Pay The Penance (Mechanic Trilogy Book 3)

by Rob Ashman

  He spent his time staring up at the disc of blue sky visible through the air pipe. He watched it glow pink as the sun sunk below the horizon, and change to a bluish grey as the day disappeared into dusk.

  It was now black. The sliver of light which had cascaded down the metal tube was gone. Lucas’s world was cloaked in darkness. When he raised his hands in front of his face, he saw nothing. He knew they were there because he could feel his breath on his skin, but all he saw was black. He fought the ball of claustrophobic panic that wound itself tight around his chest. The dark vacuum was crushing him.

  Every single noise was blocked by the metal box. Lucas strained his ears, but all he heard was the sound of his own breathing and the blood pumping in his head. The silence roared in his ears.

  He closed his eyes and began to drift. He dreamed of the time he was with Darlene in New Orleans. They had partied until their feet hurt in the carnival atmosphere of the French quarter. She had berated him for ogling the hookers, he had berated her for flirting with a crowd of bare-chested college basketball players. They wore heavy, beaded necklaces around their necks and fell into bed when the sun came up. It was a magical time.

  He snapped open his eyes. There was a sound.

  Above him he could hear the faint crack of breaking twigs. He turned his head and lay on his side, trying to put his ear up to the hole. Yes, yes, there was a sound. It could be an animal, but it could be a person.

  ‘Help!’ Lucas yelled. ‘Help me.’ His voice echoed around the confined space.

  He arched his body to scream through the hole.

  ‘Help, somebody help.’

  He stopped to listen. More cracking twigs, it was the sound of someone walking. Someone was up there.

  ‘Help. I’m down here. Somebody help!’

  He stopped again to listen. The sound was gone. Lucas strained his neck to get his ear as close to the hole as possible. There was nothing.

  ‘Did you think someone had come to rescue you?’ It was Mechanic. Lucas’s heart sank to the pit of his stomach.

  ‘How are you getting on in there. Still alive?’ Mechanic flashed a white light down the tube. The beam hit Lucas in the face.

  It burned his eyes. Lucas screamed.

  ‘So you are still there.’

  Lucas strained every muscle to keep control. He wanted to throw open the box to murder the psycho bitch, but he knew it was useless. He had to conserve his energy if he was to make it out alive.

  ‘Your friend Harper is doing very well. He’s helping me not to kill you by paying a penance. You remember all about the penance, don’t you, Lucas? I told Harper you had given him to me as part of your penance. He didn’t know about that, but he does now. Of course, I chose to kill your wife instead. I must say it was very satisfying to see the blood erupt from the back of her head as the bullet tore its way through her skull.’

  Lucas covered his ears with his hands.

  ‘She was so pretty. Well, she was without that fucking great hole. You listening to me, Lucas?’ Mechanic shone the beam down the tube and peered in. She could see him squirming around trying to protect his eyes from the piercing light.

  ‘Harper has a long way to go if he is to atone for his sins. I’m not sure he realises how big a penance he has to pay to win your life. You killed my sister and that is going to take a ton of atonement.’

  Tears ran either side of Lucas’s face and he bit his hand to stop himself sobbing. The light above went off and he was once again plunged into darkness. He heard the faint noise of footsteps fading away.

  Moran had seen Mechanic slip away from the lodge. She crossed to the van and looked through the window, it was empty. She tried the door but it was locked. She ran across the veranda and peered through the first window. It was an empty bedroom with a double bed and single wardrobe. Through the second window she could see a large room with animal heads displayed around the walls.

  At the third window she gasped.

  Standing on a chair in the centre of the room was Harper. He had his hands manacled to his sides and a noose around his neck. The rope ran up to the ceiling and was looped over the rafter above his head. It stretched diagonally across the room and was tied onto a set of coat pegs on the far wall. The knot on the noose was against the left side of his neck, tilting his head over to the right. Harper was gulping in air as he tried to remain still and upright.

  Moran darted around the front of the house and through the front door. Harper wobbled on the chair when he heard the door.

  ‘Fucking hell,’ Moran said as she rushed to the pegs and started untying the rope.

