The Inner Circle (Man of Wax Trilogy)

by Robert Swartwood

  Ian immediately dropped to his knees in front of her and placed a hand on her shoulder. Telling her that it was all right, that everything was okay, but then she began speaking rapidly in another language—what I realized after a moment was Creole—tears in her wide eyes as she stared down at the two bodies of the men who’d been her captors.

  Watching Ian, I felt an ache in my heart, remembering all those nights I’d raced from my bedroom to Casey’s, hearing her crying out from a nightmare. Like mother, like daughter, they both suffered from night terrors, from the bogeymen lurking in the shadows of their subconscious. I’d always gone to her and woken her up, held her close and whispered that everything was okay, that nothing could harm her. But in the end I’d been made out to be a liar, because the bogeymen had come for her. They’d come for her and her mother and taken them away, someplace where I could never find them, no matter how hard and how long I searched, before the startling revelation hit me that they were dead.

  “No, no, no,” Ian said, as soothingly as he could, staring into the girl’s dark face, into her pretty eyes. She was pretty in fact, her eyes lightly tinted with green, a girl who might have someday grown up into a full-fledged knockout of a woman. Unfortunately that wasn’t going to happen anymore, not to this girl who had already suffered God knows what kind of horrors. No doubt she was already scarred emotionally from everything she’d been forced to do, but that wasn’t all. How long had it taken before her spirit broke and she’d accepted the fact she had no more reason to live, that the simple act of breathing had become a way of counting down the minutes until she died?

  Watching them, I said, “I’ll be right back.”

  Ian seemed to be making some progress with the girl. In less than a minute, he’d gotten her to change her screaming and sobbing into a whimper. It would have been best to move her far away from these two bodies, from all the blood and brain tissue and whatever else spotting the walls and carpet, but neither of us was thinking properly at that moment.

  Now Ian paused in his attempts to sooth the girl and looked up at me. “You can’t leave me with her.”

  “It’ll just be for a minute,” I told him, already heading toward the stairs. “I need to see Carver’s body.”

  “But, Ben, what if—”

  I hit the fire door and walked straight through, Ian’s words lost behind me.

  • • •

  CARVER’S BODY WAS gone. Gun in hand, finger on the trigger, I stood by the bank of elevators and listened to the hum of the ice machine. There was blood on the blue carpet, a dark crimson soaking the seashells.

  For some reason I’d expected there to be more blood. I’d expected the carpet to be covered in it.

  I moved forward slowly, cautiously, remembering the shooter. How he’d stepped out and shot Carver twice in the chest. I even found myself raising my gun toward the corner of the hallway as I approached, glancing down at the blood-soaked carpet and back up at the corner, ready for anything.

  Standing over the spot where Carver had spoken his last word, his face paling as he stared up at me, I noticed the trail of blood. It went around the corner. I’d dragged him all the way here, down the hallway and around the corner, so obviously he’d trailed blood the entire way. But staring at the jagged and thin line of crimson, I realized there were actually two trails.

  I went to the other side of the foyer, my back against the wall, inching closer toward the humming ice machine. I kept my gun aimed down the hall. Farther and farther, my eyes flitting on the spots of blood. Then I was at the corner, staring down the hall. No movement. I stepped into the hallway and immediately turned in the opposite direction, the gun raised, ready to fire. Still nothing.

  I started down the hallway toward room 339.

  A couple rooms before room 339, however, I stopped. It was the room the shooter had stepped out from. The door was partway open. There was no light in the narrow opening.

  Raising my gun, I kicked open the door and charged in, flicking on the light switch as I entered. A single lamp lit up the empty room. No bed, no chair, no bedside table. Nothing except the lamp. In the bathroom there was nothing either, not even a shower curtain.

  I stepped back out into the hallway.

  I continued on toward room 339. That door too was opened just slightly. Darkness peered out from the narrow slit between the door and the frame. Since the girl was downstairs now, I didn’t intend for any surprises when I opened the door. I didn’t kick it this time, but instead gently pushed it open, reached inside for the light switch. It came on in the corner, right where I’d seen it on Carver’s laptop screen. The bed was in the center of the room, the sheets white, pairs of black Velcro straps at the head and foot of the bed.

  I glanced up at the corner where I knew the camera had been positioned. It was gone now, but the evidence was still there, the vent where the camera had been hiding behind hanging open. It wasn’t quite a normal cleanup job—those in Caesar’s army were meticulous through and through—but of course the building was scheduled for demolition in three days, so why bother tidying up?

  My cell phone vibrated in my pocket. I knew it was Ian even before I pulled it out and answered it.

  “Ben, I’m getting nervous down here.”

  His voice sounded weird, almost like a frail imitation of his own. Behind it I could hear the girl’s soft whimpering.

  I stood there for a moment, taking in the room, smelling the sweat and the tears and the acrid odor of urine, presumably when the girl had pissed herself from fear and weariness.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’m headed down now.”

