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ALSO BY DARWEN AMOS

A Vision of Time

The Charlie Trilogy:


Charlie’s Method
Charlie’s Plan
Charlie’s Vision

A Gun with No Bullets


In the Dragon’s Gullet
Burning Bern
Intrigue in Geneva
The Empty Garden
Ballistic Artistry
Captured Gun
AN UNLIKELY DEATH
—————————————
DARWEN AMOS

AN AMOS BOOK
Los Angeles
The sale of this book without the cover is unauthorized. If you purchased this
book without a cover, you should be aware that it was reported to the publisher
as “unsold and destroyed.” Neither the author nor the publisher has received
payment for the sale of this “stripped book.”

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and


incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or per-
sons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

An Original Publication of AMOS BOOKS

A Pocket Size Book published by


AMOS BOOKS, through Lulu.com.

AN UNLIKELY DEATH
Copyright © 2009 by Darwen Amos. All rights reserved.
Front cover image, “Beautiful Sexy Girl Holding Gun” ©
Tomasz Tulik / Dreamstime.com
Back cover photo © Olga Drozdova / Dreamstime.com

This mass-market edition / December 2009

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced,


stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by
any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or
otherwise, without without permission from the publisher.

ISBN: N/A

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the U.S.A.
To my kids, Jules and Stephanie
Contents

1 The Murder 9
2 Reynolds Investigates 22
3 The Chase is On 36
4 Public Service 46
5 The Takeover of America 60
6 The Bayou 74
7 Homeward Bound 89
8 Showdown 103
9 Highway Battle 120
10 Phase Omega 135
11 The Wharf 148
12 The Federali 167
13 Tower of Babel, Part I 186
14 Tower of Babel, Part II 200
15 James v. Reynolds 222
16 A Piece of Cake 234
Chapter One
The Murder

T here was no plan. The secret agent, standing on the


rooftop of the Sears Building, was at a loss. Ever
since he had been hired three years ago by the govern-
ment, he had been sent on various missions to do this or
that. He remembered one of the missions in which he had
to infiltrate a lair of an especially unscrupulous villain, fi-
nally cornering him in his office and shooting him in the
head. Other missions, too, were filled with dossiers and
folders which explained the various parameters. But now,
he had no information to go on. He looked at the piece of
paper the government had given him. “Top Secret,” the
paper was labeled. He sighed, and opened it, to read once
again the simplified parameters of his newest mission.
“Go on the rooftop,” it said. “Further instructions will
be given there.” He had heard of top secret, of course, as
it was standard in his field of work, but this was a new
level of ridiculous. More information from who? He

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Darwen Amos
thought of his superior, Mr. James. Could it be him?
Mulling things over, and thinking of his family back at
home, the agent lit a cigarette and began to smoke. It was
an uneasy smoke, filled with apprehension. His lungs
were filled with unease. The day, strangely for winter,
was bright with the sun, shining with full clarity. This in-
congruity, rather than make him happy, made him ner-
vous. He checked his watch. 5:00 PM. He had been wait-
ing for five minutes.
A heron suddenly flew swiftly across the berth of the
sky, making a clarion call of death. He had come to asso-
ciate herons with death in 1987 (it was 2009 now), when
on a tropical mission a heron had flown the instant he had
fired the bullet in between the eyes of the mastermind of a
plot which would put two nations in danger. Savoring his
cigarette, he let his mind wander haphazardly about the
rooftop, reeling in the confusion and unease of the mo-
ment.
He had never been a good agent. As can be seen by this
fear in the moment, he was not good at keeping his cool.
On the contrary, it was one of his weak points. Nervously
he dropped his half-finished cigarette on the ground and
stamped it out. He sighed…
At that moment a shot rang out in the day. It came from
behind him.
For a short while the agent became a good agent. A pi-
cosecond before the bullet went through his head, he reg-
istered the sound. He started to make an evasive move-
ment, but it was too late. He was dead. He fell to the floor
a corpse.
The man who had shot the agent smirked and turned
back to the stairwell. With the smirk still on his face, he
headed down and hit the elevator button. A few moments

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An Unlikely Death
of waiting, then a ding. It was the elevator. The door
opened. There was an old woman inside, with a peeking
cat, which looked at him above the rim of her front pock-
et. The woman, seeing the gun, opened her eyes in wide
amazement. Seeing this, the killer thought fast and said:
“What, this? Just a plastic toy I purchased for my son’s
birthday. Nothing but a simple toy.”
The woman looked doubtful, and made such a face in-
forming the killer. Patting her cat on the head, she told it
to calm down, for it was shivering. As if by instinct, the
cat recognized that the man who was in front of him was
a cold-hearted killer. As a result it knelt down into the pil-
lowed recesses of the front pocket.
“Yes…” said the man, “just a toy.” With this, he deftly
threw the gun into the trash-can next to the elevator. The
woman seemed relieved. The elevator door, about to
close, began its integral motion. Blocking the door with
his hand, the killer left his fingerprints on the inside of the
closing doors. The woman, although she was mistrustful
of the man, nevertheless pressed the “Open” button on the
elevator. The man said: “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” said the woman, as the man en-
tered the elevator.
The elevator door closed. The woman, who loved rid-
ing elevators, was heading back to the lobby and had
pressed the lobby button indicating as much. Smiling, the
killer pressed the button again, though it was already lit.
The woman looked at him strangely. At that moment she
took in the man’s features: dark, tinted hair, sunburnt
skin, and the eyes of a dragonfly. In her mind she was al-
ready filing out the report for the police. The man knew
this. It was a long way down, and they didn’t make eye
contact, or hold a conversation. As the elevator went

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Darwen Amos
downwards, the man pretended to scratch his leg. But as
he did so, he pulled up his pants-leg and retrieved the gun
in his sock. He pulled it out and was about to shoot the
woman when the elevator reached the ground floor.
The door opened. There were hundreds of people
mulling about in the lobby, minding their own business.
No, thought the man, this is too dangerous. Once again
pretending to scratch his leg, the man returned the gun to
his sock. The woman, relieved, sighed in comfort and be-
gan to walk out. The man, who was still in the elevator,
burned holes in her back with his sinister stare. They were
bullets, not of the flesh, but of the future. For he was not-
ing the facial characteristics of the woman even as she
fled into the sea of people. He would have his revenge.
Yes…he would have his revenge all right.

Mary Gymnocat entered her house at last. What a


strange man she had seen in the elevator, she thought. She
had been sighing with relief many times on the car ride
home.
Speaking of her home, it was not much, but enough to
get by in the hard economic times. Her cheap job as a li-
brarian could hardly keep her in good graces with the
many tedious workmen and butlers a mansion would re-
quire and yet, for her, this was as much a home. Taking
the cat out of her pocket, she placed it gingerly on the
floor of her apartment. She lived in an apartment, which
was forty years old, like herself. The cat, mewling with
undisguised pain and hunger, sidled over to its cat bowl,
which was miserably, barrenly empty. He mewled in
hunger.
“Yes, yes, shut up,” said the bookish woman, adjusting

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An Unlikely Death
her pince-nez. She had required glasses as a child, and
there was no difference now. With such aid she easily saw
the refrigerator, which, like a treasure trove, held all the
goodies a cat could wish to eat. The list was endless;
ketchup bottles, sandwiches, you name it, if a cat would
love it, it’s in there. But Mary Gymnocat was no spinster.
Although she was well stocked with all the trimmings for
a cat, there was scarcely a thing for herself. One with a
pet must sacrifice one’s livelihood. Especially an unmar-
ried woman….
Taking a glass and a carton of milk from the well-
stocked fridge, Mary hummed a little tune. It was an ob-
scure song, about an aging, barren woman, who could not
find love. Seeing how this song was similar to the life of
her, she loved this song and always hummed it, whether
on vacation or at home. The cat had come to expect food
along with this song, and he licked his lips in apprecia-
tion. The door of the fridge opened, and the librarian took
a look.
Yes, this fridge was well-stocked indeed. However,
there was not much here for a human being at all. Taking
a box of sandwiches from the fridge, she placed it in the
bowl of her cat, and poured milk on top of it. However,
her hands shook and the milk spilled on the floor. The cat
looked at her reproachfully.
“I’m sorry, Miss Piggy,” said Mary, “but I spilled some
food. I wonder why?”
Ignoring her, the cat began to lap up the spilt milk. He
certainly did not cry. But at that moment Mary remem-
bered why she had been so nervous when she spilled the
milk. She had been thinking of the suspicious gentleman
riding in the elevator car along with herself. Thinking
this, a chill ran down her spine. For Mary Gymnocat,

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Darwen Amos
there was no place like home.
The lapping sounds of her cat lulled her to a peaceful
sleep, with no nightmares about the strange man. She nev-
er woke up….

The phone in the police station rang. A police officer,


Officer Reynolds, picked it up.
“Nine one one emergency,” he said, taking out a pencil
and paper.
“Yes, there’s been a murder,” said the voice on the oth-
er end. The voice was nasal and strange, as if disguised.
The officer noted this fact on the pad.
“I’m sorry, but you will have to stay on the line,” he
said, pressing the on button on the police call tracer on his
neat, tidy desk.
“No problem,” said the sinister voice, “but what of the
murder?”
“As long as you haven’t committed one,” said Officer
Reynolds, “there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Oh?” said the taunting voice on the other hand, “what
makes you so sure I’ve killed the cat lady?”
“Hold on. Hold on. One thing at a time. Where’s the
address?”
“Now I don’t think I want to tell you.”
The call was traced. A beep ensued. Heh. Gotcha,
sucker, said the officer silently to himself. He excitedly
began to write the details of the call on the notepad.
“Yes…” he said to the other man. “a murder is tricky
business. Why not tell me more about it?”
The line was dead. On the other side there was not
even the slightest breathing.
Very unusual, thought Reynolds, as he put the phone

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An Unlikely Death
back on the hook. The only cat lady he knew, Mrs. Gym-
nocat, was dead: perished. He only hoped he would get to
her before it was too late.

Sirens wailing, Officer Reynolds sped in his black-and-


white patrol car toward the house of Mrs. Gymnocat, a
residence he knew as well as the back of his hand. The
sirens broke through the night with a red, devilish glare,
as the radio of his dashboard shouted out the various pro-
tocols and info of the day.
“We’ve got an APV…”
“the AMC killler…”
“Looks like the work of a master…”
“Code red, code red!”
“Officer down! Requesting backup!”
Sounds like a pretty bad night… thought Reynolds
grimly. He remembered the days of his old job at the desk
when he had to respond to such calls. Guns a-blazing, he
thought bitterly. It was the duty of a policeman to put his
life at risk for others. But who was to respond to the dis-
tress calls of an officer? Except other officers, that was.
Passing the supermarket, he knew he was nearer to his
destination. Mrs. Gymnocat, something of a hypochondri-
ac, had made many inappropriate distress calls to his sta-
tion when she had believed that her cat was sick. Of
course, annoying as they were, he would miss such calls
from now on. Thank God for small gifts. Stopping in
front of the apartment complex, Officer Reynolds pulled
out his radio and reported in.
“Destination reached…” he said.
“Ten four. You are set to proceed. ..” said the voice on
the other line, the police commissioner of the city.

15
Darwen Amos
“Yes, sir,” said Reynolds, “Roger and out.”
He slowly opened the car door. Withdrawing his re-
volver, he stepped out of the police car, surveying his sur-
roundings. The place was exactly as he remembered it;
not a hair had been touched. With his foot, he shut the
door behind him. He walked up to the apartment door,
went up the stairs, and paused in front of Mrs. Gymno-
cat’s door. He took a deep breath. All the police training
of his past fifteen years had prepared him for this single
moment. He tried to look through the eye-hole. Nothing.
He knocked on the door. No response. Yes… something
was wrong all right. His policeman’s intuition told him as
much. All his years of training had sharpened his ear and
made his eyes nearly clairvoyant. Removing his radio
from his pocket, he reported in once again.
“Officer 9949 requesting backup,” he said. “Once
again, Officer 9949 requesting backup. Repeat.”
“Response Unit A1 Tango,” said the other line. “Re-
quest denied.”
“Roger. Request denied,” said Reynolds, his hands
shaking in anger. “May I have the reason please?”
“Code Orange,” said the other line. “Roger and out.”
He hung up the radio. He ran his memory back to the
police training days, when he had studied long nights for
the midterm examinations with his police handbook. Hav-
ing a photographic memory, he mentally turned the pages
to the dictionary at the end of the book. Going to the C
section, he recalled with full clarity the definition of
“Code Orange.” It ran:
Code Orange: a denial of backup request. Specifically
used when there is no backup available.
Ah, thought Reynolds, realizing at once the reason. He
suddenly felt repentant for becoming angry at the re-

16
An Unlikely Death
sponse team. After all, he had heard the various radio sig-
nals in his car, which had been requesting backup for the
case of the “AMC killer.” Knowing this, it was easy to
see that there were no patrol cars available to help him on
this, less important mission. However, he could not but
regret the fact that this murder should have occurred to
him at such an inopportune time. Steeling himself and
taking a deep breath, he aimed his foot at the weak point
of the door and released a kick into the midsection of the
fragile wood. Exactly as if responding to a soft touch, the
board of the door shattered into thousands of pieces, scat-
tering into fragments. The door was now open.
“Hello? Anyone there?” said Reynolds. “This is arrest-
ing officer Reynolds. Come out with your hands where I
can see them!”
A scream rang out in the night. It was unexpected. His
eyes pivoted to the area where it had come from. On the
couch sat Mrs. Gymnocat, looking healthy as ever. Offi-
cer Reynolds, surprised, did a double take. It was Mrs.
Gymnocat. Docile as the cat that was her namesake, she
sat on the couch in the living room, with a basket of
sewing material in her hands. Far from being murdered,
she was well and alive.
“B-b-but,” said Reynolds, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Gymnocat.
I might have overacted. You see, I received a report…”
He trailed off.
“Of course, I see, I see,” said Mary vacantly. “Would
you like some tea, or a coffee, or me?” But as she said
these flirting lines she couldn’t complete her sentence.
Suddenly, Mrs. Gymnocat fell to the floor. There was
something odd about this fall, as if she had done nothing
to restrain herself from being hurt. She had not put her
arms akimbo in order to brace herself, and had suffered

17
Darwen Amos
the full impact. Immediately Reynolds knew there was
something wrong with that fall. Without even reaching for
his radio, he rushed to the prone body and felt the pulse.
Nothing. Mrs. Gymnocat was dead. Reynolds could only
look on in astonishment.
The cat mewed contentedly, unaware that the master of
his life, who had been his only friend for his entire life,
now lay dead only a few feet away from it, never to feed
it or play with it again. But the cat, content with its small
life, did not care about this tragedy.

The crime scene had been cordoned off with yellow


tape and evidence gathered in small and big plastic bags.
Every applicable nook and cranny was examined, every
closet searched, every surface dusted… to no avail. There
were no suspects. Mrs. Gymnocat, though notoriously ec-
centric, had no enemies.
Back at the station, Officer Reynolds was busy writing
his crime report on the scene which had just occurred
only a few minutes before.
“A slow acting poison appears to be the cause…” he
was writing.
Suddenly a hand clapped him on the back – a friendly
gesture, which cut into the black gloom of his thoughts
like a butter knife.
“Nice work!” he heard. It was his superior officer,
General Stathem. “Good job on the case. What I wouldn’t
give to be in your position right now, to have discovered a
murder of all things! A murder!” he said, in frank aston-
ishment. “In all my years of service I never thought I’d
encounter such a thing. Why, in my forty years I never-”
But he was cut off by a wave of Reynolds’s hand.

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An Unlikely Death
“Never mind that,” he said. “It’s not only the work that
concerns me. What concerns me is that a person was
killed. With all due respect, sir, you should think more
about human beings and their lives rather than always
think only of your next promotion.” Abashed, the general
walked away in a sullen mood. Reynolds returned to his
writing.

Mr. James at the government office sat back at his


business desk, observing his empire. For many years now
the government had been sending out its various agents
on missions so classified that not even the agents knew
the true purpose to their missions, if there were any. Be-
hind him, in a filing cabinet large enough to hold the clas-
sifications for four libraries, lay the secret details of the
missions: something that many people would pay good
money to have a glimpse of.
Of course, it hadn’t always been about the money.
Once, Mr. James had cared about his work. He remem-
bered his youthful, idealistic self, at the young age of
twenty, who had just been promoted to a lowly clerk at
the government office. He had been different then, he re-
membered. Different from the uncaring self he was now.
What he was now, this wasn’t him. Agent Taurus had
simply known too much about Project Insignia. He had to
be gotten rid of. Despite what qualms of the conscience a
man can have, capitalism has the effect of moral oblivion
on some people. Once in a while, just to see how the poor
people lived, he bet a couple dollars at the horse races,
though he had much more money.
Mr. James sighed. He had much work to do. With the
many men at his disposal, however, work was the least of

19
Darwen Amos
his problems….
A bell rang at his desk. Across the speaker-phone, the
voice of his young secretary spoke out: “Mr. James, an
agent is here to see you.”
“Send him in,” said Mr. James, lying down on his
chair.
The door to his office opened. In walked a man, who
was not kept in the records. Though James’s secretary had
called him an “agent,” officially this man did not exist. In
all the various papers and folders kept in the metal filing
cabinet behind Mr. James’s sitting body there was not one
reference to this strange and elusive man who had just
crossed the threshold. He had dark, tinted hair that poked
out from beneath his baseball cap, and wore dark sun-
glasses, which clashed with his sunburnt skin. This was
the man, of course, who had killed Agent Taurus. Known
simply as “The Assassin,” no one knew his real name, ex-
cept perhaps himself.
“Come in,” said Mr. James.
The man stepped in, smirking his trademark smirk.
“Have you succeeded in your mission?” asked Mr.
James.
“Yes,” said the Assassin.
“Then you shall be rewarded,” said Mr. James, taking
out his checkbook and writing a number into it.
“Of course… there is a slight problem,” said the Assas-
sin.
”I am paying you well,” said Mr. James. “I assure you
that I do not have enough funds to pay you better. But if
you want to negotiate, may I remind you of this?” He
pointed a finger to a folder of files on his desk. The As-
sassin immediately knew that it was his crime record,
which was enough to send him to jail for life. One of the

20
An Unlikely Death
conditions of this contract was complete immunity from
prosecution. For his participation, his record would be
wiped clean.
“It’s not money I want,” said the Assassin. “but true
immunity. I may be immune from all crimes on record,
but if I am caught for this one, what will the previous
crimes matter? A murder is already enough for a life sen-
tence, and even if the previous murders are wiped clean,
that only reduces the sentence from multiple life sen-
tences to a single one. And… as you know, we all have
one life to live.”
“Yes,” said Mr. James. “how very true. One life to live.
And if you’re smart, you enjoy that life.” Saying this, he
lit a Cuban cigar and exhaled a plume of smoke. That
plume seemed to have something of the ancient aristocra-
cy in it. “Then what is it that you do want, Mr…”
“Mr. Assassin will do. There is a man… a police offi-
cer. He is a lowly blue-uniform officer, but he’s going to
cause trouble. Roger Reynolds, his name is. I want you to
get rid of him.”
The eyebrows of Mr. James raised in surprise. “Is that
all? Of course, I have many assassins on my payroll, but
the fee will come out of your check.”
“That’s fine,” said Mr. Assassin. “Just as long as it gets
done. I didn’t know who else to come to.”
“Well, you’ve come to the right place. If it’s assassins
you want, you’ve hit the jackpot.”
“Thank you sir,” said the assassin, shaking Mr. James’s
hand.
“No problem,” said Mr. James. As the Assassin left,
Mr. James thought, “Interesting… very interesting.”

21
Chapter Two
Reynolds Investigates

A lthough Reynolds was not a particularly warm-


hearted policeman, easily rounding up the suspects
to any case without a second thought, here he had time to
pause. He looked at the report he had written up:

Police File 1249-HUUOJJ


(Filled out by Roger Reynolds, LAPD no.9949)
1. Crime Type: Murder
2. Murder Victim: Mrs. Gymnocat
3. Place of Death: Meadowspring Apartments, Room 5
4. Autopsy Result: A slow acting poison appears to have
been the cause of death.

As he filed his long report into the computer, he real-


ized that something did not sit right with Mrs. Gymno-
cat’s death. The autopsy report claimed an organic poison
had been the cause… But why had the technician said this

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An Unlikely Death
with such a doubtful expression on his face? What had
been the meaning of that expression, which he could still
see clearly? He remembered back to his police training
days, when he had been taught to read facial expressions.
The basic course taught every officer how to tell the vari-
ous signposts of when someone was lying. The shallow
breathing, the shifty eyes… yes, the autopsy man had in-
deed evidenced many of these telltale signs. There was no
need for a polygraph lie detector when a simple glance
would suffice. That class, too, had also been about the
signs of a man who was about to attack. The lowered
head, the held breath. Often criminals praised Reynolds’s
fighting abilities Of course he never revealed that he had
a special advantage in predicting their next move. As can
be expected, he was quite the successful poker player. Not
many people could confess to having bluffed the officer,
and he often came home to his loving wife and three chil-
dren with a few extra dollars in his pocket from poker
nights, with money to spare buying his wife flowers and
his children ice cream. In short, something about that
technician had been… how shall I put it? Off? Yes… off
was the right word for it.
He made up his mind.
He stood up abruptly in his chair and began walking to
the door, upsetting the cup of coffee on the table.
“Hey! Where’re ya goin’! Your shift’s not ended yet!”
said the familiar voice of his superior-in-law, General
Stathem, with his arms crossed in front of his chest, his
dominant mustache quivering with anger.
“Out…” said Reynolds, “don’t wait up,” slamming the
door in Stathem’s face.

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Darwen Amos
***

The location was the mortuary, ironically named


“Good Life Mortuary.” The head autopsy technician,
Mort Deathhead, once again read the police report
Reynolds had filed a few hours ago.

Autopsy File 8219-HKULJJ


(Filled out by Mort Deathhead, Mortician)
The Deceased: Mrs. Gymnocat
Age: Forty years of age
Blood Type: O positive
Health: good
Place of Death: Meadowspring Apartments, Room 5
Cause of Death: A slow acting poison appears to have
been the cause of death.

Everything was going perfectly to plan. Exactly as Mr.


James had instructed him, he had fudged the autopsy re-
port, to make it seem as though it were a simple case of
poisoning. Of course, things were never that simple. Good
thing the investigative team in the apartment that night
had never noticed the signs of an intrusion. The open win-
dows, the flailing curtains, other things not readily visible
to the eye… in Mort Deathhead’s mind, things had turned
out too simply. The police officers were truly dunder-
headed if they couldn’t figure out what had truly hap-
pened on that night. He scratched his bald head. He re-
membered…
That night, Mort Deathhead had been waiting perched
from the apartment building across from the Mead-
owspring apartment complex, next to a stone gargoyle.
With his blowgun in his mouth, and watching through the

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An Unlikely Death
lighted window of Room 5, he had waited until the perfect
opportunity to kill Mary Gymnocat as instructed. But just
as he was about to complete his assignment, something
had interrupted. That pesky policeman, Roger Reynolds,
had entered the apartment. Nevertheless, he knew he had
to take his shot. Seeing his last chance, he had waited un-
til Mary Gymnocat was in view to fire his poison dart. He
hit the target right in the neck and she had collapsed.
While the pesky Reynolds was calling the police, he had
quickly changed into his autopsy clothes and arrived on
scene, just as expected. When Reynolds was looking the
other way, Mort had bent down and stealthily removed
the dart from Mary Gymnocat’s neck, and dropped it on
the floor, kicking it under the couch. With the evidence
destroyed, it had been a simple matter of forging the false
report…
It couldn’t have worked out better. Today in the mail
an envelope had come for Mort, addressed from the FBI.
Opening it, his greedy eyes had counted out the ten crisp,
new thousand dollar bills in the envelope. He counted
them again now, standing above his newest corpse, who
had just died of lung cancer, from smoking too much. It
was at that moment when he heard the sound of knocking
on the door.
“Just a moment,” Mort hissed, hiding the $10,000 in
his pocket. Out of politeness, he put a white cloth over the
corpse he was now cutting up, and headed towards the
door, opening it. Roger Reynolds entered, noting the ex-
pression of shocked recognition on Mort’s face.
Officer Reynolds looked around the room. Everything
was in tip-top shape, the coffins, the urns, and the crema-
tory. A set of windows crisscrossed all over the room,
creating a barricade of light. This light seemed to form a

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Darwen Amos
holy halo over the main operating table, on which a
corpse lay, covered by a white sheet. Thinking of church,
Reynolds felt a kind of sardonic reverence. Though in
church people revered the dead, here the dead were treat-
ed as illogical, scientific experiments, without considering
the human being that had once occupied them. And Mort
Deathhead was the chief scientist, bloodstained coat and
all. But it was not the surroundings he was interested in,
but the caretaker of the surroundings. Looking at Mort, he
said, “I’ve been looking over the autopsy report and, there
is a problem I’d like you to clear up for me, if you’d be so
kind.”
“Why, certainly,” said Mort, offering a chair and sitting
down himself. “Would you like a cigarette?”
“No thanks,” said Officer Reynolds, “I don’t smoke.
And if I did, I certainly wouldn’t accept a cigarette from
such a fellow as yourself.”
“Very wise,” said Mort, “Neither do I. In fact, this very
man (he pointed at the cloth-covered figure) perished
from smoking too much. Though I am a dealer of death, I
am in no hurry to become one of my own merchandise, if
you know what I mean….”
Reynolds grinned. “That’s funny. You’d expect such a
careful man to be more honest.”
“But I’m sure I don’t know what you mean!” Mort
feigned disbelief.
“Then can you explain this?” said Reynolds. Mort’s
eyes were lead to where Reynolds was holding up some-
thing between his forefinger and thumb. He recognized it
immediately. It was the poison dart and blow-gun.
Reynolds continued, “What should I find under the couch
but this? I wonder if the fingerprints match yours? If
you’re really an honest man as you claim, why not follow

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An Unlikely Death
me to the police office, and get your prints on record?”
“Why, certainly Mr. Reynolds,” said Mort, standing
up, “I would be pleased.”
Reynolds was suspicious. “You go first,” he said, mo-
tioning to the door with his head.
Then, time slowed down.
At that moment, Mort’s head, like that of a bull’s about
to charge, lowered. His slender fingers, so used to work-
ing with the dead, reached into his lab coat and grasped a
scalpel. Removing it, he prepared to throw it at Reynold-
s’s head. But Reynolds was ready. Quickly removing his
gun from the holster, he fired at the scalpel, blowing it out
of the surgeon’s hands. The surgeon, in turn, charged at
Reynolds, making a cry of a vulture, who moved out of
the way. Not expecting the movement, Mort Deathhead
sailed clear out the window behind Reynolds and fell thir-
ty stories to his death.
Reynolds heard the sickening crash of the surgeon’s
body hitting a car. The car’s alarm rang out in the dead
night. The sounds of a screaming crowd, quickly gather-
ing, pounded in his ears. His heart beating like mad,
Reynolds felt about to collapse. Holding his chest, he
picked up his walkie-talkie, and called for assistance.

The young secretary came into the office of Mr. James.


“I have some bad news,” he said.
“What?” said Mr. James.
“Agent Mort Deathhead has just been eliminated.”
“Dammit,” said Mr. James, cursing in his mind. He dis-
missed the secretary. This Reynolds fellow was a hard
egg to crack, that was for sure.

27
Darwen Amos
***

Who does the autopsy of an autopsy technician? This is


a relevant question. Just like that old philosopher’s saw
about the barber who cuts everyone’s hair in town, but
has no one to cut his, it brings up an interesting question.
There are always more autopsy technicians. But in the
face of world catastrophe, there is no need for mass au-
topsies.
These were the various thoughts going through
Reynolds’s mind as he stood around the cordoned-off
area where the body of Mort Deathhead lay amid broken
glass and shrapnel atop of the car on which he had fallen.
The twisted face of Mort Deathhead, gnarled in a perma-
nent grimace, accused the night of myriad inequities. On
the floor, a police artist had drawn a chalk outline around
the objects and body parts which now occupied the cold
concrete surface…. Curious passer-bys, their minds until
then filled with the mundane facts of grocery shopping
and overdue library books, now stopped here and there to
gawk at the violent scene. From time to time, the words
“Go on. There’s nothing to see here.” reported in the
night like a revolving lighthouse beacon.
“Sigh. More paperwork… always more paperwork,”
moaned Officer Stevens, a peer of Reynolds. He nervous-
ly ran his fingers through his dark hair.
Reynolds was lost in thought.

Officer Rogers Reynolds turned in his bed, in the mid-


dle of a fitful sleep. His dreaming mind conjured up all
sorts of distressing scenarios, which his police intuition,
with its guard down, was powerless to stop as if he had

28
An Unlikely Death
been awake. He was in a desert. Yet it was no ordinary
desert of sand and cacti. No, this was a desert filled with
water, swaying him like a boat on a lake. The feeling of
sickness cast Roger to the shore, gasping for breath as
pink fish flew on golden wings above him. And in the
sky, surrounded by clouds, was the unknown face of the
murderer. The murderer of Mrs. Gymnocat. And no mat-
ter how much he flailed his arms, no matter how hard he
tried to swim to the face, that mocking face, he could not
reach it… Just as he was about to drown, he woke up in a
cold sweat.

The next day, the police station was abuzz with excite-
ment. Ever since the autopsy technician had been revealed
to be on the payroll of the FBI, the extent of the conspira-
cy was revealed to all eyes. In general the FBI and the po-
lice are worst enemies. Whenever a police team tries to
get something done, the FBI always comes in to take
over, treating the cops like nothing more than errand boys
to get them coffee and donuts. Once the FBI was impli-
cated in this crime, this confirmed what many of the po-
lice officers had already known and felt in their heart of
hearts. They felt betrayed to find a traitor in the mist.
When the cops had found out that one of their own, police
autopsy technician Mort Deathhead, had been in on the
FBI payroll, they were very resentful. Not many even at-
tended the short, perfunctory funeral that had been held
for the technician, at a small plot in the cemetery.
All the officers were at work on the Gymnocat case,
poring over endless folders of information. In one corner
desk sat Officer Reynolds and, close by, his partner Offi-
cer Stevens. Both were busy at work, looking through the

29
Darwen Amos
folders.
Officer Reynolds always acted on intuition and instinct
rather than intelligence. In this way he was like a hawk
relentlessly smoking out its prey. Perhaps such a tendency
was what made him an excellent poker player. But when
his deductions fell short, he always had his second-in-
command, Officer Stevens, to help him sharpen his blade
of reason. Although Stevens had been suspicious when
Reynolds had told him of his suspicions, now he was to-
tally with him. With the police file at hand, Officer
Stevens was now planning a course of action which
would lead to the person who had hired Mort Deathhead
for his services. And, as always, Reynolds was looking
over his shoulder, excitedly cooperating in the action.
“Let’s see,” said Stevens. “It says here that Mort often
frequented the Golden Bunny strip club on Redlight Av-
enue. What say we take a look?”
“What’s a stripped club?” asked Reynolds with frank
curiosity.
“Strip club,” corrected Stevens. “It’s a kind of dance
club where women take off their clothes. Only the lowest
of men consider this entertainment, but as we are slowly
finding out, Mort Deathhead can stoop no lower.”
“Hmm…” said Reynolds, “we had better check that
out. Who knows where it will lead, and what clues there
are.”
“Hey, count me out,” said Stevens. “My wife and kids
don’t approve of going to such seedy establishments.
Once, I went to a bar, and my wife went nuts! Think of
what would happen if she ever found out I went to the
strip club.” Officer Stevens pointed at his cheek, where
there was a large bruise. “See that? That’s the bruise I got
when my wife threw a plate at me when she found out I

30
An Unlikely Death
went to the bar. I didn’t even drink! Only two beers! It’s
not worth it, man.”
“I think you’re right,” said Reynolds. “I’ll scope the
place out by myself and report in. Got your walkie
talkie?”
“Right here, my man,” said Stevens, patting his back
pocket, where there was a huge bulge. “You ever need
any assistance, I’m right there. Just don’t tell my wife.”
“You can count on me,” said Reynolds. “your secret’s
safe. Be right back.”
As Reynolds began to walk towards the door and was
about to open it, he heard his friend say “Wait.”
Reynolds turned around.
“Be careful man,” said Stevens.
Reynolds, with a hard look on his face, nodded in
agreement. He would be careful. There was no telling
what the future held in store for him.

9:00 PM. November 5, 2009.

The Golden Bunny strip club was aflare with sound


and color. Many woman dancers wearing only skimpy
clothes writhed and danced atop the neon lit stage, as
noisy rock-and-roll music blared through the loud speak-
ers. Goggling men, holding up coins and dollars, tried to
get close enough to the stage to throw the money, hoping
to catch a glimpse of human flesh. The young strippers,
who had come to Hollywood with high hopes looking for
acting jobs, now made do with applying eye shadow with
eyebrow pencils in the back room, constantly observed by
leering men. The smell of corruption, like the perfume of
women, was in the air when Officer Reynolds entered the

31
Darwen Amos
fray.
His eyes squinted as they tried to look through the
bleary, smoke-infested air. Waitresses walked from table
to table, balancing trays of drinks expertly on single
hands. The officer’s eyes recognized many faces of small-
time criminals who he had once arrested. There was Billy
One-Eyes at the table, drinking a beer, and there was
James Hawkinson at the bar, the leader of the Mafia,
counting his blood money… Yes… this was a dangerous
place all right. No doubt about it.
Sitting down at a table, he noticed a waitress coming
toward him.
“And what would you like, sir?” she said.
“Nothing. I’m here on police duty. But perhaps you can
help me.”
“But how?” said the girl, her eyes opening in innocent
surprise.
“Tell me… do you recognize this man?” He took the
photograph out of his pocket and held it in front of the
waitress’s face. She shook her head, when suddenly a
stripper happened to be walking by. The stripper, drawn
to the photo the waitress was looking at, tried to see it, but
the darkness was insufficient. The waitress, who was
more interested in monetary tips than investigatory tips,
left the two alone, walking over to another patron.
“How well do you know the patrons of this place?”
asked Reynolds of the stripper.
“I know them o- hey! What’s with all the questions?!”
asked the stripper.
“A murder’s happened. It’s my duty to check up on all
witnesses and try to solve the crime.”
“Are you a police officer?” asked the stripper, chewing
bubble gum.

32
An Unlikely Death
“Officer Reynolds, at your service.”
“Then I won’t speak to you.”
“Why not? You might be useful in solving this murder.
After all, we are both human beings.”
“In my opinion,” said the stripper, sitting down at the
table, “a police officer isn’t really a real person.”
“How do you mean?” said Reynolds.
“I mean that they are pigs. Have you heard of cops be-
ing called pigs? That’s on account of their ugly faces and
greedy mouths, which eat the humiliation of others for
breakfast.”
Officer Reynolds grinned ruefully, nodding with a
knowing expression. “I see you’ve met my boss, Mr.
Stathem.”
“No. Not only him. I mean you as well. You’re a cop
too.”
“No no you got me wrong. That’s because you don’t
know me. My heart is as pure as any human being.”
“Yes,” said the stripper, flirting with her eyes. “Maybe
we should cut your chest open and take a look.” With the
long, red-painted nail of her right forefinger she mim-
icked making a straight downward incision in the air in
front of the serge bulletproof police uniform protecting
Reynolds’s heart. For an instant Reynolds saw the sharp
vertical incision, as well as the horizontal stitches of the
completed operation, in a kind of infrared floating in the
air in front of his eyes. Perhaps due to the lights and chaos
of the strip club, the illusionary visual was almost tactile,
as if an exquisitely thin straight razor had been drawn
down the left side of his chest, opening a path for a neon
river of fluorescent blue blood. The cold glowing blood of
his heart was indeed pure at first but, exposed to the air,
seemed to inevitably take on the many impurities and

33
Darwen Amos
germs present in the atmosphere, and dim over with lay-
ers of dust, its flow stagnating with thick, congested time.
He felt a sudden, poignant regret for his lost youth. He
blinked. It was as if time had moved backwards in the
short instant of the blink, rather than forward. The halluci-
natory visual before his eyes seemed to echo in reverse,
trace an afterimage in counterclockwise motion, then fade
away backwards into the ocean of the night like the re-
treating phosphoresce of a deep-sea angler-fish. Realizing
there were still tears in his eyes, he discreetly wiped them
away with the back of his hand. He shook his head back
and forth.
“In any case,” said Reynolds, recovering from his
lapse, “you’re a stripper. Did you know this man?” He
held up a photo of Mort Deathhead, the only photo he had
on file. Although it was not a perfectly accurate photo, as
it was taken many years ago (for one thing, Mort still had
a full head of hair), it would have to do. The stripper
leaned over the table to take a look at the photo, though
her eyes showed no sign of recognition.
“I don’t know who this is, but then again, I’m new
here, and not wearing any glasses. You might want to ask
that stripper over there,” said the stripper.
“Who’s she?” asked Reynolds.
“She’s the head stripper. Perfect eyesight. If anyone
knows anything in this joint, it would have to be her,” the
stripper said.
She pointed at a far table, where an older stripper was
speaking to one of the patrons of the club, a young man in
his mid twenties. After a few moments, the young man
stood up and left. The old stripper, who remained seated,
indeed had the bearing of a leader, standing a foot above
the rest. When she saw Reynolds staring at her, she mo-

34
An Unlikely Death
tioned him over. Reynolds walked over and sat down.
Without greeting her, he held out the photograph a few
inches from the old stripper’s face, asking “Do you recog-
nize this man?”
She squinted her elderly eyes, trying through her wrin-
kles to make out the photo. Once she had certainly been
beautiful, but time had not been kind to that face. Now,
instead of working for ten dollar tips, she was reduced to
working for quarters. However, this had not reduced her
eyesight, and she immediately remembered that familiar
face on that photo, unconsciously adding to the youthful
photo the years of time which had so cruelly weathered
away at both their faces.
“Yes…” said the old stripper. “I seem to remember…”
Reynolds became alert. “You remember? Do you re-
member his name? Come on, woman, this is important!”
“Well… I remember the face… but I can’t quite
place…”
“This is important!” said Reynolds. “Surely you must
remember his name!”
“Oh… I don’t know…” The elderly stripper seemed
confused.
“Try to remember his name… try…” insisted
Reynolds, but she only shook her head in consternation.
Suddenly an explosion rocked the strip club, sending
an earthquake rolling through the solid floor. In front of
Reynolds's eyes, the world seemed to explode. He bar-
reled defensively to the ground, upholstering his revolver.
The air was filled with heavy smoke and dust. Smoke and
dust was everywhere.

