The First End

by Victor Elmalih

  Chapter 20

  Nothing happened.

  Taking a deep breath, Gardner poked his head around the door to see a package lying on the other side. He glanced quickly up and down the hall, and seeing no one, he closed his door, locked it, and picked the package up gingerly. It felt too light to be a bomb, and too thin to be much more than paper.

  He turned it over and saw no markings or writing. Going into the kitchen, he set it down on his plain dining room table and got out a knife and a pair of latex gloves he used for cleaning. There may not be a bomb inside, but a poisonous powder, such as anthrax, could have been stuffed inside. He wasn’t about to take any chances. Holding his breath, he slit it open and poured out its contents.

  Two pieces of paper slid out onto the table. Nothing else. One was obviously a check. He looked at the amount and blinked in astonishment. He looked at the sender on the check and his jaw nearly fell open. Wastend? What the…Bill picked up the other note and read:

  Bill,

  I feel the need to apologize for the rough treatment you received at the hands of my company. It was unfair to send you on such a hazardous assignment with no support from those who hired you. I wouldn’t blame you for your anger, and I don’t intend this letter to be one of reconciliation.

  You served this company with distinction, and for that you have our gratitude. I grieve for everything we lost over there, and hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me the wrong I did to you. I know that nothing can compensate for the feelings of betrayal you are no doubt harboring, but I have included a small token of our appreciation.

  I don’t know if we will ever call on each other again, and as things turned out, it might be best we go our separate ways. There doesn’t seem to be any point in bringing this up in any legal capacity. That would simply make the lives of a great many people miserable.

  Again, I am thankful.

  Sincerely Yours,

  Frank Vellore

  CEO, Wastend, Inc.

  Bill stared at the note. The letter had been printed on official company letterhead and the signature looked genuinely Frank’s, but Bill knew Frank never wrote the letter, though he probably issued the check—under duress, no doubt. No, the letter had come from General Hynes. He was sure of it.

  The situation in China—particularly his survival—had created some problems for General Hynes. Bill didn’t doubt that the man really was sorry for the situation he had put Gardner in, but the letter was also a warning, saying, “Here is some money. Don’t try to contact us again, and we won’t try to contact you.”

  No doubt China was frantically trying to discover the truth of what had happened that night at the secret facility in Beijing, and no doubt they would look for proof that the US Government was complicit in the attack that had cost the lives of Chinese soldiers. Everything needed to point to Wastend…everything. “Even this letter,” Bill said aloud, chuckling at the absurdity of it all.

  He put the letter down and picked up the check. He whistled in appreciation. “Poor Frank, he must be fit to be tied!” No doubt the CEO was fuming at having to pay out money to help with the cover-up. Bill shrugged. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

  He burned the letter and put the check in his wallet.

  The next day, Bill went to his work. Cassie wasn’t there, but then he hadn’t expected her to be there either. Until he went to his office computer, he had no way of contacting her. He looked around at the empty office and sighed. Cassie had left everything in perfect order—as usual. But it all looked too clean. Nothing sat in the ‘in’ box, and he had no prospective clients. He could live comfortably off the check Hynes had sent him for a good couple of years, but that seemed routinely unsatisfying. He needed to be working. He needed to do something. He needed to forget.

  Picking up the phone, he called Cassie’s house.

  “Cassie, Bill here.”

  “Mr. Gardner! You’re back!”

  “Yeah, it looks like it. Look, Cassie, I wanted to apologize for my absence. I wish I could have kept you better informed but the client was a real jerk about it. Anyway, I want you to come back to work. I’ll compensate you for the time away as well as a bonus. How does that sound?”

  “A bonus?” she asked.

  “Sure, my last client paid well.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Gardner. I’ll be right in.”

  “Take your time. Tomorrow is okay. Today, I need to readjust. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  She hesitated slightly. “Very good, sir. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  He hung up and sat back in his chair. Now what? He looked at the phone, willing it to ring, willing a client to be on the other side. The phone remained quiet. He checked his messages, but nothing was there. All his former cases had been handed over to other lawyers in the firm. He would have to rebuild a caseload.

