by Matt Rogers
Alexis said, ‘I’ll call you when I’m closer.’
She hung up.
All roads leading to a single point.
61
Heidi did her best to stay out of sight, but she was smart enough to be aware of her flaws.
She knew in a realm like this, a realm she was wholly inexperienced in, her best wouldn’t be close to good enough.
She crawled out of the copse of trees, her Burberry jacket caked in dirt. There were only a handful of streetlights along the desolate gravel road running parallel to the lip of the flood control channel. She couldn’t see the belly of the beast from her position — the dry and rocky channel that the huge concrete banks sloped down to — but she’d been down there before. She didn’t need to see; she knew. This section of the creek lay bone dry in summer, where it was manmade. Not an ounce of water churning through it.
There were no floods to control in the evening warmth.
Petr stood out in the open on the ground above the slope, holding a long and sleek pistol by his side, the barrel aimed at the ground. The exposure and lack of cover seemed foolish, an unnecessary risk. She could make out his owl-like eyes piercing the dark, waiting to detect the slightest hint of movement. She was still draped in shadow, at the edge of the trees that led to the side of the channel. If she stood up to cross the road, he’d see her.
She’d lied to people her whole career. In the boardroom, over the phone, to the separate departments. She was good at it.
She didn’t know how good Petr was.
She didn’t know if he was lying about his allegiances.
He called into the dark. ‘You can stand up. I see you.’
She didn’t move. Her whole core was tense, her bones like steel. Like a kid playing hide and seek, burying their head in the sand, pretending they hadn’t been spotted. If she didn’t acknowledge it, it might not be true…
‘Come out, Heidi,’ he said, his voice carrying. ‘Come out to play.’
She thought she might be sick. Might vomit right there in the dirt. But she stood up, tottering and swaying even though she wasn’t wearing heels. Her life had been insulated, she realised. She was effective at handing out orders, effective at dealing with all the stresses of running a company, a company she knew full well had no functioning product. She’d thought that made her tough. She understood now that she wasn’t.
She walked across the street toward Petr, shaking.
She didn’t bother going for the compact pistol she’d brought with her, the little SIG P365. The store she’d bought it from had showed her how to use it, but she’d forgotten.
If she tried to pull it out, he’d be able to empty his pistol into her without breaking a sweat, before she even got the chance to squeeze a shot off.
She was smart.
Aware of her flaws.
Heidi came right up close, stood in front of him. He dwarfed her. He wasn’t particularly tall but she was a small woman, and very thin. She’d always needed to overcompensate for that. Maybe she’d taken it too far.
Too late to dwell on that.
‘I gave your friend a call,’ he said. ‘She’s on her way.’
He still spoke in that manic wavering tone, but it wasn’t as strange as it had sounded over the phone. The coke must be wearing off. Heidi had no idea whether that was a good thing.
She tried to sound confident. ‘What did you tell her?’
He raised an eyebrow under the moonlight, his features accentuated by the distant glow of the nearest streetlight. ‘What do you mean? I told her to come.’
‘Why would she do that?’
He smiled. She couldn’t tell whether it was sinister or jovial, how deeply the drugs were still entrenched in his system.
He said, ‘What are you asking, Heidi?’
‘How did you convince her to come?’
He didn’t even pause. Straight away, in that smooth accented voice, he said, ‘I told her that I wanted to kill you. That you are a pathetic amateur with no regard for the sanctity that comes with this profession. That it’s expected of contractors to do careful research, to understand which jobs are possible and which aren’t. That you violated the code when you sent all my men to their deaths. I told her that I had no hard feelings against her, because she was simply doing her job when she went to war with us. There’s nobility in that, after all. Having enemies, having skin in the game, putting up a fight. I respect it more than you would ever understand. There’s far less nobility in sitting behind a desk, directing men into the shadows with blank checks, not giving a shit whether they make it out alive or not. At least this other woman has her boots on the ground. For that, I told her, she has my respect. And if she’d like to make an appearance tonight, I’d be more than happy to hand you over to her.’