  ‘No, no, stop,’ Harper said.

  ‘What? I need to get you down.’

  ‘No, stop. When Mechanic gets back I need to be here otherwise she will kill Lucas.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘She has Lucas held somewhere. If I don’t do exactly what she says she’ll kill him.’

  ‘Your hand.’ Moran spotted the bloody bandage and the red patch on the floorboards.

  ‘Look, you need to go. I don’t know when she’ll be back. If we try and take her out, Lucas is a dead man.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘I think she may have gone to see Lucas. I think he’s being held nearby. The best thing you can do is find where she’s holding him.’

  ‘What about Jameson?’

  ‘She says he’s not here, but—’

  The sound of heavy boots on wooden decking stopped them dead.

  ‘Shit.’ Moran made it into the bedroom just as the front door opened.

  ‘Getting cold out there,’ Mechanic said removing her jacket. ‘We’ll get a fire going.’ She busied herself taking logs from a basket and pushing them into the wood-burning stove.

  Moran eased her way to the window and slid back the catch, the handle creaked as the frame swung open. She looped her leg over the sill and lifted herself onto the ledge. She pivoted and sank down onto the walkway outside. She pushed the window shut, inched her way to the back of the house and bolted for the treeline. The window was now unlocked but there was nothing she could do about that.

  Mechanic collapsed onto the sofa. Harper was still tottering on the chair trying to keep his balance.

  ‘I told Lucas you were paying penance for your sins. I told him you were doing it to keep him alive. He seemed grateful enough.’

  Harper snorted as he tried to calm his breathing. He shifted his weight to relieve his cramping legs. His back ached.

  ‘I told him that you had a whole bunch of atoning to do to make up for killing my sister. He was confident you wouldn’t let him down. You’re not going to let him down, are you, Harper?’

  Harper glared down at Mechanic, holding his composure.

  ‘No.’ He choked the words out.

  Mechanic got up to check the fire. She rubbed her hands together in the hot air rising from the grille at the front.

  ‘That’s the problem with wilderness living. What do you do to kill the boredom? Don’t you think?’

  Harper nodded.

  ‘If only we had some entertainment to while away the time. What do you say?’

  Harper nodded again.

  Mechanic flopped down on the sofa again, leaned forward and kicked away the chair.

  Harper dropped. The rope stretched under his weight and the noose tightened. His legs flailed around and he choked as the ligature cut deep into his neck, crushing his windpipe.

  Mechanic sat back and watched while Harper twisted and jerked, trying to free his hands. His face turned purple as the cord closed off the arteries and veins feeding his brain, sending the blood pressure in his head rocketing. His mouth was open and his tongue stuck out. Harper was being strangled to death.

  Mechanic got up from the sofa and started dancing around Harper’s twisting body.

  ‘You dance, Harper!’ she called out. ‘You shake that ass.’ Mechanic put her hands in the air and gyrated her hips.

  ‘Woo, yo
u go, boy.’

  His eyes bulged out of his skull and his wrists bled where the cuffs cut into his flesh. Popping candy was going off in his head, and he could see flashing lights. The oxygen to his brain ran out and he blacked out. His legs continued to spasm.

  Mechanic stopped dancing and tugged the loose end of the knot tied around the coat peg. The rope unfurled from the rafter and Harper crashed to the floor, his body twitching and convulsing. She leaned over, loosened the noose and removed it from his head.

  She shook him and a rasping torrent of air rushed into his lungs. He gagged and coughed. Mechanic rolled Harper into the recovery position and went to make coffee on the stove.

  48

  Lucas was concentrating on staying alive. His only hope of getting out of there was to be rescued and it was no good if when that happened he was a dead man. He had drifted in and out of sleep during the night and had shifted positions as often as he could to prevent cramp setting in. At one point his mind ran amok and he couldn’t tell if he was awake or asleep. The blackness engulfed him.

  He kept looking up at the hole above his head and watched it turn from black to grey, as the night slipped into dawn. He figured it had to be about 5.30am.

  Lucas had another more immediate problem – he needed to pee.

