Kate's Gifts

  Moose hops up on the counter, looking for attention. “You like me, though,” she tells the purring monster. “Too bad my soul mate in this life time is a cat.”

  Next to him on the counter is Michael’s cell. A thought crosses her mind, one she quickly dismisses. “Trust.”

  She turns back to the stove and her pot of tea. A moment later, something falls to the floor behind her.

  The cell phone, courtesy of Moose, is on the floor. A saying comes to mind from a man she used to hate but has come to admire. “Trust, but verify,” Kate says to herself.

  It doesn’t take long before her blood begins to boil. “Really?” she says in condescending surprise. Sad, pathetic, trashy texts, like something a mother would find on a teenager’s phone. The she sees the picture, a close-up of the woman’s crotch-less panties. Thrashing anger wells up inside her. The impulses to smash, to throw, to kill, are hard to control. Moose makes a run for it- he’s been tossed before. She needs release, and running won’t do it.

  “A drink would…” Kate seethes, knowing that isn’t an option either. Then, the solution comes to her, a late night meeting of sorts. One she hasn’t attended in a long while.

  Chapter 8

  Kensington, Philadelphia

  Everyone has a drug, that little something that gets us by. Something we run to and sometimes we run from. It can be anything; booze, dope, food, sex, meditation, exercise, knitting, the list goes on. They all have the same effect—they send us away on those little vacations from ourselves. They can be innocent escapes, and they can be dangerous.

  The man standing alone in a room of a forgotten warehouse is about to depart on his own little trip. His drug of choice is inflicting suffering on others. It is a very powerful drug indeed.

  The single bulb hanging from the ceiling of the room is so dim he doesn’t see the scurrying rats, the garbage or profane graffiti scrawled on the walls. On any other night, this part of the place is a crack den, with spent vials scattered across the filthy floor and a wretchedly stained mattress.

  He’s white, blond hair, built like an upside down pyramid with broad shoulders and upper arms as wide as a regular man’s leg. Outside, a crowd is waiting. He can hear them as he focuses his mind on the task ahead. They call him “The Gardener,” for that’s his day job, the greens superintendent at a small religious college. Tonight he will beat a man to within an inch of death, for the amusement of his audience, and himself.

  He hears his name “Stani, “The Gardener, Braddock!” His music begins, Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir,” and he goes through the door. The Gardener has some pruning to do.

  It looks like a scene from some post-apocalyptic movie. The gallery is a pound filled with human mutts in every shape and model. They are here to watch what’s known as cage fighting, ultimate combat or street fighting, but not the kind you see on cable. This is human dog fighting. Stani is a crowd’s favorite, mostly because he runs the place. He doesn’t fight himself very often, but when he does, he’s a crowd pleaser. He started years ago ironically with real dogs, but vicarious violence wasn’t enough for Stani. No, he needed the real thing.

  The young black fighter waiting in the octagon cage dances with anticipation. Kesean Taylor has great aspirations, seeing himself soon on TV. His handlers have told him that coming here is his first real test, a rite of passage that must be made. He laughed when his trainer told his opponent is more than thirty years older than he, but after seeing Stani for the first time, he isn’t as amused.

  An older man waits for Stani at the door to the cage. It is his partner, a retired cop named Nate. “Ready for this?”

  Stani nods. “How much is on this now?”

  “About seventy Gs, He has a good following.” Nate tells him. It’s a fair amount bet on a rookie and an old man.

  “Good,” he says, glancing over at a group of ganstas sitting ringside, including Kesean’s manager, a thug named Powder Blue. Stani gets a nod and a smile, a sarcastic one, he gathers.

  Stani steps into the ring and the cheers swell. With a single wave of his arm, he acknowledges the crowd. When he removes his robe, there is the usual hush. It’s not because of his magnificently sculpted, glistening body. It’s the scars, so extensive he makes Frankenstein look like a Cover Girl. When asked about them, he jokes that he had a blender accident, even though it’s obvious that a number of them are bullet wounds.

