Crossing the Line

by Solomon Carter

  Bernard’s eyes narrowed tighter and he stopped humming. “Not for another week yet. They give us the key only on the days they want us out there.”

  “Where do they keep the key?”

  “The security people have them. The ones in the dark suits with all the muscles.”

  The lift door opened on the first floor. “I’m going all the way down. Nice meeting you, Bernard.”

  “But you told us!”

  “I told you my situation, Bernard.”

  “Give me back that tabard. I’ve never seen you in my life, right?”

  “No, I can’t. I stole this off you because I have a thing about tabards, remember?” Bernard stood in the lift doorway, hesitating so neither of them could go anywhere. Eva gently pushed him out of the way and walked through into the lobby, to take the stairs. She still had on her yellow tabard, and her backpack was slung over her shoulder to look like she was either finishing her shift or carrying cleaning equipment around. The adrenaline of being alone flooded her system so she was able to shrug off the tiredness. Her eyes were wide. She was alert and ready to fight. Game on.

  Eva knew the layout of the print floor and had already seen the doors that led to the yard out back. What happened from now on was pretty much up to fate, the gods, or whoever decided who won the lottery each week. Eva had always wanted there to be a God, and Dan had always said it was because she liked easy answers. But the truth was she liked having a reason to believe in a positive future. Right now she needed the chance of a positive future more than ever, because a positive outcome seemed a thousand light years away. She walked purposefully, yet reluctantly, just like a cleaner trudging towards an un-fancied task. She blinked. In the moment her eyes closed, she prayed a short desperate prayer to God – not to the God her Czech mother believed in, nor the one her alcoholic father profaned every time a bottle touched his lips, but the real one who jump started the universe, kept all the planets spinning fine and the tides turning like clockwork. It wasn’t much of a prayer. But it asked for a happy ending and that was all she wanted.

  She walked through the breakout area where the executive types had been meeting before. Now only a man with a thick exotic caterpillar of a monobrow and grey skin sat there looking like a Muscovite Zombie. He had hair like a cheap black woolly rug and wore the kind of dark suit Bernard mentioned. There was something dark and nasty about him, something ogrish but it was the black suit which told Eva he was security. He was chomping a Mars Bar, like a zombie might chew an ear, quick and angry and not enjoying it. There was a fair chance she could gamble and use her looks on him if she had to, but she remembered the clothes she was wearing now. She was old enough to know men were a kind of beast who could not resist certain cues. But in this get up? Eva moved in the same direction as before, turning right and following close to the wall. There was a small plastic broom leaning against a rack full of documents. Eva reckoned it didn’t belong to Bernard’s cleaning firm, but it was going to be a handy prop anyway. She picked it up and ploughed on, ignored by the Mars Bar eater, then took the door which she knew led to the outside world, plunged through it and let the darkness swallow her whole as the spring-loaded door closed behind her. She moved to the end of the short walkway and then found the draught of cold air and the thin seam of fading light that belonged to the outside world. She pushed the door, but it resisted. Now it was over to a kitbag of Wilkinson weapons and an unknown God.

  Eva had never had to pick a lock before. She had never even tried. She knew Dan had done it, and he prided himself on ‘man skills’ such as these. But really she knew it was because Dan enjoyed watching action movies featuring the type of rough-cut anti-heroes he wanted to be when he grew up. People who could steal cars, take down embezzling city mayors and win the hearts of the sex-pot heroine all in a day’s work. She had seen Dan pick a lock once when they had been young and stupid enough to break into a target’s office to find some evidence of sleaze and adultery. Dan had never grown up, but Eva had. And here she was, in the pitch darkness wishing she had paid more attention to her ex’s showing off.

