The Dali Deception

by Adam Maxwell

  “I could,” Zoe snapped. “But I only have one pair of hands and right now that pair of hands is working on a security system, okay?”

  “We planned for this.” Violet stood up and spoke calmly to the crew now. “Barry, close the net to the exterior. In the car park. No-one comes in or out. Got it?”

  “Check,” said Barry.

  “Zoe,” Violet went on, walking out of the den and into the main living area of the cavernous flat. “Keep doing what you’re doing; update me when you have something to say.”

  “Will do, captain,” said Zoe.

  “Lucas?” Violet began.

  “They’re in the lift and it’s descending,” replied Lucas. “I know what I need to do, I’m already on the stairs coming down. And in case anyone is interested, my mask looks like two women’s feet. Barry, these masks are fucking cool, man.”

  “Cool?” Barry’s voice invaded their heads once more. “Erm...”

  “Yeah,” said Lucas, his breathing beginning to become heavier. All Violet could hear was the sound of his shoes clattering on the stairs as he took them two, three at a time. “Like Rorschach.”

  “Yeah, they’re ink blots, you clot,” Violet sighed. “Wasn’t it called the Rorschach test?” and then, quieter for Katie’s benefit, “I’m very well read these days, don’t you know?”

  “No, no,” said Lucas. “Like in Watchmen, the graphic novel. Rorschach was a character in that. Had a mask like this. Proper badass. Fucking cool. It’ll scare the shit out of these jokers, you wait and see.”

  “Speaking of which,” said Violet to Katie. “We better get into position.”

  Violet stared as Katie nodded. The masks did look pretty terrifying. And perhaps if they were pure white someone might have seen a connection between them and the canvas. Like they were some sort of calling card.

  *

  Rollo Glass bellowed as the lift juddered to a halt at the bottom of the shaft. The lift was small enough that it reminded him of how fat he was every time he got in it. To be inside of it with two burly bodyguards was, frankly, insufferable.

  “I ought to have made you two take the stairs,” he puffed as the doors slid open.

  “Sir, we are contracted to protect your person and that would not be something either of us could execute if we were not in the same room.”

  It was a statement. These burly steroid-filled halfwits didn’t respect him in the slightest. Well, the next two he employed might. Glass made a mental note to have them reassigned to somewhere ghastly as soon as he returned to the bank.

  “Come on then,” Glass barked, and stepped out onto the deep pile carpet of the corridor. The familiar journey home was making him crave a stiff whisky but he would have to resist. Once heads had rolled here he would have to return to the office. Too many things that needed his attention.

  What was it the security guard on the front desk had said? That the people had come to remove the paintings and take them into storage. Early. And that he had only let them into the flat because they were ‘on the list’. On the list? ON THE BLOODY LIST?

  This wasn’t the first security guard he had had fired, and it most certainly wouldn’t be the last. The banker waddled quickly down the hallway toward his front door and, reaching it, he scanned his key card.

  A little red light flashed up on the plastic housing. Rollo growled under his breath.

  “Sir,” the bodyguard said, plucking the card from his hand. “Allow me to try that for you.”

  The guard breathed on the card, most likely fogging up one side of it with his stinking breath. Rollo shuddered at the thought and took half a step back away from him.

  The bodyguard leaned forward and swiped the card a second time. This time a green light flashed up and the door made a satisfying clunk as the locks freed themselves.

  The bodyguard pushed open the door to the flat.

  Chapter 44

  “We are going to need that painting off the wall, oh great and mighty Oz,” Violet hissed.

  “Nearly there, hang on, one... more... minute,” Zoe responded.

  “Because things are about to kick off down here,” Violet continued.

  There was a heavy clunk and the front door began to open. Katie adjusted the courier tube that was slung around her shoulder and flexed and unflexed the muscles in her arms. They had the element of surprise – but the bodyguards would still be wary, so they had to be ready.

  “Hello?” the first bodyguard called out. He padded slowly into the flat.

