Quisvis

Chapter Five: … and Recriminations


“Are you sure you can do this?” Commander Parker asked as she turned
to Lucas. The planning was almost finished but they needed to get Lucas
home soon.

“Yeah, I can do it. I set up his system and I always leave myself a back
way in. That isn’t a problem. I could even do it from here. It would only
take about an hour to get all of his files.”

“No. You have fifteen minutes. Show Joe your back door into the system
and get him started on the download,” Commander Parker, better known
to the team as Artemis for her unrelenting hunt for justice, ordered.

She interrupted as Lucas started to complain. “If this is going to work,
we have to have you home on time.”

“But,”

“Lucas, don’t. We need you there. And we need for you to not be,” she
gritted her teeth, “getting a ‘lesson’ on punctuality.”

Gene snorted from across the table, were he was under orders not to
open his mouth again for the rest of the night. The group had been
surprised at the normally mild tempered soldier. He had argued the
longest and the loudest against sending Lucas back to that ‘nut house’.

Artemis looked across the table at him, her eyes blazing. “I don’t like
this any better than the rest of you, so just… Shut up!”

The Lt. Commander had the good sense to look abashed at the rebuke.
He knew they all hated this, and even he had to agree it was the best
plan. But after hearing that vid-call just the thought of any child near
that monster that called itself Lawrence Wolenczak set his teeth on
edge.

“Aye aye, Commander,” He gritted out, his jaw clenched.

Jose shifted down the table a bit to make room for the teenager. He
watched in slight awe as Lucas’s hand flew across the keyboard.

Several minutes later Aristotle stood up and changed back into his
chauffeur’s uniform.

“Lucas, it’s time.”

The hacker froze at the unconscious echo of his father. The team
exchanged questioning looks as the color drained from Lucas’s face.

“Go ahead Luke. I can finish this up,” Jose said softly.

Jose’s words seemed to break the hold that the fear had on him and
the blood rushed back to his face. He felt like in the last few hours
he had been on a roller coaster of emotions. His hands were shaking
but he couldn’t force himself to his feet. His entire body was fighting
against its self. A large part of his mind was convinced that this was
all part of some elaborate dream he had concocted to escape his
father’s assistant. He had developed the habit of retreating in side
his mind the night his virginity had been sold to the sadistic Mr. Porter.

Another part of him, wanted desperately for this to be real and for
there to be an end to his nightmare in sight. This part of his mind
had grown surprisingly strong in the last few hours. He had
discovered tonight that he wasn’t quite as resigned to his fate as he
had thought.

As Lucas finally put his body on auto pilot he moved mechanically
to put his blue jean jacket. He didn’t notice when Admiral Noyce
came back into the room or when the team went back to their planning.
He was so caught up in his thoughts he let his body follow Aristotle’s
lead.

He had hope of an escape, yet he was going back. He was finding it
difficult to re-center his mind.

How would he normally act if he had just spent the evening in bed
with some strange old man? Memories of other evenings, more than
he would ever admit to, flashed through his mind. Not all of his
regulars enjoyed pain, most of them just wanted to indulge in their
more perverted fantasies. Since most of the men worked for the
government they had to closely guard their images and it just
wouldn’t do to have their appetite for young boys exposed to the world.

He sighed as the car pulled into the circular drive in front of the large
brown stone house. Aristotle turned off the engine but made no move
to get out of the car. Lucas took a deep breath and exhaled sharply
before speaking.

“I can do this. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”

Aristotle got out and walked around the car to open Lucas’s door.
Lucas stood still for a moment just staring up at the under cover
soldier, he couldn’t think of anything else to say so he just nodded
once before moving away.

The soldier felt like a creep as he watched the teen walk up the stairs
to hell. “Wild Horses, Kid,” he called out softly just before Lucas
disappeared through the door.

^

Lucas made it to the upstairs hallway without seeing anyone before
his luck ran out.

“Enjoy yourself with the Admiral?” Lawrence hissed from the shadow.

“Why? Sorry you missed it?” Lucas sneered before he could stop
himself. He didn’t need to see it to know the blow was coming. He let
himself go lax and slide down the wall after impact. He knew better
than to stand up to his father, what had he been thinking?