  From her backpack she fished out the pointed beadle tool, making sure it was the beadle by running her fingers along the smooth metal to the solitary point. Next, she began to slide her hands along the door, looking for the jutting metal part of the jamb with the lock mechanism nearby, then she slid her hand to a keyhole by the small jutting metal. She threaded the beadle into the lock and then slid her hand making the beadle push up at a diagonal and into the lock mechanism. She wound her hand left and right, then in a circular motion. Nothing happened. Eva reversed the direction of the circle and pressed harder. She heard a commotion coming near the door down the hallway, chatter and angry talk, which she could not understand. They brushed against the door – were they coming in now? It was too soon. She was totally exposed. She froze. They were bickering in another language. Eva’s heart thudded, and she wished it would be quiet. If they were coming this way right now, probably on their way to see Dan, she was a total goner. They would have all the aces, the manpower, with her caught bang to rights trying to sneak out to the back. In the darkness she squinted and concentrated listening to their movements, attempting to distinguish them from their talking. She pushed the beadle up and round desperately, a necessary move now, needing to escape. Come on. Please. The beadle was close to breaking in her hand, she could feel the thin metal giving way, bending. It was a cheap tool, but she had been in a hurry at the store. How was she to know she would have to pick a lock? She should have known, she scolded herself. The voices argued some more. They pressed against the surface of the door beyond – the noise was now loud but muffled and the atmosphere in the darkness had changed. They were definitely coming. Her hand was aching. She let go of the beadle and it stayed in place, hanging from the door in the darkness because of the kink in the metal pin. Using her freshest arm she snatched at the tool handle and yanked it up and round with all her might. There was a groan of metal and then a click. The beadle had caught something in the mechanism. The door swung open, pulling in the dull afternoon light from the high walled space beyond. Eva breathed in deep once, and gave a curt nod to the sky. Now she had to move fast again. She grabbed and pulled the beadle in reverse, yanking it down towards the ground as the heavy door swung free in the breeze. She was sure any second the arguing men would notice the change in the air from beyond the door and push it open, charging towards her. The beadle came free. She stuffed it into her jacket pocket and closed the door behind her gently. The lock clicked loudly. Damn it. Above and to her right there was a tall wall with giant spiked metal barbs to prevent thieves from breaking in or homeless from seeking a squat at night. On the wall was a yellow box camera, currently aimed away from her and towards the face of the brown brick bunker which occupied the left hand side of the yard taking up most of the space there. The camera moved its gaze slowly across the yard, tilting and adjusting from left to right. It was on a slow even arc, probably meaning it was on an automatic setting. In twenty seconds she guessed the lens would be all over her. And when Nvotski saw it, the game would be over all over again. Eva’s eyes raced across the yard. In the right hand corner of the yard were a row of roll cages – the kind supermarkets and warehouses commonly used to shift bulk. They were pressed together, three of them, and bound together by a strap. The metal cage’s doors were closed, and there were so many lattices of metal lines from the three cages that they obscured the gap and darkness behind them. Maybe they could obscure her. She had been in the yard three seconds when she felt the interior door – the door behind the door - being opened. She heard their voices grow louder and felt the vacuum pull at the door behind her back. She ran. The camera was arcing closer. The air was moving, the metal cages rushed up at her so fast there was a chance she would crash into them before she could hide. Before she crashed she seized one bar of a cage trolley and threw herself around and behind it, stuffing her whole body into the slim gap against the cold dirty wall. She dre
w a breath and held it. Then she peered through a thin gap between the metal bars. The door opened, and two men came out. The first was a tall man in a suit, much like Nvotski, only younger and with less lines on his face. He looked tough and angular and lean. Then she saw the man behind him and her mind paused, shocked and cold. The second man had a shaven head and an ultra-thin physique draped in a dark suit. She could not be sure, not totally sure, but something in her knew beyond doubt the man was one of the killers. This man had slain Devon Parker and been present when the Mitkin brothers were murdered at Albany Park. It was true. It was beyond doubt. Here. The killing and lies all led here. She listened. The men had different accents. She decided they were from different countries, one was speaking the native language of the other. They were speaking Russian. It was full of vowels and zh sounds and explosive consonants rolling through the conversation. They were not out here looking for her, it seemed. They went about their business, restful, breathing easily. But they were not happy. The bulkier man with the hair picked a set of keys out of his pocket and opened the flat metal door of the bunker. It had an unmarked smooth metal surface. They went into a dim space within, still debating, as the door closed behind them. She was trapped, but they hadn’t seen her. The camera couldn’t see her either, but she was safe. It was part of the only plan she had; she would wait until her opportunity came, until she had a better idea, and somehow she would get into that bunker by any means necessary and do whatever she had to. But right now in daylight and with such activity, she could not gamble. If she gambled, it wouldn’t just be her life she lost. The darkness would provide her with the slimmest chance of success, the very slimmest. The slimmest would have to do.

