The Acid Vanilla Series

by Matthew Hattersley

  Acid finished unloading the weaponry onto the table, placed the empty bag down, and inspected each of the pieces. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked, staring down the barrel of one of the Berettas.

  “What is there to say?” he said. “My worst fear is true. I don’t know how I will tell Tam.” He returned to the table and placed the drinks down in front of him. “It’s my fault. All of this. We had words, me and him, before he went missing. I said things I shouldn’t have said.”

  “Oh?” She placed the Beretta down. “You had a fight?”

  “I don’t want to discuss it. But yes, we fought. Huy stormed away and I never saw him again. Now I never will.” He raised the tumbler to his lips and drank its contents in one gulp. “I am to blame. For all of this. Like with my own son.”

  Acid paused before picking up the double shoulder holster and placing her left arm through the loop. Everything Vinh was saying sounded far too familiar.

  “How do you do it?” he asked her.

  “Do what?” She twisted her right arm around to find the second loop and hitched the leather straps onto her back.

  “Kill people. As a job.”

  “I don’t. Not anymore.”

  “You know what I mean. Does it not destroy your soul to know you are responsible for people’s misery? Fathers. Mothers.”

  Acid fastened the clasp at the front of the leather harness and stretched her arms forward. She was pleased with her purchase. The leather was stiffer than she’d have liked, and it rubbed under her arm, but strangely it provided security. Like loving arms around her. Arms holding two 9mm pistols and four spare magazines. She looked at Vinh. He was waiting for an answer.

  “I didn’t think about it,” she said. “The people I killed were evil people. Corrupt. Many of them murderers themselves.”

  “Even killers have parents.”

  She smiled. “That they do. Have you ever heard of pseudospeciation?”

  “I don’t think so.” Vinh shook his head and picked up the next glass.

  “It’s how, as humans, we assign subhuman qualities to people we think are not like us. A mark. An enemy soldier. You’ll have employed something similar in the army, no doubt. The concept can be harnessed into a mind game you play with yourself. You sit with the idea the person you need to kill is less than human and it frees you from any moral or philosophical pitfalls, things that might cause hesitation. Because we both know – you hesitate, you die.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Sometimes. Other times the mark gives you such a runaround you can’t wait to stick a needle of something grim in their neck.” She threw up an eyebrow but he missed it, thought she was serious.

  “Lethal injection?”

  “Sometimes. Most often the client wanted an enforced accident, as we called them. To best swerve any homicide investigation.”

  She paused, realisation hitting her in the guts. Most of these words were Spitfire’s. It was him who’d first explained the concept of pseudospeciation to her. Back when they were close. More than close. Their pillow-talk might have focused on weapons and killing techniques, but it was pillow-talk all the same. An image flew at her without warning. The two of them lying in bed in the New York loft apartment they’d rented, the first night they spent together. She could still smell his scent. A fusion of musky pheromones and Tom Ford. She shook the memory away. It wasn’t real, she told herself. None of it was.

  “So anyway, it’s a useful mindset to get into,” she added. “Stops any indecision in the field.”

  Vinh raised his head. “I understand. But what happens when you go home. When you’re alone with your thoughts in the darkness.”

  She grinned. “Well that’s easy. You drink.”

  “Yeah. Not so easy though, is it?” He moved his eyes to look at her but not his head. “You drink a lot. You know that? Is it a problem for you?”

  She opened up a box of ammo and inspected a couple of the rounds. “You know what they say: one girl’s drinking problem is another’s self-medication.” She released the box magazines from each of the guns and lined them up next to the spare cartridges. She could feel Vinh’s eyes on her. But he was deflecting, putting the attention on her so he didn’t have to deal with his own turmoil. How could she blame him? She knew that game well.

  “Don’t worry about me, mate,” she said, peering at him through her hair. “Seriously. I do what I need to survive. I have other issues, you see. A sort of mania, like bipolar, but more manageable. It can be rather useful for the situations I find myself in.”

  She had six magazine cartridges in total, two twenty-fours and the rest standard seventeens. A quick calculation gave her a hundred and sixteen rounds. Not as many as she’d like, but she’d make every one count.

