by Jason Vanez
No, he realised a few moments later, as his eyes took in the rest of the building. There were empty doorways lining the walls on both floors, and he could see signs of habitation beyond a few of them. In one room was a table with a plate on it. In another he saw the corner of a sofa. In yet another was a portion of a mat with more weights on it, and an exercise bike. Some of the rooms trailed cables to a generator by the back wall, maybe for a fridge and a TV and lights.
Someone was living here. The abandoned building had been taken over by squatters who had kitted out some of the empty locker and shower rooms. Whoever it was must have filled the pool for their own daily morning swim. It made Einar smile. A beggar's palace. Shame they hadn't invested in a bin for their used condoms.
Voices now, below him. Staring down through the gridded floor of the balcony, he watched three men enter the scene and walk towards Marsh, all of them hollering at the luckless businessman, telling him his time was up. Two trailed a third, who must be the Chopper, although he didn't wear biker leathers or a helmet. He walked like a leader, taking big, confident steps, while the pair behind shuffled like minions. He was taller and dressed in jeans and a black leather jacket. The other two were dressed the same as the dead guy in the Golf's boot: bright, baggy clothing and baseball caps, reminding Einar of hip hop stars way back in the nineties. Wannabe Street Gangstas. Einar grinned.
In that moment an idea that was new and amusing came to him, and he tossed aside his plan to take out the two henchmen silently. He sighted down his scope, placing the crosshairs on the lower spine of the guy walking behind and to the Chopper's left. At this distance, only twenty metres, he didn't need the scope to ruin this guy's day, but he wanted his shot to be perfect to the millimetre. He didn't want the bullet to be slowed by bone.
He fired.
The bullet, travelling at an angle downwards, hit the guy in his bright yellow-and-red jacket just above the beltline. Slowed only by flesh, the slug retained enough momentum to exit from the guy's abdomen, just above his groin. The momentum of the bullet swept out his hips ahead of him and he landed hard on his back. There was a wet slap of blood spraying across the ground and a loud crack as the bullet tore into concrete, but it was the man's scream that alerted the other two.
They froze, and right there in that moment Einar lost any respect he might have had for the Chopper. For three seconds the hitman and his remaining henchman stood rooted in shock, their jaws hanging. A professional would have been running for cover two-and-a-half seconds ago.
And when these two did run, it was the wrong way. Seeing their comrade on his back, a great bloody hole in his front, they suspected the shooter was ahead of them and bolted back the way they had come. Towards Einar, just as he'd planned. He stood in plain sight at the railing, no fear of being spotted because the two men had their heads craned back, searching the far side of the balcony for a shooter. They darted beneath the balcony, yelling obscenities. Their pal was screaming for help they clearly weren't about to offer him.
Einar stood very still, staring down at them through the floor. Each man had taken refuge behind a pillar holding up the balcony, their backs pressed hard against the stone, staring at each other across ten feet of space. The shot guy had stopped screaming and was now moaning like a porn star, so Einar was able to hear the men under the balcony yammering in whispers.
Over there, he's over there.
Some wanker with a gun, man.
What the hell does he want with us?
What the fuck's happening?
Einar slowed his breathing. He didn't think they'd hear even heavy breathing over the thudding of their own hearts, but he was not a man for taking chances. The slightest noise, the tiniest movement, and their eyes might be jerked upwards, and he would be exposed to them. Their heads were just a yard from his feet.
But they didn't look up. Now each man had swivelled so his chest was hard against the pillar he cowered behind.
Have a look, the Chopper whispered.
You fucking have a look, the minion whispered back, his regard for the chain of command in tatters now that he feared for his life. The Chopper poked half his head beyond the pillar and immediately jerked it back. Too quick to see anything, yet his henchman asked if he had. The Chopper shook his head. They were like children hiding from a school bully, and Einar had to suppress the urge to laugh. He was going to enjoy this game.
