Fall Out

by M. N. Grenside

  Less than 48 hours after leaving the cave, Mako and Marcus were driving back to Nisten. “We’ve done what Sam wanted, found the guilty parties. You have closure…” said Marcus.

  “You don’t think we owe it to Sam to nail McConnell? That man was responsible for the death of my mother, Sam, Bill… so many.”

  “Mako, it’s not our world. He’s far too clever for conventional justice. Haribon seemed to think his past will catch up with him.”

  “You mean leave it to divine retribution? I want him to suffer in the present,” she responded firmly.

  “Cara seemed pretty certain,” replied Marcus. “I suspect retribution will find him long before the law does… and I doubt it will be divine,” Marcus added, as he got out and walked with Mako to the house.

  “Hey, I forgot,” she said, leaning over to kiss him, “Thanks. I’m sorry it had to be three.”

  He looked puzzled, jet lag still fuzzing his brain.

  “You’ve saved me three times,” holding up three fingers to emphasize the point.

  He smiled back at her and put his arm over her shoulder.

  “I want to stop fighting my father. Close this chapter. Not so much start again but be who I should have been. I’m selling the business. I want to try something more lasting, more fulfilling…”

  Marcus hoped that would include him but knew better than to ask. Mako called her own emotional shots.

  She opened the front door.

  “Bastard,” she cursed. The house was ransacked.

  Tables and chairs were overturned, pictures torn from the walls. Some of the priceless china was smashed, a tiny jade figurine lay in pieces at the foot of the curved stairway. Mako looked at the devastation.

  “Jonathan venting his rage,” Marcus consoled her putting his arms round her.

  Mako bent down and picked up the shattered photo of Xavier, her teenage self and her mother all smiling outside the shop in Habkern.

  “When he met me outside Xavier’s shop, as soon as he said, ‘I recognized you from that photo in the hall I saw a few years ago, when I last visited’, I knew he was lying.”

  “How come?”

  “It always hung in my room…” Mako replied

  “But your father could have shown him…?”

  “… It always hung in my room in Pied à Mer. I sent it to my father about a year ago… after we had agreed to meet… just to remind him of what he’d lost.”

  “It worked. He hung it up. He wanted you back in his life,” Marcus said calmly. “Face it, it helped save you.”

  Mako would keep that sentiment as the last thought of her father.“Let’s not mention his name again.” She kissed Marcus long and hard. She wanted to reassure herself that Marcus was the only thing she was taking from this part of her life.

  “All this stuff. Everything that survived or is not too damaged is going to Consuela. Robin can arrange for everything in London to be packed up. I have already instructed the money in my father’s accounts be sent to Consuela as well.” Mako sighed, “Poor but honest.”

  “Agreed, get it out of your life,” Marcus said firmly. “Now, time to go get that head, dig out its last secret. After that, we take a break, sort out your future, go find something else to challenge us,” he grinned.

  Mako shook her head in mock frustration.

  “Life with you is never going to be boring,” she said as she followed him into the kitchen. The electric motor whirred as the mixing bowl slowly rose from below the work surface, the Buddha still nestled safely inside. The Nü-shu script was visible at the base of the head.

  “You can just see the join in the underside where a stonemason cut the plug for the hollowed out hiding place for the cub,” Marcus said as he rolled the head onto the aluminum work surface.

  “OK, let’s do it,” said Mako determinedly.

  Marcus found the tools he needed. He carefully started to gently hammer at the base with a chisel.

  “Look at this,” she said, as she picked up a tiny shard that fell away from the back of the head as he was chipping at the base. It revealed a glimmer of gold inside the head. “It must’ve broken off some time in the past. Looks like it was crudely reattached.”

  It took Marcus nearly an hour to carefully chisel away the base but eventually he was able to remove the plug. Nestled inside was an exquisite golden sculpture of a baby tiger cub.

  “It’s beautiful,” Mako whispered, as Marcus carefully removed the statue.