  He undid his pants, shuffled them down and removed his penis. He allowed a short burst of urine to escape and caught it in his cupped hand. He brought it to his mouth and drank.

  Lucas had once watched a TV programme where a fighter pilot had crashed his plane in the desert and had kept himself alive by drinking his own pee. He recalled that so long as you were well hydrated to start with, the first flow of urine was fine to drink and could buy you extra time before the crippling effects of dehydration took hold. Lucas slurped at the liquid, he needed all the extra time he could get.

  It tasted disgusting. Warm and salty with a bitter back taste. Lucas repeated the exercise over and over, each time releasing a small amount of pee and drinking it from his hand. After fifteen minutes he was done. The hole in his coffin had turned bright blue and the cone of light had returned.

  Moran was dozing in her car, hidden beneath the treeline. She had spent hours in the night searching for Lucas amongst the woods and rocky outcrops. It was hopeless. The forest was pitch black and it was impossible to see anything. She had persevered, using landmarks to map out a grid in her head. She paced out each one in turn but by 2am she gave up.

  She woke, pulled a bottle of water from the bag and ate some cookies. She wanted to be at the lodge early to catch Mechanic when she went out. She reached the cabin at 6.15. Harper was tied up on the decking area, sitting upright. Moran took a chance.

  She crossed the open ground at the back of the lodge and approached Harper from behind. He was asleep with his head and shoulders propped against the wooden balustrade. His hands were secured to the belt around his waist and his ankles manacled to the eyebolt in the floor. She shook his shoulder, he jumped a mile.

  ‘Shhh,’ Moran whispered. ‘It’s me.’

  Harper turned to look at her.

  ‘Fuck, what did she do to you?’ Moran said. The twist of the rope had imprinted deep furrows around his neck. The whites of his eyes were speckled with burst blood vessels and his face bore patches of red and purple spots where capillaries had ruptured under the skin.

  Harper shook his head. ‘Never mind, did you find him?’

  ‘No, I tried but it was too dark.’

  Harper slumped down. Moran rummaged in her bag and brought out the water and some chocolate. She held the bottle to his lips, and Harper drank thirstily. She snapped off squares from the bar and pushed them into his mouth. Harper chewed and swallowed fast.

  ‘You gotta find him,’ he said, his voice unrecognisable.

  ‘I know, I’ll follow her today. You sure about this? I could shoot her and then we could beat it out of her.’

  ‘No, that won’t work. She won’t talk. You have to follow her and find him. It’s the only way to get Lucas out alive.’

  Moran fed him more chocolate. A noise came from inside the cabin. Moran ducked away and dashed back to cover. Mechanic came out onto the veranda with a cup of coffee in her hand.

  ‘Beautiful morning for a penance, don’t you think?’

  Harper said nothing.

  ‘Did you sleep okay? You should have, you were half asleep when I dragged you out here last night. Or was that you being unconscious? I can never tell the difference.’

  She strolled across to Harper and pulled up a wicker chair.

  ‘We had some fun, didn’t we? When you get in the groove you can really dance.’

  Harper looked at the floor, avoiding eye contact.

  ‘I’m a great believer in starting the day off right. You know, a little gentle exercise, a healthy breakfast, followed by a hot shower. And I was thinking, the breakfast is shit, I can’t exercise because you’re here, and I don’t have a shower. So what should we do to get the day off to a great start?’

  She reached behind her back and drew the hunting knife. She threw it and it stuck in the wooden floor a foot from Harper’s injured hand. She pulled the keys from her pocket.

  ‘I think removing the top of your ring finger is exactly what we need to get the day off on the right note.’

  Moran watched from the safety of the treeline. She saw Mechanic kneel beside Harper. Next thing he was struggling with her. There were raised voices. Mechanic stepped away.

  She heard the muffled sound of Mechanic’s voice, and then she heard Harper scream. He rolled on the floor, sobbing, clutching his right arm. Moran’s immediate instinct was to run at Mechanic and put a bullet in her head. But Harper’s words kept her rooted to the spot.

