The Intern's Handbook: A Thriller (24 page)
Read The Intern's Handbook: A Thriller Online
Authors: Shane Kuhn
Tags: #Fiction, #Retail, #Suspense, #Thriller
WONDERLAND REDUX
M
y evening with Alice was a huge success. The HR team really nailed this, and I couldn’t have done it without them. Alice accepted my proposal and I convinced her that I’m head over heels in love with her. We spent the night in a hotel, but she invited me to dinner at her apartment tonight. She jokingly said she would be cooking and that I should taste her food before I really commit to marrying her. When I’m there, I’ll clone her keycard so I can access Bendini’s office and grab the partners’ classified travel itinerary. Then Bob and I can finish our execution planning.
Rule #13: Everything is a weapon.
If you approach this job thinking that the only weapons you have at your disposal are guns, knives, poison, explosives, and all of the usual clichés, then you will be dead before you can collect your first paycheck. Think about the predator. Truly effective predators do not bull their way toward the prey and attempt to take them by brute force every time. They stalk, lure, and even seduce. A pack of coyotes, some of the most effective and misunderstood predators in the wild, use one of the most brilliant luring and stalking methods I have ever seen. As some of you may know, coming from places like California, Arizona, and Colorado, coyotes have figured out that domestic pets
are a strong addition to the menu. But with their elaborate shelter—someone’s home—they aren’t always easy to get. I have seen a pack of coyotes send a female in heat to lure a male, nonneutered dog away from a house, only for the males to tear him to shreds when he heads out into the woods to get laid. That is not just killing; it is the dance of death, a fluid waltz with a climax of blood.
I’m telling you this because, no matter what happens to me, I want you to know my real intentions with Alice. If I fail, Bob will blame her and he will claim that she’s the reason I lost my focus. But you’ve been with me every step of the way and you know that is not the case. I might have done more than necessary to seduce an asset. I might have overstepped with her in many ways. But in the end I know that she has played a major role in what I believe will be my ultimate success with this case. And in the end, even though I will use those things that we all associate with the word
weapon
, I would not be in the position to use them if I had not used the true weapons of a predator—cunning, persistence, and most important, patience.
United States Department of Justice
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Washington, D.C. 20535
SURVEILLANCE TRANSCRIPT: AUDIO RECORDING
Location: Wireless phone call intercept—IMSI catcher/Roving bug
Subjects: John Lago and Marcus (censored).
Marcus: | Hello? |
Lago: | Marcus? |
Marcus: | Is this John? |
Lago: | Yes. Can you talk? |
Marcus: | Of course. I’m glad you called. |
Lago: | It sounds like someone’s there. |
Marcus: | It’s a festival. In the street. I forgot which Saint. |
Lago: | I didn’t call for small talk. I hope that’s all right. |
Marcus: | Fine. I’m not one for small talk either. What’s on your mind? |
Lago: | When my mother died, what was it like? |
Marcus: | In what way? |
Lago: | I mean, for you. What was it like for you? |
Marcus: | It was . . . hard to describe. I thought I would die too. I wanted to die. |
Lago: | Because you loved her? |
Marcus: | Very much. We had been together so long, I couldn’t imagine life without her. She was the only real family I ever had. |
Lago: | Were you married? |
Marcus: | Yes. We had eloped a few years before her death. We ran away to Honduras and got married in this little church outside of town. |
Lago: | Is that why you went back there? |
Marcus: | Yes. I mean I had to get out of the country, and this place had some connection to her. |
Lago: | I love someone. |
Marcus: | John, that’s great. What’s her name? |
Lago: | Not just yet. Okay? |
Marcus: | Sure. Can you tell me a little about her? |
Lago: | Yes. She’s beautiful. |
Marcus: | That always helps. |
Lago: | It certainly doesn’t hurt. |
Marcus: | What’s she like? |
Lago: | She’s tough and kind of no bullshit. Like a guy, you know? But she’s also very much a woman. Almost too much of a woman, if you know what I mean. |
Marcus: | I think so. She sounds like a handful. |
Lago: | She is! You have no idea. Was my mother that way? |
Marcus: | No. She was very quiet and gentle. Unassuming. I don’t think we ever raised our voices to each other once. And those were some hard times. |
Lago: | I’m having kind of a hard time too. |
Marcus: | Do you want to talk about it? |
Lago: | I’ll try. I, um, I’m in this line of work . . . it’s not very conducive to having a relationship. |
Marcus: | How so? |
Lago: | It’s . . . dangerous. |
Marcus: | Can you tell me anything about it? Maybe I can help. |
Lago: | I can’t tell you about it. Not over the phone. Maybe not ever. |
LONG PAUSE. | |
Marcus: | John, are you there? |
Lago: | Yeah. I’m so tired. |
Marcus: | You want to talk later? |
Lago: | No. I’m running out of time. |
Marcus: | Why? John, I might be able to help you. |
Lago: | How? You’re in Honduras. |
Marcus: | I’m a very resourceful person. I couldn’t have lasted this long if I wasn’t. |
Lago: | No one can help me, Marcus. I just need to talk a bit. |
Marcus: | Let’s talk. |
Lago: | If you could’ve done something to protect my mother, even if it meant that you might die, would you have done it? |
Marcus: | Yes. Without a doubt. And since she was pregnant with you, I would have gone to the ends of the earth . . . |
