The Resurrector (The Dominic Grey Series)

by Layton Green

  “Where to, boss?” Yusuf asked, when Viktor stepped into the car.

  “Bonniecombe.”

  “Yessir.”

  As Viktor loosened his tie and stared out the window, a dark blue SUV pulled into traffic from one of the affluent neighborhoods at the base of Table Mountain. Viktor watched the SUV speed through a few traffic lights. It seemed to be pacing them.

  “Yusuf, do you see that late model Fortuner behind us? A street and a half back?”

  “I’ve had my eye on it, boss. Looks like poote to me.”

  “What?”

  “Poote. Police.”

  Viktor grimaced. If the South African police wanted to talk to him about something, they would phone. His guess was Captain Waalkamp or the mortuary owner was connected to van Draker. “How are your driving skills?”

  Yusuf eyed the rearview and grinned. “I used to race now and again. Before I got this job.”

  “You mean Motorsport? Formula One?”

  Yusuf chortled. “Who you think I am, boss? A chizboy? I drag raced my auntie’s Fiesta in the Flats, on the Klipfontein.”

  “How do you rate our prospects? Should the need arise?”

  “Maybe I can lose them downtown, but they’ll just call it in and send more poote. Not enough routes out of the city.”

  Viktor debated his options. The road back to Bonniecombe was a long one, with lots of empty highway. After debating trying another police station, he realized he had no idea how far van Draker’s connections extended. “Yusuf?”

  “Yeah, boss?”

  “Take me to the U.S. Consulate General.”

  Viktor saw Yusuf’s hand tighten on the wheel. “Serious, eh?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I thought you were Czech.”

  “We only have the embassy in Pretoria. If we reach the Americans, our pursuers will back off. I’ll decide what to do from there.”

  “Jawelnofine. Do you know where it is?”

  “No.”

  Yusuf punched the destination into the GPS as he drove, his eyes slipping back and forth to the rearview. “Bad news, boss. It’s in Constantia. In this traffic, an hour on the M3. We’ll have to try to exit off the N2.”

  It was five o’clock, and rush hour was in full swing. Viktor swore. Why couldn’t the Americans have kept a consulate in the city?

  The entrance to the N2 appeared, and Viktor supposed they didn’t have much choice. “Let’s see how far they’re willing to go. The N2, please.”

  Yusuf waited until the last moment, then swerved onto the multi-lane highway. At least the road to Constantia would be well-populated, compared to the wide open highways of the Western Cape.

  Viktor turned and saw the SUV speed up to follow them. To make matters worse, as they approached the N2-M3 junction, Viktor saw that the M3, the road to Constantia, resembled a parking lot.

  “A suggestion, boss?”

  “Of course.”

  “A few exits up, the scenery, ya, not so good. I know those roads. If I can get to the Flats, I’ll call my people, and we be fine.”

  Viktor wasn’t sure what that meant, but they were running out of options. The SUV had drawn to within two car lengths. “Let’s try your way.”

  As soon as the words left his mouth, Yusuf swerved into the N2 lane. The Fortuner followed. A few minutes down the road, the traffic slowed and then ground to a halt. Yusuf lurched the wheel to the right, onto the median. He blew past the traffic and sped towards an exit looming ahead.

  The SUV did the same.

  “Whatever I’m paying you,” Viktor said, “consider it tripled.”

  “Ya, boss. Consider it done.”

  As they neared the exit, Viktor saw that Yusuf had spoken the truth. Some time back, the environs on either side of the interstate had begun a gradual change for the worse, but up ahead, the light industry and declining homes were replaced by the densely clustered shacks of a township.

  “You afraid of the Flats?” Yusuf asked, as if in challenge.

  “Should I be?”

  He chuckled. “Ya, you should. But not with me.”

  The V8 engine roared as it left the N2 and accelerated into the open lane. Viktor gripped the door handle as the car whipped to the right, onto a potholed road as slender as an alley. Wooden huts and lean-tos with tarpaper roofs loomed on either side, the sky crisscrossed by low hanging wires. The SUV followed.

