The Zimmer Doctrine (Corps Justice Book 11) (14 page)

Chapter 27

Great Sale Cay

The Bahamas

August 29th, 3:45pm

Chance Baxter stared at the oversized painting of his mother, father and himself as the blade scraped up and down the hand-sized whetstone. Every so often, he would dip two fingers into the glass of water on his desk and dab the water on the whetstone. Then he would continue the sharpening.

One thousand passes per blade. It was a ritual. It was his zen. The memories of his childhood floated in the air and he thought about his mother, his poor mother. So beautiful, yet so damaged.

He’d known from a young age that she was mentally unwell. His father called her crazy to her face. She would just smile and go back to whatever she had been doing.

The younger Baxter had at first defended his mother when he was old enough to realize what his father was doing. He’d never received physical punishment for his youthful outbursts, but his father had locked him in his room for hours and he’d endured the screams and cries from his mother.

She would never cry when he was there, but the moment he left, every ounce of emotion spilled out. It got to the point where he rarely left her side. He didn’t want to see her in pain and for a while it worked.

They played and laughed, even though under her cheerful facade, the nine-year-old boy saw the sadness eating away at her. He brought her paintings and doodles from school, and he was pleased when she was delighted.

Mother and son were inseparable, and soon she kept him at home, became his teacher. There were nights he would wake to find her curled up next to him like a child.

Some people might see it as unhealthy, but there was never any inappropriate conduct.

As for his father, the elder Baxter made it no secret that he was whoring about. He traveled constantly and sometimes came home with a wench on his arm. He even went so far as to introduce them to his wife and son.

Chance’s mother always greeted them politely but she always held onto her son’s hand like a metal vise. Chance would say hello and then stare at his father as if to say, “
What are you doing
?”

He knew it was wrong and he saw the pain it caused, but for some reason and, maybe it was the basest of human needs, he wanted to be loved by his father. Some part of him thought that if his father loved him, that one day his father would love Chance's mom again. It was a childish notion but young Chance did everything he could to care for his mother and please his father.

The day of his thirteenth birthday everything changed. He and his mother were celebrating in the kitchen. Because she couldn’t bake, she’d ordered an enormous birthday cake. There were knights on horses and kings on thrones. Chance loved it so much that he didn’t want to eat it.

Then one of the maids had entered the room. Chance had never felt before the cold fury that he did that night as it radiated off his mother. She glared at the servant and said, “Get out.”

The maid gave her a smug smile and left.

Their playtime was ruined after that. His mother sat on the floor and cried. He tried to console her with hugs and kisses but she was beyond his reach. Finally he asked her, “What is it, mother?”

She’d looked up at him with those sad eyes and said, “That was one of your father’s whores.”

He hadn’t been shocked. Because he’d met them before, it didn’t seem out of place. For some reason he didn’t see it as his father’s fault. Maybe his father was sick in another way like his mother was sick with sadness.

That night, as he lay in his bed, thinking about what he could do to help his family, he concocted a plan.

Even as a youth, Chance Baxter was patient. He waited a full week for the right time. When it came, he crept from his room, made his way to the kitchen where he extracted one of the many knives he’d seen the chefs use, and sneaked into the servant’s wing.

He’d scoped out the room over the preceding week and knew exactly which one housed the culprit. The door wasn’t locked. They never were. It was one of his father’s rules.

He entered stealthily and stood inside, listening. The room was dark, but a sliver of moonlight sliced through the dark room, providing enough illumination to find his way.

There she was, snoring lightly, hair tied in a ponytail that cascaded onto her chest. She was beautiful in the moonlight and he stopped to admire her. She never moved and he did not hesitate.

The knife came down swiftly and slashed at her neck. Her eyes popped open and he slashed them too. She couldn’t scream; blood was gushing from her mouth and throat. He kept slashing even through her writhing.

Then the squirming stopped and Chance stepped back to admire his handiwork. He felt no remorse, only relief.

Maybe now his parents could be happy. Maybe now his mother would be happy. Maybe now.

They’d found him the next morning sitting in the middle of the maid’s room, still staring at the corpse. His father hadn’t said a word as he lifted his son in his arms and carried him to his private bathroom. There, for the first time, he'd bathed his son.

He wasn’t upset and he'd only asked one question.

“Why did you do it, son?”

The answer came without thinking. “For you and mother.”

His father had nodded and finished the bath. After that day everything changed. Chance’s education became his father’s new undertaking. He hired a tutor who traveled with them everywhere and also served as a guardian. But for the majority of the time, when he wasn’t learning about history or science, he was with his father.

