Red Snow

by Michael Slade

“I knew you’d call, big tipper.”

  “I need a favor.”

  “So do I. Remember my offer?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s the favor?”

  “Are the vamps still at their table?”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, glancing over to Mandy, Jessica, and Corrina. “I just took them another round of drinks. Your ears must be burning.”

  “Why?”

  “They were talking about you.”

  “Good things, I hope.”

  “Dirty girl stuff.”

  “I left one a note asking her to meet me at five.”

  “It’s five now.”

  “If one of them gets up to leave, I’d appreciate a call.”

  “You’ll get a call if I get a call. Do we have a deal?”

  “You drive a hard bargain.”

  “You can drive the hard bargain, if you want.”

  Zinc smiled to himself. “Okay. If I can get free of work—that’s a mighty big ‘if’—you’ve got a deal. I’ll be your bodyguard for the rest of the night.”

  “And you’re in luck. One of them just stood up.”

  “What’s she doing?”

  “Grabbing her carryall off the back of her chair. Stupid girl. That’s how your wallet gets pinched.”

  “Is she leaving?”

  “Wait a sec. Yep, she’s taking her coat.”

  Wet Job

  Rick Scarlett stepped out of the two-story chalet and closed the door behind him. With icicles spiking down from the eaves and firelight turning the windows into glaring eyes, the house looked like an open-jawed Windigo monster. And the Mountie looked like its next meal.

  Shotgun at the ready, Rick eyed the wooded white waste around him. He felt as if he were the only man alive on earth, the sole survivor of a new ice age. The land seemed to slumber under a blanket of snow. When the tree branches dumped their heavy burdens, it was as if hibernating winter was turning over in its sleep.

  Rick listened intently but heard nothing.

  Shotgun leveled before him, ready to blast if necessary, he descended the dark drive without the aid of light. If there was a sniper down there, a flashlight would make him an easy target.

  The corporal’s career had all but stalled since the Headhunter case went foul. He’d shuffled around a slew of small detachments since then, moving laterally instead of up the totem pole. As he walked toward Zinc’s Rover, now cocooned by snow, he almost wished the bad guys would come creeping along the road. Spotting them, he’d crouch in hiding until they approached the chalet, and as soon as he saw a weapon—this would be a righteous kill—the overlooked hero would scattershot those fuckers until they were mincemeat.

  Inspector Rick Scarlett.

  It had a nice ring to it.

  Superintendent Rick Scarlett.

  Even better.

  Commissioner Rick Scarlett.

  Why not go for the gold?

  Top cop of the Royal Canadian Mounted Fucking Police.

  Reaching the vehicle, Rick set the Remington down on the snowy hood. From his parka, he withdrew a small penlight. Then, stretching out along the front bumper, he shielded the beam as best he could and shone it up under the front of the Rover. At first, he saw nothing troubling. But when he scraped off the crud, there it was affixed to the undercarriage: a magnetic GPS tracker.

  Tearing the device from its hold on the metal, the cop wiggled out from under the chassis. Rick was under no illusions about the peril. The bug in his hand meant that Mephisto knew where Becky was, and that meant that every second brought death closer to her.

  The moment he saw the snow rise, Rick knew he’d made a foolish mistake. He should have set the shotgun beside him on the ground, not on the hood.

  Ice Ax wore white so that when he lay flat in the snow, as he did near the Rover, his camouflage made him part of the landscape. Wet jobs were his specialty. Silent bloodlettings. He could lie still for hours without twitching, waiting for his prey to appear. He’d gone to ground within striking distance of the Rover because he wagered that if one of the Mounties ventured from the chalet, it would be to fetch something from the car or to drive it somewhere else.

  And now his bet had paid off.

  Having surveyed the wooded lot for signs of movement, Rick was convinced that the bad guys would ascend from the lower road, and that he’d have time to react if they came into view. There was just enough space to gaze down the drive between the Rover’s undercarriage and the flat on which the car was parked. The mistake he’d made was in overlooking the heaps around the clearing, the piles of shoveled snow. Rick had an image of mercenaries as tough guys fighting it out in deserts or jungles. He didn’t picture the killers being at home in the snow.

