 
# Night Strike

# A Short Story Compilation

Rodney Mountain

Smashwords Edition

Night Strike

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All Rights Reserved

Compilation Copyright 2004 by Rodney Mountain

Expanded Edition Copyright 2011 Rodney Mountain

All Stories Rodney Mountain on the below dates

Night Strike Copyright 2002

The Campground Copyright 2000

Free Fall Copyright 2000

Kara's Last Day Copyright 2003

The Highway Copyright 2002

Stone's Justice Copyright 2002

The Cocktail Party Copyright 2004

The Crazygal Copyright 2004

Searching for Bolantine Copyright 2002

The Cop, The Whore and Eight Bottles... Copyright 2003

Madfest Murder Copyright 2002

Bolantine's Folly Copyright 2002

They Were Lovers, Weren't They? Copyright 2002

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

## Other Titles by Rodney Mountain

Immortal Universe Novels

The Healy Murders

Durell's Insurrection

The Accidental Immortal

Undercover

The Killer Strikes

Anoki's Revenge

The Immortal Progression

Corporate Immortality

Not With a Whisper

The Mullinix: Ascension

The Mullinix: Redemption

The Mullinix: Resolution

Other Works

The Black Fossil

## Dedication

This is to all of the people who have been reading my stuff for the years that I've been writing it. Without you none of this would have been possible.

# Table of contents

1. Night Strike

2. The Campground

3. Free Fall

4. Kara's Last Day

5. The Highway

6. Stone's Justice

7. The Cocktail Party

8. The Crazygal

9. Searching for Bolantine

10. The Cop, The Whore and Eight Bottles of Jack Daniels

11. Madfest Murder

12. Bolantine's Folly

13. They Were Lovers, Weren't They?

# Foreword

This compilation was originally done during my first round of publishing back in 2004. I'd taken a number of the stories I'd written and simply slapped them together into a quick compilation, figuring that it would look good alongside the full novels I'd written, I think it was a whole four or five at that time.

I republish this now more as a curiosity than anything else. Some of the stories have held up, some of them simply haven't, but all of them show the process as I learned my craft better.

A few of them also show off the first person style I originally used for _The Healy Murders_ , _The Accidental Immortal_ and the first third of _Undercover_. If you've read any of those you know that I took the time to completely rewrite them in a third person perspective that works much better for the stories.

It was during Undercover that I figured out that I'd written myself into a corner and that my style wasn't working. So I took the time to figure out how to work the third person narrative and finally got annoyed enough with the first two books that I completely rewrote them.

The first version of Immortal is gone forever ( _Or So I thought until I happened across a copy while putting this version together_ ), but a bit of that style remains in the very odd Mason Stone short _Free Fall_ that is included here. Some of the other stories are related to the larger novels and pieces of them may have ended up in other stories as well.

This edition of this compilation has been freshly edited to at least polish the grammar and typographical errors that were rife in the 2004 version, but other than that these stories are the same flawed creations that I wrote back in the day.

I actually took time to write notes for these stories back then and those are included here for the novelty. I have also added new bits that show my perspective after all the years. Those notes will be italicized at the bottom of the note page introducing the short for the stories that were in the original version.

If you are one of the four people who read the 2004 version of this compilation then you're in luck, there are a few more stories here. The quality varies, but hopefully you'll find enough entertainment to qualify for the price of admission.

-Rodney Mountain 7/30/2011

#  Night Strike

This story was the result of a long couple of nights and some indecision of what to do between books. I had come up with the concept a while earlier, but it had never fleshed out to the point of a full novel. The characters were good and I did like this short story.

The character of Mark Copeland should be familiar to anyone who has read the completed version of Durell's Insurrection, as he was integrated into that storyline at some point in his life after the events in this story. This, despite the fact that some things in this story would be anachronisms in the time period Durell took place in.

The biggest comment I received on this one was "Why didn't you just make it a Mason/Karen/Jim short?" The short answer was that I was burned out on them after writing Foundation 51 (now known as Corporate Immortality). That's probably why I never wrote another one of these shorts. Mason and company are better at this.

## Chapter 1

Mark Copeland walked into the room, his head pounding from the generous helping of alcohol he had had the night before. He maneuvered his large six foot two inch frame onto the overstuffed couch that Claire had picked up at goodwill earlier that year. It was the single piece of furniture in the apartment that Mark could actually sit in comfortably.

"Did you get the plate of the truck that hit you?" Claire asked him, "You look like hell, tiger."

Claire Ryan plunked herself down in a smaller chair across from where Mark was sitting. She was only an inch shorter than her best friend was, but her frame was quite a bit smaller. She brushed her brown hair back out of the way and looked at Mark as he rubbed his temples.

"I should have quit drinking," Mark grumbled.

"When?" Claire asked him.

"About 9:30 last night, I'd judge," Tracy grinned, plunking herself down next to Mark, "Did you actually finish that bottle of vodka, Mark?"

Mark glared at Tracy Stillwell, Claire's longtime roommate. Tracy was nearly dwarfed sitting next to him, her five foot six inch body taking less than half the amount of space his did. She giggled at him and gave him a quick hug to make it all better.

"You really need to go easier on the sauce," Claire admonished Mark, "You really do look like hell."

Claire and Mark had had an on again, off again affair going for several years. They cared for each other deeply but they were never able to settle on much. The nature of their line of work did not do much to make their lives anymore stable. They were always on the razor's edge of the law, knowing that they could be brought down at any time.

"I'll be ok, Claire," Mark said, "Do we have a target in mind for today?"

"Yeah," Claire nodded, "I scoped them out while you and Trace were drinking yourselves silly."

"Hey," Tracy replied, defending herself, "We invited you to come along too. You didn't want to go though."

"It's all right," Claire smiled, "I think we hit the mother lode. I've got the digital stills in the computer."

Tracy followed Claire over to the computer, but Mark was not able to get that interested in anything yet. Tracy picked up the remote from Claire's desk and turned on the large screen television, which she then immediately turned to the computer input so Mark could watch what they did.

"I took these out on the strip last night," Claire said, "I got myself dressed up all nice and sexy and took a walk."

"Mmmm," Tracy grinned, "You should have come with us. You wasted sexy on a walk on the strip?"

"While I was out there," Claire said, smirking at Tracy, "I happened across some old friends of ours. Remember these two?"

A digital photo appeared on the screen of two shady looking characters. The same photo appeared on the large television screen in front of where Mark Copeland was sitting. Mark squinted at the photograph trying to bring a recollection through his muddled brain as to who the people were.

"I recognize them," Tracy said after studying the picture on the monitor for a bit, "But I'm lousy with names."

"They were soldiers for an outfit we hit last year," Mark said, "The Cardozo brothers, if I remember correctly. I thought those two idiots were run out of town months ago."

"They're back," Claire said and went on to the next picture, "And they're well funded. I saw them making the rounds from a Cadillac convertible. I'd say they're pulling in at least ten grand a night. Maybe more."

"That could keep us going for a few months," Tracy said, "My car payment is due next week too."

"What are they selling?" Mark asked her.

"Crack and Heroin," Claire said, "I bought a bag of the H just to see what the quality was."

"Please tell me you dumped it before you came home," Mark said.

"Traded it to a junkie for information," Claire smiled, "Seems they're spreading the cash out well. Always have a bankroll on them. They are always there between eight and midnight as well."

Mark was finally interested enough to sit up a little and take a better look at the photographs. Claire smiled at him and flipped to the next picture. This one showed two large hulking men that had large bulges under their jackets. Mark figured that they were carrying probably Mac 10 submachine pistols.

"They are open," Mark said, "But it's going to be a wet one. Those two goons are going to have to be taken down. We try a bloodless robbery it's not going to be pretty."

"I doubt it'll be much of a loss," Tracy said, "I recognize one of them. He has a rap sheet as long as my arm."

"Definitely a crew that the street can do without," Claire agreed, "While I was out there I witnessed no less than a dozen assaults."

"Are they always out in the open?" Mark asked her.

"They retreat to this alley when they want to get ready," Claire said as she put the shots up, "I didn't dare to photograph them there, but I got a few shots of the alley itself later."

Mark, always the tactician of the group, looked over the shots carefully. The alcoholic induced fog had lifted from his mind and a plan was beginning to form. He got up, stifling a groan as he did so, and took control of the keyboard away from Claire. She smiled and let him have the chair, moving behind him and rubbing his temples.

Mark flipped through the photographs and studied them as he figured out the best place to hit them. He knew it was possible for the three of them to do it, but it would have to be a hit and get. It was also going to be a rather bloody one, meaning they would have to lay low for a while after it.

"This one is going to irk the cops," Mark said, "I don't see that we can do it without killing at least four people."

"Do we have the resources for the job?" Tracy asked them, "This one sounds hairy."

"We'll need silenced pistols," Mark said, "No car, too easy to trace. We'd have to steal one for it to be of any use."

"Too dangerous," Claire agreed, "We'll have to go in on foot and melt away afterwards."

"It's too dangerous to go in cold," Tracy observed, "Maybe two of us should go in and take down the creeps and the other creates a street diversion?"

"What type of diversion?" Claire wondered.

"Something simple," Mark said, "Cheap would be nice too. We're going to lose the weapons we use on them. Too hot to hold."

"It's the beginning of July," Tracy said, "Fireworks should be easy to get."

"A couple sets of firecrackers should do pretty well," Mark agreed, "How much do we have left in operating cash, Claire?"

"Two hundred," Claire said, "That last bad job didn't help much. Cost us two guns as well."

"We still have the two silenced 9mm pistols," Tracy said, "Should be fine for head shots."

"You want to do the diversions, Claire?" Mark asked her.

"Sure," she nodded, "Tracy is better on the draw anyway."

"Besides," Tracy said, "These are drug dealers. I won't hesitate to pull the trigger on them."

"I want clean kills," Mark reminded her, "I know you hate drug dealers, but if you toy with them it'll get us caught."

"You got it," Tracy nodded, smiling, "I guess we should go shopping for fireworks."

"You can go ahead," Mark said, "I think I'm going to rest a bit. I want my head clear if we hit tonight."

"I'm going to stay with him," Claire said, "You mind doing this alone?"

"Not a problem," Tracy chuckled, "Just make sure you help him get his head straight for tonight, ok?"

"I think we can arrange that," Claire smiled, "Don't you, Mark?"

"I think it's a possibility," Mark chuckled, seeing the look in Claire's eyes.

"Try to finish up before I get back, all right?" Tracy smiled, "I really don't want to walk in on you two again."

"We'll try to be more considerate of your delicate morals," Claire said dryly, knowing that Tracy was no more innocent than she, "Enjoy your shopping trip."

"Always," Tracy said as she took half of the remaining cash, "Don't get too tired now."

"Remember," Mark said with a chuckle, "We're looking for loud, not dangerous."

"Right," Tracy nodded as she went over and hugged both of them, "I'll be a good girl."

"I won't," Claire said as Tracy slipped out the door.

"You won't, huh?" Mark asked her as he leaned back on the couch, "Just what do you have in mind?"

"Hmmm," Claire grinned as she reclined in his arms, "You know how I get before a job..."

"Well," Mark said as he pulled her close and nibbled on her ear softly, "I can think of worse ways to cure a headache..."

## Chapter 2

Claire Ryan smiled dreamily as she lay back against Mark Copeland's chest. Her brown hair spread out over him, tickling his nose. Mark brushed it away from his nose and kissed her softly. She smiled up at him and slid up further for a deeper kiss.

"Did that help your headache?" She asked him, a mischievous grin forming on her face.

"Yeah," Mark chuckled, "I think it did. It made me forget how much it hurt at any rate."

She rested her head down on him and held on to him. The position was mostly comfortable, though her feet were hanging over the edge of the bed. She was nervous, just like she always got before a job. The sex was just one of her ways of dealing with the tension.

"I'm worried about this one, Mark," Claire told him, "Tracy is too excited about it."

"She loves the drug dealer jobs," Mark shrugged, "She'd kill every one of them if she could."

"She's been this way since Charlie died," Claire said, "She never really got over it."

"We all have our reasons for doing this," Mark reminded her, "Hers is Charlie and mine is my sister. I'm sure you have your reasons as well."

"My mother was an addict," Claire said, remembering watching her mother shoot heroin as a child, "She overdosed when I was fifteen."

"Exactly," Mark said, "I'm sure you're not going to shed any tears at these four's demise."

"She just looks like she takes pleasure in it," Claire said, "That's what worries me. We're supposed to be doing a public service and making a little money, not becoming serial killers."

"At least we're choosing a deserving class of victim," Mark smiled, "Don't tell me you're getting second thoughts about this?"

"Not about the thefts," Claire said, "Not sure I like the bloodlust."

"Yeah," Mark nodded, "I don't know what else to do though. If we leave them alive they're just going to continue terrorizing people."

"I'm the one who scoped it," Claire grinned, "I've got no problem with taking them down. Just watch Tracy on this one, ok? Make sure she acts professionally."

"Tracy is a pro," Mark said, "But if you're worried, we can put her on the firework detail and you can frontline with me."

"No need," Claire said as she crawled up and kissed Mark some more, "She won't hesitate on the trigger. I might in my current mood. Besides, I already did the hard part on this one."

"True," Mark grinned, "It'll go fine though."

"Let's hope so," Claire said, "We don't need a mess right now."

"We should probably get dressed before Tracy gets back," Mark told her, "No need to get her making anymore jokes."

"Right," Claire said, "No need to get her worked up anymore than she already is."

## Chapter 3

They were mostly dressed by the time Tracy walked into the door carrying a large bag full of fireworks and another one with Chinese takeout. She set the bags down on the kitchen table and chuckled as she looked at the dressing lovers. She quietly pulled out her box of Lo Mein and started eating with chopsticks.

"Did you have fun shopping?" Mark asked her as he went over to start poking in the bags of explosives, "And did you leave any petty cash left?"

"Still have a hundred in the box," Tracy said, "Figured we should get some food in us before we left. I knew damn well neither one of you would be cooking."

"We cooked plenty," Claire smiled, "Just not on the stove."

"Right," Tracy chuckled nervously, "Anyway, I got food for you too."

Claire went for her General Tso's chicken and sat down with Tracy. Mark looked at the bag full of chain explosives and firecrackers. He pulled out a few and looked at them, especially the M80 firecrackers. He smiled at the assortment, knowing that Tracy had gone overboard, but knowing that it was well intended.

"Eat something, Mark," Claire said, "You'll need the energy."

"Right," Mark nodded and sat down, pulling open his carton of sesame beef, "You're the best, Trace. You remembered what I like."

"What do you think of the fireworks?" Tracy asked him.

"I think you went overboard, kiddo," Mark chuckled, "Enough to do two or three jobs."

"I figured I'd get enough for the fourth," Tracy told him, "Besides, I didn't know what would be good for this."

"The 400 pack of firecrackers will be perfect," Mark told her, "Should sound like a war zone if placed in an alley across the street."

"I'll take two of them," Claire said, "I'll hit two of the alleys."

"Good idea," Tracy said, "Should give us plenty of time to hit."

"Claire," Mark said between mouthfuls of food, "Did you walk the alley?"

"After they left," Claire nodded, "It connects behind the tenement next door."

"What address?" Tracy asked.

"156 Cross," Claire told her, "Two blocks from where we did the Robbins job last year."

"I know that place," Tracy said, "It used to be a crack house. We used to have to pull my brother out of that hell hole."

"Remember the layout of the place?" Mark asked her.

"Sure," Tracy nodded, "Straight shot through. Used to take Tommy through the side to avoid seeing more of his addict friends."

"Good," Mark said, "That's how we'll do it. Go through the tenement when and out the side when the fireworks start."

"Quick in and out," Claire said, "I'm all for that."

"How do we disguise ourselves?" Tracy asked, "Sexy or like street people?"

"You went sexy last night, right Claire?" Mark asked her.

"Yep," Claire smiled and winked at Mark, "Too bad you missed it."

"I'll miss it again tonight," Mark said, "I want you to go polar opposite. Get dirty. Really dirty. I want you to play a street girl tonight."

"What about me?" Tracy said, "You and I playing street people?"

"I'm going with a t-shirt and jeans combo," Mark said, "You can go ahead and put on that tight skirt of yours. They'll think twice about shooting you if you look good."

"Right-o," Tracy said and turned to Claire, "I'll help you dirty up if you help me primp up, deal?"

"Sounds like a plan to me," Claire grinned, "You realize Mark that you'll have to help me clean up later."

"Right," Mark chuckled, "I'll get the weaponry ready. Come get me if you need me."

The girls giggled and went off to get themselves ready. Mark spent the better part of the next hour preparing the pistols, making sure they were clean of fingerprints, right down to the bullets themselves. Having cleaned them off he put them in cloth bags, bags that would serve the dual purpose of concealment and shell collection.

Mark then picked up a canvas bag for Claire to carry. He unwrapped the firecracker packs and rolled them up so they would be easy for her to lay out, light and go. He looked through a desk drawer and found his old Zippo to put in the bag for her as well.

Satisfied with his work, he sat back on the couch and turned on the television, flipping channels idly while he waited for Tracy and Claire to emerge. He stopped on some reruns of the three stooges and laughed for a few minutes until they came out. It was all he could do to keep from laughing his head off when he looked at Claire.

"Holy shit," Mark said, chuckling, "You look like you spent the night in a dumpster, hon."

"I thought that's the idea," Claire smiled, "To look like I belong."

"It is," Mark nodded and then took a look at Tracy, "Very nice, Trace."

Tracy was dressed up in a style that the three of them had dubbed early prostitute. She was a very well proportioned young woman, and the dark form fitting clothes she was wearing very much affirmed that fact. Claire, who was also very well proportioned, was much better hidden under the layer of dirty clothes that made her look very much like a street person.

"I guess I win the cuteness battle for tonight," Tracy grinned mischievously.

"That's all right," Claire told her, "I'll just convince Mark to help me wash off later."

"You get to have all the fun," Tracy chuckled.

"It's getting dark," Mark said, "It's time to get moving. Park the car over on third and walk over?"

"Fourth," Tracy told him, "They'll ticket your ass on third."

"All right," Mark nodded, "Let's go. All ID is on the table?"

"Yep," Claire nodded, "I'm an unperson."

"Me too," Tracy said, "I'm assuming you'll leave your license in the car?"

"Right," Mark nodded, "We get pulled before the job we cancel it if we can get away without being arrested."

"Check," Claire nodded, "Let's get this over with."

"Let's go," Tracy said, taking her bag.

The three of them went out to Mark's old, beat up dodge and drove slowly down to Fourth Street. He was careful not to break any traffic laws and went with the flow of traffic. He found a poorly lit parking place and expertly parallel parked the car. He looked at the girls and smiled.

"You two ready for this?" he asked them.

"Ready as I ever am," Claire shrugged, "How about you, Trace?"

"It's hunting season," Tracy smiled, "Just let me at them!"

"Don't fire until I give the ok," Mark reminded her, "Once the first shot is fired there's no going back."

"Right," Tracy nodded, though her excitement was evident, "Let's go!"

"Keep it calm, chickie," Mark said to Tracy, "Claire, you go first. Scope the area. If you see something out of line signal us and we'll abort."

"Check," Claire nodded, "See you on the flip side guys."

Claire climbed out of the car and started stumbling around a little, making herself into one of the street people. That type of person rarely had any discernable pattern, something that Claire knew and took care to avoid. She did her best to look like she had no aim in life. She was moving slowly down the street as Mark and Tracy watched from the car.

## Chapter 4

"How long do we need to wait?" Tracy asked Mark, "I'm getting edgy."

"It'll take Claire some time to work her way down the street," Mark said as he leaned back, "Relax Trace. We've still got time yet."

"Maybe not," Tracy said, "Cop is coming and looking at us closely."

"Shit," Mark said, "Last thing we need is to be questioned."

"Come here," Tracy said and pulled him to her, "Kiss me before he starts asking questions."

Mark looked at her for a second and recognized the dodge. He put his arms around her and starting kissing her deeply. She got into the act as well, giving a good enough show that the cop smiled a little and passed them by. The police officer figured they weren't hurting anything and that he'd only say something if they were still at it later. They continued until the cop was safely away.

"That was close," Mark said, "Good idea."

"I've had worse," Tracy admitted, smiling a little, "Now I see what Claire sees in you. You're one hell of a kisser."

"Funny," Mark chuckled, "Now let's get moving. Claire should be just about in position."

"No sense of humor," Tracy chided, "Ok, let's get this over with."

They got out of the car and walked lazily over to Third Street. Claire was almost to the alley that she planned to use to light off the fireworks.

Mark kept his eye on Claire to make sure that her end was going well. Claire barely even noticed them, however, as her eyes were mainly street level, just like the average street person's eyes are.

"Looks good on her end," Mark said quietly, "I want you to go scope out that back route into the alley. I'm going to do a quick walk by and see if they are there yet."

"Right," Tracy nodded and increased her speed a little.

Mark rubbed his temple a little and walked quickly by the alley, his peripheral vision taking in the five people that were dividing the illicit proceeds of the night's drug trading.

Claire's descriptions had been accurate, they were there and not paying too much attention. He knew that if Tracy was right about the back way they stood a good chance of taking them all without a shot fired in return.

He walked back towards the tenement and met Tracy out front. She was smiling and nodding silently. He knew that meant that it looked good to her. The door was still open. Mark turned towards where Claire was examining some trash. She looked at him and he nodded to her. All three of them knew that the job was a go.

## Chapter 5

"Let's do it," Mark told Tracy.

Tracy merely nodded and led the way into the dank and dirty building. They both put on their gloves and Mark pulled the two pistol bags out of his jacket. He handed Tracy one of the bags and they got ready to attack. They were waiting for Claire to start the fireworks.

"You take the two on the left," Mark said, "I get the ones on the right. I want quick headshots. These are silenced 9mm pistols. Body shots may give them time to retaliate. I'd prefer to avoid that. If the leader doesn't draw a weapon, let him live for a bit until I question him."

"Right," Tracy nodded, not caring much. She was itching to get moving.

Claire stumbled into the alley and pulled out the first batch of firecrackers. Mark had worked up an elongated fuse, so she had plenty of time to light it and stumble out of the alley. She was nearly thirty feet away when it started going off.

"Go!" Mark exclaimed as he heard the first crackers go.

The two of them went out the door and their silenced pistols started firing. The two in the back went down before they knew anything else was wrong. Two more silenced shots from Mark's gun brought down the one next to the front. Tracy fired three moderately well placed shots, taking down the fourth guard. The leader turned around quickly and thought about getting his gun, but Tracy stopped that idea cold. She fired a single shot into his left knee, sending the drug dealer down to the pavement.

"I told you not to kill him, Cowgirl," Mark said testily, "I want to talk to him."

"He's still breathing," Tracy said dryly, "So talk."

"Don't kill me!" the drug dealer almost shrieked, "Please don't kill me!"

"I'd suggest answering my questions," Mark told him, "Then maybe you will live."

"You're going to die for this!" the dealer said, "My boss will have you tortured for this!"

"What boss is that?" Mark asked the bleeding man, "Quickly, so I'll know who to quake at before you die."

"Fuck you!" the dealer said, "I tell you that and he'll kill me!"

"If you don't tell me," Mark said quietly, "Cowgirl here will kill you before he has a chance."

The cold look in Tracy's eyes was enough to make the wounded dealer want to talk. She was a pretty girl, but Tracy's hatred for anyone dealing in drugs was overpowering. The man lying in the dirt was less than a worm to her, someone that she'd rather see dead than walk away.

"Walker Robinette," the dealer said, deciding that if he was going to die his boss was going with him, "He put us out here and said no one would bother us."

"That son of a bitch," Tracy said, "I knew we should have killed him last time."

Walker Robinette had a major reputation as a high-level drug dealer. Mark, Claire and Tracy had nearly killed him a year ago, but had held off because they were still a little squeamish about killing at the time. It was a mistake they had long come to regret, as they had taken out several of Robinette's groups since then.

"Where are the drugs?" Mark asked him.

"What is left is in the trunk," the dealer said, "Along with the weapons that seem to have done us no good."

"Thanks for the information," Mark said, "You can finish him off now, cowgirl."

"Wait!" the dealer said, "I can get you Robinette!"

"How?" Mark asked him.

"I'm supposed to meet him in an hour," the dealer said, talking fast trying to save his life, "I meet him along with his uptown dealers every night to hand over money and pick up product."

"Where?" Mark asked him coldly.

"State Street!" the dealer exclaimed, "We park in the Roosevelt Hotel's lot and make the trade. It's a quick in and out."

"Thank you," Mark said then pulled the trigger, ending the dealer's life quickly.

"Spoilsport," Tracy said.

"We're running out of time," Mark said, "Search the bodies. Take any cash you find. I'm going to pop the trunk."

"Right," Tracy nodded, "Let's do this quick."

Mark quickly popped the trunk of the car and found the remains of the drugs. He sliced the packets with a knife found in the trunk and dumped the packs into a barrel. He then looked at the weapons and let out a low whistle.

"Good lord," Mark said, "These assholes were loaded for bear."

"Anything good?" Tracy asked him as she rifled bodies and collected cash.

"Sniper rifle," Mark replied, "Might be a good thing to take down Robinette with."

"Any cash up there?" Tracy asked, "I've found some, but not enough."

"Yeah," Mark nodded, "A briefcase full. We'll take the case and the rifle."

"Good," Tracy said, "Let's get out of here then."

"Do any of them have lighters?" Mark asked her.

"This one had a Zippo," Tracy said.

"Light it and toss it in the barrel," Mark said, "We'll leave the same way we came."

"Right," Tracy nodded and followed instructions, setting the flammable narcotics ablaze.

"Let's book," Mark said, tossing Tracy the case of money, "Keep good hold of that."

Tracy smiled and followed Mark. They walked normally through the building and out the front door. People were still looking at the alley where Claire's fireworks went off. The bodies were not public yet, which was good news for them. They saw that Claire was most of the way back up the block.

"Walk quickly," Mark said, "But don't run. We don't need the attention."

"Right," Tracy said, her adrenalin still up, "God, that was a rush."

"It's not over yet," Mark said icily, "We're going to go get that son of a bitch Robinette once and for all."

"He'll have guards," Tracy said quietly as they walked.

"I have a sniper rifle," Mark countered, "I doubt they'll be prepared for that."

"Let's hope," Tracy said, not liking how fast this was going.

They managed to get to the car without incident and found Claire waiting there for them. Mark unlocked the car and the three of them got in quickly. He fired up the engine and pulled out of the parking space quickly. He breathed a sigh of relief as they drove out of the area.

"Did you actually do it?" Claire asked them, "I saw no signs of movement from there."

"In and out," Mark said, "Five down, we burned the drugs and took the cash."

"Piece of cake," Tracy nodded, "Though I think Mark wants to do something else tonight."

"What?" Claire asked him, "Did you find out who their boss was?"

"Walker Robinette is back," Mark said, "He's meeting some of his cronies on State street in an hour."

"A frontal attack on him is madness," Claire said, "His goons will be armed to the gills."

"Open the long case," Mark said, "Just keep it low."

Claire did so and whistled at what she saw. It was a high-powered sniper rifle, one of the high dollar models that are usually used by police and military snipers. Claire had never seen one, though she had heard Mark describe it in the past.

"They had this?" Claire asked him, "Christ."

"So what's the plan?" Tracy wondered, "We find a place and just whack him?"

"Not worth it for that," Mark said, "We hit them and take the cash."

"How?" Claire asked.

"We go into the old Clayton building," Mark said, "They have a doorman, but no security cameras. We can slide in the back."

"Not going to have time for all of us to go up and down," Claire said, "One of us has to stay low to collect the loot."

"I'll do it," Tracy said, "I'm in the mood for more."

"I can carry more," Claire said, "Besides, you've taken enough risks for one night, Trace."

"Why don't we both go?" Tracy asked.

"I need one of you to spot for me," Mark said, "I can't watch the whole scene with a scope like you can with the binoculars."

"You sure you can use that thing?" Claire asked him, "Have you ever fired anything that large."

"I've used hunting rifles. It's a good weapon and a short distance," Mark said, "I should be able to get kill shots fairly easily."

"She's not really dressed for this," Tracy said, "She still looks like a street person, who will stick out like a sore thumb up there."

"You're not much better dressed," Claire reminded her, "And I can carry the stuff better."

"You've also got good eyes," Mark said, "Claire can do the street run better than you can anyway. You go into the building with me."

"You're the boss," Tracy grumped, "You want my pistol, Claire?"

"Keep it," Claire said, "I'll take Mark's. You'll have to watch his back anyway. He'll be wide open while he's aiming this monster."

"Put gloves on and reload it," Mark said as he handed the bag to Claire, "There's a clean box of shells under the seat."

Mark drove quickly and pulled into the deserted parking lot next to the Clayton building. He took the rifle from Claire and smiled at her. She grinned and just shook her head at him. Tracy looked around nervously.

"How do we do this?" Tracy asked.

"They do it in the Roosevelt lot," Mark said, "We'll break into an office on the south side that gives us a full view of the lot. Claire, you may want to take a position by the dumpster. When they all go down grab any cases you can and get out of there. We'll pick you up and get out of the area."

"Right," Claire nodded, "No worries there. Have no intention of being there when the cops come."

"If I screw up stay put and melt into the alley," Mark said, "Don't engage them yourself unless you're forced."

"Stop worrying about me and get yourself psyched," Claire smiled, "Take care of him, Trace."

"Will do," Tracy nodded, "Let's get in place before Robinette shows up."

## Chapter 6

Mark slipped the lock in the back of the Clayton building and the two of them took the stairs up to the third floor. This building was old enough to still have windows that actually opened, which made setting up much easier for them. They let themselves into an office and set up in a perfect window, one that allowed Mark to have a complete field of fire over that parking lot.

"Robinette and his crew should be here at any time," Mark said, "I'm going to get into position. Keep watch for me, eh, Trace?"

"Right," Tracy nodded and started peering through the other window, "Claire is in position. No sign of Robinette yet."

Claire Ryan sat down behind the dumpster, knowing that her best defense lied in the fact that she looked like she belonged there. She was able to see the parking lot and was praying that Robinette would show up soon so she could get out of the dirty clothes she was in. It was a relief when the two cars pulled up.

"Two cars," Tracy said, "Robinette is in the expensive one."

"Good," Mark said as he rechecked his rifle and pulled it to the window, "Let's hope I can get them all before Claire is in danger. How many of them?"

"Four in one," Tracy said, "Two with Robinette. Seven total. They are getting stuff out. Probably going to make the switch."

"Probably trying to figure out where the ones we iced earlier are," Mark said idly, "Let me know when they get the cases out."

"They're out," Tracy said, "Robinette has one in his hand."

"I've got Robinette sighted," Mark said, "I'm going for the kill."

"Goodbye," Tracy said as Mark pulled the trigger.

The high velocity bullet screamed through the air, destroying Walker Robinette's head before anyone in his gang heard the shot. Mark had already moved and fired a second shot before anyone began to realize what happened.

The others tried to figure out where the shots were coming from, but it was to no avail. A few better-placed shots took most of them down. A final shot removed the skull of the last remaining bad guy.

"One clip expended," Mark said, "Are they all down?"

"Dead as doornails," Tracy said, "Claire is moving."

"I suggest we follow her," Mark said, "Cops will be here in five."

Claire wasted no time in scrambling across the parking lot. She had to step around the rapidly forming pools of blood, but she managed to get the three cases without getting any of the blood on her. She then made a break for the car, beating Mark and Tracy by mere seconds.

"Let's get out of here," Claire said, "Cops will be here any minute."

"Crack the cases," Mark instructed her, "Tell me what's in them."

Claire cracked open the first one and found it full of papers, most of them Robinette's personal accounts and papers that would have put him away for probably the rest of his life, had he survived the attack.

"Nothing valuable to us," Claire said, "Feds might want it though."

"We'll consider dropping it somewhere," Mark said, "I'll look at it later."

"This one is dope," Tracy said, "Probably enough to supply the downtown area for a week."

"I think a bonfire is in order," Claire said, "Let's see if there is any cash in this one."

Claire opened the last case and let out a gasp. She closed the case and thrust it at Tracy, unable to speak. Tracy looked at her, cocking her head and taking the case. Mark looked at them quickly and continued driving. Tracy put the case in her lap and undid the latches.

"Holy shit," Tracy said as she opened it, "Mark, you'd better take a look at this."

Mark looked at the case and nearly crashed the car. The case was filled with packets of 100-dollar bills. Whatever Walker Robinette had been into it was paying handsomely. The case contained over one million dollars in cash. It seems that their foray against Robinette had paid off handsomely. Now the only question for them was what to do with the cash.

# The Campground

This story was the product of about four days sitting on the back porch at my in-laws' house in New Mexico. It was the first year I was married and the result of having little to do for a long thanksgiving weekend.

J. Michael Coleman was a character that I'd come up with and messed around with shortly before the first version of The Accidental Immortal. It was one of the last complete stories I did in the first person format, as I finally figured out how to do third person correctly on Undercover, which followed this by a few months.

A few elements of this story have made it into others, especially Mason's history The Accidental Immortal, but mainly it is an interesting and tragic tale that mirrors my warped views of the music industry. It also borrows liberally from the life of Kurt Cobain and other similarly tragic music figures.

In some ways it is my vision of what might have happened had Kurt lived and decided to leave the music business and take off from Courtney. At least that's what it looks like reading it again from a removed view at three thirty in the morning... (Original 2004 notes)

Note: This story shows just how screwed up my head was during that time period. I put Coleman through hell during this story, evidently throwing every rotten thing possible into this man's background. He's a tragic character in a way, and this story is hard to read ten years later. Even so, this is probably the best of the stories I wrote in first person format, mainly because I used the old convention of an outside narrator.

-Rodney 7/27/2011

## Chapter 1

The strange camper pulled into the parking lot of the office at around two in the afternoon. Its occupants made a strange sight when they climbed out, looking as tired and haggard as truck drivers after a long haul.

The man looked to be in his mid forties, with graying hair and probably a three-day growth of beard. The woman was young and beautiful, twenty-five if a day, with silky black hair.

She too looked like she had been on a long journey, though she showed it less than her companion. Most likely she had slept some while he was driving.

"Good Morning," I said from my usual chair on the porch, "Been a long drive?"

"Yeah," the man said with a smile, "I think it's been about a week since we've stopped for more than a few hours of sleep."

"Ouch," I said, remembering a few such journeys back when I was younger, "Well, I hope you find the trip worth it."

"It's all in the traveling," the man said with a shrug, "I like to travel, don't stay anywhere for long anymore."

"Are we going to stay for a few days this time, Mike?" the young lady asked him, speaking for the first time since leaving the camper.

"Depends on the rates they charge around here," Mike said, "And if they can accommodate the beast over there."

"I reckon that we can handle it," I said, "Though I don't know if we can provide the power that puppy probably eats."

"Just so long as you sell diesel, it has its own generator that I run for a few hours when the batteries get low," he said with a smile, "Just need some sewer facilities and a big enough place to park."

"You can have the space closest to the building here for 30 bucks," I said, not knowing why I let the odd pair have the space at the tent rate, "Any further out and you'll block the view for the other campers."

"That works," Mike agreed, "Especially if you can recommend a place to pick up a good cold beer."

"Not a bar for about forty miles," I told him, "But my wife Myrna sells ice cold brews in the store here."

Mike smiled and walked up to me. The young lady, who still had not been referred to by name yet, walked up with him. The closer he got the more I realized I should know his face from somewhere. Now, I kept a look at the wanted posters Myrna kept in the store, though I doubted that he was on the run with the rig he was driving.

I got up and motioned them into the store so we could fill out their registration. He seemed to know the drill and came inside. Myrna looked upon us, but said little. She and I had been on the outs for ten years, but continued together. She ran the store, I ran the campground and that's the way it's been. But this isn't about me. I handed him the card and he began filling it out.

"Amy," he said to the girl while filling it out, "Pick out some provisions while I'm filling this out and paying, OK? If there's anything you need, grab that too."

"How long are we staying?" she asked him, "If I'm going to be able to grill, I need to know how long."

"We'll call it a week," Mike said, "I think this will be a pleasant place to stay for at least that long."

He then proceeded to fill out the card. J. Michael Coleman was his name, or at least the one he filled out for us. Surprisingly, his license was from Tennessee from all places, despite not having a lick of a southern accent.

I'm still not sure where his accent was from, evidently it had been muddled by lots of travel. He pulled out a platinum visa card to pay with, though we waited for Amy to finish shopping before I ran it through the system.

Amy finished with her shopping, and Mike Coleman picked out a case of longneck Budweiser to keep them company. I helped them bring out the purchases to their rig, and Coleman opened the door. I wanted to take a look inside of this large machine and see what it had. It shocked me, really. I was expecting to see a more or less normal Winnebago style camper. This was something truly out of science fiction.

The bed, probably about the size of a queen, extended over the cab and the meager kitchen area. The kitchen consisted of little but a refrigerator, a half stove with what might be considered a toaster oven, and a microwave. What I had perceived from the outside as being a total lack of windows turned out to be false. The entire outer shell was made of a one-way view Plexiglas type of material that let the light in.

The centerpiece of it was the sitting area, featuring a double computer terminal, both with 19 inch screens built in to the wall. It was all secured for travel, and looks like it cost a mint.

The ceiling was lower than I expected, and was the only part that I couldn't see through. Mike grinned when he saw me looking around curiously. He told me that the communications gear was in that foot or so of space missing at the top. I whistled, realizing that the entire rig must have cost him at least a quarter of a million, maybe more. While I was still gawking at the impressive setup, Mike went into the area under the bed and pulled out a decent size cooler, surprisingly, not one of his namesake ones.

I put the stuff down, and Amy put it away. Mike also dragged out some chairs. He emptied the ice into the cooler and put the beer into it. I helped him carry it outside, figuring that it was the neighborly thing to do. Amy set up the chairs. Surprisingly she set up three, while Mike began the fire.

"Would you care to join us for a while?" Coleman asked me, "Amy makes a mean hamburger and there's plenty of cold brew."

I thought about it for perhaps half a second before agreeing to join him. Myrna was a singularly horrid cook, and my company was about as welcome to her as a pack of rattlesnakes as of late.

I watched Mike sit down into one of the chairs and pull a beer out of the cooler, handing it over to me. I gratefully accepted and figured I could watch for newcomers just fine from thirty feet away. He pulled one out for Amy, tossing it over to her, and then finally took one for himself. He twisted off the cap and took a long pull of it.

I'll spare you the conversation of the night as it was mainly getting acquainted stuff, interspersed with a few beers and a lot of cigarettes. It wasn't until the next evening that I found out who Mike Coleman really was, and that, my friends is where this story truly begins.

## Chapter 2

The next day went like most others, Mike and Amy kept to themselves, with her spending most of the day sitting outside reading the latest Stephen King novel, and him staying mostly out of sight, most likely working or playing on the computer station inside the camper. Amy seemed to be the chief chef for the pair, as Mike didn't touch the food until he ate it.

Coleman came into the store around six in the evening and bought another twelve-pack of beer, since the three of us polished off most of the first case the previous night. Myrna looked at both him and me coldly as she rang up the sale, but said nothing as I went out and sat with Mike and Amy for a second straight night, especially since it got me out of her hair.

I was still trying to place him at this point, I knew for sure that I recognized him from somewhere but it still was drawing blank to me. It was not until the second beer of the night that I got up the courage to ask him where I might have seen him before. Both of them laughed at the question. It seems that it was one that they'd heard numerous times before.

"Probably back in my previous life," Mike said with a smile, "It's a long time past, and thankfully fewer and fewer people remember it very well. I guess the gray goes a long way towards making people forget about you."

"It often does," I agreed, "Even my own kin seem to have forgotten about me. I see my son maybe twice a year."

"I haven't seen anyone in my family for about ten years," Mike said, "Don't think I have much interest in seeing them again. I'm not sure they want to see me either. I was always the black sheep of the family."

"My Dad died years ago," Amy said, "Mom does little now but drink and bring men home from the bar. But you make your own family as you go along."

"Just have to be careful," Mike said with a sigh, "Because even a self made family can often blow up in your face."

It was just about then that one of the local kids pulled into the parking lot, the radio blaring on that station that plays the best of the 80's, 90's and beyond. I recognized the song, but I'll be damned if I can place the title.

I did remember the band as it was my son's favorite all through high school back in the early 90's. I could see that Mike recognized it too. The song was loud and not much to my taste, but I could see that it was stirring up something for Mike Coleman.

Coleman was mouthing the words and playing air guitar, though it was obvious that he actually knew the chords for the song. It was right then I knew where I had recognized him from.

I used to sit in the room reading while the kids watched MTV. One of their favorites was a band called "The Inquisition", led by a young man with long stringy blonde hair. Put a blonde wig on Coleman, take off about twenty years and the gray, and you had the lead singer.

"You're Justin Cole, aren't you, Mike?" I asked as the song ended and he came back to reality.

"I didn't figure you'd remember," Mike said with a wistful smile, "Most people don't put the old and graying me together with the bleached long hair I wore until just about a decade ago."

"It took me a while," I admitted, "My kids worshipped you and your band when they were in high school. Played your CD's constantly."

"Yeah," Mike said, "The early 90's were banner years for me, at least professionally. Personally it was a nice black hole, but then again, the last few years haven't been a picnic either."

We sat there for a few minutes sipping on our beers. I looked over at him as he lit a cigarette, wondering what made him leave the spotlight the way he did. I considered asking him to tell the story if he was willing, but it took another beer to make me do so. I hadn't been this social with any of our campers since we bought the campground back in 94, a year after our last kid graduated high school and joined the Army.

I was pondering asking him to tell the story of his success and downfall, but didn't want to push him. I mean after all, free beer is free beer, and I didn't want to piss the guy off. Luckily for me Amy decided to ask him for me. It seems that she didn't know the whole story either, and was just as interested as I was.

"You know, Mike," she said, using the name he signed in with, "You never told me the story of your life either. We've been traveling together over a year now, spit it out."

"Sure," he said with a sigh, "I guess it's time to let you know some things about the man you've been traveling with. I'm not sure if you're going to like it."

"As messed up as my life has been?" She said with a smile, "It'll probably be a relief to hear stories about someone who was actually successful."

"Success is a double edged sword, babe," he said, "It feels good at first and then comes up and bites you in the ass."

I listened to this exchange with a smile, wondering just how interesting it would be to hear about such an interesting life right from the lips of the man who lived it. If nothing else, it was going to be a good way to keep away from Myrna for a while.

## Chapter 3

"My early life was nothing really special," he started in a rather bland fashion, "My father was a police officer with a nasty drinking problem and a horrid temper. By the time I was 18, I was looking to get out of the place. I had one real passion at that point in time, and that was the music. I knew three instruments by that point."

"How many do you know now?" Amy asked him. I just stayed silent and listened.

"Several types of guitar, keyboards, drums, xylophone, accordion and a bunch of others," he said, "Back then, however, my main ones were guitar, keyboard and drums.

"I auditioned for one of those cookie cutter bands back in early 79, just as I was finishing high school. The name of the band was inconsequential, and I'd prefer to forget about it, seeing as it turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes of my life." "How's that?" I asked him, "Didn't it get you into the music business?"

"Yes," Mike conceded, "But the price wasn't worth it. I was tied into the band for five years according to that contract. The music was complete bubblegum pop. We were pretty much Monkees light for the late 70's. The only hit song the group ever had was a little ditty called "Right on, Duckie" which still makes my skin crawl to hear."

"It's just like the New Kids were in the 80's, the Backdoor Boys were in the 90's and that god awful group of kids are for today," he added bitterly, "I was not happy. I knew I could write and I knew I could play and sing, but the contract forbid me to do any outside work. I lasted all of 18 months with that horrid group."

"They let you out of your contract?" Amy asked, "Doesn't sound like record execs."

"It wasn't," he replied, "They owned me lock, stock and barrel. Thing is, I refused to work with the band, and after they left the charts they started to fall apart. I think all of them are either on drugs or recovering from them except for me."

"There's a lot of it going around in that business, Isn't there?" I asked.

"Too much," Coleman admitted, "I always avoided it myself, but I saw plenty go down from it."

"So how did you get past that situation?" Amy asked, prodding him along.

"I left when the band went down," He said simply, "It wasn't worth the money to sue me, so they did the next best thing. Enforced the contract and made sure I couldn't work anywhere else."

"Bummer," she said.

"I got a break though," Mike grinned, "I had made friends with some people in the A&R department over at Geffen. I was over talking to one of them in late 1980 when a commotion broke out in one of the studios. It was a recording session breaking down and the producer storming out of the place. People were screaming. It wasn't a pretty sight."

"Sounds amusing," I commented, "What happened?"

"Well," he continued, "Jake and I went over to find out what was wrong. It seems that the producer could not coax a decent performance out of the starlet. The girl didn't have much talent, seeing that she was signed for attributes, but she wasn't the worst I'd ever heard. I went in there and listened to a couple of the tapes and talked to the musicians for a couple minutes.

"Jake just watched and let me go, he knew that I couldn't screw it up any worse than it already was. I asked the girl to sing the song for me, I forget what it was, but she wasn't totally bad. It was just the fact that the music wasn't going along with the song."

"And you knew how to fix it?" I asked him.

"I may have only been 20," Mike said, "But I knew what music was supposed to sound like. I had them change the tempo of the song, taking the drum kit for a minute to show them. We did a live take of the song and it was pretty good. I suggested a few more changes and we did two more takes. On the third take, we'd gotten it down and the track was done. I'd done in an hour what the other producer had been failing at for three weeks."

"Wow," Amy said, "So that was your true entrance into the business?"

"Yep," he said with a smile, "I couldn't perform, but I could shape other people's music to sound better. Jake introduced me to some other execs and after they heard what I did I was hired on the spot for a producer, a position I was to continue with for four more years, until I formed the Inquisition in 1984."

"Who did you produce?" I asked him, "Anybody I would know?"

"I got mostly unknowns at the time, though I did get pulled in on some bigger projects," he said, "I did an album with Pat Benatar, got Glenn Frey's _Smuggler's Blues_ off the ground, not to mention producing the infamous _867-5309_ song for Tommy Tutone back in '82."

Coleman went on for another hour or so about that time period, and while it was very interesting, I was unable to retain much about it because we finished off all the beer. By the time we finished up talking it was nearly midnight. Mike and Amy retired to the camper and I headed back into the house to take my lumps from Myrna. She'd locked the door to the bedroom and I ended up sleeping on the couch yet again.

## Chapter 4

I woke up around seven with Myrna making herself food. I had a doozie of a hangover, but I didn't mind too much at the time. Myrna scowled at me as she left, mumbling about me being a drunken bastard all the while. I ignored her, as usual, and pulled myself up. I took a long shower to purge the alcoholic remnants out of my system and ate a little breakfast.

I was wondering if I would be spending the evening with Mike and Amy again, and hoped that I would be. I went around and did my morning chores, cleaning up some messes and giving a young couple from New York a quick lecture about fire safety. Lucky for them it had been a wet year and an arsonist could not have burned the campground down if they'd wanted to.

I saw Mike Coleman once during the day. He was walking around the grounds, looking to see what he could see. Amy was nowhere to be seen, and Mike didn't seem in the talking mood at that point. I found myself growing anxious for the next installment of his life's story, which shows how pathetic my life was growing at that point in time.

I wasn't disappointed, as Mike and Amy came in around six in the evening again. This time the menu was changed a little, Amy bought several steaks and they got cokes instead of beer. Coleman asked for a carton of Marlboro reds until Amy looked at him hard and he settled for the ultra lights. Again, they invited me out and while Myrna wasn't looking I threw a couple extra steaks into the sack, along with some onions and peppers. Amy smiled and quickly took the bag out to the camper.

I went out with them and helped Mike Coleman start the fire while Amy went inside to prepare the steaks. Once the fire was big enough for cooking Mike and I sat down in the same chairs we'd been in the previous nights. Coleman cracked open a Coke and lit his first cigarette of the evening.

"Trying to cut down a bit," Mike said as he dragged on the Marlboro Ultra Light, "This'll probably do it. The ultra lights have no friggen taste."

"I know how that is," I told him, "I went down to the lights for six months before I quit totally. By the time I quit I didn't feel like starting again 'cause all I remembered were those things."

"Yeah," Mike said, "I made the mistake of starting during that horrid period of servitude in 79-80. Didn't quit again until 1984."

"How did you get out of that contract mess you were in?" I asked him, just as Amy came out with the foil wrapped steaks.

"The only way I could," he replied simply, "I waited it out. I produced for a living up until I hit with Cole's Inquisition. The contract with the production company ended on March 1, 1984. You better believe that I was just about ready to move on with my life. Thing was, the record company didn't want me to perform, just produce."

"Back to square one," Amy said as she sat down and opened a coke, "Only with you on the other side of the control booth."

"Yep," Mike agreed, "And if I'd had any sense I would have stayed there, but I was young and I still had the urge to force my vision of music upon the world."

"How'd you get around it?" I asked him, "The record companies tend to be on the vicious side."

"Same way I got into the production business," Mike said with a grin, "I saved a bigwig's ass. I'll refrain from naming the bigwig, but he screwed up badly. There was this young girl with a great set of knockers and no singing talent whatsoever, and this guy had signed her to a deal and given her a 50K advance. Dumb move, because there was no way he could get a record out with her voice."

"Justin Cole to the rescue," Amy said sarcastically.

