Overmatched - Pt. 02

I memorized the rehearsed questions I was told. They were in a progressing order but Felicia told me that any or all of them were invaluable if I could get them to answer. Felicia made it crystal clear that Biggs was expecting that I'd been with them. There were only a few agencies that could have gotten me out of a county jail and secreted me off to some hospital. She explained how I'd be searched and how to act naturally.

Again, with the hood for twenty minutes. Once removed, Felicia gave me a set of car keys and a 'good luck'. The problem was, I didn't feel all that lucky. Two other cars pulled out of the dirt lot and followed at some distance. I crossed the Idaho border at the mountain apex and made my descent. At the bottom of the grade, two other nondescript vehicles pulled out onto the highway as I passed them. I'd been made.

One of the black sedans passed and pulled in front of me. The other boxed me in from behind. As we neared the rest area, the one up front slowed considerably and the other came ridiculously close to my rear end. I followed the lead car off the freeway and I was led to park as far away from other vehicles as possible. One well-dressed guy, really big, walked up to my window and motioned for me to exit. When I did, he walked me over to their car. This is it, I thought.

We made our way north, using the back roads along the river, and crossed back into Montana near Libby. Another twenty minutes down a narrow dirt road led us to a log cabin in the absolute middle of nowhere. If my tails had lost me then my last known position would be at the rest area. I hoped the other tails who'd followed my would-be tormentors had done their job.

I was roughly dragged out of the car which also dragged me out of my reverie. One of the men zip-tied my hands in front of me and I was led, nearly duck-walked, into the small cabin. They all stood there awaiting my arrival.

A roaring fire burned in the stone hearth. To the left was a large desk. Mortimer sat there but arose as I was brought in. To his right and behind him, stood Jack Powers and my wife, Katie. Sitting in an antique chair opposite the fireplace was Claire Eastmond, sales lady extraordinaire. The two men pushed me down hard in the wooden chair placed in the center room.

I stared hard at my wife before Mortimer Biggs even began his rant. At first, she wouldn't meet my gaze but my eyes burned holes through her and finally, she looked at me. When one knows someone as well as I knew Katie, there's very little that can be masked. She was afraid, terrified, if I had to bet.

She also retained the feelings she had for me before I walked out on her so that was in my favor, I thought. Beyond that, she seemed nervous or was she embarrassed? Maybe I didn't know her as well as I presumed to. Time would tell but based on the anger and evil smirks around the room, time seemed less of a luxury.

"Weston," Biggs said spitefully. "Finally. The big reveal." His old man's laugh was maniacal as he stood and moved to the right of the desk. Claire also stood and came closer to me but not too close. Powers stood next to Katie and had just moved his arm around her waist. The two men who'd brought me were directly behind my chair on the left and the right.

"What a pain in the ass you've been," Biggs continued. He was such a bag of bloated wind I just knew we were all about to endure some speech. "But no matter. I told you what would happen and here you are. Fitting that we're all together." He turned to smile at Jack and Katie. "Except like everything else in life, some things have changed."

I had no idea nor proclivity that my protectors were surrounding the cabin like a Mark Wahlberg movie. I stared at Katie searching for something - anything - from our past happy times. I didn't see much, except perhaps some faint pity mixed with fear. I wasn't about to give Biggs the satisfaction of getting the last word in, even if they were going to kill me.

"Fuck off, you fat pig," I spat. "I enjoyed fucking with you and your company. It's too bad I won't be around to watch the end of you - all of you."

Mortimer turned to look at Powers with a chuckle. "I'm glad to hear it young man," his tone cynical. "I'll bet you had a blast, thinking you were outsmarting someone. Let me tell you a little secret, Weston. After you hacked our system the first time when you thought you were so clever that we hired you, that wasn't our reason. We took a deep dive into you and Katie and realized we had something special."

He open hand waved at Katie. "Two orphans with the kinds of skills that would help our organization. No families to get in the way." Biggs looked back at me just like at the party a year ago, like Jekyll and Hyde. "We didn't need your fucking computer skills," his voice now glazed over in hatred. "We needed her!" Again, he waved in my wife's direction.

"All you had to do," he told me while pulling a gun from the desk drawer, "was play along but you couldn't do it even after I explained how affable we were being - how accommodating..."

