by Rob Ashman
There it was again. A dragging, grinding noise, as though furniture was being moved across a wooden floor.
She froze.
The sound was inside her head. Something heavy being dragged along the floor. It was growing louder.
Then a door slammed shut and she jumped.
No, this couldn’t be happening, not now. Mechanic looked at the clock: 11.45.
The sound of voices echoed around her head. She balled her fists and punched the steering wheel.
‘No!’ she yelled.
Another door slammed and the voice was clearer now. She put her head in her hands and rocked back and forth.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ she cried slamming her hands either side of her head.
The Jeep Cherokee pulled into the car park.
Mechanic fought to collect herself, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth. The noises subsided as she watched Cooper bump her tyres into the parking kerb and jump from the truck. Mechanic’s hands were shaking. She saw the guy in the red T-shirt wave hello as Cooper pulled a cart from the line.
Mechanic slowed her breathing and closed her eyes, focusing on the work in hand. The voices stopped. The minutes ticked by. She could see Cooper heading for the checkout. She stepped from the car, put the Glock in the waistband of her jeans and walked across the road ignoring the rain.
Mechanic reached the warehouse wall and could see the red glow from the back of the CCTV camera. Two dull mechanical spits and the LED went out.
Another door slammed shut in her head. Mechanic screwed her eyes shut and focused on Cooper. Should she abort the mission or plough on? She was so close now.
The plate-glass doors hissed open and Cooper bustled out into the night air with her bags. She scurried to the SUV dancing around the puddles. The Cherokee beeped, the indicators flashed and the tailgate opened. She flung the bags into the back and ran around to the driver’s side.
Mechanic was rooted to the spot.
The voices were getting louder and she could hear the sound of heavy footsteps. She saw Cooper duck into the driver’s seat and bang the door shut.
She had to move now.
The voices were loud. The footsteps were getting closer.
Mechanic lurched forward holding the Glock.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ the voice boomed.
She stopped. Her feet nailed to the asphalt. Unable to move.
Cooper started the engine and slipped the shift into reverse. Mechanic saw the white reversing lights pierce the night.
‘Kill the bitch.’ Daddy’s voice echoed off the walls in her head.
Mechanic tried to move her legs but she was paralysed.
Cooper looked in her side mirror and saw a figure silhouetted in black against the light of the store window. The figure was holding a gun.
She screamed and slammed her foot to the floor.
The truck wheels spun in the wet, then the tread bit into the road. It lurched backwards and accelerated hard across the car park.
‘Kill the bitch!’ Daddy’s voice was deafening.
The jeep hurtled past Mechanic and smashed through the shop front. The plate glass burst upon impact. Red T-shirt guy dived for cover as shards of glass rained down and the back of the truck crashed its way through the store. The shelves buckled, sending tins, boxes and bags flying into the air. The vehicle juddered to a stop, its big diesel engine roaring, belching out exhaust fumes.
The collision threw Cooper backward then forward in her seat, cracking her head on the steering wheel. She yelped in pain. Red T-shirt guy scrambled to his feet, bleeding from an ugly gash on his left arm. He ran to the driver’s door and yanked it open.
‘Christ, what happened? You okay?’ He reached in and turned off the engine.
Cooper was groggy but conscious. She slumped from behind the wheel and tumbled out of the cab. The shop guy caught her as she fell and sat her on the floor. He checked her over. Blood ran from a deep cut above her eye.
‘I’ll call an ambulance,’ he said making a dash for the phone.
There was a spit and his head snapped back.
Mechanic was the other side of the truck with her arms outstretched across the hood. Red T-shirt guy keeled over backward and landed face down on top of Cooper. She screamed as he knocked her sideways. Cooper scrabbled to her knees, rolled him over and cradled him against her. She could see the ragged edges of bone sticking out from the right side of his head. His blood poured into her lap. She was unable to comprehend what was happening.
‘Dave, Dave, wake up!’ She was shaking his shoulders.
Blood ran down her jaw line and dripped onto his face.
Cooper looked up and saw Mechanic, the gun pointing directly at her.
‘Kill her. Blow her face off. Do it. Do it,’ Daddy snarled.
Mechanic closed her eyes and fought to regain control. The physical effort of standing shook her entire body. The whole room spun as she held onto the truck to stop herself collapsing.
She fired and missed.
Cooper screamed and snapped out of her daze. She scurried away on her hands and knees and darted up one of the aisles trying to get to her feet. Time after time she tripped and fell over the debris.
‘No, no, no, no …’ she cried as her feet slipped from under her.
Mechanic clawed her way around the front of the jeep. She stumbled against the end of the aisle and held on for balance.
Cooper’s arms and legs pumped wildly as she tried to drag herself away. She tore items off the shelves to gain forward momentum but she slipped again and landed on all fours.
‘No, no, no, no—’
The shell drilled a ridged hole in the nape of her neck, and then exploded out the front of her face. The force threw her forward. She landed with a splat, face down on the tiled floor with her arms at her sides, a halo of blood around her head.
