by Finn Bell
I’m like Tobe, I realise. I’m not going to quit, not ever. Because I can’t let things go. One day someone will offer me a way out like they did for him, and I’ll say no too. Maybe on some level Maria already knows this about me but is giving me the benefit of the doubt, hoping against herself. And I’m going to keep breaking her heart. In my mind’s eye I can see how it plays out.
I’ve already told her I’ll leave in a few years. Once they go by it will have to be promises. After that I’ll have to set a date, commit to it, mark it out on the calendar. I’ll have to, to get her to stay. And if I’m really lucky she’ll believe me, trust me one last time. And every day that passes, every day she stays, will add to the hurt of when I disappoint her that very last time.
Despite my intentions and how little time we have left, I doze off again. When I wake my feet are in the water. So cold they’re completely numb. My back braced against the slip, I can make out the flat surface of the water leading away into the depths in the dim light of the approaching dawn. For a moment I can’t figure out why something about this view is making me panic. We’ve still got time, it’s only at our feet, but my gun is in my hand before I know it.
Because that ugly, instinctive, cynical, expect-the-worst animal part of my brain was ready and waiting, and I have to actually stop myself from pulling the trigger.
Because right here, rising out of the water, is Remu Black.
As the seconds tick by I finally manage to loosen my trembling finger away from the trigger but I’ve still got my gun aimed at him. At his head, so close, less than a single step away.
I finally remember to breathe again and use the first shallow gulp to say, “James, turn on the light now.”
It takes a moment for James to comply and when he does he’s aiming it towards the slip.
“No, here,” I say.
Even in the dim light of the cell phone Remu Black’s face looks angry. His features contorted into a scowl, teeth bared, eyes wide. I have another momentary impulse to pull the trigger. But it’s not out of fear, just hate now, of wanting that face to go away. Because Remu is very, very dead.
The rising water must have somehow floated his corpse back to us, face up, right to our feet. It makes sense I guess, the tunnel only led further down. What I at first thought was an expression on his face is just the damage done to him when I shot him. Which is extensive. James was right, I hit him in the face; part of his chin and his left cheek are gone along with most of his lower jaw. How he even managed to stay standing, let alone run away after a wound like that, I don’t know. But he wouldn’t have lasted long.
“Hold the light,” I say to James as I put my gun away and wade into the water to inspect the body.
When I stand over him, looking down at his face, the damage seems even worse. I can clearly make out the white bone splinters of his shattered jaw and cheek bone set inside rinds of red, swollen flesh, and from this angle I end up looking right down into his throat, his tongue having been ripped away along with the rest. I can’t find any other gunshot wounds but he has several cuts and deep bruises on his face, neck and arms. Understandable, given the last few days.
I have to pause a moment as a wave of dizziness passes through me, swaying me so that I have to steady myself with a hand against the tunnel. The price tag for that latest burst of adrenalin.
“Nick?” Tobe says behind me.
“I’m ok,” I say as I get myself under control again. “I’d say he died of blood loss from the gunshot.” I spend some time searching the body carefully but I don’t find anything on him, no weapons, no light, no cell phone. There’s nothing to help us escape. Remu is just here and dead, something to keep us company as the water rises. I briefly consider pushing the body away from us but decide to give up on the idea; the water wants him here and it will only bring him back again.
As I tiredly sit back down James moves to stand over the body, holding the light close to the corpse’s face as he bends down to inspect it from up close.
“It’s over now,” he says, staring down at Remu as he slowly nods to himself. “It’s really all over.”
Then, still nodding, he reaches out a hand slowly to touch the undamaged side of Remu’s face. It’s an oddly familiar, almost intimate gesture, as if he’s in his own world.
“James, come away,” Tobe says, and immediately James flinches away from the body as if some spell is broken. He moves back and hands me the light wordlessly as he sits down next to me, lowering his head into his hands.
