Chapter 15
CHAPTER
RHETT REACHED THE ISOLATED HOUSE thirty minutes later and was met out front by the security team. He knew that each of them could shred an NFL lineman or a WWE warrior with their pinky. They scared the piss out of Rhett just by existing.
They checked his ID, though they well knew who he was, and they expertly searched him for weapons, though they knew he never carried any. However, they were part of a world where you did these things routinely, because if you didn’t and someone under your protection died, then so would you.
He was escorted inside and up to a room on the second floor. She made him wait for ten minutes before making an appearance, because she could.
Victoria Steers was a few years shy of forty and the product of an Asian mother and a Caucasian father.
She stood five nine and was whipcord slender with black hair.
She possessed delicate, porcelain-like features that were, in contrast to the hair, as pale as cream.
Her voice was nearly as low as a man’s, and her manner was understated and sometimes stilted, if somehow still imperious.
Steers was battle hardened in tactics, superbly schooled in ruthless backstabbing, and had absolutely no compunction about killing anyone who might challenge her interests.
Rhett had once listened to her unemotionally order the execution of someone, who, up until then, had been one of her closest allies.
The message spun off this had been clear and intentional: No one is safe.
She appeared dressed in black slacks, an untucked, long-sleeved black shirt, and white tennis shoes with three-inch platforms that brought her up nearly to Rhett’s height.
She smiled at him, but it was a smile without genuineness.
Her small affectation completed, she sat cross-legged on the floor, and motioned for him to join her.
More inflexible than the limber Steers, Rhett still managed to get down there with only a bit of a struggle.
“The problem?” she said.
“Solved. Burr is handling disposal.”
“And?”
“Deep water, diced organs, and heavy footwear.” Rhett hesitated for a moment, drawing up his nerve. “It’s the third in two years. That is unsustainable.”
“I disagree,” said Steers.
“I’m looking at the long game and—”
“That is the only game there is, Mr. Temple. But if you allow yourself to appear weak? Then there is no long game possible because you will not be around to execute it.”
“So, if we appear so strong, why does this keep happening?”
“I summoned you here for that very answer,” she replied, neatly turning the tables on him.
He leaned back and reconfigured his pretzeled legs to allow him a moment’s reflection, better circulation, and a chance to think of a response now that he had lost the advantage.
She beat him to it. “I feel compelled to also ask whether you are feeling out of your depth.”
“No,” Rhett said instantly because he sensed if he did not, he was dead.
“So explain,” Steers ordered.
“I believe this keeps happening because we have a leak somewhere.”
“Obviously, and just as obviously that is your responsibility,” she replied.
“But it seems that every time I close one hole another one pops up. That can’t be a coincidence.” He glanced at Steers to see the woman’s reaction.
“My response to that is exactly the same as my previous one.”
“I’m not afraid to ask for advice from someone far more experienced than I am.”
He knew that she either bit on this and showed some mercy, or he might suffer the exact same treatment as Peter Lombard had.
“It is not a weakness to seek help from others better established to make decisions of importance,” she remarked. “It is a strength. Up to a certain point.”
Steers had this awkward way of speaking that he had noted before. But her words were true enough, and even more important, they agreed with his.
“What do you suggest?” he asked.
“That you use the intelligence gained from each ‘problem’ to make sure there is not an additional ‘problem’ with which to contend. I sense a pattern here. The government is looking for a pathway in. They have not succeeded yet because we have been too quick for them.” She paused.
“You have done well on the reaction time, Mr. Temple. But reaction is eventually a losing tactic. So proactive is the method we must adopt here.”
“And to accomplish that?” he said.
“Observation: The other targets of FBI complicity were all midlevel people who had access to financial information the authorities would find useful. This is correct?”
“Yes,” replied Rhett.
“And you and others were able to discover their betrayal and prevent them from reaching the level where any damaging information could be transferred?”
“Also correct.” He looked at her expectantly and she gazed back at him with a disappointed expression that froze his blood. He scrambled to think of…
He blurted out, “Then the feds would next look for highly placed people, to change things up on us.”
“That is how I would perceive the situation, yes.”
“Then I just need a way to drill down on who they might target next. And then either eliminate them or convince the person that partnering with the authorities is a bad idea.”
“And why not just kill them?”
Rhett was ready for that one. “First, if people keep dying or disappearing, then that will raise suspicion in and of itself. And every death is another opportunity to make a mistake and leave a trail leading right back to us. And second, if I can turn a potential informant into an ally, ensuring their loyalty? That is a good outcome for us.”
She allowed him a smile and Rhett realized this had been a test.
“You are required to think at that heightened level at all times, Mr. Temple, not simply in rare instances where you are desperate and thus panicked. Panic brings with it a diminishment of judgment that quite often leads to catastrophic results.”
He nodded. “I understand.”
When she leaned forward Steers was no longer smiling. “Do you really perceive exactly what I am attempting to convey to you, Mr. Temple?”
Rhett held her gaze. “I… perceive, Ms. Steers.”
She kept eye contact for a few moments before sitting back. “Then my trip here has been worthwhile, and my return journey will be joyful.” She dismissed him with a curt wave.
As he rose to leave she said, “One more thing.”
“Yes?”
Three men appeared out of the darkness. One pinned Rhett’s arms while the other slid his jacket down and ripped open his left shirtsleeve. And though he was young and strong, Rhett was helpless against them.
The third man laid out a large sheet of plastic on the floor.
The two other men effortlessly lifted Rhett so that the plastic could be placed under him.
Then Rhett felt a blade cut into the flesh of his left arm near his wrist. The cutter casually walked the blade up his arm, neatly missing all veins, arteries, and muscle with a hand well practiced in this form of human carving.
Even restrained as he was, Rhett writhed around a bit, his teeth grinding as he tried desperately not to scream out. He feared that would result in his immediate execution.
When the man reached nearly to Rhett’s shoulder capsule, he pulled the knife free. The other men let go their steel grips and Rhett sank to his knees in his own blood on the plastic, and threw up.
Steers nodded at another man who had appeared. He administered an injection to Rhett’s arm, causing him to slump unconscious on the plastic.
The men carried Rhett and the plastic, and his blood, out of the room, while Steers sat there with her eyes closed and her breathing subdued.
She appeared to be meditating.
Meanwhile, Rhett was laid on a table in an adjacent space where the bleeding was halted, and his wound thoroughly cleaned, sutured, and bandaged.
When Rhett came to, he was sitting in his Porsche wearing a fresh set of clothes.
Taped to the steering wheel was a piece of paper with words typed on it.
FOR EVERY WRONG THERE MUST BE THE RIGHT PUNISHMENT. FOR EVERY PUNISHMENT THERE IS THE POTENTIAL FOR EVEN MORE. ACT WISELY.
A groggy and still nauseous Rhett rolled up his shirtsleeve, eased back the bandage, and looked at the long, stitched wound. It weaved its way up his arm like a snake, and it ached like he’d been shot. He then noted the bottle on his console.
It was Oxycodone. The dosage and other instructions were on the label.
One pill daily as needed for pain. If you cannot otherwise stand it. And if you cannot otherwise stand it, perhaps you are in the wrong business.
He drove off to catch his private jet ride back home. Despite all that had happened, and now with a permanent scar on his body, Rhett Temple exhaled in relief.
I’m alive.