True Lies - Redux Ch. 09

Grayson -

It was becoming increasingly obvious I was being stiffed. That promised $50 million wasn't coming, and probably no more money period.

None of those little political "Big Men" turds would even talk to me directly any more. All I got was toadies who bullshitted me with ever vaguer promises when I called.

Fuck 'em.

I only had about $3 million left. But it WAS $3 million and all in cash. Three million dollars spent wisely could do some damage. Especially with all my criminal element contacts domestic and abroad.

Those pricks had slid pretty much into my personal "enemies" class, and even more than the Johnsons, Jim and Rachel, who had caused my initial problems and downfall. Maybe they were entering that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" category? I really didn't know for sure but I had already started my own investigations.

First was the surprising obvious. Nothing in any newspaper or mainstream media or even wacky conspiracy theory blogs about my discovered efforts to help Iran in their ongoing nuclear weapons development efforts. Was Jim Johnson actually part of any official intelligence agency? His wife Rachel and that Jennifer Smith woman? Or were they just deceiving me? They sure had some resources backing them. Well, Jeb Jameson pretty much verified that so he must have been the one really clamping down on the information.

So, who had kidnapped Rachel? Someone working for or with Jeb Jameson? He actually asked ME about that - but then he would, wouldn't he?

If I could find Rachel and interview her captors, I just might get a clue - depending on just how many cut-out levels the "puppet master" had employed...

Why take Rachel? I doubt she was intrinsically that valuable, as far as secret knowledge - and Jeb's influence with the whole US Intelligence Community would insure he either already knew everything she knew, or the FBI could just ask her directly.

I didn't really care what she knew. Would Iran? Colonel Masdani? That was a possibility. But since nothing was getting out to embarrass Iran or interfere with the cash flow to Iran and economic sanctions ending, so... what?

But even though Rachel and Jim were getting a divorce, just maybe having Rachel would be leverage on Jim for someone. Ah, Jeb had said that whole operation stinging me was "unauthorized" and by "rogue agents." Jim was a rogue agent so JUST asking him everything might not guarantee his full cooperation?

Shit, this was all so fucking complicated and a big "so what???" to me. I was totally agnostic when it came to politics, religion, nationalism, and every other "ism". Just like my father. He taught me well. Just how to live the good life by making and spending good money. LOTS of good money.

Dear old dad, Grayson Peterson Jr. - was fairly wealthy. He gave me my first $50 million as soon as I graduated from Princeton with a 4 year business degree at age 22. He had made his money as an "exporter-importer" of goods of all kinds. He was a huge NAFTA and free trade and globalization kind of guy, cause it just made his own primary business of illegal constrained articles - mostly Gray and Black Market items - trading internationally that much easier, along with all the legal goods stuff "honest" corporations did.

The best advice he gave me was merely, "Son, if you really want to be very wealthy look to the third world countries for your opportunities. You will find the money is easier to get and the regulations on business FAR less onerous. Those outright palm-greasing personal graft cultures are actually more honest than the first world death by a thousand cuts of endless laws, rules, regulations, and taxes."

Man was he right! I already had $500 million - at least in total assets paper wealth - by the time my contacts and business associates in Iran turned me on to that Farah opportunity. Just marrying her and with my leverage "trying to rescue your children" access to her OWN $500-plus million paper wealth made me close to my own personal goal of "billionaire", and billionaire status and power.

And I was living life large just like my dad. He was a bon vivant himself with innumerable mistresses and conquests. Mom just accepted it, I guess. They never got divorced and always maintained a shared residence whenever dad wasn't just out-of-town. Even when dad was in town, though, he often had one or more of his women with him in the family home. Kind of like how it was with the Kennedy's. My grandfather, Grayson Peterson, was once friends with and had definitely partied with Joseph Kennedy, JFK's dad, who treated his own wife the same way. Wasn't my fault how I treated women. It was just in my genes. And my nurture!

Maybe I'd really get married myself, someday, other than the profitable sham marriage I had with Farah. Maybe. But really, why get married? Being rich and good-looking, rich and with a big dick, rich and...well, RICH is really all it takes... to bed as many women as I could ever really want to.

