Act of Vengeance

by Michael Jecks

  Sorensen held up his hand, listening.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Stilson said, and then smiled. He suddenly slammed his hand over Sorensen’s mouth, while he punched hard on the injured knee. Sorensen rose, eyes popping with agony and hands in the air, as the searing pain rushed through his entire body. It was like a fire that screamed through his veins, scorching every cell of his being, until all that was left was a shuddering torture.

  Stilson eyed the reaction, and when the man’s frame collapsed back on the bed, he struck once more.

  This time Sorensen’s eyes rolled up into his head, and although his body tried to spring from the bed, he soon flopped back. Stilson nodded to himself, and took his hand away from Sorensen’s mouth. It was quiet here in the room, and Sorensen’s stertorous breathing was oddly deafening.

  The man was weak. It meant nothing to Stilson, of course. He was used to seeing people in pain and dying. He had killed enough men here in Vegas when he was taking revenge for their killing of his father, and those deaths had shown him that he was unaffected by the suffering of others. There were some he may have cared about. He would have thought he would have found dealing with Sorensen quite difficult, because the man had been part of Stilson’s unit out in Iraq, but in reality it just meant Sorensen was more interesting as a subject. Those Iraqis were nothing. They’d been shown to be willing to hurt America, because of their distorted, dysfunctional religion, and so he had taken all measures to prevent their being able to attack.

  Sorensen, though, he was more interesting.

  Stilson sat on the edge of the bed patiently, and took a little bottle from his pocket. He unscrewed the lid and held the bottle to Sorensen’s nose. The smelling salts soon worked their magic, and Sorensen rallied. His eyes returned, his eyelids fluttering, and his breath came in grunts of anguish.

  ‘You all right again? Now, I’ll ask you again, and keep hitting your leg and asking until to tell me what I want to know. You know me, Peter. You know me well. And you know I’ll do it.’

  The broken man nodded.

  ‘Good. Did you tell the Brit about the Deputies General of the Empire of East and West?’

  ‘No! I…’

  Stilson held up his hand.

  ‘Did you tell him about me, did you tell him about Deputy Director Amiss, and did you tell him about the plans?’

  ‘I told him nothing! How could I, Ed? I don’t know anything?’

  ‘What about the facility?’

  ‘What, the Dollar?’

  ‘You did hear about that, then? Did you tell him about that too?’

  ‘No!’

  Stilson stood and made as though to smother Sorensen again.

  ‘NO! All right, I told him about you, yes, but only that you were involved a little out there, nothing about here.’

  ‘And the facility? Our plans?’

  ‘No. Nothing!’ Sorensen said, staring at Stilson’s hands, fearing another assault on his ruined knee.

  ‘OK, good,’ Stilson said. He patted Sorensen’s chest gently. ‘Sorry I had to do that, Peter, but I had to be sure.’

  Sorensen nodded, but there was hatred in his eyes. Stilson smiled, but then he reached forward, pulled the pillow from behind Sorensen’s head, and rammed it over his face, both hands on top, holding it over Sorensen’s mouth and nose, pressing firmly, and waiting until the fighting arms sagged, the legs stopped their twitching and kicking, and the torso ceased bucking and rocking.

  He waited a little longer, and then replaced the pillow, closing Sorensen’s staring eyes, and returned the cage over his knee, settling the blankets and sheets once more.

  Picking up the flowers once more, he left the room and strolled along the corridor.

  He would tell Amiss that another problem was removed. But the Brit had learned far too much, and he was the worst threat to the Deputies’ plans. He must be dealt with.

  Stilson wouldn’t entrust this one to anybody else. He would take care of Jack Case himself.

  *

  09.21 Las Vegas; 17.21 London

  Sunset Park was a broad area that covered thousands of acres. As Jack pulled in to the car park off South Easter Avenue, he studied the area in front of him with the eye of an old Russia hand.

  The cover was good for him, but also for any assassin. The landscape here was grassy, with that thin harsh grass that appeared to survive even in the desert heat, but with bushes and stunted trees dotted about the place. He could see a huge area for playing baseball with four separate baseball fields set about one central hub. There was the glitter of water further away.

