by Jack Parker
Victor didn't make a habit of lurking around eavesdropping on people like a dick, but it wasn't like he'd set out to do it. Sleeping with this much shit going on around you was just damn hard. After an hour of tossing and turning he heard voices from outside his bedroom, and even though they weren't the cause of his restlessness, it was as good an excuse as any to distract himself. He'd rolled out of bed, opening the door to his bedroom and trudging for the kitchen when he heard Georgie and Emery having some discussion about Ludkov or something. He'd been about to walk out and demand that they keep it the hell down when he heard his own name and gave pause.
"Don't tell him I said this, but Victor Scott is a perfectly lovely man," said Georgie.
Victor straightened up. Well, he'd be damned. He didn't think he'd ever been talked up behind his back before.
"He's also an uppity twat."
Oh, okay—fuck you too.
"I'm sure all he'll really want in return for his service is the right to complain about this event for the rest of his life."
Victor was annoyed to hear Emery laugh at this. "Oh, you do know Victor, don't you?"
"He's uncomplicated."
"But lovely. You're right about that. I think he's the best friend I ever had. …In my adulthood, that is."
"Do you think you'll keep in contact with him after this?"
"Yes. I'll make sure of it."
Victor narrowed his eyes curiously.
"I don't…think he really has anyone else."
He didn't know why that stung. Maybe because it was true, wasn't it? He'd fucked his family over and abandoned them seven years ago. That was plenty enough time for them to have written him off as gone for good. The only social interaction he maintained was with coworkers he'd sooner kill than drink with and women who wanted a few hours of strings-free sex. He really wasn't kidding when he said Emery was the closest thing to a friend he had. In fact this group of fuckups was the only human connection he had anymore. He really didn't have anyone else…Damned if that wasn't a sad revelation.
"Really?" Georgie asked. "He doesn't strike me as the lone wolf sort."
"He's not. Not by choice, anyway. Before, when I lived in Montreal I mean…I was so very grateful to have a family again. That's what Kurt gave me. He's just one person, and he's more than enough, but…I'd say there's plenty of room for Victor."
Victor had drawn back from the wall, his motive for coming out of his room all but forgotten.
It wasn't news to Victor that he was a loser, but it was news to him that everyone else knew it. That's what you get for spilling your stupid backstory to someone as lovey-dovey as Em. Part of him was irritated that Emery viewed him like some stray dog needing to be taken in while the other part of him was sentimental as all Christ over it.
"If you rush the front gates it'll provide the distraction while the rest of your men head up the rear," Kurt was saying to Hennessey, drawing Victor's focus back to the present.
Hennessey let out a guttural hiss. "Distraction nothing, we'll be attacking the place at night, won't we? They won't see it coming."
Kurt stared back at him with barely visible exasperation. "As I've said, our best bet is to execute this plan between two and four p.m. These are highest operating hours, the time in which we can be certain to have the most impact and be the least expected."
"Whoever heard of something like this going down midday?" Hennessey griped. "I need time to get more firepower anyhow. We're doin' it at night."
Kurt planted a finger down into the center of the sketch he'd made. "Come nightfall there will be no guarantee that the Dutchman, or Sheridan, will be there at all."
Hennessey glared at the finger before shaking his head, eying Kurt suspiciously. "I'll consent to dusk. No earlier."
"I'd advise against it."
"When I want your advice I'll fucking ask for it," Hennessey sniped. "You ain't here for your benefit, you're here for mine. And you're gonna lead me right to that two-faced septic yourself, Mr. Advice."
Emery finally spoke up, stepping forward. "You mean you're going to be accompanying us yourself?"
Hennessey scowled. "Well I ain't gonna be sittin' around on my duff waiting for you lot to cock it up, am I? I want Sheridan for myself. If anyone else kills him first I'll rip the stones right off 'em. Now, about the money." He turned to fully face Emery. "I want a million pounds here by noon."
