Blaze Read online

  “You two got so much in common, maybe you should buy chocolate for each other.” Bernie teased while showing a devious smile. All three men were on the verge of raucous laughter.

  “Well, that’d be fine with me, but clearly he has a fine woman at home who needs it more!” interjected Mr. Happy Chocolate vendor. He was fully picking up every ounce of the nuance flying around. And he was eagerly having fun with it. You could tell this chap did this all day and it was an art form. Blaze would’ve bet he sold more chocolate than a hetero any day.

  “Alright, alright, enough outta you Bernie or I’ll make sure my friend here passes out your cell number to all his buddies.” Blaze shot an elbow to Bernie and looked at the man purveying chocolate with an apologetic nod.

  The man smiled widely. He was having fun with this verbal mischief.

  “Oh, yeah, they’d thust love that! You better watch it there Mr. Bernie!”

  This guy is a riot! God bless capitalism and the various mechanisms that propel it. “So what’ll it be? You got a collection of chocolates for my broad or what?” Blaze really wanted to move this thing along and get what he came for.

  “Broad? Oh thir, that has got to be offensive to her, don’t you thay?”

  “Nah, she knows I adore her. ‘Broad’ ain’t no different than calling a guy ‘dude’, and you can call me ‘dude’ anytime you want—just don’t call me your ‘dude’.” All three men began laughing hysterically.

  “Don’t flatter yourthelf! I got a beautiful partner already! Anyhow, I got the perfect mix of chocolates, for your, umm, broad…” The man laughed lightly as he began to pack up Blaze’s box of chocolates.

  The playful entrepreneur frolicked behind the counter and delicately arranged a small gold box with eight dark chocolate truffles of various types. A raspberry filling here, a lemon there, and some almond littered ones to boot. Blaze handed him his debit card and the chocolate master proceeded to gift-wrap the box.

  “Thank you sir. You’ve got a wonderful store here and you’re very kind, and I have to say, quite funny as well. I wish you all the success in the world.” Blaze meant it.

  Chocolate King laughed heartily and replied, “Well thank you thir! You’re welcome here anytime! Even your grouchy friend can come! Take care of that broad of yours! We have new free thamples weekly! I thust know your broad will love them!”

  Blaze and Bernie continued laughing as they began to exit the establishment. Bernie kept shaking his head in comedic disbelief of the entire exchange as he held the door for Blaze. They walked fast to the car. The two men got in quickly and shut their doors simultaneously.

  Bernie quickly offered his assessment. “Looks like you got a new friend there Blazey boy. Seems like he definitely lights your fire.”

  “Shut up you jerk. He’s a nice guy trying to make a living like anyone else. He’s a frickin’ quintessential small business success story. Probably would kick your white-collar ass anyhow. And bury you in chocolate. Then kiss you.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  FEDERAL CORRECTION INSTITUTION, FAIRTON, NEW JERSEY

  This wasn’t the first time. But Zack Batt sure as hell prayed it would be his last as he sat in reflection waiting for his visitor in the fenced outdoor area of the prison. The time prior, it was maximum security. This time he was being treated to minimum security. He wouldn’t be in federal at all for this incident had it not been for his active, and rather fresh, parole status. Hell, he even got to be on the ‘camp’ side, which boasted a very non-prison veneer and was altogether less intimidating to visitors and inmates alike, at least in its visual design.

  The hole was a surprise he did not expect or find amusing in the least bit. Cold, damp, and horrifying stone walls enveloped him in a six by eight foot fashion. A dilapidated steel crapper stared him down. A meager set of disintegrating bed sheets, with requisite soiling, taunted him with a mock welcome. Sunlight was bullied from entrance. Airflow was neglected from the cell’s fraternity. Handcuffs escorted him out once a day for a brief hour of sunlight. Human contact was withheld. Diginity was a faint ideal. Loneliness, like an eternity’s roll, caved his mind and swallowed his soul. Three damn days. All because there was no beds available upon his arrival.

