Ice Cream Man

They say that revenge is best served cold. They also say that revenge is sweet. I don't know who they are but I like how it sounds. I say that makes revenge Ice Cream. That's where I come in. I'm called the Ice Cream Man. I work for an agency of the government called the Parlor. Yes, I picked that to go with my name. Kind of catchy I thought.

The Parlor is an organization that is so secret even our top heads of state, the FBI, and the CIA don't know we exist. There are just three full time agents. We have many operatives that are brought in as needed for an assignment or two then they return to their regular lives. We recruit only the best in their fields. No one uses their real name in the organization. It really wouldn't be wise for us to know a lot about each other. Staying secret is what allows us to be successful.

You've probably seen or heard of our work. There are many books written about our missions and several movies. The names, events, and locations have all been changed but the stories were based on actual events. We fix problems, secretly. Things like rogue politicians or heads of state, big time criminals, and sometimes corporate giants who severely overstep certain boundaries. We have, on occasion, worked with our sister agencies in other governments.

My name is Tom Larabie, that's an alias. I run the Parlor and put together the operations. I've been told that I look a lot like Christopher Reeves in the first Superman movie, without that outfit or the cute little curl he wore. In reality, I look more like his Clark Kent personna. I even wear the fake glasses. If you saw me on the street you wouldn't look twice. That's how I like it. I fit in wherever I go and don't attract any attention. My wife on the other hand, attracts attention everywhere she goes. She's absolutely gorgeous and knows it. We've been married for almost three years. Mary, my wife, is thirty-five. I'm her second husband. All she knows of my work is that I do private contracting with the government. She thinks I build stuff.

My second in command is Art Pawlak, another alias. We refer to him as the Artist. Art does our recruiting. He's a single guy in his thirties. The Artist might recruit from anywhere on the planet. Everyone he recruits is fully trained before they're recruited.

Our other full-timer is Jeff Davis. He's our electronics genius and if can be accessed by a computer, he knows how to do it. He says that he's connected to every computer on the planet and from what I've seen, he's probably telling the truth. His nickname is Keys.

When we get an assignment our budget is unlimited. We've only had a couple that went over fifty million but those went way over. We also have unlimited access to technology. Some of our toys make James Bond's look like amateur stuff.

Whenever we have an operation we always develop multiple approaches to the problem. We begin with plan A and will switch to B, C or D as needed. I'm the only one who ever knows all the plans. I'm rarely in the field anymore due to my advanced age of forty-two. Don't get me wrong, I'm still involved but rarely on the front line now. I do miss the adrenalin rush sometimes.

This leads me to our story today. The government has been investigating Mr. A. He's a billionaire with everything. He's also connected, one way or another to just about every government on the planet. We know he's involved in arms peddling, drugs and slavery. With all his connections the government doesn't dare touch him. That's why we got involved. Our assignment: Stop the arms trading and destroy his supply, cut off his drug supply, stop the slavery and rescue the slaves. My favorite part of this assignment is the last part - break him. We get to keep whatever monies we might filter from his pockets into ours.

Our plan was developed so that all four parts would be completed at the same time. Essentially we would destroy him and everything he has a hand in. The drugs were coming from both the middle east and South America. We coordinated with several other agencies in multiple governments to address that. The arms were coming and going from Turkey. A Russian agency joined forces with us to resolve that. The slavery issues and taking his money would be purely a Parlor undertaking.

Jeff would take care of breaking Mr. A via the computer. One minute he would be a billionaire and the next he would be broke.

As far as the slavery went, that was more complicated. He had four types of slaves. The first group were the children. The second were young women who were just taken off the street. The third were the ones he purchased. The fourth were the ones he recruited with his charm, made promises then forced into slavery. They were his personal women initially then became his elite whores then moved with the other into whore houses or sold them to individuals. Most wound up starring in snuff movies before it was all over.

It's the last group that wound up getting my personal attention. The way Mr. A worked was by finding a target, wining and dining her, seducing her with his money, then offering her some amazing job within his corporations or by a promise of marriage. It really is amazing how well money talks. I was watching some of the surveillance video we had and discovered my wife, Mary, going into a hotel room with him. They were in his suite for a couple of hours and the video from the suite was very explicit.

To say the least, I was surprised. A few days later, Mary announced her new job to me and advised me that she would be doing a lot of travel with Mr. A. She was well prepared with her presentation and told me how with all the money she would be making we would be set for life. I honestly think she almost believed her story. I didn't, but went along with it rather than blow the whole operation. When Mr. A went down she would go with him.

From the video feed I saw he had promised her marriage. What she would get was sex and the life of a queen for a couple of months. His MO was to take the woman out on his yacht and let her know she was now going to be one of his elite whores. If she refused he would personally execute a young woman in front of her to demonstrate what would happen to her if she didn't do it. As she aged he would ship her off to one of his whore houses. Sometimes he made his own snuff movies right on the ship.

The plan to take Mr. A was to destroy his yacht with him on it. Mary would be on the yacht at the time. Mary would be cannon fodder. I considered a plan B on this but no one fucks with the Ice Cream Man.

Mary, still under the mistaken impression that I didn't know of her affair with Mr. A, called me every Tuesday morning at 9 am my time. The call was always the same. She would tell me how much she missed me and that she loved me. I decided that taking out the yacht would be done during one of her calls.

During the night, divers attached warheads near the propellers to first stop the ship at 9:00:30, then on the bow just to add excitement thirty seconds later and finally the big one that would vaporize the entire yacht, thirty seconds after that. My only regret was that I couldn't see the look on her face when I told her.

Tuesday, 9 am.

"Hi sweetheart, how's your ocean voyage going?"

"Oh Tom, it's so beautiful. We're on our way to France."

"Sounds like fun. How's your lover?"

Mary hesitated briefly, "He's my boss, Tom."

"Mary, I know better. I don't want to scare you or anything but there's going to be an explosion near the back of the yacht in about ten seconds."

"Tom, don't be ridiculous. You know I love you." BOOM! "Tom, what happened?"

"The next one will be in the front of the yacht about twenty seconds from now."

"Tom, what's happening?"

"Thirty seconds after that the entire yacht will be vaporized. You and your lover right along with it."

"But Tom..."

"You've lied to me and now you both pay. Nobody fucks over Tom Larabie." BOOM!!

Klaxons were sounding.

"Good bye, Mary." I could hear her crying until the third one went off and the line went dead. I would miss Mary, at least for a little while.

The remainder of the operation went perfectly. Weapons and drugs went down. About a hundred women and children were liberated but many were so far gone physically or mentally that they had no chance at a normal life.

Jeff netted the Parlor with 7.2 billion and put 2 billion each in off shore accounts me, the Artist and himself. It was a good payday. I had a really nice funeral for Mary.