by L. T. Ryan
“So, how’d it work? You tracked down the mom, showed up, and saw she had a kid?”
Jack took a pull from his mug. He wiped the foam away from his upper lip. “Something like that.”
“We all do things we shouldn’t have, son. But the only thing to truly regret is not making amends with those we love.”
“You speak from experience?”
The bartender nodded, said nothing.
“So what happened?”
The man shrugged. “It’s not worth talking about.”
“Everybody needs someone to talk to,” Jack said.
The man smiled then looked to his left. “Your cab’s here, son.”
Jack glanced toward the front of the pub and saw the taxi. He reached into his pocket, dropped a twenty pound note on the bar top. He left the establishment without another word spoken between him and the old man.
Jack slid into the backseat of the cab. “Take me to a hotel that doesn’t require ID.”
The driver studied Jack in the rear view mirror.
“I’m not a criminal,” Jack said.
“Then why no ID?” the cabbie said.
“Just trying to throw my crazy ex-wife off my trail.”
“Ah.” The cabbie gave Jack a knowing nod and a wink and then put the taxi into gear.
They drove for twenty silent minutes.
The cabbie slowed down in front of a rundown building. “It’s a bit dodgy over here, but you look like the kind of fellow who can take care of himself.”
Jack handed the man a twenty and exited the cab. He assessed his surroundings. He was in the rough part of town. No one appeared to be an immediate threat, although some unwanted glances were cast his way. He made eye contact with everyone in view. Criminals preferred to prey on the unsuspecting and unprepared.
He crossed the sidewalk and entered the lobby and approached the middle aged woman behind the counter. He held one finger in the air and said, “One night. Just me. Cash.”
She pulled the half burned cigarette out of her mouth and said, “One night is eighty pounds, if you’re paying cash.”
Jack looked around the place. The wallpaper peeled away from the wall in long strands. The floor looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in months. Smelled that way, too. Roach traps were visible, as were mouse traps. Droppings along the baseboards confirmed the hotel had a rodent problem.
“You’re kidding, right?” he said.
“Want to pay less, drop a credit card on the counter.”
Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of cash. His had limited options. And since he was in a not-so-great area, sleeping outside held less appeal than it had a half hour ago. The woman handed him keys in exchange for money. Directions to the room were not provided. The room number was 814.
Top floor accommodations, Jack thought, maybe even the penthouse.
He started toward the hallway, stopped, turned. “Can I get a wakeup call?”
She pulled the cigarette from her mouth again and dropped it. “This ain’t the flippin Ritz, boy.”
“Of course it’s not. What was I thinking?”
Jack turned and found the elevator lobby. Calling it a lobby was being generous. He saw a single elevator. The door was stuck open. Two-by-fours and yellow tape covered the gaping hole. Curious, he poked his head into the opening. The dark shaft revealed no secrets. He couldn’t help but wonder what might be at the bottom. The shaft had to be at least a century old. It was as if he stood before an exhumed casket, full of a hundred years of hopes and dreams and horrors.
He found the stairs and quickly ascended them to the eighth floor. The temperature rose the higher he climbed. At the top, he pushed through the stairwell door. The hall was dark, with only one in every five or so lights on. The bulbs must have been 15 watt. They cast small pools of light on the hallway floor, but illuminated little else.
He pulled out his cell phone and brought up a blank web page. The white light given off allowed him to use his phone like a flashlight. This was one of the ways that technology was useful to Jack. He found his room halfway down the hall. He paused outside the door for a moment. No sound came from the room. He tried the handle before inserting the key. The door was unlocked. As he cracked the door, a smell like rotten bananas wrapped in sweaty socks hit him. He kicked the door open with his foot and took a step to the side. After a moment he reached inside and felt along the wall until he found the light switch.
“Christ almighty,” he said as the room brightened. The bed was unmade, the sheets strewn about the floor. The dresser drawers hung open. The smell seemed to get worse the longer he stood there. He walked inside, his gun drawn. The sound of flies buzzing intensified with every step he took. He expected to find a body on the other side of the bed. It didn’t smell of death, but the corpse could be fresh. He craned his neck as he neared the bed, peeked over the edge. The flies whipped around in a frenzy. He stopped when he saw the source of the smell.
Someone had left four trays of rotten food on the floor.
Jack backed out of the room, left the door open, headed for the stairs.
When he reached the bottom of the stairwell, he kicked the door open. The lobby’s overhead light flickered. He made a line toward the check-in counter.
“Hey,” he said.
The woman didn’t look up.
“What the hell’s your deal giving me that room?”
Her head slowly lifted. Her gaze met his. She studied him for a minute, then said, “What about it?”
“What do you mean what about it? It’s filthy. The whole floor is. Whole damn place, for that matter.”
She rose and placed her hands on the counter and leaned forward. Her eyes narrowed as she looked him up and down. “I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else.”
Jack shook his head. All he wanted was four or five solid hours of sleep. “Just give me a new room. A clean one.”
She took a step back and slid open a drawer. “Here you go, 204. Cleaned it myself this morning.”
“Great.”