35
Chapter Three
The Chase is On

W hen the smoke cleared, Reynolds observed the


world around him. A smoking, giant crater had
been blown in the front of the club, and all the tables,
some broken, some still full, had been thrown this way
and that all over the club. The dance stage, broken cleanly
in half, looked sadly askew, like the sinking of the Titan-
ic. The walls, covered with blood, looked like a post-
modern impressionist painting. Strippers lay all around
the club in various postures and attitudes of agony and
death. The pained moans of the wounded customers, like
background ambiance, served only to darken the impres-
sion that this, indeed, was a war-torn wasteland. And –
like a bright insult, that loud rock-and-roll music would
not stop playing….
His mind still clear, Reynolds began going through the
police operating principles he had been taught long ago.
His clear eyes going from side to side, he searched for the

36
An Unlikely Death
cause of this action, the explosion. When his eyes alit on
the crater, he immediately knew.
“Trinitrotoluene! Of course!” he thought. He remem-
bered the Latin name for the common explosive: TNT.
Only TNT, also known as dynamite, Reynolds knew,
could be used to such “explosive” effect.
The smoke had cleared a bit. Through the crater he saw
a shadowy figure escaping into the night. Standing up
from his chair, Reynolds followed.
He watched the shadowy figure retreat in the bright or-
ange glare of the streetlamps. On foot, the retreating fig-
ure was outmatched. Reynolds thought back to his police
training days, when as a young man he had ran many ob-
stacle courses in order to become a policeman. He had
been the fastest runner in his whole class, and had earned
an award for being so. This award, over twenty years old,
still hung proudly from his bedroom, in an expensive
frame. His wife always smiled a chagrined grin when he
inevitably pointed it out to houseguests, and shook her
head in amusement. As a result, it would be an easy mat-
ter catching up to the “perp” and apprehending him.
He stepped through the crater, almost tripping on one
of the many rocks formed there by the explosion. With a
single bound, he was out into the streets, his arm hairs
shivering from a sudden exposure to cold. Taking a deep
breath of the cold, vapory air, Reynolds set out after the
suspect, quickly gaining speed and traction on the drying
concrete surface of the street.
His feet made a pitter-patter on the wet concrete sur-
face as he chased the perp. He closed in the distance. Ten
meters, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and now only a single meter
separated him from the suspect, still shrouded in shadow.
Just as his arms were about to grab him and cuff him with

37
Darwen Amos
handcuffs, a sinister black luxury car with tinted win-
dows, which had been rushing along the street, screeched
to a sudden halt next to the perpetrator. As if by magic,
the back passenger side door of the car opened, and
Reynolds heard from the inside of the car the statement,
“Get in, quick!,” shouted by the inhabitant of the car. The
perpetrator swung inside the car and shut the door in
Reynolds’s face with a slam. The car once again took off
careening in the street, its engine purring like a mountain
lion’s roar.
Reynolds took off running back in the direction of the
club. Thankfully his faithful patrol car, still parked on the
sidewalk, was unhurt from the recent explosion, only to
be covered with a light dusting. His keys immediately
found their hole and turned in the lock. Click. The door
opened. Reynolds rolled into his car and grabbed the ra-
dio, saying into it: “Officer Reynolds calling for assis-
tance! ASAP!”
“Right there with you,” heard Reynolds. It was the
voice of his good friend, Officer Stevens. Relieved,
Reynolds looked around, trying to find that familiar patrol
car of his partner, right at his side where he needed him
best.
“No, not there. Look up,” said Stevens into the radio.
Confused, Reynolds lowered his side window, stuck
his head out into the cold night, and craned his neck up-
wards, getting a wide view of the starry sky. His eyes met
the bottom of a helicopter, hovering directly above his
car, blinking its small red lights. The helicopter swerved
to the right, and listed, revealing a view into its side win-
dow, showing the interior of the aircraft. Reynolds then
caught a glance of Officer Stevens at the cockpit, working
the controls. Meeting eyes, Stevens smiled and winked at

38
An Unlikely Death
Reynolds. Reynolds held back a laugh, and shook his
head disbelievingly. Officer Stevens gave a thumbs up
signal, which was then returned by Reynolds.
“Now… lets get ‘em!” said Officer Stevens.
“Right!” said Reynolds, and started his car by turning
the key in the ignition. The engine came to life like a roar-
ing fire. Reynolds tightened his grip on the steering
wheel, and took a deep breath, steeling himself for a
chase. At the signal, his car swerved into the open road,
following in hot pursuit the black car which was speeding
away. He knew that just behind him, high in the air, his
trusty partner Stevens was right behind him, watching his
back.
The black car sped along the street at twice the speed
limit, 55 miles per hour. Reynolds’s patrol car, however
was hot on its track. Ignoring the various traffic signals
and stop signs, the black car rumbled and plowed past
them, resulting in angry horns from frustrated commuters,
who were coming home from a hard day’s work, honking
all around. The patrol car, however, had its sirens on, in-
forming in advance its reckless course, and was met with
understanding looks, even receiving a few cheers.
As Reynolds plowed through a stop sign he almost hit
a mailbox, barely missing it only by last minute driving.
“Watch it!” said Stevens into the radio. Reynolds took a
deep breath, but didn’t let off the gas, instead pressing
down harder to make up for the lost time. His knuckles
white on the steering wheel, he knew he had to be careful.
“Crosshair Curve Ahead!” warned Stevens from the
air. Time for some defensive driving, thought Officer
Reynolds to himself, taking a deep breath to steel himself.
The black car handled the curve with ease, showing the
full extent of its expensive pedigree. Budget cuts, howev-

39
Darwen Amos
er, had resulted in patrol cars geared towards economy
and gas saving, rather than performance. As a result, al-
though it had cost $15,000, Reynolds’s patrol car had a
harder time making the curve, squealing its tires against
the wet concrete of the street, and nearly hitting a pedes-
trian. “Whew! Talk about a close call!” said Reynolds,
wiping the sweat off his brow.
“Ditto!” said Stevens in relief, his breath coming hard
and fast. That had been a little too close for comfort.
The buildings whirled past Reynolds in an ecstasy of
light and music. The city became, not a place of survival,
but a grid of lights. Zooming past the buildings without a
second thought, like a horse out of hell, Reynolds’s patrol
car was showing every ounce of its six-caliber engine,
driven to the hilt by an expert marksman. However, the
black car was driven by an expert getaway man, and the
tangents were close in magnitude. It would all depend on
who wanted it more.
The two cars were now separated by no more than
three car lengths. The road, too, had eased into a straight-
away, making it all about the performance. Shifting gears,
Reynolds informed his car to go at the maximum perfor-
mance. He was confident. Yes, he thought, as the car ap-
proached its prey, I’m sure of my man now. Just a few
more miles… Then, all of a sudden, as if in response to
this, it began to rain. Officer Reynolds took a deep breath.
Conditions were about to change for the worse….

The street was empty, but the clouds were heavy with
the premonition of rain. The weather in California is often
unpredictable. Sometimes, in the wintertime, it feels like
the summer, and vice versa. And rain can fall at any mo-

40
An Unlikely Death
ment. That’s why in this case there was some surprise
when the rain began to fall, in fact pour, on a previously
empty and dry night.
The emptiness of the street was not to last very long.
Even now, when one listens, he can hear a rumbling over
the soft descending rain. It is the rumbling of the spinning
blades of an approaching helicopter. And what is that
sound under the rain and the spinning blades? Though one
might be tempted to suspect an approaching lion, on clos-
er inspection it seems like a car. Suddenly, confirming the
suspicion, a car rushes by at tremendous speeds. The si-
lence is broken, and California has won once again. In
quick succession, another car zips by, then another.

Reynolds gripped the steering wheel with both hands,


the knuckles paling white with exertion. During the
Crosshair turn, he had lost his sight of the black car. Rain-
drops began falling on his windshield with the sound of
bubbling laughter. The rain beat the slamming tempo of a
sped-up rap song in the fine, misty air, and Reynolds’s
heart beat faster to make up the difference. Now the black
car was about in sight, but what of the bridge that was
suddenly raising in front of it?
“BRIDGE!!!” shouted Stevens into his radio.
The bridge ramped up with a beeping noise, as it an-
gled upwards in a circumference of a hypotenuse. The
black car, however, ramped off the created angled and
landed swiftly on the other side, the sparks emerging or-
ange from the contact, and scattering to the floor like a
wasteful firework. Officer Reynolds, however, wasn’t so
fortunate.
As the ramp stood up in a straight line, the patrol car of

41
Darwen Amos
Officer Reynolds smashed into it head first, crunching
into itself like a soda can, a depressed accordion. “No!”
cried Officer Roger Reynolds as the car scrunched up.
Luckily, it did not scrunch up enough to reach Reynolds,
instead stopping a few inches from his face. The sharp
metal, if it had been a few inches closer, would have
punctured Reynolds’s brain’s frontal lobe.
“Dammit!” said Reynolds, slamming his fists on the
steering wheel, which was now expelling a foul-smelling
smoke. The car, however, did not know it was dead and,
morbidly, still insisted on performing its technological
functions, reminding with its blinking light that the gas
was low, and softly humming a tune on the radio.
Through the red haze of his rage, still seated in the
driver’s seat of the patrol car, air bag deployed, Reynolds
heard the running footsteps of his partner Stevens ap-
proaching to see if he was still okay. The pitter-patter of
Stevens’s feet matched the cadence of the falling rain as
they approached the car with worry on their owner’s face.
Reynolds, however, had not escaped entirely un-
scathed. A line of blood, like a teardrop, had fallen from a
place above his right temple, and was now coursing
warmly down the side of his head. When Stevens had
come up next to Reynolds, this line of blood was invisible
to him.
“You okay?” said Stevens.
“I got to catch him…” said Reynolds, “Catch him…”
“I’ve already called the medics,” said Stevens. “You
just hold on.”
“Did we get him?” intoned Reynolds.
“Yes… yes, we got him,” lied Stevens, wiping a tear
from his eye. “Now you just rest now….”
With a dreaming smile on his face, Reynolds lost con-

42
An Unlikely Death
sciousness. Just then the many medical cars were speed-
ing their way toward the accident scene while, interrogat-
ed by the police, the bridge operator was shaking his head
and shrugging his shoulders, unable to explain why he
had raised the bridge…

When Reynolds woke up, his eyes opened to the sight


of a nurse staring at him through the X-ray machine. Next
to her was a sight he had no intention of seeing. It was his
superior of command, General Stathem, who was wearing
a worried face. From time to time as the nurse explained
something or other in medical terminology to the good
general, the general nodded his face and turned once
again to Reynolds with the look of an old, wizened sea
captain, who now lay strapped to the hospital bed, his
casted leg hanging from the ceiling by a wire, and an IV
machine hooked up to his arm.
“Get me out of here,” said Reynolds. “I need to get
back to work.” However this mouth wouldn’t move and it
sounded like so much mumbling.
“Now now,” said the nurse. “Don’t strain yourself now.
Get back to bed and drink a lot of clear water. And don’t
worry about your work… for you today is a snow day.”
“You heard what the nurse said!” barked General
Stathem, his face quivering in anger. “You need a lot of
rest! Don’t worry. Officer McDaniel will take over your
case. A competent police officer, in my opinion. He al-
ways keeps the bottom line in view.”
Officer McDaniel, in Reynolds’s opinion, was a
brownnoser who tried to get on General Stathem’s good
senses. The other policemen and policewomen did not ap-
prove of his philandering actions, but what was there to

43
Darwen Amos
do? McDaniel had the power of General Stathem behind
his back. As a result, McDaniel never had to say a word
in his own defense. And he was always rude to the other
officers, never even bothering to say hello. The obvious
truth, that money and power, rather than human nature,
would always prevail.
Suddenly, the nurse left a room. A few moments later,
General Stathem discreetly walked up to the door and
closed it. Leaning over the prone and immobile Officer
Reynolds on the medical bed, he brought his face so close
Reynolds could almost smell his mustache. Then, in tones
which stoked a true hatred, the “good general” began his
speech:
“Let’s get one thing, on the straight and narrow,”
growled General Stathem, “you don’t like me and vice
versa. So let’s stay out of each other’s way. Now Officer
McDaniel is on the case, and will be until you get better.
But seeing your condition, I wouldn’t be surprised if that
were a very long time indeed.”
“Why is there still a case, if the perp was captured?”
asked Reynolds.
The general scoffed. “Of course there is a case! The
only thing you captured on that wild goose chase of yours
was your sense of dignity! The perp escaped!”
“B-but, Stevens said, Stevens said…” sputtered the
other man.
“Stevens,” concluded General Stathem triumphantly,
“is a liar. And I have fired him. To make up for this, your
pay is now cut. Your new partner is Officer McDaniel
from now on….”
With that, Stathem walked out of the hospital room,
and Reynolds fancied he heard a snicker or two under his
tomato-red face.

44
An Unlikely Death
Reynolds was in a state of shock. He was so shocked,
in fact, that he remained silent, saying nothing. If Stevens
was a betrayer, what did that make him? When the nurse
returned with his lunch, a peanut butter sandwich,
Reynolds was lost in thought…

As General Stathem was walking out of the hospital, a


phone is his pocket began to ring. The ring tone, a piece
of military march music, immediately filled the afternoon
air, giving a zealous militancy to the rest of the scene. Af-
ter enjoying the rousing music for a few seconds, the tall
hale general reached into that pocket and removed his
mobile phone.
“Yep, General Stathem here,” said the general. “Yes,
yes. I understand. Don’t worry, everything is going to
plan. Goodbye.”
With this, the secretive general was once again on his
way.

Mr. James had just finished his conversation with Gen-


eral Stathem. After asking him if their plan was worked,
he hung up the receiver, content and satisfied. Yes… he
thought, General Stathem was indeed on the FBI’s pay-
roll. With a hypocritical air, Mr. James smiled, knowing
his plan was near completion. If only that pesky Officer
Reynolds wasn’t there…

45
Chapter Four
Public Service

O fficer Reynolds fully recovered from his physical


illness. His emotional illness, however, was another
question. The tears that did not flow down his face in pain
flowed in plenty instead in the interior of his heart.
If a bystander were to look at Officer Reynolds, and be
asked to describe the man he saw standing before him,
one would perhaps describe the various characteristics of
the man standing in front of him as a normal, everyday
working Joe, with not a care in his mind. In outer appear-
ance, Reynolds was nothing more than an average con-
struction worker, or an everyday man you see at the su-
permarket when you’re shopping for groceries. But inside
his outer normality, Reynolds burned with a fiery passion
for the good. And when he made a mistake, he was not li-
able to repeat that mistake, but try to make alms with the
people he had hurt.
He remembered what General Stathem had said to him

46
An Unlikely Death
at the hospital:
“Although we are a police station, and you were only
chasing the criminal, you caused quite a bit of collateral
damage with that reckless driving of yours. And although
collateral damage is acceptable if the losses are less than
the net profit of having captured the criminal, in your
case, it would have been better if you had not chased the
criminal because we would not have suffered the collater-
al damages and in the end you did not catch the criminal.
A criminal is a criminal because he has a negative effect
on society. And he only continues to be a criminal if he’s
going to do more harm during his lifetime. Because you
only need to catch a criminal because of his tendency to
do more crime and cause damage to a society, if he’s not
going to cause more damage to society during his life, and
become an upstanding citizen, then what’s the point to
catching the criminal if he’s only going to do good to the
society? If the criminal is throughout his lifetime is going
to do the less damage than the collateral damage caused
by catching him, then why catch the criminal? You know,
who’s to know if he’s going to do more bad to society?
You’re only catching the criminal who is questionable if
he’s going to do more bad. You’re causing damage which
is sure as opposed to the criminal which you’re not sure is
going to do more damage to society. This is all assuming
the people that the criminal has hurt so far is not going to
get satisfaction from the criminal getting caught, which is
also good to society. So basically you’re assuring the
criminal future success by causing collateral damage by
catching him, because it’s the criminal’s success to do
damage to society. So by the catching the criminal, you’re
only ensuring that the criminal gets success. However, in-
stead of the criminal costing money, in this case you cost

47
Darwen Amos
us the collateral damage. For in the end, what is a police
department but a business? What I’m saying is, is that ba-
sically in this case you are the criminal, and not him. In
that case, what’s the point of catching the criminal? Of
course, we cops look out for each other so we won’t put
you in jail but I will force you to take some time off.”
Although at times Reynolds and the Major had their
differences, here the general’s words hit him roughly in
the heart. He had indeed took his station, his police sta-
tion, as granted. And without thinking of the conse-
quences, he had always acted from the correctness of his
instinct. It is a hard day when one knows that his instinct
isn’t correct. And Reynolds, through no fault of his own,
was finding out that very clearly. He remembered back to
his schoolyard days, when a friend had borrowed money
from him. Reynolds was the type of man, who even then
made no scruples about forcing people to repay him. And
when his friend had repaid him, he had already forgotten
about letting him borrow the money. So it was as if some
free money had been given to him. In other words, a hap-
piness he wouldn’t have gotten came out of him forget-
ting to reclaim the debt.
He also remembered the time when he was young and
had accidentally cut a lizard in half. He was horrified at
the time, but watched in relived amazement as the two
halves grew into two separate lizards. Like that lizard, if
he could make reparations, perhaps he could make a net
profit, not in money, but in human nature.
When he recovered, he called his friend Officer
Stevens, who had not really been fired (General Stathem
had simply been trying to rile up Reynolds to get his
blood pressure high, looking for a fight) at all, and said
the following message:

48
An Unlikely Death
“Hey, Stevens, you know that car chase we just been
through?”
“How could I forget? I still have that bruise on my arm
from when I jumped from the helicopter!” said Officer
Stevens.
“Well, it seems I might have caused a bit of collateral
damage? Do you have the damage reports?”
“Yes. I’ll fax them over right away,” smirked Stevens.
“but if the boss finds out about this, I’m in some deep
trouble.”
“Good. I think I have some work to do.”

A landlord of the eastern buildings which comprised a


row of apartments, was in an emotional turmoil. Ever
since the car chase had gone on, the collateral damage
which had been wrought on his expensive luxury apart-
ments was too much to be believed. Now he knew he
would not have enough money to pay the rent of his cus-
tomers. And since the damage had been caused by a crim-
inal and a policeman, there was little to no chance of a
repercussion. And without this repayment, he did not
know how he was to live his normal state of life. Howev-
er, there was no use in idle complaining, for he had the
long job of working out the various reports for the many
tenants who, not for long, still paid their rent and lived in
the broken down, damaged tenement of apartments, once
so luxurious, he now owned.
But Reynolds, who had decided to make up for his col-
lateral damage by helping fix the places he had damaged,
now showed up in front of the apartment, holding a shov-
el and a bag of concrete. Apologizing to the tenement
owner for his mistake, he then proceeded to get to work,

49
Darwen Amos
laying up the bricks and filling in the holes of the apart-
ment with the concrete. And the tenement owner, who
had until then taken it for granted that his apartment was
in no shape to be fixed, smiled in appreciation at the kind
gesture. Waving a hand to the officer, he received a wave
and a smile in return, though Reynolds was obviously
hard at work, and it was a great effort for him even to
smile.
Reynolds, picking up his shovel, used it to put the final
brick in the first floor, making it good as new. When other
people, crossing the street, noticed the police officer hard
at work, many offered to lend their own efforts to the
cause. Nevertheless, Reynolds, saying, “This is my
work,” waved them off and resumed his work once more.
The passerbys could only shake their heads in amaze-
ment.
After three hours of work, the afternoon sun was shin-
ing brightly on the tenement, making Reynolds’s muscu-
lar arms glisten with sweat and labor. The landlord, look-
ing out his window, saw the thick arms of Reynolds glis-
tening like a tree trunk as the officer, with only a tank top
on, wiped away the sweat from the brow. When the land-
lord approached him outside with a tray of sandwiches
and lemonade, which Reynolds accepted with gratitude,
he was met by the officer’s claim that he would work ex-
tra hard to make up for not only the collateral damage, but
the cost of the nourishment. The landlord, pleasantly sur-
prised, returned to his apartment on the fifth floor.
The apartment was finished, in a better condition than
new. When the landlord stepped out to observe it,
Reynolds was already gone, off to his next job at the Ital-
ian restaurant he had damaged during the chase.

50
An Unlikely Death
***

General Stathem sat back in his office, the AC blasting


at full heat. With a smile, he turned over the page of his
newspaper, which had been delivered to him by his secre-
tary only a moment before. Although he enjoyed doing
the crossword puzzle every morning over a hot cup of
coffee and pancakes, today for some reason he took up
the Community Section of the newspaper and read it first.
Spreading his legs on his desk, the General opened the
newspaper, which made a crinkling noise like a crackling
fire. His eyes suddenly alit on a small section, which had
been printed with the words: “Local Officer Helps The
Community.” Spitting his coffee out in a fine mist, his
widened eyes skimmed over the section of newspaper, his
eyes riveted on every word….
Officer Reynolds, the story began, has turned over a
new leaf. Surprisingly after the damage caused by his
reckless driving, this police officer turns out to be good
on his word! The people of the city can expect more
events such as these from the other officers in the sta-
tions, as it seems to have turned over a new leaf. Contin-
ued on Page 7…
The gist of the short story was that Officer Reynolds,
one of his officers, had been doing a lot of community
work on his off days, putting in the bricks of the
ramshackle sections of Redlight Avenue, and repairing an
apartment tenement and an Italian restaurant to even bet-
ter than how they were before. At first, outraged, Stath-
em’s eyes had turned sharp. Nevertheless, in a moment
his mind was already forming a plan to use this to his ad-
vantage. His eyes softened. The police station had always
had a reputation for being unwilling to help people in

51
Darwen Amos
need, but politically, this story might be just what was
needed to rescue the police’s Bad Samaritan reputation.
Already General Stathem’s mind was hard at work formu-
lating a course of action… a course of action which in-
cluded the rehiring of this fired agent of his, who had now
proved himself to be a publicity asset.

Reynolds put away his shovel, wiping the sweat that


was now coursing down his brow. His hands covered with
concrete, he had just finished completing the work on the
Italian restaurant, which was now shining like a newly
built construction. Sighing with relief, he began to eat the
large plate of spaghetti and meatballs, complete with
Parmesan cheese, the owner of the restaurant had provid-
ed to him pro bono. Just when he had finished his shabby
meal, and was about to go back to work, his walkie talkie
began to ring.
“Hello?” said Reynolds, answering the call.
“It’s General Stathem,” Reynolds received, with his
characteristic gruff voice. “I order you to come into the
station, soldier, for there is something I want to say you.”
“Oh yeah? And what’s that?” asked Officer Roger
Reynolds warily.
“You’re hired again. I took Officer McDaniel off the
case. From now on, Officer Stevens is reinstated as your
partner.”
“Why all the good news?”
“Hey, thems the breaks,” chuckled General Stathem,
“if you don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, you’d
better come in before I change my mind.” With that, he
burst into laughter.
Surprised by General Stathem’s rare joke, because he

52
An Unlikely Death
was not ordinarily a humorous man, a suspicion formed in
Reynolds’s mind. What could he want…? thought
Reynolds. But he was in too bad of a position to be argu-
ing with a gift. Still suspicious, he decided to come in to
work the next day after all.

The police station was not as busy as usual. Except for


a few calls about traffic tickets and the like, there had
been no important emergency calls on the line. The vari-
ous police officers sat at their desks, hardly able to con-
strict their yawns at the inactivity which had now beset
them. Police officers are an energetic sort, and without
daily exercise cannot go on living. The fans whirled about
at each desk, drying the cool sweat that had now formed
on the brows of the officers. General Stathem, in his of-
fice, yawned as the hot sweltering heat of the summer
bore down on him, making him idle.
Fortunately for these officers, something exciting was
about to take place in that station. And if you wait…yes,
now, you would be able to see the front door of the police
station opening and, a familiar face, that of Officer
Reynolds, in plain clothes, entering the station. All eyes
turned on this deposed officer, who they had not expected
to see. Indeed, there was no need to expect this officer at
the moment. Only a few days in the past the various offi-
cers of the station had huddled in a corner to read the bul-
letin board, where the message that Officer Reynolds had
been fired still stood. When Reynolds walked in, it was as
though a ghost of their dead friend had entered the room.
A chill ran through that room, immediately rendering the
still whirling fans into useless paperweights.
Then it happened. Reynolds walked in. All heads in the

53
Darwen Amos
room turned, like magnets, to the charismatic man who
was now walking through the door. General Stathem,
with a look of surprise, jumped from his seat. Reynolds,
confidently, threw open the door to General Stathem’s
private, second floor office, and walked in.
“So, what do you want?” said Stathem.
“You tell me,” said Reynolds. “It’s your game I’m
playing…”
“I’ve heard about your recent escapade in the neighbor-
hood,” said Stathem, “why don’t you tell me more about
it?”
“So I helped out some people in need. What of it?”
“It seems,” said General Stathem, removing a sheaf of
files from his drawer folder. “that your charity has given
us a bit of a bulkhead on the amount of damage this de-
partment’s allowed to cause! Rather than costing us mon-
ey in catching criminals, by making reparations you in-
stead gave us money to be allowed to cause extra collater-
al damage. As far as I’m concerned, if this is the trend
you plan to follow, you’re back on the case!”
“All this… for something I did out of a need to make
alms, rather than repay my debts?”
“That’s right. And that’s just the kind of publicity the
LAPD needs. From now on, you’re my secondhand
man!”
“What about McDaniel?”
“McDaniel is yesterday’s news.”
“Hmm… if I do as you say, can I come back on the
case?”
“As far as I’m concerned, yes. You can pick up your
badge tomorrow, at the policeman’s ball.”
“Thank you sir.”
And with that, the conversation was over.

54
An Unlikely Death
***

The policeman’s ball was abuzz with conversation


about Officer Reynolds’s sudden change of heart.
The large hotel ballroom, adorned with a glass chande-
lier, had been laid out with the settings for a feast. A few
meters from the dining area, was a roped-off zone for
dancing. It was a splendid event. Ladies and gentlemen of
the realm, sipping their aperitifs, gossiped wildly about
the possible meanings of that sudden about-face of
Reynolds. Had he got a new mistress? Or perhaps his son
was sent into an army? And such a nice boy he was! And
so on. Such chatter filled the air of the luxurious hotel
ballroom at which policemen, dressed to the nines, circled
each other in slow, expert dances while a swing band
played on. The smell of iodine, rising from the arranged
shrimp cocktail platter on the main table, rose up to meet
the party guests.
“Do pass my compliments on to the party planner,”
said a commodore to the butler, “This soirée is to die
for!”
“Yes sir,” said the butler, cool as ice. Then, the door-
bell rang, announcing the next guest. It was Officer
Reynolds.
“Psst…” whispered one of the ladies of manner, “here
he comes now!”
“I fancy him!” hissed another lady, sipping an aperitif.
The door to the ballroom opened as Officer Reynolds
appeared, decked out in the highest possible color police
uniform, red, with a aluminum foil sword at his side. And
proudly, by his side, was the general, looking pleased as
punch to be there, acting the marginal part of best friend
to the newly famous officer.

55
Darwen Amos
The question then was whether the General needed to
give the party-goers any hints at all, as to who this dash-
ing young man was. He had all the cards in hand. If he
made an effort to promote Officer Reynolds he wouldn't
be able to grab them right away, since they would assume
he was exaggerating the officer’s good deeds, but if he
said nothing they wouldn’t be able to keep up with the
other aces he had waiting in hand. If he was probably go-
ing to win them over anyway, why give them that chance
to steal that possibility from him, as remote as it might
be? He remained silent, and bathed in the accolades of his
newfound “friend”….
Following the general’s commands, Officer Reynolds
commingled with the ladies and gentlemen, charming
them over with his easy speech and free knowledge of all
the hot topics of the day: politics, sports, you name it, Of-
ficer Reynolds knew it all (In truth, the General had taken
some hours before this party had started, ignoring the var-
ious calls to the station, to catch Reynolds up on all the
hot topics. In return, Reynolds would get his job back).
Officer Reynolds was, unwittingly, doing a good job
buttering up the patrons of the party for the general’s plan
to succeed. Thinking this, the General lit a Cuban cigar,
savoring the sweet sensation of smoke as it coursed
through his lungs. The dinner began. It was a charity din-
ner, so each patron had to pay twice as much as the dinner
actually cost. Of course, they were rich enough to afford
it. The fools… thought General Stathem. They don’t
know that the extra money won’t really be going to chari-
ty and instead is going to be lining my own pockets…
Charity is just a hypocrisy provided by the top one per-
cent of the richest. If one wants to help the homeless, it’s
better to give them food instead of money, because it’s

56
An Unlikely Death
their inability to spend money that got them to where they
are in the first place.
There was laughter all around. At each table, if one
looked around, you could see people either laughing at a
particular charming joke told by Officer Reynolds, or if
they were too far away to hear, disappointedly wishing
they were close enough to hear the joke. The time seemed
correct. Hitting his spoon on the wine glass, the General
called the attention of the partygoers. Conversation
stopped short, and all eyes were turned on the general.
The general, proud of the effect he had created, stood up
and began his speech:
“Now that you party attendants have enjoyed the good
company of my prodigy, it’s time that you did a favor for
me in return. Election day is only a few days away. Now,
I don’t know what propositions and bills you hope to be
voting on, and I certainly don’t care. America’s a free
country, and you can vote for what you want. The consti-
tution has always said the power is to the people. But on
Proposition A37, I implore you to vote yes. In truth, this
is not a suggestion, but an order. For if you want to enjoy
the company of Officer Reynolds any longer, you must
vote yes on this proposition.”
There was a loud gasp through the hushed crowd.
General Stathem suddenly pointed his gun at Officer
Reynolds’s temple. “Yes… if you don’t vote for Proposi-
tion A37, I don’t think you’ll be able to enjoy his compa-
ny much longer….”
The crowd weighed its mind. If voting against the
proposition meant a murder, especially a murder of some-
one they deeply cared for, what law would be bad enough
that it wouldn’t be worth saving a life? And even if the
law was kind of bad for society, it wouldn’t even be pro-

57
Darwen Amos
posed to be voted on unless it was at least somewhat rea-
sonable. Although the General’s action was reprehensible,
he would certainly lose his job and go to jail for this ac-
tion he was committing right now. And in that case, what
was the point of opposing him? Why couldn’t they just
pretend that they were going to vote for the proposition
and, when the time came, not vote for it. After all, it was-
n’t as if the general was going to monitor every voting
booth come election day and shoot Reynolds if they did-
n’t vote for it. He would probably still be in jail at that
point. So the best thing was probably just to pretend that
they were going to vote for it now, and when the time
came actually make the decision, after weighing the issue
on both sides, whether or not to vote for it. And if the
General, who was a bad guy, wanted people to vote for it,
it probably wasn’t even that good of a proposition. Actu-
ally, in a way the general was hurting his own cause be-
cause now, even people who would have normally voted
for it now were less likely to vote for it. So in this case,
there was really no disadvantage to, for now, say that they
were voting for it, and later change their mind or not, de-
pending on what happened. Thinking this, the crowd nod-
ded their head in agreement. A wide smile crossed the
General’s face.
During this time, Officer Reynolds had went through
the same thought process, speeded up due to the fact that
there was a gun pointed at his head. And of course, he
also knew that the crowd would probably do as they were
planning to do. But something was off. The general was a
smart man. He would be able to see the fatal flaw in the
plan. Something just didn’t make sense….
“Well!” said General Stathem. “So everything is all
well and ends well. But I’m afraid I didn’t exactly tell you

58
An Unlikely Death
the whole truth. Voting day is not a few days away as I’ve
said. In fact it is today. Soldiers! Forward March!”
The doors of the ballroom suddenly flew open. A line
of armored soldiers, carrying an assortment of voting
booths, arrived, filed in, and began setting the booths
down one by one on the floor. Pointing their guns at the
party-goers, they ushered them into a single line and into
the voting booths. Guns pointed, they made sure that the
voters, one by one, voted for Proposition A37. If they did
not, Reynolds would take a bullet in the head….
Reynolds grit his teeth in anger. The people who were
now voting for A37 were the cream of the crop in LA. As
a result, their votes would count more than normal. With-
out even calculating it, he knew that the proposition
would be passed. He was quivering in anger as the gener-
al’s gun pointed at him. Crying voters in hysterics marked
off “yes” on the ballot against their will. And this mock-
ery of democracy, to the militaristic mind of the general,
made him smile in satisfaction.
Reynolds suddenly remembered what Proposition A37
entailed: “Police officers cannot be prosecuted for any
crimes. The FBI is now in control of the state govern-
ment….” He suddenly realized the genius of the general’s
plan. Even if what he was doing right now was against the
law, and he was put in jail, when the proposition took ef-
fect, he would be freed, due to the stipulation that police
officers could not be persecuted. It was a plan as perfect
as a triangulagram. This was plain as day. But what of the
FBI gaining full power over all governments? What was
the point of getting the proposition voted in if it was sim-
ply not to be prosecuted for the crime he committed to get
it voted in? How did this help the general? He
wondered… What was the general planning?…

59
Chapter Five
The Takeover of America

R eynolds wondered if, according to the police manual,


he should try to disarm General Stathem by kicking
the gun out his hand. However, General Stathem, though
he was not the fighter he once used to be, surely expected
Reynolds to do things “by the book.” As a result, it would
be more surprising if he tried something else… something
a little outside of the box shall we say.
Reynolds took a deep breath, steeling himself for his
next move. Even in chaos there was order.
But just as he was about to do something, General Stath-
em, perhaps sensing this, raised his right palm, saying, “I
think that’s enough voting for today. It should be enough
that there is ensured the possibility of the proposition be-
ing voted in.”
For the first time, Reynolds’s habit of thinking things
through before acting had cost him dearly. It was too
late….

60
An Unlikely Death
***

The Proposition A37 was voted in. The written motion,


that the FBI was now the regular government, was enact-
ed into the law by a deliberative body. The House of Leg-
islature, surprised that the law, which they had taken as
granted would not be accepted, had come into effect,
shook their heads in amazement. As the House of Legisla-
ture were loudly arguing about what to do, there was a
loud rap-tap-tapping knock on the door.
The door opened. In entered a group of two or three
hundred FBI soldiers. Around the lawn on the White
House, FBI agents were stationed on roosts and hidey-
holes, waiting to snipe anyone who tried to escape. As the
legislators of the house started complaining about the in-
trusion, FBI soldiers walked about the round room, tying
the men to their seats and stuffing their mouths with cot-
ton.
“Quiet!” said General Stathem, who had been promot-
ed to infantry general of the FBI. “And listen!”
Saying this, he took a remote control out of his pocket.
An FBI soldier, wheeling in a large television set, rolled it
up to the podium where General Stathem now stood, and
the General directed the eyes of the Parliament to the
screen. Having captured their attention in this respective
manner, he told his right-hand man, Officer McDaniel,
who had defected to the FBI along with him, to dim the
lights….

The president, sitting in his Oval Office and reading a


new bill he was about to veto, also heard a doorbell. Get-
ting up from his seat and opening the door, he was met by

61
Darwen Amos
the face of Mr. James. The fifty-year-old Mr. James, who
dyed his hair blond each day, smiled in a ‘V,’ as his eyes
narrowed into slits like a Chinese sorcerer’s. The presi-
dent at first didn’t recognize this strange man, who looked
so triumphant, but thinking back, he remembered a meet-
ing in which he had spoken with the FBI. It had taken
place four years ago, just as the president was being reen-
acted. However, then, Mr. James had asked for full mar-
tial authority to the FBI, citing the recent terrorist attacks
as the reason. This authority would give the FBI full pow-
er over the United States government, allowing them to
do what they wanted willy-nilly. Of course, this was im-
possible for any president to accept. Right in front of Mr.
James’s face, the president had vetoed the bill, tri-
umphantly putting the red stamp on the proposition. Mr.
James, he remembered fondly, had been fuming with sup-
pressed anger. But now, somehow the proposition had
found its way to the election booths and had been voted
in. That triumphant smile on Mr. James’s face told him as
much.
“What is the meaning of this?” said the president.
“Shut up, you old coot,” said Mr. James, snapping his
fingers. At his order, five members of the National Guard,
once so loyal to the president, now came in and began ty-
ing the president up in his chair. As they did so, five
members of the US Navy also came in and began to set
up a camera station right there in the Oval Office. When
the president began to protest, the leader of the National
Guard, now fully under the control of the FBI, shot a tran-
quilizer dart into the president’s neck, stunning him. The
president started to protest again, but, in the middle of the
sentence fell asleep.
“Finally that loudmouth is asleep,” said the leader of

62
An Unlikely Death
the National Guard, as the rest of them began to laugh.
“Shut up!” said Mr. James. “Now is my time to shine.”
“Ready and rolling sir,” said the leader of the US
Navy, who was behind the camera.
“Very well,” said Mr. James, clearing his throat. “Start
the camera and begin taping.”
“Yes sir,” said the Navy man, pressing the on button on
the side of the camera.
Mr. James began his speech….

The members of the US Parliament had their eyes now


fixed on the giant screen which took up the eastern wall
of the Congress. The screen started at first with static but,
as Officer McDaniel readjusted the antennae, it came
back into focus. What came into focus was the desk at the
Oval Office. The circular presidential seal, plastered un-
der the desk, and the fact that this was the Oval Office,
the president’s private bedroom, made every Congress-
man in the room expect to see the familiar smiling face of
their commander-in-chief beaming back at them, perhaps
with a comforting message that everything was going to
be all right.
However, their wild expectations were scheduled to be
disappointed. Instead of the smiling face of their president
looking back at them, they were met with the sneering
faces of Mr. James and his criminal empire. The cotton in
the mouths of the various politicians and senators pre-
vented them from expressing their disapproval. Therefore,
Mr. James, facing a captive audience, began his planned
speech, reading the scrolling text on the screen under the
camera.
“I know you must all be surprised to find me speaking

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Darwen Amos
to you. There are going to be a few changes in this coun-
try. First of all, we will be placing armed guards all over
the country to prevent people from opposing the police. In
addition, all taxes and sales will go through the police,
now a subsection of the FBI, first and less money will be
allocated to education and religion. Finally, all weapon
possessions are all illegal except for the FBI and the
FBI’s police. Drugs of all types will no longer be avail-
able, even medical ones. To make up for this, each family
making above $40,000 a year will receive a monthly ship-
ment of one of each drug. If you run out, sorry, but you’re
on your own. Finally, all money will be reallocated to
Project Insignia, which is set into operation
immediately….
“What’s Project Insignia, you might ask? It is a project
for making all illegal activities, such as gunrunning, drug
sales, and prostitution, all come under the single banner of
organized legality. It will improve the country. Rather
than having the various drug dealers and gun runners, dis-
honest men one and all, control the distribution of impor-
tant goods that people will buy regardless of whether or
not they are illegal, it will all be controlled by the safe or-
ganizations of the FBI and the LAPD. We will of course
have to reduce the amount of churches and schools, re-
placing them with weapons factories and drug cartels.
People will complain, of course, but the USA will be the
most profitable and least lawbreaking country in the
world, as the amount of laws that can be broken will be
reduced and controlled. At Stage Omega, there will only
be one law: Do not oppose the FBI. Anyone who opposes
me will be thrown in jail which, of course, will now be
under the control of the FBI. It might be hard at first, but
in the end you will get used to it and learn to love it.

