The agent watched dispassionately, as James slipped on a pair of rubber gloves from the trolley. He removed the eviscerated corpses of the rats and dropped them into individual bags, leaving long streaks of blood and flesh on the insides. James then started to stack the dismantled maze onto the trolley, as the agent picked up the bags.
‘Where are you going?’ asked James quietly.
‘Incinerator,’ responded the agent.
He returned, just as James was placing the last piece of maze onto the trolley. The agent then pushed the trolley out to the car park, and the two of them raised a sweat tossing the metal and Perspex remnants into the compactor. James couldn’t help but wince. The mechanical whir of the large machine drowned out the cracks and snaps, as the last five years of his working life were crushed into oblivion. So, he was understandably pissed off as he passed the compactor; a metaphor for the destruction of his hopes and dreams.
As he approached his car, he removed the alarm fob and pressed the button. Nothing happened. He shook it and pressed the button again, then pressed all of them in frustration; again nothing happened. He sighed and put down his bag. He removed a small jeweller’s screwdriver from his breast pocket and quickly undid the two small screws. He turned the device over and the back panel dropped neatly into his palm. He went to prise out the battery and then stopped; the battery compartment was empty.
He pondered the probability of the battery disappearing by itself, and as the synapses fired and the logic gates started making the leap from interest to caution to realisation to danger, he was just slightly too late.
Too late to prevent the gloved hand coming around his neck from behind and grabbing his chin; powerless to resist the savage twist, which his body had no choice but to involuntarily follow. Too late to prevent himself from smashing into the solid concrete of the floor, forcing the wind from his lungs and leaving him fighting for breath; powerless to stop the knees crashing into his chest, expelling the last of his air with a thin scream. Too late to stop a gloved hand stifling that scream with a gag, whilst the other reached into an inside pocket and removed a long handled screwdriver.
Suddenly, his body went rigid; all the muscles and tendons strained to breaking point, as the nerve endings tried to vocalise their pain through his rag stuffed mouth. The screwdriver had intersected his heart neatly down the middle, and it was with a detached interest that he felt the warm sticky fluid bubbling up and out of his chest cavity. How ironic that the very action that had kept him alive for thirty two years, the rhythmic cardiac pumping at a steady seventy beats per minute, was the very thing that would kill him.
He felt the pressure ease on his chest; he was not going anywhere, and his body began to relax, as the blood spread out in an ever widening pool. He looked up at his assailant, but could see nothing except a grey silhouette. He had the vague feeling his eyes were filling with blood, which his basic medical training told him was nonsense. He felt like he was sinking, or rather shrinking; like an airbed that was being slowly deflated.
This must be what it feels like to die, he thought to himself. And then he slowly did just that.
The attacker watched silently and dispassionately. There was a point where James gave an almost inaudible sigh, and then all motion ceased. The exception was the slow and steady enlargement of the blood pool. The attacker waited and watched, until the pool stopped growing.
Looking down, the motionless killer nodded in satisfaction; the edge of the outgoing crimson tide had stopped, barely an inch from the heavy black work boots.
Chapter 7 – Brothers
11th May 2011 – The morning after the Storm.
A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity. – Proverbs 17:17.
The house was set back slightly from the others in the street, giving it a gloomy, almost sinister appearance. It had been bought by Mr Mancini senior just after the great depression; around the mid thirties, along with half a dozen others in the same row.
Up until then, a lot of the brownstones on Mulberry street had been little more than ghetto’s for Irish and Italian American families; scraping together a living during the post depression period. Francesco Mancini was a new breed of immigrant, a man who didn’t believe in the depression. A man who didn’t believe in luck either, rather he made his own.
He’d spent thousands of dollars renovating both the houses and the area, taking hundreds of people out of poverty and giving the community back some work and some pride. If half of the jobs he provided were on the seedier side of life; so what? Even if they merged into the murky world of criminality, those jobs still put food on multiple tables and made him a working class hero.
Guido smiled to himself as he reminisced. He used to stand at this very window, waiting for his father to come striding down the sidewalk, with his bodyguards slightly behind him on either side. His constitutional, he called it. Some people actually used to cheer and applaud him, as he made his way home.
The room darkened as he pulled the heavy curtains across the window, obscuring the dusk gathering along the gloomy Manhattan skyline. The outer margins of the room were in deep shadow, courtesy of the single light. A weird reflection was cast across the large low-level coffee table right in the centre of the room.
As he passed by his desk, he reached out to touch the old fashioned green banker’s lamp, recoiling at the heat of the shade. It had once been owned by WR Hearst, the newspaper magnet. In fact, most of the furniture in the room had historical connotations; the brothers were avid collectors and had the means and opportunity to do an extreme amount of it.
At each end of the coffee table, a large leather wing-back chair had been moved as close as possible to the edge, without making it uncomfortable for the occupants to sit. Each chair had individual mahogany trays built into the arms. On the left hand tray of both chairs, a Waterford crystal shot glass sat proud and ready.
Guido picked up the elaborate crystal decanter and poured the amber liquid until the nearest glass was a quarter full, and then walked around the table to do the same with the other one. It was always the same amount and always the same distiller. They had been introduced to twenty-one year old Bushmills single malt whiskey by a colleague and friend.