"Damn straight," Coleman said with a grin, "I laid out my terms for saving his ass. I wanted a no strings attached record deal for myself and the band I put together. Record ownership would remain with me and I would handle production alone. Basically, a deal that any sane record executive would have laughed at."

"But you had him by the balls," Amy said, "'Cause no one else would touch it?"

"Pretty much," Mike agreed, "He figured that if it saved his ass, the price would be worth it. It took me three weeks, but I managed to produce a single for the girl. I basically did about 40 takes and used the best-sung lines from each one. I had written the song myself and it was a hip-hop style track, before hip-hop really made it. The rest of the album was corny ballads not designed to be any more than filler. It was the worst thing I ever produced and it was the start of my career as a front man."

"Did the song ever do anything?" I asked curiously.

"Single made it to number three for about a week in the UK," Coleman said with a chuckle, "I think it might have hit the top forty for a week here in the US, but if it did it didn't make it above #37. Still, that was a success for an artist that bad and it made back the fifty grand that he'd blown on her. He was ready to have my baby by that point."

"Now you just needed a band," Amy said, "I'm assuming this is where the Inquisition came into play?"

"It was then that I started to put them together," Mike said as he fired up another smoke, "The first one to join was a session musician named Ronald Spectre. He was about five years older than me, and had been playing sessions for over a decade. He'd never joined a real band as he had no writing ability whatsoever, just the ability to play what you told him precisely. This was a talent I wanted, because he could bring my drum lines to life exactly the way I heard them in my head."

"The next two members were to be Cookie Thomas and Trip Davis," Coleman continued, "They were part of what would now be labeled as a fusion band. The music was part punk, part funk, part hip-hop and almost all bad. I was assigned to produce the band's debut album in early 84. The lead singer was terrible, and I used Cookie heavily to cover up his course vocal style."

Amy handed out steaks to each of us and a brief pause occurred while we opened them up and started to eat. When each of us had put down about half the steak Mike continued about how Cookie and Trip joined the band.

"Cookie, Trip and I were playing in the studio waiting for the rest of the band to show up," He continued, "I had put together a preliminary version of the song _Red Lines_ to play with and I had Cookie give it a shot. The results were phenomenal. I knew then that I wanted more than just a standard backing band. I wanted participants and another singer to take up slack on things that I couldn't do, such as the silky vocals that Cookie laid down for _Red Lines_.

"Alas, they weren't able to join up for a while. Their contract held them to that awful band until the lead singer was either unable to continue or wanted to break up. That lasted exactly two months after the date of that first recording session. Jackson Grimes, who had been the leader of the dysfunctional band, knew that he was losing control. Grimes had been an abusive egomaniac, and he was about to be charged with domestic abuse. Not to mention the label was getting ready to drop them, partially because of my reporting how big an asshole he was in the studio.

"I happened to be there at Grimes' last show with that band. He was exceptionally abusive to his audience and even went so far as to piss on the audience. When they started screaming at him and booing him off the stage, Trip put down his bass guitar and walked off the stage. Cookie threw her tambourine at Grimes and followed Trip. The drummer was standing up when Grimes pulled out a pistol. Grimes fired two shots at the drummer, whose name eludes me, three shots at those of us who were off stage, and put the last shot into his temple, blowing what little brains he had out over the audience."

"Yuck," Amy said with a groan, "Did you have to tell this story at dinner?"

"Sorry," Mike said sarcastically, "But it did serve the little bugger right. It cost the record company a mint too, because they were sued by nearly every person in the audience."

"I think I read about this somewhere about 20 years ago," I said, "Spurred on a nice bout with the morality people, didn't it?"

"Those PMRC clowns have brought it up repeatedly," Mike said, "Threw it in our faces when we testified at the congressional hearings."

"You were there?" Amy asked incredulously, "I knew Zappa and Dee Snider, but don't remember hearing about your testimony."

"I was still a producer then," Mike told her, "I wasn't a 'name' at the time, so my testimony didn't last long and didn't get much coverage."

"So Cookie and Trip joined your band?" I asked him, trying to get back on topic.

"After I talked the record company into letting them out of their restrictive contract and into one with me," Mike confirmed, "Trip, the tall lanky Texan and Cookie the golden blonde California girl joined the project that was by then named Cole's Inquisition.

"The hard part was finding someone who would play keyboards the way I wanted. I had interviewed dozens of them by the time I had the rest of the band together. I knew I wanted keyboard sounds, and I knew that I couldn't play them myself during live shows. Cole's Inquisition was put together with both live and studio in mind.

"It finally came together for me when the four of us were playing around in the studio. My girlfriend at the time, a knockout by the name of Teri Brakeman, was laying some background vocals with Cookie. I had considered putting Cookie on the Keyboards, but she had no shred of playing ability and was needed more up front. Eye candy for the masses, basically."

Amy tossed an empty Coke can at Coleman for that comment, which he nimbly dodged with a grin. I chuckled and grabbed another Coke to hand to her. She took it and Mike went on with the story.

"I asked Teri if she played anything," Mike continued, "She said she'd taken piano in high school, but hadn't played anything since. With that, I sat her down at the keyboard and taught her the basic chords for the song we were working on. By the end of the day we had two usable tracks. A cover of Dave Edmunds' _High School Nights_ and one of my originals entitled _Fading_ , which was a fast paced number with Cookie and I alternating vocals. I played the tracks for some of the execs, and they thought there was potential. I was finally pulled off production and told to go ahead and finish the initial album. They just didn't want those songs to be on it, so we really were at square one."

"What did they do with those songs?" I asked him, "They ever see the light of day?"

"Yep," He nodded, "They were on the soundtrack to Porky's Revenge. Our version of High School Nights charted at an abysmal #92. I wasn't thrilled, but the bosses thought that was great for someone on a soundtrack that nobody had ever heard of before. "The true work on the album came a few days later," Mike continued, "We reprised our version of _Red Lines_ , along with a few other tracks. The band got along great, with the only real slowdown being the fact that I was having to teach Teri her keyboard lines on the fly, often taking over her keyboard and playing them out a few times until she picked it up.

"The exec over the project was incredulous of us, given the motley crew that I'd put together, but his hands were tied by the deal I had made with him a few months earlier. He let me do the project my way, considering it cost him very little to do so. After two months in the studio, an extreme time for those days, we had completed about twenty-five tracks. It required a double album and a long play cassette when I finished whittling it down. The final version was 79 minutes long and contained 22 tracks. The only reason Jake went along with it was because he knew that he'd have to sell less to have it look good."

"How's that?" Amy asked.

"To get a gold record, you need to sell a hundred thousand copies," Mike explained, "To do it with a double album you only need to sell fifty thousand. Mainly because they cost more."

Amy nodded and started picking up trash. I finished the last bit of my steak and handed her the wrapper. Mike waited for her to finish cleaning up to start the story again. He pulled out a cigarette from the box and took his time lighting it. Amy passed around Cokes and sat herself down next to Coleman.

"The first single," Mike continued, "a simple rock song called _Timing for Jenny_ , went to number three on the singles chart during the last weeks of 1984. The album sold really well, climbing itself up past gold in the first months. It didn't really take off, however, until we did a video for the second single.

"We decided it was time to showcase Cookie Thomas and my song _Red Lines_ was perfect. Her sexy and silky vocals combined with the swimsuits she and Teri wore in the video shot us straight up to #1 on both the album and single charts. The album went Platinum in late March.

"It was becoming time to tour, and the tour was bound to be a doozie," Mike continued, "Teri had spent months learning all the songs on the record and a few dozen covers that I knew that I'd use on the tour. Cole's Inquisition wasn't going to be your standard concert experience. I'd planned on it becoming a circus, similar to a Frank Zappa concert, with me as the ringleader."

"I heard you had some wild shows," I said remembering the news of the day, "Long ones too, sometimes putting Bruce Springsteen to shame."

"There being two singers, it increased the time we could go without getting hoarse," Mike conceded, "I had that as an advantage. We debuted a few new songs on that tour, and covered a lot of records. Teri quickly became a good keyboard player. She wasn't quite up to virtuoso stage, but she was holding her own and learning new tricks as she went along.

"The backstage antics were not as pronounced as everybody imagined they were. I didn't allow drugs in the crew, and discouraged their use by the members of the band. The orgies were greatly exaggerated mainly because we were all too tired to even think of getting laid after a show.

"I'm not going to give a day by day recitation of this period," he continued, "But the tour continued for the rest of the year, moving on to brief European and Asian tours towards the end of the year. We released about four more singles from that debut album, all of them doing well, but not eclipsing _Red Lines_."

"I remember a poster my brother had around that time," Amy said, "It was of the five of you lined up with pistols and taking aim at something. I never could figure out what it was, it was so small and blurry."

"That was the cover of the first album," Mike said with a laugh, "I set up that improv shot just before the album sessions ended, the target was one of five copies I had of the album with Right On, Duckie. We blew the hell out of all of them and used the best shot of it for the album cover. It also made a great poster. Geffen, however, was wary of lawsuits and blurred it out. It became a great joke for us though."

"How did everyone in the band deal with the success?" I asked him, "I hear a lot of horror stories about how bands that do really well often fall apart when the success overwhelms them."

"I probably would have had that problem if I hadn't been in the Rubber Duckie band," Mike said, "I saw many young artists go through it during the years I was just producing, though everyone had their problems with success. Teri and I had each other for support. Ron was married with kids and older than all of us. Trip had a few adjustment problems, but he was enjoying every minute of it. He was in a successful band and Cookie and I were taking the brunt of the fame abuse. Cookie was taking it the worst of all.

"Cookie was partying and drinking a lot, probably doing some drugs too, though it never interfered with her performance. She was taking a whole lot of the spotlight, despite the fact that she couldn't play a note and that I was the creative force of the band. She started buying into her hype and playing the star. She wanted more front vocals and she wanted to be the only star, something that wasn't about to happen with me in the band.

"She was deluding herself badly. She didn't have the charisma or the talent to carry a show by herself. I was the leader and she and I had a good banter, but as time grew on I started to depend more on Trip and Teri for the comic bits. Cookie was making herself less and less needed by becoming more and more difficult. By the beginning of 1986 the tours had ended and it was just about time to hit the studio and record again.

"Cookie was invited to the sessions, but she chose not to show up. The band had pretty well closed ranks against her by this point. I was her only remaining defender and her conduct was starting to put me off. We started recording tracks, figuring that I'd have to get her into the studio to sing after the music was laid down. I started singing on tracks that normally I'd shunt over to Cookie for her smooth and sexy vocals.

"What surprised me is how good some of them came out, especially when I took my time and sang without playing an instrument. The sessions were half way over when it came towards Grammy time in 1986, and we were up for a snootful of them. Best song, Best Album, I was up for best production and a whole bunch of other technical awards. Cookie started showing up again and was making some waves about wanting to go solo, but being stuck in a contract with me prevented her from doing so. Her conduct was starting to piss me off and I had had just about enough.

"She and I had a major fight a week before the Grammys. She said that if she were allowed to she would go solo. I wasn't willing to go that far, but I told her that if she wanted out she would be released from her contract. The only way I was going to let her out intact at that time was if she waited six months to release any new material and that she relinquishes all claims to the Cole's Inquisition material."

"She agreed to that?" Amy asked incredulously, "I'd have told you to bugger off."

"She wanted out," Mike said simply, "And I was pissed off. She had pushed my buttons for too long and I knew that I could complete the new album without her. By the end of the day she was released from her contract and out of Cole's Inquisition.

"We held off on telling the world for a while. I was originally going to let the Grammys be her send off, but the band was totally against it. They wanted to be rid of her then and there. Trip, who'd known her longest, and Teri, who loathed her the most, both threatened to not play in the Grammy Telecast if Cookie was to be allowed into the show.

"I spent a day or so thinking about it, and decided that Cookie could really make us look bad if she sang. Not to mention, while I could play all of the instruments of the band, I couldn't play all four of them at once. I let it ride until the night of the Grammy awards and told them not to admit Cookie for the rehearsals, as she would not be playing that night. It took a while, but I finally figured out how to sing _Red Lines_ and play the guitar. Mainly I slowed down the guitar line and let Trip add some more bass to it. Teri was able to take the dead time with the additional keyboard lines. Teri had become a very good rock and roll keyboardist by this point.

"Cookie was extremely offended by the betrayal of the band, despite the fact that she had been released from it seven days earlier. She was allowed to come up on stage to collect awards with us, it would have been unseemly if we didn't give her that much, but when it came time to do _Red Lines_ she sat there in the audience red in the face with rage."

"I think I remember what comes next," I mumbled in recollection of 1986.

"Shhh," Amy said, "Let him tell it his way."

I nodded and looked down at the cooler. We were down to our last two cokes. Both Amy and Mike were empty, so we took this interruption as a chance to use the restrooms and stand up for a few minutes. I went inside the store, which Myrna had closed up a couple hours before, grabbed a fresh bag of ice and another case of coke. I brought it out and dumped both into their cooler. I figured it was the least I could do.

Mike came back from the camper and sat back down into his chair. He fired up another cigarette and offered the pack around. I passed, remembering how lousy the ultra lights were, but surprisingly Amy took one and lit it with a twig she pushed into the fire. I looked at her and she shrugged with her best 'If you can't beat em, Join em' grin.

"Where was I?" Mike asked.

"Doing _Red Lines_ at the Grammys," Amy prompted him.

"Oh yeah," Mike remembered, "She was truly pissed. I think the thing that pissed her off the most was that I did the song better than she had been doing it for the past few months. There were three more awards that night. Best male vocalist, best song, and record of the year. We were nominated in all three. I lost male vocalist to Don Henley, which still pisses me off 'cause I hate that SOB. I won song of the year, but collected alone because that award goes to the songwriter, not the performing band. The last award was the one we really coveted, because it was the one that meant career independence for me, guaranteed. I won it, and the entire band, including Cookie, came up to collect it.

"I made the first speech, thanking the rest of the band, including a specific thanks for Cookie to keep up appearances. Trip followed, saying a few short words thanking his family and me. Teri made a dramatic speech with absolutely nothing about Cookie. Ron thanked his family and me, and then it finally became Cookie's turn at the mic.

"Cookie started out good, but just as I was about to breathe a sigh of relief, she thanked her family, her friends and stated that quote Justin Cole can kiss my ass unquote. I was shocked that she would say that on national television. At least she had the decorum to walk offstage before she flipped us the bird, though that was caught on film for later use.

"There was absolutely nothing I could do about her conduct, as she'd been released officially a week before. It turned out to be the singularly dumbest thing she could have done, as it pretty well destroyed any chance she had for a solo career. None of the studios wanted her, especially when the press caught wind of what she'd pulled on us during the previous months."

"Shot herself in the foot, eh?" I said, "Sounds like another casualty of letting your head get too big for the door."

"That's the truth," Mike said with a sigh, "It was also the last time Cookie darkened the band's door. It thoroughly destroyed any chance of a reunion at a later date. When I released her I figured I'd let her go on her own for a while and if she crashed and burned I'd try to work her back into the fold. She lost any and all chances for that.

"The work on the new album continued with renewed vigor, as we were determined to top the success that we had had with the first one. We designed the master for the new digital format, figuring that it would take over eventually. The cassette version had two incidental tracks removed to even out the sides. The LP version contained the whole album on two LP disks, which allowed us to remain a double unit.

"The album was finished by the end of May and I had it packaged and ready to go by the end of June. They wanted some advance press on it, so they slated the release for the second Tuesday in August. The fans were impatient and I suggested releasing an advance single, both on CD and Cassette single, featuring the title track _That Was Then, This is Now_ , two album cuts that were not being considered for singles, and the six leftover cuts from the sessions for the two albums. They loved the idea and that LP was put together in a marathon session of the entire band trying to smooth out the rough edges, especially Teri's keyboard on the leftovers from the first album.

" _That Was Then, This is Now_ , the maxisingle debuted at #4 on the charts and rode on the top ten for about six weeks. Not the magic we'd had with _Red Lines_ and _Timing for Jenny_ , but for a maxisingle priced at eight bucks for the cassette and twelve for the CD, it was phenomenal. It wasn't really meant to break records, but to be a gift to the fans who'd been waiting for new material.

"The album was received eagerly by the public. I never felt it was as strong as the other albums, and by the end of 1986 I had begun to loathe most of it, especially the synthesizer overloaded songs that really date the album. The second single, the first one released after the full album hit shelves, was a song that I would truly learn to despise. It was entitled _Does Love Exist_? and was done in a manic twelve hour stretch with Teri and me doing all the instruments. It was mostly synthesizer and it was one of the worst examples of 80's synth pop to date.

"I think the thing that pissed me off the most about DLE was the fact that the song shot straight to number one. I had second thoughts about releasing it, but the record company prevailed upon me. And to be honest, it did make me one hell of a lot of money.

"We had hit the touring trail again, this time as a quartet, just after album sessions had ended and we'd figured out how to do some of the major songs without Cookie's presence. Trip and Teri seamlessly filled in the banter gap that she should have left. The shows were a lot more fluid, and we were previewing a lot of material for an eager public.

"The tour was becoming arduous, as the singles that we were required to play every show started to piss me off. _That was Then_ got really old after playing it four nights a week, and I had all I could do not to spit when I sang the words to DLE. Some of the other singles hit me better, but none of them were as popular as DLE was. I realized at this point I was finally beginning to burn out."

It was also at this point that the sky decided to pour out above us. The storytelling for the night was over with, as Mike and Amy moved the cooler under the camper and bade me a goodnight. I told them that if they wanted to do it tomorrow night the dinner was on me, provided Amy would prepare it again. They enthusiastically agreed, as they seemed to enjoy my company as much as I did theirs.

I went into the trailer behind the store where I lived and just laid down to sleep on the couch. I didn't even bother trying to go to my bed. I wasn't in the mood for dealing with my wife that night. I hit the pillow and was asleep almost instantly. Those late nights were not something I was used to anymore.

## Chapter 5

I had a slight reprieve in the morning, seeing the note that Myrna had decided to go off and visit with her brother for the next two days. That was just fine with me, despite the fact that it meant that I was stuck with the store for the time being too. Not that we got a whole lot of customers anyway. I got up and got myself cleaned up and actually put on something respectable.

I went out to the store to take care of the morning rush, mainly campers who had run out of toothpaste or were running low on food. Not to mention the few locals who find our little store more convenient than the supermarket about ten miles away. I took the morning deliveries and after seeing they were put away, I did my morning rounds around the grounds.

Surprisingly, everything was going well, we hadn't had anyone check in or out for a couple days and I was expecting a few of them to go today. I saw Amy sitting outside reading a book when I walked past their lot. She waved and said hello. I asked where Mike had run off to, and she said that he was still sleeping, probably would be up around the store in a few hours though. I told her I'd be there, seeing as Myrna stuck me with it for the day.

She smiled, and boy that smile would be enough to send any man's heart a flutter. I nodded my head to her and made my way back to the store, unlocked and sat down behind the counter to greet customers and take Myrna's place. I didn't mind too much though, I had planned on providing the dinner for tonight's get together and this would make it a mite easier to get something good.

Mike breezed into the store around two in the afternoon, tossing his cigarette into the gravel as he entered. He sat down on one of the stools and I pulled out a couple cokes. We talked for a while about current events, marveling at just how well informed he was. I guess he must have either access to the internet or a TV satellite.

At the end of the conversation I told him I'd be closing up the shop around six or so and would join him then. He said that was fine and that he looked forward to it. Then he was gone again. I sat the rest of the afternoon and waited on a few more customers. At six, I picked out a good size roast from the meat cooler and wrapped it up. I brought out the last of the vegetables, knowing we'd be required to toss them the next day anyway. I also grabbed a bottle of the special seasoning that the guy down the road gives us to sell for him.

I put a sign on the store directing people to Coleman's lot if they needed emergency service during the night and went on over. I handed Amy the bag with the roast and vegetables. I put down the heavy bag with the sodas and ice and Mike went ahead and prepared the cooler, emptying out the old water and dumping in the new sodas and ice.

Amy went inside and came out about 30 minutes later with three foil wrapped packages, which she placed in the fire that Mike and I had built by this point. We then sat down to our now customary positions while the food cooked in the fire. Mike lit his first cigarette of the evening and put his feet up on the block of wood he had set up for this purpose.

"Where did I get to last night before the rain started?" he asked us, "I can't even remember."

"You were starting to burn out from the constant touring, I believe in the first part of 1987," I reminded him, eager to get him talking again.

"Oh yes," he said as he exhaled some smoke, "In the start of 1987 we took a touring break, despite the fact we still had singles on the chart. It was then I made a fateful mistake."

"What was that?" Amy asked.

"Going right back into the studio," he continued, "I had some ideas and they were as far away from the previous album as I could get away with. The first track, which I had written after seeing a war torn area of Asia, was called _No God_ and was a complete attack on the religious systems of the day. I had banned both drum machines and the synth sound from the previous album. Ron was pleased, but Teri wasn't. That rift started to grow and by the end of the first week of sessions, Teri and I were no longer romantically entangled. She stayed with the band, she knew her meal ticket better than Cookie did, but it was a tense time.

"We did our usual work, but it was more cantankerous in the studio. I became more dictatorial to keep the sessions under control. It took us only a month to finish the sessions, but took me a further two to make a coherent album out of the mess. I often had to jump into the studio to rerecord an instrument track that didn't sound right. Trip and Teri considered this an insult, though Ron was used to it and I didn't have to do much to his work.

"I finally got the album, which I named after the song _No Go_ d, ready in April. I even directed the video myself. The first part has me, dressed in military garb, swinging through a stained glass window, the glass shattering over Trip and Teri. I proceeded to land and sing the song. Of course, the whole thing had blasphemous overtones and when it was released earned me a nice shit storm from the religious right.

"MTV wasn't ready for that controversy yet, Madonna's _Like a Prayer_ video was still a good two years away. They pulled the video from its rotation, a move that served to really piss me off. The album was musically better than any of its predecessors, yet was receiving a critical beating just because it was different than the previous one."

"What did you do after the MTV ban?" Amy asked.

"I told them to go fuck themselves," Mike said simply, "I released no further singles from the album. The relationship between the rest of the band and myself had deteriorated and a tour would have just destroyed us all. The last studio session we had in the 1980's occurred in July 1987, when we recorded the title track for that year's James Bond movie."

"That was you?" I asked, "I always liked that one. It was the one with Timothy Dalton, wasn't it?"

"Yep," Coleman affirmed, "And that movie would change my life for the next couple years, to be honest. By the time that movie came out I had officially placed Cole's Inquisition on a hiatus. Trip formed his own band and Teri was off doing session work, having become quite good at the keyboards by this time. Ron played drums for the Grateful Dead while their original drummer was too ill to play.

"At the premier for that Bond film I met a young actress who played a small part in it. She and I got along really well, starting a relationship that would last for several years. She also got me into acting for the first time. I started with a couple small parts at the end of 87 and the beginning of 88. When producers found out that I could really act, they decided to use my name recognition and cast me in starring roles.

"I did about fifteen movies during the period from 1987 to 1991. A couple of them were action blockbusters that I still find amusing to watch. I also found time in between films to produce other people's albums again. A few of the projects included Debbie Gibson's follow up album, one of Mojo Nixon's albums and a few tracks for Tom Petty. I think the Nixon album was my favorite, because I spent more time laughing than producing."

"Did you have any further contact with Cookie Thomas during this period?" Amy asked him, "I thought you worked with her again."

"Surprisingly enough I did," Mike said, "I forgave her for the Grammys and agreed to produce a comeback album for her. The sessions started in early 1989, but folded quickly because she became difficult again. She was also heavily addicted to cocaine by this point, something which I refused to tolerate. The record company pulled the plug after two weeks, mainly giving me an out that I couldn't be blamed for.

"Cookie started deteriorating rapidly at that point. My girlfriend and I saw her fairly regularly, as Cookie was well known on the party circuit. She was known for sleeping with anyone who would have her and doing as much alcohol and coke as she could stand."

"Sounds like she was on the freight train to hell," I added.

"Not far off," Mike agreed, "The end came in early September 1989. Mary and I were with some friends, having a couple drinks and relaxing. I had just finished shooting on an action flick, and I sorely needed some rest and relaxation. We were all talking, much like we are here tonight, and I asked them if they'd heard from Cookie in a while. Nobody had, and I started to get curious. We all called a few people, and Cookie had been suspiciously absent from the party and club scene for the past two or three weeks.

"We decided that we'd best take a ride over and check on her. Five of us piled into my 84 Caprice, which I drove until it died in 97, and headed over to Cookie's place. Cookie's place was not very much, it was an apartment that was paid for automatically out of her residual checks from CRI, the holding company I set up for handling royalties on the Inquisition albums. It was a tax thing. Cookie and the others were officially contract employees of CRI. It did their health insurance and their royalties. I had Cookie's apartment paid for so she wouldn't lose it. She never objected, though she needed the money.

"Cookie's apartment was silent, but we could smell something in the hall. Nobody was quite sure what that smell was, though I had a sneaking suspicion about it. We tried to find the super to get him to let us in, but he was nowhere to be found. I took a good look at the door, and saw that the deadbolt wasn't engaged. I took a credit card and slipped the lock on the door.

"The smell bowled us over when we entered. Mary and the rest were gagging, and one of the stragglers went outside to throw up. I pushed all of them out and made my way into the darkened apartment slowly. I used a handkerchief to keep from leaving prints as I turned on some lights. I found Cookie, or more precisely what little was left of her, lying on the couch. She was naked and had an empty pill bottle in her hand. I looked at the bottle, careful not to touch and saw that she'd committed suicide by an overdose of sleeping pills."

"You really know how to tell a story before dinner," Amy said with a groan, "You're lucky that this is going to be a dinner good enough to overcome that story."

"Should be just about time to eat anyway," I said, "What did you do after you found her body?"

"Called the police," Mike said, "And wouldn't you know it, I had to run into my father for the first time since I had left home, over a decade earlier."

"He was assigned to the case?" I asked.

"Yep," he continued after tossing his cigarette into the fire, "There was no problem though. He'd finally quit drinking and we got along fairly well considering our history. Cookie's death was ruled a suicide, which it probably was. She'd pretty well destroyed her life and she knew it. Cookie joined the forever 27 club on September eighth, 1989."

It was at this point that Amy pulled the roasts out of the fire and declared them finished. She gave each of us a package, along with a set of silverware. The talking ceased as we tore into the meal. She'd given the meat a heavy dose of the seasoning, along with putting a liberal dose of onion and other cut vegetables. It was easily the best roast I had had in years. It was over thirty minutes before any of us spoke again.

Just as Mike was getting ready to talk again, lighting his cigarette and finishing his cola, one of the tenants came over and said he needed to quickly settle his account as he'd been called back for an emergency. Mike said to go on and that he'd take a break from talking and smoke another cigarette.

"You guys in the mood for beer or wine?" I asked them, "If you like, I'll bring some back with me."

"You have a decent red wine?" Amy asked hopefully.

"Some that's grown about twenty miles from here," I told her, "It's not too bad. You want some too, Mike?"

"Sure," he said, "That will go well with what's in the stomach."

I headed in to check the hurried man out, and went over to the lot that he had rented to make sure that everything was in order. That being done I started to hurry back over towards the store when a young couple from Georgia stopped me. They bombarded me with questions about the area, which delayed me further.

Before I could make it back to the store, I was stopped yet again. This time by our local constable who'd been called about one of my rowdy tenants bothering one of the neighbors. I went with him to talk to the youngsters in that lot. I spent the next hour or so playing mediator, and getting ready to evict them just to get them out of my hair. About two hours later, I finally did just that.

## Chapter 6

I finally made it back to Mike and Amy at around nine in the evening. The police had arrested one of the ruffians and I kicked the others off the property. I was grumbling as I went back to the store and pulled two bottles of a decent wine off the shelf. I thought about it and grabbed a bag of ice and a case of beer as well.

I walked over and handed the bag and the case of beer to Mike. He grinned and put the ice in the cooler and dropped the beer and wine in there. I don't know if Red Wine is supposed to be chilled or not, but at that point I just didn't care.

"Everything all right?" Mike asked me, "I saw the police come in."

"A couple of ruffians who were pestering the neighbors," I told him, "I get a few tourists like that every year, mainly college kids who don't know any better. Sheriff tossed one of them in the can and I tossed the rest out the park. I don't deal with them anymore. I like my park nice and peaceful."

"That's part of the charm," Amy agreed.

Mike sat back down in his chair and pulled a beer out of the cooler. Amy briefly disappeared into the camper and came back with a corkscrew and some plastic wineglasses. Coleman opened the bottle for her and she poured herself a glass, putting the rest of the bottle back in the cooler. He then tossed me a beer, which I happily took, seeing as my night hadn't been so great.

"So how did you get the band back together?" I asked him, "One of my kids worshipped you guys all through high school, and he didn't graduate until 94."

"Cookie's death put things back in perspective for me," Mike said, "It took a while for me to figure out what I really wanted. I enjoyed the acting and producing, but I just needed more. I needed to get back into the game. I wanted to change music for the better. It needed a swift kick in the ass after the complacency of the 1980's, a complacency that I had been a big contribution to.

"In late 90 I ran into Teri Brakeman again. We started hanging around some and, as my relationship with Mary started to deteriorate, started sleeping together again. We both were thinking about putting the band back together again. In early 1991 she and I were taking a shower together while Mary was off making a movie somewhere when I came up with something.

"I started singing a tune which had come to my head. It was nothing like we'd done before, much much harder. I sang the lyric I had in my head to Teri and she loved it. She loved it so much that as she raised her arms to hug me tightly she knocked Mary's bottle of bleach over onto my head."

"So that's how you ended up with that blonde stringy hairdo!" Amy exclaimed, "I always wondered how you came up with doing that to yourself."

"It was purely accidental," Mike said with a grin, "I had Teri finish the process because my hair was going to look very stupid being black with some large white spots. My hair was about shoulder length by that point and I looked like a completely different person."

"I'll say you did," I told him, "I remembered your 80's stuff from one of my older kids. When the younger one told me who he was in to, I couldn't believe it was the same person."

"You and the rest of the world," Mike said wistfully, "At any rate, I'm getting ahead of myself. That also turned out to be the night that Mary came home from her shoot early, the typhoon season starting and her being either unable or unwilling to contact me to let me know she was coming home early."

"Busted?" Amy asked with a grin.

"Big time," He said, "She caught Teri and Me in the act on the couch. She damn near killed me. She went to her cousin's house for the night and told me to be out before she came back in the morning."

"Ouch," I said, "Though I often wish Myrna would do that to me."

"It's no fun, though I didn't have that much in the apartment to begin with," he said, "Teri called Trip Davis and the three of us loaded up my stuff in a rented U-haul. I paid for about three days of the U-Haul before I found another apartment. It was six months before I bothered unpacking it."

"Let me guess," Amy said with a smile, "Since you had three quarters of the band there, you asked them if they wanted to reform."

"You got it," Mike replied, "The timing was right. I needed a new project and I wanted to make an album that would truly change the musical landscape, much like I had tried to with the first Inquisition album. Ron Spectre wasn't all that hard to talk into coming back, his stint with the Dead had ended six months earlier and he was ready to get back into a real gig again, instead of subbing.

"The first new Inquisition sessions occurred in early June 1991. It was a much more collaborative effort than any of the first three albums had been. I continued writing most of the lyrics, but I pulled Teri out from behind the keyboards to play some backing guitars. Our collective hatred for 80's synth sounds had grown exponentially since we went on Hiatus. Even Teri had no interest in playing those lines, preferring to do backing vocals and some guitars.

"The sound was harder rocking, and Teri even did vocals on quite a few songs. While her voice wasn't as silky or smooth as Cookie's had been, she had the rock and soul quality of some of Janis Joplin's recordings. We made our usual thirty tracks or so for the album, but for a change not one of them was just my composition. The music was almost entirely a collaborative effort.

"We weren't the only ones who were about to introduce this sound. Nirvana was about to clobber the charts right along with us, as was Pearl Jam. Thing was, I had the record company connections to get my album out first. Getting the album out in a way that was not going to be foiled by the present 80's backlash was going to be the problem.

"I solved the problem with a simple advertising campaign. Throughout July and August 1991 ads were appearing with darkened pictures of the band and the low sounds of the song that I was planning on releasing as a single came out. The single was distributed as being from 'The Inquisition', fooling a lot of college DJ's into thinking that the song, entitled _Broken Places_ was from an entirely new band.

"As the song climbed up the college charts, I finished up the artwork and made sure that the only pictures of the band were blurry and had me, with my stringy blonde hair, up front. In the pictures Teri looked a lot like me, as she was wearing a similar hairstyle.

"The buzz was good and the single shot up the charts," Mike continued after lighting another cigarette, "Even made the success of DLE look anemic. When we released the full album, curiously entitled _Crackin' Up_ , it debuted at #1 despite the fact that we had already been revealed for who we really were.

"The thing was, nobody cared. We were telling people what they wanted to hear, and the fact that one of the bands most infamous for the 80's sound was telling it to take a flying leap was the final nail in the coffin of the yuppie generation. It was funny in a way. We were back, and we were back very big."

"Was it better the second time around?" I asked him as I drained my beer and reached for another one.

"Much better," Mike said with a smile, "We all were able to handle it better this time around. It was a more equitable atmosphere. It was the way we had wanted it to go the first time. Teri and I were getting along better than we had ever done before. The live shows were fun for the first time since the first shows in 1985 and the music was raw and real.

"There was no orchestration of live shows, and we almost never rehearsed. Teri took up whatever instrument we needed at the time, and the new material only needed three or four people at most anyway. We had abandoned most of the tracks from the first three albums and what ones we did carry over were heavily worked over. _That was Then, This is Now_ went from a synth pop ballad to a heavy rock piece. _Timing for Jenny_ was the least changed, but it had a harder edge to it. _Does Love Exist_ was tossed out of the band's repertoire entirely as none of us could figure out to make the song do anything but suck.

"The only one of us not having such a great time was Trip Davis. He was married with two small kids by this point, and his wife was a cast iron bitch. She hated the rest of the band and the band couldn't stand her either."

"I know that feeling well," I grumbled, "None of my old friends could ever stand Myrna, and now that I'm getting up in years I can't stand her much anymore either."

"I noticed that," Amy said, "She didn't look particularly nice when we went in there the other day."

"She hates this campground," I said with a shrug, "Has ever since I started it. The only reason she tolerates it and me is the fact that nobody else will have her and that it provides her with a good living. She and I haven't even said a civil word since '94, when she found out that I had been cheating on her.

"She won't leave because she has nowhere to go, and I won't leave because I can't run it alone. So she runs the store and I take care of the campground. Probably will be that way until one of us croaks."

"Not a great way to live," Mike said, "Not a great way at all."

"Not too bad most of the time," I said with a shrug, "I get to meet lots of nice folks like you. Better than retiring to a house to live alone with Myrna."

"Amen to that," Amy said, "So what happened with Trip and his wife?"

"Yeah, guess I got off track," Mike said as he tossed his smoke into the fire, "Trip became moodier as 1991 ended and 1992 started. We were on our third single of the album by the time the spring concert season started for us. We set out upon another mini tour of the US, to be capped off by a six-show stint in LA."

"How'd it go?" Amy asked him.

"Really well," Mike said as he took a long pull from his beer, "He was away from Rhonda, so his spirits improved. I think he was getting ready to divorce the bitch. The shows during the time were great. We even played a couple joint shows with Nirvana, and the crowd went wild when their two favorite singers with the wild stringy hair took the stage. It wasn't hard to tell who was who, though. I think I'm about six inches taller than Kurt Cobain was. He was really cool though, shame about how he went out."

"Did you know him well?" Amy asked him, "I was a big Nirvana fan at the time."

"Not very," Mike admitted, "He was a little distant and I knew he was into the drugs, so I never made much of an attempt to get to know him. Saw him about twice a year. I'd either see him in the halls at Geffen or on the way to something. We were different types. He was more of a true artist type than I am.

"Anyway, the tour was great until we made it back to LA," he continued, "Trip went down a little bit because Rhonda was there, but the first couple of shows went as planned. We had planned a week's hiatus between the first batch of three shows and the second batch of three shows.

"Teri and I spent the hiatus in a motel, I don't think I need to say what we did the whole time," Coleman added with a sly grin, "Trip disappeared and Ron went home to spend some time with his wife and kids. Teri and I showed up at the theatre to rehearse a little and get the sound checks over with. Ron showed up around six in the evening, which was about par for him. Trip, alas, didn't show up at all."

"Were you getting worried?" Amy asked him.

"Very," he replied, "Especially since Teri didn't know the bass that well yet. It hadn't entered our minds that something could have happened to him. We thought it was more of his instability getting the best of him. We didn't have time to go look for him, however. Teri had to take up the bass for the night."

"How did she do?" I asked and opened another beer.

"Not bad, considering she had no practice time," Mike said, "After the show, however, we started hunting for him. We found out that he hadn't been home for three days. We started searching, and like the search for Cookie, it didn't take us long to find him."

"He committed suicide too?" I asked incredulously, thinking it odd that two people from the same band would go out the same way.

"That's the way it looked when I entered his motel room," Mike affirmed, "Trip was lying there on the bed. Hand around the gun, which was lying on the bed, he was dead as a doornail, with his gray matter spread out over the wall behind him. I called the police, and they thought it was a suicide as well."

"Well, wasn't it a suicide?" Amy asked him.

"I'd guess it wasn't, from the way he's telling it," I said.

"Good guess," Mike said with a sigh, "The police did a tox screen on him. He was so overloaded with Barbiturates that he would have died by morning even if he hadn't been shot. There was also no way that he could have picked up the gun with that much of the drug in his system. He would have been fast asleep."

"Murder?" I asked incredulously, "I don't remember hearing about that."

"Very few people did," Mike told us, "The police kept it to themselves and we spent the next week trying to figure out who did it. They finally brought in Rhonda, who was really the only person with a motive to kill him. Rhonda was a hard nut to crack. We all knew she was the one who wanted to kill him, so they let me take a crack at her. She hadn't asked for a lawyer yet, and I was truly pissed at how the mess had come about.

"Rhonda Davis really wasn't a very bright killer. Even if she had succeeded she would have lost nearly two million in insurance money, which would not have been paid if it had been ruled suicide. The barbiturates were an even dumber touch, being easily detectable in a tox screen. So I decided to up the ante. My father was working the case, and he let me go in with the gun. I noticed the gun hadn't been unloaded from when it was used to kill Trip.

"I placed the gun on the table, still in the bag and just started talking to her. I never told my father what I said, but I'll tell you now, as you're unlikely to report me. I told her that she was going to be ruined. The police had no shred of evidence against her, and would probably let her go. But I told her that I knew that she did it. I told her that I would make sure that she would never have a chance to use any of his money. I lied to her and said that according to the partnership agreement once a member of the group dies their royalties go back to the surviving members.

"She was livid, but I didn't stop there. I told her she'd be left with nothing. Since the murder investigation was going nowhere they were going to have to tell the Insurance Company it was suicide, relieving her of that money. I also told her that I would make sure she never worked again. Her and her kids were never going to know anything other than a cardboard box and a homeless shelter by the time I finished with her. The only way out for her was to kill herself, and I said that if she did that I would let the kids have the insurance.

"I had forgotten how well I could act, so the display served its purpose. I left the still loaded weapon in the room with her and went out into the lobby. It took her less than five minutes to decide that she was ruined whatever happened. She picked up the weapon and killed herself."

"I bet everyone was just thrilled with you," I said, "Driving the woman to suicide is usually frowned upon."

"I didn't want to go through the trial, and I figured it was justice," Coleman said, "Better the kids to go with good relatives than be raised by that piece of trash. I made sure the kids were provided for. The insurance and the future royalties on the previous albums were set into a trust for them and Trip's brother took them in. It worked out for the best."

He looked at the clock and decided that it was time to quit for the night. We said our goodnights quickly, put out the fire and I retired to my bed for the first time in days. We had agreed to meet again the next night, and so I waited patiently for the next installment of the story of Justin Cole.

## Chapter 7

I enjoyed what I thought was going to be the last day without Myrna. I did my chores and took care of the store, not seeing Mike or Amy all day. They hadn't checked out, so I knew the storytelling was going to go on again that night. I pulled out three pounds of the better hamburger meat and put it aside for the night's festivities. I knew that more beer wouldn't be needed, just a bag of ice to make it cold again.

I closed up early, seeing that nobody really needed anything and that I was sick of sitting in the store. I went out and found Mike sitting outside with a ledger book, trying to make heads or tails of the figures. I didn't disturb him while I put the ice in the cooler. Amy walked out just as I was finishing up and I handed her the bag with the hamburger.

"Same deal as always," I said with a grin, "I provide if you cook."

"You got a deal," she said with a smile, "Give Mike a little while longer, he always gets lost when he has to go over the ledger book."

"What's the ledger book for?" I asked her, "I thought he was out of the business."

"He still has royalties to worry about," she said, "So he has to back check to make sure they aren't taking advantage of his absence. He keeps a sharp lookout for anyone using one of his songs without permission and for permissions that didn't go through him."

"Smart move," I said, "How did it get up here?"

"He has it shipped to the local post office when he stops for a while," she said, "PO Boxes are cheap, and we have about two dozen of them now. Probably even more that date back to before I was with him."

"Ahhh," I said as I pulled a coke out of the cooler, "Guess the business end of it is a pain."

"I don't want to know," she said with a smile, "'Tis why I stay with him. I don't want to get back into it. I'm enjoying my life now."

"You love him?" I asked her, quite out of the blue.

"Yes," she said after a few seconds, "I believe I do."

"Going to marry him?" I asked, "Or have you already?"

"Probably not," she said, "He doesn't think its necessary, and neither do I really. Not to mention the legal troubles it would cause. I think he's still legally married to Tracie."

I was about to ask who Tracie was when Mike looked up from the ledger and saw us. He grinned and put the ledger down. He then looked around and pulled out a cigarette, lighting it up and took a long drag.

"Sorry guys," he said, "Didn't know it was that late."

"Not a problem," I said, "I closed up a little bit early and figured I'd head over this way."

"Great!" he said, "I hate doing these ledger checks anyway. Just have to ride herd on these accountant types. As long as they think I check them faithfully, they do it right. Makes life much easier."

"I can see that," I agreed, "I brought over some hamburger from the store. I figure we could have a good meal tonight."

"That works for me," he said, "Amy, you're the resident cook."

"I know, I know," she said with a mock expression of pain, "Without me here I think both of you would starve."

"No," I said, "He'd starve. I just wouldn't eat as well."

"That's what restaurants are for," Mike said with a shrug, "You just are easier than take out."

"Humph." She growled, "See if I make sure your burgers are cooked through tonight."

"It's ok," I said, "I can cook if you want, if you don't mind food poisoning."

"That's ok," she said as her smile returned, "I'll just drop a little arsenic into Mike's tonight."

"Promises, Promises," Mike said with a grin, "You keep telling me that."

Amy just laughed and went inside to get the patty mix together. As custom was dictating by now Mike and I proceeded to put together a nice size fire, along with enough wood to keep it going throughout the evening. Amy returned just as the fire was beginning to catch.

"You going to keep us in suspense or are you going to keep going?" Amy asked him as she set up the grill.

"I guess I can," Mike replied as he used his cigarette to light the fire, "Sure I haven't scared you off yet?"

"Not on your life," she told him, "I didn't know you were this interesting."

"Yeah," he said, "My life has been a scream."

"You get a 10 on the interesting scale," I said, "A bit on the bloody side for my taste though."

"Just wait," he said with a bitter tone, "It gets worse."

"I'm waiting," Amy said as she laid out the burgers on the grill.

"Well," Mike said as he tried to remember where he left off, "After Trip's death, we decided to keep on going as a trio. I took a few weeks to get Teri totally up to speed on the bass parts, but it turned out really well. We were a tight band, with all of us totally involved on every track. Teri stepped back from the microphone a bit, preferring to concentrate on her playing when she could.

"We played the circuits and a never ending tour. The Grammys came and went. We performed _Broken Places_ and won four awards, which was enough for me. I even got the best male vocalist trophy, which felt good. I was no longer second best to that whiner Don Henley. After the Grammy's we rested for a week and then went right back on tour.

"We had resurrected a few more songs from the back catalogue, _Red Lines_ being chief among them. _No God_ got some stage time, though it was a lot harder to get the point in that version. This period really was a golden time for the band. We got along well, Teri and I were still together and we played about 18 months more on tour. It wasn't until the late part of 1993 that we started slowing down and thinking about what to do next.

"MTV had asked us to do one of their unplugged specials, and we were very interested, but we didn't just want to do a rehash of our best known songs. We considered doing covers, but Nirvana had already done that, and we didn't want to come off as mere Nirvana imitators. So we decided to do the show, but do it with all original numbers and a few selected rehashes.

"MTV was wary, but they were willing to go along with it. We had seen an awful lot of each other again by this point and we were starting to fray a little. Ron and Teri took separate vacations and we slid back into the old style a bit, with me writing the bulk of the material.

"Unplugged shows don't work well with only three instruments, so we had to recruit a few others to play. We snagged Eddie Toner to play the bass instruments so Teri could move back to the keyboards. We picked up a couple of string and horn people, which really allowed me to push the envelope musically.

"Teri and Ron came back after a few weeks and we all started to work on the music. I had written the bulk of it, but we hashed out what we liked and refined it all. Teri and I were growing apart again, however, and by the time we were ready to put it all down at the unplugged show we had split up yet again.

"The show was an unparalleled success for us. We ranged from the rock songs, to the song I had written about Cookie, a ditty called _And Now She Lies Cold_. That song had to be one of the most depressing tunes I had ever written, but it made a damned good show closer for the unplugged show. The chorus goes something like this. 'The world has lost, Death has won, a loss for people everywhere. And now she lies cold, food for the old, reaper on his rocking chair'."

"Damn," Amy said as she pulled the burgers off the grill and passed them out, "I remember that song. I didn't know that was one of yours!"

"Yep," he said solemnly, "Teri didn't want the song to go in the show, but I prevailed on that one. She refused to play on it, so it turned out to be just me, Ron, the bass player and the cellist. It came out beautifully, though. It was also going to be the last time we played together in an organized manner. It was April 12th 1994. The same day that Kurt Cobain's body was found in Seattle. The Inquisition would be dead as well in less than a year, with me being the sole survivor."

"Ouch," I said, "What happened to Teri and Ron?"

"Well," Mike replied, "We had a long hiatus during the rest of 1994. We all needed a rest and figured that the unplugged album would hold up until we recorded another album in January of 1995. Teri and I had split up again just before the Unplugged show, so we all decided to get back together to record again just after new year's day.

"I found out from some friends that Ron and Teri were having an affair. This didn't surprise me too much, Teri was very tempting and very beautiful, and Ron's wife was not handling his fame very well. He probably wanted to try something else and Teri was just there. I didn't know how long it had been going on or if it had been going on before Teri and I had split. I'm not sure I ever want to know."

"Sometimes not knowing is the best thing," I affirmed as I finished off the burgers on my plate, "I wish Myrna had never found out about the affair. Wouldn't have made her any more pleasant, but it might have kept her talking to me. Then again, she doesn't nag as much now."

"Anyway," Mike said with a chuckle, "I talked to Ron in July and he confirmed the rumors to me. He swore it hadn't started earlier, and I wasn't inclined to care either way. I just suggested that they tone it down a notch and be more discreet, if for no other reason than his kids. I didn't see Teri again until the final hours of her life.

"It seems that both Teri and Ron had begun to dabble with recreational drugs during their off time. They knew better than to let it interfere with their work periods, and neither of them wanted to be hardcore addicts. They stuck to pot and cocaine, mostly pot. I found this all out later, of course.

"I was producing a song for a movie I was starring in, a film version of the classic Wuthering Heights. Playing Heathcliff was fun, and though the film didn't make jack, it was worth it just for the experience. Looked nice on the resume as well.

"Cool," Amy said, "What were Teri and Ron doing during this period?"

"Having a lot of sex under the guise of studio sessions," Mike replied, "Seems Ron had been telling his wife that he was going to the studio when in reality they were always over at the apartment that Teri and him had rented. This must have been going on for months when suddenly I got a very alarming call from Teri while I was at the studio.

"I could hear the fear in her voice and she was barely in control. In between the sobs and the screams I pulled out of her that something bad had happened to Ron. I was alarmed by this point in time as another death was the last thing I needed. I got the address from Teri and hauled ass over there as fast as my old Caprice could take me.

"I certainly wasn't prepared for the scene I found when I entered the apartment. Teri was crying on the kitchen floor, probably where she had been ever since she had called me. It was when I walked into the living room I got the shock of my life. Ron was lying there dead of a bullet wound to the face. The pistol was lying on his lap and most of his head was splattered against the skull."

"My god!" I exclaimed, "He killed himself? Another suicide?"

"Not exactly," Mike told us, "It was an accident. He was zonked out of his mind on Coke, just like Teri was when I found her. Guns were his hobby, and he almost always had one around. It wasn't surprising there was one in the apartment. From what I was able to pull out of Teri he was playing with his pistol while he was high and it accidentally went off.

"I was flabbergasted to say the least. I placed a call to the one person on the police force I could trust to handle it discreetly, or at least honestly. My father swore when he heard what I told him and said he'd be there as soon as he could. I pulled Teri out on to the deck and sat her down. She was still high at that point and I knew that saying anything would be useless.

"I took the pack of cigarettes off the counter, smelled them to make sure they were tobacco, and smoked my first cigarette in over a decade. Dad showed up about twenty minutes later and had the same reaction I did. I assured him that I'd touched nothing except the phone and the cigarettes and we tried to figure out what to do.