  16

  Ian had moved the girl away from the two dead bodies and taken her to one of the couches that hadn’t been completely destroyed in the initial shootout. He had gotten her to sit on the couch while he kneeled beside her, still talking to her while she murmured in her native tongue. He heard me approaching and glanced up, questioned me with his eyes whether I’d found anything.

  I shook my head but didn’t say anything. I was still trying to work it out in my mind. I’d seen the men bring three bodies out of the hotel and load them into the delivery truck. Hadn’t I? Was it possible I’d somehow missed a fourth body, that Carver’s had gotten lost in the mix?

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  Ian said something else to the girl, his voice soft, trying his best to smile. He stood up, holding out his hand. The girl hesitantly took it. He led her through the lobby, toward the glass doors that parted for us, then closed behind us, sealing in the dead bodies and everything else that had once been a part of the Beachside Hotel’s memory.

  We walked into the rain, past the Yukon, listening to the wind and the traffic out on the street.

  “Right there,” I said, pointing at the Corolla near the end of the parking lot. “You might as well sit with her in the back. You’ll have to move Carver’s stuff into the front first.”

  “To be honest,” Ian said, “I’d rather drive. I just ... I don’t think I can handle it.”

  We were walking side by side, the girl between us. As Ian said this he glanced down at the girl, who had let go of his hand and was now walking with hardly any emotion at all.

  “That’s fine,” I said, pulling the car key from my pocket. I handed it to Ian who then picked up his pace, heading straight for the driver’s door. I watched him, this twenty-four-year-old kid who’d modeled his entire acting career after Robert De Niro. There had been nights back at the farmhouse, either while all of us played poker or sat out on the porch underneath a clear sky, where he would do his impersonations. Running lines from Taxi Driver or Raging Bull, he’d always make us laugh, or at least smile, and sometimes that was all we needed to make it through those dark hours. And now here he was, a man who didn’t think he could handle comforting this little girl any longer.

  I couldn’t blame him.

  It’s difficult dealing with a child, especially when that child isn’t your own, and when you’ve jus
t killed two men to save this particular child—not to mention losing one of your own in the process—there’s a new, stronger sense of responsibility attached. Then again, Ian had never been a father. He had never handled a baby newly born, staring down at the tiny miraculous thing and telling himself he wasn’t dreaming. He never had to remind himself this was his baby, his own flesh and blood, and with that knowledge came a great fear. That now he was responsible. That now there was no going back. That every single thing he did from that moment on was going to affect the future of his child.

  It was the same fears I’d had when Casey was born. That suddenly, after all the planning and positive thinking, I was now a father and realized that no matter how hard I tried, I was going to fail. That nothing I could do would ever be good enough. That I would never learn how to change her diapers, or teach her how to read, or rock her to sleep. Even feeding her and burping her was something I’d come to dread, my imagination coming up with several ways to fuck with my head on how I would screw up.

  Ian opened the driver’s door just as I opened the back door. I leaned in to grab Carver’s bag, to move it aside to give the girl space.

  And stopped.

  “Ian, is the bag up front?”

  “What?” He slid into the driver’s seat, the key just inches away from the ignition. “No, I don’t see it. Why?”

  “Don’t start the car.”

  “What?” he asked again, sliding the key into the ignition.

  “Stop!”

  He froze.

  “Don’t move a muscle.”

  He didn’t. Softly, he asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Just don’t move.”

  I reversed out of the backseat, slowly, and then lowered myself to the wet pavement. I used my phone to illuminate the undercarriage. Nothing.

  “Ben?” Ian said, his voice more than nervous. “What’s wrong?”

  “Carver’s bag is missing.”

  “So?”

  “Somebody obviously took it.”

  “And that means what?”

  “That means somebody may have left a surprise in its place.”

  I stood back up and glanced at the hood. I considered having Ian disengage the hood but knew that wasn’t Simon’s style. A bomb hooked up to the ignition would take too long to set, and besides, it could be easily defused. After all, roughly ten minutes had occurred from the moment Ronny fishtailed out of the parking lot to when Ian and I returned, which meant that they would act fast.

  Not even thirty seconds had passed since I told Ian to stop, but it felt like an hour. I stood there, thinking, the girl quiet beside me. I leaned back down in the backseat, all the way down to the floor, and shined my phone’s screen under the driver’s seat.

  “Son of a bitch,” I said.

  Ian, his voice barely a whisper: “How bad is it?”

  “Extremely. Looks like a tilt fuse.”

  Ian groaned softly but said nothing.

  I squinted at the device underneath the seat. It wasn’t a completely professional job, but it was designed to do the trick.

  Ian said, “Am I ... am I going to die?”

  “Be quiet.”

  “Ben.”

  “No, you’re not. Now be quiet.”

  A tilt fuse usually consists of a small glass tube filled at the bottom with a certain volume of mercury. At the cap end are wired two live electrical contacts linked to a battery and bomb. When the device is properly placed, such as in a car, the idea is when the fuse is tilted or moved, the mercury will slide down the tube and close the electrical circuit wired to the bomb. Once the circuit is closed, the electric current will then be able to bridge the previously open gap and activate the bomb.

