---

 

This writing was accepted for publication in the 108-page perfect-bound ISSN#/ISBN# issue/paperback book “Eye to Eye” cc&d, v322 (the June 2022 29-year anniversary issue) Order the 6"x9" paperback book:

Order this writing in the book The Wall the cc&d May-August 2022 magazine issues collection book		get the 426-page May-August 2022 cc&d magazine 6" x 9" ISBN# perfect-bound paperback book:

Choices We Make

Mark Reasoner

    Something very bad was happening to Mr. and Mrs. Stallings. Something that would only get worse before the day was done.
    “Babe? Jimmy?” Alex Stallings asked as she tried opening her eyes in the dark room. “Are you here?”
    “I’m here, babe,” Jim Stallings answered, “Though I don’t know where ‘here’ is.”
    “What’s going on?” Alex asked. “Why were we kidnapped?”
    The young American couple was having a quiet breakfast outside the small hotel in Vera Cruz, Mexico, when a van rounded the street corner and stopped opposite their table. Three men exited the side door, grabbed the Stallings, threw hoods over their heads and tossed them into the van.
    Now the couple lay on a dirt floor in a totally dark and damp room somewhere. Zip-ties held their wrists, though their feet and legs were not bound. Jim felt the ground around him searching for his glasses. He found them a few feet away and put them on. Nothing changed, though he could better make out his wife’s shape across the floor.
    A door opened and a shaft of light blinded both of them.
    “Get up!” A voice said from the opening in a heavy Spanish accent. “Both of you.”
    Two more men came in and roughly grabbed the Americans. Jim and Alex were frog-marched out of the room and forced up three flights of stairs to what looked like the main floor of wherever they were. The guards were not quite as tall as Jim’s six feet three inches, but were heavier and more muscular than the thin and balding American. At only five feet two and less than one hundred pounds, Alex could barely keep pace. The men escorting them were dressed in olive-drab military fatigues and carried assault-style rifles. The group walked down a hallway and turned into another room.
    The guard sat Jim at a computer workstation and used a knife to remove his bindings. A keyboard and three monitors sat on the desktop. The other guard placed Alex on a wooden chair to Jim’s left but did not remove her zip-ties.
    “Good morning, Senor Stallings,” Another man said, walking out of the shadow. He wore a white summer-weight suit with a light blue open-collared shirt. His dark hair was slicked back and he had no facial hair.
    “I am glad to finally meet you.”
    “Who are you and what do you want from us?” Jim asked.
    “You should know who I am,” the man said, “But no matter—I am Pedro Avilla. I am a man with power over your existence. How I use this will be up to you.”
    “Welcome to the headquarters of our great world-wide operations. Your task is to help my brother and I become the most powerful men in Mexico if not North America.”
    “Help with what?” Alex asked.
    Avilla motioned to a guard who slapped Alex. “Shut up, pretty girl, I am talking to the man.”
    “Leave her alone,” Jim said. “If you want my help, don’t hurt her.”
    “Not a problem,” Avilla said, taking out a nine millimeter Glock pistol. He fired twice, hitting Alex in the chest and forehead. Her body toppled backward with the chair.
    “She cannot be hurt now,” Avilla continued, putting his gun away.
    “Noooo...” Jim cried as he bolted from his chair. “Nooo!” Jim knelt next to Alex and cradled her head in his arms. Blood seeped from the exit wound onto his arms and shirt, mixing with the tears flowing from his eyes.
    “Put him back at the desk,” Avilla said. Two guards picked Jim up as sat him back at the workstation.
    “Now we can begin,” Avilla said. “I need you to get me into your government’s systems and databases. We can start with your DEA.”
    Stallings sat and stared ahead. Avilla smacked him with the pistol, hard enough to knock him to the floor. Then he kicked Jim several times in the ribs and head. Jim tried to protect himself to little avail.
    “Pay attention!” Avilla screamed as he kicked the man. “This is not a request, nor a choice!” A guard sat Jim back into the desk chair, “There is work to do. Now give me access to your systems.”
    “I can’t, I won’t,” Jim said.
    “Of course you can,” Avilla said. “I know who you are, James L. Stallings, you are one the top computer programmers and designers for your National Security Agency. You can probably access any system, database or secure file you want.”
    “And if you want to continue breathing, you will do it,” Avilla continued.
    “Why?” Jim asked, still choking back tears. “You just killed my wife. Why would I help you now?”
    Avilla cracked his weapon across Jim’s head, not enough to knock him over again, but enough to hurt.
    “You are becoming tiresome,” Avilla screamed. “Your wife was just a puta! A cunt! I can give you ten others just like her without leaving this compound. She was nothing!”
    “You, on the other hand, are important to me. I had to look long and hard to identify someone like you. Fortunately for me, a little friend pointed in your direction.”
