Puppets By Scott Patri The sunlight that streamed between the leaves of the jungle canopy caused a kaleidoscope of shifting greens, yellows and browns that played across everything beneath. Including a sniper and his spotter. We had been doing this for a week. Crawling under the bushes from the river to this vantage point, my spotter calculating the distance of everything on the large patio down to the inch, while I scoped out the situation. We'd mark the position and time the movements of everyone in the drug lord's compound, and then silently pull out and head back to the river. We had their routine down, and our escape perfected, but today, instead of just watching, I was going to shoot something. My partner whispered out the range, wind speed and direction to me, while I tracked the drug lord, Enrico Vasques, who was talking on his cell phone. When he put down the drink he was holding in his other hand, I knew he was going into his hang-up routine and would be motionless for several seconds. Patterns form in everyday situations, and the actions of someone can be predicted if you just watch them long enough. I held back for a few moments, then fired and waited the two seconds it took for the bullet to reach him. Vasques did just what he always did -- made a gesture with his free hand as he said good-bye, and held the cell phone out in front of him as he turned it off. He did this to see that the phone was off, but this time he saw it explode as the bullet slammed into it. I loaded and fired another round, aimed at a vase that sat by the patio doors, and as Vasques made a dive inside, he was showered with glass and pottery shards. There was total confusion in the compounds until his security got their act together and calculated where the shots had been fired from, shredded the area with automatic fire, and sent armed men into the jungle to look for the intruders. All they found were our footprints along a trail leading to the river. Back at the slightly rundown hotel, I had already disassembled my rifle and incorporated its components with my camera equipment and other sundry items, so it could pass through custom inspections and metal detectors without raising an alarm. All I needed to do now was pretty myself for the trip to the airport. I was in my room getting my appearance right in the splotchy reflection of the wall mirror. I had finally scrubbed out the camo makeup that had sweated into my beard, and got my bangs to curl up into their natural wave across my forehead. My long brown hair in the back was done up in a ponytail, and with some sunglasses covering my hazel green eyes, I would slide perfectly into my cover as a wildlife photographer for my trip back to the States. The gun suddenly pointed at the side of my head made me wonder if had forgotten a detail or two. You deliberately missed," my spotter said. He was young, with a youthful spirit that could make him climb a mountain just for the sake of the experience, and a youthful idealism that could make him run into a crowd with a bomb strapped to his back. He also moved like a cat, or would have heard him sneak in. "I didn't miss," I said to his reflection while I continued to comb my hair. He jammed his gun into my temple. "You hit his phone, and that second shot was just for show!" I sighed. "I was aiming for his phone, dummy." He look at me curiously, and it that moment of confusion, I grabbed his gun, jammed the safety on, stabbed him in the arm with my comb, and when his hand opened in reflex, snatched his piece away. Before he got his bearings, I made a threatening motion to smash his gun across his face and shouted, "You idiot! We don't kill people!" I was part of an organization -- actually, it was more of a disorganization -- of paranoid, afraid, angry and outraged people out to save the world, who had come to the conclusion -- on our own or with a bit of help -- that the world was in dire need of saving. The fact of the matter was, the world had been saved time and time again by individuals or groups of weirdoes, freaks, losers, do-gooders, outcasts and general nutcases, along with plain ordinary people, when the course of events, battles and history was changed by someone doing something daring, dangerous, creative, or just plaint stupid. Sometimes it was just the act of someone finally getting off their butt to do something, but most of the time it required the unified efforts of many people to affect a change. Unfortunately, we didn't know exactly what each other was doing, or even knew who each other was most of the time. This made it hard to come together when we needed to do something, but it made it even harder to be rounded up by the bad guys when we didn't know who we were. That's why I held back hitting my "partner" with his gun. When I put the word out that I needed a spotter, the chain of who knew who led to him, and he was a green as they came to the world I lived in. "Why shoot his phone?" The shock and confusion on his face was almost painful to look at. "Because that phone has encryption technology the C.I.A. can't crack, and that scumbag uses that phone to run his entire drug empire." I pulled the clip from the gun, emptied the chambered round, and stacked it in back with the others in the clip. "But won't he just get a new phone?" he asked. "Of course. He's gotten lazy, and he needs to do everything over the phone, so he'll get a new one, with even more advanced encryption technology." I couldn't hold back a smile when I added, "And we're going to sell it to him," and tried not to laugh at his expression as I handed his gun back to him. "All this... just to sell a drug lord a phone?" "A phone that we can eavesdrop on, and learn everything about his empire and everyone in it! Why cut off the head of a monster that will just grow a new one? It's easier to just tie