  There was plenty of traffic, but Yusuf swerved through it like a pro. They delved deeper and deeper into the slum, the fancy sedan drawing attention from passersby. Yusuf held his phone as they drove, speaking in a rapid dialect that sounded to Viktor like a blend of Malay and Afrikaans slang.

  The road turned to dirt. Yusuf dropped the phone and fishtailed to the right, onto a byway so constricted Viktor worried they would swipe the abutting shacks. Pedestrians scurried off the road, some cursing or shaking pistols at the car. One even fired into the air. Viktor looked back. The SUV had disappeared.

  “Did we lose them?” Viktor asked.

  “Still coming,” Yusuf said. “You see that market?”

  Up ahead, the road spilled into a crowded square containing a bevy of open-air stalls and a sea of black faces.

  “When I tell you,” Yusuf said, “get out. You’ll see a chicken shack on the left. Go inside. People will help you. This is just in case.”

  “In case of what?” Viktor said, not liking the idea of leaving the car.

  “In case I can’t lose them.”

  The Fortuner appeared in the rear view just as Yusuf entered the congested square. He turned left and the SUV disappeared from view. “Go, boss!”

  Wondering if he was doing the right thing, Viktor scooted to the left side of the car and threw the door open. The smell of diesel and frying offal hit him as soon as he left the car.

  He drew plenty of stares, but the square was so crowded with cars and people that his appearance didn’t cause as much commotion as he thought it would. A nest of alleyways led off from the square, and he saw the chicken shack right in front of him, a shed-like structure made of graying wooden slats and a rusty iron roof. A middle-aged black man with a potbelly tended an iron grill laid atop a wheelbarrow full of coals. A cardboard menu was nailed to the wall of the shack.

  The cook met Viktor’s eyes and jerked his thumb towards a carpet hanging from the doorway.

  Yusuf had already sped off. Wondering how he had gotten in this situation, unsure whether he could trust these men but having little choice, Viktor swept aside the carpet. Just before he slipped inside, he caught a glimpse of the SUV crawling into the square. If they were looking his way, they would have seen him, too.

  A man was breading chicken on a folding table, shooing away flies, head bobbing to a reggae tune. He jerked his thumb towards another doorway, and Viktor stumbled deeper into the shack, into a claustrophobic storage room filled with bags of flour.

  As Viktor tensed in the middle of the room, wondering if his pursuers were about to burst through the door, his cell rang. He quickly silenced the ringer but saw that it was Naomi. He hesitated before answering the call in a hushed voice.

  “Viktor? Where are you?”

  “In a chicken shack.”

  “What?”

  “We can talk later,” he said.

  “Are you all right?”

  Viktor slumped against a pile of dusty flour bags. “I hope so. What do you need, Naomi?”

  “Are you ready for a date?”

  “A date?”

  “Ten o’clock tonight, at a romantic house on a hill.”

  The absurdity of the situation caused Viktor to chuckle as he strained to hear sounds of pursuit above the reggae and the street noise coming from the square. A bead of nervous sweat trickled down his neck, and he loosened his tie. “I wouldn’t miss it,” he said, and hoped he could keep his promise.

  “Great. Oh, and did you know I like men in uniform?”

  -32-

  As the snowmobile neared the glacier and
failed to slow down, Charlie feared they would slam into the ice wall. Her jaw dropped when a portion of the ice levered upwards, like a giant garage door, and the line of snowmobiles sped into a cavernous chamber lit by fluorescent lights.

  That was the last thing she saw before one of the guards ordered her off the snowmobile and blindfolded her. She yelled at them to tell her what was going on, but no one paid any attention.

  The air was warmer than outside but still cold. It smelled like a kerosene heater. Charlie heard voices, both men and women, speaking in that strange language. She heard a few other accents, and there was even some English, discussing electrical work that needed to be done.

  They hustled her forward until all she could hear was the sound of her guards’ feet slapping on concrete.

  “Hey!” she shouted. “Where are we?”

  Someone ripped off the blindfold and gave her a shove into a small cubic chamber. The door slammed behind her.

