Dawn of the Unthinkable (33 page)

Ryan sighed and stretched. This was shaping
up as a long day already. Usually on a Sunday, he and the family
did not move very quickly. He was normally coming off his Saturday
night job parking cars, and as he came in wired from that, he
didn’t get to sleep until about two or three in the morning. His
wife and kids could sleep in, too, sometimes lasting until ten.
They would lounge in bed, not getting downstairs until around
ten-thirty. By the time everyone had filtered through breakfast and
a shower, they were usually late getting to the eleven-thirty a.m.
mass. In the afternoon, they might visit a mall or Kathy’s mom, who
was a widow. Ryan liked visiting her because she fussed over him,
fed him his favorite salty snacks, and generally took his worries
away. Now, instead of a relaxing day, he had created a bit of
stress.
Oh well. In for an inch, in for a mile
, he
thought.

“I’ll call him and take my lumps like a
man,” Ryan said. “No use prolonging the inevitable,” he said with
resignation in his voice. The despair made Palma laugh.

“Hey, don’t worry about it. Creating new
worlds isn’t your full-time day job, and as far as I can see,
there’s no instruction manual, so we’re all feeling our way along.
Besides, he always seems to have a different take on things than we
do, so he might think it was good. Anyway, I’ll get off the line so
you can call him. Let me know what he thinks.” Palma said good-bye
and hung up.

Ryan sat and stared at the phone. He had a
feeling that his usual Sunday was going to be all fouled up, making
reporting to work on Monday harder than usual. Maybe he was trying
to do too many things and should drop one of his activities. Well,
he would have to consider that later. Right now, he had a call to
make.

Fall 1993

Otto Krumpf was in the jackpot again. He had
been caught with Neo-Nazi literature on his desk at work, and as he
was a federal employee, that didn’t sit well with his managers. He
was given a verbal reprimand and ordered to remove and not visit
those sites again. This incident pushed him further into the Nazis’
camp, whereas he usually tried to maintain a balance between
appreciation of both the American and German cultures. He found
that when he strayed too far into his Aryan self, he had a hard
time controlling his tendencies toward violent thoughts and
aggression. He was trying to keep his cruelty satisfied by
electrocuting goldfish swimming peacefully in a bowl at home, but
that got old after a while. He was starting to get a blood lust
that he felt could only be satisfied by killing a big mammal, so he
decided to take up deer hunting, despite a “good old boy” flavor to
it that he didn’t care for. He certainly had the marksman skills
for it, as he had progressed to master level with a variety of
weapons. While his handlers were nervous about him running around
armed out in public, they realized that there was no use trying to
keep him under wraps. His dual personalities was starting to
control more of his actions than they were. That was always the
danger of cultivating dual personality subjects. While it was the
best way to have a mole in an organization; the inherent
instability of personality almost always exposed the agent in the
end.

Krumpf took some time off and went to
hunting grounds in northwest Pennsylvania. He tried to avoid all
human contact, but that was difficult with an activity so popular
in the state. He carried a standard hunting rifle as a blind, but
once out of sight, he would pull his assassin’s rifle out of his
sack. A marvel of German engineering, it broke into five pieces so
small they would fit into the carrying case of a briefcase that had
had its insides removed. As these bags were fairly common, he could
bluff his way through most checkpoints without being searched. It
had a silencer and was accurate from one thousand yards. This was
the first time he would try it on something other than a rabbit,
which no longer satisfied him
.