  “Hello?” Violet responded, calling from the den but keeping herself firmly out of sight. “In here.”

  The bodyguard beckoned and Rollo Glass stepped into the flat too. Katie waited enough time for him to be clear of the swing of the door and then launched herself into a run, covering the distance between where she had been hiding and the entrance in a couple of strides and then slamming her foot into the heavy door.

  Glass made a noise like a chicken, a sort of shocked buh bawk as he spun around to lay eyes on his attacker.

  But Katie was already in attack mode. The door had achieved the desired result as well as its secondary objective as it hammered into the second bodyguard. She had hoped that she’d hit him hard enough that he’d be knocked down into the corridor and the door would lock shut, but no such luck.

  The noise that she had heard, apart from the squawking of Glass, was a softer contact. Katie predicted that the door had caught the bodyguard in the arm and crushed him in the doorjamb. Still not a bad outcome. Although, having said that, the odds were still most certainly in the bodyguards’ favour.

  Katie lunged forward to scare Glass and he flinched, jumping backwards into the first bodyguard and knocking him off guard. Reaching forward, Katie grabbed the door handle and opened it wide. The second bodyguard was beginning to recover himself. Katie let go of the door handle and pulled back her fist.

  A look of panic flashed across the second bodyguard’s face and his hands instinctively flew up to protect himself, but it was too late. Katie’s fist connected with his cheekbone and jaw, slamming his head into the door frame. Result: closed fracture to the cheekbone, dislocation of the jaw. He dropped to the floor, unconscious.

  The banker howled like a frightened chicken once more, but the first bodyguard was more prepared, moving himself in between his employer and the masked behemoth that was Katie.

  “I am going to enjoy this,” the bodyguard said and readied himself in some sort of martial arts stance.

  Katie didn’t reciprocate but stood, ready for his attack.

  The bodyguard came forward hard and fast, using his weight and height to his advantage and raining punches in Katie’s direction. Unfortunately, and as she usually found in these situations, men who were drawn to trained fighting and were, as the bodyguard was, over six feet tall, were rarely faced with an opponent who was taller and stronger than them.

  And fighting someone who was six foot ten was not something most people had any experience of. Katie easily deflected his blows with her enormous hands and he jumped back, bobbing on the spot as if he fancied himself as a modern day Bruce Lee. And he was grinning.

  Katie hated it when they were standing long enough to get cocky. She drew back her right arm then propelled it forward, her flattened palm connecting with his sternum. The result should have been to catapult him backwards, ending with him sliding across the polished floor on his arse.

  But it didn’t happen like that. Somehow the bodyguard was ready for her and managed to take a great deal of the force out of the blow. Instead of skidding across the floor, the bodyguard was simply knocked off balance. Or so Katie thought. The cunning little bastard used the momentum she had given him and swung around, dropping down as he did and extending his leg to sweep Katie’s legs from under her.

  Much to her surprise, it worked.

  Katie toppled, the world shifting ninety degrees clockwise in slow motion. Over the bodyguard’s shoulder Katie could see Violet running out of the den, the
n she hit the floor with a thunk. Katie stared at the cocky bastard, he was doing the Bruce Lee dance again.

  “You done then, mate, or you getting up for another fall?” the bodyguard taunted foolishly.

  Katie grimaced behind her mask and popped herself up into a sitting position. Her eyes fixed on Violet, the bodyguard firmly monitored in her periphery. Violet’s hand was dipping into her satchel, pulling something out and –

  The bodyguard danced on the spot before bringing his foot up and forward to connect with Katie’s head. This time, however, Katie was ready. She caught his foot and twisted it. The end result was much more to Katie’s liking. The bodyguard spun in mid-air, the one leg he had planted on the ground shifted from vertical to horizontal and then Katie brought the whole weight of him crashing to the floor whilst simultaneously tilting his feet up slightly.

  The final result: the full weight of the bodyguard came down on his own nose. And blood. Lots of blood.

