Midnight Rendezvous

The other man was roughly in his late 50's had unruly silver hair, almost platinum which was made even shinier as the crescent moon's beams of light reflected off of it. Wrinkles turned into creases covered his face as if an iron had pressed his skin folds to a permanent fixture. His hands were never out of his trench coat's pocket for a minute, not even to shake the other man's hand. Paranoia distorted each man's willingness to speak first. The first man's fist clenched. His nails dug into his palm as his thumbs pulled his knuckles even tighter. The boat dock was silent, a precursor to the bloodshed he would witness.

The first man had contacted the other man by hacking the password of an underground and nefarious online forum. The secured forum dealt with illicit activities in the greater San Diego metropolitan area. Geographically, San Diego was as safe as an underground bunker, but evil never sleeps. Tiny unofficial red light districts began to sprout up not even five years ago frequented by C-level executives of major pharmaceutical companies in order to engage in fiendish and lustful rendezvous, hire hit-men to off their wives, and acquire illegal semiautomatic assault weapons from Eastern Europe. 

The first man became aware of these illicit practices after he had run across some documents in the basement of the pharmaceutical company where he worked as a technical copywriter. These documents were printed e-mails from the Strategy Director to a nondescript email address. The emails dealt with a big shipment of experimental drugs being transferred from Haiti. He knew they were experimental because his job forced him to get well-acquainted with all of their commercial products. He actually despised the arrogance and sinister work practices he had witnessed during his two-year stint at the company, but needed to pay rent and finish his first manuscript which was part of a series he was working on. He never knew the scope of their depravity.

Here he was, face to face with the man who was supposed to deliver the shipment, except his station wagon seemed far too small to hold the agreed-upon packages. Each man pulled out a small pistol, neither pointing it at the other.

"I think we're both here for the same reason," said the silvered-hair man. His eyes piercing blue with a razor-sharp gaze that could cut through steel. He went toward his trunk, opened it, let out a slightly pained groan as if he was picking up something heavy and sighed with relief as the first man heard a loud thump. He saw a man tied up with a bullet wound through the head. It was the Strategy Director. He stared intently unable to comprehend why the older man was showing him this. The other man pulled the dead and tied body by the legs toward the dock's edge, looked toward the first man and said, "a little help here."