He felt a brief twinge of sadness as he stood the decanter to one side of the table, ready to provide top ups should the need arise. Ex-colleague and friend; he kept forgetting.
Placed carefully on the table between the two chairs was an oversize checkerboard, but not just any board. The sixty four squares were made up of individual tiles of ebony and ivory. Each tile measured about four inches square and fitted into an eight by eight grid of eighteen carat gold. The playing area was bordered by a mahogany trim, and inlaid with mother of pearl. The playing pieces were polished amber and polished jade; not strictly the black and white required in tournaments, but the protagonists in this match didn’t care.
The value of the set on the open market would have been about half a million dollars, and had been commissioned by old man Mancini himself from the finest Italian craftsmen.
Guido sat down and took his first sip of whiskey. Ernesto was always the last to arrive at the table; fittingly almost, as he was the younger brother. He sat in the corner of the room, in the smoking chair once owned by Capone, and read the New York Times; until his eyes became too tired to focus in the gloom after the drapes were closed.
Guido and Ernesto had been playing checkers with each other since around the age of ten; there were two years difference in their ages and they couldn’t remember who had been ten when they’d first played. It didn’t matter now. Since the date of their first game, they had not missed a single day, even if they had to play by telephone on separate travel boards.
The day their father had died had been particularly poignant, but even on such a sad occasion they had played through the evening, each slowly coming to grips with the realisation that they now jointly controlled the largest and healthiest criminal empire on the easter
n seaboard.
The following evening they’d also played. The journey back from the warehouse had been quiet and reflective. He had begged for mercy, as they all did, but neither Guido nor Ernesto had been in a forgiving mood that night. He’d told them it had been only business; nothing personal. They’d told him that it had been completely personal for them and the East River had become his final resting place.
Given how they made their living, it was not surprising that they needed an out. What was surprising was the pastime they chose. Checkers just worked for them; helped them relax after the combined stress of their days. Neither of them had ever married and unusually for men in their position, neither of them had a large libido. Occasional trips to upmarket and discrete brothels took care of the odd times they needed a distraction. So while others watched TV or went to the theatre or to bars, the brothers played each other at checkers, all the while sipping the best whiskey money could buy, and sometimes smoking the best Havana’s that money could buy too.
They were strong because they were together on everything. They had to present a united front to their legion of lieutenants; if you spoke to one of the brothers you spoke to both of them. But when the heavy oak door of their penthouse apartment closed behind them, they needed a release.
Playing the game was the only way they could ever fight; they were too close and had never resorted to physical violence with each other. In fact, they had never lifted a finger to each other, another unusual situation in the criminal underworld between brothers.
For them it was more than a game, it was war. It was their way of taking out the frustrations of the day on each other in a civilised and constructive way.
It was about attack and defence. It was about strategy and superiority. This way, they could bloodlessly prove their manhood to each other. They could prove who was superior, at least for that particular night.
‘King please,’ said Ernesto.
‘I didn't see that, you fucker,’ said Guido with a smile.
‘I know you didn't,’ replied Ernesto, deadpan.
He took a sip of his whiskey, shuddering as the neat spirit burnt a track down the centre of his gullet. For a few more minutes, all you could hear was the clack of counters, the breathing of the brothers and the clink of decanter on glass, as tumblers were topped up.
Ernesto lifted the last of his opponent’s counters from the board.
‘Victory is mine,’ he said, without emotion.
‘Bastard!’ said Guido forcefully.
They regarded each other over the rims of their whiskey tumblers for a few moments.
‘He should have rung by now,’ said Guido, breaking the silence, his voice bearing a serious edge to it.
‘He’s a professional,’ answered Ernesto. ‘He knows what he's doing.’
‘Still,’ said Guido, ‘it's not like him; he normally checks in.’
Ernesto swirled the last of the liquor around the bottom of the glass.
‘Does he?’ he asked. ‘Are you sure you’re not thinking about someone else?’
‘Maybe I am,’ said Guido shortly. ‘It does seem weird though, doesn’t it?’
‘We’re waiting for someone to call us and it isn’t Street?’
Guido nodded at his brother’s assertion.
‘He did break the code though, Ernesto, he has to pay.’
‘I know that, I wrote the code.’
There was a flash of steel in Ernesto’s eyes.
‘I’m not trying to be sentimental, I don’t love him like a brother or any of that shit. But I thought he was different; I truly thought he was one of us.’
‘He was never like us,’ said Guido with disdain. ‘We both ignored it because he was so useful, but we both knew what the issue was. He had a conscience.’
He thought about his statement for a while, before knocking back the last of his whiskey. He picked up the decanter and slanted his eyelids at Ernesto, who nodded briefly. Guido half filled the two glasses again.
‘I’m surprised he lasted so long before revealing his true colours to us. At least now we know he really can’t be trusted. And certainly not with the information he has about our various operations.’
‘Don’t forget the file?’
‘Yes, and the file of course,’ responded Guido.
Ernesto sat forward with his elbows on his knees and his head cupped in his hands.