a few puppet strings to the beast to keep it under control, and if you yank the right string, you can get it to do what you want." "Why would we want to control a drug lord?" "Because he controls a lot of other people. Some of those people are dangerous, but some of them we can use." I grabbed my gear and headed for the door, and as I left, I added, "The best way to diffuse bombs is to make sure they don't get built in the first place," then headed to the stairs. I tromped down into the lobby, checked out, and walked out into the street to hail a cab to the airport, still riding the high of a successful mission. I should have known something was wrong when a taxi screeched up in front in me, because most cabbies in this town weren't that eager unless you flashed a wad of cash in the air, and my appearance didn't scream money. The cabby's accent was a blatant clue that I was in trouble, for it wasn't local. And the dart he shot in my neck was the clincher that my life was in danger, but by then it was too late for me to do anything about it. I didn't have many options open to me either when I woke up and found myself tied to a chair in a dark, damp and decrepit warehouse. "Where is your partner! " someone yelled from what seemed like a long distance away. "Gimme' a second," I asked, but I would need more time than that for my head to clear of the tranquilizing drugs. What I got was my head smacked. Hard. Really hard. That voice that I thought was so far away was right next to me. "Where is he?" Three things became clear to me even with a foggy brain. First, the person who contracted me to pull the phone scheme was interrogating me, because I recognized his voice. Second, he must be tying up all the loose ends of the scheme; otherwise, why would he have me and want my spotter? Three, the kid got away or this guy wouldn't be asking about him. Now I needed to know why my captor was doing this, and how I was going to get myself out of this situation. I went fishing. "He�s probably getting reinforcements," I said as convincingly as I could. My captor took the bait. "You work alone. You don't have backup." I set the hook. "Of course I don't have backup, but my spotter does, and he's the type who likes to get even for being screwed over." My fish struggled on the line. "He's new. He doesn't have the contacts." I reeled him in. "I didn't know you were going to grab me, so how do you know who he knows? For all you know, he's on his way here with a small army to zap your ass." When I looked up and saw the light of realization and terror in his eyes, I knew I had landed him. He had been a player long enough to be familiar with the routine of a pro masquerading as an initiate to infiltrate a cabal or group. Usually it was to gather information on someone, or to get close enough to remove a potential liability or despot. That was the danger of secret societies -- everyone wore a mask, and sometimes more than one. I wore several myself, and with my head finally clearing, I affected a businesslike tone and said, "You knew you wouldn't get away with it." Whatever 'it' was. "You know that the moment one of us goes bad, the rest of us rise up to destroy him. What were you thinking?" He gulped and said, "I had my orders." I groaned when it sunk in that I was dealing with a puppet. This guy was fronting for someone else, and if I did manage to worm his story out of him, it would be incomplete or completely wrong. I didn't get the chance to figure out who his controller was, or work out a routine to get him to let me go, because gunshots rang out in the warehouse, and the puppet and several others I hadn�t noticed hiding in the shadows ran for it. A few were cut down in a hail of bullets fired from behind me. For a moment, I wondered if the kid had scraped an army together, but when I got a good look at my 'rescuers', I realized my spotter had just informed the drug lord where to find the sniper -that tried to kill him. Hell, that's what I would have done in a pinch. What I learned on the trip back to Vasques' compound confirmed this, and when I was dragged in front of him, still tied down in the chair, he put the final nail in my coffin by saying, "So, you are the coward who tried to shoot me." When in doubt, go with the truth. It couldn't get me in any deeper than I was already, and lying would just get me hurt. Of course, truth is just someone else's interpretation of the facts... "No, I was the one who missed you," I said calmly. "Not only did they send someone to kill me in the most cowardly manner; they sent an incompetent to do the job!" Vasques ranted. Something didn't seem right. There was a touch too much drama in Vasques' manner for it to be real in my book. That was when I noticed the pin he was wearing on his shirt. An upward pointing triangle, with an eye in it, similar to the one found on the back of an American dollar. The eye-in-the-pyramid was a symbol of mystics, cultists, and secret societies, and was usually used as a symbol of recognition. It was balls to the wall time. "If I wanted you dead, you wouldn't be breathing." Taking a macho stance while tied to a chair was a bit dangerous (and only metaphorically possible), but I needed to put him off his game, or at least confirm that he was playing one. He should have smacked me at least once for my insolence, but instead he asked menacingly, "Then why didn't you kill me?" "Because the organization doesn't want you dead." "What organization?" I don't play twenty questions unless I'm asking them. Time to change the game to Guess My Line. "Hail Eris," I said. The drug lord pulled a knife, and just as I was thinking he was about to cut me a new smile across my neck, he instead slashed away my bonds. After he dismissed his guards, he helped me to my feet and said, "All hail Discordia.