The Phantom Drone V

We continued tightly in a lover’s embrace, there in the darkened cab of the beat-old pickup by the twisted forest road.

“Oh Dante!” Leticia moaned as I clutched her curvy, smoldering body against mine. “You got me, boy. You got me good. I’ve only known you for an afternoon and part of tonight, yet here I am, totally smitten, like some pathetic junior high girl with a crush.”

“You’re welcome,” I replied.

“Ha! But... God has not given me another woman’s husband.”

“It’s a sham marriage, Leticia; it’s not real.”

Here she labored to untangle herself, and I had to comply. Free, she pushed me away with both hands.

“Nigga, did you swear for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part?”

“Well yeah, but…”

“Then it’s marriage, Dante. The Good Lord knows I love you, but I can’t have you. What I can do is get you back to your precious Phantom Drone, so let’s go!”

“Leticia, please..!”

“And to think I almost had sex with you. Speaking of which, give my sweatpants back!”

She pulled her tee shirt back on as well, and we returned to the road, rattling along. As usual, the old truck’s wan headlights barely pushed the darkness ahead. Leticia speedily guided us through the narrow, winding corridor of trees with the confidence of one familiar with the area.

“So, we’re on our way to the Boar’s Nest?” I asked hopefully.

“Sure, but we’ve got to stop by the house first. We need guns.”

“Do we? It’s a Stealth Mission, Leticia. I sneak in there, grab the Phantom Drone and fly away. If there’s any shooting, something has gone horribly wrong.”

“Better to have a gun you don’t need than need a gun you don’t have,” the woman declared. “Speaking of stealth, I also want to give you my husband’s ghillie suit. That’s a camouflage…”

“I know what a ghillie suit is!” I snapped; a bit more fiercely than intended. “I was Army Infantry 15 years! How many times…”

“…also, you’ve had nothing to eat since this morning, right? I thought you might be hungry.”

I paused to look down and pat my belly. Now that she mentioned it, I was quite famished indeed. Funny how that works.

“I didn’t even get breakfast,” I complained, “Before I had to flee Fred’s Place in a blizzard of lead. What’s for dinner?”

“What else? Tisha's Stew.”

“’Tisha's Stew’?”

“It’s mostly kidney beans and rice,” the driver admitted. “With various spices and chopped vegetables. I’ll throw a couple of smoked turkey legs in there, plus a hambone, if I can get it. Once it's cooked, I take the bones and tendons out of the turkey legs, and then mix the meat throughout the strew. It’s nutritious, filling, and most of all, cheap. I let a huge crockpot cook all day Monday, then ladle out warmed-up leftovers every day through Friday. That means I cook only once a week, which saves time. Remember, I work 16 hours a day.”

“Yeah but… red beans and rice every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?”

“No, just dinner. Breakfast is store brand cereal in milk, and then Melody and I eat whatever the school’s serving for lunch. Elijah…”

“Your dead husband’s father?”

“…has cereal for lunch as well. On Saturdays, Jess takes us all down the mountain to one of several restaurants; the Mexican place is Melody’s favorite. Mine's Chinese."

“And Sunday?”

“After church, our Pastor invites us over to his house to eat Sunday Dinner with his family. Nice man.”

A paused for a bit, then added, “Leticia… eating the same dinner every night… I just don’t see how you can struggle so much while you live in an awesome three-story Victorian mansion. I mean, how much is that place worth?”

“Most of the websites price it at around three million dollars.”

“See? Your troubles are over! Your money troubles, at least.”

“How so?”

“Isn’t it obvious? List that house for 4 million but don’t settle for less than 3. Put 2 million in the bank, then take the million left over to move far away to a place with better shopping, better entertainment, better employment options, and best of all, way less Nazis.”

“It’s not actually my house, Dante,” Leticia protested, taking her eyes off the barely-lit road to glance my way. “When Elijah started getting sick, he gave the mansion to his oldest son. When Bradley died, Jess inherited the property. And Jess isn’t ready to sell, since that place has been in his family for generations. I know the feeling.”

