacing and sat down heavily on the bench seat in front of the large make-up table that he provided for his female companions. He stared at his own disbelieving reflection in the attached mirror as he half-listened to his lawyer explain for the third time that none of the contacts that he had provided the attorney with would take or return the man's calls.

"I don't understand how this can be happening," Smith whispered almost to himself. He heard one of his lawyers ask him to repeat what he said and Smith suddenly didn't feel like talking anymore. He clicked the disconnect button almost at the same time as he replied, "I'll call you back."

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Ever since he saw the Congressman's face on his flat screen, he'd had the worst feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. He couldn't explain it, but it almost felt like a premonition that something terrible was coming his way....something worse than an audit or a fire. He literally had no idea what that something was, but it was that very reason why he had increased his security. Of course, there was no way in hell that he was going to tell his security personnel that it wasn't a viable threat that he was worried about. As long as they were vigilant, let them think whatever they wanted.

He reached over to the night stand for the bottle of Ambien and popped two in his mouth and swallowed them dry. He'd been going non-stop for over thirty hours straight and he simply could not function like this anymore. Smith was confident he could figure a way out of his current situation...he just needed to get some sleep so he could think clearly. He stood up and walked over to the wet bar and helped himself to half an inch of scotch to help wash the pills down.

He swallowed the liquor down in a single gulp and replaced the tumbler. His mind continued to race as he collapsed into a slouch on the end of the bed. He was so tired. He thought about undressing but simply did not have the energy...so tired. He jumped, unsure of where he was for a moment. He wasn't sure how much time had passed, but the sedative and the alcohol were hitting him pretty quickly. Smith suspected that he might have even dozed off for a couple of minutes while sitting up. He struggled for a minute but finally managed to kick off his shoes and crawl up onto the bed. He grabbed a pillow and put it under his head and let out a deep sigh.

Something nudged the bottom of his foot.

"Uh," he slurred a grumble. It happened again and he groaned his complaint. He scowled in his drug-induced state of semi-sleep. It took some effort, but he managed to move his leg a couple of inches away from the annoyance. He was too far gone for any alarm bells to sound in his brain. A sharp pain in his foot caused him to jerk his eyes open. He blinked slowly several times, but he was having a very difficult time getting his vision to focus. When he was finally able to clear his sight enough to see, his brain tried desperately to send out the panic impulses to move him into flight mode.

Instead, he just stared dumbly at the apparition that was standing at the foot of his bed.

"Who?" was all he could manage to croak as a little string of drool rolled down his chin from his open mouth. Something finally clicked and he ineffectively fumbled at his pocket in slow motion. He needed to find his phone.

"Don't," the thing hissed a warning and pointed a 9mm Browning Hi-Power directly at his face. The handgun looked huge to Smith's warped sense of depth, probably due to the custom suppressor attached to the barrel.

Smith's hands fluttered a little more until they were finally still. His throat moved up and down a few times until he actually managed to swallow. He blinked slowly again. "Who-r'you?"

Leah didn't say anything as she let the man drink in the nightmare that she appeared to be. She wore all black tactical clothing, black boots, black gloves and the voodoo scarf covered her face. She knew she looked fierce and had purposely gone to the extreme. This man deserved to be afraid and to make sure of that she had a little surprise for him under the scarf.

Smith remained in a haze and wasn't sure exactly how or when it happened, but somehow he ended up flat on his back in the bed with this terrifying manifestation sitting on his chest. He couldn't move - his arms were pinned down by his sides. His mind struggled for a purchase on reality as he watched this thing reach up and pull the covering down off its face to reveal a nightmare pattern of black and gray skin. Leah had used camo paint to put geometric patterned war paint on her face.

He was snapped out of his daze when a gloved hand clamped roughly down over his mouth. The sudden struggle to breathe and the pain in his arms brought him far enough out of his fog to realize he was in grave danger. He started to meekly struggle to get free when he heard a metallic snick. His eyes widened at the wicked looking blade that appeared out of nowhere right in front of his face.

The terrible visage moved closer to hover directly over his face. Smith saw the knife slowly lower from his field of vision and then felt the very real edge of the razor-sharp blade press against his throat. The nightmare's almost luminescent pair of blue eyes burned bright with hatred.

"Hello, Mr. Smith," the thing from his nightmares whispered. The pleasantness of the soft voice was so out of place that Smith couldn't even comprehend that it was feminine.

He couldn't do anything but gape in disbelief at this terrifying thing on top of him.

"I want you to listen very carefully," Leah whispered and emphasized her point by pressing the blade just hard enough to break the surface of his skin and draw blood.

Mr. Smith's response was to lose control of his bladder.

Leah wrinkled her nose. "I take it I have your full attention."

Smith whimpered.

"I want you to understand," Leah said quietly and then leaned down a little further until their noses were almost touching, "just exactly how lucky you are."

Smith blinked.

"You're lucky because the only thing keeping me from bleeding you out just as slowly and painfully as humanly possible," Leah continued whispering, "is a promise that I made someone. Do you understand?"

Smith slowly nodded his head as much as the blade against his throat would allow. The fear induced adrenaline in his system was kicking in and counteracting the stupor of the Ambien and alcohol.

"Good," Leah growled. "Because I'm not sure you can possibly comprehend just how much I really want to make you suffer right now."

Smith breathed heavily through his nostrils and fought the urge to vomit.

The nightmare visitor sat up and took the gloved hand off of his mouth. Smith turned his head and coughed and blinked and sucked in much needed air. He brought his hand up to wipe his mouth and realized he could move his arms. The specter had disappeared from on top of him. He looked around wildly wishing with all of his might that it had all been an actual nightmare, but the thing was now standing beside his bed.

He watched in awe as the blade of the knife disappeared back into the handle with another quiet snick sound. Smith allowed himself just the slightest sigh of relief as he watched the switchblade disappear into a pocket on the visitor's thigh.

Leah stood very still and studied Smith for a long moment. When she saw that there was actually a small glimmer of hope in Smith's eyes at the hint of surviving this encounter, she pointed the Hi-Power at his head.

"W-w-wait!" Smith babbled desperately as he held both hands up towards the nightmare version of Leah and turned his head slightly away in cowardly anticipation. "Y-you said!"

"I said what?"

"You promised...not to kill me."

"No," Leah said simply. "I didn't."

"What?" Smith said dumbstruck. "I...but...you said."

"I said...that the only reason I wasn't going to make you suffer," Leah explained patiently and lowered the weapon slightly, "was because I made someone a promise."

Smith just nodded his head in one last grasp at hope.

"Travis Rackley was my friend."

At the mention of Rack's name Smith's face scrunched up in despair.

"And I made him a promise," Leah said between clenched teeth as she took aim, "that I would personally put a bullet in your brain."

"P-please," Smith whined and squeezed his eyes shut.

"Good bye, Mr. Smith," Leah hissed.