The Specter

by Saul, Jonas

  Julie stood from behind a bush ten meters to the right of his car and joined him at the passenger side door.

  “What happened?” she asked. “Are you all right?”

  Aaron nodded. “Yeah, close one though. Come on, get in.”

  He opened the door for her and walked around to get in his side, hoping she wouldn’t notice the gun he’d hidden in his waistband. When he sat in the car, he slipped it down beside the seat controls by the door. If men continued to show up with guns, maybe he needed one, too.

  “Where are we going?” Julie asked.

  “To the police station.”

  “Why?”

  “To report what just happened and to tell them about a man named Clive Baron.”

  “That’s the name the cops were talking about at the station earlier,” Julie said. “But I don’t really know who he is.”

  “I don’t know yet either, but I’m going to find out. I swear, I’m going to find out.”

  Aaron pulled his cell phone out and called 911 to report to the unconscious man in Julie’s backyard.

  Chapter 20

  Aaron pulled into a parking spot at the police station. He hoped Folley would still be there. He didn’t want to talk to anybody else.

  They had talked on the way back to the station, mostly so Julie could calm down and make sense of what had just happened at her home. Aaron showed her the list and Julie confirmed every name was either a waitress or a bouncer at the House of Lancaster except for the last two names. There was no address for the last two, just their names: Jackson and Hugh.

  They both guessed that the two men Aaron and his friends stopped at the club were probably the two names on the list. Addresses weren’t needed as both men were being held in jail so the intruder, now referred to by Aaron and Julie as the assassin, knew where to find them.

  “Let’s go inside, tell Folley everything and maybe he can assign cops to watch the people on the list until this thing is over.”

  Julie nodded. The lines in her face were taut from stress, fear in her eyes after finding out she was on the list. Aaron wanted to take all that fear and uncertainty away.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

  As they started up the front steps of the station, Folley walked out.

  “I’ve been waiting to talk to you,” Folley said.

  “I’ve been waiting to talk to you, too. Had something to clear up first.”

  “Yeah, what’s that?”

  “Had to stop another murder.”

  Folley stepped back, eyebrows raised. “What?”

  “A man with a gun stopped by Julie’s house because she’s on the list.”

  “A gun? What man? What list?”

  “Clive Baron has prepared an execution list, and the names on it are all the employees of the strip club where my sister worked. Also on that list are two names that might be the men who tried to blow the club up last night.”

  Folley’s squinted in disbelief. “Are you serious? How do you know about this list? How do you know about Clive? We just spent a lot of man hours identifying him from sketches and Google Images. I think maybe you’ve got some explaining to do. How the hell do you know so much?”

  “I have the list right here,” Aaron said as he pulled it out.

  “Where did you get it?” Folley asked.

  “Off the man who came to kill Julie.” Then Aaron leaned back and slapped his hands together. “Shit!”

  “What?” Julie asked.

  “I forgot to grab the guy’s cell phone.”

  “Why is that so important?” she asked.

  “He took a picture of me.”

  “He took your picture?” Folley asked, crossing his arms. “Why would he take your picture?”

  “He said he always takes a picture before he kills his victim for proof of life and then he takes a picture after he kills the person to prove to his employer that the job was completed. I should’ve grabbed the phone …”

  “Julie, where were you when all this happened?”

  “I jumped two fences to my neighbor’s backyard and saw Aaron’s car parked a block up. I hid in the bushes until I saw Aaron coming. I was giving him two or three more minutes before I started knocking on doors to get someone to call the police.”

  Folley turned back to Aaron. “Where is this man right now?”

  “He’s in Julie’s backyard, in need of medical attention. I called 911 on the way here to report it. Told them you were working the case and to call you with a heads-up.”

  Folley put his hands on his hips. “Will he still be alive when we get there?”

  Aaron nodded. “Yeah, but he took a terrible fall off the roof. I think he’s going to have eye trouble. When you send people to pick him up, ask them to grab that cell phone, will you?”

  Aaron and Julie followed Folley inside the station. He talked to a dispatcher and told her to call his office when the units at Julie’s house apprehend the intruder. Then motioned them to join him in his office.

  Folley settled behind his desk. Julie took a chair by the desk, and Aaron leaned against the wall by the door as he eyed the Rubik’s Cube.

  “Don’t touch it,” Folley said.

  No one spoke for a moment, then Folley ran his hands through his thick hair and shook his head.

  “This is serious shit,” Folley said. “We have a lot of dead people, mercs downstairs in holding, billionaires hunting people for who knows why and martial arts experts beating people up and saving lives. Can you tell me what’s really going on?”

  “What’s a merc?” Aaron asked.

  “Mercenary. A hired gun.”

