Act of Vengeance

by Michael Jecks

  00.14 Las Vegas; 08.14 London

  Outside the Mercedes cut its lights and remained stationary while the gates slid shut behind it. The driver remained in his car, and the vehicle moved and wobbled as he moved in his seat. By the time he opened the Mercedes’ door, gun drawn, Jack was downstairs.

  The door thumped shut. All the outside security lights were on, and Jack heard steps on the gravel. He moved to the side, behind the front door as it opened. A pair of keys were inserted into the strong locks on the door, and then the door swung wide. Jack stiffened, torch gripped in his fist, left hand a little in front of his right, as the heavy figure of Peter Sorensen appeared. He flicked the light switch with his left hand.

  Jack moved. He grabbed the pistol in his left hand, grasping the slide tightly, his thumb going inside the trigger guard. The gun barked once, and he felt the slide jerk, but it couldn’t action with his hand exerting so much pressure. Now it had fired once, he was happier. The slide had not actioned. The chamber still held the empty cartridge case. With his right hand, he jabbed twice at Sorensen’s throat, but he had already dropped his chin, and Jack’s blows met only bone. Changing his position, Jack tried to throw Sorensen, but the man was too strong and, although he had been surprised, he had already recovered. His fingers scrabbled at Jack’s face. Jack had to duck to protect his eyes, both men grunting and gasping. The pistol was turning towards Jack, and he had a momentary fear, but then he let go of the gun. It was pointing at him, Sorensen snarling in delight as he pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened.

  Jack kicked out. His boot’s sole scraped down the front of Sorensen’s shin, from knee to ankle, and the man gave a cry of agony, his body curling in pain, and Jack hit him twice, quickly, behind the ear, with a clubbed fist. He took the handgun, whipped off Sorensen’s tie and quickly bound his hands. Then he kicked the door closed and racked the pistol again. It threw out the empty cartridge case, which tinkled on the tiles with a cheery ring, and he pressed the safety upwards. It was a small-calibre Colt auto, a .380, and he checked that the magazine was almost full before stuffing it into his belt in the small of his back. Then he took off Sorensen’s belt and wrapped it about his ankles, fixing the loose end to a pipe by the wall. He tied it as best he could to keep Sorensen’s legs still, and fetched a stool from the kitchen. He sat and waited for Sorensen to come round.

  It did not take long. Sorensen peered about him blearily.

  ‘You’re the prick beat up my guys at the Mirage.’

  ‘I didn’t want to be questioned.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I am finding out why you wanted to hire a friend of mine,’ Jack said.

  ‘Fuck you!’

  ‘You tried to recruit Roger Sumner, and he gave you Danny Lewin. I want to know what you were doing with them.’

  ‘Me? Why’d I want anything to do with them?’

  ‘Because they were intelligence officers with specific skills,’ Jack guessed.

  ‘You know dick, don’t you? Well, you’re in a whole barrel load of shit, man. You broke into my house, that’s a serious felony in Nevada. And you don’t have the faintest idea who you’re dealing with.’

  ‘The CIA,’ Jack said.

  ‘You think they’d be able to mount a covert op this serious? Man, you’re more of a moron than I’d’ve thought.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell me, then?’

  ‘Fuck you! I’m telling you nothing.’

  ‘You’ve been on active service. So have I. I spent time in Ireland during the “Troubles”. You saw a lot of men badly injured there – crippled. Ever seen what happens to a man who has his knees shot off? A shot through the back of the knee is just enormously painful, but a man will recover most movement in time. But the other way, from the front, now that’s different – you get all sorts of bone fragments being blown back into the joint, and the kneecap itself is shattered to nothing. That is really, really painful. From what I’ve seen, the wound never really heals. You have to get a new knee.’

  ‘Fuck off!’

  ‘You’ve killed two British agents, dickhead. I’m a British agent, and I have authority to kill anyone doesn’t help me. I am allowed to play first.’

  Sorensen’s eyes were wide now, but there was belief in them.

  ‘You can’t! You don’t know who you’d be upsetting.’