Jack grabbed the key and headed for the stairs. He stopped at the entrance to the stairwell. Again, he contemplated sleeping outside. In the end, he took the stairs to the second floor and found his room. It smelled, but not as bad as the previous room. The bed had been made. The dresser only had a fine layer of dust on it. He wondered about the space between the furniture and the wall. Checking would only serve to anger him further, and that would be counterproductive. What he needed now was sleep.
He patted the bed. A plume of dust rose into the air. He glanced around for something to place over the sheets. The towels in the bathroom appeared to be the cleanest items in the room, so he grabbed four and placed them on the bed and then laid down on them. He crossed his right ankle over his left and his arms across his chest and faded off to sleep with the image of Mia in his mind’s eye.
CHAPTER 38
Clarissa crept through the house toward the front door. Spiers slept on the couch near the far wall. She stopped in front of the window and pulled back the curtains. A silver haze of fog hovered over the ground. Muted sunlight penetrated, the dew covered grass shimmered. She opened the door and stepped out into the damp air. Though she couldn’t see the village, she could see far enough ahead to get there. All she had to do was place one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward.
Story of my life.
She hoped the store would be open. Though it was only six a.m., in a place like this, people started their day early. And if the fridge inside the house was any indication of how those people lived, they’d need food from the store early and often.
Spiers had left the keys to the car on the counter, but she opted not to use it. A walk through the crisp morning air would do her some good. Things had been happening at a breakneck pace. She needed some time to chill and collect her thoughts.
Her sleep had been disrupted throughout the night by a single question. What if her mission had been ruined? By this po
int, Naseer would have the method of her murder chosen if he knew that she hadn’t stayed in Paris. Months of planning destroyed by a single choice. Of course, not her planning. And not her choice. Things were coming to a head with Naseer and his men, and if they carried out a major attack, one that she could have prevented but failed to because of this decision, she’d have trouble living with herself.
By the time she reached the village, the fog had lifted. She looked back toward the house. The path she had taken remained veiled in liquid smoke.
The store was open. Clarissa entered and smiled at the elderly man behind the counter. A woman that Clarissa assumed was his wife tended the coffee pot. She looked over her shoulder and smiled at Clarissa.
“It’ll be ready in five minutes,” the woman said in French.
Clarissa smiled, nodded. She located the refrigerated section. There she grabbed two pints of milk and a dozen-and-a-half eggs. She set the items on the counter and waited for the coffee to brew.
Outside, a silver sedan stopped in front of the store. She couldn’t tell if it was a Mercedes or a Lexus. For all she knew, it could have been an Audi. The windows were tinted black. The passenger door opened, then pulled closed and the car took off.
The old man stared at the spot where the vehicle had stood a moment before. Clarissa wondered if the man felt disheartened by the car leaving, the customer who didn’t enter his store, and the sale that didn’t happen.
The steady stream of coffee pouring into the pot slowed to a trickle. She grabbed an insulated paper cup and filled it three-quarters of the way. She topped it off with thick cream and sugar, then covered the cup with a lid.
The old man tallied her items. He tried to make small talk, but Clarissa only smiled and looked away. She grabbed the paper bag he had placed her items in, and then she left the store.
Outside, the sun shone brighter and burned away the remaining fog. She could see as far as the driveway. The house remained hidden.
And through that last patch of fog, Clarissa saw two balls of red light. They flashed and then disappeared.
Brake lights.
She quickened her pace.
A minute later a shot was fired.
She dropped the paper bag containing the milk and eggs, and tossed her coffee to the side, and she started to run toward the house.
A second shot rang out. She heard screams, at least one adult and Mia.
Still she could not see the house. It worked in her favor. She’d be able to get close without being seen.
The field next to the house was full of waist high grasses. She cut through the field. Crouched low when the house finally came into view. The screams had stopped almost as quickly as they had begun. Why, she wondered. What were they doing to the survivors inside?
A man exited the house and went to the silver sedan. He was tall, blond, and dressed in dark cargo pants and a dark long sleeve shirt. He opened the passenger door, reached inside, came back out with a lit cigarette. The guy had his back to Clarissa. He placed his pistol on the hood of the car. She decided that she had to act. There was at least one more person inside, maybe more. The car could carry five. How many actually had been in it when it arrived depended on what the men intended on doing with the people inside the house.
Clarissa made her way through the last of the high grass. She picked up a fallen branch, three feet long, three inches in diameter.
The smell of burning tobacco wafted past her.
The guy leaned forward against the car, forehead pressed against the roof, arms at his side.
Must have been a long trip, she thought.
Clarissa slipped off her shoes. Dew coated the bottoms and sides of her toes. She exploded into a sprint. The balls of her feet hit the ground for a fraction of a second at a time. She barely made a sound. By the time the guy realized someone was heading his way, it was too late.
The man lifted his head, started to turn to his left. His eyes widened when he saw Clarissa. He brought his left hand up in a defensive position, but it didn’t help.
