She Is Risen (She Is Risen: The Gun Control Case Studies) (20 page)

            “Agent Thompson, what are you doing? You have
orders to leave the premises.” Lorabell instructs boldly through his headset.

            Ted ignores her instructions, and moves over to the
corner of the home where he can peer into the window.  As he looks inside the
bedroom, he sees that May is on the floor in a nearly catatonic state, punching
the scarred portion of her face with her left hand, and smashing her head
against the door every thirty seconds.  Her right hand grips the blanket
tightly around her body while her left hand continues to do damage. 

            He takes a few steps backward from the window,
shaking his head and clenching his fists in shame from what he has done.

            “Agent Thompson, the damage is done!” Lorabell
exclaims into his headset.  “There is nothing you can do to help her now, other
than leave…”

            “You’re a piece of dog shit, lady.” Agent
Thompson responds back with a warrior’s fury.  “Mark my words, the venom of
this snake is going to come back and bite you; I’ve been in the field long
enough to know…  Tell Henri I’ll never work with you again, and to reassign me
to something else… Something that helps our country!”

            “You’ve got it, Agent Thompson.  Thanks for your
cooperation!” Lorabell says robotically, staying focused on the LCD monitors as
she carefully watches May in her state of emotional shock on the bedroom floor.

            After forty-five minutes of emotionally draining
hurt and self-destruction, May gets up from the floor, letting the blanket fall
from her naked body.  She walks through the house like a ghost, disconnected by
some of the best and worst feelings of her life during the past few hours.  Her
left bicep is sore, along with the scarred side of her face.  May steps slowly
to the bathroom, feeling dehydrated; her legs still sore from a session of
intense sex, and a night of unmistakable betrayal.

            She looks in the mirror at the swollen, bleeding
mass of scar tissue from all of the time she spent hitting her own face.  With
a sudden cry of terror that is immediately muffled, she lurches forward and
vomits into the sink.  The red wine comes up with a nasty, fruitful texture,
feeling acidic in her throat as she watches small pieces of grape washing down
the drain.  May watches with distracted interest as drops of blood from her
face mix with the wine in the white marble sink, and the writer inside her sees
something poetic in all of this, but cannot fathom it at this moment.

            The exhausted young woman grabs a towel and
soaks it with cool water, using the soft fabric to carefully treat the wounds
on her face.  She stops looking into the mirror, trudging forward with heavy
feet, the soaked towel wrapped loosely around her head.  As she enters the
living room, May walks over to check the front door, ensuring that it is locked,
and there will be no more visitors this evening.  Her next instinct is to
return to the bedroom, but as she is walking, an object catches her attention
on the island at the edge of the kitchen.  May moves toward the island with
curiosity, wondering if her mentally-abusive lover was kind enough to leave a
goodbye note.

            She freezes in her tracks, focusing on a small
postcard of Mount Rushmore placed strategically for her to find.  May reaches
out with her left hand and lifts the postcard from the smooth tiles, her arm
shaking a bit as she turns it over to read the back.  A tear immediately
streams down her cheek as she lets the postcard drop to floor, watching it spin
end over end as though it just tore all hope away from her.

            May stomps clumsily back to the bathroom,
hovering her head over the sink to vomit once more.  As the card falls on the
kitchen floor with the message side up, anyone could clearly see that it reads:
‘Thanks for a freaky evening. I would offer you a ride on my hog, but I already
won the hundred bucks.’

            In the bathroom, May has stopped vomiting, and
is resting against the cupboards near the floor, sobbing like a woman who just
walked out of a Category 5 Hurricane. 

            “What did I do to you? What DID I DO TO DESERVE
THIS!?” May asks, screaming at the ceiling.

 The OBDAT - Chicago

            “You didn’t do anything, sweetheart…” Maxwell
says to the LCD screen as his eyes begin to water.  “You didn’t do anything;
just some sick bitch screwing with your life.”

