Vendetta

by Dreda Say Mitchell

  Only screams answered him. Mac increased the pressure of his hand. Hit something hard. The bullet. His hand stopped.

  ‘They might not have given you a name. But you know . . . people like you always do . . .’

  Rapid breathing, no answer.

  Mac pushed down. The man’s body arched as high as the ropes around him would allow. There was no screaming this time, only the sound of a noise that Mac equated to the death cries of an animal. But still the man refused to talk. In frustration, Mac pulled the steel clear of the wound and threw it angrily to the floor. He stomped back to the shelves. Pulled off the saw and a knife with indented lines just above the edge of its blade.

  Headed back, to his captive’s head this time. The man’s eyes were watery with pain, his facial muscles twitching and his lips moving like he was in the midst of a prayer. Mac placed the knife flat against the block. Kept the saw in his hand.

  He stared his prisoner directly in the face. ‘See my eyes? You know I’m going all the way with this. Now help yourself out by helping me out – name the person who’s pulling your strings.’

  The man gobbed pink spittle into Mac’s face. Mac wiped it off with the back of his hand. Pulled the man’s ear with the same hand and started sawing. A sharp spurt of blood hit Mac’s apron. Then the blood oozed thickly down as the flesh tore.

  ‘OK. OK,’ the man yelled, the sound of his breathing noisy and nasty in the room. ‘I’ll tell you . . . tell you.’

  Mac stopped. But didn’t remove the saw.

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘We never touched any woman in a hotel.’ Each word shook as the man grappled with the pain eating into him. His raging breathing pushed his chest high. ‘We saw you for the first time when you went into the doctor’s.’

  Mac shook his head with mock disappointment. ‘That’s a shame.’

  Mac inched down the saw. A full-throttle shrill tore up the room again.

  ‘It’s true,’ he screamed, his head shifting from side to side, as if trying to wake up from a nightmare. ‘We were only contracted to take care of the doctor and the young Russian.’

  The saw froze. ‘The doctor and Sergei?’ Mac briefly floundered and wondered aloud in anguish, ‘But what about the woman?’

  No answer. Quickly Mac placed the saw on the block and replaced it with the knife in his hand. He put the tip of the knife against the man’s throat. The air coming out of the man’s nose and mouth was ragged and shallow.

  ‘Keep talking.’

  The man closed his eyes. Abruptly, with one swift move, he shoved his head up and forward, ramming the knife deep into his windpipe.

  forty-nine

  5 p.m.

  The assassin was dead, but Mac still had one more card left to play.

  ‘He takes care of all of Reuben’s awkward jobs.’

  Mac remembered Sergei’s words about Calum as he hacked and crowbarred and finally shot off the chained doorway that divided the butcher’s storeroom from a staircase that led up to Calum’s office. The room upstairs was locked off too, but Mac fired two more shots into that. He’d lost patience with long methods that day. He walked into Calum’s office determined to ransack, but without much idea of what he was looking for. But Calum had some answers, Mac was sure of that; he just didn’t know what the questions were yet.

  He strode past the shotgun that was still propped up against the wall, and headed straight for the desk. Jumbled papers, a couple of pens, paperclips and computer. Nothing of interest. That was typical of the security consultant; he might have been lower than a snake’s belly, but he was still a professional. Never leave secrets lying around. His computer was on but Calum’s main activity on it seemed to be playing solitaire. Mac went through the desk’s drawers. Nothing. A filing cabinet with folders and three bogus cops’ badges. But nothing else. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

  He kicked the wall.

  His rage hit the red zone and he started pulling books and files off the shelves and shaking them to see if anything fell out. When nothing did, he threw them on the wooden floor with increasing violence. Finally, he swept a row of books to the floor and watched them crash downwards. He stood, breathing heavily, and looked around the room. His gaze came to rest on the lead that hung from the back of the computer. Calum had used it that morning to plug into the back of Elena’s phone before declaring it had been wiped.

