Rete and Trident Vol. 02 - Pt. 03

This is part three of a seven-part story. See Author's note of Rete and Trident Vol. 2 - Part 1 before reading this.

***

Chapter 9

When McKee left his apartment, Gilbert texted me that he'd left in a black Cadillac Escalade. He sent me the plate number so we could identify the car. We were already in the alley sitting in the Explorer waiting for him before he left his own home.

Earlier that evening, Olivia and I checked into an Air BnB and made an appearance at the pop up. Using the tickets I purchased from Joaquín, we got two hamburgers, two orders of taquitos de al Pastor, two each of three kinds of Tamales, and two ice-cold bottles of a sour citrus soft drink called Squirt, which had been bottled in Mexico and was made with cane sugar rather than corn syrup.

Olivia and I sat at a picnic table with some random people who were already there. Olivia and I split half of one of the burgers, we each had a taquito, and we each had a tamale.

The burgers, which were lightly brushed with an enchilada sauce and garnished with Mexican street corn were good. The taquitos, which were sweet and spicy, and served on hand-made tiny corn tortillas, were amazing. The tamales, as promised, were heavenly. We wanted to binge on the food, but we were very careful not to get over-full just before an op.

We gave away our extra burger and tacos. I kept the tamales, however, as I knew they reheated well. The popup itself was the hipster event of the year in AdMo. We got a lot of comments on our attire and we established our presence there. We now had cover to be in AdMo after dark.

We slipped out after spending an hour there and sat in the Explorer waiting for McKee to arrive. As he pulled past us, we quickly slipped out of the car and stalked his Escalade. He stopped at the gate and it started to slowly retract automatically. I saw a little clicker device in McGee's hand, which must have controlled the gate. He pulled into the parking lot and stopped before the roller door. As the roller gate started to close. Olivia and I slipped into the gated area. I whispered, "Go" and she ran screaming, "Help me! Help me!"

I shouted out angrily, "Suzy! God damn it, get your fucking ass back here!"

I saw McKee's head pivot to look over his shoulder in alarm. Olivia ran in front of his Escalade. She'd doffed her jeans jacket and had it in her hand. She ran over to McKee's passenger side door and started pounding on it. "Help me! Mister! Help me! He's gonna kill me!" Her acting job was pretty good. She was frantic.

I repeated my threats at Olivia, calling her Suzy and I stepped closer.

Olivia ran around and positioned her self between the Cadillac and the roller door. She waved her jeans jacket over her head and slapped down on the hood with her other hand, again asking the man to help her. It was a smart move. It bounced her tits, showed her midriff, and her belly piercing jewelry glittered in the Escalade's headlights. If that didn't get the driver's attention, nothing would.

I walked past the driver's door to allow McKee to get a good look at me. To his eye, I was one of those ridiculous retro hipsters. carrying a bag full of food truck food. As I got to his front quarter panel, I heard the Escalade thunk into park. McKee had taken the bait.

The driver's side door opened up and I turned to look. McKee was standing next to his car and had a gun pointed at me through the gap between the door and the car, as if a car door would give him some sort of protection. You could punch through the metal of a car door with a screw driver.

"Don't move asshole!" he said.

I immediately replied, "It's a major felony to carry a gun in DC, mister. Put the gun down. This is none of your concern. Just a little disagreement between my wife and I."

I took another step towards Olivia, who visibly cowered. "Bobby, we were just flirting. I swear."

"Bullshit!" I shouted back. "I saw you painting her tonsils with your tongue."

I heard the gun cock. It sounded like a revolver. I stood very still.

"Mister," I said, deliberately showing fear. "This isn't any of your business."

To Olivia, McKee said, "Miss, I've unlocked my doors. You can take shelter in my car if you want."

She bolted for the passenger door.

"Suzy, don't get in his car!" I shouted. "He's got a fucking gun! You'll be at his mercy and I won't be able to protect you!"

Olivia reached the passenger door and got inside. She slammed the door shut.

McKee smiled. "I've called the police. They're on their way. I am going to open the door behind you. When it opens up, I want you to step in and then kneel on the floor with your hands behind your head."

I knew transparently this was a lie. I was using a very powerful stingray device that I zip tied to the fence just after it got dark. The stingray was configured to prevent any cell phones within two hundred yards from making or receiving any calls. Transparently, he wanted me inside of the roller door so he could take me into custody. I suspected that meant he was planning to take Olivia prisoner and kill me.

I conspicuously looked at the gate, which was now closed behind me. "Mister, I don't want any trouble. You go ahead and call the police. I've done nothing wrong and I'll be happy to wait right here." I made myself sound very scared.

McKee then said, "Suit yourself."

He climbed into the Escalade and shut the door. Less than a minute later, McKee's window rolled down. He extended his hand out of the window and his pistol clattered to the ground. The roller door started opening.

I watched as McKee stuck his hand into the window and then gingerly closed the window on his wrist, pinning it in place. I laughed in delight. That was an excellent improvisation on Olivia's behalf. The car then was put into gear and pulled through the door into the parking bay.

I slowly walked over and picked up McKee's pistol in a paper napkin. It was a 1970s-era Smith and Wesson model 29. McKee, the asshat, was a Dirty Harry fan. Such a fucking cliché.

A.44 magnum didn't seem like a good choice for personal protection to me. The recoil was heavy and hard to control and you were limited to six shots, making it impractical in a combat situation. As home defense, you'd have a good chance of accidentally shooting through the walls of your house and hitting your neighbors. The rumor I heard was that it was originally intended to protect humans from bears.

I walked into the bay inside of the roller top doors. The Escalade had been parked in the space closest to the door. "Lower the roller door," I called out.

The roller door began to descend. I pulled open my backpack and pulled out a ziplock baggie. I opened up the cylinder to McKee's pistol and used the ejector rod to dump the rounds into the baggie. I pressed the lip shut. I stashed both in my backpack. I pulled out a carabiner onto which I'd stacked a bunch of the DHS standard-issue zip tie flex cuffs. I bought them surplus off the internet. I put these in my left hand. I withdrew my Sig 9mm, racked the slide, and slid it into a waistband holster which I clipped onto my belt.

While I did that, the passenger side door opened up. Olivia emerged, carefully keeping one arm extended into the car. No doubt, that was the hand holding her pistol on McKee.

Olivia tossed a pair of keys over the roof of the car in my direction. I heard it hit the ground about four feet away. I put the keys in my pocket.

By then, the outside roller door was all the way down, I walked over to the driver's side door. I could hear McKee threatening Olivia, "You have no idea who you're fucking with!"

I drew my pistol and smashed his fingers against the top frame of the door with the barrel. At least one of them broke. McKee screamed in agony. He tried to pull his wrist out of the window, but it was a futile gesture. I used the interval to thread a zip tie cuff around his wrist. When it was tight, but not cutting off his blood supply. I jerked open the door.

McKee was pulled off balance and half way out of the car when his wrist suddenly moved. I had him slowly stand up just outside of the car with his wrist held at a painful angle. I hastily searched his pockets and felt for a concealed weapon. I found nothing. I did withdraw his wallet and a glasses case from his pockets, but nothing else.

I then had him kick off his shoes and I shackled his ankles together.

"Nicely done Suzy," I said. "Closing his hand in the door was genius."

Olivia smiled brightly at my compliment. I had her come around the car and hold her pistol on McKee.

"This is what is going to happen. I'm going to lower the windows to your car. You are going to kneel and put your hands behind your back. If you don't, then you'll be made to kneel and you will suffer. I will start by breaking the rest of the fingers on your left hand. Do you understand?"

