The Shadow Priest

by D. C. Alexander

  Arkin sat down in the desk chair, frustrated, and tried to think. Was this place just another letter drop? Was it just another address of record for another voicemail box that someone accessed from elsewhere? No. This was different. His gut told him the artist gallery owner, the magnificent Andrej Petrović, could be the assassin. Perhaps tomorrow Petrović would drop by to touch up a painting or sculpture, and Arkin would track him home after work. Perhaps the day after tomorrow Arkin would drive his thumbs through the man's magnificent eye sockets.

  Then he noticed something. The back room seemed slightly narrower than the gallery space of the front half of the building. Yet from the outside, the building appeared to be of uniform width from front to back. He studied the wall that the long table and wardrobe stood against, then the opposite wall against which the desk stood. The wall by the desk was painted brick. But the other was finished with drywall. He slipped out the back door again and examined the side of the building. No other external door. He went back inside, opening the wardrobe to find a black wool overcoat, a smock, and several aprons on hangers. He slid them aside and tapped a knuckle against the back panel. It made a hollow sound, as if the panel were unusually thin.

  He fiddled with the wardrobe for several more minutes before discovering that the middle third of the inside right panel could be pressed inward, unlatching the secret door that the rear panel really was. He stepped into a narrow wooden stairwell and climbed to a small, unlit, five-by-five room in the center of the roof, far enough from the front or rear edges of the building to be out of sight from the immediate surroundings. It looked like an old greenhouse of some sort. Probably built by a long-vanished, small-time pot grower. The ceiling and two of the walls encompassed large glass windows of many panes. In one direction, the room looked out across the waters of False Creek to the beautiful twinkling skyline of downtown Vancouver.

  Tempted to flip the light switch that presumably lit the single bare bulb in the ceiling at the top of the stairs, but worried it would announce his presence to anyone who could see the building, he opted to examine the room with his keychain light. All the room contained was a small table with a fax machine and telephone on it. The fax machine was a similar looking model of the same brand as the one he had in his office back in Durango. It was on. In the in-tray, a fax titled "salmon harvest projections," the first page of which contained unintelligible columns of numbers. A code? The second page consisted of nothing more than a hand-scribbled address in the town of Stony Plain, Alberta.

  He picked up the telephone handset, pressed the redial button, and listened. The number dialed had many digits. An overseas number. He listened as a foreign sounding ring tone began to cycle. A man answered.

  "Hola. Buenos tardes."

  Arkin stared out the window distractedly. Mexico? Spain? South America?

  "Hola?" the man said again.

  Arkin hung up, took a pen and scrap of paper from his pocket, then pressed redial several more times, hanging up before the ring ever commenced, until he deciphered the entire number from the pattern of dialed tones. Then the hairs on the back of his neck went up. He sensed he was being watched. He quickly pressed the proper combination of buttons to print a full report of the numbers for recent incoming and outgoing faxes, shoved the report and the faxes in the "in" tray into his pocket, unplugged the machine to erase any electronic trace of what he had done from its temporary memory, then plugged it back in. As he turned to go back down the stairs, he heard the back door of the gallery squeak on its hinge. He stepped back off of the upper landing, back into the room. What to do. The surrounding windows didn't appear to open. He took a quick peek down the stairs, just long enough to register the image of a man's face—a man with long, dark, moderately curly hair—peeking around the corner at the bottom, and an arm aiming a gun back up at him. It fired, but not until Arkin was back behind cover.

  Shit.

  "Now hold on there, partner," Arkin shouted with a confident tone intended to give his attacker pause. "I just want to buy one of your psycho paintings. The 'Darkness' one. I have a perfect spot for it in my beach house. Why don't you come on up and we'll haggle."

  The man didn't seem to be coming. Perhaps—as Arkin hoped—he thought Arkin might be armed too, and knew better than to get caught in the fatal funnel of a narrow stairwell. But his assumption would soon change if Arkin didn't return fire. Arkin picked up the fax machine and threw it through the windows. Then he picked up the small table it had sat on and used it to break out more of the glass and framing to make a bigger hole. As soon as it was big enough for him to jump through, he threw the table down the stairs, provoking another two gunshots, with one bullet grazing the stairwell wall, splintering the wood trim and sending bits of plaster flying.

