by John Gubert
The car continued to track them. It moved closer as the traffic cleared. If they wanted to make a strike, they would do so soon. The road ahead was clear. They could attack, then take one of many turnoffs and disappear into the bowels of New York.
Claire was looking intently at the car and its occupants. She screwed up her eyes as she stared into the following car. She started all of a sudden. Her lip was trembling. She was looking worried.
“Are you armed?” she asked nervously.
He nodded. There was no way that he risked travelling without a gun. His permit helped him and the special treatment he had arranged with the Commander meant that he did not have to surrender the weapon even at the airport. She had had to leave her gun. She would have picked up one on her return home. She turned towards him.
“They’re enforcers. They work for Di Maglio. They’re good. One of his top teams. And they’ll only have one mission. That’ll be to kill. Either you or me, or both of us. So it’s them or us.”
“Claire, our only hope is to shoot out their tyres and make them crash. And there’s a risk that this driver will crash if I do that. We’ll have to take that risk. It’s no use telling him in advance what we’re doing. It’ll only panic him.”
She indicated her agreement and then gave him careful instructions.
“Wait till they drive alongside us. If they come on my side, then I’ll duck out of your way and you can shoot through the window.” She looked at him nervously, “You think you can manage that?”
“Do I have a choice?”
She shook her head and whispered, “Good luck.”
The limousine pulled closer to them. He waited, leaning back in his seat ready to turn in either direction. The taxi was making it easy for them. The driver was speeding along in the central lane. He hoped they’d come on his side. That would make the shot that much easier. He saw that was not going to be the case. The long grey limousine pulled alongside them effortlessly. Its bonnet was alongside them and so was the driver.
He pulled the trigger as a burst of gunfire raked the side of their car. His bullet hit the car and its window shattered but did not break. They must have been bullet-proof. He lent over Claire who was lying forward to give him space and fired again. This time he aimed at the tyres and not the driver. There was a small explosion as a tyre burst.
The car swerved across the road and hit the central reservation. It bounced back into the path of another car. The two cars clashed together in an angry screeching of metal buckling against metal. They then bounded apart and swerved in opposite directions. The cab driver, his eyes wide open in abject terror, was babbling away in some obscure language. Charles yelled at him to brake and he must have heard. The tyres clung screaming to the road as they locked. He must have stamped on the foot brake with all his strength. They skidded from one side to another although, as Charles was flung from side to side, he caught a glimpse of the grey car well under control and speeding away ahead of them.
It was oblivious or indifferent to the turmoil in its wake. Its tyres were special as well. The bullets had done no immediate damage. The cab was slowing down now to a halt as they powered sideways up the road before ending up against a crash barrier. Cars behind them were stopping and a series of mini accidents littered the freeway.
“Get out,” he called to Claire. There was a danger that someone would crash into them or that the taxi would start to burn. She didn’t move. All of a sudden, he became conscious of a low groan. It sounded like an animal in pain. It was a soft, dull sound of anguish and fear. It came from Claire as she crouched forward, just as she had done some moments ago to make space for him to fire at the car.
But she should have got up by now. He stretched out his hand and touched her chest. He felt her body against his. It was cold where it had been warm. It was moist where it should have been dry. It was stained dark where it should have been white. She was covered in blood. Her breath was coming through in gasps.
He turned her round and looked her in the eyes. They were still soft and gentle, but the light had left them. There was a haze over them. He pulled open her shirt and saw the marks of the bullets that had hit her.
Her lips moved and he bent over her to hear what she had to say. At first he failed, he could not catch the words. Her voice was overpowered by the growing turmoil around him. There she lay, slumped on the seat of the wrecked taxi. Her clothes were covered in blood, her face was a pale shadow of its former self. The bullets had torn holes in her chest and her stomach.
“They killed my baby. They killed my baby. They killed me. I betrayed Di Maglio.”
Charles shouted now. He was overcome with pain. “Don’t leave. The farm. You forgot the farm. Riding the horse across the plain. Far away from anyone.”
“It was a dream.” And then her eyes stared lifelessly at him. The flow of blood slowed down. She was dead. She had been killed for betraying Di Maglio. Killed for helping Charles.
Charles looked around. He was crying. He cried for Claire. He cried for himself. He cried for what would happen. He cried for what could never be. The world was dark and cold. The people around him were lifeless as he sunk deeper into his anguish and grief.
He strode out of the car. He was furious. He brushed aside the people who had come to look and stare at the life that had gone. He sat at the side of the road and buried his head in his hands. He must have made a strange sight. He still had his gun in his hand. He was covered in Claire’s blood. Tears were streaming down his face. They were tears of rage as well as remorse and sadness.
The spectators preferred to look at Claire. They must have felt there was something strange about him. They may have felt he was dangerous. He quickly slipped the gun back in his leg holster and thought up a story for the police. The whining of the sirens and the flashing blue lights in the distance told him that they were fast approaching.
