Captive-in-Chief (4 page)

“Mr. Drapsmann, we didn’t expect you back so soon,” said the stewardess.

“Please call me Jan.” He smiled, boarding the Bombardier Global 6000 private jet. It was almost as sexy as her he thought, blonde, blue eyed, and a body to die for.

The stewardess smiled back. He was new to the charter company. More importantly, he was extremely easy on the eyes, making her job all the easier since she was going to be spending the rest of the day with him.

Jan Drapsmann liked the twinkle in her eye. He had only spoken to her briefly on the flight earlier that morning from D.C. to DeKalb-Peachtree airport in Atlanta, a short hop of just over an hour. The next trip would offer him far more time to get to know her. He certainly was in the mood, it had been an exceedingly productive and thrilling day. The rush of killing someone was unlike any other he had experienced.

Drapsmann was merely his latest pseudonym. Tueur had been his name earlier that day in D.C. He’d dealt with two bodyguards, two Secret Service uniformed officers, three police officers, the director of the FBI, his wife, the mayor of Atlanta, and the rather gullible KKK member who had supplied the outfits and posed with him for the photo of the Mayor’s hanging. All in all, it had been a busy day, even by his standards.

He had discovered his penchant for killing at a relatively young age. He wasn’t one of those crazies that tortured and maimed animals. He had gone straight to fellow human beings, discovering how little he cared for them after the death of his mother and father at the hands of a drunk driver when he was sixteen. He didn’t miss them; in fact, their passing felt like a weight had been lifted from him. He had never felt comfortable around others, preferring his own space.

He had joined the military and excelled as a soldier on the battlefield. The lack of concern for his own welfare and that of others made him the perfect killing machine. The more he killed, the greater the buzz, and the more impressed his colleagues and officers became, mistaking his reckless disregard for life for bravery under fire. Not that he derived any pleasure from their adulation. He simply enjoyed killing. As the conflict zones dried up, he struggled. His desire to kill remained, unhindered by the lack of legitimate targets. Before he’d found his calling, a number of senseless murders across the States would forever remain unsolved, unless of course, he confessed to them, which was unlikely, given his incarceration would stop him killing. That was not going to happen. He had always taken appropriate precautions to ensure he would never be caught. With an IQ off the charts, he had no problem being a few steps ahead of his adversaries.

All of that, however, was in the past. A chance meeting in Vegas with a like-minded soul had allowed him to indulge his desire for significant reward. America had been saved from likely one of its most prolific serial killers, and gained a truly exceptional assassin for hire.

Jan couldn’t remember the last time he had used his real name. His life was one pseudonym after another. Only his victims ever witnessed the real him. They were the only ones aware of his ability to maim and murder without the slightest hint of remorse or guilt. To the outside world, he was a charismatic, attractive and, judging by his lifestyle, a very successful man.

With a body count in the double figures for the day, he was psyched. It was to be one of his most profitable days ever. And it wasn’t over. He had one more stop, a suburb of St. Louis. He thought back twenty years, to his home town, one in which he had existed for sixteen years, not understanding who he truly was. The man to thank for awakening his true self was there. Perhaps he’d reward himself with a little detour after he had finished. It was a long time coming after all. It was something that he had dreamt about, fantasized about for many years. He hadn’t been back in years, thanks to the man he’d had no reason to visit. He felt a surge of excitement race through him at the mere thought.

On top of all of that, the stewardess kept looking over as she prepared a coffee for him. There was every chance he was going to join the mile high club.

It wasn’t merely a good day, it was a going to be the best day of his life so far. He threw her a wink, and she grinned wickedly in response.

He smiled back, although he wasn’t thinking about her, he was thinking about the kills he’d undertake later that night.

Joe had spent the rest of the afternoon sleeping on the bus depot bench, waking with a headache from hell to a call to board the bus. He squinted at his ticket, his eyes struggling to focus from the pulsing pain in his head. He needed a drink. Cold turkey wasn’t the way to handle a 36-hour bus journey. A final call for passengers had Joe and Sandy boarding the bus after all the other passengers were boarded and ready to go. When the driver looked suspiciously at Sandy’s vest, Joe held up her ID card – Service Dog, full access required by law – which ended any suggestion of the driver questioning her ability to be on the bus.

