Blackout

by Dawson, Mark

  “Call him,” Milton told him.

  Mendoza did as he was told, his finger navigating the display with a series of deliberate presses.

  “Put it on speaker.”

  Mendoza pressed a button on the screen and they could hear the buzzing of the repeated chirps as the call tried to connect.

  “Hello?”

  The accent was unmistakably English. Milton recognised the voice. It was Logan.

  Mendoza swallowed. “It’s me,” he said, his voice straining a little.

  “Who?”

  “Mendoza.”

  There was a pause for a moment. “What do you want?”

  “You’ve got a problem. With our friend.”

  “I shouldn’t have, Inspector.”

  “Have you been watching the news?”

  “What problem? I paid you to make sure I don’t have problems.”

  “This isn’t something I could have done anything about.”

  “Go on.”

  “There was a riot at Bilibid. Very serious. The doors were opened and the inmates got out. The place is overcrowded. The guards were outnumbered. The rival gangs got to each other and then the army stormed it—one way or another, a lot of inmates got killed.”

  There was a new focus to Logan’s voice. “And our friend?”

  “That’s the problem.”

  “He got out?”

  “Dozens did. I just checked. He wasn’t one of the bodies and he’s not where he’s supposed to be. So, yes—he got out.”

  There was another, longer pause. Mendoza looked as if he was going to vomit. Milton gestured to him, circling his finger in a suggestion that he should continue.

  His voice cracked when he spoke again. “It might not be as bad as you think.”

  “Really? You don’t know our friend like I do.”

  “You don’t understand. I’m saying I know where he is. I can help you fix it.”

  “That’s very generous of you,” Logan said sarcastically. “And this is out of the goodness of your heart?”

  “No,” he said. “I’ve already done what I said I would. You wanted him moved. I did that. You wanted the investigation wound up. I did that, too. Everything just like you asked. But this is extra.”

  “You’re going to need to give me a little more than that, Inspector.”

  “He’s been getting help. My officer, Hernandez, she went to see him again. She knows he didn’t do it. That’s where he is. With her.”

  Mendoza couldn’t help looking up at Josie as he said it; she glared at him, and he looked away again.

  “I thought you’d handled that?”

  Mendoza stared at the phone. “So did I.”

  “And now you want payment because something you didn’t handle is causing me a problem?”

  Mendoza looked as if he was about to speak, but Milton held up a finger and he held his tongue.

  “All right,” Logan said. “You’ll tell me where she is?”

  “I’ll do better than that. I’ll take you there.”

  “How much?”

  “Twenty.”

  Milton found that he was holding his breath.

  “Meet me the same place as before. I’ll have your money. I’ll pay you and then we can sort this out.”

  “When?”

  “Midnight.”

  The line went dead. Milton took the phone and double-checked that the line was closed.

  “Where do you meet him?” Milton said.

  Mendoza looked like a beaten man. “Tondo,” he said. “I told you.”

  “It’s in Manila,” Josie added. “It’s a slum down by the docks.”

  Milton looked at the clock on the wall. It was twenty to ten. “How long to get there?”

  “Depends on the traffic. Ninety minutes?”

  “Logan will get there earlier than midnight,” Milton said. “We need to get there first.”

  71

  MILTON AND Mendoza had driven north into the teeth of a ferocious storm. Hicks and Josie followed behind in the rental. The rain had started to fall as they passed Santa Rosa. It had been a light drizzle at first, but, as they continued into San Pedro and Muntinlupa, the conditions worsened until Mendoza had to slow down just to be able to navigate the road. The sky had been lit by regular veins of lightning, and thunder boomed loud enough to be audible over the growl of the Boxster’s engine.

  Milton told Mendoza to take the expressway into the city. The policeman had a prepaid E-Pass that raised the barrier as they pulled up to it. There was a camera attached to the side of the booth and Milton made sure that he was looking into it as they passed through.

