Not Quite a White Knight Pt. 06a

That turned the waterworks on, rather stronger, but she cuddled into me and sought the comfort of my embrace. Which had not changed, I still had my arms around her and my weight on her. But she seemed better with it now, she just needed to cry it out.

After about five minutes more we started to untangle. We really had to leave. She spoke. "I was selfish, I forgot about your life and those who depend on each of us. I promise you I will do as you wish, graduating college and finding a good man... but he won't measure up to you, I know it."

"When you present him with his first child the memory of me will fade to a distant memory... as it should."

"Please, can we do things together for a time? I so want you."

"Oh yes, I have promised you spankings! We will be together, when I can, for a time. But there are rules that must be followed... other priorities. Honestly, other women like Abril, we have a job to do."

"Rules... like no hanky-panky for you unless your men... I understand that. I don't understand Abril, but I will be good."

We cleaned up and went to get Sara. She was ready and just handing off the baby to her neighbor, who was very sorry for holding me up. I made baby sounds and said nice things about her wonderful joy of a child. It was not a problem and things would work out. I got mother and baby to smile, I am very charming because Marta taught me well. Even Sara giggled.

Then the three of us trooped off to the garage and my heavy Ford crew cab.

Sara noticed Cynthia's lips but did not comment. Her look said that she was not the only one banking a little happiness.

When Sara, Cynthia and I got to the truck Chico had left a small paper bag on the roof. Fireworks for the necklaces. I tossed the bag in back. Sara rode shotgun because we had to talk. Cynthia would run down some Zs in back. Given the tension she had tasted lately I expected them Zs she caught would be deep with very pleasant dreams.

Five minutes later were on the highway and Cynthia was already sleeping.

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Chapter 40. Sara.

Sara was a full member of 49, a few years older than me; this was a job she did well but did not like. Her unique skills were sometimes requested for the good of her home and family. It was a concept she had grown up with in her homeland. She had fallen in love with one of our older members, Diego Gomez, after leaving Israel due to the violence there. She had worked with Mossad so she saw some of the worst.

She joined the army of her homeland, most women serve. Because she had some language skills she was attached to an interrogation unit. She was not formally trained, Sara was regular army, but she was a lot better than most at the business of getting information. Because she was not Mossad, she did not enjoy the security precautions after discharge. When her name and picture got out she was targeted by a suicide bomber and had to leave. She picked the US. Here she met her husband who worked at the Long Beach port. Based on his income they could afford a middle class home, but they chose the apartment for the kids they planned on having.

Right off Sara told me that she was pregnant - early first trimester, so I was to hold it in confidence. Hormones were why she had taken the baby even though she was on call. I understood. I said the right things, trying to be sincere about things I did not feel like Marta stressed, but Sara cut it short, she wanted to talk business.

I explained that this would probably be a short assignment, but she would be helpful in the early stages, especially with the non-ganger couple we had captured and the Sharks. She was welcome to try and reach the ninos, but they were crazy fanatics and were probably a lost cause.

"What did these people do?"

"They are assassins hired to kill me. I wasn't exactly fair about turning the tables, but I will live longer that way."

"That is something I had figured out about you. Okay, who are they?"

"The 4 ninos are very expensive assassins. But I guessed how they were coming at me - they did not know who I was, only the car I drove - so I led them to an ambush. Now I want the guy who set them on me. That is the only reason they still live. Well, that and they are messy to transport with holes in them."

Then I told her I was willing to be more flexible with the Mustang folks and even the Sharks, depending on what they gave us.

I explained about last Friday night's machetes in the basement, what we thought at first, and what we now knew. She did not know that was my work in the Sunday paper but picked it up quickly. Then I explained the hard part, the ninos looked to be under 20. She had seen younger suicide bombers. Her suicide bomber was a 13-year old girl Sara shot just outside the family home as she was angled to go through the front window with a bomb vest.

When she heard my plan she agreed it might work to snap the semi-religious programming that held the kids. Since the guy shot in the leg would die anyway, she agreed we should use that death to make a point. I planned to necklace him with a thermite chaser in less than 20 hours, after sundown Friday. The driver was penciled in for the next day.

She did recall a TV crime drama (a Law & Order episode) that centered on Hispanic teen-age assassins conditioned with video games, drugs, food and sex. That show was sanitized, plus these guys did not have the sex. I mentioned the movie "Hitman" which was a similar model. Kidnapping was a for-profit enterprise Mexico, and the ninos started there. They also were used against judges, prosecutors and witnesses.

I explained. "Have you ever heard the statement, attributed to the Jesuits, that goes: 'Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man.' Well, the ninos' owners acquire young orphans and raise them. They prune the ranks with 'hunger games' death events, starting at age 5. Then come custom-made violent video games, real weapons and physical training. Their real-life scores set their game attributes. By 12 they are ready for their first assignment, which is often another child or a woman. One of these killed 16 people, with over 30 collateral deaths. There is a retirement myth much like the Perfumed Garden of the ancient assassins in the Middle East. Do you recall who conquered the Assassins? And the means?"

Sara was probably the only one of 49 who knew the answer of the top of her head.

"Mongols. The Assassins ruled several kingdoms as shadow rulers using the threat of assassination, they were seen as unstoppable plus they had a fortress that was considered unassailable. The cowardly leaders involved were dealmakers who lived soft lives. All were predisposed to leave the economic infrastructure intact to enrich themselves. They used brutal soldiers against disarmed citizens. These leaders feared death, and that fear gave great power to the mystical assassins. Then the Mongols came on their 'world conquest' tour."