“Wait a minute!” I cried. “Jess lets you live in a big, beautiful palace that he owns, while he lives in a tiny metal trailer in the middle of the woods with his wife and four kids?!”

“Well… technically, the house belongs to Jess, but it’s still his dad’s place for as long as the old man lives, and Jess doesn’t want to live with his dad.”

I just stared incredulously at the woman. She noticed eventually, for she practically yelled, “What?”

“The boy likes you, Leticia.”

“Shut up, Dante!”

The truck slowed as we followed a metal fence paralleling the road that must have been 10 feet high. The fence became a huge, decorative wrought iron gate with a large cursive “W” formed above the arch. Leticia turned the pickup in toward the gate and physically rolled down the window, letting in the chilled air. She tapped away on her smartphone, and then stuck said phone out the window to an electronic reader. The glowing, blood-red light on the reader changed bright blue with a chirp, and the imposing gates of black iron opened slowly, beckoning us to a majestic three-story Victorian up a gentle slope some three football fields distant. The house looked like something out of a Christmas village, with every window aglow as it stood against a backdrop of starry night.

“How’d you father-in-law afford a place like that, anyway?” I asked as we slowly pulled up the brick driveway while the gates closed behind us.

“The Wainwrights have essentially owned the mountain for as long as anyone around here can remember,” Leticia explained. “Everyone who lived up here paid them rent, while public buildings like the school, post office and firehouse were all built on Wainwright land. Fred’s Place used to be Elijah’s Place. Elijah Wainwright didn’t just rule up here, but he cornered the meth market down the mountain as well. Old Man Wainwright’s word was law!”

“I see. So, what changed?”

There was a smile on Leticia’s face as she related, “three strikes. Strike number one? Bradley came home with a nig – with me. Yeah, my husband integrated this place! Hard to maintain your position as King of the Nazis when your favorite son brings ‘mud people’ into your family line.”

“Nice! And strike two?”

“Elijah got sick. Chronically sick; in and out of the hospital like, all the time.”

“Oh, I get it,” I mused. “The old lion is dying, so the young lions make their move.”

“It was more than just a disease, Dante. Turns out the man had a genetic disorder, and you know how Nazis feel about defective genes.”

“Ha! Karma!”

“There’s no Karma Dante, just Jesus.”

“Yeah sure and strike number three?”

“Well, between the bad genes and mud people, Old Man Wainwright began bleeding supporters. Things no one dared say the year before for fear of being found hanging from a tree began to be said openly. The Brotherhood started abandoning Elijah. But one man stayed true, or at least he pretended to.”

“Let me guess. That man was Fred?”

“Frederick Metzger”, Letica answered, nodding sagely as the garage door yawned before the hood of the old truck. “To make a long story short..."

"Too late!"

"...he scammed Elijah out of almost all of his money, then overthrew him for leadership of the Brotherhood in a coup.”

The truck was parked in the garage. We each turned toward our respective doors and opened them simultaneously, as if we’d planned it.

“And now he’s a broken old man,” I declared, standing up out of the truck.

“Yeah, every White person Elijah knew turned their backs on him,” Leticia agreed, also exiting the vehicle. “His political influence and wealth were the only reasons anyone tolerated him, so when he lost the money and the power but kept the narcissism, they didn’t have to pretend anymore. I’m his caretaker now, and Melody is his best friend in the whole world. Heck, his only friend. Oh, don’t get me wrong, dude’s still a racist. But he’s way less of a bigot than he used to be.”

The door from the house blew open and little Melody raced into the room, ribboned pigtails bouncing, hollering “Mommy!” as she leapt up into her mother’s arms. Leticia hailed, “My baby!” and swung 360 with the girl, both giggling in the embrace. After the turn, I faced Leticia's back. The girl, looking over her mother’s shoulders, extended her hand toward me. There was something in her grasp.

“Dante, I found a paperclip!” she proclaimed. “Is this big enough?”

