The Specter
Page 20
Aaron adjusted the bed as high as it would go without causing too much pain.
“Why were you arguing … about money?” Aaron asked.
Benjamin glanced at his friends and gave Aaron a sheepish grin. “Alex lent us the money to fly here. We were talking about how to pay it back.”
“Why are you guys … here?” Aaron asked, surprised at how raspy his voice was. “How did you know?”
“I’ll tell you.” Daniel cleared his throat and crossed his legs like he was getting settled to make a speech. “It all started at the hotel. When you told me to research Clive Baron, I found out a lot of stuff, most of it bad. When these guys showed up, we talked, but we couldn’t agree on anything.” He leaned forward and gestured with his hands. “You have to understand, we were scared. Your sister had been murdered, and you were going up against a billionaire. We thought that if we said we wouldn’t help, you would go to the police and seek protection or something.” He looked at the brothers for support and then back at Aaron. “We didn’t think you’d continue alone.” He paused and swallowed hard, fidgeting with the cuff of his pant leg.
Aaron waited for him to continue.
“We decided at the last minute that we had to help. Alex and I stuck our heads out the window of the hotel to yell at you to come back to the room. As you got to your car we saw some guy jump up and club you over the head and then shove you into your own car. We yelled at him, but he got in your car and drove off. As we tried to leave the room, a man with a large bandage over one eye was standing in the hall with a gun aimed at us.”
Daniel high-fived Alex.
“What was that for?” Aaron asked.
“Alex snuck around me and snapped the guy’s wrist in half while shoving the barrel of the gun up. It happened so fast even I didn’t see Alex coming.”
Aaron smiled. It was his first smile in days.
“Anyway,” Daniel continued, “we figured this bandaged guy would know something about where the other guy was taking you. It didn’t take too much persuasion—although he ended up with seven broken fingers before he told us all the details—and then we drove across to Toronto’s main airport and bought tickets for the next flight to Athens. When we landed in Greece, we took a bus to Nafplio the same day. It was the day they started your interrogation. Boy, were we happy we weren’t late for the party.”
“What happened to the bandaged guy?” Aaron asked, remembering something from Clive’s cell phone call in the prison room.
“We gave him an option. We would break all his toes so he couldn’t run when the police came to the hotel, or he could jump from the hotel window and take his chances. We thought he’d break an ankle or a leg if he jumped. Well, the guy decided to jump. Who knew he’d land wrong and snap his neck.”
“How did you get into the fortress?”
“We waited until the sun dropped, scaled a small wall at the far end of Palamidi, it was only about ten feet high, and used all our ninja skills,” the three of them snickered like little kids, “to take out the guys who had weapons. Clive proved the trickiest. Once we had taken out the guards, we heard a car coming up the road. I asked Alex to stay at the main gate to see who it was and to stop Clive if he was trying to leave. Benjamin and I found you unconscious and bleeding. Somehow Clive got past us on our way to you. We called for an ambulance and then we heard a horrific crash.” He looked over at Alex. “You can continue from here.”
Alex nodded, cracked his knuckles, tilted his head back and forth and said, “I saw Clive get in a Mercedes. I had no way of stopping him, so I threw a big rock at the windshield and ran out in front of the car. It swerved and went off the road. I had no idea it would catch fire and explode halfway down the hill. I think the fire at that hour helped emergency services get to us faster. It’s pretty dry here in Greece this time of year and with a fire that close to the city … well, let’s just say, they were true to their Olympian form in handling the fire like Spartans.”
Always the gamer, Aaron thought.
Daniel jumped back in. “We didn’t kill any guards, just put them to sleep. When the police arrived, they arrested everyone but us. As far as I know, they’ve all been charged with kidnapping, assault and attempted murder. Clive’s accident has been classified as just that, an accident.”
Aaron couldn’t believe it. His sister’s murderer was dead and it was with the help of his students, his friends.
He looked away to hide the tears that crept past his eyes. An uncomfortable silence filled the room.
Alex broke it. “You okay?”
Aaron nodded. “Just give me a moment.”