"Yes," he said gruffly.

I stood on the other side of the door and held the empty end of his zip cuff tight. I used the key fob to his car to lower the windows. I paid out slack on the wrist cuff and allowed him to slowly kneel. Once he knelt, he put his hands behind his back as I commanded him to. I walked around behind, being careful not to get between Olivia and McKee as I fed his right wrist through the empty side of the zip tie cuff. I pulled it tight and checked it for play. He was secure.

I leaned down and used my knife to cut the ankle shackles off. I pulled him to his feet and brought him over to the door. I forced him to kneel again.

There was a number pad next to the door and a very heavy looking deadbolt. "What is the code for the security system?" I asked.

"Do you have any idea who I am?" McKee asked angrily. "You're fucking with the wrong guy."

"I know exactly who you are, Burton Alan McKee," I said. "You work at the Office of Domestic Finance at the Treasury department as an SES level two. You live in an enormous apartment on the 3100 block of S Street Northwest with your wife Allison, who seems to travel out of town a whole bunch." Most of this, I said over my shoulder as I visibly rummaged through my backpack.

I turned to face him so I could see his expression. "I also know that you are the grand wizard poobah of a secret society called the Glaukopis."

He kept a pretty good poker face. I pulled a portable light out of my backpack and pulled up his shirt tail to expose his belly. The parking bay was pretty dim, so I activated the light in black light mode. His skin glowed. This made him gasp and he suddenly started to tremble.

"I'm also aware of your group's spying on the US government, the selling of Uncle Sam's secrets to companies and foreign governments, the subtle influencing of policy and power. I'm aware of how you recruit your owls to spy for you. I'm aware of the use of Albas to honeypot people to blackmail them."

I made a show out of pulling a folder out of my backpack. I withdrew a photo and held it in front of McKee. It was his Glaukopis initiation photo. It was even more graphic and worse than Cameron's.

McKee suddenly started to shake. "Oh my God!" he repeated as he hyperventilated. He was totally flapping. I slapped him. "If it worked in movies...." I justified to myself. He quit flapping and looked at me with burning angry eyes.

"Secretary of Homeland Security Seneca Bollard was some kind of pissed off to discover that your group has been fucking with our beloved nation's government for almost a hundred years."

"She was fucking enraged, McKee, to find out you got honeypotted by Kimsu Theron of all people and put her in defacto control of your entire organization."

I pulled a photo of him having sex with Kimsu and dropped it in front of him. The photo had come from the trove of blackmail material that was pulled out of Kimsu Theron's house after the Darden County massacre.

"Tell me, McKee, did you ever figure out that she works for a foreign government?" I asked.

He clearly hadn't known. He was suddenly sweaty and I thought he was going to pass out. I slapped him again to bring him fully back into the moment.

"Your group of symbology-obsessed dilettantes gave the keys to the entire fucking counter-intelligence apparatus of the Federal Government over to a foreign power. Rage doesn't begin to describe how Secretary Bollard reacted."

Each fact I dropped about the Glaukopis organization, hit him like a body blow from Mike Tyson. This was like the knock out punch. I waited for him to respond. Instead he began to quietly sob.

"Tell me, McKee, does Steven Chen know you handed control of the group to Kimsu?" McKee suddenly looked up in shock.

"No, he doesn't know," I observed. "That is quite obvious from your reaction. For what it's worth, Cameron didn't know either, although he suspected."

The name drop of Cameron was met with a gasp.

I looked at my watch. "Steven Chen will be here in fifteen minutes or so. We can let him know when he arrives. I'll let you confess to him if you want."

The look of shock and alarm on his face showed that he'd been holding out hope we'd be surprised by Chen's arrival.

"Let's talk about why I'm here," I said. "Secretary Bollard is curious about what you have in that 1920s-era vault you have inside there. Steven Chen is coming here to pick up some money and to do that the vault must be opened. Secretary Bollard sent us here to take a look when you and Steven open it up."

McKee knodded at this. He could understand that much.

"I am sad to inform you that under the terms of the secret provisions of the Patriot Act, you have been declared an active irregular enemy combatant. In other words, you are formally declared a terrorist who represents a clear and present danger to the US. As of four days ago, your civil rights were suspended. I could show you the paperwork, but what's the point? You don't have a right to see the evidence we have against you. Not any more. You'll get no lawyer, no appeal, not even a fucking court case. As of four days ago, your ass belongs lock, stock, and barrel to Seneca Bollard.

"There are three ways this can go, McKee. The first option is that I'm fully empowered to do a summary execution on the spot. If you piss me off, I'll kill you right here. We'll dump your body in the trunk of your car and leave it somewhere in the DC Area to be discovered once your corpse starts to stink. I promise you that if I execute you, it will be quick and relatively painless-- not at all like it was for the child in that fucking photograph. This is the option I'm leaning towards.

"The second option is that you are taken into secret custody. We'll ship your ass to Guantanamo, or maybe one of the remaining black sites in Europe or Central America. This has the advantage that expert interrogators will be able to slowly prise all your secrets out of your head in your remaining years. It will be hard on everyone else, though. To your family, friends, and coworkers, it will be like you just disappeared off the face of the Earth while your wife was away on business. You will never be heard from again. After a few years, you'll be declared legally dead. Allison might actually weep for you, never knowing the atrocities you committed for your stupid society of Athens.

"The third option is that you cooperate and turn the keys of the Glaukopis over to Secretary Bollard. This will allow you to continue to live a semblance of a normal life, but make no mistake, it is a life of permanent slavery. You would exist simply to serve your master and your master is Seneca Bollard. Understand?"

He nodded.

"This is what is interesting, McKee: Secretary Bollard insisted that you get to choose your path. Regardless of which path you're going to choose, just know that Seneca Bollard will get her look at what is in that fucking vault whether we drag you out of here in a body bag, hand you over to some CIA black bag team, or if you walk out of here as Seneca Bollard's slave."

This was the tactic that I game planned with Matthew Gilbert and Olivia in Gilbert's safe house earlier that day.

"What'll it be?" I asked.

"Third option," he replied. "I'll help you open the vault."

I acted disappointed. I sighed and said, "Shit! So be it. So let me ask this one more time, what is the security code to the alarm system?"

He gave us the code which deactivated the system. Then we used the keys off of his key chain to open up the door to the interior.

Inside was the vault room of a 1920s bank. The vault room was a big rectangle 100 feet long and maybe 30 feet wide. The room was twenty feet high. The floors were polished cement and the walls had polished wood paneling on them. There were no windows and only two doors. The other doorway, which was part way down the room on the left, had no door, but did have a curtain in front of it. The light in the room was provided by vintage wall-mounted stained glass art-deco fixtures. They turned on with an antiquated push button switch on a brass plate near the door.

At the far end of the room was an enormous hinged circular vault door. There was no mistaking what it was. Half way between the vault and the door, there was a furnished area with an oriental carpet, some leather couches, reading lamps, coffee and end tables. It was arranged like a family room. Instead of being focused on a television set or a fireplace, however, the furniture was arranged facing a wall with a mosaic on it. The only modern appliance in the place was a bar fridge behind the furniture next to a small bar counter with a sink.

The room was comfortable and dry and didn't smell of mildew or condensation. As I walked down the rectangle, I saw that the mosaic was a large tile depiction of the Glaukopis symbol. Just in front of the mosaic was a 3x10 wooden stage raised about a foot above the concrete floor. Just above the stage was a suspension system with an electric winch similar to what Cameron had in his basement. This was a performance stage of some sort.