  The banker squealed. It appeared the bodyguard was down and out, but both Katie and Violet knew better than that. A hardcase with a busted nose just made for an angrier opponent. In the time it took for Katie to down the bodyguard, Violet had retrieved the item she was looking for in her satchel and slid it across the floor toward Katie.

  The bodyguard let out a guttural noise, something akin to hnnnnurgh, then sprang to his feet, sending blood flying as he did.

  “Hnnnn-you b-baaaaastard, grnnngh… I’m going to k-kill you for thaaat,” the bodyguard screamed, causing the banker to recoil further toward the front door.

  Shifting her enormous frame, Katie readied herself to spring up, but the bodyguard was faster and bore down on her again, coming in close, ready to strike. Katie lifted the item Violet had slid across the floor and slammed it into the bodyguard’s crotch, firing just shy of five million volts into him. She watched the taser work its magic, disrupting his body’s ability to communicate with its muscles, causing him to drop to the floor like a sack of rocks.

  Katie drew herself up to her full height and stared down at the banker through her mask.

  The banker bolted out the front door and into the corridor.

  Chapter 45

  Lucas reached the bottom of the stairs and had to stop. His lungs burned, the polyester of the uniform was chafing his legs. He had to keep going, but not before he put on his mask. Whipping the crumpled bundle out of the inside pocket of his blazer, he unfolded it slowly to reveal... his Rorschach mask. He smiled, picturing himself momentarily as the fictional character, then wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve, rolled the mask over his face and burst out into the corridor.

  And, judging by the noises that were echoing down the hallway, he had arrived at just the right moment. Lucas took his time, padding towards the flat silently. Enjoying a moment of fantasy.

  But not too far into fantasy. He moved quickly past the half-open door, trying to sneak an eyeful of what was going on, but could see nothing past the bulk of the banker. He pulled out the zip ties he had brought with him. He would need those in a second.

  There was the sound of a grown man squealing. Lucas laughed out loud; he couldn’t help picturing Katie pounding the bodyguards. He edged forward, waiting for his cue.

  And then it came. The banker ran, if you could call it running, out of his front door toward the lift. Lucas moved forward fast, hooking his right foot in front of the banker’s and pushing his shoulders forward.

  Rollo Glass dropped to the floor, his hands going out to stop a repeat of what had happened moments earlier to his bodyguard. Lucas dropped quickly but lightly on top of him, his knee in the small of the banker’s back.

  “Hands behind your back please,” said Lucas.

  The banker groaned but offered no resistance, moving his hands behind him for Lucas to secure. Lucas took his time; this was important and he had to get it exactly right.

  “You know the police will have been called when you entered the flat, don’t you?” was all Rollo Glass said.

  “Erm, I don’t think so,” Zoe’s voice suddenly invaded Lucas’ head.

  “I’m afraid not, Mr Glass,” said Lucas as he helped him to his feet. “Not this time.”

  *

  Rollo Glass walked back into his flat, followed by Lucas, who had been careful to stay out of the banker’s line of sight. Sitting on two of his dining chairs were his two bodyguards, both neatly trussed and both sporting black canvas bags over their heads.

  Lucas guided the banker to a third chair, separate from the bodyguards, and pushed on his shoulder. The banker sat. Looking over to Violet and Katie, Lucas pointed upwards. Violet nodded and Lucas left before the banker could lay eyes on him.

  “So this is a kidnapping then?” Glass addressed Violet and Katie.

  Violet walked into the den and out of earshot.

  “The security system?” she said, addressing the question to Zoe.

  “We’re all good,” was Zoe’s response.

  Violet walked back into the main atrium of the flat.

  “Speak to me.” The banker was becoming more agitated. That was probably a good thing.

  Violet stood next to Katie and stared at him through her mask. She took a deep breath in and out.

  “What the hell are those masks supposed to be?” Glass continued. “I mean, what sort of kidnappers have silhouettes of porn on their masks?”