‘Taste it.’ Daddy was gurgling with excitement.
Mechanic shook her head as the world swam in and out of focus. She staggered over to Cooper’s body.
‘Go on, taste it, I say.’
She bent down and trailed her fingers through the blood. It was warm and sticky.
‘Taste it and be mine.’
She watched as scarlet droplets fell from her fingertips.
‘Do as I say. Drink the fucking—’
Then there was silence.
The world stopped spinning and everything was quiet. Daddy was gone.
Mechanic took a moment to collect herself. She reached for a bottle of water, twisted off the top and poured it onto her face. The liquid splashed down her front and ran like clear tributaries in the dark red puddle.
Her head snapped back to the present. She had to work fast. Mechanic replaced the top on the bottle and stuffed it in her jacket, then worked her way around the truck to look behind the counter. Nothing there. She crashed her boot through the plywood door marked Private to find what she was looking for, and ripped the CCTV recorder from its mountings. She walked out of the store to her car waiting across the road.
Mechanic hated walk-by killings but this one had turned out to be worse than most.
21
Moran woke up, but this time with a full three minutes to spare before the local radio station announced the time. She switched off the alarm without it sounding.
She felt as if a heavy weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She lay in bed thinking about the various plans Lucas and Harper could be hatching. It pained her to admit it but she had a grudging respect for Harper because deep down she knew, if the situation had been reversed, she would have done the same. But a grudging respect is different to liking someone. And she disliked him with a passion.
Moran was looking forward to the day, a novel feeling given what she had been through in the past week. She showered and drank a cup of strong black coffee as she dressed. The effects of a bottle of wine and no food had caused a little collateral damage as she examined her eyes in the mirror. Make-up wa
s required, if she could remember how to apply it.
Moran arrived early and set about her day. She had been reassigned to help a colleague whose job it was to interrogate the flight manifests. His name was Johnno, he was in his late forties and wore a suit which probably fitted him when it was new ten years earlier. Moran had seen him around the office, but he always kept himself very much to himself.
The task was a soul-destroying job of cross-checking lists of people’s names and their destinations against anything which looked like it could be Nassra Shamon. It was her first morning working on it and already she was climbing the walls.
The airlines were cooperative but not proactive, so if you needed something you had to ask. They didn’t think to provide details of connecting flights or transfer schedules. You had to work it out and request it. It was clear to Moran that Johnno was in his element, he loved it. She was beginning to see why co-workers kept their distance.
Mills had stuck his head around the door and waved a good morning at her, obviously pleased she was back at work. She was fully expecting another invite for cold beer and corn chips.
Moran looked up and realised the office was full of people. It was 9.30am.
‘What’s happened to the morning prayers?’ she asked Johnno.
‘Not sure, maybe Mills has been pulled away on something else. He’s fanatical about the morning briefing, so whatever it is must be important.’ He buried his head into the mountain of paper and once again disappeared.
The morning ticked by and by 11.20am Moran was seeing double. The close layout on the VDU and the densely packed printouts were blurring into one. One flight was sounding very much like another and destinations were becoming interchangeable. She had tried to chat with Johnno about what he’d already found out but without success. She even tried to tempt him with coffee but was met with a shake of the head. No words were required.
From what Moran could gather the whole exercise was drawing a blank. There was no record of Shamon entering the country on a flight, though her visa said she had, and there was no record of her leaving the country or taking an internal flight. As far as this piece of the jigsaw was concerned, Shamon miraculously appeared one day in Las Vegas and had not left. Surely the obvious move was to check the car rental and public transport records out of Vegas in the days following the Ramirez killing. An obvious move but one Moran was not going to suggest. Ploughing through flight manifests was just fine.
She was so engrossed in her work that Moran failed to notice Mills standing next to her desk.
‘Do you have a minute?’
‘Sure, I could do with a break.’
‘Let’s go somewhere quiet.’
Moran was on full alert. An invite to talk somewhere quiet was Mills-speak for an invite to after-work drinks. Maybe he was plucking up courage to ask her out on a proper date, with food that didn’t come out of a foil bag. She followed him across the corridor into a small office.
He sat at the desk and offered her the seat opposite.
‘Can you close the door, please?’
‘What’s on your mind?’ Moran asked.
‘Yesterday, after you went home, I took a call from Miriam Took.’
The hairs on the back of Moran’s neck stood to attention.
‘She is an account manager for the Wells Fargo bank,’ he continued.
Moran knew exactly who Miriam Took was.
‘She called because she wanted to confirm that the account details she provided were okay. She said that during your meeting yesterday you were a little confused and she wanted to follow up to ensure everything was in order.’
Moran’s heart was in her mouth.
‘To be sure we had the correct information, she relayed the transactions over the phone. I couldn’t tie up what she was saying with what you reported at the morning briefing. So I asked her to fax me the details.’
