by Karl Hill
He kept the knife, wiped it clean on the dead man’s shoulder, tucked it in his inside jacket pocket. It had been lucky for him so far. He might need its luck again.
Black pressed a button. A soft chime. A door slid open. He entered a lift. He pressed the internal button. The doors slid shut, he sensed movement. Going up. Seconds later, the lift stopped, the door swept open automatically.
Another small office-type room, another man, sitting in front of a desk. Before him were several screens, showing views of different parts of the building. Some interior, some external.
“Nice mask,” he said.
“Thank you.”
Black shot him once in the head. He bounced off his chair, onto the floor. He suspected the room was secure enough to muffle the gunshot. He retrieved his pistol. Another Beretta. Same model. He faced a door. Another keypad. He tapped in the numbers given. The lock clicked, the door opened.
Black was out.
He was in a corridor, the walls decorated in a warm orange swirl, Mediterranean style, the light muted from candle bulbs flaming on bronze brackets on the walls. He had no idea where to go. He turned to his right, along a corridor, past pieces of exotic furniture, emerging at length into a large open-plan split-level living room, dominated by a massive cream suede corner couch. An entire wall was cloaked in heavy drapes. The light was subdued, casting a strange, witchy quality.
Black hugged the shadows, moved quietly through to an adjoining study, cluttered with antique furniture, an exquisite writing bureau, a simulated log fire. He detected noise. Laughing. Not far away. He waited by the side of the door. He still wore the mask. He might just get away with it.
He strolled out through the door, and into a connecting miniature courtyard of sea-green flagstones, illuminated in soft hues of pink and amber from silken box lanterns hanging from low stick-like trees. On the other side, French doors, opening to the dining room. He could see Falconer through the glass, talking animatedly. A single guard stood on one side of the doors. The guard stepped forward. He would be unsure. Black still wore the Death Doll mask. Black caught Falconer’s eye, waved. Falconer waved back, ushered him through. The guard relaxed. Black had his hands behind his back, clutching both Berettas. He could have been walking in the park on a summer’s day. He nodded to the guard. The guard nodded back. Black brought his hands forward, shot once, twice. Chest, neck. Falconer’s head snapped round, all talking stopped.
Black opened the French doors and entered.
72
The worst is death, and death will have his day.
William Shakespeare. King Richard II
Several men; two little girls.
Falconer, Sands and a Japanese man, sitting at the dining table, cluttered with an array of champagne bottles, silver trays of chocolates, a percolator of coffee, cups, glasses. And a samurai sword. Two other Japanese men now honed in towards him from the far side. They’d all heard the gunshot. Falconer’s face stared; tanned features frozen in a mask of shocked confusion. Refusing to believe it was happening.
The Japanese guards advanced, pulling out handguns from side holsters. Black ducked, rolled, guns blazing in each hand, firing from a half-kneeling position. Two shots, in rapid succession. One man flipped back, face torn in half. The other staggered, taking a hit on the shoulder. Black didn’t hesitate, following up with a shot to his chest, then another to the top of his head. He flew back into a tall glass cabinet, the content spilling out – crystal sets, glasses, decanters, goblets, all crashing to the floor.
Black straightened, removed the mask.
“Good evening, gentlemen. Hope I’m in time for coffee.”
Silence. If there were other guards, they’d be here soon.
The Japanese man grabbed the sword from the dining table, brought it round, pointing it into the chest of one of the girls standing close to him, who stood motionless, stricken.
“I’ll kill her.” He stood, bringing the girl closer, adjusting his arm, angling the edge of the blade across her throat. “I don’t know who you are,” he continued, “but this has nothing to do with me. We’re leaving. If you don’t let me go, I swear I’ll slit her throat.”
The girl stared at Black, her face still and pale.
Black looked at her, smiled, flicked his eyes back to the Japanese man. “You’re going nowhere, friend.” He whipped his hand up, fired one shot. The bullet caught the Japanese man in the mouth, his lower jaw and throat shattering in a small explosion of bone and body part. The impact spun him round in a mad pirouette, the sword clattering on to the tabletop. He fell to the floor, dead before he’d hit it. The girl screamed, suddenly soaked in blood and tissue.
Black turned to Falconer and Sands. They hadn’t moved, sitting at the table, Falconer at one end, Sands to his side. Black still needed information. He heard sounds – men shouting.
“You’re a fucking dead man,” snarled Falconer. “You’ll be hunted for the rest of your fucking life.”
“What do you want, Black?” asked Sands, his voice rising to a whining pitch.
“Is it about money?” asked Falconer. “How much?”
Black sensed a presence. He turned – two men stood at the French doors. Another appeared at the opposite doorway. All armed, one with a sub-machine gun. Black shifted his position, aiming both pistols directly at Falconer’s head.
He raised his voice. “If you shoot, two things are going to happen. One, you’ll probably kill each other in the crossfire. And two, I’ll blow Falconer’s head from his shoulders.”
“Don’t shoot!” screamed Falconer.
“You heard the man.” Black took two steps, standing next to Falconer, pressing the nozzle of a Beretta to the side of his head.
“What do you want, Black?”