“Are you even listening to me, you little shit? I knew you were getting
uppity. Perhaps you need another lesson on exactly where your place
is, little whore. I’m sure that as soon as Admiral Noyce leaves Mr. Porter
will be more than happy to teach you. Although now that I think about it
he has been on payroll for a while now and you still don’t know,”
Wolenczak punctuated this with a kick to Lucas’s ribs. “Perhaps when
he was paying for it he took more pride in his work. What do you say ,
son? Which do you prefer, the Porter that paid for the privilege of
breaking you, or the Porter I pay to keep you broken?” Lawrence
smirked triumphantly when Lucas didn’t answer. He loved having this
kind of power over his son. It was what the brat got for thinking he was
better than his father. Just because the little shit had a higher I. Q.
didn’t mean he knew how to use it. The boy was a waste, he always
had been. Fiddling with his computers when he could be using his
brain on something useful. What Lawrence wouldn’t have given for
that I.Q. and it was wasted on a boy like Lucas.

He took a deep breath to calm himself and looked down at his son.
The boy had been knocked out by one of his kicks.

“Weak, foolish boy. When will you learn?” He sneered down at the
prone figure. He walked back to his bedroom, shaking his head,
leaving his son where he had fallen.

^

It was after midnight when Lucas finally made it to his room. He
cleaned himself up quickly and proceeded with the plan. Mentally
keeping a check on the time. Eight hours to go. After packing a small
bag with his favorite jeans and t-shirts, he tucked his most prized
position, his laptop computer on top and hid the bag under his bed.

When he was sure the rest of the house was asleep he slowly crept
out of his room and down to his father’s office.

The safe wasn’t very well hidden, Lawrence figuring that the security
system and locks would keep any would-be thief from stealing anything,
had put it behind the large family portrait. Lucas quickly disabled the
security and with in moments had the safe open.

He sat stunned for a minute before the magnitude of what he was
looking at set in. He huffed several times and fought the tears that
threatened. There were almost a hundred vid cases sitting there,
each innocently labeled. Lesson One, Lesson Two, all the way up to
the latest Lesson Ninety Four. His eyes flickered over to the real reason
he was playing cat burglar. Twenty vid’s, each labeled with a different
name. Most were UEO officials but there were also several foreign
names there that if Lucas closed his eyes he could recall with startling
clarity.

His hands were shaking as he reached for the first name. Oh how he
wanted to say to hell with the plan and just do away with all of the
offending vid’s. He understood the plan. The UEO needed his father’s
power project too much to take legal action against him, so double
blackmail was really the only way to go. Lucas knew that Lawrence
had made a fatal mistake in the beginning of his black mailing carrier
in that he let himself be seen in several vid’s, either accepting money
for his son or by just standing in the room watching.

He tore his mind away from the disturbing memories and back to his
job. Lucas stifled a yawn, after nearly two hours of copying vid’s he
reached for the last one. He couldn’t believe he had gotten them all.
As the copying finished Lucas put the empty vid cases back in the
safe, all one-hundred and fourteen of them. Hopefully his father would
not think to check inside them for a while and the Admiral would not
have to know that Lucas was keeping all of the originals.
He made sure nothing was out of place in the room before quickly
returning to his room for a few hours rest. Soon he would be facing
his father and the Admiral.

^

Aristotle dropped Admiral Noyce off at the Wolenczak house right
on time, then drove off to meet the rest of his team. Since the main
priority on this mission had changed and the UEO had become more
involved than originally intended they were having to play by stricter
rules than normal. He parked the black town car behind the armored
van then counted to ten to calm his nerves. Then counted to ten again
because really he wasn’t nervous per se just anxious. He had wanted
to stick around and get Lucas out as soon as possible, but the
Admiral had needed the meeting with Wolenczak about World Power
for the UEO.

The admiral’s involvement with the case hadn’t been planned but they
had been lucky enough to find out about the meeting between him and
Wolenczak about the same time as they had begun suspecting the
truth about Lucas’s involvement. Sometimes coincidences actually
worked for you.

He hadn’t been able to explain much of the situation to Lucas last night
since the main priority then was getting Lucas away from his father but
later, when this was over and the kid was safe he intended to have a
long talk with the boy. He finally joined the rest of his team in the van
when he thought he could control his temper.

Eugene Woods or ’Ken’ to the rest of the team for his penchant of
getting teamed up with Barbie on most missions, sat at the comm. station
monitoring the conversation between the senior Wolenczak and Admiral
Noyce. Ruiz started the engine as soon as Aristotle joined the rest of
the team in waiting. They were going in wearing full TRU uniform and
making a big official show about it. If the UEO hadn’t been involved
they would have preferred to just go in snatch the kid and the video
disks during the night. The Company itself was beyond a shadow
organization and didn’t really want the world to know about their o
perations. However going in as another UEO division like Section
Seven was not an option considering they didn’t know just how far
Wolenczak’s reach extended. It was very possible - probable even -
that Wolenczak had an official from S7 in his private movie collection,
so the TRUs would break cover.