  Mechanic went into the house and returned a few seconds later carrying something. Moran couldn’t see what it was. Mechanic let it drop to the deck while she knelt down and released Harper’s ankles. She stood up and Moran saw the noose dangling from her grasp. She forced it over Harper’s head, pulled it tight and hauled him to his feet.

  She yanked on the rope and Harper shuffled after her into the lodge.

  Ten minutes later Mechanic re-emerged. She stepped off the veranda and walked into the woods. Moran followed keeping well back.

  She kept about thirty yards between herself and Mechanic and crept though the trees and bushes. After fifteen minutes Mechanic stopped. Moran took cover in a copse of trees and pulled out her binoculars.

  What the hell is she doing? Moran thought.

  Mechanic was walking around in a clearing, talking to herself.

  ‘Did you really believe this was going to work?’ Mechanic said. ‘I had Jameson compile intel reports on you, Harper and Bassano a long time ago. That’s how I was able to relieve Bassano of his cock and balls. He squealed like a stuck pig.’ Mechanic laughed. ‘It was a beautiful sound.’

  Lucas lay in his coffin listening to Mechanic rant above him. The metal tube distorted her voice but he could make out every word. She continued.

  ‘So when you showed up at Jameson’s door he recognised you. I mean, all that shit about insisting on the same shooter or the deal was off, and that nonsense about your client needing to know the details of the hit. Jameson would never have allowed that to happen on a normal contract. We played you along and you sucked it all up. Me and him go back a long way, he is loyal to the core, and with your level of stupidity, you didn’t stand a chance.’

  Moran skirted away to the right to find a better vantage point and crouched down, peering through the glasses. Mechanic was walking around in a circle, talking and gesticulating. Moran was too far away to make out any of the words.

  ‘The choice of Bonelli was a good one. Who thought of that? Was it you or Harper? I enjoyed that, but it was such an obvious trap. You listening to me?’ Mechanic called down the pipe. Her voice reverberated against the metal, bursting against his ears.

  ‘Anyway, what else do I have to tell you? Oh yes, you could be out soon. Your
man Harper is doing a great job of atoning for his sins. He didn’t look so good this morning and he won’t play the piano again, but he’s hanging in there.’

  Lucas’s heart lifted at the prospect of getting out but then sank when he thought of Harper and the terrible things he must be enduring to save him. He had to stay strong. He had to stay alive.

  Moran’s eyes were glued to Mechanic watching her every move. For the next fifteen minutes she looked like an evangelical preacher with no congregation. Round and round she circled, talking to herself and throwing her arms in the air.

  ‘Well, that’s it for now. I’ll be back later. Got to go, I have some meat to hang,’ Mechanic said and trooped back towards the lodge.

  Moran watched her disappear. When Mechanic was gone she crabbed forward to where she had been standing. There was nothing there. She scouted around, the place was covered in bushes and tufts of long, dry grass. There were young trees dotted around and the rest of the ground was soil and shale. This had to be the place. But what the hell was she doing?

  Moran paced out every inch, combing the area like a crime scene.

  Then she saw it.

  49

  Hidden in a thicket, sticking out of the ground, was a two-foot length of metal tubing. It was painted green and shrouded by twigs and branches while a clump of grass surrounded the base. Moran cleared them away. It was two and half inches in diameter and made of steel. She put her face close to the end and peered inside.

  ‘Lucas?’ she whispered. The sound of frantic scuffling travelled up the pipe.

  ‘Moran? Is that you?’

  ‘Yes, Mechanic has gone.’

  ‘Get me out of here,’ he cried. ‘Please, please get me out of here.’ She could hear the panic surging in his voice.

  ‘Okay, keep quiet.’

  Moran cleared the vegetation. It came away easily to reveal an oblong patch of freshly dug earth.

  She leapt to her feet, scoured the woodland floor and found what she was looking for, a length of wood about three inches thick. She gripped it with both hands, sank to her knees and thrust the end into the dirt. The wooden stake dug into the newly turned soil and she dragged it to the side. She wielded the pick like a canoeist wields a paddle and drove it into the dirt over and over again, digging a trench. Moran shovelled the earth with her hands and piled it up at the sides.