The Ascendant Read online

  The cassette recorder had been stashed out of sight in his dorm room twenty or so years ago. John couldn’t remember actual years anymore. It was just a damn long time ago.

  The machine had been whirring away silently, while he talked frantically with his classmate. And that classmate never knew that their conversation was being recorded.

  More than a classmate actually—the one and only Commander of the Honor Guild.

  Lincoln Berwick. Now, Senator Lincoln Berwick, and a leading contender for President of the United States of America.

  While that clandestine machine was recording, John and Linc were discussing the events of a certain fateful night. Lincoln tried to calm him down. And ordered his silence. Warned him of what would happen if he broke the code of honor.

  John still had the cassette tape after all these years, even after a special friend tried to blow the whistle for him. The same friend who he’d instructed Judy to send the original of the tape to. A courageous friend who’d removed the burden from John and went to see the Honor Guild Dean on his behalf. Didn’t even disclose John’s name. Kept him out of it, because he was probably unsure at the time how far they’d allow the query to go. And, John never told his friend that he had an actual recording. Was afraid to. Didn’t want that to slip out, and make him or his friend targets. He’d save that for later if the school decided to take it further.

  It didn’t go far at all. The honor code was upheld. And, soon after that, his friend was expelled. Demoted back down to the regular population of West Point, ousted from the Honor Guild. Ordered to observe the code and keep his mouth shut. Told that they would exact their own form of justice upon Lincoln Berwick, but that was as far as it would go. Some things were meant to stay “internal.”

  But, because his friend had violated the honor code, he had to go. A promising student kicked out of the leadership program.

  A program that at one time had included John Nichols as one of the promising ones as well. He’d only lasted one year longer than his friend.

  When he was finally ousted, it was for being a drunk.

  But, despite the memory-challenged state his brain was in now after too many alcoholic years, he could still remember what had caused him to start drinking. John closed his eyes and drifted off…

  The van cruised along slowly. It was a panel van, owned by one of the guys. Two captain’s chairs in the front, bare floor in the back. Well, bare except for a mattress. John was sitting on the floor along with two other guys. Up front was the driver, and in the passenger seat sat Lincoln Berwick. He was the scout—on the lookout.

  It was “wild oats” night. They had these wild excursions usually once a month. Always in a different town, or one of the suburbs of New York. Usually not too far from campus.

  They were all brilliant students at West Point, privileged to be in the secretive elite division known as the Honor Guild. And Lincoln was the newly elected Commander of the Honor Guild—the student leader, the one who had authority over the others. The school had made it clear to all of them that the Student Commander had to be respected. That was just part of the honor code.

  John and the others in the van were subservient to Lincoln; in fact, they felt it quite an honor just to be allowed to hang out with him, be his friend. Being loyal to Lincoln could only augur well for their standing in the leadership program. They knew their destinies were being determined with every single test, every athletic achievement, and every grade they aced. They’d also witnessed what usually happened to students who had fallen out of favor with Lincoln.

  Ostracized, humiliated, and sometimes even expelled.

  He had power. He was a leader and the most favored one in the Honor Guild.

  Lincoln seemed to look at life as being just one big entitlement. No one fucked with him.

  John remembered the words that started the nightmare.

  “There’s a hot one. Slow down, Hank.”

  Then the sound of the van door sliding open.

  “Hi there, darlin. Wanna party with us?”

  A soft voice answered. “Maybe. What’s in it for me?”

  “There’s five of us. Be a good payday for you.”

  The soft voice again. “Okay, then.”

  She reached her hand up. Lincoln grabbed it and pulled her into the van. He gave her a rough shove and she landed on the mattress.

  Sliding the door shut, he called up to Hank in the front. “Okay, drive, find a good spot to park and then you can have a go, too.”

  Linc pointed. “Okay, John, you first.”

  John looked down at the girl on the mattress. She had a pretty face, but was wearing lots of makeup. Tight little skirt that had hiked itself up almost to her crotch by her positioning on the mattress. A halter top, which was low-cut enough to display her ample breasts. She was definitely hot, and John felt a stiffness forming in his crotch.

  “C’mon, John. We haven’t got all night. Are you going to fuck this one or just get your usual blow job?”

  John had the urge to fuck her, for sure. He’d wanted to fuck all of the girls they’d picked up. But something always stopped him. They were just hookers, after all, and probably saturated with every infection you could imagine. He’d discovered that he had the willpower to resist. Restricted his part in the exercises to just blow jobs, even though those carried certain risks as well. But, he figured the small risk was worth it.

  “No, Linc, I’ll just do the blow job thing.”

  Lincoln laughed, followed by cackles from the other guys.

  John dropped his pants and she crawled over to him. Wrapped her mouth around his erect penis and went to work. He watched her face as she sucked away. Suddenly she looked so innocent, so—young.

  In less than two minutes it was over, and unfulfilling. The longer he’d looked at her innocent face, the limper he became. John simply pulled out and yanked his pants back up.

  Linc just laughed mockingly and spun the girl around, forcing her back down onto the mattress.

