Too High a Price

"I understand. We'll be there."

Whoever was on board seemed to be alone and agitated. He would be hyper alert and not easy to get to. John's advantage depended entirely on stealth and surprise. If someone got their hands on him they could easily overpower him and he would be dead. So he waited quietly in the dark.

It was sometime after midnight, judging by the movement of the moon when he heard whispering voices at the far end of the dock. He sat quietly as they drew nearer until he could identify them. Rothstein was upset, his voice shaking in anger at the discovery of the men, dead in his house. More than that he was upset to have to leave his island, maybe forever.

"How could they have found out? There was no paper trail, there were no phone calls. It's impossible!"

John was shocked by the other voice. In an uncharacteristically conciliatory tone, Ms McNeal answered him.

"Mr Rothstein, it has to have been an informer. There is no other way. Perhaps it was Ginsberg. It would explain why he disappeared so abruptly."

"Bah, no. He was one of my acolytes. I was grooming him to take my place. Why would he turn on me?"

"I can't imagine. Perhaps Mrs Bronstein or one of her people? She's always gone to great lengths to worm her way into your circle."

"She may already be dead. If so we'll never know. Damn."

"So you suspected her all along?"

"She was far too eager." He chuckled in a caricature of the evil villian. "Though her most recent gift was delicious. Wasn't she?"

"Yes, I suppose. What do you think happened to her?"

"Probably smashed on the rocks below the house, frail little thing. It doesn't matter."

When they arrived at the boat they stood no more than fifteen feet from John. Their conversation had stopped abruptly, perhaps because whoever was on the boat wasn't a member of the inner circle. Ms McNeal called out.

"Captain! David! We're ready to board!"

Suddenly the blackness was pushed back as a door opened to the cockpit. John cringed at his exposed position and hoped that no one would glance his way. The captain helped Rothstein aboard, leaving Ms McNeal to fend for herself. A moment later the door closed behind them and the dock was once again plunged into near darkness.

He was certain now that there were only three people on board so he crept aboard without fear of discovery. Just as his bare foot touched the boat, loud buzzers began wailing and the muted roar of the engine compartment fans could be heard. After a few minutes one engine started and when it settled into a steady idle, the other started as well. Soon the captain would be out here, quickly untying the lines from the dock.

John had a decision to make. Without a crew the captain would be in a hurry and focused on his task, easy enough to kill. If he waited he risked being caught and even old Rothstein had shown himself able to subdue him without too much effort. In the end it didn't matter.

He heard a noise behind him and spun around to see the captain coming at him quickly from the darkened bow. He was in his fifties and looked tough but his attempt to grab John was clumsy.

He lashed out with the paring knife and pulled back just as quickly, leaving a small but deep cut in the captain's inner thigh just below the hem of his shorts. He roared at John more in anger than in pain.

"You little cunt! You'll pay for that!"

John stepped aside gracefully as he lunged for him and slipped on the wet deck. Looking down he saw that he was standing in a growing puddle of blood, pouring from the open artery in his thigh.

Again he lunged but lost his footing and John stepped under his flailing arm and punched him three times in the gut with the knife before withdrawing. Now the captain knew that he was in trouble as he watched blood and other fluids pour from the abdominal punctures.

He swayed on his feet, growing light headed from loss of blood and fell to one knee. Too quickly to follow, the blade punctured his left eye. He covered the ruined eye with a bloody hand and made one last futile effort to grab John.

The fight was over so John just stepped back out of reach and waited for him to bleed out.

With a shaky voice he asked John, "Who the fuck are you?"

"I'm the girl that you sub-humans raped every day for the last month. I'm the girl who will make you all pay for what you did to those three innocent girls in the bunker."

The captain never said another word, he just sagged on the blood stained deck and breathed his last.

The next step was the most dangerous. They must have heard the commotion from inside and for all John knew were waiting for him with shotguns. They were trapped inside though and he had all the time in the world so he waited.

It was only a matter of time before they tried to sneak out and considering what kind of person Rothstein was he knew it would be Ms McNeal. Sure enough, just as the eastern sky began to lighten the cockpit door slowly opened. Maybe they figured he would have fallen asleep by now but he had been on too many night missions to be that weak.

Squatting on the gunwale above the cockpit door, hidden from view he waited. Ms McNeal crept out and along the side of the cockpit trying to stay out of sight. She looked up suddenly and screamed at the sight of the pistol aimed at her.

"You!? What are you doing?"

"I thought that me pointing a gun at your head might make that obvious. Now lay down on the deck. There in the middle."

Her spine stiffened with certainty. "You won't shoot me. You're too nice of a girl."