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An Unlikely Death
Goodbye, my fellow citizens, and godspeed!”
“Cut!” yelled the Navy captain who was manning the
camera. “That’s a wrap!” He turned off the camera.
“How do you think Project Insignia is going?” asked
Mr. James.
“Perfect sir, just perfect,” sputtered General Stathem,
who had just entered the room.
“And what of Reynolds?” asked Mr. James.
“Well, sir,” said General Stathem. “right now he cannot
be located, but we are trying hard in that direction.”
“Good,” said Mr. James. “I will send my best assassin,
coincidentally named Mr. Assassin, after him.”
“Well sir,” said General Stathem, “if I may speak so
honestly, after that Gymnocat debacle I hardly think Mr.
Assassin is the correct person for the job.”
“Perhaps you might be right,” said Mr. James, stroking
his chin. “Got any better ideas?”
“If I may,” said General Stathem, “my own officer,
McDaniel, just may be the man for the job.”
“An Irishman, I see by the name,” said Mr. James.
“then perhaps we will be lucky in getting the job done.”
General Stathem saluted his new captain, walking over
to the Parliament to inform his inferior, McDaniel about
his new assignment.

Officer McDaniel waited in the Legislative Office. His


impassive face showed no emotion. Neither did he say
anything, for he had, as a child in Tibet living among
monks, taken a vow of silence which lasted twenty years.
Ever since he was six years old, he hadn’t spoken a word.
When General Stathem entered, he simply listened to
what his superior had to say. Nodding his head in agree-

65
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ment, he picked up his sniper gun. He was the perfect sol-
dier, obeying without speaking. Then he walked out of the
building and over to his patrol car, a K-9 unit. When he
entered the car with the file locating Officer Reynolds’s
possible whereabouts, his German Shepard, Shing-Lao,
leapt up from the passenger seat to lick his face. (Mc-
Daniel went so far as to consider this humble creature a
full-fledged partner of his, a conceit that made him un-
popular with the cat-lovers.) Officer McDaniel, a very se-
rious fellow, merely patted the dog’s head. Though he
himself was a vegetarian, his dog was not, and he threw
Shing-Lao a bloody shank of a horse he had purchased
from the butcher shop. Shing-Lao hungrily began to eat it,
the blood of the rare horse drooling down his chin and
making a gore-filled puddle on the upholstery.
Shing-Lao, the German Shepard, was a dangerous dog
who could smell both drugs, guns, and bombs. But what
he could smell best was human beings. And what he
could smell even better was the fear of human beings. He
rarely smelled the former without also smelling the latter.
Officer McDaniel held up a piece of fabric which had
once belonged to Officer Reynolds. Shing-Lao smelled it.
Like a compass, Shing-Lao’s nose suddenly pointed
north.
So North it was… thought Officer McDaniel. His in-
stinct had told him as much. Since his instinct and his
dog’s nose were in full agreement, there was a one hun-
dred per cent chance North was correct. Giving a short
prayer to the Tibetan gods, his car, his dog, and he headed
in the northerly direction, the sniper rifle on the back seat
of the patrol car, ominously shining in the setting sun
with what appeared to be a bloody gleam….
The American flags on the green grassy lawn of the

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An Unlikely Death
White House fluttered in the wind….

***

America was in a chaos. Never since President Nixon’s


tyrannical reign had the country been such an apocalyptic
wasteland. Hospitals, nurseries, schools, churches – one
and all were felled as if by a single chop of a large axe…
wielded, of course, by that lumberjack of America, Uncle
Sam, except he was now wearing FBI threads.
Weeping men and woman watched in grief as FBI heli-
copters arrived at their favorite hotspots, with large
medicine balls hanging from the bottoms like the balls
and chains that keep husbands from watching sports and
drinking beer on Sundays, the consecrated football nights
of America. As the swinging balls of destruction hit the
buildings, and the buildings clattered to the ground amidst
rubble and smoke, firefighters were forced to put out the
fires of destruction… The screaming of women, and the
cries of babies still trapped in the buildings, wandered
over the sad nightscape….

Jim Haverson walked his daughter to the ice cream


store. His daughter, Karen, only an age of eight, was hap-
pily at her father’s side, bouncing up and down with a
balloon in one hand, trailing in the afternoon sky. Fighter
jets and helicopters winged their ways all across the sky,
but for Jim Haverson and his daughter, there were only
the two of them in this world, father and daughter, going
to the ice cream shop, for a job well done on the last re-
port card.
Karen’s brain was dreaming of the different variations

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Darwen Amos
of ice cream, all 31 different flavors, whirling in her unin-
telligible mind like Christmas sweets. Jim Haverson,
thinking of the five hours of work he had to do every day
in order to supply his wife and daughter and pets with the
food and love they needed, reflected on how it was a good
use of his hard-earned money to use it to buy ice cream to
his daughter, and bring just a little bit more happiness
than she had previously had. The eyes of the two famil-
iars, glazed over with happiness, ignored the various signs
of national defeat present in this war-torn wasteland – the
fallen buildings, the bodies of political dissidents piled up
upon the streets in various attitudes and positions of
death, the river of refuse being redirected from the sewer
system into the state prisons… all of these were invisible
figments of the imagination for these two lucky
fellows….
They passed First Street, made a turn on Main Avenue,
and arrived by way of Wilkinshire Blvd to their favorite
ice cream shop, a mom and pop’s business named Mr.
Cream’s. Just when Jim Haverson was about to reach for
the familiar doorknob of this store, which had remained
open and operational since 1950, he realized that the
doorknob wasn’t there, missing… Surprised like a dog
which expects to find a ball its owner teasingly pretended
to throw, the blue-collar everyday Joe stepped back, try-
ing to view the ice cream shop at which he and his daugh-
ter had spent so many lazy Sundays together, perhaps eat-
ing a Rocky Road ice cream. It was to no avail.
Where the ice cream shop used to be there was only
dusty, dead air. Fragments of concrete, left behind by the
wrecking ball which had crushed the building only a few
days before, still hung in the air, impeding vision. And
even though the vision was impeded, Jim Haverson still

68
An Unlikely Death
had enough wherewithal to notice that the shop was gone
– devastated by the FBI…
Karen, her hopes broken, released the string in her
hand. The sad balloon climbed skyward – up, and up and
up until perhaps, one day, it will hit that sun of ours and
pop. But until then, it is still flying in the air. And until
then there can be no happiness – neither for Jim nor
Karen Haverson.

Mabeline Johnson, a resident of the Woodland Retire-


ment home, was sad. Her best friend, one Mary Gymno-
cat, had been murdered only a short while ago. The only
thing which still gave her happiness was the morphine her
nursing home nurse had administered to her every day.
Sitting at a chessboard, the sad elderly woman waited for
her drug.
Ten minutes passed. Nothing happened. Then, Ma-
beline Johnson began to be suspicious. She waited until a
nurse was passing the table and grabbed her arm. The
nurse, confused but still with a caring expression on her
face, turned to Mabeline, asking with her eyes the ques-
tion: “What is the matter?”
“Where is my medicine?” demanded Mabeline.
“But don’t you know?” said the nurse.
“Don’t I know what?” said Mabeline crabbily.
“That ever since Mr. James took power, nursing homes
only get one of each drug. And we had to give the mor-
phine to Mrs. Wilkinstone, who, as you may know, is
very sick and in quite a lot of pain.”
Mabeline Johnson, depressed, tried to think of happy
thoughts. But, without her medicine, it was impossible.
The only images that went through her head were those

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Darwen Amos
connected with death – RIPs, cemeteries, and ghosts…

Dwaine Smith needed to sell illegal books to keep his


baby sister and mother alive. His mother, an invalid,
could not work and his sister, only of the age of five, did
not have the ability to buy anything with her “job” as a
mere child. Therefore, Dwaine was forced to sell “The
Catcher in the Rye,” a book which should be legal any-
ways, and which does not have that many harmful effects,
to survive. He waited on the corner street for his next cus-
tomer.
Maggy, one of his normal customers passed by without
saying a word.
“Hey!” said Dwaine, calling her back. “Don’t you want
to buy some books?”
Maggy shook her head. “Haven’t you heard? All books
use is maintained by the FBI. Every book is now legal. I
can get illegal books at far cheaper prices at the local su-
permarket now so why should I buy from you?”
Dwaine walked home, dejected…

Mr. James sat in his office at the top of a high-rise


building. The bell on his communicator rang. It was his
young secretary.
“The new funds have just arrived,” said the young sec-
retary into the radio.
“How much?” said Mr. James.
“Ten million dollars,” said the young secretary.
“And where should we allocate them?” asked Mr.
James.
“Well, sir,” said the young secretary, taken aback.

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An Unlikely Death
“That’s up to you.”
“Then allocate them to Project Insignia,” said Mr.
James.
“Yes sir,” said the young secretary.

Mr. and Mrs. Christopher walked to church. When they


reached it, the church had been destroyed.
“How can we worship if there is no church?” asked
Mrs. Christopher.
“I don’t know, dear,” said Mr. Christopher, shaking his
head in confusion.

It was time for school. David Kinsington, an eight year


old, was eager to go to school and learn about science.
Science had always been his favorite subject since grade
school. The only other subject that even came close was
math, then English. He always raised his hand after the
bell for end of class rang to ask for more homework. The
teacher, shaking his head in amazed disbelief, always as-
signed special homework for David, amidst the knowing
groans and complaints of the other classmates. However,
David was well liked by all involved and never had to
make do with the less than average amount of friends.
David, waking up from his bed, stretched his arms with
a satisfying noise. He turned his alarm clock off with a
bang. Even though he set his alarm clock to go off right
before school, he always awoke before it began its trade-
mark ring, telling him a new morning was afoot. He
looked out the window with a yawn.
It was a beautiful day. The birds singing, the grass
waving in the wind, a perfect day to learn about science.

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In his mind, David imagined and heard the various bells
to signify the ends of each period, which he hated. He
imagined the smiling faces of his professors as they rose
to meet him.
A smell of pancakes was in the air. Excited, David
jumped out his bed and ran downstairs, almost scraping
his knee on the banister. His mother, however, was not
looking to cook pancakes, but was sitting on the couch
with a disappointing look on her face.
The television and radio were on. The radio said: “Stu-
dents all around the world are rejoicing, for there is no
more school…”
David turned to his mother… “Is that true?” he said.
“No more s-s-s-chool?”
“Yes honey,” said the mother.
With a cry of anger David ran back up the stairs, en-
tered his room, and slammed the door behind him. He
jumped on the bed and cried himself to sleep. In his
dreams came the horrible noise of the radio, nightmarish-
ly repeating “No more school, no more school…”

The bell on Mr. James’s desk rang. Pressing the button,


Mr. James said, “What is it?”
“The schools have been closed,” said the young secre-
tary.
“Very well,” said Mr. James. “Allocate the money to
build the new schools.”
“Yes sir,” said the young secretary.

The schools were razed. In their place were built tech-


nologically advanced schools, which taught obedience to

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An Unlikely Death
the FBI. From the next Monday forward, a new indoctri-
nation would begin. According to David Kinsington’s
wish, the schools would reopen. But he should have been
careful what he wished for…

The military vehicle wove through the devastated


streets. A member of the National Guard poked out of the
top of the vehicle with a megaphone. Speaking into the
megaphone, he shouted, “Do not be alarmed. Return to
your homes. Do not be alarmed. Return to your homes.”
The homeless, who had no homes, shivered in fear.
The rest of the populace, afraid as well, returned to the
safety of their abodes.
A heron flew across the berth of the sky, symbolizing
death – not of a person, but of the normal way of life.

From now on a new world order would begin…

73
Chapter Six
The Bayou

S tevens walked up to Officer Reynolds, who was now


fishing in the lake, in swampy Florida. After the FBI
had come into power, Stevens had, for safety, taken Offi-
cer Reynolds to his other home in Florida, in order to
keep him away from the LAPD. In any case, with the sta-
tion in chaos, Stevens thought they both deserved a break
and, at the first sign, had bought two round trip tickets to
his other home in the bayou. On the plane ride over,
Stevens had repeatedly mentioned how inspired he was
that Reynolds had atoned for the collateral damage he had
caused. But Reynolds would have none of it. “Anyone
else would have done the same,” he said, with a dismis-
sive wave of the hand.
Now they were in Florida. Sipping a “crocodile juice,”
an alcoholic drink specially made up and mixed by Offi-
cer Stevens, Officer Roger Reynolds lay in his hammock,
idly fishing in the lake. His catch had been good, but most

74
An Unlikely Death
of the fish had been eaten by the many crocodiles that
lived in the bayou. Stevens had, for this reason, suggested
the dubious activity of “crocodile fishing,” but Reynolds,
having tried “crocodile meat” once at the jerky shop,
shook his head in denial while Stevens, amused, had
laughed at his resistance.
It was kind of fun fishing, but Reynolds wanted back in
on the action. Like any cop, he couldn’t stand the stagna-
tion of time, and if he wasn’t constantly in motion, would
suffocate to death, like a shark that must swim in order to
breathe.
“So,” said Officer Stevens, “what do you want to do
next? Play some go fish?”
“Nah,” said Officer Reynolds, “I think I’ll just take a
nap.”
“Suit yourself!” said Officer Stevens cheerfully, “but
me and Officer Edwards are going to play go fish.”
Reynolds, lying in his hammock, idly waving his hand,
made it clear that he should not be bothered. He closed
his eyes. As he did so he listened to the myriad sounds of
clacking cards which signaled the game was already un-
derway.
“Go fish!” he heard the triumphant voice of Officer
Stevens, who had just made his set.
“Aw,” said Officer Edwards, disappointed at his game
loss.
Go fish… as Officer Stevens drifted off to sleep, he re-
membered all the fish in the sea he still had to catch… He
saw before his eyes the disagreeable faces of General
Stathem, Mr. James, and Officer McDaniel.
He fell asleep….

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Darwen Amos
***

Officer McDaniel was heading north from Los Angeles


to Miami, Florida. Although normal drivers can drive
only at the posted speed limit, police officers are allowed
to drive as fast as they want, as long as their sirens are on
to warn the other drivers. Officer McDaniel had no need
for such contrivances.
Although it was available for him to use, since Shing-
Lao was in the car, Officer McDaniel did not use the car-
pool lane. Instead, he chose to ride in traffic with the rest
of the world, having learned from his Buddhist studies
that all human beings shared one mind, like the super-
highway which led like a wire from California to Florida.
This wire, intercutting the two states through an underly-
ing mechanism that ran through all of the continental
states, was like a “go here” line followed by the keen nose
of Shing-Lao.
It was rush hour. The cars packed like sardines in a
can, slowly crawled their way to their destinations. Frus-
trated people, honking their horns, pleaded that the people
in front of them would go faster. Of course, it only takes
one car to stop an entire traffic on any given day. The
more cars that stopped in their tracks the more slower,
like slugs, would the traffic be. Air traffic controllers flew
in helicopter formations above the berth of the sky. Seiz-
ing out of the stratosphere, the golden dragonflies of Mr.
James’s new reign crisscrossed as they reported on the
congealed flow of traffic.
The radio in one of the helicopters was connected di-
rectly to Mr. James’s desk. This helicopter, driven by Mr.
James’s young secretary, reported the following: “The
405-South is clogged up. It looks as if Officer McDaniel

76
An Unlikely Death
cannot reach his destination…”
A message in response, short and to the point, came
over the speaker in the copter. “Then, initiate Project In-
signia Formation Play 817957Y.”
“Yes, sir,” said the young secretary.
The young secretary pressed a button on the dashboard
of the helicopter. A radio signal, so high of a frequency
that it could not be picked up by college students running
pirate radio stations on their grandpa’s CB's, in fact so
high that dogs, undisturbed, refrained from barking as
though a dog whistle had been blown, rang out in a radial
axis from the beam transmitter in the helicopter. If these
radio beacon beams, invisible to the human eye, could be
sent out to be viewed by the human eye, a spider-web of
red and green lights would seem to emanate from the
middle point of the spinning blades of the copter, travel-
ing wide vistas to meet up with the mile-high receivers
atop the FBI code reception centers, that were once pri-
vate radio stations converted by the FBI for this particular
cause.
Agent Gemini, sitting in the seat of one of these radio
stations in Wisconsin, saw the blinking green light on his
control panel.
Opening his code book, he looked up the code that was
being transmitted over and over again. 817957Y. The
code was for the Magnetic Interference play, on a sector
somewhere over the 405-South in Los Angeles.
With an extended finger, Agent Gemini pressed the
button for Magnetic Interference. Inputting the exact loca-
tion of Officer McDaniel’s police patrol car, down to the
square area in which it was contained, he gave the signal.
The radio beam of the station, which had been reinforced
to be more powerful than ever before, was sent out

77
Darwen Amos
through the troposphere, past the ozone layer, and out of
the earth’s atmosphere to an FBI satellite orbiting the
planet Earth. This satellite, which had once been used to
transmit television to the Earth’s viewers (television not
endorsed by the FBI was no longer legal) now was
equipped to send magnetic beams with pinpoint accuracy.
A few days previous, Mr. James had sent out a NASA
space team, at great expense to the tax-payers (taxes were
now increased twofold…) to go into outer space and
equip the satellite with a new purpose and technological
system. This had been successful. Though people had
wondered at the time at what the purpose for such an ex-
travagant magnetic reactor, in outer space of all places,
could have been, it would become clear to the many com-
muters stuck in traffic on the 405-South, as well as the air
traffic helicopter operators, as well as, if all went to plan,
Officer Reynolds, the target, who was now relaxing in the
bayou with his good friend Officer Stevens.
A few seconds passed. The radio signal traveled at the
speed of thousand roadrunners into the inhospitable atmo-
sphere of outer space, man’s final frontier. The satellite
waited to receive it. This satellite, originally designed to
transmit television signals, and receive only the daily pro-
gramming of various channels, had already looked some-
what otherworldly, like a spaceship made in Mars. But
now, after the NASA team had equipped the satellite with
bulky, insectoid devices, it looked like something never
before imagined by either human beings or aliens. The
satellite now resembled a thousand armed jellyfish cov-
ered with metal and blinking lights, antennae protruding
from its central point. The satellite itself was now so large
as to have a gravitational pull, and itself could boast mul-
tiple small satellites, small asteroids and cosmic refuse or-

78
An Unlikely Death
biting it like so many wayward moons.
At the very center of this altered satellite, which mea-
sured twenty feet in length, and was now dubbed “The
Magnetron,” was a receiving device. This device now re-
ceived the signal for the Magnetic Interference Play. The
alert satellite had also been outfitted with various space
propulsion systems, salvaged from the destroyed space-
ships of the past. These propulsion systems (jet engines
and the like) now showed their intense pedigree, pro-
pelling the satellite like a jet-ski through calm waters. The
satellite, in a matter of seconds had positioned itself di-
rectly over the 405-South, displaced two light years away,
but nevertheless accurate as an expert marksman. It
looked now, not like a sedentary being like a jellyfish, but
a bird or cat of prey, or a sniper carefully taking aim at his
target.
Although there is no sound in space, if there was, one
would be able to hear the whirring and readjusting of the
machinery in the satellite, as it began to take a different
form. Much like a transformer, the satellite now turned it-
self inside out, and readjusted its own formation, until it
resembled a sniper’s rifle. It remained in its new form
and, after a few seconds, out of its nozzle began to trans-
mit ultra-powerful magnetic beams toward its target on
Earth. It would take two seconds for these beams to reach
their target but, seeing as how traffic was stuck, Officer
McDaniel’s car, the target, wouldn’t be likely to move.

Officer McDaniel remained in his car, idly patting his


dog, Shing-Lao, who sat on the passenger seat, on the fur-
ry head. His CD player was on, playing a Tibetan hymn.
Most people, even with the music of the monks in the

79
Darwen Amos
background, would be intensely irritated with the state of
the congested traffic. However, McDaniel didn’t even feel
slightly irked. Whatever will be, must be – that was his
motto. The only thing that really annoyed him was betray-
al, like what those renegade officers had done. But right
now, his mind empty, he was completely calm.
Shing-Lao, however, was a little bit restless. It was un-
usual for Shing-Lao to be so finicky. In fact, as far as it is
possible for a dog to shift in its seat, Shing-Lao was doing
so. Like a restless tide, Shing-Lao squirmed in discom-
fort, his nose valiantly sniffing out unrest and his ears
perked for danger this way and that. McDaniel began to
take notice. It was not, after all, a usual thing. Although
some dogs bark and shift for no real reason, Shing-Lao
was not a one to needlessly make turmoil. In truth, if
Shing-Lao felt restless, something, perhaps slight, but
nevertheless still there, was amiss in the atmosphere. Of-
ficer McDaniel knew this, although he could not tell what
it was.
Shing-Lao was not only adept at smelling scents, but
also at smelling displacements in the cosmos. Whatever
credit McDaniel gave to his dog for soaking in the Bud-
dhist maxims he thought and lived by daily was not
enough. Like a wise man, Shing-Lao knew when some-
thing was up.
In truth it was a number of things. When I previously
said that dogs couldn’t hear the radio signal transmitted
by the helicopter, since it was so high in frequency, what I
should have said was that most dogs couldn’t. But Shing-
Lao was not a normal dog and in fact had almost subcon-
sciously detected a strange discrepancy in the radio field.
In addition, Shing-Lao was sensing moment by moment
the machinations of the satellite in space, and could detect

80
An Unlikely Death
that magnetic beam, like an approaching meteor, headed
for the patrol car.
Shing-Lao barked. It was a nervous, catlike yap, com-
pletely out of character, insofar as dogs can be said to
have something of the individuality that defines human
nature.
What is it boy? thought Officer McDaniel. He wanted
to cry out, but was held fast by his vow of silence. In spite
of himself and all his training, McDaniel was becoming
uneasy…

The helicopter in which the young secretary now sat


wavered slightly and jerkily, as if the air around it had
tremored for an instant…

Officer McDaniel, confused, was about to consider


what to do when suddenly, with the suddenness approach-
ing the demonic, this patrol car began to hover. Shing-Lao
became even more anxious, and began to pace back and
forth in his seat, finally falling to the floor. This silly prat-
fall would have been amusing to normal, human people,
but the introspective Officer McDaniel was devoid of true
empathy and did not laugh. Officer McDaniel did not re-
alize it at first, but then, by looking out the window, and
seeing himself a few feet above the other cars on the road,
realized what was happening: his car was now suspended
in mid air, though he did not know how so. Yet Officer
McDaniel began to run through a list of possible actions.
Perhaps what he should do was exit the vehicle. It was
ironic that, he, who had very often signaled for a criminal
to exit the vehicle, now found himself having to do the

81
Darwen Amos
same. The manner of fate was astounding and inscrutable.
At that moment the Tibetan music playing on his sound
system crackled and spit, as if with static. Then, a calm
boyish voice, unrecognized by McDaniel, spoke through
his speakers.
“Make sure you have your seat belts on,” said the
young secretary to McDaniel. “We’ll get you where you
need to go.”
McDaniel, not knowing what to expect, braced himself
against the back of his seat.

In outer space, the satellite, exerting and holding its


magnetic pull, now began to swiftly move across the
space of the continental United States.

McDaniel’s patrol car, already hovering, began to


move, at first somewhat slowly and shakily, as if hesitant,
forward. Then, with surprising speed, it began to rush its
way towards Florida, miraculously in mid air, though Mc-
Daniel was pressing the brake with his foot. Nevertheless,
the patrol car traveled on winged wheels towards Florida,
at two hundred miles an hour. The world rushed past the
windows of the car and even Shing-Lao would not wish
to put his head out the window. All Officer McDaniel saw
was a series of motion lines…
The other people stuck in traffic watched in wide-eyed
amazement as the flying car swept past them. They could
hardly believe their eyes. A flying car! If only they could
be so lucky…

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***

Officer Reynolds woke up from his hammock to a


strange noise and sensation. The fishing pole, which he
still held in his drowsing hands, was jerking and careen-
ing about like a wild man. Hurrying to get out his ham-
mock and carry the fish out of the water and into the fry-
ing pan, Reynolds, dropped to the muddy floor and started
to pull on the fishing road with all his strength.
“Hey! Looks like I’ve got a live one!” shouted Officer
Reynolds, shaping his hands like a megaphone and shout-
ing through the cave of cupped flesh at where he believed
Officer Stevens and Officer Edwards were. They, howev-
er, didn’t seem to be there and did not answer. Reynolds
got back to his fish, which was fighting like a beached
whale.
After ten minutes of fighting, Reynolds pulled out the
fish. It was a large fish, almost one meter in length and a
weight of two stones. Reynolds looked forward to eating
that fish. But as it dangled temptingly before his eyes a
couple feet above the marshy Florida water, a giant
crocodile jumped out the water and ate the fish with one
clean bite. Then, licking its lips, the crocodile eyed Offi-
cer Reynolds. He was thinking, no doubt, that the fish had
just been an appetizer and that Officer Reynolds was the
true main course.
With a glint in his eye, the crocodile flew through the
air and charged towards Reynolds. The water dripping off
the hungry creature as it flew through the air looked like
tears. Crocodile tears indeed, thought Reynolds, as he un-
holstered his gun.
The crocodile, seeing the gun, seemed to be hesitant
about whether or not to attack Reynolds. It did not think

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in terms of words, but in hunger. Its dreams, too, was
made up of the subtly different shades of hunger a
crocodile can have. This is many different more shades
than a human being’s hunger. In any case, without even
hesitating about whether to continue its attack, the crock
approached Reynolds, mouth wide open, a voided abyss
of hunger and satiation. The machinery of nature’s
wrath…
Reynolds saw before his eyes the wide open mouth,
and the spinning teeth like helicopter blades began to hyp-
notize him. Exactly as nature had intended, Reynolds
stood helpless in front of the approaching crocodile with-
out having the wherewithal to fire his gun.

Just then, Officer Stevens was walking out of his hut,


thinking about his last game of go fish, which he had lost
by one set. Should he have played his ace of spades? He
wondered… Just as he was about to retire for the day and
go back to sleep, he saw out of the corner of his eye
something like a large leather purse leaping gracefully
through the air with an open zipper, about to consume his
friend Officer Reynolds. Stevens thought fast, and leapt
into the window of his hut, where he had left his gun on
the dressing table next to the lamp…

Meanwhile, Officer Reynolds was thinking of merry-


go-rounds… As a child he had rode on many of these fa-
mous merry-go-rounds, never having imagined that one
would one day kill him. His life began to flash before his
eyes, much like a carnival ride, confused and out of order.
He remembered his birth, when his mother had held him

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in her arms after the doctor had said “It’s a boy.” Then…
tragedy. His mother was told that she could never have
another baby. Reynolds had cried while his mother tried
to explain to him that no, he would not be able to have a
younger brother.
He remembered also that first day of school, when he
had been nervous to leave his parents. However, he had
quickly made friends and got good grades in school, and
was well-adjusted and started taking his own responsibili-
ty…
He remembered, too, his first love. Susan… Meeting
her in high school, they went on dates to the movies. They
had got married soon after. He remembered promising
her, in his wedding vows, that he would always be there
for her. But now that vow was in danger…
He remembered when he had been accepted into the
police academy. After passing the examination, the police
captain had told him, “You’re in.” Then he had trained to
become a real cop. After that, he had met his friend Offi-
cer Stevens for the first time. They always had a few
beers after work, and often shot the bull while watching
the Super Bowl… Were all these previous memories in
danger?

Meanwhile, Officer Stevens had leapt through the win-


dow. He instinctively reached for the gun he always kept
on his bedside table. What? It wasn’t there! Huh? What
Officer Stevens did not know was that his young son,
Max, had come in while he was sleeping to play cops and
robbers with his friends, and taken the weapon. The gun,
of course, wasn’t loaded so Max wouldn’t be in danger
but Officer Stevens needed a gun – and fast!

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Then he remembered. Reaching under his pillow, there
was the gun he kept there as a backup! Yes! It was there!
Breathing a sigh of relief, he grabbed the gun with his
hand. This gun, of course, he kept loaded, as there was no
chance, with his sleeping head covering it, that his son
could find it there! Grabbing it, he rushed outside.
Outside, the scene had changed. Whereas beforehand
he had seen Officer Reynolds standing there with the
crocodile headed towards him, his eyes now feasted on a
different scene. Now the crocodile had already clamped
Reynolds’s body in its teeth and was doing the trademark
crocodile “death roll.” Knowing this was his last chance,
Officer Stevens shot a bullet deep into the gullet of the
monster, killing it immediately. As it died, its mouth re-
laxed and opened. Officer Reynolds came out.
Running to his friend, Officer Stevens asked, “Are you
all right?”
“Blech!” said Officer Reynolds, flicking his hand off
from the saliva. “Crocodile spit! Yuck!”
Officer Stevens laughed in relief. His friend was safe.
Just then, Officer Edwards walked out from the hut,
wiping his sleepy eyes. He yawned. “So, anything new?”
He asked, stretching.
Officer Stevens and Reynolds looked at each other in
their eyes. Then, simultaneously, they both burst out into
raucous laughter, as if sharing an inside joke. Officer Ed-
wards, confused, could only scratch his head in bewilder-
ment…

That night, Officer Stevens, Reynolds, and Edwards


were sitting around the kitchen table, playing a hand of
poker, and eating crocodile jerky. The lethargy of the day

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An Unlikely Death
had sunk in, and no one was really in the mood. Add to
this the fact that a crocodile attack had barely missed
killing one of their crew, and it was too much to ignore.
In any case, all three police officers wanted to get back in
the heat of things. These card sharks needed to swim in
order to live.
“This is boring,” said Officer Reynolds, who spoke
what all three were thinking.
“Phew!” said Officer Stevens. “And I thought I was
alone in that opinion!”
“What say we all get back to the station?” said Officer
Edwards. “I’m sure that whole Project Insignia thing has
blown over by now, right?”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” said Officer
Reynolds. “One can never underestimate General Stath-
em. He may not be a humanist, but he is a shrewd busi-
nessman. Further, as it follows, he is also a shrewd politi-
cian, for what is politics but a business?”
“Very true,” said Officer Stevens, nodding his head,
“but we should be getting back anyway. Without us, the
station is short-staffed. Who will be there to keep order?”
“That’s right,” said Officer Edwards. “Let’s go back to
our home.”
“Sure,” said Officer Reynolds, who was already on his
laptop computer, typing out the web page address for a
travel company. “I’ll take the first tickets out of here…
hmm… here it is. Florida to LA, $500. Is that okay for all
of you?”
“Sure is,” said Stevens. “When’s it leave?”
“Tomorrow morning,” said Officer Reynolds. “6:00
AM. So if ya’ll want to get some sleep, you should go to
bed now.”
Officer Stevens yawned and made an exaggerated ges-

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ture of sleepiness. “Sounds good to me.” he said.
“Ditto,” yawned Officer Edwards.
The night passed with no incident…

88
Chapter Seven
Homeward Bound

T he airport was abuzz with activity. Prospective pas-


sengers, wanting to get home to their families for
Thanksgiving dinner, held turkey and Christmas presents
in their arms. From time to time a stranger would drop a
present from their heavy arms and a Good Samaritan
would pick it up for them, responding to the obligatory
“thank you” with a dismissive wave of the hand. Good
cheer was all about. The metal detectors, checking pas-
sengers for terrorists, found nothing to arouse the suspi-
cion of Homeland Security (terrorism was now the FBI).
Signals of delayed flights were relayed through the vari-
ous loud speakers dangling in mid air, and passengers
shook their waiting heads and smiled with chagrin as their
flight got delayed. There was a large window and a flat-
tened escalator that moved from side to side rather than
up and down. Gift stores, filled to the brim with colorful
stationaries and souvenirs, were patronized by speculating

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customers, picking out Christmas presents for little John-
ny or their Aunt Jill.
It was into such an environs that three police officers,
clad in plain clothes, waltzed through the door. The metal
detector operators were about to check them for guns but
Officer Reynolds preempted them by showing his badge.
Apologizing profusely in an obsequious manner, bowing
in politeness, and yet retaining a solicitous manner, the
security guards waved the policemen through. The other
people in line, who had various jobs of firemen, law
clerks, and supermarket workers, grumbled at the fa-
voritism, their cheer dissipating into hate – hate for these
officers, who lived only to humiliate others, and to ex-
press their ill-gotten authority on racial minorities with
the blunt force of their nightstick batons to the skull.
Officer Reynolds walked over to the desk where a per-
son goes to buy tickets. He had, of course, used an online
ticketing service to reserve the plane tickets in advance,
and held a piece of blank paper on which was printed the
serial number of the flight he had reserved. Clucking her
tongue in thought as she checked the paper, the desk
worker looked up the number on her computer and waved
them through. In a matter of time, they were on board the
plane, watching the airline movie and eating peanuts.

Officer McDaniel, on an invisible road in the middle of


the air, was suddenly dropped down onto the Florida bay-
ous. His patrol car smashed down into the ground, break-
ing into two pieces, and rendering itself unusable. Since
the recent Great FBI Upheaval of 2009, all automobile in-
surance companies had gone under. It was his loss. Get-
ting out of the patrol car with his dog and his sniper rifle,

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he began to appraise the scenery around him, looking for
any sign that either Officer Reynolds, and the two other
defecting officers, Officer Edwards and Officer Stevens,
had been here or were still here.
Shing-Lao, however, seemed disinterested in the case.
But when a marsh cat ran by, he chased it. He was still a
dog.
Officer McDaniel saw the remains of household activi-
ty all around the marsh. A stick lay in mid air above a
spit. When Officer McDaniel walked over to examine it,
he found the remains of alligator meat around the sus-
pended stick. His finger touched it, and he looked at his
finger. It was covered with a fine ash. Dragonflies were
swarming all about.
It had been, to Officer McDaniel’s intuition, about
three hours ago that the inhabitants of this marsh and the
hut a way off had retreated. He was too late, after all. He
would have to return to base to get further instructions.
But not without his dog.
Officer McDaniel had taken a vow of silence a long
time, when he was six, while he had been living with Ti-
betan monks. It was a twenty year vow of silence, and Of-
ficer McDaniel was now twenty-six years old. He remem-
bered to the exact second when he had taken the vow.
When it ended, he had only three things to say – one to
his father, one to God, and one to the devil in Hell. He
had no words for the Buddha, no words for the world, nor
the million shapeless souls that floated around in that
world. And after he had said those choice words, he
would take up the vow again, for another twenty years.
His words had been carefully chosen and organized in his
mind like a trinity of holy poems, fit to be inscribed on
any tablet in any temple. In any case, since Officer Mc-

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Daniel could not speak, he couldn’t call his dog by any
auditory means. Shing-Lao was off chasing the marsh cat.
For the second time, he regretted his vow of silence. In
truth, Shing-Lao, who was six years old, did not know his
own name, since Officer McDaniel had never spoken it
aloud. In fact nobody knew Shing-Lao’s name except Of-
ficer McDaniel. In such a way did Shing-Lao become a
thing of illusion, made of the same material as our dream-
ing thoughts…
Officer McDaniel simply waited until his dog came
back. It would come back… probably… unless an alliga-
tor got him. But Shing-Lao was trained in dogfighting and
probably could take an alligator, if things came down to
that. Of course things would not necessarily come down
to that. But still… it was something to worry about. Offi-
cer McDaniel took this time to compose a Zen koan:

Officer in the marsh


dragonfly passes by-
waiting for dog…

and –

The dog, chasing marsh


cats. traitors-
in the midst…

His mind was intensely, antagonistically unpoetic.


Whenever he tried to compose a poem, it always came
down to simple description of his situation and surround-
ings. But perhaps such a tendency was what made him be
such an ineluctably good cop. For example, if you have to
shoot a woman who is a murderer in the head, it’s better

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An Unlikely Death
to think of her as a realistic being of flesh rather than as
some type of indestructible angel. Though Officer Mc-
Daniel would have no trouble shooting an angel in the
head if it had committed even a minor crime. Not that he
would hesitate shooting a non-criminal in the face either.
He was just uncompromising like that. But at the same
time, he had no human nature at all. In any case he was no
poet. His dreaming mind waited as his physical mind
waited for his dog… And he knew good things come to
those who wait.
Shing-Lao was on an adventure, chasing the butterflies
and marsh cats, his mind entranced with things only a dog
can imagine. The marsh cat, a gray, shivering thing, had
run into a mass of reeds. Shing-Lao chased it into the
shrub, but stopped short when his nose was slashed by a
piece of hard paper, or cardboard sticking out from the
mass of reeds. He forgot all about the marsh cat and re-
membered his mortal mission. Grabbing the paper in his
mouth, he was about to bark to signal his master, whom
he thought of as “my master,” rather than “Officer Mc-
Daniel,” as dogs are wont to do, but then remembered his
master’s vow of silence, which would prevent him from
hearing the bark. Realizing this, Shing-Lao put the paper
in his mouth and used his nose to find Officer McDaniel,
who was standing about silently next to the patrol car.
Officer McDaniel saw his dog approaching him. Lean-
ing down to pet him, he saw the paper in his mouth. He
removed it from his dog’s grasp and unfolded it. It was a
receipt, an online receipt which had been printed out not
much longer than three hours ago. Spreading it out in
front of him like a map, this is what he read:

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Online Receipt
3 Tickets from Florida to California
$500 each
Total $1500
Paid by Credit Card
Thank you for using this service.

