Carver

by Tom Cain

  Ginger looked at Petrova. She felt she was getting closer, and her natural instinct for inflicting pain put the next words in her mouth: ‘Such a pity that it will be one of the last things he ever sees.’

  Oh, that was better! There was fear in Petrova’s eyes now, and a nervous anxiety in her voice as she finally broke her silence to ask, ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to know? But I’ll tell you this, it’s not just Carver, it’s all of them. Take a tip from an old friend: this is one party to avoid.’

  Petrova started forward, obviously wanting to warn Carver, and Ginger stepped sideways into her path, blocking her way.

  ‘Get out of my way,’ Petrova snapped.

  ‘No, that’s not possible,’ Ginger said. ‘I can’t have you raising the alarm. But don’t worry, we’ll be quite safe down here.’

  ‘I said, get out of my way.’

  ‘And I said no.’

  91

  * * *

  CARVER HAD SEARCHED through a warren of passages and checked a multitude of rooms. But the man he was looking for was nowhere to be seen. So now there was only one possibility. He’d left the building. Carver put his wrist to his mouth and spoke into his microphone, giving his ID and current position before asking, ‘Has anyone exited this way in the past few minutes?’ He tried to fight the rising fear that he’d lost the man. ‘I’m looking for a male, medium height, dark hair, with a moustache.’

  ‘Yeah, there was someone answering to that description. Hang on … yeah, one of the waiters, Jerzy Kowalski.’

  ‘Any idea where he went?’

  ‘Yes. He was observed turning right on Gresham Street. He then proceeded to the Wax Chandlers’ Hall, on the far side of Gutter Lane, and entered the building.’

  ‘Why?’ Carver asked, rushing towards the Gresham Street exit.

  ‘Sorry, don’t get you?’

  ‘Why did he enter the building? Is there any reason why a waiter would be needed there tonight? The place is being used for business meetings.’

  ‘Sorry. Can’t help you.’

  ‘Well, somebody fucking find out!’

  The door to the street was just up ahead. But as Carver ran towards it he was gripped by a foreboding that this was just a replay of the Rosconway disaster. Once again he would end up in the right place, but at the wrong time: always a step behind Malachi Zorn and unable to stop the slaughter.

  Zorn made his way through the Wax Chandlers’ Hall, past the three bodies in the conference room, to the office where Braddock was waiting to go into action.

  He was sitting by a window, cradling the XM-25 Punisher in his lap. The lights in the room were off, and the blinds on the windows were down, with just enough of the summer evening glow from outside seeping in to prevent the room being totally dark. When the time came, Braddock would lift the blind and open the window just far enough to allow him to aim and fire. Across Gutter Lane from where he sat, barely twenty metres away, were the five tall, arched windows of the Goldsmiths’ Hall, glowing gold with the light from the great chandeliers. Braddock had four grenades. He was going to put them in quick succession through the four windows nearest to him. And then he was going to get the hell out.

  ‘How are you doing?’ Zorn asked.

  ‘All right.’

  ‘We’re all good, huh? That’s great.’

  Braddock said nothing. He had no intention of getting into a conversation. He didn’t like Zorn being here, to begin with, and there was something about the American that only made his misgivings worse. The man seemed hyped up and jittery. Braddock was out of his comfort zone, and the stress of it all was making him overexcited just when it was important to stay totally calm. He had a pair of ear protectors, like headphones, around his neck. Now he put them on.

  ‘OK, OK, I won’t disturb you,’ said Zorn, getting the message.

  Razzaq had left a laptop in the room for him, and Zorn used it to get online and check the markets. With just over an hour of trading left on the New York Stock Exchange, the Dow Jones and S&P 500 index were both up almost three per cent on the day. That was exactly what Zorn would have expected. Markets almost always overreact on the downside after a disaster, whether man-made or natural, and then recover the moment that people start seeing the opportunities that always follow catastrophe. His own very public vote of confidence had only served to give the whole process a kick-start: he had set a bandwagon rolling and, since most traders liked to run with the herd, they had raced to get onboard. Once again he would be alone as he went in precisely the opposite direction.

