by Jan Swick
It happened to her by luck. She was making yet another left turn onto the main road in front of the long building, skirting around a forecourt belonging to a car dealer on the end. Not for the first time, she glanced at a high fire exit on the side of the building, then down at a motorbike parked near the used Toyotas and Nissans. And not for the first time, bike and door piqued her curiosity. Grimy flank wall and rusty iron steps, but a fire exit that looked newly-installed. Trash-littered forecourt and shabby cars, but a motorbike that seemed fresh off the assembly line. They stood out like diamonds in mud. Their shiny skins seemed to shout a bond, a connection in the same equation.
She had seen this all before, of course, over and over on her endless circling, and had discarded it all before. And she did that now.
Then her wheel blew out.
She cursed and pulled into the side of the road. Got out to check. Front left, flat as a pancake. And the evidence was right there, a plug attached to the tyre. She yanked it off. The prongs had been sharpened, giving her the thought that this was deliberate damage. Planted sharp-side up in the road. Some idiot’s idea of a joke. She scanned the street, searching for a head to crack. But she saw no one peering at her from behind a parked car, no one running from the scene, no kids laughing and pointing.
Ten minutes later she was hoisting the spare wheel onto the hub. The road was busy with traffic and pedestrians, yet the movement of the door opening caught her attention. Her head turned that way. Shocked, she watched as a man exited the fire exit and came down the switchback steps.
Bomber jacket over a white suit. Carrying a crash helmet. And bald.
Orbach.
She cursed her car, then didn’t. If not for the blowout, she would have missed her quarry. She quickly attached the wheel and slid on the nuts. By then, Orbach was on the ground, on his bike. He started the engine and weaved the vehicle through the cars in the lot.
“Shit.” No time to tighten the nuts fully, or replace the hub cap. She jumped in and started the engine. Thankfully, the car was rear-wheel drive. The raised front end thudded to the ground as the forward movement collapsed the jack. Orbach hit the main road fifty feet ahead of her and started speeding away. Five cars whizzed past her before someone with a soul slowed to let her move.
The jack thumped under the offside rear wheel as she pulled into traffic in pursuit.
Back at the hotel, Matt swept a bug finder around their room. Daz had bought it earlier. He came out of the shop with it in his pocket, and night a video watch in his hands, proudly showing off the watch to Matt, just so any watchers would think it was all he'd bought. Rich guy spending.
The bug finder didn’t scream at them, so the room was clear. Daz called someone from his mobile. When the call was done, Daz gave Matt a thumbs-up.
Matt said he needed a bath. If this all went wrong tonight, he wouldn’t get another nice soak for a long time.
Sitting back in the bubbles, he thought about what was to come. Daz’s company, Mac-Sec, provided personal security for c-list celebrities with a bloated sense of their own popularity, for corporate parties, and for people seeking another kind of back-up. The latter were the kind of people who made up his crew. They were all former street thugs, drug dealers, car thieves. Daz had hired the ones he thought were led down the criminal road only because they had nothing better to do. Great excuse. He gave them uniforms, a decent wage, and hoped they wouldn’t steal from him or embarrass him. There had been some newspaper article on him, praising his attempt to get troublesome people off the streets and back into work. The journalist who penned the piece hadn't known that part of Daz's income came from providing security for low-level gangsters during drug deals. For five hundred dollars, a guy could surround himself with hard-looking men and pretend he was connected.
"Doesn't make me a criminal or anything," Daz had said in his defence. "Deal goes down with or without me. I just help make sure it runs sweet and no one gets stabbed."
Daz might have believed his crew had turned over a new leaf, but tonight they were going to return to their roots. While Matt and Daz faced Orbach across his office, Daz’s mob would position themselves within a few feet of the casino's security team. When Orbach’s blood flew across his walls and Daz gave the signal, those reformed characters were going to explode half a dozen flash-bang bombs, causing panic and disarray. In the melee, Daz and Matt would make their escape, but escape wasn’t the primary reason for the gang’s presence there tonight. As Matt had said many times, he wanted all the people involved in Karen’s murder, low level-or not. Anyone and everyone who contributed to the performance of her death. Every cog and wheel and component. Every piece of wiring without which the machine of murder would not have worked. And he had to be sure. Liam Hardy had died for that reason. And the security team at Pegasus Casino would die for that reason. Amid the smoke and stampeding gamblers tonight, Daz’s security team would pulls blades and slit throats. Matt would lie low for a while, then review the situation, find out who had escaped the net, and hunt them down. He did not fear prison. Prison would appeal to his willingness to challenge himself in order to learn and grow. But he feared being locked up before his job was done. Once it was, well, come what may.
But: the note that had been delivered to him. Someone had wanted him to see this through. Someone who knew that he was hunting his sister’s killers. He had reached a dead-end and that someone had stepped in to help. That person had known information Matt hadn’t, which made him wonder how much of the truth they knew. Was he being led by someone who knew everything, maybe a traitor amongst the Watchdogs' crew? Or followed by another enemy of the Watchdogs who had also hit a brick wall, perhaps a friend of Karen's?