"We ended up calling the meat wagon and it being a busy day it was going to be at least an hour before they showed up. A few more plainclothes officers showed up to help keep the scene secure. Teri was sobering up by that point and was terrified. There were enough illegal drugs in the room to lock her up for a long time, not to mention her lover lying there with his brains splattered all over the room.

"Dad and I started talking about the drugs and how to handle it, with me basically playing her representation. I was trying to figure out how we could handle this with the least amount of jail time for Teri and still trying to cope with yet another loss.

"Teri must have been listening to us the whole time. She knew that she had little going for her at that point. The plainclothesmen were all outside, leaving the inside to my father. Dad had his back to Teri and the body and it wasn't until the last second that I saw what she was up to."

"What was she doing?" I asked, "Trying to cover up the drugs?"

"No," Mike said sadly, "I wish it was that innocent. She walked over to Ron's corpse calmly and picked up the revolver up out of his lap. I saw it as she was raising her arm up in the air. Before I could say anything about it, however, Teri had raised it to her temple. She didn't even give me a chance to stop her. She pulled the trigger and joined Ron Spectre in death."

"Man," I said, "That's got to be hard to see."

"I nearly broke down at that point," Mike said, "It was by far the worst thing that had happened to me in my life at that point. I was alone again. The Inquisition was wholly and irrevocably gone for me. Two people that I had worked with for over a decade were lying dead on the floor in front of me."

"I bet that was really hard on you," Amy said.

"Hard wasn't the word for it," Mike said, "It really destroyed me. I stopped working. Someone else had to finish the Wuthering Heights soundtrack for me. If Mary hadn't come back into my life, I probably would have ended up killing myself as well. Within a span of just under five years every one of the original members of Cole's Inquisition were now dead. Except for me. That was a hard pill to swallow. I was thirty-four at the time."

"Mary came back to you?" Amy asked, "I thought she couldn't stand you anymore."

"We met again in late 94," Mike said, "We started seeing what we had seen back in 87 again. I was no longer the high and mighty rock star, I was a man falling apart and reaching his breaking point. I didn't know what to do with myself. With all of them dead I felt like I had no reason to go on."

At this point the strain of the story was really beginning to show on him. It was still fairly early in the evening, but we didn't want to push him too far. I'm not sure I could have relived those events for anybody. He didn't let it get to him too much, but we all knew it was getting to him. Amy suggested that we pack it in for the night and resume again tomorrow.

I was all for it. I didn't want to watch him break down in front of me. I was considering him a friend by that point and really didn't want to hurt him anymore. He put out his cigarette in the remains of the fire and let Amy take him into the camper. I told her I'd take care of the fire and that I'd see them the next night. She said she'd look forward to it and took him inside, hopefully for some TLC.

I put out the fire and buried the coals. Then I grabbed another beer and took a hard look at the pack of smokes Coleman had left on the ground. I picked them up, snagged one myself, and left them on the arm of his chair. I walked back to the house, smoking my first cigarette in nearly two decades and draining a beer.

## Chapter 8

Amy came breezing into the store at around ten in the morning the next day. She looked like she hadn't slept much the night before. I offered her a cup of coffee and asked her to sit a spell and rest.

"Thanks," she said, gratefully taking the caffeine infusion, "It was a long night. Seems Mike had been repressing those events for a while, and it just came flooding back to him."

"Yeah," I said, "I saw his face as he was telling it. He looked like he'd seen a ghost."

"He'll be better by tonight," she said, "He wants to finish this story, at least for me. I figured you deserved to be in on the end of it too."

"Think he'll finish it tonight?" I asked, hoping that he wouldn't be able to.

"I think he wants to," she said, "Besides, we have to get moving soon. He got some news from Cali, and it seems he may have to head there in a few days."

"Nothing serious I hope," I told her, "Seems he's had enough bad luck as of late."

"Not sure what's going on," she said, "He said he'd explain it with part of the story tonight. It's probably something to do with his wife, Tracie."

"I'll be interested to find out what's going on," I told her.

"You and me both," she said, "Tracie has been a sore spot for him ever since we hooked up last year."

"How did you end up with him?" I asked her.

"I was down on my luck," she said, "I had fallen in with a really bad crowd. I tried to keep towards cleaner versions of modeling, but that didn't seem to be truly in the cards. Push came to shove and I ended up being taken as a prisoner by some cretins. It seems they were starting a new business, one that was highly illegal."

"Drugs?" I asked.

"Snuff porn," she spat as if the words alone were that bitter, "The plot is irrelevant, but the star is only a star once. The star is murdered at the end."

"How could they get away with it?" I asked in wonder.

"They went the traditional snuff flick one better," she said, "Not only did the star get it on film, everyone else got it after the flick was finished. They didn't have to make many, because rich sickos would pay millions for a true snuff film."

"That's disgusting," I said.

"You're not kidding," She agreed, "Well, I was slated to be the star of one. It was in a deserted area of the Arizona desert. Well, mostly deserted. They didn't take into account that there could be anyone out there."

"Coleman?" I asked incredulously.

"Yep," she said with a nod, "He had always heard the desert was an interesting place, and he figured it was worth a visit. It also gave him a few days of solitude. He stocked his rig with plenty of water and fuel, conserved electricity as best he could, and decided to spend a week out there. He parked his rig by an old strip mine."

"Sounds like a fun vacation spot," I chuckled.

"It was secluded," she said, "He wanted solitude for a few days."

"I know the feeling," I remarked.

"Anyway," she continued, "The building that group of sick bastards was using was on the other side of the hill from Mike's rig. He heard the commotion and decided to check it out. It was lucky for me that he did. He saw the other two 'stars' and me being herded into the building like cattle. He didn't like the look of it, so he went back to the rig and got his drop pistol."

"Drop pistol?" I asked, interrupting her.

"Unregistered pistol that couldn't be traced to him" she said, "He keeps one around just in case he gets in a situation and has to use it. Instead of having to stick around and explain it he can just dispose of the weapon and not worry about being tracked by it."

"Ok," I said, "Makes sense, I guess."

"I'm glad he had one," she said with a smile, "He used it to come down and check out what was going on. He looked into the window and saw the second film of the day being done. A young black girl was being brutalized for the film. The first film was a young girl of oriental descent. I thought for sure I was a goner after the second film was finished."

"Coleman watched?" I asked incredulously.

"No," she said, "He couldn't. He said he threw up and then came up with a plan."

"What type of plan?" I asked.

"One to stop it," she said, "It wasn't much. He simply went in shooting. He shot the two guards, and then before anyone knew what was happening, he came in the building and shot everyone with a weapon. It was the damnedest thing I ever saw. Mike was like Rambo coming in like that."

"It was either very brave or very stupid," I remarked.

"A little of both," she admitted, "But I didn't care, I just hoped that he was going to take me out of there. When the shooting stopped, there were but four people left standing. He asked me what was going on and I told him what he already knew. At that point the rage just came flying out of him. He picked up a pistol from one of the corpses. He went around putting bullets into every one of their heads, making damned sure that they couldn't get up again."

"Good man," I said, "I hope that I have half that much courage if I ever face that sort of thing."

"Me too," she said, "Mike pulled me out of the getup they had stuck me in and got me out of there. He brought me to the camper we live in now and put me down in his bed. He told me to stay there and be quiet. He had some business to take care of."

"I bet you were scared out of your mind," I said.

"Yes," Amy admitted, "But after what I saw I trusted him much more than I did anyone else at that time. I was also mostly hysterical. He left me there for a few hours. I'm not sure how long, to be honest. When he came back he told me that everything was going to be ok. I sat down in the passenger seat for a while and watched him clean up the camp. He then pulled a gas can out of the car and doused most of the area. He pulled the truck out to the road and went back, flicking his cigarette into the gasoline."

"Erasing every trace of his rig from the place?" I asked.

"I guess so," she admitted, "After that, he started heading north. He fed me, let me sleep and gave me a chance to heal. We started talking. I got the idea that he'd been alone for a long time before he picked me up. Surprisingly, our personalities got along really well. The fact that he was a celebrity made no difference to either of us. I didn't know exactly how famous he was until he started telling this story."

"Doesn't matter at all does it?" I asked her.

"Not a bit," she admitted, "He will always be Mike Coleman to me. Justin Cole is a person I never met, and will always be slightly hazy to me. Mike is the one who saved me, not Justin. The fact that the two are one and the same doesn't make a difference to me. I love him regardless, and will stay with him as long as he wants me."

"Never made any attempt to go back, eh?" I asked her.

"Why would I want to?" she said simply, "I have everything I need. A friend who is true, a Friend who loves me the way I am. It works out great."

"Can't ask for anything more," I said, "I hope you have years of great travel ahead."

"I think we will," she said with a smile.

She picked up some toiletries off the shelves and paid for them. She then headed back to the camper, where Mike was sitting outside going through that ledger book again. I spent the rest of the day doing chores and cleaning up, basically killing time until it was time to go over and listen to the final part of Mike's story.

## Chapter 9

I joined Mike and Amy at around seven that night, being held up by an influx of new campers just before I was going to close the store. Mike had already built up the fire and Amy was beginning preparations on the food for the evening. I apologized for my tardiness, but they didn't mind. We sat down and Mike lit his first smoke of the session, just like always. Amy put the food on the grill and sat down beside Mike. I knew this would probably be the last time, so I resolved to enjoy it.

"Ok," he said after letting out some smoke rings, "You guys want to hear the aftermath of Ron and Teri's death, right?"

"At your own speed, man," I told him.

"Well, the first thing I did after that fiasco was get affairs in order," he said, having prepared himself more for the storytelling this time, "I got my father to talk to the coroner, who ruled Ron's death an accident instead of a suicide. This allowed Ron's family to receive the insurance money.

"I had to tell Tori about Ron's death. She broke down on me, though she'd suspected he'd been having an affair for a while. I told her she'd always have an income, and that I'd set it up so she'd get insurance money. It wasn't much, but it was better than her going broke on top of losing Ron."

"That was decent of you," I said, "Especially considering that none of it was your fault."

"Somebody had to do something," he said with a shrug, "I felt it was the right thing to do."

Amy proceeded to spin the roast around. I grabbed a beer, feeling that I'd need one. Mike took one himself and tossed his spent cigarette into the fire. We sat there a few minutes before Mike started again.

"Anyway," he said, "Mary had come back into my life again at this point. Her career was down in the dumps too, so we were good support for each other. She encouraged me to go back into the studio again, though it took a year for me to be able to do so.

"I spent most of that year just relaxing and figuring out how to come back. I knew the inquisition was dead, so I pondered doing a true solo album, with me playing on all the instruments. Alas, I didn't have the patience for that yet. So I decided to go the other route."

"Which was?" Amy asked.

"I got every name player I could to play on the record," he continued, "It became a star studded effort. The album was called _A Sermon_ , and the title track was a cover of an old Police B-Side. That song fit the music business better than any song I had ever seen. Recording took about four months, from July 95 to November 95. By the time I had finished it, I had an album that was mine alone. It was released just before Christmas of that year.

"Justin Cole hit the top of the charts again, let me tell you," he said, "The first single, which was a hard song called _Orange Heart_ , shot to the top. Of course, by this point Mary and I were just about on the outs again. When it came time to shoot the video for Orange Heart, Mary had taken off of her own accord. This was good timing, because it was on that video shoot that I met the woman who was to become my wife.

"Tracie Menlo was her name," Mike said as he fired up another cigarette, "She was beautiful. Long brown hair, she played the temptress to my tortured soul in the video. She also had two kids and was freshly divorced. She didn't like me much at first since she thought I was your standard spoiled rich rock star. Her ex husband was a print artist that didn't care she had a brain as well as a very nice body."

"What finally pushed her in your direction," I asked him, "Your charming personality or dashing good looks?"

"Neither one," Mike said with a grin, "I was still wearing my hair long and nearly destroyed by bleach. I almost always had dark circles under my eyes, because I didn't sleep more than two or three hours at a time. My personality, surprisingly, hasn't changed too much so you can make your own assumptions about it."

We all laughed at that. Amy told him to keep talking while she pulled the brisket off the grill and cut it up for us. Mike took a second and drained his beer and then he continued with his train of thought.

"She didn't see anything in me until the wrap party," Mike continued, "I hated parties at that time, not that I'd ever really liked them to start with. Tracie was the same way, she'd just decided to show up because it was a good way to make contacts, and she wanted to see the finished product.

"She ducked out of the party to get away from the mass of losers who were hitting on her inside. After walking around the grounds of the place we were having the party, she came across me. I was sitting on the ground with five glasses of whiskey sitting in a widely spaced circle in front of me."

Mike caught our surprised glances and decided he'd better explain that a bit more about that little display he was describing.

"It was a continuation of a tradition," Mike explained, "Ever since we wrapped up on the first Inquisition album, all of us had gotten together for a shot of whiskey to celebrate. We continued that tradition throughout the entire existence of the band. When Cookie was ousted, we eliminated her glass, but it was set out for her as a tribute after the first sessions were completed in 1991. The first after her death.

"We continued that tradition after Trip's death as well. Two empty glasses were set out, filled with whiskey and set ablaze by whoever was still smoking at the time, usually Ron. I continued the tradition alone after the sessions for 'A Sermon' were completed in late 95. I was continuing it again for the _Orange Heart_ video.

"Tracie saw this display and saw me use my cigarette to light four of the five glasses. She sat down and we started talking. She and I never did return to the party, nor did we end up in the bedroom. It wasn't the animal attraction that Teri and I had always had, nor the best that I can do right now type of attraction Mary and I had always had. Tracie was intelligent and funny, and she wanted to be an actress. She stuck to modeling, however, because she knew she could make enough to support her two kids with it.

"1996 was a pretty good year for me. Tracie and I began a relationship and it grew into something beautiful. Her two kids liked me, mainly because their own father was a self righteous bugger who barely acknowledged them. Allen Menlo was 13 and was conceived when his mother was barely 17. Julie was 6 and cute as a button. Allen had a hard time with me at first, but when he saw how happy I made Tracie, he started to warm to me.

" _Orange Heart_ tore up the charts, along with its follow up single. The follow up single was a new version of _No God_ which was heavily redone. Tupac Shakur lent the rap vocal to it, which insured its rise to number one since he was dead by the time it was released."

"Death just followed you around," Amy said sarcastically.

"Seemed so," Mike agreed, "But I take no responsibility for Tupac. He brought it on himself with the life he led. The award shows treated me kindly too. _Orange Heart_ and _No God_ both took home MTV video awards, something I find humorous because it was essentially the same video they had refused to play nine years before. I was nominated for seven Grammys, mostly technical ones for producing, though I did manage to pick up best solo record and best male vocalist again.

"Justin Cole was back on top, but I didn't know what to do next. I didn't feel like making another star studded album. I wanted a band again, but I wasn't up to doing that either. Tracie was the one who really worked me up into being willing to do my own album. Not the way I'd done _A Sermon_ but truly my own album, with me playing on all the instruments.

"So by the end of 96 I retreated from public life for a while. I brought Tracie, her kids and her mother to a Caribbean island where I could get a studio. I stocked it with the instruments I would use and knew how to play. While her kids played in the sand and received home schooling from her mother, Tracie and I spent time in the studio. She kept track of the paperwork for me, so I knew what I'd played on each. I also taught her how to run some of the equipment.

"We spent just about 18 months down there. By the time I finished the album, Tracie knew almost as much about producing as I did. I even did the artwork and was thinking about how I could do a video by myself. Doing this record by myself had become a mania for me. It was the first time I'd tried it and it hadn't been done successfully very often."

"Only person I remember trying it was Phil Collins," Amy said, "And that album was just as bad as his others."

"I'm sure it's been done, but not by many," I said.

"Well," he said, "Once we went back to LA we looked around into getting a video done on the cheap. We hired some film students and rented the equipment. Then we proceeded to make videos for every song on the album. Amazingly enough the entire process cost just under a million bucks. Not bad, considering how long it took."

"How did it do when it came out?" I asked.

"Not as well as previous ones," Mike admitted sadly, "Looking back on it, I see why. I finally lost the bleached blonde locks, going back to my normal hairstyle. The first video was called _Love and Death_ , in which Tracie played the object of desire again, and I played every other character in the bar. We did several of the videos that way. We charted with it, but in comparison to past albums it really didn't hold up in either sales or musicianship. You just can't do a really good album by yourself."

"It didn't do well?" I asked.

"It didn't tank," Mike said, "But it wasn't a blockbuster. I was still personally happy though. I didn't much care that the album wasn't doing as well. Tracie and I were really happy. Happy to the point that I actually did something that I never thought I'd do in a million years."

"What was that?" Amy asked.

"I asked her to marry me," Mike said, "She accepted, and we were married in the summer of 98. It was a beautiful ceremony and her kids were involved. Everything seemed to be going perfectly."

"Sounds like an ideal life," I agreed, "But something must have happened, otherwise you would still be with Tracie. I'm assuming she's out of the picture now."

"I think I know part of this," Amy said looking at Mike intently, "But I want to hear it from you. I need to hear it from you."

"That's right, you do," Mike agreed, "Well, after the way the solo album tanked I decided that it might just be time to put together another band."

"I remember that band," Amy said, "I think I caught one of your concerts, right about five years ago now."

"Yep," Mike said, "At the end of '98 I started to pull in people for a new band. I was going for a similar feel to the Inquisition, but with me as the absolute leader this time. Tracie, of course, was the first recruit."

"Did she play anything?" I asked.

"Nope," Mike said with a grin, "But I wanted female vocals and having a good looking woman on stage was essential, seeing as I was just shy of forty by that point."

"Just how old are you?" Amy asked him, "I'm still having trouble figuring that out."

"I'm guessing he was born somewhere around 1960," I said, "Seeing as he was 19 in 1979."

"I was born on April 29th, 1960," Mike said, Tracie was six years younger than I was. Teri was two years older. Mary is just about six months younger than me."

"That puts me a good two decades younger than you," Amy said, "I was born on January 15th, 1980."

"And makes me about twenty years older than him," I said, "I was born in 1940."

"Age doesn't matter," Mike said honestly, "Love and friendship transcend it. But anyway, I'm digressing again."

"Who else signed on other than Tracie?" I asked him.

"Alex Brookes signed on to do bass," he continued after lighting yet another cigarette, "He was a veteran of the Seattle scene and we had worked together on a few projects. Matthew Retton signed on to do some guitar work. Basically he took some of the pressure off from me. Eddie Ravens became our drummer. He worked with Matt Retton on a few projects and was recommended highly. Rounding out the team was Angie Holmes, who played the keyboards.

"I was the chief songwriter again, but Tracie did half the vocals. We spent a bare three weeks recording the record, which was a self titled record under the band name 'Cole'. I still wasn't used to the concept and decided to launch a tour before we released the record. This was probably one of the shows you saw, Amy."

"Probably," she agreed, "I was 19 at the time and it was in the early part of '99."

"We did about three months of light touring and became a really good band," he continued, "I released the record in July of '99. It worked in ways that the previous record just couldn't. The first single, one of Tracie's tracks entitled _Singer_ , shot to number one really quick. The album held the charts all through July and August. We toured relentlessly until the beginning of September, when it was time for Allen and Julie to go back to school.

"We stayed in LA during the school year this time, as Allen had started developing behavioral problems. We would leave for a couple days at a time to promote the record, and did a lot of local shows. We played Leno a few times as well. The thing was that Allen didn't really get any better during this period.

"I think the big problem was the rejection of his father. By that point all contact between our household and the kid's father had ceased. Their dad stopped visiting or even sending things. It was like he didn't even exist for them anymore. Allen was hurt a lot more from this than Julie was. They stayed with Tracie's mom when we were out of town or off working. Tracie's mom didn't catch the problems either, but they were there."

Mike stopped for a minute to compose himself and drain half of a beer. He tossed his cigarette into the fire and lit another one. He looked at me and then at Amy before he considered continuing. He didn't see animosity in either of us, so he went on.

"I think the mess earlier in 1999 at Columbine really struck a chord with Allen. It's the only real explanation for what he did. His father had pushed him beyond the breaking point. He didn't consider me as anyone except the man that his mother had married. I didn't know until a year after it happened just where the weapon came from."

"It wasn't yours?" I asked.

"Nope," he said, "I had two pistols. A .45 that I learned to shoot so I didn't look like an idiot when I was shooting an action film, and a .38 that I bought when I did a cop film. Both of them were in a gun safe kept in the attic and I was the only one who knew the combination."

"Tracie didn't know?" Amy asked incredulously.

"She didn't want to," Mike informed us, "She hated guns and didn't even like having them in the house. I only kept them at that point for the occasional target shooting session. I turned out to be rather good at it and liked to keep my skills up. I'm not even sure the kids knew they were in the house at all.

"Allen managed to get an AK 47 from an acquaintance of his at school. He must have gotten the .44 pistol from the same people, but no charges were ever drawn up on that one. He hid them in a part of the basement that none of us ever used. I think I'd only been down to the basement in that house twice in the year that we lived there.

"The final straw for Allen came on October 27th. His father had finally agreed to go to a father son picnic. I had offered to go, but he understandably wanted his own father. Well, the son of a bitch decided that boffing his blonde secretary was more important than spending the day with his son.

Tracie was out of the house that morning, doing an interview for the morning show. We actually got a call from the bastard. His lies weren't convincing, I could hear the bimbo giggling in the background. He told me that a big deal had come up and he couldn't make it.

"Allen flew into a rage. He ran down to the basement, where he'd been spending quite a bit of time. I was pondering whether I should go down and talk to him, but didn't have much of a chance to do so.

"He came flying up the stairs with the infamous duffel bag under his arm. He started heading out of the house and I went to stop him. It was then that I realized what the bag had in it, for I could see the outline of the weapon in the bag. I ran over to stop him and take the bag when he pulled out the .44 pistol. He didn't even think about it, really. He aimed the weapon at me and pulled the trigger."

"My god," Amy said, "I didn't know you were shot at!"

"Not just shot at," Mike continued, "Son of a bitch managed to hit me. Took out one of my kidneys and put me out of the fight. He took my car keys and raced out of there in my Taurus. By this point people had heard the shot and were coming out trying to figure out what was going on. Police and an ambulance were called. I tried to tell them where he was going, but by the time they got there I'd lost a lot of blood. I remember being brought onto the ambulance, but I don't particularly remember anything else until I woke up in a hospital room about three days later."

"What did Allen do?" Amy asked.

"I found this out from the police later," Mike said, "But Allen made his way to his father's office. Both his father and his secretary were riddled with the AK. He took down six others on the way out, killing one or two of them. He then carjacked some idiot with a mustang and beat it out of there before the police could show up. The person he carjacked jumped out and was hit by a bus.

"He proceeded to go to the private school Tracie and I had been sending him to since we had come back to LA. It was one of those ritzy ones that caters to children of celebrities. Allen hated everyone there it seems. He shot four of them as he entered and took a classroom hostage. The SWAT team was called and a standoff ensued. The police had collected Tracie earlier and had her there trying to talk him down. She was on edge anyway when she was talking to him. During the third conversation he was threatening to kill someone if she didn't get off the phone. She didn't and he proved he wasn't bluffing.

"Tracie just lost it then. They ended up taking her to the hospital. Allen had murdered a young teacher's aide while on the phone with his mother. The standoff went on for another two hours until the police decided to end it. A sniper was placed across the street, and when the first opportunity came about Allen was taken down by a well placed shot to the skull."

"Oh man," Amy said, "Tracie must have been devastated."

"That's putting it mildly," I said, "If my kids had done that I would have gone absolutely mad."

"Tracie lost her sanity completely," Mike continued, "She spent the next three weeks in the rubber room over at Bellevue."

"What about you?" Amy asked.

"I spent the next three weeks in the hospital answering questions for the cops," Mike said, "I had lost my left kidney and my family was completely and utterly destroyed. They didn't even let me see Tracie. Tracie hasn't had a coherent moment since that final shot over the phone. Allen killed two people with that one shot. Tracie is still physically living, but she's been effectively brain dead ever since."

"So what did you do when you got out?" I asked him.

"I wasn't able to do much," Mike said with a groan, "The new band was toasted, just like the old one. I was already being sued by the relatives of every one of the twenty-two people either killed or wounded during Allen's rampage. I went to see Tracie, but she didn't have a clue who I was. She chanted, she sang, she jumped around, but she wasn't the woman I married anymore."

"I'm amazed you aren't still settling lawsuits," I put in.

"I settled high," Mike said, "I made the decision that I was going to leave. I gave my lawyers instructions to settle all claims and used 95% of my capital to do it. I then set up a four million dollar trust fund to take care of Tracie and Julie. Basically out of the interest it pays for Tracie's lifetime hospitalization and the rest of the interest goes to Julie. If Tracie outlives Julie it goes to charity, if Julie outlives Tracie, the balance goes to her. If Julie is underage it goes into a trust to pay for school and lodging until she either turns 26 or gets a masters degree."

"Sounds like you walked out with nothing," Amy said.

"No," he replied with a smile, "I still had about four million left for myself, plus all the record residuals, which still add up to about four or five million a year. I spent the last months of 1999 recovering and finishing up the paperwork. As soon as I was reasonably sure that I had cleared up everything I was supposed to, I set up the trust system I live off now. The ledger I was going over is my way of making sure I'm not being cheated. I have two separate accounting firms going over it, sending me individual reports at random intervals. If one is inaccurate, I can catch it with the other.

"I loaded up my stuff into a brand new '99 Taurus wagon and left the state of California," Mike said with a broad smile, "And I avoid the damned state like the plague now. I haven't been back but twice since I left."

"When did you get this rig?" I asked him.

"I drove alone for the first two years," he said, "I had gotten a trailer after about two months and set it up as a primitive mobile communications room. About three years ago, I stopped what was probably a trick gone bad. The prostitute was a young Japanese girl by the name of Suki. Suki and I got along fairly well, and I got her some medical attention, making sure she was clean before anything further happened between us."

"Wise move," Amy said with a grin, "Just like you did with me."

"Yep," he smiled, "It was right about that time I was told by my lawyers that there was a subpoena out for me and a warrant was about to be issued. They were trying two of the guys who had sold Allen some of the weapons. I reluctantly headed back to California with Suki in tow.

"The first thing I did was visit Tracie at the sanitarium. It was there that the police picked me up and put me in jail as a material witness who had fled jurisdiction. I was livid, let me tell you. I spent three days behind bars until my lawyers talked the judge into bail. The fact that I refused to say a word to them while behind bars also made the judge release me. I was required to stay at a motel and check in every 24 hours for the duration of the pretrial and trial.

"I took care of some problems I had had and made sure that all the arrangements I had made two years before were still working correctly. Tracie's mom greeted me warmly and I saw Julie, who was growing up remarkably well despite what happened. I spent six miserable weeks in that state until the trial ended. Suki and I were on the road less than two hours after the guilty verdict came out and out of California by the end of the day."

"What did they want you to testify to?" I asked Mike, "You didn't even see much of it."

"It was stupid," Mike said, "They just wanted to prove that Allen's rampage began at the house and that it was, indeed my car. I was on the stand less than an hour for both sides. They also continued to hold me until the end of the friggen trial."

"Did you have this built in LA?" I asked him, "While you were stuck?"

"Nope," he said, "I bailed from LA as soon as possible, and I didn't want it to be easily connect to Justin Cole. After we got out of California we made tracks over to Tennessee. I had this thing built and became a legal resident of the state under the name of J. Michael Coleman."

"That explains the plates," I said, "Why there?"

"No insurance, No inspection and lax residency requirements," I said, "Also, a family bible is proof of Identification."

"So you lied?" Amy asked.

"Nope," He said with a grin, "My birth name is Justin Michael Coleman. I cut it to Cole when I went into show business. I just asked that my first name not be put on the Drivers license. I have a credit card under the same name whose bill is paid for by my trust every month with a money order. By the time that this rig was completed, it was a home again and it drags the same 99 Taurus around in case we want to park the rig and go into a town."

"What happened to Suki?" Amy asked, with a little bit of concern, "You built this up large enough for two people, but you were alone again when you found me last year."

"She decided she'd had enough traveling after about six months," Mike said in fond remembrance, "I set her up with about 200 grand in Orlando. Last I heard from her she's running a little sushi shop in a mall and loving it out there."

"You going to just travel forever, Mike?" I asked him.

"Probably so," he admitted, "Until I keel over dead, I hope. I have no interest in going back to my old life. Too many memories and too much loss. Everybody I really knew is gone, so I might as well be too."

"What about the music?" I asked him, "I bet a lot of fans are disappointed."

"I've actually released two new albums since I left," he said with a smile, "Every once in a while I get the urge to record, so I go to a little nowhere area and park the trailer. I'll drive into town and rent a studio and hire some session musicians. I did the first one about three years ago, and Amy and I stopped and did one towards the end of last year. The record company released both of them without me to do publicity, and considering that they did very well, the first one going gold and the second one is still in the charts on it's way to platinum."

"He's also written a couple books," Amy said, "And we still get to travel everywhere."

"What more could I want?" Mike asked honestly, "I spent 20 years in the musical rat race. I came out of it with my life and a damaged soul. I'm taking my retirement now, in time to end it with some repairs."

"You have to live life your own way," I admitted, "I figure someday I'm either going to check out or I'm going to leave this place to Myrna and just go to Florida."

"Do you like it here?" Mike asked me.

"I love the place," I admitted, "Hell, sometimes I still love Myrna, though that feeling is getting more and more rare. It's better now than when I sold insurance for a living though, that's for damn sure. I did that mess for thirty years."

"You're doing what makes you happy," Mike said to me, "Just remember that and you will continue to be happy. Don't let Myrna or anyone else take that away from you."

"I guess so," I said and left it at that.

We sat there for a few more minutes and finished our drinks. I didn't want to go in, because I knew that they were going to take off for the next place now that the storytelling was done.

Mike and Amy huddled close, and just said nothing as they looked out over the hills.

Eventually, we all knew it was time to go in. I put out the fire, and Mike picked up the chairs. Amy tossed the garbage into one of the cans and then retired into the camper. Mike shook my hand and told me I'd see him at checkout the next day.

I bid them goodnight and went back into the house. I went to bed and sighed, feeling sorry that this week was going to end and glad that things had turned out so well for him. Amy was a real find for him, I could tell. She might actually be able to let him overcome the demons of his past to find true happiness, a true happiness that I hoped lasted the rest of his life. I think I actually went to sleep with a smile on my face after that.

## Epilogue

Mike and Amy came in to the store at about eleven in the morning to check out and to buy some provisions for the camper. We all avoided the tearful farewell, but I told them to check me out again sometime, they said they would when they were in the area next. I rang up their bill, not wanting to do it, but knowing he would be offended if I didn't. I think the total came out to be about $340, including the groceries they bought that morning.

Amy hugged me goodbye and Mike gave me a kindly handshake as we walked out to the lot for the final look over. Being old pros at this by now there was nothing wrong with the lot and they were ready to go on their way after about ten minutes. They were about to pull out when Mike signaled for me to come up to the window of the camper.

"Remember what I told you last night," he said, "Be sure to do what you want with your life. If Myrna is that big a pain in the ass, leave and move on. Regardless of what you do, remember these words: 'I know that something very strange is happening to my brain. I'm either feeling very good or else I am insane.'"

He grinned for a second as I looked at him.

"Is that one of yours?" I asked him.

"Nope," he said with a smile, "It was sung by Mike Nesmith in a Monkees song, over forty years ago. Still fits though. Have a good life, man."

"You too," I said, not knowing what else to say.

"Take this," Mike said, "But don't open it until I'm out of the area."

He handed me an envelope. I looked at it for a minute and continued to do so as his RV left the park and turned onto the road that hit I-37 north. When he was out of sight I walked back to the store and sat in my usual comfy chair on the porch.

I didn't open the envelope for an hour or so, but looked at it a few times. Finally I got the guts to open it. There was a note and what looked like a check. I pulled out the note first and opened it up. It had two words on it: Enjoy life. I pulled out the check and looked at it. Turns out it wasn't a check but a Money Order. My eyes must have bugged out when I saw the amount of it. He had given me a quarter of a million dollars. I could not believe it, really. It took me ten minutes before I believed the figures.

I was thinking about what to do with it when the phone rang. It was Myrna, calling to complain again. I told her that if she didn't like coming back to me to stay where she was. She said that was what she planned. She had cleaned out the coffers of the store before she left, evidently and had decided to go live with her brother in Florida. She also told me to go to hell.

I merely smiled as she prattled along. I picked up the bank book and took a good look at it, and saw that she was right, the place really was broke. I think it must have infuriated that bitch that I wasn't responding to her tirades like she was used to. I told her to have a good time and that I'd make ends meet somehow. I told her that I'd have the divorce decree sent to Miami and she wouldn't even have to see me again. Money was hers and the park was mine.

I went to a lawyer the next day and had the papers drawn up. I used the three hundred I had gotten from Coleman as cash to pay him and have the papers sent to Myrna. They were returned less than two days later. Once it was official, I cashed the money order and explained to my creditors the situation. I paid them all off, with interest and sold the store itself to a young couple from Toledo.

I built a small cabin in the lot that I had rented to Mike and Amy and lived in the first peace and quiet that I had known since I had married Myrna after knocking her up in 1959. I continue to operate the campground as a part time deal, keeping receipts in a lock box and doing business from the front porch of my small cabin.

The store flourished with the young couple, and the campground flourished since I had the time and energy to keep it up. I'm in my mid-seventies now, but I still keep the campground going, as I love it.

I haven't seen Myrna in ten years and to be honest I don't miss her a bit. I lived with her for 45 years and am glad she's gone. I spent less than a week with Mike Coleman and I still miss him and Amy to this day.

I guess that goes to show priorities. I guess it also goes to show how much better life goes when you are living it how you want to, not how you're supposed to.

# Free Fall

Free Fall was the first time I tried to use Mason, Karen and Jim after the first version of The Accidental Immortal was complete. It is a bloody and somewhat amusing story, but not the best constructed one I have done. I think this was one of my last attempts to do a first person perspective story.

This story was told from Mason's view, as were all the first person perspective stories done with that team. It was the easiest way to learn to write, but it turned out too limiting in the long run. It was easier to get the story right without worrying about what was going on in their heads.

One more note that I realized while actually rereading it to clean it up. This was written before the 9/11 attacks in the US, which is why the events on the plane went like they did.

Those of you that have read the main books will recognize the beginning of this story, as I repurposed the events in The Immortal Progression. Back then I had a nasty propensity to write long past what should have been the end of the story and boy does this one show it. I still leave it intact for you to read as it is an interesting look into my early writing style in a method that isn't nearly as embarrassing as the original versions of The Healy Murders or The Accidental Immortal (the latter of which luckily no longer exists to my knowledge).

-Rodney Mountain 7/28/2011

## Chapter 1

Flying first class is always fun. Jim, Karen and I had done it many times over the years, and it certainly beat getting crammed into a small coach seat like cattle in a pen.

The three of us were running from a rather embarrassing incident in Africa in which the mercenary company we were working with turned out to be the bad guys. Being immortal as the three of us are, we were the only survivors of the raid that we had informed the rebels about beforehand.

Immortality can be fun at times, but it does bring on some nasty situations at times. We had been in this condition for many years by this point, so disappearing had become second nature to us. We slipped out of the capital of that little nation with U.N. investigators hot on our heels. Luckily, I was smart enough to set up new identification that we could use if necessary.

We were on our way to Denmark, figuring that we could use a break from the world's hotspots. I bumped us up to first class on the plane from Morocco so that we could truly relax. James was already on his sixth glass of champagne, while Karen and I watched him.

"You have to give Jim credit," Karen said with a chuckle, "When he goes for it, he goes all out."

"Why not?" I replied, "We're in first class, so it's free."

Karen had been my partner for a long time, ever since we first attained immortality many years before. I'll spare you the story right now, as it was a comedy of errors that I hope will never be surpassed. She's tall, usually blonde and has been steady as a rock for me ever since she made the fateful decision to join me.

Jim was a different story. He was actually part of the team that created the infernal slop that pushed me into immortality. A thoroughly amoral person in his old life, he used the serum on himself once he knew what he had. It took a 12-gauge attitude adjustment to kill James. When he woke up he was a completely different person, one who had been with me ever since.

We had been flying for about forty-five minutes when we heard a commotion coming from coach. I was tempted to get up to find out what was going on, but Karen had had enough of me playing Boy Scout for a while and put her hand on my shoulder to keep me down.

We both looked back and waited for it to die down. After a few minutes a young, fairly well dressed man burst into the room holding an assault rifle. I had to fight my urge to stand up and face him. Karen and I watched him shout something unintelligible. It wasn't Arabic because I would have recognized that. It sounded vaguely Russian, so I guessed it was probably some Slavic based language. The intent of what the man was saying was, particularly clear. He was intending to take control of the plane.

Jim hadn't even noticed the commotion, he was too busy drinking and trying to talk the young woman in the next seat into joining the mile high club with him. The terrorist woke Jim up quickly by smacking him upside the head with the butt of his rifle. Jim looked up and folded up quick, he knew better than to challenge a terrorist head-on when he's already pissed.

The initial phase of the hijacking was over within five minutes. It was bloodless for the most part, with only two shootings, neither of which was fatal. The first class passengers, the three of us included, were herded into the coach section and jammed into the little seats. I managed to stay with Karen and Jim, though I was forced against the wall because I was bigger than them.

I had been a hostage many years before during a bank robbery, an experience that I really didn't enjoy. I really hoped that I would be able to do something about it this time around. Karen looked at me, but didn't say a word. Her blue eyes were showing the concern and the strain. Jim's brown eyes were burning with hatred for the situation, but he too was showing unaccustomed restraint.

There were four or five terrorists in the plane. Two of them were in the back watching the hostages. The other three were off doing god knows what, for I have no clue where they ran off to. The two goons were imposing strict silence on us with their weapons. We were able to communicate a little when their backs were turned, but other than that communication was patently impossible.

Finally, a voice came over the intercom. We assumed he was their leader because he spoke with authority and he wasn't the pilot. He made his speech in French, one of the few major European languages that I still couldn't order a glass of wine in. Karen, our resident language expert, translated what our captors said when she could. They were part of one of the many terrorist groups in Europe and that we should be honored to be part of their cause.

Karen couldn't translate word for word, but the gist of it was that they were trying to bring attention to their pathetic cause. I knew I had to do something, but I wasn't sure exactly what I could do from a cramped coach seat. I guess I wasn't the only person on the plane with that idea, however. One man, a younger person with a lower class British accent, demanded that he be released.

I knew he was a dead man when he stood up and demanded his rights. One of the terrorists, a very severe looking man with more muscles than brains raised his weapons. Me, being the reluctant hero that I usually end up being, had to do something. I jumped up out of my seat and rushed for the young Englishman to push him to the floor.

The two terrorists in the cabin saw me move and raised their weapons. The Englishman had enough sense to hit the floor when he saw the weapons go up. I didn't have a chance, their streams of lead started to pound me in the chest. I must have taken about a dozen rounds before I hit the ground. It hurt like a bitch, but mercifully I passed out soon after.

## Chapter 2

Soon after I woke up I looked around to see where I was. I turned my head slowly and saw another body. It seems that I did little but prolong the Englishman's life by a minute or two. He had wounds similar to the holes that perforated my shirt. Unfortunately for him he didn't have the luxury of being able to regenerate fatal wounds like I did.

It seems that the dead bodies were being brought down to the cargo area, an unexpected benefit. They didn't bother to detail a person to guard corpses and cargo. I stood up slowly and tested my feet. I was still a little wobbly, but the wounds were still healing. I figured the scarring would go away in the next ten minutes or so.

I pulled off my destroyed and bloody shirt and tossed it on the floor next to the Englishman's corpse. I finally found my luggage, or at least what little we'd been able to salvage from our African misadventure, and pulled out my jacket and a fresh shirt. I also retrieved the composite knife that is invisible to x-ray and metal detection. A blade weapon was better than nothing.

I went quietly up towards the front of the plane to try to figure out what was going on in the passenger areas. I was about to make my way to the lower galley area when I heard some motion on the stairs. I slid into the corner and watched as one of the terrorists came down and helped himself to the food that was originally intended for the passengers.

I looked up the stairway and made sure that no one else was coming down. I gripped the knife tightly in my right hand and slid silently up behind the gorging terrorist. I quickly wrapped my left arm around his throat and put the knife to his temple.

"Do you speak English?" I asked the surprised terrorist.

He obviously didn't because he decided to try to fight me. He tried to swing his weapon back to fire. Unfortunately for him, I was faster. I pushed my knife into the soft area of his temple, ending his life quickly and quietly before he could even scream. I dragged the dead terrorist into the back and dropped his sorry corpse onto the pile.

"One down," I muttered to no one in particular, "Four to go."

I picked up the assault rifle that the terrorist had been carrying. I unloaded it, checked the breech and made sure it was sound. They weren't very well trained, that was for sure. The weapon was badly taken care of and probably would have jammed had he tried to fire it again.

I spent a couple minutes cleaning out the weapon as best I could with what was down there. I knew that it wouldn't be too long before the others came looking for their now deceased friend. When I had the weapon put back together I locked it into single shot to make sure that I didn't accidentally depressurize the plane.

I listened to the activity upstairs and crept slowly up the stairs. I poked my head above the edge of the stairwell and looked for the terrorists. All I saw was a frightened stewardess. I put my finger to my lips and looked out the doors into the first class. The first class section was evidently where their special prisoners went, because there were two or three badly beaten people there.

I looked out into the coach section and saw little had changed. The same two terrorists who had been guarding the passengers when I'd been shot were still there. That left two unaccounted for. I was betting that one was in the first class section that I couldn't see and probably one sitting with the pilots to make sure that they followed the head terrorist's orders.

I looked to the back and saw that Karen and Jim were still sitting together in the back. I was about to try to signal them when I heard someone talking in First Class behind me.

I didn't understand a word that they said, but it was obvious that one of them was aggravated. Soon after the conversation stopped one of them came towards me. I slid back down the stairs and got down behind the edge of them. I realized then that the terrorist was sure to see the pool of blood that came from when I killed the first one.

I cursed to myself for a second and hoped that he would still come down here. My luck was still with me because he did. He saw the pool of blood and kept going in, looking for his friend. I crept up slowly behind him and decided to use the quiet method. I used the butt of the rifle to knock the guy out.

I laid the unconscious body out over the others and then reached down to slit his throat. I didn't want any chance of him waking up again. I was down two terrorists and still had three to go. Not insurmountable odds, but they still had the ability to depressurize the plane with a single shot.

I searched the new corpse and took a silenced 9mm pistol. This was a find, for sure. It also proved that not all of them were complete amateurs. I checked the weapon out and found it to be in much better shape than the assault rifle had been. He had two clips of ammunition for it, though if I had to use more than one clip I was in big trouble.

I crept back up the stairs and looked back into coach. Nobody had noticed what I had done down there. I looked into first class and saw that the other terrorist was not there. My guess was that he was still in the cockpit.

I debated on what to do next and found that there was really no choice. Once I got control of the cockpit I could take the other two out quickly in a frontal assault. As soon as Karen and Jim saw me they would be able to help.

I slipped into first class, signaling to everyone in there to keep quiet. I asked one of the more coherent ones where the terrorists were. Since he didn't speak English the transaction had to be conducted in my rusty German. After a few confused seconds he confirmed my suspicion that the last one up front was in the cockpit.

I hushed them all up and walked quietly to the front Stewardess station. I head the leader conversing with the pilots, who were arguing about something with them. I knew this conversation was in French, but couldn't understand it. I peeked in and saw that the terrorist had his back to the door, his final, fatal, mistake.

I aimed the silenced weapon at his skull and pulled the trigger twice in succession. The terrorist never even knew what hit him as the front of his skull splattered all over the control panels in front of him.

There was a brief moment of confusion until I managed to hit upon a language that both the pilot and myself understood. Unfortunately, my Russian was exceedingly rusty and it took a few seconds for me to explain myself.

"Who are you?" the pilot asked me, "Where did you come from?"

"Don't ask," I said in my halting Russian, "Keep the plane on your current course. I'm going to take out the two holding the passengers hostage."

The pilot merely nodded and he and the copilot went about cleaning the control panels so they could see what they were doing again. I walked slowly back to the coach stewardess station and motioned for the frightened woman to go back into first class. I put in another clip and got ready to deal with the two morons in coach.

I looked out and waited for the two terrorists to not be looking forward. I poked my head out in hopes that either Karen or Jim would see me. I wasn't disappointed, as Karen made eye contact with me and jabbed Jim in the ribs so he'd do the same. As soon as that was taken care of, I slipped back behind the partition and got my nerve up to finish this.

I was still hoping to take both of them out without either one getting a shot off. One stray shot would depressurize the plane and probably kill everyone on board, save Karen, Jim and Myself. I held my breath for a second and leaned over slightly to look at the tactical situation again.

I knew instantly that it was time to strike. The one in front was facing me, but the one in back was looking at the back rows. I stepped out into the aisle and fired two quick silenced shots into the face of the forward most terrorist. It wasn't the shots, but the screams of the passengers that made the other one turn around.

Jim was up and out of his seat quickly and heading for the rear terrorist. I pulled my trigger, but my first shot was wide. I was lucky and the shot hit the rear bathroom wall and not one of the outside walls. Jim got in the way of the terrorist's weapon and took the initial burst from it in the stomach. My next two shots were dead on target, as the terrorist fell down beside Jim.

I walked through the plane and made sure that I hadn't missed any of the bad guys. My initial count had been correct. There were only five of them on the plane. I removed the weapon from the terrorist's hand and put it aside. Karen helped me get Jim clear and laid out on a seat in first class.

"You missed," Jim groaned as we laid him out.

"You didn't," I said as I sat down next to him, "You'll heal, the plane won't."

"What do we do now?" Karen asked me, "I think there's about to be a riot back there."

"You speak French," I said, "I don't. Go tell the pilots that they have control again and then help the stewardesses get the people under control. I'll deal with Jim."

"Deal with me how?" he asked, "I'll heal up on my own in a few minutes."

"Do you really want to show the whole plane that fact, Jim?" I asked him, "We're already going to have enough problems with me coming back from the dead."

"Cargo hold," Jim muttered through clenched teeth, "Let's go down there."

I nodded and helped him up. He was able to walk this time, but slowly and he needed someone to keep him stable. I brought him down to the lower cargo area and we sat down on some of the luggage that I'd gone through earlier.

## Chapter 3

"What kind of moron hijacks a plane in this day and age?" Jim asked me as he recovered, "The odds of surviving it, even in a third world country, are slim to none these days."

"I don't know," I replied, "But there was something odd about this group."

"What's that?" he asked, "Other than the fact that they did it in the first place."

"The leader and one of the others were professional," I said, "Their weapons were clean and much nicer than the others. The other three were thugs, plain and simple. They had cheap assault rifles, dirty ones at that, and no discipline. If the two in the back had been professionals, I never would have been able to jump them like that."

"Yeah," he said, "You would have taken the bullets and not me."

"Exactly," I said, "I'm willing to bet that the three of them were gomers who were supposed take the fall. I bet the other two had a way out of here."

"Parachute?" Jim asked me.

"Too risky for a plane of this height," I said, "They'd never survive."

"D.B. Cooper did it," Jim said thoughtfully, "Though nobody knows if he lived or not."

"A professional might be able to do it if they ordered the plane low and slow," I said thoughtfully, "We could do it, but it wouldn't be a barrel of monkeys."

Karen came down the stairs and found us sitting there. She had a distressed look on her face. I looked at her and she came over and crouched down next to us.

"What's up?" I asked her.

"Is Jim ok?" she asked.

"I'll live," he said with a shrug, "Why the strange look on your face?"

"They are redirecting the plane to Paris," Karen said, "They're going to have some questions for us."

I jumped up in alarm at that. The last thing on Earth I wanted to do was deal with the French authorities. We had run into them about ten years before on another matter, an experience that I truly would prefer not to remember. Not to mention the fact that we had nearly a hundred witnesses to my death and Jim's death. I really wasn't in the mood to explain immortality to the French.

"This is not good," Jim said with the same sense of alarm that I felt, "We've got to get off this plane before then."

"We can exit while they taxi?" Karen said, "And hope we get away before the French find us."

"I'll pass on that," I told her, "Too much chance of getting caught. We need to leave before then."

"I doubt we can ask them to stop the plane and get off," Jim replied sarcastically.

"No," I said with an evil grin as the thought formed, "But we can ask them to slow down and let us jump out."

"Would you care to repeat that?" Karen asked incredulously.

"You aren't thinking about your hypothesis that the leaders were going to jump out?" Jim said, dreading my answer, "If you think I'm going to jump out of a goddamn Jetliner you have to be out of your bloody mind!"

"Let's see if we can find the chutes first," I said amicably, "It's not like we have anything else to do right now."

"I agree with Jim," Karen said, "You're crazy. But then again, it might be better than dealing with the French cops."

"You go up and make nice with the pilots," I instructed Karen, "I'll try to find the parachutes."

She nodded and went back upstairs. Jim just sat where he was on the floor while I went through the cargo looking for parachutes. I was about ready to give up when I got to two rather large bags. They were shaped oddly, so I opened them up. Inside were not three, but five parachutes and a box filled with weapons. I had hit the mother lode.

"Damn I'm good," I said, "Though I miscalculated. They all planned on jumping out."