  Just twenty minutes later, the two men emerged from the bunker, laughing now like they’d spent two weeks together on a Club 18-30s holiday. The bulky one slid his hair back across his head even though nothing was out of place. The thin one with the evil face and runner’s physique wore an unreadable straight line smile. She saw them clearly as two different nationalities now, not just from two parts of Mother Russia. The young Nvotski-type with the Brillo Pad hair was almost certainly Russian, part of Victor Marka’s crowd. The other man had to be something else. Eva already knew what. This one was part of the outsourced gang. He looked German, but she had never heard him speak his own tongue yet, so he could have been Polish or from any other central European country, but he had the narrow angular face and broad square cheek bones of a German. What bothered Eva most was the change in their demeanour and appearance between when they entered and when they left the bunker. Before they were at odds, unfriendly. But a visit to the bunker had put paid to that, like it was the best ever place for enemies to do some light team building exercises. The Russian man seemed exerted and satisfied, a glow of exercise about him, and the Germanic one seemed calmer too. Eva had seen the Germans at work, so there had to be more than one of him around. They looked exerted, calm, spent. Almost post coital. She prayed again that Dan was not the reason for their afterglow. But she had a nasty feeling and it wouldn’t leave.

  Another half hour passed behind the roll cages. It still wasn’t dark. She had been busy feeling thirsty, tired, stressed and angry at the long brighter days ever since this thing started, and now she wanted it finished. However it turned out, she needed it over. It wasn’t true, but it felt like it. The young Nvotski-type came out of the main building door holding a plastic canteen tray with a plate of food on it. It smelt good, and reminded her of school dinners. She peered at the plate as it came past – sausages and mash in gravy with chopped onions. There was a glass beaker of water beside the plate, and the Russian was treading with care, not wanting to spill the contents. A moment later Nvotski himself emerged from the building, followed by two more suited minions. Nvotski was not smiling, not happy at all, Eva was pleased to see. Perhaps he was still in trouble with Marka for the Gypsy madman invasion. Or maybe he was just another grumpy-looking Russian, like a lot of Russians seemed to be. Then the Germanic one emerged, followed by another, slightly smaller and thinner man with an accentuated skull-like face, almost a caricature of the first Germanic man, from the narrow nose and the sunken eyes, down to the hairless bald head and the dark suit. All he needed was a cartoon cape and he could have served as understudy to the Hooded Claw. A second later, a man with an arrogant swagger emerged from the door. The man was short, arrogant, disinterested and wore a grey suit with the type of shine that was the polar opposite of cheap. He abstractedly played with a cufflink as he walked. He had black hair with a hazy patch of grey by his temples, and the look on his forty-ish tanned face was something between a sneer and a general disdain for the entire world. He looked every bit the opulent Russian hoodlum Eva had ever imagined he could be. But there was something else about him. He moved past her and she felt a magnetic pull. Yes, it was, it had to be Victor Marka, the cruellest Russian outside of Moscow. He had the gravity of a black hole. He didn’t look, but Eva felt he could see her. He seemed bigger than his stature. Awesome. Terrible. The short German held the door of the bunker open to let the Russian through before him. The grim procession was like a party coming to look at the chimps at feeding time. Except the way they walked was formal, a committee coming to see a special exhibit. Something important was going on. Something like an execution. Eva could not risk any further wait. The German creature moved inside the door without stopping to pull it shut. The weighty door would do the work for him, but just as the door wheezed past its metal frame, Eva leapt out from her space, ignoring the camera, and held the door a glimmer away from locking shut.

