Hard Vengeance (A Jon Reznick Thriller)

by J. B. Turner

  “So the yacht was off there, and what happened after your last jump of the day?”

  “After my last jump of the day, I picked up my towel, dried myself, put on my flip-flops, and walked home. I was tired, as I’d been up since six that morning, working, cleaning.”

  “And that was it?”

  Loreno shrugged. “Yeah, I went home.”

  “And you didn’t see anything different?”

  “What do you mean different? I don’t understand, señor.”

  Reznick smiled at Loreno. “I’m sorry that I don’t speak Spanish.”

  “Don’t worry, I manage.”

  “What I mean is, you didn’t see anyone hanging around, someone you hadn’t seen before? Suspicious activity. Anything different.”

  Loreno scratched his head and frowned as if trying hard to think back. “There was only a guy, I think he was a tourist in the town.”

  “A tourist? Tell me about this tourist. It was a man?”

  Loreno nodded. “Sí, señor.”

  “I’m guessing there are people who stop, like me, and just admire the views from here.”

  “Yeah, all the time. But this guy was just sitting in a white camper van, VW.”

  “A camper van, like an RV?”

  Loreno shrugged. “I don’t know what that is.”

  “When maybe a family gets in a vehicle and goes on the road, it might have a tiny kitchen, sleeping bunks too. People drive and sleep in the vehicle.”

  “Yeah, definitely, that was it. A white RV.”

  “But that wasn’t out of the ordinary, I’d guess. There must be many people who travel around in camper vans, RVs, whatever you want to call them.”

  Loreno shook his head. “I don’t think he was traveling around.”

  “You seem very sure.”

  “He might’ve been German. English. I remember his face.”

  Reznick felt his senses switch on. “Now listen, Loreno, this might be very important. So, you say you remember his face, right?”

  Loreno nodded, very serious.

  “How do you remember his face?”

  “I saw him before that night.”

  “You saw him before the night of the explosion?”

  The kid nodded.

  “When? Where?”

  “I remember I saw him before. It was him.”

  “Where? Where did you see him? In town?”

  “Just on the outskirts of Cala San Vicente. He was staying in a villa. Well, he was earlier in the summer.”

  Reznick was struggling to take this in. “Hang on, let’s be clear. So, you saw this man at this location, before the explosion, in an RV parked on the roadside. And that’s the same man you saw at a villa earlier in the summer?”

  Loreno nodded. “That is correct, señor. I help to clean pools in the summer. And I saw him sitting on the rear balcony of the house next door, weeks ago. Maybe a month ago.”

  “House next door to the one whose pool you cleaned?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And it was him?”

  “I swear on the memory of the Virgin Mary herself, it was the same man.”

  Fourteen

  Adam Ford felt his mood stabilize as he clocked laps in the villa’s infinity pool, high up in the hills above Cala San Vicente. His gruesome work was complete. The dismembered and decapitated body of the young North African teenager had been safely disposed of in the middle of the night. He had washed down the basement and burned his clothes and the boy’s. Not a trace remained. He had used a forensic luminol test and there was no blood, not only to the naked eye, but to a trained investigator. The crime didn’t happen. And it certainly couldn’t have been attributed to that property.

  Besides, what was good and what was evil anyway? It was all about perspective as far as he was concerned. And what did it matter to anyone how he lived his life? Fuck it. Fuck them all. Ford alone knew his own mind. He knew it well. Knew his destiny.

  He swam hard, the sun warming his back. His mind felt sharper today. The drugs and the booze had worn off. He was his old self. Smart. Self-assured. Confident. He had allowed his darker nature to take over temporarily. And it had felt good. But he was back to being the rational man. The thinking man.

  After a thirty-minute swim, Ford dried off and lay back down on one of the sun loungers by the pool.

  His mood began to elevate. He felt glorious. And he was loving it as he contemplated what he had already achieved.

  Meyerstein had been taken care of. The North African boy, Abdullah, had served his purpose and was gone. It was all coming together.

