Roman Navarro

Prologue

“Rats’ Pit”
 The atmosphere in the back of the anonymous white van was dark and
foreboding. All six of the convicts clad in the generic orange prison garb were
facing down, elbows on knees, their countances wrinkled with resentment over the
unbearable position they find themselves in. They are the absolute worst of the
worst, and the city of New York was only too glad to finally get rid of them; they
are an assortment of some of the most dangerous sociopaths, serial-killers, and
drug-kingpins that the world could produce. In the next couple of days, they knew,
most -if not all of them- were going to die in vain fulfilling the NYPD’s dirty work
-Courtesy of the Nova Vita Atonement Program, an obscure, unofficial off-shoot of
Death Row which sought to get some “community service” from a hand-picked
group of “lucky” convicts before they were ultimately executed -although that
latter part was never mentioned to them until after the deeds were fulfilled.

The van suddenly revved up in speed and the powerful V8 engine roared
from the sudden strain. This brought the convicts to attention, and quickly they
grabbed for the edges of their seats (there were no handholds nor seatbelts) as the
van picked up to what seemed 100 miles per hour. It seemed as if they were in a
very open area, free of obstacles, since the van jerked around in seemingly random
directions at a dizzying pace without crashing; they could clearly hear the driver
through the metal partition laughing menacingly, clearly enjoying the moment;
meanwhile, the six men in the back were thrown around like ragdolls in a bingo
cage. This continued for what seemed an eternity, and three of the convicts
vomited from the huge breakfast that was so generously served to them that
morning at Rikers. The other convicts groaned and cursed as the stench of rancid
food and sour stomach joices filled up the confined space -and still the van
continued with sharper, more violent turns and the vomit splashed around freely,
getting on the floor, walls, and on the convicts themselves.
They yelled and cursed, and those in the front hammered their fists on the
metal partition and ordered for the driver to stop, but to no avail. Then, abruptly,
after several more long minutes of the nightmarish agony, the van came to a
complete and violent halt.
 The chaos that had engulfed the back compartment immediately became
threefold, after the sudden stop caused the passengers to brutally jostle every
which way, slamming their heads on the hard metal and on eachother. Any other
humans would have curled up and wallowed from the immense pain that resulted,
but this group of men was so unlike any other humans, and that is precisely why
they were hand-picked for the mission that they were soon to embark on.
Unchained and animalistic with blind anger, they tore at one another and
yelled unintelligibly like savage caged beasts. There was scratching, punching,
stomping, clawing, mouth-foaming. All of the aspects of civilization were utterly
abandoned in a confined space no more than 6 feet wide and 5 feet tall. It was
excruciatingly hot inside and the men panted like dogs as they continued toppling
on one another, slipping from each other's grip from the intense precipitation. The
compartment became foggy like a sauna, as if from the blind, seething rage alone.
It was as though they were intentionally left unchained for this very reason, with
the hopes that maybe one or two would already be dead by the time they arrived.
Realizing the inevitable stalemate from their “conventional warfare”, one
man, smothered under the weight of three others and unable to breathe, tried to
bite the man on top of him as a desperate last resort. The flesh of an inner thigh
pressed down on his face, suffocating him and jerking his head around as it
moved. With a last heave of strength, he clamped down his jaw hard on a
generous mouthful of the thigh, then violently jerked his head from side to side
like a savage animal. Immediately following were the high-pitched yelps of
surprise and pain, laced with a passionate terror that stood out from the general
yelling and roaring. The man remained on top of him, and slowly his brain began
to shut down from the lack of oxygen.
As if on-cue, the rear doors were yanked opened and immediety the
blinding flash from a police light streamed in, followed by a barrage of riot-control
pellets that stung them everywhere like a swarm of angry hornets, ruthlessly
hitting them wave after wave, until at last the gun’s 12-round chamber emptied
with a click. The chaos from before had completely dissipated as the men cowered
to the deep end of the compartment, backs to the door and huddled like a herd of
skinny walruses forming a barrier against predators.
 Part 1

“The Bottom of the Barrel”