Ruiz pulled the van to a stop in front of the house as Ken motioned
that Lucas had entered the room.

^

Wolenczak was pleased. The meeting with the Admiral was going
exactly as planned. Once the highlights of the undersea operations
were addressed he set the next part of the plan in motion under the
guise of ordering mid morning coffee. He found Lucas in the front hall
exactly were he should be. Perhaps Mr. Porter had managed to teach
the brat something after all.

^

Lucas rested for a few hours but never really let his body completely
relax. A small part of his brain, the part that made all children think of
their parents in god-like terms, knew that if he slept his father would
discover the missing vid’s. At seven when he couldn’t lay still any
longer he got up and prepared himself for the day to come. Exactly
fifteen minutes before nine he was stashing his duffle bag outside the
front door. The Admiral had been in the meeting with his father for a
while and soon his father would come get him for his part in this
morning’s fiasco.

He steeled his nerves at the sound of his father’s footsteps. He
controlled his flinch when Lawrence spoke.

“Lucas, get in there and smile for the camera.”

This is it, Luca thought. He paused with his hand on the door knob.
If he went in there and for some reason the plan didn’t work, his father
would kill him. This was his last chance to back out. He thought about
last night and the TRU soldiers that he had met. Maybe it was time to
re-think his plan about not trusting people because a peace came
over him when he thought about Aristotle and Artemis. He knew that
they would do every thing they could to get him away safely. Even if
they had to go against a UEO Admiral to do it. He nodded to himself
then calmly went through the doorway and closed the door behind him.

^

Admiral Noyce stood and turned to the door when he heard it open
and close softly. He had to control his rage when he spotted the new
bruises on Lucas’s face. Bill had done a lot of undercover work during
his military career but decided that acting like every thing was fine in
this situation would be the performance of a lifetime.

“Ah there you are Lucas. Every thing is fine, I trust,” he had to
remember the plan. Though the code phrases they had come up with
didn’t cover every circumstance it should be more than enough to get
the boy out of here.

“Yes Sir, everything is good,” Lucas smiled.

“What in the world have you done to yourself?” Bill walked over to
Lucas, he didn’t want to give anything away and he was unsure exactly
where the camera was but he needed to know just know hurt the teen was.

“Oh, yeah. I forgot to tell you I was accident prone,” Lucas ducked his
head and blushed.

Lawrence watched through the video link and rolled his eyes. He
couldn’t believe that the Admiral of the UEO’s Under Sea Fleet was
standing in his office exchanging awkward pleasantry’s with his son
like a couple of love sick teenagers. He sneered at the screen, as
long as they had sex for the camera he could really careless, he
would have the Under Sea Fleet in his control. His attention wandered
for a moment while he was thinking about the power he would have
but was brought back to the conversation going on in the next room
at he Admiral’s next words.

“Well if you’re sure you are alright we should probably get going.”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Ready when you are,” Lucas cringed as he said the
words. He knew his father would come storming in now.

Admiral Noyce grabbed his briefcase and ushered Lucas through
the door. He didn’t really believe they would make a clean get away
but one could always hope. They made it to the front foyer before he
felt Lucas freeze beside him.

“And just where do you think you are going Son?” Lawrence hissed.
He was standing in the shadows of another doorway, one hand had
snaked out and grabbed Lucas as they had hurried by.

“Lucas promised to show me around town today. I thought we’d get an
early start since our business was concluded,” Noyce spoke up.

“Well, it seems Lucas forgot to mention that he has lessons today. Isn’t
that right Son,” Mr. Wolenczak’s fake smile would’ve been obvious even
to the untrained.

“Oh Lucas, you didn’t tell me you had lessons today,” Noyce said as
he shifted his briefcase to the opposite hand and depressed the alert
button in the handle. “What type of lessons?”

“Etiquette. Yes, Lucas sometimes has a problem acting out in public.
Isn’t that right Mr. Porter?”

Lucas flinched at the mention of his long time tormentor and Noyce
hoped the boy wouldn’t cave.

“Yes, Indeed. I find myself giving the same lessons over and over
again Mr. Wolenczak,” Mr. Porter’s eerie voice floated over the group.

All the blood seemed to drain from Lucas’s face. He could tell Mr. Porter
was standing directly behind him and yet he hadn’t heard the man arrive.

“Well perhaps this once it would be okay for Lucas to miss. He did
promise to show me around,” Noyce wondered what was taking the
team so long.