Whoever it was, he had to find that person. After it was all over, or it wouldn't really be over at all. But for now he had to shut down his running mind, or the spiralling theories would spin out of control and he'd probably end up connecting Karen's murder to JFK's assassination. He sank low in the bath and let the hot water soothe him.
Orbach rode past his own casino without a glance at it, turned south, and ninety seconds later stopped across the road from the red brick academic wing of Boston University. Journey over, thankfully: Lisa's ride had started to make a scary rumbling sound that was surely the loose wheel getting looser. She parked some way back and watched Orbach carry his jacket and helmet and head towards the university. She was wondering if he was a mature student when he walked right past and vanished into the building next door. She got out.
The neighbouring building housed a swimming pool, which puzzled her because Orbach had entered with no bag. But also pleased her: public building, so she could go in without worry that she’d be stopped.
But she was. In a short corridor that looked like a school hallway, there was a ticket window with an old lady behind the clear plastic. The old lady slid the window open. “No bags, please.”
Lisa flapped her arms. “You see a bag?”
“You have to buy our disposable swimwear. Nothing of your own.”
Across from the window was a board on the wall, hung with trunks and bathing suits, all blue, all plastic-looking. Not cheap and not pretty.
“I'll have to rack my memory for confirmation, but provisionally I can say that that is the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard. Your boss trying to kill this business?”
The prices were £5 all the way, and there was no entrance fee. That made a bit more sense. Plus, she would have been stuck if the place hadn't sold swimsuits, because she didn't have one. She bought one and was directed through an open door further down. Beyond was a changing that looked like a former classroom. There were a few people here, all in blue plastic, but no Orbach.
She found him in the assembly hall, which was now a pool. The ceiling was vaulted like a cathedral, and the walls were old tile, and there were murals depicting sunny beaches, as if the swimmers were supposed to pretend they were in the cool waters of the Mediterranean.
Orbach was one of only e
ight people in the pool. He was floating on his back, hands free of the water and holding a mobile phone. Lisa got in, swam past him, taking a good look at her quarry. He was completely hairless except for his eyebrows and maybe under his trunks. Sinewy and tight, but not thin. Like a long-distance runner who’d recently taken up powerlifting. The water was beaded on his tanned skin as if he’d applied an oil-based moisturiser. His face was round and baby-like, especially because of his hairless head. Not her type of man, but she could sense that some women would think him beautiful.
So, she knew what he looked like, but now what? For the next half hour, hour, whatever, Orbach looked like doing nothing, just floating and playing some video game on his phone. She could swim and waste time and follow him after he left, or she could assume that her pursuit was going to yield nothing and try something else. Nothing here was going to help Matt, unless Orbach made a call. But he was content to float and play. He was just here to relax.
She decided to leave.
She swam past Orbach for one final, close look, and before she knew why, she splashed him. He jerked, planted his feet on the bottom, and glared at her. After just a second, that angry look turned into a smile as he took in her pretty face.
“Sorry,” she said.
“That’s fine, Miss,” he said. He had an American accent, quite thick, although she couldn’t place the location. “It is miss, is it?”
A come-on. She ignored it. Started to swim away, quickly. She was desperate to get to a computer. When Orbach had stood in the pool, he had exposed his chest, and she had stared in shock. And known right then that she might have a chance to set everything right.
At eight o’clock, they set off. Daz drove. Matt didn’t trust his mind to watch the road, so worked up was he about what he had to do. He had killed eight men in his life, five of them legally in warzones. The sixth had tried to kill him four years ago. All eight men had been planning on doing him harm. But Anderson Orbach was going to die at work, in his office, under a bright light, probably with people he knew right beside him. It was not a nice thought, despite what Orbach had done.
If he’d done it.
Matt put the radio on loud to drown that thought. It was one that had kept coming back. He shut it down fast each time. Orbach was the one. Had to be.
He closed his eyes, listened to the music, and visualised it all in his head, over and over. Orbach standing five feet away, chin up, neck exposed; the belt ripped free in a backhand motion, uncurling like a slingshot, tension force and tangential velocity and mechanical energy all boiled down into a man’s simple knowledge that his strong shoulder could whip that metal buckle around so fast and hard that it would cut and bore and smash through flesh and muscle and gristle.
It was a slow drive, to gather thoughts. When the car turned into the car park across from Pegasus, Daz immediately saw his crew, six of them, congregated around a burger van further up the street. He flashed his lights, a pre-arranged signal that put young men and women on the move. They joined a mass of people oozing towards the casino from all directions. They split up to avoid looking like a group of troublemakers and went inside separately. When the last was gone, Daz killed the engine. Matt had closed his eyes when the car stopped. Daz had to thump his shoulder.
“You want to do this?”
Matt’s answer was to open the door and climb out. Daz joined him in the car park.
"Who knows what life will bring after tonight," Daz said. "You want to shake hands and say goodbye now in case we never see each other again?"
Daz was clearly nervous, but Matt wasn’t – yet, at least. They were not yet at the point of no return, so there was nothing to fear. But once they were in Orbach's office, once that door was shut behind them and the Watchdog was within Matt's reach, then the nerves would hit. At that point, he would be on autopilot. There would be no interrupting his programming once they got to that stage.
