prompt: Write about someone whose job is to help people leave their old lives behind….
available at Reedsy
Carter Carson nursed his whiskey. Droplets of condensation traced crooked paths to the mat below where they soaked into a ring that circumscribed the bottom of the glass. After each sip he was careful to place the glass back in the exact position it had been.
A tap on his shoulder brought his attention back to his surroundings. “Hey Carter, what’s up?” She stood behind him, holding a bottle of beer. “You look like you could use some company.”
“Maya, surprised to see you out on a weeknight,” he said. “Sit down. Even if I said no, you’d sit next to me anyway, and bug me until I give in.”
Angelina Maya Ortiz took the stool next to his. “What’s that big brain of yours working on?”
“Just wondering if I’ll ever be able to sleep after… you know.” He took another sip and carefully set the glass back in its prescribed place.
“It’s the job, huh?” She motioned to the bartender for a second round. “The Dammish murders aren’t your fault. Whoever cleared protection for that psycho, though….”
“It’s not just that,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about it, though. How many innocent people do we actually protect? One, two a year?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“I work my ass off to give a new identity to criminals,” he said, “at the expense of the state. How fucked up is that?”
“Well, yeah, state’s witnesses that wouldn’t survive to testify otherwise.” She took a long gulp of her beer. “At least, that’s what I try to tell myself.”
“And how many of those are just turning state’s to get out of the mob?” he asked. “There are two ways out of the mob, one is WITSEC and the other involves a grave. How many of these guys we’ve protected have gone on to avoid crime in their new lives? Less than half, I’m sure.”
Maya nodded and took another drink from her bottle. Her cheerful demeanor was replaced with a gloom nearly as dark as his.
“Dammish was just a symptom of the larger problem. We’re protecting the wrong people.” Carter barked a short laugh. “Who could’ve guessed that a hitman… hit-woman? hit-person?… for the Ginelli family would enjoy her work so much she’d set up a private practice?”
“You’d think the decision makers in Justice would’ve taken that into consideration,” she said. “But hey, thanks to her testimony we got the entire Ginelli family. Don Carlo got twenty concurrent life sentences with no possibility for parole. Twenty-nine hits he called.”
“Yeah, and the person who pulled the trigger on twelve of those walked away with a new life and twenty-two mil in cash she had stashed.” He downed the last of his first drink and pulled the second closer. “She pulled what? Seven, eight hits as a private contractor using her new identity? And the Russians took over the power vacuum left by Ginelli. Didn’t really change anything.”
“Why do I get the idea you’re planning to do something stupid?”
“You know me, Maya,” he said, tracing the drops of condensation with his finger. “I don’t do stupid.”
“Well, you’re planning something,” she said, “and I think I want in.”
“Right now, it’s just a vague idea, but you should be careful what you wish for,” he said.
“Now I really want in.” She finished her beer and set the bottle down on the bar. “Let’s go somewhere we can talk.”
Carter shook his head. “Not tonight. I’ll call when I have something concrete.”
Between the regular hours of his work and the time he spent working out his plan, Carter worked two sixty-hour weeks back-to-back. He signed up for a three-day weekend job and called Maya.
“Ortiz,” she answered.
“Maya, it’s Carter.”
“Agent Carson,” she said, “what’s up?”
“If you still want to join in, I need you to do something for me. Clean everything in and on your desk that might have DNA on it with bleach wipes. Take anything like mugs or photos with you. Leave no fingerprints behind. Pack for the weekend, jeans and boots, plus a comfortable pair of sneakers, and meet me at my place.”
“Flu you say?” she asked. “Yeah, I’ll clean up my desk before I go. I don’t wanna catch anything.”
“No DNA or prints.”
“Sure. Case number?” she asked.
“I take it you can’t talk right now?”
“No, I’m in the office catching up on some paperwork.”
“Understood,” he said, “case 35AJ-7710 will get you out the door.”
“35AJ-7710,” she said. “Got it. Right now?”
“Yep.”
“See you in an hour.”
When she arrived at Carter’s place, he was putting fishing gear in the back of his station wagon. “We’re going fishing.”
“What’s in the duffel?”
“Tools,” he said, “and some other stuff, just in case.”
They drove most of the day to reach a cabin in the mountains. The cabin overlooked a wooded lake and forest as far as the eye could see. “There’s a dock on the lake,” Carter said, “and you can see the Picket cabin’s dock on the other side from there.”
“Picket?” Maya asked, as she dropped her luggage in the main room of the cabin.
“Thomas Picket, formerly known as Tony Vittuchio.”
“Wait, Tony ‘The Butcher’ is in WITSEC?” she asked. “Why are we here?”
“Officially, we’re monitoring. There’s a rumor that he might be getting a visitor dropping off some valuables.”
“Like what?”