Clarissa had both hands on the branch. She brought it up and across her left shoulder, like she was holding a bat. She leapt, twisted at the hips, swung the bat. Her coordinated movements provided ample torque, turning the branch from a hunk of wood into a deadly weapon. It smashed into the guy’s arm and his face with more force than a major league baseball player’s swing. His forearm and jaw snapped with sickening cracks. The skin on his chin split. Blood poured from the gash, and from his ear and his eye. He collapsed to the ground, unconscious.
Clarissa grabbed the pistol off the hood of the car. She brought the handgun to her face. The warm barrel smelled of cordite. She aimed the weapon at his head and went through the man’s pockets. Found them to be empty.
The guy moaned. His eyes fluttered open. Clarissa picked up the branch, tucked the pistol in her waistband. The guy moaned louder as Clarissa brought the branch up. She twisted at the waist, the branch followed a half-second later and connected on the side of the guy’s head, a little further up than the last time. A sheet of blood flowed from the side of his head, over his hair, down his neck. He fell to his side. The dirt around his head quickly turned to dark crimson mud.
“You better hope to God those women haven’t been touched or else you’re gonna wake up with worse problems than a headache.”
She ran to the side of the house, crouched, stayed low as she approached the door. It lingered open a few inches. She dropped the stick. Mia’s soft cries filtered through the doorway. One male voice spoke low. Clarissa couldn’t make out what he said, although she could tell he was British.
She paused for a moment, waited for signs of another person inside. All she heard was the voice, Mia’s cries and nothing else.
She reached out and nudged the door with the barrel of the gun. It glided open. Rusted hinges groaned. The man’s voice continued, uninterrupted. She still couldn’t decipher what he said, but the fact he kept talking told her that he hadn’t noticed the door. Or maybe he figured it had been his partner, in which case he’d remain casual. At least as casual as one could be in this situation.
With the gun stretched out in front of her and cradled in both hands, Clarissa slipped inside. Spiers lie on the floor halfway between the couch and where she stood. She scanned the room, then went to him. He laid on his stomach, the right side of his face pressed against the floor. He clenched a fire place poker in his right hand. A pool of blood surrounded his head. The tilted floor caused it to spread away from his body. His eyes were wide open, unblinking. She knelt before him, placed a hand on his neck, felt no pulse.
Clarissa stepped over Spiers’s body. To the right were the bedrooms, the left the kitchen. The man’s voice and Mia’s sniffles came from the left. She moved silently toward them.
As she approached the opening, she saw the backs of the women. They held hands behind the chairs they sat in. Even Mia. They weren’t bound. Perhaps that was why the man went to the car, for rope. Clarissa’s ears burned. Her breath and pulse quickened. She gripped the pistol tighter in response and clenched her chest and stomach muscles. After five seconds, she released. Her body responded by relaxing.
She took another step.
“So from this point on,” she heard the man say, “you speak no more. We drive to the coast. A boat will be waiting to take us to England. We’ll meet another car there, then you’ll be taken to see our boss. And during that whole time, you keep your mouth shut.”
Mia sobbed.
“Especially you, you little—”
Clarissa moved forward, quickly and decisively. She trained her aim on the man’s head. His eyes grew wide when he saw her. He raised his pistol, but the position of his body left him off balance.
Clarissa didn’t have time to tell him to freeze or stop or drop his weapon. She pulled the trigger. Time slowed and the next several actions happened in freeze frame. Her shot was true and it hit the man in the center of the forehead. At the same time she fired, so ha
d he. His gun had been aimed in the direction of the women. They screamed. It sounded like shouts underwater to Clarissa. The man fell to his knees. Clarissa fired again, this time hitting him in the chest. He dropped his handgun, fell backward.
Time resumed. She rushed toward the guy and verified that he was dead. Behind her, Mia continued to cry. Expected, she figured, since the kid was six years old. But Erin screamed again. She sounded like she was in pain. Hannah yelled for Clarissa.
Clarissa turned, saw blood on their hands, the floor and Erin’s right leg. She said, “Clean towels.”
No one moved.
“Hannah, go get me some clean towels. And find me a belt.”
Hannah rose and rushed out of the kitchen. Clarissa went to Erin’s side. She found where the bullet had entered, just above Erin’s right knee. Blood flowed from the wound. Clarissa feared that the woman’s femoral artery had been hit. She placed her index and middle fingers inside the hole in Erin’s pants and pulled. The fabric ripped half a foot in either direction. She inspected the wound. The bullet had gone through and through, but not evenly. Her concern that the femoral artery had been damaged grew.
“Mia,” she said. “I want you to look through the drawers and see if you can find some scissors.”
The little girl said nothing. Her cries had stopped.
Clarissa looked over. The girl looked catatonic. Her eyes wide, focused on her mother’s wound. Clarissa placed herself between mother and daughter. She lowered her head until their eyes met. Mia broke free from the spell.
“Scissors,” Mia said.
Clarissa nodded. “That’s right. And don’t you worry, she’s going to be OK.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
As soon as the girl turned, so did Clarissa. At the same time, Hannah returned with a handful of white towels and four belts.
“I didn’t know what size you needed,” Erin said, offering the belts to Clarissa.
“That’s fine. You did good. Now I want you to go to the sink and wet a couple of those towels and bring them back over here.”