  Solid ice, streaked with blue whorls, comprised an entire wall. The rest was finished concrete. A strip of lights along the ceiling provided illumination. Charlie stood over a hole in the floor near the back wall and swallowed. The small cavity disappeared into darkness and smelled of human waste.

  “Hey!” she shouted again.

  Over and over and over.

  Charlie was cold.

  Not in-danger-of-dying cold, because she knew what that felt like, but a chill that seeped into her bones and stroked them with icy fingers.

  Still, she had been here before. She could take the cold. And her captors had fed her. Decent food, even. Three times a day, pushed through a one-way section of the door.

  What surprised her was that nothing had changed. No one came for her or made her do anything. No one tried to rape her.

  Why were they keeping Charlie by herself? It made her nervous. Were there other children around, heads drooping and feet shuffling, put to work in some illicit mine beneath the earth?

  Was this where sneakers were made?

  Don’t panic, she told herself. Don’t panic don’t panic don’t panic. See what they want and survive.

  But with each passing minute, her own advice was becoming harder to follow.

  There was a lone window near the top of the door. It must be bulletproof, because Charlie couldn’t crack it. Nor could she fit through. She tried to chip through the ice wall with her food tray but that was like trying to, well, cut through a glacier with a piece of plastic.

  On the morning of the third or maybe the fourth day—she slept for a few hours at a time and had lost count—the door opened.

  Expecting the weasel-faced man who brought her breakfast, she was stunned to see the big Viking from Atlanta carrying her tray. He set it down by the door, told her it was pancakes and orange juice, and introduced himself as Dag.

  Charlie was sitting with her back against a wall. Dag squatted on his heels, a foot away from her. “Do you know why you’re here?” he asked.

  She glared at him.

  “You have a friend, and we need a favor from him. A very important favor.”

  Charlie couldn’t imagine who he was talking about. The only friends she had were homeless, and calling them friends was a stretch. “What? Who?”

  “Dominic Grey.”

  Charlie froze. Teach?

  It took her a moment, but then she understood. Grey must be working on a case that involved these men. She couldn’t imagine what that could be, but he must have crossed someone important to go to all this trouble.

  Someone real bad.

  Dag clasped his hands on his knees. “Your friend, he is a very tough man.”

  “Damn right.”

  “But every man has a weakness. Do you know what Dominic’s is?”

  Charlie scoffed. “Teach ain’t got no weakness. Well, maybe his bike. And sushi. And Reese’s cups.” She shook her head. “But not with fighting.”

  “What if I told you one of our men bested him just the other night, in a fair fight? One on one.”

  “With a rocket launcher?”

  “Hand to hand. No tricks.”

  Charlie shook her head. “No way.”

  Dag’s confident smile chilled her.

  “What do you want?” Charlie muttered, her eyes lowering.

  Dag took out a cell phone and pointed the screen at her. “Your friend’s weakness, dear child, is you.”

  Charlie stared at the phone. “What’re you making him do?”

  “Don’t worry about that. If you both do as I say—and Dominic has assured me he will—then you won’t have anything to worry about.”

  “Don’t tell me what to worry about.”

  Dag gave a faint smile. “I will record, and you will tell Dominic that you are fine. As long as he does what we want.”

  Charlie put her head in her hands and tried to buy herself time to think. She finally looked up and gave a slow, reluctant nod.

  “Good,” Dag said.

  He counted to three and started the video. After stating the date and rattling off a number he said was the Dow Jones at the closing bell, whatever that meant, he introduced Charlie and told her to speak.

  “Hi, Teach,” she said, wanting so bad for Grey’s familiar face and steady presence to be on the screen looking back at her, calming her down and telling her what to do.

  But he wasn’t. Charlie stepped closer, took a deep breath, and shouted, “Don’t do it! Whatever they want, don’t do it!”

  Dag backhanded her. The blow was so hard and fast it rattled her head against the wall. Stunned, Charlie huddled on the floor with her face in her hands. Blood ran down the back of her neck.

  When she spread her fingers and looked up, she saw Dag standing above her, expressionless, holding the phone out.