Einar turned his attention to Marsh. The man still had his head down, was still tapping that foot rhythmically. Seemingly unaware of the guy dying just thirty feet from him. He thought about blasting Marsh's head right off his shoulders, just to see what that would do to the guys hiding under the balcony. Probably burst their own heads with shock. But no. He had another plan for Marsh.
He would destroy the dying henchman's knee and watch his renewed screams pump girlish panic through his friends again. The Steyr could carry a ten round magazine, but Einar carried his ammo loose, not wanting the extra weight, so to shoot again he would have to chamber a round. The sound would surely alert those below him. If they carried pistols, they could aim up at him and blast away. No way could he shoot the first guy and swing his rifle across to kill the second man before at least some of their bullets found a path through the oblong holes in the floor and ruined his suit. So he carefully stepped back into the shower room, past the 2D man with no torso and a 3D dick, and stuck the gun out the window and chambered a round. The metallic clack rolled away across the land and disintegrated. He was about to return to the balcony when his eyes jerked downwards at a noise. He watched as the wood nailed over the entrance doors lifted up like a cat flap, and a guy came out. It was the sole remaining henchman.
Then came the Chopper.
Both men ran across the littered car park, scampering with their backs bent, heads tucked into their shoulders. Anger bloomed in Einar. He slung his rifle over his shoulder, clambered over the windowsill, reached for the drainpipe and slid down. By the time he had his rifle at his shoulder again, the men were eighty metres away, near the end of the car park, just seconds from being lost in the trees and the housing estate beyond. He put the crosshairs on the back of the Chopper's head. He had wanted to be play his amusing game, and here they were ruining it. Well, if there was no game, it was work as usual.
The anger was affecting his aim. He exhaled and his mind cleared instantly, emotions flooding out of him as if they were carried on his breath. The rifle's barrel stopped shivering.
Then he shifted it a fraction. He would have his game still.
The bullet ruffled the Chopper's hair as it passed by his ear. A sliver of a second later it took the henchman in the back of the head, blowing it apart. The guy sprawled on the concrete, tumbled, and lay dead. The Chopper tripped over him, also sprawled in the dirt, came up into a sitting position, and stared back towards the building.
"Don't move!" Einar yelled across the open land. Much louder than the sound of chambering a bullet, his shout rolled over the Chopper before disintegration. But the Chopper had no intention of obeying the order. Einar chambered another round as the Chopper got to his feet and turned to run. The Chopper didn't hear this sound, or the gunshot a moment after, but he saw a Coke can five feet ahead of him split apart and bounce away, and after that he froze on the spot and put his hands up.
Einar walked slowly towards him, all the time sighting down his scope. Fifteen feet out, right beside the fallen henchman, he stopped and lowered the rifle to his hip, but kept it aimed at the Chopper.
"I don't know you, man. You got no beef with me, for sure. What do you want?" the Chopper said, his voice quivering. His gaze was flicking between the two men before him, the one standing and holding a gun, and the one laying on the ground with no head.
Einar noted something in the man's waistline, creating a bulge partway down his leg. He knew what it was. And knew the game was about to be a lot more fun.
"Your life countdown has reached zero," Einar said, and fired.
T
he gun clicked on empty.
The Chopper jerked, staggering back with his hands over his face. Then he realised what had happened and his hand flashed to his hip and came wielding a long breadknife with its handle wrapped thickly in tape. This, Einar realised, was a man who had used that knife before, and not for slicing bread.
"Shit," Einar said, forcing his smile upside down.
"You just fucked up big-style, wanker," the Chopper yelled, and rushed him.
Einar had left the chamber empty on purpose. For the game. Now, he grabbed the hunting knife held by a push-fit pipe clip to the side of his gun, tore both killing instruments apart and tossed aside the gun in one fluid movement. Before the rifle had hit the ground, he was already moving forward.