Matt slapped Daz's shoulder, just to reassure him. Pulled a smile, because that was what people did to make others feel better in tense situations.
Daz turned off his mobile phone and tossed it in the car, along with his identification. Matt tossed in his own phone. No interruptions, and carry nothing that the Watchdogs could use against them if things went wrong – that had been their arrangement. They faced each other. There was no more to do to delay this thing.
"Serious about that never seeing each other again part," Daz said. "We might not."
“Good,” Matt said, because cracking a joke in the face of danger was also what some people did. He put on his shades. “Lead on and I’ll walk behind like a good Victorian wife.”
They headed for the casino. Matt ran his finger over the axe-sharp buckle on his belt as they walked, and it reassured him better than any joke or comforting words could have.
Lisa got up from the computer and yanked her mobile phone. She had found her answer. The answer that would probably save Matt.
But Matt's phone went to voicemail. As she rushed from the library, she rang Daz’s. Same result. Her heart raced. Both phones turned off? That could only mean one thing. They were doing it. It was on. She might already be too late.
She had to get to the casino before everything turned to shit.
They jumped a queue of five people waiting to join the casino and approached the desk. Daz slapped a twenty pound note onto the solid wood. Matt glared at the queue and after that nobody seemed to mind that Daz had pushed in.
“Mr. Orbach was due to see me earlier. I’m sure he’d like to do so now.”
One of the guys put his hand over the note and stood up. Daz snatched it from under his fan-leaf of a palm and thrust it at the guy still sitting.
“It’s for him,” he said to the guy on his feet. “Because he’s got twice the work to do while you go get Mr. Orbach. We'll be outside.”
The guy didn’t complain. They’d split the money later, probably. He went to the back wall and a phone. Pressed one button and spoke a few words. Sat back down. Daz and Matt stepped back. The queue moved forward.
Lisa pulled up in time to see Matt and Daz being escorted into the casino. She had no idea why they were outside, but none of that mattered because they were headed back inside, and surely it was because they were about to be taken upstairs.
She dumped the Merc behind two others in the car park, blocking them in, and pelted across the road and thumped through the doors, nearly knocking down some woman who was leaving. The guys behind the counter looked up from their screens. She calmed herself, rubbed her arms as if she were cold, and walked up to the counter to give a tale about the dog eating her membership card.
Once past the inner doors, she scanned left and right, but Matt and Daz were nowhere to be seen. She quickly walked past the hypnotised slots players, headed for the tables room.
And there she saw them. Walking with a guy in a grey suit. Headed for the nondescript door in the corner, the one guarded by a man in a black suit. Different ape this time, but same stern pose that said you ain’t getting in here unless invited.
She thought about calling out. Should have. She did not care about embarrassing them: she had done that last night. She just needed to stop them. But she waited too long. Only a couple of seconds, while her brain cycled through other options, but by then it was too late. The guard stepped aside and opened the door, and a moment Daz and Matt were gone and the ape was back on station, as if he had never moved.
She scanned the room and saw a face she recognised. The black guy. He was here. The others would be here. They would plant their bombs again. It was going to go down. A lot of noise, a lot of death.
She moved around the room, watching, thinking. She knew she could interrupt Matt’s plan again, easily. A bomb scare, for instance. But if she caused trouble, it would not go down well. Matt would simply try again, and the next time he might be more hasty, might forgo a plan and just dive in and make a mammoth mistake. Worse, if she got herself on Orbach's radar, the Watchdogs might get suspicious a
nd do some deeper research and find out things that could spell Matt's doom.
She watched the black man approach one of the security guys and say something. Maybe just some line, something like, Nice night, eh? The words weren’t important. The man’s placement was. He was near the security guy. She looked at the other security guys and saw shady characters lurking near them all. It was going to go down, then. The bombs were planted, and the men were in position.
Now what? She thought.
She looked over at the cage, where a guy was cashing in some chips. The woman behind the counter was speaking into a radio. An idea formed.
Beyond the simple black door was a hub turned brilliant white by strip lights. A corridor ran off ahead and another pair left and right. The walls were bland grey breeze blocks, the floor scuffed concrete. The man in grey led them ahead, to another hub with doors in the walls and a staircase that they took. At the top was a security door with a keypad. The guy in grey shielded the keypad with his body and tapped a code, and a click announced that the door was open.
Beyond was a corridor more worthy of a plush hotel than the back offices of a casino. Thick carpet, red walls, ornamental vases on plinths. More doors in both walls, and one at the end with a plaque that simply said ZE BOSS on it. Matt was reminded of a penthouse apartment. He had assumed that by "apartment" Hardy had meant a room with a bed crammed in, a TV on the wall and maybe a small drinks fridge – but no, it was looking as if Orbach might actually live here. In luxury, too.
The guy in grey had a fist raised to knock the door when his radio squawked. He hauled it and jammed it to his face.
Daz and Matt heard nothing more than garbled words amid white noise, but the man in grey was obviously quite used to the sound quality because he nodded as he listened, with a finger raised to pause his guests. Then he put the radio away. He spoke to Daz with a grin on his face.