Heidi couldn’t think straight.
Her head swam.
She hadn’t come here actually thinking she might die. Now her mortality was staring her in the face.
Her voice was a whisper. ‘Is that true?’
He lifted his arm, the long pistol extending, rising up faster than she was able to react. Before she could even jerk backwards he had touched the barrel to her forehead. He studied her in the lowlight, like a scientist observing a lab rat. He smiled at her distress. No joviality there. All sinister.
His head cocked to the side as he mused, ‘Money doesn’t really mean anything, does it?’
Her legs trembled. Her knees knocked together. She couldn’t help it.
‘What are you worth?’ he said in a low voice. ‘A billion? That’s what the news says.’
‘Not for much longer.’
He sighed and lowered the gun.
‘I wasn’t telling the truth, was I? Money must mean something. Or I’d be burying your body.’
She’d come close to wetting herself.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I saw the article. One of my colleagues sent it to me. Everyone will be talking about it tomorrow. You’ll be over. But for now, you have access to funds.’
She blinked hard. Didn’t know what to say. She was so grateful she couldn’t put it into words.
Maybe it was all still possible.
He said, ‘Did you bring a gun?’
She nodded.
He said, ‘Good. Keep it out of sight. We have a play to perform.’
‘What do you need from me?’
‘To stand there and look scared.’ He positioned her sideways, put the gun against the side of her head, on the flesh above her ear. She felt the metal against her skull. ‘Shouldn’t be too hard. But, deep down, you shouldn’t be scared.’
‘Why?’
He softened the touch of the gun, relenting a little. ‘Because this time I don’t mean it.’
‘You did before?’
‘I hadn’t decided what I was going to do until twenty seconds ago,’ he said. ‘And I caved. Maybe that makes me weak. That’s a question for another day. But you’ll never know how lucky you got.’
Under her breath, she muttered, ‘I will. I already do.’
62
Slater waited until the speeding cars receded into the distance, both gunning it for Bayview.
They’d flashed past his position maybe ten, fifteen seconds apart.
So King had gotten in a pursuit, but at least he was alive. Had to be. Slater doubted it was Danny pursuing Frankie.
Could be the other way round, he thought.
Frankie going after Danny.
Slater pictured King’s body, left behind out the front of the gym. The gym was owned and operated under a false name. It didn’t matter if it was a crime scene. Frankie could leave it all behind.
Slater rose up out of the ditch with renewed focus. He needed a phone, and he needed it now. Didn’t matter if his body was beat up or his joints were destroyed or his head pounded with agony. There were more important things to worry about than his own health.
King might need him.
He did everything he could to detach h
imself from the pain and hobbled across the road, coming to the lip of the excavated land. He eyed the flipped car, the debris scattered around it, Bobby’s body half-visible against the top of the overturned door, the way Kit lay spread-eagled, a dozen feet from the hood.
Slater’s vision swam, and he saw two of everything.
Before he could think twice he lowered himself to a crouch and began to limp gently down the slope. Dirt brushed away underfoot, and he almost slipped a couple of times. He had to strain his eyes in the semi-darkness. The soft glow from nearby streetlights wasn’t enough. The descent proved precarious, but he made it to the bottom in one piece. He dragged his bad leg behind him on the way to the car, reaching the upside-down trunk first. Somewhere in the wreckage there lay three phones — his, Bobby’s, and Kit’s. Easier to pat down their bodies than to fish around in the dark for his phone, so he rounded the trunk, beelining for Bobby.
He crouched down by the corpse and went into pockets, but most of them were already turned out, his clothing ripped and tattered from the crash. Slater felt blood between his fingers.
He found a set of keys, and a wallet, and a pocket knife.
No phone.
He swore to himself, lurched upright, peering into the gloom in search of where Kit’s body had come to rest.
