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The Killer

By: sarhad



Detective Singh stared hard at the man seated before him, waiting for Karan to speak. It was going to be difficult for him to get through this session, because he hadn't slept in days. Already, he felt a yawn coming on, which he tried to stifle. And then, he'd never liked the forensic psychiatrist, though he had been forced to work with him often in his many years as a homicide investigator. He didn't know why he felt this way, Karan seemed friendly enough, and he had to admit that the doctor was good at his job. His criminal profiles had helped solve many cases in the past.

Though a lot of detectives were from the old school and thought criminal profiles could do nothing more than send them off on a trail of false leads when they could be out there finding the "real" killer, Singh disagreed. He'd always acted in the capacity of a profiler himself when he was on a case, starting from the minute he entered a crime scene. By looking at the evidence, he'd try to get inside the head of the killer in order to reconstruct what had happened and why. But a professional profiler was an expert on the warped criminal mind; which, when applied to detailed statistical studies, could bring to light an amazingly accurate picture of the killer. This allowed the police to narrow their search and focus their investigation on certain individuals while the leads were still fresh. Still, Singh had to agree that sometimes a homicide detective just had to go with that amazingly accurate "gut feeling," which often brought better results than any scientific investigation could.

"Is your tape player rolling, detective?"

"That it is, doctor. That it is." Singh said, as he shuffled through some papers on his desk and extracted a photo, which he handed to Karan. He, nevertheless, glanced at the recorder on the desk to make absolutely sure it was recording as he got comfortable in his chair. As a rule, he always recorded the sessions with profilers; not only so that he could review the case later, but also because his handwriting was so sloppy that sometimes even he couldn't read it.

"I'm ready to begin when you are." Dr. Karan nodded then stared at the picture while he spoke. He held the picture of the victim in one hand, and held the other hand before him, flicking his nails with his thumb, an annoying habit that always drove Singh nuts. "First, let's make sure that I have all the facts correct," said Karan, "The victim was a twenty-two year old, Punjabi female, five feet and eight inches tall, and weighed approximately one hundred and twenty pounds. She had black hair and blue eyes. She was somewhat sexually promiscuous, having both a lesbian relationship and a heterosexual relationship. In addition, she was living with yet another lover off and on in her first floor apartment where the incident occurred. She was last seen..."

His eyelids feeling amazingly heavy, Singh stood and paced in an effort to stay awake while Karan droned on in that slow way of his. Singh wished he could slap himself in the face, but he didn't think the action would be conducive to professionalism. Instead, he chose to look around the meticulous office, for something, anything to interest him enough to keep him awake. His eyes raking the African masks and other fine sculptures in the glass case that covered the far side of the wall, Singh was reminded of how much money "these guys" make. A lot more than him. It was somewhat ironic, considering that they basically did the same thing—only the profiler didn't do the nitty-gritty dirty part of the job that he did.

"The body wasn't found for three days, at which time it was in an advanced state of decomposition."

"Correct, doc!" Singh said, his eyes scanning a vintage picture of a young woman on far wall. He didn't know why he was looking at her so intently, maybe because she reminded him of someone...and maybe because he was somewhat taken with her beauty. "Was this your mother?" he interrupted, pointing at the voluptuous blonde.

Karan sighed. As usual, he was all business. "No, actually she was my grandmother." Scratching his balding head, he added, "But she raised me."

Singh whistled. "Quite a looker."

"Yes, she was," Karan smiled, flicking his nails even faster. "They say she was the best dancer for miles around in the small town where we lived. And I must say, she always encouraged me to keep physically fit."

"Oh, that's right! You're a Punjabi. I'd forgotten."

"Yes, I was born and brought up in Amritsar. But about the case, detective. The victim was murdered on November 5 of this year at around midnight. When she took out the garbage, the killer saw and shot her with a .22 calibre automatic, then he drug her into the house, where he shot her again in the head. This time, he not only eviscerated the victim, but he also cut out one of her eyeballs, which was missing from the crime scene. She was later found by her landlord who entered the apartment after neighbours had complained about a foul odour. There were no witnesses to the crime."

"Bingo, again, doc. I didn't know that you also served in the Army." Singh said as he studied the other pictures on the wall. There were many pictures there of Karan in uniform, with his unit, and of Karan with his Army buddies.

"Yes, for twelve years. That's where I initially became interested in criminal behaviour. But really need to get back to this case. I have an appointment at seven o' clock."

"Sorry. I have a way to get off track at times. But I promise to make this as quick as possible. I'm hoping to arrest a suspect this afternoon...that is...if your profile agrees with the evidence I've collected so far. So please, doctor, proceed."

"Well, from looking at this picture I'd say that the murder was organized. Obviously, the killer knew what he was doing, and I think he had probably planned it for quite some time. I don't think he knew the victim, but he had probably watched her from afar."

"That's a bit different from the accepted theory down at the station, doc. Everyone thinks the killer acted impulsively. And they believe the victim knew him because of the severe trauma to the face and head area. Don't you think these injuries indicate the type of overkill that we usually see in crimes of passion? And it certainly seems an impulsive crime due to the frenzied, somewhat disorganized crime scene. It was a sloppy job. That's certain."

"On the contrary!" Karan erupted, seemingly miffed. The arrogant man simply couldn't let someone disagree with him. That's one thing Singh didn't like about old Doc Karan. The man seemed to think his word was God. Of course, Karan tried to hide it under a slick, professional face, but Singh was adept at studying human behaviour from all his years on the force, and he knew that Karan, despite the suave smile, was mightily irked. He braced himself as Karan continued, having to remind himself that Karan did know his stuff.

"I think the killer was simply trying to make the crime scene look that way. But if you look more closely, you'll notice that the crime scene was staged. As the report states, nothing was missing, except the eyeball, yet it looks like just about every one of the woman's drawers and cabinets were emptied. And I don't believe the victim knew the killer, because for one thing, he waged his first assault outside when she took out the garbage...indicating that he must have known she'd take it out around that time...had probably watched her do so quite often. Had he known her well he would probably have entered via the front door."

"You have an interesting point there, doc. Unless of course, she didn't go to the door, because she feared him. Maybe a past boyfriend? We do have several suspects and are particularly interested in locating some of her ex-lovers. Shortly after the murder we found one of them pissing on her apartment building window, and we took him in for questioning, but have gotten nowhere so far. Her friends say that the man often left obscene phone calls on her telephone. It appears that he was stalking her."

"But he didn't commit this crime. I'm certain of that! If you'll look closely at the picture, you'll see that there's an impression in the blood where a glass or cup of some sort sat. They're very vague!" Karan said, handing the photo to Singh. "You'll have to look very closely to see them."

Squinting his eyes as he studied the photo, Singh was shocked. He hadn't noticed the circle, not in the picture or at the actual crime scene. But looking at the picture now, he realized that, again, the doc was correct. To the left of the body was a slight impression of a small circular object. It was smeared, but recognizable nevertheless. "Then you think this is another job of the vampire killer?"

"Undoubtedly!"

"But he didn't drain the victim of blood like the vampire killer normally does."

Karan held out his hands and shook his head. "Maybe he didn't have time...maybe he heard a noise...I don't know."

Singh grimaced, thinking of the Vampire Killer's twelve sadistic murders. Each of the victims had been young, beautiful, their whole lives ahead of them, and a madman had snuffed it all out just so he could satisfy a foul, sadistic lust that had gotten out of hand. Each murder had seemed to grow more grotesque, more dire as the madman's lust heightened, and as his self-confidence grew. Singh would be happy to catch the guy if he never cracked another case in his career. He had pretty much put a hold on everything else in his life in order to bring the killer to justice, and he intended to see this thing through to the end. He just couldn't sleep at night knowing that this madman was preying on innocent victims. The killer had baffled police for the past three years. He often chose a different modus operandi each time. He had stabbed the first victim no fewer than one hundred and four times; he had strangled the next, drowned another, hung another, and so on. The latest one, he had executed blitz style. But no matter what means he had chosen to conduct his foul deed, he had always horribly mutilated and sexually assaulted his victims. And in what was an obvious attempt to tease and taunt the police, he usually left his own calling card at each crime scene in the form of a bloody paper cup, a "Dixie" brand with a row of tiny blue flowers around the rim. He would remove the victim's intestines and then scoop the blood out of the viscera, using the cup to do so, so that he could drink the victim's blood. And always, he'd take something from the victim as a keepsake, be it an ear, a finger, or simply a ring or bracelet. However, he had not done so with the latest victim; apparently, he had drained the fluid from her skull after removing her eyeball.

"One thing that threw me at first," Karan continued, "was that there was seminal fluid in the deceased's vagina. As you know, this has not been the case with the past, and the seminal fluid has only been found elsewhere on the victims' bodies. We've assumed that the vampire killer couldn't perform the actual sexual act and merely stood over his victims masturbating, as criminals of such a nature usually do. But apparently we were wrong--or perhaps, leading us to believe that he was sexually dysfunctional was just one more way for the killer to shock us and lead us away from his trail."

"But, doc, I can't help but think that this could all be sheer coincidence or, perhaps, a copycat killing. This crime occurred quite a distance from the areas where the previous victims had been murdered...."

"Just another attempt to thwart the investigation in my opinion. Your man isn't stupid, detective. I'd say he knows a thing or two about criminal investigations even if it's only from reading dime-store crime novels."

"Okay then, doc, give me the run down on this one. Tell me everything you've deducted so far."

Again, Singh paced, eventually heading toward the open window, as if the chilly November breeze had enticed him. As he stood there, looking out at the busy downtown street, he relished the sleek black Mercedes that he saw in the employee parking lot. Someone had shelled out big bucks for those wheels, he thought, but he certainly wouldn't want to pay their insurance premiums.

"Well, I'm sure that the suspect is Punjabi!" Karan interrupted his thoughts. "The area that the victims were killed in is predominantly Punjabi, and all of the victims were Caucasian. And you and I both know, detective, that a killer usually kills someone of his own race. I believe the suspect holds a full time, nine-to-five job, because the murders generally occur on the weekends or late in the evening."

"Guess that eliminates a cop. I swear I've put in over eighty hours this week already and the clock's still ticking."

"Unless, the cop holds a desk job."

"I'll have to run that titbit by the Commissioner. In fact, I think I'll ask him where he was Nov 5th" Singh joked, eliciting a chuckle from Karan. But Singh could swear it was a fake laugh. He knew a phony laugh when he heard one, because he had a habit of telling lame jokes. "So this serial killer is sociable, huh?"

"Oh, no. He may seem social on his job, and he may seem outgoing and friendly enough, but he's probably a loner, and has a difficult time forming close relationships. More than likely he's single."

"Not your average prince charming then? Maybe like one of those snotty postal clerks or receptionists in downtown offices. Right?"

"Oh, no. He's probably very charming and friendly to his victims...probably has a way to put his victims at ease. And I'd say that he's at least fairly well groomed, since his appearance apparently didn't cause alarm in his previous attacks. Well, let's just say that the vampire killer smooth, suave, and manipulative. He manages to make his victims think that he's a good person, and that he has their welfare at heart. Thus, he gains their trust."

"Oh, yes, the consummate actor. I have no doubt. I've seen enough killers in my time to recognize this trait. They can cry real tears, though they feel absolutely nothing inside except their own greed. It has always amazed me how well a psychopath can operate and manipulate people!"

"You've certainly hit that one on the head. The killer is definitely, a psychotic individual who probably lives or works in the area where at least the first crimes were committed, and I'd bet money that he owns a dark sedan."

"And how does he afford to pay for that sedan?"

"Usually a criminal of this nature, holds a meagre job or is grossly uneducated, but in this murder, this is not the case. The man's ability to perfectly carve the body shows an educated knowledge of anatomy. Therefore, since, he's apparently well-educated we can deduce that he likely holds a middle to upper-class job."

"That's very interesting, doctor. I had assumed that he would be around twenty years old. Now, you've lead me to believe he was somewhat older, unless he's one of those geniuses who got a Ph.D. at sixteen."

"Though serial killers of this nature are generally in their twenties, I think this killer is somewhat older, perhaps in his forties or fifties, and he might, or might not, have some sort of strange mannerism."

Singh was surprised to hear this. They had been looking for a young, disturbed man, since serial killers were normally in their early twenties—and the report they'd received from the FBI concurred with this. "What brought you to that conclusion?"

"Obviously, like I said, he had a good job and a good income, therefore, it's only reasonable to assume that he was somewhat advanced in his career. I'd wager that he had probably killed for years without being caught unlike most serial killers. I've always believed that his crimes reveal a certain expertise."

