Escalate

by Sigmund Brouwer

  I stood. I pulled the noose over my head and dropped the pole. I ripped the Velcro from my other glove and popped it off.

  This might have taken three or four seconds.

  Then I heard a sound I’d been expecting.

  A scream.

  In the total darkness it was as eerie as if this were a horror movie. Especially when the second—and equally high-pitched—scream followed a heartbeat later.

  It wasn’t from Victor or Jennie. They were behind me.

  It came from the guys with the baseball bats. Those bats clattered on the floor as each of the screams died. Then a second set of screams.

  I knew what was happening to them, but they didn’t.

  Cattle prods. Set at medium voltage. Long handheld sticks with two points, powered by battery. Not deadly, but on contact enough to jolt a thousand-pound animal into a spasm of movement. Before buying the cattle prods, I’d watched a couple of YouTube videos where idiots tried them on each other.

  Another set of screams.

  I could picture each of the two large men flailing in the darkness. How long would it take for them to realize their best option was to try to run?

  I didn’t get a chance to find out.

  From behind me came bright light, all the more piercing because of the contrast to the sheer black.

  The first result was to illuminate what had been happening. It caught Raven and Jo, dressed in black and each holding a cattle prod, about to strike again.

  But both of them had stumbled, disoriented.

  That was because of the second result.

  Raven and Jo each wore a pair of helmet-mounted night-vision goggles, NVGs, standard military issue, retail price well over four thousand dollars. They were able to produce images in near total darkness, converting minimal light and near infrared into green images for the viewer.

  I knew the price because I’d purchased them the day before. I knew they worked and how they worked because Raven and Jo and I had tested them in the gym with all the lights out. It was weird, seeing a person’s body displayed all in green, but effective.

  The plan had been perfect. Set myself up alone in the gym late at night with the door open, like a tethered goat placed in the jungle to attract a tiger. Call out for help with our code word. Plunge the gym into darkness. And let Jo and Raven attack at their leisure.

  The key word was had. As in, the plan had been perfect. Until Jennie turned on her phone’s flashlight.

  The NVGs had been set to maximum intensity. Which meant Jennie’s light had blinded Raven and Jo with such impact that it might be minutes before they could see normally again.

  I would have turned to snatch the device from Jennie, but the two large men recovered as quickly as cats landing on their feet.

  One punched Raven in the gut. The other clouted Jo across the helmet. They’d already been disoriented, and this attack was enough to knock them both to the floor.

  One of the men reached for a bat. The other lifted a foot to kick.

  Grabbing the device from Jennie was no longer an option. I leapt forward, twisting and turning as I threw my right elbow into the jaw of the one about to kick Jo. He grunted and staggered.

  The other grabbed at my arm. I spun loose and threw a punch into his gut.

  Snap and flow.

  It was like hitting the heavy bag, and he staggered back from the impact.

  This was not good.

  The elbow to the jaw should have knocked the first guy onto the floor. The punch to the gut should have doubled over the second guy to his knees.

  These guys could take some serious punishment. I needed to keep moving and extend the fight until they exhausted themselves. My only chance to was use my better fitness and mobility to my advantage. If either of them managed to latch on to me, I was dead. Metaphorically for sure and maybe literally if they started landing big punches or picked up the baseball bats.

  Snap and flow.

  What made this surreal was the single light source that seemed to etch everything into black and white.

  “Guys,” I told them between gulping deep breaths. “We’ve got two minutes to finish this. My friends here triggered a 9-1-1 call when they shut down the lights. We’re expecting the cops at any time. That was the plan.”

  I danced in close to the guy I’d popped on the jaw. I ducked and faked a punch with my right hand, and I snapped a punch into his gut with the left. I didn’t want to hit any part of his skull. Not with an unprotected fist.

  I danced back as he grunted.

  Again, I was impressed by his ability to take punishment.

  I caught some movement at my left. I weaved out of the way of a roundhouse from the second guy. He was fast.

  Snap and flow.

  I was trying to find my rhythm, trying to buy time for Raven and Jo, who were still on the floor.

  That’s when a noose settled over my head again.

  “Gotcha!” Victor said.

  Really? I thought. Really?

  My final conscious thought ended a heartbeat later as another roundhouse found its target.

  Side of my skull.

  I didn’t even see the floor on my way down.

  TWENTY

  I woke to a jolt of electricity in my brain. I flailed, thinking cattle prod.

  “Easy, Hulk,” Jo said.

  I blinked a few times. I saw that I had been propped up in a chair along one of the walls of the gym.

  I saw that Jo was holding a small torn packet below my nose.

  Smelling salts. Snapping me awake like electricity.

  That was the nice thing, I suppose, about getting your clock cleaned in a boxing gym. The convenience of something nearby to shock you back to consciousness. Not so nice was the burst of ammonia in my nose that came with it.

  I also saw that Raven was offering me a bag of ice.

  I pressed it against the side of my head.

  Wow. That had been some kind of punch.

  “What about my pupils?” I said.

  “Pupils?” Raven said. “Like you were teaching those guys something? That’s not how I remember it.”