  Arkin dove out the hole in the window and onto the flat tar roof of the building. Knowing his assailant would be up the stairs in a blink, he ran around to the opposite side of the rooftop room, taking cover behind its windowless side. He was maybe 12 feet from the edge of the roof, at least 30 feet above the ground. The next building over stood across the gap of the alley. It was too far to jump. He went to the edge and looked over. No dumpster full of soft trash to break his fall like in the movies. But there was a tin downspout that ran down from the gutter near one end of the building. Arkin knew it was his only chance. His palms wet and his hands nearly trembling from his sudden fear of the height, he ran to and straddled the downspout, lowering himself onto it while holding the flimsy edge of the gutter. Down, down he shimmied, until, without warning, the section of downspout he was holding came loose and, bending at a point at least 15 feet down, tipped out over the alley. Arkin hung on, still high in the air, until the top of the loose section of downspout hit the brick wall of the building on the far side of the alley. The bottom end still held fast to the wall of the Liber gallery where it had bent, and Arkin slid down it like a fire pole until he was low enough to jump. The fall was at least 10 feet, and the soles of his feet burned from the impact. But otherwise, he seemed okay.

  He took off running, heard the pop-pop of his pursuer's gunfire, and watched a large storefront window explode into shards on the far side of the street before he rounded the corner. His pursuer was out on the street now and had the angle on him—had him cut off from the bridge off the island, unless he miscalculated, which he wouldn't. So Arkin sprinted for the nearest access to the water. To get there, he would have to cross a narrow alley that might give his pursuer a clear shot. Still, the alley couldn't have been more than 15 feet across, and at the speed he was running, the chances of his being hit were next to zero. But as he came out from behind the cover of the building on the near side of the alley, he heard another two pops, and felt a bullet rip a burning hole through his side just below the bottom edge of his rib cage. His torso rotated in response as he clamped one arm down over the wound, the other flailing to keep him balanced. He managed to keep his feet, recomposed himself, ran down onto a dock lined with moored yachts and sailboats, and dove straight off the end of it, into the frigid waters of False Creek Inlet. He swam the breadth of the waterway without once coming up for air, though his lungs burned and the bullet wound in his side screamed with pain. He limped ashore in front of a line of new row houses, looking over his shoulder to see a single car racing across the bridge. His pursuer, surely. He ran up into the streets of the neighborhood, all the while hoping beyond hope that the ink of the printed fax reports didn't bleed out now that they were soaked with saltwater. Glancing over his shoulder once again, he spotted the glow of a rapidly growing fire back over on Granville Island, in the vicinity of the gallery. Of course.

  Two blocks up from the water, he turned a corner and stopped to catch his breath, pressing his back against the side of an old brick apartment building. He was beginning to feel faint. He pressed his hand against his side, then held it up near his face for a look. It was covered in blood. His time was running out. He listened for the sound of the car. All he heard was the begging meow o
f a cat. Peeking back around the corner, he spotted his pursuer down at the intersection with the road that ran along the water. The man stood just in front of his car, and appeared to be studying the ground with a flashlight. Just as it occurred to Arkin that he'd left a clear trail of wet footprints, the man abruptly looked up, straight at him. Arkin pulled his face back around the corner, hoping he hadn't been seen, and took off running again. Hoping to conceal his tracks, he ran within a sidewalk planting strip, off the pavement, and then through the community green space of a new low-rise condo complex, stepping in several piles of dog shit as he went.

  Three blocks further, he dove into a deep, tall laurel hedge behind an old row house, crawling through until nearly emerging in the home's backyard. There, he crouched, short of breath, exhausted, growing lightheaded. For a moment he lost his balance and, leaning forward, would have fallen onto all fours, or maybe even his face, had the many small branches of the hedge not held him suspended, nearly upright. He shook his head in a futile attempt to wake himself up. Then, certain he'd already lost a lot of blood, and despite the great pain it caused, he used the palm of his hand to try to put direct pressure on his wound. Through the leaves, branches, and twigs of the hedge, he could see occasional fragments of whatever was being illuminated by his pursuer's flashlight beam. While still half a block away, the man appeared to be making his way up the street, slowly drawing closer and closer.