I quickly walked over and looked into the doorway with the curtain. It was a large bedroom probably 50 feet square. In the dead center of the room, there was a king sized mattress under a drop cloth. There were photographic lighting stands and soft boxes lined up on two walls and there were a bunch of power outlets and extension cords. Some of the lighting fixtures held large black lights.

Against one wall was a huge wardrobe. It contained many sets of plain white sheets. There was also a trove of cleaning supplies, including mops, disposable toilet brushes, paper towels, large heavy-duty trash bags, an entire box of large jugs of bleach, several large rolls of poly-sheeting branded as carpet protection, a box of blue tape, and an entire box of plastic drop cloths. Disconcertingly, there was also a box of body bags. I instantly realized this room must be where the initiations took place. I'm not going to lie, it gave me the fantods.

On the wall furthest from the door to the bedroom was another doorway that had no door. It led to a spartan bathroom that contained a toilet, a large tiled shower, and a pedestal sink. There was a shelf above the toilet that contained four 32-roll packs of toilet paper.

I walked back outside over to the door to the vault room. I helped McKee to stand. I walked him over and sat him on the couch.

"Suzy, will you ball gag him please?" I asked.

Olivia pulled a gag out of my backpack and gagged him. I noticed that the door to the vault room automatically closed and when it did, it locked. You even needed a key to get out of this room. The phrase "The doors are locked from the outside" rattled through my head.

A couple of minutes after 10:00 PM, there was a chime in the room. A minute later than that, I heard the roller door mechanism start up.

"Suzy," I said to get her attention. I threw her the carabiner with the zip ties on it. "Why don't you go hide in that bedroom?" I'll wait behind the couch."

We'd positioned McKee so that he was sitting on the couch with his back to the door. From the door, he looked like an older man reading a book.

I laid behind the couch group so that I couldn't be seen from the door.

A minute later, I heard a car turn off and then the roller door come down again. After another minute or so. I heard the key in the dead bolt of the door to the vault room. The door opened up. I heard a deep man's voice saying. "Come along. This way."

I heard the door snap shut and latch with a solid thunk.

The deep voice said calmly. "That's it Sloane, I've got you. There's a step up here." I heard them mount the stage. Then I heard the winch cable play out with a whine of the motor. I crawled over to the edge of the couch and peeked around the corner of it. Steve Chen was a stocky Asian guy in his late fifties who was almost bald. He was leading a short and very fit pony-tailed redhead wearing a fancy workout outfit. The yoga outfit was leggings, a sports bra, and matching form-fitting jacket that was not zipped. The woman had very fancy BDSM cuffs on and Chen was stringing her up on the winch line by her wrists.

I watched as Chen pulled a leather hood off of Sloane's head. He pulled a different leather hood out of a shoulder bag. He pulled the hood over her head, feeding her pony tail through a hole in the top. He quickly zipped it shut. It was a practiced move and she didn't see anything but the mosaic on the wall in front of her. The mask had no eye holes and there were two padded cups over her ears that looked like the type of hearing protection airport workers use. After that, he flicked a switch on the hearing protection.

He then raised the winch until the woman was on her tip toes. it looked extremely uncomfortable.

Chen said, "She's got a deprivation mask on, Burton. She can't hear us. It's okay to speak now."

Chen, alarmed by the lack of response from McKee turned around. "Burton? Are you okay?" Chen asked.

I stood up and held my gun on him. "Hands up and don't move!" I commanded. "Kneel. Good. Now cross your ankles."

By then, Olivia had emerged from the bedroom and when she saw the situation was in hand, she put her gun into her backpack purse. She quickly went behind Chen and put the zip tie cuffs on him. I'd given her lessons on this a couple of weeks ago and she did the procedure perfectly.

I dumped a bewildered Chen on the couch next to McKee.

I told Chen I was from the DHS. I demonstrated that I knew all about Glaukopis, and showed him his initiation photograph. I then informed him he'd been declared an irregular enemy combatant, and that his civil rights were suspended. He took it much more stoically than McKee had. Chen was made of sterner stuff.

I gave him the three options that I'd given McKee. Unsurprisingly, he took the third option as well. I then pulled him into the bedroom and quietly interrogated him thoroughly on accessing the bank vault. Chen gave me the combination. He then talked me through the procedure.

I had Olivia keep an eye on him and I repeated my interrogation with McKee in the vault room. It was a different procedure than the one Chen told me. For some reason, I got the feeling that McKee was telling me the truth, but Chen had been lying. I went back into the bedroom and broke two of the fingers on Chen's left hand without telling him why. As I went to break the third, he confessed that he lied to me and confirmed the opening procedure which McKee told me.

I took the big brass key he kept on a chain around his neck and pulled him back into the vault room and deposited him on a different couch than McKee. McKee kept his key on a chain around his neck in the same manner as Chen.

The face of the door was a solid metal panel with three locks in it,

I handed one of the keys to Olivia. We walked over and inserted our keys into the holes labeled "1" and "2", which matched the digits engraved into the keys. On a count of three, we twisted the keys and a very heavy latch clicked open. Again in a count of three, we twisted two handles on opposite sides of the door simultaneously. A metal panel hinged out.

This revealed a large metal wheel that looked like the wheel of a ship. In the center of the wheel was a large combination lock.

I dialed in the combination. When I was sure it was right, I pulled down on the handle next to the dial. The metal wheel in the middle of the door suddenly unlocked. I spun it counter clockwise and the vault door unlatched and I was able to pivot the whole thing open. It was a very heavy door, but it had been hung on precision bearings and the hinge allowed me to pull it over with a modest effort. When I got it all the way open, I latched it open with a heavy-duty retaining mechanism mounted on the wall.

The inside of the vault was the size of a master bedroom of a middle-class home. Along the edges were shelves. The shelf to the left contained a bunch of leather-bound journals. The shelf straight ahead contained hundreds of file boxes. On the right hand side of the vault, was a smaller collection of boxes which had red markings on the outside.

In the middle of the floor, there were two pallets of US currency.

One pallet was hundred dollar bills in bank straps. The bank straps had been shrink wrapped into ten-strap bundles, each one containing $100,000. I estimated that there was close to $50 million dollars in hundreds. I looked at a couple of straps. The bills were printed only a few years ago.

The other pallet was twenty dollar bills in bundled bank-straps. There were a lot more hundreds than there were twenties. The shrink wrap and the pallets were branded with a Swiss Bank which did a lot of business in the US.

I peeked into several of the boxes. The boxes dead ahead, which were half of the boxes on hand, contained the personnel files in past and present society members of the Glaukopis society and all of the owls. The boxes with the red markings contained blackmail information on important people.

The leather bound journals were the hand-written minutes of the society. It was essentially a history of the organization. At the end of the shelves, strapped to a wall behind a series of cloth, paper, and sticker seals, was a leather-bound book entitled "To the Next Chief". I hypothesized this was how the organization turned over leadership. The next leader would break the seal on the book, which would contain instructions he would need on how to assume control.

My guess was that the seal was there to tell the current leader whether one of his subordinates had taken a peek at it. I thought about this in my head and it was the only logical way to bootstrap command and control of a secret society.

***

The first thing was to stash the woman Chen called "Sloane" until it was time to leave. I'd heard Chen refer to her as I got Olivia's attention and we walked to the stage. I lowered the winch until the woman could lower her wrists to her waist. I had Olivia steady her as she was able to take her weight off of her tip toes.