Emery glanced at Kurt. "I can't get it immediately. It takes days to get ahold of that amount."
"What good are you if you ain't got the money upfront, Eaton?"
"I didn't intend to go forward with this plan until we'd had a bit more time to iron things out," Emery said sternly. "You can either wait to have the full total up front or you can make do with less for now, but it simply can't be done otherwise."
Hennessey eyed Emery threateningly for a moment before backing down slightly. "How much can you give me now, then?"
Emery paused, thinking. "I can grant you as much as a hundred and fifty thousand by the afternoon, but I've got to go and collect it."
"Two hundred," Hennessey demanded.
Emery pursed his lips, but nodded.
"Just peachy, then," said Hennessey, eyes sweeping the surrounding crew. "You'd best hurry and get it. I need more guns before this shindig and I've only got one supplier local who don't like doin' business last minute as it is. Don't keep me waiting."
At that Hennessey turned away, leaving Emery, Kurt, Victor, Georgie and Ludkov to reconvene and decide their next course of action. "I'll have to go back to Eaton manor before I can get the money. Can't make a withdrawal without my old identification," Emery said.
"I'll accompany him," Kurt said, like anyone suspected otherwise.
Georgie nodded in assent. "Aleksei and I will scare up as many other men as we can in the meantime."
"Right." Emery looked to Victor. "Are you coming along with us, Victor?"
Victor was about to reply when McDermott suddenly rounded on them.
"One of you stays here," he informed, eying Victor up and down.
Emery stepped forward with an irked expression. "What for? Do you suppose we'll just slink off?"
"Dunno, don't care. Hennessey wants collateral," McDermott replied.
Emery looked like he was pushed just about to the limits of his patience so Victor cut back in. "It's fine, Em. I'll stay."
Emery looked at him, chewing a lip contemplatively. "Are you sure?"
Victor swiped a hand at him. "What else am I gonna do? Besides, the last time I was invited to Casa de Eaton it was a huge letdown. I'll sit this one out."
Kurt turned an icy look on McDermott. "If his life is on the line then so is yours. If he's in any way harmed I will hold you personally accountable."
McDermott studied the taller man for a long moment before pulling out a cigarette. "Is that supposed to be a threat?"
"Cheers mate, you worked that one out awfully quick," Emery bit with an unusual amount of sass that Victor found hysterical.
McDermott raised an eyebrow and lit up, but didn't say anything else.
Emery turned back to Victor. "We'll be back shortly. Call me if anything seems off, won't you?"
"Don't sweat it."
Victor watched his party leave and then turned his attention to the large group of men who were giving him glares from the other side of the warehouse. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. He'd almost been killed by these fuckers before, and this time Ludkov wasn't here to hide behind. Nevertheless he crossed his arms and gave them all a snide look in return. Someone flipped him the V and he sneered back. McDermott, still next to him but staring out the door through which the others had left, decided to make conversation.
"Aren't you all a funny lot?"
Victor glanced at him. "Yeah, fucking hilarious."
"That little knobjockey's got a pair on him."
"Who?" Victor asked, turning to face him. "You mean the millionaire currently saving all your asses from certain doom?"
Victor was in no mood to make friends and he didn't know where this was going, but he didn't like the implication that Emery, and vicariously the rest of them, were here for the using. "Tell that to your boss. I'd love to know what it'd take to impress that guy."
McDermott didn't say anything for a moment. He glanced back behind him before he spoke. "The best trick to gettin' a dog to take his medicine is to hide it in a piece of meat."
That seemed to be the only insight McDermott saw fit to share on Hennessey, but Victor felt he got the gist. Hennessey was making the right decision for the wrong reasons. Nevertheless it would get the job done. McDermott, in his own way, seemed to be commending them for facilitating this. At least that was something. This guy was probably the only one in Hennessey's crew who had his head on straight.
"So, tell me something," McDermott said, scratching his throat. "That Faraday girl…she seem like the type to you who prefers roses or daises?"