  He now sat patiently in the peaceful picnic area outside the camp’s main core. The gentle breeze lapped against his face as Zack sat enjoying a cold Coke Zero, waiting for his visitor. It had been only two weeks since his arrival. It had been three days less than that when he was sprung from the hole and assimilated into “gen pop”, or general population. It was a release that felt like a messianic resurrection from the gnarled depths of darkness to the breath of blinding light. Yeah, gen pop was that much better.

  Zack was not a monster, but he was thoroughly troubled and screwed up beyond belief. His childhood alone produced enough issues for a shrink to be able to bill for decades in order to unpack. He wiped the sweat off of his forehead with the back of his right hand as he dropped his head into the clutches of his hands and thought about what got him where he was. Domestic violence? That’s not who I am. I was just trying to stop her from hitting me with a lamp. I wasn’t trying to hurt her. The judge didn’t buy it. He was not impressed at all by Zack’s clandestine, patriotic interludes.

  Skinhead. History of violence. Gang associations. Prior time in maximum security—albeit brief. The guards were left scratching their heads when he’d gotten out early. Only Zack and his current visitor knew why and how someone who rendered another paralyzed from a street fight gone wrong could get out so quickly.

  Zack lifted his head and found himself staring squarely into the eyes of his grin-faced, smart-assed visitor.

  “What the hell kind of cockamamie stuff runs through your head? Uh? Why the hell do you always end up in a place like this only for a poor pathetic bastard like myself to fool himself into bailing you out?” Gallagher took no measures to temper his true feelings.

  “Hi Chuck. Great to see you too you old artifact bastard.” Zack expected such a greeting, and was completely un-phased by it. He was, however, very happy to see his proverbial wicked military stepfather from the CIA.

  Chuck Gallagher had a soft spot in his heart for Zack Batt. Even though Batt didn’t deserve a lick of his unsolicited mentorship, Gallagher felt an attachment to the wayward street thug. Somehow Gallagher saw beneath his thuggery and his attitude to a redemptive quality waiting to emerge. He also recognized Zack’s very real potential use to the US government. Zack was the prodigal son, time and time again—although he was light on the humility and heavy on the iniquity. He always apologized to Gallagher after each incident, but his commitment to truly change his ways was always ambiguous.

  But Zack Batt was an undeniable asset of the United States government. Of course no one outside of the CIA inner circle could ever know it. If ever prodded, there was no chance in hell that the association between the two would ever be admitted to by anyone on Uncle Sam’s side. Zack was one of the government’s best private mercenary contingency assets. And Gallagher had honed him from the get-go for exactly that purpose.

  “I’m gonna get your ass out of here Batt, but with a price of course. I need your help, and as always, your country will be highly grateful.” Gallagher never let one of Zack’s personal crises go to waste. The quid pro quo was an integral part of their relationship.

  “What’s it this time? Offshore interrogation? Need me to do another hit on a radical activist in Latin America? Not sure if I’m still your guy, seeing that I’m rotting here in prison.” Zack still couldn’t believe he was behind bars again. He swore he wouldn’t screw up this time. He had made so much progress. Figures, it’d be another wayward woman that he’d tangle the wrong way with that would get him into trouble again.

  “What’s the story this time? Something about roughing up some broad? What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Trying to defend myself aga
inst my girlfriend.”

  “Aw, you poor defenseless bastard.”

  “Hey, bitch pummeled me with a lamp.” He pointed to a barely healed gash on the side of his face.

  Gallagher took Zack’s face in his hand and turned it to get the best light. “Not so bad.”

  “Nearly knocked me cold.”

  “But you somehow managed to come back on her?”

  “I—well—she had a broken lamp in her hand and was still charging, so yeah, I had to pop her.”

  “Which broad is it this time? That same whack job with all the jewelry in her face or that cute Armenian-Italian one? Helluva mix she’s got.” Gallagher could not keep track of Zack’s women. For a veritable compulsive screw-up, Zack Batt still found a way to persuade hot women to spend time with him whenever he was on the prowl.

