CHAPTER THIRTY
Three days later, while they were still waiting for word of Rats Scorvino’s whereabouts, they received an unusual visit.
When Hamilton “Hammer” Reese stepped into the penthouse, everybody knew it was something big.
“I only have a few minutes,” he said as he ordered Reno, Trina, and the “principals” at the house, to come with him.
Those that were there were Mick, Sal, Tommy, Monk, Big Daddy, and Mick-and-Big Daddy’s half-sister and Hammer’s wife Amelia.
They all looked at each other nervously, wondering what in the world this was about, as they followed him into Reno’s office and Tommy closed and locked the door.
They stood in front of Hammer as he leaned against the front end of Reno’s desk.
“What’s this about, Hammer?” Reno asked him.
Tommy’s people weren’t able to retrieve the video off of Trina’s badly damaged phone,” he said, “so Charles got in touch with me.”
Reno was shocked. “Got in touch with you?” He looked at Big Daddy. “You told him, Big Daddy?”
“No, I didn’t tell him,” Big Daddy said to them. “But I told him that there was a video somewhere out there with information on it that could ruin Katrina. Because guess what? It could! So yes, I told him that there was a video out there. But no, I didn’t tell him what was on it. I didn’t have to.”
“Why not?” asked Sal.
“Because I already knew,” said Hammer.
Another shocker. “How would you already know?” Amelia asked her husband.
“When the wife of one of the most powerful men in the world is a target of an assassination attempt, it gets my attention. When that husband and wife are related to me by marriage, and my children are in their bloodline, I take a closer look. That is why, while he was hospitalized, I made a visit to the home of the man with whom Trina was in that motel room. Mr. Javon Douglas.”
“And?” asked Reno.
“And I found the video he had hidden inside his residence. Very deeply hidden. It was encrypted with triple layer encryption. Which meant he knew what he was doing. But my guys uncovered it.”
Everybody looked around at each other, and then at Trina. Was Hammer there to arrest her?
But Amelia, who did not know about the video, was confused. “What was on that video that has everybody looking like they’ve seen a ghost? What was it?”
“I’m going to play it, Katrina,” Hammer said.
Trina’s heart dropped. “Why do you need to play it? I don’t want anybody seeing that!”
“But I need you to see it.”
Trina was confused. “Me?”
So was Reno. “Why would she need to see it?”
Hammer exhaled. “Because it exonerates you.”
There was a long pause. It was almost as if somebody wanted to ask what you talking about, Hammer? But they didn’t. They could hardly believe it.
“It exonerates her?” Reno asked. He was stunned too.
But Trina knew better. “That’s not possible,” she said to Hammer. She was frowned. “It’s not possible!”
“I’m going to play it.”
“But I thought you said it was triple level encrypted?” Trina was panicking.
“My team can decipher any encryption,” said Hammer, who was head of Special Operation forces for the entire U.S. government. “We encrypted it.”
He handed the disk to Tommy. Tommy put it in, grabbed the remote, and turned on the large TV screen in Reno’s office. Then Hammer pulled out his own special remote.
And there was a very young Trina, on that big screen, pulling over to the side of the road in her Mustang.
Latoya was there, just as they both said, urging her to stop.
When Trina got out of her car with her gun in her hand, Latoya could be seen and heard telling Trina in a scared voice that they were going to kill them and that she had to do something.
But then Latoya also told Trina the exact opposite a few moments later just as Trina was about to shoot.
But Trina was right. They all saw how she had ample time not to shoot when Latoya told her she was mistaken and that there was a family in that van.
Then the van pulled over and the man behind the steering wheel began to open the van door. And that was when Trina started shooting.
Trina turned away. She couldn’t bear to look at it.
Reno cringed, but he watched it. Amelia, the only one in that room that had not been privy to that video, was shocked.
“Trina!” she said when Trina ignored the cries of that young lady and began shooting anyway.
She looked at her with total shock in her eyes.
“Katrina?”
Trina turned back around, shame all over her face, as she looked at Hammer.
“Did you see that?” Hammer asked her.
“Why are you doing this? I lived it. I don’t have to see it, Hammer!”
“I’m not talking about the video. I’m talking about what was on you,” Hammer said.
Trina didn’t understand. “On me?”
“What was on her?” an equally confused Reno asked.
“This was on her,” Hammer said as he pressed the remote and zoomed in on Trina’s jacket.
“I don’t see anything,” said Reno, who actually went up to the screen.
“That’s because it was hidden in her coat’s lining. When I first saw that video, I just couldn’t believe it. Katrina out-and-out murdering an entire family? It didn’t make sense!”
“That’s what I said,” said Reno.
“So I kept rewinding it. Over and over again. And that’s when I heard it first. And then, after I got my guys on it, I was able to see it. This is what was hidden,” Hammer said, and the others in the office yelled for Reno to get out of the way.
Reno went back over to Trina as they all looked at the screen. His heart was pounding. He was so hopeful that he took Trina’s hand and began squeezing it.
Hammer zoomed in even more with software that had x-ray capacities that allowed him to reveal the inner lining of Trina’s coat. And inside that lining they were able to see what looked like a small, round silver button.