Lago: | Are you there, Marcus? |
Marcus: | Yeah. It’s still just . . . hard to think about all of that. |
Lago: | I know the feeling. |
Marcus: | Is she in danger? The woman you love? |
Lago: | Yes. |
Marcus: | Then you need to do what you can to protect her. You are my son, and I don’t want you to be in harm’s way. |
Lago: | I need to tell her everything. That’s the only way. |
Marcus: | Then do it. Come clean if that will protect her. |
Lago: | She’ll probably reject me. |
Marcus: | Not if she loves you. |
Lago: | You think so? |
Marcus: | I know so. I did . . . things that I was afraid to tell your mother. Horrible things that were a part of my . . . addiction. But she took me back. Love is that way. It’s something the two people in it can’t control. Takes on a life of its own. |
Lago: | I’m afraid. |
Marcus: | Good. Then you will approach this with the right amount of caution. Fear is a great asset if you use it right. |
Lago: | That’s an interesting thing to say. |
Marcus: | Why? |
Lago: | I don’t know. I guess I didn’t expect you to be so interesting. |
Marcus: | Because I’m an old ex-junkie hiding out in Central America? |
Lago: | No . . . Yes. |
Marcus: | Someday, you’ll get to know me, John. And I think I’ll surprise you. |
—END TRANSCRIPT— |
THE CLOSEST I EVER CAME TO BEING REAL
D
inner with Alice tonight. I don’t know what makes me more nervous, having to dose her and clone her keycard, all the while expecting the feds to come down on her apartment like Blitzkrieg at any moment, or talking about “the wedding.” I bring a bottle of Silver Oak cabernet, the right kind of medicine to soften the edges of both potential problems. I push the buzzer on her door. No answer. My guess is she’s in the shower, as Alice is compulsively late. It’s her way of saying, “I’m important and all you peasants can wait until
I
am ready for
you.”
Now that I’m her betrothed, she has blessed me with a key to her apartment. As I unlock the seventeen locks on her door (the two hinges could be easily popped by a savvy thief), I half entertain the idea of just grabbing her and taking off tonight. Bob can whack Locke himself, get off his ass for once and earn like the rest of us. I have plenty of money, so I don’t need the bonus. And Bob will be so busy taking care of Locke so the “clients” don’t take care of him that he won’t have time to come after me. At least not right away. By the time he did get around to it, we’d be long gone. I’m sure the real Alice would rather live like a queen in some obscure, tropical locale than hack it out with the FBI for another decade making five figures and watching all the white boys get promoted.
The door swings open and I stride inside, the man of the house.
“Honey, I’m home!” I pronounce in my best 1950s TV Land voice.
No answer. Probably in the bathroom doing lady things. I crack the wine and pour two glasses. As the first mouthful of wine warms my throat, I feel oddly at home. I start thinking about the whole eloping thing again. Alice said she wanted to get the fuck out of here. The wine begins to speak to me with its oaky vapors, convincing me to take Alice away with me tonight and put HR and Bob in my rearview. By the time the glass is finished, I’m anxious to give her the good news.
I walk through the living room and stop short when I see something coming out from under her bedroom door. The apartment is fairly dark, so at first I think it might be just a shadow. Then I switch on the hall light, illuminating the fact that it is a
pool of blood.
I pull my gun and listen for the presence of anyone moving on the other side of that door. My heart sinks when I hear nothing.
I take a step, forcing the issue. Then another. Then I am at her door, my shoe thoroughly drenched. I still hear nothing. I put on gloves and wrap my hand around her bedroom doorknob. It’s broken and loose and slips right out of the door, landing with a sickening wet thud on the blood-soaked carpet. I stand there, looking at the door, and tell myself I know what the fuck is in there and I
do not have to see it
. I can leave all of this to the bottle flies and the men in rubber suits. My hand reaches for the doorknob.
“Why am I opening this fucking door?”
Hearing my own voice like that, in a situation that requires absolute silence, is terrifying. My hand is shaking for the first time ever. Every last drop of saliva has vacated my mouth and my head is pounding to the point that I think my eyeballs might burst out of the sockets. I walk into the room. It’s pitch-black, but the light from the living room cuts into the room like a razor.
Then I see Alice.
I bite my lip hard enough to draw blood so I can to keep from screaming. Her body is facedown on the carpet in a thick pool of
blood. I move closer, despite my instinct to run. Her hands are full of defensive wounds—deep cuts and purple bruises from the fight she put up. Her hair is matted around her skull, soaked in the dark blood that came from the multiple blunt force trauma wounds. Her legs are wildly askew from being broken several times over. Her naked back is covered in stab wounds that look like hundreds of screaming red mouths. Holding back vomit with guttural rasping breaths, I gently move her head with my foot. Her face stares back at me, beaten so badly it is no longer recognizable. It is the purple, swollen mask of merciless bludgeoning with black eight-ball hemorrhage eyes staring through red slits. I have killed many people, but I have never damaged someone this horrifically or put them through this much agony. Whoever did this is a monster and wanted the whole world to know it.