Chance was sad to leave his mother’s side, but the distance seemed to calm her. He was happy for that, but he was even more happy spending time with his father. Up until that point in time, he hadn’t really known what his father did for a living. He knew they had money. You had to have money to live in a mansion and hire servants, but like most children his age, he didn’t really understand where the money came from. His father showed him.

They visited the docks and chatted with shipwrights. They traveled to Hong Kong and shored up a long-term deal with exporters from China. Through it all, his father was patient and even doting. There were no hugs, but he did get the occasional pat on the head or firm handshake. It was all Chance needed and more than he’d hoped for.

There was another side of his father’s world that he was introduced to soon after starting his apprenticeship. The first time it was a man who’d allegedly swindled some money from one of his father’s ventures. The man was scared when he was brought into the elder Baxter’s office in chains. He begged for forgiveness and his father granted it. The man was so overcome with joy that he never saw the blade behind his employer’s back. It plunged into his temple and stuck there. A long moment later, the man fell sideways, his feet twitching as Chance watched, fascinated.

We are the same
, Chance thought. My father and I are cut from the same cloth.

After that, his father had instructed him on the proper way to dispose of bodies. He taught it in a way that a physics teacher might teach a student about gravity. You do this, not that. If you don’t want to get caught, you never do this.

And so it went. The years passed and Chance saw less and less of his mother.

One day there was a telegram. His mother was dead. For some reason he didn’t cry. Deep in his soul, he knew it was for the best. Her pain was at an end. She could no longer be harmed.

He’d said a silent goodbye, and then he returned to the task of torturing a man who’d supposedly conspired to steal from his father. It turned out to be false, but one of the lessons Chance had learned from his father was that once you started you could not stop. It wasn’t like he could let the man go. That would be absurd.

Chance was happy. He enjoyed his time on the sea and in the air. He grew up long before his time, but he was grateful for that. Anyone less mature would’ve crumbled at the loss of  his mother. He had not and, to Chance, that win had been another attempt to please his father.

Now, father and son did not always see eye-to-eye. On business matters, son always listened to his father. But, when it came to women, their differences were insurmountable.

It produced a sort of asexuality in Chance. He admired the beauty of women and had never been attracted to men but something about the relationship between his mother and father, and more importantly, between his father and his whores, left a deep impression on Chance. It was one of the ways he saw himself as being superior to his father, and with the passing of time, his interest in the opposite sex waned.

He considered himself a sort of eunuch now. He’d read up on the ancient practice of castrating men. They were said to be both better fighters and protectors. In Chance’s case, it made him a better businessman, a calming influence when the world was in upheaval  around him.

Yes, it had been a good upbringing. His only regret was that he hadn’t spent more time with his father toward the end. A massive heart attack had taken him in the dead of the night. Chance had personally taken care of the whore who’d come running with the news. They’d been together when it happened. Chance couldn’t have witnesses so he’d attended to it, like he always had.

His mind clicked over to the thousandth pass, and Chance Baxter wiped the razor edge with a soft towel. Then he placed it in with the rest of his tools in a leather wrap with inserts for each. He patted them each one time, and he then rolled up the bundle and tied it tight.

Once his tools were tucked securely in his wall safe, he pressed the intercom on his desk. “George, will you please tell Mr. Layton that I am ready to see him?”

“Yes, Mr. Baxter,” came the immediate reply.

“Oh, and, George, would you ask them to bring the puppy? I do love German Shorthairs.”

“Yes, Mr. Baxter.”

“Thank you, George.”

He let go of the intercom button and sat back in his chair. The storm was coming, and like his father had taught him, it would soon be time to batten down the hatches.

Chapter 28

The White House

August, 29th, 5:22pm

The briefing concluded seven minutes after it began, yet they were still no closer to an answer. The Israelis had fired the warning shot. However, the Director of the CIA didn’t have a shred of evidence to corroborate this accusation.

“I’ll say again, Mr. President, all agents in that region are accounted for.”

“And you have no idea why they did this?” Zimmer asked, getting a nod of agreement from Marge Haines.

“I’ve reached out to my Israeli counterpart, but they’re clamming up. It looks like they’re taking this very seriously.”

Zimmer nodded. His calls had gone unanswered as well. What would cause the Israeli Prime Minister to lie? He was one of America’s staunchest allies, a man tied to the United States in so many ways. Maybe they did have two spies in custody and assumed they were Americans. He’d asked the CIA director as much and the answer was simple - anything was possible.

“Okay, let me know if you find out anything else.”

“Yes, Mr. President,” the director said, rising to leave. “Sir, I apologize and I know this might not be the best time but I wanted to bring one of the CIA’s longest tenured employees by.” He gestured to a bookish man with a wisp of slicked hair on his head who hadn’t said a word for the duration of the meeting. “Mr. President, this is Rudolf Collier. Rudy’s been with the Agency for thirty-five years. Today’s his last day.”