*

A few hours later found me out in the woods at night, lying on my now full belly in the bushes with the lovely Leticia at my side. In addition to her tee shirt and sweatpants, she now wore a light denim jacket against the chill, but there were no clothes in her house big enough to fit me. So, I was in the same tee shirt and sweatpants I’d walked out of my house wearing to Molly’s first demonstration of the Phantom Drone. Added on top of these, however, was the ghillie suit that had once belonged to Leticia’s late husband Bradley. It took considerable adjustment to get the thing to mostly fit me, and it was heavy plus a little too hot for a summer night, even at this altitude. We’d parked Jess’ truck off the gravel road some distance back.

I kept Bradley’s binoculars trained on a guard shack next to that same gravel road. A counterweighted boom gate blocked the entrance to the compound. In the guardhouse, I saw the telltale electronic glow of a screen lighting the occupant’s face.

“Looks like the geotag Jess entered on your phone while we were outside his silver trailer is legit,” I whispered. “That’s the Boar’s Nest, all right. But I don’t see any lights.”

“Kind of pointless to have a secret base deep in the woods if you’re going to light it up like a bloody Christmas tree,” my shapely partner described. “Also, the electric company could tell where their power was going, yeah?”

“According to Jess, there’s another guard patrolling the compound inside the perimeter. It’s black as pitch in there, how does he see? Night vision goggles?”

“Maybe. Then again, Bradley told me that once a man has been in the woods for a while, he tends to get pretty good natural night vision.

“That electronic glow. Is he playing games in there?”

“Not on a cell phone. Fred fines any of the Brotherhood he catches out here with a phone; they are verboten in the Boar’s Nest. Not that a phone would do you much good – there’s no bars out here. You can check my phone if you don't believe me.”

“If the glow isn’t coming from a phone, or game system, then it might be coming from a security monitor.”

“That makes sense. A couple of times when I heard the boys talking in the cafeteria, they were having a conversation about game cameras, and it wasn’t during any hunting season.”

I studied the guard in the shack more closely.

“Guy’s a teenager,” I noted. “Probably goes to your school, Ms. School Nurse. Why don’t you take these binos and tell me if you recognize him?”

We made the exchange, and she announced, “Hans. Hans Zimmermann. Senior. He’s the same football player who grabbed my breast from behind and pressed his… thing against my backside. Loser.”

“Excellent! You told me there’s a challenge at your school about which boy gets to um… nail you first, right?”

“So?” Leticia retorted, suspicious.

“So, go up there and lure him out of the shack with the implication that he’s about to get lucky. That’ll keep him away from the monitor while I slip past him into the compound.”

“Ugh. Seriously? I… sure, I can do that. How long do I have to string this poor guy along?”

“Once I get to the Ammo Dump and recover the Phantom Drone, I’ll fly over here and shout at you. I’ll go invisible so Hansy Boy can’t shoot me. You use that as a cue to walk back to the truck and go home.”

“And if ‘Hansy Boy’ won’t take ‘no’ for an answer?”

“You’re carrying a nine-millimeter, babe. Just show it to the guy when he gets too pushy and that should cool him off. Thanks for this scoped hunting rifle, by the way. And for a generous helping of Tish’s Stew. Delicious.”

“Thanks. You think those lockpicks you made in the shed will work on the door of the Ammo Dump?”

“Vanko says, ‘yes’.”

“Who?”

“Vanko was a teenager in Ukraine who loved to steal from us," I explained. "When I finally caught the bastard, I let him go in exchange for an education on how to beat most locks. He hasn’t let me down yet.”

Leticia took a deep breath and blew it out.

“You’re going to fly to Seattle, aren’t you?”

“Eventually, yeah. That’s the plan.”

“Well, if I never see you again…”

“You will see me again, Leticia," I pleaded. "When this is all over, I’ll come back and take you away from all this. You’re my baby!”

“No Dante," Letiucia snapped, a hard look in her eye. "I’m no one’s baby. And you sir belong to Matilda; that’s the decision you made.”

“But… dammit woman...!”