  As she stuffed the rounds into the magazines her mind drifted to the future. She pictured Spitfire on his knees, begging for mercy in front of her. Sweat dripped from his tanned brow, all his famous cocksure swagger melting away. His perfect azure blue eyes, bloodshot and watery, wide open in fear and bewilderment. She saw her own hand as it raised a gun to his head. She saw her knuckles whitening on the grip. Her index finger was tense, trembling on the trigger. One squeeze was all it needed. She let out a long breath and held it at the other side. The bats screamed.

  Do it!

  Do it!

  She opened her eyes to see Vinh had filled up the whisky glasses. He slid one over to her. She grabbed it and downed it in one.

  “Cheers.” She scanned the room. “Do you have everything you need?”

  He lifted his shirt to reveal the K14-VN stuffed into his waistband.

  Acid took one of the Cold Steel Recon 1 tactical knives and handed it to him. “Take this. Will come in handy.” She stuffed the other down the side of her boot.

  “Looking good,” Vinh said. “I see it now. Deadly.”

  She shot him a wink. “I need to make a call. You good?”

  “Sure. I’ll put some coffee on.”

  Acid walked back into the small lounge beyond the open-plan kitchen. Moving over to the window she took out her phone. 11.48 a.m. She did the maths and winced. It was 4.48 a.m. in London. Damnit. She should have called last night. Should have done a lot of things different. But wasn’t that always the way? She sighed. Nothing else for it, she needed to make this call, give Spook time to act. She scrolled through her missed calls. Winced again at how many she’d missed, read but ignored. She tapped Return Call and held the phone to her ear. Spook answered after the first ring.

  “Acid? Fucking hell. Is it you? Are you okay?”

  Acid moved the phone away from her ear. “Calm down, Spook. It’s me. I’m fine. I’m alive. Were you not asleep?”

  “Had the phone next to my head. Where are you? What are you doing? Did you find him?”

  “Woah, kid, one question at a time. Yes, I’ve found him. Sort of. He’s working with an underground militia called the Cai Moi. I’m not sure in what capacity yet, but we’re planning to infiltrate their headquarters. With any luck the prick will be there.”

  “Geez, Acid. You can’t start a one-woman war with a militia, you’ll get yourself killed.”

  “It’s not only me,” she told her.

  “Oh? What do you mean?”

  “I have a friend here. An ex-soldier. Bit of a bad-ass, truth be told. So don’t worry. He’s got beef with the Cai Moi. Wants to right a few wrongs himself.”

  “What, two of you? How’s that any better?”

  “Hey! It’s me you’re talking to. We did okay, the two of us.”

  Spook grumbled. “I suppose.”

  “Anyway, Spook, the reason I’m calling is I need your help.” Acid paused as Spook mumbled something under her breath. Ignored it. Carried on. “We’ve got an address we believe is the Cai Moi headquarters but some more intel would help. If I give you the details, you think you can look into it for me?”

  “Well, yeah, but I don’t know what you think I can find.”

 
“Anything. Any CCTV you can get of the area, blueprints of the warehouses. Presently we’ve got nothing. I don’t want to go in blind.”

  “Fine. What’s the address?”

  Acid gave it her and the phone went quiet. Then she heard the familiar tap-tap-tapping noise.

  “When do you need it by?” Spook asked.

  Acid glanced over at the clock standing on a small shelving unit in one corner. “This is why I rang so early.” She closed one eye, working it out. “Could do with it by midday your time. Two at the latest.”

  “Shit, Acid. You don’t ask for much, do you?”

  “Come on, kid. You know you love me.”

  “Piss off.”

  “Thanks, Spook. I’m sorry I’m only now returning your call. All your calls. You’re the best.”

  “Be careful, Acid. Please.”

  “Always.”

  She hung up and went back through to the kitchen to find Vinh had replaced his shot glass with a large mug of strong black coffee.

