Bloodshift

by Garfield Reeves-Stevens

  “No, I haven’t.” Cook looked defensive. “He’s freelance out of Miami. Anybody can have him. And it looks like either the Jesuits or the Mounties do.”

  The camera had pulled back to a medium long shot. The man was passing by the van. In less than a minute, he would be gone from the street.

  “Or else he’s still working for the CIA,” Weston said.

  He turned to Cook. “When were you in Langley? And why?” Cook had been in the Nevada Project for seven of its fifteen years. Weston had to know why one of his agents had been in contact with another agency. Jack’s statement might have been a slip revealing a different set of loyalties.

  “Two years ago, Major.” The agent looked surprised. “When we were having labour problems with Malton Chemical. You were going to go yourself. The file that guy was in,” he said, pointing to the diminishing figure on the screen, “was offered as one of our options. He had done that kind of work before.”

  Weston remembered. He felt shock that the tension of his assignment had led him to make an error of recall. Malton Chemical was one of the main sources of the Nevada Project’s operational funding. It had begun as a Delaware corporation—a CIA front—at the height of Vietnam. Agents were infiltrated into most major munitions manufacturers throughout the world by being hired away from Malton Chemical. The subterfuge that had created the company was so successful it was turning a profit. The company had been reassigned to the Nevada Project in 1969. Most special agencies received their funding in this way. It meant millions of dollars earmarked for covert or classified operations never had to be approved by Oversight Committees. The Nevada Project was, theoretically, responsible to no one for its operating budget.

  Labour problems two years earlier had threatened profits. Since the CIA had set up Malton in the first place, Cook had gone to them for advice. Assassination of one of the union officials had been one of the options suggested. Weston could not remember how the problem had been resolved.

  “I want him brought in. We have to know who bought him. If it’s the Jesuits or the Mounties, okay. But if the CIA has somehow tangled itself up in this, we’ve lost it. Consider him armed and dangerous.”

  Davis flipped a toggle on his console and spoke into a small microphone.

  Down the street, Granger Helman turned the corner and disappeared from the camera’s sight. A minute later, Cook followed him, closing quickly.

  The Watchers in the telephone van had been unable to determine the identity or the allegiance of the man whom, they too, had spotted twice. When they saw the American agent follow him, they knew something important was happening, but they had no idea what.

  The wait for Cook’s return, for the crews of both surveillance teams, was tense. Eventually, both teams realised it was also useless. Cook was found shortly before sunset. His right index finger had been ripped off, presumably when he was disarmed, and his neck was broken.

  Granger Helman had disappeared.

  Chapter Twelve

  THE VOICE HAD said, “Nothing to worry about on this end.” And at least four people on that end, in Miami, had been killed. By whom? Helman had no clue, no concept. Somehow it was linked to him, the killer who was to kill no more. Four were dead in Miami. One in Toronto. But he had no worries at that end. Just here. Just now. Especially from the man in the hotel room chair opposite him. Mr. Rice had returned.

  “What am I to do with this list; assassin?” Rice looked up from the sheet of hotel stationery Helman had given him. His voice was more guttural, harsher, as though he had no more patience to control his natural way of speaking, regardless of whether or not Helman could understand him.

  “I had no time to prepare. Those are the items I require to fulfil my contract with your people. You said yourself I shouldn’t use my bare hands.” Helman had the feeling Rice was suppressing an urge to snarl, literally snarl at him.

  “I fail to see how guns, fertiliser, and children’s toys can fulfil your contract.”

  Helman fought hard to control his own anger. He had no patience for the man he must deal with. His disgust at having slept that morning while waiting for Telford’s call—something he had never done in the past, and no professional could condone—and his experience with the man who had followed him that afternoon, had left his nerves raw. But he was familiar with the penalty for not showing respect.

