The man slowly raised his head and regarded the officer. One of his eyes was missing, or rather had been punctured earlier in the discussion, and was leaking its ocular fluid down his battered cheek. The pain had to be excruciating.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I swear.” The words ran together in a hoarse mumble, due to the obliteration earlier levied upon his face.
The officer shook his head imperceptibly and sighed. His tryst would have to be delayed; this was going nowhere. Shrugging his shoulders, he reached into his pocket and retrieved a pair of white foam earplugs, then turned to the man in the short shirtsleeves and nodded.
Without hesitation, the man cranked the handle on the old wooden box. The victim shrieked again, an otherworldly sound that bespoke unimaginable horrors. A pair of worn blackened wires ran from the old hand generator to the seated man’s genitals, where the bare ends had been affixed with black electrical tape. The smell of burning hair and flesh mingled with the other noxious odors.
“Where is it? What did you do with it?”
More gurgling.
The taller officer removed his round wire-rimmed glasses, cleaned the lenses carefully with a handkerchief, and addressed the man in the shirtsleeves.
“Use the drill.”
The shirtsleeved man nodded, and removed from his bag a device resembling a dog muzzle, with straps on the back terminating in metal hooks. He clawed his hands into the man’s head, forcing his face into the contraption. The front section had a hinged mechanism controlling two short metal rods now plunged inside the man’s mouth. The rods were grooved, worn by the many previous sets of teeth which had ground them.
He secured the metal hooks to the chair back, and tightened the straps so the man couldn’t move his head. Then, with a practiced twist, he turned the lever on the side of the mechanism, forcing the man’s mouth open, allowing access to his dental plate.
Pausing for a moment, the shirtsleeved man considered his shoes, now soiled with the accumulated expulsions. Aggravating, but there was nothing to be done about it. He hoped they’d wash clean.
Turning, he donned a plastic apron with an incongruous faded image of a dancing crab, and selected the Dremel, a tiny high-speed jeweler’s drill used for polishing and grinding work. He inserted the bit—a small tapered cone with serrated edges running from the tip to the base, useful for boring holes in stone or metal—and tightened the shaft.
The victim’s eye went wide as the screech of the high-pitched motor filled the space.
“So, my friend, is there anything you want to tell me before we start?”
* * *
Overhead loudspeakers blared flight arrival and departure information in Korean as well as in Japanese, Chinese, and English. The terminal was congested, even though its ultra-modern interior was designed specifically to accommodate heavy traffic, and the din of conversations battling with the ceaseless announcements created a kind of low-grade pandemonium. Seoul was a major hub for travel into China and the Far East, and on any business day there were a lot of busy people with important places to go, most of whom apparently had to do so while having animated discussions on their cell phones.
Seung waited restlessly in the ticketing area, half an hour early for his meeting. Thin, fashionably mod haircut, and a studied air of disinterest affecting every mannerism, he was dressed in jeans and leather jacket, in defiance of the brooding heat outside the airport’s doors.
Fuck, he hated crowds. Airports were the worst. The noise and bustle were grating on his already raw nerves.
Fidgeting with his black briefcase, he scouted his surroundings and spotted a men’s restroom icon. He studied the crowd, quickly glanced at his watch, then moved towards the facilities. Of course there was a line. Forced to wait a few minutes for a toilet to free up, he passed the time imagining he was boarding one of the big 747s on the tarmac and flying to Fiji or Bora Bora. Maybe one day. One day soon.
The end stall vacated and he entered and locked the little compartment door, exhaling a sigh of relief to be out of the throng. After confirming the latch was secure and there was no visibility through the door joints, he pulled a small zippered wallet from the inside pocket of his jacket and carefully opened it, using his briefcase as an ad hoc table.
He painstakingly emptied half the contents of a tiny plastic bag into an old metal spoon, and with a trembling hand clutching his cigarette lighter he melted the powder in the spoon bowl. Very slowly, he returned the lighter to his jacket pocket and removed a disposable syringe from the wallet. Gripping the orange plastic cap with his teeth, he freed the little needle and sucked the liquid into the syringe.
The tricky part concluded, he replaced the cap and held the syringe in his mouth while he repacked the kit, taking care to reseal the bag’s tiny zip-lock top.
Seung rolled up his left jean leg, exposing a network of bruised discolorations which marred the larger veins in his ankle. He removed a length of surgical tubing, tied off just below his calf and slapped at the vein. That one looked good for another week, then it would collapse like the ones in his right leg.
Oh well. He’d have to still be alive next week to care. There were no guarantees.
He popped the cap off the needle again and slid the metal into his ruined vessel, drawing blood into the syringe and mixing the amber fluid with the viscous crimson from his vein. Satisfied, he depressed the plunger, emptying the contents into his bloodstream. This was only half a hit, really just a maintenance dose—he didn’t want to nod off on the job. He released the tubing and felt a warm rush through his entire system, running up his leg to his heart, then into his throat and up to his head.
It was heaven.
Even half a hit made life bearable, at least for now, and he could focus better if he wasn’t jittery and jonesing. His eyes began to close and it was only with tremendous effort he kept them open. He drifted, his lids getting heavier, heavier.