He heard one of them move away. Someone cleared their throat. Aaron wiped at the tears and looked back at them.
“I’m sorry, I should be more grateful. It’s just …”
“What?” Benjamin asked.
“It’s just, I’ve lost Joanne. I wanted to make her killer pay. I wanted to hunt Clive down and make him feel it,” he stopped to collect himself. The pain was returning in his chest near his bullet wounds. He wondered if talking had re-opened the wounds. “It’s just, I failed her. When I needed to stand up, I fell down.”
“You know the proverb,” Daniel said. “Fall seven times, stand eight.”
Aaron nodded. “When these guys took me, I knew I was finished. I gave up. If it wasn’t for you guys, I would be dead right now.” He winced. “Although with the pain I’m in, maybe dead is a good option. At least I’d be with my sister.”
“I’ll get the doctor.” Alex jumped to his feet.
“Hold up,” Aaron said. He clenched his teeth and waited for the pain to subside. Alex made it to the hospital room door and held the handle, waiting for Aaron to speak.
“I want you guys to know that,” Aaron started, “that you’re my family now. You guys are my brothers. What you did for me, even family members wouldn’t do. Who needs family when I have people like you in my life?”
Alex opened the door.
“When my parents walked away all those years ago, I was alone. But now I’m walking away from them, I’m letting it go. There’s solitude and comfort there. Thank you for allowing me to see that.”
The pain took over, and Alex slipped out the door. Aaron looked at his casts as his eyes watered. He knew he would walk again. He would fight again. He would live. If not for himself, for Joanne.
Clive was dead, the nightmare over.
Aaron wondered if Clive’s secret died with him.
Chapter 29
Four months later …
Alex insisted on pushing the wheelchair. Benjamin and Daniel followed in their oversized suits, trying to look respectable.
The courtroom was packed. Dozens of people had come to see what would happen.
John Ashcroft, the man Aaron had beat up and put in a coma, had awakened six weeks ago. He had called for his wife and asked for her forgiveness and a divorce. Aaron heard that the man didn’t feel worthy of marriage anymore. He called to see his daughter, but she still refused to see him.
John asked to see Aaron Stevens, but that request was denied by his lawyer.
Then John Ashcroft waived all charges. He claimed he wouldn’t show up in court as the complainant. He did not want to press charges.
When his lawyer tried to convince him otherwise, John said he would show up in court and tell the judge that he had asked his Shotokan karate teacher, Aaron Stevens, for private lessons. They had been sparring, which was usual in the dojo and John had willingly pushed Aaron to spar as if they were street fighting. Things got out of hand, but that was it. He would claim that Aaron was his friend and that he forgave him. It was over. Let it go.
The lawyers had met, and today’s court date was only a formality.
All charges were dismissed. He was a free man with no criminal record. He already had designs on a new dojo. A bigger, better building where Alex, Benjamin, and Daniel would take on teaching roles until Aaron had healed enough to come on full time.
They
exited the courthouse, turned the corner by the stairs and Alex rolled Aaron down the wheelchair ramp.
It was his last week in a chair. His physiotherapist said he would be taking the chair back. Aaron was walking well enough on his own. The chair was lent to him only for his court appearance.
At the bottom of the ramp, a man stepped out of the shadows and called Aaron’s name. The chair stopped and Alex moved in front of Aaron.
“It’s okay, Alex. That’s Folley. He’s a cop.”
Alex moved aside, cracking his knuckles. Aaron caught Daniel wrapping an arm around Alex’s shoulders to rein him in.
“Aaron, I wanted to congratulate you. I’m happy to see the charges dropped. It was the right thing to do.”
Aaron nodded his thanks.
“I found a few things out recently that I thought you should know.”
“Like what?” Aaron asked.
The sun beat down between them, but Aaron still shivered in his chair. It was late November, the air crisp in downtown Toronto. Cabs honked their horns, cars raced by and police sirens wailed in the distance. Life in Toronto stopped for no one.
“We discovered Clive Baron’s secret.”
“I’m not sure I’m interested anymore.”
“Bullshit.” Folley said. “I know you. I saw what you did with that Rubik’s Cube. You like a puzzle. You want to know as much as I did.”