  ‘Suppose you tell me.’

  ‘I’m still on the active list for the CIA. They’d be interested.’

  ‘Not good enough.’

  ‘The Mafia. They own this city. I’m—’

  ‘Bullshit. They have no interest in a security manager, and I will bet my arse they have no interest in two intelligence officers.’

  Sorensen squirmed as Jack approached him with the gun held out, muzzle pointing at his knee.

  ‘I won’t shoot your right one first. It’ll be the left. Not that it’ll make a huge difference.’

  ‘Why are you here? I’m nothing to do with it, I’m just the messenger.’

  ‘Prove it.’

  ‘How the hell do I prove it?’

  ‘Papers. The trail.’

  ‘There isn’t a trail, for fuck’s sake!’

  ‘Wrong answer.’

  Jack went to the sofa and brought a cushion back with him. ‘Amazing how well these can stifle the sound of a gunshot.’

  He placed the cushion on his knee and set the gun over it, before looking at Sorensen questioningly.

  He curled his lip.

  ‘Fuck you! You wouldn’t!’

  Jack shrugged and fired. The shot was much quieter, but the noise made by Sorensen was shocking. He roared and screamed, and Jack was startled enough to pull the cushion aside and look. There was a slight flesh wound, but nothing more. ‘I missed,’ he said regretfully, and replaced the cushion.

  ‘All right! Stop! I’ll tell you!’

  ‘Talk.’

  ‘I was the messenger. I was in Iraq with Sumner and some others. We all kept ourselves to ourselves. But when I came back, there was this man who wanted me to find him men.’

  ‘Why not you?’

  He screwed the pistol harder into the cushion, and Sorensen winced.

  ‘I was never a fuckin’ intel officer. I was a guard, right? These others, they were trained.’

  ‘Trained in what?’

  ‘Torture. That’s what they wanted: torturers. So they had me catch two of them, and then reel them in.’

  *

  00.39 Las Vegas; 08.39 London

  Stilson came to with a snort, and was instantly wide awake. The years working with the Agency in so many different countries gave him that immediate wakefulness. It was natural to him to be fully alert as soon as his eyes were open, no matter what the time of the day, no matter how tired he might be.

  He stared all about him. In the cool of the night, he could see moderately well by the sickle moon. There was enough light in the sky to illuminate the desolate hills about him. Only when he was convinced that there was nobody around watching him, did he risk his eyes’ sensitivity by looking out over the city before him.

  It grew every year. The middle of it was renewed every few decades, the older casinos falling by the wayside as newer ones took the bulk of the revenues, they themselves falling prey to still newer ones, but here on the fringes new houses went up every year, encroaching further and further towards the hills as more men and women arrived, keen to earn money. It was similar to LA. People just arrived, assuming they’d make their fortune, and most often, as Stilson knew, they would fail. The women would try so hard to stay straight, many of them, but after the first flush of their looks were fading and too many men with money kept propositioning them, they’d succumb for the price of a good meal, for the Versace dress, or a new car, and before long they’d be supporting themselves in a new way, advertising their bodies on the chain-link fences all over town. The men would try poker, and lose. And lose again. Because that was how casinos made their money. And the men would gradually f
all into that well of despair and self-loathing from which so few escaped. And then they would lose again, but this time it was everything. Alcohol and cocaine were the oils that maintained the downward rush of men and women who were born to take the down escalator of life.

  He had escaped it by joining the Agency and leaving town. The men who had killed his father and taken his land were mostly dead now. But they had shown him the simple truth: no one was safe in this world, and especially not in a town like Vegas. As he had shown the man behind Ed Stilson’s murder. That man’s body was still out in the desert, and if anyone found him, they’d find a nice, neat .45 calibre hole in the back of his head. They may even find the slug rattling around inside the skull. It didn’t worry Stilson. The gun he used to kill the guy had been his old man’s wartime Colt. Seemed like justice to use Ed Stilson Senior’s gun on the bastards who killed him.

