She Is Risen (She Is Risen: The Gun Control Case Studies) (21 page)

            The door opens abruptly and agent Leatherby
approaches Henri at the head of the table, causing Lorabell and Maxwell to stop
arguing.

            “Congressman, it’s safe to move around the
facility now,” agent Leatherby says urgently, “there’s something I need to show
you!”

            “Great!” Congressman Edwards says, drumming his
fists on the table as he gets up from his chair and follows the CIA agent out
into the hallway.

            Henri walks behind the agent and slightly to his
right, while Lorabell and Maxwell follow them just a few steps back.  After
about forty yards, agent Leatherby opens the door to the first floor break room
and gestures for everyone to file inside.  As they walk through the doors,
every member of the party turns a sickly pale color, their eyes glazed over in
mortal terror. 

            Agent Sharpe’s naked corpse is displayed on the
break room table; his feet are secured together with gray duct tape, and there
are screwdrivers sticking up from the palms of his hands.  From their vantage
point, the man is in the pose of an upside-down crucifixion, with rolled up
documents tucked into his mouth.  The screwdrivers have punctured his hands
completely, allowing blood to drip slowly through the cherry wood, into
multiple, gallon-sized pools on the industrial carpet.

            Lorabell places her small, feminine hands over
her face, appalled at the sight of a desecrated body where she just had coffee
a few hours ago.  Maxwell steps closer to the body, feeling uneasy for the
first time in his long career.  He looks at the side of agent Sharpe’s head
where there are signs of internal hemorrhaging, and a distinct trail of blood
leading from just above the left ear to the back of the skull.  The odors of the
body are already wafting through the room, including: various gases from the
corpse, the copper scent of fresh blood, and a hint of manufactured chemicals. 

            “How long ago did he die?”  Henri asks a
technician that is taking pictures at the far end of the room.

            “It looks like about thirty to forty-five
minutes.” The man replies as he steps around the body ten degrees at a time,
taking digital photos every few feet. 

            “What are these documents?” Henri asks, pointing
to the rolled up papers in agent Sharpe’s mouth.

            “I was just about to find out.” Agent Leatherby
declares, putting on a pair of blue, latex gloves.  “Are you good for me to
take the documents, Donald?” He asks of the agent that is shooting photos.

            “Let me get two more shots…” The tall, curly-haired
man replies from behind the camera.  “Yeah… you’re good to go.”

            Agent Leatherby steps over to the table and
retrieves the rolled up documents from the mouth of the corpse, rolling them
open carefully to retain any forensic evidence such as body hair. 

            “It looks like we’ve got some decoded messages
that were written by Maxwell, stamped Henri Edwards North America.” Agent
Leatherby announces as he begins to thumb through the documents.

            “I told you that your encryption was easy to
break!” Henri says with budding dissent as he points his right index finger at
Maxwell.

            There is a sudden commotion at the far end of
the room as Donald falls flat on his face, smashing the digital camera when his
body hits the floor.

            “Donald!  Are you okay!?” Agent Leatherby asks,
instinctively drawing his pistol.

            Henri looks around the room with a keenly
trained eye, knowing Devlin’s jacket back to front, and remembering an attack
bearing strong similarity to this one.  His ears pick up the sound of fluid
being pushed through the coffee maker, and he sees that the coffee pot is
filled with a pale yellow liquid.

            “Get out of the building!  He’s poisoned us!”
Henri shouts as he starts to run for the door.

            Lorabell and Maxwell waste no time in following
his lead, but agent Leatherby instead moves rapidly to where Donald has fallen,
bending down as he tries to save his fallen colleague.  After a few seconds, he
too falls to the floor face first and motionless. 

            “EVERYBODY OUT! Tom, get everybody out of the
fucking building!  WE’VE HAD A CHEMICAL ATTACK!” Henri shouts at the young
security guard as they make their way out of the lobby.

            The older Congressman feels his breathing
constricted as he makes it to the fresh air outside of the building.  His heart
is palpitating hard as he lovingly takes in the sweet, natural oxygen. 

Henri lifts his head for a moment, feeling
paralyzed with fear, remembering the report from Devlin’s file on the
operations in Iraq, where he reported making a deadly chloramine teargas by
mixing ammonia with bleach.  When the terrorists ran from the building to get
fresh air, he used a .50 caliber sniper rifle to finish the job.  There were no
survivors. 