 Chapter One
“OUT! EVERYONE GET THE HELL OUT!”
Rosell Fortuna was in a daze. He had been yelled at plenty of times in his
life, and during situations much more dangerous and frightening than this one; but
the man’s voice - a harsh baritone with a severe, menacing edge that penetrated the
ears like a nearby explosion- was one that startled him and made him alert, and
immediately he forgot about the dozens of fresh, aching bruises all over his body
and the sweat and vomit that soaked in his clothes and hair.
“YOU DISGUSTING ANIMALS!”
They poured out the van 2 or 3 at a time; come Fortuna’s turn, and a guard
at one side of the van -mouth and nose covered with handkerchief- grabbed his
sleeve with a gloved hand and jostled him forward, muttering, “Move along,
asshole!”
Fortuna had trouble seeing anything outside, still temporarily blinded by the
flash from the strong police light, but his eyes adjusted as the officer in front
continued to verbally bombard them, and sure enough, they were in the middle of
a huge asphalt parking lot, the extent of which was obscured by a haze of fog
beyond.
Fortuna could easily make out the fresh tire marks in the asphalt from their
previous leisurely stroll, twisting and skidding on each other in seemingly every
direction imaginable. The ground was absolutely covered with the tracks, and
everywhere Fortuna looked, they seemed to stretch on for-
“Are you stupid or what?” The guard that had called him an asshole earlier
grabbed Fortuna by the collar with a grip of steel and brutally shoved him to the
ground, followed by a sharp kick to the ribs with steel toe boots. Fortuna cried out
and involuntarily curled up like a fetus, but the guard once again had him in an
unbreakable grasp and hauled him up.
“Remove your clothing and proceed with the sergeant. Just as you were
ordered.” His words were calm, almost a whisper, but they were tinted with a hungry
bloodlust unlike those of the sergeant overseeing them: a shorter man around his
mid-forties, lean, athletic build, and handsome features: broad jawline, high
cheekbones, and a slim, pointed nose. But those eyes. Obscured from the shadow of
his visor, two dark, hungry beads like those of a shark stared back directly at
Fortuna, not blinking, not moving.
Fortuna’s heart raced as he struggled with the damp one-piece that hugged
his skin. He tried ignoring the exquisite pain in his chest that pulsed throughout his
torso. Stripping down to his underwear, the icy air slapped him with a harsh gust of
wind that dried up the cold sweat and vomit that leaked in from the thin one-piece.
“REMOVE ALL YOUR CLOTHING”, barked the sergeant.
Fortuna did so with reluctance; it was so cold that his dick shrivelled up and
his body convulsed violently as if in a seizure. He looked up: everyone was
hunched over with their hands cupped over their dicks, in-turn sandwiched in
between their inner thighs. Someone’s leg was covered in blood that had run freely
from a wound to the side of a knee: a nasty gash of mauled flesh and ragged tooth
marks on the skin, like from a savage animal attack.
Ah, Shit, though Fortuna. The man he had bit was his own friend, Leopold
Duff, with whom he had shared cells with back at the Island. He would make sure
to apologize when he had the chance; meanwhile, however, two burly guards had
materialized from the mist and were now thrusting the men forward with harsh
cracks from rubber batons and kicks from more steel-toes.
Two taller men wielding Cobray street-sweepers that Fortuna also didn’t
notice were flanking them as they walked, one of them just finishing with loading
the last shells into the gun’s oversized cylinder; a large satisfactory grin plastered
on his face.
 Chapter Two
Eventually, they came across the back-door of an ugly housing block of
unpainted concrete that towered in identical rows of broken windows for what
seemed like a thousand floors. Flanking the door were two huge trash containers
overflowing with rotting trash and used needles. The fog had cleared but it was still
very dark, but Fortuna could see that the huge parking lot was surrounded on all
sides by identical housing projects that continued in every direction as far as the
eye can see; there was not one functioning lamp-post in sight and all the windows
on the other buildings were broken, black, and lifeless. He felt as though he were in
one of those oppressively bleak housing complexes from the Soviet Union.
Inside, they were hurried along through a dark, cavernous hallway that led
straight to the boarded-up entrance, any lobby of sorts left unaccounted for. It was
dark save the strong police lights that danced around as they ran forward. Barked
orders from the guards echoed frighteningly on the high walls covered with low,
identical doors with numbers of them. At the entrance, one of the tall shot-gun
wielders kicked down the rotting wooden planks covering the entrance with ease,
and all the guards turned off their lights. They were ordered to step outside in the
awaiting darkness.
At once they become momentarily shocked by a sudden blast of ice-cold
water shot at them from an unseen high-pressure hose hidden somewhere in the
black; some cried out, and others gasped involuntarily from the shock. There was
no escape from it: in a flash, the guards had encircled them and had their lights
back on and trained on them; those that tried to escape were cracked on the spot
with a baton or gun stock to the face. The guards were having the time of their life
from the schadenfreude of it -calling them names, laughing hysterically at them,
and not hesitating to kick and stomp on them if one of them slipped on the cold
mud -all while a tall, lean man around sixty with a black, barely graying
pompadour stood back in the darkness and admired his work with satisfaction.
He did not worry about violations to human rights, nor the countless other
legal problems that may arise from his work.
Everything is all covered, He assured himself. All the convicts, he knew, would
most likely be dead by tomorrow in obscure faraway lands where their screams for
help wouldn't be heard for miles. Those who did manage to survive and escape
would be picked off on the spot by some contacts he had upstate, most of them
from boring, run-off-the-mill villages in the mountains, all too eager to finally be
able to see some action.
 Chapter Three
After drying off with a single linen towel that was passed around, which was
already sopping wet and odorous when it reached Fortuna, they were each given a
fresh set of clothing -consisting of thick cotton socks, generic black slip-on low
tops, and ill-fitting gray one-pieces that barely kept them warm; no underwear.
Back inside, they were ordered to run up a flight of stairs on one side of the
corridor that Fortuna didn’t notice at first from the darkness -all the way up to the
108th floor, take a right, far room at the hallway’s end. Fortuna was sure that such a
large building should come equipped with one or two elevators -and no doubt the
others though the same- but there were no complaints from them; they knew
better than to discover the outcome of that.
Without hesitation, they ascended up the enveloping darkness, leaving
behind them the guards in the corridor, and they were alone. It was impossible to
run off and hide in one of the adjoining corridors, as they were locked behind iron
doors that were thick and unyielding - no point trying to kick them down with
their flimsy slip-ons that made the climbing unbearable on their own. There were
broken windows, but most had been industriously boarded up recently with
gleaming strips of thick iron and steel rivets, and those that weren’t were already
too high above the ground to make climbing or jumping out an option. Running
up the tall, sharp-edged steps to Fortuna felt like hiking up the Rocky Mountains at
their steepest point, and the pain all over his bruised body was made worse by the
cold wet January air that blasted through cracks in the broken windows, which
stiffened his knees and made every breath laborious and painful.
He had to sit down and take a breather, if only for a minute. All that sitting
around all day and eating fast food when he was a free man had finally caught up to
him, and at the worst possible moment. But everyone else just continued trudging
up in silence, save for the heavy breathing; he was one of the younger guys, it
seemed, so it would deeply humiliate him if he were the first one to kick the bucket
-besides, Leopolds’s leg was fucked up beyond recognition, yet he wasn’t
complaining. Using this as inspiration, Fortuna tried ignoring the pulsing waves of
pain through his body that were beginning to blur his vision, and mechanically he
ran up the next flight of stairs…and the next…and the next…and the next...and the
next.
Long ago Fortuna had lost track of how many floors they had traversed -the
signs above the doors had become so faded with age that it was as if they weren't
even there to begin with. Looking out the broken windows, it was still hard to tell;
however, he could see that the building they were in was actually much taller than
those around it, allowing the unchallenged morning sun rays to stream in a
welcoming warmth (in January!) that made the climbing less daunting. By the looks
of it, they were somewhere in the Bronx, but he wasn’t too sure -his knowledge on
New York City was limited. More than once, Fortuna had drove his shin straight
into the razor-sharp edges of the stairs, and every time it happened, he lost his
balance completely and planted his face in another edge, resulting in a deep
horizontal slit on the upper bridge of his nose and another on his left shin;
however, he would always get back up and continue running when it happened, for
fear of getting left behind -even as the blood leaked down over his face and legs at
an alarming rate.
 Chapter Four
At last, they came across one of the guards wielding a street-sweeper on a landing,
who no doubt arrived much earlier via elevator. Seeing him, despite themselves,
brought them relief more than anything, and instinctively they collapsed on the
landing before him, holding onto the last slivers of consciousness. To Fortuna’s
surprise, instead of receiving another beating that would have no doubt
handicapped at least one of them, the guard silently heaved them up one by one by
the sleeve and pushed them into the adjoining hallway; he even gave Fortuna a
handkerchief for his bloodied face. In the hall, his twin stood erect with a stone
face, pointing to the right with a black-gloved hand.
“At the far end,'' he said simply, in a deep monotonous voice that sounded almost
robotic to Fortuna’s ears.
There at the end of the hallway was a partially opened door, warm morning
rays streaming through it and dissipating the oppressive darkness like the fingers of
God himself. Upon entering, Fortuna found himself in a different realm entirely:
plush velvet carpet, floor-to-ceiling mahogany shelves on the left and right walls
crowded with ancient, leather-bound books and native American fetishes carved
out of granite and turquoise; in-between two shelves was a huge dormant fireplace
made of elaborately carved pink-marble, rejected in favor of the warm sunlight
that spilled into the room through a huge window in the back that seemed to
capture the Bronx (Fortuna was certain it was the Bronx) in its decrepit entirety.
Partially blocking the view was a mountain of sickly-pale white skin, seated
comfortably behind a great oaken desk without a name tag on top. He had receding
close-cut black hair, round Gucci glasses, and a clean-shaven red face that made
him look like an obese baby. He was exactly how Fortuna imagined a typical New
York ass-kissing bureaucrat to look like. Standing next to him at-ease was the
sergeant from before, staring at them once again with that same frightening gaze
with his beady eyes; In contrast, the fat man, with his meaty hands folded in front
of him, had his fleshy red lips stretched out in an ugly smile across his bulbous red
cheeks.
When the last man arrived, the door silently shut closed behind them on
well-oiled hinges, and in an annoyingly high-pitched Queens nasal, he began:
“Welcome to Co-op City, gentlemen. How are you all finding everything so far?”
He spread out his beefy hands, palms up, expecting a response -answered
only by a suppressed cough after an uncomfortable silence.
After all the extensive beatings Fortuna endured and the horrifying flight up
the stairs, he wanted nothing more than to lay down -anywhere- and let the pain all
over his aching body subdue. His throat and nose were dry after breathing in all
that cold air and his chest felt as though it were going to burst at any moment; he
tasted blood and metal in his mouth and his ears buzzed from feeling light-headed.
And now they were making him stand here and listen to that sack of shit. The worst
yet they had him endure.
He continued, “My name is Lieutenant Fattino Vicci, and I am-”
The fellow next to Fortuna covered his mouth and made a coughing noise,
obviously trying to suppress a laugh from the awfully butchered upper-crust
pronunciation. Fortuna himself had to keep from smiling, despite his pain.
The fat man was oblivious; he cleared his throat, continued, “I am the Head
Director of Nova Vita, whose chief executives, as you should all know, have chosen
you six gentlemen for the chance of redeeming yourselves for your horrendous
crimes committed. This is a very rare opportunity, and you should all feel very
fortunate over your stroke of luck.”
Fortuna noticed more than once that he had glanced at a paper on his desk a
couple of times as he spoke. A fucking script, He thought. The fat bastard didn’t even
bother memorizing it before they arrived.
“The Nova Vita Atonement Program, formed in 1978 after the now infamous
Wright v. New York, was largely the brain-child of Sir George Wright himself, who
believed that death by capital punishment was much too expensive to maintain,
especially if it were to be imporc- incorportated for the long term. Excuse me.” He
went on, “Consequenlty, he stated, the death penalty unnecessarily leeched off the
funds of the taxpayer, who….”
He continued droning on for what seemed an eternity, this time clutching
the script on the table and not bothering looking up once. He looked absolutely
comical to say the least -what with the protruding pink mounds of fat that are his
cheeks, giving him the appearance of a chubby porcelain doll, or the fat under his
chin that jiggles like gelatin as he moved his jaw to speak.
“-what mattered more than anything else, however, was the fact that Wright, a
proselytizing man of God who had famously quoted the Bible during his court
hearing with great fervor, also believed that every man has his right to a second
chance, which, in his words, should stand true in terms both lawfully and ethically.
To gain a platform for receiving support from his followers across the nation, he
set up the G.W foundation, a humanitarian non-profit that to this day carries on
the legacy of Mr. Wright and his-”
The door opened behind them and another man looked in, staring past
them at the fat man with what seemed amusement and mock surprise. He was
fairly tall, lean, and despite being around sixty, had a healthy set of barley graying
black hair combed back in a flawless pompadour; he was everything the fat man
was not. He nodded politely to them and walked past to the desk. The rigid
sergeant standing by, who appeared to have been holding in his breath all along, let
out an ill-suppressed sign of relief and saluted.
Fortuna heard him mumble, “I’ve been trying to tell him, Captain.” Captain.
 Chapter Five
The fat man tried to stand up, struggled, and remained seated. His face was redder
than ever, and beads of sweat were starting to accumulate on his forehead.
“Back from Lisbon already, Sir?” he said, almost a whisper.
“That’s right, Fattino,” said the Captain, much louder for all to hear.
“Me and my wife were having the time of our lives, sipping on 100-year old wines,
going on romantic strolls through the Praças, and basking under the delicious warm
sun at the beach. A marvelous city, Lisbon, with phenomenal weather too, I might
add, even at this time of the year.”
The fat man replied, still whispering, “I would have expected a trip across
the Atlantic to last more than-”
“-It is such a shame, Fattino,” he boomed on, “that it all had to end so abruptly,
after Sergeant Seitlzer here gave me the call regarding… all of this.”
The fat man looked over at Seitzler with mingled horror and surprise. “Wait,
Sergeant-”
“Nevermind the sergeant, Fattino. He was only doing his job as Head Warden
of The Project and my right-hand man. What we’re dealing with here is-” He
abruptly cut off and eyed the fat man up and down exaggeratingly.
“Say, Fattino, why aren’t you in uniform? You know that it is strictly against
our protocol to not wear uniform to the office. Let alone your superior’s office.” The
fat man said nothing, dumbfounded.
“Where’d you leave it, home? Yeah, I can imagine, buried under a heap of
dirty laundry and empty Twinkie wrappers, no doubt.”
The fat man’s face was a tomato red and he became rigid in his seat, as if that
were exactly the case. Fortuna found that he was grinning, and when he looked
around, everyone else seemed to be enjoying the moment; although Sergeant
Seitzler maintained discipline with his stoic expression. All of the pain that Fortuna
had felt throughout his body seemed to disappear; his head had stopped
throbbing, and his ears no longer buzzed. It was not five minutes since the captain
walked in and Fortuna already found himself respecting the man.
He continued, “Fattino, let me ask you something. You do enjoy working for
the NYPD, am I correct?” the fat man nodded.
“Am I correct or not?”
“Yes, sir,'' replied the fat man hastily.
“No doubt you also enjoy the privileges of working as a lieutenant under my
command. And no doubt you also take pride in exploiting my generosity and
kindness which you’ve mistaken for senility and ignorance, you and that other fat
bastard -what’s his name?- Leroy. The two elephants in the room.” He laughed
jubilantly.
The fat man’s face was now sweating profusely, and his eyes were wide open
with terror. His breathing reminded Fortuna of a panicked diver.
“Sir, I’m very confused.”
“I’m sure you are. But anyways, Fattino, as you can see, I have these six
gentlemen that need some taking care of. Listen carefully: leave everything in your
office as it is; there’s no need for you to pack up your belongings -I won’t fire you.
You know damn well that if I did, no one else would want to hire your fat ass, so be
grateful. Just take your sweater, car keys, and your laptop if you’re going to use it.
When you arrive home, I want you to grab your uniform and take it to Cosmo’s
Laundromat over by Central Park South, they'll-''
“Wait, sir, that’s-”
''-they’ll make sure it's ready before midnight. I’ll have a trusted contact
posted there to confirm your arrival. I want you back here at seven sharp. Don’t
worry, your fuck-buddy Leroy has already been given the same instructions, so at
least you’ll have someone by your side during your hearing. We have a lot to
discuss with you two. Got that?”
“Sir, thi-”
 “Excellent, Fattino. Now get out of here and let me tend to this.” The fat man
seemed to hesitate.
“Yes, sir,'' he replied a while later.
After a dramatic pause of concentration, the fat man attempted to heave his
enormous bulk out of the chair, only to flop back onto it with a powerful force that
shook the floorboards under Fortuna. He tried again. Same result. He was
breathing heavily, and his eyes were darting around the room in a silent plea for
help.
“Any day now, Fattino,” The captain said, pointed to the face of his
shimmering Rolex.
The fat man tried once more, but when he got up, he lifted the chair
underneath with him. The whole room roared with laughter, and the captain
quickly covered his own reddening face. He remained standing like a cow on its
hind legs, and Sergeant Seitzler had to get behind him to pull it off. Immediately
he scrambled for the door on wobbling legs.
“Oh, yeah,” said the captain, and he paused at the door. “When I arrived, the
elevator wasn’t working. You’ll have to take the stairs, Fattino.”
 Chapter Six
The floor continued shaking as the fat man walked down the hallway.
“Don’t mind him, gentlemen, just one of my assistants for the program. Or
rather, was. But, anyways...” he clapped his hands together, then pointed at them.
“Water for you gentlemen, before we begin?”
Fortuna was stunned by the question, but he knew it couldn't be a trick. He
nodded his head, and everyone else followed suit.
“If it’s not too much trouble,'' said someone amongst them.
Sergeant Seitzler lifted his radio. “Buck, Garcia, captain’s office, six waters”,
he said curtly, then replaced the radio in one swift movement.
“Perfect,” said the captain, smiling. “Now, I assume our friend has already
gone through all the formalities -our history, procedures, legal information, all of
that?”
“If it’s that script there on the desk which you refer to, No. He had just been
explaining the G.W Foundation and how the program gives Death Row inmates a
chance of making up for their crimes.” It was the same voice from before, which to
anyone else would sound pleasantly deep and cultivated but to Fortuna had an air
of superiority that grated on his nerves. Probably some uber-rich Wall Street banker
who molested little kids, he thought.
“A script, huh,” replied the captain, who was now sitting at the edge of the
desk, looking down at the paper.
“Blah”, he dismissed it with a flick of his fingers. “What idiot would want to
waste his time regurgitating that crap. Standard bureaucratic horseshit handed
down from the bigwigs. Most of what is says isn’t even true. Wright V. New York.
Never heard of it, nor do I want to.”
 The door suddenly opened and the two guards came in, flanking the door
and raising their guns to their chests, like some royal guardsmen. “Ah, wonderful.
Drinks are here. Come on in, Valentina.”
The clicking of high heels resonated from just outside the room, and then an
astonishing sight emerged from the still-open door: a beautiful platinum blonde
girl, around Fortuna’s age, wearing a crisp white dress shirt tucked under one of
those long, old-fashioned skirts that graciously hugged the skin of her slim,
attractive figure and curvy hips. She was balancing six tall glasses of iced water on a
tray.
“Gentlemen, my personal assistant from back at the plaza, Valentina. Let the
gentlemen grab their drinks, my dear.” She walked in with a polite smile and waited
as they grabbed their drinks, each man murmuring his thank-you’s to the spectacle
before them and quickly shying away; even Macho-Man Fortuna blushed and
smiled like an idiot when he grabbed his drink and saw her smiling back at him
with what seemed genuine contentment. Fortuna felt his loins stir.
Damn, he thought, ashamed of himself. Feels like ages since I've last seen a girl.
Partially, that was true. Back at Rikers Island, where he had been detained for over
a year, there were barely any women among the hordes of psycho-rapists and
mass-murderers, and his girlfriend was currently hiding from the law in the
mountains of Peru, so she couldn’t very well visit him.
He shook off this train of thought and glanced back at the Captain, who was
smiling with delight towards his personal assistant, his eyes twinkling. I’ve seen that
twinkle before, thought Fortuna, envying the man. The girl smiled and blushed, then
sheepishly made for the exit with the guards. He must be half a damn century her
senior.
“Oh, and Valentina?”, said the Captain. The girl looked back timidly, her
youthful cheeks an attractive rosy red.
“Make sure to knock next time” He smiled and gave her conspiratorial wink.
For the first time, Fortuna noticed on a corner of the desk an old picture of two
kids and a pretty brunette he presumed was his wife. Must be nice having two of them.
 Chapter Seven
“Now gentlemen, with all of that out of the way, I say it’s safe to begin with
introductions. I am Captain Stanely Brimstone II of the NYPD’s Counterterrorism
Bureau, but when I’m not in the office I am known as Head Director Brimstone of
the Nova Vita Rejuvenation Program. Since 9/11, my unit at Counterterrorism has
successfully repelled over ten strategically coordinated terrorist attacks on the city,
foreign and domestic. I have over 50 officers under my command working across
the country and overseas; Sergeant Seitzler here is one of them, and he’s been by
my side since long before some of you were even born. He is, you could say, my
right-hand man and personal bodyguard. Seitzler and his men, who you’ve met
not so long ago, are the only ones whom I trust with regards to this, ah, pet project of
mine. Forgive them if they were a little rough around the edges -It’s all standard
procedure, unfortunately. Believe me, gentlemen, however ironic it may sound, the
head commissioners of the Program summoned you six here so that I can help you
overcome this dire situation you find yourselves in. Trust me, I really want to. And
so does Sergeant Seitzler here.” He gave a little nod, but was otherwise stoic like a
statue.
“That's pretty much all I’m allowed to say regarding myself and Nova Vita, to
put it briefly. Now, in maintaining Nova Vita tradition, I personally want to know
who I am dealing with, since the Upper Echelon never bothers briefing me
beforehand. I say it’s time we hear from you gentlemen.”
He pushed off the desk and stood up, approached the closest man, and stuck
out a ringed hand.
“And you might be?” The other man returned the handshake.
“Morton DeLevier Rickson, Sir, but everyone calls me Timmer.”
“Ah. Interesting”, said the Captain. “I’ll make sure to get that fixed,'' he said,
pointing to his cracked glasses. His name sounded familiar to Fortuna, but he was
sure he’d never seen the man in his life: tall, slightly overweight, and his eyes each
looked in different directions, giving him the stupid gaze of a cow. How his glasses
survived at all was beyond Fortuna. The captain moved on.
“Walter Smith, at your service,'' said the next man in a hearty boom; he was
an older man, alarmingly skinny and fragile looking, who looked no different from
a holocaust victim in his one-piece; nevertheless, he gave off good spirits and had a
jolly pink face that remind Fortuna of a leprechaun. He had on one of his
emaciated fingers what Fortuna presumed was a wedding band, and his face had
the gentle creases of a grandfather.
“The service is mine, Mr. Walter.” He moved along.
“Ricardo Villasanta, but you can call me El Diablín.” said the next man in a
near whisper. He was a beefy guy with a face covered in MS-13 tattoos that ran
down his thick neck. Something about him gave Fortuna déjà vu; he examined him
closer: lazy green eyes, laid-back speech, Virgin Of Guadalupe tattoo running down
the neck. Fortuna was stunned. I know this man. He had seen him before in some
favela or another in Brazil. Or was it Colombia? Shit, he thought. He had definitely
seen the man before -he was sure of that- and the nickname also seemed to ring a
bell, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Quite a crowd here, thought Fortuna.
The captain came up to him next, and with great haste he shook off his
thoughts and came to attention. “I’m Roselle Fortuna”, he said awkwardly; It was
the first time he had spoken since arriving and his voice sounded as if from a
long-ago forgotten dream.
“Ah, Mr. Fortuna. Carrying on the family tradition, I can see.”