“Have I got time to pop to the store?” asked Joe.

The driver checked his clock above his head. “3 minutes and 27, 26, 25…”

Joe jumped back down from the bus and jogged across to the liquor store he had spent the afternoon avoiding. As good as his intentions were, there was no way he could suffer a bus trip sober and hungover. Sandy had been too busy working her adoring audience to notice Joe had exited the bus and he was in too much of a hurry to notice she hadn’t followed him.

It didn’t take him more than a second after exiting the liquor store and seeing the bus disappear into the distance to realize that Sandy was indeed still on the bus.

“Shit!”

He took the bottle of bourbon out of its brown paper bag, unscrewed the cap and took a long pull, watching the taillights of the bus fade into the night.

His headache instantly dulled as the warmth of the bourbon slipped achingly down his throat. The taillights erupted into life, a redness enveloping the bus as the evening mist gathered the brake lights’ hue. Joe smiled, good old Sandy.

He jogged after the bus, another long pull on the bourbon giving him the additional fortitude to make the few hundred yard run. He could hear her howling from two hundred yards. A growl, as he neared, suggested somebody had tried to persuade her to leave the bus.

The door hissed open.

“You forgot your dog!” said the driver angry and flustered.

“No, you forgot me!” said Joe hopping aboard. Sandy instantly calmed on hearing his voice.

“That dog is dangerous!”

“Only to assholes.” Joe raised the bourbon bottle and drank to the driver’s health.

Sandy joined him as he took his seat, hopping up and curling into the window seat.

An elderly woman sitting opposite looked across as the bus pulled away.

“I grew up on a farm,” she said, tapping Joe on the elbow to make sure he knew she was talking to him.

“Oh, that’s nice,” said Joe, not sure where the elderly woman was heading with her story.

“We had Border Collies, similar to yours,”

“She’s called Sandy.”

“Yes, almost exactly like her they were. Smarter than half the farmhands we employed. She played that driver like a fool, howling and growling when you weren’t on the bus. There wasn’t an ounce of menace in that growl, she knew exactly what she was doing, stopping the bus to let you get on. That’s what she was doing!”

“She is a very smart dog.” Joe winked, closing his eyes. He wasn’t in the mood for conversation, certainly not one that could extend to a day and a half.

“Terrible news about that mayor,” the woman continued, choosing to ignore his attempts to sleep.

“Yes,” replied Joe, keeping his eyes closed.

“They reckon there’ll be riots.”

“Over a mayor?” One eye opened.

“A black mayor killed by the Klan, you think there won’t be?”

“Haven’t you heard? It’s got worse,” said a man from behind, entering a conversation Joe didn’t want to have. The elderly woman turned in her seat to face the man.

Joe looked at his bottle of bourbon. A third was gone already; he had hoped it would last until Washington, he’d be lucky if it lasted to Houston, four hours away unless he slowed down. He took another long pull.

The man from behind pulled himself to the front of his seat, filling the aisle, so he could talk to them both more easily. Joe reluctantly half turned to face the man, while the elderly woman waited eagerly to hear the latest.

“One of those officers, you know from last year, that shot that unarmed black boy and wasn’t charged?”

“Yes,” said the elderly lady.

“No,” Joe mumbled.

“A group of young black boys kidnapped him, tied him to the back of their car, and dragged him through the streets. Exactly like the Klan used to do.”

“Is he okay?” asked the elderly woman with deep concern.

“I’d imagine he died, and very unpleasantly,” Joe said.

“Very,” agreed the man. “Although that’s not all. The president announced this afternoon he was adding the group that accepted responsibility for the FBI director’s death, the New Black Panthers Party, to a terrorist list. Supposedly evidence has come to light that they donated money to Al Qaeda back in 2000 via their ties to the Nation of Islam.”

“What’s Al Qaeda got to do with anything nowadays?” asked the elderly lady.