"Letting that sonofabitch impregnate my wife?" I screamed, letting it all out. "You took everything from me! Go on - kill me! Your days are numbered, motherfucker."

Mortimer raised his pistol at me. "You led us straight to your insignificant band of do-gooders, Weston. I want you to know your final failure as you take your last breath." Alas, all those questions I'd memorized weren't going to get asked.

As Biggs pointed his weapon center mass, Katie moved with an agility I didn't know she possessed. She grabbed the heavy glass paperweight from the desk and smashed my would-be killer in the right temple with it. Everything after that was a blur as multiple split-second actions occurred.

Mortimer's pistol went off, as the side of his face was crushed. The bullet sped across my right shoulder, just missing me. I heard a thud behind me as Biggs dropped the gun and landed in a heap. The side of his head was caved in and blood poured from his right eye.

A commotion ensued to my left as Jack ran towards my wife. Claire Eastmond had a gun and fired it at goon number two. He'd fired a shot and hit Claire in the stomach. Her sidearm slid across the floor towards me.

In front of me, Powers wrestled Biggs' S&W away from Katie and pointed it at me with a delighted smirk. Claire had a second weapon, though. As I lifted the gun toward Powers, another shot rang out. Claire had blown Powers away in the nick of time. When I looked over at Claire, she smiled, although clearly in agonizing pain. Then her gaze went over my right shoulder. I turned with the gun to see Katie with Jack's trained on ME!

"Don't do it, Katie!" I ordered her. "Drop it!" I heard both shots as I closed my eyes and fired. Seconds later, I felt the excruciating pain in my right shoulder just before losing consciousness.

Thirty hours later, I woke up in a facility near the base I'd been at earlier. Surgery had been performed to remove the bullet. After some explanation from the site doctor, I was left with Felicity by my side.

"Katie?" My searching eyes had asked the question long before the words escaped my lips.

Felicia looked upon me with compassion and shook her head. Surprising myself, I began to break down. It wasn't a surprise that I still loved her because I knew I did. My bewilderment was because I didn't hate what she'd done as much as I'd anticipated.

I listened as Felicia recounted what happened that night but I already knew, or so I thought. The cabin was surrounded by her mercs and of course, they had someone on the inside. That one threw me for a loop as I would have never taken Claire for a mole. The final reveal was the hardest to take.

"One of the bodyguards lying there by Claire was able to get his second sidearm," she recounted. "He shot you, left-handed, due to his initial wound. That's why you took it in the shoulder instead of in the chest. You thought Katie was going to shoot you but she was aiming at him when all three of you fired."

I'd killed my wife while she saved my life.

Once I was mostly recovered, I informed Felicia that I'd be leaving. She didn't try to hold me against my will but she did explain in great detail how that would be a death sentence.

"Why not stay," she implored. "At least for a while. We still need someone like you and you'll be well paid, not to mention, looked after." Resisting my urges to move on, I did stay.

Hacking the rich and powerful became a high for me. I felt no guilt about surveilling them or stealing from them. What they did to get the money meant it didn't really belong to them in the first place.

McMillin had swallowed up Worldview, incorporated in reverse. Their game had always been the food supply giving them far more clout than the billionaire bank owners. Turning off ATMs, or locking down personal bank accounts, in places where the populous resisted was easy to do. Certainly, it created a hardship but all people need food and water. Money only mattered to those who couldn't hunt, fish, and build shelters.

"You can have all the money in the world," was Felicia's famous saying. "But if you can't control ten billion people, you won't have it long." It sounded good, yet the premise was flawed in my way of thinking. Still, I worked hard to pinpoint McMillin's transactions, crimes, and most importantly, how they moved large sums of money and where.

It was eleven months since my night at the cabin. I'd come to understand a great many things and I was thankful. Grateful was a better word. First, I finally knew how fortunate I was to be alive. These people could shoot someone in the head, in their own home, and get the county sheriff to call it suicide.

I also worked on other teams occasionally to surveil other mega-corps around the world. It was on one such project in that eleventh month that I was approached by Felicia.

