Rete and Trident Vol. 01

If looks could kill, I would be dead.

He said, "Cut the 'sir' crap Pete. We're not in the office and we're a lot more to each other than just a boss and employee."

I said, "However you want it, Matt." I deliberately said his first name as if it were a curse word.

"No thanks to you," he said, "Riley did survive. Are you telling me you haven't been paying attention to the news that has caused a 24 by 7 non-stop orgasm on CNN and Fox News for the last two weeks?"

I said, "I haven't turned on a TV or looked at the news since I arrived at the safe house. I've simply been laying low, biding my time, and following protocol."

I wasn't about to tell him I'd was also trying my best to excise the memories of his daughter out of my head using alcohol as a solvent.

He said, "The morning after you were ordered out of Darden county, Riley showed up at my house just before Marlene was to host a meeting of her book club. The state Riley was in caused Marlene to completely lose her shit. Luckily, none of her guests arrived yet, so there were no witnesses."

I asked, "Where is Riley now? Is she in witness protection? Has PT Hill's organization tried to go after her?"

He said, "You really don't know? Do you?"

"Know what? I have no idea what you're talking about."

***

Back at the beach house, I tossed Matt the keys to the door while I showered in the outdoor shower. The shower was fully enclosed, so I stripped naked and took a full shower, taking the time to shampoo my hair. Back in the house, I put on boxers, a pair of cargo shorts, and a tee shirt.

He debriefed me in the kitchen. It was the strangest debrief I'd ever been a part of. He took a long time setting up a laser mic jammer in the windows in the kitchen. All of the phones and electronics in the house were placed into large copper mesh pouches. He took a notepad out of a briefcase and turned to a handwritten list of questions.

Rather than asking me to go over exactly what happened that day, he gave me a timeline of what happened and at each point asked me to confirm in a yes/no fashion if what he said was correct. The timeline was clearly based on information he'd received from Riley. During this entire conversation I was prevented from volunteering any information.

He asked me many detailed questions on just a few items. Four topics were of interest to him: the reason I didn't leave right away, the breakdown where I got the shakes after I tied up the deputies, the snap decision to use soda lye on their genitals rather than the pepper spray gel, and my conversation with Luis. It became obvious he didn't want to discover anything new that would compromise me or Riley, and he was looking for cover for some of the decisions I made in the moment.

He occasionally made a terse handwritten note in the notebook.

At one point I said, "You probably should just let me talk, Matt. You already know everything incriminating."

He replied, "Shut up, Pete."

After two hours, he declared the debrief to be over. I took a bathroom break. When I got back, I found Matt going through the kitchen cabinets. He asked, "Do you have anything to drink?"

I said, "There are soft drinks and water in the fridge. The hard stuff is in the last cabinet over there."

He opened the hard-stuff cabinet and pulled out a bottle of bourbon. He smirked at the mostly empty bottle of Rabbit Hole Cavehill and said, "Looks like you've been hitting this stuff pretty hard, but at least you have good taste."

He poured himself a healthy three fingers into a tumbler with a couple ice cubes in it.

He asked, "One for you?"

I said, "Not until later, thanks. You mind if I have a sandwich? I usually eat about this time."

He said, "Go ahead."

I asked, "You want one? Ham and Swiss?"

He thought about it and said, "Why not?"

I made a couple of ham and cheese sandwiches. I put them on paper plates and set out on the table with a bag of ruffled potato chips. He sat down with me. He pulled a laptop out of a copper mesh bag and Manila folder out of his laptop bag.

He dumped the manila folder in front of me. He said, "I've received special authorization from the Secretary Bollard to give you this briefing. I'm about to brief you on what actually occurred in Darden county after you departed. This material is classified Top Secret under Echelon Lima Nine. The only people you are cleared to talk to about this information are DHS Secretary Seneca Bollard, Undersecretary Alan Raines of the I&A, me, you, and Riley. There are others on the list, but you are to avoid talking to anyone else. This is to protect your identity, understood?"

I nodded.

