by Ethan Cross
He flicked on his turn signal and pulled onto the R41. “There’s still time to turn back, constable.”
“I can’t stop until I find Kruger.”
“Kruger’s a mercenary. He kills for money, not sport. Whatever he did, he was following someone’s orders.”
“Then I’ll find that person too.”
“After this, there’s no way your life will ever be the same. If you see his face, Kruger will either own you or put you in the ground.”
She watched the lights of Johannesburg fade into the distance behind them. “He doesn’t own me, and he never will.”
“He has a way of getting what he wants. Of making offers you can’t refuse.”
“If he can lead me to the bastards who killed my son and the others in that camp, then it’s worth it.”
“Everyone says that before they sell their soul. Not a lot say it afterward.”
“You know from experience?”
Christopher said nothing, his eyes locked on the road ahead. They were past Soweto and Randfontein before he said, “I could still turn the car around. Tell him that you changed your mind.”
“Who is this guy? You act like Mobius is Satan himself. Like he drinks the blood of babies for breakfast.”
Christopher shrugged his thickly muscled shoulders. “He’s not what you’d expect. But Gandhi said, ‘Non-cooperation with evil is a sacred duty’.”
“So Mobius is evil incarnate?”
“No, he’s just … indifferent. But he has a way of drawing out the evil in others. And the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
They rode the rest of the way in silence. He took the R500 toward Holfontein but then hit the 14 heading out toward absolutely nowhere. It was July, midwinter in South Africa. The mealie fields were barren and empty, nothing but weeds and thorn bushes. The road was paved but was far from being a highway. They crept along deeper into the growing night until Christopher pulled onto a road of red dirt.
“If you’re taking me out here to kill me and bury me in the asshole end of nowhere, I’m going to be very cross with you.”
Christopher touched the brakes and let the car roll to a slow stop. “He wants to make sure that no one is following or observing. He’s a man who vehemently protects his privacy. Now, your guns. You’re going to have to leave those with me.”
She pulled her Beretta Px4 Storm from the small of her back and handed it to Christopher.
“The ankle as well,” he said. “And the switchblade in your pocket.”
“How the hell—”
“It’s my job.”
She relinquished all of her weapons and said, “So where’s the boogeyman?”
“This is where I leave you.”
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“It’s cold and dark and there’s nothing around. Is he going to fly down in a UFO to pick me up?”
“Don’t know. Don’t want to know. These were my orders. I could still take you back home.”
She growled but reluctantly stepped from the car. Christopher initiated a three-point U-turn and headed back the way they had come. She watched his taillights disappear into nothingness.
“Brilliant, Izzy. This is gonna be great. Freezing to death in the middle of nowhere.”
It was chilly — about 50°F degrees out. Although she wore long sleeves and would have probably been fine in the city, the winds on the barren plains whipped and howled around her like banshees. She stamped her feet and rubbed her arms to stay warm, hoping that she hadn’t just made the biggest mistake of her life, or the last.
Then she saw a set of headlights come to life from farther down the red dirt road and a white panel van—the extra-large kind with a long backend—appeared out of a cloud of dust. A very serious looking black man with a shaved head wearing a dark blue set of coveralls sat behind the wheel. He pulled the van to a stop but didn’t look at her, didn’t even glance her way. She stood there a moment and then walked up to the sliding door on the van’s side. She found it unlocked and pulled it open.
She expected to see some bench seats or perhaps just an area for tools and supplies. But the van’s interior was quite the opposite. She had ridden in a limo a few times in her life—before and after the Matric Dance during her final year of high school, a few wedding parties where she’d been a bridesmaid—but this was definitely the nicest “limo” she had ever seen. A leather couch lined one side and the van’s rear. She climbed up and saw that the opposite side was lined with several flat screen displays and a full bar. She could see between the door and the exterior metal that the van was heavily armored, definitely bulletproof and maybe enough to survive a direct RPG attack. None of the actual van’s interior showed through. Everything that was not meant for sitting, watching, or drinking was covered in a wood the color of molasses, each piece with a scene from history intricately carved into its surface. The pieces of wood joined together like a large mural, a true work of art lovingly crafted by expert hands. The smells of leather and wood were overpowered by the aromas of microwave popcorn and scotch.
She slid the door closed and took a seat. Her senses on overload, she scanned her surroundings and registered the small man occupying the van’s rear couch.
“Do you like it?” he said.
“It’s definitely not what I was expecting.”
The van started to move, and she looked back at her host. As Christopher had predicted, Mobius was also not what she had expected.
He sat on the couch with his legs off the floor and crossed like he was meditating. He wore no shoes, his jeans cuffed, exposing his ankles and part of his calves. A white dress shirt beneath a gray vest and blood red tie covered his torso, the sleeves of the shirt rolled up tightly on his forearms and the tie loosened at the neck. He was thin but appeared in good shape, average height and build, maybe a little shorter than average. Small oval-shaped glasses sat on his nose, and a neatly trimmed black beard covered his otherwise boyish face. His hair was gelled in that messy American look, and he couldn’t have been older than thirty. He reminded Isabel of what a grown-up Harry Potter might have looked like, British accent and all.
