You Only Die Twice

You Only Die Twice

Overlord Laharl

PROLOGUE

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.
---Henri Bergson

A litte knowledge is a dangerous weapon.
---Anonymous

Evil waits,
As silent as nothing
Held in a frail wooden cage
Wating to be unleashed.

Evil is a shadow,
Dark and foreboding.
An anger,
Following in our footsteps.

Evil is a wound,
Raw and bleeding.
A deep cut,
Walking hand in hand with pain

Evil is a blazing flame
Burning and consuming.
A flicker of destruction,

Evil is a cracked image,
The reflection in a smashed mirror.
A twisted reflection,
Of ourselves.
---Jez Wong What Evil Is

It was nightfall, nothing out of the ordinary. The setting sun splayed a brilliant aura of purple, orange and red against the darkening sky. The first stars, the three stars in a straight line that created Orion’s Belt, were already visible in the sky, as was a hint of the moon. In the Paris marketplace, the smells of baguettes, quiche, and various pastries filled the air. No, it wasn’t an ordinary nightfall…it was a perfect nightfall. And it would be the perfect night to pull off the perfect crime.

Robert Reynolds circled around the Musée d’Art de Paris, located in the heart of Paris. Tonight, the museum security wouldn’t even know what hit them. This job was a bit of a stretch for Robert Reynolds, who, on the whole, preferred to operate in America. In the United States, there was such a plethora of activities to satiate a criminal’s hunger that Reynolds usually had to look no farther than a three-state radius from California in order to determine the perfect heist. Tonight, however, was an exception.

He had been reading the Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times, eager to read the media’s description of the latest skirmish between his family and the Schaeffers, when one article in the Entertainment section had captivated his attentions. Lost and Found: Paris Museum Set to Display Patiala Necklace, the headline read. As one of the most feared and renowned jewelry thieves in the world, Reynolds did not even need to read the article, he already knew all about the famed piece of jewelry.

Throughout history, most of the priceless jewelry has served one purpose: a gift of love or affection to a woman. The Patiala Necklace was anything but. The necklace was made to adorn the chest of one of the most important men in India, Bhupindar Singh, the Maharajah of Patiala. On a visit to Paris, the Maharajah had visited a museum whose exhibition of a priceless DeBeers diamond had been causing quite a stir. Amazed by the amber-colored diamond, the Maharajah bought it from the museum and brought it back to India. The diamond weighed 234.69 carats and was the seventh-largest polished diamond in the world.

In a quest for a masterwork of jewelry that would commemorate his reign as Maharajah, Bhupindar Singh traveled to Paris. There, he found the company Cartier Paris, a jewelry store that catered specifically to the über-rich and famous. Dumping his vast collection of precious gems, and selecting his priceless DeBeers diamond as the centerpiece, Maharajah Singh commissioned the company to create one of the most exquisite and expensive pieces of jewelry in history the Patiala Necklace.

The Patiala Necklace, an Art Deco parade necklace, contained several giant gems and consisted of five rows of diamond-encrusted platinum chains; at the bottom of the necklace hung the brilliant DeBeers diamond. Completed in 1928, the necklace originally had 2,930 diamonds and weighed almost a thousand carats. The necklace grew in appreciation and became possibly the most famous piece of jewelry in the world.

Then it vanished for four decades.

As the British control over the Indian empire waned and the Indian princes were no longer tax-exempt, the princes began to sell many of their valuable possessions. The Patiala Necklace had been one of those casualties, having the most important stones, including the DeBeers diamond and the necklace’s rubies, taken out and sold in 1951. Forever separated from the original piece of art.

More than four decades later, the platinum chains of the necklace showed up in London in 1998. The necklace was little more than a shell at this point, containing only the platinum skeletons that had held the stones in place. The new owner of the necklace, in junction with the Cartier Company, embarked on a quest to restore the necklace to its former glory. Many of the original gems were untraceable, but, working from pictures and the original plans, the two parties replaced them with newer rubies and diamonds. When the DeBeers surfaced in a Vienna auction, Cartier was able to purchase the diamond for $3.16 million and complete the restoration. The rebuilt necklace was worth upwards of $50 million.

According to the article, the necklace would be displayed in Paris, at the Musée d’Art de Paris. $50 million behind glass for people’s amusements…such a waste. Soon it would make Reynolds a much richer man. $50 million would make the difference in the war with the Schaeffers and would provide quite a nice piece of insurance for his daughter’s future.

After the loss of his wife, Loretta, the only meaningful thing Robert had left was Lucy, his daughter. It had pained him to send her off with Dr. Alfonso Kavelek, (Dr. Corleone, as he was known to the crime world), but it had been a necessity. After revelations sprang to life that the Schaeffers had been behind Loretta’s murder, Reynolds had deemed the action of protecting his daughter de rigueur, and the best way he knew to do that was to basically cut her loose from the family, for just a bit of time. If she was out of the way of the war until the Schaeffers were dealt with, she would be able to survive the bloody war, and perhaps emerge as head of the family eventually. Still, the only thing that pained Reynolds more than sending her off had been lying to her about the reason. If she had known the truth about her mother’s death…well, Lucy was a passionate and vengeful young lady. She’d have found a way to jeopardize her safety and perhaps her life.