  “You’re a wimp, Johnny boy. My turn. Watch how it’s done.”

  As Linc began pounding away relentlessly at the slender body, John stretched out on the floor. He was dying for a cigarette, but had forgotten to bring his. Suddenly, he noticed the girl’s purse. It was unzipped, and there was a pack of Winstons poking out of the top. He reached over and pulled them out.

  Along with the cigarettes, out came a laminated library card.

  Curious, he looked at it in the dim light. Her name was Monica Hartwell.

  He caught his breath as he noticed her birth date. Quickly did the math.

  Yelled out at the exact moment that Linc arched his back and sighed, blowing his load inside her. “Linc! Stop! She’s only fourteen!”

  Lincoln pulled out and faced him. “What?”

  John waved the card in the air. “Look! Her library card! Fourteen!”

  Linc turned his gaze back to the girl. “Is that true?”

  Monica looked scared. She nodded.

  In a fit of rage, he slapped her across the face, causing the side of her head to slam hard against the van’s metal rib cage. As he jumped to his feet, pulling his pants back up around his waist, he screamed down at her, “You little bitch!”

  He zipped up his jeans and glared at John. “Christ, she looks twenty! How were we supposed to know?”

  John just shook his head, not knowing how to respond to his friend. Then his attention was drawn back to Monica lying on the mattress. He noticed that her eyes were closed and there was blood flowing out of the right temple area of her forehead.

  He knelt down on the mattress beside her and shook her gently. “Monica, are you okay? Monica?”

  Then the twitching started. Hardly noticeable at first, just around the corners of her mouth. Followed quickly by her shoulders and her chest. Suddenly Monica’s entire body was sha
king, and her arms and legs began flailing in the air.

  Her eyelids opened, but John could only see the whites of her eyes. She was breathing heavily, and her mouth was opening and closing rapidly.

  Suddenly the mouth closed, teeth clenched together tightly, followed by a cracking sound that reminded John of the time one of his teeth was destroyed in a football tackle.

  She was choking now.

  “My God, she’s having a seizure!”

  John’s four friends were standing in a circle around him and the girl. Hank yelled, “What do we do?”

  John called out, to no one in particular, “Hold her legs and arms still! Does anyone have something flat, like a popsicle stick?”

  Linc’s voice. “Here’s a comb. Maybe that’ll work.”

  John fought with his fingers to get her mouth open. Her teeth were clenched together in a vice grip. He managed to just barely shove the comb in and then quickly slid it towards her tongue. He pressed down. “I think her tongue’s choking her!”

  Her breathing seemed to improve almost immediately. John looked up at Hank. “Drive, Hank. To the nearest hospital. We have to hurry.”

  Hank whirled around and headed towards the front of the van. But, Linc stopped him. Grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him back.

  “We’re not going to any fucking hospital. Are you crazy? We’d have to take her in and identify ourselves. She’s a minor. My cum’s in her. We’d have to explain what we were doing, and when she comes around she’ll tell them herself.”

  Hank raised his hands, confused. “Well, what are we going to do?”

  “She’ll be okay. John has things under control. Once she’s herself again, we’ll just drop her off somewhere.”

  Suddenly the convulsions increased in intensity. John was struggling with trying to keep her tongue depressed while her body was twisting from side to side. He panicked. “She’s not okay! She’s going to die! Drive, for fuck’s sake!”

  Just as suddenly as they started, the convulsions stopped. Monica’s body went still and the whites of her eyes stared blankly up at the roof of the van. John felt her neck for a pulse, then her wrists. Frantic, he began CPR.

  He cycled in the dead silence of the van for around five minutes until finally giving up. Bent over and rested his head on the mattress. He was breathing hard, and could feel tears running down his cheeks.

  Monica Hartwell was dead.

  He looked up at his friends. “We did this.”

  Linc folded his arms across his chest. “No, we didn’t. She pretended to be older than she was. How were we supposed to know? And she had a seizure; what could we do about that?”

  John jumped to his feet and smashed his fist into Linc’s jaw. “You bastard! You hit her—crushed her temple! That’s what brought on the seizure! And if we’d rushed her to a hospital, we might have been able to save her.”

  He braced himself for the fist that he thought would be hurled back at him, but it didn’t come. Linc just rubbed his jaw and pointed over at Hank. “Start driving. Find a remote spot on the highway where we can dump her.”

  Linc glared at John. “She was just a whore. No one’s going to care or miss her. And we couldn’t take a chance on ruining our lives over her.”

  Then he pointed at all four of them, dramatically, one by one. “This is a test for each of you. I’m your Commander. The honor code has no bounds and no expiry date. No one breathes a word about this, ever, to anyone. If you want to talk about it, you talk to me and me alone. I’ll give you the strength to deal with it.”

  As the van resumed its journey, this time looking for a dumping spot instead of a tramp they could fuck, all John could think of was that her name was Monica Hartwell, she was just fourteen years old, and probably a sweet girl deep down inside. Desperate and despondent, and—for some reason that he would never know—had lost her innocence and self-respect somewhere along the way.