The neighboring stall door slammed and abruptly jolted him back to full consciousness.
Think. Put your shit away, stand up, and get busy.
He looked at his oversized steel watch; his meeting was in five minutes. Fuck. He fumbled, stuffing the kit and syringe into his breast pocket, then blotted the blood on his ankle with some toilet paper and slapped himself in the face several times.
He flushed the toilet, grabbed his briefcase and exited the stall, flipping on a pair of sunglasses to lessen the impact of the lights on his dilated pupils as he approached the ticketing area.
Ah. There was his target, a fifty-something man with a suit bag draped over his shoulder, carrying an identical briefcase.
Seung caught his eye, set the briefcase down on the floor next to his right foot, and pretended to play with his cell phone. The older man walked over and asked if he had the correct time, which Seung made a display of providing. He admired the younger man’s phone, and put his bag and briefcase down next to the other briefcase, asking to see it. Seung showed him the most compelling features—it really was unbelievable what they could do these days with technology.
Smiling, the older man retrieved his suit bag and the younger man’s briefcase, and thanked him for the demonstration.
Seung made his way to the terminal exit while the older man quickly made his way through customs, his diplomatic passport ensuring he was waved through security.
He was right on time for his flight: Korean Air to San Francisco. Settling himself comfortably in the first class seat, he placed the briefcase in the small dais at the base of his pod, which reclined into a bed for the long trip over the Pacific.
As was his custom, he got some water from the stewardess before take-off and took a small white pill—Xanax, to ease his nerves during the flight—and closed his eyes. The hard part, getting his hands on the briefcase, was over. Now he just had to keep his meeting and he’d be golden, three hundred thousand dollars richer. Not a bad day’s work.
The stewardess made her final passage through the cabin
, checking to ensure everything was secure, and within minutes they were hurtling down the worn tarmac and up into the cold grey sky.
Chapter 2
Traffic sucked. It was getting late, and rush hour started at about three-thirty in downtown New York.
Tess dodged a cab pulling out of a space on her right and swerved around a bus offloading its passengers. She was pedaling hard; she had ten minutes tops to get to her last stop of the day. Horns honking were just part of the incessant background music of the city streets. She’d learned to tune it out to keep her mind on the immediate objective: getting from point A to point B in as little time as possible without getting flattened.
Right now, her goal was a building on West 22nd off Avenue of the Americas, sixth floor, and she’d just gotten out of the Village—which meant making it by the time the company had guaranteed delivery was going to be a stretch.
The last drop had been to a jerk-off who’d wanted to chat her up. It happened more often than not with single-partner attorney firms: a powerful, relatively successful, relatively young guy would see her walk through the door with his deposition draft, and what should have been a one-minute stop would often turn into five or six minutes of trying to extricate herself. And those minutes were her edge on making the next stop on time.
She really hated the single-partner law firms.
Tess had been at work since seven that morning. She always deliberately kept her appearance low-key. No makeup, loose knee-length cargo shorts, and spandex tank tops with baggy t-shirts seemed to minimize undesired attention from horny men in suits. She wasn’t looking for a dating service when she was on the job. She had packages to deliver; that was the gig, and all that she wanted to focus on.
And she was way behind schedule.
She cut across Union Square Park and up Broadway, figuring she would cruise down West 23rd to Sixth Avenue—usually an easier run than battling all the way up Sixth—and with luck she’d be no more than five minutes late. She’d found she could wiggle about five minutes of leeway out of customers if she explained it was a traffic issue. If the recipient was female, she’d tell the truth: the asshole at the last office had drug out the signing process to flirt, setting her timeline back.
More than five minutes late and customers didn’t care what the excuse was. They weren’t paying top dollar for a messenger so things could be late. Her issues weren’t their problem.
She was almost taken out by a double-parked van on Broadway that backed up just as she was swinging around it, and then narrowly missed a roller-blader shooting out a side street—a bald sixty-year-old man wearing silver spandex bike shorts and suspenders, bopping along to something blasting in his headphones.
What a city.
Steam blew out manholes, road crews worked in the middle of intersections, jaywalkers were fearless, and yellow and red lights were more suggestions than imperatives.
She never felt more alive than when she was on the job.
As she rolled onto the sidewalk, panting from the sprint, she glanced at her watch. One minute to spare. Damn, she was good. She locked her bike, adjusted the messenger bag on her shoulder, and ran for the closing elevator door. A hand shot out and held it. She laughed when she saw who it was: Paco, another one of the Red Cap crew.
“Whatchu doing here, girl?” Paco asked.
“606, deposition. One minute to spare. You?” Tess replied.
“905, drawings. Better late than never. I got held up by a cop, nabbed me running a red. He let me off, but that ate ten minutes. Prick.” Paco was clearly annoyed.
“No biggie. What are you doing after work?” Tess genuinely liked Paco, an impossibly handsome, somewhat effeminate twenty-two-year-old Puerto Rican man built like Adonis.
“I’ll probably stop at the Corral for a beer, then go find myself Mr. Right-Now in the Village. You going tonight?” The Corral was a dive bar near the messenger depot on Spring Street.