  Ford felt a smile cross his face. Only Reznick was left. The fact that Ford had been able to act with impunity made the whole thing even more delicious. What was not to like? The years of pent-up frustration and anger were finding an outlet. The hundreds—no, thousands—of hours of planning, surveillance, and attention to detail, covering his tracks. He was on the verge of deleting Reznick. The vengeance would be sweet. And it would be his and his alone.

  Ford was never content to think just about the next move, or even the one after that. He thought six or seven steps ahead. Like in chess. His brain operated on that level. He had factored into his plans that a guy like Reznick would start sniffing around. He wanted Reznick distracted.

  He felt a frisson of excitement wash over his body. He had counted on Reznick making the trip to the northeast tip of Mallorca after the explosion. The bastard would want answers. From what he knew about Reznick—the tenacity, the ruthlessness—the man would hang around. For days. Weeks. Or even months. He would ask questions. He would build a picture of the chain of events.

  Ford knew the FBI would be doing the same. They were predictable like that. And other agencies. But it would take them a long time to figure out what was really happening. And it would mean Reznick had a new reality to contend with. No longer would he have a protector within the FBI covering his back. With Martha gone, Reznick was on his own, thousands of miles from home.

  Ford had Reznick in his crosshairs. It was only a matter of time. And the fact of the matter was, Ford had all the time in the world.

  He headed inside and took another shower. His body was tingling. Part exhilarated by and part turned on by the whole thing. Then he put on a fresh polo shirt and shorts with sneakers.

  He opened a bottle of Chateau Lafite. Then he took out his cell phone and streamed the overture of Wagner’s Rienzi through the wireless speakers. The purity was like a balm to the soul. He headed upstairs, glass in hand, to the study, pulled up a chair, and sat down at the telescope. He took a sip of the wine, savoring its elegance and nuance.

  Ford put down the glass on a marble table. Leaning forward, he lightly held the eyepiece of the telescope, pressing his eye to it. He adjusted the view until it was in pin-sharp focus.

  He peered down from the mountainside to the sandy beach at Cala San Vicente. He tracked away from the beach and focused on the bar opposite. A handful of people were enjoying a morning beer in the sun. A couple of tourists sat drinking coffee. A woman who appeared to be alone was drinking a glass of red wine. But there was no sign of Reznick.

  Ford maneuvered the telescope and focused on Reznick’s balcony at the four-star hotel opposite the beach. It was empty. No T-shirts or trunks drying on the metal clothes rack.

  He wondered if this was the time. An opportunity. He ran the scenarios he had in store for Reznick. And one in particular seemed like it might fit the bill at that precise moment. A plan he loved for its beauty, simplicity, and deadliness.

  Ford grabbed his backpack, threw it in the back seat of his rented BMW SUV, and drove down the winding dirt road into town.

  He was careful not to drive too fast or accelerate down the hill.

  Ford knew the town would be watched by the Civil Guard. He drove past the bar where he had obsessively observed Reznick for hours at a time. He negotiated a narrow side street and pulled up at the rear of the hotel, opposite the staff entrance.


  From his backpack, he removed the hotel master key card he had stolen from the front seat of a van used by a hotel maintenance guy who had foolishly left his coveralls in his van after work.

  Ford felt excited. He knew exactly what he was going to do. He had mapped it all out. He had known Reznick would stay there. It was a nice hotel, right on the beach, many of the rooms with views to where the yacht had been.

  Ford was good at planning. He liked details: the time it would take, where the hotel surveillance cameras were placed. He got out of the car with his backpack and walked around to the front of the hotel.

  He could’ve been any other tourist. He went completely unnoticed as he took the stairs to the second floor. He paused to put the latex gloves on, then walked calmly along the carpeted corridor until he got to the third room on the right.

  It was Room 206. Reznick’s room.

  Ford felt a shiver run down his spine.