After the sky transitioned to the pitch black of night, Reynolds parked his car on the side of the street outside the museum, grabbed a few items from the contents of his bag, placing them in the pockets of his black outfit, and walked to the back entrance of the museum. Pulling out his lock-picking kit, he selected one of the larger pins and inserted it into the keyhole above the door’s handle. In only thirty seconds, he was granted access to the museum. Just as Reynolds opened the door, the museum’s security systems cut in and a wailing siren began.

Pulling out what appeared to be a pen, Reynolds twisted the top and, just as quickly as it began, the alarm system stopped. Inaudible to the human ear, the pen emitted a pulsating high-pitched beep that served as interference to the security system. No one would be able to see or hear him as he executed his plans. Walking casually through the museum like a tourist, Reynolds surveyed the artwork and artifacts, placing a value on each item in his mind. Ascending the stairs, he found what he was looking for on the second floor’s Precious Gems exhibit. In the center of the room, encased behind glass, was the awe-inspiring Patiala Necklace.

Reynolds slowly crept towards the necklace, momentarily stunned by the brilliance of the elaborate jewelry. It was like nothing Reynolds had ever seen before. Pictures did not do the necklace justice—it was fit for a king. But wait, as Reynolds became more aware of his surroundings in the room, something definitely didn’t feel right. He didn’t know quite what it was, but an eerie feeling pervaded the room.

Abruptly, Reynolds turned and, drawing his gun, fired a swift shot towards the dark corner of the room. From the shadows, a loud grunt was audibly exhaled as a body slumped to the floor. It’s a setup, Reynolds realized, possibly too late.

He ran as fast as his legs would allow out of the room, retracing his steps back towards the entrance. There was only one thought running through his mind - Fuck the necklace, my life’s at stake. His only wish was to see his daughter one last time.

Two men stepped out of the shadows into the hallway in front of him and fired two quick shots. One bullet was completely off its mark, but the other came scarily close to Reynolds, who contorted, narrowly avoiding its sting. He drew his Glock and fired a shot, hitting one of the men in their shoulder area, which was enough to put him down for the count. Running past the other man, Reynolds stuck out his leg and pushed the man’s back forward, tripping him and knocking him to the ground. Reynolds barely lost a stride. The entrance loomed before him, he was almost home.

He never made it, as a large hand stopped his momentum and an arm snaked around his body, holding an ammonia-soaked rag to his mouth.

Robert Reynold's world went black.

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Reynolds woke up in a strange room, his body splayed and his wrists and ankles cuffed to a metal slab. He couldn’t remember what had happened, but he knew that the strange room he was in now wasn’t the museum.

Gaining cognizance, he recognized many of the faces surrounding him in the room. He clenched his hands in tight fists, questioning himself and cursing his stupidity…he knew the Schaeffers had a death decree on him, and, from the looks of it, they had discovered his plans.

The figure of a man, not three yards ahead of him in the center of the room, turned to Reynolds. Instant recognition set in, and Reynolds felt the hatred course through his veins. “Well, well, well. Robert Reynolds in the flesh!” Nathan Schaeffer taunted, “Never thought I’d see the day.”

“Nathan, how the hell did you know about the museum?” Robert asked angrily through clenched teeth.

“We had a little help.”

As if on cue, two people entered the room, a male and a female. The female was well-built, with radiant red hair, and she appeared to be about Lucy’s age. He didn’t know her, but Reynolds knew the man…he had been one of the people he had completely trusted.

The man spoke in a deep, raspy voice and a thick Eastern European accent. “Hello, Robert.”

YOU ONLY DIE TWICE
Part One: Cyclical History
CHAPTER ONE: REVELATIONS

Los Angeles, the City of Angels, seemingly had a habit of not quite living up to its name.

This particular day, the blight upon the city’s “City of Angels” translation was centered in the Alliance Bank near Center City. Around 10:00 in the morning, a group of masked thugs armed with automatic weapons had barged into the building and immediately cut off access to the bank. Shortly afterwards, a group of civilians, comprised primarily of bank employees and account holders, who had gathered around the building only to find it locked, had been subjected to a rather nasty smoke bomb. Immediately thereafter, the police had gathered on the scene and blocked off all civilian access. For an hour the police had attempted to convince the criminals to let the hostages go to no avail.

And then a breakthrough—around 11:15, ten hostages were released. Despite the countless other hostages still inside the bank, this was exactly what the LAPD had been searching for. From the hostages’ witness accounts, the police had put together a rather sketchy preliminary report on the main culprit. Still, the man stood out; the last time he had pulled something like this, a five-man SWAT team had been sent in…they never came out. So, despite their inclination to the LA SWAT, Police Chief Flaherty called the director of the only organization that had been able to solve the prior problem.

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At 12:00 noon, the phone in Helen Petrie’s office rang. A frail hand extended and snatched the phone.

“D.E.B.S. headquarters, Petrie here.

“What’s going on Flaherty?

“Oh…that’s not good.

“Sure thing, I’ll send my girls on it right away.”