  The engine started first time, and he eased the car out onto the road that led down the pass towards Vegas again. Only ten miles or so to Sorensen’s house. He should be there shortly before Sorensen arrived back from work. He could finish things and be out of Vegas again within the hour, then he’d drive to Seattle and take a flight back east.

  When his phone rang, he frowned. It was not normal practise to have calls at this time of day. There were few phone calls in the early morning, which meant it was faster and easier for Echelon to identify any keys. It never used to be a problem, because Echelon had been specifically designed for foreign communications intelligence, but since George W Bush’s presidency, new laws allowed almost any calls to be intercepted anywhere on American soil too.

  He picked up his phone and pressed the receive button, and at once heard Peter Amiss’s voice.

  ‘Go secure, please.’

  Stilson pressed the button, and there was the usual fifteen to twenty seconds of static, before Amiss’s voice returned.

  ‘Can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Stilson, we have a problem. Our comms analyst tells me that there are two FBI agents outside Sorensen’s house. Also, someone has made a connection to McDonnell. Have you been to Sorensen’s yet?’

  ‘No. I’m still on my way.’

  ‘Are you close?’

  ‘Fairly. About six miles away.’

  ‘What do you wish to do? Abort or continue?’

  Stilson reflected.

  ‘We cannot afford to run any risks. I’ll continue. We have no need for Sorensen any more and if they can confront him with McDonnell’s name or someone else, he may break. It’s not worth the risk.’

  There was a pause on the other end. Then, ‘It’s a shame. He has been a useful man to us.’

  ‘We don’t have time for lengthy evaluations and risk analysis. If we had more data, I’d say yes. But, as it is, we don’t have time. I’d say we should still take him out.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ll deal with Sorensen.’

  ‘And the FBI agents?’

  ‘I have had two of our men tailing them for the last few days. I’ll call them now, get them to remove the Feebies.’

  *

  00.41 Las Vegas; 08.41 London

  Like so many, once Sorensen started, he found confidence in his story, as though he had recruited Jack as his own accomplice.

  ‘They contacted me through another guy I knew: Ed Stilson, a guy used to work in Iraq with the NSA. But the orders came from above. He was just the bag-carrier.’

  ‘What did they want torturers for?’

  ‘Why do you think?’

  Jack shook his head.

  ‘This is the CIA? NSA? Who was recruiting them?’

  ‘I don’t know. The only thing I heard, they called themselves the Deputies. The Deputies General, I think.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘How should I know? They were just ex-army or CIA guys.’

  ‘Are you with them, Peter?’

  ‘No! I was only there to recruit some of the guys, that’s all. I knew them, so I guess they thought they could use me, it’d give them a degree of separation. I wasn’t supposed to know about the main group.’

  ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘I heard Stilson talking to his boss. He mentioned this “Deputies” thing.’

  ‘Who was he talking to?’

  ‘Come on, gimme a break!’

  Without hesitation, Jack put the cushion back on his knee and fired. The gun jerked, and this time Sorensen’s head flopped back. He was out cold. Jack fetched a glass of water and emptied it over his head.

  ‘You don’t understand, Mr Sorensen,’ he said, as Sorensen puked bile on the floor by his head. ‘I am very serious. Two friends of mine from my Service are dead, and you appear to know who killed them and why. I want to know everything you have, because otherwise you will be crippled or dead by the time I leave here. Understand me?’

  Sorensen nodded dully, staring wide-eyed down at the cushion. Jack did not move it. He didn’t want to see what he had done. If he did, he’d throw up too, and he couldn’t let Sorensen see his weakness. Sorensen was sobbing now, shivering like a man with a fever.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. It was someone high, that’s all. They mentioned some place – place I never heard of.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘It’s called the Dollar building or something. I heard that much. Thought it was weird, calling it that. Heard of a Golden Dollar, all sorts, never a “Dollar”.’

  It made Jack frown.

  ‘The Dollar? Are you sure they weren’t talking about getting money in? Dollars?’

  ‘It was the Dollar or something… Jesus, I need a hospital.’

  ‘Shut up or you’ll never need one again,’ Jack said. ‘I don’t have time. Who else do you know in this Deputies General?’