  Thirty-Three

  The day was fading to dusk as Acid and Vinh left his apartment and headed north. It had been another hot and sticky day in Hanoi and the onset of a cool evening breeze was welcome. Not that they had seen much of the day. After Acid had finished on her call, Vinh had made them a light lunch of mushroom and chicken broth, followed by fruit and a cold rice dessert, which was sickly but enjoyable all the same. The rest of the afternoon was taken up with talking and drinking coffee. It was relaxing. A calm before the storm. And what Vinh had needed. Acid might still have work to do on her outward displays of empathy and compassion, but she knew when someone was hurting. Her new companion had gotten a lot off his chest today, and while his shoulders still sagged from the twin burdens of guilt and shame, he appeared lighter than he had done first thing.

  At the HD Bank they hailed a Grab Cab and had it drop them a half mile from the destination. Sticking to the back streets as much as possible, they travelled the remaining distance on foot. It took them ten minutes to get clear of the city and another five before the road ended. An expanse of concrete wasteland was now all that stood between them and a group of seven warehouses, the ancient buildings looking resplendent in the early evening light. Seven proud monoliths, symbols of a bygone age when industry ruled the world. Before the microchip came along and changed everything.

  “The Cai Moi are in one of those buildings,” Vinh said with certainty. “I can feel the electricity in the air. Like before a storm.”

  Acid looked up into the sky. “Could be an actual storm coming?”

  “No.” He screwed up his face. “This is more intense. A humming of evil. They’re here all right.”

  The address on the delivery note hadn’t listed a warehouse number so it was unclear which of the buildings it referred to. But from this distance they all looked the same. Not that Acid was expecting a big neon arrow stating, ‘Bad guys here’, but something at least. Her heightened senses and gut instincts were usually bang on the money. If Vinh was feeling their presence, why wasn’t she? She cast her gaze from warehouse to warehouse but all she saw were dead shells, a broken landscape devoid of life. Had they made a mistake coming here? It was easily done. Sometimes you wanted something to be true so much you overlooked the obvious.

  “Shall we move closer?” Vinh asked. “We may see some sign of life?”

  “No,” she snapped. “Chances are they’ll have security cameras. Last thing we want is to announce our arrival before we know which building it is.”

  As if on cue, Acid felt the vibration of her phone in her pocket. Spook. She dipped beneath the shrubs and took the call. “What have you got for me?” she asked, on answering.

  “Oh? And hello to you too.”

  “Come off it, Spook. I haven’t got time for this.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Up in Tu Lien, in the north of the city,” Acid replied. “Ho Tay Lake is on our left, the Red River over to the right. I’m looking at seven warehouses standing in a large area of wasteland. We think the Cai Moi might be in one of those buildings but we don’t have a clue which.”

  “Then you’re in the right spot,” Spook said. “There are cameras present but the feeds have been scrambled. However, I did manage to hack into a private sector satellite and pull some images from the area of the last two days. I finished enhancing them a few minutes ago. The warehouse furthest north and nearest the lake has had the most activity. Trucks arriving. Cars.”

  Acid grinned at Vinh. “That’s the one. Got to be. Can you tell me anything about exits and entrances?”

  “Not much. A silver car has been parked out front several times – the side facing the lake, up by the far end of the building. I’ve also got images of a truck parked further along the same side. So my advice would be approach it from the river if you can.”

  Acid was already one step ahead of her. “Sure. Got it. Great work. Thanks, kid.”

  Spook sniffed it off, but it was clear she was pleased with herself. “Thank me by coming home safe and well.”

  Acid closed her eyes, letting the impulse dissipate before she spoke. “Of course. I’ll see you soon.”

  She rolled her eyes at Vinh as she pocketed the phone. “She’s young,” she told him, by way of explanation. Then more serious, “Okay, it looks like the Cai Moi are in the far building on the right. We’ll approach it in a wide arc and drop down on the side facing the river.”

  Vinh nodded. “Makes sense,” he said. “So we’re doing this?”

  “Yes. But one step at a time. We’ll only advance once we’re certain we’re clear of any cameras.” She took in a deep lungful of air and smiled. “There’s nothing like taking on an underground militia to get the blood pumping. Come on. Let’s move.”