  He left the car, locked it, and walked slowly down to the water’s edge, hands in pockets, the picture of calm idleness, but inside he was buzzing like he was on speed. The rush of excitement had not left him since he took Rand’s call.

  Here he saw that the lake was vast. In the centre was an island, and he saw what looked like some Easter Island heads set out. Even here, he thought, the people of Las Vegas had to invent more. The park was obviously man-made, and he assumed the lake would be too, but he longed for a little simplicity – for the lush green dampness of Dartmoor. All this heat made him feel dry and half dead.

  He took the loop-road that led around the water, his eyes on the look out for a flash that could betray a telescopic sight, or a man in an unnatural posture, a woman with a pushchair that looked too light for a baby – anything – but there was nothing obvious.

  It felt like the good old, bad old days at Gorky. There he had experienced the sheer terrifying excitement of never knowing when a Russian KGB agent would leap from a bush. He had conducted so many meetings there that he had grown to know it as well as if it were his own garden. The thrill was always there, but so was the fear, whenever he visited it.

  And today it was the same. Here, in this open space, he felt the conviction that any one of the thousands of windows overlooking this park could be housing a pair of men with spotting scope and sniper rifle. A number could be standing near with parabolic dishes ready to make a sound intensified recording of anything he said, a long lens could be ready to take photos. With the lack of cover, he was a sitting duck.

  As he came to this conclusion, he reached the edge of the lake, and stood aside for a pair of young female joggers, both with tight Lycra suits. He took the opportunity to turn and stare after them, but in reality he was not watching their bodies, but casting about for surveillance teams – still nothing obvious. He was halfway to a children’s play area, and he carried on along the shoreline towards it.

  A jet ski whined its way past on the lake, and he wished he was there on the water. Then, as he had the thought, he saw one person who was out of place.

  She was short, unprepossessing, and he recognised her instantly from the very early morning. At the moment, Debbie was sitting on a bench overlooking the water with the expression of someone who had bitten into an apple only to find half a maggot wriggling.

  ‘Morning,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah. Hi. Again.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  She jerked her head back towards the baseball pitches.

  ‘Waitin’ for you.’

  He nodded, and was about to walk to meet Frank, when she said, ‘I didn’t want to come here. I wanted to call you in. But he’s right. You saved our lives last night. Makes you sort of on our side, I guess.’

  ‘Thanks. It’d be good to think I wasn’t entirely alone,’ Jack said, and saw her pull a reluctant grin.

  He walked off across the grass to the main path that ran northwards. A way up there, a left took him onto a path that ran to the centre of the four pitches and, as he walked, he saw a man sitting on the white benches overlooking the nearer pitch. He strolled along to the seating and climbed up to the fourth level bench where Frank Rand was sitting, clutching a large coffee cup in his hands.

  ‘Morning,’ Jack said again.

  ‘Hello, Mister Case,’ Frank said. ‘I guess we can be on real name terms now
, eh?’

  ‘I’m happy for that. What do you want?’

  ‘When I spoke to you, I wanted to make sure what you were on about,’ Frank said. His eyes were all over the land before them. ‘You got to appreciate this: I am really out on a limb. I will be fired when they learn what I’m doing. That’s why I refused to let Debbie in on what I’m going to say to you.’

  ‘You’ll be fired? For what?’

  Frank looked at him.

  ‘Mainly for meeting with a man listed as a suspect in several murders. I ought to be arresting you and taking you in.’

  ‘And instead?’

  ‘Instead I’m going to talk to you and discuss what the fuck is going on,’ Frank sighed. ‘Do you have any idea?’

  ‘I think that someone is planning some kind of covert operation, and that they’re bringing people in to help.’

  ‘That’s what they were doing with Lewin?’

  ‘Yes. He was a trained intelligence officer. But what Sorensen told me was, that they were bringing in one type in particular: trained inquisitors – torturers.’

  ‘I don’t like torture, and I didn’t like what you did to Sorensen,’ Frank said, and his voice was very cold.