  Mac hunted around in his pocket and found Elena’s phone. Plugged it in to the lead and took the seat in front of the screen. A few moments later a pop-up appeared announcing, ‘New Hardware Detected . . .’ It flashed a few times before giving way to a window as a program started up. The application had a title bar announcing it had been developed by ‘Blank Frank’ of Novosibirsk and there was a mobile phone number next to it. In brackets after that, Blank Frank had included the message, ‘If you want support, you’re out of luck!!! Ha ha!!!’ Across the screen spread information about the make, the phone number and the network.

  And he didn’t need the phone’s password any more, because its technical information was giving up access to all its hidden secrets.

  Address book.

  Texts.

  Phone logs.

  Voicemail.

  He went through each one in turn. Most of the data on the phone had been deleted, except an option shaded eye-squinting green with the words:

  ‘Four Texts Available’.

  But Calum had claimed that all the data had been deleted. Why had he done that? Mac pushed Calum from his mind – for now – as he clicked on the green box and watched as, scrolling down the screen, came the four texts. They were all timed and dated for the day on which Elena had become hysterical about Reuben’s delivery. And they were all from one sender – Bolshoi.

  You know how important that delivery is to me. You fucked up.

  You bitch. You’re a dead woman. So is your boyfriend. So long. Bolshoi.

  I’ll kill you myself if you’re not dead already. Hope for your sake you are.

  Are you dead yet Elena? Don’t reply if you are. Bolshoi.

  Mac read them over and over again and they merged into one.

  Bitch . . . Boyfriend . . . Dead . . . Kill . . . Bolshoi . . .

  Who the hell was Bolshoi? It wasn’t a name he’d ever heard Reuben use before, but it must be connected to the gang because this Bolshoi talked about the delivery. And why was the delivery important to him? Elena had obviously done something to piss the guy off. But what? Mac stared hard at the screen. There it was in black and white, the evidence and the name of Elena’s killer – Bolshoi. He searched frantically across Blank Frank’s application in an effort to find more information, but there was none. Calum shifted back centre-stage in his thoughts. His so-called friend had been holding out on him. But why? What was Calum not telling him about his involvement with Reuben?

  ‘Bastard,’ Mac shot out as he dug back into his pocket and laid out on the desk all the items he’d found at Elena’s flat.

  There were the charred remains of the photo of the two men in uniforms. Reuben’s Post-it note: Get these documents to the big man in Hamburg. Don’t fuck up. Fuck up = death.

  Get these documents to the big man in Hamburg . . .

  Mac realised that earlier he’d been so intent on linking Reuben to Elena’s murder, he had only taken account of one part of the message.

  Was the big man in Hamburg the mysterious Bolshoi? He knew Reuben’s crew brought in their deadly gear from the continent and it was reasonable to assume someone was in control over there. Hamburg was an obvious place, too: a big port city with easy access to all points westward and a big and varied population. But ‘big man’ suggested someone important, and Mac had never heard Reuben describe anyone like that. But why would Bolshoi want Elena dead? What had she done? How had the big man in Hamburg known about Elena’s boyfriend? And what was going down tonight with this delivery?

  Had the big man from Hamburg turned up yet in Rio’s investigation? What if Phil Delaney’s i
ntelligence network had picked him up? If he had, Phil hadn’t mentioned it. Mac looked over Calum’s computer applications once more. It was too bad he couldn’t hack into Rio and Phil’s files, and it wouldn’t have surprised Mac to learn that Calum had a program supplied by the likes of ‘Blank Frank’ that allowed him to do it. But in the absence of that, Mac decided he’d have to find out another way.

  Mac stood up. But when he heard a noise on the floor below, he drew his gun and hurried to the window. The street was clear. But he heard the heavy, uneven sound of footsteps as someone came up the stairs towards the office. Mac sat back down, covering the door with his Luger. The person paused outside the door. The handle turned. The door pushed open. Calmly Calum walked in. He didn’t seem surprised to find Mac in his chair, pointing Lady L at him.

  fifty

  ‘Who’s Bolshoi?’

  Calum remained casual, not breaking his slow, measured stride as he moved towards the desk. ‘You’re gonna hurt someone if you keep waving . . .’

  But Mac wasn’t in the mood for the other man’s sidetracking games, so he shoved out the question again. ‘Who’s Bolshoi?’ His grip round the gun tightened.

