From The Shadows (Blaze series Book 1)

by David Carter

  “Well, that’s an interesting question, to which the answer is equally intriguing.”

  “Well, let’s hear it then...”

  Archer paused a moment, then said, “Two more vases surfaced a few years after the original was sold, which unfortunately decreased the value of all three. Its current market value is just a little over the one-million-dollar mark.”

  “Shit! Are you serious? I never thought I’d see the day I’d be standing next to a million-dollar piss pot.”

  “Please! Do not refer to it as that,” snapped Archer, deeply offended at Blaze’s snide remark.

  “Whatever you say; you’re the guy with the gun pointed at my head, right?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Okay then. I’m up to speed on the fancy dragon pot. What’s the significance of those five weird-looking brown cups?”

  “Those, Bobby, are late seventeenth or early eighteenth century, Chinese rhinoceros horn cups,” he replied.

  “They’re what?”

  Archer was in his element as he answered, “In the seventeenth century, Chinese people believed that rhino horns contained supernatural powers, and made cups from them which were given away as gifts to the wealthy.”

  “I don’t see the attraction. Why would you want them on display? They’re fucking hideous.”

  Archer grinned. “Well, for starters: there is the small detail that they are worth three hundred thousand dollars.”

  Blaze grinned back at him. “That’s pretty good value for a set of coffee mugs.”

  “No, no, no, Bobby; you misunderstand me. They are worth three hundred thousand dollars each.”

  “You’re fucking kidding me! One and a half million for something that looks like a giant lump of shit with a handle?”

  “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, Bobby. You can’t please everyone when it comes to the arts.”

  Franks was confused as to Blaze’s sudden interest in the history of Archer’s antiques. But he went along with his little charade, and said, “What’s that book up on the top shelf?”

  “That, Frankie, is a signed, first edition of Ian Fleming’s novel, Casino Royal.”

  “As in James Bond?”

  “Correct!”

  Blaze butted in. “I don’t get it. It’s not really an antique, is it? Especially if I’ve heard of it...”

  Archer laughed. “I see your point, Bobby, but that only shows how little you know about the rules of serious book collecting. For example: an unsigned first-edition would sell for just shy of one hundred thousand dollars. Certainly, a handsome sum, but not the most expensive book on Earth. This copy, however, is a rare, autographed copy, complete with a certificate of authenticity, which basically means I could name my price to any serious James Bond or Ian Fleming collector who wanted it badly enough. In fact, I have already knocked back several generous offers, because to me, it’s priceless.”

  Blaze laughed aloud. “No, Archer, the thought of you as a James Bond enthusiast is what’s fucking priceless!”

  Archer, Franks, and Danny laughed along with him. Blaze had Archer right where he wanted him: distracted; the threat of imminent danger no longer present.

  Status quo.

  Archer froze as he saw Blaze raise the hammer in his hand and hurl it at the display unit. Shards of glass scattered in every direction across the floor. Before Archer could react and snap back to the reality of the situation, Blaze had the dragon and lotus vase in his hands and dropped it on the floor, then mercilessly drove his hammer straight through it, annihilating it from existence.

  “Bobby! No! What in God’s name are you doing! You just destroyed a million-dollar vase!” cried Archer.

  Blaze picked up a couple of the larger fragments that lay next to his boots and threw them across the room to Archer. “A few drops of Super Glue and it’ll be good as new.”

  “I’ll kill you for that, you little shit!”

  Franks finally realised the purpose of all Blaze’s questions about Archer’s antiques.

  Leverage.

  Blaze picked up one of the rhino horn cups and placed it on the floor, upside down, so the rim of the cup was flat on the carpet. He said, “You have three seconds to agree to whatever I want or this cup goes to the antiques’ graveyard.”

  Archer’s mind blurred. He tried to force some words out, but nothing came.