"Please note that no member of congress or their staffs are on that list. Only the POTUS in the Executive branch is on it. His own chief of staff doesn't even know. The VPOTUS isn't authorized, nor is anyone who is above Secretary Bollard in the chain of command other than POTUS. I repeat, there is no Congressional branch access to this material at this point. What actually happened would reveal vital national security secrets to people who are known to be compromised by foreign governments."

I gawked for a moment. Did he just tell me indirectly that almost the entire executive branch and key members of congress were compromised by a foreign government?

He gave me a look that confirmed exactly what I was thinking.

He said, "There are Patriot Act implications to this. Do you understand?"

I didn't really, so I shrugged. "I don't know the Patriot Act. Give me a couple of days and I could research it...."

He was exasperated. "Just read and sign these forms."

I read through them. They were non-disclosure agreements which said everything that he just said in legal terms.

I signed them. Matt witnessed my signatures.

He said, "After you left the house, Riley led Kimsu Theron to believe that if Kimsu shared the information on the smuggling operation, Riley would take that as a sign that Kimsu didn't actually mean her harm. Kimsu Theron spent the better part of the next two hours trying to convince Riley not to kill her. She outlined the scope and activities of PT Hill's operation quite comprehensively. Riley remembered a lot of the details. It was phenomenal intel. At the end of two hours, when your timer lockbox unlatched, Riley uncuffed herself.

"She put on the rubber gloves you left in the room and retrieved a pistol from the backpack. The pistol she pulled out happened to be the one belonging to Luis Gonzales. She proceeded to shoot and kill Kimsu Theron, PT Hill, Bob Litton, and Luis Gonzales. She covered their faces with a pillow and shot them twice each in the head. She stated very specifically, that's exactly how you instructed her to do it."

This was what I was secretly pushing her to do. Given that they were restrained, it would be low risk. It would largely end the threat to her person and fatally damage the smuggling operation. I thought she would do this and then get out of dodge. I would get my revenge by proxy.

I asked, "What about Mark Litton?"

"She freed Mark Litton from his cuffs. Mark spent several minutes in the shower washing off his crotch. While he did that, Riley packed some clothes into a suitcase. She took some of your clothes to Mark. After he dressed, he attacked her. He smacked her around and then almost choked her to death."

Matt got emotional, "The bruising was horrible, he left impressions of his fingers on her neck. Riley managed to kick him in the balls and work her way free. She fled to the kitchen. In the kitchen, Riley pulled a kitchen knife from the butcher block. Litton disarmed her and wounded her with the knife, giving her a nasty cut on her left forearm. She retreated back to the master bedroom with Mark in pursuit. When she got there, she picked up the bottle of Sodium Hydroxide and squirted it into Mark Litton's eyes. He fell to the ground in pain. Riley located the pistol, threw the comforter over him, then shot and killed him by firing twice into his head."

It was stupid beyond measure to let him go. Riley must have had real feelings for Mark to set him loose, especially after she executed his brother in front of him. I nodded to Gilbert.

He continued, "She showered, bound the wound to her forearm, and put on a fresh set of clothes. She put her soiled clothes into a tote bag. She said you instructed her to leave Gonzales' gun there at your house, so she did. From your house, she drove your car to Kimsu Theron's farm."

I interrupted, "Why would she do that? That's not what I told her to do."

Mark said, "So you wanted her to just kill Kimsu and the Sheriff and then exfiltrate?"

"Specifically, I said that if she wanted to shoot her way out of it, that's how she should do it," I replied cautiously. "I didn't tell her to do anything."

Mark grimaced and said, "You should choose your words more carefully. She thought you meant she had to kill everyone in the operation."

When he saw my reaction, he said, "Let me finish, Pete. She knocked on the door at Kimsu's house. Kimsu's husband Charlie opened the door. Riley said that her induction had gone bad and begged him for help. When he let her in, she pulled a gun on him and had him lie down in the living room. She covered his face with a pillow and shot and killed him with Mark Litton's gun. She left the gun at the scene."

Mark's hands were shaking as he killed his glass of bourbon and poured another.

"She then went to the Sheriff's house and let herself in. One of the things that Kimsu told her was how new members were introduced to the group at the Sheriff's house on the evening of an induction. The practice was for the couples to show up between 7:00 and 8:00 PM and then meet in the big entertainment room in the back. There would be a party and when everyone arrived, the Sheriff would take the new new woman in front of the group.