  Calum sighed, his eyelids half cloaking his intense green gaze as he took the seat on the other side of the desk. ‘I see you found your way into your girlfriend’s phone then?’ One of his hands rubbed absently at the side of his neck. ‘Seriously, Mac, you’re losing your touch. A fourteen-year-old kid could have opened that for you . . .’

  ‘Who. Is. He?’ Mac’s finger tensed round the trigger. ‘Just because you stood up for Stevie doesn’t mean I won’t take you down. There’s a corpse in the butcher’s that knows I’m way, way beyond caring what I do now.’

  Calum’s face didn’t shift from deadpan at the mention of the body downstairs. Then he shrugged. ‘He’s just a guy. Works out of Hamburg. Arms, drugs, the usual . . .’

  Abruptly, Calum hitched himself out of the chair.

  ‘Stay down,’ Mac stormed.

  But Calum turned and kept walking, his limp more pronounced. Mac pumped the trigger twice. Two shots banged into the ground near the other man’s feet. But Calum kept walking. He stopped at the shelves on the other side of the room, near the shotgun against the wall. Took down a bottle of Hennessey’s and a couple of shot glasses. Made his way back to the desk, face still emotion-free, and placed the glasses on the table. Poured. Picked up one of the drinks and retook his seat. This time his pose was tight; his body didn’t touch the back of the chair.

  He savoured a mouthful of cognac, and then spoke. ‘I warned you to stay out of this . . .’ He slammed back the remainder of his drink. ‘Bolshoi is the boss guy for Reuben’s gang. He runs the operation from Hamburg – amongst his other activities, which are many.’

  ‘And why did he have Elena killed?’

  Calum cocked his head to the side, the lines at the corners of his eyes deepening slightly. ‘Are you sure . . . ?’

  Mac’s impatience increased. ‘Stop dicking me around, you saw the messages on her phone. You saw those texts this morning, but you never said a word. Why is that, Calum?’

  Calum jerked forward, his annoyance blatant and in the open for the first time. ‘You’re not listening to me, Mac. Like I said, you need to leave this one alone. Take a train to the seaside, get on a plane, take a sleeping tab and snuggle down in bed; do whatever you need to do to stay out of this.’

  ‘You’re Reuben’s bitch, aren’t you?’

  Calum’s skin darkened. ‘Yeah, sure I am, that’s why I didn’t tell him what had happened to Elena when he sent me over to that crap club to ask tom-fool questions about her. I’ve been covering for you . . .’

  ‘I don’t need someone like you to watch my back.’

  ‘Not even if I decided to call Rio and tell her all about what I know?’

  ‘Do what you’ve got to do, but you ain’t leaving this room till I know the truth.’

  ‘What, you mean like the truth that it was you who killed her?’

  That stunned Mac, like a punch out of the blue.

  ‘I’ve told you what happened, I didn’t murder her.’

  ‘I’ve been covering your arse, keeping everyone off your scent. But don’t keep lying to yourself and me about what happened . . .’

  ‘You’re wrong . . .’

  But Calum wouldn’t stop. ‘Look at the facts. You’re a cop. Get all the evidence together and what does it say? Only one person could’ve killed her . . .’

  Mac lunged across the desk, the gun dropping from his hand. Calum leapt out of his reach. Mac rushed round the table and took a swing at his opponent. But it didn’t connect because the other man backed off as quickly as his bad leg would allow him.

  Calum shoved his hands up. ‘Pack it in. Don’t make me kick your behind. You don’t need it and neither do I.’

  ‘You back-stabbing, betraying . . .’

  With rage, hatred and a chemical rush from the pills welling up inside him, he landed a full-frontal punch on Calum’s face. His opponent reeled back against the wall. Mac moved in for the kill. Swung his foot but, in his blind fury, missed. His whole body jarred, vibrating with pain, as he connected with the wall. Calum picked up the shotgun. Mac kicked out again. Calum tipped up the shotgun and swung it at Mac’s calf. Mac flipped up and tumbled to the side, banging his head against the edge of the desk. Crashed to the floor.