"That's nice," Jim put in bitterly, "I don't intend to follow their plan."

"Parachuting is fun," I grinned and taunted him, "Look at it this way guy. Do you want to spend the next two years dealing with the French government?"

"Not really," he said glumly, "I don't much like my choices right now."

Karen came back down and looked at what I had found. She looked at me in horror realizing that I was considering using the parachutes.

"Are you out of your mind, Mason?" Karen asked me, "We're five miles up in the sky!"

"So we request that they drop down altitude for the rest of the flight," I said with a shrug.

"I hate to tell you this," Karen said, "I have no idea how to use one of these things."

"It's easy," I said, "You jump and then pull the cord and then glide right down to the ground."

"And if the chute doesn't open?" Jim asked me.

"You hit the ground," I said bluntly, "Fairly hard in fact. You'll wake up in a few days sore as hell, I'd imagine."

"I'm not doing it," Jim said, "I'll take my chances with the French."

"Karen?" I asked her.

"You're going to do it?" she asked me.

"Yes," I said, having already made my decision.

"I'll go," she said, "You just have to show me what to do."

I nodded and looked at Jim. I figured that he would come around in a few minutes when he remembered what the French cops had been like the last time. I climbed the stairs and went to the cockpit to talk to the pilots. Karen followed me to act as an interpreter. We talked in German to each other to avoid being identified as Americans.

"There's a bomb on the plane," I told Karen to tell them, "I want them to go down to 6000 feet so that if I make a mistake in disarming it, they can still make an emergency landing."

Karen looked at me for a second and then repeated it to the pilots in French. They looked alarmed for a few seconds and then immediately began complying. I also had her tell them that if we couldn't defuse it we would be dumping the bomb out one of the doors and not to send anyone down unless the light had been on for twenty minutes.

Karen did a good job of translating and adding a few other things in for believability. They called in to the French air traffic control and brought the plane down to 5500 feet. We quickly went down into the cargo area again. Jim was standing again and looking at us.

"You seriously intend to jump out of this airplane?" Jim asked us.

"Why not?" I said, "Come on, suit up!"

I tossed one of the packs to him and then put one on myself. Karen took one of the smaller ones that I had tossed to Jim and put it on, trying to make out like she was unconcerned. I checked the straps and found it a snug fit. Being the only one of the three of us who'd actually parachuted before I helped Karen and Jim get ready for the jump.

I gave them a quick lesson on the aerodynamics of jumping and how to keep your fall in control. I warned them that if they lost control of their body before pulling the ripcord they would hit the ground extremely hard.

I went into the back of the cargo hold and found the rear door that they used for loading and unloading. I pulled the emergency cord and the door opened up, the freezing air coming in from outside. I looked out over the landscape and saw it whizzing by extremely fast. I almost lost my nerve, but the remembered the French cops from last time. I looked at them and smiled and invited them out the door.

"You first!" Jim shouted.

"I've done this before!" I shouted above the wind, "If you go first and screw up, I can come to your aid!"

"I'll go!" Karen shouted.

I gave her some last minute encouragement and watched her jump out the door. Jim watched her go and knew it was his turn next. He was hesitant and didn't really want to go. Since I wanted to know where Karen went, I went over to him and threw him out the door.

I don't think I'll repeat what he called me when he went flying out the door. I didn't wait any longer myself. I jumped out and did a few flips, feeling the exhilaration of free fall for the first time in nearly thirty years. I smiled and saw Karen in free fall. I wasn't able to see Jim, which surprised me.

I used my arms to steer myself over towards Karen. She was doing all right, about forty yards below me. She managed to get herself upright and decided it was time to pull her ripcord. I was expecting to see a sheet of white cloth come out to carry her softly to the ground.

What I did see was an orange sheet fly out of her pack. I knew then that we screwed up. My initial hypothesis was right. The three gomers were not supposed to survive the mission. Their chutes were supposed to be the betrayal. I straightened up and dove for her.

All composure had gone away from her by this point. She was screaming and flailing her arms. I made up the distance quickly as she was inadvertently arresting her fall, while I was speeding mine up to catch up with her. I was nearly to her when she moved in the air again. I thought I was going to lose her when I finally managed to grab her left ankle.

I literally climbed up her body while we were in free fall. Finally I managed to get my arms around her and my head even with hers. I managed to stabilize our fall and keep hold of her.

"I've got you!" I yelled in her ear, "Follow my motions and turn around to latch on to me so we can glide down together when I pull the chute."

She managed to turn around and clamp her arms around under mine. I used my now free arms to turn us with my back to the sky. I warned her that I was going to pull and to hold on for dear life. She nodded and held on tightly. I managed to get my hand to the ripcord and yanked it as hard as I could.

The parachute opened, normally, and our descent slowed quickly. Karen nearly lost her grip once when the chute opened, but I managed to keep her on to me. As soon as our descent rate slowed to normal she climbed back up and stayed on me solidly.

"You OK kiddo?" I asked her in her ear as we glided down towards the earth.

"I'll be ok when we actually land safely," she yelled back.

It was then that I remembered that Jim was probably in the same boat. I looked around for him and saw him hurtling towards the earth. I knew that he was going to hit the ground. I cursed and tried to direct our parachute towards his landing site in hopes of recovering his body before anyone else could.

The earth was coming up quickly and I started preparing for impact. We were coming down too fast because we had two adults on a parachute sized for a single human being. Karen lost her hold as soon as my feet hit the ground and she went tumbling hard. I lost my footing and went tumbling head over heels before coming to a rest in a really awkward position.

## Chapter 4

I finally managed to right myself and crawl out of the parachute. Growling at myself for thinking that this was a good idea in the first place I walked over to Karen who was still lying sprawled out on the ground.

"Are we dead?" Karen asked when she looked up and saw me.

"Not hardly," I said with a chuckle, "Everything still connected?"

"My back is broken," she groaned, "Did you see where Jim landed?"

"Yeah," I said sadly, "I think he hit the ground a mile or so east of here."

"Go find him," she said through clenched teeth, "I'll heal up in a few minutes. I'll take the parachute with me and we'll hole up when we recover what's left of him."

"Ok," I said, "I'll leave an X in the dirt every hundred feet or so. Follow them to me, ok?"

"That works," she said, "If I don't show up, come and get me."

I nodded and made my way towards the hill I saw that I thought was between Jim and us. I knew Jim would be fairly easy to find, he'd be in a rather deep hole made by the impact of his body on the ground.

I walked slowly to the top of the hill, making sure to mark my path for Karen as I went. From the top of the hill I found I was right on the money. There was a nice fresh hole in the ground about a quarter mile south of my location. I hiked down the hill down to the hole and looked inside. What I saw certainly wasn't pretty.

Jim was lucky in one respect, considering he hit the ground feet first. The lower half of his body was pretty well shattered, his blood making the soil rather red. I pulled what was left of the parachute pack off his body and found that it was one of the bad ones.

I pulled what was left of Jim out of the hole and laid him out on the ground. Karen came up behind me while I was doing that and gasped at the damage hitting the earth had inflicted on our old friend. I straightened him out so that the damage could heal a little faster, though I was fairly certain that he wasn't going to heal up anytime soon.

"What do we do now?" Karen asked, "He looks like hell."

"We need to get out of here," I told her, "Did you bring the parachute with you?"

"Yep," she said with a nod, "But where are we going to take him?"

"Away from this hole," I shrugged, "I'm guessing we're somewhere in France, but I'm not sure where. We need to find a place to hole up until Jim comes out of it."

"Is he still alive?" Karen asked, "I mean, he doesn't look much better."

"His upper torso has healed," I pointed out to her, "He's also breathing. He'll wake up, and if we're lucky his brain will be intact."

"Ok," she nodded, "How long do you think he'll be out?"

"Could be a day, could be a week," I shrugged, "You've been dealing with this as long as I have. The most important thing is to find someplace warm and out of the weather. Look at the sky, kiddo. We're going to get snow before long."

She cursed silently and looked at the darkening clouds in the sky. The temperature was moderately cold, but the day was coming to a close and temperatures were going to drop. I unwrapped the parachute and with Karen's help made a respectable litter to carry Jim with.

I looked at where the sun was going down and took a guess on which direction was north. Since my French skills were nonexistent we really needed to get to Paris or even into Germany, where all three of us could communicate effectively.

We walked north for about an hour, covering probably about two miles, before seeing a house in the distance. It was beginning to get dark outside and we were running out of options. We decided to head towards it in hopes of figuring somewhere to go, or if nothing else scamming some food for us.

The closer we got, however, the more it seemed like the house was deserted. It wasn't overly surprising. We got to the edge of the woods about two hundred yards away from the house. We unceremoniously dumped Jim onto the ground and sat down next to him.

"Do you think it's empty?" Karen asked me.

"It's worth checking out," I nodded, "Stay here with Jim and I'll go investigate the place."

"Maybe I should go," she cautioned, "I can speak French, you can't."

"If I see people I'll come back and get you," I reassured her, "I'm better at sneaking around than you are. Plus, I'm still armed and can deal with a threat."

"You're armed?" she asked me, "How?"

"I kept the silenced pistol from the plane," I reminded her, "I don't like going out into territory I'm unfamiliar with unarmed."

She nodded and I approached the house quickly. I saw no sign of tire tracks anywhere, but since I didn't know how common owning a car was in southern France I didn't put anything to that. I heard nothing from the house as I walked around it. The pens in the back were empty and the whole place looked like it really wasn't very well taken care of.

It was starting to get cold outside, so I figured another test would be to put my hand to one of the windows. I reached up and put my fingers on one of the windows and found it as cold as the outside was. I reached up onto the windowsill and pulled myself up so I could look inside.

I really should have done this first, as the house was definitely uninhabited. There was very little furniture and all of it was covered up. I walked around to the back door and went up the steps. The door was locked, but the lock was ancient. I used my knife to slide into the gap of the door and slip the lock.

I went back out to Karen and helped her up off the ground. She looked at me in question and I smiled and wordlessly encouraged her to grab her end of Jim's litter. We dragged him up to the house and up the back stairs into the house. The furniture was sparse, but there was an old couch covered with a sheet that we unceremoniously dumped Jim's dead weight on to.

"Looks like we finally hit a little luck," Karen said as she looked around, "You think it's been abandoned long?"

"A couple years is my guess," I shrugged as I looked around, "I'm going to go through the rest of the house looking for ways to get heat in here."

She nodded and sat down in one of the other covered chairs. I stood up and walked into the other room, looking for anything that could help. The house was very old, and showed no signs of even having electricity. It was a large house, and from the looks it was probably some rich family's old country house.

The kitchen was equipped with an old wood cooking stove and from the looks of all the rooms I had gone into the whole house was heated by wood stoves.

I looked in the pantry and found some canned goods, all of them with labels at least five years old. I also found a couple pans and an old beat up pot. I put the pot in the pantry next to the old canned goods figuring that I'd come collect them later.

I found the stairs going up to the second level after a bit of hunting and walked up them slowly. They creaked like nobody's business and felt like that it was quite possible that they could give at any minute. I checked out the upstairs bedrooms and found them in even worse shape than the rooms downstairs.

I found some old blankets in the closets, which I grabbed figuring that Karen and I were going to need them tonight. Nothing else was really looking useful, so I went into the last room carrying the pile of blankets. The room was completely empty, not even an old covered up chair hanging around.

I really wish I had left the blankets where they were and gone back to get them, because it would have saved me some pain. I didn't realize until it was too late what was happening. The room I walked into was easily the most dilapidated in the house because it couldn't hold someone of my size and weight. I had taken but four steps into the room when I felt a rather disconcerting sense of free fall.

The floor had let go under me and I felt myself crashing through down to the room under me. I let out a blistering scream as I went down and crashed onto the floor. Luckily, the lower floors were either better built or in better shape because it held my weight.

I didn't pass out this time, though I'm not sure if that was a blessing or not. I had at least six broken bones and hurt like hell. Karen heard the crash and came running into the room to find me lying on the floor. She stood there for a second and looked first at the hole in the ceiling and then at me lying on the floor.

"I fall down," I said in my pathetic attempt at a Curly imitation.

"I see that," she said, "Are you ok?"

"Help straighten me out," I instructed her, "The bones will heal in an hour or so."

"At least you found blankets," she said as she helped me.

It took only fifteen minutes or so and then I was able to stand up again. We brought the pile of blankets back into the room that we'd put Jim into. I looked up into the chimney of the fireplace in the room to see if it was clear. Finding it so I went back into the kitchen where I'd crashed into, grabbed an armful of the wood that had broken when I fell through and brought it into the sitting room.

"Going to start a fire?" Karen asked.

"Yes," I told her, "It's cold and I want to get warm. We'll sleep here tonight and figure out what to do next in the morning."

I started a fire and cooked an old can of baked beans in the pot. Karen and I warmed up and ate for the first time since leaving Morocco earlier that day. It was hard to believe that all this had happened in the space of a day.

I checked Jim out to see if he'd made any progress, and it seemed that he was healing a bit. All of the small contusions on his upper body were gone and his lower body was beginning to reshape itself.

Karen and I made a makeshift bed out of blankets a few feet back from the fire, deciding that it would be warmer to cuddle together for the night rather than wrap up individually. It really didn't matter, however. We both fell asleep moments after lying down for the last time.

## Chapter 5

I woke up first and stood up in the relatively cold room. I tossed on a bit more of the wood we'd hauled in the night before and got the fire going strong again. I was hurting for a cigarette, something I'd not had since before getting on the plane in Morocco.

I looked out the window and was shocked by what I saw. I knew that it was late in the year and that the weather was going bad last night, but I certainly wasn't expecting to see the landscape blanketed in complete white. I had no way of knowing for sure, but it looked like there was about a foot and a half of snow on the ground, all having fallen after Karen and I went to sleep.

I groaned a little, but let myself forget the snow for a minute and checked on Jim. His legs had regained their shape, so I figured he would be waking up before too long. That left me with the more immediate problem to deal with. I had no idea where we were or what to do next. We were in a country that neither Jim nor I spoke the language of with identification that had been compromised because of those stupid terrorists.

I knew that I wasn't going to be able to get out of this one and stick to the local laws, which truly didn't bother me too much. I didn't plan on killing anybody, just enough petty larceny to get enough money to get out of town. I just had to find the damned town and figure out how to get there.

I opened up another one of the old cans and heated up another can of beans in the pot over the fire. The smell of the warming food woke Karen up and she cocked her eyes at me like she thought I was insane for being awake. I grinned at her and continued to warm up the beans.

"Take a look outside, kiddo," I told her, "The abominable snowman must have paid us a visit last night."

She looked up at the window lazily, then what I said hit her and she was up on her feet quickly. She was up against the window with her nose pressed to it. I wasn't sure if she was happy or aghast at the snow, but she did have a little bit of a smile on her face. Evidently she was more pleased with the snow than I was.

"It's beautiful out there," Karen said, "This is the first time I've seen undisturbed snow like this in years."

"Sure," I said, "It's beautiful until we have to walk in it. We don't have any wheels out here, remember?"

"Ouch," she groaned, "I'm dressed for the tropics, guy. You're the only one that's even got a jacket."

"I know," I grumbled, "That means I'm going to have to go to town and figure out how to get some money quick."

"Drug dealers again?" she suggested.

"If I can," I told her, "I might have to resort to lifting a credit card."

"When are you planning on going to town?"

"Not until tonight," I said with a shrug and sat down in front of the fire, "I'll look for lights to find the town."

"What do you want me to do?" she asked me.

"Stay here until he wakes up," I said, "Keep on light rations and you should be able to last a week or so. Just keep ripping up parts of the upstairs floor for wood to burn. You won't starve anyway, so just hole up here until I can get back."

She nodded and sat down with me to eat. We had to wait until nightfall anyway, so we just relaxed for a while. We explored the rest of the upstairs, with Karen taking the lead in the areas where my extra hundred pounds were too much for the old wood. We found little of use, though we found some stuff that would make the wait tolerable.

Just to give you an idea, we found a few decks of cards, four cheap French paperbacks, six bottles of wine, and a French version of Monopoly. The books were useless to me as I couldn't even order lunch in French. Karen put those aside to read after I left that night. We set up the Monopoly game and played about four games before the sun finally went down.

At nightfall Karen and I went outside to look around. It was pitch black where we were, indicating that we were a good distance away from any town. We climbed the hill, despite the fact that she wasn't dressed for it. When we reached the top we looked in all directions for light sources.

"I think the biggest concentration is over to the east," I said as I remembered the vague directions from the day before, "Probably about two hours walk or so."

"More like three or four in this slop," Karen said as her breath showed in the cold.

"Probably," I said, "Ok. You ready to hold the fort until I get back?"

"Sure," she said glumly, "How long do you think you'll be?"

"A day or two," I guessed, "Three days at the outside."

She nodded. She wasn't looking forward to two or three days sitting in that old house alone. I couldn't say I blamed her. Jim wasn't exactly in any condition to be any company for her. I hugged her tightly and decided to give her some last minute instructions.

"Ok," I said, as I got ready to go, "If I'm not back in a week and Jim has woken up by then make your way to Paris. Go to the little motel that we went to last time."

"The place that we hid at last time we had problems there?" she asked me to make sure we were on the same page.

"The one and the same," I confirmed and continued, "If he hasn't showed any life by then stick around until I come back. I'll come back here before I go anywhere else anyway."

She nodded and that was it. I smiled and hugged her one last time before trudging through the deep snow in the direction of the lights. Karen turned around and made her way quickly back towards the house. I continued trudging on through the deep snow.

## Chapter 6

There are very few things in this world that I truly despise. Child molesters, stupid people, rapists and kidnappers are high on that list. During the five hours I spent walking through the snow towards the lights, however, snow moved rapidly up that list. I did little but dream of going somewhere tropical as soon as we were out of the mess we were in.

I finally reached the little village sometime around midnight. I think village may have been an overstatement. There were several shops and a little motel. At least I called it a motel. I had no idea what the locals would call it. Now I just had to figure out what to do next.

I didn't have the foggiest idea what to do next. I have a peculiar morality when it comes to ways of making money quick. I don't steal from average people because they work too hard for their money. I try to steal from criminals if at all possible. I have no qualms whatsoever about appropriating funds from drug dealers.

If there are no criminals around, or if I don't have the time to track them down, I go for the extremely rich. Corporations are usually good targets, especially credit card companies. I figured that I was going to have to go the credit card route this time. This town was too damn small for anything else, really.

I walked around the village to get the lay of the land. There were some food stores and some decent restaurants. At least I assumed they were decent. They looked expensive at any rate. The only thing that surprised me was the lack of activity. The little village had all the earmarks of a perfect tourist trap.

I looked for anything that might still be open because I was thoroughly frozen and probably was frostbitten. Frostbite was not a serious problem for me, it had happened before and healed within minutes, but I wanted to be functional. Finally, as I turned around a corner I heard a place with at least some music going.

It dawned on me why the area was dead when I walked up to the discotheque. Snow had fallen and the tourist season was over. I had seen it before in the states. There was no reason to believe that things would be any different in a similar little town in France.

I saw a sign on the door that advertised a cover charge. I looked to the back of my mind for any scrap of language that I may have picked up over the years. The cover was dix Euros. Dix... dix... It came to me that dix was ten. That was just great. I knew how much I needed to get warm, now I just had to figure out how to get it.

I was standing off in the shadows scheming when a couple of young men came out. I didn't know who they were, but their type was obvious. Young, macho, thinks that the world should bow to him. I'd seen the type many times during my extended stay on the mudball earth. I didn't think I needed a confrontation this early, but luck wasn't really on my side that night.

They were a real Mutt and Jeff pair, the taller one looking like he could have been Andre the Giant's younger brother. He was wearing a windbreaker and a T-shirt, trying to look macho in the face of the wind. The small one was dressed to the hilt, trying to make up for lack of stature with style. He was also the mouth of the bunch because he spoke first.

Not speaking a lick of the language I don't know what he said to me. It was obvious, however, that he was offended somehow by my presence. I wasn't a fashion plate by any stretch at that point, but Karen and I had washed using melted snow that afternoon in between Monopoly games.

I tried to back away noncommittally, trying to duck into an alley. I didn't want to have to lay them out, mainly because I wasn't particularly certain that I could even lay a hand on the big one. My limbs were nearly frozen through from being out so long that any fight I got into would most likely be a losing one.

Unfortunately the two young men were too drunk to have enough sense to let well enough alone. The big one came over to me and put a very rough hand on my shoulder. He started squeezing and said something that I guessed was probably something akin to 'Answer my esteemed friend's question'. I knew that if I revealed myself as American in origin the likelihood of me getting a rather nasty beating was good. I decided to try speaking in German, which was the only other language than English I could speak like a native.

"I'm not looking for trouble," I said in German, "I don't speak French."

The smaller one laughed and said something to his friend that was most likely a command to hit me. I tried to dodge the clumsy right hand blow, but my reflexes were slowed enough by the cold that I didn't make it in time. The little one got in it then and started kicking me. It was luck on my side that they didn't hit me near the groin. If they had found my gun I could have been in deep shit.

I let myself fall quickly, knowing that if I showed my skills I would still lose and take an even worse beating. They tired of the game soon after, letting me fall bloody and battered to the ground. I let them rummage through my jacket and take my wallet. Hearing someone coming out of the disco, they decided they'd done enough and took off.

Not wanting to be found while healing, I pulled myself up and got into the alley. I waited a few minutes and watched my hands heal up in front of my eyes.

Even as long as I'd been living with the effects of the serum, it still amazed me to watch my skin and body heal in seconds. As soon as I was able to move again I went back out into the street.

I looked at the tracks leaving the disco and found the pair that I was looking for. I followed their footsteps until I heard their voices loud and clear. They were laughing and congratulating themselves for beating up what they thought was a helpless tourist. I chuckled and figured that I had found my targets. They may not have much, but I figured that I had just earned it.

As I followed them back to their home I found the remains of my wallet. I picked it up and was surprised at the fact that it was nearly intact. Then I realized that there were no credit cards and they weren't smart enough to realize that Moroccan money could be changed if you dared to go into a bank. I smiled and put it back into the inside pocket of my jacket.

Their home was little more than a hovel, a simple cottage on the outskirts of the little village. I guessed that they worked on the surrounding farmland during the warmer months. They stumbled into the house and went out of sight, though they turned on some lights. I pondered shooting them both briefly, but even in my book being assholes doesn't qualify them for the death penalty.

I crept around the house looking for anything of value, figuring that I could leave them alone if I found anything. Unfortunately they were as poor as I was at the moment. I went into a tool shed and found that even his tools were old and broken. My guess was that the one of them that lived there was only barely getting by.

I did take a crowbar from the shed, figuring that if I wasn't going to kill them I could at least make them think hard about doing that to anybody else. I looked in the window and saw the tall one lying on the couch finishing off some sort of bottle of liquor. The small one was dancing around to some really bad American music. I decided to make my approach from the back.

I checked the back door and found it unlocked, unsurprising considering that the guy had nothing worth stealing. It was a simple four-room cottage, it seemed, two bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room that contained the two bozos. I checked the bedrooms and made sure that they were both empty. Luckily for me there was nobody else home.

I slid into the kitchen quietly, though the loud rock music would have drowned out a freight train. I peeked through the connecting door to the living room again and the scene hadn't really changed. The small one was still dancing and the big one was on the couch, probably just about passed out from the liquor.

I waited until the little one had his back to me. He was moving around like a moron and I took the opportunity to unleash a sidekick to the back of his head. He wasn't expecting the blow and went tumbling head over heels towards the front door.

The big one took a second to figure out what happened, which was a second too long for him. I was across the room before he could look up and bringing the heavy rusted crowbar down on his kneecaps. The big one screamed as both of his knees shattered at once.

The small one was resilient, but no match for me alone. He tried to come at me once with a very wide right hook. I dodged it easily and let loose with the crowbar to his ribs. I had a hard time feeling pity for either of them after the way they beat on me needlessly in the street earlier.

When the crowbar struck his rib cage the little guy literally collapsed onto the floor. I let him fall, knowing as he did that he was out of the fight with several broken ribs. He wasn't even able to scream, unlike his large friend.

I walked back over to the big one and looked at him. He tried to get up, but I had done a number on his legs. Neither knee was going to be able to hold his weight. He used his arms to try to get at me, but without his legs for mobility it was pretty one-sided fight. I tried not to hurt him too badly, figuring the knees were punishment enough.

I did knock him out with a right hook to the side of the head because I wanted him to shut his mouth. Once he was out cold I searched him. As I expected, he was the poor one. He had little but a billfold with a five Euro note. I shook my head and tossed it back on his chest as an insult.

The little one was a bit better off. I pulled his wallet and found just what I needed. The little punk was carrying about a thousand Euros. I didn't know how that translated to real money, but it was certainly enough for my purposes at the time. I left the house quickly and took the crowbar with me. I had used my jacket sleeve to touch everything else as a matter of habit.

I didn't encounter anyone on the way out of the area. I washed the crowbar off with snow and then abandoned it in a trashcan, which I also filled with snow. The snow would have gotten rid of most traces of prints. I made my way back to that little discotheque and prepared to go inside and warm up.

I went up to the door and entered into the anteroom. It wasn't particularly different from any of the other discotheques I'd been in. There was a room to contain the rowdies that were denied admission. I pulled a ten out of my billfold and slid it over the counter wordlessly. The comely young woman smiled, said what I assumed was thank you, and buzzed the door. I smiled back and entered what could have been a flashback to when I worked vice in the late 70's.

Disco had died in the United States by 1980, but it was still alive and well in the various parts of Europe, most notably France and Germany. For two countries that hate each other so much they are remarkably alike in a lot of things. I walked in and had to suppress a chuckle at the old fashioned disco ball.

The music was a bit more modern, some form of electronic disco beat, but the people were still the same. The ugly girl dancing alone, the swinger with the two young ladies, even the wallflower guy sipping on his drink made this place a typical disco.

It really was dead season, for the place was less than a quarter full. I decided to throw caution to the wind and go up to the bar for a drink. The bartender came over eagerly and started saying stuff in rapid fire French that I wasn't even sure that Karen could have accurately translated.

"Do you happen to speak English?" I said with a Russian accent to throw people off my trail some more.

"I speak some," the bartender admitted, "Normally I wouldn't admit it, but it's slow tonight and I need the business."

"Vodka," I said, continuing with the ruse, "Nice town you have here."

The bartender poured me straight vodka and brought the bottle in true Russian style. I was impressed, considering the remoteness of my location. The brand was even a good Russian import. Most places back in the states would have tried to pass off a bottle of Smirnoff as true vodka. I tossed back the shot and put my glass down on the bar hard, just like all the Russian's I had known did.

"Bergeron isn't a bad place in season," the bartender said conversationally, "It isn't as much fun this time of year."

"I can see that," I said, "You seem to be the only bet in town."

"At this time of night," he shrugged, "Not much else to do during the day either."

"Just out of curiosity," I asked him, "How far am I from someplace larger?"

"Lyon is about a hundred and fifty kilometers east," he said after a second of thought, "Paris is about 600 kilos northwest. Not much in this region that I can name."

I nodded and slugged down another shot of vodka, more for his benefit than mine. Ever since I had been brought back alcohol had about as much effect on me as a soft drink. I just wanted to keep him talking.

"Is there a place to stay still open around here?" I asked him.

"Madame Touraine's will have plenty of rooms," he said, "It's around the corner. It's obvious you're not from around here. How did you come across an out of the way place like Bergeron?"

"I drove from Madrid," I lied, "My lack of skill with your language has gotten me lost."

"Should have taken the train," he said, "It's faster and you don't get lost in snowstorms that way."

I nodded and finished off another belt. He charged me fifty Euros, an exorbitant amount for only a few glasses of Vodka, but left uncomplaining. I stayed in the joint for a while longer, wanting to stay where it was warm. I danced a little and played like the alcohol was really having an effect on me.

The drunken swinger was having a good time with his ladies. He barely noticed it when I slipped his wallet out of his pocket and went to the rest room. I relieved him of about two thirds of his cash and one of his credit cards. I figured that he would think he spent it on the women while he was drunk. He was using Visa, so none of the fraudulent charges I was planning on putting on his card would be charged to him. To make him less suspicious of what happened I dropped the wallet on the floor near his table on my way out.

I briefly pondered spending the night at the motel, but didn't want the hassles of registration. I walked outside of the village and looked at the houses. It was easy to tell which ones were inhabited, as there was smoke coming out of the chimneys. I went to one of the smokeless houses and looked in the window. It was abandoned, most likely somebody's summer villa.

I grinned and slipped the lock just like I had done on the place where Karen and Jim were staying. It was just as cold inside as it had been outside, but there was no wind or snow inside. I checked the power and found that it was still, for some inexplicable reason, turned on.

I searched through the house and found much more than I did at the old abandoned house. There were several electric blankets and quite a bit of canned food. I ate a cold can of pasta while wrapped up in the electric blankets. It wasn't a perfect situation, but it was good enough to last me until I could go around town the next day and figure a way out. I slept as well as I could under the circumstances, which, considering the situation wasn't very well at all.

## Chapter 7

I woke up with sun shining through the windows. I pulled off the electric blanket and stood up to greet yet another day. I was determined to find a way out of town and didn't particularly care what it meant. Feeling exceptionally grimy I went into the bathroom and took a cold shower in even colder air.

I went back into town, trying to keep a low profile. I went into one of the clothing shops and picked out a set of warm clothing each for the three of us, complete with white gloves and hats. I paid for it with the stolen credit card, hoping that it would hold out for a little while.

I knew that cars were going to be dangerous for us. The police loved to stop foreigners and I didn't have a set of identification that I could use without getting into more trouble. I decided to get a meal at the café and think the problem through. I sat down at the window table and just pointed to something on the menu that I couldn't even read.

It turned out to be a really lousy soup, but nourishment was nourishment and I was getting hungry. The waitress wisely left me alone to look out the window while I sucked down that soup that tasted like it was strained through Jim's sweat socks. I was amazed by one thing, and that was the complete and utter lack of cars. The roads even had yet to be plowed after the snowstorm that hit the night we landed in France.

The only things I saw moving in the area were skiers and the occasional snowmobile. That's when I had my great idea. If it had snowed this far south in France, the good bets said that if I went north it was likely to have snow up there too. I laid down a fifty Euro note on the table, probably one hell of a lot more than the meal was worth, and walked out the door.

I knew that any place with as many snowmobiles as this place had had to have a place to service and sell them. I walked the streets for an hour before finding it, however, as it was part of a general hardware store. I made no conversation and just looked around the store. I may have been wearing a leather jacket, but I looked presentable enough despite the two days worth of beard growth.

I found the new snowmobile models and looked for the price tags. The small ones were running at around four thousand francs, whereas the one big enough to hold three of us was running at around ten thousand. I had done well the night before, but not that well. I left the store wondering how I could put that much together by nightfall.

It showed that even in the winter Bergeron still had some tourists around. The town was nowhere near as dead during the day as it was during the evening. I walked around some more and saw that the ski shops were doing well. I had no way of confirming the fact, but most likely this was a cross country ski area. I honestly didn't care. I was already tiring of this town.

I looked for obvious tourists and lifted a couple more wallets. I took half the cash from each one and dropped the rest in an area where it would be found and hopefully returned. I was doing fairly well, up another grand after lifting about six wallets. I decided to go and get out of the cold for a bit.

I had just entered one of the ski shops, thinking that they might have a place to grab a cup of coffee. Sure enough, they had their coffee shop and I was walking over to the counter when a large man started barking at me. For a second I thought he was a relative of the punk whose knees I'd broken the night before.

I then saw the logo on his jacket, which was the same as the logo on the front of the store. I tried telling him in straight English that all I wanted was a cup of coffee, but that seemed to infuriate him more. He was ranting and raving and I was quite sure that I was about to be attacked again.

Not intending to get into it in broad daylight I scurried towards the door. The man shouted something after slamming the door behind me. I had lost my balance in my hurry to get outside that I went right down on my ass in the slush.

"What the hell?" I said to myself as I looked back in the store in bewilderment.

"That was Old Henri," a very nice looking young woman said to me in English as she held out a hand to help me up, "He has hated Americans ever since his wife ran off with one nearly twenty years ago. Most of the tourists know to avoid his joint and go to Knobby's down the street."

"Thanks," I said as I took her hand to get up, "Wait a second, how did you know I was an American?"

"Henri only does that to Americans, or people he mistakes for Americans," the young woman explained, "It's too bad, really. He has the best ski supplies in town. Still, Knobby knows his stuff too."

"I see," I nodded as I checked her out, blonde hair down to her very nice legs, "Is there any place I could buy you a cup of coffee? That's all I was trying to get out of there anyway?"

"I really don't have time right now," She said with a smile that could melt ice, "The café around the corner should be able to handle your needs though. And if you're really offended by Henri, you can report it to the deputy. He speaks English as well as I do and very few people here would be sorry to see Henri get a complaint. He's been a blight on this town for years."

"That's ok," I said, "Nothing hurt but my pride. If I need skis I'll gladly get them somewhere else."

"Ok," she said with a smile, "See you around!"

With that she bounded down the snow-covered street leaving me standing there with a goofy smile on my face. I thought about what she had said about Old Henri. I suddenly knew where I was going to get the rest of the money I needed. It was going to require me staying in town one more night, but the chance to get Henri back for the earlier embarrassment was just too good to pass up.

I stayed in the alleys and in the background as much as possible for the rest of the day, keeping an eye on the ski shop as I did so. The young lady was right, Henri really did do quite a bit of business, despite the fact that he tossed at least two more people out the door. One poor sod even returned twice to be thrown out repeatedly. It was really like the Soup Nazi, the poor sods kept coming back for more.

When the sun went down the shop started going about closing up. I saw the young woman at the coffee counter go out first. I slipped into the alley next to the ski shop and peeked into the windows. I figured that I wouldn't be getting too lucky that night until I saw him heading towards his safe with the money. I knew then that I had a chance.

I managed to get in a good position to see the numbers he dialed in on the safe to open it. I memorized it really quick, 32 right, 42 left, 8 right. I grinned and watched to see what his next action would be. I almost blew it when I dropped to the ground, but luckily Old Henri wrote it off to just hearing things.

I watched him leave and lock up the store behind him. My opportunity was coming forth and I was glad of it. I went around to the back of the store and checked out the locks on the door. They were solid, so I started checking the lower windows. Evidently my luck was holding out, because they were using really old latch locks that most of the world had given up on fifty years before.

I used my knife to go under the sill and push the old latch back. It went easily and the window opened with no problem whatsoever. I slid into the window and dropped down into the basement. I left my old flight jacket with the new clothing in the bag underneath the snow in the alley so that I wouldn't leave any identifiable traces.

I looked through the stuff in the store, finding the usual crap. I don't know why that shop was so popular, as it was just like any other crappy ski shop I'd been in for years. I looked around all the rooms to make sure I was alone, because I intended to cover my tracks well.

Henri's office was cluttered with all sorts of papers. I briefly considered looking through them until I remembered that they would be in French, just like everything else. Ignoring the rest of the garbage I opened up the safe in the room and pulled out the cash, leaving the credit card receipts alone. He did do an amazing business all right, there had to be a good fifteen thousand Euros in there, all in small bills or coins.

I shoveled them out of the safe and into a bag with Henri's stupid logo on the front of it. I was nearly out the door when I realized that I had to cover the theft somehow. I buried the money in the snow with the clothes and my jacket and went back inside to give that bastard Henri a show he'd never forget.

Arson is a subjective thing. I knew that it would destroy the shop for sure if I did it right, and with the snow covering everything the likelihood of it destroying anything else was minimal. I went into Henri's office and started looking for a good way to start an accidental fire.

Now I didn't hate Henri enough to want him to be accused of arson, so I wanted to make it good. I looked down and saw an old electrical outlet that I knew was the source of my fire. I smiled and pulled out my knife and used it to unscrew the outlet to take a closer look at the wiring.

The thing that gets most arsonists caught is the fact that they don't particularly want to have to burn themselves in the process. I didn't have that particular problem. Another peculiar side effect of the serum is that I can't burn. I don't understand it either, but it does come in handy at times.

I looked at the old wiring and found that it probably dated back to well before the Second World War. I pulled a little bit of the old insulation off both the positive wires and let them spark a bit. Before long the sparks were flying all over the place. The fires were already starting when I put the outlet back together so it would appear that it was a simple electrical fire.

The only thing I didn't count on was the barrel of ski cleaning fluid on the floor. I didn't know what it was and wasn't able to read the label. But seconds after the fire got to it the whole barrel went up, creating a small explosion that sent me flying through the office wall.

It shook me up a bit and it took me a few seconds to get to my feet. I knew that the cavalry wouldn't be too far away, so I got up quick and rushed back into the office. The office was raging by this time and I barely was able to close the safe before I had to leave again. The heat may not have burned, but it was still uncomfortable as hell.

I was about to exit through a side window when I heard a familiar creak and felt the floor giving way under me. The explosion had blown down more than anything, and evidently he kept some extremely flammable matter down there. I was swallowed into the flames with an involuntary scream. I had no idea a goddamned ski shop would go up like that.

I came to my senses and managed to make my way to the window I'd broken in to at the start. My clothes were completely on fire as by the time I went out the window again. I looked around for people, but they weren't quite there yet. I knew I had little time. I dove head first into the snow and put the fire on my clothing out. Next I dug into the snow bank and quickly retrieved the money and clothes.

I was in way over my head. My clothes were nothing but ashes really, so I made tracks away from the blaze into the woods. As soon as I was far enough into the trees to have been rendered invisible I knocked off the smoldering remains of my old clothing. First warm, then cold, I really wasn't having a good day.

I quickly dressed in my new set of clothing, hoping I didn't smell too badly like smoke. I walked back to the edge of the woods to see what was going on at the store. It was all up in flames by then. People were coming out of the woodwork too. I decided to take it on the run before someone figured out that I smelled like fire.

I had money now and that was the important thing. The next important thing was to get the hell out of dodge. I walked over to the area behind the discotheque and waited for the crowd to disperse a little. When it just got bigger and bigger I just shook my head. I didn't know it would go like this.

I walked around a bit more and saw what I really needed. A large snowmobile was left unattended and running. Nobody was watching it, so I hopped on and steered it onto the snowmobile trail heading out of town. Either nobody noticed or nobody was able to follow me fast enough.

I followed the trail until I saw many divergent paths. At this point I created another one and started heading north again until I had the town far enough behind me. I could still see the flames from a distance, giving me a beacon which way to go.

All was good when the snow started to fly. I managed to make it to the house that I'd stayed in the night before. I parked the machine next to the house and covered it with a healthy dose of snow. By the time I got inside and out of the cold the snow was coming down in droves. I sighed and ate another cold can of pasta while I watched it come down. Wrapping up in the electric blanket again I tried to put out of my mind what I'd done that day. It took a while, but I managed to get my body to sleep.

## Chapter 8

I woke up the next morning feeling a little better. I fired down another can of pasta, a food that I was quickly becoming sick of. I stood up and looked out the window to see just how bad the snow had gotten. It seemed like it was going to be a rather long winter for central France, as another foot or so had fallen since I had gone to sleep.

I was thinking about going back to the town for some more food, but after what I did there the day before I thought that going back was a bad idea. I instead decided to scour the house I was in for anything that would make the trek north a little easier.

I went through the rooms again, finding little new. The pantry was still fairly well stocked, so I took everything I could load into bags. Evidently the owners of this house liked to backpack in the woods. I took three of the five bags so that we'd each have one. I put as much food as I could in there as well as the extra sets of clothes.

In my search I found some more blankets and some matches. The last thing I packed, almost as an afterthought, was a little transistor radio. When I was certain I had everything I could possibly grab from this house I went out and began to uncover the snowmobile.

It took me a good thirty minutes to uncover the foot or more of snow that had accumulated on it over night. Not bad, considering all I had to do the job were my hands and a half rotted plank that I found leaning against the house.

I tied the bags on the snowmobile and managed to get the machine to start. Finding the house where Karen and Jim were hiding was going to be a bitch. My trail from a few days earlier was long covered with another batch of snow. I knew it was vaguely west, so I started running in that direction.

I guess everyone decided to stay inside that day, because I didn't run into anyone as I headed west. I was moving along at a good clip too so I figured that I should be able to make the trip in about thirty minutes. Not bad, considering it took me four hours about two days before.

I had covered quite a distance and was almost to the point of being able to enjoy hot-dogging around in the snow when I heard the engine begin to die. I brought the machine to a halt in the snow to try to figure out what was going wrong. I managed to pop the hood and look around the engine.

It was at that point when the pistons in my brain finally started firing correctly again and I pulled off the gas cap and had a look inside the tank. Yep, I'd let the tank run dry. Oh to be back in the good old USA where you couldn't throw a rock without hitting a gas pump.

I took a look around the area and saw a house through the trees. I chuckled and walked through the snow to take a closer look. I had hoped that my luck would hold out again and I'd find another empty house, but that wasn't to be the case. There were farm animals all around and damn did they make some noise.

I considered going in another direction, but knew that the vehicles around here would have the fuel that I needed to get the damned snowmobile running again. I crept slowly around the barn looking for something with gas in it to siphon. I hoped that the animal noise would cover me. I was wrong.

I heard someone yell something in French. I turned around to see an old man running out of the house with a shotgun in hand. Great, it seems that France had rednecks just like the US. I tried to run back around the barn, but I hit a patch of ice and felt my feet fly right out from under me.

I landed in the snow hard and had the wind knocked right out of me. Before long the old French guy was standing over me with the shotgun aimed right at my head. I raised my hands and looked up at him.

"Ja me rends," I said to him.

It was one of the few French phrases I knew. It meant 'I Surrender', and I'd used it a couple times in Africa, usually as bait to get the enemy to come closer. He took a step back and motioned for me to get up, all the while aiming that damned shotgun at my head. If he had been aiming it anywhere but there I'd have probably taken the shot and then shoved the gun up his ass.

He said something else in French that I didn't understand. I stood there blankly and waited. He finally realized that I didn't understand a word he was saying and motioned me towards the house. Not wanting to lose my head over a little bit of gasoline I complied.

The house was sparse and drab. He handed the shotgun to his wife and said something to her, probably instructions to cover me. He picked up the telephone and punched a few numbers and started talking in rapid fire French. The only word I understood out of the whole mess was 'voleur' which meant thief.

I knew that if I stayed there until the police got there I was screwed for sure. I decided to try one of the oldest routines in the book. It wouldn't have worked on a seasoned professional, but this was a pair of old farmers so I figured it had a reasonable chance of success.

I started slow, just averting my eyes towards an empty corner. As time went on I started looking over there more and more. Before long the woman noticed and started glancing over in that corner herself. By the time I was glancing over there almost full time she was taking more looks at that corner than she was at me.

The final time I faked a glance and when the old woman did the same I reached over and pulled the weapon out of her hand. Unfortunately, as her hand came out of the trigger guard she accidentally pulled the trigger. The loud shot ripped through my left arm, tearing it all but off.

The old couple screamed and the shotgun clattered to the floor. I hit the floor along with it and groaned at the extreme pain coming out of my arm. I ignored the steady stream of blood that was flowing out of where my left arm used to attach to my shoulder and pulled myself off the floor with my one good arm.

The French couple was amazed that I was moving as much as I was considering how injured I was. The buckshot had done a little more than just take off my arm. Quite a bit of the buckshot went into my left side and into my face too. I was quite worried by the fact that I couldn't see out of my left eye at all.

I looked into the breadbox that was truthfully the only shiny thing in the room to see just how bad it was. My face was torn apart badly and the eye was barely in the socket. I had just come very close to losing my head, and with it my entire personality.

I ignored the pain entirely and used my right arm to grab the shotgun off the floor. I briefly considered in my pain shooting them, but common sense came through. I was the bad guy in this case. I had come in with the intention of taking something from their farm. I couldn't blame them for this, especially since I'd forced the shot.

"I need... I need..." I said in English until I managed to find the words in French, "J'ai besoin d'essence."

I then popped out the shells from the shotgun and put it on the table. I must have been one hell of a sight as I pulled out my wallet one handed and managed to get a hundred Euro note. I put it down on the table and put the wallet back in my pocket. I stressed to the guy that I really needed the gasoline and he made a motion to follow him.

I think they just wanted me to leave at this point. He gave me two cans of gas, a cruel thing to do when you only have one working arm. I made do with an old hoe, which I think I earned and used to carry both cans one handed to the snowmobile on the other side of the woods.

The bleeding had stopped already and my arm was trying to regenerate. I still couldn't see, meaning that I probably had a bit of shrapnel in my eye that I'd have to get Jim to remove if he was awake. I strapped one can onto the snowmobile and clumsily filled the gas tank with the other one, finally putting it into the rack along with the other can.

I was thankful that the snowmobile had an electric starter, because I just plain didn't have the strength anymore to do it. I managed to keep control of the snowmobile, despite the fact that my body didn't want to stay awake. I had lost a lot of blood before everything finally stopped bleeding. My body healed quickly, but it couldn't replace blood as quickly as I lost it.

It took me another thirty minutes to find the house where I'd left Karen and Jim, and when I did it was like a load off my back. I gunned the engine and did a sloppy parking job next to the house.

Karen must have heard the engine and came out for a closer look because within seconds of my getting there she was outside. She took one look at me and my injuries and came running. She helped me off the snowmobile and helped me hobble towards the house. I was barely conscious by then. I remember going inside with her and her asking me rapid-fire questions. I highly doubt I was able to answer any of them before I collapsed on the floor and lost consciousness.

## Chapter 9

I woke up looking at Karen's bleary eyes. She looked like she hadn't slept for a while. I moved my left arm a little to see if it was back. It was, so I'd been out long enough to regenerate again. I still couldn't see out of my left eye, however.

"Welcome back," she said with a smile, "I've been worried about you."

"I bet I looked like hell," I chuckled, "I probably still do."

"The clothes you were wearing are a mess," she said, "I guess that you raised some sort of hell over in Bergeron."

"How do you know that?" I asked her, "I don't think I told you anything before I collapsed."

"I went through the contents of the snowmobile and turned on the radio," she said with a grin, "The radio station is reporting a veritable crime spree in that town. A German national is wanted in connection with a double assault. Several people report losing their wallets to a pickpocket, and a ski shop went up in a very mysterious blaze."

"Gee," I said, "Sounds like they had one hell of a run of bad luck."

"How much of it did you do?" Karen asked me seriously.

"Do you really want to know?" I asked.

"Not really," she sighed, "But you'd better tell me anyway."

"All of it," I admitted, "But some of it was necessary."

"How so?" she wondered.

"The two punks I assaulted left out part of the story," I said, "They assaulted me in front of a night club minutes after I entered the town. They grabbed my wallet and left me bleeding on the ground."

"Lovely," she said, "I guess they didn't know who they were dealing with."

"Guess not," I grinned, "Me and my trusty little crowbar showed them the light, however."

"I bet it did," she said while shaking her head, "Do I even want an explanation about the ski shop?"

"The guy was an asshole," I said, "Kicked me out of his shop, literally, for just being a suspected American."

"So you torched his place?" she asked me incredulously.

"Sure," I said with a mischievous smile, "After I stole the fifteen thousand Euros in his safe. I set the fire to cover the theft."

"Ok," she said, "That I can understand. Is that how you were injured?"

"No," I groaned, "That was over a friggen can of gasoline. I ran out in the snowmobile and tried to siphon some. The old guy who owned the farm caught me. They brought me inside and were about to call the cops."

"You didn't..." She said.

"Hell no," I said, "All I tried to do was take the gun away. It was an accident, one that took my arm and half my face off."

"Your face has healed," Karen said, "Your arm is mostly there, but your left eye isn't focusing. I'm a mite worried about that one."

"Shrapnel," I grunted, "Jim will have to operate when he wakes up. Speaking of him, has there been any change?"

"Outwardly he's healed," Karen said, "He has been in REM sleep for nearly seven hours now."

"That doesn't bode well for his head," I suggested, "Last time he was out this long was when you blew his head off. You remember what happened then?"

"I know," she sighed, "New personality and no memory. Hopefully that won't happen this time. His brains may have been shaken, but not destroyed."

"We'll give him another day," I said, "After that we'll rig a sled and drag him northeast. I want to get out of France and into Germany as soon as possible."

"At least you speak the language there," she agreed, "Traveling will be easier."

We sat there for a few more minutes until we heard some groaning from Jim. We were both over there in a heartbeat to see what kind of condition he was in. He stirred and opened his eyes to look at us.

"Mason," he said slowly, "If you ever push me out of a plane again, I am going to make sure that you're the one without a goddamn parachute."

Karen and I both went into hysterics. Jim was back and he was the same guy we'd been traveling with for years now. He sat up and just stared at us as if he was wondering why we were concerned. I leaned against the wall and smiled. We were back again. Now it was time to leave France for good.

"Welcome back, Jim," I said, "Next time I'll make sure the damned parachute is good."

"Ok," he said with a grimace, "Next question. Where are we?"

"France," Karen said with a shrug, "Near some little town called Bergeron."

"Huh?" Jim asked.

"We're about six hundred kilos south of Paris," I told him, "Lyon is 150 kilos east. Germany is probably about seven hundred kilometers northeast."

"Great," Jim said despondently, "And the last of our cash went into those plane tickets to Copenhagen."

"I took care of that while you were unconscious," I informed him, "I've got about fifteen thousand francs Euros."

"So why are we still here?" he asked.

"Cause you were a corpse," I said, "And so was I. I need you to fix my left eye as well."