Aaron didn’t move or ask his brothers to move him.
“Clive owned grain alcohol distilleries in the States. He was meeting scientists in Toronto to help perfect his recipes.”
Aaron squinted in the sun, listening. So far he couldn’t see what secret would be worth killing for.
“In a nutshell, his company, the grain alcohol distillers, would dye their alcohol blue to make it look like windshield washer fluid and the barrels were labeled as such. Then they were shipped to Russia, avoiding all duties that would be levied on imported liquor. Inspectors in Russia would see the liquid was blue and it was labeled as windshield washer fluid and then let it in the country.”
Folley stopped to cough and then continued. “Once it was in Russia, there was no way to tell whether the taxes had been paid or not. The smugglers, Clive’s men, then removed the coloring using special instructions from the scientists Clive employed for just this task. The contraband alcohol had flavor added and was bottled. Then it was sold to unsuspecting retailers across Russia through a massive distribution center in Moscow as genuine vodka called, Absolutely Russian Vodka. He kept his actual alcohol shipments to ten percent of his overall imports so no one would question his activities.”
Folley pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket. He talked while keeping his head down. “Did you know that the average Russian citizen drinks up to twelve gallons of vodka per year? That’s more spirits than any other nation.”
“No, I didn’t know that,” Aaron said.
Alex made to move the wheelchair around but stopped when Folley raised his arm, extending the paper to Aaron.
“Here, this is for you.”
No one made an attempt to take it from Folley.
“What is it?” Aaron asked.
“It’s the information on your parents. I found them.”
Aaron wasn’t sure he heard him right. “What?”
“Your parents. I found them. They’re still alive and living ten minutes drive from here. I know why they walked away from you and your sister all those years ago. Everything’s here on this paper if you decide to contact them.”
Aaron stared at the paper, not allowing his expression to change. He had waited for this day for so many years and now that it was finally here, he just stared.
“Let me tell you something, Folley.”
The cop lowered his hand, the paper clenched in his fingers, and waited.
“One day, the Buddha was teaching his ideas on a hillside. A man showed up and started yelling at him, calling him crazy and shouting that he shouldn’t be filling people’s heads with such nonsense. The Buddha turned to the angry man and asked if he had a white piece of paper. The man was befuddled, but he produced a piece of paper and handed it to the Buddha, who accepted it and then promptly handed it back. The man asked why he did that. Why take it and then hand it back? The Buddha explained that the man’s anger was the paper and that was what the Buddha was doing with the man’s anger. He was letting him keep it.”
Aaron turned his chair around on his own and pushed the wheels. “Goodbye, Folley. May my parents rest in peace.”
“But Aaron, they’re your family.”
Aaron stopped his wheelchair and half turned back. “No, Folley.” He pointed to Alex, Daniel, and Benjamin. “These men are my family. They were there when I needed them. They took risks for me and stood by me. That’s family. It has nothing to do with blood or DNA, and everything to do with humanity.”
He pushed away again. As his brothers followed, he shouted over his shoulder to Folley, “Solve the Rubik’s Cube and you’ll know what I’m talking about. Life is a puzzle, and you have to work it out for you, and only you can work it out.”
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About Jonas Saul
Jonas Saul is the author of the Sarah Roberts Series and The Mafia Trilogy. Visit his website, www.jonassaul.com for upcoming release dates. Jonas lives in Washington, USA with his wife, Romance author Brenda Grate.
Contact Jonas Saul
Website: http://www.jonassaul.com
Twitter: @jonassaul
Email: authorjonassaul@gmail.com
Jonas Saul Titles
The Sarah Roberts Series
1. Dark Visions
2. The Warning
3. The Crypt
4. The Hostage
The Mafia Trilogy
1. The Kill
2. The Blade
The Threat
The Specter
Short Stories
Visitations - A Book of Short Stories
The Burning
Trapped
The Fetish
The Elements
Hatred
PUBLISHED BY:
Imagine Press
The Title
Copyright © The Specter by Jonas Saul
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Beginning
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
About the Author