He had read several books on hunting but was
not prepared for the tedium of tramping through cold, damp woods,
not seeing anything to shoot at for hours. He relieved his boredom
by thinking about his friend’s daughter, whom he had seen again at
work, and she had made a special point to stop by his desk and say
hello. Krumpf had delighted her by giving her a CD with girly songs
on it. She had surprised him by throwing her arms around his neck
and kissing his cheek, which was his first kiss of any kind for
years. He was embarrassed to get an almost instantaneous erection,
but being young, she fortunately did not notice. He knew she was
still a child, but having been rejected by any one female older
than sixteen all his life, he was desperately drawn to this child’s
seemingly non-judgmental acceptance of him. He wished that he could
feel just warm adult affection toward her, but when a man isn’t
getting any, to use the crude vernacular, biological urges could
overwhelm even his usual asexual tendencies. As it was, the thought
of being intimate with her consumed him, and he looked around to
see if he was totally alone. He took out some hand cream that he
had to keep his delicate hands from chapping in the cold weather
and started pleasuring himself, thinking about her clean,
breast-less body. He had a powerful orgasm and had to lean against
a tree to catch his breath. He cleaned himself up and grinned; that
had felt good. He wondered what the real thing would be like. Would
he ever get the chance?

When he finally did spot a stand of eligible
bucks, they were several thousand yards away, and quickly
disappeared over a ridge once they sensed his presence. He had come
out a few days after the season had started so that he would run
into fewer humans. But this also had the effect of leaving fewer
deer, as many of the “dumber” deer had been bagged on the first few
days, and the ones that were left were used to being hunted. They
seemed to know he was there before he actually saw them, and of
course, his scent was carrying, as he was not used to positioning
himself correctly yet. Finally, just as he was about to pack it in
for the day, he got his first clean shot at a ten-point buck of
middling size. It apparently thought that the bang-stick-men were
gone for the day and that it could relax. But Krumpf had climbed a
tree for a better vantage point, and it didn’t seem to think to
look up. He trained the laser sight on a position on its side where
he thought the bullet had the best chance to get to its heart. All
he had to do was control his adrenaline, which was causing his
heart to race.

The trigger had a medium pull pressure, to
guard against accidental, excited discharge, but not too stiff in
case nanoseconds mattered. He sighted through the scope and tried
to figure if he would have to make any adjustments for the wind,
which was swaying the tree he was in. He took a final deep breath
and started to squeeze the trigger. But he had a moment’s
hesitation that most people get before they decide to kill
something. Just then the deer finally sensed something amiss and
was starting to move. Krumpf completed his squeeze, and the bullet
arrived a split second later, but was no longer targeted around the
ribs, and glanced off its shoulder. He could see an explosion of
fur and tissue, and the animal stumbled but kept on going. Heart
racing, Krumpf scrambled down out of the tree and ran up the ridge
toward the spot where he had hit the deer. He found some fur and
blood but looking around, could not see it. It appeared from the
blood around the area that it would be enough to kill it, but he
did not search for it for too long. He was not sure what he would
do with one if he did kill it; being a picky eater, he had no real
interest in venison. He was happy just to have drawn some blood and
was now convinced he could shoot a human if given that
assignment.

He came out of the woods whistling a happy
tune, knowing that he had passed an important milestone. In his
mind, he was now a killer.

Joe Riven could see that his business
partner, Brian Willows, was starting to become increasingly wealthy
and increasingly drug-addicted. He no longer socialized much with
him, and in fact, they had taken separate offices, as they could no
longer stand close contact with each other. Of course, part of this
was due to prosperity, as they had signed a lease on a much nicer
suite of offices and no longer worked across from each other. There
was now rich paneling and leather sofas which helped impress
potential clients. They were also nice for banging your secretary
on, which Willows did and Riven found annoying. Willows’ excesses
used to amuse him and make for good stories; now they appeared
reckless and threatening to their business. He had started to mull
over dissolving the partnership and striking out on his own, but he
was not sure he had the “rainmaker” type of personality to attract
clients like Willows did. Indeed, a good chunk of his business
still came from the castoffs of Willows “balls-to-the-walls”
philosophy; you had to have a good stomach for risk to play in his
league.

