Red Mist

by Jan Swick

  A rare smile from Matt as he stared at the computer's wallpaper. It was an image he had seen before, and seeing it again now, here in this house, was confirmation that he was in the right place. Undeniable.

  The photograph had taken centre stage in a collection arranged around the shoulders and arms of the uniform framed upon a wall in Anderson Orbach's bedroom. It had been the uniform that drew Matt's eye as he moved through the apartment to make his escape from the casino.

  It was located at the top of the pyramid, the first photo placed, the one that mattered, chosen from a stack before all others, making all the others just scenery, ornamental. All were shots of army guys, some alone, some in large groups, some in full uniform and some barely dressed. They sat on tanks, cleaned their weapons, played japes on each other, or just lounged in the desert sun. Guys who smiled like they were on holiday, a far cry from what they were in that desert to do: make war. The good times, captured for eternity on film.

  The main photo was different. The location was not a barracks or a desert but a club of some kind, with a bar and a jukebox. Three men, arms around each other's shoulders. Names and ranks were handwritten on the photo, three different scripts, as if each man had signed it. Three soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division, smiling for the camera. Orbach on the left, and the Expert, Damon Mason, on the right. There they both were, comrades and friends, who had gone missing in Iraq but so hadn't, really.

  And in the middle was their Sergeant Major, between his lost comrades, arms around their shoulders, their arms hugging him right back. A man Orbach had called moments before his death, a man who had been waiting for that call, a former superior in the army who was still running things now that the three close friends had become a unit in an entirely new kind of army.

  Sergeant Major Tony Senior, a man with two lives.

  In one he was a wealthy businessman who garnered respect because of his long service to the U.S Army, including tours in Iraq. Sergeant Major Tony Senior had left the army soon after two of his men went missing during a peaceful phase in Fallujah's violent history, overwhelmed by grief at the loss of his friends. He had moved into real estate and made good money. His teenaged son was today an All-American wrestler, his wife a New York Socialite. He owned a large home and a nightclub in New York and a limousine company in Los Angeles.

  And a casino in London.

  Orbach and Damon had faked their deaths, but Senior had not. He couldn't. The Watchdogs needed someone legitimate in the world because no business team could operate totally underground. Someone who could live in daylight, not resigned to the shadows. A public face for their faceless organisation. As team leader, as cheque-signer, tax-payer, this man was accorded the right to not have to live a hidden existence. But maybe to the Watchdogs subterfuge and lies were overwhelming addictions, because Tony Senior had a secret second life. And both were right at Matt's fingertips.

  Matt scrutinised the icons on the screen, forcing the image of the three Watchdogs into the background. The taskbar showed open documents. He checked them all. One was an Internet banking page that had expired through inactivity, and this one did demand a password. There was another website showing a range of speedboats. Another showed a booking confirmation page for a plane ticket. New York. Tomorrow morning at six-fifteen from London City Airport. Returning home now he thought his enemies were dead and the job was done? Some online game was there, too.

  Immediately Matt's eyes were drawn by a folder called RESEARCH. In it were sub-folders, sixteen of them, each given the name of a city somewhere in the world. Seven were in America, four in Britain, two in France, and one each for Germany, Thailand, and the Czech Republic.

  And Haiti.

  He held back the urge to click on BRITAIN, because he wanted to be sure first. So he clicked on Haiti, and within seconds was sure.

  There it all was. Word documents and pictures all about Haiti, and boats, and Manno Bellile and Etienne Frecker and the Haiti National Police. There were charts and spreadsheets and local maps highlighted here and there. Phone numbers, bank account numbers, scans of newspaper clippings. And more, lots more. The whole mission, all laid out, prepared and planned right here. Matt was sure that there was enough here for the police to convict. And in the other folders, too. Enough to blow the Watchdogs wide open, expose them and their operation to the world.

  But that wasn't going to happen.