"And can you tell me anything else about his state of mind?"

"Again, you're looking for a psychopath, Detective. He can probably go 'in' and 'out' of his feelings. He might seem ordinary if you run into him in the grocery store, because, though he's obviously grossly deranged, he acts fairly normally, and there could be complete absence of irrational thinking. Nevertheless, this man is without remorse or shame, and has an immediate desire for satisfaction when he feels like killing." The doctor continued, flicking his nails again. "I assure you that he will kill again when he gets that fit, unless you manage to nab him first. Now i am getting late for my appointment, please excuse me. You know how to reach me in case you need." He said and escorted the detective out.

Once in his black Mercedes, Karan opened the small compartment which he had ordered for specially and checked if his .22 calibre was still there. One look and he was satisfied. A grin spread across his face as he remembered the words of, "One of the good things about telling the truth is that you don't have to remember what you said". He was sure that he would never be caught. Criminals get caught because they tell lies and get trapped in those lies. But he had taken care of that.

The Killer



He laid his garment bag on the second bed in the hotel room, unzipped it at the front and then immediately hung up the suit that was in it. He wanted the wrinkles to fall out before he had to wear it. He was a little nervous. "It's normal. Like they used to say in the Army: you watch out for the guys that are fearless," he thought. Out of his small carry-on, he unpacked his weapon. Nothing fancy: a .40 caliber Beretta that would easily do the trick.

He then pulled out the box. It wasn't fancy like you see in the movies. Just an old Nike shoe box. Inside were countless pictures of his target. Her husband was reluctant to take them from their home but if he wanted the job done right, he knew that the pictures would give the killer all he needed to get the job done. 

The Killer carefully examined the wedding picture. The couple looked happy back then. Their youth seemed so innocent, so clean of their experiences to come. Their future was bright the Killer was sure, until it all started to unravel. He tacked it on the wall. Then another picture taken a few years later. The two looked equally happy—out on a boat during a summer outing. The wife held up the fish she had caught.

The Killer roughly rummaged through the rest of the pictures. He needed a more recent one. "Ah, there," he mumbled. She stood in all her glory with a flowing, flowered cotton sundress smiling for the camera. She was a few years older than in the first few pictures, but her beauty was still apparent. "Today's gonna be a bad day for you Mrs. Franklin." The Killer reviewed the notes the private eye had given him. "Mrs. Franklin's been a bad girl," he sneered. The Killer took a deep breath and began to lay out the grainy pictures of Mrs. Franklin and her lover in various compromising positions. He went through this ritual every once in awhile to ensure he could go through with it all; to make her pay. The ritual was the Killer's moral compass, reminding him what he had to do.

He took in a deep breath and exhaled. He stood up and put on his suit. He took extra care to ensure that he hadn't missed a spot shaving and that his hair was all in place. If it was going to go according to plan, everything had to be in place.

Stacy Franklin was finishing up her day's action items. She was tired and ready to sit in a hot bath. She wanted to go home, put on her pajamas and do nothing but lay down. Veg out. Watch TV. She hadn't really done that in weeks. She'd been too busy.

When she wasn't toiling away at her job, she was dealing with her husband. Their marriage had been deteriorating since last August when she got her promotion. Luke was a good husband to her—"a good man", as her mother would say—but there was plenty he was lacking. And now that she'd moved up in the corporate hierarchy, she began to notice what she didn't have. 

Her affair with Greg started out as a small peck on the cheek after an extended "happy hour" get together on a Friday after work. That built into dancing at the next client-site review. They'd gone to the hotel and fucked like she hadn't since her college days. Did she feel guilty? Oh yeah; everyday! But she just couldn't extract herself from Greg's allure. Now, every Thursday, she'd "work late", but it was really to meet Greg at his apartment. And it was good. The past seven weeks had been great! She'd done things she'd never done with a man. Yeah, she felt guilty, but... Stacy loved her husband. It was the excitement that she missed. The chase. The wonder whether the other person likes you enough to make the first move. She wanted that again and her chances of ever feeling that were drifting away with the years. 

Her phone rang. It was Luke. "Yeah, what's up," she said as she collected her things to go home.

"I've got a surprise for you," he replied. Despite the growing distance between the two, she still enjoyed his occasional charm. "What did you do?"

"You'll see," he said. "I've got something special for you down at the Holiday Inn...maybe a little dancing, a little booze...," he said.

Stacy winced even though she appreciated his effort. "Ah baby...I'm just so tired. I just wanna go home and..."

"No! Come out here Stacy," Luke said a little more forcefully than she expected.

"Ah, Luke, are you okay," she asked wondering what the fuck was going on.

Luke's voice calmed down. "Yeah, I mean, sorry about that. It's just important that you meet me down here."

Stacy released a long sigh recognizing that her relaxing evening was blown. "Well, okay." 

The Killer now knew the target was coming to the hotel. He was certainly ready. He stared blankly into the large mirror in the hotel suite. He didn't have time to wax philosophic about what he was and what he'd done with his life. "I am what I am," he said to his reflection. Besides, he had a client to be serviced. He laughed internally at the professional way he described it. "Client". "Serviced". He laughed again. 

Stacy parked. She thought about what the hell was going on and what Luke had planned. She didn't hate her husband or anything extreme...she loved him...she guessed. She decided that she was just bored. She pulled down the visor and ensured her makeup was straight and her hair wasn't out of whack. It was the least she could do. She walked into the hotel lobby—the nicest in their town—and waived off the guy behind the counter. She looked into the bar and saw him. It was still early—about six-thirty—so there was still light coming in through the windows of the bar. It was pretty much empty.

Luke smiled meekly at her when he turned his chair and saw her come in through the front doors. It was a smile that asked, "What do you think?" Sitting on the bar next to him was a bouquet of a dozen red roses. Despite their recent distance, her heart swelled, supported by the memory of the man that she had fallen in love with. Her eyes began to well, though she quickly gained her composure. She walked to him, slowly at first. Then, she moved to a trot ultimately landing her in his outstretched arms.

They kissed and she felt the warmth of her husband's arms wrapped around her. Almost on cue, the song that the two had danced to at their wedding reception played (thanks to the gracious bartender whose iPod happened to have the tune). The two danced. Luke and Stacy, for the first time in a long time, were oblivious to the world and just danced. They looked into each other's eyes in recognition of a shared love. The moment was beautiful. 

Luke leaned forward and kissed his wife. "I love you," he announced.

Stacy, moved by the gesture, wiped a tear from her eye and answered, "I love you too Luke!"

Luke leaned forward and whispered in her ear, "Well then, let's go take advantage of this hotel room we're paying for. We need to celebrate our anniversary."

Stacy instantly became alarmed. She thought, "Fuck! I forgot our anniversary!" Even still, she kept her poker face and walked hand-in-hand towards the elevator with her husband. She had to give him credit: this was more romance than she'd seen in a decade of marriage.

They arrived at Room 224. Luke handed her the key card and said, "I'm carrying you whether you like it or not."

She smiled. "Well, if you insist." He lifted her in his arms and she inserted the key card and opened the door. 

He put her down on the floor. Stacy looked around the hotel room in awe. The walls were covered with pictures of Stacy and Luke throughout the years. The effect was an emotional one and Stacy found herself crying again. She walked up to the pictures on the wall: company picnics, birthday parties, college football games, friends' weddings, camping trips...it all reminded her of what she and Luke had together before the rat race had taken over. 

Stacy ran to Luke and grabbed him like a prize, so valuable that she never wanted to let him go. Through sobs she got out, "Oh baby, oh baby, I love you so much. I can't believe I never saw your love like this."

Luke said, "I do love you Stacy. I love you more than you know. That's why I brought you here. That's why I put up all of these pictures. It's our anniversary—I know; I saw you didn't remember—and I wanted to do something special. Something you'd never forget."

She rebutted, "I remembered! I...," but he cut her off.

"Shh...It's okay." He laughed. "Trust me, it's alright. I know why our anniversary isn't necessarily first and foremost on your mind." He made a motion towards an envelope lying on the bedspread. Before she even approached it, she just knew. She knew what was in that manila envelope. "Open it," he suggested.

"No," she answered. As sense of foreboding gripped her.

"Open it," he said in a more commanding voice. She unclasped the envelope and began sifting through the pictures. She could hardly see them through the tears. The figure of Greg between her legs made her want to vomit now. She held the pictures at her side and looked straight down at the floor. Her marriage was over. The man that she'd genuinely loved for the past decade knew of her petty affair and it was over. Her life was over.

"Look at me," Luke said. "Look at me!" he yelled when she failed to respond. Sheer horror replaced her guilt when she saw the gun pointed at her.

"N-n-no Luke; let's talk about this," Stacy pleaded. "It was a...a mistake. I mean, I love you baby. I don't know..." she said as she moved to the corner of the hotel room. She cowered there in anticipation of the inevitable.

"LOOK AT ME!" he commanded. Slowly but surely, she turned her head up to look at him. His face was strewn with tears. She saw that beyond the barrel of the gun that was now aimed at her face. "What the fuck Stacy?! You talk about love and you can't keep from...Ah fuck!" Luke raged, screaming obscenities at her. 

Stacy began to sob uncontrollably, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry Luke, I'm so sorry," she repeated again and again as if it was a prayer that would provide her some sort of salvation.

Then there was a silence. "I don't want to kill you Stacy. I still love you. But I can't be on this earth knowing you...shit, I don't know. I'm not doing it anymore."

Stacy looked up at Luke who stood with the gun at his side. His face was red from the rage he felt and wet with tears. He'd undone the tie at his neck. With his free hand, he buttoned his suit jacket. Suddenly, his face turned cold and resolute. Stacy knew he was going to kill her now. Stacy tried to steel herself against the pain that was about to come.

The Killer stepped back from his victim, pointed his gun at Stacy's face and said, "I'm sorry I wasn't man enough for you." He then opened his mouth and pushed the barrel into it.

Before she finished her scream, Luke's body was crumpled on the floor. The Killer had serviced his client. 



The Killers: A Love Story



The Killers: A Love Story

I needed a break from the book trudge that my alter-ego is in the middle of. So another one of my quasi-romances. I adapted the theme from The Killers, hence the name. And like the original, nothing in this story is as it appears. I hope that you enjoy it - but please send me feedback either way - DT 

____________________________________

The Killers: A Love Story

I met Janet at State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. I was 22. And weird as hell back then. 

I had always found school boring. So I spent my adolescence growing up in the hacker culture of Northern Virginia. 

Needless to say, that scene will make you unconventional - to say the least. 

I never studied computers per-se. I just saw the world different from normal peoples. And my out-of-kilter perspective helped me see things that most folks missed. 

Which is useful when I was looking for holes in your security scheme. 

It wasn't strictly electronic cracking. In fact I favored the social engineering side of the house, particularly when it came to manufacturing spoofed credentials. 

That's how they eventually caught me. 

I wasn't hacking. I was sitting in an Undersecretary of State's office smoking one of his contraband Cubans. 

What can I say? The Secretary had excellent taste in real Cohibas. 

Nonetheless, I had forgotten about the pungent smoke that was wafting under the door.

I considered it a boyish lark. 

They considered it a crime. 

The INR liked the fact that there was nothing that I couldn't crack. So they gave me two options. Go to jail, or go to work for them. 

Hence, a year later I was the in-house geek for the Principal Assistant Deputy Secretary's Current Intelligence Unit. 

I didn't repair them. I hacked them on orders. 

Janet was the financial analyst detailed to the CIS staff. She was helping them connect the dots on a particular problem that the US was having with a French diplomat. 

I believe that the eventual goal was something involving blackmail.

Anyhow - the project wasn't memorable and nothing significant came of it. 

The only earth shaking outcome was the presence of Janet herself. 

She was so hot that every male at CIS, and maybe some of the females, wanted her. 

I was a wallflower then – not that things have changed much. So I never thought to pursue her. 

But the head of my unit wined and dined her throughout the project. And it would have been a miracle if he wasn't fucking her. 

I wasn't a member of the alpha-male pack. So I never knew for sure. 

My relationship with Janet was different. Janet did the financial analysis and she was always coming to me with requests for information. 

The cracking process often ran well into the night. And since it never dawned on me that I had a shot, we interacted as colleagues and friends during all those hours. 

We both have an over-developed sense of humor. So we laughed a lot. And we spent a goodly amount of time together just talking, or sharing the other day-to-day things that people who work together do. 

Little did I know I was romancing her? But I'm a nerd and what I don't know about the human condition would fill the seven seas.