  “Mr. Rice, your people have come to me because of my abilities and experience in this field. One of the reasons I have that experience is because I have been successful. And I have been successful because I do things my way, on my own, with no accomplices, and no witnesses. I don’t care that you ‘fail to see’ how I can fulfil my contract. I don’t care if you can’t read a word on that bloody sheet. All I care about is me doing my work and you doing yours. And if you can’t do yours maybe New York better send up someone who can!” Helman’s voice had risen in anger and intensity. He was close to screaming.

  Then he was halfway across the room, slumped beside a bed, his head ringing and his eyes exploding with red and black flashes. He hadn’t even seen the blow. Rice was back in his chair.

  “The next time, assassin, you shall not be able to regret your foolish behaviour because you shall be dead.”

  Helman tried to struggle to his feet. The left side of his body was useless. Rice had connected with a pressure point, paralysing his arm and shooting molten tendrils of pain through his rib cage, into his neck and leg. He had never experienced anything like it. He sagged back against the bed.

  Rice spoke again. There was no trace of gloating in his guttural voice. “I am unfamiliar with the various specifications which you may require from some of these items. I propose to provide you with currency to obtain them yourself.”

  Helman shook his head, slowly. His jaw ached and it was difficult to form words. “Must get me guns,” he managed to whisper.

  “You forget the conditions, assassin. Guns are not required.”

  “Not for her. Her bodyguards. One tried to kill me today.”

  For a moment, Rice looked surprised. “Today, assassin? During the day?”

  Helman nodded yes.

  “What did you do?”

  “He had a gun. Got too close. I took it away from him. Broke his neck. Left him by a house. I need those guns for her bodyguards. I don’t have the contacts for buying them in this city.”

  “What was he wearing, assassin?”

  Helman was furious. He was incapacitated, at the mercy of a maniac with a hair-trigger temper and an unbelievable knowledge of what seemed to be a type of karate. And he was being asked about the clothes of a man who had tried to kill him.

  “Ordinary. Open coat. Suitjacket. Brown, grey, I don’t know.”

  “Did he wear anything around his neck, assassin?”

  Helman was incredulous. “He had a tie on. I don’t remember seeing the label. Why is this important?”

  “It’s not important, assassin. Just interesting. You’ll have the guns and the money before sunrise.”

  Rice put the list down on the broadloom beside Helman and left the room. It was two hours before Helman was able to stand.

  In another hour, the message light on his phone began flashing. There was a parcel for him at the desk. Helman had it brought to his room and opened it on his bed.

  Five thousand dollars in Canadian currency, five times what he estimated he would need. And the guns.

  He had specified two: a Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum and, as back up, a slim, five-chambered .44 Bulldog, easily concealable in the small of his back. Fifty rounds of Keith semi-wadcutters—bullets that could solidly pass through cars yet mushroom fatally in body hits—were included, as well as Alessi concealment holsters and silencers for each weapon. Despite himself, Helman was impressed with Rice’s ability to deliver.

  He worked with the weapons for a while. Loading and unloading, adjusting the holsters, until he felt as confident as he could without actually test firing them. Then he lay down on the bed and stared at the ce
iling. He didn’t even attempt to sleep. He knew it would be useless.

  Helman thought only of the day after tomorrow. The day when it would all be over. And he would present the head of Adrienne St. Clair to Mr. Rice. Or he would be dead.

  Either way, it would all be over.

  Eventually, he did sleep. And in his dreams, the things in the basement were telling him he was wrong.

  Chapter Thirteen

  THE DETONATOR WAS warm in Helman’s hand. He had four minutes left until he would press the transmit button. It would take an additional forty-five seconds to run up the stairs and into the lab, and anywhere between thirty seconds to two minutes to decapitate the body, depending on her location when the charge went off.