‘I need to stretch,’ he said, before getting up and walking stiffly around the room.
‘If you think about it though,’ he stated slowly. ‘It’s really not such a surprise after all. It’s only the last few jobs that have made us question his loyalty. Over the years, he has cleaned up a lot of mess for us.’
‘True, but if you ponder for a second the kind of targets he went after, most of those guys were scum suckers. Pretty much all our....’
Guido searched for the appropriate word.
‘I was going to say enemies, but I think competitors is a much nicer word. Anyway those were guys that even Mother Theresa wouldn’t have hesitated to whack.’
He laughed at his own joke.
‘You wouldn’t bat an eyelid erasing that garbage from society,’ agreed Ernesto. ‘All our early opportunities were drug pushers, pimps, armed robbers, you name it; hardly model citizens.’
‘So you’re saying it’s only in the last couple of months, with some of our more corporate issues, that has made him a little squeamish. That doesn’t wash; he’s not afraid of anything.’
‘I never said he was afraid. It’s more a personal choice with him. He seems to have developed a strict moral code that is fairly useless in our line of work. But cowardly, no, you are correct. As you say, Street is not afraid of anything.’
‘Except God, maybe,’ said Guido. ‘He’s been getting a little strange in that department recently; around the time of his mother’s anniversary.’
Ernesto snapped his fingers.
‘You’re right,’ he replied. ‘What was it? Twenty years, if I recall correctly. Remember that time a couple of months back? He was off the grid for a few hours; we couldn’t contact him by any of the normal channels. And then one of the guys phones in to tell us he found him in the back row of the church of St Mary immaculate.’
‘It’s a terrible thing, guilt,’ said Guido. ‘As Catholics, we know that more than most. And I think he was shouldering his fair share of it, in fairness; the guilt I mean. He’s done a lot of bad shit in his time, most of it in our name. Maybe the church was starting to give him some of what he was missing.’
‘Oh come on, Guido,’ snorted Ernesto. ‘That’s enough of the Dr Phil bullshit already. He wasn’t married because it didn’t fit in with his lifestyle. He dedicated the last two decades; no, almost twenty five years, to becoming the most lethal of lethal weapons. The karate, the tae kwon-do, the constant honing of skills on the shooting ranges, the knives, the advanced driving courses; all channelled into one goal. To be the most calm, most disciplined and most restrained lieutenant we had. Hell, I was afraid of him sometimes; he could be so....’
He searched for the word for a second.
‘....focused’
It hung in the air between them like an accusation.
‘In fairness, we did sort of select him,’ said Guido eventually. ‘Big thick Irish Paddy, straight off the boat and Catholic to boot. How could we resist?’
‘We were lucky, is all,’ replied Ernesto. ‘Nine times out of ten, they don’t survive a beating like that. But boy was he tough.’
‘Being tough only gets you a certain way in this business. He had a keen intelligence; you know as well as I do that half the deference he showed to us was just so much lying bullshit. You could see it in his eyes sometimes. But I think the church was making him question his life maybe more than he should have.’
‘Respect comes before church; family comes before church,’ stated Ernesto forcefully.
‘Maybe respect and family didn’t come first for him; maybe that’s what happened,
’ said Guido. ‘He probably knew his days with us were numbered, one way or the other. That’s why he saw the squad coming for him; he was expecting it.’
‘I bet he never expected us to find him in Louisiana,’ said Ernesto. ‘I hope he didn’t anyway. A tense fugitive is a difficult target.’
‘The CIA has its uses,’ said Guido. ‘We just have to make sure we don’t pull too many favours; they tend to get a bit too interested if we do. And the one thing we don’t want is a lot of CIA heat at the moment.’
‘True,’ added Ernesto, ‘but that greedy double dealing bastard is always useful to have onside. It is amazing what money can do; especially when the recipient is a public servant. It really does loosen the tongue.’
‘Anyway, let’s forget about Street. He had his uses, but all weapons fail eventually.’
‘I already have,’ said Ernesto. ‘Street; who the fuck was he?’
He walked behind Guido and pressed the button on the intercom next to the solid oak door frame.
‘Yes, Mr Mancini?’ asked a disembodied voice; half statement and half question.
‘Can you send up our usual please? And make sure it is hot this time. We wouldn’t want a repeat of last night, would we?’
Even through the metallic disguise of the intercom, you could hear a distinct swallow. Ernesto smiled with not a trace of humour.
‘Certainly not,’ said the voice a little shakily. ‘It will never happen again Mr Mancini.’
‘See that it does not.’
Ernesto returned to his seat. The leather was literally creaking under his backside as he sat, when there was a discrete knock on the door.
‘Come,’ said Guido quietly.
Two middle aged men entered the room, the second one pushing a large silver trolley. They were dressed as waiters; immaculate in black tailored trousers, crisp white shirts with black bow ties and red and white check waistcoats.
Both Guido and Ernesto considered any facial hair a character flaw and regarded both beard and moustache wearers with deep suspicion. As a consequence, any man who worked for them was clean shaven with tight, close cropped hair.
The Storm Protocol Page 8