“Am I what you expected?” Mobius asked. “Do I look like I drink the blood of babies and commune with the forces of darkness?”
“You had the BMW bugged?”
“I like to monitor my assets.”
“This is quite a ride, but wouldn’t a limo have been cheaper?” she asked.
“People see a limo, and they assume someone of importance is inside. I have several vehicles like this, disguised and invisible. I like to keep my privacy, which is why I had Mr. Christopher drive you out here. I didn’t want to chance that you could snap a picture of me or have something planned that would be equally unacceptable. You seem surprised? Were you expecting some beastly chap with tattoos and scars?”
“I wasn’t sure what to expect. You’re just a name. Most people don’t think you’re real, even if they have heard of you. But no, you don’t look like the leader of a crime syndicate to me.”
He chuckled. “A crime syndicate? Hardly. I’m merely a business man, one who happens to understand that morals and compassion are the biggest roadblocks to success.”
“Christopher said that you’re the biggest fish in the pond.”
Mobius shrugged. “In some respects, perhaps. But I like to diversify and keep my involvement limited. You see, I’ve built my empire by approaching people who I thought I could use. Then I assess their weaknesses and strengths and exploit them both. Felix Ginger for example. I blackmailed and threatened him with humiliation and death, but then I came in and—using the principles of process analysis and beyond the box thinking—I told him how to increase his profit margins and expand his business. He pays me a percentage and banks ten times what he was making before. A win-win situation.”
“And what if someone doesn’t want your advice or your partnership?”
“That depends. If you’re asking if I would k
ill them, then of course, I would do so without batting an eye. Back in England, my parents always knew there was something wrong with me. I felt no sympathy or empathy or attachment. So they took me to the shrinks, who diagnosed me at a young age as a classic psychopath.”
Isabel’s lip curled up in disgust, and her eyes grew large. She had met some crazies over the course of her career who would likely share that diagnosis, but she’d never heard someone claim to be one, or do so in such a conversational manner.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “Psychopaths are serial killers and sexual sadists and blah blah blah. But the truth is that there are a lot more psychopaths in the world than you think, living perfectly normal lives, adapting, being quite successful. In fact, I find it somewhat prevalent among the CEOs of large corporations. It simply means that my brain and view of the world are different than that of the average person. Just because I’m a psychopath doesn’t mean that I want to kill you or that I enjoy killing. It just means that I have no problem with it. In most instances, killing people is messy and bad for business.”
“Good for you. That’s very reassuring.”
“I’m not trying to reassure you. Just telling you the way of things. You asked about what happens when someone doesn’t want to work for me. That’s simple. I don’t see all of you as ‘people’. I don’t care about your lives and your hopes and desires, at least not beyond the point of exploiting them for my own purposes. I merely see other people as tools to achieve my goals. If a hammer breaks, you don’t cry about it or worry about its feelings. You fix it, or you throw the bugger away and get a new one, whichever is more cost-effective. It’s simple logic and math. No emotion, just analysis and reaction. And I’m jolly good at both.”
“Well,” she said, “you’ve put me in the perfect position for blackmail, and you could obviously threaten my life. So let’s cut to the chase. What strength of mine do you want to exploit, and what do I get out of it? What’s my win-win?”
Mobius grinned. “We have certain shared objectives at the moment. Kruger is an independent contractor who betrayed me, which cannot be tolerated. After the incident at the squatter camp, for which you rightly deduced his involvement, he fell off the grid. Went a bit mad from what I gather. In the course of that, he lapsed on three separate contracts for me. Allowing such malfeasance would set a bloody awful precedent to the rest of those under my employ.”
“Can’t have the hammers and screwdrivers thinking for themselves and doing whatever they want.”
“Precisely. I can’t tell you who Kruger was working for, but I can tell you where to find him now and give you the resources and assistance needed to avenge the death of your would-be son.”
“It’s not just about him,” she said.
“I don’t really care. I simply know that you’re a good detective who wants to find and eliminate a thorn in my side. Why should I pay someone to do so—and those chaps can be quite pricey—when you are eager to kill Kruger for free? You see. Win-win.”
She considered the offer, thought about what she had become. She had betrayed her department, her oath, all she had once believed. All for vengeance or justice or closure or whatever some part of her needed to achieve to keep her sanity. And then she thought of Christopher’s warning about selling her soul to the devil, that Mobius would draw out the evil in her. Maybe the evil was all she had left.
“Tell me everything you know about Kruger.”
“Does that mean you accept my offer? My assistance for Kruger’s head?”
“I’ll do your dirty work, but that doesn’t mean you own me.”
“Of course not. I’m just leasing you.”
The van rolled to a stop, and she heard the driver’s door open. Then the van’s sliding door parted to reveal an airstrip and a sleek and expensive-looking private jet. She also noticed Christopher’s silver BMW sitting off to the side of the runway.