On the other hand I DID know that Janet was a ninja assassin when it came to numbers. And combined with my particular skills we were a lethal team.

She asked ME if I wanted to get a drink on the day that we nailed the individual in question. 

I said, "Isn't Rick taking you out someplace to celebrate?"

She looked scornful and said, "We did this together – just you and me - not THAT jerk." 

There was some bitterness in her voice. I guessed that the tempest in THAT particular tea-pot had finally boiled over.

I may be a geek. But I am no fool. If the hottest woman in the entire Foggy Bottom wanted to grab a drink with little-old-me I was out the door and hoofing it across Washington Circle toward One-Fish-Two-Fish before she could put her coat on.

She had a dirty martini. I had a beer. 

She was drawing all kinds of attention from the male populace. Most of them were wondering what the fuck she was doing with the likes of me. 

I didn't blame them. Janet is gorgeous in a dark Mediterranean kind of way. But it is her eyes that distinguish her from other beautiful women. 

Her eyes are big and round and sexy. But they are ice blue, like the Arctic Sea. The odd contrast in coloration with that perfectly proportioned dusky face is captivating.

Janet is also very smart. Her MBA is from Stanford and she graduated from their B-School when she was just 21. 

But I would be a liar if I told you that the first thing I noticed about her was her intelligence. 

The thing that grabs everybody's attention is her curvy little body and her big tits. I make no excuses. I'm a guy and a mind is terrible thing to motorboat.

I looked into those eerie pale blue eyes and said, "Do you want to talk about it." 

I am not intuitively sensitive but I had just spent ten straight sixty hour weeks interacting with the woman. 

I knew that she and my asshole boss were an item, even if he WAS married. And I assumed there were issues.

She looked at me amused and said, "I thought I did twenty minutes ago. But not now, let's talk about something else. How about you and me?"

I was puzzled. I said, "What ABOUT you and me." 

I know... I'm dense.

She looked even MORE amused and said, "You are the only guy in the place who hasn't hit on me. What's with that?"

I had no response. I just looked at her mystified. I said, "Why would I hit on you?"

She said, "What's the matter? Don't you like girls? Or do you have somebody hotter than me stashed away somewhere?" 

I said, "I have a one bedroom apartment in Franconia - and a cat. 

"I like girls. They just don't like me."

She said, "Why not? You are tall and good looking. You are NOT an asshole. Which is something that I can't say for most of your gender. 

"And you are a genius at what you do. 

"In fact you are extremely intimidating to people who know how sinister your black arts truly are."

Okay, she was making me seriously ill-at-ease. Women like Janet do not even NOTICE men like me. Let alone pay them compliments. What was she up to? 

I took an agitated sip and mumbled, "I have never been successful with women. I think it's a matter of confidence. But I am also way too introspective and totally introverted

"Shy, awkward and tongue tied are not exactly attractive features with most girls."

She looked at me with those amazingly intelligent eyes and said, "I'm not most girls. 

"We have worked side-by-side for two months. I know that you are a social-retard. But when we are together, just you and me, you are funny, insightful and very deep. 

"More important you seem to have a sense of values and that is extremely important to me. 

"I get tired of fighting off men. Every one of them thinks that they get to fuck me if they buy me a drink. 

"On the other hand you give me respect, and you treat me like a peer and friend. And frankly I want to find out if this leads to something else if you are interested."

Who wouldn't be interested in the smartest and I might add hottest woman in the entire State Department? 

Roslyn was a lot closer than Franconia so we went to her place. 

She may be intellectually advanced but I also discovered that Janet is extremely accomplished in the more physical aspects of the womanly arts. 

Can you say "sexual animal?" 

Simply put, she loves to fuck. She loves everything about the act. And all of her enthusiasm and passion is channeled into very creative ways of making us both happy. 

I am a relatively low key guy. But Janet's passions and her fantastic little body could get a Rapa Nui statue caught up in the moment. 

She never gets tired, there is nothing she won't try and she is always ready for another romp.

We were married exactly thirty two weeks after that conversation. Nobody anywhere thought it would last. 

But it did, for the next 15 years. Apparently opposites CAN attract. 

Of course our marriage wasn't all peace and tranquility. We had our occasional disagreements. And they could get stormy.

Both of us are strong willed and we both have our opinions. Especially Janet, who has a Mediterranean temper. 

I am Germanic by extraction and so I tend to quietly brood – a lot like Hamlet without the skull. 

But she blows up. And when she does she lets me know exactly what she is thinking. 

Nonetheless - since she really loves me those storms quickly pass. And the subsequent make-up sex is always extremely satisfying.

If our life together seemed to be ideal, that will probably explain why it was such a shock to learn that things might not be exactly as they seemed. 

---------------------------------

There might be a grand plan. But nobody has seen fit to share it with me. 

As far as I can tell, life is nothing more than a series of random encounters that we weave into meaning by the choices we make. 

If we choose wisely - the good will outweigh the bad - usually. 

But karma is a heartless bitch. 

And so if you choose to live on the edge, you will eventually fall off. 

Thus, as the old jailhouse saying goes, "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time." 

I was living proof of that. 

I was in Chicago one fine spring evening because conventions are big business.

Every convention needs speakers. And I have been inside on a few of the comings-and-goings in America's putative War on Terror. 

So I get a lot of requests for talks. 

That was why I happened to be sitting at the bar at Gibson's Steakhouse in Chicago. 

I was part of the line-up for one of those godawful professional events, where none of the talks make the slightest bit of sense. But everybody leaves feeling "informed." 

My topic was, "National Security, Why I Sleep like a Baby." The punch line is, "Don't babies wake up crying and wetting themselves every two hours?" 

You get the message – right? 

The conference was held at the Thompson, which is convenient to ORD. So I flew in late one afternoon. The aim was to do my thing. And then fly out early the next day. 

Pocketing a hefty "honorarium" for my services - I might add.

As is my usual routine, I headed for the nearest saloon. 

I hate air travel. So I like to have a beer, or four when I am on the road, just to settle my jangled nerves. And I had noticed Gibson's across the street.

The place was packed but there was one seat at the bar. It was located next to a species of varmint that I particularly loath. But it was the only one available.

If you spend any time in an upscale bar you'll recognize the breed. 

They are still young enough to be "special" in their own minds. They just hadn't lost enough to have any common sense.

They are always alpha-males, youthful, trim, good looking. Their style is impeccable and their come-on-is failsafe. 

They were in with the in-crowd in high school. They pledged the best fraternities in college. And their degrees are from the most elite schools. 

These two sounded like technical support for a vendor who was at the conference. Most of the companies pay a premium to the guys who are willing to travel. And that usually includes a generous expense allowance. 

It's a gypsy life. But if you are young and have no attachments it can be fun for a while. 

Like every OTHER member of that genus, these fellows were eternally on the hunt. 

Their need for sex had nothing to do with warm-and-fuzzy connection. Those boys were in the game strictly to run up the score. 

Women were just prey to them. 

Their random copulation was like crack cocaine. Each conquest gave them a fantastic high. But they crashed and burned if they didn't keep it coming. 

So they were always on the prowl. 

I ordered a cold Gamma-Ray Pale Ale. I'm into craft beer. It's a weakness.

The bartender set 18 ounces of that marvelous fluid in front of me. He also looked totally disgusted with my two neighbors. They must have been there for a while.

When I sat down they were in the process of recounting the hottest of the hotties they had come across in their travels. 

Both of them were drunk. So short of putting in ear plugs I couldn't avoid overhearing their conversation. 

It was an enlightening peek into the tree-house.

They seemed to be rank ordering the candidates based on looks and general degree of hotness. 

The most revealing part was that neither of them knew any names. They just used tags, like "the redhead in San Francisco with the big jugs", or "the Latina from Orlando with the big buns." 

It was like listening to a couple of guys talk about zoo animals. 

The dude directly on my left was telling the guy on the far side about his most recent discovery. 

He said, "The one that gets my vote was the chick I met in Atlanta a month ago. 

I didn't fuck her but my buddy did and he said that she was the hottest piece of ass he had ever had - and he ought to know because he's fucked them all.

"She was maybe five-two but she had tits that were easily Ds. They'd look huge on a woman six inches taller. But they were monsters on her."

The other guy chimed in with, "Yeah, I like them really big. Could you see her nipples?" 

Brilliant conversation. And remember, half the bar could hear those two drunken morons.

This was getting so bad that I was thinking of standing by the window, anything but listening to them blow smoke up each other's pant legs. 

The twit on my left continued with, "She was with a guy who I knew from school so I sat down with them. They were having a romantic little dinner. 

"She was really quiet the whole time we talked. You know how submissive women can be when you're giving them what they need to have." 

They both chuckled lecherously. I nearly retched.

"My buddy was one of those guys who we really looked up to in school. Wasn't much in the classroom but DAMN was he EVER successful with all the ladies

"You know the type – totally dominant. And he loved to show off his power over the ones he was fucking. I never actually saw it but I heard that his dick was huge.

"Some guys would be pissed if you joined them when they were about to get laid. But not this guy. 

"Whit could care less. He knew he had her totally under control. He just wanted me to see what a stud he was."

That was accompanied by lewd chuckling over the guy's stud-hood. In the universe that those two cretins inhabited that accolade ranked right up there with winning the Nobel Prize. 

The guy next to me continued with, "We talked for a while and I noticed that she was wearing a ring. I actually asked them if they were married. 

"That set off a lot of laughter on Whit's part.

"He said, Janet's married all right, just not to me." 

Suddenly, I was on full alert. The thing that had caught my attention was the description of the woman and her name. My wife is tiny with big tits and her name is Janet. 

Worse, she had recently been in Atlanta with a guy named Whitley Reynolds. He was one of the lawyers she does consulting work for. 

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Maybe it was sheer coincidence. 

Janet's a pretty common name isn't it?

I was now hanging on the moron's every word. 

At that point the other dude interrupted to ask the narrator who they sold for. 

That might sound like it was a little out of left field. But the only thing those two idiots lived for was sex and selling. 

So asking about their line of business was not really that unusual. 

The guy next to me said, "She wasn't in sales. She's some kind of accountant if you can believe THAT!!!"

That tore my heart out. Janet is a consulting CPA. And she and Reynolds had been in Atlanta last month. They had been down there four days sorting out the dealings of one of Reynolds's clients. 

Meanwhile the clown next to me was regaling his friend with a detailed description. 

Apparently his buddy Whit had been trying to fuck her for a couple of months. He said that when she finally gave it up she was an absolute beast. 

The guy on the far side, who was obviously drunker said, "So did he give you a taste?"

The first guy said, "Not a chance. He said that she was totally in love with him. And she was so hot that he wouldn't even think of sharing her with any other man. 

"I told him that he should give me a call if he ever got tired of her. Man!! She was smoking hot!!!"

That was the point where I tossed a twenty on the bar and exited the building.

Okay, admittedly it was an unbelievable coincidence. Those two douchebags were just passing the time in their normal omnivorously horny fashion. 

But things are always within six degrees of separation. And the link of an odd name like Whit, to "accountant" narrowed the coincidence down a lot. 

So it was not outside of the realm of possibility that I had overheard something that I was not supposed to hear. 

It would be an extreme understatement to say that the next twenty-four hours were stressful. 

Public speaking is all about stage presence. My stock in trade is affable good-old-boy with deep IC roots, and it has served me well. 

But it is hard to convince a room full of people that you are just a gregarious country gentleman when all you can think about is whether your beloved wife might be a duplicitous whore.

I have worked audiences so long that the actual 50 minutes up on stage was the usual amalgamation of laughs and nebulous information. 

But I was purely on automatic pilot. I was too upset.

I had not bothered to call Janet the night before. I knew that would upset her. When we are apart we always talk once a day. 

But I had not even come close to getting a grip on my fevered imaginings. And I didn't want to take the chance of tipping my hand. 

It was long odds that she was the slut in question. But even the remote possibility had me freaked out beyond all rational limits. 

It was really just random talk. Most of the connection was in my own head. 

And I was aware even as I listened to them that the narrator was exaggerating in the way that all of those adolescent types do when they are talking about the opposite sex.

Nonetheless, until I found out whether Janet was the woman in question the situation was going to get my "A" game. 

And I knew that I needed a plan.

First, I had to play things like our relationship was nothing but puffy clouds, rainbows and unicorns. 

If Janet thought I suspected her of anything, it would drive her deep underground. And she is smart enough to bury evidence of any alleged extra-marital shenanigans. So I had to be cool.

I also understood that I was suffering from the "hot wife" syndrome. 