    Avilla swiveled the chair so Jim faced him. “Not so fortunately for you, however, or your late wife. But do not worry; I will give you a choice. You will get the chance to join your bitch quickly and quietly, or I can promise you will experience such pain and agony that dying will be the greatest relief there can be.”
    “Only I won’t let you die,” Avilla continued, shoving Stallings back to the desk, “Until the last possible moment—that will be my choice. Now get to work.”
    As Jim opened a command prompt window on the machine and started typing, another man walked into the room followed by two more armed men. He was dressed much like Pedro Avilla, but wore a darker shirt and a moustache. He was also taller than Pedro.
    “What is going on here?” the man asked. “I heard shots.”
    “It is not your concern, hermano,” Pedro said, “I have this under control.”
    The other man saw Alex’s body on the floor. “Really, and who is this woman?
    “She was no one, Luis,” Pedro said. “A little collateral damage.”
    “Her name was Alex,” Jim said quietly as he continued working, “And she was my wife.”
    “And you killed her, Pedro?” Luis asked.
    “Of course I killed her,” Pedro said, “I had to show this idiot I was serious.”
    Luis shook his head. “So he helps you now?”
    “What choice does he have?” Pedro said, “He is weak, like all gringos. He probably thinks he will live through this.”
    Jim scribbled something on a piece of paper and got up from his chair. “I’m finished. I’ve set up a user account and one-time password.” He handed the paper to Pedro.
    “You’ll have to change the password when you first log in.”
    Jim went to Alex’s body. He reached down and gathered her in his arms and turned to the door. One of the armed men blocked his path.
    “Where are you going?” Luis asked.
    “I’m going to bury my wife,” Jim answered, “To give her some last little dignity.”
    “Ehh,” Pedro said, waving him off and sitting down and the keyboard. The guard moved away, and Jim walked out of the room.
    He exited the front door and crossed the large porch. A paved drive spread out in front of him with large expanses of manicured lawn to either side. Jim walked all the way to the main gate, then he turned left and walked about ten yards into the lawn area. There, he put Alex down.
    He walked another thirty yards to where landscapers worked on the plantings next to the wall. Asking the men politely if he could do so, Jim borrowed a shovel from their work cart and returned to where Alex’s body lay. He marked a three by six rectangle in the grass and began digging.
    Back at the computer, Pedro Avilla happily browsed through files of operational orders, project descriptions, procedures and various memos describing the workings of the US Drug Enforcement Agency.
    “Do you see, my brother?” he said to Luis, “I told you we could do this. We now have access to everything the Yanquis have planned or are even thinking about.”
    “If you say so,” Luis replied, “But it strikes me that this was just too easy. I really don’t believe that man would so willingly and quickly give you what you want after you killed his wife.
    “Luis, please, I know gringos. All you must do is show them you will stop at nothing, show them complete disregard for whatever they value, and they fold up like paper. Senor Stallings is no different.”
    Luis watched his brother scan more files, then he noticed something at the bottom right of the screen.
    “What is that?” he asked, pointing to a counter. It showed a digital read-out of zero hours, forty six minutes and twelve seconds. Two seconds ticked off by the time Pedro replied.
    “I have no idea. I doubt that it matters.”
    “I suspect you are wrong, hermano,” Luis said, “And not just about it.”
    “You two, with me,” Luis continued, motioning at two of the armed men. They stalked from the room and all the way out the front door.
    The three men marched across the lawn to where Stallings continued his digging.
    “Stallings!” Luis cried. “What are you doing and what have you done?”
    “I am burying my wife,” Stallings replied throwing another shovel of dirt onto the growing pile. He was about three feet down into the soft soil.
    “What did you do to our computer? What is that counter?”
    Stallings stopped digging and leaned on the shovel’s upright handle.
    “It’s a bomb,” he said. “I planted it on your system. You didn’t think I was going to actually give you what you wanted, did you?”
    “Disable it.” Luis pointed a pistol at Stallings.
    “Can’t,” Stallings replied, “It’s not designed that way. You can turn it off, though.” He started digging again.
    “How do we do that?”
    “Just log off the site and close the browser window. That stops the clock.”
    “Thing is,” Stallings said, throwing another shovel of dirt out of the growing hole, “If you log back on, the countdown picks up where it left. And when it hits zero, it will wipe your hard drive, your servers and any machine connected completely clean. You lose everything.”
    “Sanchez,” Luis said to one of the two armed guards with him. “You heard what he said. Go tell my brother to get off that site. Then take Pedro to my office.”
    “Si, Jefe,” Sanchez replied, shouldering his weapon.
    “Restrain him if necessary,” Luis continued.