  He started opening the folders, if only to delay the inevitable. Some listed building felled in Germany, the blame put on vandals, not the guy who could then build upon the land. A murder in Thailand. The strange disappearance of hundreds of sheep from a farmer's field in France.

  He checked them all, a minute for each, marvelling at the depth of research. The Watchdogs had seemingly taken no chances, even documenting weather forecasts on specific days. He even saw the vast file on Daz's car chase. The route in detail, photos of every stage, documents, documents, documents. London 2, that folder was called. There was one subtitled Norfolk. He clicked and read and marvelled. But then he ran out of folders and was left with the one he hadn't wanted to open: London 1. Their first London job. Karen.

  No more reason to delay. He opened it. Dozens of images, dozens of spreadsheets, dozens of Word documents. And images. Each image's icon was a tiny version of the picture, and he clicked on one that showed a vehicle. And there was the florist's van, the one they had hunted. He found a map of London's sewer system, and knew right then how they had done it. The Watchdogs had gotten the killer into the underground station through the sewers. They had gotten Karen's body above ground and into the wasteground using the sewers, which explained why there was a manhole near her body. He pictured men there, lifting her out, positioning her so that the Expert, half a mile away, could watch through his telescope.

  There was a video. One video. Four minutes and fourteen seconds long. It was called KILL, as if he needed any more indication of what it might show.

  He sat for long minutes, staring at the screen, fingers on the mouse, not daring to click open the video. He wanted to see, but also he didn't. And in the end, someone else decided things for him.

  He heard a car pull up outside.

  He leaned over and grabbed the computer and yanked hard, snapping screws, bending both sides of the casing open like wings. Pulled it off, tossed it aside. He tore at the innards of the machine like a psycho, until he was sure it would not work again. Wires were torn, chips snapped. The hard drive went into his pocket. Not because he wanted it as evidence, but because it might, must, contain more names. Everyone who had helped the Watchdogs with their LONDON 1 mission. He wanted every one of them, despite what he'd told Lisa. Same as the computer, he would rend and smash the murder machine until nothing worked.

  He froze.

  Moments later he heard a key in the lock downstairs, and then two voices, one male and one female. The male was laughing, and he recognised the voice instantly. Footsteps thudded up the stairs. The landing light came on when they reached the top. Through the trap, he saw a female whip past and into the bathroom. The door slammed. Even through the door, even over the sounds of the male entering the house and talking to who Matt assumed was his son, he heard the sounds of the woman urinating. The front door closed with a sharp bang. A child's voice called out for a drink. Sounded about four years old. It didn't give Matt any second thoughts about what he had to do. But he knew he had to be careful.

  The female finished urinating. The toilet flushed. Out she came, down she went.

  Or not. Matt pulled back as she stopped under the trap and looked up. He saw her face fall. Then she was running downstairs, hissing something in a whisper that he didn't catch. The child was still talking, then abruptly shut up as his father hissed at him to be quiet. Then Matt heard the front door open and feet pounding, and then the door slammed shut. Nothing but silence downstairs now. He feared they'd all gone, and panic started to rise. And then the landing light went off. And then there was the slightest creak of a stair t
hat informed him someone was coming up in the dark. Carefully.

  Carol was in the car, phone in hand, finger poised over the CALL button, 999 already in the screen. After what had happened a few days ago, she was rightly terrified.

  But the terror vanished a few moments later when Tony came out of the house with another man, a big guy with a soft face. Both men were smiling.

  She got out of the car, carrying her son.

  Tony said, "Hey, babe, this is Matt, from work. We're just going to pop to the shops, catch up a bit. You go inside. It was a false alarm. Matt here thought it would be funny to scare us."

  Matt said, "Sorry about that."

  Carol didn't know what to say. Her heart was still racing. Tony touched her shoulder and ruffled his boy's hair. Ten seconds later he and his strange friend were in the car. It pulled away, with the other guy driving. Tony waved.

