Grayson -
It was becoming increasingly obvious I was being stiffed. That promised $50 million wasn't coming, and probably no more money period.
None of those little political "Big Men" turds would even talk to me directly any more. All I got was toadies who bullshitted me with ever vaguer promises when I called.
Fuck 'em.
I only had about $3 million left. But it WAS $3 million and all in cash. Three million dollars spent wisely could do some damage. Especially with all my criminal element contacts domestic and abroad.
Those pricks had slid pretty much into my personal "enemies" class, and even more than the Johnsons, Jim and Rachel, who had caused my initial problems and downfall. Maybe they were entering that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" category? I really didn't know for sure but I had already started my own investigations.
First was the surprising obvious. Nothing in any newspaper or mainstream media or even wacky conspiracy theory blogs about my discovered efforts to help Iran in their ongoing nuclear weapons development efforts. Was Jim Johnson actually part of any official intelligence agency? His wife Rachel and that Jennifer Smith woman? Or were they just deceiving me? They sure had some resources backing them. Well, Jeb Jameson pretty much verified that so he must have been the one really clamping down on the information.
So, who had kidnapped Rachel? Someone working for or with Jeb Jameson? He actually asked ME about that - but then he would, wouldn't he?
If I could find Rachel and interview her captors, I just might get a clue - depending on just how many cut-out levels the "puppet master" had employed...
Why take Rachel? I doubt she was intrinsically that valuable, as far as secret knowledge - and Jeb's influence with the whole US Intelligence Community would insure he either already knew everything she knew, or the FBI could just ask her directly.
I didn't really care what she knew. Would Iran? Colonel Masdani? That was a possibility. But since nothing was getting out to embarrass Iran or interfere with the cash flow to Iran and economic sanctions ending, so... what?
But even though Rachel and Jim were getting a divorce, just maybe having Rachel would be leverage on Jim for someone. Ah, Jeb had said that whole operation stinging me was "unauthorized" and by "rogue agents." Jim was a rogue agent so JUST asking him everything might not guarantee his full cooperation?
Shit, this was all so fucking complicated and a big "so what???" to me. I was totally agnostic when it came to politics, religion, nationalism, and every other "ism". Just like my father. He taught me well. Just how to live the good life by making and spending good money. LOTS of good money.
Dear old dad, Grayson Peterson Jr. - was fairly wealthy. He gave me my first $50 million as soon as I graduated from Princeton with a 4 year business degree at age 22. He had made his money as an "exporter-importer" of goods of all kinds. He was a huge NAFTA and free trade and globalization kind of guy, cause it just made his own primary business of illegal constrained articles - mostly Gray and Black Market items - trading internationally that much easier, along with all the legal goods stuff "honest" corporations did.
The best advice he gave me was merely, "Son, if you really want to be very wealthy look to the third world countries for your opportunities. You will find the money is easier to get and the regulations on business FAR less onerous. Those outright palm-greasing personal graft cultures are actually more honest than the first world death by a thousand cuts of endless laws, rules, regulations, and taxes."
Man was he right! I already had $500 million - at least in total assets paper wealth - by the time my contacts and business associates in Iran turned me on to that Farah opportunity. Just marrying her and with my leverage "trying to rescue your children" access to her OWN $500-plus million paper wealth made me close to my own personal goal of "billionaire", and billionaire status and power.
And I was living life large just like my dad. He was a bon vivant himself with innumerable mistresses and conquests. Mom just accepted it, I guess. They never got divorced and always maintained a shared residence whenever dad wasn't just out-of-town. Even when dad was in town, though, he often had one or more of his women with him in the family home. Kind of like how it was with the Kennedy's. My grandfather, Grayson Peterson, was once friends with and had definitely partied with Joseph Kennedy, JFK's dad, who treated his own wife the same way. Wasn't my fault how I treated women. It was just in my genes. And my nurture!
Maybe I'd really get married myself, someday, other than the profitable sham marriage I had with Farah. Maybe. But really, why get married? Being rich and good-looking, rich and with a big dick, rich and...well, RICH is really all it takes... to bed as many women as I could ever really want to.
Settling down with just ONE woman for longer than a week, maybe? Never entered the picture. Not even with Rachel and Rachel was one of the best in many ways, but only ONE of the best. Right up until she kneed me in the balls that way! Fuck. Why did she do that, anyway? I can't help it I'm a "dom" sadistic bastard, sexually. It's just the way I am. And I thought Rachel was a great fit - a natural masochistic submissive. I really thought she got off on how I treated her just as much as I did. She was faking it all along? Fucking bitch should have just talked to me - oh wait, she was spying on me and playing me?! I have to just laugh at that now.
And now I wasn't so rich anymore, at all. Farah was gone - with not only HER money but she was after a lot of mine, as well! Fuckin' bitch. And all my former "friends in high places" were fucking around with me. Dissing me. ME! Good guy, me! I'd always given good value for price.
Well, time to go back to work. If I found out what was really going on and why, just maybe I could turn all this shit to some gold. Hell, I was still a young man.
Those guys in Chicago I have working on the Rachel abduction, they're pretty good and I expect some results pretty quickly. Hopefully.
*************
Jim - one week later
Rachel was still missing.
I was making some progress with my friends I was erstwhile "betraying", but not enough. Brad had just called me on the special phone he gave me at our first meeting. It was a special government phone - one with the Texas Instruments chipset.
It was at that Bethesda suburban house again. Again! Bad tradecraft and a very bad rookie mistake.
Brad seemed a tad unhappy.
"Where's Rachel, damn it!" I started.
"Look, your info just isn't checking out! We have found no one you've told me about. You need to bring IN this Cowboy Rob character, Elaine Bennett, and Jennifer Smith, at a minimum. And it better be soon!"
"How the hell can I do that? I don't know where they're at and I'm on the run from NSA and FBI, aren't I? Can you tell me I'm not?"
"OK, yes. You need to keep a low profile but you better get it done somehow, damn it. Figure it out...Ah, shit. Listen, I'm sorry about this but I just got this video to show you."
He handed me his tablet with a video loaded up. I hit the play button and tried to stay calm. It was Rachel. She was being raped and not pleasantly. Her face was obviously beat up. She was groaning from pain and not pleasure. Several swarthy looking men were doing it and calling her a lot of demeaning and vicious anti-Semitic slurs.