On the bottom of this receipt, Officer Reynolds, that in-


solent clown, had scrawled in childish letters: “You’re
welcome! Signed, Officer Reynolds,” even though no one
affiliated with the company would read it. In addition,
Reynolds was a litterbug. No matter how good he thought
he was, he had thrown this receipt into the marsh. (Actu-
ally Reynolds had done no such thing. In fact he had dis-
posed of it in the trash can but a strong wind, through no
fault of his own, had made it go into the marsh -The Au-
thor) And Officer Stevens, he was even worse. Though he
didn’t have a good reason for it, McDaniel thought that
Stevens was the worst traitor of them all. And he didn’t
like Officer Edwards either. Since these three, who he
hated, had turned out to be traitors, it was a boost to his
self-confidence. The revelation confirmed in McDaniel’s
smug mind the righteousness of his mission. When he
found the three traitors they would not live to be traitors
again.
In any case, here was proof. They were no longer here,
and were most likely headed back to Los Angeles to ob-
tain their old jobs once again. He took out his cell phone,
by which he communicated with General Stathem, the
only man he answered to, by text messages. He typed out:
“Destination Reached. Reynolds not here. Returning to
Los Angeles.” He pressed the “send button,” and waited.
A minute later and his phone rang. Pressing the “talk”

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An Unlikely Death
button, he looked at the blue glowing screen. General
Stathem had messaged him back. The message read: “Just
spoke to Mr. James. Yes, we are aware. Remain where
you are. We will bring the defectors to you. Repeat. Re-
main where you are. We will bring the defectors to you.
Over.”
McDaniel did not question what this meant. Following
his directive, McDaniel ushered Shing-Lao back into the
car, and took the wheel again, though he did not start his
car. Remaining parked, he awaited his next orders. He
would not have to wait long…

The aeroplane now began its long descent from Florida


to Los Angeles. The airline stewardesses served the shab-
by airline meal and, as usual, did not give enough
peanuts. Other than this, however, it was an okay flight,
with few turbulences.
Officer Stevens and Edwards had fallen asleep and Of-
ficer Edwards, who had a nasal problem, was snoring like
a bear’s cave. Officer Reynolds, however, was excited
about his first flight and looked out the window with
childlike curiosity, his animated eyes wide open in
amazed wonder.
From up here, all the people look like ants! thought
Reynolds, and look, all the various cars and trucks down
there look like those miniature tin toys I once collected
and played with as a child…
Ding. The seat belt light rang. Reynolds fastened his
seat belt. The stewardesses, passing down the aisles, re-
marked to the passengers that they should buckle up for
safety. Reynolds commented to the stewardess that he
was an officer of the law and if people didn’t buckle up,

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he would give them a ticket. Although he said this with a
joking expression, he was certainly serious. Always the
boy scout, Reynolds could never abide by crime, no mat-
ter how minor.
The airline movie was an exciting action film about the
exploits of a renegade cop. No matter what, though, truth
is stranger than fiction and, as Reynolds weighed the
events around his own, non-fiction life, he found that fic-
tion could not hold muster. Why do novelists and film-
makers always insist on making books and movies about
fiction, when there is so much excitement and life in the
world that surrounds us? With their noses buried in
books, instead of them experiencing life, they do not see
the forest for the trees.
Idly musing thus, Reynolds watched the action-packed
film without much interest. In time, without knowing it,
he too settled down for a long nap…

The police station that Reynolds, Edwards, and Stevens


were about to return to was not the same one they had
left.
Where there had once been rows of desks in an open
field, there were now only impersonal walls. Each desk
was set in its own cubicle. Neither, too, was there any
personality in any of the individual police officers. After
General Stathem had been given full power, he used his
authority to implement some changes which suited Mr.
James’s tyrannical disposition. The officers were stripped
of their names, and each was given a cold, impersonal
number, which they were required to have tattooed on
their foreheads. Also, all officers were required to wear
gas masks at all times, preventing them from having per-

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An Unlikely Death
sonal facial characteristics. A voice oscillation device was
equipped on the inside of each mask, making each per-
son’s voice sound exactly like the shrill, hypocritical
voice of Mr. James. Large, white padded body suits were
forced onto the different police officers’ varying body
types, which made it impossible to tell which were female
and which were male. One good effect of this was that it
got rid of racism. But it also got rid of individuality. Was
it worth it?
The police station now looked like a decontamination
center, with scientists wearing protective suits. When
Reynolds, Edwards, and Stevens strolled into the door, it
was as if they were the diseased, and the police station
was a quarantine. The other officers, fully suited, looked
upon the newcomers with a kind of fear mixed with envi-
ous jealousy – jealousy of their individuality.
“Whoa,” said Officer Stevens, surprised.
“Hey guys, what’s going on?” shouted Reynolds.
“Yeah, what’s going on?” repeated Officer Edwards.
For a while nothing happened. The many people in the
biohazard suits and the plain clothed trio regarded each
other as if meeting for the first time. Both parties were
frozen like stone.
There were red circular lights, resembling transparent
smoke alarms, affixed to the ceiling, one per square foot.
They were off. Suddenly, as if in delayed response to the
arrival of the three officers, they began to rotate like spin-
ning tops. Almost simultaneously they began to flash on
and off with a demonic, angry red. It was only a moment
after that the sirens, like police sirens, began to sound.
A robotic voice, like the voice of God, spoke through
the corner speakers:
“Intruder alert! Intruder alert! All hands on deck! Ev-

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ery officer is ordered to annihilate intruders according to
Process 1283984A subsection JRIWURJN8. I repeat, In-
truder alert! Intruder alert! All hands on deck! Every offi-
cer is ordered to annihilate intruders according to Process
1283984A subsection JRIWURJN8…”
As if woken from a trance, each of the seated officers
in their white hazmat suits stood up and unholstered their
guns. No doubt they had already forgotten their old
friends, and would do anything they could to kill those
they had once loved.
“Fire at will! Fire at will!” screamed the blaring robotic
voice, so loudly that the speakers crackled.
The multitude of hypnotized officers drew their guns
and pointed them towards the three intruders…
“Fire at will! Fire at will! Anyone who does not fire at
this time will receive a pay cut! I repeat, Fire at will! Fire
at will! Anyone who does not fire at this time will receive
a pay cut!”
“No!” shouted Officer Saffron, who had just snapped
out of her trance, due to the purity of her mind. “Don’t
you remember our old friends?” Her voice was muffled
by the mask she was forced to wear.
Officer Saffron was a hot twenty-one-year-old police-
woman who had had a crush on Reynolds ever since ele-
mentary school, though Reynolds was always too busy in
his work to notice the beautiful woman who always stared
at him, especially considering that Reynolds had a wife
and kids. She was descended from the princess of an an-
cient Sumerian island; as a result, she had many unusual
physical features, but somehow was still hot. Although
she was hot, and everybody often told her so, she always
modestly denied it and refused to believe it. Some people
did not tell her she was hot, but they were only jealous of

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An Unlikely Death
her beauty. Of course, Officer Saffron herself did not
know this. She had small but full lips, and a thin body.
But in the bulky suit and gas mask she was wearing, her
well-toned and lean body was hidden, as was her melodi-
ous voice, which sounded like a meadowlark’s, and her
face, which had cool intelligent blue searching eyes and
long blond hair. Her form-fitting policewoman’s outfit
was hidden under her biohazard suit, negating even that
appeal. Considering that a woman’s advantage is entirely
in physical seduction, she was not very persuasive.
The other masked officers, not even hearing her,
opened fire.
Bang bang bang! The dreaded words, that of bullets,
were heard by the three officers, none of whom had any
body armor, kevlar, or bulletproof vestments on.
“Duck!” shouted Reynolds, pressing down on the
heads of Stevens and Edwards so that they were covered
from the fire by a desk.
“This is just a wooden desk,” said Officer Stevens. “It
won’t protect us from squat!”
“It hides our visibility!” yelled Officer Reynolds.
“Hey, I still got some bullets in my gun!” said Officer
Edwards. “I think I can take them out!”
“Don’t be a fool!” said Reynolds. “There’s tens of
them, and how many are there of you? Last time I
checked, ten to one odds are not a good bet to make!”
“We have to take a chance!” said Edwards. “It’s our
only chance!”
“No!” said Stevens and Reynolds simultaneously. But
it was too late…
Edwards, reloading his gun and cocking back the
shoulder trigger, suddenly stood up from behind the desk
and pointed his gun at the multitude of opponents. His

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wide body made a juicy target. The entranced officers, fi-
nally having a target, began unloading their clips into Ed-
wards’s head, neck, shoulders and stomach, not giving
even Edwards a chance to fire back.
For Stevens and Reynolds, who were still crouched be-
hind the desk, it was as if everything were going in slow
motion. The bullets slammed into Edwards’s portly body.
The first bullet took him in the throat, directly above Ed-
wards’s bulletproof vest. In slow motion, a globule of
blood, like a beach ball eternally suspended between the
two throwers of time, broke out from Edwards’s neck and
hung in the air in a perfect sphere of red. Then, it seemed
to return to its fluid state and splash down over Reynold-
s’s face. In his horror, Reynolds did not react even to this.
His eyes were on Officer Edwards’s wide back, out of
which sudden small explosions of red seemed to burst out
like popcorn cooking in a microwave. The bullets hitting
Edwards’s body made a star pattern, at first in puncture
marks, then highlighted by the lovely red that flowed out
from Edwards’s veins. Blood splashed everywhere. Sud-
denly, Edwards was shot in the forehead and a small
black circle appeared there like a third eye. Then, after a
gaping exit wound like a cavern appeared at the back of
his head, the gray matter and blood that had occupied his
skull flowed like a vomiting waterfall into Reynolds’s
mouth, which was agape in terror. Edwards, however, re-
mained standing for a while, still pointing his gun, as if he
were still going to make a last stand. Then, from Edward-
s’s body language, it seemed that he had decided against
it – it was too much effort. Edwards’s shoulders gave a
shrug, and his arms went limp. He dropped the gun to the
floor in a clatter. As more bullets sailed through his body,
Edwards seemed resigned and, giving up, fell backwards

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An Unlikely Death
onto Reynolds and Stevens like a man collapsing into
bed.
The dead Edwards slammed into the two crouching of-
ficers, crashing them to the floor. He did not look like a
dead man, but peaceful, like a innocent boy gone to sleep.
The heavy weight of the bloodstained body was oppres-
sive to the two officers, and for a moment they did not
even move. The sticky blood, like molasses, trickled not
only out of the many holes in Edwards’s body, but also
from his lolling mouth. One bullet had even struck him
directly in the center of one of his eyes, and now it looked
like a pirate patch belonged there, an ugly cave of black.
His face was so pocked and caved in that it resembled the
face of a man with the worst case of acne scars ever. His
moustache, however, had not been touched, and like a pa-
per towel it was hard at work sopping up the blood run-
ning into it from the eye socket. His liquefied brain matter
oozed out from his head in a puddle onto the floor, and
his body twitched spasmodically for a moment, then was
still.
Suddenly, as if waking up from a nightmare, Officer
Stevens grabbed Reynolds’s shoulder. “It’s no good,” he
said. “let’s get out of here.”
“But…”said Reynolds, “what about Edwards?”
“Edwards is dead,” Stevens said, a kindness in his
voice. “It’s just you and me now. The police station is no
longer our home. We have to get out to where it’s safe.”
“Edwards…” repeated Reynolds. “Hey, Stevens… why
would they… why would they kill Edwards…?”
Stevens shook his head in exasperation. There were still
bullets whizzing like small helicopters through the air.
The alarms were still blaring, and the white room flashed
red and white in intervals. “We’ll talk later,” said Stevens,

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grabbing Reynolds and propping him up into a seated po-
sition. Stevens didn’t have time for this.
The shooting stopped. Apparently the masked officers
had run out of ammo. The air was filled with the efficient
sound of forty officers loading new clips into their
weapons. “Now!” said Stevens, grabbing Reynolds by the
hand.
Stevens, pulling the dazed Reynolds along by the hand,
propelled himself out of the station doors. Hailing a taxi,
which miraculously happened to be just passing by, he
pulled open the door, pushed Reynolds in, and jumped in
after.
“Where to?” said the taxi driver.
Stevens looked at his shoulder, which was covered
with a patch of blood, spreading like algae. It was not Ed-
wards’s blood, but his own. While he had been trying to
shake Reynolds into his senses, he had been grazed by a
stray bullet and suffered a flesh wound. At least it looked
like a flesh wound. It only now began to sting, throbbing
along with his heartbeat. All in all, it was a miracle they
were not dead. He sighed, and started to shiver.
“Anywhere,” said Stevens to the taxi driver. “Just take
us anywhere… away from this place. Far, far away.”

102
Chapter Eight
Showdown

W hat?!” screamed Officer Saffron, in hysterics.


“What?! What the hell were you doing?! What the
hell did you do?!”
The police station was riddled with bullet holes. Be-
hind a toppled desk near the doors, a small river of blood
ominously flowed from an unseen source.
The other officers, waking up from their shared trance,
shook their heads in confusion.
“Huh?” said one of them.
“Hey,” said another, “where’s that blood coming
from?”
“That,” said Officer Saffron, “is the blood of the person
who you just murdered! It’s Officer Edwards!”
“What?” said one of the officers, stupidly. “I don’t re-
member that.”
“That’s just it!” cried Officer Saffron. “You’re all
crazy! You’ve forgotten everything! Your sense of

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justice… everything! That’s it! I’m leaving! I quit, you
hear me?!”
She defiantly began to walk toward the door, which
was still open from when Stevens had left a moment be-
fore.
As she was about to cross the threshold, she crashed
into a somewhat fat body. Taken aback, she looked at the
man who had just entered, a blonde, unpleasant-looking
middle-aged man. It was Mr. James. “Well, well,” he said
jauntily. “Where are you off to in such a hurry?”
Mr. James’s young secretary entered a moment after. He
was carrying a small suitcase.
“I’m getting out of here,” said Officer Saffron nervous-
ly. “Please excuse me.”
“You’re not excused,” said Mr. James, his face souring
into a sneer. He made a gesture to his secretary. The sec-
retary looked at him questioningly. Mr. James nodded.
The young secretary stepped forward, showing no
emotion. He looked at the police woman and shook his
head, in a movement of utter negation. Though it was a
movement of utter negation, his manner was inexplicably
consoling. Seeing the way that he opened the small suit-
case, which she now saw was a medical kit, she felt im-
mediately comforted, as if he was a medicine shaman
who was going to fix all that was wrong with her heart
and body, with but the simple implements in that box. She
looked at the secretary’s face.
Not only was he consoling, he was handsome, too.
With his slender frame and endearing angular face, he
looked exactly like a young boy any young girl could
dream about. And, excitingly, there were points of cruelty
too, in the exact centers of his sharp blue eyes. But he
paid no attention to her.

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An Unlikely Death
Instead, the young secretary had been putting on sterile
white rubber gloves. Finishing, he snapped the second
glove on his right wrist with a effete flourish. For the first
time he looked into Saffron’s eyes. She became fixed in
place.
“You don’t seem to be taking to my medicine,” said the
young secretary, in a soft tone. He spoke as if addressing
a kitten, or another small animal that was helpless. “But
don’t worry about a thing. I’ve got just the dose for you.”
Saying this, he swiftly seized Officer Saffron’s arm,
without giving her time to respond. Deftly pulling back
the plastic of her radiation suit, he swabbed the exposed
spot on her arm with a cotton pad soaked in cold alcohol,
then inserted a syringe and a needle, which she had not
seen, into one of her exposed veins. He depressed the
plunger. The serum flowed…
The drug took effect almost instantaneously. Already
Officer Saffron was losing consciousness…
The world became blurred. Tired, she decided to take a
seat on the floor. Sleepiness overcame her… The last
thing she saw from her prone position was the person of
the young secretary putting away the syringe neatly in his
medical kit. Then her eyes closed.
“I should have gone to medical school,” murmured the
young secretary, as if to himself. His voice sounded dis-
tant and far-off. But Officer Saffron wasn’t actually lis-
tening. Already her blood had begun to congeal…

“Might as well reinoculate the rest of them,” sighed


Mr. James. “We don’t want any more like her.”
“Yes, sir.” The young secretary nodded, and ap-
proached the next officer with his syringe…

105
Darwen Amos
***

The taxi wove its way around the traffic of Los Ange-
les.
“Hey, watch it, buddy,” said the taxi driver, who had
seen the bleeding Stevens in his rear mirror. “You’re
bleeding all over my seats. Granted, they’re already dirty,
but hey, what do you want from me? What are you, my
mother?”
“You can stop here,” said Officer Stevens.
“Good thing,” said the taxi driver, “that way you bleed
less on the seat. That will be five dollars.”
Officer Stevens gave him a ten. “Keep the change,” he
said.
He opened the door and, with Reynolds, who was a lit-
tle better now, exited onto the street.
“Where are we?” asked Reynolds.
“Compton,” said Stevens.
“What?” exclaimed Reynolds, “b-but!”
“Just kidding pal,” said Stevens. “As you can see, al-
though I’m hurt, I still retain my sense of humor. They
hate cops in Compton. Actually, we are at the Los Ange-
les airport.”
“Oh,” said Reynolds. “We going back to Florida?”
“Looks like it,” said Stevens. “But I’ll have to get this
looked at.” He pointed at his right shoulder.
“Nah, it’s just a flesh wound,” said Reynolds.
“What are you - a doctor now?” said Stevens, smirking.
Sharing this inside joke, both officers laughed, friends
once more. Stevens, however, began to cough blood.
When Reynolds got a worried face, Stevens, still paled,
clapped him on the back and laughed, trying to pass it off
as a joke. But really, he was hurt bad.

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An Unlikely Death
“We can’t go yet,” said Reynolds. “We’ve got to get
you to a hospital.”
Stevens started to protest, but began coughing again.
Splatters of black blood hit the concrete surface of the
sidewalk in thick, congealed splashes.
“Just lean on me,” said Reynolds, propping up Stevens
against him. “The hospital’s not far.”
The hospital was not far indeed. From the airport, one
could see it. It would be a walk of only ten minutes or so,
though Reynolds would have to bear his partner’s weight.
But Reynolds was strong. They left a trail of blood. But in
ten minutes, they were already inside the hospital.

The hospital next to the Los Angeles Airport was one


of the four hospitals in the United States that had not been
destroyed and replaced by an FBI outpost. It was
swamped with the sick and dying. One quarter of people
requiring medical attention made a pilgrimage here.
When Officer Reynolds entered the hospital, with Officer
Stevens leaning on him like a drunk man, his eyes met
with a distressing sight that almost made him despair and
lose hope.
The hospital was in a chaos. People were rolled on gur-
neys this way and that. All the Emergency rooms were
occupied and even seriously sick and injured people were
made to wait. Nurses and doctors wore worried looks on
their faces and they rushed about. Forms were done away
with. Insurance did not exist. The medical staff was work-
ing entirely out of altruism. When Reynolds came up to
the counter, and insisted that Stevens be treated, he was
met with a distracted shake of the head by the attending
nurse, and told to take a number. He did. The number was

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4597.
“Patient 3599. The doctor will see you now.” said the
attendant nurse over the speaker. An old man, coughing,
rose from his seat. In a struggling walk, he followed a
nurse into an examination room. Reynolds felt restless.
Stevens was losing blood fast. Reynolds looked around
frantically. Suddenly, a sound of a landing helicopter
seemed to whirl in his ears, gradually growing louder. It
was probably his imagination. He ignored it. Then he
heard, over all the noise of the hospital, the entrance door
opening. Turning, he saw a slender young doctor, dressed
in fresh scrubs and carrying a medical kit, heading direct-
ly for him. Beyond him, outside the window, was indeed
a landed helicopter.
The young doctor quickly approached Reynolds, and
knelt down next to Stevens. “Your friend doesn’t look so
good,” he said.
“Yes,” said Reynolds, “he’s losing blood fast.”
The doctor drew closer to Stevens’s wound. He drew a
scalpel out of the medical kit and poked it sharply into the
wound. Stevens grimaced in pain.
“You’re right,” said the doctor. “It looks bad, but I can
fix it. I need you to come with me to the helicopter. Both
of you. I’ll take you to my private clinic.”
The doctor’s manner and voice, though young, seemed
entirely in control, and were both reassuring to Reynolds,
who did not suspect a thing. When the doctor put his hand
on his shoulder, Reynolds followed, with Stevens not far
behind, to the helicopter outside the hospital. The heli-
copter was white, with a large red cross painted neatly on
its side. Though it was not turned on, the blades were still
spinning down to a stop from when it had last been in
flight.

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An Unlikely Death
“In here,” said the young doctor, motioning Reynolds
and Stevens into the back seat. Tears of gratefulness in his
eyes, Reynolds obeyed. Then, the young doctor climbed
into the cockpit and started the vehicle. The helicopter be-
gan to hover, then rise slowly into the air.
“Don’t worry about a thing,” said the young doctor,
with a sunny smile…

The helicopter was in flight over the Appalachian


mountains. Officer Stevens had lost consciousness. The
young doctor, humming a tune to himself, seemed not to
be in a hurry.
“How far’s this clinic of yours?” said Reynolds.
“It’s not far.”
“Well, do you think you can hurry it up a li-”
Reynolds’s words were cut short by a tranquilizer dart
to the neck which, at the press of a button on the control
board by the doctor, had emerged from the back of his
seat. Reynolds slumped forward. The doctor, who was re-
ally the young secretary of Mr. James, reported in via ra-
dio.
“I’ve got them Mr. James, and they’re on their way to
Florida as we speak.”
“Perfect,” responded Mr. James. “Let’s see if General
Stathem’s boy is as good as he’s supposed to be.”
“About that, sir. I’m not so sure. I trust that he is, but if
you’d like, I can stay behind and if things go wrong…”
“Nonsense. If McDaniel fails, it’s on Stathem’s head.
In any case, I like a challenge. Let Reynolds’s survive and
try to find me. I respect my enemies enough for that.”
“Well sir, that is certainly your right. But I’m sure
they’ll die… Hello. I see the Florida Mountains straight

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Darwen Amos
ahead.”
“Very good. Drop them off at the designated point.”
“Yes sir,” said the young secretary.
A mile later, with the sound of bees, the helicopter be-
gan to descend into the marsh, a few meters away from a
totalled patrol car…

McDaniel, awake, was waiting on the rooftop of the


marsh hut owned by Officer Stevens. On the marsh
ground, Shing-Lao, the ever-alert German Shepard, had
his ears pricked in defiance of the world. Suddenly,
Shing-Lao barked. McDaniel sensed the helicopter a few
seconds before he heard it. And he heard it a few seconds
before he saw it. And then he saw it.
The helicopter was descending into the marsh. When it
was about two meters from the ground the door opened,
and McDaniel saw a hand roughly push out two forms,
that of an unconscious Stevens and Reynolds, who was
just waking up from his tranquilizer dream. He expected
more, but the helicopter’s door simply closed and it began
to rise up into the air and off the other way without even a
hello. But he knew that General Stathem’s text message
had been accurate.
Shing-Lao was ready to attack. He was a loyal dog.
Why are dogs so loyal to human beings? It’s a matter of
evolution. A long time ago, most dogs did not like human
beings. One day a dog was born that had the trait of lov-
ing human beings. And since human beings had the only
food at the time, all the rest of the dogs died out. Shing-
Lao, and each dog of today, was descended from this first,
loyal dog. All love and loyalty, even in human nature, and
in fact all social interaction, is unquestionably the result

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An Unlikely Death
of this kind of evolution.
The prone forms of Officer Reynolds and Stevens were
on the ground. So, thought McDaniel, the prey had been
delivered to the hunter… It was 6:00 PM.

Officer Reynolds opened his eyes. He shook his head


to regain his consciousness. He examined the world
around him. As the blurry world around him began to
come into focus, a marshy landscape laid itself open be-
fore his watching eyes.
No, this wasn’t good enough. He could tell that it was a
marsh, but he did not yet know that it was the familiar
area he had occupied a few days before with his good
friend Officer Stevens, who was right now unconscious
next to him. And he saw something like a brown ball
heading towards him, but did not recognize it to be a
fierce German Shepard, who had caught his track and was
about to sink its teeth into his neck.
Reynolds was not aware of any danger. But something
of his logic, which worked even in a drug haze, had sur-
vived, and he reached into his pocket for the syringe he
always kept with him. This syringe was filled with
adrenaline, standard issue to LAPD, to be used for just
such emergencies. Choosing a vein in his neck, Reynolds
slammed the syringe in and depressed the plunger.
His reason and clarity came rushing back to him. It was
as if the world he had been looking at until that moment
had been an analog television signal, and he had just
switched to a digital signal. In high definition, he saw the
marsh around him. Every tree, ominous puddle, and
sound of crocodiles became electrically amplified in his
perception. The blue sky gave him courage. The howling

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Darwen Amos
wind gave him anger. And the fire in his breast made his
blood boil. Suddenly, he realized that the blurred creature
rushing toward him was a dog - a hungry, ravenous dog,
out for his death and blood. It came running, running, run-
ning. Furthermore, he recognized the dog immediately as
LAPD’s top drug- and bomb-sniffing canine, the one
which was looked after very carefully by one Officer
Patrick McDaniel.
The adrenaline did more than simply make him more
alert. It also made him think himself invincible. He leapt
to his feet, imagining that the impact of his feet hitting the
ground had caused a giant earthquake and cracks were
rapidly splitting in the earth. His blood, sluggish only a
moment before, surged through his body like thundering
tides. He became intensely aware of his muscles and the
exact speed and angle at which the dog was heading for
him. As Shing-Lao hurtled toward him at tremendous
speed, Reynolds thought, “Bring it on, bitch!” He was
prepared. He was impatient. When the dog got within ar-
m’s reach, he would tear its throat out and eat its heart.
Shing-Lao, however, did not slow down. The dog, fol-
lowing its training, headed in the path of least resistance.
Because of the various foliage and obstacles in the marsh,
it was not necessarily a straight line, but even while
avoiding the various rocks and plants on the ground,
Shing-Lao was quickly building up momentum. Now it
was less than two meters away from Reynolds. When
Reynolds tried to reach down and grab the dog by its neck
and strangle it, Shing-Lao suddenly swerved from its pre-
dicted path. Reynolds was taken aback for just a moment.
But in that moment, Shing-Lao had already left the offi-
cer’s field of vision and, from a blind spot at Reynolds’s
right, had lunged into the air, aiming its teeth at his

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An Unlikely Death
Adam’s apple.
Reynolds couldn’t sidestep it. But out of some instinct
born of pure confidence, he made a jerking motion to the
right with his shoulder, that simply “felt right.” Shing-
Lao, rather than sinking its teeth into Reynolds’s throat,
instead slammed into the officer’s shoulder. Reynolds
held his ground. His solid body repelled Shing-Lao and,
the dog’s sensitive nose slammed into his shoulder. Giv-
ing a surprised yelp, the dazed Shing-Lao fell hard to the
ground and was momentarily confused, shaking its head
to gain its bearings.
Taking advantage of his sudden advantage, Reynolds
saw a stick on the ground, which had apparently fallen off
a marsh tree. Grabbing it, he threw it over into a marsh
pond about ten meters away, next to what seemed to be a
log. “Fetch!” he said. Shing-Lao, seeing the wide arc cir-
cumscribed by the stick, seemed to be in debate about
whether to continue its assault or fetch the stick. In the
end, its dog instincts won out. It raced after the stick.
It had almost reached the stick and was about to eat it
when, out of the pond, a great splash appeared. It was a
marsh crocodile, the mother of the crocodile which had
almost murdered Reynolds. With a hungry glint in its
eyes, the great crocodile lunged at Shing-Lao and ate it.
As it chewed, Reynolds at first heard a few yelps. Then a
flood of blood emerged from the crocodile’s mouth like a
waterfall. The pained yelps stopped. Pieces of dog’s flesh
dropped out from the gator’s gaping maw. The crocodile,
satisfied, halfway submerged once again into water, be-
coming a log once more. Reynolds pumped his fist in tri-
umph.

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Darwen Amos
***

McDaniel, a distance away on the rooftop, frowned. He


was not so upset about Shing-Lao, who he knew had been
a good dog and would be reincarnated as a human being.
Perhaps in his next life Shing-Lao might find that crucial
knowledge to forever escape this floating world, this cy-
cle of desire and pain we call the world. But he was some-
what upset that Reynolds had been so lucky that a
crocodile had coincidentally been near the spot he had
thrown the stick. It was only a small thing, but still pretty
annoying. He hoisted his sniper rifle from the strap on his
shoulder, aimed it, and looked through the scope. With a
few economical movements, he had Officer Reynolds in
his sights. All that was left was to pull the trigger…
Suddenly, a hawk, which had been flying over the
marsh, looked down and saw the overhead view of the ri-
fle. Thinking the rifle was prey, it swooped down at it
with its claws outstretched, making a bestial cry of tri-
umph. The hawk slammed into the rifle, knocking it out
of McDaniel’s grasp. McDaniel, enraged, grabbed at the
hawk, which flew out of his reach. In doing so, he lost his
balance, teetered for a moment, then fell ten meters from
the roof, landing with a thud on the hard ground on his
side, breaking his right arm. The hawk, realizing that it
had made a mistake, flew away, embarrassed. Nature had
offered a helping hand in a moment of need.
Reynolds heard the noise of McDaniel’s body hitting
the floor. He turned. Seeing the prone McDaniel nursing
his arm, he took his advantage and rushed at the fallen en-
emy.
McDaniel leapt to his feet. Reynolds was rushing him,
quarterback-style, either out of bravery or stupidity.

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An Unlikely Death
Though McDaniel had broken his good right arm in the
fall, his left arm was fine, and he had plenty of time to
prepare. When Reynolds got close enough, McDaniel
punched him in the face with a left hook, knocking
Reynolds to the floor. Not wanting to kick a man when he
was down, he waited as Reynolds clumsily tried to get to
his feet. During the wait, he tried to snap his broken bones
back into place. The effort was unsuccessful, though very
painful. McDaniel grimaced and almost cried out. The
fallen Reynolds stood up. He was seething, his rage com-
ing out in a thick visible vapor from his mouth.
“Have a knuckle sandwich, you brown-nosing mud-
sucker!” cried Reynolds, propelling his right fist at Mc-
Daniel’s head. McDaniel grabbed the approaching fist in
mid air with his left hand, and clamped with all his might.
The crackling of Reynolds’s knuckles filled the air.
Reynolds roared in abject pain and anger. Still holding the
officer’s closed fist, McDaniel kicked Reynolds in the
stomach. Normally, the force of McDaniel’s boot would
have knocked Reynolds back, but as McDaniel held the
outstretched fist tightly in his grip, his opponent remained
within range. He was able to kick the stomach area again.
And again. And again.
“Oof! Oof! Oof!” cried Reynolds, his saliva spraying
out of his mouth with each expression of pain. Suddenly,
McDaniel, like a professional wrestler, twisted Reynold-
s’s arm at an angle, displacing it from its socket.
Reynolds yelled, the loudest outcry that had taken place
in this battle so far.
McDaniel did not grin. His eyes were focused on the
eyes of his enemy. Still gripping Reynolds’s hand, he
slammed his forehead into Reynolds’s, knocking the good
officer out. He let go. Reynolds fell to the ground, uncon-

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Darwen Amos
scious…
Evil had won once again. McDaniel, putting his hand
to his forehead as if he had a migraine, looked at his fall-
en opponent. Though it could be said that he had once felt
hatred toward this officer, the sight aroused nothing in
him. What was this “thrill of victory” he always heard
about? At the same time, what was the “agony of defeat?”
He didn’t know. He turned his back to Reynolds. He be-
gan to walk towards his rifle, laying on the ground, to re-
cover it. Then he would return to the patrol car and report
in to General Stathem. The general would be pleased.
By this time Reynolds was slowly recovering his con-
sciousness. But a few meters back, Officer Stevens was
doing the same…

Officer Stevens opened his eyes. The blurry world


slowly came into focus. Since he was more familiar with
this area than Reynolds, he knew where he was. He saw
Reynolds lying on the floor. A few meters away, the form
of Officer McDaniel was headed somewhat in his direc-
tion, toward the patrol car. Stevens knew what he had to
do.
He reached into his pocket, where he kept his police-is-
sue pistol. Groaning, he removed it, aimed it carelessly at
the approaching figure, then fired. The bullet hit Mc-
Daniel in the throat and soared through the other side. A
clear cry of pain pierced the air. It was a voice Stevens
had never heard, that of Officer McDaniel. He fought to
keep his eyes open. Watching the upright figure of Mc-
Daniel, which seemed as unsubstantial as a shadow, he
felt a kind of indifferent nervousness. Then, as McDaniel,
clutching at his throat where he had been shot with his left

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An Unlikely Death
hand, fell face-first into the ground, Stevens exhaled. He
had been holding his breath for who knows how long…
A stream of blood, running from McDaniel’s gurgling
throat, mixed into the muddy water of the marsh, spread-
ing like red India ink in water… Officer Stevens unsteadi-
ly got to his feet, then began to walk towards McDaniel’s
fallen body…
Officer McDaniel’s body lay face down in the marsh.
When Stevens imagined the bubbling muck of the marsh
slowly seeping into McDaniel’s pores, he felt nauseated.
With his foot, he turned the body over. He was planning
on respectfully closing McDaniel’s eyes, if they happened
to be open. If truth be told, Stevens did not feel entirely
comfortable with his action, which to him was akin to
shooting someone in the back. The old Stevens might
have done so, but the new, improved Stevens had morally
moved beyond betrayal.
McDaniel’s eyes were indeed closed. Stevens sighed.
Mid-sigh, however, Stevens’s sigh transformed into a
gasp. The closed eyes he had been looking at suddenly
opened. McDaniel was alive. But it was scary because
Stevens had originally believed him to be dead…

Officer McDaniel opened his eyes. Hoping to see the


radiant stream of Nirvana he had so often dreamed of, he
was met with something much more unpleasant. He saw
the face of Officer Stevens bending over him. And the
feeling of his blood leaving his body through the hole in
his throat confirmed McDaniel’s suspicion that he still
continued to exist, though probably not for long…
He had phantom limb syndrome. It wasn’t as if, like in
normal cases of this disease, he imagined that he had a

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Darwen Amos
limb where there was none, because he actually retained
all his limbs. But as he lifted his left arm upwards, he felt
as if he were staying still. It was as if “a phantom” had
lifted the arm for him. He looked at his left wrist, where
there was a watch. It was now 6:15. The twentieth an-
niversary of his vow of silence had passed exactly one
minute ago.
His vow of silence had ended. Lifting his head with
pain, he beckoned over Officer Stevens. And he said
something at moment of death
to Stevens: “You… Stevens… you traitor…”
His voice came wheezing, much of the volume ex-
pelled through the hole in his neck. But Stevens heard.
With that, Officer McDaniel pressed his blood-covered
hand on Stevens's cheek. There was a look of passionate
hatred on McDaniel's face as it fell back on the concrete.
His eyes closed, and McDaniel died. Stevens remained
knelt, as if in deep thought. He stood up, slightly trem-
bling, unholstered his revolver, and fired the two remain-
ing chambers into McDaniel's already dead skull. Mc-
Daniel’s head twitched twice in succession. More blood
seeped into the mud but it was useless, for McDaniel had
already died.

Officer Reynolds, having regained his consciousness,


had been sitting all this while in a daze. He had seen this
death scene in its entirety.
Office Stevens returned, wiping his bloody face with a
handkerchief. This did not work, and instead only served
to smear the blood across his cheeks.
“What did he say?” Reynolds asked.
Stevens shook his head… “I couldn't catch him. He

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An Unlikely Death
was just mumbling.” His voice seemed uncharacteristical-
ly serious, perhaps due to his loss of blood. Stevens
looked out over the swampy water. Just at that moment, a
wayward dragonfly, which had been flitting around the
marsh, flew past the two officers, and reflected in the
deep pools of Stevens's eyes.

119
Chapter Nine
Highway Battle

N ow…” said Mr. James, through a megaphone.


“Phase Omega is about to start…”
Mr. James, the evil kingpin, was standing atop the roof
of the Omega FBI Building, wearing a tailored white suit.
His blond hair glinted in the sunlight like a sharp knife,
and turned almost blindingly white. His demonic face was
grinning like a shark’s. This building had been completed
only one hour ago, and already it was filled with the vari-
ous soldiers and assassins now in the employ of Mr.
James. All the soldiers and assassins that had originally
belonged to the FBI, the US Navy, all police departments,
all security companies, bank security officers, Green
Berets, and every other corporation in the world were
now gathered either in the large parking lot under the
huge building atop which Mr. James now spoke, or in the
said building.
At the forefront of this gatheration was General Stath-

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An Unlikely Death
em, surrounded by a great battalion of tanks, battleships,
and fighter jets. Loyally following Mr. James, who paid
him $50,000 a month, General Stathem was really to fire
his entire battle force at the slightest dissidence among
any of the soldiers. He did not believe that his own sol-
diers would betray Mr. James, but who knew about the
rest of those army brats and rabble. He was in a surly
mood. He had just received the message from Mr.
James’s secretary that his best man, Officer McDaniel had
died in his battle with Reynolds. Damned if Officer Mc-
Daniel wasn’t going to get a proper policeman’s send-off!
Every one of these soldiers would personally fire a shot in
the clouds to commemorate McDaniel, the most loyal and
skilled policeman of the last decade! After Mr. James’s
coronation, General Stathem would send his second and
third best man to recover McDaniel’s body, which
presently languished somewhere in the Florida marshes.
“We will be going forward,” shouted Mr. James, “with
the Magnetron improvement program. Of course, this will
require a dangerous mission by NASA once again to
equip the satellite with more upgrades, but the deaths of
astronauts is a risk I am willing to take. My scientific
team, headed by my young secretary, has discovered a
new type of magnet. Not only can this magnet attract met-
al, it can also attract human flesh! Not only human flesh,
but also any other mineral, animal flesh, as well as vari-
ous radio and television signals. Of course, the primary
use for this new magnet will be human flesh. Imagine
how much better America’s transportation system will be
once this is done. In any case, I thought I’d tell you all
about this new development, as part of the Information
Act which I have just amended to the Bill of Rights. After
it is done, we will be moving on the Phase Omega-Alpha,

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Darwen Amos
in which he move political dissidents to an isolated island
in the South Seas. This will be done by magnetism, of
course.”
A great applause went through the ocean of people like
a neap tide. Some, of course, were uncertain about the
new improvements to Magnetron, and what it would
mean for society, but, knowing that failing to applaud
might invite the soldiers of General Stathem to train their
weapons at them, they clapped their hands obediently…

In the Florida marshes, Officer Stevens dropped to his


knees. No one had fixed the hole in his shoulder, from
where a lot of blood was coming out. Officer Reynolds
and Stevens were stranded in the middle of nowhere in
Florida. They might as well be dead.
A flock of vultures, sensing incumbent death, flew in
circles around the two officers. A little earlier they had al-
ready picked McDaniel’s body clean to the bones. That
had been lunch. Now they wanted supper.
Suddenly a bright idea came to Reynolds. He crawled
over to McDaniel’s body, naught but a skeleton now. Rif-
fling through the pocket’s on the deceased man, he came
upon what he had been looking for. Yes! They were
there! The keys to McDaniel’s patrol car.
He went back to Stevens. “Hey,” he said.
“Mmwhat?” mumbled Stevens.
“I found the keys to McDaniel’s patrol cruiser. The car
itself looks pretty banged up, but it still might work. Let’s
get out of here.”
“No,” slurred Stevens. “Leave me behind. I’m dying,
and I don’t want to be any trouble.”
“No!” shouted Reynolds. “You must come with me.