It wasn’t there.
Slater’s heart crashed in his chest, a mixture of pain and shock reaching a fever pitch, and in the blink of an eye his main priority shifted. A phone was no longer important.
You need a gun.
He twisted on the spot just in time to see Kit circle around the back of the overturned car, his movement laboured by debilitating injuries.
63
Ghosting through the industrial sprawl of north San Lorenzo on foot, Alexis could hear her pulse beating in her throat.
She stuck to the shadows of Lewelling Boulevard. She headed west, parallel to the creek that ran beyond the warehouses to her left. Cars flitted by occasionally, their noise amplified behind her by the acoustics of the I-880 overpass. She used the darkness to her advantage, but the night carried equal terror. Petr could’ve been lying about using up all his men. Heidi might’ve come here with an army. Vitality+ was dead in the water. That reputation she’d been so desperate to protect was tarnished.
She might do anything.
Alexis continued along the edges of the sidewalk until she was far from the overpass, until the traffic noise had receded to stillness. She checked her phone screen, the brightness lowered to the minimum setting, and saw the coordinates of the flood control channel were directly to her left. She slipped down a laneway that weaved past giant warehouses and led her to what appeared as an impenetrable wall of foliage. It was only the shadow that seemed to solidify it, though, and the undergrowth parted as she forced her way through.
Branches scratched her arms.
Leaves slapped her face.
She ignored the discomfort and focused entirely on the amount of noise she was making. It was one of the first things Slater had taught her, to put a mental barrier between what you need to do and the pain associated with what you need to do. If it takes getting scratched up to lower the volume of your movement, you do it, no question. Your personal comfort is practically last on the list of combat priorities.
She came out on the other side of the foliage at the edge of a flat stretch of dirt. The ground ahead ended at the lip of a wide concrete slope descending diagonally down to the creek bed. The walls of the flood control channel continued in either direction as far as she could see.
Two figures stood in front of the lip, backed up to the edge.
One dwarfed the other.
A man and a woman.
The man held a gun to the woman’s head.
The nearest streetlights were too far away to make out details, but Alexis didn’t need to. One look at the profile of the larger man gave her flashbacks to Ernie’s apartment, to the snapshot she’d glimpsed of Petr winging punches into the man’s ribs. It was an image that would stay with her forever, because of its implications. If she hadn’t shown up at the right time, it would have continued. Ernie would’ve known what was happening but he’d have been helpless to resist. He’d have felt his ribs breaking, his stomach rupturing, and he’d have been rendered immobile for the finishing blows, the ones that mercifully put his lights out before the pain reached a fever pitch…
And why?
So that some CEO could feel a little better about herself, satisfied by the brutal demise of employees who’d simply disagreed with her illegal business practices.
Alexis could finally grasp the concept of pure evil.
She wanted both Heidi and Petr dead, but she wasn’t stupid.
She came out of the foliage, standing up to her fullest height and then strode toward Petr like he was an old, dear friend. She could make out tiny outlines of features on his face in the dark, and she thought she saw him trying to hide a smile as she approached. It was probably her imagination, wishful thinking on her behalf. He wouldn’t betray his intentions so obviously.
Then again, he was on drugs…
She kept her face open the way she’d practiced hundreds of times in the mirror, because King and Slater had taught her that the biggest key to urban warfare was seeming innocent until you were feet away. It seemed to work. She beamed at Petr, delighted that he’d double-crossed Heidi, and maybe he actually had. She couldn’t know for sure, could only stay cautious.
So when she was maybe six feet away from the both of them she ripped her MP-443 Grach out and stuck it in Petr’s face with her finger an inch off the trigger. By the time she’d done that he’d already wheeled his aim away from Heidi, aimed right back at her, their arms crossing over, the barrels inches from each other’s heads.
Nothing happened.
In her peripheral vision she saw Heidi frozen like a deer in headlights.