  The cub crouched on its stomach with its tail curved around its left haunch, the animal’s left paw drawn back to the shoulder and its right leg extended forward. The proud head was resting on the outstretched foreleg, its expression alert, the body coiled and ready to pounce. The tiger’s body was made from solid platinum, the stripes on the fur a deep yellow gold. The sculpture filled most of the head. It weighed as much as a medicine ball. They gently turned it over. Sure enough on the animal’s belly was more of the delicate spidery writing.

  Mako held a magnifying glass up to it. After a few minutes of intense scrutiny of the script, she said, “This seems to be saying the other tiger is hidden in Yongjiang.”

  “A life-size one like this…?” Marcus gasped. The thought was awe inspiring.

  “They need to be reunited and people allowed to see them,” said Mako, “Yongjiang is in Western Hunan, where Nü-shu originated.” She turned back to the writing.

  “‘He lies at peace in shallow water in a cave on Dongting Lake under a heaven of Hunan’s eternal chrysanthemums. Marcus, they buried the tiger under chrysanthemum stones.”

  “What are chrysanthemum stones?” he asked, still looking at the cub.

  “Beautiful. Fossilized petals of flowers from thousands of years ago that seem to cling only to Hunan stone. They aren’t found anywhere else… quite rare… Wait here.”

  Two minutes later she reappeared with a black oval-shaped stone, the size of her fist. The smooth surface was unmarked on one side but when she turned it over, blazing out from the underside was a perfectly formed silver colored chrysanthemum head.

  “It’s ironic. That flower was the symbol of both the Imperial Chinese as well as Japanese royal family,” she said. “From above it must just look like a pile of stones in a lake. Below, from the tiger’s point of view, his sky is a bouquet of flowers.”

  “Amazing,” said Marcus admiring the stone.

  “Keep it, it was my mother’s. Brings good luck.” She dropped it into Marcus’ hand, at the same time giving him a quick kiss. “You think the cave exists, let alone anyone will find him?”

  “We will make sure Haribon convinces them,” Marcus said wryly.

  “Let’s hope so,” she replied, stroking the baby tiger’s back.

  “He has a vested interest in making the Chinese happy, as Louis knows only too well,” said Marcus. He turned and went to start organizing the shipping of the treasures to Consuela.

  * * *

  A few days later, after the last of the packing cases had been sent to Consuela, they drove back to Mako’s home by the sea. They both needed a break and Marcus knew something was waiting for her there.

  Garance met them as the electronic gate opened. After an emotional reunion, he pulled himself together. “This way, if Madame pleases.” He pointed towards the long stone staircase to the jetty. Mako looked at Marcus. He smiled back with a shrug of his shoulders.

  Slowly she began to descend the stairs. Then Marcus heard her whoop for joy.

  Tethered to the mooring post was a Riva Aquarama S. Sheer joy lit up Mako’s face.

  “I didn’t tell you. We wanted it to be a surprise,” Marcus said as he followed her down.

  “We?” Mako asked looking at Marcus.

  Garance nodded. “The insurance money was sufficient, Madame. It was the question of finding a replacement. That was plus difficile… more difficult. Via a friend… une amie de Monsieur Riley, we discover in Porto Cervo. This used to belong to the Aga Khan.”

  “I felt so
bad about what happened. Garance agreed to help… and kept it a secret, in case we couldn’t track one down. I had yacht brokers scouring every port,” explained Marcus. “They told me this one may be for sale. I once knew someone very close to the owner… and she persuaded him.”

  Mako mouthed “Who is SHE…? eyes wide in mock surprise.

  “We all have a past…” Marcus reminded her. Garance handed her the keys.

  “Here,” she smiled at Marcus. “You take her out first.”

  * * *

  That afternoon Marcus made the call to Jax.

  “That was Sam,” she said after a pause when he had finished telling her the whole story. “Marcus, you found out what he wanted you to. If you want them, those rights are still yours.”

  Marcus breathed a sigh of relief. Their relationship was whole once more.