  Arkin could feel his consciousness beginning to flag. His eyelids were heavy. As quietly as he could, he squirmed down lower against the ground, maximizing his concealment. Then he heard a growl that sounded like that of a small dog. It was somewhere in the yard flanked by the hedge, but up closer to the house. He froze, but the dog began to bark anyway. It must have been chained or fenced off as it didn't come any closer. But it would be enough to alert his pursuer as to his location. Seeing no further point to hiding from the residents of the row house, he used all the energy he had left to crawl out of the hedge and fall into the backyard. The dog was now barking wildly, but Arkin was too tired to care. The firm earth cradled his body as he began to pass out. He was strangely comfortable. He thought he heard rustling on the other side of the hedge, as if someone else were trying to crawl through. But he'd lost his bearings and couldn't be sure. Inexplicably, as he let his eyes close at last, a vision of a smiling Hannah flashed across his mind. She was sitting behind the wheel of a tiny green convertible they'd once rented in the British Virgin Islands, a sugar sand beach and the turquoise waters of the Caribbean behind her. The sky was clear blue, and an extraordinarily brilliant sun bathed them in bright yellow-white light. Then everything faded to black.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Arkin began to come to. He opened his eyes a crack, his blurred vision affording him a distorted view of a small white room lit by painfully bright lights. His side throbbed with a dull pain. What is that oily smell? As he struggled to reassemble his awareness, nausea rose up and overwhelmed him. He clenched his abdomen and vomited down the front of himself, realizing as he did so that something was restraining his left wrist. He looked around, squinting his oversensitive eyes, to see that he was in a hospital gown, in a hospital bed, an IV attached to his left arm, handcuffs binding his left wrist to the steel railing of the bed. What the hell?

  Fighting through the fog and nausea and pain, he began to piece things together. He'd been shot fleeing the gallery. He'd been chased. He'd lost consciousness as his pursuer was probably upon him. But by some twist of fate, here he was, alive.

  Perhaps his pursuer had been scared off by a neighborhood police patrol summoned by the homeowner whose dog had sounded the alarm. Or perhaps his pursuer had simply lost the trail and assumed the dog was barking at him. Whatever the case, at some point someone—probably police—had found Arkin and arranged for his delivery to the hospital.

  He lifted his sheet to find that his abdomen was dressed with a very large bandage. He tried to sit up, but was immediately hit by another wave of nausea. He turned onto his side and managed to puke over the side of the bed instead of onto himself.

  At that moment, a rotund and scowling old nurse came in through the open door.

  "Oh, aren't you a mess. I'll have somebody come clean you up."

  "Where am I?"

  "You're in Vancouver General Hospital."

  "What happened? Why am I handcuffed to this bed?"

  "You've been shot through the side. Lucky for you, the bullet missed your vitals. We sewed you shut and pumped you full of donated blood. Now we have you on an analgesic drip, so you may feel a little dopey. Looks like we better give you something for that nausea too."

  "And the handcuffs?"

  She shrugged and turned to go. "You'll have to ask the police about that. The officer had to step out but should be back in a minute or two."

  Arkin caught another whiff of the odd oily odor in the breeze of the closing door, though it was hard to smell over the acrid aroma of his vomit. Then it hit him. The odd odor was kerosene again. It was coming from the half-open closet—probably his clothes. Now he knew why he was handcuffed. He'd been set up as an arsonist who torched the Liber Gallery. But how had they gotten the kerosene on his clothes? And if they could do that, why hadn't they just killed him? It hardly mattered. It was a good move by the group. In one fell swoop, they were taking him out of circulation and probably destroying all traces of their presence in Vancouver. By now, the shooter was surely long gone. Arkin would probably never find him again.