“I’ll never forget you, Dante Johnson, and will always keep you in my prayers. Now let’s get this Phantom Drone!”

*

It took nearly more patience than I had, but I managed to crawl quite close to the guard shack without being detected. I suppose you could thank Bradley’s ghillie suit for that; it made me look like a bush, or a clump of grass.

Not long after I reached my position, Leticia showed up with her midriff exposed, for she had tied her tee shirt under her ample, heaving bosom. She slinked up to the guard shack as Hans rushed out to intercept her, a hand radio on his belt and a military “assault” rifle in his hands.

“Miss Wainwright?” he called. “What the hell are you doing out here, this is Whites only! And how… holy… how did you even know where to find…?”

“Boy, are you going to stand there asking questions all night or do you want this ass?”

There was a moment of stunned silence before Hans managed, “Well I… um… you see… can… can we do it over there?”

“Why over there, Hans?”

“Because there’s a game camera over there. Look, if I don’t have some proof the guys at school will never believe me!”

“Sure boy, I can do that,” Leticia purred. “But I’m not just gonna drop my panties right away. I want to know a little more about the big, strong man I’m fixin’ to give myself to.”

“Sure Miss Wainwright, we can talk. But then I get to… you know…”

“Would you believe that after half an hour of conversation, you can do whatever you want with me?”

“Oh, thank you! What… what do you want to talk about? Baby."

By this point, a Mardi Gras Parade complete with elephants and fireworks could have slipped by Hans unnoticed. So I made my way to the wire mesh fence and thence down the fence line. I was looking for a suitably covered spot where I could cut my way through with Bradley’s set of heavy-duty bolt and wire cutters. The ghillie suit did not help; I’d never been trained to wear one, so I snagged it on every branch, rock, stump, and my own two feet. The thing made me stumble about like a drunken college kid. Worse, I began to sweat like a pig in the heated air under the oppressive weight of the suit. My respect for the professional snipers who could operate for hours in the damnable things grew by an order of magnitude.

I found a suitable bush growing through the fence to hide a mousehole when wonder of wonders, I found a ladder leading up from inside the compound to lean against a large tree outside the compound. Clearly, someone was cutting branches that reached over the fence. Smart, but leaving the ladder was sloppy for them and lucky for me. I was planning on how to best climb the tree when I noticed there was an – I kid you not – deer stand up there, with a handy ladder to reach it. And yes, the deer stand was just above where the ladder rested against the tree. Some days, you just get lucky.

I dumped the ghillie suit. No way I was climbing a tree in that thing while carrying a heavy hunting rife along with a rather hefty set of bolt and wire cutters. The mountain air rushed in, cooling my sweat as I shed the cursed weight; blessed, sweet relief. I climbed up to the tree stand, and then down the leaning ladder on the other side.

My first task was to get the hell away from the fence as soon as possible, because that was the place a guard walking the perimeter looking for breaches in said fence would most likely find me.

My eyes had adjusted to full night vision, so I could make out much of the compound as I passed through. There was an obstacle course just like the one at the Air Assault School at Fort Campbell. I also spied a firing range and a building that was most likely a shoot house. But at last, I found the telltale grassy hillock that housed the Ammo Dump. My heart soared when I found a large padlock on the metal door, because it meant I didn’t even need my lockpicks; Bradley’s bolt and wire cutters would suffice. I remember feeling positively ecstatic. How could it be this easy?

Click-chat!

The unmistakable sound of a racking shotgun from behind, followed by a recently familiar voice.

“Toss the rifle. Please."

. Once again, I was that little boy who fell through the pond ice into the muddy, freezing waters below. Muddy water meant that while it was daylight on the ice, I could not see when beneath it. So I was frozen in the dark…

“You’re just now racking a shell into the chamber?” I chided at my unseen captor.

“Never underestimate the intimidation power of a cocking shotgun, my dude. And do toss the rifle. I did say 'please'.”

I slowly took the my cross-slung rifle off my body and tossed it to the dirt; too far for me to reach down and pick it up, but well within diving range.

