The Dungeon & Christmas With the Executioner

by Ian W. Sainsbury

  He swapped out the empty magazine and listened. Nothing. Impossible for anyone to breathe quietly in that smoke. Which meant no one was breathing.

  Tear gas. Strickland thought of the outfit Lewis wore when he burst out of the dungeon. The lower part covered his mouth and nose. The lack of coughing below signified nothing if he had his own oxygen supply. When this clown was dead, Strickland would be very interested to learn how someone locked inside a soundproof concrete dungeon scored a ninja suit, weapons, explosives, and an oxygen tank.

  Strickland checked his colleagues. Winter held a handkerchief to his face, looking as unruffled as ever. He nodded at the wall behind them. Penny slumped there, unmoving. There was a difference between the way a person lay when unconscious, and when beyond help. Strickland didn't need the ragged hole above Penny's left eye, and the smear of blood on the wall to tell him which this was. Her hair, the brown now streaked dark with red, smeared the white wall like a paintbrush.

  Winter used hand gestures to direct him towards the office, while he went the other way. Strickland nodded. The back stairs meant Winter would have a second exit available, should he decide the situation warranted a retreat. Strickland had known his old boss a long time. If retreating meant survival, he would do it, regroup, and come back fighting on his own terms. There was a reason Winter still thrived, when most of his rivals were long dead.

  Strickland searched Penny's body, taking her Glock and a spare magazine. Winter watched him do it before backing towards the west wing of the house.

  Strickland wasn't a team player, or a leader. He wasn't a psychopath like Winter. He was a serial killer who'd got lucky. And he'd kept his secret for thirty years.

  Before joining Winter, he'd killed four men and three women. His compulsion was all-consuming. From his early teens, he'd fantasised about murder, knowing he'd never be happy if he didn't act on his desires. But, like most desires, the satisfaction that followed after the first victim faded quickly. Within three months, he could think of nothing else. He re-lived every moment from that first time, the crackling of cartilage in her neck, the change in her eyes when death came.

  But with his addiction came danger. Serial killers got caught. If he got caught, he wouldn't be able to kill. Life held no meaning without the opportunity to bring death. So he got smart. He asked around. Slit the throat of one of Winter's enemies as a calling card. Found himself in gainful employment.

  After that, his hobby became his business. Strickland learned to hide the pleasure he took in each murder, and he flourished. He had an aptitude, and a talent, for killing. Even in his early twenties, he did it well. These days, no one could touch him.

  Strickland didn't plan on leaving Winter's house until Lewis was dead. This couldn't end any other way. His neck flushed with excitement at the prospect.

  He backed into the study and opened the windows. The tear gas thinned as it rose. Strickland moved across to the bedroom opposite and opened its window to create a through-draught.

  Tom Lewis had fooled them, but that didn't matter now. What mattered was out-manoeuvring this clever, ruthless, combat-ready enemy. Lewis might be outnumbered, but an individual familiar with the territory could evade detection in a dark, smoke-filled house. And Lewis had been familiar enough to go straight to the control room.

  The second explosion had been larger than the first. Much larger. There may be survivors on the lower level, but Strickland assumed the worst. The gate guards, the two on patrol, and the two at dinner had all been downstairs. Now presumed dead. The guard by the front door had choked on his own blood, and his colleague's silence suggested a similar fate. Penny was dead. Twelve down in the space of what - ten minutes?

  Strickland hunkered down and checked his weapons. He dropped Penny's gun into his left jacket pocket, leaving the spare magazines in his trouser pocket. He reached behind his back with both hands, his fingers automatically finding two heavy brass knuckle dusters tucked into his belt. Old school, but useful at close quarters. Even a jab would break skin, or bones. The one on his right hand covered the middle, ring, and little fingers, leaving his trigger finger free. It would prevent the infamous Glock trigger guard from causing a blister, too.

  The explosion had compromised Strickland's hearing, but not enough to provoke tinnitus. He ran a mental check. Two men in the kitchen at the time of the explosion. They would have heard shots, seen the gas, their eyes prickling. Strickland knew what he would have done. Open the back door and get out. Take cover and watch the open door. London was never pitch black. If Lewis came out, there was enough light to bring him down.