Chapter Eight
That was a harsh blow to the gut that Fortuna hadn’t anticipated. He couldn’t
bring himself to respond. Fortuna had never met his father, but he nonetheless
despised nothing more than him getting blasphemed by other people. What he
had done back in Vietnam had been terrible indeed -Fortuna couldn’t argue with
that- but he nonetheless got fucked over by the unfair severity of life, which caused
him to do what he did in the first place. Fortuna understood his father like no one
else. When the captain made that remark, Fortuna winced to try to make a point,
but it seemed he took no notice; he only rested his palm on his shoulder briefly
and moved on.
Fortuna dazed off into an absolute inattention triggered from the remark,
and the same restless thoughts that had been frequently racing through his mind
for years reemerged.
The Monster of Dang Na Hill, read the front-cover article of that unfortunate
New York Times issue from 1969. It talked of systematic cruxifications,
disembowelments, and horrible cannibalistic rituals; heaps of mutilated corpses
stacked on one another like cordwood, entrails thrown over tree branches like
festive decorations, and -the worst yet- dozens of infants and small children
spit-roasted over napalm and boiled alive in huge cauldrons -all of it remorselessly
planned out by a certain Lieutenant Colonel Roland Fortuna and his fanatic
cronies. His father was intercepted in his blazing trail by Army Special Forces
agents later that year and taken back to the United States, where he ended up on
Death Row and executed by a firing squad in New York shortly after. Charged with
over 500 counts of murder, including half a dozen of his own men. Now almost
half a century later, Fortuna has found himself in almost the exact same position as
his father before him, and no doubt he’ll meet an end just as grisly. Carrying on the
family tradition, I can see.
Interrupting his thoughts, Captain Flintstone or whatever was once again at
his desk, projecting his voice for all to hear.
“Fattino must have stated that the decision of picking you six gentlemen was
one of random choice. This was not the case at all, you see. The mission you’ll
embark on can’t be accomplished by just any group of people, no matter how
demented beyond all scientific explanation they are. An elite task force of talented
individuals with different, ah, disciplines, we knew, was a requirement for the task at
hand. I won’t say any names, but basically we were looking for someone who is
good with computers, another who is ex-FBI -generously provided by the Mount
Waco Federal Correctional Institution- and multiple individuals with adequate to
advanced firearm training. However, the minimum amount of convicts allowed on
an expedition is six, and there were fewer Death-Row convicts that met our
requirements, so we unfortunately had to throw in some dead-weight. Again, no
names.”
Fortuna reeled over what the captain had listed: computers, FBI, firearm
training. He went rigid and his face lost all color as the apprehension sank in; he
had no experience in any of those fields -at least, not enough for it to be considered
a “discipline”. He was the deadweight, and the captain had known all along.

Chapter Nine
The welcoming glow on the captain’s dimpled smile and his omnipresent
charm had but vanished. It was much darker now in the room after thick velvet
curtains were drawn over the huge window behind the desk and the glow of several
cow-hide standing lamps along the bookshelves were dimmed. The six men were
given permission to sit on the ground before the desk, where Captain Stanley
Brimstone remained seated on the edge, one long, vicuña-covered leg crossed over
the other. The scene resembled an elementary school teacher telling a scary story
to a group of over-sized children huddled before him. It was time to get down to
business.
“We are dealing with a certain Obersturmbannführer Martin Hugo
Wöllstadt, former senior camp officer at Janowska extermination camp in what was
Ukraine at the time, as well as Dachau, near the end of the war. At the peak of the
Holocaust, Wöllstadt was overseeing the deaths of some 300 prisoners daily in
Janowska, including women, children, and the elderly. In 1944, as the Red Army
steamrolled across Eastern Europe and towards Janowska, SS High Command
insisted that he and his men evacuate the premises and leave behind the prisoners
before the camp got bombarded. Wöllstadt, however, remained at the camp until
the very last minute, even as Soviet armor came within clear view over the horizon.
In his haste, Wöllstadt killed another 3,000 people, 900 of whom were
children 12 and under, in less than 24 hours. When Soviet artillery started firing
and the camp’s gas chambers were put out of action, Wöllstadt deftly improvised
by locking the remaining prisoners in their barracks and then setting them ablaze.
When Zhukov’s 1st Belorussian Front arrived less than an hour later, they
reportedly heard hundreds of shrill screams still emerging from the enclosed
infernos. Unable to get the barracks open, they left them to burn and continued
pushing forward in their ruthless competition to reach Berlin before General
Konev’s men did. Unsurprisingly, the Soviet formations that followed behind
found only the pulverized remains of human bones strewn within the ashes over
the barracks’ exposed foundations and the obliterated cremating ovens.
“Wöllstadt escaped with his skin intact, and was praised by the SS for his
bravery of having gotten done with the job with brutal efficiency under the
tightening pressure of lingering death. Given the Nazi’s desperation near the war’s
end, He was promoted two ranks up to his current Obersturmbannführer and put
in charge of Dachau. His career there was short-lived, due to the rapid
encirclement of Germany from both fronts, and Gustav escaped to Switzerland
only 5 months after being given the responsibility -but not before slaughtering an
estimated 50,000 prisoners at Dachau, most of them Soviet POWs. According to
reports, just before boarding the plane to Geneva, he ordered the camp’s guard to
cram as many prisoners as possible into their barracks, then once again have them
burned alive.
“Before taking charge of Janowska, our Obersturmbannführer started off
from almost exactly the same position as you six gentlemen. Not much is known
about his criminal record, but it was bad enough to get him enlisted into the 36th
Waffen Grenadier Division, a penal brigade made up of some of the most violent
criminals across Europe, under the command of the psychotic Oskar Dirlewanger;
the Dirty Dozen of Nazi Germany, if you will. Nobody wanted him: not Germany,
not the army, not even the SS; In other words, he, like you, started off from the
very bottom of the barrel. They sent him into the hellish depths of Warsaw during
the uprising with minimal training in warfare, where he should’ve perished along
with hundreds of other ‘disposables’ that even Germany’s toughest prisons wanted
to get rid off; instead, with a little bit of the ol’ willpower and the just-right amount
of ruthlessness, he emerged from those depths of hell stronger than ever. His
violent and frequent rage-induced spasms that he fell into during the Uprising
-most likely due to his uncontrollable schizophrenia- rightfully earned him the
nickname, “Gustav”, after the railroad gun.
“Gustav found himself in the very midst of a brutal deadlock of violent
house-to-house guerrilla warfare, and that seemed to have broken him even more
than he already was. He participated in some of the most horrendous atrocities of
the war, including mass-scale rape and murder of the innocent wives and children
of his enemies in a fervent rage that blazed on even after the Polish resistance was
thoroughly dissipated. He quickly climbed up the ranks until he became one of the
SS’s highest ranking; He was horrible even by SS standards, and many in the high
command wanted him ridden off, but Reichsführer Himmler himself thought
otherwise and congratulated him with the Iron Cross Class 1, one of the highest in
Nazi Germany. How he ended up here in America has yet to be learned, but suffice
to say, he’s embarked through a legendary tale of rags to riches of epic proportions.
Maybe you can learn a thing or two from ol’ Gustav, once you meet him in person.”
Fortuna lost his attention at that point, but he made sure to pick up all the
important details: at the over-ripe age of 95, Gustav was discovered upstate near
the Canadian border by Nazi hunters -Fortuna couldn’t believe such a thing still
existed- deep in the mountains and forests of the Adirondack region. Gustav was
deemed unfit for a court hearing due to his health, but an arrest warrant was issued
last month nevertheless, him having having been charged with over 300,000
counts of murder, after all. To Fortuna’s dismay, instead of just having to end the
old nazi fart with an electric chair or something once he’s brought to justice, he is
to be taken to the Holy Grail Mental Institution in Yonkers to live out the rest of his
days in peace. Bet it’ll be no different from a nursing home, thought Fortuna sourly.
And that’s where they came in.
Satellite images showed to them revealed a gigantic complex of
interconnected buildings in the midst of a sprawling lawn covered with snow and
dotted symmetrically with fountains and winding walkways, surrounded on all
sides by miles and miles of impenetrable upstate woodland; the closest town was
30 kilometers away in Canada. No private access road could be located via the
images, so their method of insertion would be through the woodland itself,
spanning some 10 kilometers in between the main road where they were to be
dropped off and the fencing surrounding the property.
The mission was of the “highest” priority, the captain stated: Gustav, it
seemed, had body guards patrolling his property every day of the year, so
resistance of course was to be expected. As such, the captain claimed, the program
went through many pains in providing them with “only the best'' gear available,
resulting in an expenditure that went a whopping 30 percent over their fixed
budget for a single mission of six. And just what did the convicts receive thanks to
this extra 30 percent? “winter-special” clothing that consisted of nothing more than
a generic beanie, a slightly thicker one-piece jump-suit that they no doubt acquired
for free from one of the prisons, and some faux-leather snow boots that Fortuna
was sure he’d seen more than once at shoe stores’ bargain bins; other items
included a single cheap radio that relayed only to the Program’s dedicated
frequency, and the satellite images, which were marked with important details. The
Captain warned that if they were not inside the Complex within 6 hours after
drop-off, they would surely catch hypothermia, so they had to act quickly. Once
inside the property, it was No-Man’s-Land from there, and it would be up to them
and their criminal instincts on how to proceed.
 Freakin’ easy, thought Fortuna. This asshole probably expects us to freeze to death
before we even get there. Blah! After a year in Rikers Island, what can be colder? A damned
monkey with half a brain can get the job done and walk off scot-free. And those security
guards? Probably nothing more than maintenance workers! He could hardly believe that
this mere stroll through the woods was going to pardon him for all those lives that
he himself devastated across the globe. He can already hear the seagulls and the
gentle crashing of waves as he lay undisturbed on the warm sands of Puerto
Vallarta.