“A button?” Sal asked.
“It looks like a button,” said Hammer. “It fooled us for a second there too. But it’s not a button. It’s a recording device.”
“It’s a bug?” Reno asked, squinting his eyes to see it.
“That’s exactly what it is. But only it doesn’t just receive sound, it gives sound. And just after the young lady yelled for Katrina not to shoot because a family was in that van, I heard another voice.”
Trina frowned. “Another voice?”
“Yes. And that voice was coming from that device. I’m going to amplify it for you to hear it.”
Hammer pressed another button. And they could hear Latoya yelling for Trina not to shoot. And then, immediately after she stopped talking, they all heard another voice. A male’s voice with a panicked tone. “He’s got a gun, Trina. He’s got a gun! Shoot to save yourself. Shoot! Shoot! Shoot!”
And that was when Trina fired those rounds at that van.
Trina was shocked. She looked at Reno. Reno was so happy he could hardly contain himself. “Do you know that voice?”
“Yes! That’s Javon’s voice. I’ll know that voice anywhere.”
“I’ll be damn,” said Mick. Even he was blown away.
“You shot up that van,” Hammer said to Trina, “because you were told what the young lady had said to you from the beginning: it was a threat. He had a weapon. You had to do something. And you did.”
But Trina was still perplexed. “But why wouldn’t I remember that?”
“You did initially. Look.”
Hammer showed, on that video, where Trina was looking around as if she was looking for somebody else to be there.
But she found no one. “You looked around for that person to appear. But no additional person was out there. So you seemed to chalk it up to your nerves. That you thought you heard something when you really didn’t.
And then you were so traumatized by what you had done, you totally forgot what you heard.
All you could remember was what you did. ”
“Wow,” said Big Daddy. Not since he thought his wife had died, only to find out she wasn’t dead and all and that Hammer had a hand in that too, was he so blown away. “Wow,” he said again. But Reno was elated. He picked Trina up and let her back down.
“You didn’t murder anybody, Katrina,” said Hammer. “You were manipulated into believing you had killed those people in cold blood when all you were doing was protecting yourself and that young lady.”
Reno placed his hand around Trina and squeezed her. Everybody in that room were congratulating her.
But Trina was dazed. That news had staggered her. She looked at Hammer. “What was Javon’s motive?”
“He’s dead now,” Reno said before he realized who was in that room with them. “At least that’s what I heard! We’ll never know now.”
“We know,” said Hammer. “He recorded another video. It was an oldie but goodie too.”
“Then what was his motive?” asked Trina.
“He was obsessed with you. He thought, by getting you to take out some lowlife guy who would bring his whole family to a payoff, would dirty you up enough that you wouldn’t find him so objectionable.
Because he was dirty too. When you ran away from that boyfriend of yours in Reno, Nevada, he searched for you.
He was certain you had gone back to your hometown, so he spent many years looking all over Mississippi.
When he found you, you had already hooked up with Reno.
And that was when he knew all was lost and he might as well go on with his life.
You were too close to power. He couldn’t get next to you.
Until he went bankrupt, was flat broke, and needed a big pay day. ”
Trina shook her head. “I had no idea,” she said. “Thank you, Jesus! Thank you, Jesus!”
“Here,” Hammer said as he handed her the folder he had in his hand.
Trina looked at the folder, and then she looked at him. “What’s this?”
“I notified the Justice Department that you were working, at the time of that incident, as an asset for me. You may or may not know this, but at that time I was a high-ranking official in the CIA. Because of the work that you did for us, you have been granted full immunity from any form of prosecution related to that incident.”
Trina’s eyes lit up. So did Reno’s. “Immunity? She can’t ever be arrested for what happened?”
“Never,” said Hammer. “And it’s signed by me in my current role as Special Ops Director, and by the Attorney General of these United States.”
Trina and Reno and the whole family gathered around Trina and that sheet of paper on Government letterhead and embossed with the Department of Justice insignia. They looked upon it as if it was the golden child.
“Oh Tree,” Reno said, as he continued to hold her and shake her and hold her again. “That was my biggest fear that somebody would find that video, turn it over to the cops, and they would arrest you. Oh Tree!” They hugged again.
Then Trina looked at Reno. “You knew all along,” she said, her hand on the side of his sincere face. “You had more faith in me than I had in myself.”
Reno nodded. Tommy squeezed his neck.
But then Trina looked at Hammer and she hurried over to him and hugged his neck. “Thank you, Hammer, for caring. Thank you so much!”
Hammer could feel a swell of emotion come over him. And he quickly stood erect. “I’ve got to be in Bahrain. Goodbye everyone.”
Everybody thanked him and patted him on the back and said their goodbyes. Even Mick, who despised the Feds and Hammer as the leader of them, reached out and shook his hand too.
Hammer looked at Amelia, who was in tears as well. “Walk me to my car,” he said as he left. He didn’t wait around for her, which usually meant they weren’t on the best of terms. But she followed him out.
Then Trina looked at the immunity letter again. Then she looked at Reno again. And she fell into his loving arms and they cried together.
It was as if the weight of the entire world had been lifted from her small shoulders.