They moved towards him in moments. One group went to the car and moved away the spectators. They were talking to the driver. He noticed that they, too, had problems understanding him. The combination of shock, his possible illegal status and a foreign language combined to make him even more difficult to comprehend than the average New York taxi driver.
The group moving towards Charles did so cautiously. They had their guns at the ready for they must have established that he was armed. They came to a few yards of him and ordered him to put his hands up. Covering him with their guns, they frisked him and removed the gun from its holster.
“The gun’s quite legal.” Charles told them. “I’m a British banker. There have been threats against my family and me. That’s why I carry a gun. The dead girl was travelling with me by chance. We met at the airport and shared a cab. I’d forgotten to book a car. I usually have one laid on for me.”
“I think you’d better come with us. We’ll take you to the precinct. You’ll need to talk to the captain. They’ll need proof about what you are saying.”
So the police stuck to the formalities of his name and address. He gave them all the details they needed about Claire. The body was now being loaded into an ambulance and they let him go over to her for one last time.
He stood on the hard concrete of the freeway. He pulled back the blanket that covered her. He looked at the lifeless features. The eyes looked back at him but they said nothing. The skin was white. The hair was remarkably neat. She didn’t look like Claire any more. The face without emotions, the eyes without sparkle, the mouth shut in permanence. He said goodbye to her there in the desolation of crumpled metal and concrete barrenness that were so alien to her nature. He said “goodbye” to the child that she was and the child who would never be. He said “goodbye” to a girl he had loved.
He thought back to the sunny days in Barbados. He recalled the meetings in New York and London. The time they had all had together in the cottage and the laughter they had all shared. He remembered the chase across Europe and the night of love in the barn. He thought of the memory
of the present that had already become the past. He reflected on the strangeness of her life and the futility of her death.
In that one fleeting moment, as he looked at the face he no longer recognised, it all came back to him. Claire had been a promising student. She had told him that she’d been good at sport and popular with her fellows. Claire, who had been a model and then headed at ease with herself, down the road that corrupted her mind but not her soul. Claire who had moved into a circle where evil was a way of life. Claire had been part of a system that knew no respect for life. And the callous ordering of her death by a man he knew as his father-in-law. Death used as a warning, death used as an example. Kill to make a point.
He mourned a girl who deserved her farm. He mourned a mother who deserved her child. He mourned a life that shouldn’t have ended like that.
And he then swore to her memory that he would destroy the man who ordered her murder. He knew now that he wouldn’t play his game. He wouldn’t destroy him by gun or knife or fire. He would destroy him his way, stripping him of his power and wealth. Then he would leave him alone in his isolation. He knew now that he would make his plans. He knew now that family would have no meaning. He would be destroyed but he would leave him his life, leave him the desolation of death in living. He would give him the loneliness of exile in his home, he would strip him of his protection. He would strip him of his power. And without power he would be living in an endless impossible hell.
He bent over and kissed Claire’s lifeless face. He waited that one moment for a response. He waited to hear that it had all been a mistake. But the thought left him quickly. This was not what dreams were made of. He turned away and left her for good.
They drove to the police precinct in silence. He was ushered into the bareness of an interview room and asked to call his lawyer. A phone was produced and he rang the number. It took minutes before he was released. One phone call from the right quarters ensured that. The police were not to know that he had used the Di Maglio local firm. Di Maglio himself wouldn’t know. It was too trivial an issue to bring to his attention. Charles had no qualms about using Di Maglio resources for his purpose where needed and where he still could. Di Maglio, the man who was a major protagonist in the corruption which proliferated in New York. Di Maglio corrupted life in many countries. Charles and Jacqui knew how he operated and they would use that as they sought to destroy him.
Charles left the police station after changing. There was no way that he could go to the Pierre in the blood-stained clothes he had been wearing. He checked into the hotel and told the porter to take his case to his room.
He shut his eyes and worked to purge the events of the last hour or so from his mind. He then walked into the bar and over to the Honourable James. The world of business took over once again, as he went back to the web that would make them wealthy beyond their dreams.
Charles reeled the Honourable James further in by proposing that he could move his troublesome son to the States to work alongside the new chief executive. He jumped at the opportunity and comfort of distancing himself from his offspring. The boy was incompetent and Charles needed incompetent people to help him complete his work.
He thought through to the wives of the great and the good. They were signing documents as directors of special purpose companies without realising they were incriminating themselves. The more he wove this web, the more it was looking as if the very people he had been encouraged to retain in the company had duped him. The grey haired elite were going to take the biggest rap of them all when the crash came. He felt no remorse for them. They were all long past their sell by dates.
Charles left early and went to his room. He had the hard task of telling Jacqui and Maria about Claire. Jacqui would mourn her as a friend, and then would notch up another mark of hate against her father. He was less certain about Maria, for she and Claire had been close friends for too many years.
