All The Big Ones Are Dead

by Christopher A. Gray

  “Not as much as I’d like,” Bishop replied, almost laughing, as he took the ID back. “Nobody shooting at me from inside a container load of car parts, you know?”

  “That’s funny! What kind of cake is it?” The man had totally relaxed. The CBP ID had come in handy yet again.

  “Chocolate. Fresh from Davidoff’s on Park Avenue. Just picked it up. They even lettered it properly.” Bishop had partially untied the box in anticipation of the question. He opened the box to display the rather delicious looking cake with its happy face and happy birthday lettering.

  “Okay,” the man said. “This is too good to pass up. Let me tell my wife.”

  He left Bishop standing on the stoop, cake box in hand. It wasn’t more than a minute before the man returned with his wife. She was on her cell phone, calling the neighbor on the other side of Trask’s place.

  “Mary and Phil will meet us on Dave’s front steps in, like, two minutes. Oh, this is so much fun. I love surprises!”

  A little over five minutes later, Bishop, the man Jerry and his wife Louise, Mary and Phil, and the neighbors across the street, Noel and Shawna, were assembled on Trask’s front step. Bishop knocked loudly.

  “Hellooo the house,” Bishop called. “Come on out, Dave. I’ve got a surprise for you!”

  The women were giggling and the men were smiling broadly when the inside door open and David Trask answered the knock.

  “Mikey!” he said staring directly into Bishop’s eye’s. “Boy, I haven’t seen you in an age. Don’t tell me this is all for me?”

  At that, they all burst into a riotous chorus of Happy Birthday as they trooped inside to share cake and coffee. Trask was limping noticeably from his leg wound. Bishop had been hoping for that, because it was going to be the perfect excuse to clear all the neighbors out of the house in fairly short order.

  Leipzig had been a gamble, originally. A skittish asset in Germany had been run to ground in his own home just outside Leipzig by Europol and German BKA officers. Bishop and Rector, responsible for the asset and the information he’d been preparing to supply, had been called in to help talk down the asset. They had to avoid a shootout and get the information they’d been working so hard to obtain. Nobody involved had wanted anything to do with international intrigue, let alone a shoot-up in the midst of an historic old street lined with homes, shops and small apartments full of innocent citizens. Bishop and Rector, still partnered in the field then, had invented the happy birthday gambit. They were relying on their knowledge of the asset and his aversion to close quarters contact and his unwillingness to get into a fight at his own home. It hadn’t gone perfectly, but they’d gotten into the man’s home peacefully. He had panicked later on, becoming suddenly fearful and paranoid, and attacked Alexei. They’d restrained him without further damage, but Alexei’s knee still bothered him from time to time.

  Bishop was relying on his field knowledge of Trask, and on Trask’s well-known sense of propriety in his own space, and on the fact that his mother’s apartment was just as perfectly well kept and well-ordered as the precisely ordered living room in which he now sat staring into the eyes of the psychopath. A half of hour of playing up his limp did the trick. The neighbors made their excuses, wished Trask another happy birthday, made sympathetic noises about his sore knee, and made their way home.

  “Why are you here, Michael?” Trask said coldly. He smoothed the vertical blinds in the tall window next to the front door. Bishop watched as Trask stopped the movement of the blinds that had started swinging slightly from the breeze caused by closing the front door. He watched as Trask stopped momentarily at one of the sliding doors to the vestibule, reach inside the closet for something and then gently close the door all the way flush against the jamb. A place for everything, and everything precisely in its place. And I’ll bet you just armed yourself.

  “I am here to talk,” Bishop replied, “and to provide you with information.”

  Trask had walked back and sat down in the armchair across the coffee table from the sofa. He was looking at Bishop, assessing whether or not to make a move right then or risk listening a while longer and killing Bishop afterward.

  “Jorge Tudor is caught,” Bishop went on. “He is giving up everyone and everything. Marc Dominican and whoever else sits even higher up the chain are being caught too. Right now, actually.”

  “Tudor was scheduled to meet Dominican’s political contacts this evening.”

  “That meeting is still on, David.”

  “I’m surprised.”