“No, I don’t think,” Lawrence began but was cut off as the door
behind the Admiral exploded open.

“I’m really afraid I must insist,” Noyce smiled.

^

The team lined up outside the van waiting on the signal. Artemis had
just gone back over the plan yet again. Aristotle would get Lucas out
while the others worried about Wolenczak. Mc Graff thought Parker
had set it up that way because she knew it was what he would do anyway.
By the time the signal came they were all waiting anxiously.

Aristotle kicked the door in without even attempting the knob. The plan
was to make as big a show of force as the small team could. He quickly
scanned the situation. Lucas looked terrified, he was cringing away from
his father.

“Let him go, Wolenczak,” he demanded as he advanced. The rest of
the team filed in behind him quickly.

“What the hell is going on here? Do you know who I am?” Wolenczak
screeched. “Mr. Porter call the authorities.”

Aristotle pulled Lucas from his father’s unresisting hands and smirked.
“Oh, you mean the coward that took off running? I don’t think he’s
going to be calling anyone.” He pushed Lucas behind him but never
let the boy go.

Wolenczak looked to the Admiral who was smirking. “What is the
meaning of this?”

Aristotle pulled Lucas out the door and was ushering him to the
waiting vehicle when the kid suddenly stopped.

“Wait, I have to get my bag.”

“Lucas, we need to get in the van,” Aristotle spoke slowly, not knowing
how spooked the boy was.

“No. It’s there, in the bushes,” he motioned back beside the stairs.
“It has the vids and my stuff. I won’t leave without it.”

“Ok, I’ll go get it but first you get in the van,” he watched as Lucas
nodded his head the movement was more of a jerk than a nod as he
was nearing shock.

Once he had Lucas settled in the van he went back for the duffel bag.
He glanced inside and smirked. He almost wished he could have been
part of the confrontation.

Artemis grinned, she really shouldn’t be letting Admiral Noyce speak
for them since this wasn’t technically a UEO sanctioned mission but
she was having too much fun watching him.

“Now that your son is out of the room, I need to inform you that your
days of power in the UEO are over.”

“What are you talking about? This is an outrage,” Wolenczak was
already dialing numbers in his head. He had plenty of contacts that
would, if necessary refute whatever the brat had told the Admiral.
They couldn’t possibly have any proof. All of the vids had been in
place when he had opened the safe this morning… at least the cases
had been there.

“Your son had an interesting tale Wolenczak. I must say the plan was
pretty good. Who would ever suspect it? Who would have believed the
powerful Lawrence Wolenczak was nothing but a two bit pimp.”

Lawrence took one step towards the Admiral and froze as one of the
soldiers disengaged the safety on his pulse rifle. His eyes flickered
over the soldiers, he didn’t recognize the uniform and they seemed
well trained but they were obviously not UEO soldiers.

“I don’t know what my son might have said but I can assure you that
my lawyers,” his mouth snapped shut when the red headed female
started laughing.

“Your lawyers won’t do anything. You see Wolenczak, we aren’t UEO
we’re TRU. This isn’t something that either you or the UEO wants
going public. We have copies of all of your vids. Your blackmailing
days are over but ours have just begun.”

“This is outrageous,” Wolenczak repeated.

“Maybe so , but you will co-operate. We have all the proof we need.
From now on if the TRUs or I call you, for any reason, you will
acquiesce,” Noyce interjected.

“I will not!”

“Wolenczak, let me put it this way. If even one of those video’s goes
public it would ruin you. Just think about the effect of all of them going
public,” Noyce continued.

“Your bluffing,” Lawrence was in shock, how had this happened?
Could they really have gotten the video disks?

“Do you really want to test us and see?” Artemis smirked.

“Let’s get out of here Commander. This place is starting to reek,”
Jose commented, being the official time keeper of the group
sometimes sucked. He would have loved watching Wolenczak
cower a bit longer.

“Right. Admiral we’re pulling out. You first,” Artemis ordered.
Protecting the Admiral a low priority but still a priority.

“I will be in touch Wolenczak,” he turned to go, then stopped. “Oh and
lest I forget, expect guardianship papers to be delivered later today.
Sign them and send them back with the courier. I want no delays on
this,” with that parting shot he left.

The team followed him out with Ken bringing up the rear. He stopped
in the doorway and turned back to the outraged man still frozen in spot.

“And tell that bug Porter that if I ever find him,” his voiced hardened,
“I will end him.”

Ken joined his team with a smile on his face.

tbc...
^