“Yeah, why not? I’ll probably catch you there.” The elevator opened at the sixth floor. “Be good, Paco.”
Paco pursed his lips and gave her a “yeah, right” look.
Tess approached the reception desk with the package and sign-off sheet. Two men in their late twenties were having a discussion by one of the offices. They stopped when they saw her.
“Delivery from Red Cap. On time for four o’clock. Please sign here,” she announced to the girl behind the desk, who dutifully scribbled on the release and dropped the package into a wire basket. “Is there any way I can get a glass of water?” Tess asked. “I’m dying here.”
“Sure, just go back by the kitchen area.”
Tess moved to the water chiller at the rear of the small suite and filled a small paper cup. She drained it quickly. Again. And again.
She removed her helmet and shook out her hair, enjoying the respite from the blistering summer heat. After blotting her face with a paper towel, she lifted her long black mane to reveal a tattooed sun at the base of her hairline and a well sculpted, tanned bicep. She closed her eyes and relished the air conditioning on her skin. Flashing a smile at the two, she offered a glimpse of white teeth and a silver tongue piercing.
Re-hydrated and refreshed, Tess returned to the front desk and thanked the receptionist before exiting the office. She was parched at the end of another brutal day on the streets, and it was a nice gesture to let her cool off before she went back into the swelter. Not everyone was so accommodating to messengers.
The two men exchanged a look and shook their heads. The younger one, an intellectual property attorney, let out a low whistle.
“Don’t even think about it. She’d chew you up and spit you out before you knew what hit you,” the taller man, a litigator, advised.
“Yeah, but what a way to go.”
* * *
Across town a figure stared at the output of his computer printer, tracking the movements of eight different currencies, looking for trends. At 46, Gordon Samuels was at the top of the heap of currency speculators and commodity traders. Well, almost at the top. He wasn’t George Soros, but he was wealthy by virtually any standards, closing in on a net worth of over sixty million dollars. His firm, Meridian Trading, specialized in currency arbitrage and commodities brokering for high-net-worth accounts, and he controlled many billions of dollars for his clients. He had two royal families, an ex-president, and seven governments as trusted investors, not to mention three of the Forbes top-ten list.
His phone rang.
“Gordon, there’s been a wrinkle. We lost control of a test batch—almost perfect, but still with a few microscopic imperfections. We’re working on location and containment as we speak.” The caller spoke in a singsong Asian-accented English, with an almost feminine tone to it.
“Why are you telling me this? How does this affect our plan?” Gordon didn’t like surprises.
“We want you apprised. No other reason. We’re not worried; we believe we are only hours away from solving the problem.”
“You know what’ll happen if anything hits the market with a flaw? Especially before we’re ready? Game over.” Gordon sounded menacing, which was intentional. He’d put his entire fortune on the line for this play. It had goddamn well better go off without a hitch—he was already counting himself among the planet’s billionaires, and he was not, repeat not, going to let anything stand in his way.
“Of course. Which is why we’re handling this with the utmost seriousness. Again, this is a courtesy call. Nothing more.” Everyone had a lot at stake here.
“Keep me posted and let me know if you need anything. I’ve already started positioning the oil futures for next month. Let’s not blow this.” Gordon disconnected, deep in thought.
His ingenious and hugely risky venture involved oil, the integrity of the U.S. economy, and most importantly, his personal fortune multiplying exponentially. One play, three or four months tops, and he’d net over a billion dollars, while his clients amassed many more billions. He’d have to stay on top of thi
s; those idiot peasants couldn’t be trusted not to fuck up the simplest things. Christ. How hard could it be?
* * *
Robert Gideon wheeled down the arrivals ramp at San Francisc o International Airport. Back on terra firma, he made his way to the first class lounge, which was appropriately outfitted for airport meetings. Airport wheelchairs were terrible but at least they got the job done. He’d brought no luggage but a carry-on bag, holding it in his lap as he sat in the lounge lobby area waiting for his customer.
This was a big sale, one of the largest in his life.
The client had contacted him over the Internet, through his store, and expressed interest in several extremely expensive pieces: four Patek Philippe wristwatches from the 1950s and 1960s, complicated moon phase models that were hot on the auction market. The whole deal had come to $1.1 million dollars; after haggling they’d agreed on a purchase price of one million for all four watches, and to meet in San Francisco. The customer, a collector with an appreciation for fine timepieces, was flying in from Korea for the transaction.
Gideon Watch Gallery was one of five premiere previously-owned watch shops in New York, and one of very few in the country with multiple pieces of that rarity and price range. He’d been surprised when the collector had agreed to take all four watches, but not that surprised—in the good old days of the early eighties, when the Japanese yen had been king, he’d routinely had customers buy two- and three-hundred-thousand-dollar watches while on vacation. Lately Korea was a hot spot for fine timepieces, as was China. He’d been in the business long enough so that very little surprised him anymore.
Robert sat patiently awaiting the arrival of Mr. Kiu, a member of the diplomatic team from South Korea. Kiu’s credentials had checked out and he’d indicated he’d bring cash.
That had caused Robert a bit of pause.
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