  He stood outside the room for a few moments. How cool was this? How audacious was this? He pressed his ear to the door and listened. No sound, no sign that Reznick was there. Ford swiped the hotel key card, and the door clicked open. He stepped inside and shut the door quietly behind him.

  He checked the bathroom first. He saw Reznick’s shaving bag. The toothbrush and toothpaste placed neatly in the glass by the sink. He headed back into the bedroom and opened up the wardrobe. Shirts, jeans, all neatly hung up; sneakers and a pair of boat shoes, pristine and clean. He checked a chest of drawers. T-shirts carefully folded, boxer shorts fresh, socks paired.

  He ran a latex-clad finger across the top of the drawers, luxuriating in knowing this was the domain of a feared killer. A shadowy assassin. But here Ford was, toying with him. It felt good. Damn good.

  He opened the TV cabinet. Inside was what he was looking for. The minibar refrigerator. He took out the three whiskey miniatures and placed them on the carpet. Then he opened up his backpack and took out three identical miniature bottles of Johnnie Walker Red Label scotch. He placed them in the small fridge beside the vodka and gin. The fake whiskey in identical bottles had been ordered from a supplier in Dubai. He checked the seals. Perfect. The label, perfect. The liquor was pristine. Except for the addition of a drop of odorless strychnine, carefully administered by a chemical engineering graduate who had a drug addiction and needed the cash.

  Ford lined up the three bottles side by side. He closed the minibar door, put the whiskey miniatures he had taken into a side pocket of his backpack and zipped it up. He unzipped the main pocket of the backpack and took out a clock. It matched the room’s existing clock. Except that his clock concealed a miniature spy camera in the middle of the clock face. He carefully hung the surveillance clock on the wall. He smiled. It would mean that when Reznick drank the whiskey, his tipple of choice, Ford would be watching, remotely. Remotely watching Reznick fall asleep. And then die.

  The more he thought about it, the crazier he felt. It was beyond brilliant. Its conception and being privy to watching a man like Reznick die would be sweet vengeance.

  Ford took one last look around the room. He was tempted to wait for Reznick to return. Sorely tempted. But his work here was done.

  He pressed his eye to the peephole. No one around. He put an ear to the door, listening for vibrations of people walking down the corridor. Heard only the thumping of his heart beating.

  Ford softly opened the door, looked around, and shut it quietly behind him. He walked down the corridor, headed down a stairwell, and through a door. He dumped his latex gloves in a trash can, then walked past the young concierge and through the hotel lobby into the blazing sunshine.

  Fifteen

  The sweat was sticking to Reznick’s shirt as he headed along a shaded sidewalk, past upscale modern villas, on the southern outskirts of Cala San Vicente. The incessant buzzing of cicadas in eucalyptus trees filled the stifling air. He wondered if the information the long-haired kid had given him might be a breakthrough. The kid seemed sure that the man in the RV was the same man who rented a villa only yards from where he was just now. It could be a long shot. But for Reznick, any lead was worth chasing down.

  He checked a street sign, the suffocating heat beating down on him all the while.

  Reznick’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket, and he removed it. It showed real-time motion-activated footage from the camera hidden in his hotel room smoke detector, five hundred yards away. He thought at first it might be a cleaner. But the guy wearing shades looked like a thief who was robbing his room.

  He turned his back to shield the cell phone screen from the sun.

  Reznick watched, transfixed, as the guy searched the room, then took off his backpack. What the fuck?

  The guy reached into his backpack, took out three miniature whiskeys and swapped them with the bottles in the minibar. The average person who viewed the footage might not understand. But Reznick knew exactly what was happening. The guy in his room wanted to poison him. Slowly. Surreptitiously. The guy wanted Reznick dead, no question. And he seemed to know Reznick was partial to single malt scotch. Who the hell was that guy? It couldn’t be a coincidence. Who knew he was in town? A handful of people. The Feds. But he had also left a bit of an impression on the Civil Guard.