  I groaned. “If it’s not too much trouble, would you mind checking the pupils of my eyes to see if they are of equal size?”

  Jo leaned forward. As always, I felt a sense of unspoken tension as our eyes locked. And unspoken it would remain.

  She assessed me. I took the opportunity to do the same.

  “Looks normal,” she said.

  I gave a small nod, afraid anything bigger might hurt.

  I went through a mental checklist. Temporary loss of consciousness was a definite sign of possible concussion. So that was a worry. But pupils were okay and I didn’t feel pressure in my head or any dizziness. No nausea. If I were my trainer, I wouldn’t let myself back in the ring. But I’d probably conclude that I likely didn’t have a concussion.

  I stood to check my balance. So far, so good.

  Except for the two cattle prods on the floor a few steps away and the NVG helmets beside them and the emptiness of the gym. A reminder of what Jennie had caused by turning on that flashlight.

  “Hey,” I said. “Don’t you love it when a well-executed plan ends perfectly?”

  Raven said, “I wanted to snap her neck. Getting hit with the light was like being stabbed in the eyeballs.”

  “Can’t say I liked getting knocked down,” Jo said.

  “Oh, I loved it,” I said.

  “Maybe we need to take you to Emergency,” Raven said to me.

  “Nope,” I answered. “Now I finally understand what it’s like to take a serious punch. Downside to being as good as I am in the ring, it’s never happened before.”

  “Ha-ha,” Raven said. “Clearly you are back to your normal obnoxious self.”

  Maybe not. I sat back in the chair. No ringing in my ears, at least. But right now I preferred sitting to standing.

  Jo and Raven each dragged a chair over. They had me surrounded.

  “
First I’ll ask the obvious,” I said. “How long was I out? And then why is it that we’re here and they are not?”

  “Your bluff worked,” Jo answered. “Telling them about the 9-1-1 call and cops on the way. Both goons took off as you were hitting the floor. At least, I think that’s what happened. I was still struggling to get some vision back.”

  There certainly had not been a 9-1-1 call. Last thing we’d wanted was cops involved.

  “They took the USB stick?” I asked.

  Raven nodded. “None of us were in a position to take it back. It’s gone.”

  I massaged my skull with the ice pack. “And evil sister and brother?”

  While I meant those terms literally, Raven and Jo had no way of knowing this. I wasn’t about to explain.

  “Evil sister left a message for you,” Raven said. “You do anything with the surveillance tapes and she puts out her own videos on social media.”

  “You know,” Jo said. “Her videos that show your face and my face and Raven’s face in clear view. Not a good thing for the team.”

  Team.

  “Nice cold-war tactic,” I said. “Mutually assured destruction. I’m okay with that. She leaves us alone, we leave her alone.”

  I had to tell them that, but then I thought about it some more. Yes. I was okay with that. I think I now understood that old phrase You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. I didn’t really see how Jennie and Victor and I could ever have any sort of relationship.

  “On her way out, she didn’t seem too concerned about whether you’d even wake up,” Raven said. “Interesting how you successfully manage to make so many females angry with you. I’d love to know the specifics of this one. Maybe start with what happened at the seniors’ center she mentioned, and why she thinks you’ve bullied her brother. What was that about you making him a project of yours?”

  The plan had been for Jo and Raven to be hiding while I waited for the blackmailer to make a move. Having Jennie and Victor show up had not been part of the plan. Nor was Jo and Raven overhearing the conversation while I had a noose around my neck.

  “And the evil brother,” Jo said. “It was obvious he hated you. Like, I mean hated. You should have seen the joy on his face while he had the noose around your neck.”

  Yes. I was definitely okay with not trying to be part of the lives of Jennie and Victor.

  “Raven,” I said. “Jo. I’ve never asked the two of you to trust me before. But now I am. This is something I need to work through myself. Can you give me that?”

  It took a few seconds for them each to give me a nod of agreement.

  “Thanks,” I said. I hid from them any warmth I might have felt about the trust they had just offered me.

  But it occurred to me that this was what it must be like being part of a team.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Speed chess on the street and twenty dollars on the line.

  I was staring at the board, trying to stay focused on the two moves remaining to trap my opponent’s unprotected white king and win that twenty dollars.

  I didn’t want to look up from the board. The dude had a monstrous pimple on the end of his nose that was so close to popping, the pressure must have been like a bee sting. How could he not be aware of it? Or did he look in the mirror and say, Yeah, why not draw attention away from the grease stains on my shirt?

  The only difference between taking that twenty and swiping a lollipop from a toddler was that the dude across from me actually believed he had a chance of keeping his money and walking away with mine.

  He hit the clock. I moved a piece and hit the clock. He wasted thirty seconds in panic, wasted another thirty seconds thinking he could actually escape, made a move, then hit the clock.

  It’s not that I’m good in the way chess champions are good. In hockey terms, I’m like a ten-year-old with some skills. The real chess champions are destined for the NHL.