  Tondo was in the north of Manila. It was famous for Smokey Mountain, a vast pile of garbage that was picked over by impoverished locals who somehow scavenged a meagre living from it. There were clutches of kids in shorts and T-shirts, congregating on the corners despite the late hour and the apocalyptic conditions. One young child, surely no older than five, was hauling a cart behind her that had been loaded with plastic bottles. Another child stared at them as they went by, a wall of plastic sacks stacked up behind him. The child was barefoot, his face covered with grime that was streaked by the rain. The area earned its name thanks to the fires that burned around its edges. The locals burned tyres and wood, and now, despite the rain, the acrid tang of the smoke seeped into the car with a cloying sensation that settled on the tongue and in the back of the throat.

  The inspector drove carefully. Milton was next to him, covering him with the pistol that he had stolen from the bedroom.

  “I can’t see a thing,” Mendoza complained, gesturing to wipers that were struggling to keep the windshield clear.

  “Keep going.”

  Milton glanced up into the rear-view mirror. The second car was close behind them. Hicks was driving, with Josie next to him. Milton had given careful thought to the best way to proceed. His preference would have been to bring the inspector to the rendezvous alone. He would have waited until the meet took place, secured both participants, got the information he needed and then shot both of them. He would have no further use for either and he had no interest in being merciful. But Josie had insisted that she take Mendoza into custody, and Milton had reluctantly agreed. She had put herself at risk to break him out, and he owed her for that. And, he found to his surprise, he liked her. For as long as it was possible, he preferred that she not see him the way he saw himself. Milton was a killer, and, even though he suppressed that with the strategies that he had learned in the rooms, he always would be.

  He would give her Mendoza.

  He couldn’t promise her the same for Logan. The same mercy would not be extended to him. Hicks and Josie could take Mendoza away when Milton had Logan. Milton wanted to be alone with him.

  They passed through a rusty arch that read “BRGY 105 TEMP HSG.” The area beyond was a temporary housing site that had outlived the notion that it might be transient and had taken on a permanence that would now be shifted only by fleets of municipal bulldozers. There were more people here, slathered in mud from streets inundated with water from the ongoing downpour. The smell changed: now it was a mix of urine, sweat, smoke, and rot.

  Mendoza drove them northwest to the docks. A sign read NAVOTAS FISH PORT COMPLEX. He turned off the main road before they could reach the complex and picked a route through a warren of narrow streets until they reached the water’s edge. A series of rickety huts had cropped up on the waterfront, some of them projecting over the water and supported by struts that were buckled and bent. The water was slicked with grime, pocked with cakes of yellow crust that rose and fell on the gentle swell.

  Mendoza parked. The Boxster was a seventy-thousand-dollar car and it was hopelessly out of place here. Hicks pulled up behind them.

  Rain hammered down on the soft top and slicked across the windshield.

  “This is it,” Mendoza said.

  Milton checked the time. They had made good progress and were early. Logan was a professional. He wo
uld likely be early, too. Milton had to hope that they had beaten him.

  He looked left and right, assessing the location, and then he called Hicks.

  “What do you want me to do?” Hicks asked.

  “Get out of sight and scout the area. See if you can get around onto the other side of the dock.”

  “Copy that.”

  The cabin of Mendoza’s car was lit up by the headlights of the rental as Hicks navigated around them and turned into a side street that led away from the water.

  Mendoza left his hands on the wheel. “What do you want me to do?”

  “What happened the last time you met him here? Where did you meet?”

  “Here.”

  “He came to the car?”

  Mendoza nodded.

  “And then?”

  “He got in, we spoke, he gave me my money. Then he left.”

  “He was alone?”

  “I didn’t see anyone else.”

  Milton gripped the pistol a little tighter. “This is what we’re going to do. You stay here. I’m going to wait where he won’t be able to see me. You’re going to act as if this is just like the last time. Understand?”

  Mendoza nodded.