  “Oh,” Aaron said. He explained everything he had figured out so far. He started at his research on the David Hornell Ferry all the way to following Julie in the police car and talking to her in her home about what happened at the club the previous evening. He explained why his three friends were there and how all he wanted was answers to Joanne’s death.

  “So what next?” Aaron asked.

  “Pretty much everything you just told me I already knew. We’d gathered a lot through our interviews with the staff at your club,” he gestured to Julie.

  “It’s not my club,” she said.

  “You know what I mean …”

  “I won’t be going back there. I’ll find some other way to make money. I’m sick of getting my ass slapped by pigs, not to mention gunmen and bombs. I’m fucking done.”

  Folley cleared his throat and leaned back in his chair. His face changed. There was something Folley wasn’t saying.

  “What is it?” Aaron asked. “What’s the next step? Are we still in danger, or can you assign people to watch everyone on this list?”

  “The best way to deal with this is to stop the person who authored the list. Remove the threat and everything goes away.”

  “How do you do that?”

  “Bump it upstairs.”

  “What does that mean?” Aaron asked.

  “I handle missing persons cases. Because many of my case files were located at Casa Loma, I have paperwork filed for a temporary transfer to homicide where I could help Detective Wheeler and her team. But since this is above her head, this case will be out of our hands by the end of day.”

  “What?” Aaron pushed off the wall. “Then who do we talk to? Why would they do that if you’re the most familiar?”

  “This is international. We’re dealing with hired thugs from around the world, a rich British man living in Russia and mass murder. Guys like me don’t handle things like that.”

  “Great,” Aaron said and threw his arms in the air. “I don’t want to talk to random officers at different times. Who do I call if I run into trouble? I’m just getting used to you handling everything.”

  “You won’t have to worry about that.”

  Aaron frowned. “Why not.”

  “Your part is done. You’re out of this. You’ve got enough trouble with your court case com
ing up in a few months. Just hope that John Ashcroft doesn’t die in that coma or the charge gets raised to murder.”

  Julie spun in her chair to stare at Aaron.

  “That’s not fair,” Aaron said. “Low blow.”

  Folley nodded. “True, but it doesn’t excuse the fact that a man clings to life because of what you did to him. Then you’re in the club last night with your friends and now there’s a guy who fell in Julie’s backyard. Eventually something will catch up with you and you won’t be able to shirk it off.”

  Aaron looked at his shoes, mostly to avoid Julie’s stare. She probably thought him a monster. How could he hurt someone so bad to put them into a coma and flip the bouncer in front of her, let alone escape an assassin with a gun, yet cry in her arms in her living room only an hour ago?

  Maybe he was a monster. Maybe the pain of the past was creeping through, and martial arts was his excuse to let loose on a world that hurt him.

  With water in his eyes, he looked up, avoided Julie’s stare and glared at Folley. “I don’t give a shit about policies, cases, or what country the criminal lives in.” He paused to wipe his mouth. “I lost my sister—my only family—and I’m going to find out who was responsible and make them pay, whether that means bringing them to you via a hospital or a coffin.”

  Folley stood. Cops didn’t get intimidated as easily as the average guy.

  “You will do no such thing. You will provide a formal statement,” Folley smacked the top of his desk, “and then you’ll go home where you will remain until I can update you on the case. If you feel you have a problem with that, I will contact your lawyer, Anthony Garrett and discuss house arrest until your own case comes to court. Don’t test me, Aaron Stevens. You may be an amazing fighter, but you can’t fight the law and win.”

  Aaron almost smiled as a song popped into his head. It was over. There was nothing left to say to Folley. He was giving up just like he did when Aaron first met him. Giving up before he even got started. He knew laziness when he saw it.

  “You’ve got my statement. I just told it to you. And now I’m leaving.” Aaron opened the door and stepped into the corridor.

  He heard Folley coming around his desk and stopped to face him. Then the phone rang. Folley debated whether he should pick the phone up or fight with Aaron some more.

  Decision made, he lunged for the phone.

  “Yeah?” A pause. He looked at Aaron and then Julie. “Yes, this is Folley.” After a moment, “What? You’ve checked the whole place?” Folley hung up the phone. He sat down at his desk again.

  Julie leaned over Folley’s desk.

  “What’s going on?” she asked. “Who was that?”

  Aaron came back into the room, leaving the door ajar.

  Folley gave all his attention to Aaron. “The officers at Julie’s house didn’t find anybody in the backyard.”

  “What?” Aaron nearly shouted.

  “They found what looks like bullet holes in the front door and a smashed vase in the kitchen, but no one was there.”

  “Impossible. He couldn’t see out of one eye. The pain was too great. He passed out …” Aaron spewed his thoughts out before remembering what he’d told Folley when he arrived at the police station.