  “Shall we try again?” He took a folding knife out of a pocket of his flak vest and flicked it open. “I assure you, we will get it right before I leave.”

  -33-

  Keeping a safe distance, Grey followed the man with the topknot down a gently sloping street with pastel-colored houses. Shiny red lampposts arced over the road like candy canes. Rekyjavik felt like a ski village at night, soft and cozy.

  A gentle rain began to patter on the bricks. The man turned right. Grey rounded the same corner and caught a glimpse of Hallgrímskirkja. The giant church looked misshapen, glowing like a stretched demonic face in the darkness.

  The rain picked up. Good. People paid less attention in the rain. Halfway down the block, the man stopped in front of a boxy townhome with a pitched roof. A normal home on a normal street.

  Which made it all the more unnerving.

  Grey kept walking as his quarry unlocked the door, entered the house, and flicked on a light. After strolling the neighborhood at random for half an hour, Grey circled back. The light was still on. Just past the house, a footpath led to a public park squeezed between two properties. Grey slipped down the path.

  The park was tiny, a courtyard with swings. After checking it for vagrants, Grey called Jax and updated him, then huddled in the rain by the swing set, popping his head around the corner every fifteen minutes to see if the light had switched off.

  Freezing and wet, Grey knew breaking into the house was a risky proposition. He wasn’t worried about getting caught. There wasn’t a hint of traffic, and the entire street looked asleep. He worried about a confrontation with the homeowner.

  Even if he killed the man or faked a robbery, Dag would suspect Grey’s involvement. He couldn’t afford to leave a trace.

  Ten minutes later, the light switched off. Forty-five minutes after that, giving his quarry plenty of time to fall asleep, Grey approached the house.

  Lock pick in hand, he pressed close to the door, giving the appearance of someone fumbling with a lock. One of Grey’s areas of expertise was breaking and entering. He always carried a set of slender lock picks, and he solved the simple deadbolt in less than a minute. Holding his breath, he eased the door open and waited in a tiny foyer to let his eyes a
djust to the darkness. In front of him, the man’s coat was hanging from a peg. Grey checked it for a wallet.

  The foyer spilled into a modest living room. Television, futon sofa, coffee table, bookshelf. A pair of low-slung chairs and a bay window with drawn curtains. On the bottom shelf of the coffee table, Grey found a chess set. Interesting. A connection to Dag?

  A counter with high-backed stools separated the room from a galley kitchen. The hallway alongside the kitchen ended at a closed door. It had to be the master bedroom. He searched the living room and found a pile of magazines with a swastika on the front. After checking the kitchen and coming up empty, he let out a silent breath.

  Time to make a decision. Leave empty-handed, or try the bedroom.

  He knew what he had to do. After pulling on a ski mask he found in a closet by the front door, Grey crept to the end of the hallway and twisted the door as quietly as he could.

  It opened without a sound. Heart fluttering, Grey took a step inside and saw the man with the topknot sleeping on his stomach on a platform bed. The back of his T-shirt depicted a green assault rifle above an inscription in Icelandic.

  Grey spied a wallet, a set of keys, a smartphone, and a beer bottle on the bedside table. A desk with a laptop abutted the far wall. Above the headboard, a vintage Nazi recruitment poster hung in a glass frame.

  He resisted the urge to smother the man in his sleep. After deciding that turning on the computer was too risky, he crept, step by agonizing step, to the bedside table. Halfway there, the man rolled over. Grey caught his breath. The man stirred and Grey raised his hands, ready to put him back to sleep. With a snort and a few inchoate mutters, the man rolled back over.

  Surprisingly, the phone was not password protected. Lazy. He scrolled through the list of names but saw no sign of Dag. That was no surprise. If he gave out his number, it was likely a burner he made his people memorize. Instead of taking out the SIM card, which was too obvious, he knelt beside the bed and took a photo with his own phone of the list of recent calls.

  A flip through the wallet revealed that the man’s name was Emil Tomasson. Grey allowed himself one concession and stole a VISA card. It was easy to lose or misplace a credit card, and he thought it worth the risk. He could trace the recent transactions, then lose the card at a convenience store.