“It’s one of my Gulfstream G650s, supposed to be the fastest private jet on the market,” Mobius said. “Top speed of 704 miles per hour, but I’ve had my people do some upgrades. So with in-flight refueling, you should be able to make it to Las Vegas in about twelve to fourteen hours, give or take. That won’t leave you much time. My sources say that Kruger has hired a mutual associate known as Fitzgerald, whose specialty is smuggling fugitives and sensitive cargo out of and into the United States. Mr. Christopher will fill you in on the rest of the details. And don’t doddle, you’ll only have a matter of hours before Kruger disappears forever.”
Chapter 42
After arriving back on the scene, Nic felt much more at ease. The elephant that had been sitting on his chest had moved on, and he felt more like his normal, confident, and cocky self.
But then he saw Bristol walking straight for him with a look on her face that he had seen on multiple occasions during their relationship, usually when he’d done something extra stupid.
“Where the hell is Deputy Chief Edgar?” she asked.
Nic shrugged. “Did you check the comm center?”
“Being a natural blonde doesn’t make me stupid.”
“I didn’t say you were. You’re one of the smartest people I know. Can I help?”
She rubbed at her temples and said, “I’m sorry. The mayor just jumped down my throat and wants to speak with Edgar immediately. Like five minutes ago immediately.”
“I haven’t seen him since I got back. Why is the Penguin so pissed off?”
Bristol shook her head with a little chuckle. “Don’t call the mayor that.”
“Dude has a beak for a nose and looks a weeble wobble.”
“Be nice. If he heard you—”
“What? He’d fire me? Besides, it doesn’t sound like he was very nice to you.”
“I’m not yours to protect anymore, Nic.”
He couldn’t think of a response to that painful truth, and so he said, “What had the mayor so worked up? Nothing’s changed down here. We’re doing everything by the book.”
She sighed. “I know, but the news is reporting that the hostage-takers are foreign and that a source on the inside is claiming that this could be an act of terrorism directed at the CIA.”
“What? Where would they have gotten something like that?”
“Who knows. Maybe they thought the story wasn’t sensational enough, so they added their own spin. But the mayor is ready to tear Edgar’s head off.”
Nic shook his head in disgust. Politicians and reporters, he’d take men with guns over them any day of the week. “He might be over at the Walmart. I think they’re setting up some temporary medical unit, so we’ll be ready for any kind of worst-case scenario.”
“Okay, I’ll check there.”
“I can try to reach him over the radio.”
“Don’t worry about it. A little walk will do me some good.”
She started to walk away, but then he heard himself say, “Hey, hold up a sec.” But when she turned around, he forgot what he wanted to say. His mind went completely blank, and he just stared at her awkwardly.
With raised eyebrows, she said, “Yes?”
All he could think about were her blue eyes, and so he blurted the first thing his mind grabbed onto. “What’s the deal with you and Burke?”
Her eyes went wide. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business. Don’t tell me that the great and powerful Dominic Juliano is actually jealous of a lowly mortal?”
“Come on. It was just a question. Just because we’re not together doesn’t mean I don’t still care about you.”
“You didn’t care when we were together.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Isn’t it? I really don’t need this right now.”
Nic ran a hand through his dark hair and took a deep calming breath. “I’m not trying to … It’s just that when Burke walked up and said all that about how beautiful you are, I completely agreed with him, and I realize that I should have told you that kind of thing more often.”
“It was never your words that were a problem, Nic,” she said. “It was your actions. And guess which one spoke louder.”
“I know,” he said, swallowing hard and trying not to let the weight of his past mistakes crush him from the inside out. “If I see Edgar, I’ll tell him to run for his life,” he added. “Penguins are dangerous birds.”
With a half-smile on her red lips, she kissed him on the cheek and said, “You always did make me laugh. When you weren’t making me cry.”
As he watched her walk away, he felt like the dumbest man on earth. Then his radio crackled to life, and Taz said, “Was that as painful as it looked, cowboy?”
Nic glanced around and saw Taz, Carter, and Burke standing by the comm center and looking right at him. Nothing like having an audience for an emotional beatdown. He reluctantly walked over to the three men.
“That didn’t look like a conversation that’s going to lead to make-up sex,” Taz immediately said.
“No, sir,” Nic replied. “Permission to shoot myself, sir.”
“Permission denied,” Taz said. “Without you, who would I make fun of. Carter over here’s too old. I might give him a stroke or something. And Burke is handicapped.”
With a hard edge to his voice, Burke said, “Asperger’s is not a handicap. To be honest, I think you neurotypicals are the ones who are handicapped.”
“And I’m still young enough to bend you over my knee, Sergeant Ortiz,” Carter added.
Nic chuckled. “I’d pay good money to see that.”
Taz stuck out his tongue and said, “You’re all in denial. It’s sad really. It would be easier for everyone if you guys just accepted my awesomeness. So, did you talk to Uncle Romeo?”
“He hasn’t texted me back. He’s been pissed at me since after my brother’s funeral. Probably won’t answer me.”
“Taz told me about your unique familial connections,” Carter said. “Loria and Yoshida obviously aren’t going to share the full picture with us. We need something to get an edge. If we don’t get in front of this train, it’s going to run us over.”
“I don’t know what you guys want from me. Romeo doesn’t like cops, and he likes feds even less.”