  “Neither. A whole new ball of wax I don’t care to explain, and hope to never see again. I suppose a mission would distract me from my disastrous luck with the ladies.” This was true. Zack was at his best when he was in the thick of operational danger. When he was between assignments, somehow he wasn’t as good at avoiding danger.

  “Good. I’m glad to know where you’re head’s at now, because if it was latched onto some whacky broad, I’d be moving right along here and letting you rot in this cell.” Gallagher did not chuckle. He was deadly serious. He needed Zack’s head clear.

  “So what’s the angle this time.” Zack was calm now and ready to get into the real deal briefing. His tone and facial expression made it clear to Gallagher that he was serious about jumping into a new mission.

  “Aryans. Of a slightly different stripe.” Gallagher knew this was gonna throw Zack for a loop.

  Zack jerked his head quickly—mouth agape and eyes wide. He proceeded with his response, talking rapidly like a machine gun, as was his customary street-bred speech pattern. “Aryans? Damn, fighting them has historically got me into a hell of a lot of deep shit. I suppose now’s as good of time as ever to wade back in though. What the hell do you mean by different stripe anyhow? We’re talking about Aryans, right? There is only one damn stripe for an Aryan—white, European decent and nasty as hell.” Zack was game, even though he was already confused as to what exactly this game was going to be.

  “Not these ones. Except for the nasty part. These Aryans love Allah and fashioned the name of their nation via a suggestion by Hitler and his buddies. I’m talking about the Iranians.” Now Chuck knew he’d really be confusing the hell out of his young protégé.

  “What the hell do the Iranians have to do with Nazis?”

  “The word Iran means ‘Aryan’ in Farsi. The name came out of the many meetings Persians had with the Germans during WWII. Persians are just as Aryan as anyone in the Third Reich. And some of them are hell-bent on emphasizing their claim to the master race by targeting the Jews.”

  “Sounds like fun. An insane ideology meets an insane theology. When do I clock in and where is my employee handbook?”

  “Let me pull my strings and get your ass out of here first.” Gallagher knew Zack would be a perfect fit for this mission.

  “Good. Please move fast on that pally. Look around the yard here. I’m not exactly with the honor roll here.” Zack waived his arms motioning towards the lovely co-habitants he had been surrounded by.

  “Oh, and you’re so refined and full of dignity and scholarship? You got a friggin’ spider web tattoo in your inner ear and you’re griping about these fellas?” Gallagher cracked a smile.

  Zack chuckled and gazed around the small grassy area that was littered with a scattering of old picnic tables and populated by inmates in bright orange jump suits sitting around with visiting friends and families. Zack and Gallagher were sitting to the side on a bench with their backs against a wooden fence.

  “See that dude over there.” Zack pointed to a large, muscular black man across the way in the visitor’s area. “That’s Mohammed. Original name, right? Right. Well, Mohammed has been in the system for twenty years and was one of the many African American inmates to convert to Islam. Mohammed has no qualms about making known his pure disgust for white people. He hates me more because I have Jewish blood.”

  “So whaddya expect? You’re in federal prison not daddy day camp.” Gallagher insisted on giving Zack absolutely no slack.

  “Well, homeboy decided I was unworthy to work out in the weight room one evening and began throwing forty-five pound plates at me out of nowhere.” Zack took a sip of his Coke Zero.

  “What the hell did you do?” Gallagher always liked to hear about a good scrap.

  “I grabbed a ten-pound weight and zipped it at him like a Frisbee. It nailed him smack dab in the side of his head. It was a modern day David and Goliath prison riot for sure. One up for the half Jew, and one down for the Philistine.” Zack’s face contorted with intensity as he finished detailing the story.

  “Alright. I get the picture. I still think you deserve to be in here and that you ought to become Mohammed’s personal assistant—if you know what I mean, but that’s just me.” Gallagher chuckled sadistically.

  “Yeah, I love you too, you old bastard. How are those social security checks treating you?” Zack began chuckling along with his old hard-assed mentor friend.