"Good boy! Now hands on top of your head."

I didn’t want to obey, but I didn’t want buckshot at point blank range either. I decided to comply but slowly, with a witty remark.

“What if I had just turned around and shot you?” I quipped, while leisurely raising my hands to my head. Well at least I tried to be witty. Short notice, you know.

“Dude, you didn’t even know I was here till you heard me cock it."

Keeping my hands on my head, I turned around slowly to face him. He didn’t shoot me, thank God. His look matched his voice; it was the same brawny fellow I saw making out with Leticia at the silver trailer, still wearing a billed cap. It was difficult but not impossible to make out his features in the darkened Ammo Dump entrance. As for his standard pump 12-gauge pointed at my right knee, that was painfully obvious, like the cannon on an M1Abrams.

“Jess.” I remembered, “Jesse Wainwright.”

“Dante Johnson!” he crowed back. “Mr. Phantom Drone himself!"

“There’s a million reasons why you don’t want to pull that trigger.”

“Dude! Why do you think you’re even still alive? A million dollars is a lot of money! And just so you know, that’s a shady-ass company you work for, Mr. Johnson. My buddies in the FBI say that if you cooperate, you could get out of Club Fed in as little as 5 years, rather than the 20 years you were looking at for stealing the Phantom Drone, not to mention lifetime for Treason.”

“I’m no traitor. I’m about as Chinese as a fortune cookie. I didn’t…”

“Save it. I just wanted to remind you that a man can testify without his knees, so don’t try anything stupid, ya feelin’ me dude?”

To buy myself some time, I decided to keep the conversation going, and figured some flattery wouldn’t hurt, either.

“You’re pretty smart, Jess,” I told him. “How’d you Sherlock Holmes that I would even be out here tonight?”

Jess flashed a smile. I could just make out his teeth in the dark.

“I like that.”

“Excuse me?’

“You know how to keep your captor talking while you look for an opportunity to escape, just like the SERE Manual says. Very well, Dante. I’ll play. You see, my brother brought Leticia out here some five years ago, and in all that time she never once asked me where the Boar’s Nest was, nor showed up at my home unannounced. She was also in a highly agitated state at my house tonight when she slipped up and said ‘We’ just before saying quote, ‘I need your help’ unquote, as in 'We need your help.' Plus, her story of how you managed to escape made no sense to me. Clearly, you woke up in Dad’s shed, turned her to your cause, and then you both set out to find the Phantom Drone as soon as possible. That’s why I lured you out here.”

“Lured?”

“Yes Dante, lured. Had I tried to detain you in front of my girl, she would have started a huge fight, and I wasn’t about to have it out with Tisha where my kids could hear.”

“Leticia Wainwright is not your ‘girl’” I protested. “It’s been three years since her husband died, and she still won’t have you. Take the hint. Dude.”

“The ‘hint’, Dude, is that at eight hours a night on the paramedic shift, Tisha and I spend more quality time together than most married couples. And just so you know, tonight wasn’t even the first time we kissed. Yeah. Tisha says the only reason she won’t sleep with me is because I’m married. Well, tomorrow night, that changes.”

“Well! You’re finally going to divorce your drunk, abusive wife?”

Jess took a step back and sat down on – something. I couldn’t see what it was in the dark.

“I could divorce her,” he mused, as if he were speaking to himself. “And between all the emergency room records and police reports, I would probably gain custody of the kids, perhaps even sole custody. Sadly, divorce proceedings and custody hearings are notoriously female friendly. That means ‘probably’ and ‘perhaps’ aren’t good enough. If I am to be certain of keeping my kids, I need Darlene gone.”

“So, you’re gonna kill her.”

“Not obviously, of course. I’ve searched the Internet for a fatal toxin which presents with symptoms virtually indistinguishable from alcohol poisoning. CDC says more than 140,000 people die from excessive alcohol use in the U.S. each year. Did you know that?”

“Aren’t you afraid the cops will discover your search history?”