  His stomach growled. “Well, that can wait until tomorrow,” he muttered, standing up. “Right now, I want to get something to eat.”

  Back outside, he started walking towards a Chinese restaurant. He stopped abruptly, shaking his head. What am I doing. That’s the last place I want to be. He changed direction, deciding to go instead to the nearest McDonalds. Good ol’ American grease. That’s what I need.

  As he walked, something began to tug at the corner of his awareness. Something was not quite right. He glanced around and saw nothing. Going a little further, it dawned on him that he was being followed. He looked furtively around, but saw no one. Whoever was tailing him was good—very good. He didn’t know who it might be, but he suspected that General Hynes was having him tailed in an effort to make sure he kept quiet about the entire China affair.

  Still, he resented it. Why couldn’t everyone just leave him alone?

  Deciding to confront his tail, he turned into an alley that cut across to another major street. He ducked quickly behind a dumpster and waited. Sure enough, not a minute later a Chinese man peeked around the corner.

  Bill went cold. The Chinese. He swore to himself, wondering how they had found out. He had hoped they thought he was dead. He had hoped to get out of China without getting on the top of their most wanted list.

  Clearly, his hope had been in vain.

  Not seeing him, the spy moved cautiously into the alley. When he was but five feet away, Bill stepped out. He wanted the man close enough to grapple with in case his pursuer produced a weapon—like a gun.

  The man stopped, seemingly unsurprised at Bill’s appearance. He waited, saying nothing.

  “Who are you and what do you want?” Bill demanded, growing tired of the faceoff.

  The Chinese man studied Bill. Finally he said, “We want vengeance, Bill Gardner.”

  “For what?”

  “For murder, and for many other things”

  “Let’s say, we kill you now, nobody would know. Your mission was kept secret and so your death will be.”

  A sound from behind Bill alerted him to a second assailant. Cursing his complacency, he lunged forward driving his fist into the man’s face. Only the man wasn’t there. The wily man slipped to one side and delivered a punishing kick to the back of Bill’s knee. His left leg collapsed, causing him to lose his balance. He fell heavily into a dumpster, which scooted back a few inches upon the impact.

  He managed to keep his feet somehow, but when he twisted around, the Chinese attacker stood right there. Three punches in quick succession hit Bill, two in the face and one in the chest. The chest punch practically knocked all the air out of his lungs, and the ones to his face, undoubtedly broke his nose. Blood poured down his face, running into his mouth and dripping off his chin.

  A second man had appeared from the other end of the alley and was calmly watching the lopsided battle. “Take your time, Ming. Make him feel it,” he said to his partner. He held a gun in one hand, but at the moment he held it idly by his side. His attitude and demeanor shouted boredom. “Make him feel every punch, every kick.”

  That infuriated Bill. He
would not be a spectacle for anyone. He grunted and shoved himself forward, taking another kick in the process. But this time he was able to turn his body and take the blow on the side of his meaty thigh instead of the knee where the blow had been aimed. The kick stung, but the lawyer was able to shunt the pain aside. He hit the assassin a glancing blow to the side of the face, rocking the man back on his heels.

  Bill tried a kick of his own, but his acrobatic assailant suddenly dropped to the alley floor and swiped Bill’s legs out from under him. Bill fell heavily, landing on his back, and striking his head. He gasped for breath, and tried to blink tears out of his eyes. A punch to his left eye closed it in a burst of pain that shot all along Bill’s body. He tried to move, but some weight atop him prevented it. Two more punches to the face nearly sent Bill into unconsciousness.

  A voice, deep and sonorous, brought him back to reality. He blinked, and realized he could only see out of one eye. His attacker’s faces swam into view dizzily. He shook his head, trying to clear away the cobwebs.

  “Mr. Gardner, can you understand me?” the second man with the gun asked. He wore a business suit and had the face of a statue. Not a single expression seemed to cross the man’s features.

  Bill nodded.

