Immortal Fear 6.1

Image: http://www.ecoronado.com/

      I grabbed some cloths, some cash and a driver’s license with the name 'Mike Hilliar' on it. It wasn't fancy alias, he was a car sales men who grew up in Utah and made his way out west to strike it rich when he settled down with a woman. She didn't bear him any children which turned out to be a blessing because she was hit by a bus after he found her sleeping with his manager.

I still like to have a back story in case someone decides to get overly friendly, it keeps me from killing people who get too chatty while I'm on the streets hunting for information. I grabbed the .357 and tucked it away into a backpack with my laptop.

San Diego is an odd place. It's a college town. It's a military town. It's a port city. There's all kinds of shit that goes on here – so you can pretty much find whatever it is you're looking for. The thing is, you've got to know where to find it because as much of a clique town as it is, it's also a tourist trap.

Tourists are good in their own right. Good for banging. Good for swindling. Good for catching people off guard. But knowing what's going down in a city, they're the worst.

I stood on the street and waited for the cab I'd called. The weight of the world sometimes just falls on your back. Grimm needed me to get him a packaged for which I had no information, on threat of eternal pain and suffering. That bitch Sigyn had somehow managed to brand me. It must have acted as some kind of weird leash on me. I would have to find her a way out of Neflheim, again on threat of eternal pain and suffering. Some do-gooder priest was holding on to my gun as some form of salvation collateral, and to top it off I had a job to do. Philips had somehow figured out I had a bullet pointed at his brain and had turned the tables on me, nearly getting me killed.

I don't do well with that. I had more than one reason to want him dead now.

I got into the back seat of the cab when it pulled up and told him an address out on Coronado Island. I may be working under a blue collar alias but I knew the military. Buy the Teams guys a couple of beers and there would be stories all night long, so long as you didn't stop the booze from flowing or somehow make an off handed comment about a chick who happened to be a sister. Hey, shit happens. Live and learn.

In fifteen minutes we were crossing over the bridge. It had been nearly fifteen years since I'd been here as a tadpole. BUDs seemed like an eternity ago but this place had been my home for almost a year and a rush of nostalgia washed over me as I saw the flowers on either side of the road entering the island.

It was an awkward feeling when I was first sent out here. I was a baby face kid with no experience. I'd actually gotten into worse shape after boot camp from having trained back home for the SEAL physical. I was sharp, fierce, and scared out of my mind. I'd made a lot of friends back then, until they washed out. Washing out was shameful. We called them X Division; instead of getting the eagle and the trident, they got a turkey and a mop. It wasn’t just shameful to the person who rung the bell, but to all the rest of the guys in the team who relied on them. You couldn't even make eye contact with the guys afterwards. Maybe it was a machismo thing, but X Division turkeys always had a chip on their shoulder, that and I always knew I was better than them. So I guess I only made a couple friends in BUDs.

Well actually, just one.

The cab pulled up to the coffee shop and I exited taking a breath of the fresh ocean air. It was cloudy out, the marine layer was thick today and didn’t look like it would burn off any time soon. It looked like rain was a distinct possibility, but it was a perfect seventy-two degrees in San Diego. I guess at least I had that going for me.

The coffee shop was a pretty standard chain. By that I mean, it was surrounded by hipsters and wanna-be authors. It was a nauseating sea of horn-rimmed glasses and MacBooks. After grabbed my coffee and took it outside. None of the hipsters seemed willing to brave the wind or impending rain. Privacy was always a blessing.

The great thing about coffee shops isn’t the eye candy or the mediocre, over-priced coffee. It’s the open WiFi network. Whenever illegal things happen, it’s important to make sure your name isn’t attached to it in any way. Using open networks and the host of other tools at my disposal kept me anonymous. Of course the FEDs could show up and search everyone there but I would be long gone by then.

So this is where it gets complicated.