Part 2

“Giant’s Feast”
 Chapter 11
The Captain allowed them to take the elevators down this time, as a sort of
“last meal” courtesy before their death; they were to head straight to the point of
extraction by van to begin the mission, so they had to conserve all the energy
possible for the freezing slog through the foreboding woods that lay ahead of
them. Exiting through the rear exit from which they entered, Fortuna was stunned
to see the change of scenery before him: the fog had long cleared and the
exceptionally bright sun glowered from above, revealing what seemed like hundreds
of people on the huge asphalt lot, apparently tenants from the surrounding
projects that weren’t so abandoned after all. The scene would have been more
appropriate on a beach during summer break, and not on a lot of asphalt in the
heartland of the Bronx, nevermind on a Indian summer week-day during January.
Children were playing ball and tag for as far as the eye can see, music blasted from
huge speakers set up on pick-ups, men with sports jerseys and sagging pants
smoked weed in huddled masses, and teenaged ‘hoodrats in short skirts twerked to
the booming music; the majority of the people, however, sat in lawn chairs
drinking cheap beer or laid down on blankets, taking in the hot Indian-afternoon
sun.
 Almost immediately after exiting the door from which they entered were
they bombarded with a fusillade of angry voices: “Ya’ll pigs rot in hell!”, “Fucking
pigs!” Soon dozens of people formed on both sides of their little convoy, talking
rapidly and shouting unintelligently, wafting off a mixture of cheap cologne,
tobacco, liquor, and sweaty armpits that made Fortuna nauseous. The few guards
that flanked them as they walked could do little to prevent the whole of them from
getting spat on and trash thrown at them, even as they yelled out in officious tones
and threatened them with their guns. Fortuna almost wished that they would fire,
but he knew that shooting at a large, angry crowd -no less at point-blank range-
was a stupid idea; you’d be practically signing your own death warrant.
When they reached the vehicle, a group of kids swarming it scampered away
into the anonymous safety of the swelled-up crowds; they had rendered the van
into a shit-box of cracked windows, dented aluminum walls, and illegible graffiti
that nearly covered the thing. Once in the compartment, they could hear dozens of
voices just outside the van and feet kicking savagely against the walls, promptly
tilting the van from side to side. With a screech of rubber, the van blasted away,
and Fortuna silently promised to himself never to return to Co-op city again if he
came out alive, or any of the Bronx, for that matter.

“Fuckin’ coons, huh?”, said Leopold to his immediate right, smug and
unrepentant.
“Hey!” came the barking retort from that big-word smart-ass, who just also
happened to sit to Fortuna’s immediate left, unfortunately sandwiching him in
between them.
“If we’re going to work together, I will not tolerate that kind of language on
my team! It’s not acce-”
“What the hell? Your team?” retorted Leopold, “Who the hell ever appointed
you as leader? If anything, you’re probably the deadweight among us! You look and
sound the part, too.”
“If I were you, Mr. Duff, I would-”
“Don’t call me that, you old creep! the name’s Leopard.” Leopold’s face was
red and he was shaking everywhere like a madman. He continued babbling on
uncontrollably, face contorted red with anger, and Fortuna had to restrain him
when he tried leaning over.
“Mr. Duff, if you could just- Mr. Duff, please quiet down! I’ll-” Leopold acted
as if he heard nothing and continued yelling at him, foaming at the mouth, cutting
off the man’s words.
“I’LL KILL YOU YUPPIE FAGGOT”
Fortuna, like Leopold, hated the guy for his arrogance, but his friend was
acting like a full-on savage; the least they could do is act at least half-way civilized,
before the cramped space once again degenerated into a chaotic mess.
His maniacal screaming towards the man became an unnatural pitch and the
veins popping out of his neck and face looked as if they were ready to burst at any
moment. Fortuna had seen him break this way plenty of times before at the island,
and always he had managed to restore him back to sanity with calming words. This
time, however, the screaming was so loud and pronounced in the tiny space that
Fortuna’s own words were completely drowned out and inaudible. Two of the
other inmates, MS13 and the older man, tried pulling him back by each of his
arms, but he shook them off as if they were mere flies, and Fortuna, who was
physically a weenie compared to Leopold, couldn’t very well take him on in
hand-to-hand either, and he’d seen how other inmates learned that the hard way
back at the island, even multiple at a time.
“Leo, chill the hell out!” yelled Fortuna. Leopold didn’t glance at him.
Leopold stood from his seat and so did Fortuna, But Leopold shoved him
violently back into his seat. Fortuna hit his head against the wall and he saw stars.
“LEOPARD’S THE NAME MOTHERFUCKER, AND TONIGHT’S FAGGOT
HUNTIN’ SEASON.”
Looking back at the FBI man, however, Fortuna noticed that he was eerily
calm and silent, looking at the psychotic Leopold with what looked like... sympathy?
Like a very patient father hearing out his ill-mannered child.
“Leopold!” Fortuna tried yelling, sounding feeble and impotent.. “Get your
shit together, man!”
 Leopold turned sharply on him, his eyes widening as if noticing him for the
first time. His contorted red face and spittle-covered mouth made Fortuna very
uncomfortable. He’d never seen him this furious.
To his astonishment, Leopold’s face immediately broke into a wide, ecstatic
smile.
“Hey Fortuna! ‘Sup, man!” Leopold raised his hand as if to slap him across
the face, but his huge paw came slamming down on his shoulder, and with just that
hand he lifted up Fortuna on his feet, completely forgetting about the other man.
Leopold reached over with the other arm for one of those -literally- bone crushing
bear-hugs he was famous for at the Riker’s when he wasn’t out slamming people’s
heads against the walls or destroying entire packs of prison gangs; Fortuna
especially never seemed able to escape them.
Fuck, not again, he thought, not at all forgetting the pain from the bruises on
his chest where he had been kicked with a steel-toe boot. He pushed the arm down
and pulled Leopold towards him, whispering to him to cool his shit and hear the
asshole out.
Still panting from his rant, he gazed at Fortuna looking curiously childish
and confused. Then his eyes once again enveloped in relentless fury. Fortuna
calmed his voice and murmured some reassurances to him. Leopold took a long
look at him when he was done;, then, reluctantly, he turned towards the next man
over. He said nothing.
“Go ahead”, said Fortuna to the man, having a good look at his face for the
first time: pale-olive skin, razor-sharp jawline and cheekbones, hollowed cheeks,
and a pair of rich blue eyes like the deep sea, set hard into Fortuna’s very soul. The
intensity of it surprised him, and he almost looked away. Something told him he’d
been wrong about the guy.
“Very well”, said the man, addressing the whole group. “This goes not just to
Mr. Duff, but to every one of you.” The officious tone of his voice implied that he
must have been a sort of leader before; an important one, at that, and no doubt a
deadly one as well. Psshh. But probably not as much as me.
 As if by magic, a small leather wallet materialized in his hand. He flipped it
open and showed it to everyone. On it was a large gold badge on the lower flap and
his ID on the top one.
“Special Agent Greslin, FBI.”
“Where the hell did-”
“There’s no time to explain. And no, not where you think. Given the vehicle’s
speed and the lack of traffic noise outside, we should arrive at the extraction point
in less than 15 minutes.” He looked around at them once more, again with that
serious look that showed that he meant business.
“By the faces that I’m seeing here, I can already tell this isn’t going to be any
simple pick-up routine. It’s no coincidence, now that I think about it, that most, if
not all of your cases were opened and investigated under my jurisdiction. I’m
talking about you: Fortuna, Smith, Santavilla, Timmer, and, to a lesser extent, Duff,
aka “Leopard”.
Fortuna sat there slack-jawed along everyone else; not so much by the
obvious conspiracy that’s been set up as by the fact that the agent stated it so
blatantly, right in front of them: I am responsible for having gotten you here to begin
with, as well as your untimely death that will no doubt occur very soon. They were
unchained and no one else was watching them, yet none of them charged him.
A long, uncomfortable silence settled over the tense atmosphere, and just as
the FBI man was about to say something else, Leopold violently lurched over
Fortuna and flailed his arms around wildly, clawing at Special Agent Greslin with
renewed hatred.
Surprised and more than a little anxious, Fortuna grappled him and tried
tackling him down, but Leopold’s superhuman strength, combined with his
powerful 6’3 ogre build, made the task nigh impossible, as other inmates learned
the hard way back at Rikers. Fortuna continued holding on to him, and then he was
swept off his feet and left hanging onto him like a baby monkey on his mother;
Leopold flung him around and bodily slammed him against the back wall, hitting
his head hard and knocking the air out of him.
 “AAAARRGGHH”, Leopold unleashed an inarticulate cry that shook the
whole compartment as he pounced towards the agent just like the creature he was
nicknamed after.
Through his tunnel vision, Fortuna witnessed with astonishment as the
agent, with a single movement of both arms and a leg, so swift it was as though it
never happened, dodged Leopold’s head-on bull charge and simultaneously
slammed him into submission below him on his belly, arms twisted behind his
back, with a heel pressed into the back of his neck. The rest of the inmates grouped
up to where Fortuna was and witnessed with dumb-founded expressions the
impossible spectacle before them: this not-so-striking figure, gaunt-looking and of
medium stature, was standing over a monstrous-looking Leopold, who for so long
back at Rikers Island had terrorized other inmates through intimidation and abuse
during his violent and often random outbursts, save Fortuna and a few other
cellmates. It reminded him of a Matador standing over his defeated bull opponent.