  Puzzled, Carol carried her son into the house. But she stood on the step, watching the car drive away. It rounded the corner and was gone. Carol shut the door.

  "So where are we going, dead man?"

  Senior said it with confidence. Matt had noticed that Senior hadn't given his wife or son a proper goodbye, such as you would have expected from a man who feared that he would never see them again. He was too smart, too experienced, too goddamn big-headed to think he was in a jam. A minute from now, ten minutes, an hour – at some point Senior expected his enemy to leave an opening, let his guard down just for a moment. To give him that single fractional chance to turn things around.

  Matt stopped the car just around the corner. He tossed a pair of handcuffs into Senior's lap. He put a roll of duct tape on his own lap.

  "Get in the back seat, face-down, and cuff your hands behind your back."

  Then he did something surprising. He placed Senior's gun on the dashboard, equidistant from each man. Almost as a challenge. There was a heavy pause, no movement from Senior. Clearly weighing things up. Maybe working out if he could grab the weapon and kill Matt and get to his wife and son without before it was too late. Maybe trying to decide if his own safety mattered more than that of his family. He had been waiting for an opportunity, and they were away from the man's family, and so surely he realised he would get no better chance?

  But Senior did not go for the gun. He got out of the car. There was a moment when he cast his head around, as if considering fleeing. Then he got into the back. Lay on his front, arms behind him, and snapped on the cuffs.

  "You don't know the size of the mistake you're making, Armstrong," Senior said. "People will come after you. Lots of them. I have connections. This can only end bad for you."

  Matt picked up the duct tape. "It was a family thing. I had no choice but to protect them. It's my weakness, and it's yours, too. That's how I got to you, why you're handcuffed right now. Filius est pars patris. A son is part of the father."

  Sergeant Major Tony Senior, a man with two lives.

  In one, he had a jobless wife and a young son and a semi-detached house lost in an urban maze in London, England. He worked as a sales rep for a fitted kitchens company, so went his cover, which explained why he could visit New York for months at a time, and hop back into his other life. Doubtless he used overseas work as an excuse for his New York wife, too, when he visited London to see his youngest son, and to check on his casino and hang out with his old army buddies. And to participate in Watchdog jobs, when he fancied taking some cool role. Like taking the wheel to race a car through London.

  Tony Jenkins, a man who had played the part of some low-level cog, just some guy hired to drive a car, but who in fact occupied the top rung. A man Matt had stood just inches from, oblivious.

  When Senior/Jenkins had poked his head through the attic trapdoor, Matt had been sitting in the chair, facing him. Senior had carried a pistol, the barrel aimed his way, but Matt had simply raised his mobile, pointing the screen at Senior.

  He did not see the screen straight away. He climbed up, careful of his bad arm, which he carried quite well for a guy with a recently broken elbow. Matt expected him to try to pretend that he was nothing more than a driver, but Senior said, "Well done for getting this far, Armstrong. No one can fault you, even though it ends here. Did you kill my two boys?"

  Still holding out the phone, Matt said, "It doesn't end here. It ends a few miles away. We have to take a short drive. You and me, as best friends."

  Obviously puzzled and a little perturbed by Matt's nonchalance in the face of a loaded weapon, Senior stepped forward, trying to see what was displayed on the phone held towards him.

  He saw a video. Dark, because it was night. But it was clearly a video showing the back of his house. And the three darker shapes pressed up against the wall, near the back door, were clearly people.

  "What the fuck is this?" he hissed.

  "That's a team of bad people, and unless I give them a code word to abort, their plan goes ahead. Their plan is to hurt your family."

  The mind was racing, Matt could see. Senior still pointed the gun, still glared at Matt, but his brain was elsewhere, thinking of the men outside, the ones with the plan to harm his wife and boy. And thinking of a way out of this mess. Evidently he came up blank:

  "What do you want, Armstrong? Some kind of revenge?"