Victor lidded his eyes.
* * *
Returning to Eaton manor wasn't nearly as distressing as it had been the last time, given that Emery was completely distracted by his mission. It was just a house after all and he had bigger problems than personal angst, like making certain he didn't get all of his friends and himself killed by an impatient gangster before they even had the chance to encounter their real enemies. As soon as he and Kurt were inside he began going through every drawer at the end table nearest the door where keys, cards, and personal effects had once been stored. He found Hunter's passport, some spare keys, several pencils, but nothing of his own. Naturally it had all been cleared away by now. Emery quickly remembered that all of his belongings seemed to have been shifted to his old bedroom and beckoned Kurt up the stairs.
His room was as he left it, lined with boxes and cluttered at all corners. Kurt stopped behind him obediently and refused to enter until bid. "Try searching through that desk there," Emery said, pointing. He himself went to another set of storage drawers and began digging. One had a stack of framed pictures that had once lined the mantel of the main living room of Emery and his mother. Next to it was a large envelope in which he found a few of his mother's things like a few very old checkbooks and some kept letters. Nothing of his, though. He looked over his shoulder at Kurt, who seemed to have so far discovered only a drawer full of toy dinosaurs, and went over to his closet. He opened it up and found that it was packed tightly with clothes. It was sort of strange to see them again. When he'd left England he'd done so with nothing but the clothes on his back, but he could vividly recall dressing himself in these things.
He shook out of it and reached up to try and slide a promising box labeled "documents" off of the top shelf, but the movement caused something dark and previously unseen to shift suddenly and fall onto him. Emery stumbled back as some sort of bag tumbled against him and to the floor, spilling its contents every which way.
"Emery?" Kurt was asking, quickly behind him as soon as he heard the thud. As soon as he saw what was on the floor, however, he was speechless.
Emery didn't have anything to add. At his feet, banded in strewn bundles, was a tremendous amount of cash money. It had all come from a familiar black duffel bag…just like those used by Sheridan and company to collect the payments on his ransom. He belatedly realized that such was precisely what he was looking at. Emery's lips parted in awe, reaching down to pick up a stack of notes. "My god," he uttered.
Kurt bent down and snatched the bag to examine it.
Emery watched him do so briefly before he looked back up on the shelf. Behind what had come down were a few more duffel bags, still zipped. He grabbed another and pulled it off before wrenching it open to find a similar stash of what had to be hundreds of thousands of pounds. This one was fuller than the first. Millions altogether. Emery stared into it in shock. "This has got to be nearly the entire sum recovered from my kidnapping…he never redeposited it."
"Why on earth would he put it here?" Kurt asked.
Emery swallowed, setting down the bag. Hunter had shoved everything of Emery aside into this little room. The money must've seemed tainted to him, or simply worthless by comparison to what he supposed he'd lost. Emery refused to think about it, instead reaching up to pull the other bags down from the shelf. "I don't know. But it saves us a great deal of time."
________________________________________
Kurt could plainly see that Emery was quite tense in the seat of the van next to him. Victor sat at his other side, posture lax but eyes fixed out the window in anticipation, while McDermott and Hennessey sat up front and a few more armed men behind them. The sun was just beginning to set and while Kurt was not altogether confident with executing their plan at this time of day he had been rather surprised by the sheer numbers Hennessey had managed to pull together in their absence. The army was even comprised primarily of able bodied men, barring spotted groups of the stocky middle-aged and scrawny boyish variety. Altogether it seemed to be nearly three hundred men. An impressive army.
Fortunately Hennessey had been unruffled by their taking time out to retrieve Emery's funds, however he naturally expressed no approval in their fast return and instead took it without fuss to his supplier where his men were successfully armed. Ludkov and Faraday had returned shortly thereafter with a mere total of five additional men and they had loaded up into a fleet of vehicles to make their way down. Thompson's headquarters was a fairly short drive from the warehouse district where Hennessey stashed his supplies, but they were set to stop at a safe distance of five kilometers from the site and proceed on foot to evade detection. It was not a perfect plan, made less perfect by Hennessey's asinine particularities, but the element of surprise and their greater numbers should have been enough to tip the scales.