  92

  * * *

  THE MEN WHO had trained Alix how to defend herself had drummed some very simple, basic rules into their pupils. In any fight, the winner is almost always the one who strikes first. So do not wait to be attacked. Take the initiative. Be decisive. And do not stop until you are absolutely certain that your opponent cannot do you any harm.

  Perhaps it was the sight of a woman who had been trained in the same class as her that made Alix’s mind flash back to those days. But whatever the reason, it suddenly became clear to her that her only chance of getting past Celina Novak was to take her by surprise and then forget whatever qualms she might have about instigating violence.

  Alix feinted to go past Novak again. But then, as the other woman moved to block her once more, Alix raised her knee and kicked sideways and down, driving the hard point of her heel into the side of Novak’s right knee, collapsing the joint and making her scream in excruciating pain. Novak’s leg gave way, and as she went down, Alix stepped behind her and caught hold of her hair before she had time to fight back. Alix gripped hard, and then, going with the direction of Novak’s fall, smashed her face against the side of the basin counter. She heard a sickening crackle like an eggshell being crushed underfoot, and Novak’s nose collapsed into a misshapen pulp, smearing blood and snot against the hard plastic counter top as she slid down to the floor, hitting the back of her head against the rock-hard ceramic tiles.

  Novak lay there, half-dazed, writhing as she tried to draw up her elbows and her good left leg to push herself upright. Alix told herself to remain detached, and let the training that had been drummed into her twenty years before take over. This was a necessary means to a justifiable end. Lives were at stake: she could not afford to be squeamish.

  She waited till Novak’s knee was bent to ninety degrees, presenting an ideal target. Then she took a deep breath, gathered her strength and jabbed her heel hard into the soft skin at the side of the joint, dragging another bubbling, coughing attempt at a scream from Novak’s blood-filled mouth. Alix aimed one more kick with her shoe’s pointed toe at Novak’s temple, putting her down again and leaving her flat out on the floor, barely conscious and hardly able to breathe.

  Keeping half an eye on Novak, knowing that she could still be a deadly threat as long as there was breath in her body and a pulse, however faint, in her veins, Alix kicked off her shoes and pulled off her hold-ups. She grabbed hold of Novak’s wrists, and while Novak was still too stunned to resist passed one of the holdups around them in a figure-of-eight pattern. Next, she pulled both ends hard, till the nylon stocking dug into the flesh of Novak’s wrists, and knotted them tight. She repeated the same process with Novak’s ankles, provoking more muffled moans as she pulled the legs straight and worked the devastated knee joints.

  Novak was immobilized. Now Alix needed some means of making her talk. She scrabbled through her evening bag, looking for something that could inflict pain: even a metal nail file, jabbed under an eye, would do. She found an even better option: a small bottle of eau de parfum spray. But that was only half of what Alix had in mind. Novak’s bag had fallen from her hand. Alix opened it. Sure enough, she kept a packet of cigarettes and a lighter there. Alix removed the lighter. Then, with it in one hand and the perfume in the other, she returned to Novak’s prone, twitching body.

  Alix knelt down astride Novak’s chest, with her knees digging into her upper arms o
n either side. She looked down at Novak’s eyes. They were open but still unfocused. Alix slapped the side of Novak’s face and saw the other woman blink several times as she tried to focus her sight and gather her wits.

  ‘Watch,’ said Alix.

  She pressed down the top of the scent bottle, spraying it above Novak’s head. Then she flicked the lighter and lifted it towards the cloud of perfume. It caught fire, turning into a jet of flame. Alix placed the lighter down on the floor. Then she used her now empty hand to brush away the hair from Novak’s forehead. It was a strangely tender gesture, but its purpose could not have been more brutal. Alix lowered the scent bottle till the flame was touching the skin that she had just exposed. She forced herself to leave it there for a couple of seconds, long enough to make Novak screw her eyes shut and make another high-pitched gurgling sound.