  Taking it slow and steady, they approached the warehouse from the west. Once they were a hundred metres away they circled around the lower warehouses and used these as cover. Keeping to the shadows, Acid pressed herself against the side of the building before hurrying over to the rear right corner of the Cai Moi warehouse. So far so good.

  “What now?” Vinh whispered, as he joined her there.

  She peered one eye around the side of the building. No one in sight. She looked over her shoulder at Vinh.

  “Get in and find Spitfire. After that, not sure.” She threw him a wink. “I always find it’s best not to plan these outings too rigidly.”

  From Vinh’s facial expression it clearly wasn’t the reply he’d been hoping for. But it was all she had. All she could deal with. Her entire body fizzed with a strong desire for blood. She took another peek around the side.

  “There’s a back entrance around this corner,” she whispered. “Half-way along. Maybe fifty metres. But there are cameras. One on each corner and one on the roof. They’re all trained on the doorway in a decent-sized arc.”

  Vinh grimaced. “Can we get past undetected?”

  “Doubtful. But there’s an old fire escape on the corner looks to be clear of cameras. Only thing is, the bottom third has rusted away. So the first rung is about three metres high.” She looked him up and down. “You reckon you can scale the wall, old-timer?”

  “Hey!” he snarled, elbowing her in the upper arm. “I might have a few years on you, but I’m still fit.”

  “Calm down, I was only trying to lighten the mood.”

  “Lighten the mood? We’re about to break into the headquarters of the most dangerous criminal organisation Hanoi has ever known. Armed with a couple of handguns and no plan.”

  Acid blew out a dramatic sigh. “Well, when you put it like that. Jesus.” She cricked her neck. Shook off the playfulness. “Enough chat. Follow my lead and stay close.”

  She tensed her body and held the strain for a few seconds, then let her muscles relax completely. At the same time, she shifted her centre of gravity into her pelvis. Stealth-mode. Now her limbs were loose and her movements fluid, her breathing shallow and slow. Keeping her back against the wall, she slipped arou
nd the corner and was underneath the fire escape in four strides. From this angle the rusty metal ladder seemed higher than she’d first estimated. She could also see some of the brackets fixing it to the wall had rotted away. Not ideal. But it was their only option. As Vinh joined her beneath the ladder, she stepped back and linked her fingers together, ready to boost him up. He halted, perhaps struggling with some ingrained strand of machismo. She didn’t have time for that. She glared at him.

  Her face said, Get a move on.

  It said, Don’t be a dick.

  A ledge stuck out a few feet above, and beyond this a couple of bricks jutted from the mortar far enough to get purchase. She had already tracked her own path. The key here was momentum – to let one movement drive the next. She returned her attention to Vinh and shoved her clasped hands at him.

  “Come on, Vinh. You can do this.”

  “Fine. I’ll go first.”

  Bracing himself with a hand on her shoulder, he placed his foot in her hands. Then as she took his weight he straightened his leg and leapt for the ledge, grabbing it with both hands. From here he was able to reach the fire escape. Acid stepped back as he hauled himself up the metal structure. If she could take a run up she might reach the ledge, but the way the cameras were angled she didn’t have much room. Vinh was already half-way up the fire escape, the ladder swaying and creaking uneasily as he went. She wasn’t confident the remaining brackets would hold both their weights. But once Vinh was scissoring his leg over the top of the building, she took one more step back and went for it. Because of the camera positions, she had to approach the wall at an angle. She raised her foot and got some friction behind her. But as she grabbed for the ledge she only got three fingers to it. Desperately she clawed for purchase, feet scrabbling at the wall. It wasn’t enough. She slid down the brickwork and landed on her feet.

  Then she heard the dogs.

  Only faint at first. A distant barking. But they were getting closer. She spun around and scanned the area. There were no streetlights around, but through the gloom she could pick out shapes. Six rabid eyes, glinting in the moonlight, three large beasts moving fast. Most likely these were Indochina dingoes. A native to the region, bred for hunting, and famous for being both wise and cruel.