  He had dropped the English accent. The one he had invented to go along with the persona of Tony Jenkins, sales rep, urban rat. Matt was suddenly sorry for the man's wife, who didn't know her husband had lived a lie for years. She didn't know she was just scenery, a hobby, a prop in the bogus life of her husband. She didn't know about a wife and teenaged son in America, who were swimming in millions while she balanced on pennies. She didn't know he was probably only still in her life because she'd gotten pregnant. He was probably her whole world, but she was his dirty little secret.

  "I want two friends to take a ride," Matt said. "So we'll go down and you'll tell your wife that, and we'll go quietly away, and I'll give the code word and your wife and son will be safe. So give me the gun, Tony. Hand it over or I'll come for it, and that means my plan will go to shit and whatever plan you're working on will go to shit and everything will go wrong for everyone. Newspaper front page type of wrong. Choose now. But first think about how much safer your family will be if I'm far away from here. You want to kill me, but you don't want to do it here, in front of them. That will just get people looking at you, and your sham life here will be opened up. Think about how much better it will be for you to have me miles away, somewhere remote, when you turn the tables and kill me."

  Either it was a good sales pitch, or Senior had already been thinking that very thing. Regardless, he tossed the gun on the carpet.

  Now, Matt stopped the car. Turned off the engine. He got out and opened the rear door and grabbed the Watchdog's feet and hauled him out.

  They were outside the wasteground, where Karen had been found. The fence had a hole in it, cut earlier by another of MacSec. Matt dragged the Watchdog through and across the concrete. Positioned him carefully. Same place that Karen had lay. And all the while, the Watchdog was shouting, perhaps just venting, or perhaps hoping someone would hear and come to his rescue. But the area was empty. Just as it had been empty when Karen was brought here.

  "I have such connections as you wouldn't believe, Armstrong. You think I don't have plans in place in case some weepy relative comes hunting? Anything happens to me, and the rest of your family pays the price. You want that? That worth your petty revenge lust?"

  Just blatant bravado, as if he thought he really could threaten his way out of the mess he was in. But his eyes betrayed him. They said he knew he was in trouble.

  "So what happens now, Armstrong? Strangle me like she got strangled?"

  Matt knelt on the man's chest and grabbed his hair with one hand, tight. The Watchdog knew something unfortunate was coming and tried to wrestle free, but his arms were trapped under him, and Matt was the bigger man.

  Matt raised a pair of pliers up to one of the Watchdog's eyes. The W
atchdog screwed them shut, but it didn't help. Matt pinched the eyelid hard and tugged back, and away it came like a sticky label off a new shirt, nice and neat. The Watchdog stared at him wide-eyed, and probably not just because of the missing lid. He screamed, more in shock than pain, although the pain was there, too.

  The second lid was more stubborn and half tore away, which meant Matt had to have a second go. He put the pliers aside, lifted a little bottle of superglue. Not a brilliant piece of surgery, but it stopped the blood flow. He wiped the blood away with his sleeve. The look in those wide eyes was no longer fear or shock. Just anger.

  "You piece of shit. I'll kill your whole family for this. I was the one who chose her, you know?"

  His voice was surprisingly calm.

  "I cruised the street and just picked her. Thought, there's one the world could do without. Total skank. That's what you call them over here, isn't it? That was her. Skank."

  Maybe he suspected Matt had torture planned here and hoped to stir up enough rage that his kidnapper would explode and end him in a flash. Wasn't going to happen. Anger was long gone. All that remained was a sense of duty. He knew what he had to do, how to do it, and nothing was going to change that. It was akin to autopilot.

  "Maybe we can work this out. I have money."

  A sudden change of tactic, from a man who knew tactics very well. Still no panic. Still that calm voice. A tactic thought out. A businessman making a business proposition. But he was pleading to deaf ears. Matt held up a photo, aimed down, so that the Watchdog could see it. Couldn't fail to. He tried to thrash again, but Matt's weight kept him there, and a fist tight in his hair kept his head in place. So up he stared.