THE ASSHOLE OF THE WORLD sounded like a pig going after slops, snorting in his pleasure, so she just let her mind drift that way. Sprawled in the pigpen, down in the muck, a worthless piece of pork wallowing in a place where feelings were meaningless and the next “oink” meant only that she was still alive to hear it. A surge, heat, a final groan, and her father released her wrists and rolled off, spent. “I’m going downtown,” the Asshole muttered, wiping himself on her bunny sheets. Like I even care. Ruth Hazel Pierce blinked her blue eyes and came out of the pigpen stench enough to hear that. On this night the fourteen-year-old girl decided to care very much, a moment of decision that changed her life and ended his.
Usually she curled into a fetal position for a while, safe in her happy place, a pretend enchanted castle, surrounded by good friends and fire-breathing dragons that protected her. Only after an hour or so would she return to the real world of fear and shame and hate and get cleaned up before her mother came home from her late shift as a waitress. On that final night, however, Ruth Hazel exhaled a big sigh and headed for the hot shower and sweet bath soaps and freedom. From her dresser, she removed the tight one-piece black swim team suit she wore for school meets, stretched into it, and then put on old jeans with torn knees, a bulky San Diego State University sweatshirt, and jogging shoes. Out the door and down the hall to her parents’ room, where the Asshole of the World, the gun nut, kept all those weapons loose in the closet. When she was small, before the molestation got really serious, he had taught her how to shoot, thinking that a girl enjoyed the explosions. Respect a weapon, he said. Guns can hurt you if you’re not careful. No shit, Pops. She grabbed the Ruger.22, made sure it had a full ten-round magazine, tucked it into her waistband, and walked out of the house to change her future. One of them, either herself or the Asshole of the World, would not be coming back.
She walked along the beach from the trailer park to Oceanside in the early darkness, thinking she could see his footprints, since he always came this way. He walked because he had been picked up too many times for driving drunk. On the edge of the seedy downtown area, Ruth Hazel found a dumpster in an alley directly across the street from the Asshole’s favorite bar, a run-down strip joint, and she sat on the concrete in the shadows, crossing her legs and listening to the traffic on the street and the rumble of the surf. He staggered out two hours later, alone. Either he had run out of money or had been thrown out again. She didn’t care. It didn’t matter. Oink.
He ambled down the sidewalk and cut through a vacant lot to the high, dry ground of the beach. She followed his wavering silhouette against the starry night as the waves nibbled and sloshed at the sand about forty yards away. The tide was coming in. Not a soul in sight. Ruth Hazel pulled out the Ruger and began a little jog that closed the space between them in only a few steps. She stopped and took a firing stance, both palms around the grip like he had taught her. “Daddy?” she called in her little-girl voice as she snapped off the safety.
The Asshole of the World turned. The first bullet caught him in the stomach, but he was a big man, and a single.22 shot was not much more than a hard punch to the gut, not enough to put him down. The other six shots went into the chest, careful shots, one after another, and sprawled him on the sand like a beached porpoise. Ruth Hazel stepped closer. She saw recognition in his eyes, then horror as she deliberately aimed the Ruger at his crotch and fired. He screamed. She put the last two bullets into his eyes.
She rolled him onto his side and snatched the wallet from his back pocket, put the pistol back into her waistband, and jogged smoothly away down the beach. About a mile later, she shucked off her bloody clothes and swam through the surf, fighting stroke after stroke to get past the steep slant where the water went deep and the currents were crazy. Treading water, she pulled the pistol and the wallet from within her stretchy bathing suit and dropped them. As the items settled to the bottom of shifting sand, Ruth Hazel went into an easy butterfly kick and let the waves carry her to the beach. She walked home, her feet light on the sand. Another hot shower, stain remover on the blood spots on the jeans and sweatshirt, and those went into the washing machine. Ruth Hazel was drying her hair with a big blue towel, watching TV and eating popcorn, when her mother came home. “Hi, Mom!” she called.
The small woman who had lived with the beatings for years cast her worried eyes around the mobile home, puzzled as to why Ruth Hazel was in such a good mood. “Is your father here?”
“No. He was in for a little while after work but then went out again a few hours ago. Come on and sit with me, Mom. This is a hilarious movie. Have some popcorn.”
“Have you done your homework?” Doris Reed put down her purse and went to the sofa and smiled at her daughter. So much happiness! She seemed to glow.
“Yes, Mom. I did everything I had to do.”