  “The timing is tight, but favorable. Nobody knows Tudor was caught. So it’s business as usual for his associates and partners, but the night is not going to end well for any of them.”

  “Interesting, but irrelevant. Tudor thinks he knows all sorts of things. He has nothing at all to give you. No damn evidence, you know? You still haven’t answered my question, Michael. Why are you here?”

  “Like I said. To talk. To find out what on earth motivated you to throw in with terrorists. Or at least with their financiers. To find out why you’re arrogant enough to hide in plain sight when so many of your former employers are gunning for you.”

  “One paycheck is as good as another when you’re in need, Michael.”

  “Your mother’s illness.”

  “My mother’s illness.”

  “There are other ways.”

  “Not really, Michael. Not when the people and the military and the governments and the agencies to which I’d repeatedly damn near given up my life threw me on the trash heap. No help there. What was I supposed to do? Let my mother die because there’s a bounty on my head? What ‘ways’ are you talking about, Michael?”

  “I visited your mother earlier today, David. She seems unwell.”

  “It can be confusing to speak with her. She’s getting a little bit worse every month. She will not be able to stay in the apartment on her own much longer. I was hoping for a payday that would put me over the top. No matter what happened to me after that, she’d be well cared for.”

  “I am sorry, David. That is unlikely to happen.” Task stared at him hard before responding.

  “That’s your play, Michael? That’s your play?” Trask exclaimed. “Man, I… I expected more finesse from you. But then it’s really not you, is it? It’s a Director. Or an AD. You’re just a foot soldier. Still just a foot soldier. So that’s it? Prevent my mother from receiving the care that she needs. Coerce me that way? I doubt it, Michael.”

  “I’m not the man you think I am, David. I never was. And this conversation is supposed to be about you, not your mother.”

  “There is nothing you can use to touch me, Michael. You have nothing that can be used to threaten me. I think you want what’s in this head,” Trask raised a hand and tapped his temple. “You can’t have it. Nobody can have it. It’s mine.”

  “In your head, David?” Bishop said, unable to keep a hint of derision out of his voice. “To bring down your boss Dominican and whoever the hell else he’s roped in, I don’t need your testimony or your hearsay, David. I am here to get hard evidence.” Bishop had no other choice but to lay his cards on the table. Trask could not be lulled, fooled or coerced by interrogation methods.

  “There is no hard evidence, Michael,” Trask laughed. It was more like a high-pitched ‘Hah!’ than a real laugh. “Nobody who does business with Marc Dominican is allowed to collect evidence or make recordings, shoot video, keep notes or files. He’s a classic paranoid. He checks everything and he’s two steps ahead of everyone.”

  Bishop looked at Trask and saw no deception. Tudor had no hard evidence. If Trask also had no hard evidence for self-protection as a backstop against the inevitable, then Marc Dominican truly was something he’d never encountered before. Bishop maintained an impassive expression despite his rapidly growing misgivings.

  “There is always a better play, David,” he said. “I can leave here empty handed. Or you can give me something, anything you can think of, that will keep the
predators at bay.”

  “Predators? You mean Director Savitch and his kill squad that couldn’t get it done with you in the lead? Those predators?”

  Bishop shrugged. “Savitch sends his best, by the way.”

  “It won’t be enough, Michael. You couldn’t pull the goddamn trigger on me in a crowded market because you weren’t thinking about your target. You were distracted, Michael. I doubt you’ll be able to watch an old woman die for want of care that’s only a finger’s breadth out of reach. That’s not your style.”

  “David, it will not be me who sits by and lets your mother rot. I’ll be somewhere else, probably very far away. I never knew your mother. Her loss or misfortune is nothing to me and you know it. Savitch, on the other hand, will set up a ringside seat to watch your mother deteriorate into a destitute hell. She’ll wither away, with no one allowed near her to comfort her as she slips into delirium and death.”

  Trask only stared back at Bishop, his jaw clenching and unclenching as he assessed Bishop’s horrible words.

  “David, you’re done. We’ve run you to ground. You were out of sight and out of mind for at least a couple years. But you put yourself back on everyone’s radar. Marc Dominican put you in that position. You’ll be arrested tonight. Give me what I want, so I can complete an op. Give me what I want now, because if the op is blown because you refused to give up hard evidence, it will be of far less value later.”