  It had been five weeks since his last fix, asphyxiating an investigative journalist. His heart rate rose with anticipation.

  Still listening, Strickland left the bedroom and crossed back to the study. Behind the desk, he stood next to the window, before leaning out for a count of three. One guard waited behind a box hedge ten yards from the back door. He'd cleared a hole through the branches, aiming at the doorway. The second guard had turned left on exiting and taken cover behind a potted fern.

  The guards' reaction was good and bad. Good, because they'd made the best tactical decision under the circumstances. Bad, because if Strickland correctly predicted their actions, then the guy leaving the trail of bodies behind him could do the same. Strickland put himself in his enemy's position. Lewis would be loath to pursue Winter and Strickland until neutralising the men downstairs. But with enemies outside, hidden, and ready, what was Lewis's next move?

  What did Lewis call himself? Bedlam Boy. It described his modus operandi. He brought mayhem, confusion. None of the clinical tidiness of Strickland's murders. Strickland had never taken the life of another multiple murderer before. Would Lewis die any differently to the others?

  A noise from outside drew him back to the window. Something lay on the grass. A metal canister. He frowned. More tear gas? Ineffective outside. The wind shaking the evergreens would disperse it, blowing the gas away from the house. And, unlike tear gas, this canister was puckered with holes like Emmental cheese.

  Strickland's instincts kicked in, and he shut his eyes, screwing them up and pulling his head back from the window. When the garden, house, study, and the inside of his skull, flooded with blinding light, his tightly shut eyelids prevented temporary blindness. Nothing to be done about the hundred and seventy decibel bang that followed. Sledgehammers wrapped in blankets hit each side of his head and he reeled back until he leaned against the desk, stunned.

  The first shot, barely audible after the bang, came so quickly Strickland thought it was an echo. A barrage of shots followed, and he returned to the window. The guard behind the hedge sprayed bullets at the house. Strickland tried to blink away the afterimages. He was only certain of the guard's position because of the flash of the man's weapon.

  The ornamental fern had a corpse behind it now. Strickland saw movement; a dark figure running towards the end of the box hedge. Strickland raised his gun, but his balance was off. If he fired, he would likely miss and give away his position. He lowered the Glock. Another three shots broke the stillness and the last guard's body spun sideways, coming to rest facedown in a spreading pool of blood.

  When Strickland moved to close the window, the fourth shot tore through his jacket and entered his shoulder, an inch to the right of the base of his neck. Strickland dropped his gun and stumbled backwards.

  "Fuck!" His voice a dull, muffled bell ringing in his head. "Fuck!"

  Strickland pulled back his jacket. A neat entry, the bullet exiting at the top of his shoulder. Just a nick. It had chipped his collarbone on the way through. The wound was bleeding, but not heavily.

  He'd been shot before. Once. That one had bled like a bastard. And it had taught him a lesson which he'd apparently forgotten. Find out where the shooters are. If you can't shoot them first, stay out of range or out of sight.

  The over-ambitious pimp who shot Strickland seventeen years ago got lucky. Lewis didn't need luck. This Bedlam Bo
y wasn't just well-prepared, he was good. Better than good. After taking out the two remaining guards, he'd seen movement in the upstairs window, and fired. Someone good enough to find a target, aim, and fire so accurately could have squeezed off more than one shot. Which led Strickland to the alarming conclusion that Lewis had chosen not to. That single shot sent a message. Strickland saw it as arrogance, over-confidence. The pain in his shoulder poured fuel onto his desire. He licked his lips.

  Downstairs, an engine roared into life, followed by the squeal of tyres. Winter leaving. The police would find nothing linking him to this house. The computer network wiped clean, every hard drive corrupted beyond recovery. But Winter was no longer invincible. Strickland knew he would want to correct that perception as soon as possible.

  As for Strickland, he didn't intend to leave anything for Winter to correct. Either he walked away, or Lewis did. And he had no doubt which way it would go.