"I need you to go to Budapest," she said like it was nothing. "I like your beard and we're going to color it and your hair a little darker. You'll meet with a team of two other people there to bug the hotel room of a French banker, Jean-Pierre Durand. He'll be attending the World Forum there next month. We have a mere three weeks to get you up to speed."

I arrived at the airport and headed to baggage claim. A man stood there holding up a fake, coded name that only I was to know. We drove to a nondescript hotel across town from the forum. When I walked into the room, I almost collapsed.

One of the two people in the room was Katie. Her hair was very short and it was blonde instead of brown. She'd put on about ten to fifteen pounds as well. It looked good on her. Tears ran down my face as the realization hit me. I was overwhelmed.

"Katie?" I could barely talk.

She smiled her best smile and after only a momentary hesitation, came to me in a full embrace. I heard a small guttural moan escape her. She had her moment at the same time I did. Finally, we broke the embrace and stared into each other's eyes.

"You shot me, you bastard!" she exclaimed, half sad, half laughing.

Our third retired to her room to give us some space. I was still too shocked to speak.

"I'm kidding," Katie said as if apologetic. "I'm over that."

"How?" I asked, still dumbfounded, "Why?"

"The 'how' is simpler," taking my hand and leading me to the sofa. "You thought I was aiming at you; that I was going to shoot you, so you shot me."

Now her smile disappeared as she became more solemn. "That fact did take me quite a while to get over." She squeezed my hand. "But we were pretty fucked up and I can imagine you were coming to terms with losing your life in that cabin."

I raised my eyebrow instead of restating my question. "The 'why' is trickier," she said with a grand sigh. "What Felicia may not have shared was that the cabin was surrounded by Worldview and Dominion mercs alike. We didn't hear the firefight outside because all their weapons had suppressors. Thirteen men died outside the cabin that night, eight of them were Worldview. I had no idea that Claire was on team Dominion."

"Dominion?" I asked stupidly. Katie looked perplexed.

"Yeah, you know," she surprisingly replied. "Who you work for?" Seeing the look on my face, she'd framed her answer in the form of a question. "You never knew the name of the organization you've been helping?"

"No, I didn't want to," I told her. "Didn't ask and they didn't tell."

Katie shook her head in disbelief. "I had a clean way out. If I wasn't there, Mortimer's associates would believe that I'd been disposed of before they dealt with you. My blood and DNA were scrubbed before the authorities were called. Felicia said she was sure others in McMillin knew what he and Powers were doing to me. You were the loose end. They expected that with you embezzling their money, somehow, Dominion had found and contacted you which would explain the massacre without my presence."

"Why keep it from me?" I emotionally asked. "Why would Felicia do that? She had to know how depressed I was at the fact I'd killed my wife."

"She did," Katie answered right away. "Your pain became hers. That's why we are here together now." She scooted a bit closer and held my hand even tighter. "When we're finished with this assignment, we can be free to move on. New identities, a new life, are what she's promised. Would you want that?"

I did want it, more than anything, but I was oh so very tired of being played. In an instant, I decided I couldn't live like that.

"I don't know," I said sadly. "I'm tired of this life. I'm tired of humanity. In my view, Dominion, or whatever they call themselves, are only the other side of the Worldview coin. I've lost faith in people."

"I can understand that," she said. "After all, we both spent so many years alone, even when we were in full foster homes. What will you do? Go and spend time with your foster parents?"

"Honestly," I told her the truth, "I'm not entirely sure."

"Well," she let go with one hand and put it against my cheek. "I'd like to be a part of your life if you'll let me. I miss you and I've come to recognize that I need you." She got up then and headed for the kitchen asking if I was hungry. She wasn't going to push it.

Jean-Pierre was about as wealthy as they come. We were scanned coming and going, posing as caterers at three events held within his one-hundred-forty-acre villa. The equipment we were trying to plant needed to be swapped out for something scanners wouldn't detect and that couldn't be found with a standard body search. It was the very last day before we could plant the listening devices.

Katie and I spent our nights talking about everything just like the old days. She never tried to make a move on me - sexually - not even a kiss. That struck me as odd, given our former relationship, but I also remembered that was exactly how we'd gotten started all those years ago. I was enjoying her company immensely and she seemed to feel the same way.