“Like eleven and a half mil in laundered cash.”
Maya whistled. “But how can we know from here? We can’t see the cabin.”
“The only way to that cabin is across the lake. There’s no land access there.”
“So where is the boat coming from?”
“Float plane.” Carter opened the duffle and began assembling a parabolic mic and a camera with a massive telephoto lens. “That’s how he comes and goes.” Next, he removed four large backpacks, all rolled up, a small pistol, two hazmat suits, and two large pairs of mud boots.
“And unofficially?”
“That depends,” he said, “on how serious you were.”
“Ooh, tell me your plan.”
He handed her a fishing a rod and grabbed the other and the tackle box. “Let’s go fishing. We can talk there.”
“Bringing the camera and mic?”
“In the morning. Nothing’s flying in this late in the afternoon.”
After showing Maya the basics of how to attach a lure, cast, and retrieve they enjoyed some quiet time fishing as the sun hid behind the mountains.
“Here’s what you need to know to make up your mind. If you’re in, we go tomorrow. New identities, full redaction. We’ll be sitting on roughly ten million in clean cash, and I have plans for how to get more.” He watched her face for any sign of reaction.
She pursed her lips. “Who would we be getting the ‘more’ from?”
“The worst of the worst. Low-life scum who used WITSEC as a retirement option.” He cast his line and began reeling in again. “The ones who escaped justice. Like Tony ‘The Butcher.’”
Maya reeled in her line and set her pole down next to her. “This may sound stupid, but a lot of it depends on our identities… and did you say full redaction? DNA, prints and all?”
“Full redaction. Two bodies will be found at the bottom of the lake. Their DNA and prints will show up as Carter Michael Carson and Angelina Maya Ortiz. We’ll be leaving a fair amount of blood in the cabin and a crime scene that’ll make forensics giddy.”
“Where are you getting the bodies?”
“John and Jane Does from a morgue. They’ve been on ice for months, frozen just hours after death. Both have multiple small caliber gunshot wounds, the bullets were removed with a small knife post-mortem, and their faces have been beaten to pulp.”
“And how are they getting to the bottom of the lake?”
“That’s where the other mil and a half go,” he said. “It’s better if you don’t know anything more.”
“Fair enough. That tells me about how deep, but what about the identities?”
“You worried that I’d give a name you hate as much as Angelina?”
“Well, yeah. And what are we to each other?”
“Would you prefer brother and sister, or married couple in an open relationship?”
“I have a choice?”
“Well, which would you prefer?”
“Brother and sister traveling and living together draws too much attention, too weird.” She sighed. “Besides, no-one would believe a gringo like you is related to me. I guess the second one.”
“Good, because that’s what I cooked up.”
“There was no choice?”
“There was, before I started two weeks ago,” he shrugged, “but I know you.”
“Fine, I’m in. You better not get jealous when I have more girlfriends than you. That said, who am I, dear husband?”
“Maria Luisa Rogers, maiden name Oliveros, born in Long Beach California to Canadian parents and a dual-citizen. With their death last month, you’ve inherited their liquid assets.”
“Luisa Oliveros-Rogers. I can live with that.”
Carter shook his head. “I should’ve guessed that you’d use the middle name. I’m David Allen Rogers, computer consultant, born in Surrey, BC.”
“Davie, dear, it’s getting dark. Let’s go back to the cabin so we can go over how all this will work.”
“Oh god, no, not Davie, Lu.”
Maya laughed. “Don’t worry, sugar-bear, we’ll figure out our nicknames soon enough.”
Carter groaned. “If you’re not careful I’ll call you Lulu in public.”
“Okay, okay, Maria it is then, my dear David.”
In the early morning they carried the surveillance gear down to the lake. The camera and mic were hidden in the bushes near the dock, along with a sniper rifle. Carter was careful to clean the rifle, the shells and the magazine thoroughly, and handled it only while wearing gloves. The stock was covered in plastic so that any oils that might transfer from his face wouldn’t be on the stock itself.
As the float plane came in, Maya snapped off a long series of photos. Tony met the plane at the dock, and a large case on wheels was offloaded. The mic picked up enough of the conversation over the low wind noise to make out that Tony was unhappy with how long it took to get his money. The pilot threw his hands up in the air and walked back to his plane.
Tony watched the plane take off as Maya snapped more pictures. She snapped two of Tony wheeling the case up the dock towards his cabin.
“Go or no-go, Maya.”
“Shit, we’re really doing it, aren’t we?” Maya took a deep breath. “Go.”
The shot was deafening, and Tony fell like a rag doll on the dock. Carter ripped the plastic off the rifle stock and wadded it up in the gloves he removed. The rifle he left in place. “Let’s get over there in the boat and pick up our cash, then we’ll report in and create the scene.”