Every man wants to be with the hottest woman in the room – the one every other guy wants. But a woman as striking as Janet could have any man with a sultry glance. 

Which can induce inordinate amounts of insecurity in a regular fellow like me. 

Your insecurity comes from the fact that you KNOW that it is not your overwhelming animal magnetism that is keeping her bound to you. She is with you because she CHOOSES to be with you. 

The problem with choice is that the world is full of temptation and people can always change their mind. 

So, no matter how secure your bond might be. You always know that your happiness is dependent on your wife's ability to make the right decision. 

After fifteen years of marriage I sincerely believed that Janet's character was unimpeachable. And that she would choose marriage over betrayal. 

In fact over a decade and a half I had never seen anything in her behavior that would contradict that assumption. 

She had not altered her conduct one iota. She had been as loving and attentive as she ever was. And there was no hint of guilt or suspicious behavior. 




The Killers: A Love Story



Thus she was either a Zen master of compartmentalization. Or she was innocent of the charges. 

Unfortunately however, the seed of doubt had been planted and it was rapidly running away with me. 

As a result, I felt compelled to get to the bottom of things - if nothing more than to preserve my own sanity. 

It was nuts really – that I had overheard a random conversation in a bar 700 miles from home and immediately leapt to the conclusion that my wife was stabbing me in the back. 

But that is where this newfound case of paranoia had taken me. 

The thing that was driving my reaction was the "all-in" stakes that I had in our relationship.

Marriage has a lot of different components, not just sex. 

There is the social bond. In that the other person is your most trusted friend. Your wife is the one human being who will never sell you out. 

Of course trust is contingent on mutual honesty. And lying is the shortcut to perdition.

Then there is the knowledge that the intimacy that a man and a woman share is exclusive. 

It would be the loss of that exclusivity that would be the rock on which our marriage would founder. 

I was just not willing to share Janet's special self with any other man. 

It wasn't a matter of male ego. I felt like we had a spiritual bond that couldn't possibly include a third party. 

If it did than our marriage was not what I understood it to be. The way I felt we had to be a binary couple, or we had nothing. 

I thought I had done everything I could to make her happy. And if I had failed her in some way I was ready and willing to do whatever it took to rectify things. 

But she had to bring her problem to me, not take it outside the marriage. 

And if there was discontent there was no justification for NOT sharing THAT with me. 

Moreover, if she had inexplicably fallen in "love"- like those two cretins said she had - then she owed me the respect of telling me that she was no longer mine, not sneaking behind my back. 

Of course her giving herself to another person was an up-front deal-breaker and I am sure that Janet knew that.

The next step was obvious. I had to color in the entire picture. 

I got back in the late morning and took a taxi along the GW Parkway from DCA to Georgetown. 

I knew that Janet was at work and would be home for a while. So I would have the time to lay the groundwork.

I'm a methodical guy and very focused when I am on-task. So my first step was to gather all of Mr Whit Reynolds' low-hanging fruit.

I approached the challenge like any other zero-knowledge exploit. 

I am a hacker by trade, although I call myself a pen-tester in polite company. It is a particular set of skills that I have honed since puberty. 

And I am very well paid for my abilities. 

But I also hack for personal reasons. This one was personal. In fact it was more like a crusade. 

First, I did a deepweb search. It took a total of twenty minutes and $39 to know more about Mr. Whitley Reynolds than he probably knew about himself. 

Most of it was the kind of uninteresting detritus that clogs everybody's life, like all the places he ever lived and the names of all of his relatives. 

The neatly printed report said that he was married with two kids, a boy 4 and a girl 1. 

He was living in Chevy Chase with a woman named Mary who was clearly his age, both were 33. 

He DID have a law degree. And he had passed the bar in Maryland on his second try. 

He had been in private practice for six years and prior to that he had worked three years for the Baltimore DA. 

There were no derogatories on his record but that didn't mean much since he WAS a lawyer. And lawyers know how to bury complaints.

He seemed to specialize in financial management services for a select clientele. His clients of record spent a lot of their time being indicted. 

THAT was an eye-opener. 

But I supposed that having clients who are criminals was not too inexplicable, given the fact that Reynolds was a criminal defense attorney. 

And it probably explained his need for Janet's services, at least the services that her MBA certified her to perform. 

The other services didn't require a degree - just her beautiful body.

Janet had spent the past nine years of our marriage working as a hired gun for lawyers. 

Just like me, her skills could either help people or wreak a lot of havoc, depending on which side of "The Force" she happened to be channeling. 

She could ferret out the most intricate fraud scheme, as well as perpetrate one herself if she wanted to. 

We both made a bundle of money selling our expertise. But there have been a number of times when I wondered why we wore the white hat. Since it would be nigh-unto impossible to catch either of us. 

I knew my motivation. I can't handle guilt. So I'd suck at being a criminal. 

I just assumed Janet was honest for the same reason. But thanks to my recent epiphany I was beginning to wonder about that. 

Maybe she was a better play-actor than I thought she was. 

I felt like I knew the shape of my prey. But I really had to access his computer to pin his ass to my personal mounting board. 

It was just after lunchtime so I harnessed up my fully weaponized canine for a little war-dogging. 

Janet loves dogs. She loves them so much that she occasionally brings strays home. That is how I acquired Buster. 

Buster is big and burly and he slobbers a lot. He is also very, very scary looking. Consequently, nobody wanted to adopt him. 

I felt sorry for the poor old fellow. So he's my dog now. 

There is no more gentle, loyal and loving creature than Buster. But, he's so intimidating that I originally thought that Janet might have accidently rescued a mountain lion. 

I got Buster's leash, and gear. It was a nice spring day in DC, the humidity was only 99%. So I planned to take a walk. 

Buster was very excited. He knew what we were going to do. 

In order to pry into Mr. Whitley Reynold's life I had to access the dude's system. I could crack him. But it would take close proximity to make the linkage. 

And most folks don't take kindly to strangers parked in their driveway while they ping the family router. 

I could drive slowly past. But being out in the street would give me a range problem. 802.11 is not super powerful. 

And a Wi-Fi sniper on the roof of the car would be a little too obvious.

So the closer the better.

Because I do this for entertainment, I concocted an approach to wardriving that lets me get very up-close-and-personal with my target, without anybody being the wiser. 

I was able to do that because Buster is only slightly smaller than a Shetland pony. So he can easily walk wearing a harness with 40 pounds of cracking gear strapped to it. 

Of course the casual observer would just think I was one of those aging hippies who harnessed his big dog to carry water and a backpack when they were out walking.

I had installed a small but very powerful laptop in Buster's pack. It ran Netstumbler and a few other conventional cracking goodies like Wireshark and Brutus. His harness was the antenna. 

I also added some special things that I had obtained from a couple of my Ukrainian friends. 

What??!! You don't realize that hackers practically invented the internet community?!!! 

We would walk down any street - just a boy and his dog - and I could monitor all of the home networks until I pinged the right router. 

Then I would push a little button in the handle of Buster's leash and my gear would lock the target SSID into an evil twin. 

Once I had deployed that malicious gem I would own its network and all of its devices. 

And I could do the rest of my snooping via 4G from the convenience of my own home. 

We drove the half hour up to the Whitley neighborhood and both of us got out for our walk. 

Buster seems to know when we are war-dogging. He normally pulls like crazy. But when we are war-dogging he meanders along sniffing everything. 

He even looks over his shoulder occasionally like he is saying, "Are you getting a signal boss??? Or should I go slower." 

Anybody who owns a dog knows that they talk to you. Buster reminds me of the big black guy in The Green Mile. 

Anyhow, as we approached his house the gear that my war-doggy was carrying pinged and acquired the Reynold's router. 

It took Brutus maybe 30 seconds to crack their WAP and I got the green light that said the evil twin had been configured and had overridden the home router's signal. 

My twin was now running the Reynold's network. 

I pushed the release and the evil twin popped off the harness. I bent down, picked it up, and casually tossed it in the shrubbery in the front of the house. 

When it is lying in tall-grass, or bushes the casing is basically undetectable. 

We casually walked back to the car. Our job was done.

It was 3:00 and Janet would be home soon. So I got out my special laptop. It's the one with all of the stuff that I buy from cracking sites for bitcoins not money. 

Nobody in their right mind would buy something from a darkweb hacker site with their Visa.

I confirmed that the Reynold's system was connected to the twin, wide-open and awaiting my tender mercies. 

I didn't need to download anything since it was all there for me to read. But I DID dump their trash into a file on my computer. Civilians don't realize that their secret stuff doesn't really go away when they hit the "delete" key. 

I would go over that later. 

I also started a mirror recording of any system activity that went on from that point on. Just in case somebody was smart enough to really wipe things.

If there was anything happening between Reynolds and Janet I had the hard evidence. I just hadn't found it yet. 

But I would. 

I was also planning to Bluebug my wife's phone during the short time between when she opened the door and when I kissed her hello 

Then I intended to RAT her computer as soon as she fell asleep. 

Essentially, by tomorrow this time I was going to know everything that she knew and a whole lot more. 

Because every aspect of her lover's personal life was going to be mine. 

Was this a morally bankrupt thing to do? 

Absolutely!!! 

But there were two mitigating circumstances. 

First, I could do it. 

And second, nobody would know. 

Does that sound like the cheater's mantra, "you bettcha!!!" 

But I was not the person purportedly fucking around in the marriage. 

And as far as I was concerned I owed it to both of us to get to the bottom of any allegations of straying. 

For fifteen years Janet has come straight home to me like clockwork. Unlike other working women she has never gone out for drinks with the gang. 

I have always considered that little trait to be a sign of how innately valuable her marriage was to her. 

So I almost felt guilty port-scanning her smart phone from the den and dropping the man-in-the-middle application on it. 

Then she came around the corner into the den. 

She is still so absolutely gorgeous that she takes my breath away. 

She walked up to where I was sitting at my desk and threw her arms around me. The kiss said that she had really missed me. And it promised how much she was going to show me later.

She is a beautiful little woman but it is her inner self that makes her special. 

"Kittenish" might be the best way to sum her up. 

Even at age thirty-eight she's a stunningly attractive bundle of perfectly proportioned features, high spirits, lighthearted fun and deceptively wide-eyed innocence. 

As a couple, she is sunlight and I am – well, I don't exactly know what I am. The word "nerdy" comes to mind. 

Janet's boundless energy and playfulness have always made her a perfect counterpoint to my slightly introverted self. And we fit together perfectly when we are in public. 

I never try to steal her spotlight. And she never wants to be out of its glare.

Janet's bantering skills also fill in the holes when we socialize. As a result, most people think that she is a big flirt and that I am too clueless to notice. 

I don't mind flirtatious if I feel like our spiritual bond is solid. And I have never had the slightest reason to doubt that - until now. 

She had bought sushi carryout from Kotobuki and she spread out a couple of plates and sat down opposite me while she divvied up the spoils. 

She said, "How was your trip?"

I said, "Enlightening."

She looked puzzled and said, "How so?" 

I said, "I learned something there that has me working on a new project. It's my top priority and so I will be spending all of my time on it until I get it resolved."

She looked at me brightly, without a hint of guilt and worry, and said, "That's nice. I know that you always need somebody to throw a ball for you to chase. 

"How come you didn't call last night?" 

I looked at her. God she was hot!!! 

I said, "I was wresting with some things, nothing I can tell you about. I don't want to talk about it until I got my mind around the problem."

She said, still without a smidgen of concern, "Well, it was okay anyhow. I worked until almost midnight on something that I have been doing as part of my engagement with Whit Reynolds." 

That shot a thunderbolt of angst through me. She was prattling on and she didn't see it. 

She said, "I am beginning to get concerned about that whole situation. I am thinking that this is my last trip with him. 

"He wants to go to Miami early tomorrow for a meeting and I am going along. 

"But there are some things that just don't add up – and I know how to add things up because I'm a CPA." 

That was accompanied by a loving smile that lit up the room.

My heart sank. I said - trying to keep the hopefulness out of my voice, "Than maybe you shouldn't go." 

In the meantime she was intently dipping a California roll in the soy sauce. Did I catch a hint of hesitancy? 

She said, talking mainly to the roll, "I have a contract with him and I need this last trip to honor all of the conditions. So I have to go. 

"But I am severing all connection with him after that." 

Was that a coded message that she was going to dump him as a lover? 

"And I am going to spend all of the money that I make from this engagement taking us on a trip. 

"I want to connect with you like we have never connected before. And I want that connection to be very deep – if you catch my drift. How about a cruise?"

I was continuing the charade. I said cheerily, "We'll see when you get back." 