“These cops? Ha! Sheriff Dunham and his boys would have trouble discovering their own noses. Then again, that hardly matters. You went Infantry in the Army, dude. So did my brother. Can you guess what I did?”

“Signal?”

“Close. Cyber Branch. Made sure some of the equipment I used got -- ‘destroyed by the enemy’ -- so I could smuggle it home with me when I retired. See, I used a heavily encrypted VPN, bounced that signal all over the world, and arranged a straw purchase. That way, no one will ever trace the toxin back to me. Among other things.”

“So…” I continued, “You poison your alcoholic wife, and it looks like she died of alcohol poisoning. Pretty clever.”

“Oh, it’s a bit more complicated than that, my dude. Every night after Wednesday Bible Study at church, I drive the kids home, but Darlene stays for Game Night with her friends. You know, like that hex board game on the island with the sheep and the rocks, that diplomatic one where you lie to your friends to take over Europe, that old one where you monopolize all the properties... you get the idea. Well, they call it Game Night, but between you and me, it’s more an excuse for those cackling, aging hens to gossip while they get hammered on box wine. Tomorrow night, I spike Darlene’s wine with the toxin, she tries to drive home, and bang! Drunk driving accident.”

“Brilliant. Except what if one of your wife’s friends sees how messed-up she is and decides to give her a ride home?”

“If Darlene had friends like that, she wouldn’t have not one, not two, but three DUIs!” Jess brayed. “Seriously, the woman lost her license Dante; Darlene can’t even drive, not legally. Besides, what part of ‘fatal toxin’ did you not get? Even if there is no crash, the toxin will take its toll.”

“Look…!” I exclaimed, dropping my hands, taking a step toward him… No competent Medical Examiner is going to mistake this toxin of yours for…”

At this point, Jess was gesticulating wildly with his left hand as he spoke, but he kept his right on the trigger of his shotgun. Meanwhile, I'd dropped my hands and no longer had them on my head. Small victories.

“Even without a car crash, Doctor Flying Bear will likely assume death by alcohol poisoning without bothering with an examination. And if for some reason he doesn’t, I’ll just pay him to say whatever I want. You see dude, that wouldn’t be the first time Flying Bear has been paid to cover up a murder.”

“Cover up murder?”

Here, Jess leaned back and got comfortable on whatever he was seated on.

“We don’t get too many um… let’s say… People of Color?... in these parts. Whenever they show up, it’s because they missed their exit, and they inevitably stop at Fred’s Place to ask directions. Now nearly every time, Fred or whoever’s working the counter gives them those directions because they want them gone, see? So, after directions, they’ll usually buy some snacks and use the latrine – which someone has to sanitize if that happens -- and then they’re gone.”

“You said, ‘nearly every time’,” I reminded him, feeling a tightening knot in the pit of my stomach. “What happens the other times?”

Jess smiled again, explaining, “The other times, they end up in Fred’s basement where the Brotherhood has um… fun with them for hours – days, if they’re tough enough. After they’re dead, the bodies get loaded back into their vehicle, which then gets run off the Drop up the road a bit. The county recovers the wrecked vehicle with the body inside, and then Doc Flying Bear signs off on death by car accident.”

“Good Lord!” I exclaimed. “Is no one suspicious?”

“Suspicious of what, dude? These roads up here are all narrow and twisty, and a bunch of the drops don’t even have guardrails! It’s fairly common for Outsiders to come up here, drive too fast for the conditions, and wrap their car around one of our trees. Besides, the Brotherhood knows to space their fun out enough so as not to arouse the suspicions of Federal law enforcement. And it would have to be Federal, because in case you haven’t figured it out yet, the local Sheriff’s Department is straight Brotherhood!”

My mind was reeling, but I strove to control myself before asking, “Why in the world would a Native American help Nazis hide torture murders?”

“Because the same fire that took that man’s wife and five kids made him a social outcast. Dude’s head looks like a raisin Dante, with only half an earlobe and no nose at all. He’s been self-medicating ever since. With Brotherhood meth. You know addicts, Dante. They'll do anything for their next hit. Anything!”