  ‘No one, I swear it! No, don’t shoot me again, Christ, just leave me!’

  Jack hefted the pistol and held it over his other knee.

  Sorensen stared with fascinated horror.

  ‘No… no,’ he whispered.

  ‘I have to know it all,’ Jack said.

  ‘All right. Amiss. The deputy director of the Agency. It was him. He was always Stilson’s boss, all the way back. It was him.’

  ‘Is there anything else?’

  ‘Nothing! Nothing, I swear!’

  Jack tried asking other questions, but got no nearer an answer. Either Sorensen was brave enough to risk being shot again, or he was telling the truth, and Jack was about past caring either way. There was a trickle of blood running from under his leg now, and Jack felt truly sickened. He’d never been involved in interrogations before, not violent ones. His methodology was to ask one question at a time and repeat it until something slipped out. In his dealings with his spies, that was all he had needed. To tear a tiny hole in the cover story they had created, and begin to draw out the truth. Most of them were so deeply involved in their professional bonds of secrecy that they would not willingly open up even to him, their handler.

  This was different. There was the smell of sweat – his own as well as Sorensen’s – a foul odour where Sorensen had soiled himself, and the tinny, metallic tang of blood. Jack had deliberately avoided shooting bone, which was why he had thrust down so hard, to make sure he was firing into flesh, but there was always the risk that when he fired, the gun had jerked… perhaps he had crippled this guy. Sorensen may never walk straight again. That thought was enough to make the gorge rise in his throat.

  ‘Don’t call the police for a half hour. You understand me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Anyone know you are here?’

  ‘I was called. I said I was coming back.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The alarm guys called me. The alarm. It rang at the call centre. But when they checked with my neighbours, there was no bell – so they thought it was a fault. They called me to come and reset.’

  ‘They don’t send their own guards?’

  ‘Not at the rate I
pay.’

  Jack nodded.

  ‘Next time, I’d pay the higher rate. You may get a security guy shot instead of yourself.’

  ‘Fuck off,’ Sorensen said.

  His face was white, but the blood was not pouring from him in a way that looked life-threatening. Jack felt it was more likely the man was suffering from shock.

  Jack stuffed the Colt back into his belt. When he pulled Sorensen’s belt off, a magazine holster had fallen free with one full magazine in it. Jack picked it up and put it in his pocket, then opened the front door and slipped outside. He crossed the gravel to the wall and peered around before springing up to the top and climbing over to fall to the ground behind the Yukkas.

  He was about to stand and walk away, when he heard a car approach. It was a large Ford, and as he peered through the leaves of the Yukka, he saw Frank Rand and a woman in the passenger seat. They stopped, and Jack set his teeth in silent, grim irritation as the car’s engine turned off. He could not move with them there. They would be sure to see him.

  And then he saw the other car slowly draw up behind Rand, a few tens of yards away. Something made it appear odd, and then he realised that it had no lights on, not even sidelights.

  *

  00.53 Las Vegas; 08.53 London

  Frank Rand pushed his long back into the soft leather of the seating, and fiddled with the headrest, trying to get comfortable.

  ‘Shit, I hate working through the night.’

  Debbie snorted, resting her elbow on the door and yawning.

  ‘Don’t you worry, Frank. If you don’t like it, I guess Houlican would be happy to take away your future duties without a problem. Either that, or he’d give you the choice. Put you onto every scummy surveillance overnight until you throw the badge in his face.’

  Frank sneered at her.

  ‘Don’t you ever let up?’

  ‘Nope. Shuddup and have a snooze. It’s what you need,’ she said without taking her eyes from the driveway. ‘Hey, is that his car?’

  ‘What?’ Frank opened his eyes and peered. ‘A Merc. Could be. What’s the plate?’

  She began to leaf through pages on her notepad, but even as she started, Frank’s phone rang. He grabbed at it.

  ‘Frank Rand?’

  ‘Mister Rand. Remember me? Last time we met we were opposite each other at a bar table in Anchorage.’