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An Unlikely Death
Let’s take down the FBI, you and I. This isn’t the end of
our friendship!”
“No,” agreed Stevens. “It is not the end of our friend-
ship, for I shall always remain your friend. But it is the
end of one of the partners in the friendship. I’m dying,
leave me be.” Stevens then fell unconscious.
Reynolds tried to drag Stevens into the car, but in his
weakened state wasn’t strong enough. He got into the pa-
trol car by himself. He put the key in its ignition, and
turned. “Yes!” The car started. “I’ll come back with
help!” he yelled to Stevens.
Stevens could not hear him.
Pressing the vehicle accelerator pedal of the patrol car
hardly with his foot, Reynolds sped his way back to Los
Angeles, the City of Angels…

The coronation ended. The various soldiers and securi-


ty guards gathered on the parking lot started going home
to their wives and children, wanting to have a cold beer
and relax while watching television. However, two of
them were stopped by the corpulent hand of General
Stathem.
“Just a minute there,” said General Stathem, his mus-
tache twitching.
“Yes, what is it?” asked one of the men, named Officer
Thompson.
“I have a little task for you. I want you to head up to
Florida, and pick up the body of Officer McDaniel. It’s
pretty important.”
“Sure, boss, but will the Magnetron take us?”
“Hmm,” said Stathem. “I don’t know. I don’t want to
ask Mr. James, because this is a personal chore for me,

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Darwen Amos
not official FBI business. Wouldn’t want to bother him.
So my answer will have to be no.”
“Yes sir,” said Thompson. “We will return immediate-
ly.”
“Hold on,” said General Stathem, hesitating. “Perhaps I
shouldn’t put too much of a burden on you young fellows.
After all, it is a personal task, not an official business. So
yes, I’ll head over with you fellows. I know the way to
Florida. I’ve been there many times for vacation.”
“Yes sir,” said the other man, named Officer Briggs.
“Will you be taking your police SUV?”
“Hmm,” said Stathem. “I wouldn’t think so. No, I think
I’ll take my Hummer. It’s slower, but more able to weath-
er the harsh conditions. Thompson, take the Hellhawk
fighter jet and watch the air for me. And Briggs, I want
you to take the Sharkfighter submarine. That way we can
approach Florida in a three-pronged pitchfork. If one of
us doesn’t make it by air or by sea, we will get to Florida
by land.Do you understand?”
“Yes sir,” said Officer Thompson and Briggs, saluting
their commander.
“Well,” said Stathem. “Let’s get to it.”
The three men headed towards their respective vehi-
cles…

The Hellhawk fighter jet, piloted by Officer Thompson,


sped its way to Florida. The weather was good, no clouds
altering visibility. At the same time, General Stathem
headed on the 405-South in his Hummer, which took up
three of the lanes. And underwater, Briggs’s submarine
was on its way across to Florida.
Coming from the other direction, of course, was the pa-

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An Unlikely Death
trol car driven by Officer Reynolds. If he headed in the
way he was currently going, he would be in a direct colli-
sion course with General Stathem’s tank…

“Uh oh,” thought Reynolds, looking at the gas gauge.


“I need gas.”
The gas gauge read that there was not enough gas in
the car. There was even a flashing orange symbol of a gas
can, signifying as much. This was to the right of the circle
which told the driver how fast he was going. Reynolds
was going pretty fast.
He had underestimated the gas loss. In fact, when a few
days ago the patrol car had been dropped so ignominious-
ly into the marshlands by the Magnetron satellite, it had
suffered some damage to the bottom of its gas tank.
Specifically, there was now a small hole which continual-
ly leaked a small stream of gas, whether the car was run-
ning or no. Because Reynolds had not considered this
problem, he now found himself in a sticky situation.
“Next Exit: Barstow.” claimed a green sign on the side
of the freeway.
Yes!, thought Reynolds. I’ll get off at this exit, drive to
town, and then “fill ‘em up,” as they say in the South.
Problem solved.
He drove a little further. There was another sign that
read, “Exit Here to get off on Barstow: 1/4 miles.”
He traveled the quarter mile and exited off the off-
ramp. Indeed, there was a gas station in this small burg. It
was a Shell Station. Reynolds parked his car next to a un-
occupied Self-Serve pump, because he did not want to
pay extra money for Full Service, in which a gas station
attendant comes out and fills your car up with gas for you.

125
Darwen Amos
That option was strictly for the lazy and the rich, and
Reynolds was neither.
Reynolds got out of his car, but not before pressing the
button that makes the gas cap door outwards. Then he
closed his car door. Having done so, he removed the gas
pump from its stile, untwisted the gas cap until it was
hanging by a white cord, inserted the pump into the new
hole, and depressed the trigger of the gas pump. He
watched the monitor which tells the customer how much
gas is being filled and how much it would cost. When he
filled his car up to the hilt with gas, he heard a click on
the gas pump’s trigger. Reynolds knew that even if he
tried, he would be unable to insert more gas into his car,
since it was now full. He replaced the gas cap cover and
put the pump back in its stile. Then he swiped his credit
card in the slot and accepted the payment. He contemplat-
ed going inside the gas station mini-mart to pick up some
snacks and then decided against it. Returning to the car
and closing the door, he found that his gas gauge now
read, as expected, as “Full.” Then he started his car with
his key and returned to the freeway. Soon he was once
again on the 405-South, returning to his old haunt, Los
Angeles…

At the same time, General Stathem’s Hummer, flanked


in the air by Thompson’s jet and in the sea by Brigg’s
submarine, headed from Los Angeles towards Florida on
the 405-North…

A few hours passed. Then, near Chicago, Officer


Thompson spotted something from the air.

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An Unlikely Death
“I see a bogey on the southbound freeway,” reported
Officer Thompson from the air to General Stathem
through his radio.
“You sure it’s a bogey?” asked Stathem, driving his
Hummer. “Try to take a closer look.”
“Yes sir,” said Thompson, as he piloted his fighter jet
to the side to get a better look. “Actually,” he said. “Now
that I can see it better, I see that it is not a bogey after all,
but a patrol car. Yes… it looks like a patrol car.”
“Well,” responded General Stathem. “I haven’t sent
any of my officers on the southbound freeway, so you
must be mistaken. There ain’t no way it’s a patrol car
you’re seeing, pal. Check your prescription eyeglasses, I
say.”
“But sir,” said Thompson. “I am pretty sure it is as I
first reported. It’s a patrol car. At any rate, it is a black
and white car, with sirens on top. If that’s not a patrol car,
then sir, with all due respect, you tell me what is.”
“Very well soldier,” quipped Stathem. “It’s a patrol
car. Why don’t you go in closer to see the number on the
side? You know, that number that is on the side of police
cars which tells you which officer is driving the car. It’s a
slim hope, but perhaps it’s a number I recognize. Of
course I can’t very well go around memorizing every
number of every policeman and his car, but might as well
take a stab at it.”
“Yes sir,” said Thompson. “Obeying orders…” He ma-
neuvered the fighter jet to the other side of the freeway,
bearing down on it. He kept flying downward until he was
side to side with the moving patrol car. He adjusted his
speed to look at the number. “Sir…” he said. “The num-
ber looks like 4050. Do you recognize it?”
Stathem gulped. Yes he recognized it. It was the num-

127
Darwen Amos
ber of his dead officer, Officer Patrick McDaniel. He was
not a believer in ghosts, but some things were too strange
to be coincidences…

Officer Reynolds, driving about, took a look out of his


passenger side window. To his surprise, he saw the form
of a black Hellhawk fighter jet, flying very low, and keep-
ing pace with his car. And in that fighter jet was the
masked face of someone he recognized… it was Officer
Thompson, General Stathem’s third-hand man.
Officer Thompson looked right back at him. In full
view of Reynolds, he lifted his radio to his mouth and
shouted: “Sir! It’s Reynolds. Should I kill him?”
Reynolds clearly heard the response of General Stath-
em through the radio, shouting in excitement: “Yes, by all
means! Take him out Thompson! Take him out and you
just earned yourself a promotion my boy!”
“Yes sir!” cried Officer Thompson, giving a salute. He
removed from his shirt pocket a pistol and, turning, point-
ed it at Reynolds’s head. “Say goodbye, Reynolds,” he
said, still expertly keeping pace in his jet with the speed-
ing patrol car.

Reynolds thought fast. Thompson was a skilled jet pi-


lot. It didn’t matter whether he sped up or slowed down,
Thompson would be able to keep pace. Thinking quickly,
he veered his steering wheel sharply to the left, slamming
the patrol car into the fighter jet at a tremendous speed…
The impact was critical. Thompson, surprised, dropped
his pistol out his window. The fighter jet, colliding with
the patrol car, careened off wildly in the air to the side,

128
An Unlikely Death
spinning like a Frisbee through the air.
“Mayday, mayday!” shouted Thompson.
The fighter jet crashed into the concrete lane divider of
the freeway, exploding on impact. A great ball of fire ex-
ploded like a supernova in the air. For a moment, the
world went pitch-white. Thompson was killed instantly.
“Damn!” yelled General Stathem, who had seen the
carnage from the other side of the freeway, the 405-North.
But the explosion caused by Thompson’s plane crashing
into the highway divider had created a large cave-mouth-
like opening to drive through. An opening large enough to
accommodate a Jeep Hummer… maybe.
Thinking quickly, General Stathem drove through the
opening. Now he was on the 405-South, a few car lengths
behind the fleeing patrol car that had once belonged to
McDaniel but was not being driven by Reynolds. Pressing
the accelerator pedal with his foot, General Stathem gave
chase after Reynolds…

General Stathem grit his teeth. It was no good. A patrol


car is faster than a Hummer. He couldn’t catch up to
Reynolds. Something needed to be done to slow Reynolds
down. He picked up his radio.
“Briggs?” he shouted. “You there?”

Underwater, Briggs had seen nothing of the excitement


that had happened. The undersea world passed peacefully
out of his window. He watched the tranquil fish swim by,
surrounded by colorful reefs of coral. To his mind,
Thompson was still alive. When he heard General Stath-
em’s voice asking if he was there, he jumped to attention.
“Yes sir, what is it sir?” he said in an excited voice.

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Darwen Amos
‘Well,” said General Stathem. “I want you to fire a
heat-seeking missile. To these coordinates. Longitude 87,
Latitude 10. Now!”
“Yes sir,” said Officer Briggs. His eyes scanned the
control panel until he found the button. Yes! There it was!
With a distended finger he pressed the button and set the
ordered coordinates…

The back of the Sharkfighter submarine opened up. A


missile was launched. This missile was whimsically
painted to resemble the face of a grinning shark. Its possi-
ble effects, however, were far from whimsical. The mis-
sile soared up to the surface of the sea and broke the sur-
face with a great splash. Rising high into the sky, the mis-
sile located its target. Seeing Officer Reynolds’s patrol
car, the missile propelled itself at 100 miles an hour to-
ward it, hoping to collide with it, explode, and take Offi-
cer Reynolds with it.

“Beep beep!” shouted the onboard computer in


Reynolds’s patrol car.
“What is it, computer?” cried Reynolds, who was busy
fleeing at 120 miles per hour from General Stathem.
“A heat-seeking missile is headed for this car!” said the
computer, in a female voice. “Warning!”
Reynolds looked in his rear-view mirror. Sure enough,
flying towards him and gaining, was the grinning face of
a shark, painted on a heat-seeking missile. According to
Reynolds’s calculations it would hit him within thirty sec-
onds.
Reynolds thought fast. Taking a deep breath, he said,

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An Unlikely Death
“Okay. Computer, reprogram heat-seeking missile to an-
other target!”
“To which target, sir?” asked the onboard computer.
“Hmm,” thought Reynolds, rubbing his chin. “Take it
back to the source.”
“Yes sir,” shouted the computer.

The computer, using every megabyte of its processing


power, reprogrammed the missile to return to its source…

The missile, in mid air, suddenly stopped. Then, as if


thinking, it hung in the air, still grinning its toothy grin.
Finally, it turned, and began heading at tremendous
speeds back to the submarine where it had been launched
from.

Officer Briggs, in his submarine, was patting himself


on the back for a job well done. Soon the missile would
reach Reynolds and explode, earning him a brand-new
promotion. He sighed, and sat back in his seat. He opened
a magazine and began reading. He thought he heard a
splash in the ocean’s surface above him. Shrugging, he re-
turned to his magazine. Suddenly, his onboard computer
spoke.
“Warning!” said the submarine computer. “A missile is
headed your way!”
Officer Briggs jumped from his seat. He looked at the
ceiling window. Yes… the missile, the very same missile
that had been fired from his submarine a moment before,
was headed straight for him through the water. He saw

131
Darwen Amos
that shark-like grin…
“Computer!” shouted Briggs. “Reprogram approaching
missile to-”
But it was too late. The missile hit the Sharkfighter
submarine. A great explosion took place under water,
killing Briggs. The explosion was so large in magnitude
that a large splash appeared above the ocean’s surface,
though the explosion had taken place underwater…

“Damn!” shouted General Stathem, who had just heard


the underwater explosion. His two men were dead. Now it
was up to him. He looked at it as a blessing. He would be
able to personally kill Reynolds, who he had hated even
before he had hired him.
“Let’s kick this up a notch!” shouted Stathem, as he
pressed the nitrous oxide button. In response, the Hum-
mer sped up to ridiculous speeds, 300 miles an hour. Soon
it was right next to Reynolds’s patrol car. Stathem turned
an angry face over to look at Reynolds. Reynolds looked
back, smiled, and waved mockingly in an effeminate way.
Stathem growled in anger. “Roar!” he scrawled. In his up-
permost post of anger, General Stathem had the aptitude
to become a true animal of the wild.
General Stathem reached over to the passenger seat,
and removed the rocket launcher he kept there. Hoisting it
onto his shoulder, he aimed it at Reynolds. Reynolds’s
eyes opened wide open in fear. Then, General Stathem’s
rocket launcher fired.
It missed, sailing clear of Reynolds’s car. Reynolds,
putting down the passenger-side window and aiming his
pistol, fired two shots at General Stathem’s window. They
were a direct hit, but the Hummer had protective glass

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An Unlikely Death
windows. The bullets were of no avail, making only spi-
der-web cracks on the unbreakable windows.
General Stathem laughed in triumph. But he wasn’t
laughing for long. Reynolds’s patrol car suddenly and un-
expectedly swerved to the left, hitting the right bumper of
the Hummer. The Hummer, an ungainly vehicle, spun out
head to tail, rotating on the highway like a spinning
roulette wheel. Good thing there were no other drivers on
the road…
Reynolds’s car sped up, trying to flee while the Hum-
mer was still spinning. But General Stathem once again
took up his rocket launcher and, while the car was still
spinning, fired the last rocket. It was a last-ditch effort,
something he had not really expected to work. But…
The rocket bullet flew through the air… then it hit its
target. It exploded Reynolds’s car and flipped it over. A
giant fiery explosion sounded, and the patrol car was sud-
denly engulfed in flames. If there was any doubt that the
patrol car wouldn’t work before, now that was certain.
Stathem heard the explosion, though he did not see it,
as his vehicle was spinning like a top. He laughed in tri-
umph.
The Hummer had stopped spinning. Dizzy, General
Stathem parked his Hummer in the middle of the highway
and walked out. He went over to check the burning
wreckage of Reynolds’s patrol car, to see if Reynolds was
alive, although that was doubtful.
The fiery patrol car threw off noxious fumes from its
wreckage. As Stathem approached it, his noise wrinkled
in distaste. He looked in. There was nothing to indicate
any survival. The car was simply a black ash, a skid mark
on the floor. In some of that ash were the cremated re-
mains of Officer Roger Reynolds. Though he felt dizzy,

133
Darwen Amos
General Stathem felt that he had finally avenged Mc-
Daniel’s death. Pleased, he began to consider making his
trek back to his Hummer.

A few minutes before, Reynolds had seen the rocket


approaching his patrol car in his rear-view mirror. Think-
ing fast, he had opened the door and rolled out. When the
rocket consumed the patrol car in flames, Reynolds had
been just out of reach. Because General Stathem at the
time had been spinning, he hadn’t seen it. Now, as Gener-
al Stathem looked into the wreckage, Reynolds sneaked
up behind him. Then, grabbing General Stathem’s neck
with his arms, he quickly snapped the neck bone.
Crack! A snapping sound, like the sound of a small
firecracker exploding, popped through the air.
General Stathem did not even notice he was dead. He
dropped to the floor face-first into the burning ashes of
Reynolds’s patrol car.
Stathem had left his keys in the Hummer’s ignition.
The car was ready to drive. Reynolds walked to the Hum-
mer, entered it, and began driving to Los Angeles once
more…

134
Chapter Ten
Phase Omega

P hase Omega of Project Insignia was quite going into


effect. Unlike the proposed bills of the past, which
had to make their way through the bureaucratic rigmarole
of the United States legal system, the FBI, which now
controlled the legal system, was easily able to bypass
those regulations which makes it that nothing ever gets
done in the United States.
The conditions of the phase was simple. Or perhaps it
would be more accurate to say that through complex
machinations the effect of the bill was simple. This effect
was pure misery and the destruction of free speech and
democracy.

The Hawaiian islands had, as a matter of course, been


confiscated from the public. All the people on there were
told to leave, and if they did not not cooperate, they were

135
Darwen Amos
kicked off and exiled. But Mr. James brought many of his
workers to the place. In a few minutes, construction of his
ultimate base became started and, for Mr. James, not a
minute too soon. Wearing a hard hat, Mr. James watched
the workers building the base, arms akimbo on his waist.
The hat he was wearing was a yellow, metal cap which
looked like an inverted bowl. However, there was also at-
tached to the sides of the inverted bowl pieces of black
rubber which connected to make a chin strap. And you
know how inverted bowls cause pollution to become
trapped in the smog-infested city. Of such a nature was
the evil trapped in Mr. James’s brain, protected by not
only his hat, but also his skull. Mr. James looked like a
cliché evil construction worker - the foreman of foremen.
The chin strap was strapped under one of Mr. James’s
many chins.
The Hawaiian islands are certainly beautiful. A moun-
tainous volcano stood next to Mr. James, frowning at the
workers, encouraging them to labor harder. A large water-
fall flowed down the volcano like evil wine. The sky was
blue as a waterous ocean. And strange-looking flowers,
some looking like ordinary flowers, other exotic, and still
others which resembled breathing human flesh, adorned
the island. Fantastic creatures - like Tributin patas mon-
keys, deadly cobra snakes, and venomous toucans wan-
dered to and fro about the confines of the island. And
pineapples and shard-fruits grew everywhere in abun-
dance, as well as coconut trees. Some of the construction
workers were picking Macadamia nuts from trees, remov-
ing the shell, and spitting out the nut into a sand dune.
Large piles of bat guano, pinkened by the bats’ carnivo-
rous diet of blood, lay about here and there on the moun-
tainous island.

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An Unlikely Death
The materials for construction had been gathered here
far in advance, even before Mr. James’s diabolic proposi-
tion had been voted on. The residents of Hawaii, known
for their cordial welcoming attitude, had seen the ships
carrying in t-bars, nuts, screws, and wood onto the island.
They asked no questions. Living on this isolated island,
the Hawaiians thought even fire was a miracle. So why
would they are that people were bringing random objects
to their abode. It wasn’t as if they had been wounded be-
fore. They were simply amazed at the new technology
which had arrived by ship to their land. And arrived they
did. Helicopters landed on the island, carrying additional
supplies, as well as food and water for the workers. All
the metal, gray equipment came in boxes, were unpacked,
and set up for the ready. Construction would begin…
Paradise is lost… such a thought was apt. In disbelief
the Hawaiians had watched as the newcomers removed all
culture from their island, replacing it with the faceless,
impersonal culture of crass commercialism. People saw
people with various symbols of paradise on their shoul-
ders, such a leis and flower fruit, carrying out the precious
objects to a makeshift junkyard. A toucan flew by. It
seemed to bemoan the fact that consumerism was destroy-
ing life as we know it. In fact the birds of paradise which
usually lived there moved to different islands, looking for
a better soil in which to plant their roots and grow. Unfor-
tunately, with commercialism what it is today, it is unlike-
ly that these birds will find a safer haven…
Mr. James’s castle, when completed, would soar into
the sky like a cathedral built in respect of modern technol-
ogy. And no wonder. No amount of technology had been
spared in the building of the building. Already the metal
skeleton of the skyscraper seemed to give promise of a

137
Darwen Amos
darker day. Each construction worker who had been in-
debted with the blueprints for this structure looked up at
the rough sketch of the completed building with prescient
eyes. And what these eyes of the future saw… no one
could say they liked. They imaged the steel skeleton final-
ly clad in metal armor, unbreakable glass and, at the very
top, like a Christmas ornament, a helicopter beacon shin-
ing its red light, rotating in the sky like a sinister light-
house beacon. This red beacon symbolized the red evil of
Mr. James’s heart - and the red evil of his sinister plans…
In any case, let us return to the situation at hand. In two
days, the building was almost done. One of the construc-
tion workers came to Mr. James’s side and asked him:
“What do you think of this construction job?”
“Well,” said Mr. James. “It looks good to me, but I’m
no construction worker. I’ll trust you.”
“Will you trust me enough to let me leave this island?”
the constructor foreman said. He had been forced to work
on this infernal project against his will.
“Well,” said Mr. James. “It seems I have no more use
for you. He pulled out his gun, cocked it, and pointed it at
the construction foreman. With it, he ushered the foreman
and the other construction workers onto a ship. “The cap-
tain will take you home,” Mr. James told them. “You will
receive your payment in the mail… $50,000.”
The construction workers, who had thought they would
be killed, breathed a collective sigh of relief and started
on the journey home…

While Reynolds had been driving to Los Angeles, it


occurred to him to check General Stathem’s pockets. He
drove back to the scene of the explosion, got out, and

138
An Unlikely Death
walked over to the general’s corpse. Reynolds looked at
the body of his superior, General Stathem, lying on the
floor face-down. He reached into the general’s front pock-
et where, folded into quarters, was a detailed plan of the
location and date of completion of Mr. James’s new
project. Carefully unfolding and skimming the document,
Reynolds tried to imagine the evil that would blossom out
of the Hawaiian tribal soil. Reynolds’s imagination was
hardwired to see only good in people… and in buildings.
So, no matter how he tried, his pure imagination could not
call up the ineffable evil that was now in construction. In
any case, he could understand what he was able to read.
Literacy has no moral values; as a result, words can be
used in the service of either side of the moral spectrum,
good or evil. Unfortunately, it is too often used for evil.
What he read was: “Date of Completion: Two days from
now…”
He knew he had to get to Mr. James’s base as quickly
as possible… He altered his direction, heading towards
Hawaii…

The rest of the construction work could not be entrust-


ed to the lowly foreman and his workers. In Mr. James’s
opinion, they were not evil enough. A special touch was
needed to take the good idea and transform it into beauty.
He stood on the island, looking at his steel skeletal struc-
ture. The sight did not displease him. But it needed some-
thing a little extra. He waited, looking out at the night sea.
The seaweed waved under the surface of the water in a
slow underwater ballet, unseen to all except the fish, who
had no use for such theatrics.
Soon enough, in a few minutes, Mr. James could see

139
Darwen Amos
the approaching steel battleship. A steam whistle blew as
a cloud of smoke blew into the black sky. He knew that
this ship was filled with specially trained workers… not
human in the common sense of the term. For Mr. James
had taken the precaution, a few months previous, to kid-
nap a crew of sailors. With the hypnotic poison patented
by his young secretary, he was easily able to sedate
them… even the uncooperative ones. He had had his team
of FBI doctors operate on the captured workers and, when
it was done, he had a loyal group of cybernetically en-
hanced journeymen. Not robots in the strictest sense, but
androids. The problem with robots was that they had no
human creativity. But by turning people into androids,
you could excise all the undesirable human elements out
of the person, but keep the element of creativity. In a
sense, androids were the perfect combination of human
and machine.
The large barge approached closer, then set anchor on
the shore. Mr. James strode up to the ship to welcome it.
A fully human captain stepped from the ship, dressed
in full military gear. In another life he had been a lieu-
tenant. Now he was simply a slave of the FBI. Mr. James
returned the captain’s sharp salute in a simple, economi-
cal movement. “Howdy,” said Mr. James.
“Sir, I have brought the ‘men’ as ordered,” claimed the
lieutenant.
“Very well,” said Mr. James. “Then it seems I have no
more use for you…” Removing this pistol from its hol-
ster, Mr. James shot the lieutenant in the head. This was
also a simple, economical movement. Without another
word, the lieutenant fell to the ground, dead.
A door opened in the ship with the sound of steam.
Steam escaped from the ship, obscuring Mr. James’s

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An Unlikely Death
sightline into the area. Then, a black form stepped out in
relief to the moving steam. It stepped onto the island,
moving toward Mr. James. This was followed by many
other black forms, vaguely human, moving in a single file
like automations. In a row, a hundred robotic workers
filed out, then assembled in formation before Mr. James.
The sight filled Mr. James’s breast with a pride like no
other. As if sensing Mr. James’s militant desires, the an-
droids simultaneously saluted in the night…
A great bout of laughter escaped Mr. James’s hefty
stomach. The hearty sound, with nowhere to echo, rang
out sharply in the night, with the clarity of church bells
ringing in distilled water. It seemed that Mr. James would
never stop laughing…

The freeways were blocked. This was the first thing


that went through Reynolds’s head when, in the general’s
Hummer, he attempted to drive to the dock where he
would find a boat, hijack it, and take it to Hawaii. It was
nighttime. A row of soldiers in orange uniforms blocked
the way to the dock. The orange uniforms were shiny, and
gleamed in the night like coral knives. The guards were
armed with new, metallic shotguns with green blinking
LED lights; it was an impressive sight indeed. Reynolds
swallowed, and pulled up to the blockade, where one of
the soldiers broke the formation to approach Reynolds at
the vehicle’s window.
The soldier motioned with his hands for Reynolds to
put his driver’s side window down. Reynolds obliged.
“Identification please,” intoned the soldier, in a bored
tone.
Reynolds began to reach for his wallet. He had to pre-

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Darwen Amos
pare for a possible confrontation. However, just as he was
about to pull it out, another soldier ran up and tapped the
first soldier on the back.
“Hey! What’s the big idea?” asked the first soldier,
turning around.
“Don’t you know who that is?” said the second soldier.
“That’s General Stathem! I’d recognize his Hummer any-
where!”
The first soldier opened his eyes in wide-eyed surprise,
then turned back to the driver of the Hummer. “Sorry,
General Stathem,” he said to Reynolds. “I didn’t recog-
nize you without your mustache. It seems you’ve lost a lot
of weight!”
“Yes,” said Reynolds. “I’ve been on a diet and shaved
my mustache. By the way, can you tell me where the
shipyard is?”
“Of course sir,” nodded the soldier. “You are headed in
the right direction.” Saying this, he pointed past the
blockade. Noticing the row of soldiers blocking the way,
he barked out an order: “Hey! Move out of the way! Gen-
eral Stathem needs to get through.”
The soldiers, grumbling, moved out of the way, and be-
grudgingly saluted Reynolds. Reynolds gave a sardonic
salute back. The two soldiers who had spoken to
Reynolds briskly moved to the side of the freeway.
The path was now cleared. Reynolds drove in the di-
rection of the shipyard…

The astronauts filed into the warehouse, ready for their


mission. Their mission, to fly to the Magnetron satellite
and reoutfit it with new magnet technology could not
have come at a worse time. The atmospheric conditions

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An Unlikely Death
were at their all time worst, due to the smoky pollution
emitted by the many new factories Mr. James had com-
missioned. In addition, the NASA budget had been cut
sharply by half, though NASA was perhaps more impor-
tant to Mr. James's plans than ever before.
The empty warehouse where the astronauts had gath-
ered was empty no more. A large spacecraft loomed in the
warehouse. A desk, filled with various objects, stood next
to the space shuttle. It would be a dangerous mission. The
astronauts, grumbling, waited for hours until their instruc-
tor, a general specially appointed by Mr. James himself,
finally entered and clapped his hands.
“Ready to go?” he said enthusiastically.
“Just one question,” grumbled one of the astronauts.
“What is the purpose of this mission?”
The general smiled. “Why… transport of course.”
“Transport?”
“Yes. The new equipment you will install on the satel-
lite Magnetron is state-of-the-art technology, which took
years and years to develop. It will allow human beings to
be transported from place to place with the greatest of
ease. Let me show you.”
With this, the general removed a small magnet from his
pocket. “Now,” he said. “Watch this.”
He walked over to the table, where many items were
placed. He picked up a paper clip. “See this?” he said.
The astronauts nodded.
“Well… watch.” The general placed the magnet close
to the paper clip. The paper clip stuck to the magnet.
“What’s so special about that?” asked an astronaut,
nonplussed.
“Exactly nothing,” said the general. “Nothing at all.
This is simply an ordinary magnet, of small power. The

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Darwen Amos
Magnetron, as you know, is a large magnet, which can
pick up most metallic objects of any size. In fact, it is the
most powerful magnet in the universe.”
“Then why do we need to upgrade it?” asked one of the
astronauts.
“Simple, my man,” said the general. He picked up a
mouse from the table. “Observe,” he said.
He placed the magnet close to the mouse. Nothing hap-
pened.
The astronauts, unimpressed, stayed silent.
“Just as you’d expect,” said the general. “No magnetiz-
ing. There is no polar quality to mice. Flesh and emotion
are not susceptible to magnetic fields. Though human be-
ings are attracted to one another through the faculty of
love, there is no adhesive property that necessarily brings
human beings together. This is because human beings do
not possess polar opposites. Instead, human beings are
contradictions in themselves. You can say that they are
self-sufficient, fulfilled in themselves. They hate, and
they love. They are evil, and they are good. Sometimes
they can be extremely intelligent, and invent new inven-
tions. But other times, human beings do incredibly stupid
things, such as start wars.”
With these words the general now had the full com-
bined interest of his audience. “Okay,” he continued. “So
human beings are living contradictions. We can live with
that. We have, after all, for millions of years. It’s a sur-
prise, considering what contradictory, cataclysmic quali-
ties exist side by side in human beings, that we do not
spontaneously combust due to the catalyzing reaction of
contradictory elements. This is the study of chemistry.
But chemistry has never been able to explain how, for ex-
ample, a father can sacrifice his life for his son, or a lover

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An Unlikely Death
will give up days of food simply to catch a glimpse of his
beloved. For that has always been in the field of the su-
pernatural. The emotions of human beings, which we can-
not explain without resorting to supernatural concepts
such as ghosts and UFOs, were hitherto immune to the
studying eye of science.”
The general paused, hands on hips, observing his audi-
ence’s reaction. He was pleased. He had their full atten-
tion.
“Now,” he said. “Let us return to the subject at hand.
Magnets. It is only reasonable that the various contradic-
tory elements in human beings have something preventing
them from being contaminated with each other. Otherwise
human beings would not be able to exist. This, I term ‘ad-
hesive.’ Adhesive is what keeps contradictory elements
from attacking each other, by bounding them so tight with
each other they ‘think’ they are the same element. In this
way, they have no one to attack.”
“So,” said one of the astronauts. “Emotions are like
coins, in that each emotion has its opposite tightly bound
to the opposite side?”
“Exactly,” nodded the general, pleased. “Now all that
remains is to find the property of that ‘adhesive.’ It must
be a pretty powerful element, this adhesive, if it prevents
the raging power of love from coming into contact with
the relentless attack of hate, right?”
“But that something must be more powerful than
steel!” gasped one of the astronauts, in disbelief.
“That’s correct,” said the general. “Very good. And the
scientists came to the same conclusion. While knowing
that an ‘adhesive’ must exist in the human body, they did
not yet know its exact element! Then… one of the scien-
tists said the same thing as this bright young man here!”

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Darwen Amos
“And what’s that?” asked an astronaut.
“He said ‘This adhesive must be more powerful than
steel!’ And that got them thinking… hmm… more power-
ful than steel? Why, that must be one extremely powerful
metal!”
Some of the astronauts seemed to get it. They nodded
knowingly, saying “I see!” The general smiled, pleased at
his studious students. “That’s right!” he said, “an ex-
tremely powerful metal! That’s when we knew… knew
that there was in the human body a metal ‘adhesive’
which kept them from combusting on themselves!”
“Oooh!” said an astronaut.
“Exactly!” said the general, pointing happily at the as-
tronaut who had just understood. “Now that they knew
that the ineffable element in human beings was not super-
natural at all, but simply a metal, it was easy to design a
new magnet! A magnet that could attract the polar quali-
ties in human beings! A magnet that could target that met-
al called ‘human nature!’”
With this, the general removed another magnet from
his pocket. “This magnet,” he said proudly, “has been
equipped with a smaller version of the capacitors you
good fellows will be equipping on the Magnetron!”
With a flourish the general moved the new magnet
closer to the mouse. All eyes were on him as the magnet
approached the timid mouse. Then, the surprised mouse,
like a metal filing, flew into the air and stuck fast to the
magnet, flailing its small legs wildly in the air.
The astronauts in the warehouse burst into wild ap-
plause. The general nodded, pleased. He knew that they
now understood the import of their mission. “Okay!” he
clapped his hands. “You guys ready to go?”
A roar of enthusiastic agreement echoed in the ware-

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An Unlikely Death
house… They were ready all right.
Ready to rock.

147
Chapter Eleven
The Wharf

T he San Francisco wharf was ominous in the night.


Out of the sea the rising waves headed shoreward,
cutting through the mercury blue of the languid water
with the speed and ferocity of shark’s teeth. The lunar
moon, like a white stone radiating in the sky, pulled the
tides toward its cold embrace, creating disturbances in the
calm ocean water. The water seemed to be reaching its
pleading arms toward its brood-mother, crying out for
nourishment. But the only nourishment Mother Moon
would provide was the feeble sustenance of cold, white
light. The waters shivered in the ‘warmth’ of the feminine
embrace, the essence of the “Eternal-Feminine.” For it
was not forgiveness that was in the sphere of women, but
cold indifference… the perfection of a woman finds its
expression most clearly in an immaculately bored hatred -
a hatred for all men. The waves, the disinherited sons of
the moon, died and renewed themselves with easy speed,

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An Unlikely Death
like quickly fading vices. Each time a wave broke upon a
shore, another rushed up quickly and came to replace it,
like an appointee upon a chieftain’s death.
The quay was actually a symbiotic combine of struc-
tures: a dock, a cluster of warehouses, and a single light-
house. The dock consisted of a wood patio-like outcrop-
ping which hung over the sea like a hand of judgment.
There were no ships in tonight. All the ships had been
commissioned by the FBI, sent out to one tropical island
or other, carrying evil tidings for the native islanders
therein. Tonight a single ship would be returning… it was
a ship coming from the island of Hawaii, a ship filled
with construction workers, a captain, and a chef… It was
the U.S.S. Federali…
Warehouses surrounded the dock, filled with frozen
sharks and crabs. Fishermen walked in and out of these
desolate, cold outhouses, carrying over their shoulders
rope-nets filled with the catches-of-the-day. From time to
time a fish in one of the nets screamed into the night, a
wailing, almost human sound of despair, in the agony of
displacement from its aquatic home. Whenever this hap-
pened, the burly fisherman carrying the net slammed the
net into the ground, over and over, with brute strength,
until the shrieking stopped. The fish would scream no
more…
Off to one side of the dock was a lighthouse. The sky
was dark and silent, except for a single moon lighting up
one corner. In contrast, the sea was in agonized turmoil.
The waves were frenzied… what ship could come in
tonight? Yet the lighthouse was operational. Its very top
was lit up. This beacon sent a triangular beam of white
light in a wide arc, easily recognizable by any incoming
ship. The beacon had the ability to pierce through any fog

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Darwen Amos
or storm. The single window at the top of the soaring
structure was lit in a comforting shade of yellow, like a
warm fire on a chilly Christmas day. It was the only reas-
suring thing in the whole place.
The ship had not yet come in. But from the other direc-
tion, landward, a black Hummer approached the wharf,
then parked in the lot. This was Reynolds, who was now
going to wait for a ship so he could hijack it…

Standing at the helm of the ship, Captain Heinrich von


Panzer, the leader of the US Navy, looked out to sea. He
could almost see the shore now… the salt air was clearing
up. He raised his binoculars to his eyes, and saw the ap-
proaching shore. The sight depressed him. Captain Hein-
rich was married to the sea. Whenever he stepped on land
he always missed the slow sway of the beautiful mistress
he called his wife, the sea, the comforting sway which
even now held him in a slow ballet, reminding him sub-
consciously of his nine months in his mother’s stomach,
gestating with a bright future… In those days, the days of
National Socialism, every future had seemed bright… He
was dressed for the occasion, in full military gear. Many
decorations adorned his uniform, multicolored like the
phosphorescent minions of the deep-sea, and a white
sailor’s cap rested jauntily on his head, a few strands of
blonde hair sticking out from under it. His handsome,
Aryan face poked out under the cap, his sharp nose cut-
ting the salt air like a knife. Everything, including his
eyes, was as sharp as the smell of danger. Even his
cologne, imported from Germany, had a sharp acidity
which could knock women unconscious.
Captain Heinrich inhaled deeply of the sea. The sea air

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An Unlikely Death
filled his muscular body and entered each tendon of his
powerful ligaments. Though he was forty years old, no
one would have suspected he was a day over twenty-five.
His daily exercise regimen made sure of that. He felt re-
laxed. He stretched. The movement reminded one of a
panther just escaped from the cage. This was his easiest
assignment yet. It was, however, an important one. He
was entrusted with the task of bringing the construction
workers back home from Hawaii, and also to pick up a
powerful explosive device, which was housed in the dock
warehouse, and deliver it to Mr. James’s island base. But
he wasn’t worried. He frequently made trips to enemy
waters and was forced to fight in many naval battles. Or
perhaps it would be better not to say forced… he won
them all… His naval strategy was so powerful that even
pirates trembled at the mere mention of his name… his
proud name… the Panzer legacy would live on…
His father had been a technician under Hitler’s regime.
Bruno von Panzer, Captain Heinrich’s father, had, of
course, invented the powerful Panzer tanks which had al-
most won Germany the Second World War. He remem-
bered fondly the father-and-son rides on his dad’s battle-
ship, The Final Solution… But that was the past. Though
Captain Heinrich still cherished some of the pure ideals
his father had held. For example he only employed Aryan
workers on his ship. And a hatred of Jews burned in his
heart. It was his prerogative… and in his opinion, his
Aryan Army was perhaps the main reason that he had
won every naval battle he had fought. With his comrades
at his side (his comrades with skin as white as their loyal-
ties), he had been able to take any battleship in battle.
While he might have been able to win the battles without
his comrades, he certainly would not have been able to be

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so confident… so unafraid… Captain Heinrich was invin-
cible on the sea…
Not that he wasn’t dangerous on land. It would be a
mistake to underestimate Captain Heinrich’s fighting abil-
ities. He was an expert boxer, fencer, and judo fighter.
Woe be the man who faces Captain Heinrich in hand-to-
hand combat. He had killed hundreds with his bare
hands…

The warehouse, unusually for this time of night, was


filled with frantic activity. Various frozen fish hung from
chains attached to the ceilings of the icy warehouse, and
all types of fish were stored in the many wooden crates
littered about the wide area. Tonight, however, the ware-
house carried a cargo more dangerous than a hundred
fish…
Fishermen and dock workers moved back and forth in
the warehouse, putting the final finishing touches on an
immense metal structure which took up almost half the
area of the place. It was a rocket-shaped structure of cast
iron, free-standing in the middle of the room, at a height
of thirty or so feet, and a width almost as long. It was the
elephant in the room. Ladders led to various levels of the
rocket, and fishermen climbed up and down these, tinker-
ing with the various controls built into the structure. And
though the object was covered with indecipherable num-
bers and codes, its use was clear to anyone who gave it
even a passing glance.
It was a bomb…
For the last two weeks the fishermen had worked on
this large explosive, called a “magnet bomb” on commis-
sion from the FBI. It was, in some ways, a more destruc-

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An Unlikely Death
tive bomb than the atomic bomb. The atomic bomb was
able to level entire cities; this bomb, made from magnetic
technology, was able to level entire countries. It was an
ultimate deterrent. Any country with a “magnet bomb”
would never be bothered by any other country.
Mr. James had commissioned this project for just this
reason. But right now the bomb was still in its prototype
stages. It would take a few more years of research before
becoming the nightmare weapon Mr. James had dreamed
of ever since he had been a child. Right now it could de-
stroy perhaps one-fourth of a city. But even its infantile
stages, this was an extremely dangerous weapon.
The giant magnet bomb glistened like an ice sculpture
in the cold warehouse…

Reynolds, in the parked Hummer, heard the boat, ap-


proaching the quay from the west, long before he saw it.
The sound of steam releasing into the night air was loud
and clear. A few moments later, cutting through the black
night, the Federali’s navigation lights came into view.
The boat, painted in waterproof shades of black and
white, looked like a monstrous sea monster scenting its
prey. The boat was large all right, large enough for a crew
of one or two hundred, in Reynolds’s estimate. Reynolds
had some experience in the navy, but that was ten years
ago. Modern technology had advanced to the point that he
knew nothing of the Federali’s high-tech battle capabili-
ties. Still, he was no land-lubber, and knew enough about
sea-traveling to understand that a boat of this size was
more properly termed a “ship” than a boat, though either
way he was going to hijack it.
The large ship began to turn in toward the dock… the

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Darwen Amos
navigation lights flashed on and off, signaling to the fish-
ermen its intention to make port. It moved forward, de-
creasing its speed at a constant, almost unnoticeable rate,
always seeming to maintain an inexorable moment. A
minute later, the Federali dropped anchor. The large ship
slowed, then stopped its forward movement, a few meters
before the dock. The impression of relentlessness fell
away from the ship, though it retained its sinister and re-
gal bearing. Then, one by one, its navigation lights
blinked off, turning the ship into an ominous black mass
adrift in the night sea.