            “That’s enough!” Henri says with authority,
looking a bit disturbed himself by what he just witnessed.  “Lorabell is the
expert here, and we will trust her judgment.”

            “You wanted me to push these people over the
edge?” Lorabell asks, looking at Henri and Maxwell as she gestures up at the
screen.  “This is what it takes.  That woman is too strong to ever break and go
on a rampage unless we push her to this level.  You want a crime of passion? 
Well guess what; it takes one to make one!”

            “Point taken,” Henri says, feeling sick to his
stomach as he straightens his body, “let’s move on to the next case.”

PHILLIP & LETISHA BELFORT  

‘There is nothing that destroys a
man faster than a woman,’ Phillip thinks to himself as he sits on the steps of
his concrete porch in Anaheim, California.  Immediately after thinking this, he
places his hand atop his smooth, bald head, regretting that it ever crossed his
mind.  The young ex-marine stares out at the street, considering what a
peaceful and chaotic place it can be sometimes.  Living near Los Angeles, many
people get used to the idea that one block can make them, and another can break
them.  Phillip closes his eyes for a moment, flirting with old habits, deciding
whether he should light the cigarette in his hand or not.  The story that
Letisha told the other day was incredible by any standard, and he wonders if
her episodes will become bad enough to have her committed to a hospital.

Phillip sits up suddenly as he
gazes at the street again, sticking his chest out in a protective posture as he
sees two young gang members throwing signs at him.  He immediately gets to his
feet and steps across the yard to confront them on the public sidewalk, casting
the cigarette aside.  His black, USMC polo shirt sways delicately over his
powerful muscles as he approaches the two young men.  They stop walking as his
black running shoes and matching sweat pants touch down on the sidewalk in
front of them.

“What’s up, chocolate-raspberry?” 
The nineteen-year-old gangster asks in a threatening voice as Phillip
approaches him.

“I think you’re mistaken, there’s
no raspberry-chocolate here… Only dark chocolate!” Phillip replies in a sinister
tone, folding his arms with a display of authority and disapproval.

“What’s up, soldier boy? We knows
who you is… An’ that fine ass wife uh yours!” The young man continues, laughing
with his friend as they fidget nervously in their sagging cargo pants. 

“Don’t fuckin’ talk about my wife!”
Phillip threatens, grabbing the young man by the throat with his powerful right
hand.

“Better back away, cuz…” The other
gang member warns from under a blue do-rag.  “It gonna’ get messy up in here if
you don’t let my boy go!”  He stares eye-to-eye with Phillip and pulls up his
shirt, showing off a nickel-plated 9 millimeter pistol.

“You find your own bitches; don’t
be sniffin’ around my neighborhood again.” Phillip declares, trying to reach
them on their own level.  “Or next time you won’t be the only one with a gun,
and your moms will have a story so sad; it will make Oprah cry.”

“Whatever, soldier boy!” The nineteen-year-old
replies with noticeable fear in his dark brown eyes, walking quickly away from
Phillip as he throws up a few more gang signs.

The OBDAT - Chicago

“You seriously fucked up!” Lorabell
snarls at Maxwell, slamming some papers down at her station and pointing up
towards Phillip on the LCD displays.

“What are you talking about?”
Maxwell asks.  “You said we needed some gang members to approach him and make
perverted comments about his wife.”

“Those were Crips, asshole.” She
says, rolling her eyes in exhaustion.  “His wife was attacked by a gang of Bloods;
it severely limits the impact of the threat…  Bloods wear red colors and Crips
wear blue colors… A Goddamn nine-year-old would know that!”

            “Look, what’s done is done!” Henri says in an
irritated fit.  “Clearly this wasn’t your only play, so whatever comes next we
can make an adjustment, right?”

            “Yes…” Lorabell admits, glaring down at the
servers fifty feet below them; three rows of metal cabinets pushing warm air upward
that is causing the bottoms of her legs to sweat.