"You hit the ground too?" he asked me.

"Shotgun," I muttered, "Let's just say you had it easy while you were sleeping and your pain was short lived."

"True," Jim chuckled, "I hit the ground and out I went. Let me look at that eye."

Jim, in his previous life, was actually a doctor and he retained enough of the skill to be useful once in a while. Moreover he'd had enough experience with our condition that he knew how to fix minor things that wouldn't heal themselves.

It took him about an hour to figure out what happened. Sure enough, my left eye had to be removed. He did it with my combat knife because it was the only thing we had sharp enough to do the job. Karen had to hold me down while Jim did his work on my eye.

For anyone who is not immortal to watch this it would seem barbaric, with Jim cutting out much more than a normal surgeon would. This was necessary because if he used small incisions the flesh would heal up around the blade, making it impossible to get anything done. Larger wounds take longer to heal, so you have to cut out a lot to get a little done.

The job was quick and Jim did a fairly good job under the circumstances. He removed two pieces of buckshot from my eye and then cleaned out the wound that he made. He then knew to leave it alone and let me rest. Within an hour the flesh had regenerated completely, along with the damaged eye. The buckshot had indeed been blocking the nerve, because this time my eyes went right back to 20/20.

"Much better," I said approvingly, "How's my ugly mug doing?"

"You should be in movies, Mason," Karen said with a grin, "So what's the next step?"

"Let's blow this pop stand," I suggested, "We'll make it as far as we can on the snowmobile and then find alternate transportation."

"How are we going to get into Germany?" Jim asked, "I know my passport is still on the plane."

"Besides," Karen put in, "Those identities are moot."

"My guess is that we'll probably slide in on foot," I said, though I didn't know, "Depends on what we find when we get near the border. If we can't get across, we'll backtrack to Paris and try to buy passports."

"Do we have enough to do that?" Karen asked me.

"Probably," I said, "But I'd prefer not to have to go to a populated area, especially one that I can't blend into."

"Nickel and dime our way into Denmark?" Karen asked me, "Could be interesting."

"Yeah," Jim put in, "Sounds like fun. If nothing else, at least Mason speaks the language in Germany and can find a place to get identification."

After we debated options a little while longer we decided to just start running northeast as best we could to get to the German border. The three of us loaded up the snowmobile as best we could and then decided to make a trailer for the stuff we were going to carry.

It wasn't a time consuming process as we just used an old sled to carry the backpacks. I drove the snowmobile with Karen holding on tightly behind me. Jim took some blankets from the old house and sat backwards on the end of the snowmobile's rack. He served double duty, riding along and making sure the sled didn't go anywhere.

We went along for the next four days, riding the snowmobile across the French countryside. We managed to avoid the towns and either got fuel from little stores or siphoned it out of parked cars at farms. Surprisingly, we managed to avoid the larger cities and still made good time.

We crossed the border at Lauterbourg–Wörth, abandoning the snowmobile and crossing the border on foot. It being winter, most everyone except for some French and German patrols deserted the area. We made it through quickly and were finally on German soil.

The next day or so was much easier than the previous week had been. I was able to speak German like a native, so traversing the countryside was much easier. We rode the trains up near Denmark and slid across the nearly unprotected border.

After we took the ferries to Copenhagen we hit the bank that held our identities. I gave them the number of the account and the passwords required to access the contents of our box. Finding this type of bank was a godsend because it relieved us of the need to carry a key with us. We removed one of the sets of identification the box contained and walked out into the streets of Copenhagen as free people.

"We did it," I said to Karen and Jim as I handed them their new identification, "Now it's time to relax."

The identification we were using had been set up just before our African adventure to disappear with after it was over. We had no idea where we were going, just one single idea that we all shared at that point in time. We looked for a cruise ship to go back to the US with, as none of us wanted to go anywhere near an airplane again anytime soon.

#  Kara's Last Day

This is an aside to the novel "Insurrection" exposing one of the more traumatic days in A.J. Durell's life. The story doesn't really fit in the scope of Insurrection, which takes place approximately four years after these events take place, but I decided to write it down for myself as a nice aside.

Kara Malloy was Durell's first love after leaving the violent life he had led in Czechoslovakia and Ireland. After recovering from injuries received while going after a rather nasty set of Irish terrorists he started working for the BBC, where he met Kara. After about a year together Durell's father becomes ill and he was called back to the United States, his first time setting foot in his home country since he'd left in 1984.

This piece takes place a few months after Durell's return to the United States, while he was running the security arm of his dying father's company.

This story was another one that shows just how screwed up my head was a lot of the time. I seem to like destroying the relationships of my characters with death at times. I don't even fully remember writing this story, but I did build it into the back story. Sometimes I think I did better with the back story on Durell than I did with his adventure in Finland.

I also wanted to show the entirely screwed up family he had that caused him to want to leave the United States to become a freedom fighter in the communist bloc. The story is so simple in some ways, but I still have a soft place for A.J. Durell and I keep thinking I will come back to him someday and better integrate him into the timeline.

-Rodney Mountain 7/29/11

## Chapter 1

"You have got to be kidding me," A.J. Durell said as Kara walked out of the dressing room, "What is that getup all about?"

"You don't like it?" Kara asked him, pouting a little, "I thought it was cute."

"You know me," A.J. said, "I prefer simple. That just doesn't look like you."

Kara chuckled and looked at herself in the mirror. She liked the way the outfit accented her slim figure, but A.J. was right, it was not her. She kissed him on the forehead and went back into the changing room to try something else on.

"I'm going to go outside and have a smoke," A.J. told Kara as she changed, "Randy is here and it looks like he's working up a stroke again."

"Your brother always looks that way," Kara chuckled while changing, "I'll try this on and go through the checkout."

"Pick me up a couple of black shirts will you?" Durell asked her, "You know my size."

"I swear," Kara said, "You never change."

"I do so," Durell protested, "I no longer shoot people. That's change enough in itself."

"I guess you're right there," Kara said, "Go tend to your brother before he has that stroke."

"All right," Durell agreed and headed out to find his brother outside, "What is going on, Randy?

"What are you doing here?" Randy demanded, "You are supposed to be watching that meeting..."

"Whoa," A.J. said, stopping his brother, "Hold your horses. Since when are you giving me orders?"

"Someone has to!" Randy said, "I mean this is a very important meeting..."

"That I have little to do with," A.J. told him, "I told you a week ago that I was going to take a day off. I have people sitting at the meeting taking notes, which is all that I need. I have nothing to add, I leave the business end of it to you and dad."

"You never change," Randy grunted, "This is only the biggest deal we've ever attempted..."

"I told you and mom when I came back," A.J. said, interrupting his brother yet again, "I will run the security force for the company, something that I am good at. I am not a businessman and do not intend to become one. I will not wear a suit. I will not listen to your lawyers spread their manure all over the place. Is that clear, Randy?"

"You don't care about this company one bit!" Randy protested.

"That is not true," A.J. smiled, "I care about the paycheck I receive from it. I care about keeping it secure. I do not care about the business ins and outs. Dad still wants me to become a little clone of him. That is your job, Randy, and you are more than welcome to it."

"If only he'd just begin to trust me," Randy said wistfully, "He still thinks I can do nothing right."

"I don't get that thinking either," A.J. agreed, "That's part of why I left. If you think it will help I'll go talk to him today. Maybe I can get it through our father's thick skull that I have all the business acumen of the average rock."

"I'd appreciate it," Randy nodded, "I've got to get back. Those negotiations are going to be a pain in the ass."

"Right," A.J. nodded, "Enjoy, Randy."

A.J. shook his head as his brother walked away. He never understood the business first mindset that had taken most of the members of his family.

He lit his cigarette and sat outside as he waited for Kara to finish inside the store. She came out of the store carrying three moderate sized packages, looking as happy as most women do when finishing a shopping run.

"What did Randy want?" Kara asked him, "Must not have been too important."

"Same shit, different day," A.J. shrugged, "He doesn't quite realize yet that I could care less about the business aspects of it. Dad keeps pushing him to get me in for some reason."

"Your father doesn't want to leave the business in the hands of that idiot," Kara said, "Randy and that vapid witch he married are going to run it into the ground."

"And he thinks I could do better?" A.J. boggled, "I mean really, the only things I have experience with are shooting, security and radio repair. I flunked out of business school because I thoroughly hated it."

"You have a shred of common sense," Kara reminded him, "That is one thing that Randy is sadly lacking."

"True," A.J. sighed, "Have you gotten you fill of shopping or shall we hit another place?"

"Home sounds good," Kara said, "I've got a headache again and it is getting worse."

"I have to stop by the house," A.J. reminded her, using their usual understated euphemism for his parents mansion, "Dad wanted to see me today. Probably to make his usual plea for me to do something other than just security."

"I'll try to keep your mother out of it," Kara nodded, "I tell her I'm having a headache again and she'll go motherly on me, leaving you to deal with your father alone."

"She does like you," Durell admitted, "Probably because she thinks you settled me down enough to come home."

"I still think that O'Sullivan's bullets did more for that than anything else," Kara said, "But I'll take what I can get."

"That pretty English accent doesn't hurt either," A.J. chuckled, "Come on, let's go."

## Chapter 2

A.J. and Kara piled into the truck that he had purchased when he had returned to the US. After several years of tiny English automobiles, Durell was thrilled to be driving a vehicle that he could get in and out of without his rapidly deteriorating knees yelling at him for. They pulled up in the large drive area at his parents' house where one of his security people was milling around.

"Chucky," A.J. said, "How is it around here today?"

"Slow," Chucky said, "I like it that way though. We ran off a couple drifters, pretty much the highlight of the day."

"Enjoy the quiet ones," A.J. reminded him, "The really bad ones in this business are when it gets exciting."

"No doubt," Chucky nodded, "Have fun in there, A.J."

"Trust me," A.J. said as he headed for the house, "I'd rather be out here with you."

Chucky had a good laugh at that as A.J. and Kara headed into the house. Kara had little trouble seeing why the security staff liked their new boss, despite the fact that he was young and the son of the company head. A.J. was one of them, despite his father's attempts to pull him into the social stratosphere of the company.

A.J. put his cigarette out in a potted plant outside the back door like he usually did when entering his parents' house. His mother abhorred the habit, which was probably one of the reasons he picked it up in Europe. There was also the fact that he did not expect to live to see his thirtieth birthday back then, so he did not mind being hooked on them.

"I see you decided to come in today," Durell's mother said, "Your father has wanted to see you all day."

"I told him I would be here," A.J. said, kissing his mother's cheek lightly, "I've been working all week. This is the first day off I've taken in about ten."

"You know," his mother said, "You could join Randy in the front office and not have to work so much."

"I like the end of it I do," A.J. said, trying hard to keep himself calm, "Let's not discuss this now, ok?"

"I could use some headache medicine if you have some," Kara said, "If you don't mind, Mrs. Durell?"

"Of course not," A.J.'s mother said, a smile returning, "Come now, we'll get you some tea and a couple of Tylenol pills."

"Thanks doll," A.J. said quietly in Kara's ear as he planted a kiss on her cheek, "I owe you."

"You usually do," Kara winked, "Go deal with your father so we can go skating tonight, ok?"

"You've got it," A.J. nodded, "See you in a few."

"Come now, Kara," Mrs. Durell said, "I think we have some in here..."

## Chapter 3

A.J. watched Kara and his mother walk into the other room. He sighed a little and seriously wished for a cigarette before he had to go see his father. Even in his chemotherapy weakened state Robert Lee Durell was a brash personality to deal with, especially for his eldest son.

A.J. grabbed a couple of pretzels to chew on during the conversation and walked up the stairs to his father's room. He nodded at a nurse and got the silent go ahead to walk in.

Robert Durell was reading a whole pile of papers and looking angry about what he was seeing when he finally noticed his son walk into the room.

"Nice to see you finally decided to show up, Andy Jack," the elder Durell said, using an abbreviated form of A.J.'s given name, Andrew Jackson, "Wallowing down with the low levels again, I bet."

"That's my job," A.J. shrugged, "I told you when I came back that I'd get the security mess cleaned up, and I've done that I think."

"I can't fault your job on internal security," the elder Durell nodded, "I just want you to take more of an interest in the actual running of the company."

"Randy enjoys that crap more than I do," A.J. said, knowing it sounded lame, "He's always done what you wanted in that regard and usually done it better than I could have. I don't have any real business acumen, that's why I left in the first place."

"But you've got such a head on your shoulders," Robert said, "I mean... You could so far outclass that dunderhead of a brother of yours."

"Randy may not be the sharpest tack in the pile," A.J. admitted, being charitable, "But I hate business. I refuse to wear a suit, dad. I started being a soldier type because I would rather have a good workout than I would sit in a meeting. I think tactical, not economical."

"Your brother is an idiot," Robert said, pushing a pile of papers, "This deal that he's putting together is something that anyone should know better than to do. My company! The one that I've built since I was 18! And he's going to destroy it within months."

"You aren't dead yet," A.J. said, "You can put a stop to it if you want to."

"I'd rather you do it," Robert said, "You need to get into this."

"I'd rather go back to Czechoslovakia," A.J. frowned, "I came back because mom practically begged me to. I didn't come back to become a corporate magnate. It's not me, never was. Randy is the one who wants that. I don't."

"Bah!" Robert exclaimed, "I don't know how the hell you came out of my genes, Andy Jack!"

"Sure you do," A.J. smiled, "I'm a stubborn mule just like you are, dad. I work security because I like it and I'm good at it. But I don't have to stay here. I've had offers from a half a dozen training companies because of my experiences overseas. I'm not going to give up what I'm good at just because it doesn't suit what you think I should do."

"Some living," Robert said, "One that's already cost you your knees."

"That was a mistake," A.J. told him, "Besides, I got the son of a bitch back. Those two bullets in his gut probably hurt Timonchenko more than his hitting my knee has hurt me."

"Very well," Robert sighed, "Do what you will. Just keep an eye on your brother, will you?"

"I'll do the best I can," A.J. said lamely, "The sad fact is, dad. I may know security, but I can't read the numbers like you and he can. That's why I flunked out. I don't have the knack for numbers that you do."

"That is what we have accountants for," Robert grunted, "Anyway, I'm sure that pretty girl you brought back from England with you is waiting. Better go save her from your mother."

A.J. took that as a dismissal and quickly left the room. He was pushing thirty years old and he still felt like a child when he was in the presence of that man. He shook his head as he walked down the hallway, not even taking the time to grunt as his right knee buckled, sending his balance off a bit.

Kara and his mother were finishing their tea when A.J. came into the room. He pulled up a chair and sat down as his mother poured him a bit. A.J. drank a little, but didn't particularly like tea all that much so it was more a show than anything else.

"He seems to be rather anxious about what my brother is doing," A.J. said, "I can't say that I blame him, but pushing me like he did when I was a kid is going to get him nowhere."

"He always had high hopes for you, Andy," his mother said, making him cringe a little as he always did when called Andy, "You broke his heart when you left school to go running around Europe like you did."

"He had hopes to turn me into a little clone of him you mean," A.J. reminded her, "I enjoy what I do in life now. I don't wear a suit, I don't deal with numbers. I deal with people and real situations. I'm good at it. We haven't had a major leak since I took over the security section. I'd make a lousy CEO, but I'm a dynamite security man."

"I think you would be better at it than you think," his mother said, "But you would be miserable."

"And there lies the rub," Kara said, "The happiest I ever saw you was working on the radio equipment for the BBC, though when you don't have to deal with the higher ups you seem fine doing this too."

"I don't like suits, I don't like authority," A.J. said, "I had enough of it as a child."

"We're due to skate in an hour," Kara said, looking at her watch, "We should probably to head out."

"Have fun," A.J.'s mother told them, "See you both tomorrow for dinner?"

"We'll be here," A.J. said, though he wished he could decline, "See you then."

## Chapter 4

A.J. and Kara walked out of the house and climbed into A.J.'s truck with him kissing her quickly as he turned on the ignition. She smiled a little and leaned back in the plush seat, rubbing her temples as A.J. pulled the truck out of the driveway. She pushed her blonde hair back and smiled at him a little.

"You hate going back," Kara chuckled, "I still find it amusing that there are still people out there that refer to you as Andy."

"Just so long as you don't start all will be well," A.J. chuckled, "My family is just about the only group on the planet that I still get flustered by. I swear the KGB was a cakewalk in comparison."

Kara was only able to chuckle a little bit. She stretched a little, but A.J. was able to tell that she wasn't feeling very well. He had noticed the other day that she had taken quite a dent out of their bottle of Tylenol, but didn't think anything of it at the time. He wondered if something else was wrong.

"You don't look so hot, Kara," A.J. said, "You feeling ok?"

"I'm all right," Kara said, though her eyes didn't look it, "Nasty headache still. I refuse to give in to it. I've always wanted to skate in Central Park in the winter and I'm going to do it."

A.J. nodded, though he still felt something was wrong. It was a gut instinct, one that had served him well when running from the KGB forces in Czechoslovakia. He just was not able to adapt it to the current situation or environment. A.J. shrugged it off as he pulled into the parking lot.

"Am I going to get you into skates?" Kara asked him, grinning as they walked up to the stand, "Or are you going to be a wuss?"

"You know," A.J. chuckled, "You're the only person I know who has ever called me that."

"I think I'm entitled," Kara grinned, "And you're skirting the question. You going to skate?"

"I'm lucky if I can stand up most of the time, remember?" A.J. reminded her, "My doctor would have a fit if I got on skates. I'll come out on the ice with you, but I'll let you have the skates to yourself."

"Chicken," Kara chuckled, "At least you're willing to come out on the ice."

"I wouldn't miss it," A.J. said, "There's an opening, go get your skates."

Kara went over to the skate rental booth and got a pair in her size. A.J. shuffled his way over to the bench and wrapped his right knee with an ace bandage to give himself a bit more durability. By the time Kara got her skates on he was up and reacquainting himself with walking on ice.

"You'd probably be safer on skates," Kara said as she watched him balance, "Be a bit more fun too."

"You know me," A.J. chuckled, "I prefer my exercise to be horizontal in nature."

Kara stood up on her skates and got out onto the ice. She stayed with A.J. for a minute as she got her bearings, but once she did that she got up and actually skated around. A.J. smiled and watched his girl skate around beautifully. She was not as good as a figure skater, but A.J. figured that she was just good enough for him.

A.J. did the best he could to stay out of the way of skaters, and soon they were just whipping around him. He shook his head and tried to catch up to Kara, only to have her start skating circles around him. She laughed and smiled, but she still stopped to rub her head every once in a while.

"Kara," A.J. said, "You ok? You still look like you are in pain."

"My head is still hurting," Kara said, "No big deal. I'm still skating circles around you."

Kara grinned a little, pushing the pain out of mind as she did a few whirls around A.J. He slipped around a little bit, enjoying the ice much like anyone would in that situation. He did a decent job of standing up until a couple of kids came too close to him, sending him wobbling.

Kara tried to get there to help stop him from falling, but she just exacerbated the issue, helping him fall down into the snow beside the ice. He pulled himself upright and just shook his head. Kara brought herself to a stop and grinned sheepishly at him.

"Sorry about that," Kara chimed in, "Watch this though!"

A.J. sat up straight and watched Kara pull a few more rather complicated moves and do a triple flip. A.J. thought for a moment that she was going to fall, but she recovered at the end and skated full speed towards him.

"Bravo!" A.J. yelled.

Kara didn't appear to hear him, however. Something changed in her face. Before A.J. or anyone else had a chance to realize something was wrong her body had slackened up and her momentum carried her body off the ice and flipping over A.J.

"Shit!" A.J. exclaimed, missing getting a sharp skate in the face by mere inches, "Kara!"

Despite the bad knees A.J. was up in seconds and scrambling over to where Kara had fallen. A crowd came up as well, mainly because Kara's departure from the ice had been so uncontrolled and dramatic. When A.J. got to her he had to push back a couple people and start a basic medical check.

"Is there a doctor around?" A.J. yelled as he checked her out, "I need a physician here now!"

A middle-aged man that was being followed by two small children rushed off the ice and came up to where Kara was lying. Durell had checked vitals, which were still going, but getting weaker. He kneeled on the ground and made some of the same checks that Durell had just done.

"Has she had any problems today?" the doctor asked her as he checked her out, "Taken any drugs or done any drinking?"

"Nothing more than a nasty headache," A.J. told him, "No alcohol this week that I know of, definitely no drugs stronger than Tylenol."

The doctor nodded and opened her eyes, looking at her eyes and putting his finger against the side of her head. Concern was what A.J. saw in his eyes when he looked up at him.

"We need to get her to a hospital," the doctor said, "Now. I think she's either having a stroke or a similar cerebral incident."

By this time a police officer came over to the area and was radioing in. He saw Kara and the doctor explained to the officer what was needed. Before anyone could get the call in, he had called for an ambulance and was trying to get the crowd back.

"Are you her next of kin?" the doctor asked him, "Able to make decisions for her?"

"I'm as close as she has in this country," A.J. said, "She is British and is living with me. I guess that could count as common law."

"The ambulance is on the way," the officer said, "Is there anything we can do?"

"Pray we get her to the emergency room in time and that there is a good brain surgeon available," the doctor said, "If she has what I think she does that will be the only thing that could save her now."

A.J. stayed down in the snow holding her hand and talking to her, even though she was completely unconscious. He was not about to let go, even though he knew something was massively wrong.

She had been there for him as he recovered from his massive injuries and had helped him along greatly in his reintegration to civilian life. If not for her intervention he may well have ended up dead chasing after another revolution.

"Clear the way!" the officer exclaimed, "Ambulance coming through!"

"I wish I could do more," the doctor said, "I'm sorry."

"Thanks for doing this much," A.J. said and handed him a card while the EMTs worked on Kara, "If you have a favorite charity, let me know. They will get a good donation. I promise."

A.J. shook the man's hand and followed the EMT's into the ambulance. Being in New York they were not far from the hospital at all, so they were in the Emergency room before he even realized it.

## Chapter 5

Despite his years of being a doer instead of a watcher, all he could do in this situation was watch as the doctors stripped her down and began working on her.

"What is her name?" a nurse asked Durell, "We need information to save her."

"Kara Malloy," he told her, still a bit shell shocked, "She is twenty eight years of age."

"Any known diseases?" she asked him.

"No," A.J. said simply, "None."

"Any history of heart disease or blood pressure problems?" she asked.

"No," A.J. said, watching them work, "Just a little headache..."

She was moved quickly into surgery, while A.J. was forced to wait in a waiting room pacing around. He craved cigarettes, but did not want to leave in case the doctors came back with some news. It was another hour and a half before anyone came over to him at all.

"Mr. Durell?" the younger man said as he approached.

"Yeah?" A.J. said, looking up from the chair he finally had settled in, "I'm A.J. Durell."

"You came in with Kara Malloy, right?" the doctor said, not really asking, "Do you speak for her?"

"I'm the only one in the country who can," A.J. said, "What happened to her?"

"Your friend had a massive cerebral aneurysm." The doctor told him, "It's rare to see one like this in someone so young."

"Is she going to make it?" A.J. asked him, hoping the impossible hope.

"She passed away on the table," the doctor said, "We opened her up and tried to repair the damage, but the burst aneurysm had already killed a large chunk of her brain. The damage was too severe. Even had we been able to keep her alive she would have been brain dead."

"My god," A.J. said, his eyes wide, "I mean... We were just together. She had had a headache, but she's always had those..."

"This has probably been building up for years," the doctor said, "My guess is she was probably discounting the headaches when she should have had a cat scan done."

"Does it always happen this quick?" A.J. asked him, "I mean, talking one minute and gone the next?"

"Usually does," the doctor admitted, "I'm afraid there is nothing that can be done."

"Thanks," Durell said, "Do I have to sign something or what not?"

"Next of kin will," the doctor said, "You may be close, but you can't sign the legal paperwork."

"I'll get word to her mother," Durell said, "I want any bills to go to me, though."

"Fair enough," the doctor nodded, "I'm sorry, Mr. Durell."

"So am I," A.J. nodded, "I guess there's nothing left for me to do here."

"No sir," the doctor said, "There is nothing you can do for her now."

A.J. sighed and stood up. He walked out the door, again ignoring the pain in his knee. A world that had seemed so bright and free for him just a few hours before began to look dark and grim. Even the sky that had looked clear and pretty before had begun to look foreboding. He walked out in the hospital parking lot and just watched people as he lit a cigarette.

"Suck it up, Durell," he told himself, "You've lost people before. This should be no different."

But it was different. The people he had lost before had been in a hostile country, people who were combatants. These were people who had been courting death just like he had been.

Kara had never been a combatant. She had been his friend, his lover and the one who had brought him out of that life. If not for his time with her he might never have been able to assimilate to society again.

A.J. Durell finished his cigarette and tossed it into the snow. He limped his way over to the taxi stand and hailed a cab, getting a ride back to the park so he could pick up his truck. He was quiet the whole time, keeping his emotions in check as he had learned to do in his youth.

Once he made it back to his truck he got in, lighting yet another cigarette. He was about to leave the area when the doctor with the two young children came up. A.J. stopped the car and lowered his window to talk to the man. A.J. figured the doctor had a right to know what happened.

"How is she?" the doctor asked him, "Did they get there in time?"

"I'm afraid not," A.J. sighed, "They fought for a long time, but the damage was too severe. A massive cerebral hemorrhage, probably the result of an aneurysm. She passed without ever waking up."

"I had a suspicion," the doctor nodded, "I'm sorry."

"So am I," A.J. said, "Thanks for trying though."

"Were you together long?" the doctor asked him, nodding about the thanks.

"Long enough," A.J. said, "But then, I guess it wasn't long enough, was it?"

"It never is," the doctor admitted, "Take care of yourself, Mr. Durell."

"You too, doc," A.J. said, firing off a salute, "Thanks."

A.J. drove away from the park and headed towards the apartment that he had been sharing with Kara. He knew that he was not going to want to go in there alone, but he had no choice. He parked the truck outside and walked up to the first floor apartment, unlocking the door and letting himself inside.

## Chapter 6

A flood of memories went through A.J. as he unlocked the door and looked around the small apartment. He sat down on the couch and simply let the atmosphere overwhelm him. The unreality of it was still there, but the truth of it was the fact that she was gone. She was not just sick, she was not just hurt, she was dead. Their lives changed in a matter of minutes.

It was the first time in years A.J. had let himself show emotion. The fact that nobody was there to see it probably didn't hurt, but he just let it out. It came out in a typical fashion for him, a bit of tears, a bit of anger and a lot of violence. He destroyed a number of pieces of cheap furniture and finally stopped when he put his third hole in the wall.

Once he'd worked off the fury he let himself collapse on the couch. He considered going to bed, but he knew that going to the bed they had shared would just fuel the anger and heartache. He was not prepared for that yet.

He considered turning on the television, but his taste for American television hadn't returned yet. He had spent enough time away from it that he just could not get into it anymore.

He leaned back on the couch, pushed his hair back and rubbed his eyes. Once he calmed down a little he pulled a bent cigarette from the pack that he'd had in his pocket. He lit it and just sat there for a while, not really thinking, not really feeling, mainly just letting himself recover a bit.

Finally, close to 11pm, he was disturbed by a telephone call. He put the cigarette he was smoking out in the ashtray and picked up the handset. He was mildly surprised that it was actually running and even more surprised that he had not thrown the handset during his rage earlier.

"Durell," he said, his voice hoarse from the activities earlier, "This had better be good."

"Where the hell have you been, Andy Jack?" his father's voice came through the handset, "We've been trying to reach you for hours."

"It's been a bad night," A.J. said, "Kara..."

"I don't care about your love life, boy," his father said, cutting him off, "This is really important! Your brother has done..."

"Kara died tonight, dad!" A.J. exclaimed, "I really don't give a fuck what Randy has done now!"

"What happened?" His father asked him, "She's dead?"

"An aneurysm," A.J. told him, "Doctors tried, but the damage was too severe."

"I'm sorry," his father said, "But I need you here."

"What did Randy do this time?" A.J. asked, sighing, "And what do you expect me to do about it?"

"SEC is about to come down on us for something he did," Robert Durell said, "You know the legal end of this mess better than we do. I want you here."

"I'll be there," A.J. said, "The lawyers will do more good, but I'll be there. Maybe it will keep my mind off Kara."

"That's the spirit, Andy Jack!" Robert said, "See you here in a few."

"Yeah," A.J. said as his father released the line, "Great."

A.J. sighed and picked himself up off the couch. It was time to move on and time to get to work. It certainly beat having to sit in that apartment moping about loss and defeat. He had a job to do. He breathed deeply and put on a jacket. Once he hardened his resolve he put a cigarette into his mouth and left the apartment.

He turned around to close the door and sighed. It felt like he was closing the door to a major portion of his life. In a way he was, but he had no choice. Fate was cruel but to stop was to let it win. He decided that he wasn't about to do that. He locked the door and turned away.

"There is no fate," A.J. said as he walked to his car, "Just folly."

#  The Highway

The Highway was one of my first Nick and Corrie shorts. They started with my desire to do CSI style mysteries and having been two of my favorite characters from _The Killer Strikes_ I figured they would fit the role nicely.

This story came from a scenario I'd been thinking about for a while and figured out how to do. It's little more than an amusing head exercise.

I still write these occasionally to keep my head in shape and to give myself a break from the bigger projects. I think I was working on the rewrite of The Accidental Immortal at the time, which was my second rewrite of the year and I was getting burned out.

So here are Nick and Corrie in all their glory.

Not much history on this one, but Nick and Corrie always did make me smile when I used them together. If I were ever to write a cop show I'm sure I'd make it about them.

-Rodney 7/29/11

## Chapter 1

Nick Jones pulled his ancient unmarked police car over to the side of the road, listening to it cough and sputter as he put the machine in park. Corrie Albiston, his partner, looked at him and growled a little. She was getting sick of riding in that rolling death trap of his, but since they lived in the same house and worked cases together the brass would not give her a car.

"When are we going to get them to retire this piece of junk?" Corrie asked him, "It's been on its last legs ever since you got it."

"Not my fault that crazy bitch Steele destroyed my car," Nick chuckled, "Unfortunately it was my second one in two years."

"Should have let me fill out the paperwork," Corrie grumbled as she opened her door and got out.

"You were in the hospital still," Nick reminded her, "I wasn't going to wait two months for a new car."

"Yeah," Corrie sighed, rubbing the spot on her side that had been injured in that explosion, "Let's go down and see what they have for us this time."

The two of them walked down the hill towards the mass of people who were at the edge of the trees. It was a beautiful day here on the outskirts of the city, the sun beaming down and shining off Corrie's fire red hair. Nick smiled as he watched her, actually liking working on a day like this.

The illusion of niceness was shattered as they approached the woods, however. It did not take them long to see the man that was lying on his back staring blankly into the sky. Unfortunately he was not seeing anything, as he had probably been dead for at least twenty-four hours.

"I guess this isn't such a fine summer day for him," Nick said dryly as he looked at the body, "How's it going, Charlie?"

"Not too bad," Charlie Durling said, "Mike sent you guys out on this one, huh?"

"Marcus actually," Corrie told him, "Mike is taking his first vacation in years, spending a couple weeks with Claudia and the baby."

"She finally popped, huh?" Charlie smiled, "Glad to hear it. Guess everyone gets a second chance at family life, eh?"

Mike Miller was Nick and Corrie's boss and the second chance that Charlie referred to was Mike's second family. His first had collapsed in a nasty divorce nearly a decade before. Everyone in the department was glad to see Miller happy again, especially after giving so much in the years directly after the divorce, first as an undercover agent then as a Homicide squad commander.

"So what have we got here, Charlie?" Corrie asked, "Any apparent means of death?"

"No holes that I can see," Charlie said, "None of us have touched him. Waiting for the medical examiner to show up though. He's backlogged because of that shooting spree over on 43rd Avenue."

"Glad that's not on our turf," Nick said, "So who found him?"

"A group of local kids," Charlie told them, "They're all gathered at the blue house about 200 yards or so down the way."

"We'll go talk to them in a few," Corrie said, "Any guesses on means of death?"

"I couldn't begin to fathom," Charlie said, "He's got a nasty head injury, maybe beaten or dragged."

Nick looked up at the highway overpass that was about 40 feet away. He wondered whether someone had tossed the body off the bridge to get it down here. Corrie spent her time looking at the body, trying to find evidence of what killed the man. She looked up at Nick and shrugged her shoulders.

"The ME is going to have to tackle this one," she told him, "It may be a beating or a bludgeoning, but it's not a particularly brutal one."

"Has anyone gone up to the highway to look for a car?" Nick asked Charlie.

"Not yet," he said, "I'll radio for a unit to do a drive by on the bridge."

"Have them call down here if they find anything," Nick said, "You want to tackle the kids, Corrie?"

"Sure," she nodded, "I'm better at that than you are. Should we wait for the ME to check his pockets?"

"I'll check for ID while you go talk to the kids," Nick told her, "I'm also going to take another good walk around the site."

Corrie nodded and started walking over towards the house that had been pointed out to her earlier. She walked around a few toys and knocked lightly on the glass door that was closest. A middle-aged woman came to the door and opened it slightly, looking at Corrie trying to determine who she was.

"Can I help you?" she asked Corrie.

"I'm Detective Albiston," Corrie told the woman, "They told me that it was your kids who found the body?"

"One of them is mine," she conceded, "The rest are from the neighborhood here. Who expects something like this to happen right by your backyard?"

"I know it, ma'am," Corrie said, "May I talk with them so I can get a better picture of what happened?"

"How would they know that, they just found him that way," the woman said.

"I know," Corrie said, forcing a smile to hide her annoyance, "Just need to know when and what they saw when they found him. A few simple questions and I'll be out of your hair."

"All right," the woman said, "But I'm going to be there too."

"I wouldn't have it any other way," Corrie affirmed.

The woman led the way to the den, where a very sullen looking group of kids looked at each other. Corrie smiled at them as best she could and pulled out her badge, knowing that badges tended to impress young children.

"Hello," Corrie told them, "I'm Detective Albiston. Which one of you found the body?"

A very small and upset little boy raised his hand. Corrie sighed, realizing that this child was probably no more than nine years old. It was a sad thing when a man had to die. It was worse when a child had to run head first into the remains, especially when the child was not prepared for it.

"Hi," Corrie said to the young boy, "What's your name?"

"Timmy," the child said.

"Well hello Timmy," Corrie smiled and kneeled down by Timmy, "I'm Corrie. So you found the man out there?"

The boy nodded slowly, still unsure of himself. Corrie knew he was scared and tried to make sure her tone remained non-threatening.

"Don't worry," she told him, "You did right. How did you happen to find him?"

"We were out playing war," one of the other kids said, "Timmy was running away from us and tripped over him."

"I thought he was a branch," Timmy said, "I didn't mean to!"

"It's ok," Corrie smiled, "You didn't hurt him. What did you do when you found him?"

"He ran and cried!" one of the others taunted, "Timmy is a baby."

"Like you wouldn't have done the same if you came face to face with him," the middle-aged woman said, "You should be ashamed of yourselves."

"How long ago was this?" Corrie said.

"They came running in here about an hour or so ago," she said, "I called the police immediately and the patrol unit came in about fifteen minutes later."

"Did any of you see anything strange back there today?" Corrie asked them.

"We were up by Markie's house," Timmy said, "We didn't come here until his mother threw us out."

"They came through here for ice pops and then I sent them out," the woman told Corrie, "I heard the screams a few minutes after that. With the highway back there we usually don't notice much unless it's a crash. Only people who go back there are the kids usually."

"Ok," Corrie said, realizing that this was a lost cause, "If you remember anything else, here's my card. Feel free to give us a call."

"We will," the woman said, warming up considerably now that this was over.

Corrie left the house quickly and walked back over to where the body was. Nick was standing there holding on to a wallet that he was studying rather intently. Corrie went over beside him and looked at it as well, noticing that a hundred dollar bill was hanging out.

"Guess that lets out a robbery, doesn't it?" Corrie said.

"Yeah," Nick agreed, "Gregory R. Jeffries, age 43. According to his business card he ran an insurance business."

"Did you run a check on him?" Corrie asked.

"Yeah," Nick nodded, "Nothing unusual on his record, he's fairly clean in fact. Had them run other residents at his address, he's got a wife and a teenager."

"I'm sure they're going to be pissed," Corrie frowned, "Batting zero on the kids. They were out here playing war and one of them tripped over him, quite literally."

"Isn't that the way it always works?" Nick asked.

"Just talked to unit 32 on the highway," Charlie said as he walked back over, "No sign of any cars on the bridge. Clear and clean."

"Wonderful," Nick grumbled, "Any word on when the ME will get here?"

"Ten minutes," Charlie told them, "He said you don't have to wait around if you don't want to."

"Shall we go tell the Mrs.?" Corrie asked him, "Or should we wait for the ME?"

"Let's go see Mrs. Jeffries," Nick said, "No need to wait here. Charlie and his people can watch the scene as well as we can."

"Not a problem," Charlie assured them, "Just bag the wallet for the ME to take with him in evidence."

"You got it," Nick said.

Nick spent the next couple minutes filling out an evidence bag and dropping the wallet into it.

## Chapter 2

He and Corrie hiked back up to his car and got inside, quickly starting it up to get the air conditioning going. Corrie looked at Nick while he drove and headed towards the address given on Jeffries' license.

"Any guesses?" Nick asked her.

"Not until I find out how he died," Corrie said, "Given the location and position of body, it can't be anything but a homicide can it?"

"I really don't know yet," Nick shrugged, "The injuries are very strange for a homicide. A lot of contusions."

They both thought it over as they drove in silence. The only noise in the car was the occasional sputter of the engine and the crackle of the police radio. It took them only ten minutes in the midday traffic to get to the Jeffries residence.

"Who tells her?" Nick asked.

"It's your turn, big boy," Corrie smiled, "I took the last two."

"Great," Nick sighed.

Telling someone that his or her spouse was dead was never an easy task. Nick went up to the door and knocked on it, feeling the pang of remorse he usually did. Sometimes he figured that things were easier when he was on the other side of the fence, responsible for making the corpses instead of telling people about them. He pressed the doorbell and waited for a few minutes until someone answered the door.

"Yes?" a voice came from inside.

"Police ma'am," Nick said, "Is this the Jeffries residence?"

"I'm Cathy Jeffries," the woman said, opening the door, "Did you find that no good son of a bitch I call a husband?"

"Ummm..." Nick said, not sure how to take this, "What do you mean?"

"Well he didn't show up last night to piss me off," Mrs. Jeffries said, "I figure that means he either found a blonde or he's dead. I really can't bring myself to care which at this point. Seeing as you're here, it's gotta be the latter."

Nick and Corrie just looked at each other, stunned by the cavalier attitude towards her husband's death. They were not certain how to proceed with this, especially since it was likely a murder.

"Your husband's body was found a little over an hour ago," Nick said, finally recovering a little, "We're not quite sure as to the true cause of death yet."

"Probably at that little motel on highway ten," she sputtered, "He didn't do much to hide the fact that he was banging his little secretary there."

"We found him near an overpass on highway ten," Corrie said, "We think he was murdered."

That got the woman's attention. She had assumed that it was something mundane and ordinary that had killed her husband. The look on her face softened, not because of any newfound caring over his death, but in the realization of just how bad life in a murder investigation would be.

"Don't look at me," she said finally, "I had no reason to kill him. He was worth more alive than dead. He had his toys, I have the pool boy."

"Sounds like a lovely marriage," Corrie said sourly.

"Greg was an asshole," the woman said, "I found that out about a week after the wedding. I was pregnant and couldn't afford not to marry him, though. I can't say it's all bad. I go my way, he goes... went... his. He usually at least shows up once a day, which is why I figured something happened. Did someone rob him or what?"

Corrie noticed a teenager sitting in the other room, looking at the display with distaste. She nodded at him and he looked away, obviously trying not to listen to his mother very much. Nick looked at her and tried to think of something else to ask.

"Do you have any idea who might have wanted to kill him?" Corrie asked hopefully, "Any major enemies or anything?"

"I think that anyone who ever spent more than an hour with Greg would be happy to see him dead," Cathy Jeffries said, "As to who would take care of it? I have no idea. Let me know if you find out. I'll buy him dinner before you arrest him."

"If it's a him," Corrie said coldly.

"Whatever," Cathy shrugged, "Do I need to go identify him?"

"Not yet," Nick said, "You'll be notified."

"I'll be here," Cathy Jeffries smiled and then winked at Nick, "You can find me in the hot tub if you like..."

Corrie glared at the woman and Nick could only inwardly cringe. He knew that he had to get them away from there before Corrie blew a gasket, however.

"I'll keep that in mind," Nick said, "Let's get back to the crime scene, Corrie."

## Chapter 3

They walked away quickly, Corrie's eyes still showing the anger inside. The only thing that saved Nick from having to take a tirade from Corrie was the appearance of the teenager she had seen inside the house coming out and rushing over to talk to them.

"Excuse me!" the kid said, "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

"You must be Greg Jeffries son," Corrie said.

"Greg junior," he nodded, "I would like to apologize for my mother's reaction to the news."

"I take it there was little love lost between them," Nick said, grateful for the intervention.

"Understatement of the year," Greg Jr. told them, rolling his eyes, "She's right about Dad being a prick, but he wasn't the worst man around. He never hit us or anything, just never really gave us any slack."

"I wonder why," Corrie said, her eyes still angry, but calming, "Do you think she had anything to do with it?"

"And stop the money supply?" Greg said, "No. She's happier just doing the pool boy when she thinks we're not around."

"Do you know of anyone who would want to kill him?" Nick asked him.

"Not off hand," Greg told them, "He sold insurance. It's not like he had anything to do with the claims, just sold it outright. From what I know he was scrupulously honest at it."

"All right," Corrie said and handed him a card, "If you think of anything we should know, call us, ok?"

"You got it," he said as he walked away, "Again, sorry you had to see that."

Nick shook his head and opened the old car door, sliding in and enduring a quick stare from Corrie. He shrugged and smiled at her, starting the clunker and listening to the engine backfire as he shifted it into gear.

"I'll keep it in mind, huh?" Corrie said mockingly.

"I had to say something to keep from retching," Nick grinned.

"Right," Corrie said, paused, and then started laughing.

Nick decided as they headed back to take a drive up onto the highway ten overpass right by where the body was found. Corrie pulled the cracked magnetic flashing light out of its spot on the floor and put it onto the roof of the car when they pulled over to the shoulder.

"You think he was thrown from up here?" Corrie asked him as they got out and looked around.

"It makes sense," Nick said, "This has to be at least seventy feet up. If he was thrown it would be logical that he'd have made it forty feet or so."

"He would have had to have been thrown pretty well," Corrie said as she looked over, "The tree cover is pretty thick."

"There are some broken branches through there," Nick said, "And the remains of a tire down the bridge."

"Who's that up there?" a voice came from down below.

"Nick and Corrie," Nick yelled, "Is that you, Charlie?"

"Yeah," Charlie shouted, "You might want to look for signs of a hit and run. The ME is here and said that his foot has a tire track on it."

"That's all?" Corrie yelled.

"Some of the contusions are consistent with a low speed car hit," Charlie shouted up, "It's just a guess right now, but he's guessing that the fall killed him."

"So he did come from up here," Nick said to himself then shouted again, "Charlie! Do you see any blood on any of the branches down there?"

"There's a dark spot on one about fifteen feet up," Charlie yelled, "Could be blood."

"Thanks!" Nick yelled.

"What do you think," Corrie asked him.

"If it's a hit and run," Nick said, "What the hell is he doing here?"

"And where is his car?" Corrie said, "He has a blue Ford Expedition registered to him..."

"We find the car," Nick said as Corrie walked over to look at the tire pieces, "We find the killer, probably. It's probably some sick so and so..."

Corrie had tuned him out at this point. She was looking at the tire pieces closely, checking the brand. She remembered the furor last year over the firestone tires on the Expeditions. The shredded remains looked like they could be one of those tires, especially since they were too big for a standard car.

"You find something," Nick asked her, seeing the look on her face.

"Shit," Corrie said, looking down the road, "Are there any scratches where you are?"

Nick looked at her and then looked at the concrete side of the overpass. There were indeed some scratches, some heavy blue scratches. He was not quite sure what she was up to at this point, but he nodded and pointed them out to her. She walked over and looked at the road closely near the paint scratches.

"Did it rain last night?" Corrie asked him.

"You slept through the thunderstorm," Nick told her, "I was online at the time."

"Son of a bitch," Corrie smiled, "Let's take a quick walk."

Nick wasn't quite sure what Corrie was up to, but followed her as she walked down the steep incline. The overpass was not one for a road but a raised area that had been constructed as a compromise to allow them to expand highway ten to four lanes without noise going to the neighborhood a few hundred yards away. The incline was steep and right before it was a curve.

"What are you thinking, Corrie?" Nick asked her as they started walking faster.

"We'll find out in a minute," Corrie said, "Follow me."

They ended up jogging down to the end of the incline and Corrie smiled as she looked down into the trees. Over the edge of the curve was a deeper incline that went into the woods. Corrie looked down and then looked over at Nick, who looked down the edge in shock.

"You're kidding me," Nick said, "How did you know?"

"The tire and scratches," Corrie said, "They were all that was left after the storm."

They both stared down at the wreck of a shiny blue Ford Expedition, which just happened to be missing its front passenger side tire. They spent a few minutes looking and then Corrie jogged back up to where she had seen the paint scratches.

"So what happened?" Nick asked, "I think you've worked it out."

"He blew a tire on the curve," Corrie said, "Probably ignored last year's recall and it finally caught up with him. He pulled over on the overpass to change the tire."

"Ok," Nick said, "I'm with you so far."

"He went back to pull out the jack and then noticed the tire fragments that were thrown," Corrie said as she went over by the edge, "I don't know exactly what happened to him then, but I'm guessing that he forgot to set the brake correctly."

"So that huge thing started rolling," Nick said, looking out at the thick branches.

"And it smacked him," Corrie nodded, "He may have even jumped, thinking that it was a lot less of a distance than it was."

"He was in for a surprise," Nick said, "He whacked through a bunch of the trees and landed where he did for the kids to find today."

"And that damned SUV rolled off the highway," Corrie said, "That motel his wife was talking about is right up the road. He was probably on his way home late in the evening."

"Or in the day," Nick said, "This isn't the most used overpass in the area. It's possible that this could have happened in the middle of the afternoon and nobody would have noticed it."

"If those kids hadn't run across him he could have been there for days and nobody would have known," Corrie sighed, "There was no murder at all. He's just the victim of a stupid accident."

"Too bad," Nick grinned, "I would have enjoyed arresting that woman."

"I bet," Corrie growled.

All Nick could do after that was laugh his ass off. He knew he had a story to send the Darwin Awards that night.

#  Stone's Justice

One of the early third person shorts, done between Undercover and The Killer Strikes. It is more a character play and shows my personal feelings about child molesters.

Mason does in this short what I think all of us would love to see done to a child molester at some point in time.

This was written before I had kids, but having them now makes me agree with the sentiment more. Good Riddance to bad rubbish.

-Rodney Mountain 7/29/11

## Chapter 1

Mason Stone nervously smoked a cigarette as he waited for Karen and Jim to show up with the truck. He had been watching the target for two days and was getting antsy to get this over with. He also felt very exposed standing outside as their target was getting comfortable inside the house.

Mason didn't have to wait long before Karen and Jim showed up in the little white utility truck that they'd been using for this job. They parallel parked it across the street from where Mason was standing. He walked over and blew out a line of smoke as Entragian rolled the window down.

"Took you long enough," Mason told them, "You were supposed to be here ten minutes ago."

"Traffic," Karen said, "Is the son of a bitch in the house?"

"He got in twenty minutes ago," Stone said, "I followed him in on foot."

"Are we sure he's our guy?" Karen asked, "The kid is not the best witness."

"DNA test confirmed it," Jim told them, "He's the one who raped the kid. No doubt about it."

"Too bad the test was illegal and wouldn't hold in court," Mason said, "I guess we have to do this the hard way."

"I still don't like it," Karen said, "We're not a jury."

"This scum is a baby raper," Jim said, "He's getting off easy."

"The operation is a go," Mason nodded, "That kid will never heal totally, but if this creep is out of the picture then the kid has a fighting chance."

"Besides," Jim said, "If this plan works, we won't be doing anything. He'll do it to himself."

"Let's go," Karen said, "Let's get it over with."

"How do we go in?" Jim asked him.

"We knock," Mason said, "Simple as that. Have the laptop ready, Jimbo?"

"Ready to rock," Jim said, "Let's get it on."

The three of them went up to the house and let Mason take the lead at the door. Mason knocked slowly and with purpose. Karen, who was better with weapons than Jim was, kept her hand in her jacket ready to pull her pistol. Jim stayed in the back carrying the equipment that they intended to use.

"Yeah?" Bob Parnell asked through the crack in his door, "What do you want?"

Bob Parnell was a middle-aged man, not particularly remarkable in any sense. He looked like anyone you would see in any office building, almost respectable in fact.

The differences came out when you found out about the man and his record. The graying hair and respectably lined face was the mask of a monster, one who had over the years preyed on countless children.

"Police," Mason lied, though he'd done it enough times in the past to sound convincing, "I'd like to ask you some questions about an incident that happened last week."

"Got a warrant?" Parnell asked them.

"Do I need one to ask a few questions?" Mason asked him, remembering his old police skills.

"So ask," Parnell said.

"I don't think you want me to ask these questions out here," Mason said, "But if you really want me to ask about a child's rape..."