I was pretty sure that ship had already sailed. She definitely had some "'splainin" to do.

She digested my statement and decided that I was just being my usual dismissive self. We lead a complicated life and a long cruise is something that would take planning.

She said, urgency creeping into her voice, "There's one other thing. My body has been aching for you all day. So if you don't mind, I need you to do something for me before we go to sleep." 

Was this a little pity sex for the poor clueless husband? 

In my mind it didn't matter whether it was or not. It was probably going to be my last chance to make love to my only friend and companion. 

Because, tomorrow was definitely going to be another day.

She is only five-two. But there are times when it looks like half of that is slim shapely leg. 

She rose gracefully and walked around to my side of the table. I stood. She took my hand and wordlessly led me toward our master bedroom. 

She is a little woman but very muscular and round and the sight of those buns twitching under her expensive alpaca jersey dress and those full round calves flexing as she walked in her four inch heels was pushing any concerns about her fidelity to the back of my mind. 

When we got to the bedroom she turned abruptly and threw her arms around my neck and plastered herself against me. That was quite a gymnastic feat given the fact that I am well over a foot taller than she is.

She opened her mouth in a way that invited me into her inner self. 

It is something that she does that is more intimate than a kiss. It is like she is totally consumed by me. 

She also has one other trait. It is one that I have never heard of before in a woman. 

When she kisses me like she was doing she almost immediately cums. 

It is the oddest sensation. First you get her totally hot mouth and then she begins breathing incredibly rapidly through her nose and you get a little whimper and a groan. 

It is like the simple intimacy of a kiss kicks her into orgasm. I know it is the sudden close connection that does it for her, not the physical sensation. But it is a sign of how totally involved she is with our lovemaking. 

It is like there is no other reality for her except our intimate joining.

She broke the kiss and stood back gasping with desire. Her eyes were so stoned with lust that they looked like frosty blue marbles. 

The dress came off over her head. Then she literally flung herself backward on the bed. 

As she did that she raised her legs in that classic woman's pose legs up, bent ninety degrees at the waist, with her knees held together, and she peeled off the black cheekinis she was wearing. 

Meanwhile I was wasting no time clearing my decks for action. Normally we do a lot of foreplay but that was not the vibe this evening. 

She wanted it without delay. From where I was standing I could smell her arousal. And as she dropped her panties off one extended foot she was underscoring her need. She was muttering over and over, "fuck me – you have to fuck me – you have to give it to me NOW!!!" 

Looking at that little Venus with her dark auburn hair and her legs waving around in the air knees still together I was inspired to take two steps forward, seize her knees against my chest and throw both of her feet over one shoulder. 

Then I hoisted her up so that only her upper back was were resting on the bed and impaled her. She was so hot and wet I almost came as I slid into her virgin-tight pussy. 

She let out a loud groan of satisfaction and her insides began to boil, clenching and milking with insane energy. 

I let go of her knees and without shifting her position she spread her legs outrageously wide and wrapped them around my waist boa constrictor style. 

I was thinking, "Women! The flexible sex!" 

She was situated on the bed with her arms over her head and those huge tits flailing in multiple directions as I humped into her. They are so big and heavy that they were out of control even though she had not bothered to take her sexy black bra off. 

The way she was responding, with abandoned moans and cries, I knew that this was going to be a very short one. So I started just pounding her. 

The wet slap-slap-slap went on for only a few minutes. Then she shrieked and pulled the covers of the bed up so that she was biting on them like a wounded soldier biting on a bullet. 

It was clear that she was doing that just to hold the screaming down. 

At that point she started to writhe like a snake making unintelligible grunting noises as her insides began to fizz like a shaken up can of soda. 

Our mutual sweat lubricated her body as she thrashed underneath me.

It was evident that her orgasm was so powerful that it was almost painful to her. Her mouth was wide open in a scream that probably only dogs could hear. And she was having a serious problem breathing. 

That was because every muscle in her rib-cage and belly seemed to be locked in a frenzy of cumming. 

She had hauled out her own breasts and was mauling them and pulling the nipples. 

Then she was just yelling over and over, "Cumming-cumming-cumming- OH MY GOD!!!" 

Finally, she collapsed. It was clear that her powerful little body had reached its limits. 

While all of that was going on I was beginning to feel an orgasm approaching from a galaxy long ago and far away. It was so intense that there were stars when it hit. And I felt like I was never going to stop pumping into her. 




The Killers: A Love Story



It was the most intoxicating sensation I have ever experienced. 

That set Janet off on another round of screaming and bucking. I collapsed on top of her and she continued to moan. 

I didn't want to crush her. So I eased slowly back down her passage and she groaned loudly from the loss. 

When I finally got my wits back she was lying next to me just staring at the ceiling like she was a million miles away. After the way she had cum I understood that. 

I had the sudden awful thought, "Is this the last time? Is this the end of my happiness?" 

I decided that I was being a weenie. What would be, would be. But tonight I had her and that was all that mattered.

She turned and looked at me with enigmatic yearning in her eyes and said, "I will love you forever. Promise me that you will be mine forever - no matter what."

I smiled at her poignant sincerity and said, "Promise." 

But I added in my head, "There are a few common sense stipulations on that my dear. Like you not fucking somebody else."

She arranged herself under the covers and said dreamily, "I am going to sleep now. I am leaving early to catch the flight. So I won't be around when you wake up. 

"When you do, just remember this is the last time for me. I will never leave you again." 

Then she dozed off.

I was thinking, with no little irony, that the choice might not be hers. 

I went downstairs and ratted her laptop. Went back upstairs. Brushed my teeth and lay down in the bed. 

I know that I was being a sneaky son-of-a-bitch. But these were desperate stakes.

As I drifted off to sleep I was thinking, "How could she be that unquestionably devoted to me and yet give herself to another man? 

"I am not a genius when it comes to the human heart. But there was no conceivable set of circumstances where the woman I knew as my wife could do something like that." 

__________________________________ 

I don't care what the romantics say. Comfortable habit is the cornerstone of marriage. 

It's a pragmatic fact. 

You spend a lifetime together. That is a lot of time to kill. Much of which entails doing the humble repetitive things that you do to just get through another day. 

And constantly getting in each other's way does not inspire marital harmony. Hence, the importance of smooth running routine.

She always showers first and I shave. Then I shower while she gets dressed. And then I dress while she makes the coffee. 

That has been the way it has been in the Witger house every working day since the dawn of time. 

Except today. 

Today she rose early and was out the door before I awoke. 

The empty spot next to me was heartbreakingly redolent.

I grabbed an energy bar and went out for my morning run. 

I have been a runner forever. I like to do three to five miles almost every day depending on my attitude. 

The payoff is that I am still greyhound lean after 38 years, although I am a very tall greyhound. 

I am also probably hooked on my own endorphins. 

I showered when I returned. Refreshed I sat down to see what I could see. 

There was a lot of junk on Reynolds' home system. 

The tradecraft challenge is never having enough information. The problem is that you have disorganized steaming piles of it. 

So ferreting out the good stuff is like finding the proverbial needle in a field full of haystacks. 

That's why you have to have talent like mine.

First I did a simple search on Reynold's deleted e-mails to pull off any from Janet. 

What I got was the mother-load. There were perhaps 50 messages spanning the last three months starting with a contact message to inquire about her services and ending with something she had sent him yesterday. 

I put the accumulated messages into a file and went looking for anything else. 

They had the usual family clutter on their hard drive which was totally uninteresting, except for the pictures. 

It looked like he and his wife had an ideal marriage, both of them were attractive people with beautiful kids. 

They even had the requisite golden retriever. He looked happy too. 

The vacation photos showed the average upper middle class family doing the usual yuppie things. 

I wondered what would ever motivate a man with a life like that to go after another man's wife. 

It was probably just the thrill of the hunt. You spend your bachelorhood racking up points and some men just can't grow up. Even after they have made a commitment to marriage. 

When I am prowling around other people's machines my first target is the encrypted stuff. 

People don't encrypt things unless they want to keep them confidential. So for a hacker, encryption is like blood on the water to a shark. 

I did a file system search and sure enough, there was one encrypted folder. 

It took a physical memory dump to recover the key but I had his virtual safe cracked in five hours. 

I had a pang as I realized that Janet was probably with the cocksucker as I was doing the decryption. 

I set the formerly encrypted folder aside - next to his messages to Janet. Then I did a simple query across his file system on every keyword that I could think of. Nothing else came up. 

I looked at the e-mail first. 

It started three months ago with the usual business inquiry and getting-to-know you messages. 

Then the tone shifted. He had obviously met her for lunch and liked what he saw. 

She was perfectly professional in the way she was setting up the engagement. But he was already starting to edge toward seduction. 

I couldn't believe that she didn't see that. But then again, Janet is blithely dismissive when it comes to men. I suppose if you looked like her you would be too.

The terms of the engagement were typical for her. She would do the financial work and he would interface with the client. 

The messages back and forth crossed the line into flirtatious somewhere around message thirty-three. 

Then they quickly progressed downhill into out-and-out suggestive on his part. 

His were long and personal. There was no actual sexual content but words like "fond" and "close friend" began to creep into the conversation. 

It might not have gotten physical yet. But they were getting too close emotionally – at least HE thought so. 

Then I finally found it. It was Forty-four messages into the pile of fifty. 

There was no "what" or "why" It simply said, "You forced me. What we did has never happened before and it will never happen again. I love my husband and I value my marriage too much for that. 

"You caught me by surprise. That's the only reason why you pushed me over the line - I am so ashamed. I will follow through on my business commitments. But never touch me again!!!" 

The timestamp coincided with the Atlanta trip. 

What followed was exactly what you would expect from a guy like Reynolds. He both cajoled and bullied. 

On the one hand he kept reminding Janet of their "close friendship." 

He even went as far as telling her that he loved her and that he would leave his wife and kids for her. 

The part that broke my heart was the one where he told her what a great fuck she was and that he had never experienced sex like that before. 

The self-satisfied smirk lay blatantly between the lines. 

He also pointed out that they had a contract. 

She was not buying any of the extensive protestations of love but she fell for the contract part. 

He had threatened a major suit if she violated the terms of their agreement. And of course the reason for breaking the contract would have to come out in court. 

Meaning I would find out. 

Two messages from the end she finally agreed to one more consulting visit. But she told him that she was going to stay at a different hotel and that she would only see him at the client's office. 

The message that she sent yesterday said, "Will meet you at Flagler at 10:00. We have to wrap this up today." 

I sat back and had a little sniffle before I went through the encrypted stuff. She was my whole life and she had betrayed me with that smarmy creep. 

But it had only been once. She claimed to have been forced and she clearly regretted doing it. Maybe I could get past it – maybe I could act like it never happened? 

I DID understand the circumstances. It sounded like Reynolds had somehow managed to get Janet's motor running. 

And from long happy experience I knew that she is totally irrational once that happens. 

In fact, I was certain that Mr. Reynolds had himself quite an arduous night. 

In public Janet is levelheaded and controlled. 

But in the bedroom she is a fiery cauldron of pure lust. 

And if you manage to tap into those passions, she is absolutely relentless until she is satisfied. 

How Reynolds set her off remained to be seen. She knows she is hot blooded. So she would never let any man close enough to get her going - short of a physical ambush. 

That appeared to be what happened here. 

I like to think I am an adult. And I understand that life has its darker moments – the times when we do stupid and self-destructive things. The whole point is to avoid long-term repercussions from any regrettable acts. 

The sex was understandable if it had actually happened the way that the e-mail portrayed it. 

It sounded like a one-shot situation and very close to a rape. Her response was exactly what I would expect from her. And it would have been easily forgivable if that was the case. 

All logic told me that there was no reason for her to lie since it would never occur to either of them that I would read the message. 

So I was pretty sure that I could get past something that she was initially forced into. 

Even if she had been a willing participant for most of the actual process. 

The problem was that short of putting a tracking collar on her I might never be able to trust her again.

I reminded myself that she had been wonderful all of the past month. And if she could keep something like that from me one time, then she could do it again. 

So we had to talk about it. And she had to provide me with some kind of satisfactory justification for why she did not share this with me. 

I could think of a number of valid reasons, first and foremost that it would be embarrassing to her and hurtful to me. 

But I had to hear it from her.

Meantime, I opened the other folder. This was personal correspondence between Reynolds and the client. 

It was straightaway obvious that the client was a consortium of high level drug traffickers with Latin American roots who were interested in laundry services in the US. 

There was nothing in the correspondence that told me where the connection had been made. But it was obvious that Reynolds was setting up the front companies that the money would wash through. 