  It took a few seconds before Mac could refocus; he saw an anxious Calum standing him over him, and noticed what appeared to be a misshapen red kiss on the side of the other man’s neck. On the top of his head, Mac felt Doctor Mo’s stitches oozing sticky red blood again. But he ignored the head wound or any pain and he stumbled up again.

  ‘Mac, that’s enough.’

  But it wasn’t enough. It was never going to be enough. The room swaying in his vision, Mac charged. Another wild punch that a weave and bob avoided. A second punch, right hook this time. When he lashed out, the room blurred around him. He couldn’t see but just kept hitting out. Lashing out . . . Something hard struck him across the back of the head. He went down. The room was still moving as he looked up, but the light began to change colour, with black circles dotted around.

  ‘Mac? Mac? Can you hear me? If you can, I’m giving you a final warning. Stay out of it. Stay out. Because next time this happens, you’ll wind up dead.’

  The dizzy light changed to total black.

  fifty-one

  5:40 p.m.

  Calum was long gone when Mac came to in the office. Wincing from the headband of pain wrapped round his skull, he rolled gingerly to his side. His ab muscles tightened as bile threatened to bale out of his body. He locked his throat muscles as he fought it back. Closed his eyes as he gulped in air. Then he remembered the time. Fuck, how long had he been out? Urgently he checked his watch.

  Twenty minutes until six.

  Just over five hours before the delivery. But he didn’t get up, instead started to plot his next move. Calum was a dead end by now, long gone and swallowed up by the streets. That left the man in the frame – Bolshoi. He needed more Intel on him. But where could he get that from? Maybe go back to Reuben and play a smart game of cat-and-mouse chat, where the Russian would naturally let the information flow? No. That might just put him in the firing line if Reuben got suspicious. That left only one other source – Phil. His superior was bound to have information on a known international criminal. Somehow he was going to have to hack into Phil’s computer files, which was no easy task. In an ideal world he could’ve just asked Phil, but this was no ideal day. Phil had ordered him off the case, so going back to HQ was a dead man’s game. Yeah, but what if . . . the power of Mac’s thought made him sit up. What if he could access Phil’s files from another police source, another police building? Somewhere like The Fort? It was a risky move if the security camera footage from the hotel was already in. But he knew he didn’t have any choice.

  He stood. Ran his fingers over his scalp and found the bullet woun
d had opened slightly. His fingers came away smeared with dirty, burgundy-scabby blood. On the floor was his cap, which he eased gently back on. He checked his pockets to see if Calum had taken anything off him but he hadn’t. Even his Luger was still lying on the desk where he’d dropped it.

  He walked over to the filing cabinet and opened the third drawer and there, sitting pretty, were the bogus cop badges he’d seen earlier. Three, all for different departments. Vice, Serious Crime Squad and Fraud. Mac chose Serious Crime. He pulled out the pills and popped a single one into his mouth. Whatever the meds were that he’d found at Doctor’s Mo’s, they were like magic because, despite the shit stacking up around him, he felt the power within him start to grow. He took out Elena’s bracelet. Unclasped the chain link. Then retied it round his right wrist with the rabbit charm touching his thumping pulse.

  fifty-two

  6 p.m.

  You can get into anything if you’ve got enough front. That was Mac’s game plan for gaining access to The Fort. He couldn’t enter using his own ID because, for all he knew, Rio might have seen his image on the CCTV footage from the hotel. He entered the building just as a suited man, sporting shades and a briefcase, was leaving. There were a few people around, but no one Mac recognised. He carried on walking towards reception where a young woman sat behind the front desk. She looked up at him, her teak-toned skin relaxed, but there was no accompanying smile.

  ‘Detective Brand,’ Mac said confidently. Then he flashed the false Serious Crime Squad ID.

  ‘Have you got an appointment with someone?’ Her gaze was keen as she took in his baseball cap.

  He let his lips stretch out into a slow smile. Leaned over. Whispered, ‘I’m with the LYZ team. On a job – you know what I mean . . .’ He waved his fingers at his cap. ‘We’ve got clearance to use the computer terminals upstairs. I understand that there are computers set aside for our people to use. Check with Phil Delaney if there’s a problem’