  And, now her life.

  When Hank finally found the perfect spot, he pulled over and Linc heaved her lifeless body out of the side of the van onto the soft shoulder of the highway.

  As if she were a sack of garbage.

  Then, he jumped out, and, with one foot, rolled her down the side of an embankment into a ditch.

  The last thought that entered John’s mind before the van started its journey back to campus was that the only semen inside of Monica Hartwell was Lincoln Berwick’s.

  John snapped out of his trance and glanced at his watch. Time to go. Finally, the nightmare that had changed his life oh so long ago was going to change his life again. This time for the better. A candidate for President would want this skeleton from the past to stay buried.

  He picked up his house keys, flicked on the outside lights, and opened the door to the stairs that led outside from his basement apartment.

  Suddenly he was thrust backward, hard.

  Two figures entered the apartment and shut the door quietly behind them. One of the well-dressed men rushed him and before he could cry out, some type of material was stuffed into his mouth.

  Muscle memory from his training decades ago reacted automatically in his body.

  He swung around, grabbed the man’s arm and flung him over his shoulder. Then he spun as the other man advanced, catching him with a well-placed kick to the chin.

  But, they were strong and he wasn’t anymore.

  Within seconds, John was on the floor.

  One man frisked him and found the cassette tape in his front pocket.

  “Here it is.”

  The other guy walked over to the dining room table and came back with the bottle of whisky.

  The material was pulled from his mouth and some kind of brace was rammed inside to take its place. It felt like one of those brackets that dentists inserted during a root canal.

  His mouth was now propped wide open. John tried to scream, but the sound that came out was guttural.

  They put the whisky bottle between his lips and tilted. The liquid poured down his throat, unrestricted. He gagged, they pulled the bottle back, then tilted it again.

  When half the bottle was gone, they poured the rest over his clothes.

  The men yanked him to his feet, dragged him down to the bathroom, and threw him into the tub.

  His head was spinning; the sudden rush of liquor into his bloodstream was definitely working its magic on his senses.

  John was puzzled, because booze never usually affected him all that much. He wondered if it was because it was so much at once, with very little chance for oxygen to interfere.

  Then he wondered why he was even bothering to analyse that at this moment—this moment when he was going to die.

  And he knew he was going to die.

  He had no fight left—and hadn’t really—since that night in the van so many years ago.

  Back then when he was a young man, with his entire life in front of him.

  He heard two words.

  “Left wrist.”

  He didn’t resist as they rolled up the left sleeve of his shirt, preoccupied instead with picturing Judy and Cynthia in his mind’s eye. At least the way they’d looked in that picture frame. He had no idea what they looked like now.

  He hoped and prayed that Judy received his package in the mail, and that she would do what he’d asked her in his note.

  As he watched the sharp blade of the knife slide across his wrist and the red torrent of blood surge down over his lap, he pictured a sweet little face in his mind.

  Not the way he’d last seen her, but, instead, the way he would have preferred to have seen her.

  Not on her knees sucking his dick.

  Instead, in a pretty pink prom dress, with a white corsage wrapped around her wrist.

  Her proud parents taking pictures, kissing her on the cheek, telling her how lovely she looked.

/>   Her boyfriend, taking her soft hand and escorting her out to the car, holding the door open for her like the lady she was. Kissing her gently on the lips while she beamed with pride.

  Then, later in the evening up on the gymnasium stage wearing a crown.

  Monica Hartwell, Prom Queen.

  John Nichols’ chin drooped onto his chest now and the extremities of his body felt completely numb, freezing cold.

  And it suddenly occurred to him how they’d been able to find him.

  Despite being so careful with the fake name, unlisted phone number, and secret address.

  But, he’d forgotten one thing.

  They’d traced him through the internet, his IP address.

  How could I have been so stupid?

  8

  Lincoln Berwick’s flight was leaving in about ten hours, and he still didn’t know if he’d have a travel companion.

  He paced the length of his massive kitchen, and then, for no particular reason, wandered into the front foyer. He was trying hard to control his temper, and he always found that pacing was an effective way of exhausting the adrenaline rush. Punching walls also did the trick once in a while.

  He marched back into the kitchen again, opened the French doors to his patio, and stepped outside. It was another bright and sunny day in Dallas, even though it was late in November. Linc was glad that the oppressive heat of the summer was long behind them.

  He paced back and forth across the patio, glanced upstairs at the master bedroom window, and wondered if she’d started packing her bags yet.

  Linc shielded his eyes as he gazed across the expanse of backyards in his neighborhood. All of the lots were a minimum of two acres, so the privacy was great. And fences weren’t allowed, so as not to detract from the aesthetics of the most expensive area in Dallas.

  Yes, Highland Park had it all. Homes that fetched into the multi-millions and some of the best schools in the country. And, if truth be told, the schools were the main reason why Highland Park was so expensive. The quality of both public and private schooling was top-notch, and the well-heeled oil executives wanted their little darlings to have the best of the best.