  “Good. You are about to die, but before you do, I need you to tell me something, Mr. Gardner. You are a murderer, Mr. Gardner. You attacked my homeland, killed my countryman, and subverted others. Here is what I want to know. Who sent you?”

  Through a split lip, the battered lawyer, whispered, “Wastend.”

  Another blow to his head had the world bursting into an incredible display of radiant stars.

  “That is a lie. We know the US Government sent you. So tell me the truth.”

  For a split second, he almost did. He almost told them the whole story. He was going to die anyway, and the people who had sent him to his death would hardly care. Why not make them pay too. He opened his mouth to confess, when a nugget of loyalty settled into his heart.

  He couldn’t do it. No matter the justifications, right or wrong, he couldn’t betray his country. The fact that he almost did, infuriated him more than anything else that had happened to him. In betraying his country, he would be betraying everything he believed in. It didn’t matter if his nation held the same values or not. It mattered if he did. And no matter what the official reports said in Washington, he was fighting for those values.

  A burst of strength infused Bill at that moment. The man straddling him with his fist cocked to deliver another punch was only half watching Bill. Most of his attention was on his superior, waiting for instructions to either continue the beating or simply finish the American. Bill’s mind needed something more concrete than abstract stereotypes to focus his rage on. So named him this one Toast and the other Deadmeat. He then willed it to happen.

  He twisted his body violently, taking Toast by surprise and knocking him to the ground. Continuing his swing, he cut Deadmeat’s legs out from under him in a similar move as Toast had done to Bill just moments earlier. Deadmeat let out a cry of shock and fell backwards.

  Scrambling, Bill pulled Deadmeat close and laid into the man with furious punches. Somewhere in that, the man lost his grip on his gun and it skittered out of reach. Bill hardly noticed, but his attention was firmly acquired by Toast who tackled him from the side.

  They rolled around on the alley floor, biting, kicking, punching, and doing anything else they could do to each other. Bill’s hand suddenly found a beer bottle sitting next to one of the dumpsters. With a cry of rage, he smashed it over the head of Toast, who rolled away from the shattering glass with a grunt of pain. The lawyer wasn’t going to give him the change to flee. He scrambled after the man and still holding the jagged remains of the bottle, he stabbed the man in the neck with it.

  Blood squirted all over Bill. He fell away as Toast went into violent convulsions, clawing futilely at the glass shards in his neck. The man was a dead man, so Gardner ignored him and spun about to find Deadmeat. But the only thing he saw was the man’s back as he ran out the far end of the alley, having abandoned the fight.

  Cursing, and still on his hands and knees, Bill finally found the gun that had slid under one of the dumpsters. Armed, he climbed to his feet, thinking to pursue Deadmeat and make him in fact what he had so frivolously named him. A death gurgle from Toast arrested his attention. He looked on as the man took his last breath, bubbles of blood forming on his lips. Bill felt a giddy elation at having survived the attack. He quipped, “You’re toast!”

  It suddenly dawned on him how much trouble he was really in. He started to walk out of the alley, but staggered against the wall as he almost blacked out. That demon sure beat the fire out of me, he said to himself. He took several moments to regain his composure before limping out of the alleyway.

  Fortunately for him, few pedestrians walked the sidewalks at this time of day. The few he did see, hardly took notice of him—a skill of blindness that most city folk developed. After all, best not to get involved in something you may regret later. Staggering down the street, he made for the car garage where he had parked his car, a Scion tC that he used occasionally. He needed to get out of here. He couldn’t return home, that would be suicide. He needed somewhere else to go.

  Digging his cellphone out of his pocket, he called Karen.

  “Bill? You okay? You never call me at this time of day.”

  “Karen? Can you meet me at your place?”

  His tone of voice must have tipped her off. “What’s wrong?”

  He swallowed and looked around. No one seemed to be following him. “I can’t explain it over the phone right now. I just need you to meet me. I’ll explain then.”

  “Bill, you’re scaring me.”

  “I know. Can you do it?

  “Yes. Where are you right now?”

  “Downtown, near my office. I’ll see you in a bit.”

  “Okay.”