  He took several deep breaths, trying to focus, trying to think through what to do next. He looked at the handcuffs, then at the IV. He tore the IV from his arm and cracked the hard plastic sheath surrounding the cannula port, snapping it apart with his fingertips. He took one of the broken pieces of plastic and went to work on the handcuff keyhole. In 10 seconds, he sprung the release. Moments after that, he found his damp and bloody clothes in the closet and, having positioned himself behind the door in case anyone came in, was dressing as fast as he could, not even bothering to button his shirt. As he bent down to pull his shoes from the closet he began to sway and thought for a moment that he was going to pass out. He steadied himself against the closet doorjamb, then took three deep breaths as he willed away the tunneling of his vision. At that moment, the door swung open and a young police officer walked in, staring at the empty bed as he processed the scene. Before the officer could react, Arkin shouldered the door shut behind him, checked the officer's turn with a quick stiff-arm to his left shoulder blade, and stunned him with a flat-palm strike to the brachial plexus origin nerve bundle on the side of his neck—using just enough force to stun the man, but not enough to risk damage to his spine. The officer collapsed, falling to the floor, with Arkin wishing he'd had the energy to catch the man and ease him down, making sure he didn't hit his head. But it had already taken more than he knew he had in him to execute the brachial stun move. Arkin jammed his feet into his untied shoes, stepped over the officer, opened the door for a peek, then slipped into the hallway. Walking with as much speed as he could manage without looking suspicions, and holding his shirt closed with one hand, he made his way for the stairs. Passing the open door of another room, he spied a smartphone on the lamp stand of an apparently unconscious patient. Checking that the coast was clear, he stepped into the room, pocketed the phone, and slipped back out.

  Popping out a back entrance and into the early morning light, he found himself at a four-way intersection. A car and then a garbage truck waited for the light to turn. He looked up and down the sidewalk. The only other pedestrian was a block away and facing the other direction. He walked as casually as possible behind the garbage truck, reached for a handlebar, and pulled himself up into the back of it, feeling a tightness and then a sharp pain and tearing sensation in the skin of his abdomen as he did so. Once aboard, he lay down in the bottom of the receptacle and did his best to cover himself with trash that hadn't yet been scooped and pressed into the holding chamber by the compactor door. It stank li
ke putrid meat. Like the fetid gray water of French Quarter sewer backflow after a New Orleans rainstorm. He saw movement out of the corner of his eye, and turned to see dozens of tiny white maggots feeding on a small chunk of unidentifiable decaying matter six inches from his face. He started to dry heave as the garbage truck began to move.

  After retching nothing but bile-tainted spit for several minutes, he realized the truck was leaving town. There were probably cars following close behind the slow-moving truck, so he didn't dare sit up. But he was able to rock his head back and forth until a small gap in his garbage cover yielded a peek-a-boo view of the passing cityscape. He caught sight of passing street signs, and was relieved to see that the avenue numbers were increasing. 16th, 17th, 18th. . . . It did nothing to help him determine his location. But at least he appeared to be on his way out of the city center. What now?

  He pulled the smartphone from his front pocket. As the screen lit up, he saw that it was smeared with his blood. Not daring to uncover the bullet wound in the filth of the garbage truck, he used the light of the screen to eyeball the exterior of the bandage. There was significant bleeding, but it wasn't too heavy. With any luck, it would stop without need for re-stitching. He pressed one hand against it while using the other to pull the received faxes and fax reports from his pocket. The paper had held up amazingly well for having been soaked with saltwater, kerosene, and blood. It appeared that someone—presumably the police—had opened it for examination, refolded it, and put it back in his pocket. It was still damp. But it was readable. Arkin used the smartphone browser to search for the number he'd written down after listening to the redialed tones on the handset back in the secret room at the gallery. It did not lead to a name. However, he was able to ascertain, from a handful of searches of phone numbers with the same first seven digits following the 011 international dialing code, that it was for a listing in the old colonial port city of Valparaiso, Chile. He turned to the fax report. There were only two numbers in it, repeatedly appearing for both inbound and outbound faxes. Again, the first didn't lead directly to a name, but Arkin could see that the area code was for the island of Montserrat, a small British Overseas Territory in the Leeward Islands of the Caribbean Sea. However, the other fax number turned out to have an Oregon area code, and he was quickly able to link it to a business in the city of Eugene called Bluefields Data Dynamics.