Leaving her cuffs bound together, I detached them from the winch. I pulled her over to the bedroom. She was strangely quiescent, as if I was handling a doll rather than a a living and breathing human being.

I handed Sloane a bottle for water which I pulled out of the bar fridge in the other room. The mask did not cover her mouth. She opened it, drank about half of it in big swallows, and then put the cap back on it. I took the bottle back.

The bed had restraints for cuffs built onto the headboard. I pulled her purse off of her shoulder, then laid her on her back on the bed. I then clipped her wrists to the headboard.

I spent the next few minutes going through her purse. Her identity was Sloane Moore. She also lived in Bethesda, Maryland, not far from Steve Chen. She had a realtor's license, an employee badge for a marketing consulting company based in Bethesda, and she had business cards printed up advertising her Only Fans page. She had membership cards to a gym, a hot yoga studio, and loyalty cards for half a dozen businesses and four credit cards. She had close to a thousand bucks in cash in her wallet.

Her purse also contained an unopened box of condoms and a heavy velvet pouch with only a bottle of anal lube in it. That was a weird find.

While I was looking in the purse, Olivia went to my backpack and retrieved the light. She illuminated Sloane's belly, and the Alba tattoo started to glow, which confirmed what we both suspected. Either Chen or McKee planned on some recreation with an Alba that night, it would seem.

"We should photograph this," said Olivia.

She pulled the camera out of my back pack. There were black lights among the photography lights, so she started messing with those, I unfastened Sloane's restraints and stood her up.

"Take her shirt off," said Olivia. I pulled the jacket and the sports bra off of her. Her strangely quiescent acceptance of me just stripping the clothes off of her made me strangely aroused.

Sloane had very nice breasts, but they were horribly bruised with long thin bruises. Her breasts had been caned recently. Her nipples, which were a peach color against Sloane's pale skin, were exceptionally thick. They were pierced with thick-gauged D rings made out of a shiny metal.

Next, I pulled off Sloane's leggings, which she passively allowed to happen. She stepped out of them after I lifted one of her feet. I felt a surge of arousal and adrenaline as I felt her legs and she gave not one iota of protest. There was something about her subservient acceptance of me stripping her naked that got my motor instantly running.

After I got Sloane's pants off, she smelled strongly of her musk. She was hella aroused. She had on a thong, which I slid down.

Olivia took that moment to look over at me. "What are you doing?" hissed Olivia quietly. "We're taking pictures, not molesting her!"

"We have no photos of an Alba below the waist," I explained in a a whisper. "I wanted to see if the tattoo extends into the crotch area or if they have special piercings down there."

As soon as I slid the panties down, the room filled with Sloane's musk. She was heavily aroused and smelled like she'd been stewing in her own juices for a bit. Olivia stifled a laugh. She whispered in my ear, "Good God, she stinks. She's got it bad. She smells as bad as I did after I watched you fuck Sunny senseless for two hours."

I didn't expect for her to joke about that, but the way she delivered it was funny. She laughed and I laughed with her. It was actually a nice shared moment.

With her pants and panties off, I inspected Sloane's crotch area. She was perfectly hairless with no stubble. That meant waxing or electrolysis. She had very thick and fat vaginal lips. Each outer labia was pierced with a stout D ring that was shockingly thick. She also had a piercing in her clitoris that ran vertically through the hood. I turned her around and I could see that she had a butt plug inserted. The cheeks were parted slightly and a jeweled end was sticking out.

There was fresh lube all over the area. "This lube is fresh," I said to Olivia. "I bet she inserted the plug during the car ride over here." My guess is that the plug was what was in the velvet pouch.

"We're going to be here a while, do you think I should take it out?" I asked.

"I'll do it," she said.

Olivia came over and started working on extracting the plug. When Sloane figured out what was going on, she quiescently bent at the waist to make it easier on Olivia. When it came out, the plug was much larger than either of us would have expected and was made out of metal.

Olivia took the plug over to the sink and reflexively washed it, drying it with a towel from the shelf. I held out the velvet bag, and she dropped it inside. I put it back in Sloane's purse.

After Olivia got the pictures she wanted, I pulled Sloane over to the toilet and sat her down. She instantly peed like a race horse. It was a big one and it took a while. She'd been holding it for a while, but hadn't given any sign of disgust or disapproval.

I put a wad of TP in her hand. When she was done wiping, I stood her up and pulled her back into the bedroom.

Back in the bedroom, Olivia was still adjusting the black lights. I took the handheld light and illuminated her pussy. I saw that she had words tattooed in invisible ink just above her slit. It was a long thin banner which read, "Dolor Brevis, Gloria Aeterna."

It wasn't hard to guess that it meant, "Pain is short, Glory is forever."

Olivia turned on the black lights and started snapping pictures and making adjustments on the camera to get them to show up clearly.

For the next few minutes, I positioned Sloane around according to Olivia's instructions. At one point, Sloane captured my hand with hers. It startled me because it was the first movement she made without me guiding her to make it. She folded my fingers over, but left my index finger extended. She pulled my index finger to her breast, fed it through a D ring and twisted my wrist so that I pulled cruelly on her nipple. As I did so, I heard her gasp, she physically trembled, and a plop of moisture from her crotch hit the cement floor.

She was really turned on by the rough play and was trying to communicate that. I disengaged my finger from her D ring and slapped her very hard across her ass. I held her in place for a minute to indicate that she should be still. When she was, I lifted her arms off to her sides and kept raising them back up as she lowered them until she got the message I wanted her to hold her arms out.

I put Sloane's clothes back on. She sighed in bitter disappointment, so I slapped her very hard on her ass again. This time, I hit her hard enough to leave a hand print that would take an hour to fade. She shivered and moaned. Something about this turned me on so much I got very aroused. The feelings of guilt started in almost immediately. This poor woman was a trafficked sex slave. I had no right to exploit her further.

Sloane got the message to shut up and did what I wanted without complaint. When she was clothed again, I laid her back on the bed and fastened her wrists back to the headboard.

***

We interrogated McKee and Chen for four hours or so. We started by offering to share our tamales with our prisoners. To my surprise, both men took one. We ate in silence, drinking bottles of water I pulled out of the fridge. In one of the more bizarre moments of my life, both men were amazed at how good the tamales were. Chen even asked where we got them, which led me to brag about how I bought them at the pop-up event. Only Olivia and I knew it would be the men's last meal.

After we were finished eating, Olivia and I interrogated McKee and Chen. It turns out the Chen's bag had more than one sensory deprivation mask in it. We'd put one in the mask and interrogate the other for fifteen minutes and then switch. After the first round, it was immediately obvious to both McKee and Chen that we were cross checking the other's answers and that we'd pin down any evasion, prevarication, or falsehood. They were a lot more forthcoming after that.

We got some surprising answers to our questions. The vault and nearly fifty million dollars in miscellaneous assets were owned by the foundation. The people who professionally run the foundation don't know any of the society members. They take instructions anonymously from the Chief by using coded cipher known only to the Chief. According to McKee this wasn't an unusual arrangement for secret societies like the Seven Chains, Texeterna Brotherhood, the Spiral Stairwell, and the Psi Tau Phi Sorority (aka the Terracottas).

All we'd need to do to seize control of the foundation assets was to learn the cipher, which I was pretty sure was in the "Next Chief" book.