So, P.A. Bartley is up to it again…Petrie had just the squad for the job. She dialed a number and set about informing her second-in-command, Langston Phipps, a hulking behemoth of a man, about the situation, after which she recommended he call the Top Junior DEB squad. They would be able to complete the job. She only hoped there would be no casualties before the girls arrived.

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The girls walked into the local diner. They had simultaneously received a communication from Mr. Phipps, the Assistant Director of the D.E.B.S. and their Field Operations professor. He had insisted that it was an urgent, pressing matter and they had each dropped their activities and rushed to Lou’s Diner, their usual meeting spot.

The girls, Danielle, Jean, Megan and Annie, were all students at the D.E.B.S. training facility/college, Jameson University. Despite the organization’s status as a secret paramilitary organization, the students at Jameson were more or less local police.

“What’s up Mr. P?” said each of the girls, almost simultaneously, fully expectant of his retort.

“Don’t call me Mr. P,” Phipps responded with a smile. It was almost a game, and each of the participants knew it. It was all in fun, and it was expected.

The meeting lasted less than ten minutes, with Phipps only going over the basics and necessary information. Not much was known about P.A. Bartley, despite the past association. No picture was in his case file.

With that, the girls climbed in their black Cadillac XLR convertible and, with Danielle behind the wheel, sped off towards the center of Los Angeles, more precisely the Alliance Bank.

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At 1:00 in the afternoon, nearly three hours after the crisis began, the police opened the blockade a bit, allowing the black convertible to roll into the parking lot. After parking, the four women exited the car and huddled just beyond the bumper.

The leader, Danielle, a strikingly beautiful brunette, took control and began to plot out the plan. “Alright, from the report, we have between 20 and 40 hostages still in the building. They’re the first priority, Bartley’s the second: if you can’t get the hostages out without letting him go, so be it. Alright, formation Kappa Omega Epsilon—Jean, take Megan with you. Annie, you’re coming with me around back, and we’ll try to cut off access to the vaults.”

Megan, a thin, lanky brunette with blonde highlights cocked her head diagonally and scrunched up her face quizzically. “Wait…what?”

Her partner, Jean, a shapely blonde, bent down and whispered something almost inaudibly into Megan’s ear as the two other women rolled their eyes.

“Ohhh, ok,” said Megan after receiving the orders again.

“Alright, everyone ready?” Danielle asked, looking around at each girl’s silent acknowledgement, “let’s go then. Break!” Perhaps the ‘Break’ was a bit hokey, but that was just how they did business. They’d had success since they first used it back as freshmen, so they saw no need to change it now.

Danielle and Annie, a slender and curvy Swede capable of seducing any man she wanted, slunk around the bank, keeping their backs to the wall while brandishing their weapons. Arriving at the back of the bank, they found the employees-only security door. Danielle slung towards her a black bag that she had been carrying on her shoulders. She reached inside and removed a black box with a slender piece of plastic extending from it. She pressed a green button on the box and slowly slid the plastic extension through the employee card slot. Suddenly, the screen on the box sprang to life, cycling through various numbers at an extremely rapid pace, before arriving at a singular number, which flashed on and off on the screen. Five beeps issued from the speakers on the box, and Danielle slid the card through the bottom of the slot. She grabbed the handle on the door and threw it open, allowing Annie to enter before her as the door shut behind them.

In the bank, the large vault was open, the circular opening large enough for a man to step through. Voices echoed from inside the vault as Danielle turned her head to Annie, and without a sound nodded, giving the signal. The two girls leapt through the vault.

“On the ground!” Danielle shouted, extending her Beretta. “Now!” As the five men followed her command, even she, the student most renowned for her control and composure had to blink, not believing what she was seeing.

“And they call us hokey?” Annie asked incredulously with a hint of a Swedish accent.

The men were all wearing black Ivy caps in black and white striped jumpsuits.

They looked like they had come straight out of a 50’s movie.

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High above the bank’s floor, Megan and Jean sat attentively on their repelling swings, a fact that everyone on the ground was oblivious to. Blazing in with guns drawn would have posed a significant risk to the hostages, and neither girl wanted to be responsible for putting innocents in that type of jeopardy. As it turned out, there was only one of the criminals in the room, although he did have an automatic gun in a hip holster. The hostages, 23 from the count in the room, were all sitting on the ground, tied in ropes. Jean continued to survey the room, formulating a plan, while Megan, a pair of binoculars in her hands, was focusing on something a little less important.

“Okay…what is he wearing?” Megan asked, her face wrinkling as she turned to Jean.

“I don’t know, and I don’t care. On three, I’m going to…”

“But come on! That look is like SO retro. I mean, a handlebar moustache?” At this point, exasperated with Megan’s irrelevant fashion chatter, Jean looked at the floor and buried her head in her hands. Nevertheless, Megan just kept on with her fashion soliloquy. “It does go with the tweed suit, but the greased hair and everything? Who does he think he is? Now the pants, they are so…”

“SHUT UP!” Jean angrily blurted, a little too loud. At once, the entire floor’s attentions turned to the two. “Shit!” She brought up her head and looked at Megan. “Now you see why you don’t have your stripes yet?”

“Oh, well, this isn’t my fault. I’m not the one who just screamed at the entire building, alerting the only bad guy in the place.”