And he needed Janet's expertise to build the financial structure. 

In her defense it was also plain that Janet did not know the source of the money, only that there was a lot of it and it was foreign. 

That also explained why Reynolds had used a big hammer to keep her working on the deal. 

It would be safe to assume that his "clients" would not be very understanding if he suddenly had human resources problems. 

In fact, bringing in another financial consultant mid-deal would no-doubt be very hazardous to Mr. Reynolds's health. 

My brain was now in mortal lock. 

She had cheated on me and it killed me. But she had only done it once, clearly regretted it and had done everything she could to get out of the situation – point in her favor.

But what about all of the flirting, and teasing that preceded it? 

What did that mean? She is always flirtatious, even right in front of me. It never leads to anything. 

It is just her nature. She is a gorgeous woman and beautiful women have a fundamental need to be admired. 

Otherwise there wouldn't be a fashion industry. 

Maybe she didn't realize that the teasing in this situation was different?

What was much worse was the fact that she was creating financial channels for some really bad men. 

But she didn't know that. 

Nevertheless, thanks to Reynolds her involvement put her in mortal danger. Those were the sort of fellows who did not like loose ends. 

It was evening. But I had to call her. I wanted to warn her - to get her out of the situation – immediately!!! 

I expected it to go to voicemail but instead a man answered. 

My heart sank. It must be him!!! I had a sudden image of the phone lying next to their sweaty naked bodies in some Miami hotel room.

The voice said, "Hello, who is this." 

I almost hung up but instead I just stared at the phone. The voice said, "This is the FBI. I need you to identify yourself." 

I quickly terminated the call. 

Then I activated the bluebug on her phone. I heard several male voices. The one who was holding the phone said, "Her husband just called." 

Another voice clearly in authority said, "Then you need to call him right back." And my phone rang. 

This time I answered it. 

The voice said, "This is Special Agent Mark Schneider. I am with the FBI. We need to talk to you about your wife. We will be at your house in three hours and I want you to be available." 

There was no "pretty-please", or "if it is convenient". It was just, "Be there." 

He hung up.

If my mind had been in turmoil before it was moving at warp-speed now. The FBI? What in the world had Janet gotten herself into? 

Some people might pace. But I respond to stress by sleeping. I went into the bedroom, lay down fully clothed on top of the bedspread and conked out for two of the next three hours. 

I took another shower to wake myself up, tried to eat something. And I was more-or-less functional when three very grim guys knocked on my front door later that evening. 

These three were trying to look compassionate. Since they were Feebs they looked more officious and bored than sympathetic. 

I have dealt FBI Agents a lot. And I have always wondered if the poker up their ass is original equipment, or if it is an aftermarket item. 

We went through the usual identification ritual and the three of them sat down with me. They have a protocol for this and they were following the book. 

Unfortunately I had read that book and knew why they were there. 

This was a survivor visit!!! 

The guy who was obviously the head Feeb plastered phony sympathy on his face and said, "I am sorry to inform you that your wife Janet died today. You have our condolences." 

I knew it was coming but his words still totally blew up all of my internal systems. 

Dead! She couldn't be dead!!?? 

I must have sat there like a zombie because finally the head Feeb said, "Mr. Witger??" 

I looked at him and even he was taken aback by the pain and devastation that he saw. 

I said, "What? How?" 

He said, "She was caught in a shootout between members of a Miami Cartel. She was at the offices of one of the Cartel leaders when another group stormed the place and murdered all of the people inside. 

"There were six people killed. One of them was your wife. We believe that she was just at the wrong place at the wrong time." 

I knew better. But I couldn't tip my hand without getting my own up-close-and-personal experience with a Klingon interrogator. 

All the same, my emotion was genuine when I broke down in wracking sobs. 

The Feebs looked nonplussed. Being manly men they were not used to such feminine behavior. 

Between sobs I said, "What do I do now?" 

He said, "The arrangements are being handled by us. We want to spare your feelings. It was pretty bad." 

Pretty bad didn't begin to describe it. I had started the day suspecting my wife of cheating and by the end of it she was dead!!! 

Dead enough that the FBI couldn't even let me see her. 

The shock simply shut down everything. I felt a wave of nausea and the darkness descended. 

The next thing I knew I was in a hospital bed wired to a bunch of machines. A friendly nurse was standing over me. 

She said, "Welcome back Mr. Witger. You gave us a scare." 

I said, "Where am I? What happened?" 

She said, "You had a little blood pressure incident yesterday. It was more of a psychological collapse than a physical one but the FBI Agents who brought you in thought it might be a heart attack. We have had you sedated for the past twenty-four hours." 

Then it hit me again, Janet! Dead! 

The thingy that was monitoring my heart went crazy, the nurse grabbed a hypodermic and I blessedly went back to sleep. 

I was well enough that I was able to attend her funeral. It was a beautiful spring day. The coffin was closed. 

I didn't like it but I was not about to argue about the niceties of funeral presentation. 

Any spirit that I had was long since ripped out of me by cruel fate. I was an automaton.

Her parents and our few friends were there. As were my parents. 

They were all sympathetic. We went back to my place in Georgetown for a somber dinner. Then they all left. And I was alone without her for the first time in fifteen years.

It was absolutely terrifying!!!

___________________

Six long years passed and my heartache was just as overwhelmingly painful as it was the day it had happened. 

I was emotionless most of the time except for the occasional fits of uncontrolled crying. 

I didn't care about life. I lived utterly alone. Nobody saw me. I missed Janet so much it hurt.

At forty-four I was not interest in replacing her. After you have experienced life on intimate terms with a woman like Janet the rest pale by comparison. 

Buster and I lived a monastic life. He had been fixed when I adopted him and Janet's death more-or-less gelded me. So there was no problem enforcing the celibacy. 

I also had absolutely no social life. My friends had given up on me years ago. I didn't blame them. I was a melancholy piece of shit.

I knew that she cheated. But that fact had minimal emotional effect compared to the shattering effect of her dying. 

Any pain that I might have felt from her cheating measured against the indescribable impact of her subsequent death, was like comparing the impact of a conventional bombing to having a 50 megaton nuclear device dropped over you. 

Same concept, vastly different scale. 

And the effect of the latter totally blew away any residual effects of the former.

There was no question that we loved each other. And I already knew the entire set of circumstances surrounding what happened. So I was certain that we would have eventually found some way forward. 

But her abrupt and total removal from my life was another story entirely. There was no way forward from that. And there was no recovering from the death of somebody who you have loved as much as I had loved my wife. 

It was simply too much to endure.

I might have spent the next six years wreaking havoc on the cyber-universe, just to work out my feelings of rage and cosmic injustice. But instead my aim was to be totally invisible.

I didn't want to piss-off the deity who had laid this on me. Because he might decide that I needed another object lesson just to reinforce his point. 

The angst from thinking that somebody up there was only waiting for the right moment to drop the other shoe makes you very righteous. And it wears you down.

Of course all work and no play made me reasonably wealthy. But it wasn't the money. I was driven – absolutely compelled - to work. 

I had basically gone feral. 

I spent all of my time on the road – just Buster and me - restlessly moving from one engagement to the next. 

My peripatetic life was a side effect of my mental state. I couldn't calm down. I knew that if I stopped working I would realize how pointless my entire life was.

Thanks to the blackhat community there is always a call for a talented whitehat. So I spent a lot of my time riding into western towns like Clint Eastwood in the Unforgiven – beaten down and just as disillusioned. 




The Killers: A Love Story



I'd have a high-noon shootout and move on to the next gun fight. 

Motel stay was a total pain in the ass. And there was always the problem of Buster, who would put anybody's "pet friendly" policy to the test. 

Most of those kind of places are thinking of a customer with an eager Yorkie. Not a muscle-bound brute who looks like the hound from hell, constantly slobbers and smells. 

So I sold our old place in Georgetown and dropped $350k on a brand new 43 foot Entegra Motor Coach. 

After that Buster and I toured in style. 

We meandered around the Country depending on where the engagement was. It was a nomadic existence. But it perfectly fit with my detachment from the human race. 

I was never a part of anywhere.

That's the reason why Buster and I were parked at the Tombstone Territories RV Park one February day. 

It was ironic. Given what I do I knew I would end up in Tombstone eventually. 

The town of Sierra Vista is a charming little place. It is up in the Arizona high plains. But I wasn't a High Plains Drifter like Eastwood. 

I was there to do a covert penetration at Fort Huachuca. 

That is the Army's main Enterprise Network Technology Center, even if it is located in old Apache territory. 

Like Cochise, I was interested in seeing if I could take the place down. 

Sierra Vista has maybe 45,000 residents, which in that part of Arizona can look sparse. But there are perhaps 18,000 on-base. So you get the sense that the Army owns the place.

Since this was a clandestine exploit I had a contact at the Fort. 

He was a bright-eyed-and-bushy tailed snake-eater, with that strapped down West Point glint in his eye. 

I charge the client upwards of a quarter-million for one of these kinds of gigs. Nevertheless, they can be a bit dangerous. 

I was about to commit a criminal act that could get me shot and would definitely have me sent away for a long time. 

That is, if I didn't have an iron clad get-out-of-jail-free card from the Pentagon. 

Major Charlie Rafferty was that card. 

Of course we had to be surreptitious about our meeting.

So that Friday we got together at a place called "Linda's". 

Linda's is an archetypal off-base honkey-tonk that claims to have the prettiest bartenders in Tombstone Territory. They serve a very decent Four Peaks draft so both Rafferty and I had a 20 ouncer in front of us as we went over the ground rules. 

Basically I was on my own with the penetration. The objective of the exercise was to "count coup" on the 9th Signal ASC's network control room. 

That was an old Indian concept of warfare where the point was to physically touch your adversary in battle rather than kill them. 

Nonetheless, if I successfully counted coup the Army was in deep shit. At least that was the idea. 

I was not anticipating any problem getting through most of their standard defenses. I have been doing penetration exploits since I was sixteen. 

But as I got into their core areas I might run into something that I couldn't get around. And so Charlie was there to bail me out if I had problems. 

I didn't tell him what I was planning, except the entry part. The reason was that I still had no idea what I was going to do. I have to study the nooks and crannies to find the holes.

We talked while Charlie ogled the bartenders. He was a single 32 year old guy and I didn't blame him. If I wasn't totally neutered by life I might look at them too. They were indeed very attractive.

Then, a woman came through the door. She was with a flock of secretary birds from the base. 

I have no idea what drew me to her. But it was like seeing an oasis of cool sparkling water in the middle of the Sahara Desert. I could almost hear celestial music.

After six years of feeling nothing I was spellbound. 

She had long blond hair, huge blue eyes and a deep golden Arizona tan. The tan contrasted perfectly with the classy white silk blouse and the businesslike pencil skirt. 

She looked like she was a little older than the rest of the women but her body was superb. 

I will admit that I am fascinated by nice big titties. Janet had an amazing rack. And frankly that item is something I absolutely have to have if I ever want to kick the tires so-to-speak. 

This new woman had exactly the same kind of perfect boobs that Janet had. And suddenly, after six years of nothing I felt a stirring. 

Charlie noticed my glance and said, "She's gorgeous isn't she? But you can forget about her. That one's the ice queen. She'd make the princess from "Frozen" seem like a slut.

"She has been hit on by whole infantry brigades. And her answer is always 'back off!!!' 

"I've tried her myself and she acted like I wasn't even there. 

"She never goes out. Either she has the world's most powerful vibrator, or she's a dyke." 

I stared at the woman. I watched the animation and good humor play across her very intelligent face as she interacted with her group. 

And mice began to nibble at my brain stem. 

I felt like I knew her. 

Of course this was a Base that specialized in what I did. And since she was clearly a General Schedule employee I might have come across her at some other time in some other facility. 

But the feeling wouldn't go away. Even more amazingly I was captivated by her. 

I hadn't as much as noticed another woman since Janet's death, let alone wanted to talk to one. So my reaction was a fucking miracle – no pun intended. 

Did Janet have a long lost sister, or a cousin?

In fact this new doppelganger reminded me so much of Janet that I had to get away ASAP. The profound feeling of longing and regret was like slowly ripping the scab off a wound. 

I dropped a couple of twenties on the table and bolted. 

On the way out I told Charlie that the next time he would hear from me would be to announce that I owned their systems; or for him to call off the provost marshal. 

Either way I was going to get very well paid. 

One of the nice things about traveling from place-to-place is that every town has something neat and interesting to experience. 

In the case of Sierra Vista it was – and I kid you not – the annual Cochise Cowboy Poetry and Music Gathering. 