  “Time’s up,” said Blaze, and drove the hammer through the cup. It was so old that it almost turned to dust as the head of the hammer disintegrated it and left a small indent in the carpet. “Three more seconds, asshole,” said Blaze as he selected another cup from the display unit and placed it on the floor. He raised the hammer above his head, and just as he reached the pinnacle of his back swing, Archer screamed, “Bobby! Please! Stop! We will end this on your terms! Just put the hammer down!”

  “You put the gun down and I’ll think about it. Three, two, one…”

  Archer put the gun down on the floor and took a step backwards with his hands up. “All right, now put the cup back on the shelf,” he pleaded.

  “Sure thing.” Blaze picked it up and shocked Archer by hurling it as hard as he could at the fifty-inch flat screen TV across the room from where he was standing, destroying both the cup and the TV screen. “That’s for throwing me in The Wolves’ Den. My stomach still fucking hurts from the puncture Poochie gave me, no thanks to you.”

  “Just tell me what you want!” exclaimed Archer. “Stop destroying my things!”

  Blaze replied, “You can start by sitting on the couch before I start tearing pages out of your precious book.”

  “How do I know you won’t just kill me?”

  “That’s the beauty of it: you don’t. Now move it.”

  Archer did as he was told. Blaze retrieved the Glock from the floor. “Cover me, Frankie,” he said as he bound Archer’s hands in front of him with a cable tie.

  “What about his feet?” asked Franks. “You gonna tie them up, too?”

  Blaze curtly replied, “I don’t usually make a habit of dragging sacks of shit around the house. He can fucking well walk.”

  Archer said, “Cards on the table, Bobby. What is it that you want from me?”

  Blaze unleashed a swift blow to the side of his chin with the Glock, jarring his neck. “If you call me Bobby one more fucking time I’m going to cut out your tongue and make your buddy on the floor over there eat it. Do you understand me?”

  Francois had remained silent throughout the whole episode. He didn’t dare move; he knew from first-hand experience in The Wolves’ Den how brutal Blaze could be when provoked.

  Archer silently nodded before asking a second time, “What do you want from me?”

  He finally put him out of his misery. “Firstly, I want you to sign Franks’ resignation request so he can get the fuck out of Winterhill. I know it makes no difference now that you’re gonna be spending the rest of your days in a prison cell, but it’s the principle. Plus, up until tonight, I hadn’t made a deal to trade you for Danny’s safekeeping at the Glendale Police Station with the detective I’m working with. My original plan was to come here and start cutting pieces off your body until you signed on the dotted line...”

  “I’m sure you would have enjoyed that.”

  “Like you wouldn’t believe...”

  “And the second item on your agenda?”

  “I want you to make Danny disappear.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Blaze rephrased it. “How do you get away with all the bodies that pile up in The Wolves’ Den? Surely someone must notice that some of your inmates go missing?”

  Archer’s devious smile returned. “It’s quite simple really: I only send people to the den who meet a certain—er—criteria. Generally, it is reserved for aggressive, violent offenders, and/or disrespectful inmates, such as yourself, who have few or no family members that care what happens to them. For example; you killed Nugget. He was a murdering psychopath with no family. I sent a report to the Department
of Corrections saying he was killed during a fight between two rival gangs during their exercise period. No family members ever claim the bodies of a person like Nugget, so I have them bagged and sent to a local hog farm where I pay the owner handsomely to digest the evidence for me.”

  “How do you know my family wouldn’t have claimed my body if I was killed?”

  “I didn’t. For people like you, I would inform the DOC that your body was extremely disfigured during a fight, where only pieces of you remained, and recommend an immediate cremation. Once again, I pay the man who works at the crematorium to forge the necessary documents, confirming your appointment and cremation. With money comes unlimited power and resources.”

  “You’re sick, Archer. You should’ve thrown yourself in the den because you meet all the fucking criteria. Now get up.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To your office at the prison. I want this done tonight.”

  “That won’t be necessary. I have all my dubious documents locked in a safe right here in my home office. You can never be too careful; the corrections department conduct random audits all the time.”

  Blaze manhandled him to his feet. “Lead the way. And don’t try anything that forces me to put a bullet in your kneecap.”