  Time was passing. The unknown danger was drawing closer. Alix leaned down and hissed in Novak’s ear. ‘In case you were wondering, I’m not too scared or too soft to burn what’s left of your face. They’ll be able to fix the nose … eventually. But burns … that’s much tougher.’

  Alix could see the effort of concentration it took Novak to produce a mushy, slurring response that was so indistinct that Alix had to stop and think before she could distinguish the three words: ‘Screw you, bitch.’

  ‘I’m in a hurry. I’m not going to give you any chances. You wouldn’t give me any. Just tell me: what’s going to happen? Why are they all in danger?’

  Novak twisted her lips into a defiant smile, her scarlet lipstick now invisible beneath the thick coating of her even richer, thicker red blood. ‘Too late. Can’t stop it,’ she said.

  Alix picked up the lighter again, drew another flame from the scent bottle, and held it against Novak’s left cheek, waiting fully five seconds till the nauseating smell of burnt hair and grilling skin filled her nostrils. The horror of what she was doing was so great and so real that it all but overpowered her will.

  ‘I won’t stop,’ Alix said, almost to persuade herself as much as Novak. And as the words left her mouth she saw a sudden flicker in Novak’s eyes and a twitch at the corner of her mouth as Novak detected the first signs of weakness.

  ‘Yes, you will,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Eat it,’ Alix said, and this time she ran the flame across the raw flesh and bone of Novak’s nose and then left it licking at her lips as Novak’s body twitched and her head thrashed from side to side to escape the blistering heat.

  ‘Stop! Please stop!’ Novak begged, and Alix let go of the nozzle, killing the fire.

  There were tears in Novak’s eyes. She was crying in pain, and that was somehow the hardest thing of all for Alix to bear. ‘For God’s sake, just tell me what I need to know,’ she pleaded.

  Novak looked at her. ‘Grenade attack. Through windows. Everybody dies.’ And then, as Alix got to her feet, she added, ‘But you’re too late … you’re much too late.’

  93

  * * *

  FOR THE PAST few months, every time Zorn had landed a major investor, he had started buying ‘put’ options on the shares of the corporations they owned or managed, betting that the value of those corporations would go down. He was, essentially, taking a bet on the value of their deaths. And each had a different price on his head.

  A faceless chief executive, for example, who had siphoned off billions from a multinational bank, would not be missed for long. There was always another greedy cipher in a suit waiting to take his place. So his company’s shares would be rocked, but not devastated, by his passing. A brilliant entrepreneur, on the other hand, whose vision had transformed a fledgling computer brand into an iconic global technology brand, was a very different matter. Men like that – and they were almost invariably men – were stars. Their customers were also their fans. Remove them, and the companies they had created might not collapse, but they would be shaken to their very foundations. And their share prices would drop like stones.

  During his brief shift as a waiter, Zorn had confirmed the presence of several such individuals scattered amidst the guests thronging the Goldsmiths’ Hall. So now he started buying ‘puts’ on their shares, doubling and even trebling the size of his existing positions, looking for options that needed to be exercised at the earliest possible dates. Since the market was rising, no one was interested in options that depended on prices falling within the next week, or less. That made those options dirt cheap. So Zorn was able to make his money go much further, leveraging his cash so that any fall in the market would net him staggering profits. Of course, by the same token, any rise would render his options worthless. But the prices were not going to rise. That he, and he alone, knew for sure.

  As he put the last components of his plan in place, Zorn was struck for a moment by the extraordinary reality of what he was doing. An act of mass-murder was about to take place at his request, the second in the space of just four days. It struck him that he was not remotely bothered. He didn’t feel bad about it at all. He wanted people to die. He wanted other children to feel the same way he had done when fate had robbed him of his parents. He wanted to wallow in death.