"The Mongols were different, they gave no thought to wiping out 95% of the population in a town, and they were very good at doing it quickly, without proper clean-up. They did not care about infrastructure, they just wanted to claim the land and move on. They were naturally fearless warriors, with the leaders being among their best, so they were not afraid of assassins in the dark, and 'fear' was the assassin's main weapon. They rolled up siege engines and turned the unassailable fortress to rubble."

I continued. "From the video games the ninos have a strange view of death, they think they will just start another life; the video games gives them three spare lives. That is why death is no threat. If I waterboard them, they will die happy before they tell me anything. They are so young they just cannot weigh consequences."

My problem was that I had to convince some guys who considered themselves 'as good as dead' to talk.

We both knew that the ancient Roman's had a problem in that there were so many slaves they had to rely on. To keep the slaves in line they needed a punishment that was worse than anything the slave could think of, something much worse than suicide or any quick death. They used crucifixion. If you watch a real one, somebody you know, you will live in extreme fear of the same fate. But I don't have time for that, so I will borrow necklacing from South Africa, starting with the official rulebook for Winnie's 'Mandela United Football Club.' I intended to tie the others up close enough so they could get the whole 'backstage-pass' experience: sight, sound, smell, feel of the heat, and a taste in the air. I intended to add one special extra - a pouch of thermite placed in the mouth.

Chico was my chemist. I had expressed a concern the thermite would not light, so Chico added 5% accelerant to the mix. When I asked him what he just grinned and said "rocket fuel." Chico has such a sense of humor, but one never knows with him.

The thermite would not ignite until the guy was dead; the demonstration was for the living. The thermite fire would be much brighter and hotter, with burning metal dripping from the head cavity as the skull was vaporized from the inside. Even at some distance, they would feel the massive increased heat from the thermite. To the ninos it was intended to look and feel as if a doorway to hell had opened to swallow the "soul" of the assassin. I would say that there would be no reboot for this nino, because he was summoned straight to the flames of the abyss to account to the immortal fallen angel ruler there for his faults and failures.

I think one of the other ninos might crack. Sara agreed.

Sara did not ask about Cynthia, she just gave me a look that said volumes. But I can't help it if I am so damn attractive. She laughed.

The truck was faster than the van, so I got there only about 15 minutes after the troops. When we got to Bad the meat was ready to unload. The Captain had called ahead so the A/C was on. The main priority was getting people into their cells securely. The big Shark and the Mustang driver went directly to interrogation.

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Toad took this facility as a prize.

Profitable kidnapping usually requires an inside man who knows what the monetary limits are. In most gangs the insider is low in the gang, or maybe is not in the gang at all, but in this case the insiders were a group of wealthy financial consultants, their clients were the people they kidnapped. These six greedy men, all frat brothers, were sitting around talking about their rich clients, their money and how it would be nice to get a piece for themselves. Then they saw a movie with a kidnapping. After that the plan wrote itself.

The ring operated in LA, Vegas, and San Diego, where the financial guys worked. They figured that many kidnappings go bad because they lack a really good holding facility. So they invested and built one with imported labor. It is not quite the resort shown in the blueprints filed with the county. Their first victim paid for the facility. They made their demands reasonable relative to the target's liquid resources so they got paid fast. The next three victims made lots of money. Then for #5 they took the wrong guy.

Kidnap victim #5 was the junkie son of an unconvicted criminal, a fraud specialist who became an art broker. The kidnappers had no idea about the father's criminal past or contacts. The father did not want the bloodsucker kid back, but he was worried his daughter might be snatched next. He did not have the skill set to go after the kidnappers, but he knew Toad, and financed him to get the bastards. Toad used both of his crews, his gringos started in LA and his Mexicans started in Vegas, where the snatch was made. Nobody told the cops, Toad used methods the FBI could not use. He grabbed up the kidnap team starting from the bottom, asking questions the hard way and working up until he had all the insiders housed in the lockup they had built.

Toad was not concerned with returning the cowardly frat-boy criminals in good condition to the justice system that used "reasonable doubt" and excluded evidence obtained unpleasantly; instead he used his own slow, painful process to separate the men from their considerable money and property. Since some late guards had raped two of the women victims "to motivate faster payment," his men returned the favor to all 6 of the frat boys. Pictures were sent to the women. Their nightmares stopped.

The kidnappers had built 4 buildings, all connected to form a hollow rectangle with a secure central courtyard. It was miles from any road or city, with flat land giving excellent visibility,

One building was a caretaker's house with 7 well-appointed bedrooms. This had the widest "front" so it hid the rest of the complex from anyone driving up. Now one of Toad's old crew lived as a caretaker with his wife and 2 teenage boys. The boys got a good US education and planned to go to college. After the second boy graduated high school in two years the adults might move elsewhere. These caretakers were isolated from the other activities at the site, they could not even see the courtyard. Regular and IR (Infra-Red) cameras, a barbwire fence and motion detectors covered the perimeter. We tried not to disturb them in any way.

Connecting to the caretaker's home was the barracks for the soldiers with shower, mess hall, storage rooms and one privacy room. The common sleeping room was as I had described to Cynthia, essentially 10 open stalls, each with a cot, a chair, and a locker for belongings, separated by walls four-feet tall.

In back was the prison. There were 10 cells, each soundproof, with corridors and doors placed so no prisoner saw another, not even coming or going. For management the men all had shock attachments on their genitals and were otherwise naked at all times. The woman wore a shock belt. All cells were on camera and recorded 24/7 when occupied. The prison wing had two regular interrogation rooms and a third room that was clearly a torture room, all arranged around a central observation room. In the interrogation rooms the prisoners were usually strapped into a seated position in wheelchair that was used to move them around The torture room featured a chair modeled after the torture chair shown briefly in Star Wars 5. Some of it was pure show.

The fourth building was a garage. The place was very isolated in the desert, so vehicles were essential.

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