It is the sort of event you might expect in Monterey California, not in a place located less than twenty miles from the OK Corral. But there it was. 

And it was really neat. 

The following morning, which was a Saturday, Buster and I prowled around the various venues. We even sat in on some of the poetry reading. It was cool.

The local population was giving us a wide berth. Buster does that to people. Even if he is just walking next to me like a little lamb. 

That was when I saw her wandering around the front of one of the downtown stores. The local merchants must love the annual Cochise Cowboy Poetry and Music Gathering. 

She was alone, which was a crime against nature. Somebody that hot ought to be accompanied by a man. Maybe she WAS a dyke. 

She was wearing a demure pair of flared white boating shorts that showed off gorgeously muscled legs. The cork three inch heels on her sandals only made her calves look even fuller and rounder. And the yellow spaghetti top made that splendid bust look like two huge elegant mountains with a deep valley in between.

She radiated "antisocial", just like me. 

She seemed to be killing time by browsing the Fair, which was exactly what I was doing. I kept following her trying to remember where I had seen her before. 

Inexplicably, I found myself wanting to actually tap her on the shoulder and ask her. That was a disquieting reaction. 

I had not felt the need to interact with a female in six long years. In fact, in that period of time I had not felt any emotion at ALL except loss and grief. 

This new sensation was totally unexpected and somewhat unsettling. 

Maybe it was the fact that she reminded me so much of Janet. She had the exact same general configuration but all of the details were different. 

This one had a long sheaf of thick blond hair. Janet's hair was auburn and cut in a preppy bob that practically screamed Stanford MBA. This one was a blue eyed blond with the same kind of perfect features as Janet. But Janet was Italian while this one looked like an ex-California beach bunny. 

I finally walked up behind her. I just wanted to politely ask her where we had met before. 

She turned abruptly around with that pissed-off look that women get when they think they are being stalked. 

So maybe I wasn't so stealthy after all??!!

I saw the "back off creep" in her eyes. Then they widened. She let out a little shriek of terror. Covered her face with both hands and fled at high speed.

I have had women turn me down before. But I have never had one act like Satan himself had just materialized in front of her. It was totally bewildering.

I said, "Buster, stay here." 

He said in his low rumbling voice, "Whatever you say boss." And sat. 

I took off after the mystery woman. 

She was fleeing toward the parking lot like she was being chased by Cochise and his entire band of renegade Apaches. 

She almost made it to her car. But remember I'm a runner. 

She turned to face me, chest heaving with passion. 

AND IN THAT INSTANT I KNEW WHO SHE WAS. 

But my brain was telling my eyes that they were totally full of shit. 

Was I having some kind of stroke!!!? I thought that ghosts only came out at night!!! 

She was breathing, actually gasping for breath. 

I hesitantly said, "Janet?" 

What do you say when the person who you have been mourning every minute of your life for the past six years suddenly turns up in a backwater cow town in Arizona? 

She said with real fear in her voice, "Davey – you have to get out of here." 

I was still processing the input that my brain was telling me was erroneous data. 

So my speech was limited to single syllable words. 

I said, "Why!!??" 

She said anxiously, "Because your life is in danger." 

My brain still hadn't come back on-line. 

Once again I said, "Why??!!" 

Janet said, "Because I pissed off some very bad men. And if they think that Janet Witger is still alive they will kill me and everybody associated with me. 

"The only thing that has protected YOU so far is the fact that they believe that I am dead." 

Then her features crumbled she covered her face with her hands and she started to sob, "I did it to keep you alive baby. You have to forget that you ever saw me." 

Suddenly it all fell into place. The drug-cartel, the financial planning, the FBI and the closed coffin – everything!!!

She was in WITSEC. 

Running into her in Sierra Vista might seem totally implausible. But it wasn't like it was the 1 in 300 million shot that it might appear to be. 

Fort Huachuca is a very small place. 

Neither she nor her handlers might have thought about it. But she was working at the one place in the entire Country where I was practically guaranteed to eventually show-up. 

Perhaps there was some subconscious wishful thinking going on. 

I didn't know the details yet, But I DID know that I was not going to lose her again in this lifetime. 

I said, "Is the Marshall anywhere around here right now." 

Still sobbing she said, "No, it's been long enough that I just have to report to them every month." 

I said, "So nobody in this immediate vicinity knows that we know each other." 

She dried her eyes and through her snuffling she said, "Probably not. I have been dead long enough that they seem to have forgotten about me. But we can't associate or somebody will eventually put two-and-two together." 

I said, "Look – I would rather be dead than spend one more second without you. There has to be some way. Can't we go someplace and talk?"

I could see the emotional war that was going on inside her. 

It was obvious that she wanted that to happen more than she wanted to stay alive. 

She looked around furtively and said, "Where are you staying? Maybe I can visit you there?" 

I am an expert in clandestine operations and one of the tenets of good tradecraft is to make the lie bold. 

So I told her, "Look, I'm a widower and you are a hot woman. So why don't you just mosey on back to the place that you so unceremoniously exited and I will pick you up like the lonely buckaroo that I am.

"It would be nothing out of the ordinary for a fellow like me to want to tap into some local action."

She gazed at me with THAT look. It's the one that never fails to melt the soles of my Topsiders. 

I could see her figuring the odds in her head. Then she smiled with acceptance and said, "Lovely idea cowboy. I'll see you in a couple of minutes. Remember though, you are going to have to buy me breakfast." 

She turned and went sashaying off, her tight white shorts showing off her marvelous ass. 

I missed that intelligence. I missed her ass.

Buster and I sauntered up to her 25 minutes later. I said, "Hi – I'd like to introduce myself – I'm Davy Witger and this is my old pal Buster. We're not from around these parts." 

She looked sentimental. 

I said, "What?" 

She said, "You still have Buster."

I said, "Who are you happier to see, him, or me?"

She said, "Why HIM of course, silly."

And she lightly touched my arm in that flirtatious way that all women use to indicate interest.

I also missed that fantastic sense of humor. 

To anybody watching it looked like a guy and his dog were about to get laid." 

I said loudly enough for the people around us to hear, "Well then perhaps I should buy you a drink. I have a place north of Huachuca City." 

Stupid line I know. But exactly what it was going to take to convince people that I was horny and she was a local push-over.

Then it dawned on me that her name wasn't Janet. 

I said, "By the way, what's your name?"

She said, "Janey Winslow at your service kind sir." 

Clever, keep the name close so no slip ups.

All of the way to my car we talked and she flirted. 

I haul a car behind the RV to serve as my local transportation. But that doesn't mean that it has to be frumpy. Mine is a John Cooper works Mini coupe with 230 horses under the hood. 

It's convertible. So we rocketed out of town. 

Buster sat posed magnificently in the small back seat with his ears and tongue coursing out behind him in the slipstream, like the pennants on a clipper ship. 

It was a fifteen minute drive at 100 miles an hour. There wasn't much to say because it was hard to hear yourself think over the roar of the tuned exhausts and the wind noise. 

We parked and Buster wandered off to do his business. We stood together at the door of the RV and watched him. 

My heart was beating wildly and my emotions were tossing like the Atlantic in a hurricane. 

All I could hear was the little voice in my head prancing around yelling, "She's alive!!!"

But I said as casually as I could, "So what do you do for a living Janey?" It was strictly a way of carrying on the act while I got myself under control.

She said, "I am one of the lead auditors in the base logistics command. I do simple auditing and control tasks as a GS-14." 

THAT was an extreme underutilization of talent but it would keep her under everybody's radar. 

Buster finally finished and I popped the door. 

Janet entered, proceeded by Buster who headed for his food dish. 

I stepped up behind her and sealed the door. 

I turned and she launched herself at me sobbing like her heart was going to break. 

She turned her face up to me and we had one of those hot tongue swapping kisses that only Janet can give. 

Six long years melted away like they never happened. 

She was making loud wanton moans through our joined mouths. I swept her up in my arms, lips still fastened to hers and walked the 30 feet down the length of the vehicle to the bedroom at the back. 

I tossed her onto the bed. We were both animals in heat. 

Still loudly moaning, she tore off her top and unsnapped her bra. Those perfect tits fell out and rested delectably on her rib cage. 

I thrashed my way out of my pants. She whipped her shorts and panties down her leg. 

I literally ripped my shirt off. Then I was on top of her - and in her. 

She screamed from the sheer sensation. I let out a groan so loud that it must have moved the needle of the people doing the seismic monitoring in Tucson. 

She was as hot and wet as ever. And her insides were berserk. 

She elevated her legs and locked them at the ankle around my ass humping back at me wantonly. 

And I pounded her with six years of pent-up yearning and lust. 

She had two monster orgasms in perhaps five minutes. Or maybe it was just one continuous one with two peaks. 

Anyhow, the shrieking would probably have had the people in the surrounding RVs calling the police if it had not been for the excellent sound insulation of my deluxe unit. 

I only came once. But you guys can probably imagine how hard you would cum if you had not had sex in over a half a decade. 

With her and my contribution I was planning on burning THAT set of sheets. 

Having gotten our absolute need for each other out of the way, it was time to talk. 

She spent a lot of time in the lavatory. When she came out I had two cups of chamomile tea waiting for us. 

She sat down in the galley booth opposite me. Needless to say, there was a lot to talk about. 

I said, "Before you say anything I need to tell you that I know."

She looked horrified. Like that was the last thing she thought I would say. 

But she understood what I meant. You could see the shame and hurt flash across her eyes. She was totally shocked. Then she focused.

She said, "I probably don't have to ask how you found out. But I still don't understand."

I said, "I overheard something in Chicago that made me suspicious. So I opened up the book that was Whitley Reynolds. 

"I know that you fucked him and I know about the money laundering. I had your phone bugged as well but when I used the bug the only thing I found out was that you were dead." 

She looked sad and ashamed and said, "He fucked me the second time we were down in Atlanta. It was the usual story. I had a little too much to drink and up to that point he seemed like nothing more than a good friend. I trusted him" 

I said, "I know, I read all of your emails." 

She blushed and then paled but she continued, "So you know that he got to me the same way you did when we first met. I thought of him as a friend first.

"I would have seen through a seduction. But there was never much of that stuff. It was two colleagues interacting, maybe the best term is 'flirtatiously'. I thought it was harmless."

I thought to myself, "I would call it more of an emotional affair."

But, the situation for both of us was totally different now. We had lived six years apart and attitudes and perspectives change a lot in that period of time. 

Especially when you think that the other person is dead. 

She said, "I did not expect him to attack me. I wasn't so drunk that I didn't know what I was doing. But my guard was down. 

"It seemed natural to go back to his room to review the plans for the next day. The second he closed the door he was all over me. 

"It was forced sex at the beginning. He had me plastered against the wall, one of my boobs out and his fingers in me just seconds after he started kissing me. 

"I struggled for perhaps ten more seconds. But when he got his fingers working down there I was done. 

"That seriously lit my fire. And from that point on it was a conscious act. 

"It went on for some time. And I basically gave him the fucking of his life that night. 

"It was not anything that I had planned. Or would have done willingly – at first, that is. 

"Afterwards I was deeply remorseful and ashamed of myself. I knew what I had done. I am not THAT kind of person. 




The Killers: A Love Story



"I chose wrong. I have no excuses and I am truly sorry."

She stopped and looked at me sadly. She said, "The guilt crushed me. No matter whether you ever found out about it or not - I would ALWAYS know about it. It completely shattered my image of myself.

"Then, to add to my humiliation he paraded me around like a trophy afterward. I suppose with what I had just done I deserved it.

"The following day we were forced to work together like we always did . It might have been a little icy but we had a job to do. 

"Then I took off to have dinner by myself when we were finished with the client. 

"I purposely chose a restaurant in another hotel because I thought he would never find me there. 

"Of course that was a challenge. So hunted around until he found me. And then he plopped himself down at the table like he owned me. 

"He gets off on power and he was testing me to see how I would react. 

"I wanted to dump my soup over his smirking head. But it was a very public place. So I decided to just sit there and call his bluff. 

"You know me. Civilized to a fault.

"That was a mistake because a buddy appeared shortly thereafter and the shithead immediately started bragging. 

"I just sat there quietly seething. I was planning on getting even as soon as the friend left." 

At that point I interrupted and said, "I overheard the friend talking about you when I was in Chicago. 

"He said you were totally in love with the guy and that you two were fucking regularly."

She grimaced and said, "He only wished. 

"What actually happened was that he followed me back to my room and tried the same thing. I even flirted with him a bit to encourage him to do that.

