Conspirators of Revenge
Frankie Laursen’s past is dark with drugs, dangerous bikers, and an association with a dishonorably discharged Vietnam infantryman of the My Lai massacre.
Even after Frankie has completed law school and changed his name to Frank B. Holst, the young courtroom virtuoso appears to be cold, cunning, and contradictory. However, one cannot help but wonder whether his behavioral patterns portend a sociopath or a man driven by benevolent forces less superficially seen. The brilliant but troubled only son of multimillionaire East Memphis land developer “Big Frank” Laursen, Frankie loses his college girlfriend, Anna Romers, to a drug overdose.
Within weeks, the lead criminal investigator on the case, Preston Hargrove, persuades the District Attorney’s office to issue an arrest warrant for nineteen year-old Frankie. Young Laursen is charged with pre-meditated murder in the death of Anna, the only daughter of a wealthy and a socially prominent Jackson, Mississippi, petroleum entrepreneur, Karl Romers, who finances and masterminds a most malevolent method of avenging his daughter’s death. The results of the trial, and Romers’ obsession with revenge, trigger a vengeful vendetta, which becomes ever expanding in its proportions, people, and places. Each ensuing event exposes another strand making up the tangled and complex web of betrayal, broken hearts, multiple homicides, frame-ups, and assassination assignments, which all lead to the centerpiece of the web’s core of revenge.
Common sense criminal investigations, forensic dentistry, the science of fingerprinting, bullet ballistics, and cold-blooded violence climax into a captivating tale of intrigue, which explores the inner workings of the human heart and the consequences for those embittered souls who seek “an eye for an eye”—the conspirators of revenge. Order now.
Preview:
Frank, at around 12:05 A.M., though in a sound sleep, felt wetness on his throat. He instinctively put his left hand to the area and could tell the skin on his fingers had touched a liquid of some type. Even being half-asleep, he had the consciousness to know that something was wrong. He extended his right arm in the darkness, to the spot where he had twisted the lamp’s brass knob many times in the coal-black darkness. The light came on, instantly constricting his dilated pupils, and in that moment, he saw the red blood on his left fingers; he also noticed the black slacks of Otto Brunner. Frank looked up and met the eyes and face of a Nazi nightmare in the flesh. He saw the knife in Otto’s hand, with blood on its blade, and realized the man had cut his throat.
“Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” (Do you speak German?) Otto asked as he put his left hand on Frank’s forehead, pushing the back of his head firmly into the pillow.
“Nein (No). Who are you?” Frank responded, having enough composure to remember the simple word for “no” in German, and comprehending that the cut was obviously not deep enough to have severed any major vessels. It was still oozing blood, but for the moment, he knew he was not going to die, not with this wound. “What do you want?”
“You shut up and listen only! You understand me?” Otto said, in his heavy Germanized-English accent, while applying more pressure to Frank’s head with his left hand. He then placed the knife back against Frank’s throat and told him to blink his eyes if he understood. Frank blinked his eyelids.
“Now, you will do what I say, just as I say to you, or I slice your head off your body. You understand?”
“Yes, I understand you.” Frank’s head felt like a hundred pounds was lying on his forehead. He could not see the full figure of the man standing over him, because his head was in a vise-like grip. He could only move his eyeballs as he felt the cold steel against his throat.
“You get up from the bed, and you walk in front of me to the kitchen. You try anything stupid and I kill you quickly. You understand?”
“Yes.”
“Now, get up slowly from the bed!” Brunner ordered as he lightened the pressure of his left hand on Frank’s head. Frank sat up in the bed, slowly swung his legs to the right, and began to stand. At this point, Otto quickly put his left hand again on Frank’s forehead and, with the knife held in his right hand, placed its cutting edge against Frank’s throat. Then, with his knee and the order “to the kitchen,” he started guiding his hostage toward the room where he had placed the gym bag. It had been just before midnight when he made the transfer of the bag from the back bedroom to the other room, then went back into the master bedroom and made the superficial slice in Frank’s throat.
He guided Frank into the kitchen, with the bedside lamp providing enough light for each of them to see the interior of the room, and then ordered him to sit on one of the three barstools, the one nearest the hallway. Otto then re-enforced his order for Frank to remain motionless, as the big German leaned over only far enough, never letting his eyes leave Frank, to lift the black bag off the kitchen floor. He placed it on the countertop in front of the young man.
Otto reached inside with his left hand and removed the brown paper sack he had gotten from the convenience store. He then felt around in the gym bag again until his hand rested on the other item he would need. He took it out, and Frank could tell, even in the dim light, that it was a brown rectangular-shaped bottle. Otto turned it and moved the bottle close enough for Frank to read the manufacturer’s label.
“What does it say to you?” Otto asked his knife-held hostage.
Frank strained his eyes, and after a moment, he could clearly see the label. He hesitated, looking at Otto with puzzlement, and he had a sickening feeling in his stomach, as he now began to grasp the possibilities.
“What does it say, I ask you?” Otto repeated.
“It is Chloral Hydrate.”
“Good, so you know what this is, do you?”
“Yes, I know what it is.”
At that point, Otto removed the quart of orange juice from the sack. By now, Frank had little doubt what was on the mind of this man.
“Why are you doing this to me?” Frank asked, with his voice noticeably quavering.
“You shut up, I told you! You do what I say and you can sleep like the baby, no pain, no nothing but a sleep of peace. You do not obey me, and you can slowly bleed to death like the pig with his throat cut. It is your choice, sir!”
Frank watched as the big man poured over three quarters of the orange juice out of the waxed cardboard carton onto the floor. Brunner then filled the carton with the entire contents of the Chloral Hydrate. Frank was no physician or pharmacist, but he knew enough about the liquid, fast-acting, hypnotic-like sedative that, in years past, its combination with alcoholic beverages would render a man or woman physically helpless.
Historically, after combining it with beer or whiskey, the combination’s common name came to be “Mickey-Finn.” Prostitutes, as well as some criminals, used it to roll an individual for their money. With the amount Otto had poured into the carton, Frank knew it would be quite lethal. Otto reached over to the beige-colored plastic drain, where clean dishes and glasses were stacked, removed one of the glasses, and filled it to the top with the mixture.
“So, you now drink! And you drink it down fast!” Otto ordered as he shoved the glass toward Frank.
Frank’s mind was racing at lightning speed as he considered each option for escaping this certain death. He could drink it, as ordered, and then the monster would no doubt refill it and give the same order. He could accidentally turn it over, thereby trying to buy a short reprieve until the big man poured the next glassful. He could throw it in the German’s face and make a break for the side door, but he realized the door was locked, and by the time he unlocked it, the bastard would slice him to ribbons. Frank had forgotten he never had locked the door after telling Silana he needed to do that after their conversation. He could try to talk his way out of the situation, but that appeared futile with the apparent determined mission of this man to kill him. However, he could attempt to fight, even though he was unarmed and visibly no match for the ape in front of him.
“Just tell me why, please. I deserve to know the reason,” Frank implored.
“I tell you why, then. You drink the drug like you give it to the Romers girl, in orange juice, and then you join her, yes!”
Frank did not need to be a genius to know this was not the work of Van-Rowers or Farley Young. This was Karl Romers’ method of revenge, and this man was his hired assassin.
“Now, I tell you for the last time, DRINK!” Otto ordered, and this time his voice was deadly impatient.
Frank slowly brought the glass to his lips and started sipping the orange-flavored hypnotic.