The Federali came to a stop. Captain Heinrich turned


from his place of watch and began to address his crew,
who were all gathered on the steel prow of the ship. Cap-
tain Heinrich needed no megaphone to pitch his orders.
Rather, the clarity of pitch was present in his masculine
voice itself. He took care of his body; having never
smoked a cigarette in his life, Captain Heinrich had a
voice which carried across any space. Not that this was
necessarily, for he spoke so little that when he did, every-
one listened. The various members of the crew, the con-
struction team, and the kitchen staff were all gathered
there. As Captain Heinrich addressed them his clear voice
carried like a continual martial shout.
“You all know what to do,” said the captain. “So let’s
make this quick and easy. I want Alpha Team One to
head into the warehouse and retrieve the bomb. I will ac-
company you, as the matter is important. You will then
carry it and follow me onto th board. Beta Team Two is
entrusted with protecting the ship while Alpha Team One
carries out the aforementioned order. Cover every door,

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An Unlikely Death
and every possible entrance onto the ship. This is a deli-
cate matter. The kitchen staff, of course, can return to
their quarters. That is all.”
“Heil!” came the chorus of the Aryan crew. The con-
struction workers were less enthusiastic about the Axis
powers, and remained silent. Then, Alpha Team One be-
gan to dismount the ship onto the dock, by way of a re-
tractable staircase. Beta Team Two took their positions.
And the kitchen staff collectively began to return to their
quarters. However, as the head chef, Barrol Staker, was
about to reprise his bed, Captain Heinrich stopped him by
grasping his shoulder with a vicelike grip.
Barrol Staker bared his teeth but did not cry out. He
half turned round.
“Don’t be in such a hurry to leave, Steak,” sneered
Captain Heinrich. “You haven’t kissed me goodnight
yet.”
“Watch it, kid,” warned Staker, “Next time you touch
me like that I’ll serve you for dinner. Captain Heinrich a
la gratin.”
Captain Heinrich scoffed. “Listen here, chef,” he said.
“The sea voyage has made me mighty hungry. Now I’m
going to leave this boat soon, to pick up the bomb. But
I’ll be back real soon… And when I’m back, I’m going to
expect a steak dinner, medium rare. Have it ready, chef,
or your family will suffer. Got that?”
Staker appeared on the cusp of saying something vin-
dictive. However, after a moment, he simply spat on the
ground, and began to walk back to the kitchen, with steps
surprising wide-spaced and powerful for a man his age.
Captain Heinrich smiled. By pure chance he happened
to look at the ground. Staker had not missed his mark. A
glob of saliva and mucus was half on the floor, and half

155
Darwen Amos
on his new expensive German boots. A sudden spark of
righteous anger set his blood on fire. He briefly consid-
ered chasing down Staker and putting two bullets into his
head, just to make sure. But, after closing his eyes and
counting to ten, Captain Heinrich decided there was more
pressing business than his personal vendetta. He had to
retrieve the bomb. He would have to avenge his honor
some other time.
In a terrible mood, Captain Heinrich stepped onto the
land for the first time in many months. His future seemed
to exist behind a transparent, infinitely thin screen of
crimson rage. His immaculately white face reddened with
blood. He boiled with hate…

Officer Reynolds watched as the crew of the Federali


dismounted the ship in an orderly, single-file line. He
could tell by their muscular arms and hard hats that some
of them were construction workers. They seemed to be
heading toward the warehouse, and this made Reynolds
feel suspicious. What was in there?
A few moments later, another man descended the stairs
from the ship and stepped onto the wooden dock. By his
dress, it was obvious that he was the captain of the ship,
and commanded a powerful rank. The captain seemed
troubled about something. Though to Reynolds the man
was merely a distant shadow, almost a silhouette, there
was something in his bearing which contradicted the con-
fidence which would seem to be mandated from such a
muscular body structure. The movements of the captain
carried a brooding, put-upon look as he began to walk in
the direction of the warehouse. It seemed that a black um-
bra surrounded this man, and smoke upward into the cold

156
An Unlikely Death
atmosphere.
Almost half the crew was now off the ship. Reynolds
could only make out a few men still on the ship, apparent-
ly on security detail. If there was any time to commandeer
the ship, it was now. Strategy dictated so. Reynolds
briefly considered this course of action. But only briefly.
For something else had struck his curiosity. Why had the
team of people walked in the direction of the warehouse?
What was in there? Reynolds decided to find out.
Quietly opening the door of the Hummer, Reynolds
rolled out into the ground. He saw the captain enter the
warehouse. They were all in there. With the stealth of a
cat, Reynolds crept toward the warehouse until he was in
front of the door. The door was shut, and made of a weak-
looking wood. Taking a deep breath, Reynolds braced
himself for action. He was going to kick this door in, and
confront the situation like a man. Keeping a tight grip on
his gun, he lifted his right foot…

The warehouse was now filled with people. The con-


struction workers and ship crew looked at the gigantic
bomb, scratching their heads in perplexity. How were
they supposed to…
“How are we supposed to carry that onto the ship?” the
construction foreman asked Captain Heinrich, who had
just walked in. “It’s not going to fit!”
“Hmm…” said Heinrich, perplexed. “I guess we’ll
have to dismantle it.”
“But that will take forever!”
“It won’t take that long,” said Heinrich. “Well, proba-
bly it won’t. Although who can say. But this is merely a
minor setback. I want everyone to lift and carry one piece

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Darwen Amos
of the device onto the ship. In this way we might not have
to make another round trip from the ship and back, de-
pending on the number of pieces.”
“Be careful dismantling the bomb,” said one of the
fishermen. “The control panel is still exposed. One wrong
press of a button and we could all be history.”
“That’s enough,” said Captain Heinrich curtly. “Stop
dilly-dallying and get to work.”
The construction workers grumbled but slowly got to
work dismantling the bomb. Captain Heinrich simply
watched, arms crossed, not wanting to get his hands dirty.
Suddenly, a loud sound smashed into the warehouse.
As if on predatory instinct, Heinrich swiveled around to
the source of the sound. When he did, he knew what had
happened. The door to the warehouse had been kicked in,
and lay in splintering fragments across the warehouse
floor. When the dust cleared, a cop was standing there,
looking ridiculously vulnerable. The cop pointed a gun at
Captain Heinrich. “Freeze!” he yelled. “You’re all under
arrest!”
At this, every construction worker, fisherman, and
crew member abruptly stopped in their tracks and turned
their attention toward the cop. Those who had guns quick-
ly aimed them at the cop’s head. The fishermen, armed
with harpoon launchers, also set their sights. Even the un-
armed construction workers, equipped only with their
bare hands, cracked their knuckles and necks in prepara-
tion for battle. Reynolds was horribly outmatched.
Captain Heinrich grinned, then sardonically raised his
hands into the air, in a mockery of surrender. “Well, offi-
cer,” he said. “I guess you’ll have to take us all in!”
A few of the more insolent fishermen and construction
workers let out short, guffawing laughs. Reynolds ner-

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An Unlikely Death
vously looked around at the army facing him. He was per-
spiring.
Then the gunfire started.

The entire warehouse fell into chaos due to a single


bullet. One of the crewmen, itching to fire, let off a single
shot in Reynolds’s general direction. It missed, and shat-
tered a frozen shark hanging from the ceiling by a steel
chain. Shards of ice exploded in all directions; one of the
shards hit a fisherman in the face. The fisherman crum-
pled to his knees, covering his right eye with the palm of
his hand. Behind the hand, a slow, steady blood flow
commenced, dripping a tiny red waterfall. The sight of the
blood was like an impetus to the bloodthirsty seamen.
In the next few seconds, a volley of bullets hailed to-
ward Officer Reynolds. Diving behind a column of crates,
Reynolds cursed under his breath. Once again, he had un-
derestimated his enemy! Damn, didn’t Sun Tzu’s “Art of
War” say never to do that?
But there was no time to think about his lack of educa-
tion. Bullets whizzed by, embedding themselves into the
wall behind him. He heard, in quick succession, the
“thwack, thwack, thwack” of a storm of bullets being
fired into the pillar of crates behind which he had taken
cover. The bullets could not penetrate the densely packed
fish in those crates. Fish juice, like a sticky rain, fell on
Reynolds’s head as it escaped from the penetrated crates.
That meant the crates wouldn’t hold out much longer. He
knew he had to get out from behind his cover, and soon.
Suddenly, a fist pummeled into the side of his head,
with megaton force. Reynolds was knocked dizzy for a
moment, then quickly recovered. He looked in the direc-

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Darwen Amos
tion from which the fist had come. There he saw his as-
sailant, a construction worker, grinning with undisguised
malice.
Reynolds threw a left hook at the worker’s nose. It con-
nected with a sickening crunch. The construction worker
stumbled back, blood running from his nose in red
rivulets. He raised his finger and touched the blood. He
looked at his blood-stained finger. A rage seemed to come
over him. The construction worker’s face tightened as he
bared his teeth. He again raised his fists, this time with
more spirit.
Reynolds propelled his shoulder into the angry con-
struction worker just before the fish crates protecting him
disintegrated in a hail of bullets. This caught the worker
by surprise, and he stumbled back. He was immediately
caught in a hail of bullets aimed at Reynolds. He dropped
to the ground, a bloody corpse. Reynolds raised his rifle
and opened fire at a group of fishermen pointing harpoons
at him, in the eastern corner of the warehouse. As the bul-
lets hit their targets, the harpoon launchers went flying
into the air, dropping back down with a loud, metallic
clatter. A crewman, who had climbed to a high vantage
point on one of the ladders leaning against the bomb, fired
his shotgun at Reynolds. A cluster of shotgun pellets, like
a swarm of bees, launched themselves directly at
Reynolds.
Reynolds, however, had taken the moment to duck be-
hind a steel refrigeration unit. This was much better cov-
er. The shotgun pellets uselessly clanged off the fridge’s
durable metal door. As Reynolds ducked down to reload
his police rifle, he heard, in quick succession, the sounds
of bullets and pellets bouncing off the refrigerator he was
hiding behind.

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An Unlikely Death
Reynolds began to reload his weapon, removing a clip
from his pocket. Out of the corner of his eye he spied a
crewman atop a pillar of crates who had him in the sights
of his sniper rifle. Reynolds acted fast, pushed the clip
into place with a click, and quickly fired off one clean
shot aimed at the crewman’s heart. It hit its mark. A gout
of blood splashed out. The crewman screamed and
dropped off the crates headfirst into the floor, his weapon
slid across the floor as if on ice.
A construction worker picked up the rifle and fired it in
Reynolds’s direction, using it like a revolver, missing
again and again. Reynolds ignored him. There were more
pressing things to worry about.
An alarming sound of impact rang in the air. Suddenly
the refrigerator he was behind caved in. The sharp point
of a launched harpoon had traveled through the fridge’s
steel exterior, passed the inside, and come out the other
side. Only a few inches away from Reynolds’s forehead,
the pointed tip of a steel harpoon protruded, gleaming an-
grily.
Reynolds rolled out from behind the fridge, firing hap-
hazardly as he slid across the floor. As he rolled, he saw
his bullets hitting construction workers and crewmen in
random areas of their bodies. A weapon was knocked
from a crewman’s hand; a construction worker, hit in the
knees, dropped screaming to the ground; a fisherman,
shot through the heart, fell without a single sound.
Avoiding the hail of fresh bullets fired at him,
Reynolds strafed to the right, firing off shots this way and
that. Soldiers fell like leaves in autumn, some injured,
most dead. As he strafed, Reynolds slammed into a fisher-
man, who was propelled backwards into a hook hanging
from a chain on the ceiling. The fisherman became im-

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Darwen Amos
paled, and let out a scream of agony. A construction fore-
man rushed Reynolds with a right hook. Reynolds dodged
left, ducking down, then stood up, slamming the butt of
his rifle into the foreman’s right temple. The foreman
flew back into the air and dropped with an audible force
into the ground on his back. He did not get up.
Then, the construction worker with the sniping gun
seemed finally to figure out his weapon. With a nod of
understanding he raised the scope of the rifle to his eye,
and slowly began to aim it at Reynolds. Reynolds fire off
his last round directly into the worker’s heart. That
dropped him.
Reynolds kicked a yellow barrel filled with a green liq-
uid. The barrel went rolling, slamming into a row of sol-
diers, spilling out its acidic contents on the bodies of fish-
ermen, crewmen, and construction workers alike. Those
who weren’t knocked out by the impact began screaming
in agony as the acid melted through their flesh. Reynolds
did not know how many of them were left.
With a quick roll to the right, Reynolds once again took
cover behind a pillar of fish crates as he began to reload.
He took his last spare clip out from his pocket and
slammed it in. He was no longer hearing the sound of bul-
lets whizzing through the air. This was a good sign. All he
heard were the pained moans of the many enemies he had
injured, and the silence of those he had killed. Had he
done it? Had he won the battle? The warehouse was
strangely quiet. Reynolds let out a deep sigh.
Then, just when he was beginning to relax and lower
his guard, he heard a voice which once again perked his
ears up and put him in the mindset of battle.
“Come out from behind there, copper,” said the sneer-
ing voice. “And I promise to make it only very painful.

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An Unlikely Death
Instead of very very painful, that is. Or don’t. Either way,
you die in pain.”
Reynolds recognized the voice as the captain’s. He
poked his head out from behind the crates and peeked a
look. The captain, apparently unhurt, his uniform and hat
undisturbed and spotless, was approaching his position
behind the crates with what looked like an M-16 in his
hands. The machine gun was aimed straight forward, and
the captain approached him with a slow, measured gait,
an evil smile plastered on his face like a death rictus. He
began to whistle. Reynolds recognized the tune. It was
“Horst-Wessel-Lied,” the anthem of the National Socialist
Party of Old Germany. Reynolds sniffed. “For a US naval
captain,” he yelled, “you certainly seem to have leftist po-
litical ideals.” This was meant to anger the captain.
“Come out, now,” replied Captain Heinrich, seemingly
unaffected by the taunt. “Come out and take your death
like a man.”
Reynolds thought fast. “If you really want to fight like
a man, lets do it hand to hand. None of this pussy weapon
stuff!”
“Really?” silked the captain, as if he were slowly tast-
ing an exquisitely rich and delicious, decadent chocolate
truffle, “I’ll have you know that I know jujitsu, karate,
and Tae-kwon-do. And I’m a level four judo master.”
“Oh yeah?” yelled Reynolds from behind the crates,
tightly gripping his rifle with both hands. “Well, I’m a
level five judo master so there you have it.”
“Dumkompf! Liar!” screamed Captain Heinrich furi-
ously, his thick Germanic accent, usually so well hidden,
emerging fiercely in his anger. “There is no level five in
judo! Get prepared to be taught a tough lesson, cop!”
The captain was furious. Reynolds heard the noise he

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Darwen Amos
had most wanted to hear in the world. Heinrich pulled the
strap of his M-16 off his shoulder and tossed the gun to
the ground, where it fell with an echoing clatter. He had
decided to fight this hand-to-hand.
Reynolds made his move. With a single, skilled move-
ment, he strafed out into the open, and swiveled to face
the captain. The captain was glaring at Reynolds, his
sharp teeth gleaming, and his hands balled into tight fists.
In a defensive maneuver, Reynolds leapt to the side, still
facing the captain, and raised his rifle, aiming. While still
in mid air, Reynolds fanned the trigger repeatedly, empty-
ing the entire clip of bullets into the captain’s body…
The captain was hit sixteen times: four in the chest, two
in his knees, eight in his arms and legs, and two bullets
that grazed the left side of his head, knocking his hat to
the floor. The combined impact of the bullets sent the
captain reeling backwards, as quick spurts of blood gout-
ed from his many new wounds. He dropped to his
knees…
Reynolds took his chance to dash across the room and
pick up the captain’s M-16. Yes! Now this was a gun! He
took a moment to admire the fine craftsmanship of the
weapon and smiled, before finally turning to where the
captain was. His heart skipped the beat. Where the captain
used to be was replaced by only a few puddles of blood,
and a trail of blood that led, curving and weaving like a
drunk snake…
To the bomb…
Suddenly a hysterical, insane burst of laughter rang out
in the warehouse. The laugh then turned into a series of
pained, hacking coughs. Reynolds turned to the source of
the sound, which had come from above him. Captain
Heinrich, who had climbed up halfway one of the ladders

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An Unlikely Death
leaning against the giant rocket-shaped bomb, was hang-
ing perilously onto the control panel with one hand, the
other hand reaching with an extended finger towards a
bright red button…
“Now…” wheezed the dying captain. “Now we die,
cop…”
Reynolds fired the M-16 at the wounded captain. But it
was too late. The finger pressed the button. Even as the
storm of bullets entered the captain’s body, making it
dance like a marionette, the captain never stopped smil-
ing, never gave up a certain serenity. It was a final insult
when, right before he tumbled off the ladder, he turned
his agonized, sickened smiling face to Reynolds’s, grin-
ning to the last.
The naval captain’s corpse hit the floor with a sicken-
ing thud of snapping bone. A female voice sounded out in
the warehouse.
“Magnet bomb activated. Thirty seconds till count-
down…”
Reynolds began to run. The exit was all the way across
the long warehouse.
“29, 28, 27…”
Out of breath, Reynolds reached the wooden door he
had kicked in.
“10, 9, 8…”
Reynolds leapt out into the night. The fresh cold air hit
him like an elixir. With newfound strength in his legs, he
ran like a shot down the sloping hill toward the dock.
He was far away from the warehouse when it exploded,
sending a hurricane of flaming debris and human limbs
flying into the air…

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Darwen Amos
***

Reynolds took a deep breath, and clutched his M-16


tightly. Now it was time to take the ship…

166
Chapter Twelve
The Federali

H ead Chef Barrol Staker angrily existed in the Fed-


erali’s kitchen, cursing Captain Heinrich under his
breath. He hated that nickname by which he had been ad-
dressed only moments before: “Steak.” He was not a
piece of meat! Captain Heinrich always called him that.
This was because Captain Heinrich knew, or suspected,
that long ago, Staker’s fire for confrontation had died, and
now were nothing but wet, smoldering ashes… as a result
the captain stepped all over him.
At fifty-nine years of age, Barrol Staker was still a
hale, hearty old gentleman. A chef’s hat covered his head.
Under the hat, his angered face looked as if it were carved
out of wood, which had long since petrified. And like pet-
rified wood, it seemed that his face was there to stay, a
natural monument, able to weather any change in the
weather conditions, resistant to all the unmanly erosions
of the heart’s toils. A jagged scar, like a carving of a lov-

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Darwen Amos
er’s initial “I” in the trunk of a tree, ran down the side of
his face, from the outmost corner of his right his eye to
the bottom of the chin. The scar was partially covered by
his heavy white mustache which constantly bristled under
his nose. Staker worked his thick, muscular, tree-like
arms up and down while he cut steaks from a large slab of
meat. He brought down the butcher knife again and again,
repeatedly making a soothing chopping sound, with a
slight, wet insinuation. Rivers of light, tepid blood,
flowed weakly from the meat, pooling into tiny lakes of
blood here and there on the cutting board. He sped up his
rhythm and brought his arm down on the meat over and
over again, quicker and quicker. The pleasant sound and
motion, combined with the rhythm defeating of resis-
tance, like bearing down with his tongue on an aching
tooth, sent Barrol Staker into a frenzied bloodlust. In the
midst of this Dionysian tribal ritual, Barrol Staker, intoxi-
cated, fell into a reverie of memories…

Once, a long time ago, Barrol Staker had been an as-


sassin for the FBI, not some lowly chef on a steamboat.
That was back in day, when he was in his late twenties,
and still had the fire to fight. But even before his twenties
he had always evinced a certain morbidity and bloodlust.
Ever since he had been a child he had hidden a great love
for knives in his heart. Using knives was his specialty. He
had a difficult time making friends, as he was somewhat
ugly-looking. The loneliness and the knife he so loved
merged in his mind into one beautiful object. He imag-
ined the beautiful scene… all his enemies, bullies and
schoolteachers alike, impaled on the points of his knives,
merging his love and hatred, like two compatible ele-

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An Unlikely Death
ments. Oxygen and hydrogen.
He also had troubles at home. After a brief bout of only
eating food, even soup, exclusively with knives as uten-
sils, Staker had been forced, to his great resistance, by his
strict mother, an author of etiquette books, to learn how to
use a spoon and fork. But it had never been about eating.
It had been the principle of the thing. More than anything,
though, he had always wanted to use knives to fight. Sur-
prisingly, his masculine, militant father allowed him to
take classes in the use of knives as lethal weapons. He
graduated at the top of his class at age nine. His photo-
graph found its way into the newspaper and, in a small
niche of knife enthusiasts, Barrol Staker’s name was not
unknown.
Having honed the craft of knife-fighting to its fullest
extent, Barrol Staker had become a black-belt at the age
of eight. But he had never been a good student, and re-
membering the faces of his disappointed schoolteachers
sent a hot bile of rage up his throat. He wanted to put his
specially honed skills to use. But it didn’t seem likely,
and the future loomed ominously and threateningly before
him. It had always been clear to him that if he was going
to survive and make money in this world, it would have to
be something to do with knives. He considered becoming
a blacksmith, or a magician who threw knives. His blood-
lust, however, did not take to these paltry ideas for occu-
pations. As a compromise, he eventually decided to be-
come a chef, and enrolled in culinary lessons at the local
college, to his mother’s great pride.
One day, as he was walking from class to class, a
greasy-haired man dressed in a dark suit and wearing dark
sunglasses stopped. The noticed the suitcase of knives
Staker was carrying at the time, and his lips spread in a

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Darwen Amos
slow grin. It was the most evil grin the young Staker had
seen in his life.
“You like knives, do you?” said the man. “Call me.
Anytime. Day or night. I think I may have a special job
for you.”
With that, the man had handed Barrol his business
card. It read:

Agent Sagittarius
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Tel: 555-3848

Shoving the thin, white card into his wallet, Barrol had
forgotten about the whole incident. He went to his board-
ing house, threw his wallet on the dresser table, and fell
asleep, thinking nothing of it. It wasn’t until the October 9
incident that he reconsidered.
On October 9, Barrol Staker had decided to buy a
cookbook to read during his off-hours. When he reached
into his wallet to remove the money to pay the bookstore
cashier, he accidentally removed the business card in-
stead. He gaped at it as if he were seeing it for the first
time. It suddenly occurred to him that he was a somewhat
mediocre chef. With that, he decided to call the FBI and
try to get a job.
The man on the other line told Barrol Staker to meet
him at the door of the Sears Building, at exactly 5:00 AM
the next day.
The next morning, promptly on time, the young Staker
had walked to the Sears Building. He was met at the door
by the same man who had handed him the card, Agent
Sagittarius, dressed exactly the same. Agent Sagittarius
grinned unpleasantly in greeting. Without another word,

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An Unlikely Death
he ushered Staker into the building, and up the elevator,
still a new invention at the time. When they exited the
vater on the fifth floor, they had not spoken a single word
to each other.
Staker was led to a room with a long table. Three im-
portant-looking officials of the FBI, two men and a wom-
an, all dressed impeccably in similar-looking black suits
and ties, sat rigidly in chairs behind the table, hands
crossed on the desk, curiously but coldly examining the
new recruit. After a moment, which seemed to stretch for
an eternity, accentuated by the ticking of the wall clock,
the short-haired woman seated in the middle seat spoke,
saying:
“Are you sure about this one, Sagittarius? He looks a
little green to me.”
“Sure as sure can be,” said Sagittarius, with a lecherous
smile. “He’ll make a fine assassin.”
Staker gasped in his heart. At the sound of the word
“assassin,” everything Staker had been hoping for had
been fulfilled in that instant. He had purposely delayed
wondering what his new job would entail, but to be able
to make a living killing people had always been a goal of
his. Even when he was young, he had often dreamed of
carving up his schoolteachers and parents, though he had
never carried out the actual murder, due to his fear of
punishment. But if he was hired as an assassin by the US
government… what could possibly happen to him? It was
a dream come true.
His pleasure at hearing those words must have been ev-
ident in his young face. The woman who had spoken be-
fore seemed to have a change of heart. She adjusted her
glasses. Then, her strict, controlled expression softened,
and she suddenly looked at Staker with a kind of maternal

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Darwen Amos
consideration.
“Now now,” she said, with a very slight smile. “You
won’t be an assassin right away. For at least six months,
you’ll be a trainee. That is, if you’re accepted.”
Staker froze, staring at the wall. All of a sudden, seem-
ingly apropos of nothing, Barrol Staker removed the knife
he always carried in his pocket and threw it deftly at the
wall. The blade narrowly missed the woman agent, who
twitched in surprise, and embedded itself into the white
wall behind her, under the wall clock, vibrating slightly
like a string of a harp.
“W-what?…” said the woman, completely out of her
element. The two other agents had begun to reach into
their suits for their weapons but, looking at Staker, who
was now tame, decided against it, and withdrew their
hands. The atmosphere was like a sharp edge of a knife
upon which each person in the room was walking with
bare feet.
“Look,” said Agent Sagittarius suddenly, pointing at
the wall. All three seated agents swiveled round in their
chairs to take a closer look at the wall where he had point-
ed. A fly, which had been resting on the wall, was now
pinned neatly to the wall, the thrown blade having entered
its middle section. Its legs still writhed up and down, and
a buzzing sound, like electricity, circulated in the air
around it like a satellite of sound. After a moment, amaz-
ingly, tiny blue streaks of electricity actually did begin to
run over the flies back, and its flailing leg movements be-
came even more frenetic than before. Then, all of sudden,
the movement stopped. A second passed. Then the fly
suddenly exploded like a firecracker, making a tiny flame
appear suspended in the air for a moment. The knife be-
came dislodged, dropped to the floor, and clinked like a

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An Unlikely Death
sleigh bell. There was an amorphous black ash mark on
the wall where the fly had exploded. The three seated
agents seemed frozen in place.
Agent Sagittarius slowly walked behind the table and
picked up the remains of the fly from the floor. He held it
up between his thumb and forefinger. The object he held
up resembled nothing so much as a small black earphone.
The three seated agents gasped.
Sagittarius frowned, looking at the smoking thing he
was holding. “Just as I expected. A bug. A literal bug that
is. This ‘fly on the wall’ has been recording our conversa-
tions and conveying them to the KGB. Quite obvious re-
ally. Undoubtedly a crude contraption, but I suppose it
does its job.”
With that, Sagittarius dropped the tiny machine to the
ground and crushed it with his foot. A small puff of
smoke rose up from under his foot, then dispersed into the
air. The agent seated on the right shook his head disbe-
lievingly. “Those damn Russians…” he whispered under
his breath.
“The damage is minimal,” said the other male agent.
“This room isn’t used for much nowadays. When we talk
in here, it’s never about the important things. It’s always
something like this. Some hiring crap. The stolen infor-
mation can’t help them too much. It’s basically just an in-
terview room.”
The woman agent seemed to come to. “Even so,” she
said. “check the other rooms. The bugs might be every-
where.”
“I’ll take care of that,” said Sagittarius, and walked out
of the room, closing the door behind him with a soft click.
The woman agent turned once again to Staker with a
grave expression. “We owe you our thanks, young man,”

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Darwen Amos
she said. “Not only did you demonstrate your proficiency
with knives, in one fell swoop you’ve also alerted us of a
potentially dangerous situation. We can safely say, I
think, that you are hired. I’m Agent Libra. These are
Agents Scorpio and Leo. Your name?”
“Barrol Staker.”
“Welcome to the club, Staker,” said the woman.
Barrol’s heart swelled with pride.

Now the steaks were cut. Chef Staker looked at the thin
slices of meat he had cut from the rib. How had he come
to be stuck in this unenviable position? The chef of a
ship? This was certainly not what he had wanted. It was
not what he had wanted at all….

The training had gone quickly. At the secret FBI train-


ing camp in Alaska, Barrol Staker had trained with the
best of the best. He ran obstacle courses like there was no
tomorrow, then collapsed into the sand out of exhaustion.
He was not good with guns, but after a huge effort learned
the rudiments of shooting. He was well behaved, though
he was sometimes insolent to his superiors. If the offense
was minor, such as when Staker spoke back to his superi-
ors, he got off with potato-peeling duty. Sitting there in
that rat-infested potato closet and whittling away at the
peels of potatoes was his favorite activity. From time to
time a rat would scurry across the closet floor. Staker
would throw his peeling knife at it with perfect accuracy,
and he always hit his mark. The rat would be impaled to
the ground. Then Staker would walk over to the rat, re-
move his knife, and return to his soothing work of peel-

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An Unlikely Death
ing. At mess hall, people would sometimes complain
about finding rat hairs in his mashed potatoes, but no one
suspected a thing. He was careful to wipe his fingerprints
neatly off the potatoes before throwing them into the bas-
ket.
Six months later, Barrol Staker graduated from the
training school. The Vietnam war started. The FBI was
overloaded with work. Espionage, assassinations, and ad-
vance missions took up the busy organizations schedules.
During this time, Staker reached the peak of his profes-
sional career. With his carefully aimed knife he killed
many spies and Vietnamese soldiers. Even though he
sometimes killed an occasional innocent, as he sometimes
got overexcited, collateral damage was to be expected.
And no one, least of all the head of the FBI, raised a sin-
gle complaint against him.
Then the Gulf War began. Enemy agents were sent to
infiltrate the FBI base. Agents Libra, Cancer, and Scorpio
were killed. When out on a family picnic with his wife
and kids, the head of the FBI was shot in the head by a
sniper’s bullet. The second-in-command became first-in-
command by proxy. This man was Mr. James, who even
in his younger days had not been nearly as idealistic as he
himself believed.
A dearth of assignments followed under the new lead-
ership. For over a year Barrol Staker did not kill a single
man. Nor was he sent out to do so. He became restless.
Then, one day, after the long dry spell, Mr. James asked
to see him in his office. Expecting an assignment, the ea-
ger Barrol Staker had walked into the room proudly, with
dignity. Mr. James had shot both down with his words.
“Now,” Mr. James had said. “We are in great need for
money. So I’ve been looking over records, to see who we

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Darwen Amos
might be able to let go… here is your file.”
Mr. James picked up a folder from his desk, filled with
pages and pages of information about the assignments
Staker had done over the last ten years. He dropped it on
the desk in front of Staker, as if giving him the file to
read. Mr. James leaned back in his seat and watched Stak-
er, who said nothing, who remained silent.
“I’ll just give it to you straight,” said Mr. James. “All
you’ve done is make mistakes. You’ve killed more inno-
cents than any other assassin in our employ. Furthermore,
your adamant refusal to use ranged weapons, such as
crossbows and guns, has been… problematic. We don’t
need an assassin like you, and I’ll be damned if I under-
stand why we pay you every month to sit on your ass and
do nothing! That’s it! You’re fired. You have my consola-
tions.”
With that, Mr. James swiveled around in his chair and
faced his window, looking out at the blue sky outside.
Seething with rage, Staker discreetly reached for his
knife.
Mr. James perhaps sensed the movement, which was
vaguely reflected in the glass of the window he had been
looking out of. He quickly turned again in his chair to
face Staker once more. His face, to Staker, seemed a little
nervous. “Well, uh, tell you what,” he said quickly. “I feel
a little sympathy for your plight. I’m idealistic, you see.
We need a chef. A chef of the sea. For you see, the Fed-
erali, our new ship, needs a cook. If you can cook, even a
little, as this files says you can, the job is yours. But no
more assassinations. And of course your pay will be con-
siderably less…”
Barrol Staker, of course, did not wish to take such a
pride-destroying deal. He was, however, a realist and

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An Unlikely Death
knew that he could never continue his way of life without
making money. And so, with a heavy heart, he accepted
Mr. James’s offer to work on the Federali as its head
chef.

That had been many years ago. Now he was stuck


working the kitchen in a piece-of-junk ship for the FBI.
And he was stuck sating his bloodlust by cutting up
pieces of meat. How ridiculous!
Chef Staker brought out a dish. He plated the steak,
medium rare, and placed a baked potato on the side. He
was about to carry it out, when he suddenly heard a burst
of machine gun fire. Then… screaming. Something was
going on outside. Something big…

The machine gun fire continued. Chef Staker opened


the kitchen door just a bit and peeked outside. Before his
unbelieving eyes, a great scene of night and blood and
death was taking place, like a pageantry of darkness.
A cop had somehow gotten on the ship, with what
looked like the captain’s machine gun. With a godlike
bearing, the cop gunned down the guards positioned out-
side on the ship, one by one, two by two. Bullets tore
through the crewman guarded the captain’s quarters.
Blood arced into the air in a gentle outline of a dome. A
construction worker pointed his rifle at the cop. The cop
turned sharply, and put a bullet in his head. The worker
was thrown back, as if he wanted to look at the sky. More
bullets entered the worker’s body. Staker looked around.
There were corpses everywhere. This cop had somehow
destroyed the entire security detail. For the first time in a

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Darwen Amos
long time, Barrol Staker was impressed favorably by the
actions of another person. Not only was it morally good to
kill people, but to kill them so that they received less pain
was even better.
The cop, covered in blood, now stood on the deck like
a dark angel of death. The moon shone its rays down, and
set half of the cop’s face afire in an angelic white halo.
The cop’s slow breathing moved his body up and down.
To Staker, the man looked like a pulsating reflection in
the moving water, like the reflection of a moon that can
never be attained. He realized that in the form of this
mysterious cop, he had recognized himself. In other
words, he now looked nostalgically at a idealized vision
of his youth, a killer that he never was….
The cop suddenly turned. Eyebrows raising in surprise,
he pointed his rifle directly at Barrol’s head.
“Put the gun down,” Barrol said warningly.
The cop blinked in surprise. He put the gun down.
“Who are you?” he said.
“I’m the chef of this steamboat, Barrol Staker,” said
Staker. “Who are you?”
“I’m Reynolds,” said the cop. “And I’m commandeer-
ing this ship. I’ve already killed the captain. You can stay,
or you can leave. Your choice. I suggest you leave. Where
I’m going I don’t plan to come back.”
“No,” said Staker, “That’s where you’re wrong. Back
in my day, if you kill the captain, you are the captain.
And from where I’m standing, it looks like I’m your chef.
Why not, then, have a dinner to eat before embarking on
your long journey?”
Reynolds seemed to be considering the offer. After a
minute, he said, “Yes. That sounds good. But what should
I eat?”

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An Unlikely Death
Reynolds seemed to mull it over for a few minutes.
“Steak,” he said at last. “I feel like a nice big steak
tonight.”
“Very well,” said Staker. “Right this way.”
Saying this, Staker ushered Reynolds into the captain’s
dining quarters.

The captain’s dining quarters was a small, well-deco-


rated room separated from the dining hall for the other
crew members. Captain Heinrich had always eaten alone.
A pair of swords, crossed into a X, was displayed on the
wall. The floor was covered in red carpeting. A small
glass chandelier hung from the middle of the ceiling. A
small dining table, covered with an unstained tablecloth,
occupied the center of the room. Silverware had already
been set out, and empty wine glasses littered the table.
“Please.” Staker pulled out a chair from behind the ta-
ble.
Reynolds sat.
“Now… about that steak,” said Staker. “How would
you like it cooked?”
“Well done please,” said Reynolds, tying a cloth bib
around his neck. “With lots of A-1 sauce!”

Follow me, reader, and let us return once again to the


past…
After the conversation with Mr. James, Staker had been
assigned to kitchen duty on the Federali. When Barrol
Staker had first walked into the ship’s kitchen, his heart
had fallen. After the glory of his assassin days, the
kitchen seemed very bad in comparison.

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Darwen Amos
Working on the ship was hell. He did not have the
proper tools to cook at his best, and the assortment of
knives were dismal. And of course, the diners, who, al-
ways thinking thoughts of the sea, did not know good cui-
sine from bad, were not very appreciative. There was no
incentive to put in any effort. His resentment of Mr.
James and the FBI grew twofold. In fact, Staker often
wondered if he should not have killed Mr. James that day,
after all…
One day, the Federali had set anchor at a small coastal
town. To his surprise, Mr. James was there on the quay to
meet him as he got off the ship. Mr. James, usually quite
hostile, seemed to be fat and happy today. Staker resented
this happiness, and found it objectionable.
“Why, Staker!” said Mr. James, taking the chef into a
warm embrace. “How’s my favorite chef?”
Staker burned with hatred. Mr. James suggested that
they share a dinner at the local restaurant. His treat, of
course. Out of professional duty, Staker had followed him
there. On the way Mr. James excitedly told Staker that the
FBI had just received a new shipment of money. As a re-
sult they would be able to obtain new helicopters. And
hire new assassins.
So that’s why he’s so happy, thought Staker angrily.
They walked into the expensive restaurant. The waiter
seated them. Later, the waiter had asked Mr. James what
he wanted to have. And Mr. James had said he wanted a
steak well done.