Yet, he had no choice and the calls needed to be made. He was right that Jacqui reacted with fury against her father. Maria strangled a sob and was ominously quiet. He told them to do nothing. He said they had to leave Di Maglio to him. He told Maria to be careful. Di Maglio would guess how she could react. Any false move now would be dangerous. And neither of them protested when he explained that, once the scam was in place, he planned to hit Di Maglio and hit him hard. He would leave him alive but, ominously, Di Maglio would wish he were dead.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
In the end, he spent the whole week in New York. The good thing was that they finalised the deal for the Di Maglio banks. They set the take-over date for the end of the following week. At that point the new CEO, McGarth, would assume control with the dubious benefit of support from the Honourable James’ dim-witted son.
Di Maglio had called Charles on the Tuesday.“Jacqui won’t return my calls. Why?”
“Perhaps she thinks that you’re a total slime.”
“What the fuck’s this all about?”
“Claire.”
“There has to be discipline. She disobeyed orders. I told her to report everything to me. She didn’t. She worked with you to double-cross me.”
Charles was astounded that Di Maglio so openly admitted he had had her killed. But he didn’t want to rise to any bait, so he ignored the comment.
“I guess also we’re not that happy that you kidnapped Juliet and got your people to shoot Jacqui.”
“Jacqui was an accident. She got in the way. That happens when you carry guns. The kidnap was necessary. You need to work with me on the rest of the Empire. Once the financial side is completed, then we’ll talk about the rest.”
“I don’t want to see you, let alone work with you.”
He laughed. It was a cold and malevolent sound. Charles felt uneasy as he sensed the hatred and contempt of that evil man. He knew the final battle was starting. He knew Di Maglio recognised that. He wanted them in his web and he’d play hard to get them there.
Charles saw Giovanni more often. It was evident that he was concerned at the antagonism between them. He thought it unhealthy. He saw them pushing each other to the brink, and he sensed that they would not stop before one of them had been destroyed. But there was nothing he could do and his first loyalty was always with his boss.
Between the formal meetings, Charles was working on another secure document. It was structured to run for exactly one page, and it was important that it fitted into the sale and purchase agreement after it had been signed.
The one page addition was to be slotted in among the warranties being given by the vendor. It contained the personal and absolute guarantee to all clients of the sold enterprises of one Di Maglio. When the US banks went into default, Di Maglio would be standing there with all his personal wealth.
They had agreed at the signing that they would initial all pages. All Charles needed to do was to ensure that there was a missing number on the Di Maglio copy and a correct number on the two others. As he would take charge of the copy for them as buyer, as well as a second copy to lodge with the US government, the only incomplete copy would be with Di Maglio.
And who was going to believe a Mafia boss when he protested that he had been duped? What government would not pursue him and all his assets to the end of the earth? And without money he would lose all his power. Without power, he would lose his grip on them. They would be safe. And they would have got their revenge.
The days were an endless round of meetings in New York. Charles had to get back to London on one day for business and explained his plans to Jacqui. She agreed with them wholeheartedly. He wanted her to be with him in New York for the signing. She would need to find a way to distract Di Maglio and Giovanni, for they could not risk that they were too alert. One lingering glance at page 33 of the agreement and they were sunk.
They agreed that the signing would be private. Charles would be there with Jacqui and the Honourable James, as well as McGarth. Di Maglio would be with Giovanni. Charles would initial each pa
ge of all the documents, then he would sign the final page and the Honourable James would witness it. Di Maglio would do likewise and Giovanni would witness. Then they would take their respective copies, hand the authorities’ copy to the lawyers who would file them and certify additional copies as needed by the bureaucracies around the world. Only the copy they would file with the authorities and Charles own copy would have the important 33rd page.
During that week he also ran through the status of their complex market manipulations. Stephens and Jack Ryder had created a series of trades on markets all over the world. The figures were impressive. It looked as if the bank were making a splendid profit on these. But, in reality, it was now losing one point three billion dollars. Nobody could trace the routing of these deals. They could only identify the point where the money disappeared into the ether. In every case, the signature at that point was that of one of the so-called respectable IBE nominated directors or their families. It looked as if the Honourable James and co. were up to their necks in it.
Jack Ryder had now also warehoused over two billion dollars of strange shares and was slowly pushing their prices up. It was working like a dream and soon they would have a sales drive of the US funds, which would use the cash from those sales to buy those stocks from them. It was clear that things were going better than they even planned. They were already over a billion up on the purchases. And, while they could never have sold out at that profit in a fair market, there were plenty of opportunities to do so with the cash held by the funds.
And the loans were progressing well. Just as with Stephens’ trades, they had been washed through the different companies. The secret accounts that Charles and Jacqui had set up with his parents had swollen already by a further billion and a half-dollars as a result. Once again payments had been authorised by a family member of one of the ‘great and the good.’ It now looked as if they could create more faked loans than originally planned, as the gullibility of those around them was such that it seemed a shame to be too conservative.