            Two men in suits approach briskly from the rear
side of the OBDAT, looking serious as they climb the small set of stairs from
the catwalk up to the observation platform. 

            “Congressman Edwards, we have a situation and
need to escort you and your team to the conference room for safety.”  The
young, black CIA agent reports as he looks at the Congressman with respect and
urgency.

            “What’s going on, agent Leatherby?” Henri asks
calmly, watching the intelligent, ebony security agent and his older white
counterpart for signs of alarm.

            “There’s been a breach, Sir,” the young agent
continues, “Ming’s credentials were used to access the building, which sent up
a red flag.  Devlin McConnelly may be here.”

            “How long ago?” Henri asks, looking around the
datacenter with a bit of suspicion.

            “About ten minutes.”  The agent snaps back
immediately.  “That’s all I can tell you for now; we need to move your team.”

            Maxwell and Lorabell gaze at one another with
ambiguous expressions, slowly rising from their seats to follow Henri and the
security agents. 

            “Why weren’t Ming’s credentials disabled after
she was killed?”  Maxwell asks sarcastically under his breath.

            “Because after YOU got her killed,” Henri
growls, “I knew that might be a useful piece of cheese to bring our rat back into
the wall.” 

            “He didn’t get in with those credentials,” agent
Leatherby says with a stern expression as they make their way through the hall,
and down the stairs to the first floor, “a homeless woman was trying to get in
with Ming’s ID badge.  We’re trying to figure out what the play is here.”

            “Make sure that we have all badges accounted for.” 
Henri orders as they continue their short journey to the large conference room.

            Agent Sharpe makes his way down the long
corridor in the west wing of the small building.  He is a balding man in his
early forties with a bit of a beer belly.  His black suit and lime green tie
are a dead giveaway that he works for the agency.  There is a black janitor
mopping about fifty feet from his position on the right side of the hallway,
and everything else seems clear. 

            “I’ve got cleaning staff here, but all the doors
in this section seem to be secure; checking a few more things, and I’ll be
right back.” Agent Sharpe relays into the microphone near his wrist.

            The hallway floor is covered in laminated tiles,
illuminated on either side by expensive incandescent lights.  Agent Sharpe
passes several locked doors as he maneuvers through the space, watching for any
signs of a break in.  He picks up his pace as he gets closer to the janitor,
wanting to clear the area and rendezvous with his team again.

            “Excuse me, I need to see some ident-“

            The tall CIA agent loses his footing on the
freshly mopped floor just ten feet from where the janitor is standing.  His
feet slide quickly on the unusually slick surface, causing him fall hard on his
back, continuing the slide even after he falls.

            “Sorry about that,” Devlin says in a whisper as
he leans over the agent, “I guess this mixture of soap is bit slippery… You
need the right shoes for it!”

            Agent Sharpe has only a moment to peer at
Devlin’s face, noticing that he has painted it black to make himself look like
their African-American janitor.  He is wearing a baseball cap with his long,
blonde hair tucked beneath the janitor’s blue overalls.  The world around Agent
Sharpe soon goes dark as Devlin places a large, black garbage bag over his
upper torso, and he feels the horrible sting of a mop handle slamming against
the left side of his head.  After a few heavy blows, the agent feels blood seeping
from his head just above the left ear, producing intense ringing before his
vision fails. 

            In the conference room, just twenty yards away,
Henri is about to commit a murder of his own, bored and disenchanted as he
watches Maxwell and Lorabell fighting for his affection.  It has been thirty minutes
since an agent came to tell them that a body was located and they were
‘searching the building for the suspect.’  Henri sits at the end of the cherry
wood conference table with his arms folded, staring at the vast array of
incandescent lights blooming delicate rays within the ceiling of this cement
fortress.  His feet are resting on the rough, industrial carpet, and he can
feel his toes starting to sweat at the discomfort of waiting.