    “Si, Jefe.”
    Luis raised his weapon. “I should kill you...”
    “I know,” Stallings said, “And I’m making this hole big enough to two.” He kept digging.
    “Pop-pa,” a small voice echoed across the lawn. Both men looked up at the house where a young boy looked through the second floor veranda’s railing.
    “What’s going on, Pop-pa?”
    “Go back inside, ‘Cisco,” Luis called.
    “What is wrong with the woman, Pop-Pa?” Francisco Avilla, the young boy said,
    “She’s dead, kid,” Stallings called out. “Your uncle murdered her.”
    “Pop-Pa?” Cisco asked.
    “Go back inside,” Luis said loudly, “Now! I will explain later.”
    “Don’t envy you that conversation,” Stallings said as he continued digging.
    After ten more minutes, the hole was just over five feet deep. Stallings tossed the shovel up to the lawn and hoisted himself out of the hole. Luis Avilla still stood by, but both guards were gone. Stallings moved Alex’s body next to the hole, climbed back in and then lowered her down as gently as he could.
    He knelt next to her in the crowded grave, arranged her hands on her chest and whispered in her ear:
    “Be at peace, my love. I’ll be joining you soon.”
    He stood up, with his head just above the ground level.
    “Okay, I’m ready,” he said to Luis. “Take your...”
    Luis fired. The bullet killed Jim Stallings instantly, entering his forehead between the eyes. A classic head shot. He fell on top of his wife’s body.
    “Vaya Con Dios, Senor Stallings,” Luis said to the bodies in the ground.
    “You two, come finish this,” he called to the workers down along the hedge row. “Be gentle and reverent,”
    “Tell your priest to come by and say the prayers.”
    Back in the house, a cluster of men worked feverishly at the computer stations. Two tried desperately to stop whatever was happening to the system while another disconnected cables.
    A fourth man supervised. Luis walked up to this one.
    “What is happening, Jose?”
    “It is not good, Jefe,” Jose replied. “We are trying to salvage as much as we can, but your brother allowed Senor Stallings to do much damage.”
    “What is the outlook?”
    “We will lose much information since the last full backup, and will have to replace all the towers, servers and routers. I have placed the orders already.”
    “Very good, Jose, please carry on.”
    Luis went upstairs to his private office. Pedro was not restrained and stalked around the room in anger.
    “What are you doing, my brother?” Pedro said as Luis took his seat behind the ornate desk.
    The inlaid surface gleamed. Only a phone and a pen set graced the surface. A few files and some papers were stacked neatly on the matching credenza behind the chair. Luis’s computer station was retracted and hidden behind a panel to the right of his chair.
    “Sit down, brother,” Luis said, “And start your own explaining.”
    “I had an opportunity to break into the Americans’ networks,” Pedro said, “And I took advantage of it.”
    “I would say it didn’t work out very well,” Luis said.”
    “How was I to know that fool could so quickly do damage? He would have folded up like every gringo if you’d let me proceed.”
    “You underestimated that fool, as you call him, just like you underestimate most of our adversaries.”
    “And now we must pay the price,” Luis continued.
    “What price?” Pedro said, “I can contact my person in DC and they will find us another.”
    “And then what? You will kidnap them and try to force them to help us like you did the Stallings?”
    Pedro shrugged.
    Luis shook his head. “No, brother, you will not. Today has shown that Plata o Plomo must be balanced. You summarily executed an innocent woman in order to force a man to work for you, and look what happened. He did not react as you desired and was able to wreck havoc upon us before he died.”
    “You killed him?” Pedro asked.
    “Of course I killed him,” Luis answered. “There was no choice. I could not leave him to tell the authorities, and it was what he wanted. He didn’t want to keep living without his wife.”
    “Sentimental idiot,” Pedro muttered.
    “Perhaps,” Luis said, “But he made his choice, and maybe it was a wise one. It is the lesson you should learn, my brother.”
    Pedro stood and leaned over the desk.
    “Tread lightly, my brother, Do not choose a battle you might not win. There is still power in lead.”
    “As there is in silver,” Luis replied, “Along with loyalty. Remember that if you choose this path.”
    Pedro stalked from the room. A few minutes later, Francisco Avilla entered. He wore shorts, sneakers and a tee-shirt with the logo of one of Mexico City’s top football clubs. He walked up to his father.
    “Ola, Pop-pa,” he said.
    “Hello, my son,” Luis said. “What may I do for you?”
    “Did Tio Pedro really kill that woman?”
    “Yes, my son, unfortunately, he did.”
    “What of the man burying her?” Cisco asked.
    “He is dead too,” Luis answered.
    “Did you kill him?”
    Luis took a breath before responding. “Yes, Cisco, I did. There was really no other choice.”
    Cisco was silent for several seconds.
    “Pop-pa?” he asked finally, “When can I begin killing people?”
    Luis smiled.
    “Soon, Cisco, very soon.”

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...