Alexis said, ‘If you’d really double-crossed her, what I just did would’ve made you panic and shoot her.’
Petr hesitated. ‘What?’
‘I saw it. Right then. You made a conscious decision to not pull the trigger on her when I pulled my gun out. So she’s valuable to you.’
Heidi didn’t move a muscle, didn’t speak. Away from her company and her wealth she seemed tiny, frail, miniscule. Stripped of her luxuries and her material power, it was mightily clear just how little she was in control. She seemed to also recognise that, because she kept her mouth shut.
Petr said, ‘You are reaching. If there’s a gun in my face I react to it.’
Alexis was. She wasn’t completely certain of his intentions. It was close to fifty-fifty as to who he was allied with, and there was no clear path to getting rid of both of them at once. She’d known he’d seen her in the foliage, no matter how quiet she tried to be, how motionless. He was a trained hitman in charge of a crew. This was his bread and butter. If she tried to fire at him he would’ve only taken his aim off Heidi faster, shot her to pieces in the undergrowth. She was aware enough to know her own limitations.
Alexis said, ‘How long had you been standing here with her?’
‘Ten minutes. Maybe more.’ His wide eyes pierced the gloom, his pale skin almost luminous. He was searching for the slightest hint that she might shoot. ‘She trusted me, so she approached. Look how she’s standing there. How she hasn’t tried to run. She can dish out orders but in this world she just sits there like a puppy and takes them. Now lower your gun and do what you came here to do.’
He wasn’t accentuating random words anymore. The cocaine had worn off, apparently.
Alexis stared at him. ‘You’ll shoot me. The second I lower my gun.’
‘Reaching,’ he repeated. ‘You don’t know any of this for sure.’
Alexis took the risk to glance to her left. Sure enough, Heidi loitered like an obedient dog, just how Petr had described. Her arms were down by her sides, her posture unconfident, her eyes darting between Alexis and Petr like she was on meth, like she h
ad the attention span of microseconds. Alexis knew what that demeanour revealed.
Heidi was only now terrified.
Which meant Petr holding a gun to her head hadn’t been real enough to scare her.
And Alexis noticed the bulge at the back of her thin jacket, the way it rested a little above where her belt would be.
She took all that from a single glance, then looked at Petr again. ‘If you really weren’t with her then you would’ve taken her gun off her.’
Petr blinked.
An oversight.
Alexis said, ‘Don’t pretend you didn’t see it there. I saw it from a glance.’
He didn’t say anything.
She jerked hard to the left, away from his aim. He pulled the trigger once instinctively, the noise like a detonation in her eardrums, but before he could pivot and fire again she was behind Heidi, one arm around the woman’s neck, hunching to minimise her profile. She aimed the Grach over Heidi’s shoulder, directly at Petr, who locked his own aim back onto the sliver of Alexis’ face that was visible.
The report of the solitary gunshot died away, replaced by a ringing tinnitus.
Alexis said, ‘I assume if you shoot her you don’t get paid.’
Petr still seemed confident he could hit his target. ‘I’ll take that risk.’
‘Will you?’
He let out a low growl of frustration. Then raised an eyebrow and made eye contact with Heidi, who was frozen in Alexis’ choke hold. ‘Help me out, darling.’
Heidi whipped her head back, trying to break Alexis’ nose with the back of her skull.
Alexis saw it coming a mile away but she was focused on too many things at once. She tried to keep her aim on Petr, but by doing so she lost concentration on her forearm around Heidi’s throat. By some miracle, the tiny woman slipped free, and in her desperation Heidi reached for the gun at her waistband, a gun she clearly had little clue how to use. Alexis missed that because she was trying to shoot Petr. She squeezed two shots off but he wasn’t there anymore, had already turned and sprinted away into shadow, powering into the darkness with freakish athleticism. He was gone before she could even figure out whether she’d hit him or not and she wheeled her aim back to find Heidi already aiming a compact SIG P365 at her.