Shadow Line

by Stephen Edger

  When he was finished, Mike had moved back to the kitchen to finish making the drinks. As he had entered the kitchen, he had missed the security guards leaving the floor’s main doors to await the arrival of the police. Two minutes later, with mugs in hand he had headed back to the office, only to discover that somebody had smashed the security system. Undeterred, but slightly miffed, Mike had headed upstairs towards the fire escape that would lead him back to his desk. The fifth floor was empty and whilst he had expected to see at least one person, it didn’t worry him; he was determined to phone down to reception and report the broken door unit, in the hope that someone would catch the vandal.

  If Mike had not been so caught up in the music he was listening to he probably would have noticed the reflection of flashing blue lights rapidly approaching the building, but he didn’t. Instead he crossed the fifth floor at a healthy pace and headed down the fire escape. It was only as he approached the doors back to the fourth floor that he heard what sounded like a loud bang.

  *

  Daniel wasn’t sure how many bullets he had left in his gun. It was maybe one; two at best. The conflict of fear and excitement had not been conducive for his memory. He estimated there were at least four people still on the floor, hiding. One of them had to be his target. He decided to move towards a bank of desks to the left and as he approached he saw a pair of feet desperately scurrying away from him. The feet belonged to a man, judging by the shiny black soles of the shoes. It was unclear if this was the target but it was worth further investigation. The feet continued to scurry and Daniel found himself watching them instead of where he was going, causing him to bump into another desk. Cursing as he banged his leg, he turned to see another woman cowering down.

  He felt like a God; weighing up whether he should let this woman live or die. Part of his brain was screaming out for her to survive, but there was a darker side demanding that he save her from existence and put a bullet between her eyes.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ the woman asked, accepting her fate. ‘What did we do to you, you fucking monster?’

  The question and insult caught him off guard and in that moment he saw his wife’s face asking the same question, and then he pictured his son’s face repeating the question.

  ‘I did it for you,’ he pleaded to the image in his mind, knowing that there was no way he could make them understand. Imaginary thoughts came of what life would be like for his wife and son, left to grieve the passing of someone the media would define as a monster. Would they ever forgive him? He pictured his wife being shunned by former friends, and his son being picked on at school; it was all his fault. A tear rolled down his cheek.

  Sensing that the gunman might be softening and that there was a glimmer of hope for survival, the woman scrambled to her feet and grabbed a picture frame from the desk. The frame held a photograph of the woman, a man who was probably her husband and then a little girl with blonde pigtails.

  ‘Please,’ she pleaded. ‘This is my family. Don’t take me from them.’

  Daniel wiped the tear from his cheek with the back of his hand and simply mouthed ‘I’m sorry,’ as he raised the weapon and squeezed the trigger again. The bullet entered her heart and killed her instantly, the picture frame smashing as it hit the floor.

  *

  Asif had pushed himself as far under the desk as he could manage, still hopeful that if the gunman only casually glanced into the pod he might go unnoticed. His thoughts turned to the life he had lived. Sure he had enjoyed himself, but in the grand scheme of things what had he achieved? He hadn’t made his parents proud of the man he had become and whilst he was generally well-regarded by friends and colleagues, how many of them would really remember him once he was in the ground? It was strange, how in this, probably his final moments alive, he was no longer scared. Instead his heart was heavy with the regret of a wasted existence. He feared for his mother’s future. With his father away all the time on business, Asif was her only real connection with the outside world; with him gone, would she just wither away to nothing?

  His attention was brought back to his precarious situation when he saw the gunman’s feet coming closer again. It was as if he was looking for something or maybe someone, but Asif couldn’t imagine who or what. The feet continued to move ever closer to his pod and as they did, the slower his breathing became. ‘If he can’t hear me or see me, he won’t find me,’ he kept thinking.

  His view was still partially blocked by the desk but as the feet continued to move forward the gunman’s trousers came into view, then his midriff and all too soon, his upper torso and eventually his face. That meant one thing: if he could see the gunman’s face, then the gunman could see him too.

  ‘Daniel?’ Asif whispered, immediately recognising the squat, bald man whose spreadsheet he had been trying to fix that morning. He was about to ask his colleague what he thought he was doing, when he remembered the gun and decided to keep quiet.

  Daniel continued to stare down at him, as if contemplating whether he could shoot someone he was friendly with.

  ‘Daniel, come on, you can’t do this; we’re friends. Come on,’ he demanded, his confidence growing the longer the gun remained pointed down. ‘I don’t know what has caused this today, but surely, you don’t have an issue with me? Think of all the drinks and meals we’ve been out to. Think about the games we’ve watched down at St. Mary’s. Surely that counts for something?’

  Daniel continued to stare at him.

  ‘Look, the police are undoubtedly on their way, if they’re not already here. I’m sure there is a way out of this…you’re obviously not feeling very well. Come on, mate, you don’t need to do this.’

  Asif was starting to stand, hoping that they had a strong enough bond to save his life. He hoped he could keep talking long enough to move closer to maybe even wrestle the weapon from Daniel’s hands, but in under a second, the gunman’s arm started to rise again, and the Technical Support Assistant began to crouch back down as quickly as he had risen.