  “I thought you said he fell from the roof.”

  “I didn’t lie,” Aaron said. “He did fall from the roof.” He showed Folley a small grass stain on his shirt. “I fell too. Landed on top of him.”

  “So what happened to his eye?”

  “For a cop, you’re asking the wrong questions.”

  “Oh yeah, what questions should I be asking?”

  “You should want to know where this guy is. You should be on the phone or whatever it is you guys communicate with, calling all cars in the area of Royal York Road to be on the lookout for a tall man wearing black gloves with blood and mucus dripping from a hole in his face where his left eye used to be. That’s what you should be doing.”

  “Well, let me get right on that,” Folley said, not moving. “Look, I’m a missing persons case file go-to guy. I don’t hunt assassins in the streets of Toronto. That’s someone else’s job.”

  “Fine,” Aaron said, his forefinger raised. “I’ll do it.”

  He slipped out the door, closed it firmly and ran for the front of the building. He cleared the stairs outside in one leap and made his car before Folley got outside.

  Aaron squealed out of the parking lot intent on gathering Daniel, Alex and Benjamin again.

  He needed them to finish the mess.

  He needed them to help him find a way to get to Russia without a passport because Clive Baron was about to have an unwanted visitor.

  Chapter 21

  Clive Baron lounged in bed, waiting for Jessica to bring him his treat. It was near four in the morning, and he wanted to get up to see what was happening in Toronto as it would be around eight in the evening there. He wondered what the next boy would be like and fantasized about a young nubile. He hated body hair and hoped Jessica’s choice would be hairless.

  The phone rang beside him. He pushed down on his erection, applying pressure, and debated whether or not to answer the phone.

  It rang again.

  “What?”

  The caller was out of breath. Clive heard panting and what sounded like the caller was running.

  “Hello?” he asked, sitting up in bed. “Who is this? How did you get through to this number?”

  The phone in Clive’s room only rang when Jessica put a call through. Whoever was calling had already spoken to his gatekeeper.

  “Answer me or I’m hanging up,” he said. And Jessica will lose a month’s pay for this.

  “You bastard,” the caller said through panting breath.

  Clive could tell the caller wasn’t running. It sounded like wind through an open car window and the panting was grunts of pain.

  “Identify yourself.”

  “You sent me after some kind … of fighter without telling me.”

  It was hard to hear the man speak as it sounded like he was talking through clenched teeth, but Clive picked up enough to determine it was Nick Sturnam.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Clive asked as he stood and stared down at the phone’s base.

  “The list you emailed me … the waitress had a boyfriend. And now I’ve lost an eye.”

  “It’s all fun and games, now isn’t it? I’d suggest you continue with the list. You’re still inside the twenty-four hour mark.”

  “There will be no continuing with the fucking list.”

  “That is not a safe answer.”

  “Safe for who?” Nick asked.

  “I’ll be fine. I always win. I’m untouchable. You, on the other hand …”

  Clive waited for Nick to sign his own death warrant. He had access to many more professionals worldwide. Men he had employed in the past. Nick wouldn’t make it to the weekend if he didn’t appease Clive.

  “If you’re so untouchable, then why take out these people? How can they hurt you?”

  “That’s my business. Will you continue with the list, or do I assign a new team to my Toronto troubles?”

  The sound of wind died down as Nick pulled his car over, Clive surmised. “I need something from you first.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’m a block away from a doctor that’ll patch me up and shoot me up. When I’m done here, I need a name and an address and everything else you can get for me. This man has seen my face. He has to be cleaned up first, otherwise he may try to stop me again.”

  “Then you’ll continue with the list?”

  “With pleasure.”

  “The man you need identified … who is this person to you?”

  “The man who protected the waitress and took out my left eye. I will email you a picture of his face. Find me a name. He goes first, then I finish your list. Deal?”

  “I’ll watch for your email, but I still want my demands met. Twenty-four hours and the list is completed.
”

  It wasn’t a question. Clive knew Nick enough to know that he understood how serious the list was and the sense of urgency.

  “Just get me a name,” Nick said and the connection clicked off.

  Clive held the phone out and stared at it. When this was all over, Nick would have to go too. He had proved to be a liability. He forgot who was in charge. There were thousands of men for Clive to hire in the future. That was the pleasure of his business; he had unlimited resources for exterminating. The Americans, the Russians, and the Israelis were training his future mercenaries at that very moment. All Clive had to do was wait until their government left them in the battlefield, made them part of a cover-up story or disrespected them in some harsh way. Then Clive would step in, offer a financial package and a lucrative deal any soldier would accept and, poof, he had another hired gun. He’d done it over a hundred times in the last dozen years and he would do it another hundred.