They hadn’t taken his wallet. He placed the other pistol on the table, fished the wallet out of his back pocket. He pulled out a crumpled photograph, and held it in front of Falconer.
“Do you recognise this girl?”
“How the fuck should I know?” muttered Falconer, averting his eyes. “They’re all the fucking same.”
“Look at her!” said Black, his voice harsh.
Falconer glanced at the picture, shook his head. “They’re all the same,” he repeated.
“This little girl has a name. Natalie Bartholomew.”
“We don’t recognise them by their names,” blurted Sands. “They have numbers. But we have detailed records. Of everything. Their names, where they came from, their source, the cost. I can give you this.”
“The cost?”
“The cost of getting them here.”
Black darted a glance either side. The men waited, for a command, a cue, a nod of the head. Then he had no place to go. And he would die.
But not yet.
“You give them numbers?” he asked, his voice low, dead-pan. “How many children do you have?”
“Including these two,” said Sands, nodding at the two girls on the other side of the room, “twelve.”
“Twelve,” repeated Black, his mind trying to grasp the scale of the operation. The scale of the depravity. He straightened. He was to play the biggest gamble of his life.
He positioned the nozzle of the Beretta to Falconer’s temple. Falconer went rigid.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“I’ve called the cops!” shouted Black. “They’re coming, make no mistake. You have a choice. You either stay, or you get as far away from here as possible. And I’ll make the choice easier for you!”
Black looked down, and met Falconer’s upturned gaze. Falconer’s face went slack.
“I can’t believe you’re going to do this. Please… we can work something…”
“So long, partner.”
He shot Falconer through the head. Falconer thumped forward onto the dining-room table, the champagne bottles and chocolates suddenly wet from a fresh spring of blood.
Black waited. The men stood, shocked, wavering. Black saw their dilemm
a. Suddenly they had no employer. So, what the hell were they doing? And if the cops were on their way. They had no beef with Black. They were mercenaries, paid guards. And suddenly the pay had dried up.
They backed off, melted away. Black didn’t give a damn where.
Black focused on the two girls. “You’re safe. Stay here. I’ll be back.”
He pointed his pistol at Sands. “Show me those records.”
Sands nodded vigorously. “Of course. Follow me.”
He led him back through the enclosed courtyard. Black heard cars, tyres screeching, not far away. Looked like his advice had been taken. The cavalry had deserted.
They got to the split-level living room Black had passed through earlier. One entire wall was closed off with long heavy drapes.
“Is that the front?” Black asked.
“Yes.” Sands went over to a panel on a wall, pressed a button. The drapes opened. The front area was floodlit. There, the blue marble mermaid fountain, water arcing from her outstretched palm. Several Range Rovers. A Jeep was parked up hard by the side of an outbuilding.
Sands moved with a nervous energy. His hands trembled, his face twitched, blinking sweat from his eyes. No wonder, thought Black. His world had just been destroyed. Sands picked up what looked like a TV remote, tapped out a sequence of numbers. A wooden panel above the corner suite folded back, a screen levered up into the space. He tapped a button. Names, dates, addresses appeared.
“What was her name?” he asked, his voice a dry croak.
Black took a second to absorb what he was looking at. “Natalie Bartholomew,” he said slowly.
Sands typed in the name. “We don’t have her,” he said. “But she was supposed to have been delivered. Several months ago. It’s all there. Everything.”
Black stepped closer, scrutinising the details. Name, age, address. A photograph. The price. £250,000. Sterling. Particulars of the abduction. Everything, from start to finish. How it ended.
And the source. A particular name. Black was stunned. His mind reeled at the implications, which were staggering. And unbelievable. “You’re sure this is correct?”
“It has to be.” Sands’ voice diminished to barely a whisper. “We were running a business, you understand. Information was the key.”
Black snapped his head away. “A business?”
Sands nodded, blinking.
“Do you have GPS co-ordinates for this shithole?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Phone the cops. Give them the location.”
“What do I say?” he stammered.
“You tell them the truth. That there’s a whole bunch of kids, kept prisoners in a fucking basement, ready to be sold on to paedophiles. That about sums it up. Or have I missed something?”
“I’ll go to prison,” said Sands, words tumbling out. “Arizona still keeps the death penalty. Please let me go. I never touched any of these kids. I’m an accountant. I just kept track of the figures.”
“How many children have been sold on?”
Sands swallowed. “I don’t know exactly.”
“Roughly. Please, humour me.”
Sands raised his hands. “I don’t know – over the years, maybe 800?”
Black regarded him with a measured stare.
“Okay. I get what you say. You don’t want to face the authorities. I understand. You only did the accounts. The number cruncher. What are the co-ordinates?”
Sands gave a small tremulous smile. “Thank you.”
He gave Black the co-ordinates. He smiled back at Sands, then shot him twice in the chest, at close range. Sands fell back on to the couch, rolled on to the floor. Black stepped forward, shot him again in the forehead, his skull bursting in a sparkle of rich red colour.
Suddenly, a noise – outside. He whirled round.
The girl from the basement, screaming, squirming in the arms of a man he’d seen before. The man in the hospital tunic. The man from the basement. Heading for the Jeep.