Joe didn’t know, but he did know Clay Caldwell enough to know that there was always a reason for what he did. He closed his eyes again, zoning out from the rest of the conversation. His concern was for Clay’s daughter, assuming that was why Clay had called him.

A year after Clay moved to Florida they had arranged to meet. Both had secretly saved for months and bought tickets to Atlanta unbeknownst to their parents. They reckoned it was halfway for each, and with a cover story of a sleepover at friend’s, it allowed them two days to meet up. At the last minute Maddy, a girl who both of them liked and had known as long as each other, informed Joe she was going too. Initially Joe thought it was cool, although after some probing, he discovered that Maddy had been keeping in touch with Clay a lot more than Joe realized.

After two of the best days of his life, they parted once again and amazingly managed to keep the meeting secret. With money tight in all of their households, such an extravagance was unthinkable, and more importantly, would be deemed unforgivable. However, not as secret as Clay and Maddy had managed to keep their sexual encounter, until a few months later when Maddy started to show, and exactly nine months to the day after their trip she gave birth to a baby daughter.

Maddy refused to divulge the father’s name, claiming it was just some boy she had met at the fair. Her father demanded a description, reaching for his gun, supporting Maddy’s refusal to name Clay.

Shortly after their meeting in Atlanta, Clay’s mother died and he moved once again with his grandparents. Thereafter, all contact was lost, and Clay remained blissfully unaware of his daughter until she was ten, when Joe met him again for the first time in almost eleven years.

By that time Clay was married and expecting what he thought was his first child. His wife was Southern royalty, one of the most wealthy, politically connected families across the Southern States and responsible for numerous senators and governors throughout their history. Staunchly Republican and Christian to the core. A husband who had abandoned an out of wedlock child wasn’t going to go over well, particularly as it seemed they were already planning his political path.

Despite all of that, Clay had taken leave and secretly visited Maddy and his daughter, Clara. Maddy could see Clay was a man going places and was no fool as to how the revelation that he had a ten-year-old out of wedlock daughter would affect him. She also knew her father would still, after all these years, quite possibly kill Clay, and felt it best the secret remained. With a heavy heart Clay had accepted, though not at the expense of his daughter. She wanted for nothing. Maddy had to explain away her newfound fortune to a lottery win as Clay ensured his daughter lived in the best neighborhood and received the finest education money could buy. He had attended her graduation from both high school and college, and was always there if she ever needed him. The only day he had ever failed her since learning of her existence was the day her mother Maddy was buried. By that time he was running for president, and she understood his presence at the funeral would have raised far too many questions that he couldn’t have answered. As a secret father, he was probably one of the best.

Joe had last seen Clara shortly before Clay met her for the first time. She had been a pretty child, and from the photos that had been displayed on the news story, an even more beautiful woman. From what Joe had managed to understand from the sketchy news report, she had been bundled into a van off the streets of New York, where she worked at one the city’s most prestigious law firms. The van had later been found burnt out under an overpass with no sign of Clara. The trail ended there.

The bus slowed, and Joe cracked open his right eye, not wanting to let his fellow passengers know he was awake. The Houston skyline was off in the distance. He opened his left eye. The elderly lady was asleep and a glow from behind suggested the man was reading some type of device. Joe wasn’t up on the latest technology. Smart phones, e-readers, and tablets were words he had heard not really understanding what they meant. Computers, laptops, and cells were about his limit.

Sandy stirred in her seat as the skyline neared, and Joe gave her a reassuring pat. They neared the towering skyscrapers of the downtown area dominating the sprawling city around them, each one taller and prouder than its neighbor, stretching up into the blackness of the night sky.

Sandy sat bolt upright, staring at the sight ahead. Joe followed her gaze. She was looking towards the base, not at the top of the towers as he was. Joe spotted it, even from miles out, you could see it, the red and blue lights of the emergency services. It wasn’t at the base of one tower, every tower looked as though it was rising from a sea of blue/red.

It was just before 11.00 p.m.. The rioting had started.

Joe reached for his bourbon and took a swig as the first sounds of the wailing sirens invaded the bus. He couldn’t remember ever hearing that many at once. He took another pull and finished the bottle. It was going to be a long journey.