The MarCat business was completely self-funded, self-sustaining, and shockingly profitable. It was technically an employee-owned company and only three people working there knew about Glaukopis. They were all owls. The murders that were part of the initiation ritual were always a problem, even with members of the original society. Cultivating and maintaining a supplier for victims has always been the organization chief's biggest challenge. McKee's efforts to find a reliable source led him to Kimsu, which led to the organization being taken over.

McKee admitted that he'd stolen copies from all of the initiation photos of current membership as "insurance". When Kimsu blackmailed him, she forced him to turn those photos over, which is how they showed up in Kimsu's stash.

When McKee found out that Kimsu Theron was dead in the Darden County massacre, he thought he had escaped. He said that he'd been unable to find another supplier since the PT Hill operation fell apart, but that they didn't need one because there weren't any vacancies in the society.

I asked McKee how he got rid of the bodies after the initiation was over. He didn't want to answer, but admitted that they had a large-animal incinerator located on a society-owned farm near Poolesville, Maryland. It ran on propane and was easy to use by reading the instructions on the metal plate outside.

I asked both Chen and McKee how many people knew about the vault. The answer was that every member knew of the vault because they'd all been initiated here. What they didn't know was where it was located. The initiate and the cell-members would meet at a safe house, strip naked, hood themselves, and then climb into the back of a cargo van. The column leader would drive aimlessly around the city for a couple of hours, and then arrive at the vault. The column leader and the chief would attend wearing a hood and medieval robes, but say nothing to give their identities away.

After the initiation was over, the members of the cell would scrub the vault top to bottom, rehood themselves, get back in the van, and then drive two hours back to the safe house. The Chief would take the body, now in a body bag, to the incinerator on the farm.

As he talked through this, I suddenly realized that the vault was actually extremely secure. There was one door with a heavy frame behind a fence and ram-attack roller door. Inside was a literal bank vault. The only two people still alive who knew where it was were sitting in the room and would not survive the night. All of the evidence in the vault would never be more secure than where it was. If we boxed it up as evidence, it would end up in a Federal archive somewhere, allegedly secure, but more likely there to be stolen by hackers, or used by an opportunist employee of the DHS. My plan was to pitch keeping the vault intact for the duration of the operation.

***

When it was nearly two in the morning and both McKee and Chen were bleary eyed and we'd wrung as much info out of them as we could, I announced that we had to document their tattoos.

The logistics of handling it were a pain in the ass and we were tired and weren't doing a careful job when we rearranged everyone. We stood Sloane on the platform, and attached her cuffs to the winch cable, but we didn't pull her arms over her head.

We took the guys back into the bedroom and photographed them. I had them kneel, zip-tied their ankles, and tied their legs to the bed frame. I then snipped their wrist zip ties and had them take their shirts off. Olivia then photographed them. They looked just like Cameron, Phelps, and Carter, except, McKee had additional tattoos on the backs of his hands.

When we got the photos done, we turned the normal lights back on and had the men put their shirts back on and I zip-tied their arms behind their backs again.

While I did that, Olivia surreptitiously took a poly drop cloth into the vault room and laid it out on the floor. I tied McKee to the headboard. Then I took Chen into the other room and laid him belly down on the drop cloth. I put my knee on his lower back to hold him in place and Olivia put a ball gag in on him and blindfolded him.

"I lied to you earlier, Chen," I said. "Secretary Bollard didn't give you any choice. We're going to execute you now. What you did to that kid in the photograph was just godawful. You deserve to feel horrible pain. Sadly, however, we're going to kill you with narcotics, so you won't feel anything but pleasure and euphoria. The complete opposite of the child you murdered.

Chen started struggling, so I pinched his nose shut and demonstrated to him it was better to breathe than struggle. While I held his nose, Olivia pulled a small vial of Fentanyl powder out of my backpack. Several drugs and chemicals were in the trunks of items that we received from Kimsu's farm. The fentanyl was deadly. We decided to use that for the executions tonight because we figured we'd have plenty of time and privacy and it was less messy.

Olivia put on a pair of long length surgical gloves and carefully loaded a spoon with powder and nodded when she was ready. I released Chen's nose and let him take several rapid breaths to oxygenate. When he slowed down and exhaled deeply, I pinched his nose shut before he could inhale and held it. I nodded to Olivia. She held the spoon in front of Chen's nose and I let go of his nostrils. He sucked the contents of the spoon right into his nose. After a dozen coughing breaths, his breathing became labored, he went wobbly and passed out. We expected that to happen, but when it did, it was eerie.

I cut his wrist zip tie with my pocket knife and rolled him on his back. While I did that, Olivia started to load up a syringe with a ridiculously over-concentrated solution of Fentanyl. We used a rubber strap tourniquet to prepare his right arm for an injection. We did it that way because we noticed Chen was left handed.

Olivia tried to hand me the syringe and I just shook my head. "That's your job," I said. "You're the executioner." She shook her head and asked, "Why do I have to be the executioner?"

"You know how to give injections" I said. "You spent all those years with a diabetic grandmother."

"My grandmother's insulin wasn't intravenous," she protested.

"Did you or did you not give her injections?" I asked.

"I did," she said.

"I've never done anything like that," I reported. "You're up."

I gave her a hard stare until she looked away. She knelt down beside Chen. She found the vein in Chen's right elbow and performed the injection. I released the tourniquet and Chen convulsed once and within three breaths, he stopped breathing entirely. There was no pulse at all. Olivia left the needle in Chen's arm. Our plan was to put him in the back seat of his car and leave his car in an out-of-the way place. We had a cooking spoon and a lighter, and a balloon with a little less than a gram of fentanyl to complete the tableau. When he was found, it would appear that Chen tried to buy heroin but got pure Fentanyl instead and it killed him.

We waited a few minutes until Chen turned blue and his body deflated. There was no mistaking he was dead. "Chen's dead. I'm calling it. Let's go take care of McKee."

We walked into the bedroom, I gagged and blindfolded McKee while Olivia spread out another drop cloth. We repeated the procedure we used on Chen on McKee. I said to McKeee, "I lied to you about having a choice tonight. Secretary Bollard ordered us to execute you. We just killed Chen in the other room. Now it's your turn. We're going to kill you with Fentanyl. You will get a merciful death. It is a gross injustice that you won't suffer as horribly as all those kids you brought here to murder. It is fitting that we will do it right here in this room-- the scene of your premeditated atrocities.

"I've decided I'm going to use the incinerator on your farm to dispose of your corpse, Burton. We'll dump your car in a parking lot somewhere. No trace of you will be left for anyone to find. Your wife and kids will wonder for years what happened to you, just like the parents of all of those kids you murdered."

McKee began to struggle as Chen did, so we repeated the procedure of drugging him with the powder. We rolled him over, Olivia gave him his injection and he died. It was extremely anticlimactic. While we waited for McKee's corpse to turn blue, Olivia and I tidied up the bedroom. I got a garbage bag out of the wardrobe and threw in the used towel and all of the discarded zip ties on the floor. Olivia, put the lamps back.

I said, "Let's put McKee in a body bag." I got a body bag out and rolled McKee's corpse into it. I capped the syringe and the tourniquet and dumped them into the garbage bag. The items I took out of his pockets also went into the garbage bag.

Olivia started to repack my back pack. I unloaded my pistol. I handed my pistol to her to place in my pack and I dragged the body bag into the vault room.

When I got in there, I saw something on the floor next to the door. It took a long moment to figure out it was Sloane's deprivation mask.

I looked over to the stage and she wasn't there, I panicked at first before I realized she couldn't get out without a dead bolt key, and I had both of those in my pocket. "Olivia!" I shouted, "Sloane is loose! Don't let her attack you!"