  Asif knew this was it and closed his eyes, waiting for the bullet to turn everything black.

  *

  As Mike rounded the corner to the fire exit entrance back onto floor four, he nearly dropped the mugs of drinks when he saw a man in a suit by the door, pointing a weapon down near his desk. His wide-eyed stare seemed to catch the gunman’s attention and for the briefest of moments he saw a look of recognition in the gunman’s eyes. Before he could even open his mouth to scream, the gunman’s arm had swung around and was suddenly pointing through the glass of the fire door at Mike himself. Thankfully, when the shot was fired, it was wayward, cracking the glass of the door but not fully penetrating it. Mike’s survival instinct kicked in and throwing the mugs of coffee at the doors, he turned on his heel and headed back to the staircase. There was only one thing on his mind: run.

  10

  Daniel had truly not known what to do when he had come across his friend Asif at the end of the office. When he had received the instructions that his target worked on the fourth floor, he had not really considered the other people on the floor whom he might have known. Up until that point, whilst some of the victim’s faces had seemed familiar, he had not known any of them well enough to call friends, so in his subconscious it had been easy enough to dispatch them as strangers. However, coming across someone he genuinely considered a friend, a man he had socialised with for a number of years, had come as a total surprise, and he had been uncertain how to react. In the moments when Asif had been trying to reason with him all he had been weighing up was the impact on his own wife and son. Would they renege on their commitment to watch over his family if he left someone he knew to live?

  He had thought of arguments both for and against allowing Asif to live and in the end he had determined that Asif would have to die like the rest, or at least be injured as part of the morning’s attack. He had started raising his arm, ready to fire when a change in the light refraction through the fire door had caught his attentio
n. A man had appeared at the door; more important, it was the man from the photograph that had been in the briefcase: it was the target.

  His mind had immediately jumped back to the original intention of his objective: kill Mike McGee. It was as if fate had sent him the help he needed as he had raised his gun arm hoping to kill the target in one shot, but his aim had been off and he had failed to hit the target. Unsurprisingly Mike had then decided to run and that left Daniel with no choice but to chase after him. In his urgency to catch up, he had completely forgotten about the need to kill Asif and only he would ever know how close Asif had come to being the next victim.

  McGee had smartly chosen to run downstairs towards the exit that would lead him out through the rear of the building. Daniel knew he had to catch up with him and, as he reached the first step, he immediately leaned over to look for the target. He saw an arm and Daniel fired at it as he began to take the steps two at a time. The gun clicked and a second squeeze of the trigger identified that the magazine was out of rounds. Letting go of the hand rail, Daniel fished inside his trouser pocket for the replacement magazine and reloaded the gun. Reloading the weapon had slowed his progress slightly but he sensed that he was still gaining on the larger-framed target.

  He glanced over the edge of the bannister again and saw a shoulder as well as an arm this time and fired at the moving target, missing once more. As he continued to leap two stairs at a time, he could feel the adrenalin pumping through his veins. He noticed that he had just passed the exit to floor two and that meant he was rapidly running out of time to catch his prey. He felt out of breath but still he continued to pound down the staircase, nearly falling on a couple of occasions but just managing to maintain his balance. The target’s back was nearly in view and so rather than aiming the weapon between the railings he opted to point it in front of him, picking up his momentum once more. He let off another couple of shots, hoping to frighten the bigger man into submission but, as they raced past the exit for the ground floor and headed towards the basement and ultimately the rear exit of the building, he started to panic that his target might just make it out.

  The last turn of the staircase led to a short corridor at the end of which was the fire escape. As Daniel turned into the corridor, Mike was just ten metres ahead of him, careering towards the doorway, but, as the big man clattered into the door’s wooden bulk, the strangest thing happened. Instead of crashing through the doors, he bounced back off them and fell to the ground. Seeing the target prone on the floor, he raised his weapon ready to take aim, but Mike was quickly back on his feet and attacking the door once more, but the door remained stuck fast.

  What neither man knew was that in an effort to prevent the gunman escaping the building before the police arrived, the security guards had placed a rather large padlock and chain on the outside of the door. Even if he and Mike had rammed the door together, there was no way they would have managed to open it.

  Mike let out an anguished groan as he collapsed to the floor, suddenly realising the real danger his life was in. As he had dodged bullets and raced down the staircase he had clung to the belief that salvation lay on the other side of the fire escape, but now he was trapped like a caged bear.

  ‘Who are you? What do you want?’ Mike shouted between breaths and sighs.

  Daniel took a second to catch his breath and regain his composure.

  ‘It doesn’t matter who I am,’ he replied as his breathing steadied slightly. ‘You brought this on yourself and apparently pissed off the wrong people.’

  Mike stared back at him puzzled, before a revelation struck him and suddenly it all became clear.

  ‘You’re working for them, aren’t you?’ he managed as Daniel moved his feet apart and took aim.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Daniel offered as he squeezed the trigger twice in quick succession catching Mike in the temple and cheek. The bloody mess that remained of the target’s face confirmed the mission had been accomplished.