Henri also recalls that the mixture
of ammonia and bleach is deadly and toxic if you breathe in the fumes for too
long.  He looks at Lorabell and Maxwell, watching them both breathing at least
twice as hard as they would normally.  Their necks are red with the onset of
asphyxiation, but all three of them are able to take in oxygen on their own. 

            “We need to go to the hospital,” Henri admits as
his knees slowly sink toward the sidewalk, “back in The Middle East, Devlin was
trained… His job was to scare the shit out of the enemy…”

            Henri bends slowly toward the ground as the
sound of sirens approach from the long, concrete security drive of the CIA
black site.  Maxwell and Lorabell also drop to the ground, the trio soon
unconscious and vulnerable on the sidewalk.       

            ‘It has been two days since the attack on their
so-called secure CIA facility,’ Lorabell thinks to herself as she sits waiting
in Maxwell’s shared office to meet with Henri.  Her fingers are gripping the
chair with white-knuckle intensity as she recalls the hellish events that were brought
right to their doorstep by a tactical genius.  The young college professor has
toned down her look, electing to feel safer and more mobile in her clothing,
wearing a long turtleneck sweatshirt with large, orange and white stripes, and
a pair of black jeans.  With so many questions swimming through her mind about
Devlin, Lorabell barely notices the new replacement agent, Sarah Hearthstone,
seated in the chair next to her.

            She smiles at Sarah briefly, admiring the young
woman’s long brunette hair and delicate Hispanic features.  With her athletic
body, the woman looks much younger than her true age of 33.  Although Lorabell
is not in the habit of being competitive, she admits to herself that Sarah’s
sexy body is a threat to her within the social hierarchy.  Sarah returns the
smile, more with her green eyes than with her face, showing off a deep-seeded
intellect and strength.

            “All right, let’s get started.” Henri says gruffly
as he walks into the office with Maxwell in tow, wearing his standard black
suit and a dark blue tie.

            “What did you want to talk abut first?” Maxwell asks,
as he takes a seat behind his own work desk, setting a large drink next to his Macintosh
laptop amongst several pewter figurines.

            This office has a simple layout containing two
desks that face inward with ten feet of space between them.  The ladies are
seated facing east in front of Maxwell’s desk, while Henri takes a position
just opposite them, to the left of small desk.  There is a large window above
each workstation, providing a feeling of warmth from the natural lighting.

             “Well, let’s introduce the new girl.” Henri
begins as he takes a seat in the black, ergonomic chair.  “Everyone, this is
Sarah, she is here from Langley to help us with operations and to provide a bit
more security.  Her specialty is in geo-political tactics, but she’s also good
at messing with people’s minds… or so I’m told.”

            Everyone smiles and nods at Sarah, feeling good
to have a new team member, but also pessimistic that she has no idea how deadly
a threat they are up against.

            “Another piece of news,” Henri begins, adjusting
his tie as he speaks to reinforce his authority, “General Mason will be joining
us to take over the military leg of our operations.  Since Ming was killed, and
we lost three agents just two days ago, The President has decided to send in a
more experienced military leader to help us out.”

            Maxwell raises the forty-four ounce drink to his
face, letting the ice slosh around a bit as he places the straw in his mouth
and sucks down the dark-colored soda from within.  He stares down at the
twelve-inch pewter figurines on his desk: a wizard, a dragon, and a dwarf.  His
eyes wander over Sarah’s tantalizing body when she is not looking and then back
to the short figurines near him.  The young man feels suddenly sheepish and
geeky wearing his black T-shirt and a matching pair of jean shorts.

            “Now the purpose of this meeting is to get us
all up to speed so that we have a better chance of finding and capturing or…
killing Devlin.” Henri says with a disgusted stare, chewing his bottom lip a
bit.  “What I do know is that Devlin painted himself in blackface and entered
the building pretending to be a member of our janitorial staff named Toby. 
Since the front desk was preoccupied with a homeless woman, trying to enter
with Ming’s security badge, he was able to slip through easily.  Devlin then
created a slippery mixture of soaps and waxes that caused agent Sharpe to fall
and injure himself on the floor.  He then used a mop handle and some garbage
bags to dispatch agent Sharpe… We all saw what happened next… with the poison.”