Chapter 12
“Holy shit”, gasped the man they called Timmer, gaping through his new
glasses Captain Brimstone provided.
Leopold struggled under the FBI man, but realizing just how firmly he was
locked in his grip of steel, stopped and lay there panting, face still red from his
outburst.
“Mr. Duff, you’re in some pretty deep shit right now, but you are not the
only one. Everyone here is just as confused as you are, including myself.” He
looked around at them with a fiery gaze so intense it burned Fortuna’s very soul.
One side of Leopold’s face was pressed firmly against the steel floor by the agent’s
heel, and the seething anger in his eyes were now replaced by nervousness and
pain from the increasing pressure to his neck and arm. The astonishment hadn’t
left Fortuna’s countenance.
“I do not want anyone here holding grudges against me or anyone else. I was
only doing my job as an FBI Special Agent in getting involved in the investigations
on your cases, which all met the circumstances to allow the FBI to step in; but as
you can see, I was, erm, what’s that curious expression? I was fucked over in the
process, and I cannot even begin to understand why.”
Leopold’s face was scrunched up with pain; his jugular and head veins were
protruding. He was breathing laboriously through his teeth, evidently trying not to
let out a yelp of pain.
“Hey man, that’s enough,” said Fortuna, assured by the firmness of his own
voice. “Let him go. He’s had-”
“That’s enough” the FBI man chuckled. “How ironic. Roselle Fortuna, telling
me that that’s enough. The nerve.”
“Get the hell off my friend you goddamned spook!”
“We’re all in the same boat here,” the FBI man continued, “any one of you
messes up in any way, you endanger the whole group, so don’t try anything stupid.
As for friend Leopold here, I’m sure he’s learned his lesson; however, there is only-
“AAAAGHH”, Leopold cried out.
“That’s enough! Let go of him!” Fortuna was not going to let his one friend in
this shitty mess get hurt like that, however much some felt he deserved it. He tried
standing up but his head was spinning and everything turned into a blur.
The man remained calm and spoke with no hurry. He ignored Fortuna and
continued, “There’s only one of me and five of you, so in the end you all have the
potential of conspiring and utterly over-powering me, which I hope will not be the
case, since at this point I’m your last hope of getting out of this mess al-”
“UUURRGHH, it fucking hurts!”
Fortuna sprung to his feet, lightheaded from the sudden movement and
unsteady from the moving van, and began approaching the agent to avenge his
friend.
“Wait, stop it,” The agent held out his left hand, the one not pinning
Leopold’s arm behind his back. “Unless you want your friend’s arm snapped from
its joint and his brains stomped out with a practiced foot. You think they’ll take him
to a hospital?”
“You do that, I swear I’ll have your severed head on public display,
motherfucker. I’ve got friends in high places all over the globe that not even your
FBI will be able to save your sorry ass from.”
The agent was silent for a moment, expressionless, but then he looked at
Fortuna with that same look he’d given to Leopold during his outburst, one of pity
towards a naive child. He could feel his face boiling. The prick just done fucked up
doubting me.
Leopold was sweating profusely on the floor, breathing shallowly through
clenched teeth and scrunching his reddened face in pain.
“That’s real funny, you know, Fortuna”, began the agent, calm and in no
hurry, allowing a silence build up before continuing, “It’s too bad most of those
friends of yours have already taken advantage of the moment and smacked up your
girl in her hiding place in Peru right after you left. Now that’s what I call a
going-away party.” He roared at his own joke.
Fortuna heard murmurs and ill-suppressed laughter from the other three
men behind him, but he didn’t pay attention to it. He stood there, still as a statue,
the agent’s words sinking in. The pain all over his body was nonexistent and so was
the rest of his surroundings.
those friends of yours...smacked up your girl in Peru. Fortuna had concentrated
huge quantities of his resources and countless of his last hours as a free man
developing and executing the perfect schematic to at least save his fiancée from the
large-scale FBI/South American Union joint manhunt operation targeting him, his
organization, and anyone even remotely close to him. No fucking way. The only
people he had shared the scheme with were those in the tightest inner-circle of his
most trusted and loyal manservants and business partners, and his fiancée knew
better than to give away her location in the Andes. Or did she?
Fortuna shook away the thoughts and returned to the situation at hand.
“You're bluffing, you sly bastard. Just ‘cause you’re FBI doesn’t mean you
know everything.”
“Fortuna”, blurted out Leopold beneath the agent, “do something”.
 The snake-like grin now spread across the man’s entire face, creasing the
corners of his eyes. “Know everything, I do not. Know everything about you and
your so-called Fortuna Farms Wholesale Company? Well...”
That’s it. Fortuna was tired of talking. He hated talking and he hated arrogant
FBI agents. He steadied himself on his feet and rushed at the vulnerable-looking
agent, who remained crouched over Leopold even as he lunged. He saw no
movement as he stormed over, but then he felt a sharp blow to his left temple and
heard a sharp cracking sound in his neck. The momentum of the blow was enough
to hurl him to the side and he once more slammed his head on the inner wall of
the van. He flopped onto the slab of metal that passed as a row of seats and
everythings turned a bright white.
You fucked up, thought Fortuna to himself, You let blind anger and emotions
over-power rational thinking, and you fucked up. He’ll make sure not to repeat that
mistake in the future. Until then, those were the last thoughts that went through his
mind before blacking out.
 Chapter 13
“Wakey wakey Mr. -erm- what the hell is the kid’s name again?
“It’s Fontana, I think.”
“That’s Fortuna to you, Mr. Santavilla and Mr. Smith. The infamous Rosell Fortuna.
Have you two been living under a rock these past couple of months?”
“Shi-et, well so-rry, Mr. G-Man, but we fine folks at Rikers Island don’t have the
privilege of watching TV or even reading the periodical, or, um, magazines, as kids call
them now.”
“Oh...right, of course. My apologies, Mr. Smith, Mr. Santavilla. And please, do call me
Greslin for now on. Sure beats “Mr. G-Man”.
“What the hell kind of a name is Greslin?”
“I can’t very well change something I was born with, now can I, Mr. Santavilla?”
Fortuna could only faintly make out the words being spoken, which sounded
as though they were from a whole other dimension entirely. He can feel drool
trickle beneath his slack-jawed mouth, and his neck and head throbbed painfully
from the previous blow. Something opened and suddenly he could feel a violent,
frosty wind rush over and past his half-conscious self.
“Come on now, Mr. DeLevier Rickson, easy.”
“Please call me Timmer, Sir. No one ever calls me by m-”
 “Easy, Mr. Rickson, EASY-”
Quite suddenly, Fortuna emerged back to life, thrashed onto the hard, cold
pavement of a road, the snow long cleared away. Both sides were covered in thick
forests of huge pine trees. He heard the screech of tires on the pavement and the
van sped away, roaring engine fading off in the distance. Confused and in shock, he
looked up and saw everyone else was encircling him, shouting at each other over
the failed task and completely forgetting about him.
“You goddamned idiot!”
“It’s not my fault he’s so slippery!”
“Then put on your fucking gloves!”
“Leopold! Enough! He’s your friend, go help him up.”
The man who called himself Greslin had led the group away towards the
edge of the road, leaving behind Fortuna and Leopold.
Leopold crouched over Fortuna and helped him get up, or at least was
supposed to.
“That guy Timmer is a goddamned moron”, he began. “You know, the tall
wimp with the glasses? I wouldn’t be surprised if he were the dead weight amongst
us. One of the most idiotic losers I’ve ever come across, and believe me, I’ve had
more than my fair-share of untimely encounters with brain-dead simiantic
assholes. And I thought-”
“Leo, won’t you just shut up and help me here?” Fortuna was irritated and
the last thing he wanted to hear now is another one of his rants.
“Yeah, sure thing. But wait, look...”
As Fortuna was rising, Leopold quickly glanced at the group and back, then
whispered conspiratorial in his ear, “I think Timmer’s a faggot-”
Fortuna groaned and shoved Leopold out the way.
“I mean it, man, I swear he was checking me out back in there…”

The four other inmates had taken refuge from the icy wind behind a huge
pine tree not far from the road, huddled around a map being consulted by Greslin.
Just enough pale light penetrated through the thick dark canopy of pine leaves
overhead to make the flashlight unnecessary.
 “-It’s called Adirondack Park, gentlemen, the damned largest park in New
York state. 16 million acres of untamed wilderness and less than 200,000
inhabitants, and we’ve been dropped square in the heart of it. The nearest
American settlement is 67 kilometers due southwest near Lake Tear of The Clouds,
the birth of the Hudson. Damn thing’s little more than a cluster of shacks. Doesn’t
even have a name.
“Not to worry, though. To the north is Mount Marcy, the largest of the
Adirondacks. Not so hard to miss. The tallest peak can just barely be seen through
the forest, over there.” He looked up from his map and pointed upwards towards
the forbidding canopy, through which Fortuna could just barely make out the black
shadow of a massive hump, rising gently some three miles away from them.
“With no compass, we’ll just use the mountain to reorient ourselves should
we get lost. Also-”
“Hold on,” interrupted Leopold, “How will we be able to see the mountain
once it gets dark?”
This was responded with a brief silence. Then Greslin let out a sigh. “I’ve
been thinking about that, Mr. Duff, but I’ve come out empty on ideas. We’ll just
have to hope we make it to the property on time.”
“And how long will that take?” asked Leopold.
“Well, considering that the property is roughly 40 kilometers to the west,
and-”
“English please!”, broke in Leopold.
“Excuse me?” Greslin looked up from his map again.
“What the hell is a kilometer?”
“Oh, yes, of course. Where are my manners?. We don’t use imperial where I
come from, you see, but that would be around 25 miles, Mr. Duff.”
There was a commotion of murmurs among the rest of the men, clearly not
eager for the long slog through the woods and snow that lay ahead.
“That,” continued Greslin, “combined with the unfortunate inconvenience
of no trail leading there, I’d estimate the journey to range between 5 to 8 hours
tops, depending on the weather, of course.”
 This was met with groans of dismay and a harsh curse in spanish from
Santavilla. To his surprise, Fortuna noticed that the man named Smith -the skinny,
older fellow with the rosy red leprechaun face- was not complaining.
“Wait, hold on, sir”, started Timmer, the tall doughy kid, pushing up his
glasses towards his eyes. “I’ve got asthma and can’t breathe in cold air for too long
or else I’ll hyperventilate.”
Greslin seemed to consider this. “Ah. Yes, Mr. Rickson, I am well aware of
your respiratory problems. But asthma? Nothing more than a case of the very
mildest kind of pneumonia! little more than a scratch in your lung. I’m confident
you’ll suffice along with the rest of us with no trouble.” With that, Greslin gave him
the coldest of dismissive smiles, icier than the surrounding snow, and walked off
deeper into the woods, everyone else immediately following in his wake.

Chapter 14
 For most of his life, Fortuna had lived comfortably in the warm, tropical
climates of southern California and latin America, ensconced in Spanish colonials
overlooking the breezy Pacific. In these regions his ancestors had lived for many
centuries before, and just like them, Fortuna had no intentions of ever settling
anywhere else, even temporarily. So when he arrived in New York City for his
hearing at the district court, he could hardly believe the deep freeze that he had
never known existed, one that was intense enough to penetrate into his very bones.
When the doors of the private jet transporting him first opened onto that cursed
land, he nearly fainted from the blast of cold wind that greeted him. No, not
greeted him, warned him of what else was to come.
In Rikers Island, he would frequently catch fever or some other unpleasantry
from the cold, a result of his weak and underdeveloped immune system that has
never been overwhelmed with so many bacterial nasties like those that plagued the
body-infested refrigerator that was New York City. Over time he had grown
physically weak and his face was flushed of it’s usual cheerful light brown, giving
his face the gray, lifeless look of a corpse.
In short, New York City was just the kind of place that Fortuna was never
meant to be in, like a fresh-water fish in the ocean.