  “Damn good. I’m spending them like a good drunken sailor should with the pleasant knowledge that your generation will never have the luxury.” More laughter emerged from both men simultaneously.

  “You see that Rumpelstiltskin freak over there?” Zack waved his arm in the direction of an old man with straggly gray hair limping with a cane. He was trotting towards one of the picnic tables in his orange jump suit. “See how he is limping? Well, that limp is his little backtrack mechanism. You see, the other day I was getting out of the shower covered only by my towel. That old bastard came out right in front of me completely naked, with a full erection, and asked if I could help walk him over to the bench to get his cane. He had that look in his eye. You know, that I’m-game-if-you-are homoerotic prison look. I made it very clear that I wasn’t game and that he better learn how to walk real quick on his own and get the hell out of my face, or he was going to be real damn sorry. He later came up to me in the yard and tried to play it off like he really had a legit need for help with his mobility. I tell you, I need to get on the outside, and quick. Or I promise you, I will hurt someone in here.” Zack was not laughing. His hostility was clear and palpable.

  “Alright, you sold me now with that story. Now I have compassion. I’ll expedite the process. You’ll be out in days.” Gallagher was no longer laughing either. He wished such incidents on no man.

  “So tell me more about this Persian Nazi thing.”

  For the next twenty minutes or so Gallagher gave the cliff notes version of the historical connection between the radical Islam of the Iranians and the radical anti-Semitism of the Nazis. Of course, Gallagher’s vernacular made for an interesting and entertaining weaving of the tale.

  He noted the decree made by the Reich Cabinet in 1936 exempting the Iranians from any of the restrictions of the Nuremberg Racial Laws due to the common Aryan ancestry of Iran and Germany. He explained the lavish gift from the German government to the Iranian people that consisted of over 7,500 books that were carefully selected to emphasize and reinforce the common heritage and Aryan culture that existed between the Iranians and the National Socialist Reich. “It was the freaks with the funny mustaches sending a literary French kiss to the whack jobs with the crazy beards”.

  Gallagher then went on to explain how Nazi literature constantly praised and referenced the virtue and commonality of the Shah of Iran and Hitler. The common, oppressed class of Iran felt a special kinship to Hitler and heralded him as one of the greatest men in the world for destroying a 200-years old plan of the Jews against nationality in the world, against nationalism, and particularly the Aryan races on earth. Hitler, they believed, had created a n
ew day for the new world.

  The two cultures had mutual admiration for the swastika. It had been a symbol for Persia for 2000 years before the birth of Christ and was viewed by Germans and Iranians alike as an indelible symbol of Aryan triumph. It was not only the Persian under-class that embraced this Aryan mutuality, it was also the Persian elites and intellectuals who fostered the notion of Aryan racial superiority.

  After a visit by the Persian ambassador to Germany in 1939 to meet with the German Chancellor, the Persians took to heart the German suggestion to change their name. Hence, Persia became Iran, the Farsi word for Aryan. At the time, Reza Shah proclaimed, “We considered Germany the chosen representative of this race in Europe and Iran its representative in Asia. The right to life and role was ours. Others had no choice but submission and slavery.”

  In the 1930’s, the official Iranian Nazi party was born, also referred to as the Iranian National Socialist Party. At the mention of that, Gallagher warned Zack, “Well, wouldn’t you know it, as anti-Semitism is now rearing its ugly old head of age-old hatreds again with a flame as fierce and as hot as it did in the thirties, the good ‘ole Iranian Nazi Party is officially back and gaining strength and membership exponentially through the help of social networking websites.”

  “So what exactly do you want me to do? Now that I have officially been schooled on the back story to this match made in hell.”

  “We need to infiltrate the nuclear plants at Natanz, Esfahan, and Bushehr. These bastards are way too close to accomplishing their goal of forcing us all to meet our makers. We have a source on the inside. His name is Arash Jafari. We know we can trust him. He’s been working for us ever since Reza Kahlili began spying for us. Now that Reza has defected to the US, Arash is pretty much the only asset we have over there that is producing.