  Kesean is football player big with a karate black belt and a bad attitude, but now he’s trying not to get freaked out. They come face to face for the instructions, but Kesean doesn’t make eye contact. Stani knows why. He doesn’t even hear the instructions from the ref. They touch gloves. As Stani goes to his corner, he turns to the referee. “There is an ambulance here, yes?”

  The ref just smiles, but Stani isn’t joking.

  The fight begins. They circle slowly, looking for that first opening. Kesean gets the first shot in, a clean right that would flatten anyone. Stani smiles at the surprised look on his face.

  Kesean circles around the outside, looking for an opening, throwing jabs, and feigning a kick with his right leg, trying to lure Stani in, trying to get him to take the bait. Stani knows better. He follows him, relaxed, his arms more at his side than in a fighting stance. Kesean doesn’t want to go to the mat because the ground game isn’t his strong suit. He wants a knockout, and wants it soon because going the distance with the geezer would be almost as bad as losing to him.

  “Come on, old man!” he taunts Stani.

  Stani obliges, starting with a left but looking to connect with his right. Most are half-hearted blows, because there is a bigger picture here. However, nothing in life is free, and in this ring, Stani sets the price for victory. He gets in a body blow just above the kidney that radiates up and down Kesean’s spine. The second blow nearly staggers him. If either of the blows, nearly as powerful as getting hit by a bus had connected to the head, Keasan would be unconscious. Both men know it. Stani backs off with a smile. Now Keasan start throwing and gets in a glancing uppercut to Stani’s chin. Stani stumbles backward and goes down to the mat.

  Kesean moves in to pounce and finish the job, but the ref cuts him off.

  Kesean is stunned, and so is the crowd, many hemming and hawing because of the obvious fix. After a moment Stani slowly rises, but it’s too late now. The fight is over.

  Kesean begins to jump with joy in front of the crowd, quite pleased with himself. Joining his opponent and the ref in the center of the ring, the victor’s hand is raised. Even under such seemingly barbaric circumstances, there are measures of decorum. One is that you be a gracious victor and thank your opponent for a good fight as the loser congratulates you.

  Instead, he has to get his attitude on. “Get the fuck outta the ring, old man, next time you won’t be so lucky.”

  Stani smiles and blows him a kiss.

  Kesean lunges at him, but his crew hold him back.

  “You’d better not let me see you again, you old fuck! I’ll kill your saggy ass!”

  Stani ignores the punk. With a look of pity and apprehension, Nate hands Stani his robe as he exits the ring. He knows it is hard for Stani.

  “Cheer up, my friend, this is the price of business,” Stani says with a smile and a pat on the shoulder. “Time for a drink!”

  Nate watches him as he heads back to his room. He knows he won’t be there for long. He knows this isn’t over.

  A cold light rain falls outside in the parking lot. The few lights from the street add an orange sparkle to the wet vehicles and pavement. From a side door Kesean, a bottle of Hennessey in hand, spills into the night with his posse, laughing and living it up after his great victory. After a moment they notice the hooded figure leaning on their car.

  “Get the fuck off of that car, mother fucker!” one shouts, starting to pull out his piece, but Kesean stops him.

  Stani removes his hood and begins to approach them.

  Kesean bursts in
to laughter. “Oh, you want more, old man? You one stupid mother fucker.”

  They circle Stani.

  “You have some talent, but you don’t know how to win, because you don’t know how to lose.”

  Silence hangs in the wet air, until they all burst into laughter.

  “I would advise the rest of you to remain out of this,” Stani warns as he removes his hoodie. “Would you mind holding this for me?” he asks the crew member closest to him.

  More laughter, but the man he’s holding his jacket out for isn’t amused.

  “Mother Fucker…” The guy pulls a knife and lunges at Stani. In a blur something happens, they don’t know what, but they hear the sickening wet snap of a bone, followed by an agonized scream. The man falls to the pavement, and when Stani turns to face them again, the knife is in his hand.