A shot rang out, shattering Ms McNeal's knee cap and she fell to the deck screaming, frantically clutching her ruined knee. After a few minutes she quieted down to just sobbing as she stared at John in fear.

"You're wrong Ms McNeal, I'm really not that nice."

"What are you going to do to me?"

"I haven't decided yet. I might kill you. Or I might not, it all depends. I am going to kill Rothstein though. So tell me, what is he doing in there?"

John didn't even have to explain to her how if she cooperated she could live. She figured that out all on her own and just started talking.

"He's locked himself in the master's cabin. He has a shotgun that belongs to the captain. He wouldn't let me take it."

That last was said with resentment as she realized that he considered her to be expendable.

"So where are we, anyway?"

"Southern Bahamas, way off the beaten path. Why?"

Now she was getting downright conversational. She really wanted to live.

"Well I considered just burning the boat and turning him to ashes but now that sounds like too far to swim. I'll just have to root him out of his hole."

"How are you going to do that?"

"What, no faith? What do you think I am, a fifteen year old girl?"

John left her there, bleeding and confused and made his way quietly down the stairs. It was dark but he had no trouble seeing the layout. The master cabin was ahead but he'd cleared too many buildings to ever leave an uncleared room behind him so he lowered himself to the floor and peered through the half open door.

There, on the far side of the bed, was Rothstein's reflection in the gaudy chrome trim of the closet.

Not being in the mood for unnecessary risks like getting in a gunfight with a shotgun, John just aimed carefully and fired a round through the armoire and into his thigh. Immediately there was a reflexive shotgun blast through the ceiling before the gun clattered to the floor.

John stepped inside and around the bed to find Rothstein rolling around on the floor crying and screaming that he was shot. After he tossed the shotgun on the bed John joined it, sitting in a comfortable, even sultry pose. The effect was apparently ruined by the dried, smeared blood on his otherwise perfect body because for a change he wasn't looking at John like the pervert that he was. He was afraid.

"What's the matter, Rothstein? You're not looking so good. In fact you look like you might be in a little pain."

Not surprisingly Rothstein didn't answer so John taunted him some more.

"Look at you, not even smart enough to carry on a conversation."

A flash of anger lit Rothstein's eyes. "Who the hell are you?"

"Oh, I'm just a pretty little fifteen year old girl, the girl who will make you pay for your crimes."

"You can't touch me, I'm too well connected. Besides, we're not in American waters."

"You really are stupid, aren't you? I'm not going to call the police, I'm not going to call anyone. I'm going to make you pay myself."

Rothstein's anger first turned to confusion and then into doubt. He wasn't quite there so John continued.

"You remember that disgusting, smelly, hairy back moron named Ginsberg don't you? Wouldn't you like to know what happened to him?"

Rothstein just stared defiantly at him.

"I'll take that as a yes. Well I gutted him. I slipped a knife into his gut right about here and I slit him open and spilled his guts out. He was so scared, you should have seen his face. I'm sure that the crabs have eaten him by now. And the moron who came on this boat? Not the first mate, the other moron. I slit his throat from ear to ear. He was a real squirter as you can see from my hair. The first mate and your dipshit follower, Adam was it? I shot them both in the head. Your guy was still twitching when I left him. He might even still be alive. Except that some of his brains are on the carpet. You don't really care though, do you?"

"What are you going to do with me?"

"I've put a lot of thought into it. I was going to torture you, I had some great ideas, I swear, but honestly I'm kinda bored with this."

With that John raised the pistol and when Rothstein realized what he was going to do, his eyes grew wide with fright. John shot him. It took him a while and it was a lot of work but eventually John got Rothstein's body up the stairs and into the water. The captain joined him. Then John took the shotgun for a walk back up the dock to where Ms McNeal was still dragging herself along and he shot her too.

John paid for the shorts and blouse and returned to the dressing room to put them on. Looking in the long mirror he decided that it was a cute outfit, white cotton short shorts and a peach colored gauze button up blouse. They were perfect, especially the price.

He still couldn't believe that on that entire yacht worth many millions, there was only one hundred and twenty one dollars in cash. So buying an outfit for only thirty-ish dollars was important. He stepped into his new flip flops and headed out the door, dropping the dirty and wrinkled shirt borrowed from the late captain into a trash can.

This part of the boardwalk was mostly surf shops and cheesy tee shirt shops with the occasional place to eat. The little pizza joint across the street seemed busy still so he headed that way. He bought a slice of pepperoni and a Sprite, not because he was particularly hungry but as a cover and then he picked out the biggest table on the patio.