  Violet stared at him from behind the mask. He was squirming in his seat. Getting madder. Time to get down to business.

  She turned to Katie and, with her right hand, pointed two fingers toward her own eyes and then turned her hand, pointing her index finger at the banker. Katie nodded.

  And then the banker exploded into motion. For a man of his size it was quite a feat. Jumping to his feet, he looked for a moment like he would run straight into them.

  “I am not a victim,” he shouted and then, with fierce effort, he pulled his hands apart, snapping the zip ties that held his arms, but instead of running toward them he dived into the nearest room, his bedroom.

  Violet tapped Katie on the shoulder and Katie began to move forward toward the entrance to the room he was hiding in. One of the bodyguards groaned as she walked by, and she absent-mindedly cracked her knuckles. She stopped in her tracks, however, when Rollo Glass appeared at the doorway to his bedroom with a gun pointed at her.

  “I am not a victim,” Glass repeated. He was sweating, his grip on the gun loose and his hands shaking.

  Violet moved behind a counter. “Put it down,” she said, trying to introduce a lower tone to her voice, perhaps to disguise it a little if he was asked to describe it after the fact. “Put down the gun. You’ve seen what will happen to you otherwise. Same thing that happened to your boys there.”

  Katie began to move slowly, but the banker spotted it and shouted at her to stop.

  “Don’t move a fucking muscle,” he screamed. “I am in charge here, not you.”

  Katie laughed her delicate laugh, the air escaping lightly from her nose. The banker heard it and flew into an absolute rage.

  “Nononono!” he screamed. The arm that was holding the gun was waggling about madly now; he seemed to be using the gun to point rather than to threaten. “I. AM. IN. CHARGE.”

  Katie inched forward. She was almost close enough to make a lunge to disarm him.

  The sound of the gun firing inside the flat slammed the ears of all those present like someone jumping from a plane and hitting the ground after their parachute failed to open.

  It was one shot; the noise hit them all but the bullet only hit one of them.

  Katie’s hand touched her stomach as blood soaked through her coat.

  The ringing in the ears of the occupants of the flat was almost immediately replaced by the sound of Violet’s voice as she rushed forward shouting one word.

  ‘No!’

  Katie dropped to her knees in front of the banker, and he dropped the gun on the floor, staring at what he’d done.

  Violet ran forwar
d to her friend, but Katie was dropping, onto her hands, onto the floor, clutching at her stomach as she bled and bled.

  The banker didn’t stare for long. He ran for the door, out into the corridor and into the lift at the end. All that was in his head was... Get out. Now. Get clear. Call someone. Someone to clean things up. Get out now.

  Chapter 46

  “Watchmen Security,” a bored female voice answered Lucas after one ring.

  “This is guard 187 slash 2411,” said Lucas, glancing at the piece of paper in front of him where he’d scribbled the information. “I’m at location 657.”

  There was the sound of a computer keyboard being tapped at and then a silence at the other end of the line. Lucas looked up as the door to the lift slid open.

  “And can I take your password?” the woman on the phone asked.

  The second the lift doors were wide enough, the banker barrelled across reception. Lucas wondered for a moment if he should try to hide himself but Glass didn’t even give him a second glance. A security guard held the same interest as a lamp or a potted plant to the banker.

  “Blodwen,” said Lucas.

  The banker shot through the outer doors and out of Lucas’ view. He followed his progress on the monitor in front of him.

  “And how can I help you today, Neil?” the woman on the phone continued.

  “I’m ill, really ill. I’m not going to be able to make it to the end of my shift, going to have to get to a doctor straight away,” Lucas lied.

  “I see,” said the woman with as much sympathy as a handgun.

  Lucas watched the monitors as the banker jumped into the car he had arrived in, gunned it and drove off.

  “I’ll send a replacement right over,” the woman said. Lucas thanked her and hung up.

  “Front desk is clear,” said Lucas to anyone who was listening.

  There was no reply.