  The shotgun was out of reach above his head.

  His nine-mill was holstered under his parka.

  A layer of clothing separated the corporal from his sidearm.

  Scrambling to reach a weapon—any weapon—Rick launched a desperate bid to widen the gap as Ice Ax pressed his advantage. The mercenary sprang from the snow pile onto the driveway beside the Mountie. Hiking up his jacket as he struggled to gain his footing, the cop grasped the butt of his gun. Above him, the abominable snowman swung his weapon.

  It seemed to Rick as if the oncoming collision between the ice ax and his skull was happening in slow motion. He could make out the curved T against the hoary trees. His hand found the shotgun as the pick began to plunge. Down it came as the Remington’s barrel swiveled toward the breath billowing from the mercenary’s mouth. Down it came as the nine-mill cleared the holster on his hip. In the blink of an eye, both firearms would be aimed at his attacker—

  Crack!

  The steel tip of the ice ax tore the fur of his cap, smashing through the crown of Rick’s skull. The shotgun clattered to the hood and the pistol dropped from the corporal’s hand as the pick sank deep into his gray matter.

  The mercenary wrenched the weapon free as the cop crumpled to the ground. The squeak of steel on bone was accompanied by a gush of blood.

  Next, the kids.

  Umbrella Assassin

  As Joseph Avacomovitch methodically stripped Nick Craven’s corpse of its layer of gold paint, he mulled over one of the most notorious of Cold War crimes: the umbrella assassination of Georgi Markov on September 7, 1978.

  Markov was a Bulgarian novelist, playwright, and anti-Communist dissident. After his defection to London in 1969, he worked as a journalist for the BBC and Radio Free Europe, which was supported by the CIA. Markov’s criticisms of the Bulgarian dictatorship were broadcast to his homeland, where they fanned social unrest. Angry, the Communist rulers plotted to silence him.

  Enter Russia’s secret police, the KGB, and a mysterious laboratory called the Chamber.

  Markov was queuing for the bus near the south end of Waterloo Bridge, as he did each workday, when he felt a stinging pain in the back of his right thigh. Turning, he saw a heavyset man bend down to pick up a dropped umbrella. The foreigner apologized in a thick accent, hailed a taxi, and disappeared.

  The pain continued as Markov bused to work at the BBC. There, he told his colleagues about the incident, showing one friend a pimple-like bump on his thigh. At home that night, he developed a high fever. By the next day, he was being treated in hospital for a mysterious form of blood poisoning. Before long, he was vomiting blood, and soon his kidneys and heartbeat crashed.

  Markov died on September 11.

  If not for Markov’s reputation, his illness might have been put down to natural causes. Instead, his body underwent a forensic autopsy. From his thigh, pathologists recovered a tiny metal sphere the size of the head of a pin. The iridium pellet—a jeweler’s bearing used in watch making—had been drilled with two minuscule X-shaped bores by a high-tech laser. Stuffed with ricin, a powerful toxin derived from castor bean seeds, the holes were sealed with wax that melted when they came in contact with Markov’s warm body.

  He was poisoned.

  Bu
t how?

  It wasn’t until the fall of the Soviet Union that the facts came to light. Codenamed “Piccadilly,” the Waterloo Bridge assassin was an envoy of the Bulgarian secret police. The weapon—created by the Chamber—was an umbrella with a cylinder of compressed air hidden in its stem. A trigger on the handle released the gas, blasting a pellet from the tip of the “barrel” like a gun discharges a bullet.

  The means of death in Markov’s case was an umbrella gun.

  With that in mind, Joe concentrated the magnifying glass from his Murder Bag on each inch of Nick’s flesh as he stripped away the gold paint. He was looking for an entrance wound, something like the pimple on Markov’s thigh. Assuming the poison was administered during sex—Gill’s theory—Joe needed to determine how and where it was injected into Nick’s bloodstream. Curare has no effect when taken orally, so there had to be a puncture wound somewhere on Nick’s skin.