I figured she was hiding in the vault. I pulled my pistol out of my holster and slowly and quietly started walking towards the vault. When I got to the couch, Sloane scared the absolute shit out of me by popping up from behind the couch. She swung something at my face and I reflexively put my left arm up to protect myself. I felt something scrape my forearm deeply and I felt burning pain.

I thrust my gun out in front of me and I basically punched Sloane right in the solar plexus with the barrel of my pistol. She went down in a heap, trying to breathe. She stood up with a wild-eyed look of terror in her face, I could see that she had a syringe sticking out of her torso. She fell to her knees, having trouble breathing. She pulled the syringe out and then collapsed.

I looked over at Chen. Sloane had pulled the syringe out of his arm. After she attacked me with it, she fell on it.

I looked down at my left arm and felt a stream of blood, I started to feel sweaty and wobbly.

Olivia came running over. "Oh my God, Pete!" she screamed. "You're bleeding!"

The world spun around me and I fell flat on my ass. "My name is Will! She got me with the fentanyl syringe, Olivia. She got herself too," I said.

The world went black around me.

***

Chapter 10

I snapped back into consciousness. My whole body hurt like I'd been beaten and I felt exhausted like I'd just run a marathon. My brain was wrapped in a fog. I kept trying to figure out where I was and what had happened. My nose felt sticky.

"He's awake!" shouted Olivia. "What do I do now?"

...

"I did wash his wound," she said.

...

"No, I can't call the paramedics," she said. "We're in the middle of an op."

...

"Really? I administered the Naloxone just like you said," she said.

...

"It wears off?" she asked incredulously. "That soon? How long is the fentanyl active in the body?"

...

"Oh God! I've only got the one and I used it. I can't bring the paramedics here," she said.

...

"No!" she shouted. "I'll never get him to our car. I can't carry him!" There was panic in Olivia's voice.

I looked over and Olivia was talking on her cell phone.

"We're in Adams Morgan," said Olivia.

...

"That close?" she asked.

...

"I'll come get you. Stay on the line and talk me into how to get to you," she said.

I felt her rummaging through my pockets and withdrew Chen and McKee's keys.

Olivia was suddenly in front of my face. "Hold on, Will! Hold on! I'm going to get some help. I'll be back in a few minutes.

I watched her use the key and leave. As soon as she was through the door, I heard the roller door, and the chime of the gate. After a minute the roller door was shut and the room grew silent.

I heard someone taking the most horrid strained breaths. Fifteen to thirty seconds of silence and then there would be a lurching gulp of gurgling breath. It sounded like someone was drowning on dry land.

I got really sleepy. Before, when I passed out, my heart started hammering and I got woozy. This time I just wanted rest.

I passed back out of consciousness.

***

I felt my cheeks being slapped lightly. "Wake up Will!" I heard Sunny's voice calling to me.

"What?" I asked.

I felt a finger in my eyelid and I was being blinded by light in my left eye.

Sunny's voice sounded relieved. "His color is good, he's not in respiratory distress, his pupils are responsive and are not constricted. I think he's all right for now."

By then I opened my eyes and I could see Sunny's concerned and relieved face looking down on me.

"You probably saved his life with that Naloxone, Olivia. You did good," Sunny said.

I watched Sunny stand up. "I'm going to see to that woman."

She walked over and asked, "Why is she cuffed?"

"She's the one who attacked Will with the syringe," replied Olivia.

"Did she overdose too?" asked Sandy. "What happened?"

I spoke up. "After she cut me with the syringe, I punched her in the solar plexus. She fell on the syringe. It went in her ribcage. I watched her pull it back out."

Sunny was bent over Sloane and was checking her pulse. "I need my pack!" she called out to Olivia.

Olivia brought Sunny's bag over to her, I saw Sunny pull out a stethoscope. And she listened to Sloane's chest. "She's overdosing and she's got a collapsed lung."

I heard a package being opened. "Administering Naloxone left nostril!" Sunny called out in a clear strong voice.

I then heard her digging through her pack. "Will said she took a syringe to her torso," said Sunny. "It probably allowed air to enter into her pleural cavity and collapsed her left lung. That condition is called pneumothorax. To fix her we need to get the air out of the pleural cavity. Take her jacket and bra off, Olivia."

Olivia stripped Sloane. As she did that, Sunny was digging through her first aid kit.

She put on gloves and then turned back to Sloane. When she saw Sloane's nipple rings and bruised up breasts she gave me a sudden look. "Did you do this to her, Will?"

"The bruises were there when she got here," I said. "Not our doing."

"I need these cuffs off," she told Olivia.

Olivia unbuckled the cuffs and took them off Sloane.

Sunny put Sloane's left arm over her head. She painted the bottom part of Sloane's armpit nearest her breast with betadine. Sunny pulled out a shrink-wrapped kit out of her medical bag. She tore it open and I watched with morbid fascination as Sunny used a pig tail catheter on Sloane. As she did it, she was explaining what she was doing the whole time to no one in particular. I got the sense that explaining what she was doing was helping Sunny remember what to do.

I saw Sunny fiddle with a stopcock at the end of the catheter and suddenly, Sloane started breathing much easier. Sunny then rechecked Sloane's pupils.

"The pupil constriction is relieved. She's got better color, and she is breathing easier. I think she's out of the woods," said Sunny.

"I see another body," said Sunny. "Is he a fentanyl overdose too?"

"He is," I said. "He's dead and we need him to remain that way."

Sunny turned and looked at me like I was crazy. A dawning realization hit her face. She turned white. "That was the op?" she asked. "You were here to kill him? And whoever is in that body bag too?" she asked.

I nodded.

"What about that woman that I just saved?" she asked.

"Accidental bystander," I said. "She is a trafficked sex slave to the two dead men. She was wearing a blindfold and didn't see us or what we did, so we were going to let her go. She got loose and freaked when she saw the bodies. That's when she attacked me with the needle."

"What happens now?" asked Sandy.

"I don't know. She's an innocent bystander, but now that she's seen us, we're in a bind," I said.

Sunny got a terrible look on her face.

"We aren't authorized to murder witnesses, Sunny. That was never on the table. I'll have to get my superior involved."

She nodded as if she'd worked that implication out already.

"For the record, Sunny, those two men were as bad as they come. They deserved to die and as crazy as it sounds, what Olivia and I just did was sanctioned by the government. It was a legal execution."

"Is there a bathroom here?" she asked. Her whole body was trembling.

"It's through that door," I said.

When Sunny left the room, Olivia said, "I know I shouldn't have brought Sunny here, Will. I was just so scared about you. She started sobbing uncontrollably.

I hugged her and let her cry herself out. When she settled down, I said, "Maybe you shouldn't have done it, but you saved two lives including my own. We'll have to give Sunny the option to get out of here without telling your dad, but we've got to get your dad involved with the decision on what to do with Sloane."

Olivia nodded.

Just then, there was a groan from the bedroom and I heard the sound of retching. Olivia helped me stand up and we hobbled into the bedroom. I'd left the folders with the pictures of McKee and Chen on the bed. Sunny had looked through them,

Sunny was vomiting right there on the floor. Olivia held her hair back. I collected up the pictures, put them back in the folder, and then put the folder back in my pack.

I got some towels and brought them into the bedroom. When Sunny was done retching, I started cleaning the floor with the towels.

Olivia walked Sunny into the bathroom. Moments later, I heard her brushing her teeth and gargling.