  She glanced up at the camera, and she saw it had already spun once on its axis - chances were it had seen her move. She paused to give the people going down into the bunker time to clear. The camera started on its relentless journey back towards her. Eva waited another second, then as quietly as she could, she opened the door and slid into the pale darkness. The door shut with the dullest metal thud, hopefully too distant for Marka and company to discern. In front of her there was a little concrete floor which fell away down some smooth looking concrete steps towards a yellow-lit corridor. Fear. Panic. Exhilaration. She would see Dan again at least. If that was all she could achieve and death was going to follow, then that would have to do.

  The inside of the bunker was all smooth concrete, smooth and cool to touch, but rough enough to graze the skin if someone pressed harder. The air around Eva was warm and slightly unpleasant. There was an air-con system pushing the air around quietly, but it still smelt bad, of stale men, of sweat, of fear. Eva contemplated her life. Jess was the future, the only legacy she had now. It wasn’t a bad one, really. But before she could leave a legacy, there was some rescuing and possibly some dying to do. She shook the word out of her head, literally shaking her head as if the ‘dying’ word could bring it about. It was a bad time to get into superstition, she had to focus, listen, and keep alert. She didn’t know how many men were down here. Or exactly what they would do when they found her. The darkness was closing in. She could hear the noises of the enemy echoing further down along the corridor.

  Five

  A little earlier.

  It was only a finger. Just one digit, and nine left untouched, unharmed. But now that it was gone he had never missed it so much. The absence of the smallest finger on his left hand caused throbbing pain to flood across the back and inside of his hand, rolling like waves up his forearm. It was a pain like nothing else, and Dan had been punched, kicked, he had been cut, he had been through crashes and every kind of violence, but this was something else entirely. This was just something else. When Didi and Joe held the bolt cutters around his finger, he didn’t even struggle. He had tried all that and it led nowhere. Nor did he show them any fear, because that was what Marka wanted and Dan wasn’t willing to give the mad bastard one grain of pleasure. Didi and Joe looked at him steadily, studying him for fear as they held the bolt cutters open around his useless little finger. That was what they called it. Useless. Then
just as he began to think they were bluffing, he saw their eyes change and they snapped the bolt cutters shut with a hard jerk, his hand came free, and the moistness of his own blood gently shocked his skin. Then there was nothing. No pain. Nothing for a moment but the shock that it had been done. Nothing where his little finger had been, but the small useless looking thing on the floor. The look of it there, redundant, stolen for nothing more than revenge – all of it made him physically sick. He was more sick with anger and disgust than physical shock. And there was still no pain. But the pain soon came, along with their mocking smiles and their piercing little eyes. They were feeding off it, the evil bastards. It felt as if someone had got a letter opener and plunged it into his hand, stabbing it deep, all the way through, hot like fire, and then it spread upwards, filling him up with the burning. The sick bastards weren’t finished with him yet. They insisted on stopping the bleeding. It was definitely a bleeder, but Dan wasn’t sure it needed anything bar a cloth and some pressure from his other hand, but the tall one insisted. Dan knew the man wasn’t a smoker because there was no trace of the cloying odour of smoke on his clothes or sourness in the bastard’s breath. As soon as he saw the zippo lighter he knew what was coming, which was almost as bad as the original pain. Then they got the result they wanted – fear rushing in at him charging him down, his arms flailing flicking the blood in Didi’s smiling face. But the small man snatched at his bound arm, and the taller one opened the lighter and came at him quickly with a gout of brightest orange flame. And as Dan Bradley had roared in sheer agony, the flame hissed and flickered with black burning blood. The skin around the wound sealed and the pain intensified to beyond anything he had ever experienced in his life. As the flame hissed, Joe’s smartphone took a close-up of his sliced up, sweating, screaming face. “That’s a lovely one,” said Joe as Dan scrabbled away from them, holding the phone to show his comrade the photograph he had taken. “Wonderful,” said Didi. “Well done, Daniel. You have now paid for your dinner.” Dan said nothing at all. There was the part of him ready for death, silently begging for it. And he hated that. Because he knew it meant Victor Marka was getting what he wanted, right down to every last detail. With whatever strength of mind and body he had left, Dan decided he would not let that happen. Marka could never be allowed to win.