            “Yeah, he also killed Ming a few days ago;
that’s why Mason is here!” Maxwell spouts off in an arrogant tone, trying to
impress the new girl, but realizing halfway through his statement that he has
made a mistake.

            “Right…” Henri begins, appearing vicious at first,
but relaxing into a smile. “You had an idea for catching Devlin quicker.  Why
don’t you run and get your notes on that?” Henri asks with a bright smile,
glancing at Maxwell in a fatherly fashion.

            Maxwell returns Henri’s smile, feeling a sense
of pride, like a more important member of the team.  He bolts up from the desk
and steps lively out to the hallway, allowing the door to close automatically
behind him.

            “Now, ladies,” Henri says as he rises coolly from
his chair and steps over to Maxwell’s desk, “sometimes things just have to be
done a certain way.”  He reaches out and grips Maxwell’s drink with his right
hand, popping off the small, flimsy lid before setting the large, plastic cup
back down on the desk.  “I don’t always enjoy what needs to be done,” Henri
continues, removing his aged penis from his slacks as he lowers it into
Maxwell’s drink, “but I have always been able to get it done.”

            The sight of his member in the workplace does
not resonate well with the ladies, and their faces transform to immediate
disgust.  He watches the stunned expressions of the two women as he urinates
into Maxwell’s drink, filling it almost full with a mixture of his body waste
and diet soda.  Sarah and Lorabell look down at the flaccid penis in Maxwell’s
drink with shock and queasy frustration, and then they look away, waiting for
Henri to finish in discomfort.  Both ladies cringe from their padded, leather
swivel chairs as the man in his fifties taps his penis to get the last few
drops of urine out, each of them thinking about walking off the job.  The
Congressman delicately puts his member away and pulls his zipper back up,
restoring decency to the room. 

Henri finishes this repulsive deed
with a nonchalant expression, systematically putting the lid back on the drink
and returning it to the desk near Maxwell’s laptop.  He then holds his index
finger up to his lips, indicating a need for secrecy.

            “I want you both to watch this carefully,” Henri
continues, looking down at their mortified faces as he takes his seat again,
“Maxwell got one of our female colleagues killed a few days ago.  He sent her
after Devlin without my permission- and Devlin… Devlin beat her to death!  That
same smug sonofabitch, just sat here and bragged about that woman being
killed.”  He pauses and looks at both of them, hoping they understand the
method behind his madness.  “Just remember as you watch him enjoy a big drink,
that it could have been you that was killed in the field.  I had to explain to
her mother that she’s dead, but I couldn’t tell her that it was for no good reason!”

            “You’re going to love this!” Maxwell says as he
steps back into the room, pausing to see Henri talking to the two women.  “Did
I miss an important part of the meeting?” He asks, returning to his desk with a
DVD-ROM in hand, which he pushes into the slot at the right side of his laptop.

            “No,” Henri says quickly, “we were just telling
Sarah how deadly Devlin can be.”

            As their colleague takes his seat to join them, Sarah
and Lorabell don’t say a word, feeling justified by Henri’s story about the
dead agent.  Their eyes are locked on Maxwell’s drink, watching in repulsed
fascination, and swallowing with instinctive empathy every few seconds. 

            “Okay, so I found something great!” Maxwell begins,
gesturing toward the screen of his laptop.

            All three of his colleagues watch his hand as it
gets closer to the large cup, wondering how long it will take for him to
realize their betrayal.

            “So you know that dog Devlin stole was from Auburn University’s training program, right?” Maxwell looks around the room with
excitement, feeling like a genius, and enjoying their stunned faces.  “Well,
all of those dogs were equipped with tracking chips at eight-weeks.  What I’ve
done is contacted the systems admin at the university to get me the GPS
tracking login for Gloria’s chip.  As soon as we know where the dog is, then
we’ll be able to zoom in with the GPS coordinates and catch Devlin.”  Maxwell
reaches over and picks up his drink, surprised at first by the weight as he
brings it toward his lips.

            “How long will it take to get the tracking info
back?” Lorabell asks, feeling her stomach churn at the idea of watching Maxwell
drink fresh urine.