Mills slid a sheet of paper in front of her. Moran didn’t need to look at it, she knew what it said.
‘Who or what is Helix Holdings?’
Moran wanted to die.
‘There are three sizeable payments to them around the time Ramirez was killed. And the day after his death the account is closed. You reported there was nothing unusual about the account.’
Moran said nothing. She was incapable of saying anything at all.
‘Come on, Moran, I want to hear what the fuck you think you’re playing at?’
The puppy dog eyes were no more, they were flashing anger.
‘I can’t explain, I just lost it yesterday.’
‘Lost it, lost what? Lost your ability to spot an unusual payment on a bank statement?’
‘You saw how sick I was yesterday, I wasn’t thinking straight.’ She was grasping at straws and sinking fast.
‘Yes, you were sick, yes you may have been muddled in your thinking, but the meeting with the bank was the day before. Are you telling me you were unwell then?’
‘No.’
‘So when you had your meeting with Miriam Took what the hell did you talk about, the fucking shopping channel? Because it sure as hell wasn’t Helix Holdings.’
‘Yes, we talked about it but everything appeared okay.’ She had her head well and truly below water.
‘In what way does that look okay?’ He stabbed a finger onto the sheet of paper in front of her. ‘It sticks out like a cock on a Barbie doll.’
‘I … I … don’t know.’ The words dried up in her mouth.
‘This is serious shit. This is a murder inquiry. You are a detective, trained to look for things which could lead us to identifying individuals involved in crime. And you didn’t think this was worthy of mention? The only conclusion I can make is you wilfully withheld information.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking.’
‘No, and neither do I.’
He slid another piece of paper across the table.
‘I’m suspending you from duty pending an investigation. You will be contacted in writing when the investigation is complete and you will be given a date to attend a meeting. If you so wish, you can choose to be accompanied by your union rep or a co-worker to support you. It’s all set out in the letter.’
Moran picked up the paper and read it. It was in HR speak and basically said what Mills had told her. He’d rehearsed his lines well – she was screwed.
‘You can pick up your things and I will escort you from the building.’
Moran got to her feet, still holding the letter.
‘You need to surrender your badge and your weapon.’
She unclipped them both from her belt and laid them on the table.
‘I can explain,’ she said in one last-ditch effort.
‘No, Rebecca, I don’t think you can.’
Mills swept past her and held the door open.
She picked up her bag and her coat from the office and Mills walked behind her as she made her way from the building. She felt numb.
He followed her to the main door, turned, and left without another word.
Moran stood outside trying to comprehend what had happened. She was stunned and didn’t move for a full five minutes. Then her head clicked into gear and she ran across the parking lot, she needed to get home.
Forty minutes later her front door clattered open and Moran made straight for the phone. She then pulled a small suitcase from her wardrobe and filled it with a selection of black clothes and toiletries. She piled other items into her handbag as a car horn blasted outside.
Moran left the house and jumped into the cab waiting at the kerb. The thirty-minute journey seemed to take forever as the traffic continued to build the nearer they got to the Vegas Strip. The cab swung into a drop-off zone and she shoved ten bucks into the driver’s hand. While he was rooting around for change, she was gone.
Moran scanned the board and hurried to the Delta Airlines desk. She needed to catch a flight.
Mills returned to the incident room and dumped a file marked Nassra Shamon
on Johnno’s desk.
‘Moran is off the case. Can you deal with this?’
‘Yes, sure, boss,’ Johnno replied looking up. It was his standard response to anything a senior person asked him, but it didn’t mean he would do it. It was a response designed to ensure they would leave him alone.
Mills scuttled away to create confusion elsewhere. Johnno picked up the file and dumped it on top of the mound of computer printouts. Bank details were not as much fun as flight schedules.
22
For the second time in two days Jameson stood in the centre of Cabrillo Bridge. He was doing his tourist act of admiring the high-rise view of downtown when he clocked Mechanic walking up the pedestrian way.
She stopped next to him, pulled out a camera and started taking snaps.
‘What the hell happened, Jess?’ Jameson said looking straight ahead.
Mechanic always felt weird when someone used her real name. She had spent so much of her adult life living with a false identity, it made it sound as though they were referring to someone else.
‘She saw me and panicked and put the truck through the storefront. It got messy.’
‘And the target?’
‘The target was eliminated but I had to take out the shop worker as well.’
‘That is messy.’
‘Yeah, it sure is.’
‘Where did you take her out?’
‘Inside the store.’
‘CCTV?’
‘I disabled the one outside as per the plan but there were two cameras inside so I took the recorder.’
‘Where is it now?’
‘Busted up and deposited in six separate dumpsters. I burned the tape.’
‘Good.’
‘Sorry, it was a right cluster fuck.’
‘Yes, but it sounds like you recovered the situation. And from what you’ve said, the cops will think it’s a ram-raid robbery gone wrong, which is fine for us. It makes it look less like an execution.’
‘Yeah, I suppose so. I feel like shit. I hate it when things screw up.’