Hiking through the woods in upstate New York, in sub-zero temperatures,

through 4 inches of rough, jagged snow, with meager sunlight and a violent wind
that was just as harsh and icy, all while wearing nothing but a thin polyester-one
piece, a single pair of cotton socks, and canvas low-tops, Fortuna was baffled as to
how he hadn’t already lost conscience, or hadn’t already simply dissipated from
existence by the shear chaos of it, like from a great fire in the midst of a barbaric
war.
At the very least, it was not snowing; although the dry, stinging wind fledging
from the Adirondack mountains was lashing at them ruthlessly, and the massive
pines around them created an ineffective barrier against it. Fortuna and everyone
else, save Greslin, who was consulting his map, had their bare hands over their ears
in an ill-fated attempt to protect them from the cold. The paper-thin “winter
special” prison garb and canvas flat-tops that they were given weren’t much help
either; they might as well have gone out naked.
For whatever reason, Greslin organized them into two rows of three, like in a
marching band. Fortuna didn’t know much about these sorts of things, so he didn’t
question it. To his astoundment, however, Greslin also specifically insisted where in
the formation each man would walk, and he did it in the most awkward of
arrangements: Smith and Santavilla in the back, Leopold and Timmer in the
middle, and -to his great misfortune- Fortuna and Greslin in the front.
Greslin was walking too fast for Fortuna’s comfort, making huge steps over
the snow every time. With the husking and indefatigable Leopold looming right
behind him, Fortuna had no other choice but to maintain the pace or risk getting
rear-ended by him and breaking the rest of the formation. Fortuna did not want to
be the one to break the formation, nevermind the first to it -maybe then they won’t
suspect him as being the dead-weight.
Behind Greslin, he could hear rapid wheezing coming from Timmer, who
was in a situation similar to Fortuna’s: were he to stop or slow his pace, Santavilla
would run into him and both would lag behind -with 23 more miles left to go and
the sub zero temperatures, it wasn’t likely they would stop to help, especially not
with only four hours or so left of sunlight. Now Fortuna understood the formation.
The ground below him, covered in 4-inches of rough, dirty snow, was rising
only slightly, but in many ways climbing it was much worse than that gruesome
flight up the stairs back at Co-op City: he could feel the dry, jagged snow scrape
painfully against his ankles and his feet through the paper-thin canvas flat-tops and
thin socks, and frequently he would step on sharp rocks and sticks underneath,
sending up immense waves of pain up his legs.
Christ, did it fucking hurt.
For a long time into the journey, none of the men said anything, save for a
murmur from Greslin whenever their course changed. Timmer’s wheezing had
become more rapid and panicky after a while, and he even pulled on Greslin's
sleeve and asked for a break at one point, his weak voice barely audible over the
screeching wind. Greslin’s only response was to quicken his pace even more to a
light jog.
 The men groaned but jogged obediently, apparently the rest of them sharing
the same train of thought as Fortuna.
“Verga”, gasped Santavilla under his breath, and Fortuna heard him smack
Timmer hard on the back, which emanated a panicked cry from the big oaf.
Fortuna’s lungs hurt from breathing in all that cold air, and the pain in his
broken ribs was renewed. Behind him, Leopold’s grunted breathing came out calm
and even, inhaled through his nose and out the mouth. Not much of a sweat for
him. Fortuna himself tried it and found it didn’t tire him out as much as through
mouth-only breathing, and it too, calmed him. Timmer, on the other hand, was
sounding all the world as though he were getting chased by satan himself; he was
gasping and wheezing for air obnoxiously loud, sounding panicky, and every now
and then he cried out, causing the trees around them to reverberate irritively with
the noise.
For nearly the entire 8 hour journey, they jogged non-stop without saying a
word to each other, as though they did not even acknowledge each other's
existence. Well, there wasn’t much in making small talk while jogging through the
dark in the forbidding woods, numb with the cold and breathing in thin, frigid air
from the high altitude. Timmer especially was barely making ends meet, having to
ultimately succumb to one of Leopold’s massive shoulders.
In those long, long gruelling hours slogging through the dirty muck and
snow of that cursed mountain with the deceivingly gentle curve, they encountered
not a single other human being, or even evidence of any human presence. Fortuna,
for one, could still hardly believe they were in New York -these days synonymous
more than anything else for that sprawling, frigid, rat-infested expanse of
anonymous skyscrapers, smelly cabbies, uppity-yuppies, extravagant penthouses,
and moving masses of sick, disgusting bodies, tightly packed within its boundaries
like so many sardines in a giant tin can, so full as to be ready to burst open at any
moment.
Now, however, Fortuna was having none of that. Around him was nothing
more than snow, huge pine trees, the howling wind in his numbed-up face, and,
occasionally, a stunning view of the Adirondack Park with what little sunlight was
left and through the dense leaves of the pines. Snaking through the valley of trees
far below him, he caught the glistening surface of a frozen river, curving gracefully
through the thickets and off to the south and beyond towards the black-gray
horizon, until it disappeared to the other side of the gentle curve of the earth itself.
There was a sharp intake of air from behind Fortuna, and it did not come
from Timmer. Their pace slowed down a notch for a change.
“A problem, Mr. Smith?”, said Greslin to his left matter-of-factly, sounding
surprisingly calm and collected, not at all betraying the physical agony the rest of
them suffered, save maybe Leopold.
Smith, the stocky older man with the pink face, took a few more gasps of air
and stopped in his tracks. Everyone else stopped and faced him.
“My vision isn’t as reliable as it used to be, but it’s to my fair judgement, Mr.
Greslin, that just a click or so that way, there’s a shack in the middle of the woods,
probably abandoned.”
Everyone else turned to where he pointed, off to the left from their general
course. Fortuna saw only pine trees and darkness, and even then, only about 100
yards of it. That the guy was able to make out a shack a whole damn kilometer into
those woods was impossible.
“Hmmm”, sounded Greslin, equally perplexed. At least Fortuna knew he
wasn’t alone. “And just what, Mr. Smith, led you to that conclusion?”
“Well, Mr. Greslin, it’s just that, as we reached the summit and made the
curve towards the east, I was able to just barely make out the outline of a shack over
yonder. I stared right at it through the trees, and sure enough, I caught the glimmer
of glass from a window.”
“Oh, bullshit”, blurted Leopold. “The man’s hallucinating. What he saw was a
mirage, nothing more. Saw a couple shacks myself down there, too, if you get me.
There’s no way any folk could, or even want, to call a place as shitty as this joint
home. Might as well live with an eight-inch icicle shoved so far up-”
“Thank you so much for your insight, Mr. Smith. It looks like that affair is
settled with. Our good friend back at Co-op never stressed time being of essence,
so it looks like we just got a break cut for ourselves. Surely, Mr. Duff, you wouldn’t
prefer to continue on trodding on mindlessly like boogeymen through the night
and catch hypothermia or some other nasty, would you? We’re sleeping like
goddamned angel babies in the clouds tonight, gentlemen. Lead the way, Mr.
Smith.”

Chapter 15
That night’s sleep in the shack proved to be surprisingly comfortable for
Fortuna; It was, in fact, some of the best sleep he’d had in years; a far-cry from the
concrete slabs in the medieval, frigid prison cells at Rikers. From the outside, the
shack was half-timbered and real primitive looking, as if straight from the dark
ages; it was, however, well insulated and Fortuna did not feel the least bit cold
throughout the night. The inside of the shack was little more than a single room
about 15 by 10 feet. Unsurprisingly, there was only one bed, which was handed over
to the corpse-like Timmer. The rest of them had to sleep on the floor of raw pine
wood, utilizing some sacks of flour and salt as pillows. Fortuna, who last slept in
Rikers island two days ago before his departure, was beyond fatigued from their
journey so far and almost immediately fell into delicious sleep when his head had
hit the sack.
That was, until Greslin rudely awoke him the following morning by
splashing his face with water.
“Wake up, gentlemen! It’s already 10 and we’ve got a long day ahead of us!”
 “Hey man, what the fuck?” Fortuna roared at Greslin. Being the first to get
splashed, Fortuna had already awoken everyone else, but Greslin nonetheless
splashed them as well, including Timmer. No further special treatment for him, it
seemed.
“Gaahhh!”
“Piece of shit!”
“motherfucker!”
“I thought you said time wasn’t of essence!” Fortuna cried over the
commotion, noticing that same cold smile curled up on Greslin’s features. He was
clearly one of those physcotic types outside who found pleasure in the suffering of
others, probably sexual pleasure no less. Fortuna didn’t even want to know
anymore what he had to do to have ended up on Rikers and ultimately on Death
Row.
“Right you are, Mr. Fortuna. However, while you were all still asleep, I took
the time to go on a quick re-con, see if I could spot Dracula’s Castle through the
trees."
Fortuna could see that Greslin’s grin dissipated to stoicness and his face
became dark and shadowy, despite the late morning sun streaming through a
window.
Fortuna shook his head impatiently and turned up his palms in silent
questioning, eyeballing Greslin.
“That last part wasn’t sarcasm, Mr. Fortuna. This isn’t just some ancient
Nazi’s retirement sanctum we’re dealing with. You, Mr. Rickson, how are you
feeling? Get a goodnight’s rest?”
“I feel much better, sir, but I don’t think I-”
“That’s great, Mr. Rickson. Hey, since you seem to be the biggest and
strongest of us, won’t you be so kind as to search those cabinets there and carry
with you anything that might help us?”
Without waiting for a response, Greslin faced Leopold and Santavilla, still
lying on the floor, looking groggy and semi-conscious.
“Wakey-wakey, ladies”, he said, then proceeded to slap them each on the face
until their eyes went wide and alert.
 “Gentlemen, just as I’ve expected, this affair is much more dangerous than
what was implied. That Brimstone and his cronies are spooks, and none of what he
has done or doing is within the bell curve of human decency and lawfulness. He
has practically sent us off to our deaths, knowing that none of us are getting out of
this alive, and no doubt he’s also got men prepared in the nearest towns, silent and
in wait should we abort the mission thinking we’ll walk off scott-free.”
His intense gaze and officious, booming voice did the job of keeping them
silent and obedient, like sheep under control by their shepherd dog overlord.
“Listen”, he said in a lower tone to no one in particular. “I want each and
every one of you to thoroughly eliminate any expectations or assumptions you
might have had about this task, because I can assure you that whatever is
behind that crooked fence of the complex will be unlike anything you’d have
imagined.
“For now, we will traverse the path I took on my recon, but not in the same
manner as yesterday. We will walk in a single row to hide our numbers, and we will
do so at a slower pace to cease any noise. No talking this time.”
“You don’t really think there’s spooks out there?”, remarked Santavilla.
“I don’t think, I know. Especially after what I saw on my recon. I wouldn’t be
surprised if some guy up in a tree already saw us and alerted his fellow goons up at
the complex. But we’ll stay quiet nonetheless, in case they didn’t. That goes to you,
too, Mr. Rickson. Your goddamned whining and groaning had probably already
gotten us tagged long before. Shit. Should've thought of this then.”
Fortuna was torn away from the coziness of the little shack and back he was
into the whiplashing wind and a bright sun whose rays penetrated the thick canopy
but provided no warmth. Timmer had found plenty of goods in the cabinets of the
shack, including a large bag of organic deer jerky (Greslin said it was deer), a water
bottle with a screwed-on filter, a Bear & Son foldable hunting knife, a gallon of gas,
half-empty box of matches, and some large deer buckskins with a thin coating of
fur. All of this he carried in a large camping backpack that hung from a wall, save
the skins; these, Greslin had them put on, which were fastened around their
shoulders with some safety pins, also found in the cabinets. The deer skins hung
down just above their knees and they all looked like damned bushmen that just
emerged from a mudhut. The buckskin didn’t exactly help with the cold, but it sure
did keep the frosty wind from lashing through Fortuna’s thin prison garb and on
his skin.
They walked away from the shack and continued on their previous course
towards the north, not following any trail since there weren’t any, but rather the
faint footprints from Greslin’s previous course, which zig-zagged its way through
the trees and the occasional snow-capped outcropping. It was one those
unseasonably bright, clear days in the midst of winter that falsely promised a
spring that wouldn’t come for another 3 months. It was the winter version of
Indian summer. The wind, which had been blowing from the east the previous
night, now fledged from the North, from the greater Adirondack mountain range
itself, the very direction they were heading. Everyone had their heads down and
hunched as they walked, like soldiers heading straight for the enemy front while
getting shot at by an endless barrage of bullets; all except Greslin, as always, who
was in the lead and looked straight into that barbaric wind from hell despite the
footprints below. The canopy above trembled violently, shaking the snow off its top
and sending it down on them, giving the impression they were in the middle of a
blizzard. To Fortuna, everything seemed so alien and frightening. In his previous
line of work, he had a reputation of being ruthless, explosive, hateful, and without
remorse in his business decisions and practices, believe it or not. It was an
incredible feat of nature that a little bit of snow, wind, and some trees could really
subdue a man to a mere speck of dust, left to the mercy of God .
They weren’t long into their walk when something very strange, and even
more frightening, occurred. Directly ahead of him, Greslin -with the deadly silence
of a professional assassin and a single sharp twist of the waist- had grappled
Fortuna like a boa constrictor and tackled him down to the snow, covering his
mouth before he could let out so much as a peep. He looked back and mentioned
for everyone else to get down, then put his finger to his lips for silence.
Unsurprisingly, Timmer remained upright for a moment, shocked and
uncomprehending of what was happening; Smith had to pull him down himself.
A deathly silence ensued. Even the rustling of the branches seemed to have
ceased all the sudden. Fortuna was scared stupid, and he could feel the color
draining from his face. The very fear of it paralyzed him and he didn’t even
breathe. The only other time he had felt this way was when he was a child at school
during those shooter drills, when the loudspeaker blurted the codeword and a
creepy monotone alarm after and everyone would scramble under their desks, as if
they were bulletproof or the shooter was too stupid to shoot from underneath.
Fortuna could feel his heart thumping hard in his ears, and thought that
everyone else could hear it. He heard Timmer in the back mutter something but
Smith quickly silenced him. And then he heard it: the unmistakable noise of feet
dragging against the rough snow -a single pair by the sound of it. Dragging, slowly,
and seemingly without any apparent purpose. It sounded very faint and far away,
and Fortuna couldn’t believe Greslin was able to catch the sound when they were
still walking. Or did he see something instead? Surely if it was a spook he wouldn’t
be walking out there in the snow making so much noise, so what was the deal?
Probably just some loony who wandered off too far from a trail and got lost or
some unfortunate outcast that washed up on the nearby river. Or maybe it was the
person that used the shack that they had just slept in. But no, that couldn’t be,
because that would’ve meant that he’d have returned eventually sometime during
the night. Hell, Greslin probably saw or heard some large wild animal for all he
knew.
This train of thought ceased when Timmer, apparently freed from Smith’s
grasp, wheezed out, “I fucking saw him.”
Fortuna got all the more panicky. He realized that if Greslin hadn’t subdued
him and covered his mouth, he would have surley blurted out something stupid
and put them in danger.
Whoever him was was still out there, closer now, but still dragging through
the snow without purpose. Fortuna could not help it. Frightened as he was, he lifted
his head slightly, just enough for his eyes to be able to see directly ahead. Maybe
whatever was out there wouldn’t be as scary as he’d imagined.
His eyes met only the monotonous expanse of closely-packed pine trees and
snow along a slight downward curve. All was silent. There was no way Greslin could
have seen anything out there. There was no movement save for the gentle swaying
of the canopy overhead. It took him a long, long time to see it. Only when he
spotted the very slightest bit of movement from an eye twitching did he see him.
“Fortuna, you son of a bitch, get down.”
But Fortuna didn’t listen, nor could he move. The sight before him had
transfixed him on the spot and he couldn’t take his eyes off of it.
There, not 300 yards away, directly ahead, Fortuna saw a large, horrifying
white face the color of snow. He noted with disturbing clarity the rest of his
features: robust, clean-shaven, matted blonde hair, powerful square jawline,
bulging jugular pulsing beneath the skin of a thick neck, and two gigantic eyeballs
of deep-blue irises, grotesquely protruding halfway out of their sockets. The worst
of it was the smile that was locked firmly in-place like the grin on a skull.