Settling down with just ONE woman for longer than a week, maybe? Never entered the picture. Not even with Rachel and Rachel was one of the best in many ways, but only ONE of the best. Right up until she kneed me in the balls that way! Fuck. Why did she do that, anyway? I can't help it I'm a "dom" sadistic bastard, sexually. It's just the way I am. And I thought Rachel was a great fit - a natural masochistic submissive. I really thought she got off on how I treated her just as much as I did. She was faking it all along? Fucking bitch should have just talked to me - oh wait, she was spying on me and playing me?! I have to just laugh at that now.

And now I wasn't so rich anymore, at all. Farah was gone - with not only HER money but she was after a lot of mine, as well! Fuckin' bitch. And all my former "friends in high places" were fucking around with me. Dissing me. ME! Good guy, me! I'd always given good value for price.

Well, time to go back to work. If I found out what was really going on and why, just maybe I could turn all this shit to some gold. Hell, I was still a young man.

Those guys in Chicago I have working on the Rachel abduction, they're pretty good and I expect some results pretty quickly. Hopefully.

*************

Jim - one week later

Rachel was still missing.

I was making some progress with my friends I was erstwhile "betraying", but not enough. Brad had just called me on the special phone he gave me at our first meeting. It was a special government phone - one with the Texas Instruments chipset.

It was at that Bethesda suburban house again. Again! Bad tradecraft and a very bad rookie mistake.

Brad seemed a tad unhappy.

"Where's Rachel, damn it!" I started.

"Look, your info just isn't checking out! We have found no one you've told me about. You need to bring IN this Cowboy Rob character, Elaine Bennett, and Jennifer Smith, at a minimum. And it better be soon!"

"How the hell can I do that? I don't know where they're at and I'm on the run from NSA and FBI, aren't I? Can you tell me I'm not?"

"OK, yes. You need to keep a low profile but you better get it done somehow, damn it. Figure it out...Ah, shit. Listen, I'm sorry about this but I just got this video to show you."

He handed me his tablet with a video loaded up. I hit the play button and tried to stay calm. It was Rachel. She was being raped and not pleasantly. Her face was obviously beat up. She was groaning from pain and not pleasure. Several swarthy looking men were doing it and calling her a lot of demeaning and vicious anti-Semitic slurs.

I watched it expressionless all the way through. The rubber was about to meet the road.

"You let them do this?" I asked quietly.

"No. Look, you've got to understand. I can't really control them. I'm not in charge. I'm just following orders. Help me out here. Help me help you. OK?"

He didn't get it. He still thought nothing could touch him and his little perfectly controlled world. Poor guy. Adel and some of his friends were now in the USA and working with me and Jenn and Elaine.

"Who is in charge and doing all this? And why?" I asked calmly.

His smirk was back.

"I can't tell you that. It's classified. Eyes only. Just do what you need to do."

"OK. Can I make a skype call real quick?"

"Sure."

"Do you really think you're going to get out of this personally unscathed?"

He looked a little worried for just a fleeting second.

"Don't try anything foolish. We're under observation right now and armed security is right outside the other door to this room. If you should happen to die, then so will Rachel. Sorry, but it is what it is."

"Armed guards, eh?"

I completed my call and handed my "Brad" agency phone to him.

"Brad?" I heard a small and shaky scared feminine voice say.

"Carla?" Brad gasped and turned white.

"Who are these men, Brad? They said they might have to kill me because of what you are doing. What are you doing, Brad? Oh please, Brad, don't let them kill me!"

And Carla, Mrs. Bradley Gilbert, started sobbing. The call disconnected at that point from the other end.

Brad sat there frozen - then hit the hidden panic buzzer he had and also started yelling for his armed guards. I slowly pulled out that little Sig Sauer .380 gun. Brad looked at it like it was a rattlesnake.

I carefully shot him in his left foot. "Ah, fuck!" and he started gasping.

He was in shock as I carefully frisked him and took his own gun away, then just slapped him. Hard. Then again.

"You better focus, shithead. Your wife may just survive, and your daughters Kimberly, 14, and Chastain, 12, right? Just might as well. But YOUR ass belongs to me and your own lifespan is now totally dependent on how you answer these next questions. Who the hell is doing all this and why?"

Now Brad was crying. "I don't know. I don't know. I'm just following orders. Direct orders from Carlos Harrera, D/NCS. Jesus, my foot hurts!"

"You report directly to the director of operations at the CIA?"