  Archer didn’t reply. Blaze gave Francois a kick in the head, knocking him unconscious. “Stay,” he commanded. “There’s a good boy.”

  Archer led them to his study down the hallway. Blaze watched him enter an eight-digit pin into the keypad: 02091985.

  Shit, that’s my birthday: second of September, 1985. I must have really made an impression on him, thought Blaze.

  Franks’ most recent resignation request was at the top of a stack of papers in the small, solid steel safe. Archer did his honest best to sign and date it while his hands were still bound. Blaze encouraged him by firmly holding his knife to his Adams apple. Archer then typed in the password to his desktop computer. He scanned a copy of the form he needed to fill out, then with one finger, typed a story to the DOC explaining how Danny had succumbed to a heart attack whilst serving his sentence, and sent it directly by email to the DOC for processing. He said, “Danny will officially be dead and buried within twenty-four hours from now.”

  “Good. Now I want to ask you something.”

  “I think I’ve done quite enough.”

  “Wrong answer.” Blaze slowly twisted the tip of his knife into the webbing between Archer’s thumb and forefinger while pressed hard against the top of his computer desk. Archer withstood the pain at first, then as Blaze pushed the tip further in, he said, “All right! Enough!”

  “Pussy.” Blaze removed the blade from his hand. “How did Francois track down Jamal so quickly?”

  Archer’s will to resist diminished; he revealed everything. “When I realised Danny had escaped, I went through the morning’s events with a fine toothcomb. And after questioning the entire staff, I learned Frankie had sent one of the guards for an unscheduled cigarette break while the veggie truck was being unloaded. Then I remembered the big song and dance in the outbound security checkpoint where Frankie wanted to search the truck before it departed Winterhill. I put two and two together and came up with a full house.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I did a background check on Jamal, and discovered he and Frankie are first cousins.”

  “So why didn’t you apprehend him before he left work for the day?”

  “By the time I’d figured it out, he’d gone home sick. I didn’t even bother checking his house, as I knew he wouldn’t be there. I assumed he’d be on the run somewhere—most likely with his cousin. But I wasn’t one hundred percent sure of his defection until he walked into my living room just now, pointing a gun at my head.”

  “Should have fired it, too,” said Franks.

  Archer continued. “I had no idea you’d burnt down my warehouse on the Old Mill Road. It was just dumb luck that Francois saw the flames as he headed out to Jamal’s shack to look for Frankie. Needless to say, he found a rather large quantity of my product in the back of Jamal’s van, so I knew from that moment that Frankie was the traitor. But Jamal, the stubborn little shit, wouldn’t give up your names, so I instructed Francois to bring him back here and interrogate him further. The rest, well, you saw for yourself...”

  Frankie was shaking as Archer calmly explained the final few hours of his cousin’s life. He stepped forward and unleashed an almighty fist into Archer’s face. “Murderer!” he shouted. He stormed off back into the living room in a fit of rage to put a bullet in Francois’ head.

  Blaze heard him cry out in anguish as he ran after him down the hallway. As he entered the living room, he instantly saw why he was so upset. “Fuck!” he cursed in disbelief.

  Francois was gone.

  Chapter 56

  Blaze stared at the broken cable ties on the living room floor. “It’s all my fault,” he said to Franks. “I didn’t think he would regain consciousness so fast and think to use the broken pieces of vase to cut through his bindings.”

  “He’s as smart as he is ruthless,” replied Franks.

  “Fuck it; we didn’t come here for him anyway. So, we can sure as hell leave here without him; we got what we came for.”

  After activating the security gates, Blaze marched Archer out to Franks’ ute and threw him into the back seat, buckling himself in beside him with the Glock firmly wedged into his side. Danny and Franks wrapped up Jamal’s body in a blanket and hid it under a tarpaulin in the tray of the ute.

  After a silent and uneventful thirty minutes of driving, Blaze noticed a smirk of Archer’s face that irritated the shit out of him. “What’s so fucking funny?” he asked him.