  ‘He wouldn’t talk without me making him. Without doing that to him, I’d not have got anything. He was very scared of another guy. Someone called Stilson. Said this man was an associate to Amiss, who he said was Deputy Director of the CIA as well as leading this Deputies General.’

  ‘Deputies General?’

  ‘That’s what he said they were called.’

  ‘OK.’ Frank sipped his coffee and pulled a face. ‘I hate it cold,’ he muttered and set it on the bench beside him. ‘What do you plan to do, fly out to Virginia and knock on his door?’

  ‘I was thinking more in terms of following him when I could and seeing what I could learn.’

  ‘Oh. And what do you think you’ll learn by getting arrested? Because you will, Jack. He’s Deputy Director. He has his own secret service protection group round him all the time. You’ll never get within a hundred yards.’ Frank said, as his phone rang. He pulled it out, still holding Jack’s gaze. ‘Frank Rand. Yup. What? When?’

  Jack stared at Frank blankly as he muttered a few more comments and shut off the call.

  ‘So, Jack. Can you guess who that was about?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You didn’t know Sorensen was killed this morning?’

  *

  08.39 Whittier; 17.39 London

  Chief Burns walked into the bar with his crutch and glared at Suzie.

  ‘Don’t make a fuss!’

  Suzie smiled and carried on walking round the bar, helping him to his stool and setting his crutch beside him.

  ‘Calm down, Tony. I do this for all my customers.’

  There was a snigger and Burns turned to give the table behind him a long, steady glower. Three fishermen at the table nonchalantly drank their coffees, chatting quietly to each other and studiously ignored the chief.

  ‘Good to see you back, Tony,’ Suzie said.

  ‘Glad to be back, honey. Thanks.’

  She smiled and brought him a coffee.

  ‘This is on the house.’

  ‘I’ll have to get myself blown up more often,’ he said.

  Suzie smiled thinly. She had thought her heart was going to burst when she had heard that Chief Burns and the Brit were in the Station when it blew up.

  ‘Is there any news on the building, and why the gas tanks blew?’

  ‘No. Probably never will be, either,’ he said. He looked over at the window as he ordered eggs and toast. Suzie went out and began preparing his breakfast. ‘What’s going on out there?’

  Suzie came back and followed his look. ‘Hadn’t you heard? There’s more men up there to make the Bucky safer. There’s a gang of men up there now, installing new security fences and boarding the doors and windows.’

  ‘‘Bout time,’ Chief Burns muttered. ‘I don’t want another death up there. It was the first time I had to tell a mother her boy was dead.’

  ‘It must have been hard, Chief.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘A boy like that, just wiped out in a moment. It was very hard.’

  ‘Still, perhaps they’ll figure out what to do with the joint in a year or two.’

  ‘We can hope,’ he said.

  She went out, and soon she was back with a plate of eggs, toast, and some good, crisp bacon, cooked how he liked it. She refilled his mug while he ate.

  ‘Kasey’s still walking about,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah?’ Chief Burns said. Looking out through the window, he gazed at the building in the distance. ‘God, I hate that place. If we could only blow it up.’

  ‘Not with all that asbestos inside, thanks,’ Suzie said. ‘They’ll hopefully make it safe, anyhow. Keep the asbestos inside, and have some real defences against kids getting in again.’

  Chief Burns grunted his agreement. The idea of all that asbestos rising from the remains of the Bucky didn’t bear thinking about. He finished his coffee and eggs, and retrieved his crutch.

  ‘You seen Kasey today?’

  ‘Yes. She’s probably at the usual. You know where she always goes.’

  ‘Yeah. I guess.’

  ‘It’s a shame, I know, Chief, but there’s nothing we can do to help her.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ Chief Burns said. He stood and hopped to the door. ‘Reckon she deserves us trying, though. I don’t like to think of her out there when the weather’s drawing in.’

  He pulled the door wide with a little effort and made his way through. Leaving the bar, he stared up the roadway into the distance. He could see Kasey by the light of a window, and he glanced down at the roadway. At least there was no ice yet. It was early enough in the year for there to be only puddles.

  He laboriously made his way to her.

  ‘Hi, Kasey. What’re you doing out here at this time of day? It’s getting cold, isn’t it?’

