by Leigh Barker
“Right.”
“Let me guess.” She put her finger on her lips. Thinking. “Noon?”
“About then, yes.”
“Are you going to call him out into the street and draw?”
He couldn’t tell if she was being serious, which said all about his understanding of women. Or lack of.
“Just to make sure I’ve got this. Noon tomorrow you’re going to walk back into the Parallax building, trot up to the twentieth floor—”
“Twenty-first.”
She nodded. “I stand corrected. Twenty-first floor. Knock on the door and shoot Orpheus. Is that about it?”
“Think that covers it pretty much.”
“And you told him you’re going to do that? At noon?”
“Seemed like the proper thing to do. Give him a chance to put it right.”
“Give himself up. Scrap his business. Hand back all the money.”
“And call off his gun thugs,” Ethan added, for completeness.
“And call off his gun thugs. Right.” She leaned back into her seat and settled against the orange Indian blanket and appeared satisfied with the clarification.
“I hope I like my new boss,” she added, and closed her eyes.
Ethan looked over and smiled. “We should get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a big day.”
Andie opened one eye. “We got a hotel reservation I don’t know about?”
Ethan nodded towards the back of the van and she half turned in her seat. There were two bench seats back there. She gave them a double take and shook her head. “Sleep on those? You have to be kidding. We’d be better on a park bench.”
“Don’t let them fool you, they open up into really comfortable bunks.”
“This from a man who thinks it’s luxury to sleep on a cactus with a rock for a pillow.”
“Don’t knock it, it’s an acquired taste.”
She looked again at the bunks and at the orange blanket. It could be worse, she just couldn’t think how. At least nobody was trying to kill them. They’d never think to look for them in this thing. She hoped nobody who knew her saw her in the hippy wagon or she’d go viral. Her mother would never come out of the bathroom.
She didn’t need to worry about being spotted. Nobody was out walking as Ethan took the flower-power VW a short drive to Folger Park, a drive that would normally take five minutes but they managed it in half an hour plus. Outstanding.
To complete the great experience, Ethan’s assertion that the bunks would be great was a little exaggerated. About as much as saying winter skinny-dipping in the Hudson is invigorating. It was like trying to sleep on a bookshelf.
She was still awake when Ethan’s cell buzzed its way across the plastic table at his feet. Great, now she’d never sleep. It would be some call to arms or an emergency or something and they’d be roaring away in the hippy wagon like knights to the rescue. What mad moment was she having when she thought joining the navy was a good idea?
Ethan didn’t wake up despite the phone buzzing like an enraged wasp. She called his name twice, but nothing. So what happened to the warrior’s ability to sleep with one eye open? Then she knew. Wrong noise. She put on her cell’s light and looked around. A pencil was hooked under an elastic band on the noticeboard. A noticeboard in a van? She’d puzzle over that one later, but now…she snapped the pencil.
And Ethan was wide awake and sitting up.
His phone was still buzzing, now on the third cycle, and he leaned down to the bottom of his luxurious bunk and picked it up, giving the sleeping Andie a long look.
The pencil was under the orange Indian blanket. His being awake was nothing to do with her. The phone buzzing maybe.
Ethan grunted into the phone, listened for a moment, and then sat upright and swung his legs off the bunk.
Andie sat up and waited. Not a call to arms. Something was very wrong. She waited for him to say thanks and put the phone back on the table.
“Bad news?” She didn’t need to be psychic to know the answer to that.
“Winter.”
A dozen questions jumped into her head, but none of them mattered. Winter was pale with white hair and more than a bit weird, but underneath his flint hard façade she’d sensed the man he could’ve been, should’ve been. War takes a person’s soul and breaks it.
Ethan edged forward through the cramped van and sat behind the wheel. A moment later the starter screeched and the engine coughed into life.
“I need a drink,” he said, pulling out onto Third Street.
She slipped into the passenger seat and looked again for the seat belt. “You should maybe put on the lights. For what they’re worth.”
They parked in a loading-only bay opposite a building site on M Street, opposite O’Leary’s Irish Bar. It looked like as good a place as any at one a.m. It wasn’t.
They’d barely reached the dumpsters lined up along the sidewalk when a raggedy black guy stepped out of the shadows and pointed a gun at Ethan.
Mistake one.
“Give me your wallet.”
Ethan looked him over. In his mid-twenties with a life expectancy of mid-twenties judging from the twitching and shaking.
“Go home, son,” Ethan said.
“Give me your fuckin’ wallets now.” Showing he had a greater vocabulary.
Andie raised her hands as if surrendering. The move opened her jacket and stretched her white blouse across her breasts.
The mugger stared at them.
Mistake number two. Last one.
Ethan swung his left foot back and round no more than twenty degrees, but it was enough to move him out of line of the pistol. Even before his foot had settled, he snapped his right fist back and up, the knuckles smashing into the guy’s nose. The pain passed agony and kept on going.
Ethan used the reaction to the backfist to launch a straight left that all but buried itself in the mugger’s wasted gut. He was going down when the chopping right connected with the side of his jaw with a crack like a pool ball.
He was still holding the gun, but didn’t know what planet he was kneeling on. Ethan took the gun away from him. And put it against his temple.