Jean was about to respond when another voice entered the conversation, it was a high-pitched male voice, issued by the poorly-dressed (in Megan’s opinion, anyway) criminal. “Both of you shut up. Now, put away your weapons, and lower yourself to the ground.”

Considering ignoring his orders, Jean’s hand twitched towards the trigger of her gun. “Now, now. I would hate to see you force me to shoot one or both of you in the air. It’s a pretty nasty fall to the ground from there, and I’d absolutely hate to see your pretty little faces get messed up from that sort of a tumble.” The man followed up the warning with a hearty, guttural laugh, almost like a cartoonish villain’s. The man indeed was oddly dressed, and he looked like a classic 50’s movie train robber with his slickly greased hair and stiff handlebar moustache, and he wore the pinstripe tweed suit and striped pants of a movie mobster. His incredibly bushy eyebrows only enhanced the look.

The two girls begrudgingly followed orders, and lowered their swings to a safe distance from the ground, jumped off and dropped their weapons. The man circled them, gun drawn and pointed at the two.

“Who are you?” Jean asked, in a confident voice that belied the fear she felt in her gut.

“P.A. Bartley at your service,” the man said, sweeping a hand across his stomach and giving a quaint, short bow.

“And who dresses you?” Megan asked, a question which Bartley ignored. “He needs to be locked away as much as you do.”

“Now, you two be good, and stand with your backs to each other,” the two girls followed his commands again, their hands forced by the gun pointed at them. Keeping the gun in his left hand aimed on the girls, Bartley gathered a long piece of rope and wrapped it around the two girls before tying a sailors knot to finish it off.

“You might as well sit down. I think we’re going to have a blast,” Bartley sneered suggestively, letting out another insane cackle. He walked over to the far corner of the bank and picked up a small metal suitcase. Walking back to the girls, he opened the suitcase, causing Jean to inhale sharply with the realization of just what they were dealing with.

“You’re not going to get away with this!” Jean shouted, struggling in vain against the ropes. Bartley ignored her and continued to press various buttons in the suitcase.

After a few minutes, he closed the suitcase, the timer having been set. “And now, ladies, I must bid you adieu. You know, you DEBS really are the bomb,” the last line cueing the cackle once more.

“Jesus, this movie freak really loves his puns, doesn’t he?” Megan asked, seemingly oblivious to the fact that a suitcase bomb sat mere feet from her.

Jean simply threw back her head, uttering a prayer. Only a miracle could save us now.

Perhaps God was listening to her, after all.

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Danielle and Annie had just finished loading the criminal movie rejects into the back of a police truck when a loud, slightly annoying male voice echoed through the halls. They could barely tell what the voice was saying, but an ominous feeling fell on both of them. Danielle slammed the back door of the van shut, and the van sped away, crooks in tow. She placed a finger to her lips and beckoned Annie to follow her through the hall toward the voice.

As they continued getting closer to the main hall of the bank, two more voices were audible and recognizable as their two squad mates; clearly, they had been caught. Finally, they reached the end of the hall and put their backs to the adjacent door, just inches away from being visible to Bartley and whoever else was in the room. Danielle turned her head for a second to peer inside and monitor the situation. The only sight she needed to see to make her next decision was that of the tied-up hostages.

“Freeze, scum!” Danielle shouted at Bartley, his back turned to her as she jumped out from behind the wall. Annie followed suit, and the two trained their guns directly at Bartley. “Let them go!”

The man spun around, pivoting on the balls of his feet. “And if I don’t?”

“You don’t want to know what happens then, asshole.”

“Oh, dear, from the way you’re speaking to me, I doubt you know who I am. P.A. Bartley at your service,” the man took a show bow, his arm sweeping across his stomach. To an untrained eye, it would have looked like a normal, if eccentric bow, but Danielle was sharp enough to catch Bartley’s left hand tighten around his gun. Without a second though, Danielle fired a single shot at Bartley’s knees, which connected and brought him down, writhing on the floor and screaming in agony.

Annie picked up a two-way radio they had tuned to the police frequency and spoke into it. “All clear. Bartley is on the ground and ready to be apprehended.”

Danielle walked toward her two teammates, who pointed at the gray metal suitcase to their left. Changing destinations, Danielle sprinted towards the suitcase, and, with the programming skills she had learned from Jameson, quickly typed in an override code and disarmed the suitcase.

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Back at Jameson University, Max Brewer, the D.E.B.S. top field agent eagerly awaited the arrival of the new top squad. She had various feelings about this current incarnation of her old squad, while the members in the team maintained a slightly creepy familiarity to the members of her old squad, she couldn’t help but think that they weren’t of the caliber her squad was.

For one, Danielle, for all the leadership qualities she possessed, was no Max Brewer, at least in Brewer’s mind. The girl lacked the proverbial “it” that made her such a good leader; the “je ne sais quoi”, as the French would say, was missing. And Jean, for all her effectiveness in missions wasn’t the perfect score, although she hadn’t scored that much less, being one answer away from perfection. On the other hand, Amy had run off with the world’s most wanted female criminal, and Jean hadn’t shown any qualities that would lead to treason.

