The Reunion Bomber

By Bill Flynn

RONAN RYAN, A FORMER FBI AGENT, RETURNS TO EASTBORO TO ATTEND THE REUNION OF HIS HIGH SCHOOL CLASS. A CELEBRATION WITH HIS BASKETBALL TEAMMATES AND A PLEASANT ENCOUNTER WITH HIS FIRST LOVE IS INTERRUPTED BY A VIOLENT ACT OF VENGEANCE. THE FIVE CHIMINEYS RESTAURANT WHERE THE REUNION DINNER IS HELD BECOMES A CRIME SCENE, BUT THE KILLERS WORK IS NOT FINISHED. HIS OTHER TARGETS ARE ALL THE MEMBERS OF RONAN’S CLASS, THAT INCLUDES HIS HIGH SCHOOL SWEETHEART AND HIS FRIEND, THE EASTBORO CHIEF OF POLICE. THEY JOIN WITH A JAILED COMPUTER HACKER TO TRY AND FIND THE DERANGED, BUT CLEVER GARAGE DWELLER WHO MERCILESSLY AND METHODICALLY WREAKS TERROR ON THE CLASSMATES OF HIS PAST. THE REUNION AT EASTBORO COMES TO AN END IN FORTY-EIGHT TENTION PACKED HOURS AFTER THE REUNION BOMBER MAKES HIS FINAL DETONATION.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gatekeeper Press
• Release date: Feb 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781662908330

Bill Flynn

At age eleven (1964), Bill Flynn began surfing. The Atlantic Ocean was only a hundred yards away from the Flynn family’s home in North Wildwood, New Jersey. As a child, teenager, and young adult, the beach and 2.8 miles long Boardwalk is where he worked and played. Surfing was, and still is, his favorite form of recreation. During the later 1960’s and throughout the 70’s, surfing the waves along the East Coast was a way of life for Bill Flynn. He worked hard and played hard. At the age of eighteen he hitch-hiked across the country and surfed for four weeks at Huntington Beach, California. The following year he toured the country on his 750cc BMW motorcycle. He made surfing stops at Huntington Beach, California and Melbourne Beach, Florida. In 1973 he fulfilled every surfer’s dream, he surfed the North Shore of Hawaii. For five weeks he communed with a group of surfers and rode the largest waves of his life (even till today).

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AIRPORT.

CHAPTER 1

Eastboro, Massachusetts. June 17, 1981

Elementary school principal Andrew Mayo enters the empty teachers’ break room. Thirty years old and over six feet tall, he is slender with narrow hips and broad shoulders. He pours coffee from a tall stainless steel container of the black brew. He’s adding cream to the cup when a fourth-grade teacher, Karen Kelly, enters the room. She’s twenty-four years old, has short auburn hair, blue eyes, and a trim, attractive figure. She’s wearing a gray business suit with her white blouse open two buttons at the neckline.

Hi, Karen. What did you want to see me about?

With her hands on hips she looks right at him and says,I’m pregnant, Andrew.

Mayo’s coffee cup drops from his right hand and lands on the brown carpeted floor. It stays there, as he moves toward her and says, You’re what?

Karen places one hand on her stomach and the other hand points a finger at Mayo when as she answers him.Pregnant, Andrew…like carrying your baby.

His voice becomes high pitched with a mixture of shock and anger inflection when he asks.. How in the hell did that happen, Karen?

The usual way, she answers… as she picks up his cup and grabs a bunch of paper towels to clean the spilled coffee from the rug.

I’m ruined…my marriage to Janet, this job.

Karen says nothing.

Mayo’s face flushes red as his panic shows. What are you going to do? Can you have an abortion? I’ll pay.

She slowly shakes her head and her eyelids narrow as she stares defiantly at him. No abortion, Andrew…not my way. I’m not going to take any money from you or cause you to lose your job. It would hurt your family.

Mayo’s face loses the redness. He feels relieved after Karen declared concern for his family and his job,. He raises both hands with palms open in a pleading gesture. What can I do?

Okay, school ends in two weeks…I’m not showing…so I’ll finish this year. Again, her finger points toward him. I want you to arrange a leave of absence until I return to teach during the school year starting in September, 1982.

