Assassin Affairs (33 page)

“Get
out of that bed, you two!” one of them ordered.

The pair
looked up from their carnal activity in stunned disbelief.

Kristie
tore off the blanket covering them. “We said get up!” she
shouted, as the two black-clad and hooded sisters pointed their
weapons at them.

The
frightened twosome complied and cowered nude in front of them.

“Make
your peace with God. Mrs. Carboni sends her regards.”

“My
parents will double whatever she is paying you!” claimed the
nervous lad.

“Carlotta
is very generous.” Karlee made up a number and said, “She
is paying us fifty grand a head.”

“We
can double that, I promise,” he stated in a trembling voice.

“Get
down on all fours, young man,” she ordered. She wanted him to
feel humiliated in front of his lady to ensure the family's
displeasure with Carlotta.

He
complied.

“Now
whinny like a horse!”

Again the
scared kid obeyed.

“Sweet
cheeks, get on his back and go for a ride.” She then ripped a
cord from the drapery. “Here, wrap this around his neck while
you ride the horsie around the room and while he tells us how he's
going to make payment!”

The sisters
enjoyed the show as he tried to speak while choking and giving his
girlfriend a ride around the room.

“Okay,
we believe you. We'll be in touch with you later about our money. Be
smart and don't even think about disappointing us!”

From there
the group went to another of the cartel's family households. This
time there was a poker game in progress as they slipped in through a
back window. Again, the hooded pair was totally unexpected.

“Everybody
on the floor!” shouted one of the sisters.

This time
they met with more resistance.

“Who
the frig are YOU?”

“Carlotta
sent us. She wants to remind you who's in charge. Now get down on
your knees!”

“Well,
well, well,” said Karlee. “Look who we have here.”
They were careful to never use one another's names on missions.

“Oh
my, oh my, oh my,” said Kristie with a clear tone of excitement
in her voice. “I do believe it's Mr. Sinclair!”

As she
moved toward Sonny, one of the other poker players pulled out a gun.
Karlee promptly fired a silenced round into his chest. Kristie now
routinely carried a serrated knife on her belt on all missions and
began to reach for it.

“Drop
your pants, Mr Sinclair.” she ordered, drawing the sharp weapon
from its comfy home.

“Fuck
you!” came the response.

Karlee
fired a round into his leg. “You'd better do as my partner says
mister.”

“To
hell with you damn bitches!” he shouted as he reached for his
own gun.

Pfft Pfft
were the next sounds as Kristie merrily placed two rounds into his
crotch.

The
remaining men backed away and raised their hands into the air.

“We'll
let the rest of you live and leave you with a message. Carlotta
Carboni is to be obeyed without question from now on. She also wants
a larger percentage of the profits. She feels this is fair. Do you
agree?”

They all
nodded in unison as the hooded pair made sure each was disarmed and
then backed out of the room.

When the
team regrouped outside the home, Karlee said “I think Carlotta
Carboni is going to be in for some interesting times and very soon,
too.”

They all
laughed as they departed the scene.

A few days
later, the Carboni family rode together to attend a family funeral.
One of the guards had been paid off to look the other way as a bomb
was planted under the car during the service. It was set to go off
when its signal receiver came within a hundred feet of a radio
transmitter which was placed at the cemetery exit. There would be
four more funerals.

The movie
that the sisters had both performed in turned out to be a bigger hit
than anyone had expected. It soared to number one in the rankings.
There was talk of a sequel. Kristie was offered a new job from the
people who had released her earlier when she had gotten pregnant. She
declined with a few choice words.

Soon both
sisters were nominated for Oscars for their stellar performances as
rogue government agents saving the little guys. The night of the
awards ceremony, the popular pair sat with Randolph at a table with
other members of the cast. Lots of fans stopped by the table to offer
their support and congratulations.

As the
evening wore on, the emcee announced the various winners. Everyone
applauded accordingly. The girls anxiously awaited their moment,
anticipating how cool it would be if both could win, and hoping that
at least one of them would. When the emcee began discussing their
film, there was some disorder and confusion behind the speaker as he
leaned toward the microphone.

“For
this next award, we have a rather unusual situation, folks.”

The sisters
looked at one another perplexed.

“This
time we have very special circumstances. Our next winners have been
separated from their parents for more than twenty years because of a
witness protection situation. I'm thrilled to be able to announce
that that condition has now been resolved. Mr. and Mrs. Kingston,
would you please come out on stage and make the presentation for your
daughters Karlee and Kristie?”

“Girls,
will you both come to the podium now please?”

The entire
audience went wild with enthusiastic excitement and gave the parents
and sisters a standing ovation. Both girls began to cry as they rose
from their seats and ran up to the stage.

It was a
long overdue reunion. The ecstatic, proud parents presented the
awards, followed by lots of hugging and sobbing. The girls decided to
keep their clandestine endeavors a secret and hoped to focus their
futures on their acting careers.

Chapter 7

Lethal

Ladies

A
Return to the Colorado Cabin

The young
woman appeared to be a college coed who had been drugged. She was
cute, with short blonde hair, wearing just a blue denim shirt, held
together by only one button, but it covered all the critical areas.
She was bound by handcuffs to what appeared to be a downtown parking
meter. It was difficult to tell, as the image was too dark due to the
predawn lighting and illuminated by only an overhead street lamp.

I'm a
semi-retired female private investigator located on Florida's Gulf
Coast. Someone had left an anonymous note with my morning newspaper,
telling me to check this internet site for a live feed concerning a
potential case. As it was already early daylight in Florida, I knew
this had to be somewhere west, perhaps Denver, as the roads were
wider than most. It looked like a big city, but there were no car
headlights yet, so not that big of a city. Maybe it was Omaha, I
thought. Kansas City came to mind, too. I couldn't tell if I saw a
mountain range in the background, or if it was simply clouds on the
horizon from a storm front.