Those that did were making out like bandits,
Riven had to admit. Some of Willows’ clients were scoring thirty to
forty percent gains, which would increase even a modest investment
considerably if left in place. His own clients were doing well,
though, and not complaining, whereas some of Willows’ had stormed
into the office, demanding to know if Willows “…knew what the fuck
he was doing?” Riven had usually closed the door to his office when
these types came, but he could hear through the air ducts Willows’
defenses. Usually it ran along the lines of the client’s desires
for quick riches and that the type of investments that brought them
entailed unusual risk. It wasn’t until he heard Willows talking
about planes and shipments, though, that he began to get the
impression that there was more to the risks that were being taken
than just market plays. He didn’t want to assume the worst, but
when he caught a glimpse of a shiny, silver automatic pistol in one
of Willows’ client’s holster under his arm, he knew that he had a
problem. He didn’t want to confront his partner, but he didn’t want
to get dragged down by him, either.

He decided he had to say something and
waited until the end of a slow trading day when things were not as
rushed. He knocked at the door of Willows’ office, and said
“Brian?” He could hear a sneeze and a drawer being shut.

“Ah, yeah, Joe, hang on a sec, would ya?” He
could hear whispered conversation and turned around to see if
Heather, their secretary, was at her desk. She was not, and Riven
got a bad feeling in his stomach. It is usually uncomfortable for
most people to catch someone in the act of, or who had just
recently had sex. Riven, not too proud of his plump body, was a
little prudish, and got uncomfortable just watching people make
out. He was about to turn around and leave when he thought,
Screw it. I’m her boss, too, and this is not what
I
hired
her to do
. He stood at the door and waited. It finally opened,
and Heather hurried by him, somewhat disheveled-looking. He also
thought he caught her eyes looking glassy, but he wasn’t sure. A
look at Willows’ eyes and attire confirmed a coke and romp session,
which helped Riven make up his mind. He had to get out of this
partnership.

Willows was smoothing and patting rumpled
clothes and wiped his nose. His once athletic build was starting to
go soft, and he had the look of someone who got too little sleep
and took too many drugs. The fact that he was still successful
could probably be attributed to the fact that the crowd he hung
with now was very much the same way and trusted one of their own.
But their partnership had become something like trying to mix a
family movie theater with an X-rated one, and it just wasn’t
working. Riven took a seat and pretended not to notice as his
friend straightened himself out.

When Willows was finally ready, he said
brightly, “Yeah, dude, what’s up?” as if nothing was wrong.

Riven stared at him. “What’s up? I’ll tell
you what’s up. I don’t like the idea of you having relations with
our secretary in our office, and I really don’t like the idea of
toxic substances being consumed here, that’s what’s up.” He had not
planned on being so direct, but Willows’ innocent act irritated
him. He really had no proof of what he had just said, but the
evidence was overwhelming. He waited tensely for Willows’ reply. If
it was going to be violent, then he had to be prepared. Not that he
was certain that he could defend himself, but he had to be
ready.

Willows at first looked astounded, with a
“Who, me?” expression, but then considered the trail of evidence he
and Heather had left and knew it was no use. His slide into the
fast lane was imperceptible at first but was now almost complete. A
chance date with a model had led to more introductions, and before
he knew it, he was one of the lower-ranked beautiful people. He was
looked down on because he still had to work at something other than
the arts, but he knew enough names to be acceptable. At first, it
had been exhilarating, but the demand to keep up with people a lot
better off had taken its toll on him. Their desire to celebrate
their fame and wealth almost constantly was exhausting, hence the
need for coke and now meth to keep going. As a lot of those folks
could sleep in the next day, and didn’t have to spend their time
poring over financial statements, they had people like him to do
that.

The finances had caused him at first to
churn Riven’s accounts for more money, but when that wasn’t enough,
he became a little more desperate. He was at a party for a model
one night when a pleasant-looking young man approached him and
offered him some coke. Willows tried it and got a major buzz, more
than usual. When he inquired as to its source, the man replied that
it was from a little known valley in Columbia and that more could
be had. Willows struck up a friendship with him and bought larger
amounts as its impact began to fade. After a while, the guy asked
Willows if he was interested in becoming a partner in a little
importation that could set him up well. It would be a fast, low
flight with the plane to be ditched in the Everglades after
delivery. It sounded insane, but then so were the profits. Willows
needed big paper to keep up with his new friends. So against his
better judgment, he agreed.