All right, I promise to get that done. Andrew Mayo moves toward her with his arms open and says, Karen.

I hope it’s not going to end up like all your promises, Andrew. Karen Kelly turns her back to him and then walks quickly toward the door.

CHAPTER 2

Eastboro, Massachusetts.

Christmas Morning, 2018

Sixty-seven-year-old, retired principal of Meyer Elementary school, Andrew Mayo, is in his pajamas and robe, sitting in a recliner chair by the Christmas tree opening his presents. After he unwraps one gift, he stares at it… wondering what it is. He asks his wife, who’s wearing a Santa Clause hat hiding her hair curlers under it, while she hands out presents from under the tree.

Janet, what the hell is this? He holds the object up, with one hand shaking it in front of her face.

She moves her red robe covered bulk to Mayo’s side. Oh, it’s a DNA kit. You spit in the test tube and send it to the lab. They make an analysis and send you the results.

What results?

Tells your ethnic history. What nationality you originate from. Mine showed that I’m 89 % Irish, English, and Scottish and 11% Finnish… would you believe?

Okay, Janet. Mayo pauses in thought before he asks… Does it tell who you’re related to?

Sure does. All that would match your own DNA, if they’ve also provided saliva samples in their kit for testing.

Again, Andrew Mayo hesitates, thinking about a past indiscretion before he says, I’m really not interested in using this kit to find out about all that stuff.

His son, Andrew Junior, thirty-nine, tall and thin, is married, and has two kids. Andrew’s mother mentions to any audience that will listen to her, that Andrew Junior is the spitting image of his dad when Andrew Senior was in his thirties. He’s sitting on the couch across from Mayo. Hey, Dad, I’ll take that kit off your hands. I’d like to do it.

Again, he hesitates, thinking about the remote chance that anything could be traced back from his son to the kid he’d fathered thirty-seven years ago.

Before Mayo can think all way through his son’s request and fathom any problems connected to it… the DNA kit is taken from him and Andrew Junior tosses it in a shopping bag to join his other Christmas gifts.

***

Leavenworth Prison, Kansas.

December 25, 2018

Lyle Emory and his cell mate, Josh Mitchel, are waiting to be escorted to the chow hall for a Christmas dinner. They are serving time after selling military explosives to civilian contractors.

So, Lyle, you’re out of this fucking joint next month. What are you going to do when you grow up?

G-G-Going back to my home t-t-town…try to get a job in d-d-demolition.

Yeah, that’s what you know…like blowing things up. We did a lot of that in the Army together. Also, you learned Morse Code here in prison, just to pass the time. Lot of good Morse Code will do ya.

I’d like to f-find out who my f-f-father is, Josh. Did I tell you I was an or-or-orphan, brought up in a f-f-fucking f-f-foster home. I was l-left there at two m-m-months old. They treated me like shit and s-s-screwed up my life. That’s why I s-s-stutter.

Yeah, you told me about it more than a hundred freaking times, Lyle. Why don’t you do that DNA trick to see if you can find out who he is?

H-H-Heard a little about that…h-h-how’s it w-work?

For around a hundred bucks you get a kit with a test tube in it from a place called My Heritage or some other DNA lab. All you gotta do is spit in it and send it back to them. If the stuff in your spit matches another person they’ve tested…they send you a report telling how you’re related. When I did it, I found a lot of third and fourth cousins were matches in the reports they sent me.

No s-s-shit?…I’m buying one of those k-k-kits when I get out. I gotta find the bad-ass that’s my -f-f-father.

What you gonna do when you find him, dude?

I m-might k-k-kill the b-b-bastard.

Whoa!

CHAPTER 3

Meyer Elementary School, 1993

Recess had fifteen minutes more to go. The seventh-grade boys are clustered around the playground in their usual circle of cliques. Some playing basketball… shooting up at a rusty hoop with no net. Others are planning some mischief to get the attention of the seventh-grade girls.

Lyle Emory stands alone, waiting for the bell that will end recess and gain him the safety of the classroom. But it doesn’t ring in time for his escape.

A gang of four boys leave their circle and walk slowly toward Lyle. He starts to run but is caught in an arm tackle by the biggest of the menacing bunch.

Hey, F-F-F-Fudd, he says, mimicking his captive’s stutter. Got a new hat?