  A few metres away, Braddock shifted his position and reached for the cord that controlled the window blinds.

  He looked at Zorn.

  ‘It’s show time,’ he said. Then he lifted the grenade launcher to his shoulder.

  94

  * * *

  CARVER EMERGED FROM the side entrance to the Goldsmiths’ Hall and had himself patched through to the spotters on the far side of Gresham Street. ‘I assume you’re armed.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Are you using laser sights?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, do me a favour and switch them on. Then track me. Whoever I talk to, point the sights at them.’

  ‘Got it.’

  Carver crossed Gutter Lane, looking down it as he went. He could see the lights from the party on one side of the narrow street. He could see the Wax Chandlers’ Hall on the other side, so close the two buildings almost seemed in touching distance. He started to get a very bad feeling indeed.

  Two security guards in cheap black suits and over-gelled hair were standing on either side of the entrance to the Wax Chandlers’ Hall. Beyond them a short flight of steps led up through an arched portico to the interior of the building.

  Carver went up to the nearest guard and produced his Ministry of Defence ID.

  ‘I need to get into the building,’ he said.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ said the guard. ‘No one gets in unless they’re on the list. You’re not on the list. You don’t get in.’

  He gave a smug, self-satisfied nod, as if delighted by his awesome powers of reasoning.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ Carver said.

  ‘You got a problem, mate?’ asked the second security guard, lumbering towards Carver.

  ‘No … you do. Look at your mate’s head.’

  ‘What the fuck are you going on about?’

  ‘Look at his head.’

  A red laser dot was glowing right in the centre of the security guard’s forehead.

  ‘Oh shit …’

  ‘You got one too, mate!’ the first guard shouted.

  ‘So here’s the thing,’ Carver went on. ‘You’re both currently under observation by Metropolitan Police snipers. With me so far?’

  The men nodded.

  ‘Now, I’m about to go in this building. Try to stop me and they’ll shoot. Or stand up against the wall, legs apart, hands flat against the wall, and don’t move, and you won’t have a bullet where those red dots are. What do you reckon?’

  The men spun round and raced for the wall. Carver walked up the stairs, drawing his gun as he went, relieved that he had not had to use it earlier: if Zorn was in here, he didn’t want him alerted by the sound of gunfire.

  95

  * * *

  ALIX RAN UP the staircase towards the reception. She heard the sound of laughter and then, as she got to the first-floor landi
ng and turned left towards the Livery Hall, it was followed by applause that was merely polite to begin with, but then built to a cheering, hooting, foot-stamping crescendo. When she saw the screens at the very far end of the room, she understood why. Malachi Zorn was about to speak to his loyal disciples, every one of whom expected to be told just how much richer they were this evening than they had been at the start of the week.

  She took her eyes from the screen and, all thoughts of Azarov driven from her mind tried to scan the room for Carver. It was no good. She’d never find him in this crowd. Her stomach seemed to be gripped by sharp steel claws as Celina Novak’s words echoed in her memory: ‘You’re much too late.’ No … she couldn’t be. To win Carver back again, only to lose him for ever, would be more than she could bear. She pushed her way through the people, ignoring the protests as she barged against bodies and stepped on toes, turning her head this way and that in the desperate hope that she might, by pure chance, catch sight of the man she loved.

  Up on stage, Zorn began to speak: ‘Thank you … thank you … No, really, that’s enough!’ The joke broke the spell, and the laughter faded away into an expectant silence. ‘So … I guess you want to hear how the fund is doing, huh?’

  There was another laugh, and a couple of good-humoured heckles from the crowd. ‘Damn right we do!’ shouted one man.

  Mort Lockheimer had spent the days since the Rosconway attack working through endless trading permutations in his mind, trying to decide just how much had already been added to the value of his personal Zorn Global fund. Now he was punching the air and whooping like a fan at a ball game. ‘Show me the money!’ he yelled.

  ‘How come you don’t get that excited over me?’ asked Charlene.