LOVE MEANS NOTHING

The rented compact car handled itself amazingly well as it negotiated the twists and turns of the unpaved narrow road through the Chiricahua Mountains. The raw grandeur of this southeastern Arizona landscape, haunted by the spirits of the great Indian warriors Cochise and Geronimo, went unnoticed by the car's driver who was focused on getting to his destination. As illustrated on the hastily drawn map sent him by the unknown financier of the covert operation he was about to execute, he made a sharp turn to the right onto a narrow muddy road. For the next five miles the potholed path cruelly bounced his body until he brought the car to a swift halt in a small clearing surrounded by low lying scrubs and trees. His wary eyes scanned the area to make certain he wasn't followed. Satisfied, he picked up the small revolver hidden under the seat, shoved it into the pocket of his leather jacket, and exited the car. Long dark shadows, marking the lateness of the afternoon, began to limit his vision. Entering a dense overgrown thicket of bushes and trees, the man walked briskly for several hundred feet. A feeling of relief washed over him as he spotted the cabin. It was there, just as he had been assured it would be. He fought to control his nerves as he took one more look around. Satisfied, he approached the dilapidated shack where he was to meet the old man. The "old man," the sobriquet used by every underground and terrorist group, lived and worked here. Drawing his leather jacket around his slight frame, the man fingered the gun tucked in his pocket. He was ready. Walking up what was left of the wooden, termite-eaten steps of the porch, he rapped on the weathered door. No answer. Impatiently, he waited. He knocked again. No answer. Furious that he had to wait, he reached for the doorknob, turned it, and pushed his way into the cabin. It was dark with only the light from the setting sun oozing through a small filthy window covered by a curtain of spider webs. Squinting until his eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness, the man spotted a small rusted metal table and chair in the otherwise barren front room of the cabin. An outline of a young boy sitting at the table began to come into focus. In his middle to late teens, the boy's dark eyes appeared to be intensely observing the man. The eerie grin on the youth's face unhinged the intruder. He hadn't anticipated a teenage boy; he had expected the "old man." "You got'em?" The man questioned, loathing the anxiety he heard in his own voice. "Yeah, two, just like you ordered, along with the small waist apparatus. The old man said that they weren't paid for yet." As the boy spoke his fingers drummed wildly next to a small lead box. Opened, the box revealed a large number of hundred dollar bills. "Aren't you kind of young to be working here, doing this?" The man in the black leather jacket tersely questioned, annoyed that the operation wasn't being handled according to the instructions given him. The boy's expression turned sinister as he took a long fixed look at the man's face. Something about it was diverting his attention away from the transaction taking place. Immediately he realized what it was and began to mock the man by twitching his eye as he handed the stranger a small bag. "They're ready to blow. Set in the number code and dial away your troubles. I sold two earlier today to another fellow who lives near Phoenix. The guy said he's getting even with a former employer." As the kid's hand released the package, the man noted an immense gold ring with several large diamonds surrounding a huge ruby stone on one of the boy's fingers. "You talk too much," the man in the black leather jacket, the tremor in his right eye becoming more acute, muttered as he took something from his pocket. The kid, his grin now a smug smirk, again put out his hand to take what he believed to be the cash owed. It wasn't money. It was a gun. The bullet entered the boy's head through his smirking lips. Shattering his teeth, bits of which blew through the air, the bullet proceeded to take away the back of his head. Then, removing a knife from the side of his boot, the man in the black leather jacket methodically made ten slices, cutting off the fingers of his dead victim. Carefully, he wrapped the fingers and large diamond ring into the neighborhood's daily newspaper that was on the desk - The Portal Times. Hastily the man pocketed the money in the lead box on the table, making room for the newspaper package. Closing the box and satisfied it would stifle the decaying smell of the fingers, he threw it into the bag the boy had given him. He would have to dispose of it as soon as possible. For now, he was safe. No one could possibly identify him; he had used all fictitious names and identity cards. The small waist detonator and two bombs would do the job nicely. As he sped away from the cabin toward Interstate 10 he noticed for the first time the magnificent beauty of the Chiricahua Mountains.