~ two

In the restroom stall the boy hears a bump, then nothing.  The toilet flushes, he walks from the stall and looks around concerned.  The flush from another, Libra exits for the sink.

Boy - "Why ... are you using this one ?  Where's my man ?"

Libra - Washing her hands, "You're sister's locked in the girl's room right now, sometimes just being locked in a cage held powerless with a corpse is enough.  'Her man'.  Yours is in the stall between ours.  Wash your hands please."

He reaches to do so as she dries.

Libra - Washing blood from her hands, "Your father was a bad man you know.  I'm sorry for what has to be, but it really does."

Boy - "You're not from the local cartel.  My father warned me about people like you.  You're here to ransom me.  He'll pay."

Libra - "Oh no.  No he won't.  My partner's killing him now.  I'm sorry."

Boy - "Are you ?"

Libra - "Kinda.  For you."

Voiced over his sister crouched terrified in the corner, "I hope we don't have to come for you one day, I pray you and your sister and your mother just take the inheritance and run, live your lives away from this all."

Boy - "I knew when I saw you."

Libra - Smiles "Did you ?  What gave it away ?"

Boy - "Nothing.  I just knew."

Libra - "You seem like a very special boy."

Boy - "That's what they say.  That I'm special."

Libra - "I believe them."

...

Boy - "I know my father was a bad man.  I know he hurts my mother and I know the world hates him.  But it's only him.  Will you let my sister and mother live ?"

Libra - "What about you ?  Don't you have anything to live for ?"

...

Boy - "He left me alone with people."

Libra - "I know he did."  She hugs him in tears, "We're going to kill them too." 

He grips her tight, crying now himself.  She holds him back a bit and dries her tears with a handkerchief and then his, then puts it into his pocket, arranging it right.

Libra - "There we go.  Now I want you to go let your sister out of the bathroom, the door handle's just wedged, and go to your mother, she'll be crying over the body by now."

Boy - "No she won't."

Libra - Adjust his shirt, "Brave boy."  Then his hair with a smile while recollecting herself.  "It was very much my pleasure to meet you, young master Diaz."  Stands looking down proud, "May we never meet again.  Now go save your sister."

Out the door, the boy looks at the closed stall, bloody fingerprints at the door's edge.
________________

The van passes a heavy security lining the road, brandishing apparently for show for new customers.  The gate opens and the van let through, these security if not mercenaries, closing in behind them.

Seller - Inside and strangely French, "I'm afraid I must know.  Why.  The United States Military would buy that which I have stolen from them, back from me.

"Let us be clear.  Why do you not just so foolishly try ... to take it from me.  As I've taken it from you ?"  Leans back waiting with his tea.

Voice - "Well they did send enough of us."

Seller - "Oh !"  Amused as he sips.  "Do go on."  The guards check each other looking offended.

Warden - "We're not paying you for it, we're paying you to say you blew it up."

...

Seller - "Interesting."  Puts it down and leans forward to examine the eyes, "And it even begins to tell me why ... "  The guards seem curious what it mean ...

...

A cellphone rings a tone familiar to the seller ('The Boys are Back in Town' by Thin Lizzie, main chorus), Lynx slides it across, he picks it up.

Seller - "Oh !  Agent Corvallis ... why did you not say ?"  The guards are like 'ah, got it'.

...

Seller - "Ah.  Of course.  Logical to the very end."  Hangs up and passes the phone back to one of his men, "Destroy it utterly."  Back to them, big smiles.  "It's parked right out back !"
____

They look at the truly massive AC 130, graffitied to hell and not pleasantly while someone currently at work on his masterpiece drops the paint can and doddles off.

Seller - Holding his tea, "Will there be anything else then ?"

Warden - "What else you got ?"

A laugh from the seller as he sips.  In the distance an M551 Sheridan tank lacking the Browning and some cold war era decommissioned Jeeps.

Back at the restaurant Emilio throws a spoon at a waiter causing him to drop a platter.  As all the guards and eaters looks, steak knife thrown to the governor's head.

He gets up as the guards turn to catch the governor's fall and slits their throats in a row pushing the back of each neck against the other serrated knife, falling them all in a pile. 

Walks away with a leap and fast climb over the trellis as Libra walks out from the restroom entryway, swipes two more knives and a spoon from a nearby table and places them on hers.

(song over)

Libra lets out a blood-curling scream and everyone sees the political mess before the governor's wife frozen completely in shock.

Thoughts while the cultists travel, a scene meant to mirror the prior of their web, that web now shrinking in cars boats and airplanes to a singular point.

...

There's something truly 80's even about the modern evil, something about that unbelievable cheese.  Audaciousness in their complete lack of moral compass.

The sheer cartoonishness of their false smiles and clothes.

I see the modern politician and laugh at their own self caricature of an existence, wondering how anyone could ever take this person seriously.  I see businessmen in hollywood and like the rest of the world astound at their complete inability to entertain.

~ As in the lead limousine parading the like to the woodland lodge, Ghost awaits induction in chains.  Flanked by unpleasant guards but treated well by that same back of the head with his drinks.

They do it for more money than they'll spend in a lifetime, claiming all the while it was for the kids.  Who the nannies raise in their stead, when not left alone with friends of the family.  'Legacy'. 

Far too often the kinds Monroe knows too well.

And now descending on the woods for ritual in their polyester robes and animal masks for ritual and horror yet still ... there's just something very '80's about it all.

Know what I mean ?

And their plans are always so ... cartoonish.  

Create a virus and rule the world.  Create a terrorist threat and rule the world.  Divide the people turning them on each other, rule the world without an army.

Could be just that everyone involved is really very old.  Monstrosities of surgical obsessions which often left under the mask is a beast more frightening than the ceremonial totem they've taken on superficially.

So inward and removed in a shrinking subculture of social extremities, the only thing that seems real among them is the tears of their lovely sacrifices.  Tied to the surrounding trees behind their seats.

In carved chairs a circle of these carved elder faces sit watching as Ghost is led in.  He sees a castle incongruously filled with it's very historical decorations all calling to a time and a near militarized security force.

A close eye will spot the similar patters of security, if not the faces themselves among them from the earlier party, joined by many more.  This is clearly a do.

The back of the head waits for him, a skinny and shirtless youth just old enough to buy, masked with antler horns as a self proclaimed pagan god in the woods.

The kind of vegetarian who would feign to shoot a deer but not a man.