In the back of Kurt's mind, however, remained doubt. Surely things could not be this simple. Not with Thompson. The man made his living ensuring that he could never be found, never be seen. That every man associated with him took the fall before he did. He was well aware that Kurt had intimate knowledge of his operation and yet no measures seemed to have been taken to eliminate him. As the car moved closer to their destination Kurt began to suspect that when they arrived there, they would find nothing at all. That the facility would be abandoned and they would be forced to start over. If they were even so fortunate, that was. Starting over assumed that Hennessey wouldn't become irate at this waste of time and execute them all on the spot. Kurt empathized with Emery's tension.
A few minutes later the cars all pulled around to some vacant lot and Hennessey's men began pouring from them. Kurt, Emery, and Victor filed out and scanned the sea of bodies to find Ludkov, standing nearly a head taller than most, before making their way over to him.
"Hennessey wants us to accompany him personally," Kurt noted, indicating Victor and Emery. "That means you and your men will head up the back route with McDermott's lot. We'll meet in middle, but tread lightly, and wait for our signal to move."
"Be careful," Emery implored next to him. He set a hand on Georgie's arm and Kurt looked away.
"You as well," she replied.
"Enough of this chit chat," Hennessey said, suddenly behind them. "Get moving. Kenneth, get your team in position. You three, come with me."
The lab in which Thompson manufactured his drug was a squat, mostly square building adjacent to a train yard that to the best of Kurt's knowledge was still in operation, but the massive clutter of railway vans did well to hide the glass and steel structure from clear view. This was also to their advantage in creeping up on the place unaware as even in the dim light they could make it nearly to the entrance gate without being seen. Kurt was not immediately optimistic when they did not encounter a single sentry in doing so. Nevertheless he held his gun aloft, eyes scanning the yard
, waiting for a sign of life.
Sure enough, the front gate was equally unguarded. When Kurt had been frequenting this place a few short weeks ago there were four armed men manning the entrance at all hours, but now it appeared abandoned. Thompson would never have allowed this if the building were indeed still in use. But why give up this location because of one man who was easier killed than run from? Quickly Kurt began to formulate a plan for retreat. This felt entirely off, and even if the place was simply abandoned he was not about to stand by and allow his crew to remain at Hennessey's impulsive mercies once he found this to be a dead end. Kurt gave Emery a concerned look and kept on for now.
The gate was opened and they were forced inside by the bodies surrounding them, crawling along the side of the building to search for any indication of Thompson's men. The lights of the facility had been shut down, however, and the encroaching evening was silent save the horn blasts of a distant train. Hennessey indicated through gesture that his men begin a sweep of the area before taking his closest crew members to stand flush against the east wall where the shadows mostly hid them.
"What is this?" Hennessey asked with a scoff, peering out around the corner after his scattering men. "It's as quiet as a fucking cemetery."
"Something isn't right," Kurt replied. "We should fall back."
Hennessey turned around to face him. "Like hell. I ain't leaving without Sheridan."
"He's not here."
"What do you mean he's not here?" Hennessey scowled. "The only reason I came all the way out here was because you said he would be. This was your fucking idea, wasn't it?"
"Invading his stronghold was only a viable preempt providing we caught him unaware. It's apparent that we've missed our window." Kurt took a slight step back, maneuvering himself subtly to place Emery between himself and the wall.
"I didn't bring every man I had to this little party for nothing."
"If you'll recall, I advocated an earlier timeframe."
"And if you'll recall I told you to shut your bloody gob about that," Hennessey snapped. "Jesus H. Christ. All this fuss and he ain't even here? Do you have any clue how much money this cost me?"