Wires spilled out from the large screen, leading to a computer server at the back of the room. From there, the pictures would be piped to thousands of computers.
Dennis Maloney fiddled with the server, Fadel’s eyes on him all the time. “The site is live,” he called from the back of the room. “Three thousand four hundred and three people, all tuned in right now.” He turned to the front of the room with a beaming smile on his face.
***
Charles Edinburgh drove with a smile on his face. He was now a very rich man, all thanks to Matthew Jester.
He flicked on the radio, fiddled with the device until he found a suitable station and then returned his eyes to the road, his mind elsewhere.
Initially he wanted to help Matthew, and he had gone to the log cabin with that in mind. But the two hit men that Chambers had sent had been a harsh reminder of the powers that the men running the game possessed. Charles wasn’t going to stand up to a man who could buy his way out of anything and wouldn’t think twice about betting on the life of a human being.
After the cabin incident, he had managed to get word to Chambers of his location and his intentions, and Chambers – following Maloney’s advice – had advised a trip to the caravan. There, Charles could rest and wait, whilst the powerful and ruthless businessmen rearranged the hotel, turning a place of rest and luxury into a morbid reality television show.
What he did was wrong, but he had ten million pounds in the trunk of his car that suggested otherwise. The thought brought a smile to his face, and he began to tap the steering wheel to the beat of the music.
The complex nature of the game and how it was set up was cruel but incredibly well thought-out. No one wanted to put one man in an empty hotel and then leave him to fight for his life. When faced with sudden fear, most people would cave in under the pressure. But Matthew had been modified by Maloney. He had practically brainwashed him into becoming a hardened killer who wouldn’t think twice about pulling the trigger, even at the expense of his own life.
That was the kind of man they wanted for the game.
Matthew’s brainwashing had been subtle and lucky; the reward offered by the newspaper was always going to cause trouble. Maloney had foreseen the incident with Barry Brown, but he hadn’t dared contemplate that Matthew would run into a psychotic, inbred family and the cabin owner from hell.
Charles respected Maloney for what he had done. He didn’t like him very much, but he respected him. He’d played puppet master with Matthew Jester for three days, and he managed to carry him to the play just in time.
Charles slowed down, easing his foot off the accelerator when he saw a slowing truck up ahead.
In two hours’ time, he would be boarding a boat to France. His fake ID and passport bulged in his pocket.
He was right behind the van when it stopped suddenly. The front of the Toyota crumpled against the back bumper of the colossal van. Charles was thrown forward from the impact, and the airbag ignited and exploded in his face.
“What the –” His words were frantic and muffled as he tried to push the airbag out of the way. Something appeared at the driver’s side window. He shifted the airbag out of the way and peered through. A tall man wearing a knee-length trench coat and black leather gloves aimed a revolver inside the car.
“Charles Edinburgh?” the man’s voice was deep and unforgiving.
Charles could only nod, his eyes transfixed by the weapon.
The man squeezed the trigger.
***
Mark Chambers pulled out his mobile phone. It was on vibrate, and he could feel it tickling his inside leg. He answered the call, listened to a few instructions and then hung up, shoving the phone back inside his pocket.
He turned to Maloney. “Charles has been taken care of.”
Maloney nodded impassively, his eyes on the computer server. “Three thousand five hundred,” he said.
Chambers nodded in recognition.
“We go live in thirty seconds,” Maloney called.
38
Outside the hotel room, in the long, glorious corridor, Matthew Jester stood rooted to the spot. He looked left and right, expecting to see someone, but there was no one there. Instead of heading for the lift, he turned on his heels and set off down the corridor, passing rows and rows of rooms until he came to the final one.
It was a storage room marked ‘staff only’ and the door was locked.
He took a step back, raised his right foot and aligned it with the centre of the door. When he kicked out, the door instantly sprang open and thudded against a box inside the room before bouncing back towards him.
He pushed the door open and shifted inside the room. The box blocking the door was an empty cooler. The room was small but airy, no bigger than seven foot by six. His eyes scanned the shelves that lined the walls.
On one side of the wall, piled up on the shelves, were stacks of towels, arranged in colour and in stacks of five, and at the end of the wall was a stack of shower caps. On the far wall, in a two-foot gap, was another cooler. Matthew opened it, his efforts frantic, his hands clumsy. The lid of the cooler snapped off in his hands. He looked at it momentarily before throwing it over his shoulder and inspecting the contents.
It was filled with stocks from the mini-bars: miniature bottles of whiskey, brandy, vodka and wine; small packets of crisps, nuts, small bars of chocolate and packs of dried fruit.
He ignored the cooler and checked the final shelf: bathroom products, in plenty supply; bottles of shampoo, miniature and normal-sized; conditioner; bars of soap; shower gel; shaving foam; disposable razors and talcum powder.