  He let out a sigh of relief and soon became all too aware of the noise of sirens outside the building. He could only guess how long it would be before an armed response unit would be upon him, so he didn’t have long left.

  Dropping to his knees, he raised his eyes upwards and offered a silent prayer to a God he didn’t believe in and pleaded that his wife and son would be watched over after he was gone. He then placed the warm barrel of the SIG to his forehead and squeezed the trigger for the last time.

  *

  Asif’s eyes had remained clamped tight shut even after he had heard the weapon fire. He had been surprised by the lack of pain and had assumed that he had died instantly as he had no recollection of the bullet entering his body. It was only after he heard somebody clatter through the fire escape that he dared open his eyes. He was even more surprised to find himself still crouched down by his desk. It took him several minutes to realise that he was still alive and hadn’t actually been shot by the gunman.

  Finally staggering to his feet, he was unable to ignore the wet patch that was causing his trousers to cling to his legs, but given everything that had happened that was the least of his worries. Fearing that Daniel might return to the floor to finish the job, Asif made his way as quickly as he could to the floor’s main entrance, and finding it locked tight due to the damaged security pad, he gave it several sharp kicks and shoulder barges, and managed to break through the magnetic lock.

  The lifts were locked down so he headed for the stairs, taking them quietly, desperate not to alert the gunman that he was making his escape. When he reached ground level, he headed for the turnstiles and the main entrance. As he walked through the lift lobby he was unceremoniously rugby tackled to the floor by an over-zealous police officer in a Kevlar vest.

  ‘Is this him?’ the officer barked in the direction of the security guards who had been warned off by the gunmen earlier.

  ‘No,’ replied one of the security guards. ‘The gunman’s a white fella,’ he added with a sheepish look on his face when he realised his comment may have been offensive.

  The officer helped Asif back to his feet and started asking him who he was and where he had been. His responses were laboured as the questions came thick and fast and he was then promptly led from the building to a waiting ambulance so that he could be examined by a paramedic. Within minutes a suited man approached the ambulance and asked him questions about the layout of the floor, how many people had been shot and where he had last seen the gunman. He answered as best as he could but as the adrenalin started to dissipate, he found it harder to recall all the details of what had happened. The more time that passed, the more it seemed like a freak dream.

  ‘So you knew the gunman?’ the suited officer asked him.

  ‘Yeah…I guess,’ he replied glumly.

  ‘What can you tell me about him?’

  He wasn’t even sure how to begin to answer that question but started with, ‘His name is Daniel Simpson and he works in one of the portfolio management teams I think. He’s married with a son.’

  ‘Why do you think he would do…this?’ the detective challenged, uncertain how to best describe the morning’s events.

  ‘I can’t believe he has,’ Asif replied honestly. ‘It seems so unreal.’

  ‘Did you speak with him at all today?’

  Asif tried to recall what he had said to Daniel when he had been pleading for his life, but couldn’t remember the exact words. ‘I only asked him not to shoot me…I can’t really remember.’

  ‘Why do you think he spared you?’

  ‘Spared me? I don’t…I don’t know,’ he answered as tears started to stream down his face.

  Taking pity on Asif, the detective told the paramedic that he would finish his questions later.

  ‘It’s okay, Mr Patel,’ the detective said. ‘It’s over now. We’ve got him.’

  He tried to wipe the tears with the back of his hand, as he looked up at the officer.

  ‘You’ve caught him?’

  ‘Not exactly,’
replied the detective, turning back towards the building. ‘We’ve found his body. Looks like the coward topped himself.’

  With that the detective was gone. Asif lay back down on the stretcher and allowed the tears to flow for the friend who was no more and for the second chance at life he had just been handed on a silver platter.

  SATURDAY

  11

  Youssef Laboué stared long and hard at his reflection in the full length mirror that hung to the inside wall of the small, dingy studio flat. There was a thin and even layer of dust clinging to the glass, heightening the feeling of dirtiness that had been with him these last few weeks.

  His gut tingled with a nervous excitement that he was doing his best to ignore. Around the room were various exhibits of his student life: his desktop PC was on the flat-pack desk in the far corner, a number of thick text books were balanced tentatively on the makeshift shelf that was the windowsill, and there was a pile of clothes in another corner in the invisible laundry basket. One obvious omission from the typical student residence was empty alcohol containers, as he was not permitted to drink. The room was a state, a fact that he was all too aware of, but as he considered the rest of the day, tidying up was simply not a priority.

  A second pile of discarded clothes lay at his feet, where he had stripped moments before. He surveyed his nude reflection and shuddered as his eyes moved from the floor, up his naked torso. He despised his own body, he always had. His toes looked unnaturally bent; these led to his flat feet, where the arches had not properly developed. Next were his bony ankles, stick-thin shins, pointy knees, and tight thighs. The only positive, so far, was that there was very little by way of body hair on the lower half of his body. His vision continued to rise and as he observed his penis and pubic hair, he felt physically sickened, forcing back his own gag reflex. The hair continued up to his belly button and there was a second eruption of thin dark hairs between his nipples. His upper torso had very little body fat or muscle.