At this, I took a deep, calming breath and asked, “how many?”

“That I know of? Let’s see… Around about the time Bradley came home with Leticia and baby Melody – that’ll be five years ago – the Brotherhood nabbed some homeboy who voiced very strong opinions about Fred and his Schutzstaffel tattoo. They snatched another homie a little over a year after that. Then this illegal alien shows up at Fred’s Place. Dude couldn’t speak a word of English. And about five… nope, seven months ago, three Chinese show up, two adults and their smoke show of a daughter. Awl, you had to see this chick, Dante! China doll was hot as your wife, maybe even hotter. And get this; they tell me she lasted longer than her parents did! What a waste; tough gal like that would have made an awesome wife!”

“Awesome wife?” I sneered, disgusted. “I thought you people didn’t mix races.”

“What do you mean, ‘you people’?” Jess snapped, rising to his feet and putting his left hand back into the proper position on the shotgun. “I’m no Nazi, Dante!. I got kicked out of the Brotherhood, remember? Because I don’t pledge allegiance to a random set of genetic traits involuntarily assigned to me at birth. That’s retarded.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t use the R word. It dehumanizes Special Needs people.”

“Buddy, I just explained how five human beings were tortured to death by Nazis for not being White, and you want to criticize me for using a word? Dude, that’s so… RETARDED!”

My captor grinned broadly and stood taller, apparently much satisfied that he had scored some great point against me.

“You done?”

“No Dante,” he continued, “I don’t hate you because of the color of your skin. I hate you because just like Bradley, Darlene and Fred, you are in my way. Thankfully, you are about to be out of my way.”

“Am I?”

“Oh yes! Leticia is way too much of a goody-goody preacher’s kid to date a married man, while I, on the other hand, will soon be single. A sad, grieving widower who needs the love of a good woman to make him whole. Besides, you’re going to Federal Prison, homeboy! By the time they let you out of the Big House, Tisha I will have been wed in holy matrimony.”

“Come on, Jess! You really think the Brotherhood is going to tolerate your interracial marriage and your mixed-race kids?”

“Bradly got away with it for two years, but I see your point. Tisha and I and the kids will obviously have to move someplace less… Nazified? But not before I put Fred down like the rabid dog he is, and then bring my FBI buddies in here to clean out the Brotherhood. That should stop them from hunting me down to wherever I take my family.”

“So, you’re going to kill Fred.”

“Oh Yeah. He’s leader of the Brotherhood, Dante. Surely you won’t stop me.”

After that, I just stared at him long enough for the man to finally ask, “What?”

“Don’t you have to kill that Zeke guy too?” I suggested. “I mean, before he tells Leticia that it was you who paid him to shoot her husband?”

It was a guess, of course, albeit an educated one. Jess had already shown me that he was obsessed with Leticia Wainwright, and that he was willing to murder to get his way. Bradley had been between Jess and the woman he wanted. And I reasoned that rather than kill his brother personally, risking prison and the resentment of his widow, Jess would put someone else up to it. Now in marrying Leticia, Bradley had made himself a ‘race traitor’, so it was likely any of the Brotherhood would have murdered him at some point. So, his killer didn’t necessarily have to be his jealous younger brother. But as it turns out, Jess was only too happy to confirm my suspicions.

“One hundred bucks, my dude!’ he proudly crowed. “One hundred lousy dollars was all I had to pay that idiot to shoot Bradley! Not a private meeting, or video conference, or cell phone or email, but the freaking United States Postal Service! Cash and printed instructions in snail mail, all handled with gloves, so he couldn’t prove I told him to do it. What a freaking idiot!”

"’Freaking?’” asked I with raised eyebrow. “You’re willing to commit multiple murders, but you won’t use actual swear words?”

“Leticia doesn’t like it when I swear,” Jess explained. “So, I trained myself to stop doing it. Wasn’t easy because Darlene swears like a drunken sailor, but yeah, I overcame. Oh, and get this. Everyone knew what a badass my brother was, Special Forces and all that. So, despite having a gun, Zeke refused to go after him without five of his friends. Dude, what a coward!”