Matthew turned to leave but paused. He didn’t want to head back into the hotel unarmed, and he knew that anything could be used as a weapon. He glanced at the shelves and boxes again, took a small tub of talcum powder and two miniature bottles of whiskey, and then exited the room.
***
Dennis Maloney watched Matthew Jester’s antics with great curiosity. He had a lot of interest in him, and over the last few days he had practically been his trainer. He had put him through hell and watched him all the way. Now he was on the big stage, ready to fight.
He watched him gather some things from the storage room and turned to Mark Chambers who had his mobile phone pressed to his ear. “Tell him to get ready,” he instructed.
Chambers uttered some commands down the phone as Maloney made his way over to the server. The site was live and currently streaming live footage of the hotel to thousands of houses over the globe. Logging into the server as the administrator, Maloney clicked on the file marked ‘Predators’ (morbid humour on his part) which contained the names and profiles of the men that would be taking part in the game.
He scrolled over the first one, Toothless Terry. The portrait that smiled back at him looked like it had been stolen from the wall of a dental surgeon. He pressed the necessary buttons and informed his audience that the sweet-toothed hit man would be unleashed.
In a matter of seconds, he watched more bets stream in. A constant flow of money, most of it in favour of the hit man.
He made his way back to the screens and turned to Mark Chambers again. He was still on the phone, awaiting instructions.
“Unleash him,” Dennis said with a smile.
***
Jester made his way back down the corridor after trying to open a few of the rooms without success. He stopped at the lift and hovered a hand over the call button, his body frozen in fear when he saw that the lift was already in motion.
He pulled his hand away, turned and ran, making a beeline for his hotel room. The sound of the lift doors opening coincided with the sound of Jester’s door shutting.
39
Terry Jones stepped into the warm corridor, the lift doors closing behind him. Instantly he made his way to room 5A1, Jester’s room. That was all the information he was allowed, and he was certain it was all he needed.
Dennis Maloney had been strict about rules, and Terry didn’t like rules. He was a hit m
an. He’d spent his life living without rules, but these he could forgive; they were simple and understandable. They were watching the hotel. They knew where Jester was, but he wasn’t allowed to know anything other than his room number. He would have to find and kill him without any help.
He had also been told that he would be allowed to carry a gun if he wanted to, a handgun with one full clip. He had been checked before entering; they searched him for extra weapons and bullets before handing him the gun. They didn’t object to him carrying a knife.
He had checked the screens before he left. He had seen Matthew entering the supply cupboard and he’d shared a smile with his on-screen victim, and now he had come to kill him.
Reaching the door of room 5A1, Terry looked instinctively to the cameras in the hallways, shooting his fans a smile. In his right hand, he held a machete. It was the size of a man’s arm, thick as a log and sharp as a pin. It was his trademark weapon. He’d had it for twenty years and often told people it was a gift from his father, but he told them lies. It was the knife he had used to kill his father.
The doors were locked electronically and only the correct key card could open them. Rummaging around in his back pocket, Terry found the correct key card and slid it through the lock. The door clicked open, and he cautiously stepped into the room, his eyes and ears alert to any movement.
The room was empty. The bed covers had been ruffled, creases appearing in the soft material. Remote controls for the television, DVD player and the music system were all lined up on the bed, nestled in a sunken mound of material.
Terry flicked his eyes from the bed to the bathroom. The door was slightly ajar. With a smile on his face, he walked forward.
He stayed close to the wall, his eyes fixed on the slice of light spilling from the crack in the bathroom door. He edged his way around a chest of drawers, the mahogany brushing against his jeans. Next came the wardrobe. He walked closer to the large piece of furniture and was distraught to see that it blocked his view of the bathroom door.
He pushed himself away from the wall and opted for a more direct approach, the bathroom door directly in front of him, the wardrobe to his left.
Grinning like a Cheshire cat, Terry slipped the huge machete in to a holster underneath his jumper and retrieved a 9 mm semiautomatic out of his jeans. He clutched it firmly in his right hand and then aimed it at the door. “Easy money,” he said, firing six shots into the bathroom door.
The thundering sound of the gunshot was amplified in the small confines of the room. When the sixth shot had taken a chunk out of the bathroom door, everything fell silent. Terry’s ears were ringing. The bathroom door swung loosely on its hinges, back and forth, back and forth. Huge chunks of wood had been hacked away; the door handle lay on the floor, blackened around the edges.
The door, swinging on drunken hinges, clattered a tall standing glass vase in the bathroom and rebounded back to its frame. The sound, a subtle ‘ping’, broke the silence and disturbed Terry and his hallucinogenic hearing. He reacted as quick as he could, raised the gun to chest height again, pointed it at the door and quickly dispensed the rest of the magazine before letting the empty clip fall to the floor.
***
“What the fuck is he doing,” Mark Chambers bellowed, his eyes on the screen, his frustration aimed at Terry Jones. “You said this guy was a pro.”
