Chapter Forty-Eight
Watching Lawson and the man Black had become leaping from the building, Tyrone was at last able to push them from his mind. He had no idea if they were going to make it or not; he did not personally buy the 'magic wings' angle, but the night had been one for strange happenings, so he supposed anything was possible. His concern was, at the moment, strictly concentrated on the situation he and the three people still in the room found themselves in. Turning towards the penthouse's private elevator, he saw the metal doors were ajar and were bent inwards around their middle, having been damaged by the small explosion. Peering through the gap in the steel, he tried to make out whether or not the cable the elevator used had been at all damaged, but could not tell. The sound of the motor engaging without issue and the cabin rising, however, confirmed that the elevator itself was still in working order.
Upon reaching the penthouse level, the four soldiers that had been inside the ascending box forced the damaged metal doors open and quickly filed out into the main room, their weapons at the ready. Sweeping the open space with their eyes, they saw only two people; Jason, face-down on the couch and Tyrone, watching them from behind the same piece of furniture. Knowing there had been more people sighted than were present, the soldiers hesitated and glanced at one another. It was obvious that they had picked up on the fact that Tyrone and the others had no desire to fight them, but they weren't sure how to proceed. Unwilling to wait around for one of them to decide shooting everyone was still a viable mission objective, Tyrone took the initiative and cleared his throat.
"Look," he began, raising his voice so they could hear him from behind the couch. "The people you're after are gone, they jumped out the window. Everyone here is either an employee of this company, or a friend."
Glancing his way, the soldiers looked between themselves, clearly still undecided. One of them reluctantly stepped forward to assume the mantle of leadership, at least for the length of this particular conversation. "Our orders were to purge the building from top to bottom, excluding only the ground floor."
Tyrone rolled his eyes at the man's echoing of his commands. "Yeah, to make sure the intruders didn't get away, which they already have."
"Orders are orders, Mr. Burgess. We are paid to follow them."
The big man, losing his patience, stood and drew himself up to look down at the smaller individual. Taking a quick glance around, he saw Jason still had himself draped over Giselle, shielding her from harm; it was a bit dramatic, but he appreciated it anyway. "Even if they're stupid?"
Murakami, having taken cover in the mouth of the hallway, shook her head in exasperation at her superior's lack of patience, but could not keep a slight smirk from darting across her lips. "Sir, perhaps you could get in contact with your employer? If he is their client, then he could say for sure what their, and our, course of action should be."
The soldier glanced towards the location of her voice. "We are unable to contact him directly, as I am sure you are."
Tyrone nodded, sighing at the general paranoia of their mutual employer. "Yeah. Murakami's right, though, we should talk to him about it. He gets very particular about how things should be handled when they don't go his way in the first place."
The armed men glanced at each other, their leader raising an eyebrow. "I do not understand; did we not just agree that he could not be reached?"
Before Tyrone could point out their employer's habit of getting in touch when his input was needed, the discarded cellphone of the wet team's deceased leader began to sound out from its spot on the floor. The on-cue object was partially obscured by the charred, downy remains of the mattress, but the pulsing rhythm of its ring tone made it easy enough to find. Letting the soldier move to pick it up, the giant stood back and folded his ebony arms over his chest, waiting to see what the word would be. Flipping the phone open, the soldier loosened his helmet and pressed it to his ear. "Hello?"
The explosion of incoherent noise from the other end caused the man's head to jerk away reflexively and, after a moment spent trying to decipher what had been said, he meekly handed it to Tyrone. "It's for you."
"I should have known," he sighed, taking a deep breath. "Burgess here."
His employer's, that was, Apollo's voice was a strained, barely controlled thing just a whisper away from hoarse and even nearer to being abandoned to shouting. "Tyrone, you're alive. How nice. Our intruders have escaped, then, wonderful. Might I ask for your reasons for helping them accomplish this?"
Tyrone was in no mood to be bullied and spoke plainly. "Because you needlessly put Miss Fitch in danger, Sir. I understand that-"
"You understand nothing!" The man snapped, the thin veneer of calm he was forcing into his demeanour slipping from its place. "She was nothing! Giselle Fitch was of no value whatsoever, but catching those intruders, that man, was! I wanted, no, I needed him dead. And you helped him!?"