I know I should turn the light off but I don’t. I keep it angled on Remu’s body as the water slowly turns it sideways. In the silence that follows I can’t help but think how pointless this all is, what a waste. And for what? Money? Drugs? Power? No one is going to get what they want out of this. All those men dying together in that house in Lawrence. And now us three here, four really, if you add Sam Black lying frozen out there alone. No one wins here, no one goes home. No more lovers, or friends, or good or bad, no more fathers for children.
And then, exactly right then, with that sad thought in my tired, fevered head and staring mindlessly at Remu’s dead body, right when I had actually stopped looking for it, I see it.
I see it. And I know.
I know what I need to do.
* * *
THE FOUR MEN IN THE DARK
I’m taking some last photos of Remu’s body when my phone’s screen suddenly goes black. “That’s it,” I say. “My phone’s dead, no more light.”
All we have now is the faint pre-dawn gloom that only seems to reach as far as the other side of the slip.
“Here Tobe,” I say as I hand the phone through the hole to him. “The pictures on there are still evidence; the ones of Sam Black and now also of Remu.”
“James, give me that gun,” I ask him, then hand Remu’s pistol through to Tobe as well. “So is this, and the shotgun.”
“It’s not over Nick,” Tobe says as he tilts the broken shotgun to get it through the gap.
“I know,” I say tiredly, but even standing, the water is up around my knees now. The shivering from the constant, numbing wetness joins the shaking of the fever and my own trembling hands in spasms of confused, painful, jerky vibration. At least in the dark we can’t see Remu anymore.
That’s it, I think, almost done.
“Wait!” I say then, taking a deep, calming breath to steady myself.
“Tobe, you’re not going to believe this but I’ve just remembered there’s a pick axe leaning against the back of the hut,” I continue.
“What?” Tobe says.
“Around the back, near the left back corner. I noticed it when we found Sam Black’s body. I’m sorry, my thinking has been so messed up I’d completely forgotten about it,” I say.
“What are you saying?” James asks, looking up.
“Look,” I say, moving over to stand next to the fulcrum rock we levered up to make the escape hole. “We can push down the rock like we did before but once we get the opening big enough we can wedge it with one end of the pick axe on this flat piece along the edge here, and the axe head on the tunnel roof here.”
I use my trembling arm to measure the distance and show them my plan, but of course they can’t really see what I’m doing in the dark so I take James’ hands and show him as I locate everything again by feel.
“That could work!” James says, new-found hope warming his voice when he realises what I intend.
“I didn’t notice it there,” Tobe says, “But it could work. Even if it’s old the wooden handles are strong, they can last decades or more.”
“Well, this water’s not getting any lower old man,” I say.
“It’ll take a while to get back to the hut with my leg and the snow, but the path I dragged myself along before should help some. Maybe half an hour or so, but I reckon we still have enough time given the water level. I’ll be back as fast as I can,” Tobe says before hastily limping away, using the walls of the tunnel to keep himself u
pright.
Once he gets outside in the open he won’t have that luxury anymore. It’s going to be a cold trip there and back through the snow. But no matter. It’s worth it.
“We can really get out of here. It can really be over. All of it,” James says, sounding like he’s talking to himself more than me.
“Almost. Let’s do what we can to prepare,” I say. Then, again forced by the dark, I reach out and take James’ hands by the wrists, guiding them to the roof of the tunnel directly above the fulcrum rock. “We should try to scrape out a line here so the axe head doesn’t slip when we brace it.”
“Like a narrow channel?” James asks.
“Yeah, we need something sharp enough. Here, use the butt of my pistol,” I say as I hand him my gun.
“Keep your finger off the trigger and check that the safety is on first, you remember how I showed you,” I add.
“Got it,” James says in the dark as I lean back against the rocks and he gets to work by feel.
His movements seem louder in the darkness and Tobe is already out of earshot. There’s only the two of us now left alive here now.
As James labours away I take a moment to picture Maria in my mind. Smiling and happy, one last time, just in case.