"Get in here!" Parnell sneered, "This is serious bullshit, you know that?"

"I know," Mason said, looking at Karen and Jim as they entered, "That's what we're here to talk about."

"So talk," Parnell growled as he walked into the room, "I'm getting sick of this police harassment. Three of you this time. I swear, next thing I know you'll be holding a convention here."

"I swear to you," Mason said with a smile as he pulled out his trusted .45, "This will be the last time anyone comes to visit you on this."

"Oh yeah?" Parnell said as he turned around and saw the gun, "What the hell is this?"

"Time for the truth," Mason said, "Have a seat, Parnell."

"You can't do this!" Parnell exclaimed.

"Watch me," Mason said as he cocked the trigger, his voice like ice, "I don't want to do this the hard way, but you've left us no choice."

"What are you going to do, shoot me?" Parnell asked as he sat down on the couch, "How are you going to cover that bit of police brutality."

"I'm not going to shoot you yet," Mason said, "We have some things to talk about first."

"If you think you can get this confession to stick you're out of your mind," Parnell said, "My lawyer will get it thrown out in minutes."

"That's only if we tried to use it in court," Mason said, "Karen, Jim, go ahead and set up."

Karen Stone nodded and took the cylindrical tube from Jim Entragian, who was setting up the portable PC that he had been carrying. Karen opened the tube to put up a background for the projector they used for the PC. Parnell looked at them idly, and then back at Mason who sat across from him holding the weapon steadily. Parnell looked for an opening to move, but Mason Stone offered him none.

"Hook that line up to the back of his computer," Jim told Karen as he passed her an Ethernet crossover cable, "Let's see just what he has."

"You can't do this," Parnell said as he growled, "I'll have all of you arrested. I'm going to make a mint from the lawsuits alone."

"You can try," Mason said as Jim and Karen finished their setup, "Somehow I don't think it's going to matter by the time we're done."

"We're ready," Karen said as Jim continued tapping into the machine, "Just waiting for windows to finish loading."

"What is this supposed to prove?" Parnell asked, "That you can fuck me over?"

"It's going to prove a bit more than that," Mason said, "Just sit down and enjoy the show."

"Right," Parnell said and yawned, "What show is that?"

"The story of your life, Bob," Mason said as Jim brought up a wireless connection to the internet, "The story of a child molester that keeps slipping through the cracks of the law."

"I don't have to listen to this," Bob Parnell said as he started to rise, "Fuck you!"

"I think I'm too old for you, Parnell," Mason said, raising the gun, "Now sit down before I decide to abandon our plan and just shoot you."

"And get yourself in jail?" Parnell asked him, "I don't think so."

"Believe me when I tell you that's the least of my concern," Mason told him outright, his hard ice blue eyes showing no mercy, "Now sit down before I kill you now."

Bob Parnell looked at Mason Stone and knew the tall man was not kidding. He sat down, searching for a way, any way, to get out of this situation without Mason shooting him outright. Little did he know that Mason had no intention of hurting him at all, or at least not of hurting him directly.

Jim Entragian brought up the first electronic page of Bob Parnell's police record. On it was an old mugshot of the man and several personal facts, not one of which surprised the molester. He actually managed to look bored by this, despite the fact that it's information that hadn't been seen in ages.

"That's me," Parnell shrugged, "I've already served my time for that."

"For that one, yes," Mason nodded, "But not for these."

Jim pressed a few buttons and a few more slides went by of victims that two weeks of investigation had been able to tentatively tie to this man over the years. This wasn't the cream of the crop, investigative wise, but they weren't trying for a courtroom either. They were merely trying to make a point.

Jim Parnell watched impassively as his victims were paraded on the screen Karen had set up. He had been at this since his teens, and he did not see it as cruel or anything else. It was what he was and that was the price that had to be paid as far as he was concerned.

"You can't prove any of this," Parnell said as he watched the pictures pass, "I was never even accused of most of these."

"They didn't have evidence," Mason corrected, "They suspected you."

"Get to the point," Parnell said.

"Two weeks ago you took a child," Mason told him as the child's photo appeared on the screen, "You took this poor little girl to a warehouse, where you brutally raped and sodomized her."

Jim pressed a button and a second photograph appeared on the screen, this one much harder for them to watch. It was a photograph of the same child in the hospital, a photograph taken in the Intensive care unit, her body beaten, bloody and scarred. A child that would never be the same again. Parnell himself had a hard time looking at what he had done.

"You have no proof that it was me," Parnell said, though is face was much whiter now, "No way you do."

"This came off a surveillance tape we were running," Mason said as he cued Jim, "You're lucky we weren't manning it live. You wouldn't have lived this long."

Jim started the digital image that had been transmitted from the camera. It was a high priced Japanese digital camera system, so the picture was crystal clear. Bob Parnell's face was very clear in the picture, as was the face of the poor child that he brought into the building. The time stamp on the film put it as a mere four hours before the child was found in the bushes of a park not ten minutes from there.

"It's an illegal surveillance, isn't it?" Parnell said, "That's why you're doing this."

"I'm not a cop anymore, asshole," Mason said with a smile, "I don't have a warrant and I wasn't even after you. You were just a nuisance that decided to rape a child where we were looking for a gang of car thieves."

"That tape will be thrown out," Parnell said, "I own that building. It's an invasion of privacy and against the law."

"You keep forgetting," Mason said, "I don't have any intention of turning you in."

"Ahhh," Parnell said, "So you're showing this to me hoping that I'll change my ways, is that it?"

"No," Mason said, "I'm not that naive. People like you never change. You will rape children until the day you die."

"Then what are you going to do," Parnell asked, "Shoot me now?"

"No," Mason said again, this time a smile forming on his face, "By the time we are through here, you are going to do it yourself."

"You think I am going to commit suicide?" Parnell asked, "You really are fucked in the head."

"Karen," Mason said, "Do you have that .45 automatic?"

"Here," Karen said as she handed Mason an old gray Colt, "Loaded and ready."

Mason smiled and cocked the pistol, bought anonymously at a gun show ten years earlier under a different identity, and put it down on the table in front of Bob Parnell. Parnell looked at the pistol and sneered at Mason, Karen and Jim.

"You really are insane," Parnell said, "What makes you think I'd kill myself?"

"Because if you don't," Mason said, "We're going to insure that you have no life to come back to."

"I think that's your cue to begin hacking, Jim," Karen said dryly.

"Start with his computer," Mason instructed Jim, "See if he already has the pictures on it."

"I know better than that," Parnell said with a smile.

"Do you?" Jim asked, grinning as he pressed a few keys, "Then what's with the gigabyte of stuff you downloaded from alt.sex.little.girls?"

"What are you talking about?" Parnell asked as Jim rapidly dropped the entire contents of that newsgroup on his hard drive, "You can't do this!"

"Sure I can," Mason said, "By the time I leave here you will either be dead or proven to be the child molester you are. This is just step one."

"But it didn't even come from my internet account!" Parnell exclaimed.

"No?" Jim said, "According to their electronic records you downloaded it yesterday."

"Nobody is ever going to believe this," Parnell said breathlessly, "I can remove it all..."

"Sure you can," Mason said, "But are you going to be able to get away from an FBI file on your activities?

"I've never spoken to an FBI Agent in my life!" Parnell shouted at Mason, "How the hell can they have a file on me?"

"Easy," Mason smiled, "Jim?"

Jim tapped a few keys and entered a couple passwords and suddenly the entrance into the main FBI Database appeared on to the screen. It was a place that Jim had been into several times, so it took him mere moments to bring up the rudimentary file that had already been started on Robert Parnell.

"I'd say that's you, Parnell," Mason said, "Go ahead and upload the updated record."

Jim did just that, uploading the entire list of offenses, along with several bogus wants and warrants, putting Robert Parnell's record into the active file, something that would put him in the running for the next round up and warrant search. Parnell looked on, not believing what he was seeing.

"You can't do this," Parnell said, "This is illegal."

"So are you," Mason said, "Shall I continue?"

"I'm not going to shoot myself!" Parnell exclaimed.

"Fine," Mason smiled, "Then you can endure the consequences. Jim, once you finish that upload, please move on to his bank."

"The bank isn't as easy to break," Parnell said, shifting around nervously.

"We'll see," Mason said, still smiling.

It was not easy for most people, but Jim was not your average computer hacker. He had apprenticed with the best, years before, a hacker that Mason had known in another life. A hacker that lost his life along with 3000 others in the world trade center explosion, years before. Jim entered the bank's central computer with ease, bringing up Parnell's bank account on the screen for all to see.

"Very talented hands my friend has there," Mason said, "I say we should do some financial redistribution here."

"With pleasure sir," Jim said as he punched in the codes for a few transactions, "I think I know a few children's charities that could use the cash."

"You can't seriously expect to get away with this!" Parnell exclaimed, shocked that Jim was doing this so easily, "What am I going to have left?"

"Nothing," Mason promised, "I am going to leave you broke, in debt, defaulting on everything."

"Have some mercy man!" Parnell exclaimed, managing to piss off Mason some more.

"I'll show you just as much mercy as you did that child," Mason said coldly, his ice blue eyes staring down the child molester, "Your life is over, Parnell. One way or another I promise you that."

"Not before I end yours!" Parnell screamed and picked up the gun, "Didn't think about that, did you."

"Go ahead and shoot me," Mason said, "If you think you have the balls."

Mason looked coldly at the serial child molester and wondered if the man actually had the guts to pull the trigger. Karen and Jim looked directly at Bob Parnell and watched the man's indecision impassively. Parnell's hands were shaking and he truly did not know what to do. He knew that things would never be the same again, but could not help but try to think of a way out of it.

Parnell aimed the weapon at Mason Stone's chest, something that made Karen and Jim sigh with relief. Mason stared at the little man, looking at the gun and smiling. He felt no fear for his life, knowing that Parnell would not have the guts to shoot another human being. He could rape them and beat them, but only when they were smaller and weaker than he was.

"Pull the trigger," Mason said quietly, not breaking eye contact with the pedophile, "Either shoot me or yourself, it makes no difference at this point. Either way your life ends here."

The harsh gaze inflicted on him by Mason Stone wilted Bob Parnell. He was shaking to the point of disbelief when his finger tightened on the trigger. He couldn't bring himself to shoot the man who was destroying his life, however, and put the gun to his own temple. His hand was shaking as he considered pulling the trigger.

Mason, Karen and Jim said nothing as they watched the man. Bob Parnell's inner demons were shaking him to the core as he determined whether to destroy himself. His eyes darted around the room as he knew he had lost everything.

It wasn't remorse, actually, as he was nearly incapable of the function. It was a sense of hopelessness that filled his soul as he saw Jim Entragian take his life apart piece by piece. Finally, after several minutes of debate he made the decision and pulled the trigger.

His surprise became apparent as the hammer clicked on dead air. He pulled it again, but nothing happened. He looked at Mason, who merely smiled. Jim shut down the machine and pulled out the cords. Karen broke down the screen while Mason continued to look at Parnell.

"You really didn't think we'd let you off that easily, did you?" Mason asked him, "I'd rather let you rot in prison."

Jim and Karen were done and filing out of the building in under three minutes, loading the stuff back into the truck. Mason pulled out a clip out of his pocket and put it down on the table as he looked at the broken pedophile. He shook his head silently and walked out the door, peeling off the rubber gloves he had been wearing as he walked towards the truck where Jim and Karen were waiting.

"You think he'll do it?" Karen asked Mason.

"I think so," Mason said, "I liked your fake hacking, Jimbo. He really bought that crap."

"The only one I did for real was the financial," Jim said, "And I did that an hour ago. You said you wanted a show, I gave you one."

"It worked," Karen said, "He really pulled the trigger."

"Why didn't you leave bullets in there," Jim asked him, "It's not like he could have hurt us."

"I didn't want to explain our presence at his suicide," Mason said, "I don't think we need to talk to the police tonight."

Jim nodded and climbed into the back seat of the truck's king cab. Karen looked at Mason for a second and smiled, climbing in to take the front seat. Mason looked up at the house one more time, wondering how long it would take. He was about to sit down in the truck himself when the question was answered for him.

A bright light flashed in the window of Bob Parnell's house as a single shot ended his pathetic life. Mason smiled as he sat down in the truck and started it up. He drove away feeling like he had done a good deed, glad that Robert Parnell would never be able to harm a child again.

#  The Cocktail Party

This is a revision of a story I wrote a couple years ago, one that will mostly be unrecognizable to the few people who actually read the first version.

The idea is by no means original. I know Clive Cussler did it to his Dirk Pitt universe for a special Dirk Pitt treasury and I've heard of it being done at other times, but can't remember specifics.

I was intrigued by the idea of bringing all my characters together, especially the ones who live in different universes. This also features characters from the Foundation 51 series, which I thank Chris Barnes for allowing me to use. Foundation 51 stories are usually a joint effort between Chris and myself, so I thought they deserved at least a mention here.

I still find this story amusing, it was certainly worth the laugh. I always liked the interplay and the reference to Anoki, who was a character that took me years to get right. The reference is also seriously outdated since I pulled Miller out of her story, choosing instead to make it a precursor to what is now known as Corporate Immortality. Finally... I make a pathetic god type figure, don't I?

-Rodney Mountain 7/29/11

## Chapter 1

"How the hell did we get here?" Mason Stone asked his longtime partner Karen, "Where the hell are we?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, hon," Karen said, "But it feels like we belong here. This is the address listed on the invitation in our hands."

"I'd like to know where that came from too," Mason groused, "Last I remember we were in southern Siraq trying to figure out who caused that quake in Mullinix Centre."

"Quite obviously we're needed somewhere else," Karen shrugged, "Come now, Mase. Let's go and join the party. Maybe we'll see some people we know."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Mason sighed, "Let's go on in."

They entered the manufactured home and found it to be a rather pleasant place. They were met by several cats most of whom greeted them or at least were curious about them.

"Mason!" Medoferro exclaimed, "I see that you made it here too!"

"I guess," Mason said, looking around, "Is Trin here as well?"

"Trinaferro is conferring with some of those odd women in the other room," Medoferro said, "This is a curious world here. I'd like to know more about it."

"It is ancient history to you," Karen told him, "This is what things were like before the wars that created your world."

"A strange place then," Medo chuckled, "I like it already."

"There's Mike Miller," Karen said, "Why don't you go say hello?"

"This should be interesting," Mason said, "Talk to you in a few."

Mason walked over and tapped Mike Miller on the shoulder. He looked much as he did when Stone had first met him after his undercover operation, though he knew that Miller had died centuries before.

"Where the hell are we, Miller?" Mason asked him, "You look no older than I do..."

"Wherever we are," Miller said, smiling, "Time and death has no hold here. I'd like you to meet Tracy Howard."

"Nice to meet you, Mason," Tracy nodded, "I don't remember you, but I think I was dead by the time you came into the picture."

"You know about that?" Mason wondered, "This is strange."

"I remember everything," Tracy shrugged, "Even some stuff I know I wasn't there for."

"I remember right up until my fifties," Mike told him, "I still wonder what the hell happened to Stacy Anoki."

"I'm sure that the man will finish it eventually," Nick Jones said, "How's it going, Mason?"

"You too, huh?" Mason asked, "Is everyone here?"

"Chris Gabriel is in the computer room," Nick said, "Talking with a couple of paramilitary types."

"Has to be Glen Strader," Mason said, "I'm going to go talk to them."

"Corrie is waiting for me in the back," Nick said, "I think she wanted to flip Elise the bird."

"She's here too?" Miller asked, surprised, "What the hell?"

"It's one hell of a party," Nick shrugged, "You'll see the others too, I'm sure."

"I'm sure she found passable company," Mason said, "Probably back with Jay Creighton."

"I'm hearing rumors of someone younger," Katarina Pekarininen said as she walked over, "I heard about her and another serial killer."

"Jerry Healy," Miller and Stone said in unison, "Has to be."

"Probably," Kat shrugged, "Whoever he is."

Mason shook his head, having the most memories of any of them, he didn't know what to think about this. He knew better than to be surprised, but annoyed just the same.

"This is insane," Mason said, "Isn't it, Mike?"

"I'm not arguing," Miller shrugged, "I got to see Tracy again."

A.J. Durell pulled out a cigarette and lit it up, walking over to the others. Mason walked over to him, glad to see someone else with cigarettes.

"May I?" Mason asked, "It's been a long time..."

"They smell terrible," Medoferro said, "What are those?"

"An old way to give yourself cancer," Karen said, "Or the wasting sickness, as you know it."

"Sounds dreadful," Medoferro shuddered, "I think I'll pass."

"We all die sometime," Durell shrugged, "How are you, Mason?"

"Fine, A.J.," Mason said, shaking his hand, "Have we actually met?"

"Not directly," Durell told him, "I've heard about you though."

"Same here," Mason shrugged, "Damned if I know where from."

"We all know each other a little," Glen Strader said, "We've all be talked about together more than once."

"Starts the ears burning, doesn't it?" Chris Gabriel told them, "I hear my late unlamented brother is in the other room."

"Cavorting with Elise," Karen nodded, "I got that from Corrie Albiston."

"I'm amazed Corrie didn't go apeshit," Miller said, "She still carries the scars."

"No scores to be settled tonight," Nick said, "Even Freddie Pena is here, but something tells me it wouldn't do to start a battle."

"This is a strange party," Durell said, lighting Mason's cancer stick, "I'll give you that."

"Whoa," Kat said, slipping next to Durell, "Did you see what just walked over by the couch and kicked the dog?"

"Aleksandr Timonchenko," Durell said, "Man, he still looks like someone out of Night of the Living Dead."

"They didn't bother to clean me up," Timonchenko said, "Freddie Pena still has a Honda Civic emblem imprint on his ass."

"That's what you get for being bad," Durell chuckled, "I have no regrets. I should have killed you the first time."

"Then you wouldn't have had her," Timonchenko said, pointing at Kat, "I'm the reason you ended up in Finland."

"Not the place to discuss it, boys," Kat said, looking around, "I think we've been gathered for a reason."

"You've got that right," Medoferro said, "Someone has taken a lot of trouble to put us all in this room."

"And make us all speak the same language," Karen pointed out, "Medoferro should be speaking a dialect foreign to everyone other than Mason and Myself."

"Ok," Chris said, "We're here. So what do we do?"

"I think we should go pay a visit to the back rooms," Mason suggested, "I have a feeling that they will be an educational experience."

"I'll pass," Timonchenko said, "It's bound to just piss me off some more."

They all watched as Timonchenko shuffled off, readjusting the wooden spike that was in his chest. Karen shuddered and looked over at Mason.

"I'll go if you will," Karen said to Mason, "Or are you chicken?"

"Could be fun," Mason shrugged, "Who else is going?"

"I am," Miller nodded, "Chris?"

"Why not," Chris Gabriel shrugged, "I think we should all go."

"I think most of us need to," Durell said, "I just feel compelled to go back there."

"I'm in," Medoferro said, "No reason not to, really. Whatever powers brought us here can do what they want to us at will."

"Strader?" Mason asked, "You coming in?"

"I'll pass," Strader said, "I need to keep herd on my team, and I don't have the same burning need to go back there."

"Everyone believes in their own way," Medoferro shrugged, "Let's go."

Chris Gabriel, Mason and Karen Stone, Mike Miller, Nick Jones, A.J. Durell and Kat Pekarininen walked into the next room to see what was going on in there. They stayed as a group because it just felt more natural that way.

"Whoa," Nick said, looking around, "I take it this is where the people who weren't so lucky ended up."

The bedroom looked like something out of a horror movie. Corpses in various conditions sat around, but they all looked like they were partially alive as well. Some were fleshed out, some were only a splatter.

"Welcome to the hall of the dead," a familiar voice came, "I wondered when you would show up here."

"Come on out, Elise," Miller said, "The theatrics do not suit you."

"They would have had you not denied my immortality," Elise Steel said as she walked out with a young man on her arm, "Don't you recognize what you have all created?"

"You were the corpsemaker," Mason reminded her, "Right along with your young friend there."

"So this is how you turned out, dear brother," Jerry Healy said, the burn marks from the bullet hole on his head still there after all these years, "Pathetic. You never knew..."

"I was right," Chris smiled, "You were not even a movie of the week."

"I would have been," Elise snarled, "Had it not been for all of you."

"I didn't have anything to do with it," A.J. Durell said, "But I am definitely not going to argue the point."

"Argue all you want," Elise said, "Look around, for this is what you have wrought."

"You sound like a bad novel," Karen said, "We didn't do this. You two killed many of these."

"But only because you needed an adversary," Jerry said, "Do you think I would have gone the way I did if you had not been there to try to stop me?"

"Exactly," Elise smiled, her eyes cold and dark in death as they had been in life, "I was there to challenge you, to gain my immortality. An Immortality that you denied me!"

"Immortality is overrated," Mason muttered.

"Immortality is something that you have all achieved," a voice said from behind them, "Each and every one of you."

"I'd like to know how," Durell said, "My knees deteriorate by the day. That doesn't stink of immortality."

"I am immortal," Mason said, "Don't tell me that they share my affliction..."

"Not in the same way," the voice continued, "You all share this particular affliction, however."

A large man walked out of the shadows and looked around the room. The biggest thing they all noticed about him was the sheer ordinariness he exuded. They could perceive little from him.

"Who are you?" Medoferro asked, "Why do I know you?"

"You know me because I am you," the man said, looking around, "You are parts of me as well."

"Are you the creator?" Kat asked him, "You know..."

"For you, I am," the man shrugged, sitting down, "That's all I need from you, Elise. You and Jerry can go enjoy hell together."

"I'm not done yet!" Elise yelled, "Not by a..."

"Yes you are," the man said, snapping his fingers, "Jerry, escort her, will you?"

Jerry looked at the crowd with hate, but did as he was told. The assembled crowd thought it was strange that Jerry took orders from anyone, but this man had something about him.

"There is no god," Miller said, "If there was, Tracy would not be dead."

"For you gods don't matter," the man said, "The stories follow you. You make them as much as I do."

"My entire life was ruined by that monster in the other room," Chris said, "You could have stopped it! Why didn't you?"

"I could have," the man admitted, "I could have made your lives a utopia."

"Then why do you torment us so?" Mason asked him, "Immortality is a serious bitch."

"Look at your lives," the man said, "Look at your personalities. I may have been the spark that created you, but you made yourselves what you are. I merely enabled you to become what you were always meant to be."

"Alone, in pain?" Mike asked, "I asked for this? I didn't ask for Tracy to die!"

"Of course you didn't," the man said, "Medoferro didn't ask to become The Mullinix. A.J. Durell didn't ask to have to go through that Finnish Rebellion and lose his friends. Chris didn't ask for Jerry to lose his marbles. Mason and Karen didn't ask for immortality either."

"That's for sure," Mason said, "So if you have this much control why did you do it?"

"Because I could," the man said simply, "Because you have all done and been things I never could. Without you I would have gone insane years ago."

"That still doesn't answer it," Durell said, "Why?"

"Because utopia is boring," the man said, looking them all in the eyes, "You would not be anything like you are if it had not been for all the things you have gone through."

"Would that be a bad thing?" Karen wondered, "I mean... Of course it would. We'd be boring otherwise."

"She gets it," the man smiled, "I could have made life easy for you, but then I'd never finish what I started. You have made my life interesting."

"So much pain for you being interesting," Chris said, "I don't think it is worth it."

"You guys would go nuts sitting around like I do most days," the man said, "You are my method of avoiding that. You keep me interested, so you continue to exist. We need each other. Without me you cease to exist, without you I lose my will to exist. It's a symbiotic relationship."

"So we all are here because we need each other," Durell snorted, "That's rich..."

"Don't complain," Kat told him, "At least we're together."

"But Tracy..." Mike said, "I guess it fit the tone of the time."

"Nobody wins in a situation like you were in," the man agreed, "No one at all."

"Much like life," Karen grinned, "That's why we are the way we are as well."

"Flexibility is the key," the man agreed, "Now there isn't much more for me to say and I'm tired of making us say it. Why don't you all go join the party?"

There was no argument, mainly because the author was tired and had said enough for one story. Everyone filed out and rejoined the party. The man watched them and watched the page.

All was as it should be. His characters were tucked inside his mind, waiting for the day they would be needed again.

#  The Crazygal

This is a short freshly written for this compilation. It is also Krista's prize for winning a trivia contest I did on LiveJournal while this book was in production.

For the record, Krista requested that she be made the villain of this story. The rest of the elements are fictional, products of my warped imagination.

I figured I should at least write a couple fresh shorts for this compilation, so this is one of them. I hadn't done a good Nick and Corrie short for a bit, so they get another go round trying to capture the Crazygal.

Ahh, Livejournal... I haven't even logged in there for several years now. I've turned out to be rather lackluster in the social media space. This one was fun to write though, I do seriously need to do some more Nick and Corrie shorts before I start another large project.

-Rodney Mountain 7/30/11

## Chapter 1

The blonde woman looked around the field, her ice blue eyes darting about looking for her target. She was annoyed and it showed in her facial expression as she walked out.

"Come out come out wherever you are..." she said, a bit of mischief dancing in your eyes, "I'll find you..."

Her target, a young man who was barely clothed, darted away from her. He had barely gotten out of the car with his life, something that annoyed her very much.

The woman was not going to give him an inch, however, seeing his pasty white body against the dark background. She was in much better shape than he was and fully clothed as well. The lack of shoes was what really allowed her to catch up.

"You don't know how to have any fun," the woman said as she caught up, "Come now, let's have some fun!"

"You tried to kill me!" he yelled.

"Yep," she agreed as she caught up and tripped him, "That's how I have fun."

The young man took a header into a small pond, hoping that he'd be safe from her. She went in right after him and pulled him up, shoving him up against a nearby tree.

"Why?" the young man whimpered as she brought up her knife.

"Because you don't deserve to live," the woman said, her ice blues penetrating into his brain, "That's why."

She leaned in and kissed him softly, her tongue dancing over his lips as she buried the knife in the young man's stomach, feeling the blood spill out over her hand.

Without so much as a second thought she washed off her knife and her hands in the pond and headed back to the car. She pushed her hair back, the moonlight glinting off of it as she cracked her neck and drove away from the scene of the crime.

## Chapter 2

Nick Jones' old car sputtered as it came to a stop outside of town. As usual there was a glut of crime scene tape and blinking lights by the time they got there. Corrie Albiston pulled off her seatbelt and climbed out of the car.

"Isn't Miller trying to get us a new car?" Corrie asked him, "That thing is about to seize up and die."

"It's old, but it has a few more miles left in it," Nick grinned, patting the dying car, "At least twenty at any rate."

Corrie rolled her eyes and started walking over to the crime scene. Nick chuckled and followed along looking at the country area that he was not used to seeing.

"Why are we here?" Nick asked Corrie, "This is out in the sticks."

"The city line is a half mile to the east," Corrie said, "This is the section the city annexed two years ago."

"Great," Nick said, "Still should be handled by north side."

"It fits your profile," a detective said, "That's why we called you. You guys are the experts on this, are you not?"

"Thank Sleeping Beauty for that," Corrie muttered, the memories of that psychotic woman coming back to her, "Think this is the same one who left the other bodies this week?"

"M/O fits," the detective said, "We've left things as they were found for you."

"I think that's our cue," Nick said, "Let's see if it's our friend again."

Corrie nodded and they walked over. The body was still half submerged in the pond, but it was easy to tell what he had died of. The smear of blood on the tree helped show it.

"Large knife," Corrie said, "Probably the same as the others."

"Looks like the Crazygal again," Nick agreed, "Ok, we need pictures of the whole area."

"Already done," the detective said, "We were waiting for you to eyeball it."

"Make sure you don't dunk him," Corrie said, "She usually kisses her victims. I want a solid link."

"It won't help unless we can find her," Nick sighed, "We have a connection, but no actual woman."

"It's a woman doing this?" the detective said, "Isn't that unusual?"

"Not unheard of," Nick said, "But uncommon."

"DNA proves it," Corrie agreed, "Send the pics to our office. CSI can handle the rest of the mess."

"Wait," Nick said, "Look at the ground."

"Footprints," Corrie said, "Cinderella... I love you..."

"Have CSI make casts of those," Nick said, "Thanks."

## Chapter 3

"Ok," Mike Miller said, his feet up on the desk, "Dazzle me, guys."

"A lone female," Nick told him, "Blonde hair, naturally so. She gets men alone and kills them with a large hunting knife."

"Any relationships with the men?" Miller asked them, "Any common ground?"

"She's random," Corrie said, "The only link is that they are young, somewhere between eighteen and 28. All on the small side, probably so she can overpower them."

"How does she get them?" Miller asked them, glad to see his best team was as sharp as ever.

"No set place," Nick sighed, "We have five corpses now, all from different sources. No rhyme or reason to it, just murder."

"I swear," Miller said, "If I didn't know better I'd think that Elise Steele was back."

"Don't even think that, man," Nick shuddered, "I don't think anyone could be that destructive."

"This one does one at a time," Corrie said, "There's also no public contact. Their thrill is in the hunt, not in the publicity."

"See if CSI has anything," Miller said, sighing, "Hand off anything else you had cooking to Marcus. This is your only case for now."

"Right," Nick said, "What did we do to you?"

"Hush," Corrie grinned, "We're good at it."

"Oh yeah," Nick said, "There is that."

"Now go prove it," Miller told them.

## Chapter 4

The blonde woman rinsed her face off in the battered porcelain sink in her bathroom. She massaged under her eyes a little to help with the dark circles caused by staying up too much.

"Krista!" a male voice yelled, "Where the hell are you?"

Krista pulled her blonde hair back again and put on a smile as she walked out to meet her husband. The malice was almost gone from her eyes as she came out to meet him.

"I'm here," she said, "What do you need?"

"A cold beer," he grunted, "It was a long goddamned day."

"We're out," she told him, "Your paycheck bounced and I couldn't get groceries."

"What the fuck do you mean I'm out!" he shouted angrily, "Go get some!"

"No money," Krista said, spelling it out for him, "What do you want me to do? Go turn tricks to get you some beer?"

"If that's what it takes," he grunted, "No beer, smartass wife, what a fucking miserable night."

"Miserable husband," Krista mumbled, "I'll figure out how to get some beer."

"See that you do," he said as he went over to her, "Now you know what you need to do to make up for it."

"Not tonight," she seethed, "I said I'd get you beer."

"Beer can wait," he said, unzipping his fly, "This can't..."

## Chapter 5

"This is insane," Nick said, looking over the notes, "There's no reason for this."

"You know what Gabriel taught us," Corrie said, "The reasons don't tend to make sense."

"I swear," Nick grumbled, "I hate serial cases."

"Name me someone who likes them," Corrie grinned and slid over next to him on the couch, "If it weren't for the fact that we were both on the Sleeping Beauty case we'd have never gotten together."

"I don't get it though," Nick said, "You've been reading the books as well as I have. Women don't usually kill like this."

"Elise Steele did," Corrie said, referring to the actual woman behind Sleeping Beauty, "But she's been dead for years now."

"Elise's hair was black anyway," Nick reminded her, "Just like her heart."

"She's blonde," Corrie said, "From the quality of men she's probably pretty."

"All of them in remote locations," Nick said, "She's got to have a car or is stealing the victim's."

"Two of the vics didn't have cars," Corrie reminded him, "She has to have her own."

"If only we knew where she was getting them," Nick grumbled, "Wait a minute... I might have an idea..."

Nick looked over at his notes and thought about things for a minute. He tapped his fingers against his temple, just like he usually did when thinking hard.

Corrie watched him, knowing that he often was successful in coming up with something when he got like that. She scooted a little closer and looked at what he was looking at.

"I need to see the apartments again," Nick said, "I think I know what is missing, but I want to be sure."

"Let's go," Corrie nodded, "Most of them had roommates, so we shouldn't have any trouble."

## Chapter 6

Krista pulled her hair back and used a rubber band to get it out of the way while she applied her makeup. She covered the bruise and spit a little to get the taste out of her mouth.

She looked around the room and let herself be annoyed by the state of the house. Her annoying husband could not be bothered to clean anything.

"Pig," Krista grumbled, "One day I'll fix that..."

She prettied herself up and looked down, enjoying the way she had accentuated the positives about her figure. She pondered wearing a shorter skirt, but figured that would be pushing it, especially with the nasty bruise on her thigh.

She took the keys to her husband's old impala and looked one more time at the man she had been living with for most of her adult life. It was not a pleasant sight, watching him snore on the bed.

She walked out into the dirt driveway and stepped on the bumper of the car to straighten her stocking. She smiled and sat in the driver's seat, turning it on and shifting it into gear.

"Let's go have some fun," she said to herself as she pulled out the knife, "Shall we?"

## Chapter 7

"Who is it?" a sleepy voice asked, "It's ten at night here!"

"Police," Nick said, "Detectives Jones and Albiston."

"You again," the sleepy voice said, opening the door, "I gotta go to work at four. This had better be good."

"I need to look around John's room again," Nick said, "It's important. We need to stop this person."

"Yeah," he nodded, "Ok. Come on in."

"Thanks," Corrie said, "We've been working nonstop on this."

"I bet," John's roommate said, "Here it is."

"Do you remember what he was planning on the night he died?" Corrie asked the young man while Nick pawed around the room, "Was he going anywhere?"

"I don't know," the roommate said honestly, "That's why he and I got along so well. I work all day and he usually studied at night. I got to sleep. It worked well."

"School has been out for a week," Corrie said, "Sure he didn't go out and party?"

"I doubt it," he said, shaking his head, "He wasn't the type."

"Do you have washing machines here?" Nick asked, looking around the room, "Or what?"

"What?" the roommate wondered, puzzled, "Um, we have to go out to do that. The complex's machines have been broken for a year."

"How often do you go?" Nick asked him.

"Once a week for me," he shrugged, "I visit my mother and use her machine."

"And John?" Nick asked, persisting.

"His schedule was crazy," the roommate said, "I didn't know what he'd do from one day to the next."

"I don't see many clothes," Nick pushed, "Where did he keep his basket?"

"It's in the room, isn't it?" he asked, going in and looking around, "That's odd. He usually keeps... kept... it over next to the bed so he could just toss the clothes into it."

"Son of a bitch," Corrie said, "You think he was at a Laundromat."

"You got it," Nick smiled, "Thanks. We'll be in touch."

"Get em," the roommate said, "I'm going back to sleep."

Nick and Corrie went back to the car and sat down. Corrie smiled at him, knowing that he had come up with something.

"We assumed that the ones who had left for the Laundromat never made it there," Corrie said, "What made you think of it?"

"The notes," Nick said, "The laundry was the only thing connecting two of them."

"Why didn't you ask him where?" Corrie wondered.

"He wouldn't have known," Nick said, "He doesn't go along, probably didn't care."

"Let's go find some of the others," Corrie said, "Maybe we can find a common denominator."

## Chapter 8

Krista parked the car off to the edge of the lot near the run down Laundromat. She smiled and looked around at the neighborhood that she had been hunting.

She put the knife that she'd used on all the previous killings into the side panel of the door, ready for use at a moment's notice. She stood up and took the basket of clothing taken from her last victim.

She knew it was too soon, only two days removed from her previous killing, but the urge was there now. She couldn't control it anymore, but didn't want to kill her pain in the ass husband yet. She wanted more practice first.

She walked in with the basket and looked around. There were four men in there and eight women. It was still early, so she put the clothes in the washer and dropped some soap in them.

She watched the people finish up and filter out. It being a 24-hour Laundromat it looked like a few college students were the only ones left. She smiled and waited, watching the men and hoping the women would leave quickly.

She saw one that caught her eye, a young man that resembled her husband when he was younger. He was smaller, however and less wary than her husband was.

"Soon," Krista said to herself, "Very soon."

## Chapter 9

"It's always the simple ones," Corrie said as Nick guided the car through the streets, "Who would have thought that you would be the one to come up with the Laundromat idea?"

"Just because I'm a slob doesn't mean I can't think clean," Nick grinned, "Besides, we now have a connection."

"Let's just hope that we can find this girl before she kills again," Corrie said, "Isn't that the Laundromat over there?"

"Yep," Nick nodded, "Let's see if there are any regulars over there."

Nick parked the car and turned off the ignition, letting the old engine sputter out and die. Corrie shook her head as the car backfired, showing her disgust with the car.

"When are they going to replace this?" Corrie asked him, "Miller has been promising to talk to them about this for months."

"It's free and we don't have to pay to feed it," Nick grinned, "Don't argue, Corrie."

"I swear I'm going to buy us a car someday," Corrie said, "Just to get rid of this piece of junk."

"You keep saying that," Nick shrugged, "Still will have to use this for work."

"I'm trying to forget that right now," Corrie muttered, "Let's go inside, shall we?"

"After you, my dear," Nick said, smiling.

Nick and Corrie walked into the Laundromat to find that it was as dreadful as they imagined. A small, run down storefront, it showed that it was in 24-hour use and the only things clean were the clothes in the machines.

There were only four people remaining, Krista and three college students. Corrie looked around and saw that it was a slow night. Krista was talking close to the student that had caught her eye earlier, so she wasn't paying too much attention.

"Nick," Corrie said, "See the woman in the corner?"

"Yeah," Nick nodded, "It can't be this easy..."

Krista had begun kissing the man when she saw Nick and Corrie. It didn't take too much imagination to figure out who they were. She started to panic a little, but kept on kissing. She hoped they would go away.

"Excuse me, ma'am," Nick said, "Could we have a word with you?"

"Yes?" she said, "Um, can't you see I'm a little busy?"

"We're trying to find out about the slasher," Corrie said, "We've got some information pointing to this Laundromat."

"The Crazygal?" Krista asked, not showing anything even though her stomach was jumping, "What makes you think that she would be here?"

"The Crazygal?" Nick said, "Where did you get that name?"

"That's what I've heard her called," she smiled, "Fitting name."

"How did you know the killer was a woman?" Corrie wondered, "We didn't release that to the press."

"I heard it somewhere," Krista said, shrugging and standing up, "Anyway, how can I help you?"

"How long have you been coming here?" Corrie asked her, taking the lead as she usually did with women suspects, "And have you seen anything strange lately?"

"Nope," Krista shrugged, "Nothing strange. Been coming in for a few months. Machines are cheap, so I come in and do some clothes."

"Known her long?" Nick asked the young man with her, "You seemed pretty close to me."

"Um..." he said, getting some bad vibes, "Just met her, man..."

"Go home," Nick suggested, "Now."

The young man took one look at the woman and another look at Nick and Corrie. He decided getting laid by a stranger wasn't worth it. He took his basket and left quickly.

"Now," Corrie said, "What is your name?"

"Krista," she said, "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"We just have some more questions," Corrie said, "Right Nick?"

"This your basket?" Nick asked, looking at the clothes, "Interesting selection."

"They belong to my husband," Krista covered.

"Your husband wears low riders?" Nick said, "Stitched with the name of Cromwell?"

"The name of one of our victims," Corrie said, "It may well be that easy."

"What are you talking about?" Krista asked, deciding to play the dumb blonde, "Cromwell? Is that mine..."

Krista waited for a moment and then pushed Corrie back towards Nick and made a break for the door. Corrie lost her footing and Nick fell over one of the baskets, falling backwards.

"Stop her!" Nick yelled as he tried to get himself up.

Corrie ran out, but Krista was quicker. She let off a kick, hitting Corrie in the chest and punched her in the face. Krista jumped into her car and started the motor, shoving it into gear and peeling out.

Nick raced out and got into his car, trying to start it up, but the engine proved ornery. Corrie knew they couldn't keep up in their old hunk of junk so she made sure she got the license number.

"She's gone," Corrie said, getting into the car as it turned over, "We really need a new car."

"I take it you got the license," Nick said, "As well as a new bruise."

"She knows she's caught," Corrie said, "Get this damned engine running while I call in the tag. We'll put an all points out on her."

"Right on," Nick agreed, "Let's get her before she can do some more damage."

## Chapter 10

Krista drove rapidly away and knew that her time was limited. The police knew her face and most likely had gotten her tag number. She was scared, but felt a little liberated as well.

She drove a little to make sure she was no longer being followed, but then headed straight home. She knew that she had one more chance. She had wanted some more practice first, but things could never be perfect.

She pulled the car into the driveway, taking surprise note of the two other cars in the driveway. She wondered what her husband was up to this time, then deciding that she could handle whatever was going on. It wasn't like it made a difference anymore anyway.

She pulled the large knife out of the side panel and walked up to the house. She entered quietly, tossing it from hand to hand as she tried to assess what was going on.

Krista heard some voices, two females and a male, all coming from the upstairs bedroom. She found it amusing that despite all the abuse he had heaped on her over the years he still had the time and energy to find two more sluts to fall for his shit.

Krista's eyes darted around as she looked around for things. She came across her husband's prized bowling trophy and figured this would be a good use for it. She picked it up and weighed it in her hands.

"Let's party," Krista said, "Time to die."

Krista climbed the stairs slowly and listened to what was rapidly becoming a bad porn movie. Her anger was coming up as she heard more and more. She looked in and stuck her head through the door, looking in shock at the scene that played out in her bedroom.

Her husband was being straddled by one of the women, who was obviously enjoying herself. The other one slipped back and forth between the girl on top and her husband. It was not a pretty sight, as none of the women were particularly good looking.

"You son of a bitch," Krista said quietly.

She raised the bowling trophy and stepped into the room. Before any of the heavily engaged people realized what happened Krista brought down the bowling trophy straight down on top of the first girl's head.

"What the hell?" her husband yelled, "Krista?"

"It's me," Krista said, "But you won't be here for long."

Krista dropped the trophy and quickly dispatched the other woman with a vicious stab to the back of the neck. The husband stood up and looked for something to defend himself with.

"You're not getting out of this one," Krista told him, "I've had enough of you."

He knew that this had gone too far, so he stood up and grabbed something. She stood off with him and smiled as she tossed the knife back and forth. She felt empowered for the first time in years. She wasn't going to lose the feeling.

"You killed them!" her husband yelled, "What the hell are you thinking?"

"Why stop now?" she said simply smiling, "Another corpse on the pile."

"Krista, you'll get the needle for this, bitch," he said, "What are you thinking?"

"Krista is gone," she said, "I've killed enough that I'll be famous for years after you are forgotten. I'm not Krista anymore. I'm the Crazygal. You will be begging for my mercy."

"You're insane," he said, really scared.

"I was insane," she said slowly, her eyes burning into him, "I was insane for taking it as long as I did. Now you are going to see my return to sanity!"

He lunged at her to try to put her off guard, but she was expecting it. She kicked him in the balls and slashed his left arm, causing him to rear back and fall over.

"It's time to pay for your sins," Krista said, "As I'm going to pay for mine."

## Chapter 11

Nick and Corrie pulled up in front of the house just before the black and white units got there. The street was soon a sea of flashing lights, but they knew that it was too late for caution.

"Car is in the driveway," Corrie said, "Backup is here."

"Let's go up," Nick said, "Warrant should be here soon, hopefully."

"We can knock," Corrie said, "We'll see what happens."

"Nothing to lose this time," Nick agreed.

They went up to the doorway and were getting ready to knock when they heard screaming. Nick and Corrie looked at each other and realized that they no longer needed the warrant. Nick let up a good kick and they rushed into the house.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Nick said, "Don't you?"

Corrie said nothing but kept her weapon ready. They rushed up the stairs and went into the bedroom with the weapons drawn, walking into a chamber of horrors.

"Drop it, Krista," Corrie said, "It's over."

"Not yet," she said, looking up, "He's given me so much pain over the years, you would deny me the chance to give it back?"

"The killing has to stop," Corrie continued, Nick wisely staying out of it, "You have no right."

"According to him I had no rights at all," Krista said, "According to him I was just meat."

"And what you did to those young men was better?" Nick asked.

"They all think that way," Krista seethed, "They all deserve to die."

"Don't make us shoot you," Corrie pleaded, "Drop the knife."

"You won't shoot me," Krista smiled and drove the knife into her husband's heart, "Too much paperwork."

She then leaned over and kissed him deeply as he died, leaving Nick and Corrie to watch the disgusting display. Nick had to fight to keep from pulling the trigger, but Corrie reached over and put her hand on his.

"I think she'll come peacefully now," Corrie said, "Right Krista?"

"Krista is gone," she said, standing up and raising her hands, "All that is left is the Crazygal."

"Either way," Nick said, "You're going to jail."

"Beats living here," Krista said, her eyes blank, "Just knowing that he's dead is good enough."

"Your life is over," Corrie said as she went over to cuff the woman, "You know that, right?"

"My life ended the moment I married him," Krista said, as she meekly submitted to arrest.

Nick and Corrie couldn't say anything after that. They brought her outside and put her in the back of one of the black and white units to be brought in for booking.

## Chapter 12

"This is sad," Corrie said after a few hours of searching the house, "The abuse he inflicted on her... I can't say I wouldn't have killed him myself."

"Doesn't excuse the others," Nick said, "They may have been tramps sleeping with her husband, but that isn't a capital offense."

"Did you get names on them?" Corrie asked him, "Or are we going to have to list them in the reports as Jane Does?"

"Brandi Jones and Jackie Lemanchek," Nick said, "From the contents I found in their handbags they were a couple local sluts."

"Nice," Corrie said, frowning, "Can't you come up with a better term?"

"Two women in bed with a married man who from the amount of condoms in their handbags did this regularly?" Nick said, "No, I think I stand by my earlier term."

"Point," Corrie sighed, "Her defense lawyers are going to have a field day with this one."

"It will all be for naught," Nick shrugged, "They'll either get her committed or she'll go to jail. Either way she's off the streets."

"That's a good thing," Corrie sighed, "Though I can't even say that. Nothing good has come out of this."

Mike Miller, their boss and Nick's longtime best friend walked into the house to check on the progress. He looked around at the squalid settings and shuddered a little.

"Good job," Miller said, "They rushed the DNA. Preliminary results say she's our killer."

"It would have been a better job if we stopped her at the Laundromat," Corrie said, "We need a new car, Mike."

"I'll put in a new request," Miller promised, "We have another problem first."

"Don't tell me we didn't read her rights," Nick said, "I don't need to hear that."

"She escaped," Miller said, "No one knows how, but we have two dead officers and a missing serial killer."

"Fuck," Nick said, "What do we do?"

"Keep cataloging," Miller said, "She burned her bridges. Most likely she's out of the city by now. Just keep an eye open, eh?"

Miller nodded at them and walked out the door, leaving Nick and Corrie there to wonder just what happened. They knew they were not going to get their answers, but kept working anyway. It beat going home to sleep with one eye open as they always did after one of these cases.

#  Searching for Bolantine

This short originated as a cut piece from the rewrite of The Accidental Immortal. I don't remember much more about it, the only text I could find of it was from my ancient website code.

It does take place during the canon version of The Accidental Immortal, but it was a bit out of place with the flow of the story. Think of it as the literary equivalent of a deleted scene from a movie. I do like how much of a badass Mason comes out as in this story though.

All stories from this point were not in the original version of this compilation, so the notes are from the July 2011 revision of this compilation.

## Chapter 1

Mason pulled the old Caprice up to a parking space outside of Roger Model's office. The office was a three-story job with plenty of windows. They looked at the place for a few minutes as Mason explained his plan.

"You think this is going to work?" Karen asked him.

"Probably," Mason said, "Guys like Model and Conley work best when they're not in danger. Show them a little danger and they tend to wilt."

"How sure are you about Kosmo's information?" Jim asked him, "The man could have just pulled a rabbit out of a hat."

"He has too much to lose," Mason reminded him, "He fucks me over and I'll be sure that that package gets into the hands of the head of cybercrime."

"This could be dangerous, Mase," Karen warned him, "You sure you want to go through with this?"

"The benefits are worth it," Mason smiled, "We don't know this city. These people do, and they have a reason to want Bolantine just as dead as we do."

"Let's roll," Jim said, "I want to get this over with."

"Got somewhere to be, Jimbo?" Karen asked him as they exited the car.

"Was hoping to get a little lovin' tonight," Jim smiled.

"We'll see," Mason told him, "Depends on if we can figure out what Bolantine is up to this time."

"Then let's get this over with," Jim said, "Shall we?"

"See you in a few," Mason said and entered the building.

Jim and Karen headed off across the street while Mason walked into the building. Model's office was on the third floor, which was perfect for the plan Mason had concocted. Roger Model's secretary was a statuesque looking blonde that probably had trouble using her keyboard considering the large size of her chest.

Mason smiled and walked up to the comely young woman, who looked at him with not a hint of surprise in her eyes. She was used to seeing some pretty unsavory looking individuals come to this office.

"May I help you?" the young lady asked him.

"Yes," Mason said, "I'd like to see Mr. Model."

"Do you have an appointment, Sir?" the young woman asked.

"No," Mason smiled, "But I'm afraid I must insist."

"Mr. Model is a very busy man," the receptionist said, but Mason was having none of it.

"He'll see me," Mason said and then started to walk past her, "Just sit there and file your nails, honey."

The woman started to stand up when Mason clamped a hand down on her shoulder and shoved his .45 caliber pistol into her ribs. She looked up and saw a very hostile look in Mason's eyes.

"Sit there," Mason said harshly and then lied through his teeth, "Shut up and don't call the police. If they show up here I'll find you and kill you."

The girl went white as a sheet and flinched at his touch. Mason put the gun away and walked towards the office. As soon as Mason let her go the girl scurried out of the room, running as fast as she could from the office. Mason smiled and opened the door to the office. Roger Model was sitting at his desk talking to one of his associates, a young crook by the name of Rob Conley.