  The crew is stunned for a second, but then one of them pulls a gun. Stani flips the blade into his hand and throws it right into the guy’s arm. This time Stani doesn’t wait to act. He goes to the third guy closest to him because he’s going for a gun too. It’s in his waistband, but Stani is on him before he pulls it out. Stani grabs it with his left hand, still in his pants while he elbows the punk between the eyes. Finding the trigger finger, he gives it a squeeze and the gun goes off into his foot, then he pulls it out. Keasan has no gun and just stands there, unsure what to do, slowly backing away. There is no corner man to guide him.

  The other punk manages to pull the knife out of his arm and now moves for the piece he’s dropped. Stani cuts him off, kicking it away.

  “Stick him!” Kesean shouts.

  He’d like to, but he’s shaking with pain. Stani punches him square in the face with the sickening crunch of a broken nose. He’s out cold before he hits the pavement.

  Stani turns to Kesean. He looks ready to bolt. “Do not run. It only confirms to me that you are a coward, yes?”

  Stani calmly walks right up to him, not an arm’s length away. “I even give you first shot.”

  Kesean looks undecided.

  “One shot, but hurry. It is getting past my bedtime,” Stani tell him.

  Kesean goes for it, a real clocker right to the side of the head. It would put down a mule. It doesn’t put down Stani.

  “Now it’s my turn.”

  An upper cut tags him right under the jaw, a blow that would take another person’s head off. Stunned, Kesean staggers back and Stani follows.

  “Do you know where the salute comes from?” Stani moves as the Kesean tries to come back with a right, but Stani lands a brutal jab.

  “It is from the days of the knights. The face shield,” Stani gestures, then lands another jab to the eye. “It is a sign of respect.”

  The next is a combo, starting with a left jab followed by a big right, sending Kesean into a parked car. Kesean looks at Stani, totally confused as he slides down the side of the car to the wet pavement.

  Stani picks up the fallen knife and then returns to his prey. Now he sees what he’s after, what he needs to get by

  Fear.

  In the eyes of another.

  Helpless, powerless fear.

  He yanks Kesean up by his collar and backhands him in the face.

  “I saw that you noticed my scars back in the ring,” he says in a pleasant conversational tone. “But I didn’t see any on you.”

  Kesean tries to break free, but Stani won’t have it. Another brutal shot to the gut makes sure of it. Kesean soils himself.

  “Perhaps your scars are hidden, yes?”

  Kesean shakes his head.

  “No?” Stani snickers. “Scars are the measure of a true warrior. Souvenirs you never lose.” Now he holds the blade to Kesean’s face, close to his eye. Stani’s euphoria is almost rapturous. “I have given many men and women scars.”

  “Please…” Kesean manages, blood trickling from his mouth.

  “Please? You want me to give you a scar?” Stani laughs, giddy with the excitement that has now become erotic. He rips open Kesean’s shirt.

  “I have skinned greater men than you…”

  “STANI!” A shout comes from behind him. He knows it is Nate and suspects he’s holding his shot gun again. “Let him go.”

  “We are just having a pleasant conversation, Nathan. I am teaching him great things!”

  “Lesson’s over, big man,” Powder Blue the manager says. “He’s got the point.”

  Stani considers the glinting blade in his hand. “Do you get the point?” he asks Kesean.

  He nods.

  With a flash of the knife, Stani slashes Kesean’s cheek, a little bit more than a paper cut, but enough to stick around. “Now you do, and every time you look in the mirror you will remember.”

  The cut may be small, but it will sting for a long time.

  Powder Blue tosses Stani his hoodie. “Fucking Kesean needed some whup-ass.”

  Stani stops next to him. “Please, this is the last time I do this for you, especially for shit like that,” he says with an icy stare.

  “Right on, brother,” Powder Blue replies evenly.

  As Stani walks away, Powder eyes Nate with a warning. They wait until Stani’s well beyond earshot.

  “You’d best be talking to your boy. He can’t be fuckin’ up my dogs,” the gangsta tells the retired cop.

  “Yeah, right. You tell him,” Nate scoffs.

  “I ain’t scared of that shit,” Powder says.

  Nate laughs, “Oh yeah? Well, you should be,” Nathan says as he walks away. “‘Cause I sure as shit am.”