  Could be one of their guys. But how likely was it that the local cops, paramilitary or not, would want him dead? Then again, maybe his antics the previous day had humiliated them enough to want to teach him a lesson.

  Reznick wiped the beads of sweat from his brow with the back of his hand and glanced around. He knew he must look weird just standing there on that quiet street checking his cell phone. His gaze was drawn back to the footage. He was intrigued by how the guy quietly and methodically left the room. Then he noticed the latex gloves.

  The guy was a pro.

  “Hey, señor.” A boy’s voice. “Wrong street. It’s a couple hundred meters farther along. The pink house.”

  Reznick saw the long-haired kid Loreno running after him. He put his cell phone away. He’d take another look at the footage later. The aviator shades had concealed the guy’s identity very well, but not entirely. “The street signs are very confusing,” Reznick told Loreno. “I was checking maps.”

  “Don’t worry, they don’t make sense to us either and we live here! Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you found it OK. I realized when you left that the street layout is a jumbled-up mess, if you know what I mean. The numbers are running even, then there are odd numbers that head down separate streets, but they have the same street name.”

  Reznick looked farther down the street. “So how far?”

  “Not far.”

  They walked on in the direction of the villa, Loreno pointing the way. It had to be at least one hundred degrees and climbing. The whirring sound of cicadas seemed to be getting louder.

  Reznick’s thoughts were racing, knowing there had been an intruder back in his hotel room. He made a mental note to change rooms—and to remove the tainted whiskey bottles without being observed by whoever had installed the camera clock.

  A whiff of cigarette smoke caught the breeze, and the smell of flowers from a nearby garden drifted in the stifling Mallorcan air.

  Loreno pointed to a beautiful coral-pink villa, up ahead, pretty flower boxes in the window. Lawn watered and green.

  “So,” Reznick said, turning to the kid, “just so we’re clear, the guy you saw in the RV just before the yacht exploded was the same guy who was renting this pink house.”

  “The pink house, yes. I swear, señor, it was him.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I just know. They had identical mustaches. The same white Lacoste polo shirt. The same sunglasses. But there were two men at the house.”

  Reznick’s interest was slightly piqued after what he’d just seen. “Could you tell what they were? The sunglasses. I mean, were they Ray-Ban Wayfarers, for example?”

  “No.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “My father has Wayfarers.
I want a pair.”

  “So what did the guy have?”

  “Aviators. Mirror aviators.”

  Reznick handed the kid a twenty-euro bill. “You’ve been incredibly helpful.” He wondered briefly if he should show the kid the picture of the guy in his hotel room. But he decided against it, at least for now.

  He turned to look at the pink house. “So the guy was living in the pink house, and you were cleaning the pool next door, and you saw him once on the balcony of the pink house?”

  “The other side of the house, away from the street. I could see from the poolside. There was a younger guy with him. He was about my age.”

  “Did you see the guy on the balcony for long—the one who was in the RV?”

  “A few moments, and then he went back inside.” Loreno shielded his eyes from the sun. “You want to speak to the lady whose pool I cleaned? The woman next door?”

  “She won’t mind?”

  “No, she won’t mind. She is a good friend of my mother.”

  Reznick followed the kid down a path to the front door of the house next door.

  Loreno knocked and stepped forward. A little while later, the door opened. A stick-thin gray-haired woman smiled beatifically. She held flowers in her hands as if she had just cut them in her garden.

  The kid spoke in Spanish, turning to point at Reznick.

  The old woman looked quizzically at Reznick and signaled him inside.

  “Do you speak English?” he asked.

  The woman smiled. “Not fluent, señor, but enough to get by.” She invited him into the kitchen. The woman put the flowers in a vase with water and washed her hands before they sat down, and she made them both a strong coffee.

  Reznick took a sip. “The way I like it,” he said.

  “My late husband, he was the same. Loved strong, black coffee.”

  “I’m sorry to bother you. I’m here in your beautiful town because a friend of mine from America was on vacation recently. She died in an explosion on a yacht, about a week ago.”