"But this time I was locked and loaded and waiting for him. So as he started to paw me I reached down and squeezed his balls like I was making lemonade. 

"You could hear him screaming all over the hotel. I laughed at him, shoved him out in the hall and locked the door. 

"But the fact remained that I was stuck with him until we finished the engagement."

I said, "I know all of that. Except for the nutcracking part. I saw you trying to disengage. 

"That would have probably worked in your behalf when we had the conversation that we needed to have when you got back from Miami." 

She looked relived and said, "Then you obviously read what I sent him after the fact. Did it sound like I was in love with him and fucking him regularly?"

I nodded my head "no" with an ironic smile on my face. 

She continued with, "You also know that I planned to stay in a different hotel on that last visit, just to reinforce my position vis-a-vis him and me. 

"I actually thought you would never find out. And of course I never knew that you knew

"I'm telling you the truth and I am certain that you believe that!!!"

I knew that what she was saying was true. I had read their message trail probably a thousand times over the past six years. And every possible connotation I could put on it matched what she had told me.

But I had another question. It was actually the only relevant one. Or would have been if we had been able to talk when she got back from Miami. 

I said, "How could you treat me in such an even-keel fashion after the fact. There was not the slightest hint of guilt. That was my main concern. Since you are such a good actress how could I trust you not to lie to me again?"

She frowned and said, "One part of me wants to tell you to just get a grip. 

"Obviously, I acted toward you in the way that I did – and it was a very difficult thing to do – in order to insulate you from the consequences of my bad judgment. 

"I knew that you would be hurt no matter what the actual intent was. And so I put it all on me. It was easier to do that because I KNEW that I would never let it happen again." 

She stopped and looked defiantly at me. She was daring me to doubt her.

She was able to put her feelings into a box since she never intended to let it happen again. 

That was Janet to a "T". 

She might be small but she is as tough as adamantium. She could sell normal for as long as it took. 

I was still not sure how I felt about the deception. But it was not an issue after what came after it. 

She read my thoughts. Her glance softened and she took one of my hands in both of hers. 

She looked searchingly into my eyes and added, "All of that aside, the part of me who loves you to distraction and has always loved you, just wants to tell you that I would never betray you again and that I would spend every day of the rest of my life reassuring you of my commitment. 

"And there will never be a need to lie to you like that again. I got an object lesson from that night – which I will never forget. And it has stood me in good stead for the subsequent six years. 

"I know that I suffered from too much foolish over-confidence where men were concerned. But NOW - once burned twice wary.

"For the past six years I have turned down every potential suitor because I felt like I owed it to you. Even though I knew you thought that I was dead and that I would never see you again. 

"I know that sounds insane but it was part of my personal penance. And if you don't believe that check it out at the Base."

Thanks to Major Rafferty I didn't need to do that.

She sat back, looked at me with a crooked smile and said, "So take your pick. Which answer do you like?"

I smiled back at her and said, "I'll go with door number two. 

"More relevantly, that other woman was somebody named Janet Witger. She died five years ago and I've barely gotten to know Janey Winslow. 

S

"ix years is a long time. And I think that Janey Winslow has learned a few things in the meantime. 

"I know you are not the same person."

She proceeded to give me a smoking-hot glance. And she rubbed her bare foot up and down on my leg communicating promise. 

She said with absolute sincerity, "I know what it feels like to lose the one thing in life that is important to me and it will never happen again!!!"

I had already guessed the general circumstances of her untimely demise. But I needed the details just to lay the pain of the past six years to rest. 

So I said, "What happened in Miami?"

She said, "Two FBI Agents greeted me at the gate at MIA. They hustled me into a car. Apparently they had been monitoring the guys we were going to meet.

"We drove for a while and they transferred me to a van with a lot of surveillance equipment in it. 

"The Special Agent in Charge was inside. He told me that they knew everything that I was doing. 

"I told them that I wasn't doing anything except what I was contracted to do, which was to set up the financial structure for a couple of new corporations. 

"I added that I had only recently gotten the proof that I was dealing with organized crime.

"I think I alluded that I knew there was a problem the day before I left. 

"At any rate I told them that they could have my evidence. 

"They told me that as far as I was concerned the only way I could prove that I wasn't involved would be to wear a wire into the meeting. 

"They had me in a rock and hard place. So I agreed. 

"Unfortunately the Cartel had a frequency scanner set up. That caught me almost as soon as the meeting started. 

"Since my cover was blown the FBI busted in and there was some shooting. 

"I was shot in the forearm and hand. Whit was outright killed and all four of the Cartel members at the meeting also died. 

"The FBI people visited me in the hospital and laid out my options. I could go to jail, since what I was doing was illegal even if I didn't know it. 

"Or I could testify and enter witness protection. They said that either way you had to think that I was dead in order to keep you off the Cartel's radar. 

"And that they had already taken that step by telling you that I had died.

"That revelation nearly ACTUALLY killed me. You get on an airplane one day and fly out of your happy life and into a nightmare. I wasn't close to being prepared to cope. 

"I cried for hours while they worked on me." 

She said, "My Grand Jury testimony brought down a major drug syndicate and locked up a lot of Columbians. T

"hose people were so enraged that they would have killed both you and me in very creative ways. If I had not been killed in the raid. 

"And if the Cartel ever suspected that you were still my husband they would have made an object lesson out of you just to get the point across to anybody else who cooperated. 

"So I had to be very publically dead. That's why it was all over the newspapers down there.

"The FBI understandably couldn't arrange your death someplace else without making everybody suspicious. It would be far too coincidental. 

"In reality, I was fortunate that I had been severely wounded. It provided a convincing cover story." 

She wordlessly turned her right arm over and there were a couple of large puckered scars on her forearm and another on the back of her hand. 

Chills went up my spine at the thought of her precious flesh being torn by bullets. 

She added with tears in her eyes, "I was there in the background at my own funeral. Your grief almost killed me." 

"They initially relocated me to Albuquerque. But I had to find a job. 

"They had an opening here at Huachuca. So given my background and abilities the Marshalls placed me here.

"I have spent six years in a world that didn't include you. And it was the worst six years of my life. 

"I don't date. I only socialize with the other women. And I only do that to keep from standing out. 

"I changed my appearance to try to throw anybody who might be looking for me off the scent. 

"It is a lot easier for a woman to do that than a man you know. Just grow your hair out and change its color. The tan and the blue eyes make me look more English than Italian now." 

Then she stopped, looked at me flirtatiously and said, "Do you like the new me?"

Perhaps the world's dumbest question.

I looked at that beloved face and said, "I loved the old you and now I adore the new you. Your coming back into my life is a miracle and I am never letting you out of it again."

She gasped and said, "But you have to. The same conditions still apply. I can't have anything to do with you without jeopardizing my cover and both of our lives."

I said, "Leave that to me. Simple question, do you want to be my wife again?"

She studied my face. Janet is a strong and intelligent woman. And she is no fool. The intensity of her gaze was intimidating.

She said, "I betrayed you with another man and then I caused you the pain of my death. Why in the world would you want to be with me?"

I said simply, "I love you. I have always loved you. From the moment we met you have been the other half of me. You fill in all of the gaps and make me whole. And you have given me all of the devotion a man could ever ask for from a woman. 

"Our marriage was the happiest time of my life." 

It is as easy as that.

"The fact is that, even though I had already read and understood the context of you fucking the guy and saw your response I might have had trouble accepting it back then. 

"But that is a moot point now, since I have had to deal with six years of living without you thinking you were gone forever. 

"The woman who I thought betrayed me has been in a sealed casket for over six years. So there is a massive firewall built into my psyche between what you did then, and the person who is sitting across from me now. You are essentially a brand new woman to me.

"I just met Janey Winslow. I know that she is not the Janet Whitger I used to know. She looks different. And she has had a different set of life experiences up to this point. 

"Which no doubt have shaped her current attitudes toward her choices and responsibilities. 

"You can learn a lot about yourself and life in general if you are carrying around six solid years of grief. 

"We both underwent trial by fire. So in my mind I am dealing with a new woman who just happens to resemble my dead wife. 

"And I want her to be mine forever. It might be an attitude that is shaped by your sudden resurrection but too much water has passed over the dam to feel otherwise about any past indiscretions. 

"I know why you are in WITSEC. I realize that you didn't have a choice. 

"I know you well enough to know that you wouldn't do this to us if you had any other viable options. Accordingly, any hurt I experienced was just collateral damage. I'm a tough enough guy to just accept that and move on.

"So like I said, I am mourning a dead wife. And I want this new woman who I just met to replace her. 

"Are you willing to do that? It would mean that we would start our marriage over from scratch."

She looked at me with the most amazingly touching expression on her face. It was pure joy and relief.

She said, "From the bottom of my heart."

___________________________________

Two days later I called my contact Charlie from the operations center of the NETCOM/9th Army Signal Command. 

That led to a frantic three week debriefing session while I explained to them where all the holes were. 

Then they wrote me a big check and I went down to the DMV over on Charleston Road and picked up my new driver's license. 

I stopped at the rented Base post office box to get our new passport, credit cards and social security paperwork. 

Sarah and Buster were waiting for me when I got back to the RV. 

Over the past three weeks Janey Winslow had abruptly terminated her employment with the Army and disappeared to parts unknown. 

There was a record that she had might have moved to Maine but there was no forwarding address. 

The record of her participation in the WITSEC program had disappeared completely - like it never happened. And her supervising Marshall had been reassigned. 

Janey Winslow was now as much a ghost as Janet Witger. 

It was one of my easier exploits. The Justice Department has an almost undetectable command injection flaw in the code of its human resources portal. 

Maybe someday I will have my company tell them where it is.

It took some time to find exactly the right set of identities. But once I found two that worked it was a matter of a few seconds to steal them. 

William Westin was on Air France 447 when it went down in the mid-Atlantic. He was 37 at the time. His 38 year old widow Sarah Westin died in a car accident in Cleveland that same year. 

I have to admit that took a little time to make Janey disappear from all of the government records. 

But bumping me off was a piece of cake. 

I had to trust exactly one person. Then again, my little brother was always somebody who I could count on. 

And of course, the company that my brother was forced to take over after my unfortunate passing was still making money hand over fist. 

So he had a big financial stake in keeping me dead. 

Accordingly, one death notice and a covert conduit into a Cayman account later Bill Westin, his wife Sarah and their dog saddled up their luxury motor coach and hit the dusty trail out of Tombstone Territory.

It was no coincidence that the theme from the Magnificent Seven could be heard playing in the background as they rode into the sunset.. 

Epilogue

We were sitting under the canopy on the deck of our Hylas 70 at the Porto di Bacoli Marina Dock. It was one of those classic late summer days in Campania. The sun was hot and the sea breeze was refreshing. 

We were in Naples because we had been doing a tour of the Falerno wineries and we were sampling a bottle of Falerno Del Massico which has a pedigree that dates back to the famous Falernian wines of ancient Rome. 

It had been almost ten years and we have stopped looking over our shoulder. 

I set tripwires in various government and commercial systems that would alert me if anybody investigated Bill, or Sarah Westin. 

But there has been nary a peep so far. And if there ever is I have a million rabbit holes we can disappear down.

We live in Cortona – and yes - I know that's a cliché thanks to Frances Mayes. 

My brother has grown the company to a point where I don't worry about money. And an Italian Hill Town is the last place that anybody would expect the dearly departed Dave and Janet Witger to be. 

We own a big boat that I berth down in Civitavecchia and we spend most of our time visiting every interesting, or historic place that we can think of in the Mediterranean. 

And every day of our life together just gets better and better. 

At 54, Janet is as beautiful as she was at 23. 

And she still turns the heads of every male in the room. This is Italy after all and Italian men appreciate a smoking hot woman of any age.

But it was never her gorgeous body that attracted me. It was her powerful intelligence and her sense of values. And those have only gotten stronger as she gets older. 

Although she is still coquettish she has deepened into a person who has an astute understanding of what it means to be a human being. 

You grow up a lot in sixteen years. And spending six of them thinking that the other person is forever lost to you will mold your marriage and life's perspectives into something approaching wisdom. 

I never questioned her love for me. And now I don't question the decisions she makes. 

You always know in your heart when you are right, or wrong. Sometimes it takes strength to act on that knowledge. And Janet is strong enough to do that. There will never be a problem. 

And as for me? Well maybe I finally understand the plan. 

Shit happens. And when it does you either start shoveling. Or it buries you. 

Carpe Diem isn't just a local saying. It's the way to take control of your destiny. Keep that in mind the next time you overhear somebody in a bar.