  Chapter 9

  In-Flight over England

  Elayna is settled into her first-class seat aboard a United flight from Munich to Newark Liberty, having picked up the items waiting for her at the terminal, including her cover identity. The GRU are perhaps the best in the world with documents.

  She lays out her plans, while listening to a classical mix on her iPod. Mozart. Handel. But being Russian, Prokofiev holds a special place in her heart. The more complex the composition, the better. To Elayna, a good operation is like a great orchestral piece, its many instruments working together with precision along a timeline and arriving at a predetermined point. Just as she can focus on a single instrument’s interaction, now she turns her attention the orchestra’s members.

  “And what about you two?” Elayna asks the pictures of Yuri’s men, Kreichek and Hutnikov. “Do you play well with others?”

  Both are around thirty and unmarried. She’ll be able to determine right off if they’re gay. That would leave her womanly charms ineffective. Either way, they’d resent her authority. They would also have similar information about her and probably peg her as a dyke. She’ll tweak her clothing to make them think otherwise.

  On to the targets. Four middle-aged men, probably soft from living the good life. They’ll never see her coming.

  Then there is the legendary Katrina, a true hero of the Motherland. An example to which any a Russian girl can look up to, just as Elayna had. “Our paths are so very similar…”

  She stops reading.

  “What do I want out of this?” Then the idea came to her, not in the form of a light bulb, but more like something you’d find on the road to Damascus.

  It was an idea that would change everything. “Will it work?” She smiles to herself.

  “Yes, I’ll make it work.”

  Elayna gets excited now. She looks at Katrina’s birth date, 11/11/62. "That's easy to remember," she says to herself. Smiling, she changes the password to her laptop and encryption key, though she doesn’t know why.

  Happily, she begins to redo everything she has planned; it’s a labor of love one might say.

  Chapter 10

 

  City Line Avenue

  The sudden cold snap has little effect on those inside the Ezekiel Baptist Church on this late October Sunday. The news about James “Bone” Washington’s passing has traveled fast through the co
mmunity, and Ellen’s friends didn’t ask to come to her side, they just came. It has been a rough night for her, rejecting a sedative or a sleeping pill for comfort.

  The church pastor, the Reverend Ellwood Wall, stands at the pulpit. He is a lifelong friend to Ellen and her family, and was practically a surrogate father to Bone. He shared the joy of his wedding, the euphoria of the birth of his sons, the heartbreaking loss of his wife to drugs and alcohol. Wall knew that Ellen, more than anything, would want, no need, to come to Sunday worship, so he sent a car around for her.

  His reading is from to John 16. “The time will come, that whoever so killeth you, will think that he doeth God’s service.”

  The passage has a chilling relevance, and stranger still, he’d chosen it the week before. The reverend continues from the chapter in which Jesus tries to tell his disciples the ugly truth, or at least as much as he thinks they can bear. Truth can hurt, but given the Lord Jesus’ gentle nature, he tried to soften the blow.

  “I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now,” he says, slowly gently closing the book as he steps from the pulpit, despite not having finished the text. Gently smiling at Ellen in the front row, Wall comes over with soft words, only for them to hear. “Will you and the boys join me after, Ellen?”

  “Yes, thank you, Reverend, bless you.”

  “No, bless you, dear,” he strokes her face gently, and then reaches out his hand to Boo and Russ.

  He turns back to his flock. “James died in the service to his country. He is a hero. So why is it that heroes like him have to die? How, can that be a part of God’s plan?

  Ellen looks up at the large cross at the front on the church in search of and answer.

  Chapter 11

  In Fight over Ireland

  The image lingering in Dan McDowd’s mind as he sits in the belly of an airborne C-17 isn’t that of Bone’s flag draped shipping casket. It is of the nurse at back at Bagram, gently kissing the fallen warrior once she was done cleaning him up. He had been ordered to escort Sergeant Washington to Dover. After that, his discharge from the Army will be effective, and he could move on to his position at FBI. In a way, he was glad to be going home, but the circumstance of his return and the mystery he was leaving behind will haunt him forever.