Chapter 16
NYPD Lieutenant Fattino Vicci, sitting in the passenger seat of the silver
Ford Escape driven by his co-worker and long-time friend, Andre Leroy, was
blazing with fury.
 That damned Brimstone, he thought, mustering a supreme will of effort not to
delve into another ranting outburst. Even the thought of the sonuvabitch’s name gets my
blood boiling. He really had to cool the hell down, he thought, otherwise his high
blood pressure will give him a heart attack or something, or so the doctors claim.
Nonetheless, he couldn’t wait to get his hands on the asshole for what he’d done;
this time, he told himself, there will be no empty promises. He will do it, despite
the warnings from Leroy and their fellow conspirator, no other than good friend
Sergeant Seitzler, Brimstone’s apparent loyal right-hand-man as well as their most
valuable asset in blowing the lid off the so-called Vita Nova Rejuvenation Program
and exposing Captain Stanley Brimstone of the NYPD.
He and Leroy were headed off to that same building at Co-Op City for their
unofficial “hearing”, as the Captain briefly put it to him. If they were to actually
comply with Brimstone, despite all he’d done, Vicci would have absolutely no idea
what this “hearing” would be about. Yesterday morning, when Vicci was taking
Brimstone’s place in giving instructions to the six convicts while he was “away”, he
was ordered to do so by the captain, and him implying otherwise in front of the
convicts was a bunch of blatant lies. On top of that, Brimstone told him that it
didn’t matter whether he wore a uniform or not. The captain, knowing Vicci, knew
damn well that the department didn’t offer uniforms his size, forcing him to wear
one that was tight and suffocating, and he knew Vicci would only feel relieved to
not have to wear one. It was the perfect set-up for ultimate humiliation, and Vicci
constantly cursed himself for not foreseeing
To make his intrusion seem authentic, Brimstone left Sergeant Seitlzer in the
dark about the whole affair, telling him only to watch the place while he was away
on his “trip” to Lisbon; this prompted Seitlzer to question Vicci on just what the
hell he thought he was doing. To this, Vicci answered truthfully, telling him all
about the captain’s orders. Of course, Seitlzer did not believe a word of it and
contacted the captain while he was “away”. What Brimstone told him only
confirmed Seitzler’s suspicions: no, he said, he had never ordered Vicci -god
forbid- to take his place as Head Director of Nova Vita, no less without uniform,
which gives the program the appearance of officiousness and legitimacy in the first
place.
 As for Leroy, who had been on leave when Brimstone had made the
announcement and when the convicts arrived. Neither him nor Vicci had any idea
why he was getting disciplined as well. For all Vicci knew, the only flaw that Leroy
really had for which he received criticism from everyone else on the program was
that he was fat.
Vicci could feel the adrenaline coursing through his veins from the
excitement that the next hour or so will no doubt bring to them. Or was that just
his high-blood pressure again? No matter, he could always lose weight sometime in
the near-future, so he wasn’t worried. (Vicci had made himself this same promise
for years now and never really did so much as walk to his office and take out the
trash, and even that was only on occasion. And his job at the NYPD? Forget it.
Thanks to Nova Vita, he has others discreetly do his dirty work for him, so for most
of the day he fills up piles of paperwork while munching on donuts.)
Both him and Leroy were wearing their crisp police uniforms straight from
the laundry place, just as Brimstone told them to before their meeting, although
not at Cosmo’s -they weren’t stupid enough to travel all 20 miles to the shittiest
corner of all the Bronx. The guy that Brimstone installed there to confirm their
arrival can go fuck himself. They knew that getting their uniforms cleaned was
unnecessary for what they were going to do, but hey, the guy wasn’t wrong: his
uniform did look like shit, all crusty and stiff from dried-up sweat and mottled with
stains from chinese take-out and cheap beer. If he was going to kick Brimstone’s
ass, he might as well look presentable before doing it.
“Traffic’s looking a little light, huh, Fatti?”
Fattino inhaled deeply. “I’ve already told you not to call me that, asshole.
Besides, I’m not the only one here who’s had a cardiac arrest before in a public
area. At least I didn’t have mine at a goddamned KFC.”
Leroy unleashed an uproarious laughter that shook the whole car. “Fuck you
man! Sensitive-ass Fattino can’t take no joke as always! But hey, speaking of KFC,
we do have a couple more minutes to kill and, I mean…”
“Nah, Leroy. I can’t be eating right before I kick Brimstone’s ass. What if the
fucker punches me in the gut and I throw up my lunch all over the place? That
Brimstone’s already gone far enough to humiliate me in front of Seitlzer and the
convicts. I don’t care about how much his program’s helped me. I’m telling you,
Leroy, the guy’s gonna pay.”
“Hey, look, man, I feel you all the way. I know what you’re going through,
coming from a fat-ass mothuhfuckuh myself. But you really gotta chill with that,
though. If you stay mad like this when we get there, you ain’t gonna shit done,
man. You gotta stay cool in situations like these. You know what I mean? Execute
this shit like a military operation. Just stick to the plan and everything will work
out. Trust me, bro.”
Vicci shrugged. He had a point. Fattino had to compose himself. Going
apeshit in the face of Brimstone was probably not the best strategy, after all. He
took a couple of deep breaths until his heart rate dropped to normal.
“Damn, am I glad Seitzler is on our side on this,” said Vicci. “Without him,
none of this planning could have bore fruit. But shit, despite everything, I still can’t
believe how crazy it is how Seitzler, of all people, is conspiring with us, even his
two corporals. I don’t know, Leroy, it seems a little too convenient, considering he's
the guy's own right-hand man, no? You don’t he’s a double agent, do you? Hope he
doesn’t stab us in the back at the worst moment.”
Leroy let off another cackling boom of laughter that shook the car’s interior
like a subwoofer, or like a machine gun being fired indoors. “Man, you really are a
sack of bullshit, Fatti! If he were a double agent, he wouldn’t have gone through all
that effort to write you that message on the paper bag. And think about all that
planning we went through; you think he would have wasted so much time with us
on that? Look, bro, just stop being such a paranoid ass, ok? All’s gonna go as
planned, I’m telling you.”
Vicci didn’t reply. It was better if he just kept his mouth shut, then. They
remained silent for the rest of the trip, listening to Leroy’s shitty hip-hop playlist,
composed of a slew of underground NYC rappers that Vicci hoped would remain
underground, where they belonged.

When Brimstone had replied to Sergeant Seitzler’s report regarding Vicci, he

told him not to interfere in Vicci’s work and let him know that he was right; he
himself would see to matters personally. Seitzler let Vicci play the big man, up until
the arrival of the convicts; that’s when Brimstone heroically reappeared after
returning from his “trip” to deliver the finishing-blow of his masterful plan of
deception and lies.
The day before the convicts arrived, Vicci made sure to use that precious
time to try to negate himself as an intruder to Seitlzer’s eyes. One small fact that
Brimstone overlooked in his plan was the grid of smartly-hidden cameras that
Vicci knew he’d installed in the room containing his and Leroy’s cubicles, the same
room where Brimstone had announced his trip to Vicci and had him assigned as
Head Director for the time being. He was about to tell Seitzler that if he didn’t
believe him, he could just go ahead and view the footage that the cameras had
picked up the day before when it happened. However, as he was about to leave his
office to go to Seitzler’s own, the very man himself entered, carrying with him that
same air of purposefulness that made him look intimidating and almost
military-like, as always with those beady shark eyes of his underneath his visor. He
carried in one hand an empty bag of McDonald’s, crumpled at the top from his
tight grip.
“Did you eat my fucking fries, you fat sack of shit?”, he yelled at Vicci.
“Wha-? Sir, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Vicci had never eaten
his fries, let alone even left his office since he first arrived in the morning.
Seitzler threw the greasy bag at Vicci in a fit of rage.
“You useless fucking slob. We’re going to get you court-martialed for this, you hear?”
Vicci had grown used to always getting yelled at and harrassed by Seitzler
and his goons, but they only did that to entertain themselves for the most part. Not
once did Seitzler actually try to threaten him.
Vicci was sweating and holding his hands up, as if to prove they weren’t
coated with guilt or fry grease. “I swear to you, sir, I did not eat your fries. I’ve been
in my office all morning.”
Seitlzer wordlessly walked right up to Vicci’s desk and slapped him hard
across his face before he could swivel around. He recoiled in pain and felt a tear
trickle down his hot cheek.
 “Brimstone oughta lock you up in a cage for a few years. You and Leroy. Maybe then
you fat fucks wouldn’t be stealing everyone’s food all the goddamned time. Next time I come
in here, I want your fat-ass standing in salute to your superior, you got that?!”