"Riley broke out the light in the long hall on the way to the entertainment room. She turned on the lights in the billiards room and turned the sound system up. She hid in the hall closet. As the arrivals walked by the closet, Kimsu would step out of the closet and shoot them in the back of the head from about four feet using PT Hill's pistol."

I wanted to laugh that Riley had used my stupid trick successfully too, but the look on Mark's face warned me that he might kill me if I did so.

"Riley cleared the bodies out of the hall by dragging the into the billiards room and immediately hiding back in the closet, where she would reload the pistol. She had two close calls. The first was when another couple arrived just as the previous couple was being shot. Riley was caught flat-footed in the hallway with the corpses. She had the presence of mind to go run down the hall towards the second couple screaming, 'He's got a gun, he's shooting!' They let her go by and after she did, she turned and shot them from behind.

"The second time, six people came in at the same time and the people in back of the group masked the ones in front. Luckily, the bullets went through the victims in the back and wounded the victims at the front. She ran out of bullets and had to reload before she could finish the folks in the front. Those who were just wounded begged for mercy. This gave her PTSD. She's experiencing recurring night terrors and anxious episodes from that. We've got a counselor working with her.

"All told, she killed nine women and five men at the Sheriff's house with that exact same M.O.. They tell me that hallway was just godawful-- blood spray, brains, and bone fragments everywhere. It was a damned abattoir. By the end, she was putting towels on the ground between the groups so that she wouldn't slip and fall."

I walked over to the cabinet and got a glass for myself and poured a good three fingers of Cavehill and downed it.

"As you instructed, she left both guns at the scene. She went out the back door to the pool and scrubbed herself clean in the pool. She went back inside and then showered in PT Hill's shower and changed clothes again, putting all of her soiled clothes into the tote in your car.

"At this point, the only inside members of PT Hill's organization who were still alive was Judge Halper, his wife, and two men who happened to be away on business. As Riley was leaving the house, PT Hill's cell phone, which was sitting on the kitchen counter, rang. Riley saw it was Judge Halper trying to call the Sheriff. She answered the phone. Halper congratulated her on joining the group that day and apologized for not making it to her induction ceremony. He said that he was about an hour away and asked if the party would still be going on then. Riley told him it would. He told her he would stop by the Sheriff's house.

"An hour later, when Judge Halper showed up, Riley was waiting for him outside. Riley was surprised to see Judge Halper's wife Althea in the front seat. Judge Halper rolled down his window and Riley said that the Sheriff said he could come inside or they could take Riley home with them for the night. Judge Halper told her to get in the back seat.

"As Halper started to drive away, Riley threw a towel over Althea's head and shot her twice with Bob Litton's pistol. Judge Halper turned around in panic and tried to grab the gun. Riley shot him in the face twice. She was temporarily blinded by a blacksplash of blood. The car was not in park, and the judge's corpse slumped down on the accelerator. The car accelerated across the Sheriff's driveway, drive across a section of lawn, and struck a large pine tree while traveling at a speed of about twenty miles an hour. Riley was not wearing her seatbelt and was thrown between the two front seats. She sustained two broken ribs, and multiple contusions to her arms and torso. She left Bob Litton's pistol in the car.

"At this point, she was covered with brains and blood again. He walked back around the house to the Sheriff's pool, submersed herself, and did her best to scrub herself clean a second time. She went back into the house and showered in the Sheriff's shower a second time. She changed clothes out of the suitcase in the trunk of your car. She put her soiled clothing, the tote bag, the rubber gloves, and the backpack into a fifty gallon trash bag.

"Riley left the Sheriff's house in your car and drove to her place of work. She dumped the trash bag into the dumpster for the fast food place behind her place of work. She knew the dumpster would be emptied the next morning. She was able to approach the dumpster from the rear, which she assumed would be a dead zone in the restaurant's security camera coverage. She was correct, it was not caught on camera.