Then there was the matter of Megan. For the life of her, Max could not find one iota of evidence that Megan ever actually belonged here. At least Janet, the brainless airhead that she was, actually possessed a fairly high IQ and had computer skills to rival anyone. Megan seemed to be all beauty and no brains. The only trait she had displayed so far was loyalty. Beyond that, there was definitely a reason that she had not earned her stripes yet.

Then, on the positive side of the squad, Annie could hang with the best of them. Dominique LaChance was a great agent, but Annie had twice the sexual prowess of Dom. Even Max could feel the heat emanating from the girl, and she had never had feelings for another woman – as least as far as she would admit to herself: she was always unsure about her feelings towards a certain blonde D.E.B.

Still, the team would no doubt make fine field agents after graduation, Max had no doubt. Well, all of the team, except for Megan. The three prospects had all shown tremendous innate ability in the Instincts and their Integration into Strategic Planning course that she taught.

Max continued to pace through the halls only looking up once to peer into the tech squad chief’s, office. Gene was a friend of Scud’s, but the two were different as night and day. Gene was sweet, kind, and funny, Max thought, as she gazed into his office. He was in his chair, all his attention focused on the computer. From the bright colorful graphics displayed on his computer, Max figured he was playing some form of a computer game. Typical male. She rapped her knuckles on the glass window, smiled and waved to Gene, who smiled and waved back, before whirling his swivel chair back to the computer and continuing his battle for whatever enjoyment his computer game gave him.

Mindlessly continuing her pacing through the halls, she found herself in her office, where she stayed for fifteen restless minutes before, after about an hour of constant walking, the door to Max’s office opened and her pupils sauntered in.

“Good job, you four. Petrie and Phipps both had raving reviews about your conduct in the mission. Only negative comments pertained to a certain argument in mid-air, but I’m certain that won’t happen again.” Max shot a glare towards the two members of the guilty party, who hung their heads. “Megan, you know as well as I do that Endgame is coming up, and that if you don’t earn your stripes by then, we may be forced to let you go. The tech squad is at capacity, and repetition of a grade is not acceptable. As your secondary field advisor, I have been instructed to tell you that you have one mission left to earn your stripes. One mission, and that’s it.” Megan hung her head, and Max continued, a bit less harshly, “Okay, Megan, I’d like you to stay behind. The rest of you are free to leave. Good job out there.”

“Agent Brewer, can I ask you a question?” Danielle inquired.

“Certainly, what is it?”

“Well, we’ve always dealt with the lesser criminals, and we’ve been fine with it. The guy today was kind of a joke. Is it possible that we could move up on the food chain and get a tougher assignment…you know, to prepare us for when we’re agents?”

Ambition. It was a trait Max particularly admired, and, though she wouldn’t admit it, that moment was one of her all-time proudest. “Yeah, definitely. I’ll ask Petrie about it first chance I get. Keep up the good work.”

“Will do, boss,” and with that, Danielle, Annie, and Jean, the future of the DEBS organization exited the office. Max turned her attentions back to Megan.

“Now Megan, have I ever told you the story of Janet Carmody and her stripes?”

It was a cold, dreary day, and the gray colors of the surroundings did little to enhance the atmosphere. Normally, the concrete slabs and pillars on these hollowed grounds served as a temple, and yet this day, much blood would be spilt. In the middle of the battlegrounds lay a circular stone platform, at which two warriors, the leaders of the two tribes, stood agreeing upon the terms of warfare.

“You cannot win. Surrender now, man,” boomed a male voice of an average pitch. The voice itself wasn’t entirely intimidating, being neither forceful nor low enough to inspire fear. The voice apparently belonged to the warrior dressed in red. Behind him, a sea of red combatants eagerly awaited combat.

“Dude, you’ve gotta be kidding me. I’ve got you outnumbered and overmatched. Your weapons are so inferior. I’ll have the pleasure of destroying your entire clan,” responded the other warrior, dressed in purple, like his army. His voice held everything the previous voice had lacked, possessing a deepness that, while not unusually deep, was intimidating nonetheless.

“Fine. You’ll learn your lesson, G,” responded the red warrior, who, walking back to his clan, raised his arm, giving the signal for his troops to begin the attack.

“Tool. Let the battle commence!” shouted the purple warrior, as both armies began to rush towards each other. Closer and closer to each other they ran, swords drawn menacingly. The red commander dropped his arm, and a volley of arrows flew from hundreds of bows, arching straight in a line for the purple army.

“Hey honey!” came an enthusiastic female voice out of nowhere.

Scud was brought back to the real world from his computer game as Janet Carmody, his gorgeous blonde girlfriend threw her arms around him and began to trail kisses across his neck. “Jesus Christ! You scared the shit outta me!”

Turning his attention back to his computer, he spoke into the headset framing his face. “Hey Gene, I’m gonna pause. The fiancée wants something. Geez, and I was gonna kick your ass too.”

“Alright. Hey, Janet!” Gene called, the last part also appearing in the chat menu in the screen.

“Hi Gene,” Janet called, putting her face close to the headset’s microphone.