  At one minute before detonation, he would attach the auxiliary antenna that ran up the side of the university building which contained Dr. Leung’s research facilities. The antenna ended at the third floor window of the lab that Leung and St. Clair worked in during the night. That placed the antenna within six feet of the charge. Even the child’s toy car remote control which Helman held would be sufficient at that distance, and unlike high-powered and sophisticated radio control equipment which was available from only a few outlets, no one could ever trace the purchase of one of thousands of similar toys, available anywhere, to Helman.

  Leung and the girl had arrived eight minutes previously in the doctor’s TR7 and parked at a meter in front of the building. Helman was giving them ten minutes to establish themselves in the lab.

  What Helman assumed to be her bodyguard’s car, which had followed them from the townhouse, was parked across the street from the building. There were four lanes of traffic and two sets of streetcar tracks between them and the stone front steps of the building. With his head start, Helman would be able to lock enough fire doors to slow the bodyguards down to give himself the time he needed. The confusion added by the students who were constantly moving into and out of the building would also help.

  One minute. Helman, hidden in the shadows at the side of the building, connected the auxiliary antenna.

  The university building was at least a hundred years old, and looked it. Helman had studied it the previous afternoon, after his encounter with the man who tried to kill him. It had been perfect for his needs.

  Old buildings were constantly undergoing repairs and renovations. The granite-blocked university structure, covered in the bare, brown ivy vines of winter and stained black by years of traffic exhaust, was no exception.

  Three doors down from Dr. Leung’s lab, which was deserted in the daytime, plumbing was being replaced. The work crew had left their acetylene welding outfit locked in the room. After five o’clock, Helman had taken fifteen seconds to open the lock. The two tanks of acetylene and oxygen were now chained to a radiator pipe beside a hole Helman had made in the wall of Dr. Leung’s lab. Helman’s charge, composed of untraceable chemicals derived from a fertiliser available at hundreds of non-regulated stores, and the radio detonator adapted from a toy car’s radio control, was strapped tightly to the bottom strut of the welding cart, hidden by the tanks’ bulk. It would shatter the bottoms of both tanks, causing the gases to mix violently and trigger a second, far more powerful blast.

  By the clutter of personal papers in Leung’s lab, Helman assumed that he had worked at the University for years. Leung should not be surprised at discovering his office was in the midst of unscheduled renovations.

  Ten seconds. Helman adjusted the straps of his shoulder holster through his new winter coat, a nondescript olive drab--the land worn by repairmen and outdoor workers—and checked a final time that his machete was securely in place. He kept his eyes on the seconds as they counted down on his digital watch. For the last few seconds, the mist of his breath no longer obscured the watch. Everything seemed silent.

  He pressed the button and a dull whumph sound accompanied the crash of shattered glass as the lab’s window blew out above his head.

  Before the glass had fallen to the ground, Helman was running around the corner of the building and up the main stairs, pushing startled students out of his way.

  He charged up the stairwells, using the old style pin locks to jam the fire doors on each floor. At the third floor he pulled down a red fire alarm panel. The glass rod snapped and a strident ringing echoed through the halls. Students and staff on the main floor milled about, uncertain if the fire signal were a test or the real thing. But on the third floor, where Helman saw the explosion had blown the lab’s fire door off its hinges, there was panic. He was unseen as he moved against the crowd of escaping students.

  Smoke filled the devastated lab. Flickers from a handful of small fires lit it eerily. Helman held the end of his scarf to his nose and mouth, slid the machete from the sheath strapped against his chest, and entered in to fulfil his contract.

  A draft was created between the shattered window and the open door. The smoke swirled out like a mist clearing from a dark hidden valley. Helman saw a blood-soaked form crumpled against the base of a cabinet unit.

  The unit was crushed. The shrapnel from the exploding gas cylinders had been devastating.

  Helman held the machete ready to strike, and turned the body over. A jagged section of cylinder metal was imbedded in a flattened hollow in the forehead. The face was covered in blood and small solid particles sprayed out from the skull, it was the doctor. Beside him, his glasses were unbroken.