After Seitzler had left the office, Vicci sat there for 15 minutes or so, silently
crying in self-pity, not for the first time that day contemplating suicide with his
service piece, which was always within reach -with the safety off, of course. As he
heaved himself out of his seat with some difficulty to go wash himself off, he
noticed the empty bag on the floor. To his utter disbelief, on the side facing up, he
noticed a hastily scrawled message written in sharpie:

VICCI:

I know all about Brimstone’s sham. More info inside, but read in bathroom.

Very sorry about the slap. Had to look authentic.

Sergeant Seitlzer.

What?! What the hell is this? Thought Vicci, dumbfounded. Why would Sergeant
Seitlzer make such a big show just to hand him this damn paper bag? That
oppressive asshole! Wait a second… oh crap! So he knows! Vicci didn’t need to tell
him after all. That’s when Vicci understood: the cameras. Seitzler couldn’t very well
just walk into Vicci’s office and tell him everything straight away; he had to be more
implicit than that. As for going to the bathroom, Vicci knew those were the only
rooms in the whole make-shift office suite that didn’t have cameras, so he could go
in there to read the rest of Seitzler’s note without doing it in here, which would
look suspicious.
Thankfully, the building had once been a suite of studio apartments, so his
office, once one of those studios, had its own small bathroom, which he and Leroy
used for smoke breaks. (Smoking was prohibited indoors, but the bathroom was
nonetheless an excellent substitute for going outside, which required they descend
20 stories just to get to the ground floor.)
He got inside and locked the door behind him, then sat on the toilet seat and
shook out the bag’s pathetic contents: a load of geasy crumbs and an assortment of
unused napkins. Sure enough, one of the napkins was covered in Seitlzer’s writing,
so small that Vicci had to squint to look at it:

Brimstone is fucking with us, Vicci. He never told me that you were

going to take his place while he was gone, but I looked at the footage that

your office’s cameras picked up. Brimstone apparently gave Valentina the

encryption key to the monitoring room’s computers, and I convinced her to let

me look inside to confirm my suspicions, and I downloaded the footage on a

usb in case Brimstone tries to delete it later. When I called him, he told me

that he had never put you in charge and had never summoned those convicts

we’re supposed to meet tomorrow. He also told me to not interfere in what

you're doing, said he’ll cancel the rest of the trip and return the next day

after to see to matters personally. Since he did, in fact, put you in charge,

you might as well commence with the briefing with the convicts. He hasn’t

cancelled their scheduled arrival, after all. I’ve tried reaching him again, but

he never picks up. Me and my men are just as confused as you are on this,

Vicci, and we are 100% with you. I’ve been working with Brimstone for three

years now and I can tell you something about him isn’t right. I know he’s
 planning something. Tomorrow, after the briefing, meet up at Don Josue’s.

Quick, discard this note in the toilet when you are done and resume your work

as normal. We are not to discuss this further.

Sure enough, on the day of that horrible session in Brimstone’s office, they
met up at Don Josue’s Puerto Rican Restaurant. When Vicci questioned Seitlzer for
not having said anything when Brimstone arrived, he decided -and Vicci agreed-
that it was best to do it during Vicci’s and Leroy’s “hearing” tomorrow, as they
referred to it. Since Leroy was now involved, Vicci brought him along, and Seitzler
brought his two underlings with him as well: Corporal Carlos Garcia and Corporal
Hunter Buck.
For the rest of the afternoon, they sat there in a relatively obscure corner of
the restaurant in plain-clothes, which looked especially weird and awkward on
someone so military-like as Seitzler. Vicci, and Leroy were, for a change, too busy
brainstorming ideas with Seitzler to feel hungry. Garcia and Buck, on the other
hand, weren’t as tenacious, and they wolfed down round after round of empanaditas
and iced tea. Seitzler brought along some ancient blueprints that Brimstone had
given him when he first joined Nova Vita.
Seitzler said that Brimstone asked him and his men to take their shift off
tomorrow, during the hearing. This was most uncharacteristic of Brimstone, who
always ensured that his right-hand man and subordinates remained on-guard
during the work-hours of the Nova Vita offices. Yes, they agreed, there is definitely
something fishy going on here. They also agreed right off the bat that Brimstone
had never actually gone to Lisbon; the time it would have taken Brimstone to head
back to New York from Lisbon, they didn’t even have to estimate. It was no
coincidence either that he happened to arrive during Vicci’s session with the
convicts, instead of the day after, as he said he would. He must have been
monitoring them all along, deciding to reveal himself only when the moment was
just right.
 The plan itself was relatively simple: Everyone would enter the building at
the same time, like an entourage, in absolutely no rush, in spite of the cameras that
Brimstone no doubt had installed on the ground floor. Brimstone would see all of
them, and then realize that he’d been out-foxed. That was the one possibility that
Brimstone did not consider: the arrival of extra man-power. There would be
nothing he could do, since there were no fire escapes to flee to, leaving the pairs of
elevators and staircases as the only method of escape, their terminus being the
ground floor; all according to the blueprints. The ground floor, composed of a
single hallway with an entrance on both ends and rooms, elevators, and stairways
on either side, was left to be guarded by Corporal Buck with his omnipresent Street
Sweeper.
Seitlzer and Vicci would take one elevator, and Corporal Garcia and Leroy
would take the other, they decided. (this by no means had any tactical strategy; it
was simply because a single elevator could not hold them all, let alone Vicci and
Leroy, explaining the fat-man-skinny-man pairs.)
Once on Floor 83, which contained the meager cluster of offices for Nova
Vita, they would storm all the rooms on the floor using their police raid-tactics,
starting with Brimstone’s office. Vicci, being the slowest one and therefore the most
useless, would be the watchman, stationed at the very end of the only hallway that
comprised the entire floor. Should Brimstone emerge from another room to make
an escape, he would radio the rest of the crew. Brimstone, a man of money and
deceptive charm, seemed like the type who would install secret compartments in
his domains, Seitzler presumed, so the raiding party would ensure that everything
on the premises be “swept clean” for any such contraptions.
Once Brimstone was found, they would, first and foremost, ask him why he
had gone through great lengths to execute such an elaborate plot of deception to
ultimately trick Vicci into committing treachery against him, and what was
Brimstone going to do with him and Leroy once they arrived for their “hearing”?
What they were going to do with him after was a matter of debate, and that took up
the majority of their meeting. Vicci and Leroy, on one hand, wanted to blackmail
him: either Brimstone hand over all the money they knew he kept hidden in the
safe behind his desk, as well as his most treasured Objet d'arts, or they would
release the footage from the video footage online. Seitzler, however, could care less
about money or old shitty fetishes, and, to Vicci’s profound horror, he wanted to
actually kill the bastard on the spot, not waiting for explanations, then burn down
the whole building to erase the evidence. The only basis for this impulsiveness was
that he had a “bad feeling” about Brimstone; said that he was sick in the mind, even
though he had no evidence to back that up, other than his 3 years of service to him.
He came up with some bizzare Ted-Bundy-esque theory about how otherwise
seemingly-harmless men like Brimstone were actually remorseless, psychotic
murderers and rapists in disguise, using their charm, good-looks and masterful
skills of deception to get what they need.
In the end, they at last dismissed both plans as too extremist and could
possibly get them into even deeper shit, especially as enforcers of the law who were
supposed to prevent catastrophes like these in the first place.
They all knew that Brimstone had friends in the highest echelons of the
NYPD, who would no doubt arrange for him a court hearing leaning in his favor,
but they nonetheless agreed in arresting him on the grounds of unethical employer
misconduct, using the video footage as evidence, which they knew no amount of
money could possibly convince the judges otherwise, unless Brimstone, too, was
well acquainted with them. But he couldn’t be that powerful, could he? Apart from
that, they only had to hope that Brimstone hadn’t already built some secret
emergency escape-shaft to get himself out in a jiffy.

Vicci realized that, in his deep thought, he had fallen asleep in the car,
blessingly spared of another 15 minutes of Leroy’s shitty music. When he opened
his eyes, he saw that they had arrived at Co-op City. The Indian Summer day was
long gone, and the clear blue sky above became covered entirely by a huge
dark-gray canopy of low-hanging clouds churning in swirls from a violent
nor’easter. Out in the distance, a powerful flash of lightning outlined a monstrous
rectangular silhouette that towered head-and-shoulders above the rest. It was the
unnamed building of apartment studios containing the offices of the Nova Vita
Rejuvenation Program on the 83rd floor, and Seitzler and his men were waiting for
them in a nearby square. For some unknown reason, Vicci unconsciously hoped
that no one would get killed.

Chapter 17
“Vicci, Leroy! my boys! aren’t you two looking real swell.” Seitzler and his
goons let off a chorus of laughter just as Vicci and Leroy approached them. Not
many people have seen this side of Seitzler’s character, but Vicci practically had to
live with it, and that's not something said with much gratitude. And for Vicci to
have thought that he’d actually changed during their rare cooperation, him having
become more sympathetic towards Vicci and Leroy and actually respecting them for
a change.
The three of them were sitting on a concrete bench, located in a public
square between four identical highrises, festooned with graffiti and trash.
“Man, these mother-fuckers wasted!”, proclaimed Leroy, pointing at the
empty 40 oz. bottles of Colt 45 strewn all over the bench. In fact, the entire square
was littered with them, along with the inevitable Old Englishe and Private Stock.
The stuff was practically the water of the ghetto.
“What do you expect? You pair of boobs arrived late, as usual.” said Seitzler.
“You tell ‘em boss. ‘Nuff time for Garcia here to down five of these suckers”,
chimed in Corporal Buck.
“Asshole.” Garcia gave Buck a more-than-playful-punch to his shoulder,
“You’ve drunk just as many as I did. At least I haven’t cat-called every single damn
‘hood-rat that’s passed us by, Corporal Cuck.”
Seitzler gave a hearty laugh, then took a long pull from his drink, letting the
quarrel between his two goons turn more violent. The liquor had really loosened
up Seitlzer.
He was about to down the rest of it until Vicci suddenly bursted like an
artery, releasing an anger contained within himself from the years he’s worked
with this man, and he jerked the bottle out of his hand and smashed it on the
concrete bench directly beneath him, prompting Seitzler and his goons to
instinctively lift their legs up in the air. They recoiled back, trying to avoid the
shards of glass that flew everywhere.
“Yo, Vicci, stop it man!”, yelled Leroy, standing in between him and the
bench. Vicci tried to bulldoze his way through Leroy, and when that didn’t work, he
tried pulling him down to the floor with his weight, but the man proved
surprisingly strong, stopping Vicci from tearing Seitzler a new asshole.
“You worthless pieces of shit! Pathetic mutts! All that trouble we’ve gone
through, all that planning, just for it to have come to nothing! I can’t fucking
believe this! You sorry-asses won’t be able to get shit done now! Un-fucking
believable! C’mon, Leroy, We can get the job done ourselves. We don’t need these
losers.”
Leroy got hold of Vicci’s fat upper arm as he was about to turn away.
“No, no, man! That’s not how it works”, whined Leroy. “No damn way I’m
going in there with just your fat-ass. You shouldn’t, either. What if Brimstone plans
to kill us or something?”
“Suit yourself then! I’ll go up alone and you can stay on the ground floor. I’ll
give you a call to let you know when my work is done and I’m heading down the
elevator. Otherwise, you see any other motherfucker come out those elevator
doors, you shoot the bastard, no questions asked.”