"I thought I told you that..." Model said and then realized it wasn't his secretary, "Who the hell are you?"

"That's not important, Model," Mason said and looked at the window, "The question is how I found you."

"Call the police," Rob Conley encouraged, "You don't have to take this."

"I would recommend against that," Mason told the small man, "The police are still looking for you, Conley. I'm sure you'd get picked up too."

"What do you want?" Model asked him.

"Just to talk," Mason said, "We have some mutual interests."

"Such as?" Model asked him.

"Bolantine," Mason said, "You and your little friend have been taking it up the ass by his attempts to take over the city."

"How the heck..." Rob said and was stopped by Model.

"Bullshit," Model said, "He isn't a threat."

"I'm not an expert," Mason smiled, "And you can believe that if you like, but we both know better."

"He wants a cut," Conley said, "I know the type of cut..."

"You and your men have been dangerously ineffective," Mason said to Conley, "You've been trying to kill him for months, if you had actually had any luck we probably wouldn't be talking now."

"I had..." Conley started.

"Shut up, Rob," Model said harshly, "I see you don't agree with my management style."

"I don't give a shit about your rackets," Mason said, "I have a different agenda."

"What would that be?" Model asked him.

"Bolantine," Mason said, "I want him and that bitch girlfriend of his."

"And what the hell do you expect to gain from this?" Model asked him.

"That doesn't concern you," Mason said, "The fact that I want Bolantine does."

"Why should we give you a damn thing?" Model asked him, "We can bury you."

"I think not," Mason said as two little red dots appeared on Roger and Alvin's chests, "We're being listened to by two of my people, both of whom are aiming high powered sniper rifles at you."

"You son of a..." Conley growled, paralyzed by fear.

"I propose a deal of sorts," Mason said, undeterred by the look of pure hatred in Model's eyes, "One that will leave both of us satisfied."

"And what would that be?" Model asked him.

"Use your networks to find Bolantine," Mason said, "Then you give me a call."

"And what do you intend to do with him?" Conley asked him, "He'll tear your..."

"That will be the end of your involvement," Mason told them, "Bolantine will become a footnote of crime history and you continue on your merry way."

"And if we refuse?" Model asked him, rather pointlessly, "You'll kill us both?"

"This is only for my protection," Mason told him, "I don't need to threaten your lives. I have enough proof to drop in the hands of a reporter. If the fact that Bolantine has come as close as he has doesn't kill your business, the official investigation that results would."

"You son of a bitch," Model said, "That's blackmail."

"Glad you recognize it for what it is," Mason grinned, "When you find Bolantine I want your troops to back off and call me. Here's the number."

Mason laid a sheet of notepaper down with one of the disposable cell numbers on it. He walked around the room and looked at the two men standing uncomfortably with the red dots on their chests. When they weren't paying too much attention to him, Mason slid a bug under a chair as he sat down.

"I don't like this," Model said, "But... you can't do any worse with Bolantine than Conley has. We'll make the call."

"Get cracking," Mason suggested, "If my patience gets frayed I might just have lunch with a reporter."

Conley considered reaching for his weapon but remembered the red dot that meant he'd be dead before he drew it. He sat back in his chair and scowled at Mason. Mason nodded his head and left the office.

"I look forward to hearing from you soon," Mason said as he left the room.

Mason left the building quickly and started the car, picking up Jim and Karen from the front of the building across the street. Mason had guided the car down the street and into an alley before he stopped and looked at them.

"The bug is planted," Mason said, "It worked perfectly."

"Neat trick," Karen said as she pulled the pointer out and flashed a red dot on Mason's forehead, "They bought it for a sniper dot, eh?"

"Beats paying three grand for a full out sniper rifle," Mason smiled, "It played out beautifully. I think there's even a half a chance they might call us."

"If they don't the bug will get it," Jim said with a smile, "The guy at the shop assured me it would pick up the sound of a fart at forty feet."

"Lovely imagery, Jim," Karen said, rolling her eyes. "It'll take a few hours for that to register anything," Mason told them, "Shall we retire to the van and listen to Model sweat?"

"Sounds like a plan to me," Karen agreed, "Beats sitting in this wreck in the cold."

"Hopefully we'll get a bead on Bolantine soon," Mason said as he pulled the car away, "This time he's going to fucking stay dead..."

#  The Cop, The Whore and Eight Bottles of Jack Daniels

This was a Nick and Corrie short that I somehow lost track of when I was putting together the original Night Strike compilation. I still think it is one of the better ones so its exclusion still bugs me.

## Chapter 1

"This had better be good," Nick Jones said as he stretched a little coming out of the car, "Miller promised us a weekend off for once. With that rash of killings last week we've been working way too much."

"He wouldn't have called us without good reason," Corrie Albiston shrugged, pulling herself out of Nick's rusting sedan, "He was supposed to be off with Claudia this weekend as well."

Nick nodded but didn't say anything else. He was annoyed because he and Corrie got little enough time off of the job lately without getting called back in early Saturday morning to deal with something that the other crews were screwing up on.

"Don't be too grumpy there, Nick," Corrie smiled, "This could be a good one."

"I'll be ok," Nick sighed, "I just wanted a day with you where we're not dealing with corpses and criminals"

"We'll get it," Corrie grinned, "We'll just blackmail Miller for it after we deal with this."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Nick grinned and kissed her forehead before they went inside, "I'll let you handle it."

Usually unions like this between partners were frowned upon on the force, but Nick and Corrie were such an effective team that the brass overlooked the fact that they lived together. Their direct supervisor, Michael Miller, was well aware of their relationship and didn't mind at all because it gave him a powerful team that didn't mind working long hours as long as they could do it together. The fact that Nick was one of his oldest friends didn't hurt matters either.

"Gotta love this side of town," Nick grumbled, "Hookers and junkies die in large numbers."

"Mike wouldn't have pulled us in just for that," Corrie reminded him, "He knows us too well for that."

"True," Nick agreed, "Let's see who croaked today."

The two of them walked into the motel and followed the noise to where the police tape was blocking off the hall. Mike Miller was standing outside with his girlfriend, who was holding on to their child. Mike didn't look any happier than Nick or Corrie did at that particular moment.

"What's the rush?" Nick asked, "We just did a two week stint without a day off, Mike."

"I didn't want it either," Mike told them, "But you're one of three people left on the force qualified for this case, and the others have been taken off the streets."

"How so?" Corrie said, "What skills do we have that others don't?"

"Not you," Mike told her, "Him. Take a look inside, Nick, and you'll see why."

Nick nodded and put on his gloves before walking into the room. Corrie wondered what this was about and followed silently, letting Nick get the first impression of the room. It was a hard thing to do, because the two bodies inside were in such bad shape that it was almost difficult to identify them.

"Jesus," Nick said, recognizing the male finally, "That's why I was called..."

"Who is he, Nick?" Corrie asked him, "One of your associates from before..."

Nick knew what she was thinking. Before joining forces with Mike Miller over a decade earlier Nick had been a young thug in the local crime syndicate. Miller had busted that syndicate wide open and managed to bring Nick on the right side of the law. After a presidential pardon resulted from that mess, Nick had been accepted into the police force he had once been running afoul of.

"No," Nick said, "Much later than that, actually. He was my partner for a spell before Marcus and I were paired up. He was part of our team until the Sleeping Beauty mess broke it up and got him reassigned. You've met him a couple times actually, his name is... uh... was Terry Moore."

Corrie perked up at that a little and walked over to take a closer look. She recognized Terry Moore now, though the position and the blood made it difficult to actually see him as he was in life. Nick shook his head and walked out of the room, looking at Miller.

"I'd think I was too close for this," Nick told his boss, "Why do you want me to handle it?"

"You knew him and his habits," Mike said, "Nobody else is going to be able to get a feel for him as quickly. Not to mention this is a cop killing and we want it solved quick."

"Who's the girl?" Nick asked him, "I've never seen her before."

"According to the front desk she's a local working girl," Mike told them, "That's about all I've had time to get on this. Claudia and I were due at her brother's an hour ago so we need to get out of here."

"So you get out and we don't?" Corrie said, "That's not fair..."

"I tried to get us out of it," Mike said, "The captain wants us to do it cause we tend to be quick. Marcus left town Friday night. The others are already on other cases. You are the only one left who knew him, so you're stuck. You get overtime for it, I don't. Sorry."

"Great," Nick said, "Low man again."

"Leave town next time," Miller chuckled, "If you're not due in court this week take a few days off and get out for a while."

"Already planning on it," Corrie told him, "Come on, Nick, let's get this cleaned up."

"Forensics been in yet?" Nick asked.

"ME is on her way," Mike said, "Forensics should be here at any time as well."

"Let's do some door knocking," Nick sighed and turned to Corrie, "I'll take the odds, you take the evens?"

"Sounds like a plan," Corrie agreed, "Enjoy your inlaws, Miller."

"Heh," Miller said, "I'd almost rather stay here with you."

"No chance, Michael," Claudia chuckled with her smooth British tone, "If I have to suffer, so do you."

"Yeah, yeah," Miller said before he turned back to Nick and Corrie, "Good luck. I'll keep the cell on if you need me."

"Right," Nick said, "Let's do some door pounding."

## Chapter 2

The Forensics team came in and did their thing while Nick and Corrie went up and down the halls and got a whole lot of nothing for their efforts. Those few rooms where residents bothered to answer didn't tell them anything more than what they already knew. Of course, nobody in this place thought a thing about hearing a gunshot as gunshots were routine in this area of the city.

"Not a thing," Corrie reported, "This is pathetic."

"No leads," Nick grumbled, "Didn't expect them here."

"Why was he here?" Corrie wondered, "I mean this is a real hole. Did he usually do stuff like this?"

"He always had a taste for ladies of the evening," Nick said, "But he usually just had them blow him in his car or something."

"Nice," Corrie said, "And you know this how?"

"Because he'd often have me stop so he could go proposition a hooker," Nick frowned, "Part of the reason I stopped working with him. I didn't want to watch him do that crap."

"How was he not thrown off the force?" Corrie wondered, "I mean most people like that would have been chucked immediately."

"He was a reasonably decent detective and had some friends higher up," Nick said, "He was due to retire this year with a full pension. Guess it isn't happening now."

"Astute assumption," Robin Haskell told them, walking out of the room, "Whoever did it wasn't particularly good with their weapon. Shots were sloppy and they bled out slowly. Probably made some noise as they did so."

Robin was the local ME, one of the ones they often worked with, especially in cases that the higher ups were worried about. She was very good and almost always looked really good on a witness stand. No case she had ever worked on ever failed due to forensic technicalities.

"Any ready signs of struggle?" Nick asked her, "I didn't check the bodies too closely when I got here."

"She died first," Robin told them, "Multiple shots. Whoever was in the next room had to have heard it. It had to be a large caliber weapon."

"Good luck in finding the tenant," Corrie said, "These rooms flip over hourly."

"Whoever left was covered in blood," Robin said, "It had to have splattered all over him. Those gunshot wounds were close range. Either a Colt or a Magnum. No pansy nine mil did that damage."

"Gotta love the color commentary," Nick chuckled, "So someone, somewhere was running around here with blood dripping off them..."

"Luminal?" Corrie said, looking up and wondering, "In the hallway?"

"Let me get my bag," Robin said, "The killer should have been dripping badly."

"And might have been injured himself," Corrie said, "Look at this splat on the wall. It's going in a different direction than the others."

"I'll have Chucky type it," Robin nodded, "Let's follow the blood trail."

## Chapter 3

Corrie jogged over to the motel office and badgered the clerk into turning off the hall lights. Nick helped Robin set up her portable blue light until Corrie showed up again. They'd done this before, though it had been a while since either of them had had to cover an area this large.

"You realize this place probably has had quite a bit of blood on the carpet over the years," Nick said, "This hole has been a dive since I was a child."

"Let's see if any of it leads us anywhere," Corrie shrugged, "Which end do you want, Robin?"

"I'll handle the luminal," Robin said, "You two handle the lights."

"Right," Nick nodded, "Let's do it."

With the lights off and Robin spraying the luminal on the floor the blood drops started becoming a lot more visible in the dark matted carpet. As Nick had expected there had been more than one stream of blood, but the most prominent streams were the freshest ones coming from the room Terry Moore and the unnamed hooker were killed in.

"It's going towards the back," Nick said, "What the hell? They bolted down that door years ago."

"Could we get lucky enough for the guy to still be here?" Corrie wondered, "What is up with this?"

"Maybe we'll get out of here after all," Nick said, pulling out his weapon just to be on the safe side, "Corrie, take the light. If the killer is still here I'm going to play cover."

"You got it," Corrie nodded, taking the light, "Which way, Robin?"

"The blood goes to the back door and congregates," Robin said, "See the hand prints on the door?"

"Did he back track?" Nick asked, "The blood looked like it was going one direction."

"He went to this last door," Corrie said, "Look at this. Is this a stairwell?"

"Looks to be to the basement," Nick said, "Robin?"

"The blood goes down there," Robin said, "Doesn't look like there's more than one stream going that way."

"Go back with the forensics people, Robin," Corrie said, "Nick and I will clear the area before any of you continue down here."

"Front or back?" Nick asked her.

"You take the lead," Corrie said, "I'll cover you."

"Right," Nick nodded and pulled out his flashlight, "Let's go."

Nick shined the flashlight around the room with his left hand as he held his service pistol in the right. Corrie took a two handed grip and looked for any sort of movement. Luckily for them that day the only thing moving in that basement were a few rats of the nonhuman variety.

"What is the smell?" Corrie asked him, "I don't recognize it."

"Alcohol," Nick said, "Probably some cheap booze that someone threw down here or threw up down here."

"Disgusting," Corrie said, wrinkling her nose.

"You got it," Nick chuckled, "Welcome to the bad side of town."

"Over in the corner," Corrie said, shaking her head, "There's something over there."

Nick nodded and shined his light over in the corner. What they found there was not what they particularly wanted to see. Nick grumbled and Corrie, despite having done this job for a couple years now, had to fight down a minor queasiness in her stomach.

"I think we found our killer," Nick said, "Move the guns away from his hands."

Corrie nodded, paused for a minute as she regained her balance, and used her pencil to pull the weapons away from the bloody corpse. She laid them on the floor next to Nick's feet and then stood up straight to look at him again.

"Go get Robin," Nick said, "I'll watch our corpse here to make sure he's as dead as he looks."

"One of those guns is an old service pistol," Corrie said, "Think it's Terry's?"

"Probably," Nick nodded, "He couldn't qualify on the automatics."

"This just took a turn for the interesting," Corrie sighed, "At least it should be easy enough to close."

"If we can identify them at any rate," Nick grumbled, "Go get Robin so we can start working in here."

## Chapter 4

The lights were quickly turned back on in the area so that the police could see again, but it didn't help. The corpse in the basement looked just as bad in full light as it did under Nick's flashlight beam a few minutes before. Nick and Corrie tried to figure out just what could have caused this type of carnage.

"This is insane," Nick said finally when they went upstairs, "It's like they killed each other."

"They did kill each other," Corrie corrected, "The question is why. Could it be over the girl?"

"She looks like a working girl," Nick said, "I don't think Terry had gotten laid for free in twenty years."

"Jealous husband of a working girl maybe?" Corrie wondered, "I don't have any idea."

Nick and Corrie walked in to the death room again and found that forensics had mostly finished in there. The wallet had been bagged, as had the girl's identification. Corrie used gloves to handle the bags and wrote down the name of the girl to run through the computers.

"Guys," Robin said, coming back into the room, "Come on downstairs and take a look at this."

"You go," Corrie said, "I'm going to go run the hooker for wants."

Nick went downstairs with Robin and took a better look at the room now that she had it lit up with the portable lamps. The man on the floor was a fairly young one, though the blood that had splattered all over his face from the murders obscured his age. It also became readily apparent where the smell of alcohol was coming from.

"Jack Daniels," Nick said, "I knew I smelled alcohol."

"Eight bottles," Robin said, "Two of them broke when he hit the floor. From the splatters it looks like he stumbled down the stairs and came to a rest there. Probably was disoriented from the bullet he took. Was Terry a good shot?"

"Not particularly," Nick said, "Usually just fired a whisker over department spec. I think he had a few friends among the people who administered the firearms tests."

"Figures," Robin said, "The shot wasn't particularly well placed. We'll have to open him up to be sure, but I'm betting that it severed the artery above the heart but didn't hit the heart itself."

"Hell," Nick said, "I'm amazed it hit that close. Any ID on him?"

"Jim Frakes," Robin said, "Mean anything to you?"

"Not off hand," Nick said, "I'll call it in. Anything else in his pockets?"

"A list from Jobin's Liquor," Robin said, "Isn't that the sleazy place down the street from here?"

"Yeah," Nick nodded, "Only place left in this part of the city that will deliver. Delivery people are always armed and... Oh boy..."

"Idea?" Robin wondered.

"Yep," Nick sighed, "I don't think I'm going to like this."

Nick walked back upstairs and found Corrie checking out things in the room. She looked at him and wondered about the thoughtful look on his face. He stepped over a pool of blood and walked over to the corpses on the other side of the room.

"What's up?" Corrie asked him.

"The girl," Nick said, "What's her name?"

"Lorrie Frakes," she replied, "Why?"

"Married?" Nick asked her.

"Not according to public record," Corrie said, "Why?"

"Let me guess," Nick said, smiling a little, "One brother. James."

"Good call," Corrie nodded, putting the pieces together, "Our corpse in the basement?"

"One man, two guns and a whole armload of Jack Daniels," Nick said, "You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I'm thinking that he didn't know his sister was hooking," Corrie said, "Call Jobin's?"

"Sounds like a plan to me," Nick said, "I always knew these damn hookers would kill him someday."

Nick got on his cell phone and confirmed the fact that Jim Frakes had been a delivery driver at Jobin's and that his last job was two deliveries to that motel. One of the customers had called to complain, but neither Frakes nor the bottles of Jack Daniels that had gone out with him had been seen since.

"Looks pretty cut and dried to me," Corrie said, "Pissed off brother decides to ice slutty sister and gets shot by a cop in the process."

"Not surprising, but right," Nick agreed, "Nothing else to do with it."

"Have your people take the pictures, Robin," Corrie said, "We're going to fill the paperwork out as a double murder. Let the weenies downtown try to contact the families."

Nick walked over and looked at his one time partner one last time. He shook his head and turned away. Corrie gave him a shrug and they both walked out of there feeling the letdown that always resulted when a case turned out to be this easy and this tragic. Three more on the ever-growing pile of refuse left behind in the dark back corners of the city, gone and soon to be forgotten.

#  Madfest Murder

Similarities between some of the characters and real life people in this case are intentional, but only for the purposes of satire and for making a good story. The actions attributed to these people are in all cases fictional and by no means representative of what they may or may not do in real life. This was written as an auction prize for a Madhouse Auction in 2002. (Original Disclaimer from 2004)

This is another one that I'd forgot existed. Another Nick and Corrie short that was written as a prize back on the days that I was on the telnet chats all the time. Really dates my computer knowledge, doesn't it?

I do remember the people though and it was a great community at the time. I can't remember if Firestream actually existed or if he was an amalgamation of any number of dickheads that frequented the chat rooms.

It does amuse me rereading this after nearly a decade though, going through the old meets was a bit of fun.

## Chapter 1

Nick Jones groaned as the telephone started ringing loudly next to him. He moved slightly, letting Corrie's bright red hair move a little as he reached for the telephone receiver. Corrie didn't even really notice the difference as Nick pulled the phone to his ear and managed to grumble out an opening.

"This had better be good," Nick grumbled, "We're supposed to be off today."

"Sorry, Nicky," Mike Miller's voice said as it came through the digital telephone line, "You and Corrie are the only people we've got with even a rudimentary understanding of computers, and we've got a doozie of a case here."

"You know the internet as well or better than we do," Nick grumbled, "Why don't you take it?"

"Claudia just went into labor," Mike told him, "Marcus doesn't know one end of a computer from another, so he's coming with me. Can you and Corrie do me a favor and take care of this one for me?"

"You got it," Nick agreed, "Give Claudia my best, eh?"

"I will if she stops trying to hit me," Mike chuckled, "Got a pen?"

"Give me a sec," Nick said as he slid out from under Corrie, "Gotta find one."

Nick looked around in vain for a pen and then just slipped in at the computer station he shared with Corrie. He turned on the screen and brought up a word processor fairly quick, typing a few keystrokes just out of habit to make sure that it was working properly.

"Ok," Nick told him, "Give me the details."

"We've got a body over at the Montgomery Hotel," Miller told him, "Second floor. Nobody knows for sure who he is yet, but that floor has been taken over by a group of people for a chat line meeting."

"Son of a bitch," Nick said, groaning a little, "Madfest! I knew that location sounded familiar. Corrie and I were going to head over there this morning to meet some people we knew from there."

"Shit," Miller grumbled, "Do you think you two will have to recuse yourselves?"

"Probably not," Nick told him, "Corrie and I are regulars, but not that tied to it. Probably better to have someone that understands that culture anyway. That leaves out the rest of you."

"True," Mike told him, "I usually only do gaming, not chatting. Do I need to give you any addresses?"

"Who do we go see?" Nick asked him, "You want us for the primary detectives, right?"

"You and Corrie can take it," Mike agreed, "You're the official primary, but I know you two. You'll split the duties like you always do. Just for the official record you're in charge though."

"All right," Nick told him, "We'll be on our way as soon as I can get Corrie rousted."

"Why are we being rousted?" Corrie asked him as she sat up on the bed, "Did Mike actually find a case he needed us for?"

"Go brief Corrie," Mike said when he heard her voice, "Come by the hospital when you can. I'm sure we'll be here for a bit."

"Right," Nick agreed, "Talk to you later, Mike. Good luck."

"What's going on?" Corrie asked him.

"Someone is dead at Madfest," Nick told her, "I don't know who yet. Mike caught the case, but Claudia just went into labor. That means we're up."

"Because Marcus doesn't know one end of a computer from the other," Corrie grumbled, "Figures. Is he at least with Mike?"

"Yep," Nick said, "Throw on some clothes and we'll go over there. I'm the primary this time, though Mike knows that we work on an equal footing."

"I'll find you some clothes if you'll make the coffee," Corrie said hopefully, "I think I'll need some."

"Deal," Nick nodded and went off to make his brew, "We'll hit some fast food on the way there. Whoever it is can wait ten minutes for that."

"Right," Corrie agreed, "They certainly aren't going to get any deader."

## Chapter 2

Nick and Corrie pulled up in front of the hotel at around seven in the morning to find four uniformed units and an ambulance sitting out front. There was also the usual throng of reporters milling around as well, but the uniformed police officers kept the onlookers at bay and out of the hotel itself.

They showed their identifications and were directed up to the second floor. One of the uniformed officers looked dubious at their disheveled appearance, but they were well known in the department from their work on the Sleeping Beauty murders six months before. That case had been instrumental in getting them paired up and had also nearly cost Corrie her life.

"Where's the body?" Nick asked as he walked inside.

"Second floor common room," the officer said, "Medical Examiner just showed up. He's looking over it now."

"Good," Corrie said, "Saves us a little time. Any identification yet?"

"Not that they've told us down here," the uniformed officer shrugged, "But they don't tell us anything."

"Pretty standard," Nick said, "What you don't know you can't accidentally leak."

"I guess you guys like to do your own leaks your way," the officer shrugged, "Jay Creighton sure did."

"Jay Creighton is a dead murderer," Corrie said coldly, "Not your run of the mill detective."

"Besides," Nick chuckled, "Our boss hates the press. He'd shoot us if we did what that lunatic Creighton used to."

"True that," the officer shrugged, "Anyway, your body awaits."

They walked up the stairs, something that Nick was finally able to do after a few months of being smoke free. Corrie had finally bullied him out of that habit, much to everyone in the unit's approval. Nick had been the last holdout smoker as Miller had quit years before.

"Lovely way to have to meet our online friends, isn't it?" Nick asked her.

"Better us than someone who they don't know," Corrie shrugged, "Let's hope that nobody we know did it."

The halls were rather empty, as the hotel detectives had ushered everyone back into their rooms. There were three men standing over a crumpled form on the floor. Neither Nick nor Corrie could tell from this angle who it was, but it was obvious that the dead body on the floor was male and that he had died rather violently.

"When did the murder happen?" Nick asked the gathered people.

"Who are you?" Talbot Jones, the medical examiner asked them, "Detectives, I hope."

"I'm Detective Jones," Nick said, showing his shield, "This is Detective Albiston."

"You're going to have fun with this one," Jones said nodding at the body, "Shot three times with a nine millimeter pistol. I can't tell you which one was fatal yet, but I'm betting that one of the shots went through the heart."

"Any identification on the body?" Corrie asked, trying to put a name with the face, "Nobody downstairs knew him."

Nick crouched down and looked at the body, studying the face that was contorted in a look of pain. It was hard to match that with the faces he'd seen on the madhouse web site, but he vaguely remembered it. He just couldn't put a name to it.

"It's not Madmike," Corrie said, "I'd remember him."

"It's Firestream," Nick said finally, as the recognition hit, "I saw a picture of him once when CG had some problems with him."

"Firestream," Corrie said, a frown forming on her face, "I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Half the talker hated his guts."

"I'd say that's putting it mildly," a man said behind them, "I was surprised that he had the guts to show his face here after the tantrum he pulled in the Foyer last week."

"Hiya Madmike," Nick said, smiling a little, "I'd hoped to meet you under better circumstances."

"With a little more sleep under our belts," Corrie grinned.

"They assigned this to you?" Madmike asked them, "Did they know you were part of this crowd?"

"Miller did," Nick said, "We're the only ones who understand this crowd. Pretty much the only choice."

"I can't believe one of us would shoot him," Madmike said, "He was an asshole, but didn't deserve that."

"How many have made it so far?" Corrie asked him, "I hate to say it, but until we've had a chance to look into things, everyone is a suspect."

"Seven of us made it yesterday," Madmike told them, "Trey and I showed up yesterday afternoon. Kneads, Nicole and Crazygal showed up around dinnertime. CurlyQ showed up alone soon after that. Adam, Brewdog and Irc showed up a little bit later. Firestream was the last one in."

"Anyone else coming?" Nick asked him.

"A few are supposed to be coming in today," Madmike shrugged, "Don't know if anyone came into town and just hasn't checked in yet."

"You're privy to most of the scuttlebutt," Corrie said, "Anyone have any major beefs with Firestream this week?"

"That's like asking if any of us breathed this week," Madmike grumbled, "I should have banned his ass years ago."

Nick and Corrie nodded their agreement. Firestream had been their most contentious user for a long time. His name suited him well, as he'd flame anyone who disagreed with him, which was usually anyone who had the opportunity to talk with him for more than a few minutes. They also knew why he'd survived so long, he was Trey's best friend in real life.

"Ok," Nick said, "I guess we're going to have to talk with everyone. I don't suppose we're going to find a smoking gun anywhere?"

"I slept hard last night," Madmike said, "Trey might know some more. Firestream drove down with him. I didn't hear the shots, though."

"I'll go talk to Trey," Nick said, "Find out what you can from the ME, Corrie."

"This should be fun," Corrie said, "I don't know if we should catch whoever shot Firestream or reward them."

"Let's find them first," Nick said, "This shouldn't be too hard."

"Yeah," Corrie nodded, "Only half the people in the hotel wanted to kill him."

"Beats having all of them want to kill him," Nick grinned as he headed off towards the room where Trey was supposed to be.

"I can't believe one of us did it," Madmike said as he shook his head, "There's got to be some other explanation."

"It's not a robbery," Talbot Jones said, "There's a full set of ID on him, several credit cards, and nearly four hundred dollars in cash."

"Any powder residue?" Corrie asked him, "Anything that indicates a killer?"

"No residue," Jones shrugged, "The bullet casings are rather ordinary nine millimeter. Photographers have already hit them."

"He looks almost human crumpled up like that," Madmike sighed, "I'm going to go sit with Kneads, Nicole and Crazygal. Maybe they'll be able to make me feel better."

"I'm sure," Corrie chuckled, "I'll be in to talk to them in a few minutes."

"Not too soon, eh?" Madmike said, a mischievous grin on his face.

"Right," Corrie said, shaking her head and not believing him for a minute.

While Corrie watched Madmike go down the hall, Nick was getting to Trey's room. He knocked on the door and waited for a voice to answer. Finally someone told him to come on in. Nick opened the door gingerly and looked in at the people sitting there glumly.

"Hello Trey," Nick said and then turned to the other man in the room, "If my memory for pictures is right, you're Irc, right?"

"Right," Irc agreed, "Who are you?"

"You know me best as Stalin," Nick chuckled, "I just wish that I didn't have to be here on official business."

"They assigned you to this, Stalin?" Trey asked, standing up and shaking his hand, "Then you know..."

"Yeah," Nick nodded, "Firestream. I hate to do this to you guys, but I have to ask some questions. Hopefully I can figure this out quickly so we can actually do some partying. Maybe have a drink to his memory."

"Good luck keeping a straight face," Irc advised, "You're not going to find too many people who will drink to it."

"Hey!" Trey exclaimed, "That's no way to talk!"

"Did Firestream say anything about problems?" Nick asked Trey, "Anyone he'd been fighting with more than normal?"

"Not really," Trey shrugged, "Hell, I thought he was actually doing better. That's why I brought him with me. Thought that meeting the people here would make him see that there were flesh and blood people behind the words."

"A lesson more of us need on there," Irc said solemnly, "Some of the flame wars online have been rather nasty lately."

"So do you have any leads?" Trey asked Nick, "Anything at all?"

"He was shot three times," Nick said, "Not sure about anything else. Corrie is talking to the medical examiner now."

"Corrie?" Irc asked, "Is that Kat?"

"Yep," Nick grinned, "You got lucky. My boss's wife just went into labor. Corrie and I were the only ones who knew one end of a computer from another that could take it."

"At least you don't think we're insane," Trey shrugged, "My wife still thinks I'm nuts for going to these things."

"This is going to do so much to dissuade her of that too," Irc said.

"Tell me about it," Trey moped, "Good luck, Stalin. Get the bastard."

"I think someone already did," Brewdog said as he came up behind Nick, "Stalin, right? I'm Brewdog."

"I was going to look for you next," Nick chuckled and shook his hand, "I do have one question to ask all of you. Did you hear anything over the past few hours?"

"I slept like a baby," Brewdog said, "Of course I had a little company, but I'll leave that one alone."

"None of you heard the shots?" Nick asked, shocked by this, "Christ, someone should have heard it when he died."

"I found the body when I realized his bed hadn't been slept in," Trey said, "I never heard any shots though."

"I didn't hear anything until the commotion started," Irc shrugged, "Wasn't particularly listening for anything either. Had a few drinks last night with Madmike and the others."

"Anyone else do much drinking?" Nick asked them.

"Most of us had a few," Brewdog said, "Ok, well, more than a few. Madmike and I were stumbling as we walked out of there."

"I was right along with them," Trey agreed, "Firestream put a few down as well, but he left the bar before we did. He and Adam had a nice argument about something or other."

"Really?" Nick said, interested, "What about?"

"I honestly don't remember," Trey shrugged, "I've known Firestream for so many years that I don't pay attention to his arguments anymore unless it looks like they're coming to a fight that he might get me involved in."

"It was more of a disagreement," Irc told him, "Nothing major."

"I'll check it out," Nick said, "It'll probably be nothing."

"Find them, Stalin," Trey said, "Please find who killed him so I don't have to tell his wife."

"Someone married him?" Brewdog asked in horror, "Woman must be blind! Or deaf!"

"Or both," Nick muttered, "Doesn't matter. I'll do what I can."

"Where do you want us to go?" Irc asked him.

"Stay in your rooms," Nick said, "Don't try to take anything out for now though. Ok?"

"You got it," Irc nodded, "Care for a drink, Brew?"

"I think we could all use one," Brewdog agreed and then looked at Trey, "I'll even drink with you on an occasion like this. And if you make a strong enough drink I might drink to Firestream."

"Have to be a good one," Nick mumbled as he walked back towards the murder scene.

## Chapter 3

Corrie was still looking at the murder scene when Nick came back. The look on her face told him that this was going to be a bitch of a case.

"Well, we know it's not a robbery," Corrie said, "And like he said before, no powder burns either, so it wasn't close range. He saw his attacker too."

"He didn't turn away?" Nick asked, "I'm surprised. I always figured him for a coward."

"He was," Corrie said, "Probably just didn't get a chance. Did you learn anything?"

"He had words with Adam last night," Nick shrugged, "Trey is predictably broken up. Irc and Brewdog care about as much as can be expected."

"Probably only slightly more than you do," Corrie smiled, "Don't lie to me. You hated Firestream more than anyone here."

"Yes dear," Nick agreed, "I did. But I have an alibi. I was lying in bed with you when he was shot."

"I know it," Corrie smiled, "So what do we do next?"

"Adam?" Nick asked her, "I want to do that while I'm still thinking of it."

"Alone or together?" Corrie asked him.

"Good cop, bad cop," Nick said, "Or bad cop, worse cop. Depends on whether he pisses us both off or not."

"Let's go," Corrie shrugged, "Adam is in room sixteen."

The two of them walked over to the door, about three down from where they were and knocked politely. It took about a minute or two, but Adam finally came to the door and let them in. Corrie was surprised that they managed to get Adam at all, seeing as he'd dodged every other get together that had happened over the years.

"Morning Adam," Nick said, "I'm Detective Jones, this is Detective Albiston."

"Stalin and Kat," Adam chuckled, "Seems, I remember hearing your real names somewhere."

"I wish I was here just to enjoy the company," Nick said, "But we got called in to work."

"Firestream?" Adam asked as he rubbed the shiner on his left eye, "That was only a minor argument..."

Corrie knew from the look on Adam's face that he hadn't heard the commotion. She looked at Nick and touched his arm. He looked at her and decided to let her continue. She had much more tact that he did, something that he'd known from the first time they'd worked together.

"Firestream is dead, Adam," Corrie said, "We got called in to investigate the murder."

"Murder?" Adam said, his eyes bulging a little, "Someone killed him?"

"You didn't hear all the commotion?" Nick asked him, a little surprised by the reaction, "There have been cops out here for two hours!"

"I drank way too much with them last night," Adam explained, "Part of why I got into that scuffle with him. I was very drunk. I was ignoring the noise hoping that my headache would go away before everyone else got up."

"So you've been here all night?" Corrie asked, "Alone?"

"Much as I would have liked to coax one of the ladies into bed," Adam chuckled, "Sad fact is that I couldn't have gotten it up last night to save my life. Way too drunk."

"Right," Nick nodded, "I know that feeling."

"Anything I can do to help?" Adam asked them, "I didn't like the son of a bitch, but he didn't deserve to die."

"That's up for debate by some," Nick shrugged, "But murder is never the answer."

"Just stay in your room and don't try to take anything out for now," Corrie told Adam, "We may end up making a weapon search."

"You got it," Adam said, "I'm going to take some Excedrin and try to get my head together. If you need to know anything about last night come and knock, I'll be here thinking of my next bad joke."

"Somehow that doesn't surprise me," Nick chuckled, "Thanks, Adam."

Adam smiled and retreated into his room. Nick and Corrie walked back over to the death scene and looked around again. Firestream's body was still there, though the medical people had come to take him away. Nick watched as they rolled the body, and then saw something that struck him as strange.

"Look at the wounds," Nick told Corrie, "Does anything seem strange about that?"

"Let me diagram it real quick," Corrie said, "Can you hold that body there for a second, guys?"

"Sure," one of them nodded.

Corrie, the more artistically inclined of the two of them, took a couple minutes to do a rough chart of the entry and exit wounds. Once she finished she nodded at the attendants, who lifted the body onto the gurney to take away.

"Strange," Nick said, "It's like the shots came from a low elevation."

"Someone sitting down?" Corrie wondered.

"Possible," Nick said, "There are enough chairs in here."

"Shall we go talk to the others?" Corrie asked him, "I'm assuming you'll want me there for the girls."

"CG will talk to you more anyway," Nick agreed, "I'll be the bad cop in this case."

"You usually are," Corrie smiled and then walked towards the room that the others were waiting in. Nick shook his head and followed, chuckling.

Corrie went up to room 11 and knocked on the door. A female voice beckoned them inside. Nick walked in and smiled at the people sitting down, though there wasn't a smile in the bunch. They were all bummed that their vacation had come to a crashing halt due to a very public murder.

"Hi guys," Corrie said and sat down, "You all know me from that girls night out last year. This is Nick."

"Stalin," Crazygal said with a smile, "Nice to finally meet you."

"Likewise," Nick nodded, "I remember you too, Kneads. You must be Nicole."

Nicole nodded from her wheelchair and looked back at him. She was nothing like her usual bright and bubbly self that she usually displayed. Not that either Nick or Corrie were surprised by this. She had been one of the few who actually liked Firestream.

"Wish that it could be a happier meeting," Kneads told them, "Have you got any leads?"

"A few," Corrie said, "Not too many. It would be helpful to know if any of you heard anything."

"Not a thing," Crazygal shrugged, "I'm surprised too, usually I wake up for anything."

"I didn't even hear the shots," Nicole said, causing Nick to look at her, "I was in my room."

"Kneads?" Corrie asked, "For the record?"

"I drank just like everyone else," Kneads said, "He could have been killed in my room and I wouldn't have known until someone woke me up."

"CurlyQ had a little altercation with him last night," Crazygal said, "I think he was hitting on her pretty hard. She threatened to shove one of Stalin's muppets up his ass."

"What a waste of a muppet," Nick said dryly.

"Where is she, anyway?" Corrie asked, "I haven't seen her yet."

"She's in room 9," Madmike told them, "She's the one who found him, came screaming to my room waking me up."

"Stay put, guys," Nick said, "We'll be back in a few. We're trying to talk to everyone before we do any heavy questioning."

"We'll be here," Crazygal said glumly, "Good luck, Stalin. You too, Kat."

"It'll be over soon," Corrie promised, "Getting away with murder isn't particularly easy nowadays."

"Right," Kneads sighed, "I guess I'm still a bit in shock over this."

"We all are," Madmike said, "He was a monumental pain in the ass. No reason why that should change with his death."

"Madmike!" Crazygal said, throwing a pillow at him, "That's no way to talk!"

"Don't worry about it," Nick said, "I've seen enough corpses. Nothing ruins your day quite like dying. It also ruins the day of everyone in the vicinity. Trust me, I've been doing this for a while."

"On both sides of the coin," Corrie grinned.

"It's been nearly a decade since I was a criminal," Nick grinned, "President Clinton legalized me back at the beginning of the new millennium."

"I don't want to know," Madmike chuckled.

"Let's go talk to CurlyQ," Corrie said, "Take it easy, guys. We'll be back in a few."

## Chapter 4

They left the room and Nick waited until they were out of earshot to say anything else. The easy smile he'd had before was gone again. Corrie wondered what he heard that made him suspicious.

"Spit it out, Nick," Corrie told him, "Something is eating you."

"Nicole," Nick said, "She knew he'd been shot multiple times."

"She could have seen the body," Corrie said, "Madmike could have told her too."

"Yes," Nick admitted, "But she was too quick to say something about it. There's also the fact that he was shot from down low."

"From a sitting position," Corrie nodded, "That makes sense."

"Let's talk to CurlyQ first," Nick said, "I want to think about this some more."

"I can't see her carrying a silenced weapon," Corrie said, "That's the part that bugs me. Nobody heard it."

"I've been thinking about that too," Nick said, "I don't think they were all drunk enough to not have heard it."

"Let's talk to CQ," Corrie said, "Maybe she'll have some ideas on what happened."

"If she's not hysterical," Nick grumbled, "Want to take this alone?"

"I can," she said, "Do a search for a silencing method?"

"That's what I'm thinking," Nick nodded, "I also want to measure some angles. Let me know if she gives you anything useful."

"You got it," Corrie said and looked around real quick before giving him a quick kiss on the cheek, "Good luck."

"You too," Nick said as she walked off and knocked on the door of room nine.

"Come in," said a feminine voice that sounded like it had been sobbing, "It's open."

Corrie opened the door and smiled at the young woman, hoping to look as non-threatening as possible. She knew from experience that finding a body was a traumatic experience, especially one who'd been murdered. CurlyQ looked back and wondered what she was in for next.

"You must be CurlyQ," Corrie said, offering her hand, "My name is Corrie, though you probably know me better as Kat."

"Kat," CurlyQ said with a relieved smile, "I thought sure the cops wouldn't let anyone else in."

"Stalin and I are the cops in this case," Corrie said, "Nobody else knew what to do with this one."

"I can't believe this happened," CurlyQ said as she slumped back down on the bed, "Why would someone have to kill him?"

"Evidently a lot of people wanted to," Corrie shrugged, "Did you have any problems with him last night?"

"He was hitting on me quite a bit," CurlyQ told her, "I eventually had to tell him to stuff it."

"How did he take it?" Corrie asked her, "Did he keep pushing?"

"A little," CurlyQ shrugged, "Madmike and Brewdog told him off though. I knew that he wouldn't try anything with them there."

"How did you find him?" Corrie asked her, "I know it's painful, but I need to know what you saw."

"I was looking for the continental breakfast," CurlyQ told her, "I hadn't had anywhere near as much to drink as the others, so I figured I'd be eating alone."

"I've seen most of the others," Corrie chuckled, "Probably a good bet."

"Anyway," CurlyQ continued, "I almost tripped over him. He was lying on the floor and..."

Corrie moved over to her because she knew the girl was about to start crying again. Sure enough, CurlyQ began crying again, almost as if on cue. Corrie had played the mother hen in situations like this before and was good at telling crocodile tears from real ones, and this girl was definitely suffering from shock.

"I hate to have to persist with this," Corrie sighed, "But did you hear anything before you found him?"

"I heard a couple claps," CurlyQ said, "I thought it was a television in the other room."

"What time?" Corrie asked her, as she was the first one to hear anything, "And are you sure it sounded like claps?"

"About five," CurlyQ nodded, "I was barely awake. Probably about a half an hour before I got up."

"Really," Corrie said, "Ok. I've got to go confer with Nick. Just stay put, all right. I think we've nearly got this mess sorted out."

"Nick?" CurlyQ asked, "Stalin?"

"That's him," Corrie smiled, "He's here too. We'll get to the bottom of this. Don't worry."

"Thanks," CurlyQ said, "I'll be here if you need me."

"No worries," Corrie said, "Want me to send someone to sit with you?"

"Not right now," CurlyQ sighed, "I just want to be alone. Don't want to look like a crybaby."

"I'd be more concerned if you weren't upset," Corrie told her, smiling, "If you need someone, just stick your head out the door. Either I'll come or I'll send in one of the others."

"I appreciate it," CurlyQ said.

Corrie stood up and touched her shoulder before walking out the door. She walked over to the crime scene, where Nick was sitting in a folding chair, staring in the direction of the blood splatters on the wall. Corrie touched his shoulder as well and he looked up at her.

"Whoever did it was sitting right about here," Nick said, "I still think it was Nicole. There were no chairs in here that could be moved."

"There wasn't much time either," Corrie said, "CurlyQ heard something that sounded like claps about five thirty."

"That goes with what Talbot said," Nick nodded, "I think we need to have another talk with Nicole."

"What's the white stuff on the floor?" Corrie asked Nick as she picked up a piece, "Looks like feathers."

"Pillow," Nick said, "I've got a few of the uniformed officers looking for a pillow."

"That's how the shots were silenced," Corrie nodded, "I'm ready to talk to her if you are."

"Let's get it over with," Nick sighed, "See if we can convince her to break."

"I almost feel bad about this," Corrie sighed, "It's much easier when you don't know them."

"Always easier then," Nick nodded, "Let's go."

They walked over towards the door and knocked on it, entering after hearing Madmike's voice tell them to come in. Corrie and Nick looked at Nicole, who didn't say a word. Everyone was looking around before Nick decided to break the ice.

"We've got a few more hints," Nick said, "Just wanted to check a few facts..."

Nick was interrupted by a knock on the door. He and Corrie looked at each other and Nick nodded at the door. She went over and opened it up to be greeted by an officer holding a bagged pillow. She asked a few questions that were unintelligible to everyone else and then walked back in.

"Confirmation," Corrie said to Nick, "The pillows are identified by room, just like every piece of linen. Helps them track thieves."

"What does that mean?" Crazygal said, "So it was one of us?"

"I'm afraid so," Nick said, "Why'd you do it, Nicole?"

"Nicole?" Kneads said, jumping, "Surely you're kidding me!"

"I'm sorry, Stalin," Madmike said, "You've surely lost your marb..."

Before Madmike could finish the statement they all saw the look on Nicole's face. She was caught and she knew it. Tears were beginning to form in her eyes. Nick and Corrie looked at each other and sighed. This wasn't going to be pretty.

"I couldn't help it," Nicole began, as she began crying.

"You don't have to say anything," Corrie said, "We'd better read you your rights."

"You have the right to remain silent," Nick told Nicole, "Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to be speak to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you at government expense. Do you understand these rights as I've explained them to you?"

"I don't care anymore," Nicole said, "I killed him and I'm glad to not have to hide it anymore! That son of a bitch deserved it!"

"Nicole!" Crazygal exclaimed, "Why?"

"Because..." she said and tried to compose herself, "He's spent the last six months telling me he loves me. Well, I fell for him. I really did. I had it all planned out, what to do with him, what to do for him..."

"It didn't work out the way you thought, did it?" Corrie asked her.

"He wouldn't even look at me," Nicole told them, "He would barely say hello. Then he spent all night hitting on Kneads, Crazy and CurlyQ. Wouldn't even give me the time of day."

"I'm sorry," Kneads said, "Why didn't you tell us?"

"Because you would have said 'I Told You So'," Nicole said, "I confronted the son of a bitch this morning."

"I'm guessing it wasn't pretty," Corrie surmised, "I've seen Firestream rip into people before."

"He told me that he'd been leading me on," Nicole told them, "He... told me I was... That I was..."

"It's ok," Kneads said, going over and hugging her, "I think we can guess the rest."

"He was so cruel about it," Nicole said in between the tears, "I couldn't believe it. I just couldn't let him get away with it. It wasn't like he didn't know. I had sent him pictures, he'd seen them on the web. He knew! If he didn't want to, he could have just told me..."

"Where's the gun, Nicole?" Nick asked her, "If you hid it, I need to find it before some kid finds it."

"I'm betting she keeps it on her chair," Corrie said, "Self defense, I'm guessing. She didn't plan to kill him."

"I didn't," Nicole whined, "You can have the gun. It's under the chair."

Corrie kneeled down and pulled the weapon from the specially made compartment on the wheelchair. Nicole looked utterly defeated as Corrie bagged the weapon. Nick sighed and went over to the telephone, knowing he had to call this in. He dialed the dispatch number that he had long since memorized.

"Dispatch?" Nick asked, "This is Detective Jones. I have a special needs case that you're going to have to get the DA in on. I've got a young woman in a wheelchair that I've just arrested for murder..."

#  Bolantine's Folly

This was a fun little story written sometime after the second version of The Accidental Immortal was finished. I'd always wanted to do a caper story and Bolantine was just immoral enough to do the job.

## Chapter 1

Bolantine looked around the motel room as he sat down in the old wooden chair that he'd pushed against the wall. His eyes, while set in a face that looked young, showed their true age with a look of knowledge. They were dark and menacing eyes that contrasted with the dirty blonde hair that framed his head.

"What the hell are we still doing here, Nikki?" Bolantine asked as he looked at his partner, "We were supposed to break town days ago. I'd sort of like to get out of here before the test subject shows up again."

Nikki Bolantine grinned evilly as she looked at her man. She was a small girl that could easily pass for a child, even though she was almost as old as Bolantine himself. Her dark hair also contrasted nicely with Bolantine's and she looked completely different from him, an advantage she'd used more than once over the years.

"Don't worry about Stone," Nikki told him and brought over a folder, "I doubt he even has a sniff of our current whereabouts. This job is too good to pass up. It'll give us a bit of breathing space too, allow us to go to the tropics and retire for a while."

"Going to the tropics won't help us gain power," Bolantine reminded her, "I want to create a new world order."

"It will give us a chance to plan and throw Stone off our trail," Nikki reminded him, "I'm sick of working penny ante stuff too. This one will be a score that legends will be made of."

That statement piqued Bolantine's interest. Before obtaining immortality many years before he'd been the head of a moderate sized criminal empire, an empire which was disassembled by internal intrigues and interference from Bolantine's archenemy Mason Stone, a fellow immortal who has made it his mission in life to keep the population of immortals as small as possible.

"I'm always up for a legendary score," Bolantine said approvingly, "What have you got?"

"How would you like to knock off some US Gold reserves?" Nikki smiled, putting the folder down in front of him.

Nikki Bolantine had been with the man for years. After four years of being close to him she'd been incapacitated by a stray bullet and spent thirty years in a coma. Bolantine kept her alive and spent millions to fund James Entragian's research into the serum that finally granted immortality to five people. Bolantine had intended to build an army with the serum, but the other three immortals managed to kill Elliot Sumner before this could happen.

Sumner had been the one remaining man with the knowledge necessary to create the immortality serum. His death and the remaining serum's destruction at the hands of Mason Stone left a world population of five immortals, who were solidly in two camps and running from every government in the world. Mason Stone was the leader of the first group resulting from the initial experimentation, a group that included his mate Karen. James Entragian had been one of the serum creators, but had no knowledge of the serum creation due to having his original brain destroyed.