  ‘I just wanted to see if I could hear him,’ she said, leaning forward, her lips parted with the concentration.

  ‘Honey, he’s gone,’ Burns said. He had no kids of his own. Never met a woman he had wanted to settle with, except maybe Suzie. He forced that thought from his mind and smiled down at Kasey. ‘Come on, let’s get you home, eh?’

  She submitted to his request for aid, and soon he had his arm about her shoulder for support as they walked back.

  ‘I’ve heard him before, you know,’ she said in a light and conversational tone.

  ‘Yeah? You been playing with a weejie board or something?’

  ‘Ouija,’ she corrected him mildly. ‘No. I’ve heard him up there. There have been times, when it’s real quiet, and the sea is hushed, when you can hear him in there. He’s sad. I want to get the priest to visit and give him peace, you know?’ She turned to Burns, and suddenly she was sobbing. ‘I just hate the thought of him being there, all alone, so sad… I want him saved.’

  *

  09.40 Las Vegas; 17.40 London

  ‘No, I had no idea,’ Jack said levelly. ‘Are you concerned that I was involved? When was he killed?’

  ‘The fuck should I know? That was the LVPD telling me as a courtesy because they knew I’d been there at his house last night. What happened?’

  Jack took a breath.

  ‘I’ll say this once, Frank, because you’re bright enough to understand English. I don’t know where he was killed, when he was killed, nor who killed him. If I had been going to do that, I’d have done it this morning. I didn’t need to escape from his house, save you from being murdered, and then go to his hospital to shoot him there. I could have finished him off, if I’d wanted to, last night. So don’t try to fix this killing on me.’

  ‘You shot him in the legs.’

  ‘Yes. And stopped there. I wasn’t going to do that much, but I had to get him to answer me.’ He stopped and looked at Frank very directly. ‘When I got back I spent the night throwing up. I’m not used to
this kind of work, Frank. I’m an analyst, not a bloody killer!’

  ‘Really? But your friends in England told us different.’

  ‘Eh? What do you mean?’

  ‘That you’re suspected in a murder.’ Frank pulled a notebook from his pocket. ‘Guy called James McNeill?’

  Jack clenched his jaw and looked away. ‘They never said that to me,’ he said. ‘My wife left me and set up with Jimmy. He was a colleague from work. He went out riding, and fell from his horse in a river and drowned. End of story. After that she came back to me.’

  ‘You do it?’

  Jack looked at him.

  ‘He died in bloody Devon. I was in my London flat. That’s two hundred miles across England. It’s not like driving two hundred miles over Texas – England is crowded. It’s a four-hour plus journey, to get from London down to the moors. I wasn’t there, no.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Frank said. He looked away and frowned. ‘But someone is setting you up, Jack. You come over here, and in a few hours we have reports that your own boys suspect you of murdering some guy? And you’re shot at all the way from Whittier to Seattle.’

  ‘And someone tried to blow me up, and now they’re trying to set me up with a murder charge here, too,’ Jack said.

  ‘Is there anything you can tell me?’

  Jack glanced at him. He instinctively liked Frank, but that did not affect his professional judgement. He had spent all his life maintaining secrets: sharing them was entirely against his nature. But he would need friends if he was to achieve what he needed. He had to get to this man, Amiss, and he had to clear his name if he was going to return to England.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘It started with Lewin, as far as I was concerned. He came here because he wanted somewhere safe.’

  Frank listened without expression as Jack spoke of the journal Lewin had written, then as Jack spoke of the men in the boat and the shooting of Orme, he shrugged.

  ‘Yeah, we guessed that much.’

  ‘Those guys. Where were they from?’

  Frank pulled a face.

  ‘We never knew. They were not listed anywhere. In fact, Debbie down there reckoned they had to be government agents of some sort.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Look, I’m a Feebie, right? FBI. There are plenty of guys stomping all over my turf now, from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, to the CIA and Department of Homeland Security. Time was, I had the home turf, the US, while the CIA had everywhere else. Now, the lines are sort of smudgy. They can mount some operations over here, if they get sanction.’