Then I say, loud and slow, “Why did you kill all those men James?”
In the perfect black silence that follows all I can hear is my own breathing. James stands over me, less than an arm’s length away.
Quiet, unmoving.
Holding my gun.
It’ll be now, I realise, any second now.
This is where he’ll prove me right.
Then finally James sighs in the darkness and says, “I…how did you know?”
“I honestly didn’t,” I answer. “Not me or Tobe or anyone. You really almost got away with all of it. I only just worked it out. Just before, when I was looking at Remu’s body floating here. Then I made certain of it when I felt your wrists just now in the dark. Your skin is smooth and whole. But Remu’s got fresh ligature marks around his neck and wrists. They’re the kind of marks you’d expect to find on someone who’s been tied up for a long time.
“His skin is rubbed raw like someone who’s been trying to break free. He’s been tied up. You haven’t. Only that’s impossible. Why would Remu have been tied up? He was the kidnapper, you were hostage. Except that’s not true. He didn’t bring you here, you brought him. And if that’s true then he didn’t take you from your house, you took him. But that’s not possible either. You and your whole family were in there, held captive by a bunch of armed gangsters. Every cop in the south as your witness.
“We saw it all play out. Saw it all on the FLIR cam. Only we didn’t. We saw what you wanted us to see. I looked at the FLIR cam footage myself; it was just distorted, white blobs moving around on the screen, you couldn’t actually identify anyone individually. But we didn’t need to. We’d already had a witness say he spotted someone in gang colours through the hallway window.
“Lucky for us that, having the one window where someone can be seen. The only window with its curtains open exactly when the neighbour comes home, with someone standing there holding a gun that exact moment.
“And of course, once the shooting started we followed procedure. A set protocol for exactly what to do, when and how. Then once the smoke cleared after the explosions all the bad guys were lying dead so it was obvious what had happened.
“But you had to have known that in advance, known what we’d do and when, what tactics and tools we’d use. You had to know that we’d use the FLIR cam. But also that the image would be usable but not good enough to identify one person from another. Which again seems impossible. But then I remembered Martin, our captain, telling us you had a clean, current records check and that your IT company used to contract for us. What was it called again?”
“Chen Optics & IT,” James says quietly.
“That’s right,” I say. “You can’t do any job without computers anymore. I’m guessing you knew exactly how the FLIR cam would perform, maybe you even sold it to us. And it’s a complicated piece of technology, comes with its own software. Our tech guys would have had to get special training in how to use it, which would mean you’d get access to our protocols and procedures, allowing you to know exactly when and how we’d employ it and what decisions we’d make based on what we saw.”
“My firm didn’t sell the police the FLIR cam,” James says, “But we did hold the contract for tech support and we trained most of your operators at the start. We helped field test it under various scenarios. That’s where I got hold of your tactical manual. I was reasonably certain that the protocols wouldn’t have changed.”
“So you got all those gangsters in your house, but you would have had to restrain them or control them somehow. They weren’t tied up and we found loaded weapons in the hands of all of them, it had to be drugs of some kind, right? But something specific, something that would knock them out but wouldn’t look too suspicious in the autopsy’s toxicology screen. There are a few like that but most substances will leave traces,” I say.
“But these men were hardened gangsters, so you figured no one would look too hard if it was the right kind of drugs. And how would you, an upstanding IT company exec, know what the right kind of drugs were, or where to get them?
“Then I remembered Becca Patrick from Channel 3 News telling us about how you’d given everything up, spent all your money to save William. She said your wife had to go back to nursing. And a nurse would know what kind of drugs you could use to knock someone out. She’d be used to working with addicts, and know what drugs wouldn’t look too suspicious if the cops already knew they were likely users. And she’d have easy access. I’m guessing if we checked we’d find that a batch of the right drugs went missing where she works, maybe a few months ago. What was it?”
“It’s called Phenobarbitone,” James answers, still unmoving, standing over me.