“He is,” Dennis Maloney said with confidence, grinning madly. “But this is public murder. He has the eyes of thousands on him, and the majority of them are counting on him to succeed.”
Chambers shook his head slowly. “He acted out of fear,” he said, taking a deep draw from his cigar.
“Exactly,” Maloney said, staring the monitors. Terry Jones still stood in the bedroom, the empty gun by his side. Maloney’s excitement grew as he saw the wardrobe door creak open slightly. “And for every action there is a reaction.”
***
Jester exploded out of the wardrobe.
Terry turned and tried to reach for his machete, but his reflexes failed him. He could only watch as a thick veil of white covered his senses, enveloped his sight and finally fell upon his face. Clogs of white powder forced their way into his eyes, his mouth and his lungs.
He dropped the empty gun and brought his hands to his face. He tried to claw the powder away, but he couldn’t. It had formed a sheet and almost wrapped itself around his eyeballs.
Jester looked at the bottle of talcum powder and nodded pleasantly to himself before tossing the object at the head of the hit man. It thudded against his temple and bounced off, landing on the floor and covering the cream carpet with snowflakes.
Fighting against the searing agony, Terry forced his eyes open. Through a faulty vision, he saw the silhouette of Matthew Jester who seemed to be facing the bathroom door.
“You missed,” Jester smiled.
“You fucking bastard,” Terry screamed, anger and pain fusing together in his voice. He lunged forward, his hands wildly grasping air, but Jester merely side-stepped out of the way, leaving him right where it was.
Terry tripped over Jester’s foot and stumbled to the floor. He screamed obscenities into the carpet before flipping onto his back and looking up at his intended target. “I’m going to fucking rip you apart bit by bit.”
Jester nodded, a look of simplicity on his face. In his right hand he held the miniature bottle of whiskey. He slowly unscrewed the cap.
Terry looked on with awe and worry. “What are you doing?” he asked, his voice breaking.
“Alcohol eases the pain right?” Jester stepped forward and rammed his foot on the assassin’s neck. He immediately struggled but was powerless. Jester’s foot kept him pinned to the ground and forced his head to stay in one place.
“What are you doing?” the hit man repeated, a white veil hanging over his right eye and blocking out Jester’s actions.
A river of whiskey fell down onto his face, rushing into his open eyes, mixing with the talcum powder already there. He screamed as the searing pain screeched through his head, and immediately he jammed his eyes shut. The powder and whiskey quickly formed a paste, the resulting agony burning through his body. He tried to bring his hands to his face, but Jester stopped him.
Terry felt the soft touch of human flesh on his face. He steadied his head as he felt Jester’s fingers tracing lines around his eyes. His body stopped, his mind froze, trepidation soared through every cell. The fingers stopped on his eyebrows. Then, in a quick, sadistic movement, Terry’s eyes were forcibly opened and the rest of the whiskey was poured inside
Toothless Terry squirmed, squealed, kicked out, swore, begged for his life and soiled himself, all in a short space of time. Then the pain subsided and he was dragged somewhere. He was too scared to open his eyes, so he kept them closed and allowed his captor to drag him across the room.
***
In the control room, Dennis Maloney was smiling broadly. His eyes had never left the many screens, nor had those of Ahmad Fadel and Mark Chambers.
“The boy has no fear,” Fadel said.
“I know,” Maloney said, nodding his head gleefully. “He has no life; we stripped him of that. He’s ours now.”
On one of the screens, Jester was dragging Terry Jones from one corner to the other. He was dragging him toward the camera which had been placed above the headboard on the bed.
“What is he doing?” Chambers quizzed.
“He knows where the cameras are,” Fadel chimed softly.
Chambers spun on his chair. “What!” he said, shocked. “How?”
Dennis Maloney lifted up a hand, warning Chambers to stop his frantic actions. “It doesn’t matter if he knows or not. He won’t destroy them.”
“How do you know?”
Dennis Maloney took his eyes away from the screen for the first time in ten minutes, and he turned the grey orbs onto Mark Chambers. “He won’t destroy them,” he repeated, his tone thicker and more venomous.
Chambers nodded shyly and returned hi
s eyes to the screen. Jester had dragged Terry Jones all the way to the screen. He grabbed the hit man by the back of his head, taking a thick chunk of hair in his right hand, then he lifted his face up to the screen.
Immediately Mark Chambers recoiled and averted his eyes from the screen. Terry’s face was in full view, his eyes partially open, and beyond the eyelids the screen exposed a painful redness covered by a coating of amber paste.
The face stayed on-screen for several seconds, allowing each viewer to take in every detail before Jester tossed the man to one side like a rag doll and put his own face on show. “Is this what you want to see?” Jester shouted into the camera. He looked down at Terry Jones and yanked the machete from the hit man’s shoulder strap.
Running Stupid: (Mystery Series) Page 23