The big one then grabs the wool watch cap from Lyle’s head, pulling his hair in the process. He tosses it to his friend. The hat is part of the winter clothing allowance awarded to him by his foster parents, and to lose it would mean another beating. Lyle jumps up trying to catch the hat in flight as it’s thrown around the circle of bullies.

Soon, all in the schoolyard gather to watch. The bullies taunt him with more stuttering mimicry. The girls, whose attention the gang of four have got, twitter and giggle as Lyle runs and jumps among his tormentors in a futile effort to catch his hat.

After five minutes of their teasing play, the biggest of the four upgrades his cruelty by tossing the hat down a deep stairwell bordered by thick cement walls with a locked door at the bottom. Sobbing now, Lyle scurries down the twelve steps to retrieve his hat. After he picks it up, he climbs the stairs, but the gang of four are at the top of the stairs blocking his exit. Every time Lyle would try to break from his bunker like entrapment, he is bullied back by them.

Meyer Elementary principal, Andrew Mayo, stands in the shadow of the school, arms folded over his chest, watching the boys taunt Lyle. A teacher approaches him.

She says, Maybe we should put a stop to this… It’s gone too far.

His answer: Boys will be boys, Mrs. Baxter.

Finally, the bell rings to end another of Lyle’s recesses from hell. His captors disperse and it’s over for him until the next time.

CHAPTER 4

Kansas City, Kansas. February 15, 2019

Lyle Emory is changing a tire on his beat-up Ford pickup truck, getting it ready to make the trip East. He’s been anxiously waiting for the results from his DNA kit sent to My Heritage two weeks before.

Lyle walks up the three steps to an apartment house on the fringe of Kansas City where he’s staying with an Army friend. He enters and goes straight to a bedroom where his laptop is on a bedside end table. He opens it, boots it up, and finds a message from My Heritage sent by a remailer company in Europe having a program that hides his real email address and sends his messages via another. He also used the name, Bill Elwood, when he signed on with My Heritage.

Lyle sits on the bed and opens the email. He reads that he’s 76% Irish, Scottish and 24% Dutch. That’s interesting, but not what he’s looking for concerning his father search. He scrolls down to get the information he really wants. It has four DNA matches listed.

The first one lists:

Andrew Mayo Jr, Age 39

Estimated relationship: Half Brother.

DNA Match Quality:

Shared DNA… 28.3%

Shared Segments… 52

Largest Segment… 140.5 cM

Lyle stands up and says out loud, T-T-That’s the s-son of m-m-my f-father and he’s my half b-b-brother. My father was the p-p-principal of M-Meyer Elementary. He w-w-watched while those schoolyard b-b-bullies m-m-messed with me. His hands fly up in the air, while he emits a loud Army cheer. Hooah! I’ll k-k-kill him and all the others who s s-s-screwed up my life.

The letter mentions an option on how to contact those relatives. He can sign in to the lab. When in the site, there’s a place to send a message to provide a contact phone number and/or email address to the person(s) matching his DNA.

There is also a half sister listed as a match with about the same laboratory parameters as Andrew Mayo, Junior. The two third and forth cousins that matched are of no interest to Lyle.

Lyle signs into the My Heritage site and provides the number, of a burner phone he just bought at a drug store, to the message space provided for that DNA match of his half-sister. He has a hunch that the half-sister may confirm his father’s identity… since they may have the same mother. He wants no contact with his Andrew Mayo Junior, half-brother, because that could mess up his plan for Mister Andrew Mayo Senior.

***

One month later Lyle gets a call on his burner phone:

Hello, I’m Gwen Baxter, calling from Chicago. I’m contacting you, Mr. Elwood, because you came up as a half brother of mine on a recent DNA lab report based on a sample I submitted to My Heritage.

Lyle hesitates before speaking. He had used the name Elwood when he sent in the DNA kit.

Hello, Mr. Elwood, are you still there?

Yes, w-w-were you from E-Eastboro, Mass… once?

Yes, I was born there in 1984.

Lyle thought the name, Baxter, was a familiar one, connected to Meyer Elementary in Eastboro.

W-W-Was your m-m-mother a t-t-teacher?

"She was…before she died, three years ago, she told me she had a baby son out of wedlock that she had to give up