I filled up a bucket with water in the shower and then mopped the floor where I cleaned up the vomit. By the time I was done, they'd returned to the vault room. Sunny had recovered enough that she was checking up on Sloane, who was starting to rouse.

"We're going to have to put cuffs back on her," I said.

Sunny didn't like that, but she nodded. I put the cuffs back on Sloane.

***

"I was not authorized to bring you here and you aren't authorized to know what you now know," I told Sunny, who was sitting on one of the couches. "I'm going to give you two options.

"The first option is that we hide your involvement from my boss. He doesn't have to know you were here. You will, however, have to keep everything about me and Olivia, this place, the bodies, and the photos absolutely secret. You can't even tell a hypothetical shrink in the future about it. The upside is that I will be able to compensate you with money for your time and the stress we gave you. The downside is that there is some legal jeopardy with this. If my boss finds out later you were involved, there could be ramifications."

She nodded. "What's the other option?" she asked.

"We tell my boss what really happened. There's no way I can relate the story without disclosing our personal relationship. It could mean trouble for you. I'm not sure what they will do, but this operation is so classified that they will likely bind you to secrecy. One of the worse case options for you is that they assign you on the operation with us. In fact, I'm almost certain that they will do this. You have to be mentally prepared for that possibility. Compensation will depend on authorization from my boss. The upside to this option is that we will be legally above board."

"I've got some questions," asked Sunny.

"Sure," I replied.

"Are those two bodies the men in those photographs?" she asked.

"Yes," I replied.

"That is what your mission is? To eliminate the guys in the photographs?" she asked.

"Exactly," I replied.

"That is why you're here right? To kill them for what they did in the photographs?" she asked.

"Among other things," I replied. "The photos were just part of the bad stuff they did."

"Good," said Sunny. "They deserved to die." The righteous anger poured off of her.

"Are there more like these two?" she asked.

"There were thirty nine of them," I replied. "After tonight, thirty four are left.

"What do we do about the woman?" asked Sunny. "She needs medical attention."

"Her name is Sloane," I replied. "My boss makes the decision of what happens to her. She was not part of the photos and is a trafficked sex slave. She's a victim in this. My guess is she'll be put in the confidential clinic until she recovers. I guarantee you she will not be executed. She might be detained. She might be put in witness protection. There's no telling what happens next."

"Option one for me, the one where you hide my involvement and let me skip out, is not workable," said Sunny. "There's no way to disguise the pigtail catheter. They're going to know someone with serious medical training helped you. We might as well come clean to your boss, Will. Tell him I want in. If I can help in any way, I'll do it," she said. She was adamant.

"Are you sure?" I asked. "There's no turning back once you're officially involved."

"I took a vow to do no harm. Now all I just want to do is murder the people in those photos."

I picked up my phone and called an emergency number I memorized. Matt Gilbert picked up. "What is it?" He asked.

"We've got a problem," I replied.

***

We loaded Sloane into the back of our Explorer, and Sunny drove off with Sloane to the confidential clinic.

Olivia and I put Chen's body into the back seat of his car and McKee's body into the back seat of his Escalade.

We left Matt Gilbert in the vault room reading the book labeled, "To The Next Chief."

I drove to Bethesda. Olivia followed behind in McKee's Escalade. In Bethesda, we found a dumpster behind a gym that went out of business that was pretty secluded. I hid the car behind the dumpster, removed the bedsheet, and staged the syringe, balloon, and cooking spoon.

I walked a couple of blocks to where Olivia was waiting. We drove out to the foundation's farm in Poolesville, Maryland. We got the address out of McKee during our interrogation. The farm animal incinerator was inside of a barn. As promised, the instructions were very simple and it ran with one button press. It would shut itself off when it detected the process was complete. It was still coming up to temperature when Olivia and I drove away.

I dropped Olivia off at our crystal city apartment. I drove McKee's Escalade into Alexandria and parked it on a dark city street. The keys went down a storm drain four blocks away. I walked to an all-night pancake house and ate. I was wearing a bright orange University of Tennessee hoodie and a black hair wig that looked astonishingly real. That wasn't what I was wearing when I left McKee's car.

At a quarter to five AM, I paid and walked over to the Alexandria Old Town Metro station and made the 5:00 AM train, wearing a black hoodie and a black bucket hat. I rode to Crystal City, went to the bathroom in the metro station, and emerged wearing joggers, a jeans jacket, and no wig.

I was in bed by six AM.

***

Chapter 11

Secretary of Homeland Security Seneca Bollard was pissed. She just spent the last forty minutes quietly and methodically chewing my ass out for something Olivia did.

She clearly wasn't aware of the circumstances of what really happened. That meant there was a pretty good chance that Matt Gilbert didn't know either.

"Well, Mr. Archer, do you have anything to say for yourself?" said Bollard.

"I'm not sure you are aware of the circumstances of what actually happened, Madame Secretary," I said.

"I know that you violated your oath to secrecy, brought a third party into a nearly complete knowledge of the classified parameters of your mission, and that you now brought us a witness as a prisoner. What more do I have to know?"

"Secretary Bollard, the mission was to intercept McKee and Chen at the vault site as they were retrieving money for Chen. Olivia and I managed to intercept McKee just as he was entering. The three of us went inside to ensure our privacy.

"When Mr. Chen arrived, McKee was safely bound up inside and Olivia and I were lying in wait in the vault room," I recounted. "Chen came in fifteen minutes later or so, and he brought the witness in with him. We didn't know the witness was with him until they were both in the vault room. The witness, it turns out, is not an innocent third party. The witness' name is Sloane Moore. She's an Alba in the Glaukopis organization," I said.

Bollard was shocked to hear this. She was struggling to remember exactly what an Alba is.

"To refresh your memory Madam Secretary, an Alba is a specialist woman that the Glaukopis use to seduce and honey trap victims," I said. "Technically, she's a trafficked sex slave. I believe that Chen brought her to the vault as recreation for McKee and Chen to share."

There was a long pause as Secretary Bollard absorbed that. She nodded, so I continued.

"On arrival, Moore was bound and blindfolded. Chen placed some sort of noise cancelling headphones on her head and he tied her up out of the way. She was not able to see or hear what was going on as we took Mr. Chen into custody or as we interrogated McKee and Chen."

I then explained how after we executed McKee and Chen with Fentanyl that Sloane somehow managed to get loose and attacked me with the syringe she extracted from Chen.

"I managed to subdue Sloane, but I was dosed with fentanyl. I passed out. Olivia didn't know what to do. We'd packed a dose of Naloxone in case we had an accident administering the fentanyl, but Olivia didn't know how to administer it."

I looked over at Olivia who was sitting in the chair next to me. She was grasping at the arm rests so hard, her knuckles were white. She looked at me and nodded.

"In the emergency, she called Sunny Park..." I was interrupted by Bollard.

"That's the Department Employee?" she asked.

"Yes, Ma'am. She's one of the nurses at the confidential clinic," I replied.

"Why did Olivia call her?" Secretary Bollard ignored Olivia and asked me.

"She was the only medical professional we know personally, Ma'am," I said. "She talked Olivia through administering the Naloxone. It revived me to the point where I was breathing normally, but I was not really conscious. Naloxone has a short effectiveness window. Ms. Park was concerned I might need additional doses of it. She insisted on overseeing my recovery. Ms. Park lives five minutes from the location of the vault, so Olivia made a command decision and jumped into a car and went and picked her up. Madam Secretary, I would not have condoned this decision, but I was not conscious and was in no condition to countermand her decision." I observed Secretary Bollard, who nodded.