  Helman lowered the machete, stood and turned to examine the room for the woman’s body. Part of him continued counting off the seconds. The bodyguards from the car across the street would be breaking down the first floor fire doors to the stairwells by now. He had a minute at most.

  A cold swell of wind billowed the smoke in front of the window and carried it out the door. There was a moment of clearing in the far corner of the lab, well lit with the growing intensity of the fires. A bulky refrigeration unit appeared untouched by the blast. And then he saw her.

  Impossibly, she was alive. Her clothes hung in tattered remnants, exposing pale, unmarked, undamaged flesh. Her hair was scorched. Part of her scalp was bald. But she lived, untouched by the deadly, explosive spray of metal fragments. She lives!

  Helman froze. The impossibility of it screamed in his mind. The smoke and fire and destruction around him, the sound of far away sirens, all collapsed in on themselves, shrinking away to nothingness beneath the awesome reality of what he saw. She lived. And she saw him. And she was coming at him.

  Her hands were like claws, arched and deadly. Her face was twisted into animalistic fury. A high pitched whine came from deep within her. She lived, and she was attacking.

  Bent over, looking as if she were preparing to jump the fifteen feet to where Helman stood, she picked her way through the rubble toward him.

  Every warning given him by Rice and his people rushed through Helman’s mind. He stepped back, slowly, judging the distances between the woman and himself and the doorway. He held the machete before him and reached carefully inside his coat for his magnum.

  Out in the corridor, he heard-the crash of the firedoor being forced open. Then shouts. Then gunfire. People were shooting at each other outside the lab. The woman stopped her advance, still whining in ragged breaths, and looked toward the door. Helman drew the magnum, but held his fire. If he killed her now, with hostiles so close, he might not have a chance to get her head.

  A sudden flash of motion shot through the open doorway. An arrow appeared, imbedded in the wall near Helman. Who was outside the door?

  The woman jerked her head as though she had seen the arrow in flight and followed its flight. Her whining stopped. She spun, ran to the window, and was gone, down into the night.

  Helman felt he was in a dream. Nothing made sense. More shots echoed in the corridor. He ran to the window, hoping to follow the woman’s escape route.

  There was nothing outside the window to hold on to. No ledges, no outthrust bricks. And there was no body on the ground below. Adrienne St. Clair had vanis
hed.

  A man dressed in black appeared in the doorway to the corridor. He carried a crossbow. It was aimed at Helman.

  Helman turned at the sound of the gunshots that ripped through the man’s body. The crossbow released its bolt into the wall as the man spun around and collapsed.

  Without knowing the reasons, Helman realised two groups, somehow connected to St. Clair, were battling outside the ruined lab. If the one side was using only crossbows against gunfire, it was only a matter of time before the other side achieved dominance of the corridor and the lab.

  Helman ran to the hole he had started in the wall near the welding tanks. It was larger. The walls were made of drywall over soft fibres insulating blocks. The blocks had splintered, absorbing most of the blast force. They were held up only by the warped drywell on the other side. Helman knew the room on that side of the lab had been locked after five on the night of his reconnaissance. He would have to risk that it hadn’t yet been taken over.

  With three lacks he had enlarged the hole. There was nothing but darkness on the other side. He squeezed through. The door was still secure. Inside the next room, he slid a filing cabinet in front of the hole to obscure it from the other side. He had to do everything he could to buy time.

  Now the sirens were coming from directly outside. Firetrucks had arrived. The fighting in the hall seemed to be over. Helman crouched in a corner behind a desk and kept his gun trained on the doorway. He would not risk stepping out into the hall. His plan was to stay in position and try to walk out as the building was opened in the morning. He heard firefighters running through the corridor outside and the hollow whoosh of chemical fire extinguishers from the lab. It seemed unusual that he could hear no shouts about finding a body.

  There was a loud noise from the door to the room Helman hid in. The doorknob dropped off. Helman aimed at where a man’s chest would be. The door swung open.