***
Einar grabbed James Marsh's hair and yanked his head up. The man's face was battered, but the eyes that stared up at him were clear, not dazed. Einar saw in them something akin to realisation. Just for a second, he thought this man knew who he was. Then the eyes moved away and Einar figured he must have read them wrong.
Einar held up his knife. He held it close to Marsh's bruised eyes, making sure he saw the blood glistening on the wicked blade. He saw, but displayed no fear. Shock, Einar guessed. The man had been ripped out of his normal life and thrust into the grip of misery and pain. Einar had left the blade bloodied so he could elicit fear, but now wiped the knife clean on the businessman's shirt.
"I never normally ask," Einar said, "but today's been a strange old day. Why has someone put a price on your head? What did you do?"
No answer.
"Just for a moment I bet you thought you'd been saved. No such luck, James, I'm afraid. Out of the frying pan, into the fire. Any clue as to why someone wants you dead?"
Still no answer.
"Maybe you had no idea until now. Maybe the Chopper never said, and you sat there all that time hoping the nightmare would soon end. Maybe you still hope to get out of here and back to your cosy house. Well, let me clarify something for you. You will never know why, and nor will your wife and daughter, when I visit them after I leave here. But today your life countdown just reached zero."
Still no further emotion. No fear, no wonder. Again, it was as if the man knew. The Chopper must have told him he was going to die today, even though the other hitman, like Einar, did not know the reason someone had marked this man for death. A lie, then. The Chopper must have invented something to tell Marsh, probably because, like Einar, he enjoyed seeing emotions on faces. Especially fear.
He noted that Marsh was bound only to the gym weight, not the chair. Slipping his knife into his belt, Einar moved behind the chair quickly and tipped it forwards, pitching the businessman into the pool.
Marsh thrashed in the water, showing resolve and energy that surprised Einar, given how slumped and dead the man had been in the chair for the last few minutes. The gym weight shifted against the tug of the chain, slipping closer to the edge. Blood from the man's shirt and face started to snake tendrils through the water.
Einar smiled as he saw the man realise what would happen if he continued to struggle. Marsh stopped yanking the chain and floated on his back, treading water, staring up at Einar. Einar stood with his left foot next to the weight. He tried to think of something profound to say, to elicit more emotion. But nothing came. Besides, he had already used his catchphrase.
Marsh opened his mouth to speak. Einar kicked the weight, scraping it across the final ten inches of concrete and into the pool. It sank and the chain went taught and Marsh was yanked under.
Einar heard the dull clack of the weight landing on the bottom. Marsh tried to swim upwards and managed to lift one edge of the weight, but that was it. He thrashed, his head a good five feet under the surface.
Einar had already been here too long and it was time to go. He pulled his camera phone and took a quick photo of the guy dying in the pool. His proof of death. He sent the picture, along with that of the dead hitman, to the paymaster's, then checked his watch. Forty-nine minutes elapsed. He grinned. Now it was time to kill Marsh's family, and then he could collect his £75,000 fee and go home.
***
They say a man's life flashes before him as he faces death, but for Jimmy Marsh, it was just a few moments from the last few hours. Scenes without which he wouldn't be here, in this predicament. Jumbled, too, non-linear.
...Jimmy tried to calm his breathing and relax. He didn't know how long the journey would be, and if he spent too long wound tight with nervous tension, he was going to exhaust his muscles. And he knew he would need them.
As it was, the journey was no more than ten minutes according to the clock in his head. At first he tried to visualise every turn, every noisy junction, every quiet street where the Golf picked up speed, but he soon bogged down in grey areas of the map in his brain. Soon after, he gave up trying to work out where they were taking him.
And soon after that, the car stopped and he heard the doors opening. All four of them.
He knew he had two choices here. When they opened the boot to retrieve him, he could either hit them with a massive assault and try to use the element of surprise to break away, or he could try to talk his way out of this mess. The latter seemed the most likely to fail, if these people were the hitman and his cronies, but the former was the option most likely to get him instantly killed.