He nibbled on his pizza for a while when just as he'd hoped, four too tanned boys in baggies and no shirts sat down. They were boisterous and reasonably polite and each of them seemed to be working up the nerve to talk to him.

He was tired of waiting so he picked one of the boys out and smiled shyly at him. He was tall and lanky with messy dirty blonde hair and looked to be around fifteen or sixteen. He took the bait and introduced himself. After a few minutes of inane small talk John did what he came here for and asked if he could borrow the boy's cellphone to call his dad. He eagerly unlocked his iPhone and handed it over.

John dialed the long distance emergency number and after three rings it picked up, though nobody answered. He dialed the extension for immediate call back and was promptly disconnected. Ten seconds later the phone rang with an awful rap music ringtone.

"This is Jane," he answered with the 'I'm safe and not under duress' codename.

Mr Green answered with a worried tone, "Jesus, where have you been?"

John was relieved to hear his voice but he ignored the question and proceeded to tell him what he needed to do.

"Yeah, I'm at Skinny's Pizza on First Street in Sebastian. Can you come pick me up? I lost my purse and it had everything in it, my cell phone, my I'D and all my money."

"Yeah, it'll take me... say four hours. I'll have to make some replacements."

"Oh, and I heard about your team. They need some practice. So does the second string."

That comment resulted in silence while he deciphered John's meaning, including the implication that he wasn't alone.

"You need a team in Sebastian? Tactical, clean-up or forensic?"

"Ooh, the second two sounds good."

"And the second team?"

"The same. Oh, to the Bahamas? That'll be so much fun!"

"That one will take some time but we'll see you in four hours."

"Okay. Love you, bye!"

John broke the connection and gave Hunter his phone back, then spent the rest of the afternoon fending off four horny teenage boys.

John climbed into the obviously government issue Suburban, tinted windows and roof antennas included and put the seatbelt on. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath and sighed, feeling safe for the first time in weeks. Mr Green didn't say a word.

The truck pulled away from the curb and drove a few blocks, parking in a nearly empty boat ramp parking lot. It was time to wrap this up.

"Nice truck Mr Green. I hope you're not trying for inconspicuous. You should have seen the looks you got when you pulled up."

"You wanted teams. This has comms. Speaking of teams, I assume this is time sensitive."

"Yeah. There's a yacht anchored in the river, apparently belongs to Rothstein. It needs to be swept for intelligence and scrubbed by the cleaners, then disposed of. He won't be needing it anymore."

"Rothstein? He's dead?"

"Yeah. Also three of his associates, the yacht captain and two crewmen, a Ms McNeal who worked for Mrs Bronstein and of course, Ginsberg."

"Holy shit."

"Well you said that you wanted some action."

"Yes, I did say that."

"Where are the bodies?"

"The Bahamas. There's a private island apparently owned by Rothstein with a lagoon, a nice house and a creepy cult temple buried under the mountain. There are three young girls crucified down there."

"What?!"

"Yeah, this all has some kind of ancient Jewish cult connection. Rothstein was the high priest according to McNeal."

"Why did you kill them all?"

John just looked at him blankly, without emotion until on it's own a tear ran down his face. He turned away and stared at the palm trees outside while tears continued to pour out. In a voice quieter than intended that shook when he talked, he answered the question.

"This outfit that I'm wearing? I bought it today. It's the first time I've been allowed to wear clothes in a month. For a month I was raped. Every single day I was raped by those men, abused, beaten, sodomized and insulted. I was used by them because I am a Gentile, not of the tribe. So they all had to die. If the Bronstein's are still alive, I'll kill them too."

Mr Green didn't answer right away and when he did, he was subdued.

"There's no need for that. They died last night in a fire."

John spent the next two hours in the back seat typing on a laptop. Writing a report was always part of the job and as he was taught, he included every little detail, even the personal traumas.

The ordeal of the past month had taken its toll. There were no physical scars, the nanites made sure of that, but the emotional scars were deep. The recent abuse and the torment, followed by the inevitable shame played a part but the deepest scar came from what the doctors had done to him in their lab. They had taken everything from him, his body and even his sense of self, of who he was. Who he was though, was gone, never to return and it was time to accept that fact. It was time to move on. It was time to accept the fact that he was Zoey Stalgren and he was a girl.

It was just before sunrise when Zoey woke up, still in the back seat and covered by a light blanket. When she sat up her apartment was just coming into view. The truck had barely stopped when she opened the door and ran up the stairs. She pounded on the door until it was opened by a sleepy and smiling Christie. She didn't ask any questions, didn't comment on the tears but just embraced Zoey and led her inside.