  Milton pressed the muzzle against the side of the inspector’s head. “I would very happily shoot you and throw you in the harbour, but Officer Hernandez doesn’t want that to happen. She wants you to be charged and tried. I owe her, so I’ve agreed.” He pushed with the gun until he could see the cords stand out on Mendoza’s neck. “But if you run, or if anything happens to spook Logan, the deal is off. And I’ll come for you.”

  Milton pulled the gun away. He opened the door and stepped out into the deluge. The smell was overpowering: the odour of rotting fish mixed with the stench from the nearby dump. Milton felt the urge to gag. He swallowed it down and hurried across the road to a line of ancient freight containers. They must have been on the dock for months; they were corroded, patches of rust spreading across the metal like lichen, the doors jimmied open and whatever they might have been holding long since looted and carried off. He walked to the nearest container. He looked inside and saw an inky blackness. Milton went in, his boots ringing off the metal floor. The storm hammered against the metal, a constant drumming that rang in Milton’s ears. He turned and looked back. The container offered an excellent vantage point and he knew that he would be invisible for as long as he stayed inside it.

  He closed his fist around the butt of the pistol, lowering it so that it rested against his thigh.

  He had no idea whether Logan would make the meet. He was obviously a careful man; he and Mendoza could have met anywhere, yet a place like this offered discretion and the multiple exit points that would make it very difficult to follow him should he decide he needed to leave.

  Milton had to hope that the news of his escape from Bilibid would be sufficiently important to flush Logan out of the shadows.

  He looked out through the curtain of rain that ran off the roof of the container. He looked onto the dock and at the car, the interior light casting a faint glow on Mendoza as he lit a cigarette and blew smoke out the window.

  Milton had no choice but to wait.

  72

  JOSIE WAS soaked to the skin, her hair plastered against her face and her waterlogged uniform cold and heavy against her skin. She followed Hicks as they moved around the rear of the dockside area. There was a road that ran parallel to the dock, and it allowed them to change position without revealing themselves to Mendoza or anyone else who might be waiting near the water’s edge. The storm was unpleasant to be out in, but it would make it even more difficult for Logan to see them.

  Hicks stopped suddenly and reached back with his right arm, then shepherded her roughly into the doorway of a warehouse building.

  “What is it?” she hissed at him.

  “Car,” he said, pointing ahead.

  She followed his gesture and saw it. The car was running without lights, driving slowly on the other side of the junction with the road that led down to the dock. They both pressed themselves into the doorway as the car turned into the road and then disappeared from view.

  “Milton,” Hicks said into the telephone, “car coming.”

  Josie couldn’t hear Milton’s reply.

  “The lights are off,” Hicks continued. “It looked like a rental. Could be him.”

  Josie took the opportunity to glance around. She didn’t really know Tondo all that well. The slums seemed to grow larger every year, gradually spreading out to cover more and more of the capital, like fungus spreading across abandoned trash. This area was less populous than the districts around Smokey Mountain, but there were still people here. She saw a group of kids fifty feet away, sheltering beneath a tarpaulin tent and watching them.

  “Come on,” Hicks said to her.

  He stepped away from the building into the rain and set off, jogging in the direction of the junction.

  Josie followed. She reached across her body and felt for the reassuring bulge of the pistol in her jacket pocket. She had conducted her own quick search of Mendoza’s property while Milton’s attention was on the inspector and had found the pistol in a drawer in the bedroom. It was a Springfield XD-S. She was fortunate; it was one of the best carry guns on the market. It had a single stack magazine that could hold five rounds of .45ACP ammunition and another in the chamber. The gun squirmed a little in the hand, but you could get around it with a firm grip. There was a spare magazine in the drawer, too, and she pocketed that, too.

  She was determined that this was going to be done properly. She was going to arrest Mendoza and whoever it was he had come out here to meet. Milton could ask his questions, but the men would be arrested and given the benefit of due process.