The cold metal seemed to bring the guy back from the sea of pain he was drowning in. And he stayed dead still on his hands and knees.
“I told you to go home, but you just wanted to fuck with me.” Ethan cocked the piece. “Well, okay, let’s fuck.”
“Sarge,” Andie said softly, and stepped up to him to put her hand on his arm, “the guy’s just street scum. He isn’t worth it.”
Ethan screwed the muzzle into the guy’s temple.
“Not like this,” Andie said. “Winter wouldn’t want you to waste a bullet on this druggie.”
“You hear her?” Ethan said into the guy’s ear. “She thinks I shouldn’t blow your fucking head off.”
“Orpheus, Ethan. Remember? Tomorrow,” Andie said, and touched his arm again.
“She’s just a kid,” Ethan said. “You wanted to shoot her?” He screwed the muzzle again and the mugger started to whimper. “For that you get to see what your brains look like on the sidewalk.”
The mugger was sobbing now and begging for his miserable life.
“You piece of shit! You fucking piece of shit!” Ethan was shouting into the guy’s ear. He pushed the gun hard against the mugger’s head…and shouted, “Bang!”
The mugger slumped into the mud and curled up in a ball. It took a second for the stink to reach them, but it was unmistakable.
Ethan was about to toss the gun into a dumpster, but dropped it into his pocket instead. No point giving another scumbag a piece. He walked across the street towards the Irish pub, and Andie started breathing again and ran after him.
“Christ, I thought you’d shot him,” she said, catching up as he pushed open the bar door.
Ethan shrugged and went inside. It had been that close.
He was hurting, Andie knew it, and knew it wasn’t just Winter, he was just the latest
in a roll call that went on and on and would’ve brought even the strongest man to his knees.
“Orpheus lives in his office block,” she said as they crossed the barroom and ignored the eyes of the few drunks and couples at the round wooden tables. “We should go tonight. Now.”
Ethan waved the barman over and waited while he polished another glass just to prove he was in charge of his own destiny.
“They wouldn’t expect you to go tonight. You said tomorrow.”
Ethan glanced at her. “Yes, I said tomorrow.”
“They’ll be waiting for you. All of them. He killed Winter; why not go now?”
“Because I said tomorrow.”
The barman dried his hands on the towel and came over.
Downfall
Orpheus wondered if he should be afraid, the marine had promised to return, and he had no doubt that the man stood by his word. Some people do that. He decided that anyone in his predicament would be afraid—dying is permanent. Fear was an emotion he had never experienced and he couldn’t bring it to the surface now—as the religious types say—at the hour of my death, bit dramatic he always thought, and definitely submissive. Whenever he heard that, he wanted to shout don’t just sit there and wait for it, get off your ass and fight, but never did, because he deduced that it would be considered rude, and because he simply couldn’t be bothered. Let them lie down and die if that’s how they wanted it. He, on the other hand, had no intention of lying down and dying, today or any other day, when he could most certainly do something about it.
He reached for the phone, changed his mind and picked up his coffee and the Wall Street Journal. Breakfast first; call all hands later. He glanced at the stupid laser clock on the wall. Seven hours yet. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, if you believe the food mafiosi, and he didn’t, but he detested cold bacon and congealed egg. The marine…Ethan Gill could wait his turn.
“Sir.” Bernard’s voice from a hidden speaker. “I will not interrupt your breakfast.”
Though he had already.
“I simply wish to put your mind at ease. I have implemented the appropriate protocol to ensure your safety.”
Hofmann had no idea there was a protocol for that contingency. That would be Bernard’s doing. He waved a triangle of toast in silent salute.
“Thank you, sir,” Bernard said.
Hofmann looked around and frowned; then his gaze settled on the laser clock and he smiled. “Been spying on me, Bernard?”
“I would prefer to call it keeping an eye on your safety.”
“Then you go ahead and call it that.” He bit the point off the toast. “How long have you been…keeping an eye on my safety?”
“Since Master Sergeant Gill and his merry band returned to the United States.”
“You suspected they would find us and come for me even then?”
“No, sir, I knew they would come for you.”
“Remind me to give you a raise, Bernard.”
Silence for a moment. “What would I do with it, sir?”
Hofmann dipped his corner of toast into his egg and smiled. “Not a money man, then?”
“I have enough. Any more is just adding sauce to a perfectly good steak.”
Hofmann picked up a piece of crispy bacon and held it up to the light for reasons only he knew. “And this protocol?” He crunched the end of the bacon and glanced over at the clock. “What does it entail?”
Silence again. “Do you really want to know, sir? It can be rather tedious.”
“Just the bullet points, I guess.”
“Very well. The marine will come. We will kill him.”
Now Hofmann was silent while he worried the remains of the egg with his bacon slice.
“Sir?”
“I was thinking, Bernard. The last time the marine came, we were unable to prevent him walking right into my office and putting a gun on my Lalique table.”
“Quite, sir. But that has been rectified.”
Hofmann continued with his breakfast and picked up another triangle of toast and dipped it into his black coffee.