Senator Ruth Hazel Reed kept two framed photographs on the long polished credenza behind the desk in her office in the Russell Senate Office Building off of C Street. One was of her handsome young army Warrant Officer Chuck Reed, lounging against a helicopter in Vietnam, the black-and-white picture taken four weeks before he was killed in action. The other was a family photo of ten-year-old Ruth Hazel snuggled between her smiling mother and father during a vacation to SeaWorld in San Diego. All of them were gone now. The Viet Cong had killed Chuck, cancer had taken her mom, and Ruth Hazel had murdered her father. Ancient history.
She never told anyone about the shooting; not her mother, not her husband, not even her hairdresser. The cops did a brief investigation and decided it was a robbery by some Mexicans coming up from the border, although the savagery of the attack, the clear rage, made them suspect a family member had done it. But they had alibis, sitting at home watching TV and eating popcorn together. Had to be Mexicans.
Ruth Hazel had absorbed the lesson that her rapes had not been about sex as much as about her father exerting power over her until she became more powerful than he. Since then, the search for power was her fuel in everything from sex to academics to business to politics. She might allow a man equality, as she had with Chuck, but she would yield to no one, ever again.
That included Gordon Gates and Gerald Buchanan. When she became President of the United States, she would be the most powerful person not only in New America, but in the world. Privatizing the military would give her off-the-books strength that no other President had ever possessed because she would not have to bring politics into play to assassinate a foreign dictator or sink a ship bringing in drugs or make some terrorists disappear. Just a phone call to Gordon would do the job. Under her reign, New America would be secure.
Now discomforting news had come from Syria, and the three powerful people were alone in a long black limousine parked near the Lincoln Memorial. Gates had told his chauffeur to come back when he called on the cell phone.
“Is our plan in trouble, Gerald?” asked Ruth Hazel. “You said it was foolproof.” Idiot.
“No, Ruth Hazel, the plan is not in trouble. The Marine rescue fiasco actually plays into our hands,” Buchanan responded in a smooth tone, holding his tongue so as not to respond with an insult. “I’ve been riding the Pentagon and intel services hard. There won’t be another rescue attempt, and the Syrian government is in an uproar.”
“Middleton is still alive, Gerald. He was supposed to be killed in the rescue attempt. You even sent in that sniper as a backup. But they are all dead, and yet the general lives. Hardly a success so far.”
“Easy, Senator,” said Gates. “I also think it may turn out to be fortunate for us that the Marines screwed up on their own and did not have to be ambushed.” He took a folded piece of paper from his briefcase and handed it to Buchanan. “Look at this. My Shark Team over there just sent this list of all of the Marines who were killed in the crash, verified by their dog tags. I expect to have pictures soon to help with the identifications.”
“So what am I missing here, Gordon?” Senator Reed asked.
“Look, Ruth Hazel. We wanted to show your committee and anyone else we could get to listen that while the U.S. Marines created a disaster, two special operators from Gates Global had infiltrated the village so deeply that they were able to go in and get these identifications and even make contact with the French guide. We can now say that if the Pentagon had not intervened and screwed up, my people would already have brought General Middleton out of there, safe and sound.”
“Not really.”
“Of course not. The only difference is that instead of the ideal of having the Marine sniper shoot him while we take pictures, or having our Shark Team finish the job, we let the jihadists kill him.”
“I don’t care who shoots him or if he steps on a scorpion. I just do not want him coming back to testify before my committee next week.” She pushed back in the soft seat and folded her arms.
Buchanan finished reading the list and handed it to the senator. It didn’t add up. “Somebody got out?”
“Apparently,” Gates responded with a slight wave. “Some kid who is only a radio operator took off on a dirt bike that was on one of the helicopters. I know that country, and he won’t get far. The Syrians will pick him up before he can reach the border, and I predict that we will be seeing him on television soon. We can exploit that when it happens. Not really a bad thing, when you think of it, because his comments will show even further how fucked up the mission was.”
Buchanan nodded in approval, pleased that Rambo Reed had been slow to understand how any situation such as this was fluid and one had to adapt to change. “So the senator and I can use the identifications as additional proof of how efficient private contractors can be, and how we can accomplish missions better than rote-memory military teams that court an international incident every time they get involved.”
Ruth Hazel read the list without changing her expression and handed it back to Gates. “I don’t like it when plans fall apart, but I agree that this problem can be turned to our favor.”
Gates switched on his cold voice, totally unemotional. “Good. We’re back on the same page. If you two approve, I’ll fire off a signal to the sheikh in Basra to have his men execute the general in some interesting and public manner as soon as possible.”
“And your team on the ground?” Buchanan raised an eyebrow.
“They will not be seen, nor will they interfere. They will simply hand Middleton over to the sheikh’s people and get out. So I expect Middleton will be dead within a few hours, and we can get on with Operation Premier.”