"She drove back roads out of Darden county to Raleigh, which she said was what you told her to do. From Raleigh, she went North into Virginia on US 1. At 3:00 AM, she stopped at a rest area on I-85 in Southern Virginia and slept for a couple of hours until the sun rose. She proceeded north to 95 and drove to DC. She arrived in Fairfax in the morning just before my wife's book club members were scheduled to arrive. Riley's arms, torso, and neck were black and blue. The cut on her arm had bled through her bandage and had become infected. Riley was in shock, in a great deal of pain, seriously dehydrated, and psychologically traumatized. She was only partly lucid. My daughter refused to allow my wife to call 911. She insisted on calling me instead. Smart girl."

"When you called in safe, I scrambled some operatives to discretely see if they could grab Riley and bring her to safety. When they got there just after dark, Riley was still at the Sheriff's house. They called in the murder scene to our ops center and said that the Sheriff was dead but that Riley wasn't there, I had some hope that Riley escaped.

"After I received the call from Marlene that Riley was at home and needed medical attention, I had Marlene bring her to the DHS confidential secure clinic, which is nearby to the DHS building. They patched her up. Within an hour or two, Riley recovered enough to give me a quick debrief.

"They keep her in the clinic for four days before they felt Riley was safe to go home. When they discharged her. I moved her and Marlene into a safe house. I've only seen them on two occasions in last two weeks. The most recent visit was two days ago. The swelling and bruising on Riley's neck, arms, and torso have mostly healed. She's doing a lot better.

"Based on the call in of the murder scene, we scrambled a bunch of agents down there. Luckily, we were able to get a lot of boots on the ground in Darden county before any of the bodies were discovered. We instructed the agents at your house to declare a major crime scene and call in the FBI, knowing it would take them hours to get down there. This kept local law enforcement out.

"After the debrief with Riley, I sent agents to Kimsu Theron's house and the Sheriff's house to secure those sites. Their primary task was to pull out the camera footage and prevent local law enforcement from going in. Thankfully, there were no cameras or recording systems at any of the locations.

"When the FBI finally arrived, we told their senior agent in charge that you were a clandestine DHS agent. We told the FBI that you called in a panic message that you had been discovered, called for backup, and that presently you and your wife were missing and presumed dead.

"The FBI investigators did their best to figure out what happened, but couldn't put a narrative or a timeline together that made any sense to them. Your instructions for Riley were perfect. By using the officers' own pistols while wearing gloves and then dumping those pistols at different scenes was genius, Pete. Their investigation turned up no evidence that either you or Riley were at Kimsu's or PT Hill's houses. They found both of your DNA everywhere in your own house, and Riley's blood all over the kitchen from the knife wound. That was to be expected. I've seen the reports and the internal memos. The FBI doesn't have a clue what really happened.

"The media kerfuffle started right away. We allowed the FBI to take the lead on the PR side of it. Behind the scenes, we barred them from talking about you and Riley. We also used some legitimate jurisdictional issues as a fig leaf to limit what they could say. In the absence of solid facts, speculation ran rampant. By the time the official story came out, there was so much disinformation, the official story had no credibility.

"We got some unexpected help there. The FBI agent in charge is a real glory whore. When it looked like he would hold the bag on more then twenty unsolved murders, he played up the 'gangland slayings' angle in the press conferences. It is now known as the 'Darden county massacre' and has been covered wall-to-wall by the news networks since the day after you left."

"The official death total was twenty-four. The twenty-two people that Riley killed plus ostensibly the two of you. Your house was one of the major crime scenes and we couldn't keep your names out of it. We thought it was prudent to announce you both as victims. Sorry Pete, but you are officially dead. I had a quiet word with your folks just before your death was officially announced. Your immediate family knows that you're still alive and they've been sworn to secrecy. We'll get you a new identity next week. We got the DOD and the NSA scrub your history from the web. We can't have facial recognition screw you over ten years from now."

I asked, "What about the legal action I filed against Riley?"

He said, "We were monitoring your IP traffic through the VPN. Email attachments to recipients outside of our department go into an approval queue and we blocked it. Your lawyer friend never got your email. No papers were ever filed. Sorry, but we couldn't let that happen."

I accepted his statement philosophically. He had to act to protect the department. I asked, "Are you pissed at me for encouraging Riley to fight her way out?"