The internet isn’t a thing. I mean, it isn’t one thing. It’s millions of things. Computers actually, linking together sending requests and receiving data. So if you understand what you’re doing, you can look at basically anyone’s business if they’re connected to the internet. Firewalls and encryptions make things more difficult but unless someone was actively trying to stop me, I basically did whatever I wanted.

Now, like most people, Philips didn’t have everything I needed to know to find him stored in one place. I had set aside some points of interest that led me to my first attempt on his life, first among them being his bank account. I had a program watching his IP address to see what he was accessing, the problem was a successful business owner used multiple devices from multiple locations so it was hard to be sure. I had programs set up on his devices to watch for data he was requesting, and from that I could figure out what he was up to. As I pulled up my interface though, all my ties had been severed. Not everything can be that easy.

Damn.

One was still intact, coming from his home. Recent activity showed a lot of social media garbage. Franchesca. One thing was interesting however: divorce lawyer.

That struck me as odd. You don’t pay to have a man killed then have that escalate to divorce. Its pick one or the other. The activity was on going which meant she was still at her computer.

I did some quick coding, embedding a script enabling her webcam then set up a virtual desk top, allowing me to see what she was doing visually and remotely control her computer. Her face popped up in my screen. She was laying on her bed, her dark brown hair pulled up in a high pony-tail. Even though she wore no makeup and what I can only assume were yoga pants, she was still hot.

Stop what you’re doing. I wrote, I can see you’ve called an attorney, you think he can’t?

Her eyes widened as she read the small black text box that popped onto her screen. Her brow furled down in concern.

Who is this? What are you talking about? She returned.

No thanks, not taking questions today. Only answers. Where’s your husband?

She got up and walked out of my line of sight then. I can only assume it was to check and make sure she was alone. She walked back on screen and I saw they were indeed yoga pants. Hot.

She crossed her legs pulling the computer to her lap, giving me a much better view of her cleavage than her face. What do you want with him?

Just trying to finish my job.

I watched her breasts rise and fall as she took a deep breath. She really did look good for an older chick. He’s been gone for days. I don’t know where he went. His assistant won’t tell me anything. Why is this taking so long?

Admittedly this job hadn’t gone the way I’d planned it but I’m always surprised at how uppity people get when you fail to kill someone on their projected time table when they’ve given you a lot of money. It speaks volumes to the morals of man. Cash is king.

There was an incident. I may need a plastic surgeon. Maybe you could recommend yours?

What the hell is that supposed to mean? She wrote.

Your tits look real. It’s like you’re twenty.

She covered herself at that, looking about the room wildly.

Relax. I wrote, This job just got a lot more complicated. I’m going to need a bigger up front deposit.

You don’t do the job then you ask for more money? Is this how it’s going to work? I’m thinking about cutting my losses and going with the blood-sucking lawyer.

Not a great idea, I wrote. He’s onto you. He nearly killed me three nights ago. You think he hasn’t put it together that you hired someone to do it?

She clenched her teeth in frustration and typed in what I can only describe as a fury: Well then I’d better turn you into the police. Then I’ll be a hero.

That would put you in a difficult situation. You hired a killer to handle your marital problems. You think I won’t put a bullet in you to protect myself?

That rattled her. I watched her struggle with the situation. I took it as a point of pride not asking for more money than I quoted but this had gotten out of control and I was ill prepared for the shit storm that was about to follow. Think of it this way, you’re spending money to give him a fancy execution. People love it when you spend money on them.

I can’t, I don’t have access to the accounts right now. He froze them or something.

Well you’d better dip into your charity fund then, I don’t leave enemies I’ve made around to haunt me later on. Three-thousand. Cash. Bring it to Saint Ann Cathedral. Ten A.M. tomorrow. With that I severed the connection, overwriting the section of her hard drive that had housed our conversation. She would be looking at an emoji of a smiley face with a bullet in his head in place of our chat window. It was harmless and would go away once she shut her computer off but it always seemed to get my message across.