Barrol Staker fumed with rage. He suddenly remem-


bered that Mr. James had once ordered the same thing as
Reynolds and, connecting the two in his mind, began to

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An Unlikely Death
hate Reynolds almost as much as he hated Mr. James. All
the suppressed rage of his life seemed to surge up from
his blood and overload his brain with molecules of ag-
gression. He burned with hatred for Reynolds so much
that he was quivering. He turned his head towards
Reynolds, still seated, sharply. His chef’s hat fell off in
the movement, revealing a bald head like a charging bul-
l’s.
“Could you repeat that please?” he asked Reynolds
through gritted teeth. It was his last effort at civil conver-
sation.
“A steak well done please,” repeated Reynolds. “And
hurry it up. I’m famished!” Reynolds picked up the empty
wine glass and a spoon. He hit the side of the glass with
the spoon, making a cute tinkling sound. He repeated this
motion again. And again. And again. The sound seemed
to reverb and echo in Staker’s pounding head like wind
chimes…
Enough of this preamble. Staker knew what he had to
do, and what he must do, now. With an angry movement
of his muscular arm the bald man grabbed the steak knife
off the dining table. Reynolds, surprised, leapt off his seat
and stared at Staker.
“Ordering steak well done, are you?” seethed Staker, a
crimson gleam in his eye. “Why, you might as well order
a hamburger! And why not douse your well-done steak in
lots of A-1 sauce? That way you can’t taste the steak at
all! Might as well put ketchup on it! What is this, Crazy-
town?”
Letting out sardonic laughter, Staker swung his right
hand with the knife at Reynolds’s jugular. Reynolds
jumped backwards just in the nick of time. The knife
arced uselessly inches from his bare neck. Staker once

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Darwen Amos
again turned his crazed eyes on Reynolds.
“No,” said Reynolds, in a low voice. “This is isn’t
Crazytown. You’re the only one from that zip code.”
Staker let out a roar of anger and slashed out again,
cutting a red line in the arm Reynolds had thrown up to
block the attack. “I’m crazy, am I?” he yelled, slicing
again. “Who’s the one who orders well-done steak?
Who’s the one who wants lots of A-1 sauce?”
Reynolds, afraid, fled, running out of the dining room
at full speed.
Staker gave chase…

Reynolds didn’t know which way to do. He paused on


the deck, wildly looking around. Should he go that way?
Or should he go this way? Or neither? Or both? In the
surprise of being attacked by the hitherto friendly chef,
Reynolds had lost his cool. He ran in a random direction.
Staker ran after Reynolds in the same direction, south.
“Going to the kitchen, are you?” he roared. “Going to
cook yourself a well-done steak, are you?”
“Hey buddy,” yelled Reynolds tauntingly over his
shoulder, as he ran for his life. “It’s a free country. Or at
least it was before your boss Mr. James took over!”
Staker’s rage went up even more levels. As an exam-
ple, if he was a thermostat, almost the entire thing would
be covered in red mercury. “Mr. James is not my boss!”
he screamed, running as quickly as his legs would allow.
Reynolds ran down the stairs and opened the door into
the kitchen area. He slammed the door behind him. He
knew it was probably a dead end, but he had to make the
effort. He rushed inside the small, white, clean room. In-
deed, he was correct. The kitchen was a closed in room,

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An Unlikely Death
with no exit except the one he had just come through.
Pots and pans hung in profusion from every ceiling. Cup-
boards, filled with various spices and foodstuffs, were in-
stalled here and there in the room. Gleaming metal tables
were in neat rows. Upon one of them was a half-cut roast.
Upon another was a fully plated steak, done rare. Damn,
thought Reynolds. I should have ordered something the
chef is a little less passionate about. But how was I to
know?
Looking to find a weapon, he picked up a frying pan
and held it in front of him like a shield. The sounds of
Staker’s running feet approached dangerously close.
Reynolds shut his eyes tight in terror. While his world
was thus blackened, he heard the sound of the enraged
Staker’s foot kicking in the flimsy door which led down
in the kitchen. Reynolds opened his eyes.
Staker, now sure of his man, walked toward Reynolds
with a practiced, deep-breathing gait, every step economi-
cal, not befitting the rage which undoubtedly still wailed
in his heart. Stalker’s bald head was perspiring, not of ex-
haustion, but of simple madness. He took deep, powerful
breaths as he walked. The steak knife in his right hand
gleamed under the ridiculously bright and white kitchen
lights. The bald head of its owner gleamed under the
painfully bright white lights. Was this heaven or hell?
Reynolds couldn’t tell. He knew one thing though. If he
acted like he was in limbo, and didn’t do something soon,
he would end up in heaven or hell real soon.
“Wipe that grin off your face,” sneered Staker. “It’s not
a good look for you.” There was something a little weak
about this comment, after his previous anger. And if one
looked closer, there was also something petulantly resent-
ful about the way Staker said this, and it reminded one of

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Darwen Amos
a dying battery. This was because Staker, being old, was
unable to keep his rage up for long periods of time. What
had begun as an enraged rage had now deescalated into a
slight cantankerousness. Staker took a few steps forward.
Reynolds, who had unconsciously been smiling at his
own witty internal monologue, now saw his chance. Per-
haps he could win this after all. He assumed a grave ex-
pression.
“That’s better,” said Staker, his lips curling into a tri-
umphant smile. His mustache echoed the upmost motion
of the lip with the immaculate fidelity of a mirror. His
knife gleamed once again. His madness, which had been
replaced by anger, which had been replaced in turn by re-
tirement, was now replaced by triumph. But it was a satis-
fied, careless triumph, which was so sure of his victory it
could afford to smile.
Seeing his chance, Reynolds made a quick movement
with his arm and flung the frying pan at Staker’s head
with all his strength. The frying pan cut through the air
like a discus and slammed into Staker’s bald head with a
clanking sound, the impact knocking his arms back and
sending the knife flying. Staker roared in anger and pain
as his hands shot up to his bleeding face.
Officer Reynolds rushed his opponent and grabbed him
by the neck. He threw Staker to the closest corner, where
the old man slammed into a metal table. The various pots
and pans hanging over the table shook, teetered perilous-
ly, then fell in a group, landing on Staker’s head and
shoulders. Staker screamed in pain.
Reynolds quickly took a survey of the room. Just be-
hind Staker was a gas grill, which was flat and covered a
length of table. He ran at Staker with full speed, and
grabbed his face. Then, with his other hand, he quickly

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An Unlikely Death
turned the knob up on the gas grill to its maximum level
of heat. The grill came to life. Dead, stale steam from
whatever had been cooked there previously rose into the
air. Reynolds slammed the side of Staker’s face into the
surface of the fiery grill. The sounds of crackling and
smell of burning flesh rose into the air. Staker’s screams
echoed around the room as if it were the Niagara Falls.
Staker’s arms flailed about wildly, but Reynolds held
his face against the grill with a steadfast arm. Eventually
the fighting slowed, then stopped entirely. Barrol Staker,
master of knives, was dead in the kitchen, the place he
had despised the most during his life. Reynolds let go his
grip of the chef’s face. The chef’s body slid off the grill
and onto the floor with a slump. Reynolds turned off the
grill.
“Looks like I’m getting a well-done steak after all…”
said Reynolds to himself.

Having finished his steak (it was delicious), Reynolds


stepped onto the ship’s deck cut the rope of the anchor
with a butcher knife. The large ship drifted out to sea, like
a leaf upon a pond. Then he went up to the captain’s con-
trol office and pressed the autopilot button for Hawaii.
After this, he retired to the captain’s quarters and dropped
off into a deep, dead sleep.
The Federali, following its robotic orders, diligently
made its way towards Mr. James’s island base….

185
Chapter Thirteen
Tower of Babel, Part I

R eynolds awoke in the evening. Rubbing his eyes, he


stepped out onto the ship’s deck and looked out at
the horizon stretching before him. In front of him
stretched endless vistas of blue water… a wide, blue ex-
panse that never seemed to end. The sky had taken on the
color of burnished amber and, nearer the line of the sea,
seemed to acquire, in a purple-red-green-orange blur of
phosphorescence, the myriad colors of its unusual flora
and fauna which lurked hidden under the dark blue sur-
face of the sea… From time to time a small island came
into Reynolds’s field of sight. Looking like completely ir-
relevant reminders of past island vacations, they existed,
like traffic-cones, only to be ignored. He had only one is-
land in his sight.
As the commandeered ship made its way toward
Hawaii, Reynolds knew that things were coming to a
head… Where he was going, there was Mr. James. When

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An Unlikely Death
Mr. James and he met, there would be a fight to the
death… And only one of them would leave the island…
Out here nothing of the Mr. James’s “Project Insignia”
existed. No matter how many schools were demolished,
how many churches were razed, the sea would always
continue to exist, like a giant rock which weathered any
emotion. In many ways, the sea was much more important
than the trivial pursuits of society, such as education and
government. For the first time Reynolds sensed this truth.
How much beauty there was in the sea! No wonder sailors
sailed seas! In front of the tidal waves, who could think of
anything else? Too bad Reynolds had learned this impor-
tant lesson of Nature so late. If he came out of that island
alive, he would appreciate the little things in life. And if
he didn’t, then at least he had learned an important lesson
before his final goodbyes.
When Reynolds checked his watch, it was 1900 hours.
Military Time. The Federali was 400 miles off the coast
of its target island. On the control panel of the ship, far
away from Reynolds’s sight, a green line relentlessly
coursed around in a circle, making a small beep as it did
so. This was the ship’s radar system, state of the art tech-
nology. Keeping the ship moving at a steady speed of five
knots an hour, each beep and circuit of the green LED
light marked off a fixed distance toward Mr. James’s evil
island. Even the radar system seemed to know that other
islands than Hawaii were unimportant. When it encoun-
tered an island, which showed as a green blob on the out-
er edge of the radar circle, the orbiting line, passing
through it, made nothing but its usual, ordinary, beeping
noise….

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Darwen Amos
***

Mr. James stood on his island, Hawaii, looking up at


his completed building. The robotic workers, who had
finished the construction job a few hours ago, had been
shut down by a remote sensor, and rolled into a giant,
steel garage next to the building. Everything had gone so
perfectly to plan that Mr. James felt his long-frustrated
destiny was finally being achieved out of a benevolent
cosmic justice.
The FBI Ultimate Skyscraper, as Mr. James styled it,
rose 600 feet into the air, a soaring monument to the ex-
cess of technology that has earned human beings the ulti-
mate dominance of nature and her minions hundredfold.
The steel skeleton had been fully covered in impenetrable
glass, which moreover did not take in the sunlight or
moonlight, but reflected it back into the heavens with a
disdainful shrug of uncaring boredom. Rather, its lighting
was achieved by a pipework of neon tubing attached on
the outside of the building, which could flash any color
according to Mr. James’s mood and temperament. This,
however, was not so much a practical development as it
was an aesthetic choice on Mr. James’s part. Mr. James
had with him a remote control which controlled all as-
pects of this technological marvel of the building. In truth,
the least important control was the color of the lighting.
Right now it was green. For Mr. James was, in a way sim-
ilar to the emotion suggested by that color, content and
unsuspicious. And aesthetically, the building reflected
this mood quite well.
A radio satellite perched on the roof of the forty floor
building, glinting out in the night. Its sole purpose was to
contact Magnetron, which had been recently equipped by

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An Unlikely Death
NASA with the capability of transporting human beings
from one coordinate to another. Nor was the Magnetron
unprotected. Gun turrets had been placed at each corner
of the roof, able to aim both at intruders approaching the
building and possible spies who desired to destroy the
Magnetron contacting satellite. These turrets, controlled
by the tower computer, were primed to fire at anyone or
anything which got too close to the satellite. The building
was equipped with magnet-powered elevators, which
could traverse the entire height of the building in less than
a minute. So much for the technological capabilities of
the FBI Ultimate Skyscraper.
In terms of aesthetics, no amount of expense was
spared in the indoor decor of the giant building either.
There were expensive chairs everywhere, and the floor
was done in the best marble. The statue of David by
Michelangelo was hewn from such a white, shining mar-
ble of the stars. One might have thought such a brand of
marble could only be obtained on the isle of Greece, and
so it was.
Two heavily armed guards stood guard at the entrance
of the building. Nevertheless, the door they guarded was
activated by motion. As a result, the guards were required
to keep extremely still and vigilant, lest they disturb the
automatic doors behind them. The lobby of the building
was done in green decor. A information desk was worked
at the front lobby, which one immediately encountered
upon entering the automatically open door which lead in-
side. The young Oriental lady named Kitana Xhuang,
dressed in a Korean kimono, who worked this desk was
not really a mere secretary, but was trained in knife-fight-
ing herself. A cash register stood in front of her on the
desk. This contained no cash, but when opened, would

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Darwen Amos
produce a shining array of Chinese knives and throwing
stones. Next to the information desk was a waiting area,
complete with expensive sofas and a table decorated with
a series of colorful magazines spread out in a fanlike for-
mation. The sofas were trap sofas and, upon a press of a
button on the cash register by the exotic and beautiful
Asiatic secretary working the front desk or by an identical
button on Mr. James’s remote control, the sofas flipped
over, sending its occupant down a trap door, down a se-
ries of chutes into the Pacific Ocean.
Next to the waiting area was a bank of six elevators.
Three of the elevators were operational right now. They
could only head to three other floors: the second, the
third, and the top floor, the fourth. The other floor but-
tons, for now, were not operational. The building actually
presently consisted of four floors with extremely high
ceilings. When further renovation started, more floors
would be inserted, like wooden sheets into slats, in the
wide vertical spaces separating the floors. Mr. James,
however, had grand plans for these other, not-yet-built
floors, and once he had gained the other nations’ coopera-
tion in Project Insignia, he would allot the best of them a
single floor in his building, which he saw in the future as
becoming a kind of headquarters for all of the world lead-
ers, with Mr. James himself sitting in his office at the top
floor. It was looking possible. Talks had already begun
with India, North Korea, and Iraq. Kim Jong-il had been
especially eager to be a part of the plan. But even the oth-
er countries had all agreed to cooperate with Project In-
signia….
The sky was darkening. Mr. James had stood looking at
his building, dreaming of the future, for a full two hours.
A ship seemed to be heading this way… Mr. James

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An Unlikely Death
took out his remote control and pressed the button for
“yellow.” The building immediately lit up in the colors of
the middle traffic light that signaled caution and “slow
down.” For Mr. James was suspicious… And, as he saw
the ship approach his beloved island, he knew he had to
be cautious. He quickly entered the building, without
greeting the armed guards, and took the elevator to the top
floor, where he kept a luxurious office.

Reynolds was now able to see the approaching island.


He saw the evil building rise up in front of it. It was more
evil than he had possibly imagined. In fact, its size was so
much increased by its evil that it seemed far greater in
size and height that the island it called its home.
He knew that he would not be able to dock and set an-
chor on the island. For one thing, he had cut the ship’s an-
chor at the San Francisco bay. For another, even if the is-
land had a dock, would Mr. James really let him stay
ashore? In any case, he had a better idea. As the building
became bigger and bigger in his eye as the ship ap-
proached the island, he began to move the steering wheel
of the ship, aiming it at the steel structure which rose in
front of him. Mr. James, if he was in the building, would
be in for the surprise of his life.
The Federali smashed into the island. Still on its for-
ward momentum, it veered off course and missed the
main building, careening and screeching like a metal bird
as it crashed instead into the steel garage, which had been
filled a few minutes ago with the construction worker
robots who had built the main tower. Almost immediately
upon impact, both the ship and the garage exploded in a
huge burst of flame. A fury of smoke and desecrated de-

191
Darwen Amos
bris flew out from the destructed garage. The flames
threatened to wrap the entirely of the island afire. At the
last second, Reynolds jumped off the ship and, landing
catlike on his feet, took off running toward the FBI Build-
ing, the fire from the ship chasing him like a robber.
A fire alarm, set off by the explosion, suddenly blared
out into the night. The FBI Building, showing one of its
technological equipment, extended a metal hose from its
roof and, aiming it down at the hellish flames covering
the garage and ship, sent down a raining storm of fresh
water at its target. Soon enough, the fire, coming in con-
tact with its opposite element, was out. The alarm, satis-
fied, stopped. By that time Reynolds had already reached
the front door of the building.
The two guards reacted with practiced speed. “Halt!”
said the one of the left, swinging his spear to block the
door. The second was even more efficient. As Reynolds
came running up to the door, he quickly struck out at the
approaching policeman with the back of his spear, hitting
Reynolds in the side of the head and knocking him sense-
less for a second. But a second is not enough to kill…
Unless you are trained officer. In the second he was
given, Reynolds suddenly struck out with an open palm
into the heart of the first, slower guard, the one who had
told him to “Halt!” The guard stumbled back, holding his
heart. Halt, my left foot! thought Reynolds as he kicked
the injured guard in the stomach, into the automatic doors,
shattering them into a million pieces.
The other, faster armed guard then aimed his spear at
Reynolds’s head, and thrust. Reynolds caught the shaft of
the spear in his hand, and tugged it out of the other’s
grasp. Then, bending the wooden spear over his knee, he
swiftly broke it in two. The other guard, now unarmed,

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An Unlikely Death
fought an impulse to flee, then struck out his fist.
Reynolds ducked under it and tripped the guard to the
floor. He fell on the shards of glass, and begin writhing in
pain….
The two guards were now not dead. But they were
wounded enough to be might as well dead. There was no
point in killing when not needed. Officer Reynolds, not a
scratch on his sturdy, police-trained body, entered the
building….

Kitana Huang, the beautiful Oriental secretary, had just


finished her nightly glass of baby rat wine and was look-
ing forward to going home to her temple study in Japan.
However, that was when she noticed that the glass doors
to the entrance of the FBI building where she now existed
had been broken in, with great shattering sounds, by
Reynolds, the wayward officer. Although Orientals have
traditionally had smaller, more slanted eyes than normal
people, Huang’s almond-shaped eyes, like most Asians,
were much longer sideways than American eyes. As a re-
sult, although her field of vision suffered in comparison
on the up-and-down scale of vision to most people, her
horizontal range of sight was much more acute than the
regular man’s, and she easily saw the officer enter the
building, with seldom a problem at all.
Reynolds ran toward the bank of elevators, almost
skirting against the wall on the other side. He had already
come too far without her eyes having sensed the project
was beyond rescue. Or was it beyond rescue? Could she
redeem her honor?
She silently cursed her lack of vigilance. Her ancestors
would burn in hell for this mistake, and it was all her

193
Darwen Amos
fault… She had no time, however, to further contemplate
these mysteries of Nirvana. Rather, she quickly depressed
the output button on the cash register, a clever trap, still
registering faithfully on her desk. Mr. James had certainly
seen to it that this building, his ultimate home, was filled
with the very kinds of traps and missions which would
make the easy infiltration of the officers to the base nearly
impossible…
To her, Reynolds might well have been a fly in the
ointment. Threatening the corporation, she seethed. I’ll
show him what’s the issue. The cash register’s money
drawer popped out in front of her. What emerged with
such speed, however, was not tissues or money, but a can-
dy-colored assortment of Japanese throwing knives and
fortune-telling stones. Both were useful, in their own spe-
cial ways, but for Kitana Huang at this moment, one was
more useful than the others - the knives….
Knives. Bladed weapons. Cooking implements. In the
right situation, harbingers of death. In the right hands, an
expert way to cut green onions. In the wrong hands, a
weapon to be feared. In Kitana Huang’s small, jar-re-
stricted kimonoed hands, the knives had the heft and feel
of a small, good omen, like a paper pendant hung from a
dry, sugar-covered pine tree, emblazoned with the circling
wishes of the wild elk.
Reynolds didn’t noticed the first knife Huang threw at
him; for all the silent trajectory it traced, one’s nose might
as well have been the worthier indicator of spatial ap-
proach. Time tested ears and eyes did not sense the sharp
bullet-like sharps which pinned his shirt to the wall be-
hind him. It was only when Reynolds tried to make a dash
to the elevator bank he realized his impediment: he was
stuck to the wall, like a fly to rice paper.

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An Unlikely Death
With three more quick flourishes the dragon-lady at-
tached Reynolds even more securely to his walled plight
with efficient knives pinning his jean material twice, his
shirt once more, to the wall behind. Reynolds was nothing
more than a spider caught in a web of its own making…
Reynolds struggled to free himself. But it was no use.
He was stuck fast, in the crucifix position. Was he to die
in such an embarrassing, humiliating fashion, fit for only
the weakest and least powerful of men? And he was going
to die, if he didn’t figure out an escape. Looking at the in-
formation desk, he thought that the lady behind was cer-
tainly not willing to have him remain a prisoner indefi-
nitely. It was clear in her bearing and manner she meant
to kill him. For she had lost all art and seduction in her
movements. No longer trying to seduce men, and having
no need for coquetry, the woman behind the desk had be-
came the embodiment of the monster she really was.
Women... thought Reynolds. But he couldn’t finish the
thought. Another knife, thrown by quick, successful fin-
gers, sliced through the air toward him like a blade guided
by the hand of a master. It was aimed at his left eye. With
much effort, Reynolds was able to lurch his head sharply
to the right. The knife missed, and stuck into the wall be-
hind him, barely missing the side of his head. Reynolds
was safe, for now, but his head was bent in an unnatural,
uncomfortable, and painful position. He closed his eyes in
desperation…
Silence… then more silence. Risking a peek, Reynolds
squinted open his eyes.
The Oriental woman, still standing behind the informa-
tion desk, was apparently consulting a pile of colored
stones in front of her. Deep in concentration, she waved
her hands in mystical gestures airily over the runes. Her

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Darwen Amos
eyes closed, she seemed to breathe deeply of the air.
Then, her movements stopped. For a moment, the exotic
woman remained in that position, her hands raised over
the colored stones, arranged mysteriously on the desk,
suspended like a Ferris wheel in extremis. Perhaps be-
cause of her motionlessness, Reynolds imagined he saw a
clear, jeweled tear course down her right cheek. She re-
mained in her severed position for a second, then opened
her eyes. Already the tear was gone.
“You are lucky, Reynolds,” she said, with a heavy Chi-
nese accent, making her l’s into r’s. “My ancestors have
not forgiven me for my mistake in allowing you to enter
the building. I must join them… and apologize in
person…”
With that, Kitana Huang came out from behind the
desk and moved toward Reynolds in a floating, ghostlike
spiritual manner. Her feet, which had been tied and bound
by her father in tape due to the male’s desires of the land,
moved swiftly for their small size, appropriate for follow-
ing her husband master to the worship room. She now
stood close to Reynolds. She reached out her hands and
freed Reynolds, removing the knives from the wall. “Go,”
she said. “Do what you must do, samurai.”
Reynolds looked at his savior with a grim, grateful
look. He had to fight an urge to kiss her out of gratitude.
She might take that the wrong way.
“Thank you,” he said, finally.
“No,” said his rescuing woman, turning her tearful eyes
away. “Go. You must leave my sight before I change my
mind. Now!”
Reynolds ran to the bank of elevators and pressed the
up button. Ding. It arrived. He turned a final time to look
at the source of his gratefulness, but she had already faced

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An Unlikely Death
away from him, knelt, and had silently removed her ki-
mono. Her rich pale skin shone under the luminous lights,
and seemed to be a source of light itself. From the back, it
was like watching a faceless spirit of light.
Then, with quick, stabbing motions, as if cooking, she
inserted the knives she had removed from the wall one by
one into her body, without even a sound of pain or laugh-
ter. The first directly penetrated into her navel, which had
connected her by spiritual umbilici to her nearest, most
despised ancestor, her unloving mother. A vein-work of
blood emerged outward from the point of entry. It was not
an impalement, but the closing off of a door, like closing
a door before prayer. As it appeared, so much like a
spreading crack in glass, it seemed that the pattern had al-
ways been there, but had simply not been traced over.
With quick, flitting motions she inserted the second and
third into either side of her neck. And the final knife she
plunged deep into the white, infinitely rich skin of her
neck. The throat. Then, she waited…
The blood seemed reluctant to emerge into their new
world, like nestling hummingbirds afraid of first flight. A
static electricity in the air, like a radio signal, prevented
them from riding the frequency of their doubt like a con-
viction made true by acknowledging its futility. Soon
enough, however, it was overcome by a small, pinlike
prick of physical break. What had once been confined
strictly to the spirit world inside the human body rejoiced
to be allowed its full and joyous expression, by necessity
a final one. A crystalline chorus of blood spilled out in re-
joicing lines from the three new points of entry. The body
had become a fountain, continually replenishing itself
from an unseen source, an invisible hand guiding the lost
blood from the basin to the peak, to flow down once more

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Darwen Amos
in slow, tensionless harmony. The blood that had once
connected her to this world, now exposed to the air, ca-
vorted happily, making small arcs in the airs like playing
dolphins, and in Reynolds’s mind he saw the spiritual
gates of the heavens open gloriously before his eyes. Had
such a woman been denied entrance into heaven, one long
night ago? If not, how was she still alive? He shook his
head in amazed gratitude for the sight he was being
shown. For a moment, a divine curtain into the hidden
pageantry of the gods had opened in front of him to ap-
prehend… and in purely human terms!
The Oriental woman leaned backwards now from her
kneeling position, probably already dead. Her upside-
down face now looked accusingly into Reynolds’s with
dead eyes. Her tongue lolled. Her white face, once beauti-
ful, slowly became, due to the influence of gravity affect-
ing her new contortionist bodily position, a grotesque
baroque face quickly becoming a drooping parody of it-
self. Her bare breasts, heaving backwards like heavy bags
of white sand, perilously threatened to drop into his view.
This prospect struck him as indescribably unpleasant, as
well as ludicrously comic. His mouth suddenly filled with
the bitter taste of ashes mixed with rainwater. No… he re-
alized, this woman’s body wasn’t a fountain. It would
never replenish itself, no matter what. A human being was
not a fountain, but a wine flute. Once all the blood flowed
out of her body, she would, like everything, fall to the
ground, painfully, inflammably dry, like a pine cone in
wildfire season. He believed this, but did not want to be-
lieve it, nor see it. If he knew, once and for all, that her
body, bloodless, would fall, and the fountain would stop,
he could not release his final refuge of piety: repetition.
Without believing in the essential truth of a circular mo-

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An Unlikely Death
tion, in a pendulum, there was no hope. If there existed no
fountain of the body in this world, and only a metaphysi-
cal, abstract fountain of spirit, he would not be able to go
on. That final, irrevocable break - that was the very core
of impossibility. The elevator doors began to close. He
quickly slipped into it, without a second glance backward.
He pressed the button for the next floor….

199
Chapter Fourteen
Tower of Babel, Part II

T he top floor of the skyscraper consisted entirely of


Mr. James’s executive office. This large office, the
size of a hotel suite, was walled on three sides by plate
glass windows. The only wall which did not consist of a
single transparent sheet of thick glass was the one upon
which the elevator opened. Presently, these well-main-
tained, immaculately clean windows reflected the black,
starless night. A person stepping out of the elevator into
this office would get the sense that he was balanced on a
floor suspended high in outer space, closed in at the top
by the ceiling, with a steep drop of every visible side of
him. The floor was of expensive, imported marble. The
room was punctuated with a stainless-steel desk, directly
facing the elevator, and a set of couches and a fully
stocked minibar to its left. A Tread Climber, seldom used
by Mr. James, stood off to the right side, facing a giant
television attached to the corner-wall intersection closest

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An Unlikely Death
to the exercise machine.
Mr. James sat behind his desk on the top floor, eyes
rapt - focused not on the starry sky around him, but on
something immediately before him. To be more specific,
he was planted in his leather swivel-chair and looking at
the color monitor he had had installed a few days ago in
the surface of his stainless-steel desk. There were net-
works of cameras all over this building, hidden in the
walls and ceilings, transmitting wirelessly to this screen
this very moment. From his vantage point he could keep
track of all the goings-on in the main building. Right now
the monitor was carefully tracking the movements of Of-
ficer Reynolds, who was beginning to impress him very
much indeed. Yes, this Reynolds was a very clever fel-
low. How easily he had tricked that Oriental woman to off
herself! What charisma! What improvisation! His gut
swelled with healthy good humor. And to think that he
had always gotten a cold look and silent treatment from
that glorified doormat, Miss Huang! That’s why he pre-
ferred male secretaries to females. They were far more re-
liable, somewhat more willing to travel, and - most im-
portantly - less likely to fall in love with the enemy.
That reminded him...
Mr. James depressed a button on his speaker phone
with a fat pointer finger. Static. “Secretary,” he said. “I
want to speak to you.”
“Yes sir,” came the youthful-sounding response, effi-
cient as always. Mr. James removed his finger from the
button.
He waited, half-watching the monitor. It didn’t bother
him, the long waiting. He was in high spirits. The thought
of death was far away. Indeed, he wanted Reynolds to
find him. Not to kill him, but to find him. Nothing would

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Darwen Amos
please him more than to finally meet the man he had been
watching from afar - and to brusquely shake his hand.
There was an invigoration, a stimulating pleasure in forg-
ing new friendships, in “making connections.” At the
same time, he mused unpleasantly, familiarity certainly
bred contempt….
The elevator dinged open. His young secretary walked
in, carrying a suitcase.
The secretary approached the desk. Behind it, Mr.
James’s face, in anticipation of the unpleasant news he
was about to deliver, was curdled and compressed into a
semblance of disgust.
“What is it sir?” asked the young secretary tentatively,
with a slight anxiety showing in his voice.
“Well my boy,” said Mr. James. “You’re not gonna
like it. I’ve got some bad news.” He sighed, and shook his
head tragically.
“Is it Reynolds, sir?” said the secretary. He seemed to
perk up. “If so, don’t worry, sir. He’ll never get past the
third floor. I’m sure of it.”
Mr. James waved this all away with a hand, as if
Reynolds was of only passing interest to him. “It’s not
that, my boy,” he said. “But I’m afraid I have some bad
news. For you, that is. But maybe now’s not a good-”
“I can take it sir,” interrupted the secretary, standing up
straight. “Give it to me straight sir.”
Mr. James nodded.
“It’s not that you’re a bad secretary,” he continued
kindly. “You were very loyal, very efficient, no
question… but I need a change of pace. As you know,
you’ve been working for me some years now, and you’ve
done a good job, no doubt about that, but sometimes it’s
good for the heart to see fresh new faces. Do you under-

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An Unlikely Death
stand? You’re fired, son. I’m getting a new secretary.”
The young secretary stood stock still for a few mo-
ments. The atmosphere in the room was tense. Then, in a
trembling voice, he spoke.
“If there’s anything I’ve been doing wrong, I-I…”
Mr. James had had enough of this molly-coddling.
“Nope,” he said tersely. “My mind is set. You’re to be out
of my building by tonight.”
“Any problem at all sir…” He was crying freely now.
“I can-”
“Pack your things!” Mr. James roared. “I tell you my
mind is made up!”
The sudden shouting seemed to stop the secretary’s
trembling. He wiped away his tears, and put on a brave
front. “And my project?” he said, in controlled, measured
tones.
“I don’t give a rat’s ass what you do with your blasted
‘project,’” said Mr. James. “It’s none of my business or
concern. I release you from your contract. Now… if
you’re done crying about nothing at all, kindly step out of
my office please.”
With that, Mr. James swiveled away from the secretary
in his chair, put his arms behind his head, and glared out
the glass window at the night sky.
“That project, sir,” said the secretary through clenched
teeth, “was for you. But I know now you wouldn’t have
appreciated it. You’ve never appreciated anything I’ve
done for you, have you? I can see that now.”
Mr. James did not respond.
“Very well sir. I take my leave.” The secretary turned
around, and picked up his suitcase, which he had earlier
placed on the marble floor.
He walked into the elevator and pressed a button. The

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Darwen Amos
elevator door closed, and it began to descend to the third
floor…

Officer Reynolds waited in the elevator as it moved to


the next highest floor, looking up at the electronic wall-
mounted floor display.
I don’t want to go on, he thought. But I must…
Ding. The elevator door opened. Reynolds stepped out
onto the second floor.
Now Reynolds stood on the second floor of the FBI Ul-
timate Skyscraper. What greeted his eyes was a sparse,
warehouse-like room. Its most striking feature was its
very featurelessness. The walls were covered in sleek,
stainless steel, innocent of ornaments, and one of the only
objects in the room was an advanced, insectoid-looking
gun corner-mounted at the intersection of one of the walls
and one of the ceilings. This powerful, alien-looking gun
was aiming directly at Reynolds. He moved to one side.
With the labored noise of grinding machinery, the metal
gun torturously followed the movement, slowing tracing
an arc until it once again was pointing at the officer.
The other object in the room was a giant, wall-mounted
computer screen, making up almost the entire steel wall
across from the elevator. The monitor was currently
turned on, greenly displaying in a humongous font the
following blinking, threatening words:

PASSWORD REQUIRED
ENTER PASSWORD HERE:

The colon at the end of the message blinked on and off


intermittently. Reynolds stared…

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An Unlikely Death
Suddenly, as if a mechanical train door had opened, a
hissing sound of escaping steam assaulted his ears. He
looked down. On the floor below him, a futuristic trap-
door had just opened up, and an advanced typing console,
complete with a keyboard attached to small makeshift
desk, rose up slowly in front of him. It reached waist-
height, then stopped rising, clicking into place. A moment
passed, then the open trap door closed around the base of
the console, reprising the hissing noise.
Password? thought Reynolds wonderingly. Nobody
told me about any password!
He scratched his head in confusion. Knowing that he
needed to input a password to progress, he was at a loss of
what to do. Thinking fast, he inputted the first password
that came to mind.
“Roger Reynolds,” he typed. He pressed the Enter key.
Beep! The monitor on the wall flashed angrily. In front
of Reynolds’s nervous eyes, the monitor changed, ex-
pressing a different message, this time in red:

PASSWORD INCORRECT.
LASER LOWERING…

What laser?! Reynolds looked up at the high ceiling. In


front of his despairing eyes, a horizontal line of red laser
light, which he had not seen upon entering the room, low-
ered ten meters from the high ceilings, then stopped. He
breathed a sigh of relief, and looked once more at the
monitor, which again read:

PASSWORD REQUIRED
ENTER PASSWORD HERE:

205
Darwen Amos
Ah, I see, thought Reynolds. Each time I get the wrong
password, that laser in the ceiling will drop another ten
meters. And when the laser detects my body, that gun (he
pointed to the alien-looking gun mounted on the ceiling)
will fire, rendering my body into skin and bones! Yikes!
He did some quick calculations in his head. Lucky the
ceiling was so high. At this rate, he could get the pass-
word wrong nine or ten more times before the laser low-
ered enough to detect him. Just to be safe, though, let’s
say eight times. In any case, the situation was bad, but not
so bad as to lose hope.
Thinking hard, Reynolds inputted another guess into
the keyboard…

The young secretary stepped out of the elevator onto


the third floor.
The third floor of the tower was the least luxurious of
the four, except perhaps the second floor. Missing were
fur-lined leather sofas and chairs which decorated the oth-
er floors; missing, too, were those various modern con-
trivances Americans have gotten used to and come to de-
pend on, to the point that without them they would be
helpless: there were no soda machines, coffee makers, or
iPods on this whole floor.
On the contrary, this floor was the young secretary’s
private surgery room. It was lit by rash fluorescent white
lighting so blinding that the room was bathed in a heav-
en’s luminescence. Such clear illumination should have
caused it to be easy to see particles of dust fluctuating
through the air, but the room was so sterile that even dust
seemed hesitant to intrude on its pure quarantine. Operat-
ing tables in neat rows were arranged across the floor.

206
An Unlikely Death
Some were empty, and others were occupied by cruel hu-
man and inhuman shapes covered by white, immaculate-
ly-laundered sheets of linen. Medical implements and
tools lay on rotating metal tables. Power tools hung on the
walls by small magnets. On the far side of the room was a
special table reserved for the secretary’s current “project.”
A human’s characteristic form lay upon the table, also
covered by a white sheet.
The young secretary walked over to this table and re-
moved the sheet.
This discovered the form of Officer Saffron, lying on
the table like a bed, arms crossed in the “casket position”
over the top half of her body, which still wore its police-
woman’s outfit. Though it did not appear she was breath-
ing, it nevertheless appeared to resemble a sleeping form.
Even under the brightness of the lighting there was no
flaws or shortcomings in her skin. Her skin had the me-
chanical perfection of a computer screen. Her blonde hair
under the white light did not give her the impression of
having deficient ability and wisdom, but instead implied
that even her filaments were now made of a white, inde-
structible metal filing. Instead of a human being, she was
now a perfectly operational machine. Not that any of this
affected the young secretary’s bad mood.
He wheeled the closest table of tools next to the operat-
ing table. It didn’t matter. Even if Mr. James would never
see its completion, he would finish the project for himself.
No longer was the project for Mr. James. Angrily picking
up a scalpel, he began to work….

Reynolds had tried many other passwords, none of


them valid.

207
Darwen Amos
His train of thought had been that Mr. James would
choose a password which reflected his personality. In this
process the password could be arrived at by a method of
induction.
“What does Mr. James love more than anything?” he
asked himself.
“Victory,” he had tried. Incorrect. The laser moved
down.
“Destruction,” he tried again. Also wrong. The laser
moved down again. He stared at the insectoid gun in fear.
Various other passwords had been equally wrong. The
laser now hung dangerously low, only eleven meters
above ground level. If it lowered one more time, the laser
would intersect with his body and send the mortal mes-
sage to the gun. What was the password?!
“Domination,” he typed, in desperation. The monitor
turned red, and said:

PASSWORD INCORRECT.
LASER LOWERING…

Reynolds watched the lowering laser in abject terror….

With a scalpel between his teeth, the young secretary


carefully cut a green wire in his project’s arm, which he
had opened up to expose the machinery and mass of col-
ored wires inside. As he had begun to work on his project
again, his anger and outrage at the atrocity of being fired
by Mr. James had gradually abated through the comfort-
ing, monotonous work. He no longer felt like throwing
himself off a cliff. Now he felt only a dull, languid emo-
tional void.

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An Unlikely Death
With a small welding torch he welded two red wires in
Officer Saffron’s arm. A small puff of smoke emerged.
He closed the panel which had revealed the wires and
gears. When he did, Saffron’s arm once again looked hu-
man, with no visible apertures. He then replaced the
scalpel and welding torch on the tool table. Then he
stepped back from the operating table and looked at his
project.
The woman’s porcelain face interested him in an intel-
lectual sense. What was the secret of a woman’s beauty?
he wondered. It was invisible to this young scientist. Re-
duced to lines and curves, perhaps, and he could grasp the
mechanical machinery or medical principle of the thing,
but in any case he was missing the masculine soul’s key
element which gave one permission to give his heart to a
woman….
In any case, he thought, maybe his situation wasn’t so
bad. Maybe his being fired was in actuality a blessing in
disguise. He could go back to medical school. Perhaps,
after he obtained his degree Mr. James would be moved
enough to rehire him as his secretary. At the very least, he
was not as dead as the woman who lay before him, and
still had the choice to hope.
The thought encouraged him. In a better mood, he re-
turned to the work….

Reynolds had not been killed by the descending laser


with his last incorrect answer but, thinking fast, had bent
his body backwards at the waist, as if he were playing
“limbo,” so that the laser, which should have hit him, in-
stead hovered in a line one inch above his bent-back
body, contorted in an unnatural position. Now it was real-

209
Darwen Amos
ly down to the wire. Reynolds would be able, with some
physical effort, to make one last try at the password. He
had to make this one count.
What else did Mr. James love? wondered Reynolds,
racking his brain. Yet he could not think of anything he
had not already tried. And he was running out of time…
Suddenly he knew. He had been on the wrong track the
whole time. He had been thinking of what Mr. James
loved, but he realized now that such a man would not se-
lect an object of love as his password. Instead, he should
have asked himself, What did Mr. James hate more than
anything?
The answer came quickly to him. In his bent-back posi-
tion, he reached his arm over to the keyboard and typed
in: “Democracy.”
He pressed the enter key. Crossing his fingers and
holding his breath, he turned his attention to the wall
monitor.