  “Thanks, Jax. I’ll see. Let’s stay in touch.”

  * * *

  “You think Haribon will keep his word? I don’t exactly trust him, Marcus,” Mako said lying in bed that evening. “I so want to believe the art; treasure and the tigers will be returned…”

  “You remember that picture in his house. The young girl and the toddler? It’s Consuela. She brought Haribon up. The hand that rocks the cradle… that’s what binds them, and what keeps him honest… more or less.”

  74

  CATALINA, CALIFORNIA

  Louis stretched out on the wicker chaise-longue on his balcony, sunglasses on the end of his nose, newspapers on his lap. His empty breakfast tray lay on a table next to him as he watched the gulls swoop and cry over the rocks below.

  He had just finished his call with Tyler, who confirmed the message had been delivered in Manila. In fact, as a small thank you, he was sending Louis a gift. And Louis had a pretty good idea what that meant.

  No word from Jonathan. Louis guessed he was in hiding now, licking his wounded pride that Gemmell had dealt with Haribon. Louis could breathe easy.

  The door to his suite rang and two statuesque nurses entered his room. By the shortness of their skirts and the depth of their cleavage, Louis could tell at once what kind of treatments they would be giving him. He never ceased to be in awe of Tyler Gemmell’s resourcefulness, which was matched only by his appreciation of the female form.

  “Clothes off,” said the first.

  “Treatments first, fun later,” said the other, as she went outside and wheeled in a massage bed and a large trolley filled with a variety of jars, towels, lotions and potions.

  “The latest kelp wash and wrap with aromatherapy oils,” continued the first.

  “Invigorates. Makes Viagra seem like a vitamin supplement. And afterwards… well, you’ll take us both with ease,” added the second with a wink.

  Louis was in shell-shocked heaven and rooted to his chair. “That’s if you want to… we can always tell Mr. Gemmell you’d rather not…,” said the first, making as if to leave.

  Louis was up in a flash, the semblance of an erection already protruding from his robe.

  The two girls giggled.

  They eased him out of his robe and told him to stand with one arm bent against his chest, the other at his side.

  “Now we pop this over your mouth,” she said, sticking some tape across his lips, “as you need to breathe through your nose. The treatment tastes yucky.”

  A blown kiss melted the initial look of consternation on Louis’ face.

  Slowly the girls wound the bandages all over his body, except his groin which they left exposed, occasionally brushing their scarlet red nails over his crotch with promises about the future in their eyes. Next, they helped him onto the massage table dropping a cool wet towel over his eyes.

  They went around to each side of the mattress and, leaning over in unison, quickly grabbed straps underneath and before Louis knew what was happening, had him tightly secured to the massage table. As they walked out the door, hearing his muffled cries, they were more than happy to leave, glad it wasn’t them who would have to perform anything on, near or with him. Their job was done, and they’d been well paid for it.

  A short nurse with a surgical mask over her face and a small cut on her forehead entered the room. She locked the door, activating the Do Not Disturb light outside by flicking the switch at the bedside table.

  “Now we are quite alone,” she said, as she raised the towel from Louis’ eyes.

  The look of fury on his face slowly changed to fear, as Cara peeled away her mask and took a glass jar from the trolley placing it carefully on Louis’ chest. She then reached into her handbag and brought out Bill’s service revolver. She opened the weapon and made sure Louis saw there was only a single bullet inside.

  “I learned this from Haribon,” she smiled at him, “when I saw him a week ago…” Louis’ eyes stretched wide in fear, “and watched as Tyler Gemmell’s man shot dead the bastard you had kill my husband.” She never raised her voice. If anything, she spoke to Louis with the cadence and pitch of a mother to a young child.

  As Louis struggled against the straps, Cara lifted the jar for a moment until he stopped struggling.

  “Gently does it,” she cooed.

  * * *

  She had tracked Tyler down on her return, made it plain there was only one solution to the ‘Louis problem’ and that she wanted to deliver it. He had been more than happy to help her.