  Strickland's motive was purer than Winter's. He didn't care about his reputation. No one in London, no one in the country, perhaps even in Europe, was better at killing people than John Strickland. Fact. Tom Lewis, with all his skill and preparation, might think he could take him, but it was an error. Strickland was a killer. Strip away the veneer that stopped him triggering the instinct to flee in everyone he met, and Strickland was pure predator.

  He headed for the back stairs, his thoughts fading to nothing but the hunt, the wound in his shoulder forgotten, his senses alive, his muscles and sinews flexing, nostrils flaring as he brought more oxygen into his body, controlled the adrenaline flooding his brain, every sense ready for the coming fight.

  Tom Lewis died tonight.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The car left the underground garage and, with a throaty grunt from its V8, bolted for the gate in a spray of gravel. The Boy watched it go. Winter's escape had been accounted for in his plans. It wasn't over yet. He had shown Winter he wasn't safe, not even with his enemy locked inside his private dungeon. He would never be safe. Winter's name came last on Bedlam Boy's list. He would die last. The Executioner was all that stood between them.

  He re-entered the house through the garage, climbed the stairs and rolled another tear gas canister into the hall. He'd seen the Executioner on the first floor. Strickland would find somewhere to defend, somewhere he thought he might have an advantage. He would only relinquish the higher ground if the situation changed in his favour.

  The Boy stepped over the bodies of the fallen as he padded back through the house. The nearest corpse blocked the kitchen door. Bedlam Boy dragged the body into the kitchen. He looked down at a bland face, slack in death. One of the foot soldiers in an organisation that treated some lives as if they had no value. Now he knew the truth of it.

  The Boy took off the samurai helmet, leaving the grinning, demonic mengu mask in place. He stripped down to his briefs. Before putting the rucksack back on and reconnecting the oxygen, he placed the last stun grenade on the kitchen counter.

  For a few precious seconds, Bedlam Boy closed his eyes and allowed himself to return to his childhood home, struggling against Marty's grip as the Executioner pointed a gun at Michael Lewis's forehead. Tom Lewis didn't look away as the blood and gore splattered the wallpaper, his father's face destroyed, because he didn't believe it at first. People got shot in films, not in nice detached Victorian homes in Richmond. But as the twelve-year-old Tom struggled to get free, while Winter poured petrol onto his mother and the Executioner raised the gun, he knew it was real. A cold splash of shame and horror told him why the burglar alarm remained silent, and why Rhoda wasn't there. The memory pounded at him: Rhoda drinking coffee with the man who now doused his mother from a petrol can as if watering a plant. Tom had known something wasn't right, something about the way Rhoda looked, how pale she was. He said nothing to his parents. Now his father was dead, and his mother was next. He freed himself and ran, because cowards ran, and he didn't save his mother, and when Marty Nicholson shot him in the head, part of him was glad, because he deserved it.

  Bedlam Boy opened his eyes. The Boy didn't blame Tom, whose damaged brain kept him a frightened twelve-year-old forever. His body entered puberty, his voice changing, his chest expanding as he grew taller and heavier, but Tom Lewis never reached adolescence. Bedlam Boy did it for him. The bullet that hit Tom's skull was the million-to-one sperm, fertilising his brain. The embryonic seed became Bedlam Boy, and the Boy did what Tom couldn't.

  It was time. He visualised the next few minutes. The Executioner remained a very dangerous opponent. No one who ever tried to kill Strickland survived. The Boy wanted to look into the Executioner's eyes. He wanted Strickland to see who had killed him.

  The Boy caught sight of his reflection in the kitchen window. Too dark to pick out every detail. A pale smudge looked back. An indistinct, nightmarish face, a painted smile under ash-streaked eyes.

  He picked up the armoured forearm and shin guards from the pile of clothes on the floor, putting them back on. Then he crouched next to the bloodied corpse of the guard and started unbuttoning the dead man's shirt.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Strickland welcomed the icy calm that settled over him. His shoulder was a distraction. He could still use his right hand to shoot, which was stronger than his left. His hearing had returned to normal, and the open windows had dispersed most of the gas upstairs.