  That was what we had here. From where I was positioned, I couldn’t see the entire tube, but it was clear the mercury hadn’t shifted yet. If that were the case, all three of us would be dead. But the bomb had been attached to the seat in a way that it would be impossible to move it without upsetting the mercury, now that it had been activated. Which meant it was impossible to deactivate it.

  Somehow Ian hadn’t set it off when he sat down on the seat. It was possible there wasn’t as much mercury in there as I feared. But once he would start the car and back out of the space, that would give it enough movement to detonate.

  “Ben?” Ian’s voice trembled on that one simple word.

  “Quiet.”

  “Just ... take the girl. Go on without me.”

  “I said quiet.”

  “But—”

  “Ian,” I said. “You’re not going to die. I promise you that. Just sit still while I figure this out.”

  He sat still. I glanced over my shoulder to check on the girl. She still stood there, watching me. I knew the best thing right now was to get the girl as far away from this car as possible. But I worried that if I did that Ian would freak and inadvertently set off the bomb. Carver had already died tonight; I wasn’t going to let Ian die too.

  I climbed out of the back and stood up straight. Turned to the little girl and said, “Do you understand English?”

  She just stared at me.

  “I need you to go back to where we just left. Do you see that white SUV parked over there?”

  No reply.

  “I need you to go stand beside it. Okay?”

  The girl blinked.

  I turned back to Ian. He was staring back at me, his face pale. He looked like he was going to speak again but I held a finger to my lips.

  “Stay quiet and don’t move,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

  I grabbed the girl’s shoulder and directed her back toward the Yukon. I expected there to be some resistance, maybe even more whimpering, but she complied without trouble. Once we reached the SUV, I opened the back door and had her climb in and buckled her to the seat. Then I hurried around the front to the driver’s side. I unclipped the dead driver and pulled him from the seat. He tilted over and fell to the ground. I grabbed his arms and pulled him a few feet away from the Yukon, then stepped back to the SUV and leaned in.

  “Stay here,” I told the girl.

  She just stared back at me.

  I ran back to the Corolla. It didn’t look like Ian had taken a single breath the entire time I was gone. Tears stood in his eyes.

  “Okay,” I said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to stand here next to the car and hold my arm out. You’re going to use that as leverage as you slowly—and I mean slowly—lift yourself off the seat. Any sudden movement, no matter how slight, will get us both killed. Understood?”

  He nodded slowly.

  “Good. Now let’s do this.”

  He grasped my arm and lifted his left leg and gently placed it on the ground. Next he slowly moved his right leg over as he turned slightly in the seat. He started to lift himself up as I leaned down and used my hand to press my weight onto the seat. Ian didn’t fully realize what I was doing until he had stood up completely out of the car.

  “Ben, what are you doing?”

  “Go.”

  “But—”

  “Take the girl. Make sure she’s safe.”

  He just stood there, motionless.

  “Now, Ian.”

  He stood there for another second or two before turning and sprinting toward the Yukon. I watched him go. Then I started to release the pressure on the seat—slowly, so very slowly—until my hand came off the seat completely and I stepped back and away from the car.

  I closed my eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, surprised I was still alive.

  Then I turned and started running toward the Yukon.

  I was halfway there when the world exploded.

  17

  I heard the blast an instant before I felt it.

  Like a giant fist, it sent me flying into the nearest car. I hit its rear window so hard the glass spider-webbed. I lay crumpled on the ground, the majority of my body feeling like it had been shattered. I may have briefly passed out, I don’t know. All I know was
my ears were ringing and I thought I was dying. The next thing I knew someone was shouting my name and I felt hands on me, trying to turn me over, feeling my chest and my stomach and my ribs, asking if anything hurt, and then I was being pulled to my feet and dragged to the Yukon where Ian managed to get me into the backseat.

  The girl was screaming again. She wouldn’t stop. Ian climbed in behind the wheel and got us moving almost instantly, fishtailing out of the Beachside’s parking lot. I was coherent enough to glance out the window and see the destruction. The cars strewn everywhere, the fires, the crater where the Corolla had stood.

  Ian was saying something to me—shouting, really, trying to get my attention.

  “What?”

  “Are you okay?”

  I groaned, shifting in the seat, holding my side. “I’ve been better.”

  “How did it happen?”

  “Don’t know. The tilt fuse shouldn’t have gone off.”

  I reached into my pocket for my phone. I expected it to be a shattered mess, but it still looked usable.

  “What are you doing?” Ian asked, eyeing me in the rearview mirror.

  “Calling the Kid. What are you doing?”

  “Fuck, man, I’m just driving.”

  He was driving much like Ronny had done earlier tonight, swerving from one lane to the next.

  “Mind the speed limit,” I said. “We can’t afford to get pulled over.”

  He slowed a bit as the phone connected with the Kid’s number.

  The Kid answered almost instantly. “Goddamn, it’s about fucking time you called.”

  “We have the girl,” I said.

  “Yeah? And in the process of saving her, did anything, you know, explode?”

  The girl had stopped screaming, was doing her whimpering thing now. I glanced at her and said, “I almost did.”