  But we humans tend to fool ourselves with inflated estimates of our abilities. The real chess players—the pros—would have wiped me off the board in minutes. But Pimple Nose hadn’t even learned to tie his skates.

  Add the pressure of playing against the clock. Make a move, hit the clock, force the other player into hearing the seconds count down on his end. Run out of time, lose the game.

  Time and again, people who had been playing chess at home for a few years thought they knew it well enough to snap up the two twenties under a rock on the table. Those were the stakes I offered. Win, you get forty. Lose, I get twenty. But I didn’t lose often, so in this touristy area I cleared a couple hundred bucks most days.

  With time clicking away, I swooped in with my queen, hit the clock and announced “Checkmate.” I took his twenty and let my gaze slide past his nose and over his shoulder as he gave a rueful shrug.

  That’s when I saw Jennie Lang, holding a Starbucks cup and threading her way down the crowded sidewalk.

  “Better luck next time,” I said to Pimple Nose.

  He took the hint, scraped his chair back and left me alone.

  I tucked the bills into my pocket and folded up the chessboard. The table was empty by the time Jennie arrived.

  She set her cup on the table and set her face into a granite look of displeasure.

  “We weren’t clear enough last night that we want you out of our lives?” she said.

  “I’m doing fine,” I replied. “That last punch across the head didn’t hurt at all. Thanks for asking.”

  “I’m only here because you said you had news about Elias.”

  “Thought you might want to know where he is,” I said.

  “That’s not why I showed up.”

  “No?”

  She lifted her cup for a quick and angry sip, then set it down again.

  “I’m here to tell you one last time to stay out of our lives. Victor and I don’t give a crap about Elias. He’s the freaky half brother we’ve never liked. It took years, but Victor and I finally managed to drive him out of the house.”

  “Harsh.”

  “Not as harsh as my mom. She’s always hated him too. Evidence of an affair that broke up our so-called happy family.”

  I tried doing the chronology. “But you and Victor were born after—”

  “My father said he struggled with it for years. Not wanting to do a paternity test because he didn’t want to find out. Victor was three when they split up.”

  I supposed the odds weren’t that crazy. Plenty of husbands and wives had affairs. Except in this case, Elias had been conceived not as the result of an affair but by a different woman during the same time that Jennie’s mother, Melanie, happened to have been having an affair. Since Melanie was my birth mother, did I owe her the truth?

  I was messed up about this. One thing I did know for sure was that how Jennie and Victor had treated their brother, blood or not, was disgusting. They were mean and vicious people. I had no desire to be a part of their lives.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Okay?”

  “Okay,” I repeated. “I’m out of your lives.”

  She left the coffee cup on the table for me to throw in the trash.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The building was typical corporate—glass and steel on the outside, hushed lobby on the inside. I’d taken the elevator to the twenty-second floor with Deanna Steele.

  “My dad’s office is on the corner,” she said. “Great view of Vancouver.”

  That, however, was not our destination. Her father had set up a meeting in a conference room. That’s where two men in suits, both in their mid-twenties, were waiting for us, already seated at an oval table. They were from the marketing department—large men built like rugby players. One was blond and the other a redhead, both with close-cropped hair.

  I looked for and saw flinches in their faces as I followed Deanna into the room.

  “Hey,” I said. “Nice to see you again. Obvious as it is to point out, you do look better in suits than in masks.”

  T
hey exchanged glances, and then Red spoke. “Deanna? Not sure what this is about. We’ve never met this guy before.”

  “Baseball bats?” I said. “Boxing gym? Which of you did I tag first? Have to say, you were both in trouble until someone noosed me from behind.”

  Blondie pushed his chair back. “Deanna, what’s going on? We’re here as a favor to your father. But if you’re going to waste our time—”

  “My father’s going to be a little busy for the next while. Police business and all that. It seems that your direct boss has been involved in corporate espionage. And since your direct boss reports to my father, it’s going to be time-consuming for everyone involved.”

  Both of the men sat a little more upright.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Turns out a certain USB stick was a bit of a setup. You know, the one you took from my boxing glove? As soon as your boss plugged it into his computer, your game was over.”

  A scam is only as good as the believability of the lie that goes with the scam and the greediness of the person on the other end.

  To find the blackmailer’s identity, Bentley had needed a backdoor into the blackmailer’s computer. He’d installed a spy program to automatically download whenever the USB stick was inserted into a computer. Once we had the IP address, getting the physical address would be easy.

  But to sell the blackmailer the lie, we’d needed to make it look like the USB stick had value. During a second conversation with Deanna we made it clear she and I didn’t know the computer had been hacked. That conversation had sent these guys straight to the boxing gym late at night to steal the USB stick.

  But if they’d taken it from me too easily, the blackmailer might have been suspicious. Our plan had been to make it look like a trap by springing Jo and Raven on them, and then letting them fight their way out. While Victor thought he was doing them a favor by noosing me, it had actually sold the lie completely.

  “Also,” Deanna said, “turns out your boss had no problem ratting you guys out.”

  Red stood and growled at me. He shrugged off his suit jacket. “Going to pound you into the ground. Should have taken you down when I had the chance.”