  The main guest bedroom was at the north-east corner of the house. Strickland dragged Penny's body there. The wound on his shoulder pumped out fresh blood, though not in enough quantities to worry him.

  He manoeuvred Penny's corpse into position on the far side of the bed, a pillow under her chin making it appear as if she were watching the doorway. After returning Penny's Glock to her cold hand, wrapping her fingers around the grip, he retreated into the ensuite bathroom. In the semi-darkness, Strickland adjusted the shaving mirror until it gave him a view of the doorway while he crouched on the floor.

  The plan stood a reasonable chance of success. Lewis would see Penny when he reached the doorway. Strickland's shoulder testified to the speed of his enemy's reactions. As soon as he opened fire, Strickland would have him. With Lewis firing from the doorway, all Strickland had to do was duck out of the bathroom and pull the trigger.

  He waited with the zen-like patience of a hunter. The house was silent, easy to pick out the smallest sound. Something moved downstairs. Not footsteps. Nothing more for a few minutes, then the same sound. Maybe one guard had survived. Strickland breathed as gently as he could. It sounded like someone dragging themselves along the tiles in the hallway. In which case, where was Lewis? Gone? Strickland didn't believe it. Marty and Rhoda had died, and they hadn't killed anyone on that night twenty years ago. It had been Strickland who'd murdered the parents while their son looked on.

  No. Lewis wasn't going anywhere. Not with Strickland still alive.

  He stretched his legs, then his arms. With every minute, his hearing recovered a little more. An owl hooted. Cars passed the gates at the end of the drive. A jet began its descent to Heathrow, the engine noise dropping to a low rumble.

  When the shots came, Strickland brought the gun up, finger tightening.

  Two shots downstairs. A gasp of pain. Ragged breathing. A third shot. Silence.

  Bollocks to it.

  Strickland retrieved the second gun from Penny and darted out of the bedroom onto the landing, checking every angle, every dark doorway. At the staircase, he hung back for a moment, then risked a glance over the bannister. The dead guard by the doorway, his throat open like a sick smile, was still there. Another body blocked the kitchen door, the angle too acute to see it fully.

  Strickland crossed to the opposite wall, moving alongside the stain marking Penny's death. He stepped forward, standing above the kitchen door, and leaned out.

  The face-down body underneath him wore a matt black outfit and a samurai helmet.

  The journey down the fourteen stairs to the tiled hallway took Strickland forty seconds, a g
un in each hand. If anyone moved, they died.

  In the hallway, he continued his near-silent progress. Close enough to see holes in the back of the black outfit. Shot from behind, meaning the body fell forward into the hall. Who shot him? And where were they now?

  When he reached the body, Strickland inched past it, squatting to enter the kitchen concealed by the counter. Holding his breath, he leaned out, looking both ways. No one.

  He stood over the corpse. If this was a trap, the most dangerous moment would come when he turned the body over.

  Strickland tucked his shoe under the body's shoulder. The corpse had fallen onto one arm, forcing the right shoulder higher than the left. One good push, using the arm underneath as a pivot, should do the job.

  He scooped his foot underneath and shoved. He didn't look straight away, instead pointing both guns towards the front and back doors, waiting for the attack. When it didn't come, he looked down. The dead eyes staring back at him from inside the helmet didn't belong to Tom Lewis. But that wasn't his biggest problem.

  His biggest problem was the stun grenade, the trigger of which had only been held in place by the weight of the body lying on top of it. At the moment Strickland looked down, it exploded.

  The world went white as every photo-receptor in Strickland's eyes were triggered. Both eardrums burst with the bang that followed.

  Which meant that Strickland didn't hear the singing.

  Chapter Twenty

  The moment after firing the third shot into the back of the dead guard, Bedlam Boy ran. He grinned as he flew through the back door into the night, turned left, and—staying close to the wall—followed the exterior of the building.

  The front door stood open. The Boy waited there, his back pressed against the smooth architrave. He leaned down and scooped two handfuls of earth from the flower beds, holding them ready.