Taking off the headset, a smile crossed Scud’s face. He had known she was the one for him from the instant he had first laid eyes on her about two or three years ago, the night Lucy had kidnapped her and Amy for a date. From the instant she had beaten him at foosball, he had known this was the girl he was going to marry. No one beat the mighty Scudinski at foosball without suffering consequences. The marriage was scheduled a week from Sunday, and there was nothing that made him happier than thinking about it. Whenever he was in a bad mood, he would just imagine the wedding and all his problems seemed to instantly evaporate.

The couple had been engaged for about eighteen months, a year and a half, but money had been an issue. Despite Scud’s position as the ex-head-henchman of the infamous Lucy Diamond, he had refused her help financially for the wedding, and Janet was not on the best of terms with her family. Plus, positions in the government didn’t pay well, as he found out. No wonder many people turned to a life of crime, it paid better.

After months and months of scrimping and saving, Scud had finally saved enough to plan for the wedding of Janet’s dreams last January. The timing couldn’t be better either; Janet had always gushed about the romantic qualities of a spring marriage. They had begun to plan back in February, and set the date of May 18 as their wedding date. Now, it was finally upon them.

“You know, you’re not supposed to be playing games in here,” Janet reminded Scud, snapping him out of his daydreams. It was true. Although no one could see him from his cubicle in the D.E.B.S. Spanish embassy in Barcelona, he was technically supposed to be doing mission planning for a local D.E.B.S. mission, but he had already finished it hours ago. He figured that, if he turned down the volume, a little fun once in a while couldn’t hurt.

“What do you say we just keep it our little secret?” he asked. Janet responded to his question by kissing him on the lips, a silent ‘yes.’

“Just meet me tonight. Amy and Lucy invited us to Can Majó at eight, and I don’t want to be late.”

“Gotchya. Eight it is. Love ya.”

“Love ya,” she responded, adding another quick peck and she was gone. His DE.B. fiancée. In a million years, he never would have been able to guess his future while working as the henchman of the world’s most famous criminal. Marrying a D.E.B. agent, working for the ‘good guys,’ fate had a funny way of working out.

“Alright I’m back. You’re my best man next Sunday, right?” asked Scud, unpausing the game.

“Yep, wouldn’t miss it for the world,” replied Gene, the D.E.B.S. CIA liaison, head of the D.E.B.S. tech squad and Scud’s best friend. “Now die.”

Nice, an extremely popular tourist city along the French Riviera, is one of the cities that truly is more than what meets the eye.

Nice’s location right between the Alps and the beautiful beaches of France makes it an ideal travel location, and the traffic in the city proved it. Shrewd businessmen had long ago cornered the tourist market, building hotels and casinos throughout the city. A profit could easily be made in this city.

While families can often be seen walking the streets during the day, the entire city changes at night. Oddly enough, the city has an enormous criminal underbelly, and the casinos don’t help. In fact, one casino in particular holds a reputation worse than any of the others—LeCasino de Chance et Fortune de Nice.

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It was a world where lying and deception were a way of life and Elizardo Ramirez knew it. He was well-accustomed to the life, having practiced almost every day of his life in those two arts. A slight smile crossed his face as he looked at the hand he had been dealt. This time, no one could defeat him; he held the cards and only time would tell when he would show his hand.

Waiting for a specific action from his nemesis, not ten feet away from Ramirez, he got it. His enemy had made the mistake that would cost him everything.

“Show your hands,” commanded an authority, a neutral arbitrator between him and his adversary.

“Three of a kind, Aces” said his opponent, laying down his pocket Aces. Fool, you butchered that play, Ramirez thought to himself as his opponent broke into an entirely too cocky smile. He lay down his cards and the other bettor’s smile dissolved into a wide-mouthed gape.

“Straight flush,” said Ramirez, maintaining his poker face as he reaped in the chips, taking all of his opponents chips as his opponent walked dejectedly away from the table.

Ramirez had learned how to play in the Gulf War, in the Army’s hospital. He had spent two months there, recovering from plastic surgery after a shrapnel grenade had nearly cost him the left half of his face. While the surgeons had been able to repair most of the face, he still maintained a diagonal scar across his cheek, and he liked it that way. It was intimidating, and that made poker all the more fun, giving him an extra advantage.

In the hospital, he had made the acquaintance of several veterans who played every day in the cafeteria. While they didn’t gamble for money there, Ramirez had begun gambling at casinos as soon as he had returned home to St. Louis. Gambling had quickly become an addiction for Ramirez, and no matter how good he was, he had accrued a massive debt to a shady casino owner and had been forced to flee the country.

Now, he spent most of his time at LeCasino de Chance et Fortune de Nice. People were foolish at this casino, he believed, and, although he had rung up another massive debt, he had wisely entered into a deal with the owner, a sage man with a scar similar to his own.

The next hand was about to begin, and Ramirez threw in his big blind of $200 worth of chips. The dealer dealt the pocket cards and Ramirez checked his. Deuce/Ace off-suit – worthless cards to most people, but Ramirez held a trick or two up his sleeve, literally. Making sure no one was looking, he exchanged the two for an Ace.

The betting made its way around the table without a raise, everyone who was playing the hand calling the big blind. Ramirez made a show of it, putting a finger to the stubble under his chin in a thinking pose before pushing his pile towards the middle of the table.