  Days flowed by. Bill tried to get back to his normal life, but remained always vigilant.

  Spanning an athlete jump the few steps to the entrance of the building, Bill felt full fitness. After his adventure, he appreciated all details of life and never complained. He took the elevator and when he arrived at the eleventh floor, he passed through the empty hall and the office of Cassie. The assistant greeted him quickly and smiled. He was apparently concerned about the customer who could be waiting. Cassie always got to the office first. She had prepared coffee and arranged some documents. Of his arrival in the office, Bill noticed that the expected client wasn’t there yet. He served himself a cup of black coffee and took a few minutes to talk to Cassie, before releasing his first file and study the case.

  Bill was not quite at ease to keep working in the same office. He couldn’t concentrate. He was walking around and from time to time, he stopped to scan the walls. His assistant Cassie was watching him closely without saying a word. Bill approached the wall and asked Cassie to take a look “Is what you see, what I see?”

  “You worry too much, Mr. Gardner, I see nothing.”

  Bill asked Cassie to step back and with his elbow he hit the wall hard, leaving a large hole “I knew it!”

  Cassie was still stunned by what she saw. Bill pulled out a tinny microphone attached to a set of wires. “Damn it! I knew it, we’ve been bugged.”

  He rushed immediately to his phone and dismantled it. Another microphone was placed inside the device. He went around all the office and whenever he saw a suspicious spot, he left a hole. There were wires everywhere. “They will never let you go off” said Cassie with concern.

  Two officers were assigned to protect him. Bill never knew who sent the agents, and was not sure of their true purpose. In his mind, the agents were there to monitor his movements rather than to protect him. They followed him wherever he went. Anytime he returned home, they would head up first and made sure he was safe.

  It all quickly grew tiring. Finally he had enough. One day, as soon as he got in his a
partment, he slipped out, using the stairs and the emergency exit without being noticed. He walked to 5th Avenue and ducked into a liquor store to get a bottle of wine. Before returning home, Bill called Karen and invited her for dinner at a busy restaurant for the next day.

  Once at the table with Karen, Bill couldn’t keep himself from looking around from time to time. He felt on edge, jumpy. Except for one person who ate alone on the next table, everything looked normal. The man coughed from time to time and whenever he did, he would glanced towards the couple. Suspicious, Bill asked Karen in an undertone voice, "Do you know that guy over there?” He nodded in the man’s direction.

  "I don’t think so" replied Karen.

  "He keeps staring at us in a strange way."

  “So what?”

  “He looks familiar.”

  “Do you remember from where?”

  “It could be anywhere, China, Dubai, Hawaii, I don’t know, I really don’t know…”

  “Try to remember!” asked Karen.

  “Forget it! It could be my paranoia rearing my head. Just forget it!”

  The man got up to go out for a while, probably for a cigarette. The couple continued to talk, but Bill listened only halfheartedly to what Karen was saying. The presence of the stranger still bothered him. He was not an Arab…he was a Farsi, Bill thought, he was almost sure. Most people couldn’t tell the difference, but Bill definitely could. He had seen Iranians in Dubai. He had seen Wong Lee speaking to this tall Iranian in the exhibition. The man in the restaurant looked like him, but he wasn’t him, that’s what really bothered him.

  As with the Chinese he had battled in the alley, the man on the table had a face with no name, so his battle mind automatically applied one. Given his size and way of walking, he wanted to call him Scissors, then he settled on Caesar and decided to call him by this name in case the entire thing was nothing more than a mistake.

  Finally, he managed to get his mind off the man and was back to Karen. They both continued to eat, drink and talk like nothing had happened. For Karen, it was the time to talk about their relationship, a difficult one to secure.

  The evening was quite pleasant. Sometime later, Bill and Karen decided to leave, making plans to see each other soon. Bill accompanied Karen up to her car in the parking lot. He held her between his arms and kissed her twice. He opened the car door for Karen to let her in and left to find his own car.

  Taking another look around, he scurried as quickly as he could towards the parking lot. He never saw Caesar standing in the shadows, watching a block back.