  Working from that theory, Joe examined Nick’s back. He focused the magnifying glass on every patch of lacquer-stripped skin. When that turned up nothing, he repeatedly parted the dead man’s hair to scan his scalp. And so it went, with the Russian checking every nook but coming up empty each time. Then, all at once, a you-don’t-suppose insight into a femme fatale’s sexuality prompted him to search where the means of death lay hidden.

  “Diabolical,” he said aloud.

  Dialing Robert’s cell, the scientist heard a recording that meant the chief was engaged. He abandoned the makeshift morgue for the hall and donned his coat, then stepped outside and locked the door. The quickest route to the El Dorado took him across the backyard and past the corpses still sprawled in the snow. The falling flakes were white on blue, like cotton batting backed by melancholy. Joe was just inside the gate at the far end of the yard, his finger pressing Redial to leave Robert a message, when he walked into the trap.

  Hot Love

  Would there be a knock on the door?

  As he placed a mental bet on that question, Zinc ejected the ammo clip from his service pistol and emptied the cartridges into his palm. The trap he’d set for the femme fatale who’d set her own trap for Nick was missing a crucial element: he didn’t know how Nick had died. Zinc’s plan to expose that method would separate him from his gun. If it worked and the femme fatale dashed for his weapon as a fallback, he didn’t want to get shot when she pulled the trigger. So he stuffed the bullets into a pocket of his parka and hung the coat in the closet.

  Knock, knock …

  He’d have to remember to pay himself. He won the bet.

  Just in case the attacker had decided to waste no time—greeting him with a hypodermic stab to the neck, for instance—he opened the door at arm’s length to give himself space to respond. No need. The vamp who crossed the threshold had her coat draped over one arm and the carryall slung from her opposite shoulder. Zinc could see both hands, and neither grasped a weapon. Her manicured nails held his business card out in front of his nose.

  “Is this the party?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Invitation only, I hope.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “How many invited?”

  “Just you,” the Mountie replied.

  “Now that’s my kind of ball. I don’t share toys. It says here on the invite, ‘Want a bodyguard to see you through the night?’ So let’s see your gun.”

  Zinc raised his ski sweater to flash the nine-mill.

  “Tsk-tsk,” the sexpot scolded, wagging his card at him. “I thought you Mounties were military men?”

  Her finger pointed to his Smith.

  “This is my pistol …”

  Her finger pointed to his groin.

  “This is my gun …”

  Her finger returned to the firearm.

  “This is for fighting …”

  Moving closer so he could whiff her perfume, the vamp danced her hand down his chest and gripped his genitals.

  “This is for fun.”

  The clutch caught the cop by surprise.

  “Rifle,” Zinc corrected.

  “Rifle?” she echoed.

  “It’s ‘This is my rifle / This is my gun / This is for fighting / This is for fun.’”

  “Smart guy, huh? So whatcha gonna do?” she goaded. “Cry like a baby and arrest me for sex assault? Or stand up like a man and pour me a glass of chilled champagne?”

  “Release my gentles and we’ll raid the mini bar.”

  That was the danger of femmes fatales: dumb schmucks let down their guard around them. And what straight male wouldn’t play the schmuck with a bombshell like Jessica? The way she tossed her titian mane, the smoldering green gaze, the full red lips that complemented the fire in her hair, the fuzzy emerald sweater that clung to her breasts like moss—all combined to create a siren who turned men into fools.

  Including Zinc.

  Despite his best intentions.

  For it occurred to him that if her nails were poisoned with curare, the next squeeze could lay him out on the slab right next to Nick.

  Schmuck, he thought.

  Jessica released her grip on what made him a man, then shucked the bag from her shoulder and passed him her coat to hang up. Zinc kept his eye on the carryall, which she retained. Together, they crossed to the mini bar. The vamp dropped her bag on the bed as they passed. Fetching a half bottle of Veuve Clicquot, Zinc popped the cork with a blast that could have put out an eye. He caught the froth in a champagne flute and filled the glass.

  “Aren’t you gonna join me?” Jessica asked.