As I
watched the young woman, I wondered if anyone would help her, or
would passers-by simply look at her as they continued on their way to
work or to shopping. Would mischievous kids undo her lone button, I
asked myself. Maybe she had been date-raped and dumped there. Maybe
she was about to be raped. All kinds of things went through my mind
as I sat there watching the computer screen, feeling helpless.

Several Weeks Earlier

The Kingston
family had run afoul of the mob and long ago been forced into WITSEC,
the Witness Protection Program. As they were led to believe that
things would be resolved within a year, and the parents were most
fearful they would be found, they had sent their two young daughters
to live with their aunt for the duration to ensure their safety,
severing all communication. She too was in the program.

As cruel
fate would have it, that one year turned into five, which became ten,
and ten grew into twenty. In the meantime, the two look-alike sisters
had started careers, one in law and the other in modeling and acting.
Both had often been mistaken for twins, although they were a few
years apart in age, and were very smart, blonde, tall, blue-eyed and
attractively slender. They had starred together in a TV show as twin
sisters and later in a film as rogue government agents and won awards
for their work. Along the way, destiny had led them to encounter some
lethal liaisons and become well-trained assassins. Realizing that the
best defense can sometimes be a good offense, they used these skills
to take out the crime family responsible for their own family's
separation and had recently been reunited with mom and dad in front
of millions of adoring fans at the Oscar awards ceremony. When they
finally got a private moment together in the folks' hotel room, they
spoke at length of family things.

“Girls,
we're both so proud of you,” beamed their dad.

“That's
right! We've followed your careers from their beginnings,”
added their mom.

The
foursome continued busily updating one another on the numerous
happenings in their lives over those many years. The sisters held
back the fact that they had become professional assassins. Just when
they were about to take a dinner break, the mother casually shocked
the sisters with an unexpected revelation.

“Just
after we went into the program, I discovered I was pregnant. You both
have a younger sister named Kacey!”

The stunned
pair was agape with astonishment and excitement.

“A
sister?! Oh my God! And it's another 'K' to boot,” said Karlee.

“Tell
us all about her, mom,” Kristie eagerly requested.

“She's
been such a joy to us. She's done well in school, participated in
lots of sports and other activities, and is simply an all-around,
free-spirited, sweetheart. She blonde like both of you. We never told
her about you two, knowing she'd try to contact you or tell everyone
about you, and that could have put your lives in danger. She saw your
TV episode 'The Sinclair Affair' and your movie several times and is
your biggest fan! Enlarged photos of you both are on her bedroom
wall. She's commented on your resemblance to her.”

“Where
is she? When do we get to meet her?”

The two
parents exchanged an apprehensive glance, both unable to continue the
discussion as the mom broke into tears.

“What
is it? Tell us!” ordered the sisters.

At this
point, the father took over. “Kacey fell in with the wrong
crowd. We tried to dissuade her, but to no avail. She has a stubborn,
bull-headed mind of her own, just like the two of you always did.”
He pulled out his wallet and shared a photo of her.

“Oh,
she is a cutie. She's got our eyes. What wrong crowd? Who are they?
Where are they? In what ways are they so wrong?” Karlee asked.

“Kacey
fell in love with a young man named Chad. He had some roughneck
friends and we suspected they may have been involved with illegal
activities, but we didn't know what. We didn't really know much of
anything, but they gave off bad vibes. Anyway, she disappeared last
week. The police say she probably just got pregnant and decided to
elope. She would never do that!”

“We'll
find her, Daddy, “declared Kristie. “We're good at that
sort of thing.”

“You
are?”

Karlee gave
her the sisterly shut-up glare, and they both proceeded to get as
much information as they could over the next few days as the pair
introduced their parents to some of their favorite Hollywood
celebrities and treated the family to some bonding time at nearby
Disneyland.

The sisters
had developed an extensive database of contacts. As their assassin
skills had evolved, so had the quality of the names. One public
figure on the list was the head of the NSA who had awarded them a
license-to-kill when they had rescued his family. Karlee sent him a
message with all the names of those involved in her sister's
disappearance. If anyone could help them, it would certainly be the
head of the NSA!

The next
morning she got her response. Some of the names were familiar to the
NSA and connected to a militia in Colorado, but investigations were
in their preliminary stages and he offered nothing substantive. He
seemed evasive on what little he did know and recommended that the
girls get in touch with Alexei, their contact and mutual acquaintance
in Europe.

The sisters
had initially met Alexei as a fellow dinner guest at the palatial
estate of Karlee's ex-fiancé's parents. He had been posing as
an agent for Interpol, while in reality he was an assassin and
considered the top man in the world for training new ones. When
Karlee did her first independent kill, she hit his radar and ended up
getting a year of intense training at his residence outside London, a
remote, old English castle which had been updated with all the modern
conveniences. In exchange for his tutelage, she had agreed to serving
his needs on a limited number of contracted hits, and her sister
Kristie had helped out, too, getting some vital on-the-job training.
Alexei had been a central figure in the sisters' operation that took
down the Carbonis, the crime family responsible for driving their own
family into WITSEC. They had all become close in the process.

Karlee and
Kristie promptly placed an overseas call to him.

“It's
good to hear from my girls again,” he said with his Belgian
accent. “How goes the family reunion?”

They
brought him up to date on the dilemma with their newly-discovered
third sister.

“I've
been meaning to get in touch with you two. Do you remember the night
we invaded that house with the poker game?”

“Yeah,
you guys guarded outside while we put on our masks and went inside
and did our thing,” said Kristie.