Zimmer rose and offered his hand. Collier gave the president a nervous smile and a limp handshake.

It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Collier. What is it you did for the Agency?”

The man cleared his throat and said, “I’ve been a presidential briefer for most of my career, sir. We've met before and I served you in that capacity. It was just after you assumed office.”

Zimmer didn’t recognize the man but he said, “I thought you looked familiar. Thank you for your dedication and service, Mr. Collier. I’m sure you’ve seen it all.”

Collier nodded, but it was his boss who said, “Rudy knows where all the skeletons are hidden. He will be missed.” He smiled at Collier and headed for the door. Collier didn’t move.

“Mr. President, I just wanted to thank you for everything you’ve done. Good luck, sir.” He offered his hand again and Zimmer took it.

After that exchange, the two CIA men left, the door closing quietly behind them.

“That was interesting,” Marge said. “Did you really recognize him?”

Zimmer shook his head and chuckled. “I have a hard time remembering where I am half the time. Seemed like a nice enough guy, though. Thirty-five years is a long time.

+++

The CIA director excused himself, and Rudy Collier took in the long White House hall for the last time. He’d been there on many visits. He’d briefed six presidents. He’d seen and heard things that would make most Americans run for Antarctica.

He was a quiet, unassuming man. Soon after his arrival at Langley, he found those character attributes to be assets. He’d never wanted to be an analyst or, God forbid, a field agent. He loved books and his quiet nook in Georgetown.

Work was his second home and the archives his personal library. No one said a word as he came and went because he belonged there. Most people didn’t know his name and that was fine with him. He liked to be unseen, unheard and inscrutable. He’d had enough scrutiny as a balding teen in high school. It was his job to organize and make sense out of the information. It might have seemed menial to some but to Collier no day went by that he didn’t find some morsel to chew through with slow relish.

As he neared the exit, his heart slowed. That last moment with the president had been one of the most intense of his life. He’d looked Zimmer in the eye and said what he’d rehearsed. Rudy Collier wasn’t a political man and he didn’t care about which way others leaned. No, his was a quest for knowledge, secret knowledge to be specific. Conspiracy theories were his own personal nirvana, and he sucked those stories up like most Americans yearned for reality TV. He mined the troves of information in the vast CIA database to determine which historic events were documented truthfully, as well as those falsified.

It hadn’t taken him long to secure his niche within the agency. No one wanted his job. It  basically entailed presenting hidden information to an incoming president, then preparing for the next handover, often eight years away. It was monotonous and boring but Collier loved it. He might have stayed on another ten years; he could have. They would have let him, again, because no one wanted the job. It would probably fall on someone as a side duty, another in a list of endless tasks for some poor soul.

For Collier, it was time to leave. He had the last chip in his hand, well, in his head. He’d used four already. That information had netted him a tidy sum. Benefits of being with the agency included learning how to funnel money discreetly, making contact with operatives worldwide, and accessing operations and debriefings.

So, he’d only taken the five items he believed to be those hidden gems that could do little damage to the United States. After all, he wasn’t a traitor, just an underpaid government employee looking to live out his retirement years in relative comfort. He didn’t want to travel or buy expensive things. His dream was to move away from the bustle of Washington and find a small tract in the middle of the country. He’d never been married, thus relocation would be easy.

As a child he'd always dreamed of a library with every book he would ever need. Now he could build it, and would consume that knowledge like the legends of literature and philosophy had centuries before, in quiet solitude. He would build his tiny oasis and thrive there until his final days. That, to him, was heaven.

So, as Rudy Collier left the White House for the last time and climbed into his dented 2001 Honda Civic, the final chip bounced around in his head like a winning Powerball ticket.

One name. So simple and yet so gratifyingly rich. He wasn’t the traitor; she was. They’d all been traitors to their home countries. The only difference was that Collier had just helped them meet their inevitable fates sooner than they’d planned.

Collier made up a tune as he hummed his way out the heavily-manned gate and into the dense D.C. traffic.

“Hannah Krygier, Hannah Krygier, oh oh oh, Hannah Krygier
,” he sang out of tune, over and over. It was his retirement song, a promise for the future. That faceless name, the name of a traitor, would soon be in the hands of someone who would snuff out the threat. Collier didn’t care how or why. He just cared about the millions he’d been promised, half of which now sat in a bank account in Holland.

Collier smiled as he let a taxi cut in front of him, his mind drifting to dreams of days he would spend reading and absorbing the wisdom of the ages.

“Hannah Krygier, Hannah Krygier, oh oh oh, Hannah Krygier.”