“Something always seemed wrong about this case,” I say. “Why would a bunch of gang leaders break in to a random house in small-town Lawrence? Why did they stay so long? Why take an innocent family hostage? There had to be a reason. But that didn’t really matter because we were certain of all the right things. We knew they were bad men. And we knew they were armed inside your house. And they were shooting at us. But it was also strange, so many of them in there but no one was moving around, no one was talking. Not to us, not to each other. Only one person walking about, occasionally firing a gunshot out of a different window but always aiming high, not really hitting anything.
“Afterwards we assumed that person was one of the gangsters, Brian Kepu, but it was you, wasn’t it? It had to be. Because all the real gangsters were posed around the house, gun in hand but drugged insensible. The only exception was Remu Black who, as I’ve already mentioned, was tied up and left right next to the tunnel entrance in the kitchen.
“Now comes the unbelievable part; you knew that if nothing changed we’d wait for as long as it took. Days if need be. But you only had a certain amount of drugs to keep those men down. And your family was in there. What would happen in the daylight if we found a way to see more clearly into the house?
“You needed to force our hand and fast. You needed to do something serious. You couldn’t risk us waiting, or worse, risk us storming the house and finding all those unconscious gangsters and you free with a gun in your hand. But like you said, you had our tactical manual, knew we’d use the FLIR cam, knew we’d mark out targets with snipers. And most importantly, you knew we’d be forced to act if it looked like the lives of the hostages were in immediate danger. And you knew we were watching, so you shot your wife,” I say, edging myself further up the slip as the water keeps rising. It’s past my hip now.
“I’m guessing she helped pick the spot. It was a chest wound, sounds serious but it was high up and even though it would have hurt like hell there were no vital organs hit, no big arteries, and you knew help would be right there. So you shot A
ndrea, staying right up close to her knowing that we wouldn’t risk shooting you.
“And then we did exactly what you wanted. We killed all those men, we had no other choice. And you shot Brian Kepu in the back from the kitchen just before you went down the tunnel. Leaving us to wrongly assume he died from friendly fire as someone finger spasmed when they were shot.
“Those explosions were the perfect cover. You knew the first one would knock out the FLIR cam and the second one would stop the Tactical team from storming in, giving you just enough time to get yourself and Remu Black down that tunnel. The thing about an exploded gas canister is that it’s pretty much in tiny, warped metal pieces, and because the connecting hoses are soft rubber it’s very hard to tell how it was set off once it’s blown up. At first I couldn’t understand how you could risk your own wife and kids in a gas explosion but of course you didn’t.
“As you know, we found Andrea and your daughters together, tied up on the couch, but they were also blindfolded, gagged and even their ears were taped shut. It seemed to be nothing more than someone being overly thorough when taking hostages. But what if you already knew there was going to be an explosion? Then you’d need to keep your family safe.
“The first issue is shrapnel and flame; you’d have to put them behind something very strong to protect them. And wouldn’t you know it? Your kitchen is made of Australian Ironwood, the stuff’s harder and more flexible than steel. But you’re not an IT exec any more, you’re a carpenter so you’d know that. The second issue in surviving an explosion is the blast wave of air, you could give someone concussion or burst their ear drums. But if your eyes, ears and mouth are firmly covered you’d be alright. When that explosion happened your wife and kids were probably the safest people anywhere near it.”
* * *
“I’ve only got two questions,” I continue. “First, how did you get all those gangsters to your house?”
“In the end it was easy,” James says. “It just took patience. I had to find them, find out where they live, what their routines are. It took months but I had time. They didn’t hide themselves; they live openly, doing what they do, not afraid of anyone. Taking them was simple. I started with Remu. My wife prepared the drugs in a high-speed injector. None of them suspected anything. I’m just a small Asian man walking by on the street, not a gangster. I did it in the early morning. I could only get three of them. But we used Brian Kepu’s cell phone to get the rest to come to the house, one by one, later that same day. They thought they were meeting him there. We took them by surprise.”