  “You know your vanity about heritage is what screwed you, Louis.” She was standing over him, beads of sweat forming on his forehead. “Just a bit of research, a click on Google. Your house, named after your grandfather? Roneale. Ronan O’Neale. A gunrunner from Boston. No wonder you killed off Sam’s book. And those bastards that ambushed Bill and his comrades in Ireland so long ago… the ones he subsequently blew through the gates of hell… what where their names? Eamon, Sean and Michael… O’Neale. All part of the same happy family… so you saw a chance for retribution for death in the family,” she looked at him sharply, “I can empathize.”

  She picked up Louis’ gold Patek Philippe watch which the girls had taken off before performing their mummification.

  “Let me show you something,” she said holding up the jar and filling it with a liquid from one of the glass containers. “You know what this is? Aqua Regia. About the strongest acid you can find. Only one able to dissolve gold, which is why it’s used to test its purity… But silly me, of course you know that.” She placed it back on Louis’ chest and he immediately stopped struggling, his eyes fixed on the container.

  With that she lowered Louis’ watch into the glass jar. Within seconds, the liquid began to bubble, and Louis stared as his watch dissolved like an Alka Seltzer.

  “Need a new one now,” she chided. She reached over again to the trolley and pulled out an identical liquid-filled jar and a smaller one filled with a milky liquid.

  “The first… well now you know what that is. This smaller one here… snake venom. The kind that killed poor Christo… in agony. But of course, you know that too.” Louis’ breathing became short.

  “Now, don’t go having a coronary before you’ve had the full treatment,” she admonished him gently.

  She poured the snake venom into the other liquid. Louis would never guess that unlike the first which really was Aqua Regia, the second was merely a mild solution of capsicum; the ‘venom’ she added to it just acetic acid and bleach. The mixture would sting like hell on exposed skin, but barely leave a rash.

  “Now,” she said slipping the suicide note onto his bedside table, “here’s the last decision you are going to make. Slow or quick?”

  She screwed a silencer into the end of Bill’s revolver then shoved the elongated barrel under Louis’ chin. She forced the butt of the pistol into Louis’ hand that was bound tight against his chest and put his forefinger on the trigger.

  “Let me help you, that looks awkward,” she whispered as she bent down and cocked the hammer.

  “Hair trigger, so be careful.”

  Cara held up the liquid and looked him dea
d in the eyes. “When I pour this onto your crotch, it will take the acid about a minute to burn off your cock and balls… maybe another three minutes of agony before the snake venom kicks in and attacks your lungs, unless you just bleed to death first. Either way you die here in agony. Or if you prefer quick, just pull the trigger.”

  Without another word she dumped the liquid over his exposed groin and within seconds the capsicum and bleach started to burn his skin.

  Louis made his choice and blew off the top of his skull.

  75

  MANILA, PHILIPPINES

  Several months had passed since the events in the cave. Haribon looked around the new apartment which he had recently moved into. The views across the city were magnificent and he watched the crowds as they scuttled and scurried past gaudy fairy lights to enjoy Christmas Eve celebrations.

  He had been sanguine about the supposed suicide of Louis McConnell who had been found at a luxurious spa all alone, stark naked, a simple suicide note, and a fatal gunshot wound to his head.

  Haribon had spent much of October in China with his new partner, Tyler Gemmell. They had struck a number of lucrative deals for the supply of motion picture equipment. Furthermore, it looked as if production of film and television was to be a major commitment from the Chinese government over the next few years. The new joint venture between Gemmell Group and Golden Eagle Trust, EagleGem, was going to be at the forefront and the search was already on in Hollywood for suitable scripts.

  Haribon remembered smiling when Tyler had mentioned one night over dinner how Louis had been wrong on several counts.

  “I now see the value in reading scripts, and recognize in you, Haribon, a man I can do business with … On top of that I finally got Benjamin to work for me,” said Tyler raising a glass.

  “To men like us… honest. Just not fanatics.” Haribon toasted his new partner.