� I breathed a sigh of relief. It was pure luck that he had heard of the Illuminati, and knew of the Discordian sect. He probably thought he was part of the Illuminati, and that meant he was another puppet. Vasques accepted my sigh as if I had discovered a trusted ally. "You who worship that God of Chaos can be trouble if you're not watched," he said jovially, shaking his finger at me, then escorted me to a table where there was two servings of coffee laid out. "Eris is the Goddess of Confusion," I corrected him, because if I hadn�t, he would have known I was a phoney. He �tut-tutted� it away as I sat down. "So, this whole shooting..." he began. Now to feed him the lie. �...was to flush out who wanted to kill you and take over your operation.� Vasques visibly bristled. "This person..." �...the guy who had me in the warehouse." I finished for him. He snapped his fingers, a guard entered, and Vasques ordered: �Kill the prisoner.� The guard left, and after a few minutes of me watching Vasques enjoy his coffee, a solitary shot ran out. Then he asked suddenly, "Oh! Did you want him alive for questioning?" I didn't even know he had him. I though he was killed in the attack or was presently running for his life. There was nothing that said that I had to stop someone from killing someone else, but the thought of being responsible for a man�s death shook me. "He was already hamburger;" I said nonchalantly and sipped my coffee, covering my real feelings. I reasoned that if he had remained alive, he could have gotten me killed by blurting out the truth, but it still didn't sit right with me. It was disturbing how easily you could justify another person�s death when your life was on the line. He nodded in approval, then asked, "By the way, what do you want done to your partner?" It felt like he had grabbed my spine with a hand of ice. "You know where he is?" "Yes. I have men watching him now as we speak. You know, he was the one who informed me where you were, and that you had tried to kill me." His tone was one of menacing anticipation. "The kid didn't have the whole story," I said, in what I hoped was an offhand manner. I wondered if my contractor had tried to grab him like he did me, or screwed up trying to gun him down. I had to yank his bacon out of the fire. "Would it be too much to ask you to just leave him alone?" "You would let someone who wanted you dead live?" He sounded genuinely stunned. I smiled. "When I walk in and scare the living shit out of him, the expression on his face will be priceless." The drug lord nearly fell out of his seat from his laughter. Obviously he had never thought of doing something like that to get revenge. I guess he was just too used to shooting people. He snapped for a guard, gave orders to leave my spotter alone, then said to me, "It's a shame that you shot my phone. I dislike having to use runners to deliver messages." "I had to make it look like I was trying to kill you. Besides, aren't you more upset about that vase I nailed?" He did look upset, but I had to lead this conversation away from his phone. Right now, he thought I was an operative from whatever bullshit organization he belonged to, sent here to flush out someone trying to kill him by posing as a sniper who screwed up. What I didn't need him to know was that it was his phone that was the target. Or that the person who asked me to do this, who he had just killed, was the puppet of someone else who probably had a secret agenda of his own, which I had no idea about and probably wouldn't have agreed with. Somehow, I had gotten involved in a five-level conspiracy -- a trademark of the Illuminati. It made me think they may actual exist beyond some historical event or shaggy-dog story, or that some group was trying to pass themselves off as them, but after I read The Illuminatus! Trilogy the fifth time, by brain had been conditioned to not buy into such silly nonsense. The drug lord would not let the subject of his phone go. "I am ashamed of how dependent I've become on that phone, but my... dealings will suffer if I don't have one. Fortunately, I will be getting a new one tomorrow." Was he trying to bait me? He was dropping curious hints like they were anvils, and it would look suspicious if I didn't ask and give him the chance to stroke his ego about what great technology he possessed, but I couldn't. The person who had contracted and betrayed me belonged to a cabal that was different from the one that was supplying the phone. That second group probably didn't know about the betrayal, or that there was something more than bugging a drug lord going on, and I had to give them the chance to succeed and get out. That meant I had to change the subject before I said something that would make this guy suspicious. "I guess I can't call a cab then. I've probably missed my flight anyway." It was weak, but it might work. His expression changed to one of hopeful interest. "Since you are here, may I interest you in another job? It falls within your skills and abilities..." I raised my hand to stop his sales pitch. "Sorry, but this last job nearly got me killed. Besides, I only took on this assignment as a favour, and I have more pressing matters to attend to in the States." This made him look dour. "Very well. I have saved your life, and you have revealed that someone wanted me dead. I will consider this between us as even, but as a favour to you, I will charter a flight for you to wherever you want to go. Which is?" I was headed to a place of true intrigue and deception. Where those who ran the show always worked behind the scenes, lies and betrayal were commonplace, and illusion had more power than reality. Knowing who could give you a leg up, whom you could step on, and who could step on you was more important than air or water, and the only thing that mattered was power. "I'm going to California," I said.