"Just for this. He's an old family friend that got me this position at the CIA. He's not my direct report manager. And his title now is Director of National Clandestine Services..."

"Fuck his title. He's head of Operations at CIA, rather than Intelligence Analysis. Does he know he's not supposed to be doing ANYTHING in the USA? Does anyone else at the CIA know what you're doing and helping you?"

"Well, just my security detail, kind of. They don't even have audio of our meetings. Jesus, did you kill all them?"

"You'll find out. You better focus on your wife's safety. She just might be the next Islamic terrorist victim, with her head cut off with a dull knife and video posted on the internet. But she won't be raped first. Not like MY wife."

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I just don't have any control over it."

"Harrera controls the guys that have Rachel?"

"He must. I can't imagine that he doesn't."

"And I guess you don't know who those guys are and where Rachel is?"

"No. I am sorry."

"I'm sure you are. Well, your wife and daughters stay alive just as long as Rachel does. Or until she's raped again. Or until I die or disappear. You better do a real good job convincing Harrera any abuse of my wife shouldn't happen again. And you'd better be real careful cleaning your own gun next time. Because the next time you'll shoot yourself in the prick and balls and it WILL be painfully fatal."

"OK. You've got 24 hours to arrange a meeting between me and Harrera. Tell him I'm bringing in Elaine or Rob. Tell him whatever you want to, but arrange the meeting. And definitely NOT in Langley. He'll probably agree since all this crap is illegal as well as fucking immoral. Twenty four hours or you'll never hear from me again, or your wife or daughters. I'll fund the rest of MY miserable life by selling your daughters to some rich sick pedophile bastard Sheiks in Saudi Arabia or Iran."

"I'll call you to get the details on the meeting. Don't fuck with me, anymore at all. You are so far out of your weight class in all this it's not even funny. And I am deadly serious and so are all my friends. It's an honor thing. Not that you would have a clue about that."

All of his security detail, including the bozos I spotted trailing me after our very first meeting had just disappeared. We had them on ice at the safehouse in the country where Rachel was first kept after her own return from Paris. That house had some secure interrogation room facilities in the basement - but it was almost filled up already.

*********************

Rachel -

I guess I truly was at the lowest part of my life, right now. I had just been beaten up and "raped" by three vicious little men, Russian speaking Islamists who were definitely anti-Semitic and anti-women and may have been homosexual leaning - which might explain their only semi-hard little cocks and violent anger directed at me. Only one even managed to come in me. The other two jacked off finally while looking at each other instead of my own poor abused naked and vulnerable body - with my legs spread and my sex quite visible. They videoed the rape. For transmission to someone else? Probably.

I was also still worried to death about my mother and father. I know they both had been beaten down while trying to fight off the attackers in our home who roughly grabbed me, injected something like heroin in me, and then hustled me out of our Highland Park North Shore house into a waiting van.

I was also worried about Jim. It was now about 8 days since I had been taken and I certainly remembered his warning about "Grayson's revenge - maybe" but this just didn't seem like Grayson. Wouldn't Grayson have just shown up and gloated by now? Maybe just sexually humiliated me himself or watched in person? It was possible the video was sent to him but that just didn't seem like Grayson. I never saw him watch porn all the time I was with him. He liked live women. Submissive but definitely there in person.

But who else would do this and why? The Iranians? Someone who wanted me as a "hold" over Jim? Just a kidnapping for money or someone who wanted revenge or some influence over my dad? My dad Ben mostly just did corporate law, not criminal or even family law, himself - though his firm might. And he was well-off approaching rich - but not THAT rich. I at least knew Jim knew about me, and that I was still alive, from that one call. I thought I heard the head guy tell Jim to call somebody else. And then nothing but fearful boredom until the beating - and then the rape.

I had to believe Jim was doing all he could but I was starting to have my doubts. I was just feeling hopeless and very despairing. I was achy and in a lot of pain but knew better than request anything from my hateful captors. I finally fell into a fitful sleep.

The very next morning I was given a better breakfast than ever before, even including coffee, and also four aspirin! What did this mean? Was my release imminent? Had Jim fulfilled their requirements, whatever they were? Or was this a kind of setup raising my spirits just a tad before really dropping some hammer on me again?