Then, it struck me.

“Why aren’t you afraid that I’ll tell all this to Leticia?”

“Oh, you can tell Tisha anything you'd like, Dante!” Jess insisted. “Once I explain to her how you scammed a little girl into marrying you, and how you murdered three American Soldiers, why should she believe anything you have to say? After all, a man willing to murder will tell any lie to discredit a romantic rival.”

I sniffed harshly, my mouth tightening. Once again, I felt the all too familiar chill of being back in that pond.

“I didn’t murder anyone,” I snarled. “That was self-defense!”

“Well of course it was self-defense!” Jess crowed, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “You didn’t deliberately arrange a confrontation where you could kill three of your wife’s lovers in quote ‘self-defense’ unquote. And you didn’t have your general buddy interfere with the investigation at all!"

And then, facing an imaginary jury, he pointed at me, proclaiming, “Yo! This dude wasted three guys, all of them fellow Soldiers under his command, two of them with wife and kids, and the worst that happens is he was forced to retire from a promising Army career! They even let him have an Honorable Discharge, can you believe it?”

Then he turned back to me, adding, “But you got your revenge didn’t you, Major Dante Elijah Johnson. They screwed your wife, and now they’re dead! And damn if you didn’t get away with it. And with an ultra-rich supermodel trophy wife, too. You’re clever, I’ll give you that. Hell, if I wasn’t afraid you’d try and take my wife, I’d let you join Team Jess.”

“’Take your wife’? Seriously? Leticia will never be your wife!”

“Oh, give it up dude…”

“Stop calling me that!”

“Dude, doo doo doo dude. Dude. Yeah, I’m the one with the shotgun.”

“Leticia loves me Jess, not you!”

“Ah! At last, the terrible green-eyed monster rears its ugly head! Well Dante, while you’re wasting away in prison, I want you to imagine the pure ecstasy on my face when I’m busting up in Tisha’s huge trailer!”

“It is a big trailer though,” I admitted.

“Oh dude, tell me about it!” Jess cried. “How can a woman have so much junk in the trunk without being fat as a hog?”

“Yeah, I like large trailers, and I must be honest about that.”

It was an oblique reference to be sure, but Jess got it immediately; he looked me dead in the eye and spat, “you other brothers can’t deny!”

And just like that, me and Jesse Wainwright began rapping in loud, boisterous unison to a classic rap song about women with large backsides, right there next to the Ammo Dump at the Boar’s Nest, I kid you not. My plan of course, was to distract him. Around the start of the second verse, I observed that he was fully committed to the performance, so I grabbed for the gun...

...but all I grasped was air, and then something crashed into the side of my head like a freight train. I found myself on my hands and knees, head screaming in pain, seeing stars.

“Nice try,” Jess sneered. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m glad you at least tired. I’d be disappointed if you hadn’t.”

I tried to get up but was overwhelmed with such nausea, I went back down on all fours again.

“Why the hell did they let you in here?” I hissed, trying to shake myself free of the grogginess, “I thought they kicked you out of the Brotherhood.”

“They did. The Brotherhood doesn’t know I’m here.”

“Oh, you got some kind of drug deal going on with that kid at the gate?”

“Hans has no idea I’ve penetrated his perimeter.”

I tried standing again, and this time I succeeded – barely. I reeled and staggered in a vomit-inducing fit, but thank God, I kept my feet, and the stew I’d had at Leticia’s place.

“Well then, how did you get in?” I demanded.

“Certainly not the way you got in. You think ladders magically grow from trees that just happen to have deer stands in them?”

“Wait a minute! If you’re not assigned to patrol the compound, then where’s the guy who’s supposed to be…?”

“His name was Fritz Conroy,” Jess stated. "I left the body in one of the covered foxholes at the firing range. One less Nazi in the world. You’re welcome.”

"But that still doesn’t explain how you…”

“Oh dude, isn’t it obvious? I flew here.”