  There was enough death in Manila. The police indulged in it, encouraged by the government. She would not. Her parents had taught her to do things the right way. Her training at the academy had been the same. And, most important of all, she wanted to set Angelo the right example. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to look her son in the eye if she turned her back and allowed Milton to do whatever it was he was planning to do.

  It needed to be done right.

  She would make sure that it was.

  * * *

  “CAR COMING.”

  Milton pressed the phone closer to his ear.

  “What can you see?”

  “The lights are off. It looked like a rental. Could be him.”

  “Stand by.”

  He saw the car. It turned out of the road that led to Smokey Mountain and crawled along the dock toward him. Its lights were still off. Milton could see the shape of the driver, but it was too far away and too dark for him to make out any detail.

  The car stopped.

  Mendoza’s Porsche was between Milton and the new arrival.

  The second car lit its headlights, tunnels of brightness that burrowed through the slanting rain. Milton could see the vague outline of the driver, but nothing else. He looked away and blinked. The short wait had given his eyes the chance to adjust to the gloom, and if he looked into the lights, it would take time for them to correct themselves again.

  The headlights flicked off.

  Milton heard the click of the door and watched as it opened.

  He looked to Mendoza. He was still in the Boxster.

  “Where are you?” Milton whispered into the phone.

  “Behind the new car.”

  “Can you see anything?”

  “Not much.”

  “Is it him?”

  “Can’t say.”

  “Whoever it is, we’ve got him penned in.”

  “Copy that.”

  “Where’s Josie?”

  “With me.”

  Milton fought the urge to groan. “She wouldn’t stay in the car?”

  “Afraid not.”

  “Fine,” he said, exasperated. “Just try to keep her out of the way.”

  “Copy that. Milton—”

  T
he driver of the second car stepped out and raised an umbrella.

  Milton crouched down as low as he could manage without compromising his vantage point.

  The man set off. There was fifteen feet between the two vehicles. He moved calmly, confidently, sheltering beneath the umbrella. There was a crack of lightning and the dock was flooded with a snap of bright white light.

  It was enough: Milton recognised Logan.

  Logan reached the Porsche. He opened the passenger door, folded the umbrella, and got in.

  Milton gripped the pistol.

  * * *

  JOSIE WATCHED the man get out of the car and walk over to Mendoza.

  “What are they doing?” she hissed, more to herself than to Hicks.

  “We need to wait,” he said, his pistol clasped in both hands.

  “And then?”

  “Leave it to Milton.”

  “I want to take them in,” she said. “I—”

  There were two flashes.

  Josie thought it was more lightning, but then realised that it wasn’t.

  The flashes had come from the interior of Mendoza’s car.

  Josie gasped.

  The noise of the gunshots was muffled by the rain, but still audible.

  “Shit,” Hicks said.

  Josie pulled the gun and stepped around Hicks.

  “Josie,” he said, but she ignored him.

  The Boxster’s door opened and the man stepped out.

  Hicks reached for her arm, but she shook him off.

  The shooter’s back was facing her. He hadn’t seen her yet.

  “Police!” she called. “Get your hands up!”

  The man turned.

  He had a gun in his right hand.

  He aimed.

  Josie fired.

  She knew she had missed as soon as she pulled the trigger. She was too far away for the little Springfield to be truly accurate, and the shot passed harmlessly over the head of her target.

  He fired back.

  Josie felt the sharp sting as the bullet struck her in the top of her right thigh. It was as if she had been punched on the muscle; there was no pain, though, just a feeling of numbness. She staggered back, the Springfield slipping from her fingers, and then, unbalanced, she keeled over. She felt strong hands reaching beneath her arms before she could fall and felt her heels scraping against the ground as she was hauled backwards. The numbness was curious, but it didn’t last for long. She looked down and saw the blood on her trousers as it seeped out of the hole that had appeared on the side of her leg.