Lunch was also good, better than before - but with no more aspirin. My body was starting to feel a little better. My face ached more than anywhere else. I hated to think what I looked like right now. From the boredom and feeling better I started dozing after lunch. Suddenly I jerked awake.

What was it that woke me up? I grabbed the blanket around me and my heart sped up. Had I heard something? Were they coming to hammer me again? Shouts? Gunshots???

Suddenly the door burst open and a big armed man I hadn't seen before was there looking at me.

"Rachel Johnson?"

"Yes..." I said tentatively.

"Hi, and Grayson says hello, too. Let's get you out of here. I think we found your clothes."

I was naked but had the blanket around me as I was led upstairs. Evidently I had been kept in a basement room. I saw the bodies of a couple of my captors. Now dead, looked like. Four or five other guys were around all with holstered handguns. They were just dressed kind of business casual, not in SWAT clothes or uniforms or anything like that. They were checking the bodies and collecting guns, wallets, and phones. A couple were going through everything looking for papers and computers and tablets.

I was given some privacy to dress in a bedroom upstairs where my clothes had been found and then we left. It was just a house, maybe a farmhouse as we seemed to be out in farmland country. I saw one more body kind of slumped over a car as I got in a Jeep Cherokee with this big guy and a driver. I also saw some injured or maybe even dead "good guys" being loaded into a Suburban. Did I cause all this death??? More guilt.

"I know your father, Ben Rosenbaum," the man said and smiled. He had a nice smile.

"Who are you? I thought Grayson sent you? Is he working with my dad?"

"You can just call me Allie. And no, not "Ali"." And he grinned again.

"I know your dad 'cause his law firm did some good things for me once and I occasionally do some jobs for him. We're all kind of private investigators. Also private security. We also work for Grayson sometimes. We're doing this job for Grayson but as a favor. We're also doing it for your dad - because he's a good guy and I know he loves you. He's ... still in a coma but I heard he is improving and just might be OK eventually. Sorry about your mom, though."

"Mom?"

"She died the night they took you. She had a knife in her hand with blood on it. But I know that's no consolation for you. I'll be silent now as long as you wish.

"Ha'makom yenahem etkhem betokh she'ar avelei Tziyonvi'Yerushalayim."

I was stunned but I certainly recognized the traditional Yiddish words of comfort - may G-d (Ha'makom meant The Place as the substitute name for G-d specifically in this blessing) console you among the other mourners of Zion and Jerusalem. Obviously this man was Jewish also and I suddenly felt a great measure of relief. I no longer even feared meeting Grayson again as long as he was with me. And I knew he respected our shared silence as the appropriate form of grief support and comfort for mourners. And I was only beginning my personal period of mourning. We were all silent for at least the next half hour.

I cried for my lost mother. And my father lying in a hospital bed still unconscious. And my lost husband. And the children I never had with Jim and quite possibly never would have. I was really starting to feel like Job, more than Esther. And I just felt so guilty and ashamed since it all stemmed from my own immature idiocy in actually embracing almost infantile "me, me, me" adultery not so long ago, at all. Though it was starting to feel like eons.

Finally I sighed and said, "I'm not through mourning but what in the world is going on? Do you know anything about who my captors were? Why? How my husband Jim is? How and why Grayson is involved?"

"Grayson keeps his own counsel pretty close. I don't know how he heard about the crimes against your family but like the very next day he engaged us to find out all we could about it. We, err, have quite a few contacts with local and state police, FBI, various unsavory sorts in all kinds of places, and basically we just got lucky.

"Chicago PD and FBI jumped all over it at first and then very next day practically dropped the case. FBI was just visible enough in a CYA role. CPD treated it like a cold case. Really fucking strange and some of the detectives on the case couldn't believe it and were really pissed. Then nothing. We had all kinds of feelers out and heard nothing until just a couple of days ago.

"Then somebody in a Russian kind of accent was bitchin' about something he shouldn't have been, in a public place, plus he had some sort of Muslim attitude going and we eventually heard about it. We were able to track him down and caught him and his friend at a strip joint. After a couple of hours of intense conversation he finally told us about the farmhouse but didn't have an actual address, he just knew where it was. He wasn't even sure what was at the farmhouse but just something "important." We rolled the dice and came in, kind of in a force recon mode. Good thing we did and also a real good thing we brought enough men.