They carried the case to the cabin between them, the weight surprising. “I can’t believe Tony was gonna carry this up by himself,” Maya huffed.
“Probably has a flatter track from the dock,” Carter answered.
Once they were in the cabin Carter counted out fifteen bundles of cash. Each contained ten straps of one hundred hundred-dollar bills. He wrapped them up in paper. “This is the payment for the cadavers and delivery. The rest we need to stuff in these backpacks.”
“How are we leaving? Another float plane?”
“No, too obvious. There’s a truck hidden out back.”
With everything ready to go, Carter said, “Fire up the laptop and submit our report.”
“There’s no reception here.”
“Use the sat-link.”
They waited for confirmation of the upload of photos and audio, then Carter motioned for Maya to let him use the laptop. He logged on to his workstation remotely and checked his email as an excuse to access it. He fired off the script sitting in his downloads folder that authenticated as someone in the DC office, activated their new identities, assigned Maya’s and Carter’s DNA and prints to the new identities, assigned the DNA and prints of the Does to Maya and Carter, filled in the blanks in several agencies in the US and Canada, and then deleted itself.
With the money divided between the packs, they put them in the back seat of the truck hidden behind the cabin. “Hope you’re not shy. Leave your clothes here, by the pump, along with your sneakers. That’s why we brought them. It would be strange if we were killed and they took only our shoes.” He stripped and left his clothes neatly folded by the hand-pump for the well. Rather than reply she followed suit. He put the oversized boots, rubber gloves, and hazmat suit on, cleared all their footprints around the truck, and walked back into the cabin. “Don’t forget to bring your hiking boots back in.”
Maya put on the other pair of mud boots, gloves, and suit and laughed. “You look absolutely ridiculous right now.”
“That makes two of us.”
Carter said, “Let’s make a crime scene.”
He pulled four pints of blood from the duffel, two bags marked “His” and the other two marked “Hers.”
“Now it gets messy.” Throw the covers back on the bed and roll around on it a bit. Don’t leave any hairs on the pillow, though. Carter opened out the folding bed from the couch and did the same. He picked up the pistol he’d unloaded from the duffel. He shot the bed once, and the couch twice, and picked up the spent casings. He then used a small pen knife to dig the rounds out of the furniture. “Watch how this goes,” he said, picking up a bag marked “His.”
“Whose blood is that?”
“John and Jane Doe. Don’t get any in your eyes or mouth, don’t know what it might contain.”
“Great.”
He pierced the bag with the pen knife, set it pierced side down, and laid down on it on the fold-out. When he felt it empty, he said, “It’s empty, now for the blood trail.” He picked her up in a fireman’s carry. “Pierce that other bag, hold it between your chest and my back, and let it dribble out.” He carried her that way to the truck.
“Honey-dearest, you’re being awfully rough,” she said. “You should treat your sugar-mama more gently.”
Carter groaned. When they reached the truck, he set her down. “Your turn.”
They entered the cabin, careful not to step in the blood. “Do like I did, only on the bed,” he said. He handed her one of the remaining blood bags and the pen knife. “Okay, feels empty.”
They repeated the trail with the last blood bag. Carter made sure to step through and cross the first trail. “Now I see why the suits,” Maya said. “We’re a mess.”
“See that 55-gallon drum over there? That’s a burn barrel. Get that suit and those boots going. There’s a gas can sitting next to it.”
Still wearing the mud boots he trudged back into the cabin, picked up the two empty blood bags and entered four wrong passwords in the laptop to make it lock up.
Carter put the pistol, the empty casings, and the paper-wrapped brick of money in a toolbox inside the truck and locked it with the padlock hanging on it. He stripped and threw the hazmat suit, gloves, and boots in the fire and added the gloves from earlier with the plastic from the rifle stock.
“My god that smoke stinks!”
“Plastic clothes and rubber boots don’t smell good burning. But I made sure to use suits made of exact same plastic as the blood bags; should hide them pretty well when it’s all a singular mass of goo.”
Once they had cleaned up at the pump and dressed, Carter cleaned up all the tracks between the pump and the barrel and the pump and the truck.
After making sure they had all their papers and the cash, Maya asked, “Where to first?”
“We drop the truck, locked, along with the delivery payment at a motel in Reno. Then we buy a used car, cash, and decide from there.”
“I know where Andrei Sarkovic is,” Maya said, “and his new identity. Walter Grossman, Oregon.”
“Russian mob?” Carter asked.
“Czech. Helped rob a dozen banks in Europe and the US and got full redaction protection after rolling over on an Interpol hot ticket.”
“How much do you think he’s worth?”
“There’s still nine million missing from their haul,” she said, “and there’s a little girl who will never see her mother again after the botched bank job in Phoenix. It keeps me awake at night.”
“Reno, then on to Oregon it is.”