“All in.”

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Meanwhile, across the casino, lights flashed, and a siren sounded as the triple sevens appeared on the screen of the slot machine at which Jean Vellieux sat. Jumping up from his seat at the sound of hundreds of coins hitting the payout slot, he joyously pumped his fists. If only they knew, he couldn’t help but think; a thought that clearly stood in contrast to his ecstatic outward appearance. He was now rich, but he wasn’t necessarily happy.

He took the tokens and piled them into a cup as he was approached by the casino’s staff, who took him to the front desk and continued the process of paying him the jackpot they owed him.

After acquiring his entire stash, he once again went at the machines, playing each and every one and earning more and more until he stopped, nearly four hours after he started. By the time he stopped, most of the crowd seemed to be dissipating; as well they should be at three in the morning. Walking to a door in the northern part of the casino, he nervously glanced left and right before pulling a key out of his pocket, unlocking and opening the door before stepping into the white halls of the back part of the casino. Knowing his destination, he walked through the halls to the place where he would meet his contact. About halfway through the halls, he met a man walking in the opposite direction. He knew this man well, and he was instantly recognizable by the scar on his cheek. “Hey Ramirez. Pull in much today?” Vellieux asked, speaking in his native French accent.

“Eh, not as much as I had to give away,” and that was all, as Ramirez passed him and continued through the halls.

Eventually, Vellieux arrived in a large room, decorated with various diplomas and certificates, most pertaining to Czechoslovakia and the Soviets. From his meetings, he had deduced that the man may have been a Soviet official back when the Czech Republic and Slovakia were one country and a Russian satellite state.

“Do you have my money?” asked the owner of the hotel, a man in a black leather chair. The man sat behind a large desk in the middle of the room. The scar that ran across his eye to his lip made him look rather intimidating, even though the man was of a frail physical stature. The man’s eyes showed his cunning and his wisdom. The man was a genius, Vellieux knew, and was not to be double-crossed.

“Here, here’s the five-hundred thousand euro from tonight,” Vellieux said, turning over his winnings to the man he knew only as Corleone.

“Good, good. Here’s your fifty thousand,” Corleone replied in his Eastern European accent, portioning off a sum of the money and returning it to Vellieux’s hands.

“You’re going to pass on the headshot to the studios, right?”

“Soon you’ll have every major French studio head knocking on door.”

“Thank you,” Vellieux said, taking his money and exiting the room. Working for Corleone wasn’t as bad as it seemed, despite the rigged machines. He still kept a hefty sum while returning most of the money to the casino, and, in return, Corleone had promised to use his considerable influence to help further his career as an actor. Give a lot, take a little. It was the way the world worked.

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Revelations 6:9-17
6:9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
6:10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

6:11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.
6:12 And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;

6:13 And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.
6:14 And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
6:15 And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;
6:16 And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:
6:17 For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?

LeCasino de Chance et Fortune de Nice was a staple of the French gambling community. The casino/hotel in the middle of Nice was one of the many money pits throughout the world. People down on their luck, or simply overconfident of their skill, would come and spend millions collectively. All in hopes of winning that massive payout, the one paycheck to end all paychecks, the payout that would allow for an early retirement. This particular casino, housing hundreds of slot machines, a few dozen poker and blackjack tables, and quite a few roulette wheels among other attractions, didn’t give out that paycheck that often, and when it did, it was predetermined. The winner was always a mole already selected to win it all and give a majority back to the casino.

This casino was one of the only quasi-legitimate businesses of one of the world’s most infamous and ruthless criminals, a man permanently on Interpol’s Most Wanted List. The owner was not only potentially the most brilliant criminal on the planet – he was also an extremely shrewd business man. After Vellieux left, the owner, known enigmatically as Corleone was lost in deep thought, as he normally could be found.

He was composing two master symphonies in his mind, of which only one actually was comprised of music, only one legal, and only one would ever be executed. In his casino office in the casino, sitting on a hard black bench in front of a piano, Corleone hammered furiously on the keys, frustrated in his attempt to play the symphony in his mind to no avail. The piano had forever been a passion of Corleone’s, but he had not been able to play for close to two decades; the amazing ability he had possessed stripped from him.

At the moment, Corleone focused on the less legitimate of the two symphonies, the one which he had been composing for years. The pieces of the puzzle were finally falling into place, and soon his symphony would be performed on a grand scale the likes of which the world had never seen before.

Although Corleone was not religious, he appreciated the literary work that the Bible was. Born in the Communist satellite state of Czechoslovakia and bred from the Communist doctrines that forbid religion, Corleone was an atheist. If he had ever thought about it, Corleone surely would have found many aspects of history and the world that had no natural explanation, but in his mind, he had no use for faith…not since her.

Once Corleone had broken free of Czechoslovakia and the Communists, he had actually taken upon himself the reading of the major religious texts – the Bible, the Torah, the Koran, the Mahābhārata, and the Rāmāyana, among others. Although he remained a skeptic and an atheist through his readings, Corleone learned many things from the stories and scriptures and gained a respect for religion as the basis for a moral code.

