THE ARK
Chapter 18

Day 928

Stanley Waldorf was a bit uneasy, he could not stop thinking about the last meeting he had with the Administrator. The boss had never acted or even looked like that before. He had been expecting to be summoned back to the Administrator’s office but now five days had passed and he had heard nothing. He had expected a follow-up of some kind. Something that would let him know that Williams was working on the issue.

The Administrator had been friendly today when they had passed in the hall. There was no agitation, it was almost as their previous conversation had never occurred. Stanley knew Williams well, and there was something in the man’s eyes that made it clear that not all was forgotten.

To top that off Tony Jackson did not show up for work today and no one had seen or heard from him

Stanley pulled his 2015 Lincoln Towncar into traffic and headed for the highway. It was time to head home and he would try to stop thinking about work.

As he was approaching his home, his Android smartphone rang. “Waldorf here,” He always answered the phone at work like that. Stanley felt this was how important people answered phones, and he was a deputy director at NASA. To him, that made him important.

Stanley’s wife Barb was on the phone, “Stan, could you stop and get me a pound of hamburger on your way home? I’m making lasagna for dinner and I just noticed that I don’t have the meat.”

Stanley was extremely annoyed. He was sure that she had spent the whole day on the phone or in front of the TV watching those ridiculous soap operas or dumb court shows. If she would have gotten off her lazy butt she could have taken care of this herself. She stayed home all day and then she expected him to do her work too, this was getting out of hand and he decided it was just about time to tell her, but right now all he wanted was for his dinner to be cooked. “Yea, I’ll get it,” He said curtly and disconnected the call.

He pulled into the parking lot at the grocery store and got out of the car. As he was walking away, he noticed a black minivan with tinted windows pull into the spot next to his Lincoln.

Stanley went directly to the meat counter and grabbed a package of burger.

As he was heading for the checkout lane, he noticed Stacey Miller standing at the dairy counter. Stacy was good friends with his wife and was usually the one that she spent hours on the phone with. He had never liked Stacy, she seemed much too independent, he knew that she always got what she wanted with her husband and that he did nothing without first consulting her.

His own wife had tried that once and there was a big battle before he finally got that nonsense under control.

As he left the meat counter he saw Stacey look over at him, the look on her face was one on disgust. Stanley just glared back at her. How was it that Stacey could have that much disrespect for him? What had Barb told her that made her look at him like that? Tonight he was going to replace out what all that wife of his was saying about him.

As he approached the checkout counter there was a new register just opening, Stan quickly squeezed his way in so that he did not have to wait at all. Stanley decided that this was probably the first thing that had gone his way all day. He quickly paid and started out.

As he was approaching his car, he noticed the owners of the black minivan trying to open their passenger door. The man was fumbling with the keys and the woman was holding the bag of groceries. Stanley briefly realized that the van had been there just after him and he had just grabbed the burger and had made the quick escape through the newly opened checkout lane, but these two were out already and had a full-size bag.

His quick escape began to seem hollow. About this time, he got a better look at the woman. She seemed to be in her mid-twenties and had beautiful brown hair and a fantastic body. Where did I go wrong? Stanley thought.

The couple noticed him and the man said with a friendly smile. “Go on, we’ll be a moment,”

Stanley muttered a brief thanks and started to squeeze by them while reaching in his pocket for the keys.

As soon as he pulled out his keys, he felt a sharp stabbing pain in the right side of his neck. He whirled to the right and saw the brunette holding a syringe with a needle attached. As he was starting to speak, he felt the keys ripped from his grip by the man to his left, and the sliding door on the van behind him opened. He tried to yell, but his tongue felt both swollen and numb. He was getting very dizzy, and he noticed his breathing had become labored.

A strong set of hands grabbed him from inside the van and dragged him in. Stanley was aware of the door closing and of the sound of his Towncar’s engine starting. He heard a female voice from the front of the van say something he could not understand and then he was aware of movement.

By now, Stanley could barely breathe and he was aware of a very heavy sensation in his chest. He tried to look around but could not get his head to move. He knew that something was wrong, but right now he could not be sure what the problem was, in fact, he realized he was not sure at the moment of even what his own name was.

The van continued eastward and eventually stopped at the marina. There was a rather large speedboat tied to the dock. The still breathing form of Stanley Waldorf was stuffed into a large plastic container and removed from the van by the brunette and her partner.

Stanley’s Lincoln Towncar did not show up at the marina, in fact, at that moment it was backing into a self-storage locker twelve miles away. The person renting the locker had explained that they were taking a position as a missionary in the Congo and would be gone for three years. Even though this was a bit unusual, the sight of three years rent in cash easily persuaded the owner to accept it with no other questions. The door was closed and the padlock that had previously been opened was now locked shut.

A dolly was used to load the large plastic box marked SCUBA equipment onto the boat. The box was placed in the back of the boat and the mooring lines were untied. The boat slowly moved away from the dock and headed East out into deeper water continuing to gain speed.

After fifteen minutes, when the shore was no longer visible, the boat slowed to a stop.

Stanley was removed from the box, dragged to the back of the boat and laid flat on his back. The male got a set of ankle shackles, and they were woven through the three holes on a concrete cinder block and clamped to each ankle.

At the same time, the brunette fastened handcuffs to Stanley’s wrists after first feeding them through a second cinder block.

Together the two of them rolled Stanley and the blocks off the back of the boat. Just as he fell into the water the brunette saw Stanley’s eyes snap open for the last time.

The two assassins stayed kneeling by the back of the boat until the last of the bubbles had surfaced. Then the brunette slowly stood and removed a dark green fanny pack from around her waist. After making sure that it was zipped tight, she threw it into the water. The weight of the .22 automatic and the silencer was enough to quickly sink the fanny pack, taking with them the rag, the three spent shell casings, a 3cc syringe and the key that went to the padlock of a self-storage unit.