On the final night before we were to fly back to the States, I asked her. "Why did you say we were free to leave Dominion?" I asked. "Felicia nor anyone else have said a word to me."

"That's because I'm awaiting your answer," she responded with a faint smile. "Have you given my proposal any more thought?"

I had. "I don't think so," I lied. "I'm not sure we can get it back. I couldn't stand another failure, or rejection, or whatever."

"I know it's scary," she empathetically said. "I have my own apprehensions but I don't want to give up on us, not after all we've been through. Let me ask this - do you still love me?"

There it was. "Yes," was my one-word answer. "But we'll need more."

Katie pondered that statement. "Okay," she began, "So we both still have one key component. Can we build from there?"

"That's the million-dollar question, Katie," I shrugged. "I'd like to but it's going to take time."

Katie nodded. "I know that and I'm prepared to give you all the time you need. We're both going to need that grace." She took a deep breath.

"We're here together now," she held my face tightly and leaned in. "We're together and we're going to get home or we'll make a new one somewhere."

"I'm not sure I..." was all I got out.

"Stop it, Andy!" she whisper-shouted. "Look at me. I love you. I've always loved you. Remember, you and me against the world?"

"Yeah," I spat, "except you were also with him. I've seen the emails. You fucked him in our bed! How could you?"

"You know how." She said imploringly. "What choice did I have? You left me unattended and alone. What was I to do - refuse him?"

I was tired of the same old argument. I was tired of everything - so very tired. "You could have left with me, Katie. You could have believed in me, not taken the easy path. Let me ask you something else?"

I thought I knew the answer, was pretty sure of it, but I had to hear it from her mouth. "Did Powers ever rape you?"

Her first expression was one of confusion as if I was insane. Then, she seemed to be breaking down my question and finally, maybe even from my point of view. All that happened quickly and I saw her rapid eye movement, as she tried to formulate an answer.

"No," she stared right at me, rather than drop her head. "No, I suppose he didn't. Not by my husband's standards anyway."

"If they'd never have found me," I asked directly, "Would you have taken up with him?"

"Of course, I would have," she replied just as quickly. "I was trapped. Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide. Just because I wasn't willing to risk my life, it doesn't mean I cared for him in any way. From my point of view, he forced himself on me EVERY time. That's hard for you to understand because I didn't fight back."

There was a long silence as we collected our thoughts. She seemed faster.

"Andy," she started, "I understand we've been to hell and back. I also don't think we've lost love, at least in the abstract. To me, our issues revolve around respect and trust - mostly trust. You can tell me but I feel like you want to move forward with someone who will genuinely listen to you and validate your ideas or, at the bare minimum, voraciously and sincerely discuss them. I didn't do that when you almost begged me to leave with you. I thought I knew better.

"And while we're there, until that night at the O.K. Corral, I believed that I was right because I was higher up on the corporate ladder - closer to the action than you. It was only after that night that I realized that I'd let my pride lead my actions. Besides my own shortcomings and Powers' promises not to bad-mouth you, I fell into the trap of subconscious berating. You were no longer employed. You would eventually fold under the weight of a more powerful man. That sort of thing. Without knowing it, I was gradually devaluing you as my husband. That's something that hurts me most because I let it happen and I'd very much like the chance to set things right in that regard."

She'd given me a mouthful - a confession of sorts. I decided to be quiet and think carefully before speaking. The moment was too important to wing it.

"There's more than that, Katie," I said with a deep breath. "I was devalued, as you put it, from the moment of the party. You knew what was going to happen and, sure, you've said over and over you were trying to protect me, but it hurt that you didn't trust me enough to warn me - to give me a heads-up. We've always been a team. You need to acknowledge that was a shortcoming of yours as well. You need to admit it and promise to never shut me out of any decision again, no matter how big or small."

Katie didn't quickly agree to placate me. That was a good sign. "I thought I was doing the right thing," she softly replied.

"Maybe," I immediately responded. "But put yourself in my shoes. That's all you need to do to gain understanding. During our entire ordeal, I was never unreasonable, Katie, I just got fed up with your disrespect. We'd have a lot of repair work to do in our relationship. You just said it and you'd have to work on restoring respect and trust. If you can't commit to that, then we shouldn't waste our time."