Through all his readings there was one chapter that stood out to him the most. That chapter or book had been extracted from the New Testament of the Bible – the Book of Revelations according to the Apostle John.

The Four Horsemen Defense System he had designed back in Barcelona had been intended for Lucy Diamond’s breaching, but it served yet another purpose. Seven seals were to be opened by Jesus in Revelations, and the first four had yielded the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Corleone had opened these – he had no use for Jesus anyway. Soon, the fifth and the sixth seals would be opened.

In the book of Revelations, when the fifth seal was broken, the souls of martyrs cried out for justice, but they were urged to have patience until the appointed number of people had been martyred. Then the sixth seal, upon its opening was to unleash a massive cosmic upheaval that would devastate the world. The fifth seal required no opening on Corleone’s part, the souls of the “martyrs” were already crying out for justice.

Corleone’s part would be to open the sixth seal and deal out the cataclysm. The plan was already in place, and Corleone knew exactly what he had to do. The fun and the challenge would lie in pulling it off.

In the Catalonian city of Barcelona, two women sat on a couch in a suburban home, arms and bodies draped around the other. Although their attentions were focused on each other, they were watching a game of baseball on the television. It was interleague play in the MLB, and Amy, the blonde bombshell who was sitting on her brunette partner’s lap, absolutely loved it any time she could see the Los Angeles Dodgers play the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. For her birthday earlier in the year her partner, Lucy Diamond, the ex-most-wanted criminal in the world, had bought her a satellite dish, almost exclusively so that Amy could see her Angels play. Needless to say, Lucy had received her fair reward.

Still, Lucy had never been a baseball fan, and Amy constantly had to teach her certain things, like what a double switch was (Amy had pretended to be appalled when she had heard what Lucy thought it was), or how one figured out a slugging percentage. One thing, however, still eluded the master criminal, and as the girls watched Gary Matthews Jr. put the nail in the coffin of a Bartolo Colón win with a single, Lucy’s head swiveled to look at her partner’s.

“So…explain to me again why the Angels have two cities in their name. Are they from Los Angeles or Anaheim? And why couldn’t they make up their mind?”

Amy just rolled her eyes. She had given Lucy the same answer each time, and would do the same this time, “When Disney sold the team, the new owners switched the name from the Anaheim Angels to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. I guess they wanted the money that would come from the Los Angeles market.”

“Alright,” responded Lucy before she turned her attention back to the television. Saito, the Dodger’s reliever threw a pitch outside the strike zone to the catcher, Russell Martin, who threw the ball to the shortstop, Rafael Furcal, who was covering second for the incoming steal by Matthews. Matthews slid head first towards the bag just as Furcal caught the ball and lowered his glove for the tag.

“SAFE!!!” yelled the umpire as he flung his arms horizontally to the sides.

“You know, babe, my favorite play in baseball is the steal,” Lucy suggestively told her girlfriend.

“I know,” responded Amy, “you can take the criminal out of the crime, but not the crime out of the criminal.” She lowered her head to Lucy’s and their lips met in a soft, sensual kiss.

Meanwhile, the announcers kept up their commentary on the television. “And the 0-2 to Kendrick, and it’s a line-drive to deep right field. González is at the warning track and…”

Amy broke away from the kiss to watch the TV, much to Lucy’s reluctance. Lucy protested in return, nibbling on the side of Amy’s neck. “Oh, come on, I’ll be right back Lucy, but it could be a homerun.”

Suddenly, just as the wall-jumping attempt to catch the ball was about to be made, the television’s picture switched to a newsroom with two news anchors, one male and one female, sitting behind a desk. On the bottom of the screen scrolled the familiar “Breaking News” message.

“Damn it!” swore Amy, even as she began to listen to the report attentively.

“Less than an hour ago, five heavily-armed masked men and women broke into the International Bank of Barcelona and shot twenty of the guards to death, there are no known survivors,” the television switched to a shot from the bank, an older shot from the way commerce was being executed. A feeling of dread buried itself in the living room, they knew something was out of the ordinary. “Oddly enough, no money was taken, but the criminals did leave a message. The shell of the famed Patiala necklace, stolen about ten years ago, was left in the bank with all the jewels removed. Beside the necklace lay a note that reads ‘We’re back,’ the note was unsigned. If anyone has any information regarding these events, we encourage you to call the number on the television screen.”

Lucy buried her head in her hands. No, it couldn’t be. It was impossible. They were dead. Sensing her girlfriend’s uneasy state, Amy rubbed Lucy’s elbows.. “What’s the problem Luce?”

Lucy raised her head to look at the woman who meant everything to her. Tears were streaming down her face. “The necklace—I know that necklace. That was the last mission my father went on before…” she choked up a bit, “before the Schaeffers ambushed him. The Schaeffers took the necklace, everyone in the criminal underground knew it, and that was what Corleone told me. Now the necklace is back…the Schaeffers…it can’t be.”

Amy brushed the back of her hand against her lover’s cheek. “It’s okay Lucy, I know you loved your father.”

“No, it’s not just that,” Lucy responded, reaching out with her hand, catching and clasping Amy’s hand. “Amy, I think it’s time we had that talk about my past.”