  Trask looked away for a moment.

  “David,” Bishop resumed his pitch. “I’m here unarmed. No matter what you’ve done, you’ve also got evidence that’s as good as a get-out-of-jail-free card. It’s a card you can play right now. Play it and walk away. I’ll guarantee safe passage.”

  “You really don’t get it, Michael,” Trask replied. “I. Don’t. Have. Any. Evidence. No get-out-of-jail-free card as you put it. No covert surveillance. There is nothing. For fuck sakes, I could have told you I do have evidence against Dominican and his rich cronies and the other motherfuckers he does business with. I hate ‘em all. Ten seconds into a search and the analysts would realize I’ve got nothing but surveillance on this house and my mother’s apartment. You don’t understand Marc Dominican.”

  “Bish,” Rector said in his earpiece. “He’s not lying. He has the perfect chance to negotiate a deal and he’s not taking it. If you can’t think of another move, that’s it. This op is blown.”

  Trask noticed Bishop momentarily distracted.

  “You still partnered with Alexei Rector?” Trask asked.

  “I am,” Bishop replied.

  In every situation involving great stress, there often occur moments of great clarity. They sometimes appear as a confluence of events from which clear decisions present themselves. Bishop realized that no matter what happened at Trask’s house in the next few minutes, they’d all been outmaneuvered by Marc Dominican. The man maintained operational security at a level they could all learn from. At the same time, it was just as clear that Jorge Tudor and David Trask had been manipulated and insidiously sculpted into pawns, sacrifices easily made because they’d been rendered almost completely useless to anyone but Marc Dominican.

  “You have nothing to offer me, David,” Bishop said, frowning, “and shortly nothing to offer your mother. If you’re only of use to Marc Dominican, then you’re just another nobody. What happened to you, David? At your brutal worst, at least you were capable of completing a mission that had value. When the agency dumped you, at least there was a long list of completed missions, work that meant something, in your file. Now you’ve replaced all that with this? A dead Customs agent and a dead computer geek in the park?”

  “Fuck off, Bishop,” Trask spit the words out. “You haven’t lived my life. You’re no judge of good conduct, and you’re sure as hell no model of innocence and morality.” Trask stopped to look around his living room. Bishop had forced him to focus very narrowly, and he needed to expand his awareness. “You’re wasting my time and yours. Go run your op. It’s nothing to do with me. Time for you to leave.”

  “It’s still your call, Bish,” Rector said. “I texted Linders that we’re blown. Haven’t heard back. Don’t know whether she’s still proceeding with Tudor’s meeting. Make a decision. There are two different teams sitting on go. Time’s passing.”

  Bishop had Trask where he wanted him. It had been easier than he thought it would be. Bishop also knew that David Trask’s psychopathy was predictable. Textbook. Trask was not thinking about anything other than Bishop. Trask criticized Bishop for being unable to pull the trigger in a crowded marketplace and saw that as a fatal weakness in Bishop; an inability to concentrate on the target alone, to the exclusion of everything else. That same irrationality in Trask’s thinking made him believe that it was only the target in front of him now, Bishop himself, that he had to worry about. He did not spare even a split second’s thought for anything else. He did not consider anyone else but Bishop in relation to his mother or in relation to Bishop’s presence in his living room. Bishop had told the truth, he knew, and would never be present to witness, much less care about, the fate of a lonely and sick old woman when the threat of terrorist financing, bloody murder, species extinction from poaching, and frighteningly real threats against the homeland were in the balance. Trask was thinking only about the target in front of him, a very dangerous predator no doubt, but one that Trask thought was toothless. It was a mistake.

  “Innocence and morality,” Bishop repeated Trask's words. “No. There are only murderers in this room.”

  “Why do you care about a couple of nobodies?” Trask spat. “A stupid, bitch customs agent too ignorant to keep her head down and a computer geek who fucked himself so badly that he’d have committed suicide in a few days anyway? Is that what we’re negotiating?”