PASSWORD CORRECT!
LASER RISING…

Reynold breathed a sigh of relief as the laser once


again raised up to its original position, not having sent the
fatal message to the gun….
He returned to the elevator and pressed the button for
the third floor….

The young secretary replaced the tool on the table. He


had mostly completed the project. Suddenly he heard the
elevator door open. He had forgotten all about Reynolds.
He turned toward the source of the sound…

210
An Unlikely Death
***

The elevator door opened out onto the third floor.


Reynolds stepped out into the surgery room. On the far
side of the room he saw a slender human figure standing
over an operating table. The figure turned toward him.
Reacting quickly, Reynolds removed his rifle, aimed it,
and fired.
The bullet hit the figure in the forehead. A splatter of
blood splashed out from the back of its head. The figure
was flung backward by the impact of the bullet, and hit
the table behind it, knocking various metal tools to the
floor with a series of clattering sounds. The figure seemed
to stagger for a moment, but then it dropped sidelong to
the floor, behind a table and out of sight. It did not get up.
Reynolds quickly scanned the room. It seemed to be
some sort of medical bay. A dead or unconscious woman
lay on the operating table over which the figure had been
standing. Other than her and the person he had just killed,
who was probably a doctor, there did not seem to be any
person stationed here. This awoke a suspicion in him. Af-
ter the ordeals he had faced on the first and second floors,
he did not feel easy that the third floor did not offer any
new challenges. Shrugging his shoulders in resignation,
he began to walk back into the elevator…

On the operating table, binary code, rendered digitally


in green zeroes and ones, filtered rapidly and stealthily
behind Officer Saffron’s tightly shut eyelids. The impact
of the young secretary’s corpse hitting the table as it fell
jolted her inner circuits slightly. She had not yet been
equipped with shock absorbers, so that small impact was

211
Darwen Amos
enough to tilt her from her light sleep. Opening her eyes,
Officer Saffron awoke from her electrical dreams…

A sound like an uncoiling spring startled Roger


Reynolds into turning around just before walking back
into the elevator. What he saw surprised him greatly. The
woman who had been lying on the operating table had,
like an unreclining seat in an airplane, sprung up into a
sitting position, and was now pointing an extended finger
at him, staring straight at him - or through him…
Reynolds suddenly recognized the woman. “Officer
Saffron!” he gasped, surprised. “Are you hurt? Do you
need any help? You look a little out of it!”
It never occurred to Reynolds that the woman sitting up
before him was anything other than Officer Saffron, his
comrade-in-arms, which whom he had spent many hours
out on patrol, drinking coffee and eating donuts together
when the times were bad, and sharing a few beers in the
locker room on the weekends, rooting for the Dodgers. It
did not cross his mind that this woman was no longer her-
self and was in fact a robot, programmed to be his
enemy…
Suddenly, a bolt of electricity burst out like lightning
from the woman’s pointed finger, directly in Reynolds’s
direction. Reynolds, who had not really been expecting
this answer, was unable to dodge, and felt 400 watts of
electricity course through his body like a lightning bolt
through a copper-wired superconductor.
“Aaaaaggh!” cried Reynolds, as he writhed in pain. It
was as if all the static electricity in the world had been
compressed into the single bolt of energy that now forced
his body to dance like an epileptic having a seizure. And

212
An Unlikely Death
in the midst of his pain, he realized that something was
wrong… no, make that very wrong, with Officer Saffron.
By that time Saffron had dismounted from the operat-
ing table and, eyes fixed on Reynolds’s position, was pur-
posefully marching toward him, finger still extended.
Mid-march, she fired another bolt from her finger, juicing
Reynolds once again with 400 megawatts of pure electric-
ity.
“Stop it!!!” yelled Reynolds in pain, as his body was
wracked once more. “It’s me, Officer Saffron - Roger
Reynolds!”
This urgent plea, however, did naught to slow Saf-
fron’s inexorable approach. She did not stop, but kept
moving closer. Reynolds knew that soon he would be
forced to hurt his old friend. He didn’t want to do it, but
in times of danger, one had to protect himself over all oth-
ers….
Still shaking from the electricity, he unsteadily raised
his rifle at the approaching figure. His hands quivering
from shock, he could not get a good aim on his target. He
fired off a few haphazard, twitchingly shot shots in her
general direction, hoping but not hoping to kill her.
He had fired off three shots. The first two missed their
targets, clanging uselessly off the steel walls and tables.
The third, however, struck Saffron in the forehead, with a
similar clanging sound. The bullet ricocheted off and clat-
tered loudly to the floor, compressed horizontally like a
soda can crushed under a powerful boot. A small dimple
now punctuated the middle of Saffron’s forehead, like a
dent in a new car.
This was enough to awaken Reynolds to a new truth.
What he was looking at was no ordinary police officer,
like all human beings, but a bona-fide cyborg. And it

213
Darwen Amos
would be foolish to try to use a rifle on a cyborg, since
bullets and robots were made of the same, puncture-resis-
tant steel. He flung his rifle away and staggered to his
feet, looking desperately around for something - anything
- in the room he could use to defend himself.
Then he saw it. Off to the left, a little off from where
he was, a large blacksmith’s sledgehammer rested on an
anvil. He knew that such a hammer was only used in ma-
nipulating metal. Thinking fast, he made a beeline for the
hammer, come hell or high water.
Officer Saffron’s newly appointed target system
tracked his movements perfectly with radar. Homing in
which degreed lines of longitude and latitude, her arm,
like a pinion to a rack, followed the movement with ease,
the homing missile launcher implanted therein primed to
fire at the slightest offset.
“Firing homing missile!” warned her robotic voice.
Reynolds had finally reached the sledge. Picking it up
with a groan of exertion, he spun round and round with it
in his hands, like a shot-putter, gaining momentum. When
he had enough momentum, he finally released his pay-
load, sending it careening across the room with deadly
force toward the hapless Officer Saffron.
Her dodging algorithm was not yet optimal. Thinking
he had more time, the young secretary had not pro-
grammed in a good defensive maneuver, only focusing on
weapons algorithms. Therefore, it should be no surprise to
the reader that the thrown anvil struck Officer Saffron
point blank… the anvil slammed into Saffron’s exposed
head full force, which the speed of a rushing eighteen-
wheeler semi-truck. The robot was propelled backwards
through the air at sonic speeds into the far metal wall,
where it crashed with a giant, sparking explosion. Sparks,

214
An Unlikely Death
flames, and smoke emitted out from the wall where the
impact happened. It seemed the output would never
stopped. But it did. Then, when the smoke cleared, Offi-
cer Saffron was no longer in sight, but a giant crater had
been blown into the wall, as if by dynamite. Reynolds
panted in exhaustion… it was all over. In his opinion the
explosion had incinerated Saffron’s entire body in the ex-
plosion, explaining her invisibility…
He began to head back into the elevator when he heard
a pained, weeping noise…
The noise came from the area of explosion. It was,
without the doubt, the sound of a human being in pain,
more specifically, a normal woman in pain. The voice
was recognized by him was belonging to one Rebecca
Saffron. Was it possible that Officer Saffron still retained
an iota of human self? Although she was a robot, wasn’t it
possible that she still hurt, still felt human passions? If so,
it was the least he could do to make alms with her dying
form and wish her godspeed into the next world…
He walked over to the site of the explosion, and looked
down. Yes, Officer Saffron was indeed wailing in pain,
and did not look to be in good condition. The explosion
had seared off half her face, the half revealed to his eyes,
revealing a combination of human bone and metal inside.
Her lipless teeth were revealed in a metal rictus. Her eye,
eyelids seared off, stared blankly into space. In short, the
half of this face was more like a skull than a human face.
The explosion had done more than merely strip the skin
from the bone. The head of the woman hung half off the
neck with sinews and wiring. Small rivers of blood, or
copper insulation, dripped out from the exposed apertures.
Her right arm, the homing missile-launcher arm, had been
blown clean off. The fire had eaten through her uniform

215
Darwen Amos
and skin, revealing the metal exoskeleton inside. The
cries of pain seemed to be coming from a speaker source
hidden deep behind the exposed, bared teeth.
The face turned toward Reynolds. The unrevealed half
of her face, now revealed, was still mostly intact. The
pretty face of Officer Saffron, if it could be replicated and
flipped horizontally, then pasted on the other half, would
have made a truly handsome face indicative of her lifely
beauty. However, the strange contrast between the two
halves of her face, one human, one robot, put Reynolds in
a confused state, and he did not know whether to like or
dislike the sight that was before his eyes…
“Roger… come closer…” said Officer Saffron, in a
withering, dying voice. “I have to tell you a secret…”
Reynolds put his head closer to Officer Saffron’s
mouth, his ear inclined to receive the incoming whisper.
Just when he was expecting the secret, Officer Saf-
fron’s left arm launched out from below, gripped tightly
around his throat, and began to close, throttling him. He
began to make labored, choking sounds, reaching with his
hands up to his throat to try to pry the vicelike grip from
cutting off the breath of his windpipe. However, the grip
was too strong, He continued to fight, however, choking
and strangulated.
Officer Saffron now stood up, still gripping Reynolds
by the throat. Once she was completely upright, she raised
her arm, lifting him into the air. Reynolds began to kick;
his choking and attempts to breathe became weaker and
weaker…
“Objective about to be achieved…” declared Saffron.
Not if I can help it, thought Reynolds. Amid his chok-
ing thoughts his eyes were clear-sighted. His training had
made sure of that. He silently thanked this training which

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An Unlikely Death
had got him this far. But it was all useless if he didn’t get
any further. Mr. James would win, and the world would
fall into a tyranny it had never known. His eyes went
down to Saffron’s midsection. There, past the burnt uni-
form, a square of her flesh had been burned off by the ex-
plosion, exposing a grid of wires. In the middle of this
grid was a small module with a blinking inset light.
Somehow, Reynolds knew that this was an important part
of her programming, and instinctively felt that it was her
weak spot…
He was running out of breath… with a final expendi-
ture of stored energy Reynolds struck out with his foot in
a sharp kick at the blinking light. It connected, shattering
the module. Saffron’s grip slackened, and Reynolds slid
onto the floor on his bottom. Looking up at Saffron from
this vantage point, he realized he had done her irreparable
harm. A blue electricity coursed out from the broken
module and appeared to course all over her body in a thin,
fuzzy electroluminescence. Her head twitched back and
forth. Looking down at her midsection, Saffron’s good
eye closed in pain.
“I don’t want to hurt you, robot,” said Reynolds. “But
if you don’t back off, I will have to destroy you.”
“Roger!” shouted Saffron. “Don’t you understand? It’s
my programming! I can’t help it! We are in the same situ-
ation!”
With that, Saffron raised her left arm once again. With
a series of complicated movements, that arm transformed
into a small rocket launcher like a transformer, pointed di-
rectly at Reynolds.
Reynolds got to his feet, and began to seek cover.
Whoosh! A rocket sailed past Reynolds and hit the
wall, exploding upon contact. Reynolds looked over his

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Darwen Amos
shoulder. Saffron seemed to have trouble aiming. Then,
suddenly, as if against her will, she began walking toward
Reynolds, although her eyes filled with tears and she
seemed to be resist the inexorable mission.
“Saffron!” appealed Reynolds. “You’re just a robot!
Whatever you once were, is no more! So abort your mis-
sion right now!”
Saffron still approached in drunken, labored steps, the
blue electricity encircling her. She was weeping, shaking
her head in despair. “Don’t you understand, Roger?” she
yelled. “It’s still me! I’m still me, despite everything! And
even though I’m a robot, I love you! And you’ll love me
too. When you’re a robot!”
Clink, clink! Her heavy feet hit the metal floor as she
walked toward Reynolds, who was running away. Anoth-
er rocket fired, missed. A group of tables, far off from
Reynolds’s position, exploded into flames. The entire
room began to catch fire, spreading, becoming a confla-
gration.
The heat oppressed Reynolds’s skin. He picked up a
random object from a table. It was a power screwdriver.
He looked at it, felt its heft, and threw it with all his might
at Saffron. The airborne screwdriver, traveling with
tremendous speeds through screens of fire, hit its mark,
clanking with a loud noise on Saffron’s face. Her head
displaced further to the left, and downwards, until it was
now hanging off her neck by only a new wires and a sin-
gle tendon of muscle. Blood welled over, pouring out
from the partially severed neck.
The flames rose still further. Now the flames made a
crackling, fiery noise. The various tables in the surgery
room, seen through the fire screens, pulsated like hellish
shadows. Out of the fire stumbled Officer Saffron, who

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An Unlikely Death
no longer resembled a woman in any sense.
Reynolds picked up a wrench and threw it at the robot.
It hit her arm, and bounced off. It didn’t look like a direct
hit at all, but it seemed to do the trick. Saffron suddenly
stopped in her track, twitching. The blue electricity orbit-
ed faster on the outside of her body, running on invisible
train tracks.
“Beep, beep!” yelled Officer Saffron. “System error!
System error! Self-destruct sequence activated!”
Officer Reynolds breathed a sigh of relief. He had done
it. He watched, waiting for Saffron to explode.
She didn’t. With a quick movement like throwing back
hair she replaced her own displaced head until it more or
less was back in its proper position. She stopped twitch-
ing, and pointed her left arm once again at Reynolds.
“Just kidding Roger!” she said. “Don’t you know my
heart is true? Even though my heart is a computer, it re-
mains fully operational! I have emotions Roger! Even
robots have emotions! Only they feel cold… like metal!
Why won’t you believe me Roger? Why won’t you be-
lieve my love is real?”
Another wayward rocket flew through the room, hitting
a welding station. That was the most flammable area in
the entire surgery room. With a burst of flame, the weld-
ing station exploded - the largest, hottest explosion yet. A
draft of heat assaulted Reynolds’s skin, burning it by
mere insinuation. A ring of fire encircled the room from
the welding station outward. The fires raised. Metal tools
erupted and popped all around him with the sound of
noisy firecrackers.
It was over… Reynolds fell to his knees. Saffron ap-
proached him, shiveringly, slowly. She was out of rock-
ets. When she was close enough, she also fell to his

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Darwen Amos
knees, close to where Reynolds was. She was so close
that even through the fire Reynolds could feel a sugges-
tion of her feminine body warmth. He was going to die…
he turned his gaze to Saffron, who was looking at him
with loving eyes. The fires burned louder, stronger…
Saffron leaned in toward Reynolds’s cheek, small lips
primed for a kiss. It was, for Saffron, a scene from her
deepest dream. For this perpetual hopeless romantic, even
in robot form, there was nothing better than to die with a
beloved surrounded by a physical fire that replaced your
own, stolen, symbolic passions of love. That love had
been taken away by her reprogramming, but the fires
which burned around them both with such relentless tem-
perature seemed to provide a more than adequate replace-
ment. The flames burned so high, in fact, that the fire
could not reasonably be concluded as emerging entirely
from her own insufficient heart, and she could even be-
lieve that Reynolds loved her…In that moment she found
a paradise…
Just before Saffron was able to complete her kiss, the
smoke alarm went off. The ceiling in the room was so
high that it had taken this long for the smoke to reach the
alarm. But reach it did. A blaring sound rotated in the
room. The sprinkler system was activated. The water
poured like rain from the various spigots interspliced
across the high, Catholic ceiling, and fell on the burning
fires, fell on the two lovers kneeling in the middle. A
beautiful, cleansing rain…
The water hit the blue electricity surrounding Saffron’s
leaning body. The fires reduced, and went out. Saffron,
electrons friend by the contact of water and the electricity,
crackled, then simply went dark, freezing in her kissing
position. In other words, the water interacted chemically

220
An Unlikely Death
with the blue electricity coursing around her and short-
circuited her fuses. With a dying sound of computer shut-
down, Saffron’s eyes locked into its last position, directed
at Reynolds’s face and dimmed, and her body turned to
stone, a dynamic statue in a position of penitence, and
moved no more…
Reynolds squinted open his eyes. The robot was no
longer moving, instead prostrating itself in a position of
worship toward Reynolds. Her long blonde hair fell over
the desecrated, robotic half of her face. She had reclaimed
her human form, and was a figurine representative of that
returning form… The rain cleansed the dirt and ashes
from her bodily form, laundered her uniform, washed her
hair… This was now a cast-iron rendering of Officer Saf-
fron as she had been in life, in the kneeling posture of
eternal devotion.
Phew! thought Reynolds, getting up. The world was no
longer aflame. A light, pleasant drizzle fell. He lifted his
face to the ceiling, drinking the cool, refreshing water that
fell. He looked at the kneeling figure who had caused him
so much trouble. He considered kicking the statue down,
but decided against it. No, he had to honor his fallen offi-
cer.
With a short prayer of memorial, Reynolds retrieved
his rifle and went back into the elevator and pressed the
button for the final, fourth floor.

Mr. James had watched all this with interest on his


monitor. He waited expectantly…

221
Chapter Fifteen
James v. Reynolds

T he elevator door opened onto the final floor.


Reynolds walked out into the luxurious office, facing
Mr. James seated at his swivel-chair behind the desk.
“Well well well,” said Mr. James, with a smile. “What
do we have here?”
“It’s over James,” said Reynolds. “Your plan has come
to its last step.”
“Is that so?” said Mr. James, raising an eyebrow in
mock surprise. “And here I was, thinking that everything
has been going perfectly. How wrong I was!”
Reynolds raised his rifle. “Say goodbye James. I’m go-
ing to put you out of America’s misery.” His finger began
to squeeze the trigger.
“Not so fast,” said Mr. James. Reynolds’s finger
stopped midway between fully pressing the trigger and
letting go a bullet. “You see,” said Mr. James. “I have a
story to tell you. A story about your friend Stevens….”

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An Unlikely Death
“What?” said Reynolds. “Stevens…?” He had forgot-
ten all about his best friend. Now he remembered that he
had promised to return with help to Stevens when he had
abandoned him at the marsh. He felt bad and repentant.
What was the difference between him and Mr. James?
“Yes. Stevens.” With that, Mr. James pressed a button
on his remote. A closet door opened, and Officer Stevens
fell out into the room, tied and bleeding.
“Reynolds…” said Stevens. “I’m - I’m sorry…”
Reynolds’s hold on the rifle slackened. “Stevens!” he
shouted, flinging his rifle to the ground. He started to run
toward his dying friend, but Mr. James halted him by
pointed his remote at him. “Yes,” he said. “Your friend
Stevens.”
“What have you done to him?!” yelled Reynolds.
Mr. James ignored the impassioned plea, and continued
his previous train of thought. “Yes… Stevens. Or as he
was known to me, Mr. Assassin. To the public, he was,
perhaps, better known as the AMC killer, an assassin so
meticulous and careful, perhaps a little bit yellow, who
made sure to kill every witness of his crimes.”
“Roger,” said Stevens weakly. “Don’t believe him!”
Reynolds looked suspiciously, confusedly, at Stevens,
then at Mr. James. His gaze wandered back and forth be-
tween the two like a swinging pendulum on a cuckoo
clock.
“Every word of it is true,” continued Mr. James. “You
see, your friend Stevens was actually Mr. Assassin. I
hired him a while back to get rid of one of my agents,
Taurus, who had been sneaking around the files a little
too much for his own good. You see, Agent Taurus dis-
covered some papers which pointed to my… involvement
in the Gulf War assassinations of several agents of the

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Darwen Amos
FBI, Libra, Cancer, and Scorpio. And also my involve-
ment in the killing of the FBI’s Director.”
“Is that true?” said Reynolds to Stevens.
Stevens did not answer, hanging his head in shame.
“Well,” continued Mr. James. “As it turned out he was
a problematic assassin. Oh, he killed Taurus, all right. I
had offered him full immunity from his previous crimes,
and well as money, for his services, but Stevens, or Mr.
Assassin, wouldn’t have it. He arrived at my office one
day with a strange request. He asked me to find a way to
get rid of you. I said I would, but didn’t really make any
inquiries in that direction. I knew that if Stevens wanted
you killed, he would come up with his own plan, without
needing me to do so. And he did, asking for my help.”
Mr. James paused, then sighed sadly. “I’m sorry about
what I’m about to tell you, Reynolds, but your friend is no
good. In fact, he led you to the strip club, The Golden
Bunny, on a wild goose chase, where you were supposed
to die in a fiery explosion, compliments of my young sec-
retary. I had my secretary place a bomb in the club, but
was unsuccessful in killing you. Stevens was watching for
the explosion the whole time, from his vantage from the
sky. He was watching in his helicopter, you see.”
He paused, then went on.
“But you did not die. On the contrary, you ran out of
the devastated club completely unscathed, chasing after
my poor secretary. And when you ran out alive, Mr. As-
sassin, also known as Officer Stevens, was careful to act
the part of your old friend, though he led you very cun-
ningly to crash into an upraised bridge. This, too, failed to
kill you, and Stevens was certainly unhappy with that re-
sult.”
Reynolds looked at Stevens, who, silent, was still in his

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An Unlikely Death
attitude of shame.
“But that didn’t last,” continued Mr. James. “For some-
thing unexpected happened. You decided to make alms
with the collateral damage you had caused in the chase.
You manned up to your responsibility. After seeing the
work you did to renovate and make up for your wrongs,
Stevens had a change of heart. It must have been quite an
epiphany. He no longer desired your death. He realized,
even, that it was wrong for him to want his record wiped.
He visited me in my office again the next day, in the guise
of Mr. Assassin. He would make his own reparations, he
told me. He would serve the jail time and pay the fines his
crimes deserved. He told me not to wipe his record, and to
stop the attempts on your life. What a true friend! But we
had a contract. Unknown to him, I had already wiped his
record clean. I didn’t want to go through the effort to re-
turn his wrongs. I refused him. I trusted his original as-
sessment, not his qualms of conscience. By that point,
Reynolds, you really were becoming a fly in the ointment;
you would ruin everything. Just because Stevens wanted
to renege did not mean I shouldn’t look out for my own
interests. I still wanted you dead.”
Reynolds nodded. “Go on,” he said.
“Very well. From that point on he was your friend. Al-
though the very idea of such a man having a friend is
ridiculous. In any case, he had no convictions, and his al-
legiances were wishy-washy. How despicable he is. Not a
dot of truth in him. He was never your true friend,
Reynolds, not even at his best… but I have always been
your true enemy…”
Mr. James stopped, finished. He put his arms behind
his head and leaned back, watching Reynolds expectantly.
He was self-pleased. “Now,” he said. “What do you think

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Darwen Amos
of your fellow officer? Is he not despicable, a travesty of
a human being? What do you think of your friend now?
You hate him, don’t you? In fact, why don’t you pick up
your rifle and shoot him right now, in the name of
justice?”
A moment passed. Mr. James continued to watch
Reynolds with an expectant smile. Reynolds did not head
toward the rifle. Instead, he merely smiled, and looked di-
rectly at Mr. James. Mr. James’s expression soured.
“Well?” he said. “What’s the hold-up?”
Reynolds smiled, not moving toward the rifle. He
shook his head in pity of his opponent. “You want me to
kill my friend?” he asked softly. “In the name of justice?
No James, that’s where you’re wrong. Don’t you know
the policeman’s code? No matter what policemen do,
they’re good people, through and through. That’s the po-
liceman’s code. And even if a policeman commits a bad
action, it’s always for the greater good. We aren’t crimi-
nals like you. I’m sure Officer Stevens had a morally
valid reason for what he did, and I for one do not care
what it was. I simply trust him… as a friend.”
With that, he smiled over at Stevens, friends once
more.
Stevens used all his energy to offer a weak smile of
gratitude. “Thanks… old pal….” he said.
“Don’t mention it,” replied Reynolds, with a nod.
Mr. James roared in anger and leapt out of his seat, tak-
ing out his remote control. He looked like a fat panther
about to pounce. “Activate Magnetron!!!” he commanded
snarlingly, pressing a button the remote.
Suddenly, before Reynolds’s dazzled upturned eyes,
the rooftop of the skyscraper, which was also the high
ceiling of the room he was in, opened outward toward the

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An Unlikely Death
sky, like an opened cardboard pizza delivery box. This
discovered the black night sky above them. The white
moon loomed over them both. A sense of vulnerability, of
infinite space expanding in all directions, overcame
Reynolds with the impact of vertigo. The stars had come
out, and dizzily circled in the black sky…
Meanwhile, Mr. James pressed another button on the
remote.
Matching his turn of mood, the neon tubing around the
building lit up in a bloodthirsty red…

The Magnetron, out in space, received its satellite com-


mand. Obeying its instructions, it moved across the sky
and fired two highly charge magnetic beams, not far from
each other, to Hawaii on earth. These beams were aimed
both at metal and human flesh. They found their targets,
and attached. Then the satellite began to retreat from the
Earth, pulling hard…

Reynolds, still gaping at the suddenly exposed night


sky above him, was jerked by a sudden strange physical
pull toward the stars. First his badge tore off his uniform,
and plunged deep into the sky above, with the sound of a
speeding boomerang. A moment later, out of the corner of
his eye, he saw his rifle on the floor, also pulled up into
the sky where, it entered the stars and vanished in a point
of light. A series of rushing sounds assaulted his ears, as
various objects and furniture from the room were torn up
into the sky at tremendous speeds. A moment later, with
sudden, unexpected force, Reynolds himself was pro-
pelled from his standing position into the air, far past the

227
Darwen Amos
ceiling and into the night sky, 800 meters above sea me-
ter, with the sound of rushing air. where he hovered in
place. In the sudden, shooting movement, Reynolds im-
mediately lost all bearing. It didn’t help that he now
breathed in a nondescript sky of stars.
Even in his bewilderment, Reynolds looked around
him in amazement at those stars. He was now floating
high above the ground, closer to the peak of heaven than
ever before. The black night surrounded him. He felt
strangely susceptible, and felt cold. With a sense of fear,
he looked at his feet. Far below him, so far it looked like a
toy sculpture, was the building he had been in only a mo-
ment before. Through the open roof he saw the infinitely
tiny form of Stevens, still tied up. He looked around
again. Surrounding him was a black void of stars. The
moon rained its light on his forehead and body. The night
air felt sharply cold and fresh. Suspended this high above
the world, the oxygenated air was sharply fresh but diffi-
cult to breathe.
He was joined shortly by Mr. James, who, having ex-
pected the sudden upward movement, was not at all
thrown off. The evil Director rose up into the air with
frightening speed, and came to an abrupt stop high above
the roof of his tower, facing Reynolds directly about ten
meters apart. His fat cheeks were bared in a grin, showing
shark’s teeth. The moonlight made his teeth glimmer like
jewelry. His hands were balled into powerful, tight fists.
Out of his suit pocket dangled an antennae attached to his
remote control….
A sound, like a garage door closing, transmitted from
the lower world and reached Reynolds’s ears. He looked
down. When he did, he saw the open roof of the skyscrap-
er slowly close in again, returning to its former position.

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An Unlikely Death
Instead of a helipad, a large satellite was installed on the
middle of the roof, remotely transmitting encrypted in-
structions to the Magnetron far, far away in outer space.
“How do you like my new satellite?” snarled Mr.
James. “Oh, never mind… isn’t the air around us simply
bracing?”
Reynolds tried to gasp out a response, but as soon as he
opened his mouth the liquefied night air of the high alti-
tude rushed into his lungs like a river-torrent of clean,
foaming water, almost knocking him cold. He felt as if he
had just run a five-mile sprint in ten minutes. His heart
rate increased steeply and dangerously until it felt like
there was a pounding jackhammer in his chest. His breath
rapidly came in short rasping intakes.
“You’re a quiet one, aren’t you?” said Mr. James, bar-
ing his teeth again. “Well! If you won’t listen to the
words of language, perhaps I’ll translate it into the lan-
guage of pain!”
With these threatening words, Mr. James removed his
remote from his pocket. Fiddling with a joystick, he com-
manded the Magnetron to propel him at tremendous
speeds towards Reynolds. The Magnetron, far out in
space, answered the call of its master obediently and
swiftly. The corpulent body of Mr. James flew across the
sky like a superhero in flight toward Reynolds, a single,
balled fist extended…
The fist slammed into Reynolds, launching him across
the sky in zero gravity. A cry of pain escaped Reynolds
into the air, then dissipated. As if they were in outer
space, Reynolds’s injured body languidly drifted off away
from Mr. James. A globule of blood hung suspended in
the air, held up by the powerful extraterrestrial magnet.
Reynolds was in pain, no doubt, sailing away into the dis-

229
Darwen Amos
tance, but not dead. That wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t do
at all. Mr. James once again removed his remote from his
pocket. He pressed, the “Stabilize” button, pointing the
remote directly at Reynolds’s floating body…
Reynolds, drifting through the air, suddenly froze in his
prone state. The Magnetron had sent, according to the
“Stabilize” command, a series of magnetic lines which
now pinned Reynolds into place in mid air. He tried to
move his arm, and found he could not. His breathing, too,
seemed immensely impaired. It was only with difficulty
that he could even breathe.
Mr. James approached him through the sky, baring his
teeth in a shark’s grin…
Now Mr. James was right next to Reynolds’s body,
which was frozen in a stasis. Reynolds could only watch
helplessly in fear…
Mr. James apparently had been a boxer in his youth.
The blows came endless and quick, with sharp, substan-
tial impact. A sharp right jab cracked Reynolds in the
nose, spilling blood. A right hook hit flush against the
side of his head. Another jab. Then a left hook sharply
struck his face. Crack! Pow! Snap! Powpow! A flurry of
punches struck Reynolds everywhichwhere. Bones
snapped, tendons crackled. The preliminaries for a two
black eyes were fulfilled with a twinset of oculary jabs.
I’m going to be feeling these bruises tomorrow, thought
Reynolds, with defeatist dismay. Hope was lost…
But then, suddenly, a glimmer of hope emerged, out of
nowhere, into space. Mr. James, in a frenzy of energetic
movement, had loosed the remote from his pocket and,
with a powerful uppercut to Reynolds’s jaw, the remote
floated out from his open pocket.
The remote control floated serenely and lazily through

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An Unlikely Death
space, like a banana leaf on water…
Reynolds knew he had to take his chance. Summoning
every reserve of stretched in his body, he superhumanly
forced his arms to moved. Reaching out against the polar-
izing force of the magnet, with every strain and effort, he
extended his arm and grabbed the remote with two fin-
gers, randomly pressing a button in the process…
It was the yellow “Free Flight” button…
The “Free Flight” button implemented an advanced, in-
telligent magnetic field around the given area. The “free
flight” state worked perfectly but, to the public, it was
considered to still be in its testing stages. The state thus
engendered by “free flight” was an algorithmic environ-
ment which, through a heavy-code computer program,
predicted one’s desired movement by the ancillary posi-
tions of the body taken before the actual execution of the
movement. Once predicted, it assisted the perfect expres-
sion of the movement by fluctuating the magnetic fields
in such a way that the process was facilitated with an en-
hanced ease. Every movement, rather than being arrested
by air pressure, would be sped up, imbued with magnetic
force. In other words, any step forward taken under “free
flight” would result in a run. Every bodily revolution
would become a top-spin. A slight jump would become a
launch into flight. A punch thrown under these circum-
stances would have megaton force. The Magnetron would
impart superhuman assistance of velocity and force to ev-
ery human movement under its field, exponentially. This
application of the Magnetron was designed for eventual
military use, and would, after some testing, provide the
military with super-soldiers who had all the abilities of
comic-book supermen.
Suddenly, to Reynolds, spatial movement opened up

231
Darwen Amos
with unprecedented freedom and ease. His body no longer
felt pressed in and, rather than feeling suspended, he felt
that all three dimensions had suddenly opened up for him.
He was, in other words, a humanoid bird with the king-
dom of the skies at his beck and call. Mr. James’s next
punch seemed to be coming at him in slow motion…
He easily dodged the approaching punch. Mr. James,
who had taken it for granted that his opponent was sus-
pended and held in place, sailed past Reynolds with an
extended fist, eyes opening wide in surprise.
With immense speed Reynolds turned around, and
found himself facing Mr. James’s prone, susceptible back.
With a single swift movement he traversed the two meters
that separated them. With superhuman speed, he raised
his arm and tapped Mr. James on the back with an extend-
ed finger, calling his attention.
Mr. James turned around to face the smiling Reynolds.
Reynolds exulted. In eyes of the Mr. James was an
exquisite combination of fear and surprise.
“Hey there,” said Reynolds with a grin. He brought his
fist back. His opponent’s eyes widened further. With
megaton force Reynolds propelled his balled fist at Mr.
James face, and connected with a satisfying thwack!
The impact was critical. Propelled down by the force of
the punch, which was aimed downwards, Mr. James fell
in a freefall back down toward the roof of his building,
screaming in pain and flailing his arms through space. He
fell further and further until he was level with the rooftop
of his building, where he regained his posture and
stopped, looking up at Reynolds high above him. He now
knew what had happened. That cop Reynolds had pressed
the “Free Flight” button on his remote… At the thought
that his own weapon had been used against him, his belly

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An Unlikely Death
filled with a white-hot anger.
Eyes flashing with rage, Mr. James pondered his new
move. The situation had worsened for him, but it was still
entirely conquerable. He had, after all, practiced in the
“Free Flight” mode, while Reynolds was a tyro. He would
be able to better utilize the nuances of the program and,
now that he had his bearings, would decimate Reynolds in
a fair fight. With new confidence he assumed the position
to fly into the sky again, to meet Reynolds head on, and to
destroy him…
Suddenly, the sounding of a robotic voice made him
stop.
“Security Breach! Security Breach!” shouted the tower
computer. “Satellite in danger! Turrets… aiming!”
In an instant of epiphany Mr. James realized where he
was. Reynolds’s punch had sent him careening back down
to the roof and the tower computer thought that he was a
spy trying to destroy the rooftop communicator satellite!
Damn! He looked wildly around him. On the four corners
of the roof, over which he was flew a scant five meters,
the gun turrets had swiveled round and aimed their sights
directly at his body.
“Turrets… firing!” yelled the tower computer.
“Oh shi-” started Mr. James. There was no time for
other profanities. The roof turrets opened fire, sending an
endless array of machine-gun bullets through the pres-
sure-points of his portly body. He made a wide target.
Suspended in the air, Mr. James’s stationary body was
ripped into shreds by his own bullets…

233
Chapter Sixteen
A Piece of Cake

W ith Mr. James destroyed, the Magnetron, in the ab-


sence of new orders, gently deposited Reynolds
onto the sandy beach of the island.
Reynolds landed softly on his feet in the sandy shore.
The dawn was breaking. Before Reynolds’s tired eyes, the
night gave way to the first glimmerings of morning. The
sun peeked out above the line of water in the horizon,
sending its yellow rays all across the world. This was
hope…
He took off his shoes, and waited. He enjoyed the feel-
ing of beach sand in between his toes. A coconut had fall-
en next to him, and he now picked it up and began eating
it, peel and all, enjoying its sweet, crisp crunch. He
watched the sun rising. His back was to the building,
which was now only an empty shell which had once been
home to evil. A toucan flew across the berth of the sky.
He was tired, but happy. In the far distance he could see a

234
An Unlikely Death
ship approach, slowly but certainly for the island. When it
got nearer, Reynolds could read the ship’s title, embla-
zoned on its white prow in clear, large black lettering:

UK Rescue Ship 0892

Ah! So the United Kingdoms had come to rescue him!


He’d rather it have been an American ship, but to be hon-
est, an American ship may have been filled with enemies,
loyal followers of Mr. James, now deceased. He smiled as
the ship approached the island of Hawaii. When he
thought the ship would be able to spot him, he ran up to
the shore with excitement, happily waving his arms in the
air, signaling it to come to him.
“Right here, right here!” Reynolds yelled, waving his
arms about and jumping up and down.
The rescue ship gave a toot of steam in acknowledg-
ment. Slightly changing its course, the ship arrived at the
optimal angle for Reynolds to embark it. The sight filled
Reynolds with happiness.
What was in his future? With America in a bad state, it
would be a while before people could get back to the nor-
mal state of life. Yes, it would be a while, but it wouldn’t
be forever. He would watch with happy eyes as the many
FBI buildings Mr. James had installed under his tyranni-
cal reign came crashing down, victims of the powerful
wrecking balls of American democracy. He would, also,
watch with equally smiling eyes as the formerly destruct-
ed schools, churches, and charity buildings were rebuilt,
homes to the needy once again.
And of course, the police would be needed to keep
safety. He looked down at his uniform, which was tattered
and covered with dirt. Even in this dismal, unlaundered

235
Darwen Amos
state the sight of his uniform filled his breast with pride.
He knew the feeling of being an officer of the law, and
this was it. He was always watching a ship approaching,
ever vigilant…
The rescue ship made anchor. The steady stream of
smoke which had been pouring out from its top de-
creased, then stopped entirely. In the shining rays of the
morning sun, the white rescue ship looked like the steed
of a white knight… and Reynolds was the knight to ride
it.
A staircase extended out from the side of the ship, find-
ing purchase in the soft white sand below. Officers of the
ship filed down the staircase, motioning to Reynolds to
board the ship.
“Hey!” shouted out one of the sailors. “Get aboard!”
Reynolds smiled, and began his walk toward the ship.
But as he did, his cell phone rang. He removed it from his
pocket and answered it.
It was the president.
“Thank you for defeating Mr. James,” said the presi-
dent. “The world is a democracy once more.”
Reynolds hung up, and began walking toward the res-
cue ship again. Another call.
This time it was Reynolds’s wife, Susan.
“Come home for dinner,” she said. “Did you have a
hard day at work?”
Reynolds had to smile. “Nah,” he replied, shaking his
head. “Piece of cake.”

September 2003 –
November 2009

236
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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Photo by Olga Drozdova

Darwen Amos was born in Hendersonville, Tennessee where, from a


very young age, he showed talent in fictional literature. At the age of
twenty-three, he published his first book, A Vision of Time. Although
the book was not critically acclaimed, it garnered a small following
that was dedicated to him and his unique style.
Amos did not publish another book until seventeen years later. Un-
like his previous work, Charlie’s Method became a bestseller in Ten-
nessee and was the first of his popular “Charlie Trilogy.” His titular
character, Charlie, was known for a brash style of speaking that
charmed readers and swelled Amos’ base of loyal readers. Energized
by his success, Amos started to write at a steady pace.
In 1995 Amos moved to Switzerland where he met his wife Lara,
returning to Tennessee by 2000. Amos’s literary style was much influ-
enced by his stay in Switzerland, as evidenced by his later works,
many of which take place there. As of 2005, Amos has written eleven
books, five of which have reached best-seller status in his home state.
Amos currently resides in Jackson, Tennessee with his wife Lara,
and their two cats, Julius and Stephanie.

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