When the boot opened, he made his decision. He thrust his hands up, fingers splayed, like a man defending himself, and yelled at them.
"It's too early, too early. It's not until five o'clock!"
The four men from the Golf said nothing. Hands thrust into his clothing, and he was yanked roughly out of the boot.
"Too early," he yelled again. "There's a reason I can't be killed until after five." The man in dark colours grabbed Jimmy's ears and drove his forehead hard into Jimmy's face. He managed to turn his head slightly and the impact took him on the temple instead of the nose.
"Get him inside," the leader said. "And get that car out of here."
As they dragged him towards a doorway shuttered with wood, Jimmy cast his eyes around, seeking help. But he was in open land, walking across some kind of concrete area that had been left to rot, and boxed in by the building ahead and trees and walls all around. He doubted a call for help would achieve anything. He...
…jerked back to the now, realising his brain had skipped backwards like a scratched record. He picked up the gym weight and threw it ahead of him, locking the chain tight. He jerked his leg, dragging himself closer to the weight. He repeated this three times, and found himself right by the drain cover.
While staring into the pool, he had been rolling back the years, to a time when he was eleven and on a school swimming lesson. Jimmy had turned up without his trunks and been forced to sit out the lesson, which he had passed talking to the janitor, who had given him a quick tour of the building and a lesson in swimming pool science. Most of the crap he’d that day ingested had come out in his shit the next morning, but not everything. He’d forgotten all the stuff about flow rates through skimmers and ultra-violet disinfection and multi-cylinder Co2 Ph. control systems, but he did recall one thing. And it was this he'd envisioned in his mind. Over and over, refining the details, and playing out what he had to do.
The square cover was screwed in place. Jimmy lifted the weight and dropped it hard on one corner. He had feared this part the most, imagining wasting all his energy and breath bashing away at the screw. But the first strike missed the corner and hit the tiles, dissolving a portion of one into watery dust. Jimmy fed his fingers into the cover's gridded body and yanked, and found that entire corner, where the tile had disintegrated, was loose. Quickly he crushed three more tiles, one at each corner, one blow for each, and when he yanked again, the cover lifted away, the screws effortlessly tearing easily out of their housings.
The shaft beyond was black, but he had no choice. His air was …
… stale in the confines of the van. The windscreen was fogged but throug
h it he saw the terrace containing the cafe where he'd met his family earlier. So this was another flashback, he understood. Back he'd gone again. First time, to the kidnapping, without which he wouldn't in this damned pool. Now, further: to the reason he was in that car park – without which he wouldn't have been kidnapped. No journey here, no kidnap, no death by drowning.
If he was in the van, back before they'd taken him, that meant he still had the folded sheet of paper on the passenger sheet. The sheet: another link in the chain he'd followed right to his death.
He looked over now and there it was. He took it, opened it, read it for the umpteenth time. Then it went into the glove box. He slammed the glove box door hard, as if that could help lock away the horror. Then he set his breathing on a calming routine. If he went into the cafe with all this consternation in his blood, his wife was going to smell it and see it and taste it all over him. He would give himself a few minutes here, he told himself. Silence in which to slow his heart rate.
The deadline was approaching - a quick glance at the dashboard clock showed he had barely an hour until 5 p.m. - but he needed time to think.
He closed his eyes...
He put a hand into the shaft and felt a floor two feet below. It was like a box, only one wall was missing. This, he knew, was a horizontal shaft with rungs attached to the ceiling. This was so workmen could clean the drained shaft, which was basically an escape tunnel for anyone unlucky enough to become trapped in the Balance Tank.
The hole was big enough to admit Jimmy, yet it stirred mixed emotions in him. On the one hand, thoughts and hopes of freedom, success, a continued life. On the other hand, an indelible image of his dead body wedged in this opening, just his legs showing. Who knew what twists and turns lay down there?