  “They were innocent, David,” Bishop almost whispered. “Citizens. Maybe nobodies. Maybe you’re right. But killing nobodies is just a sick blood sport. There’s no honor in it and there’s no reason for it. Is that what you’ve been reduced to, David? Random kills on orders from Marc Dominican. That’s what you’ve turned into? An attack dog?”

  Trask was seething. Bishop had struck at the psychopath’s deepest fear. Trask wanted his life to mean something, but he’d been reduced to his core instincts by Dominican. Nothing more than a robot who killed on command. Bishop had just exposed it.

  “I’m going to ask you one more time to leave quietly, Michael,” Trask said between gritted teeth. “There is nothing here for you.” With that, Trask pulled a vicious little Berretta 9mm Nano. It was a subcompact pistol, chambered in 9mm short, barely five inches long, and perfect for a close-quarters fight. It was the closest thing to an extension of a man’s hand.

  “Come on, Michael,” Trask gritted. “You’re not here to kill me. You don’t have a weapon. The scanner in the front door frame would have alerted me. You’re not armed. What do you want here? There is nothing to find. Nothing that can help you. Be happy that you’re right about me. Dominican owns me. You don’t. So it’s time for you to leave.” His voice had been rising ever so slightly as he leaned closer to the coffee table, his right hand pointing the Berretta at Bishop’s midsection.

  Trask’s position was not perfect, but it would do. When Trask had been sorting out the blinds beside his front door, Bishop had palmed the long table knife that one of the women had used to slice up the birthday cake. It was the neighbor’s knife that she’d grabbed from her own kitchen so that Trask wouldn’t have to find one of his own. It was dull, but tapered and stiff. It would do quite well.

  Bishop had lifted his right heel and braced it against the sofa, which itself was arranged against one wall.

  “So, what do you think is going to happen to your mother, David, if things just don’t work out as you’ve planned?” The words were a calculated risk, but Bishop knew his man.

  “Stop!” Trask said, rasping the word. He leaned farther forward then, teeth clenched, head halfway across the coffee table. “Forget about my moth
er!” In his predictable anger, Trask had let the business end of the Berretta drop just enough to give Bishop an opening.

  Bishop contracted his right thigh in preparation for a practiced and powerful move forward. At the same time, he slammed his left foot against the lower front of the heavy old sofa to add weight and speed to his movement. His right hand, turning and extending the cake knife, drove forward at Trask’s upper body.

  Trask had dropped his guard. He’d been set up. He’d narrowed his focus too much. He reset his focus on the Berretta, but Bishop’s left hand was swinging hard and chopped painfully into Trask’s right wrist, numbing it and forcing Trask to lose control of the weapon. Trask managed to bring his own left hand up in a last minute attempt to block the knife thrust. It was a trained reaction, but he’d looked to the Berretta first and reacted too late to fully block the knife thrust. Bishop’s training had prepped him just as well. He swung his left back immediately to parry Trask’s block. There was just enough shift in Trask’s position to evade a fatal stab. Instead of plunging directly in Trask’s throat, Bishop’s knife lanced through the left side of Trask’s neck where it met the shoulder. The immediate shock still had the desired effect. Trask fell to the floor, struggling to recover, in between the thick wooden coffee table and the arm chair.

  Bishop stepped over him quickly, shoved the arm chair back as hard as he could, then dropped heavily, all of his 220 pounds of bone and muscle, his right knee jamming into Trask’s side. He heard and felt a soft crushing sound. Bishop reached down, grabbed Trask’s left wrist and raised it to the edge of the coffee table. Bishop stood up, then drove his left heel into Trask’s extended arm, snapping it in half at the elbow. The dull, wet snap was sickening, but all Bishop did was blink once and take a deep breath.

  The whole fight had taken barely ten seconds. Bishop had expected more.

  Trask was struggling for breath. The heavy knee drop to his side had broken at least two ribs, driving at least one of the snapped ends into one of his lungs. Two mid-back vertebra were dislocated. The knife wound hadn’t cut the carotid, but puncture was bleeding profusely anyway. Trask was losing a lot of blood very quickly. Shock was deepening. The lancing pain from his broken arm was lost in the blur of everything else.