  “I don’t drink,” he said. He didn’t tell her about being shot in the head in Hong Kong. Or about the pills he took to ward off seizures.

  “Good,” she said. “The bubbly won’t dull you. I have this fantasy I like to play. I’ll be Cleopatra, and you’ll be my slave. Unless you’re the best lover I’ve ever had, I’ll have my eunuchs prepare you to join their ranks.”

  “That sounds like fun.”

  “Call it incentive,” she teased. “If I let someone make love to me, I want to ensure he performs.”

  “I get the feeling you take what you want.”

  Jessica drained the champagne flute and wiggled it for more.

  Zinc played Jeeves.

  “You’ve heard the Springsteen song ‘Red-Headed Woman’?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  “According to the Boss, it takes a red-headed woman to get a dirty job done.”

  Zinc pretended to mop his brow. “Is it hot in here?”

  “That’s me,” said Jessica, forming a pout. “Did you see the film Body Heat?”

  “Years ago.”

  “In it, Kathleen Turner tells William Hurt, ‘My temperature runs a couple of degrees high. Around a hundred.’ Well, mine, too. Thus the fiery hair.”

  “You’ve got me all hot and bothered.”

  “You know what some president said? ‘If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the bedroom.’”

  “I thought he said ‘get out of the kitchen.’”

  Jessica put a hand to her brow and swiveled around. “I don’t see a kitchen, do you?”

  “You want to heat things up?”

  “Whatcha got in mind?”

  “The sauna’s on. Let’s sweat.”

  “Die … Frame …”

  “Chief, something’s wrong.”

  There was deep concern in Rachel Kidd’s voice as her words were broadcast through the snowstorm by way of the police radio. Her alert was received by Robert, Jackie, and Dane, but not by Rick. The corporal had turned off his communications equipment for the trudge to the Rover. He didn’t want to draw the bad guys to any radio squawks.

  “What’s your worry?” asked the chief.

  “Rick’s been gone too long. He should have returned by now.”

  “Don’t go outside.”

  “I won’t. That’s why I’m calling you.”

  “Jackie?”

  “Here, Chief.”

  “Where are you?”

  “
I’m inching along the highway between Green Lake and Emerald Estates.”

  “What’s your ETA for Gill’s chalet?”

  “I don’t know. It’s slow going, and I hear an accident has clogged the road ahead. If I can’t worm around, I’ll commandeer a vehicle beyond the snarl.”

  “Dane?”

  “I’m doing better, Chief. A plow’s pushed through so ambulances can get to the medical center. I’m passing Nita Lake, with Nordic Estates ahead.”

  “Rachel, send the kids upstairs with the dog. I’ll phone Katt on her cell and tell her what to do. Douse all the kerosene lamps and put out the fire in the stove. Complete darkness. Build a furniture redoubt in the hall between the front and rear doors. That way, you’ll cover both entrances. What’s your firepower?”

  “Rick took the shotgun. I have the .308.”

  “These guys are pros. They may have armor. Aim for the head if you shoot.”

  “Roger.”

  “Dane, Jackie, you got all that? Don’t burst into the chalet without announcing it’s you. Rachel, give Rick a few more minutes, then try vibrating his phone. If he returns, radio me at once. In the meantime, I’ll muster the cavalry.”

  * * *

  After Katt hung up from talking to Robert, she crouched down by the girl at her coloring book. “Gather up your things,” she said. “We’re going upstairs. I’ll take the colored pencils.”

  “Why?” Becky asked apprehensively. She’d already endured hell, and she sensed more coming.

  “We have to clear the table so we can build a fort. Then you and I will hide upstairs.”

  “Where’s Rick?”

  “He’s outside, guarding us.”

  “Are we going to die?”

  “No. More Mounties will be here soon.”

  While Becky stuffed the coloring book into her backpack, wiggled into the straps, and tugged her toque on down to her ears, Katt and Rachel shoved both leather couches across the hardwood floor to build two walls in the hall. The legs gouged the polished planks and bunched the area rugs. Fetching the low table from in front of the hearth, they tipped it sideways to reinforce the couch barricade facing the front door.