Chapter Twenty

Ruthie and Peter, Rod and Shelby, George and Patty Mary; all three couples were furious that their so-called minders had slipped up so badly. The three couples were supposed to be kept in separate locations around the United States. Due to a paperwork mix-up, however, they ended up in the same hotel in Plattsburgh, New York, not that far from Montréal. By an incredibly terrible coincidence of bad luck, Ed Palmer, who was supposed to meet with his North Korean contact that same day, was staying in the exact same hotel. When he saw the six sitting down for dinner at the hotel, he pulled out his CIA-issue revolver and held the entire dining room at gunpoint. He then pointed it at the three couples and waved them out of the hotel and into his van.

A few hours later, after taking a circuitous route to confuse the authorities, Ed drove into the border-town. With the same gun, he chased the frightened residents out and forced the three couples in. Ruthie was grumbling something about drat the luck.

It was now hour seven of the stand-off. Ed had untied the binds tying the six together, and they were now sitting in a semi-circle facing each other and around Ed, but he was still astride the border, and still holding the needle in his hand, still demanding a volunteer among the men of who would be the first to die. He was running out of patience, almost at the point he would just pick one at random.

Suddenly, Shelby spoke up. "Take me."

"Excuse me?" said Ed.

"Take me. Go ahead, and kill me first."

"No," said Ed, "it's the men that are going to go. I know enough to save the women, especially the pregnant ones. If you weren't pregnant, I would kill you, but as a hunter I have a duty to protect the cubs."

"So that's what we are to you," said Ruthie angrily, "animals?"

"Do you have any sense of decency, Palmer?" added Patty Mary. "We're supposed to get on with the rest of our lives, and you're just going to take that away from us. Can you give us one good reason why? Especially after you murdered the mother of your sons?"

"The LORD is my shepherd ..." intoned Ed.

"The hell he is!" snapped George. "You and I both work for the same idiot; or at least we both used to, it's just me now, and there isn't a damn thing we can do about it. What made you turn against your own country? And what could possibly make you turn against people who most other people would be glad to have as friends?"

"Okay, since you're asking that question, I suppose it deserves a straight answer," replied Ed. "Two years ago, one of my contacts at MI-6 – you know, British Foreign Intelligence – told me that a terrorist was about to secretly travel to the States to meet with his under links in preparation.

"He would be disguised as your average tourist, and said that since I was stationed near the rendezvous point, I was in the best position to take him out. I track him down and he turns the tables on me. The next thing I know, I'm served with an extradition warrant to answer charges of tax evasion in France. Seems that I have a yen for gambling and one night I won big in Monaco."

"Aren't gaming winnings tax free in most of the rest of the world?" asked Peter.

"The principle, yes, but if you earn an income off of that, then it is taxed. I parked the money in a bank account in Paris thinking it'd be there for just a few days while I got my ducks in a row for my next mission, trying to assassinate the North Korean leader. In my euphoria in winning the money, though, I used my real name on the account instead of my CIA code name. And the money was left unattended for four years."

"What does that have to do with us?" asked Ruthie.

"The agent who busted me is someone you busted ages ago. Guillaume."

"Guy?" Ruthie laughed. "That rude, smoking – I'm not going to use the word."

"On the flight over to face the charges, he had his arm shackled to mine in case I tried to make a break for it. He mentioned something about spending time in America, and how your family blew him off. I then remembered my son Robbie spending time at the Camdens. I couldn't believe it was one and the same family."

"If I recall correctly, Ed, Guy was the one who blew us off, not the other way around."

"Whatever."

"That still doesn't explain why you betrayed your country, and why you want to kill us," said Rod.

"Guy's then current flame was someone in the Gendarmerie who was in charge of security for the North Korean chargé d'affaires in Paris. Let's just say that that woman also had a special relationship with the chargé. The North Koreans had been attempting for years to infiltrate the CIA, and wanted to keep a low profile, so they set up a monitoring post in Paris. It's a long story, but everyone has a price, and they met mine. They asked for documents, which I gave them. They asked for ways around the firewalls of some of America's biggest banks, which I gave them.

"And they asked for one other thing. To kill people at random to confuse the authorities, while they completed the penetration of the CIA and I personally delivered what they were really after – long standing invasion plans for an American attack of North Korea from the South."