            “It should be by the end of today,” Maxwell
says, pointing his drink at her as he pulls it away from his face, “but I have Langley’s best hacker working on their firewall, and he may be able to get it for me
within the hour.”

            “How close of a proximity will that give us? 
Those chips are small; will it… Will it, uh, give us a… good location?”
Lorabell asks, stammering a bit to come up with another question.

            “I’ll answer that.” Henri interrupts, putting
his hand out in front of Maxwell.  “These are third-generation chips, and we
should be able to lock down Devlin’s location within a one-hundred foot radius
or better.”

            Maxwell nods as he presses the bright red straw
against his tongue, sucking the fluid out of the large, white plastic cup while
watching Henri speak.  Within a few seconds, his eyebrows come together with a
look of concern and confusion.  He pulls the straw out of his mouth and starts
to gag, removing the clear, plastic lid from his drink to peer inside.

            “That’s what you get for Ming, Motherfucker!”
Henri growls as he leaps from his chair, letting it tip over on the floor as he
grabs the cup from Maxwell and dumps it down his face and chest.

            The young programmer is shocked at the behavior
of his superior, and as the scent of urine hits his nostrils, he is altogether
confused and disgusted.  Henri grabs him by his black Metallica T-shirt and
pulls him backward in his chair, tipping it to the ground.  He then snatches
the pewter wizard figurine from the desk and uses it to bash Maxwell in the
head several times.  On the second strike, there is a loud, hollow thud, which
causes both ladies to jump a bit, and is enough to make Henri stop his attack. 
Everyone holds their breath during the few seconds of silence that follows,
looking at the figurine in Henri’s right hand, noticing that the wizard’s pewter
head is smudged with blood.

            “Well at least I don’t like to have sex with
young, blind virgins!” Maxwell cries out as he grabs his head in pain.  “Did
you tell them about your fetish, Henri?” He asks, rising slowly to his feet and
stumbling around clumsily to regain his balance; a small stream of blood running
down his face onto the urine-soaked T-shirt.  “Your boss here,” Maxwell snarls,
pointing at Henri with his left hand while covering his head with his right,
“pays a guy to seduce young, blind women so that he can sneak into the room…
and take their virginity!’

            “That’s not true!” Henri says with a somewhat
flustered, reddening face, suddenly eager to help his colleague up so that he
can leave the room.

            “It is true!  That’s why Devlin left the operation;
he caught you in the act…  Fucking look into it, Lorabell!” Maxwell exclaims as
Henri leads him by the arm to the door of the office and out into the hallway. 

            After the two men walk outside, Lorabell and
Sarah stand up in a flighty panic, also wanting to vacate from the urine smell,
disturbed by the thoughts expressed within these walls. 

Blood is trickling from the right
side of Maxwell’s skull as Henri escorts him through the hallway to the first
aid clinic.  He gazes ferociously at the young man’s pale, bald head, eyeing
what appears to be a small section of freshly broken bone, resulting with an indentation
a bit larger than a quarter.

            A few minutes later, Henri is sitting on the
expensive leather sofa near the door of General Mason’s new office.  His
temples are throbbing with a migraine reminiscent of The Grand Canyon; echoes
of pain shrieking off the vast walls like the cries of eagles.  Lorabell is
seated in one of two matching, brown leather chairs directly in front of
Mason’s desk.  Her legs are crossed, and hands are clasped together in a
display of professional concern.

            General Mason is an older man with a gruff
voice, having spent most of his life acting as the authority over others.  His
green uniform bears three stars with several medals awarded from the United
States Army.  The General’s eyes are a shiny blue-gray and he has neat tufts of
brown and gray hair on his head, appearing healthy and intelligent for a man in
his late forties.

            “So are we going to address this claim that you
have sex with young blind women?” Mason asks, looking up at Henri with
discerning eyes.

            Lorabell turns to her left, looking back at Henri
on the sofa and carefully observing how he responds, keeping her hands clasped
together in the vigilant pose of a classy lady. 

            “It is well documented by the CIA that I have
had relationships with a few blind women; all of them consensual, and every one
of them over the age of eighteen.” Henri admits with some hesitation, breathing
slowly as he tries to relax the throbbing in his head.