Bernard read the silence as an invitation to elaborate. “The…people we were using to manage security have unexpectedly gone out of business.”
“That’s a tragedy.” Hofmann put his finger under the end of the toast to stop it sagging.
“Blackwatch are an entirely different breed.”
“I do hope so. It strikes me that my life may depend on it.”
“Oh, most certainly, sir. However, I think we can rest assured that the team they put in place are more than adequate to deter the marine from his foolishness.”
“Blackwatch?”
“Oh, I’m sure you will have heard of them.”
Of course he had.
“They provide security personnel for a very select group of individuals throughout the world,” Bernard said.
And Hofmann knew who this select group was. People like him, brokers, movers and shakers, and men the powers that be would like to see fall. And women, yes, and women. A few.
“When can we expect them?”
“Sir?”
“These crack troops,” Hofmann said.
“Oh, they’re here already, of course.”
“Of course.” Hofmann wondered if he should feel relieved or grateful. Probably grateful. He thought about it for a moment and decided that would be the appropriate emotion. “Thank you, Bernard.”
“For what, sir?”
“Will you inform me when it’s done?”
“What on earth for, sir?”
Hofmann thought about that. “Quite. You will let me know if anything goes wrong?”
“I believe you will hear nothing more about it.”
“Then, dear friend, I shall…color that done.”
Silence again, much longer. “Oh, I see, sir. Yes, very good.”
From his surveillance position on the third-floor office opposite Parallax, Ethan had seen the Blackwatch team arrive in blacked-out SUVs at a little after four in the morning. Three identical Tahoes, six or seven men in each. He’d leaned closer to the window but couldn’t see any more as they disappeared down the ramp to the basement parking. Maybe twenty men, and unless his lifetime of military experience was letting him down, these would be a different breed to the gym jockeys in grey suits. Ex-special forces, either ex by choice or because they’d been kicked out. The mission, if mission it was, just got a whole lot more challenging.
He’d continued to watch the building until the office workers arrived and streamed in through the security scanners in reception. There were no more soldiers. They would’ve stood out like a basketball player at a pigmy convention.
He sat back on the desk he’d been using as a bench since letting himself into the lawyer’s office. Twenty men. It was too many for the task, he would’ve deployed maybe eight at most, any more and they’d be falling over each other. That was just wishful thinking and he knew it.
There were voices outside the office, and he walked back to the small reception area in front of an oversized reception desk, picked up a magazine, and settled back into the brown leather couch. Any time now.
The office door swung open and a woman backed in, her arms full of shopping bags and an old-fashioned school satchel hanging off her shoulder. He got up quickly and held the door open for her.
“Oh, thank you so—” The women executed an elegant pirouette, especially tricky carrying all her goodies.
“You are most welcome,” Ethan said, and gave her a little bow.
“Who are you?” She looked around the empty office. “And how did you get in?”
“I am Ethan Gill, ma’am, and I got in the same way as you.” He nodded towards the door.
“But it was locked.” Her voice gave away her doubt.
“Yes, ma’am,” Ethan said, and took some of the bags out of her arms. “And that’s exactly what I’ll say if anybody asks.”
She dropped the last two remaining bags and her sa
tchel on the desk and moved around to the other side of it. She frowned at him and switched on her computer. “Do you have an appointment?”
“No, ma’am—”
“You can cut out the ma’am stuff. Do I look like your mother or a schoolteacher?”
“No, ma—” He smiled. “My schoolteacher was Mr Nash, so no, you don’t look like him. Nor my mother, she was really old.”
She brushed her long brown hair from her face and straightened her spectacles. “I sometimes feel old enough to be a grandmother.”
“Well, you could dispel that any time you want.” He almost said ma’am but caught himself.
She was staring at him, trying to catch up, or guess, or work out what the hell just happened.
“You just look in the mirror when you’re feeling low, and you’ll see what we all see.” He smiled and his face lit up. “A fine-looking woman with kind eyes.”
She straightened papers on her desk, moved the shopping bags to the floor, turned the computer screen and didn’t look at him.
“I can see you’re busy. I should’ve called ahead, but I was around, so thought I’d drop in and see if you had a slot for me at, say, nine this morning.”
“Oh no. No, no, no. That wouldn’t be possible.” She looked up now, her cheeks still a little pink. “Miss Safierstein is completely booked until…” She sat down at her desk and tapped her keyboard. “Oh, weeks and weeks.” She looked up. “I’m so sorry.”
“No, ma’am,” Ethan said, moving towards the door. “Don’t you fret about it. You have a lovely day now.”
She started to speak, but the door swung closed behind him. She took out a mirror from her satchel, looked around quickly, and leaned it against her computer.
Ethan took the stairs down to the lobby and walked back out onto the busy street. A fire-red Bentley pulled up at the red curb, and a big guy in a shiny suit got out of the back, lifted out his attaché case, and pushed his way through the pedestrians making their way to work. A couple of guys told him to watch it, and a woman asked who the hell he thought he was, but he ignored them and made a beeline for the building with a black polished stone facade behind Ethan. Ethan was okay with letting the overweight bully through, until he elbowed a woman out of the way and strode on, not noticing or caring that she’d fallen.