"Wait a minute," said Peter. "Why would Guy want to collaborate with you on that?"

"He also had a price. Basically, by the time he and I got back to Paris, he more or less made sure the documents were shredded so there was no proof that I had intended to defraud the tax authorities. He has friends within the terrorist community, so they'll never find him even if they tried."

"And why the six of us?" asked Rod in desperation.

"That was Guy's quid pro quo, kill Ruthie and five of her friends, and in return he'd look the other way as I became a turncoat for the other side; and pretended that he never met me."

"Well, as I said," replied Shelby, "that'll all well and good, but if you're going to kill someone, it's going to have to be me, Ed; because when you raped me, you robbed me of everything that I am and have; as well as my dignity, my self-worth, my hopes and my dreams. I can no longer feel pleasure with Rod, in fact I can feel nothing at all when he and I make love. There is no point in having any more children if I know those children weren't conceived in love. But what's worse, you robbed me of my ability to have compassion for anyone else. If you asked Patty Mary, she'd tell you that's the same thing that happened to her when you attacked her."

Patty Mary nodded. During Shelby's recitation, she was slowly removing one article of clothing at a time, in front of all the others.

"Besides, how far can I go in an organization like the Marines, when their unofficial motto is, 'A few good men'? I am not a man with a womb. What's the point in living anymore? What's the point of my unborn child entering a world where there is no love anymore, where everyone's patriotism is questioned, where the motto of most preachers is 'Clam it and grab it,' in short, what's the point, period? At least you walked away from The Government. I AM The Government, the one you hate so much. Go ahead, I have nothing to lose."

Shelby had now unfinished dressing, and was standing legs apart, one foot on the Canadian side of the border, the other on the American. She was only three feet away from her tormentor.

"I'll even let you rape me one more time before you kill me," she added. "There's just one thing you should remember, however."

"What's that?" asked Ed.

"I'm having YOUR baby."

Ed dropped the syringe, in total shock. At the same moment, the stiletto he had used to attack Shelby and Rod fell out of the other arm, the one he had tried to conceal. He never had a chance.

Shelby lunged forward and kicked him in the crotch. Rod pulled the belt off from around his pants and started strangling Ed. Patty Mary, for her part, started kicking Ed on the right side of his ribcage while George did the same from his left. Peter, meantime, had retrieved the stiletto and was now slashing Ed's legs, alternating between left and right.

It took them about a minute, but Ed finally collapsed on the ground, begging for mercy. But Ruthie was having none of it.

"As ye sow, so shall ye reap," she said. She grabbed the syringe and jabbed it into his left vein. By this time, the riot squads had already run in; having heard the commotion and ready to open fire, ready to finish off Ed with bullet glory. What they witnessed was far worse.

Ed slowly passed out. About a minute later, he gasped for air as one of the drugs shut down his breathing. His face was rapidly turning a pale shade of blue when his body started convulsing, the obvious effect of the final drug shutting down the heart. In a legal execution, the movements would have been minimized as the condemned had been strapped down. In this case, with nothing to hold him down, the body was shaking so hard the ancient floor boards were rattling and the furniture in the room shaking with it.

Finally, after what was only three minutes but which seemed like an eternity, Ed finally stiffened up. He was dead.

"We'll leave it to you cops to determine jurisdiction. Gentlemen, ladies, shall we?" Ruthie said coldly, as the six stood up, straightened out their clothes, and walked out the American side of the house as if nothing had ever happened.

The SWAT teams looked at each other in amazement. Their assistance hadn't been needed at all. How did the six escape relatively unscathed?

"By the way, Shelby," said Rod, "that baby of yours isn't Ed's, is it?"

"Of course not," said Shelby, kissing her husband. "It's ours. But I had to do something to break the impasse. And no, there's no way I would have ever let him touch me again. I knew he had that stiletto with him all along and I was going to grab it from him even if he had tried. As for the rest of what I told him, it's true – but it's nothing therapy can't help us with. I want us to have lots of children, your and mine."

Ruthie shook her head sullenly.

"It's over, sweetie," said Peter.

"That's not what I'm thinking about," said Ruthie. "I'm wondering how Kevin's going to react to Lucy having sex with Roxanne."