Bolantine spent a few minutes reading the workup that Nikki had passed off to him. She went over to the motel's kitchenette and made herself a cup of coffee while he read. She'd spent the last few days getting the information from someone that they'd befriended in the city's criminal underworld. She smiled and remembered the satisfaction of shooting the pig after she had retrieved that folder.

"How many people know about this?" Bolantine asked her.

"You and me now," Nikki told him, "The guy who initially put it together won't be able to rat it out."

"It'll take more than just the two of us," Bolantine told her, "This plan requires at least six people and some serious hardware."

"We should be able to pick up a few bodies," Nikki told him, "It's been a lean season and there should be a few of the ambitious types ready to make a score."

"Sounds like fun," Bolantine agreed, "It'll get the feds down on our necks again though."

"I've always wanted to see the tropics," Nikki cooed, "I'd say this would give us a good excuse to go and play for a while."

Bolantine smiled as he thought about it. He didn't much care about going to the tropics, but the thought of besting the same government that had put him on the run in the first place was very appealing to him. He read through the workup that Nikki had obtained one more time and decided it was worth a try.

"Start recruiting," Bolantine told her, "I'll round up the trucks we're going to need for this."

"This has got to be quick," Nikki said, "The truck with the gold reserves leaves tomorrow night."

"Get five reliable people," Bolantine instructed, "How certain are we these maps are right?"

"I rechecked it myself," Nikki smiled, "They won't find the bodies for at least a week, by which time we'll be long gone."

"Lovely," Bolantine said dryly, "I'd say you'd better go recruiting."

"I won't be able to do that until after dark," Nikki told him and then straddled his lap, "I was hoping to have a little bit of fun with you before that."

"I think that can be arranged," Bolantine agreed as he ran his fingers down her back.

## Chapter 2

Bolantine was all business by the time Nikki returned the next afternoon with four rather ordinary looking men and one very ugly woman. Nikki was all smiles, as she usually was when dealing with strangers. The criminal element of the city had heard of Bolantine, though not under that name, and the scams that he'd been running very successfully. Nearly a century's worth of criminal experience in a body that didn't look a day over thirty made him an extraordinary operator.

"What have you told them?" Bolantine asked Nikki.

"It's a job that will make them stars and give them a lot of money," Nikki said, "I figured I'd let you handle the details. You're better at that than I am."

"What's the score?" one of the men asked, "This girl has cred, but I haven't heard anything I like about this job yet."

"The score," Bolantine said, using a calm tone that would be better suited for a classroom, "Is that when this job is done we'll all be richer than god."

"I've heard plans like that before," The woman said sourly, "Most of the people who told em to me are dead."

"So what is the target?" another man asked, "And won't it be protected beyond all getup?"

"The target is a single truck," Bolantine told them, handing out pictures from Nikki's packet.

"There's nothing that can be stored in a single truck that will make us this rich," A third man scoffed.

"This truck carries enough gold bullion to keep us afloat for years," Bolantine smiled, "You see, the truck is delivering a nice piece of the US gold reserve to Fort Knox."

"You want to knock off the guv'ment?" the last man said, "Hell, I'm all for that shit."

"How do you plan to keep them off your tail?" the woman asked, "The feds will be all over that like a hot potato."

"Slight of hand," Nikki smiled as she made a quarter disappear on her tiny hand, "And a little inside help."

"You have an insider?" the woman said, incredulously, "How did that happen?"

"Not exactly an insider now," Nikki said, "He was cut out rather abruptly yesterday. The plans are still good. We know when, we know where and we know how. Now we just need to make the smash and switch."

"Smash and switch, eh?" One of the men grumbled, "I'd like to know how that would get us out of there."

"Easy enough," Bolantine told them, "We're going to fake them out. Which one of you can drive a rig?"

"That would be me," the rustic who was enthused with taking on the 'guv'mint' said, "I drove a semi for five years before they took my license."

"You'll be driving the decoy truck," Bolantine said, "This is a replica of the one they'll be using to transfer the gold."

"What good is a decoy?" the man said, "We've got to get it away from the others first."

"This is going to be a three truck convoy with a helicopter trail," Bolantine explained, "An armored carrier in front, an armored carrier in back and the semi in the middle. There will be several men in each of the armored carriers, but the truck will be populated by a single driver."

"Who is equipped with a radio," one of the men growled, "This sounds bad to me. The chopper will have us either way."

"The chopper will pull away on its own," Nikki said as she pointed to a map, "Right about here, when the highway pulls into the restriction range of the international airport."

"There's a merge on the road right about here, right after a sharp turn," Bolantine continued, "That's where we'll strike."

"I still am failing to connect the dots," The woman said, "How do we do this and not get caught?"

"Here and here will be two fog generators," Bolantine told her and pointed to a spot about a quarter mile up, "Two of you will be running those fog generators, making sure a thick layer of fog rests in the area. Luckily, the weather is supposed to be dismal tomorrow, making that easier."

"So we make the switch in the fog," the first man said, "How do we pull the hijack without anyone becoming the wiser?"

"Nikki and I will handle that part," Bolantine grinned, "She's going to be driving a sports car and I'll be climbing from the car onto the truck. I'll take care of the driver and maneuver the truck out of the way before anyone comes wise."

"That's risky as hell," the second man said, "Better you than us though."

"The prize is worth it," Nikki told them, "You in the decoy will be driving ahead for a few dozen miles to give us time to get the trucks changed."

"Wait a minute," the hick said, "How do I get out then?"

"You'll continue on like nothing's wrong for forty miles," Bolantine instructed him, "There will be a car waiting at a stoplight to pick you up. By the time they realize what happened you'll be miles away."

"Sounds like a plan," they said, "When do we do this?"

"The equipment is here," Bolantine said, pointing to the warehouse behind him, "There's little planning time and none of you get to leave to spill it before we do it."

"All we need to do is assign jobs," Nikki said, "Ok hillbilly, go take a look at the truck and make sure you can drive it."

"What do I do?" the woman asks.

"A very useful job," Bolantine said, "You get to play chicken with an armored personnel carrier. When the fog starts you run into the thing."

"What the hell do I do that for?" she wondered.

"To distract it," Bolantine told her, "You're heading to your sister's and you have an accident. That will keep the pressure off Nikki and me when we approach."

"I guess that leaves two of us to run the generators and one left over," another man said.

"You get to go to Brookline and pick up hillbilly here," Nikki said, "This will be a precision operation. Screw up anything and we're all probably going to be caught."

"Anyone want out?" Bolantine asked them.

"Yes," one man said, "You're insane if you think this will work."

"Fine," Bolantine said, "Have it your way."

Bolantine pulled out a pistol and fired a single shot, placing a round hole in the head of the lone dissenter. The others jumped, but knew after this point that Bolantine meant business. He intended to pull off this caper and if they crossed him, they'd all die.

"Anyone else?" Nikki asked them while Bolantine put the body in the back of the decoy truck.

There were no more dissentions. Nikki told the two who were running the generators to get one of the fast cars so they could double over to highway five and pick up the hillbilly. Bolantine spent the next half hour explaining every part of the scheme to them again making sure the participants knew their part. As the afternoon wound down, the six of them pulled off to a rest stop just outside of their target area.

"We'll keep in contact by radio," Nikki told them as she handed out headsets, "These are encrypted so nobody who isn't on this net will be able to hear us. It also makes them ring through clear as a bell."

"Very high class," the hillbilly said, "Where did you learn this stuff?"

"If we pull this off, maybe I'll teach you," Nikki smiled, hiding her revulsion at the man, "We're going to have to lay low for a bit after this."

"The trucks are due in two hours," Bolantine told them, "That gives you an hour to get set up and start making fog. I suggest you not dally."

The two men nodded and remembered what had happened to the last person to defy Bolantine's instructions. The woman and the hillbilly looked at Bolantine and Nikki for their next instructions.

"There's a shoulder over on the edge of that road that will be perfect for you to park," Nikki told him, "Get the truck there and wait for my instructions. I'll tell you when to pull out."

"Try not to do it early," Bolantine cautioned, "If the driver of the personnel carrier sees you then the whole plot is screwed."

"Right," he nodded and climbed into the truck.

"You'll play point," Nikki told the woman, "Go on up to the next rest stop and watch for the convoy. When you see it notify us on the radio and then get to work."

"Right," the woman agreed, getting into the sporty Mazda and tearing back up the highway.

"Think this has a chance in hell of succeeding?" Bolantine asked Nikki when they were alone again.

"Only if you can manage to climb up and incapacitate that bastard without flipping the truck," Nikki told him, "You're going to be in for a bruising if you fall."

"That's why I'll be wearing a helmet," Bolantine nodded, "If I fall, retrieve the remains and book it."

"That's the plan," Nikki agreed, "Did you get the surprises ready in the cars?"

"Absolutely," Bolantine agreed, "Cell phone triggers. Just use the speed dial on the one in the car."

"I'll trigger them all if you fall," Nikki agreed, "Let's get ready to go. They should be ready at any time."

"I'm going to get suited up and take a quick nap," Bolantine told her, "Wake me when the bitch starts screaming."

"You got it," Nikki nodded and turned on the radio to the local news station.

## Chapter 3

"Convoy is passing me," the woman squawked over the radio, "I'm pulling out and getting ready to crash."

"Wake up," Nikki said to Bolantine as she started the engine, "It's time to roll."

"Yep," Bolantine nodded and secured his helmet, "Let's see if she can do it."

Nikki pulled the car out to the edge of the rest stop driveway and waited for the convoy. Bolantine himself was thankful that he could see the fog down the road, so someone had done their job correctly.

"There's the convoy," Bolantine said, "Looks like she's about to hit the APC as well."

"Ramming speed," the woman's voice said as she raced the Mazda towards the back end of the APC.

Nikki picked up the cell phone and hit the first autodial. The twin phone that was attached to the device under the hood of the woman's car rang immediately, triggering the device that was attached underneath. The half pound of C4 Plastique that Bolantine had attached to a pressure trigger on the hood was now active.

When the woman rammed the back of the APC, instead of the slight bump and crunch she expected she got a whole lot more than she bargained for. The pressure trigger went off, sending the car into a fireball that lifted the APC into the air. It didn't damage the larger unit, but it convinced them to pull off to find out what happened.

"I'd call that a success," Nikki said and put the phone in the cup holder, "The rest of the convoy is still going."

"They're safer moving than standing still," Bolantine grinned, "Let's rock."

As the truck and the remaining APC continued on past them, Nikki pulled out and pulled out behind the truck. The fogging machines worked as well as they'd hoped because by the time Nikki had started pacing the truck they'd entered a thick fog bank.

Bolantine stood up in the convertible and was immediately knocked around a little by the wind. Nikki was a very good driver and the little car handled admirably. She got within six inches of the truck and gave Bolantine a fairly easy jump to get onto the back of the cab.

Bolantine's physical prowess as he climbed around the cab was impressive. He looked into the back window and saw that there was only one person in the seat. Bolantine was trying to figure out how to do this easily and knew he didn't have much fog bank left.

"Nikki!" Bolantine yelled into the radio when he noticed the kid wasn't wearing a seatbelt, "Pull up beside the cab and start smiling at the driver!"

Nikki didn't respond, but did exactly as she was told. She flashed her puppy dog eyes at the driver and distracted the young private that was driving the truck. Bolantine used the distraction to reach around and grab the door handle. Luck was on his side too, because the private's door handle was unlocked.

"See you later!" Bolantine yelled as he yanked the young man by the shoulder and pulled him out of the cab.

The young man didn't have a chance to fight back as the last thing he expected was to have someone physically throw him out of the cab while the truck was moving. Nikki saw Bolantine's maneuver and pulled up close enough to catch the young man in mid freefall, to keep his body from becoming a telltale sign of their presence.

Nikki withdrew a knife from a sheath that she had in her pocket and quickly dispatched the private with a quick slash of the throat. The body bled all over the seat, but the boy didn't have a chance to do anything but die.

While the private was dying Bolantine quickly climbed into the cab and regained control of the moving vehicle. Nikki saw they were near the switch point and yelled for Bolantine to stop the truck so the hillbilly could slip in. Bolantine managed to slow the vehicle to a stop, at which point the hillbilly slipped the decoy truck into the position right behind the APC.

"I'm in," the hillbilly said, "We've cleared the fog and they haven't tumbled yet."

"We've left the generators and are making a beeline for the pickup point," one of the fog men said into the radio."

"Right," Nikki said in the radio.

Bolantine smiled and pulled the truck down a side road, meeting Nikki at the edge of a ravine. Nikki took the phone with her and gave the car a quick shove, pushing it over the edge along with the private's body. It exploded in a nice fireball at the bottom of the ravine.

"Ok," Bolantine said, "Time to disguise this thing."

"Where's the other rig?" Nikki asked him.

"In the trees," Bolantine told her, "I'll go pull it up. Pull the hoses and get the wires ready for the switch."

"Right," Nikki agreed, "Should I take care of the others?"

"Give them a few more minutes," Bolantine grinned, "We want them almost to Brookline before we pull the plug."

Nikki undid the plugs and put down the hydraulic legs on the trailer. She then climbed into the huge truck and pulled it out of the way. While she was pulling the cab ahead she heard voices coming through her radio.

"We're in position in Brookline," the chase team said, "Get ready to bail."

Nikki took the cell that Bolantine had prepared and pushed the second speed dial button. As soon as the cell phone in the cab of the truck started going off it triggered an electrical device that was hidden in the seat and on the metal steering wheel. It sent 10000 volts of electricity searing through the hillbilly's upper body. It also triggered an altered version of the cruise control that started forcing the truck to accelerate uncontrollably until it slammed into the APC it was following.

"Shit!" the two in the chase car said, but it was an astonishment that was short lived.

Nikki Bolantine pressed the third speed dial button, which triggered a straight out explosive device in the car that the two remaining participants were sitting in. They quickly became fallout and the last links to the caper were severed.

"The rubbish is dealt with," Nikki told Bolantine, "We're clear. It'll take them hours to figure out what happened."

"Shall we open the trailer and see what we have?" Bolantine asked her, "I'm curious as to just how rich we are."

"Let's go," Nikki smiled.

The two of them walked hand in hand, Bolantine towering over her five foot frame. Bolantine shot off the lock and opened the door. Both he and Nikki were gaping at the massive emptiness that beckoned from within the confines of the trailer. There wasn't any gold in there nor anything else except a large package a package that Bolantine recognized a minute too late.

"Get Do..." Bolantine shouted but got cut off as the explosion went off.

Bolantine and Nikki were shot backwards by the explosion that sent them through air tumbling like a couple of high velocity projectiles. Bolantine himself was shot through the window of a passing minivan, causing it to veer off the road and stop as the former owner's dead foot left the gas. Nikki went tumbling down the road and came to a stop as she hit a tree on the other side of the road

"Shit," Bolantine growled as he managed to get himself up in the seat, "Great job, Nikki."

He pushed the body of the van's driver out the door and let it tumble down the ravine. As his ribs healed he straightened out his broken arm so he could use it again. Once his arm came back to normal he shifted the van into reverse and backed it up until he saw Nikki.

"Fine mess you got us into this time, Nikki," Bolantine grunted, "I think we need a vacation."

"Tahiti?" Nikki asked hopefully as she pulled herself up and climbed into the passenger seat.

"At least," Bolantine grunted as he pulled away, "Maybe even further if the feds start looking for us."

Nikki merely nodded and leaned back against the seat, content to let Bolantine drive and forget about what had just happened.

#  They Were Lovers, Weren't They?

## Chapter 1

"Nick," Mike Miller said as he entered the squad room, "I've got a hot one for you and Corrie."

"What happened?" Nick Jones asked his boss and longtime friend, "You know Corrie and I are about to go on a weekend getaway."

"Sorry man," Mike said, "Two bodies over at the Milner Building. Chief is bugging out on it, and you two have the highest clearance rate in the city."

"What's the chief have to do with it?" Nick asked him.

"His brother owns the place," Miller shrugged, "It's the most expensive office space in the city too. Good probability that the stiffs are important."

"It's Friday, Mike," Corrie Albiston protested, "And we have a whole pile of interviews we have to get done before we can leave. The Horton case is still active."

"Give the interviews to Marcus," Mike shrugged, "He's still breaking in the newbie. Horton may be active, but it's not politically important. Good one for Chuckie to sink his teeth into."

"Chuckie isn't the smartest," Nick agreed, "But put him with Marcus and it'll be fine."

"Let's go get this over with," Corrie sighed, tossing her red hair back, "I don't want to miss our reservation tonight."

"Reservation?" Mike asked them.

"I wimped out and had a cigarette," Nick said sheepishly, "She smelled it and now I have to spring for a lavish dinner at the Ritz."

"Most expensive cigarette he's ever smoked," Corrie chuckled.

"I don't want to know," Mike chuckled, "Claudia has threatened to break my fingers if I even consider starting again."

"How's she doing anyway?" Nick asked him.

"Weight from the pregnancy is almost gone," Mike said, "She's really happy about that. Cliffie is doing well too. Healthy baby boy."

"Great to hear," Corrie said, "We'll try to get over there to see him this week."

"See if you can clear this case first," Mike suggested, "I'd hate to have to talk about work around the baby."

"Right," Nick agreed, "Might give the poor child nightmares."

## Chapter 2

Nick and Corrie drove his aging unmarked squad car, a twenty year old rusting blue Crown Victoria that he'd had for years, to the Milner building, finding a whole string of marked patrol cars out front in the fire lane. Nick followed suit and blocked in one of the blues, half in and half out of the alley.

"Nice parking job, Nick," Corrie said, "Let's just hope they don't mistake this car for a derelict."

"Does it matter?" Nick shrugged, "It pretty well is one at this point."

They walked over to the building and were stopped at the entrance by the uniformed officer watching the entrances and exits. They showed their identification and were allowed into the building. Nick watched as a couple of big shots went to the door and had their id's checked and information written down before leaving.

"Looks like the investigators have locked down the building well," Nick said, "Let's go see who the corpses are."

Corrie nodded and pressed the up key on the elevator. Nick held the door open and pressed the button for five and they rode up, getting the usual unsettled feeling in the stomach from an elevator set to go fast enough to accommodate the exceedingly busy individuals who conducted business in this prestigious building.

"Why do I feel like I'm underdressed?" Nick asked Corrie.

"You'd be underdressed at a seedy bar," Corrie said as a twinkle came to her eye, "Though not so much so at a nudist colony."

"Thank you for that much," Nick chuckled, "Let's go see our stiffs."

They walked into the room and Nick saw a familiar face. Terry Moore was looking over the scene of the crime with a really sour look on his face. Terry had been on Miller's squad for nearly six years before the Sleeping Beauty case split the team in half more than a year before. He's been working for another squad leader ever since.

"I see you caught the call on this," Nick said, "How's it going, Terry?"

"Lousy," he said, "This case just reeks of overtime and Charlie sent me out alone on it."

"Relax," Nick shrugged, "Looks like you were just a placeholder. The chief conned Mike into sending us here to relieve you."

"There is a god," Terry said, showing his gap toothed smile, "I guess the fact that nobody has any confidence in me is paying off tonight. Good thing too. I have tickets to a show tonight."

"How nice," Corrie said, grumbling inside, "So who are the stiffs?"

"Henry Wright and his secretary," Terry said, "Looks like they might have been doing each other when they were killed."

"The Henry Wright eh?" Corrie said, whistling, "No wonder the chief is bugging out. Wright was the chief backer of the reformers that put the new guy into office."

"Anyone had to be better than the last one," Nick shrugged.

The previous mayor was one step away from being arrested by Mike Miller's Sleeping Beauty task force for committing a copycat murder when Sleeping Beauty herself assassinated him very publicly a year before. The scandal that broke from his death caused a complete overhaul of city politics, throwing out every incumbent that dared to run again, replacing them with a group of reformers backed principally by Henry Wright and his influential friends.

"Wright is supposed to be a straight arrow," Corrie said, "Good friends, good family. Made his fortune buying up run down houses and restoring them, often by himself."

"Any information on the girl?" Nick asked Terry.

"Secretary," Terry shrugged, indicating he didn't care much, "Name is Sandy Calitri. Nobody seems to know much about her."

"Ok," Nick said, "I take it you're handing off the lead to us?"

"Hell yes," Terry said, "I don't want it."

"Stick around," Nick suggested, "I'll call Charlie and clear it. There are a lot of people to interview and we'll need some extra help."

"You've got me until five," Terry said, "After that, you're on your own."

"I intend to have it dealt with long before then," Nick said, "Who have you talked to so far, Terry?"

"Nobody in particular," Terry said, "Set up the perimeter and waited for them to send you."

"You're all heart," Corrie said dryly.

"Go to each floor and start talking to the residents," Nick instructed Terry, "Find out all you can about Mr. Wright."

"You got it," Terry said.

"Is he any good?" Corrie asked Nick.

"Passable," Nick shrugged, "Good enough for shit details. Not as dumb as Creighton but not as smart as Marcus or us."

"Good enough for me," Corrie said, "Let's see what we have here."

## Chapter 3

They milled around the room and looked at the bodies. Henry Wright's office was an opulent one, befitting of a man who had fought like a tiger to come from the bottom. There were photos and plaques, the usual vanity wall for a high powered executive. The photos of his family were also extremely prominent.

"How could she do him under the pictures of his family?" Corrie asked, wrinkling her nose.

"I'm not so sure she was," Nick said, taking a closer look at the bodies, "Come here and look at this."

Corrie walked over and took a good look at the corpses, both of whom had been shot at close range with a low caliber pistol. She crouched down and looked at the area between them and looked up at Nick.

"You must be seeing something I don't," Corrie said, "They're naked and in the right position."

"Look at the scar just to the left of his penis," Nick said, pointing with a latex gloved hand, "Have you ever seen one of those before?"

"No," Corrie chuckled, "I haven't seen any but yours for a long time now."

"It's a vasectomy scar," Nick explained, "Ol' Henry was shooting blanks."

"So?" Corrie asked him.

"So why does he have a condom on?" Nick asked her, "He didn't have to wear one."

"Disease prevention?" Corrie suggested.

"He's too rich to worry about that," Nick said, "And he's with his secretary, not some slut off the street. The condom doesn't look like it was put on very well either."

"You're right about that," Corrie nodded, "And that condom never entered that girl either. It's too clean."

"Posed, possibly?" Nick asked her.

"I'd say that's a definite possibility," Corrie said, "But the question is why?"

"And how," Nick said, "Lividity is correct and even the locations of the bullet holes are correct."

"Or are they?" Corrie said, "Take a look at the one on his head."

Nick looked closely at the one on the Henry Wright's head. It was a standard low caliber bullet hole, but there was entirely too little blood for it to be the death wound. Nick knew within seconds that it was post mortem.

"What really killed him?" Nick wondered, "And where the hell are the medical examiners?"

"Probably caught in traffic," Corrie said, "Radio said something about an accident on I-27."

"They'd best get here soon or the bodies won't even be cold anymore," Nick grumbled.

"Let's hope you're wrong on that, Jones," Robin Haskell said as she entered the room, "Sorry to keep you waiting."

"We've only been here a few minutes ourselves, Robin," Corrie said, "Don't let us get in the way. We just need to find out how they died and how long they've been dead."

"The head wound is post mortem," Nick said, "The rest of it I'll leave to you."

"You're so kind, Nick," Robin said with a mocking tone, "Remind me to look for you when Sissy and I need someone for artificial insemination."

Corrie snickered at that one. Nick had grown up in a world of criminals where women weren't respected and homosexuality was abhorrent. He'd gotten over the problems with women, Miller had long ago cured him of that, but homosexuality was a way to still bring a blush to Nick's cheeks. Corrie and Robin often had fun with him on this point when she was their ME.

"Perhaps we'd best find out how this man died," Nick said, "Huh?"

"Right," Robin nodded, "Let me get my pictures and then we'll turn the bodies."

"Let's do it before they go into rigor," Corrie suggested, "I hate pulling people apart like that."

"I'll be a few minutes," Robin said, "I'll come get you when I'm ready."

Nick nodded and they left the room to find Terry.

## Chapter 4

Terry was talking to one of the building's tenants out in the hallway when Nick interrupted him.

"Who found the body, Terry?" Nick asked him, "I want to talk with them."

"Security guard," Terry told him, "He's sitting in the office waiting room."

"Thanks," Corrie said.

Nick and Corrie went over and found the guard sitting and shifting around in his chair, much like anyone who finds a body would be. The guard looked fairly young and his uniform was actually rather ill fitting. He was also exceedingly annoyed at having to sit in waiting room under guard.

"Why am I here being treated like a criminal?" the security guard asked Nick, pointedly ignoring Corrie.

"You're being treated like a witness," Nick told him, "We're keeping you from being hounded by the press, who are already salivating like a wolf pack over this story."

"Great," The kid said, slumping back in his chair.

"What's your name," Corrie asked him.

"Morton," the kid said, "David Morton."

"How did you find them, David?" Nick asked him.

"I was doing my rounds," David said, shrugging his shoulders, "I came into the room because I saw it was open way too early. I found those two like that and I freaked."

"Did you know who it was?" Corrie asked him.

"Not a clue," the kid said, "I work the night shift, 11pm to 7am. Don't see many of the day tenants."

"How often do you check up here?" Corrie asked, "Do you do regular rounds?"

"Staggered times," the guard said, "They don't want it to be predictable so they have a clock downstairs. You hit the button when you finish a round. It'll put off a time between ten minutes and an hour and a half. When the bell rings you go off and do a round."

"And when did you find them?" Nick asked the kid.

"My last round," Morton told them, "The doors up here were shut until then."

"Did you hear anything on your rounds from this room?" Corrie asked him.

"The lights were off every time I came by," The kid said, "Right up until the time I found the doorway open."

"Did you see anyone strange in the building?" Corrie asked him.

"Just the usual," the kid said, "Mr. Sandusky and his secretary left at around 1am, but they've been having some after hours fun for months."

"Anyone who isn't usually here?" Nick asked him.

"Not a soul," the kid shrugged, "Never is during my shift. People start coming in at around 6am or so."

"Thanks," Nick said, "Stick around for a bit, kid. There will be some food brought in soon."

"Great," the kid said, "Listen, my shift is over and I'm beat."

"Take a nap," Corrie suggested, "You'll never be safer. There's a dozen cops in this building right now."

"Thanks," Morton said.

Nick and Corrie left the room and looked at each other. Neither one bought the kid's story completely. They were both confirmed cynics who had seen enough bullshit in the past to realize that something was wrong. The kid was too nervous to have told the whole truth.

"What was he lying about?" Nick asked Corrie, "You've generally got a better sense of that than I do."

"I don't know," Corrie shrugged, "He's lying about something though."

"Let's go see what Robin has come up with," Nick said, "I want to know how long they've been dead."

## Chapter 5

Robin had finished with the photography when they went back into the room. She was measuring the corpse's body temperature with a nifty little tool when she looked up at them. Nick tapped his foot a little while he waited.

"We're ready to move them," Robin said, "They've been dead approximately eight to twelve hours. Say 11 to 3?"

"Great," Nick said, "And the lividity proves that they weren't sitting anywhere after death except their positions."

"One thing is for sure," Robin said, "They didn't do anything on this couch. There's no fluids, no sweat. Even the waste didn't let go."

"We'd guessed that from the badly put on condom and vasectomy scar," Nick said, "Any guess as to how he died?"

"Not until I move him," Robin said, "You've got gloves on. Mind doing the honors, Nick?"

"Let's do it," Nick said, getting his lean frame into position.

Nick pulled up on Henry Wright's body and pulled. Robin snapped a few pictures and Corrie looked at the chest area. She traced a pattern and came up with a pattern about the size of a hand.

"I'd say that's a killing blow," Corrie said, "Right over the heart."

"I wonder if he had heart trouble," Nick said, "If he did that type of blow could knock him out quick."

"Check his desk," Robin said, "There's probably some pills in there if he had a heart condition. Most executives I've ever worked on kept them there."

Corrie went over to the desk and started going through the drawers. Sure enough, there happened to be a bottle of nitro pills in the desk. She held them up to Robin who nodded, not surprised in the slightest.

"I'll know more after they do the autopsy," Robin said, "But my best guess now is that someone thumped his heart pretty hard."

"The girl definitely died by gunshot wound," Corrie said, looking closer at her, "That wound definitely bled out properly."

"So she was killed this way and he wasn't," Nick said, "This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever."

"This also took some time to stage," Robin said as she looked over the bodies, "They did a fairly good job considering."

While Nick and Corrie looked at the bodies in the background Robin flipped on the news to check on the traffic so she could warn the body crew. Corrie looked at the television and realized what was missing.

"The kid was lying," Corrie said, staring, "He had to have been. You said the time of death is 11 to 3, right?"

"Probably," Robin said, "It wasn't a cold night and there was no air conditioning on in the building."

"This posing took at least some time," Corrie said, "And it had to be done with lights."

"The kid couldn't have made his rounds and missed it," Nick said, "But how can we prove it."

"The news crew has a camera on the skyline," Corrie said, "They were probably recording it."

"Fifth floor will be easy to spot," Robin said, "I like it."

"Let me call the station," Nick said, "Corrie, finish checking out the bodies."

"Right," Corrie nodded.

## Chapter 6

Nick spent a couple minutes counting windows and then called the news station. It took about ten minutes, but he finally found out the information he needed. He came over to the bodies and looked at Corrie.

"Good call," Nick said, "The lights in this suite were off from dusk until 11:12. From 11:12PM to 1:13AM they were on before turning off again, staying off for the rest of the night."

"I don't know, but you'd think the kid would have had to make a round in that time, wouldn't you?" Corrie asked him, "Something doesn't gel."

"We need to know why he was here that late," Nick said, "Any sign of the wife yet?"

"I forgot about her," Corrie admitted, "I'll go see if anyone has let her know yet."

"She's downstairs," Robin said, "I saw her when I was coming in."

"Why didn't you tell us?" Nick asked her.

"I thought you knew," she shrugged, "She was bawling against a man downstairs."

"I guess we should go talk with the widow," Nick said, "This is going to be fun."

"Is this some new previously undiscovered meaning of the word fun?" Corrie asked him.

"Funny," Nick said with a grimace as they headed to the elevator, "Really funny."

"I thought so," Corrie shrugged.

They went down and found that Robin was right, Mrs. Wright was standing there bawling along with her lawyer. Nick and Corrie went over to the woman. Corrie took the lead because she possessed much more tact than Nick could ever dream of having, something they both had used to their advantage in the past. They had perfected the "Good cop, bad cop" routine down to an art.

"Mrs. Wright?" Corrie asked, "I'm Detective Albiston, this is Detective Jones. We've been assigned to investigate your husband's murder."

"Can I see him now?" she asked Corrie, "I have to know!"

"I'm afraid not," Corrie said, "I can assure you it's him. He's been positively identified. No need to see him in that state."

"Do you have any suspects yet?" the lawyer asked them.

"We're still trying to piece together what happened," Corrie told him, "I was wondering if we could ask you some questions, Mrs. Wright?"

"Anything to help," she said, still sobbing a little, "Anything to catch this son of a bitch!"

"What was your husband doing down here this late?" Corrie asked her.

"Henry was a workaholic," she told them, "He had a big deal coming together that he was supposed to present on Monday. It wasn't unusual for him to work straight through a weekend before a big deal."

"When did you last see your husband?" Nick asked.

"He planned on starting tonight," Mrs. Wright told him, "He spent the evening with us and decided to come to work when he couldn't sleep."

"This wasn't planned?" Corrie asked her.

"No," she said, shaking her head, "He had actually left early last night to come spend time with us. He never did sleep much, so he would often come down to work when he was having fits of insomnia."

"Did you know Sandy Calitri?" Corrie asked her.

"She's been my husband's secretary for a couple years," she said, "Very competent. I've only met her a few times, but Henry said she was one of the best he'd ever had."

"I apologize for asking this now, but I have no choice," Corrie continued, "Were you and Henry having any problems at home?"

"It's always been up and down for us," she admitted, "But we always worked it out. I've never cheated on him and to my knowledge he never did on me."

"How bad was your husband's heart condition?" Nick asked her.

"He has had a couple heart attacks," the woman said, "His doctor was telling him that if it got much worse he'd need another bypass."

"What deal was he working on?" Corrie asked.

"I don't know, honestly," Mrs. Wright said, "I rarely paid attention to his deals. They made him happy, but my life was the family. That's the way we both liked it too."

"Nothing wrong with that," Corrie said with a smile, "We'll let you know if we find anything else."

Nick and Corrie walked back towards the elevators when the lawyer rushed over to them. Nick looked at him and wondered what the man wanted. Corrie shrugged and let Nick take the lead on this.

"Yes?" Nick asked him.

"Is it true that they found him..." he said, groping for words, "Entangled, shall we say... With Sandy Calitri?"

"That's how we found him," Nick confirmed, wondering whether this man could confirm it.

"There's no reason to publish that is there?" the lawyer asked hopefully, "It would be rather distressing to Mrs. Wright if that were released."

"We don't intend to release anything," Nick assured him, "Now can we ask you a few questions?"

"Sure," the lawyer said, "Though I was a personal attorney and know little of his finances."

"That's fine," Nick said, "That's more of what I need anyway. Would it surprise you to find out that he and Sandy were having an affair?"

"Frankly," the lawyer said, "The mere idea shocks me. Henry was devoted to his wife, Detective Jones. As far as I know he never looked at another woman."

"Do you know of anyone who wanted him dead?" Corrie asked him.

"No one," the lawyer shrugged, "He had enemies, but he was honest and didn't mix with the criminal types. That's why he backed the reformers. He wanted to see decent people running the city for the first time in memory."

"Right," Nick nodded, "Thanks."

## Chapter 7

Nick and Corrie got into the elevator and pushed five. Corrie leaned against the wall and looked at Nick. Nick shrugged his shoulders and just shook his head.

"This guy sounds too good to be true," Corrie said.

"It gels with what we know," Nick said, "I don't think he was having sex with her, but I think someone wants us to think he was."

"Why though?" Corrie said as the elevator came to a stop, "Who would want to do that? His family wouldn't do it that way. It would serve little purpose to his enemies, the elections are over and he wasn't running for anything himself, just funding candidates."

"Maybe we're falling into a trap," Nick said, "Maybe it has nothing to do with him?"

"Sandy Calitri?" Corrie said, "Why would someone want to kill a secretary?"

"Let's see what we can find out about her," Nick suggested, "Maybe someone hated her for some reason."

"Why haven't we seen any of the regular office workers yet?" Corrie wondered.

"Good question," Nick agreed, "It's definitely late enough. They should all be here."

Terry Moore was standing at the door talking to a young man. The man was mousy and wore really thick glasses, if anyone fit the stereotype of a nerd he was it. Nick and Corrie went over and looked at the young man.

"Terry," Nick said, "Who's your friend here?"

"Endicott Nichols the Third," the young man said, "I work here for Mr. Wright."

"You're the son of Senator Nichols, right?" Corrie asked him.

"Yes," the boy said, a little snobbishly, "My father is the senator."

"He just came in," Terry said, "I figured you were down with Mrs. Wright."

"Why are you coming in so late, Endicott?" Nick asked him, "It's nearly eleven."

"I always come in this late on Fridays," Endicott said, "This is a low paying intern position. Part of the deal I had with Mr. Wright was that I could spend Friday mornings at my Father's prayer breakfasts. I routinely show up about now and work until seven instead of five."

"No social life, Endicott?" Corrie asked him, knowing full well it was a useless question.

"Not really," Endicott shrugged, "I don't get many offers."

"What do you do here?" Nick asked him.

"I'm mainly a gopher," Endicott said, "Learning a bit about the real estate trade. I just finished my bachelors and Dad got me this job so I could get some practical experience. Mr. Wright is... was, I guess... a great man to work for. He was demanding, but he knew his limitations and your limitations."

"How about Sandy Calitri?" Corrie asked him, "What was she like to work with?"

"Sandy was competent," Endicott said, "She didn't like me much, but most people don't seem to."

"I wonder why," Corrie mumbled under her breath.

"Do you know anything about Sandy's family?" Nick asked him.

"I never saw her outside of here," Endicott shrugged, "I think she was single, she never said anything to me one way or the other."

"Where were you last night, Endicott?" Corrie asked.

"Am I a suspect?" Endicott said, worried.

"Everyone is a suspect until we can eliminate them," Corrie said, "Where were you, Endicott?"

"Sitting at my apartment in front of the computer," Endicott said, "Same place I usually am when I'm not here. Sorry I can't prove much."

"Who else usually works here?" Corrie asked him.

"We keep the office," Endicott told her, "He has other employees, but none of them work on site. Henry preferred to go to them and let Sandy answer the phones."

"Who covers Sandy when she's out?" Nick asked him.

"Usually the girl from the other office," Endicott told them, "The office down on three."

"Did he keep anything valuable here?" Nick queried.

"There were details on his deals in the file cabinets," Endicott shrugged, "Most of his dealings were public record. Can't figure out why anyone would kill him. He was more valuable to everyone alive."

"That's what I'm hearing," Nick said, grumbling.

"Stick around," Corrie said to Endicott Nichols, "We may have some more questions for you."

## Chapter 8

Nick and Corrie walked back into the office where Robin and the other CSI technicians were working on the office. Nick rubbed his temples and walked around the room trying to figure out what he was missing. Corrie looked at the bodies that were being moved onto stretchers.

"Who died first?" Corrie asked suddenly.

The CSI techs looked up, shrugging their shoulders. Robin looked at the bodies and then over at Corrie. Nick wondered what Corrie was thinking. She walked over and looked at the bodies again and then at the carpet that the techs were working on.

"The girl died first," Corrie said, "Had to have. She doesn't have struggle wounds on her and the blood splatters confirmed she died close to where she was."

"There are smears," Robin said, "The body was moved, but the blood that leaked out from his one post-mortem hole was stationary on her body."

"The big question is why?" Nick said.

"The girl had had sex," Robin said suddenly after taking a closer look, "She's dilated enough and there's some fluid in there."

"Not with him," Corrie said, "Condom was too clean."

"He doesn't look like he'd had an erection near death either," Robin said, "So who was she with?"

"Was it consensual?" Nick asked Robin.

"It was either rape or very rough," Robin said, "Probably rape."

"That puts a whole new slant on this," Corrie said, "So the fluid might be from the killer..."

"We know that whoever it was didn't plan on Henry Wright," Nick said, "Remember, she said that he left later in the evening and hadn't made plans."

"Let's go talk to the guard again," Corrie said, "I don't buy his story. If someone raped Sandy Calitri I doubt she was quiet about it."

"Agreed," Nick said, "I also don't buy he was the only guard."

"Terry!" Corrie yelled, "Was there another guard here?"

"Yeah," Terry said, coming into the room, "There's a desk guard, but he clocked out before the body was found. The kid spent his last hour at the desk and made the round where he found the bodies when the second shift front desk man came in."

"Have you found the other guard yet?" Nick asked him.

"I've got the blues out looking for him," Terry said, "He's not at home, haven't been able to find him yet."

"What's his name?" Nick asked.

"Roger Howard," Terry said, "Jake Robertson hit the house, nobody there."

Corrie went over to a telephone and made a call while Nick asked a few more questions. She had half a smile on her face when she came back to Nick. Nick and Terry looked at her curiously, wondering what she'd found.

"Robertson said the place looked like it wasn't inhabited," Corrie told him, "Mail was piling up and the newspaper hadn't been collected for about three days. Why do I get the feeling that the other guy wasn't here last night?"

"That might explain a bit," Nick said, "Shall we go have another chat with our guard?"

"I think that's prudent," Corrie nodded, "Can you run a check on both guards and on Endicott Nichols?"

"Sure," Terry said, "I'll have that information by the time you get done with the kid."

"Thanks," Corrie said.

## Chapter 9

Nick and Corrie went back to the room where the security guard was pacing nervously. Corrie walked in and sat down, looking at the guard with an expression of concern on her face. Nick saw that she was pulling the good, but worried cop routine, so he decided he'd be the one who was blustering.

"You've been lying to us, Morton," Nick said, "I want to know why."

"I haven't!" Morton protested, his face showing the lie.

"How many rounds did you make between 11 and 2?" Corrie asked him, "And don't lie to me."

"At least three!" Morton said, "The clock goes off at random intervals. Damned if I can remember when."

"And you saw nothing," Nick said, "Right?"

"Nothing at all!" Morton exclaimed.

"Then explain why the lights were on in the office," Corrie said, "From 11:12pm to 1:13AM, to be exact."

"You can't..." Morton said, the color draining out of his face.

"The news stations keep a camera on the skyline," Corrie said, "This building is visible and Henry's office is easily distinguishable."

"I didn't see anything..." The kid said.

"I know you're lying," Nick said, "Why don't we go down to the station..."

"You didn't make any rounds, did you Joe?" Corrie said, "You were down at the front desk all night."

"Huh?" Nick said, looking at Corrie.

It was obvious from the look on the kid's face that Corrie had hit it right on the money. Nick saw that Corrie had an idea and let her run with it, realizing that she'd have a better chance to pull the truth out of the kid if she knew what she was doing.

"Roger Howard didn't come to work last night," Corrie said, "In fact, I'd be willing to bet he hasn't been in all week."

"How could you know that..." Nick said and shut up again.

"Damn him," Joe sighed, "He and Julie wanted this vacation so badly. They'd saved up for it for a year and then the management denied the vacation time because they didn't want to pay for a substitute guard."

"So you and he devised a plan to give him his vacation and still get paid," Nick said, figuring out what was going on.

"Yes," Joe said dejectedly.

"You took the desk and faked the rounds," Corrie said, "Giving that lame excuse when the others showed up in the morning."

"Yes," Joe nodded.

"So you have no idea what happened up there," Nick said, "You know, you could have saved yourself a lot of trouble just by telling us the truth."

"I was trying to save my job," Joe said, "We're both going to get fired now."

"I won't say anything unless I have to," Nick shrugged, "If they were that cheap then they can waste the time to figure it out themselves."

"Since you were at the desk," Corrie said, "Who came in and out while you were here?"

"Nobody came in or out the front," Joe said, telling the truth, "I didn't even know they were here. They all had to have come in before I took the desk."

"Could someone have left without you seeing them?" Nick asked him.

"Sure," Joe said, "At eight the second shift locks all the doors but the front one, but they all have exit latches. Someone could easily have left without my seeing it."

"Stay put, Joe," Corrie said, "We'll come back and talk to you later."

Joe nodded and went back to the couch, much relieved at finally having the truth out. Nick and Corrie went back over to the office and looked around again.

## Chapter 10

Nick sat down on a chair and tried to play out in his head what had happened.

"Ok," Nick said, "So whoever the killer is came in here and raped Sandy Calitri."

"Right," Corrie nodded, "Probably right there on that couch, as it's the most convenient place to do something like that."

"So let's break it down," Nick said, "Sandy Calitri obviously fought a bit, with the killer finally ending her life with a pistol."

"Where did the pistol come from?" Corrie asked suddenly, "Did the killer bring it with him?"

"Terry," Nick said, "Did you check firearms records for Henry Wright?"

"There's a .38 caliber Colt," Terry said, looking at his notes, "I called that in an hour ago."

"Carry permit?" Nick asked him.

"Premises permit," Terry said, "This address. CSI has been looking for the weapon. I figured I'd tell you if we found it."

"Keep looking," Nick said, "So there was a gun here. Murder of opportunity?"

"So the killer rapes Calitri," Corrie said, "What happened after that?"

"Takes the gun from Henry's desk," Nick said, "If there was a gun here that's where it would be."

"Ok," Corrie nods, "Takes the gun and shoots Sandy Calitri. Where's Henry during all this?"

"Not here," Nick said simply, "He wouldn't have sat through Sandy being raped. A guy that rich wouldn't have had to take it from her by force either."

"I question your logic on that one," Corrie said, "But it's unlikely Wright would have been this stupid even if he had."

"Right," Nick said, "So he comes in and finds the killer with Sandy."

"Wright is surprised," Corrie said as she looked at the doorway, "Why didn't he run?"

"Woman in trouble," Nick said, "Chivalrous instinct. He couldn't tell she was dead yet."

"She might not have been," Corrie said, "She was probably in shock at the end."

"So he gets up and faces off with Henry," Nick said, "Why hit him flat hand to the heart?"

"Maybe the killer knew Henry had a heart condition?" Corrie said, "Could have been an inside job."

"So the killer gets up from Sandy and goes and thumps Henry," Nick said, tracing the steps, "Killing him."

"He goes and gets the gun he knows is in the desk," Corrie said, walking to the desk, "Since he knows he has no choice he kills Sandy Calitri."

"So why does he place the bodies like that and put a condom on Henry's dick?" Nick said, "That makes no sense."

"It makes perfect sense," Corrie smiled, "Think about it. What did that lawyer insinuate downstairs?"

"He wanted us to..." Nick smiled, "The killer was counting on us looking at the scene and not investigating it as close as we should have."

"It was improvised," Corrie said, "Too clumsy to have been planned out. They also couldn't have known that the guards were pulling that stunt."

"That just leaves the who," Nick said, "You don't think it could be Endicott Nichols do you?"

"Is he strong enough for that?" Corrie wondered.

"Sandy Calitri was small," Nick said, "And Henry was getting old and had a nasty heart condition."

"He's also got a record," Terry said, "Endicott Nichols is on probation for an attempted sexual assault three years ago."

"Why come back?" Nick said, "That doesn't make sense."

"Wait a minute..." Corrie said, "Endicott said he was at his father's prayer breakfast. Did anyone check that?"

"Give me a minute," Nick said and made another phone call to the television station.

"You realize how big a mess this will be if Endicott Nichols did it?" Robin asked them, "The trial will be a spectacle."

"No it won't," Nick said, "Senator Nichols will hang his son out to dry. He'll have to if he wants to stay in office. Endicott was not there this morning. Trace has been covering those breakfasts for two years and has yet to see Endicott at one."

"Endicott lied to us," Corrie said, "Imagine that."

"Let's go have a conversation with the young man," Nick said, "I think we need to find out where he was this morning."

## Chapter 11

Endicott was still sitting in the other room, looking as arrogant as ever. Nick and Corrie pulled up chairs in front of them, both of them wearing very serious expressions on their faces. He looked at the two cops with scorn and a smile on his face.

"Where were you this morning, Endicott?" Nick asked him, "You didn't quite make it to your father's prayer breakfast."

"Ok," Endicott shrugged, "So I slept in. So what?"

"You seem to have a thing for women," Nick said, "Young and pretty ones especially."

"Don't most people?" Endicott said, scowling at Nick.

"Most people don't assault them," Corrie said, "You have a record, Endicott."

"That was a misunderstanding," Endicott said, shrugging.

"I'm sure it started out that way with Sandy Calitri too," Nick said, "But it ended up with you raping her on the couch in your boss's office."

"Prove it," Endicott said, smiling in a way that proved it to both Nick and Corrie, "You'll never get it off the ground."

"Sure," Corrie said, looking at his hands, "Your hands will tell us all we need to know."

"My fingerprints are all over this place," Endicott shrugged, "Try again."

"Not your fingerprints," Corrie said, "The blood. Human blood doesn't wash off easily. It leaves stains on the hands, even after being washed off."

"Robin!" Nick yelled, "Can you bring the electrospectrograph out here so we can check for blood on Endicott's hand!"

"You can't!" Endicott said, standing up quickly, "That's not legal!"

"Sure it is," Corrie said, realizing what Nick was doing, "Your hands are in public view. We just have to aim the device at them."

"Then we just have to match your DNA to the semen in Sandy Calitri," Nick said, "It'll be easy enough."

"You won't find any cause I wore..." Endicott, very flustered by this point, started to say before he could stop himself.

"You wore a condom to rape her," Nick said, smiling, "It's over Endicott. I wouldn't say anything else. You have the right to remain silent..."

"Fuck you!" Endicott yelled and rushed Nick, his eyes appearing even wider in rage behind those thick glasses.

Nick dodged and watched the kid trip over Corrie's outstretched leg. Terry Moore and one of the uniformed police officers tried to catch the kid, but he went straight for the edge of the stairwell. Terry missed by inches as Endicott Nichols the Third went over the railing and tumbled into the abyss.

"Shit!" Nick exclaimed.

"Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy," Corrie said as she stood up and walked to the railing, "He did it, sure as hell."

"Is the electrospectrograph something new?" Terry asked them as they all peered down at the body lying five stories below, "I've never heard of it."

"It doesn't exist," Nick said, "I made it up to trip him up. Didn't quite expect that reaction though."

"Robin," Corrie said, "Run the DNA analysis. I'm betting you'll find enough to tie Nichols to it."

"No bet," Robin said, "This is the easiest case you'll have all year."

"Easy?" Nick said, "Not hardly! Do you know how friggen long Corrie and I are going to spend sitting in depositions about Endicott's death?"

"We'll be dealing with this case for a month," Corrie agreed.

"I guess we should call it in," Terry said, still looking down at the body, "Before someone notices."

"Probably should," Corrie agreed.

"I say let's go for Coffee first..." Nick said, looking away in disgust.

## Other Titles by Rodney Mountain

Immortal Universe Novels

The Healy Murders

Durell's Insurrection

The Accidental Immortal

Undercover

The Killer Strikes

Anoki's Revenge

The Immortal Progression

Corporate Immortality

Not With a Whisper

The Mullinix: Ascension

The Mullinix: Redemption

The Mullinix: Resolution

Other Works

The Black Fossil