Black gave chase.
Lampton had the girl. The adventure was over. The devil Adam Black had ruined everything. But the girl was his. Promised to him. He had so much to teach her, to give her. He would not be denied. He’d take the Jeep, drive into the desert. To a dark place. Let her see how much he loved her, under the stars, on the desert floor. Then, he would disappear. To another state, maybe. Another country. Perhaps take the girl.
Probably not. She would awaken in the desert. And die in the desert.
73
There was a glass door directly from the living room to the front courtyard. Locked. Black blew it open with a single shot. The man turned, kept running. He gripped the girl in his two arms, close to his chest, her face on his shoulder, pale, screaming, terrified.
It was difficult for him to keep a hold, and get his keys out of his pocket. He stopped at the car door. She writhed and struggled.
“Keep fucking still!” he screamed.
Black sprinted towards him. He fired in the air, hoping it would scare him into dropping the girl. It didn’t. He got the door open, bundled her inside, started the car up, swerved it round, facing him, full headlights on. Black was dazzled. He stood, legs apart, aimed. Too risky to fire at the driver. He couldn’t see him in the glare, and he might miss, and hit the girl. Instead, he fired at the lights, both guns blazing, the front tyres, the front grill. The car veered to one side, careened onto the fountain, slamming into the blue marble mermaid, where it lay, one end up off the ground, balanced precariously, both wheels spinning. The driver’s door opened. The man spilled out, dragging the girl with him.
He had her by the hair. Her screams cut through the desert night. He brandished a knife.
“She’s mine. You can’t have her.”
He moved backwards, away from Black. The girl kicked and screamed. The man slapped her hard across the face. Black’s heart rose to his mouth. Her body sagged. She hung limp. The man let her drop to the ground, and placed one boot on her neck.
“If you come any closer, I swear to Jesus fucking Christ, I will snap her neck like a fucking twig.”
Black stopped. He was maybe six yards away.
“Drop the fucking guns.”
“Of course.” He dropped them on to the courtyard tiles. They were useless to him. He was out of bullets. Otherwise he would have gunned the bastard down. “What’s your name?”
“Stanley Lampton. But they call me Stan.”
“Sure they do. What now, Stanley?”
“Now I take this little one with me, into the desert, where no one can find us.”
“In the desert? Really? Without transport? How long do you think you’ll survive? Without water.”
“I’m a survivor, Black. You failed. And I’ve won.”
“Interesting point of view. I have a gift for you.”
He reached into his jacket pocket, slowly, and produced the hunting knife the Grey Prince had used to slice one side of Black’s face.
“That knife you’re holding looks like a penknife. This one’s much better.”
“What’s your fucking game, Black?”
“No game. You said you were a survivor? Survive this!”
He threw the knife – a strong, hard movement. Spin style. It plunged, almost to the hilt, into Lampton’s upper chest, near his shoulder. He staggered back, mouth open, aghast.
Black strode forward. Lampton waved his knife in a desperate effort to fend Black off. To no avail. Black rendered him a thunderous blow to the side of the head. Lampton fell back, hitting the ground hard.
Black crouched down to the girl. She was breathing. Concussed. He turned his attention back to Lampton, who was trying to regain his feet, the knife protruding from just below his shoulder joint. He was losing blood fast.
“What have you done to me?”
“Here, let me help you up.”
Black hauled him to his feet, pulling the knife out. Blood was pumping, alarmingly. An artery was punctured. “You want to go – go! Hide in the
desert. But first…”
Black worked the knife on Lampton’s lower abdomen – a quick, deep slice. Lampton stepped back, eyes bulging. He clamped both hands on to the sudden aperture, aware that he was holding in his internal organs.
“What have you done?”
“Made sure. Now hide in the sand dunes all you want.”
“I’ll die.”
Black loomed in close. “I know.” He pushed him away.
Lampton stared at Black for a second. Then at his stomach, his trousers saturated in blood. If he let go, his insides would spill on to the ground. His face was a white skull, lips drawn back in fear, revulsion.
“Please…”
Black looked on, without emotion. Lampton saw no salvation. He croaked something inarticulate, staggered off into the night. He wouldn’t last longer than two minutes. Maybe less.
Let the vultures pick his bones.
74
Black carried the girl back into the house, and laid her on a couch. He got the two children from the dining room – both sitting huddled together in a corner – and gently gestured them through to the living room. They followed, silent, like two wraiths. He retraced his steps, reached the door with the keypad, punched in the number. He made his way past the dead sentry, took the lift down, passed the second dead sentry. Death followed him, he thought.
He reached the hall with rainbow walls and silver globes. He kicked every door down. Nine shocked, silent children followed back to ground level. This was how the Pied Piper felt, Black thought sardonically. He grouped them all in the living room, and called the cops, providing them with the GPS co-ordinates. Sands’ body was still sprawled on the floor, but Black was too weary to drag it outside.
They waited together. Black and twelve children. Not a word was spoken.
Perhaps he really was a good guy. Perhaps.
He had one more thing to do, to see the saga to its end.
Black had to go right back.