The big man would not be budged. Not on this; not this time. "My life, the life of this company's CEO and the lives of my subordinates were in danger, Sir. I made a decision."
"Yes, I see that; the wrong decision! Wrong! Very wrong!" Taking a deep breath, the man attempted to be calm once more. "This little mistake, this error, this... lapse in your judgement may cost us dearly, Tyrone. However; your track record up to now has been exemplary and I will give you the opportunity to put it straight. Needless to say, your pay will be docked heavily in order to pay for the various expenses of this debacle, but further punishment will wait until I can decide on something appropriate."
"You assume I want to keep working for you?"
The man's voice dropped another few degrees in temperature. "I assume you have no choice, Tyrone. You signed a contract with me, the time period of which is not yet up. You don't want to void that contract."
Tyrone sighed, glancing up as he saw Murakami hesitantly emerging from the hallway. "No, I suppose I don't, Sir."
Apollo barked a short, hard laugh. "It wasn't a question, Tyrone. Now; I will give you one week to get your affairs in order, then I will be sending you elsewhere to attend to new matters. During this period a new CEO will be found for I.D.I. and you will be sure to brief his new security chief on how we do things around here. Am I clear?"
Frowning at Jason, still covering Giselle's body, Tyrone motioned for Murakami to check on him while answering. "Yes, Sir."
"Good," came the reply, the note of barely repressed disgust dripping from its single syllable. "Now; I had said I would find a suitable punishment for you and, rest assured that I will, but I do believe the most appropriate one has already been given."
Frowning in incomprehension, Tyrone looked around for signs of the punishment the man had alluded to; a quiet exclamation from Murakami drew his attention to its source. As she had pulled Jason upright, she had seen his entire front had been stained red from his shoulder to his waist and let go. Without her support, his limp form dropped from the couch with a thud and came to rest, face down, on the floor. An eight inch splinter of wood, varnished on one side as the dresser had been, was sticking out of the side of his throat.
Apollo's voice, smug and delighting in the situation, sounded in Tyrone's ear. "I remember all of the times you would complain about the man, but from your silence I suppose it would be impolite of me to hold a party. It's a shame, too, you really hated him; the words you would use to describe him were slanderous enough to be nearly poetic. Ah well; be careful what you wish for and all that, eh, Tyrone?"
"Yeah," was all the big man could think to say. He was surprised, genuinely surprised, that this was bothering him. He had hated Jason for most of the time he had known him, it was true. The scrawny idiot could never do anything right. But, as he had said to Murakami before, there was something about him that you just couldn't stay mad at. To have him gone, permanently, was at once a reprehensible sort of relief and a dagger of guilt, burrowing its way into him. Would this have happened, if he had not given Jason the task of protecting Giselle? Hadn't he wi
shed, idly, that it would?
Unsympathetic towards his strongman's situation, Apollo found himself grinning as he tried to imagine the man's face. "It's a shame, really. If someone had noticed before I did on my little cameras, they may have been able to stop the bleeding. Oh well. I'll be in touch, Mr. Burgess; do try to have a pleasant week. Go to a spa, or something, after work. You could use a little you time. Pass me to the nice man in the uniform, would you? That's a good boy."
Tyrone, feeling the urge to crush the phone in his hand mounting rapidly, passed it to the soldier in front of him before he could act on his impulse. Moving mutely to the couch, he plucked the still-unconscious Giselle from its surface; she had moist, drying blood on her face, neck and clothes, but it was not her own. Turning to Murakami, his face devoid of emotion, he nodded towards the connecting hallway.
"Could I ask you to get her cleaned up? I'll find something for her to wear; a spare uniform, maybe. Just until she's awake enough to pick something out of her closet."
Looking at her employer with concern, Murakami simply nodded. "Of course, Sir."
"Thank you."
Carrying the unconscious redhead into the bathroom, he set her on the edge of the tub and, letting Murakami take over, closed the door behind himself. Standing outside, he looked at the armed men filing back into the elevator with utter contempt and set to the task of removing the objects from blocking the stairwell door. It was slow, monotonous work that required no conscious thoughts, other than those spent deciding where to place the furniture and large appliances, and he welcomed it gladly.
In Icarus' Shadow Page 66