"From a mission objective perspective, you gave us two parameters: maintain secrecy and minimize collateral damage. In that particular circumstance, the two parameters were at odds with each other. I would like to note for the record that Olivia hasn't been trained in how to handle decisions like that. The training we were promised never materialized. This training, I think, would have helped Olivia to know and understand how to conduct herself better in a crisis moment like that."

Secretary Bollard nodded to this one, too. I scored another point.

"In retrospect, I think Olivia probably made the right decision. She was able to save my life and Sloane Moore's life. Sloane had fallen on the syringe. She had overdosed and had a punctured lung. She would have died within minutes if Ms. Park hadn't saved her."

"We'll get to a discussion of that later," said Secretary Bollard. "I want to understand how you know Sunny Park personally."

"Secretary, I met her when your security team gave me that concussion and I was hospitalized. She was on duty at the clinic and took care of me," I replied.

"And this relationship continued after you were released from the clinic?" she asked in a scornful tone.

"Yes, Secretary Bollard," I replied.

"How would you describe your current relationship with Sunny Park?" she asked.

I looked meaningfully at Matt Gilbert, my father-in-law, who was angry and shaking his head.

"Secretary Bollard, perhaps this isn't the best venue..." I never got to finish the question.

"Answer me," she demanded. She was insistent and not angry.

I decided I wasn't going down with the ship alone. "Sunny Park is our lover."

"Did you say 'our lover'?" asked the Secretary. She was not expecting that answer.

"Yes, Secretary Bollard. Both Olivia and I are in a sexual relationship with her."

She was bewildered by my answer. "You three were having sex at the same time?" she asked.

I wanted this kind of questioning to stop, so I decided to intentionally share details that Secretary Bollard and Matt Gilbert wouldn't want to know. It was a Hail Mary of sorts.

"Technically, not at the same time, Ma'am," I answered. "The last time, Ms. Park and I had just finished. I went to the bathroom and that's when Olivia performed cunnilingus on Sunny to clean her up."

Secretary Bollard, who was shocked to her core, blushed, She turned to look at Olivia in disbelief. Olivia turned beet red and covered her face with her hands. It was more convincing than if Olivia had confessed it.

Seneca Bollard was not happy. "How much does Ms. Park know about you two?" she asked.

"Prior to the events at the vault, she only knew us under the Archer identity. She knew we were assigned to a clandestine operation, but that's it." I replied.

"Who authorized her to know your Archer identity?" she asked.

"You did Ma'am. You checked us into the confidential clinic under that identity."

Secretary Bollard gave me a half smile that indicated she thought I'd scored a point with that one.

"What do you think she learned about your mission at the vault?" she asked.

"She saw the bodies of Chen and McKee and knows that we executed them, Secretary Bollard. She knows about Sloane Moore, to a certain extent. She is aware the Ms. Moore was sex trafficked. I don't think she knows about the true nature of an Alba. After Sloane Moore was revived, Olivia and I were working to secure her when Ms. Park stumbled onto the blackmail pictures of McKee and Chen. Ms. Park is exceptionally intelligent and instantly made a connection between the photos and the executions," I reported.

"Fuck!" said Seneca Bollard.

"If it makes a difference, Secretary Bollard, once Ms. Park saw the photos, she realized there would be others," I offered. "She volunteered to help."

"Yes, but can she keep a secret?" asked Secretary Bollard in a disgusted tone.

"Her bosses did, Ma'am, or they wouldn't have assigned her to the confidential clinic," I replied.

Secretary Bollard looked over at Matt Gilbert. "What are we going to do about this dog's dinner?" she asked.

"We could bring her in," he suggested. "We need to care for Ms. Moore for another ten days at least and the confidential clinic is a bad place for that. We could assign Ms. Park to be Ms. Moore's in-home care until she recovers. Then, I think we should advance the plan to co-opt the Glaukopis. The leadership turnover book has a reference on how to contact the tattoo artist. Sloane Moore believes she is a slave to the Glaukopis. We'll tattoo up Will here and then have him go claim ownership to Sloane Moore while she's getting home care."

I was stunned. I said, "Undersecretary Gilbert, I'm not sure that's a good idea."

"Why not?" he asked.

"The Glaukopis used these women for sex. They keep them in line using extreme sexual sadism. They'd legitimately hurt the women while having sex with them. We took a bunch of video of that from Cameron's house. The videos were hard to watch. They were absolutely brutal. Naeem Carter, he's the guy who was the Alba handler for the organization, was a monster."

Secretary Bollard shrugged. "Tell them that the new guy doesn't play that way. You'll figure it out."

***

It was later the same day when I was sitting with Olivia and Sunny in front of Secretary Bollard and Matt Gilbert.

Almost an hour of the meeting had been going over Echelon Lima Nine clearance, what it meant, who she could talk to without express authorization, which was no one but Olivia and I, Secretary Bollard, or Undersecretary Gilbert.

By way of comparison, the briefing that Sunny received on the Glaukopis was minimal. Matt Gilbert briefed her on the basics. She was told that the organization was a domestic espionage outfit that made money by spying on the government, by blackmailing women, and forcing them to pass along intelligence.

She was extensively briefed on the Albas and the role that they played in performing honey traps for the organization. She was told that we were going to try to co-opt the Albas by perpetrating that I was their new handler.

"It's a secret organization. From what we can tell, other than a few key members, Albas are never allowed to see the group members. Either they were disguised, or the Albas were blindfolded. The fact that they use iconography as a bonafide is the major weakness in their scheme. The Albas identify their masters through tattoos, so we're going to apply those tattoos to Will and let him take control."

"Why are you taking control of the Albas?" Sunny asked. That was actually a good question. There was no ostensible reason for the US government to run an organization of swallows-- the tradecraft term for an agent who seduces.

Secretary Bollard fielded that question. "These women are trafficked victims with skills that are fungible. We don't want them out there to get pulled into someone else's espionage operation. We don't intend to use them for espionage. The DHS isn't in the business of blackmail."

"What about the men of the Glaukopis?" asked Sunny.

"This is compartmentalized information and you don't really have a need to know. I will say that they will all see justice. This will take some time. Obviously, we can't do it all at once."

"Is that legal?" asked Sunny.

"Yes," Bollard replied flatly. "There are provisions in the secret portion of the Patriot Act which cover it. Legally, it is the same legal basis used to kill US citizens in the Middle East with drone attacks. Matt, can you get us to the point where we can give Sunny her orders?"

Gilbert took over. "We have Sloane Moore heavily sedated at the secure clinic. She is not really cognizant of where she is. We are going to send her home under your care. You are to present yourself as a nurse who works for Glaukopis. You have three goals:

"Goal number one is to nurse her back to health. Provide the care she needs to recover. If you have any needs, contact Will and he will either source it for you, or refer it to me.

"Goal number two is that we need as much intelligence on Sloane Moore as possible. We need to know where she comes from, how she works, what are her hopes, what are her fears, and anything we'd need to know to take control over her and her compatriots.

"Goal number three is that when we get Will ready, we need you to set the stage and manage the introduction. Chances are that Moore will recognize him and be scared. We will have to handle that carefully. You need to help this happen."

"I'm not sure I can do this," she said. "I have clinic hours three days a week."

Matt Gilbert turned to look at Olivia. "We're going to have Olivia to work as your assistant. Assign her to watch Sloane during those hours you have clinic obligations."

Matt then said to me, "Give her all of the videos we have. I'm sorry, Sunny. These won't be pleasant to watch but you've got to see how these women are controlled and kept in line."