  “Patience is a virtue,” he replied.

  Blaze dug the gun deeper into his side. “What’s on your mind, asshole? Might as well tell me before I hand you over to the pigs.”

  “You really think that’s going to happen, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I really do.”

  Archer’s calm manner infuriated Blaze to point of no return. He held the Glock to Archer’s temple. “Pull over, Frankie,” he said.

  “Are you sure?” he replied.

  “Screw Detective Ryan; I’m gonna shoot this prick right now.”

  “But, Blaze, we had a deal. I thought you were a man of your word.”

  “I am. But I can’t stand the stench of this piece of shit any longer. He either tells me what he knows right now, or he can die. It’s that simple.” He glared at Archer. “You have three seconds. One, two–”

  Archer grinned. “On the contrary, Bobby. It’s you who has a decision to make...”

  “Blaze…” interrupted Franks, as he slowed the ute.

  “What?”

  “We got company.”

  Blaze looked through the windscreen and saw two black SUVs blocking the road ahead; a third rapidly approached them from behind.

  “Need I say any more?” Archer smirked.

  “Speed up, Frankie,” ordered Blaze.

  “What?”

  “Fucking ram them!”

  Franks didn’t hesitate. He put his foot to the floor. The engine whined as they accelerated towards the SUV barrier. “Hold onto your hats, ladies!” he yelled.

  The collision rattled them as they bulldozed their way through the centre of the two SUVs parked nose to nose in the middle of the road, destroying the front ends of both SUVs, and leaving themselves with no headlights and a leaking radiator as they made their escape. A spray of bullets pinged off the shell of the ute. “Shit! They’re still on our tail!” exclaimed Franks.

  “Just keep driving!” shouted Blaze, who once again, held the Glock to Archer’s head, and asked, “How the fuck did they know we were coming?”

  “You told them,” he replied smugly.

  “Bullshit I did!”

  “Your memory is failing you, Bobby. You told both Francois and me you were taking us to the Glendale Police Station to trade us for Danny’s safek
eeping and to try and barter for your freedom. Francois is my loyal guard dog. He escaped and called for backup. I guess you didn’t think things through properly, did you?”

  Blaze was furious with himself.

  “That should teach you for constantly running your mouth off,” added Archer.

  Another spray of bullets came from the chasing SUV. Franks lost control as the left rear tyre exploded. The ute barrel-rolled over and over and over. The sudden sounds of glass smashing and metal scraping against the tarmac boomed in their ears until the ute finally came to rest on all four wheels. Jamal’s body had flung into the ditch on the side of the road. Franks was slumped over the steering wheel, unconscious; the horn was blaring. Danny’s head was bleeding from a gash in his forehead after it had collided with the dashboard; he wasn’t responsive. Blaze and Archer groggily stared at each other, both relatively unharmed, but still in shock.

  The rear passenger door of the ute was wrenched open by one of Archer’s henchmen. He unbuckled Archer and dragged him out of the wreck as Blaze looked on, too dazed to be of any threat.

  “This isn’t over,” Archer said to Blaze hoarsely, as he retrieved his glasses from the back seat before staggering towards the black SUV, and drove off into the night.

  Chapter 57

  Anna Davies led Ryan down the corridor to the room where Franks, Danny, and Blaze were recuperating from their injuries.

  “I’m sorry if it seems I’m making a habit out of coming here lately,” he said to her.

  “That’s quite all right, detective,” she replied warmly.

  “How are the lads doing?”

  “They’ll be fine; just a few scrapes and bruises, a concussion, and a few fractured bones between them. Nothing to fret over.”

  Anna opened the door to their room and stood aside to let Ryan through. “I’ll leave you boys to it.” She smiled, then returned to the reception desk.

  Ryan nudged Blaze’s arm as he lay asleep in his hospital bed. “Wakey, wakey,” he said.

  Blaze’s eyes flickered open. He rubbed his fingers over them as he groggily said, “Shit, what time is it?”