Stalk Me

by Richard Parker

  Beth remembered how neatly the hole had been silently drilled in the forehead of the receptionist in the LA hotel.

  “I’m a completionist, like to serve my indentures. But before I finish the job, I wanted to give you something.”

  Beth waited, her heart kicking at her chest.

  “When I can, I prefer to offer my guiltless targets the benefit of knowing why they’re about to die. To at least inform them their termination isn’t arbitrary...”

  Beth swallowed hard, peeling her tongue from the roof of her mouth.

  *

  “I know you’re probably hoping I can clear up the whole Allegro business, but honestly, I can’t. I found the message from Rae Salomon on your cell when I hacked into it and then your searches for it online. I assumed it was something you needed to figure out. I used it as a way to lure you to LA via the Facebook page.”

  Beth darted her eyes around the room, looking for a place they might take cover.

  “Keep ’em on the window, mh?”

  She realised how clearly she was in his sights.

  “I’m sorry there won’t be that closure for you, but there is one pertinent piece of information I can offer, seeing as I was one of the few people who saw everything the day your car went off the road.”

  Chapter 86

  Mimic subtly rolled the muscles of his shoulders, relaxing but maintaining his frame around the lightweight titanium sniper rifle. He’d turned the desk he was seated at lengthways towards the open window. The AS50 semi-automatic resting on its top wasn’t his first choice, but it was the weapon the East Hill Sniper had used to kill three people and injure two from a nearby apartment block. Mimic had achieved satisfactory results with British manufactured firearms before. The adjustable bipod and rear support grip would allow him accuracy up to 1,500 metres.

  The perspiration on his fingers adhered him to it, made it an extension of him. He’d slowed his circulation before calling Beth with his Bluetooth. “Last year, my services were secured by individuals within the current French administration. A second reactor at the Degarmo Nuclear Power Plant, to the northwest of Dieppe, had been proposed and the public consultation had gone well. The multinational, Vpower, had the contract. But a radioactive water leak at the station rapidly changed opinion, and the Ecology Minster, Christiane Vipond, was suddenly aggressively opposing the commission of the second reactor. The UMP is wet behind the ears when it comes to covert resolution, so I was asked to remove rather than terminate Vipond, convince her to withdraw before she could damage the party’s relationship with Vpower, as well as their chances in the general election.”

  Mimic slightly clenched and unclenched each of his buttocks and watched Beth’s unblinking eyes. Beyond her he could see her brother’s Adam’s apple bob in his throat.

  “She was in her sixties and had a well-documented history of seizures. I was to orchestrate her ill health publicly and ensure she took a permanent sabbatical from politics. I had her prescription history, so it was easy to select the corresponding medication to slip into her food. The Ecological Forum dinner being hosted by Vpower at the Hôtel Le Grand was the ideal venue. Even though security services issued an assurance the paramedics had been summoned, my associate and I quickly arrived and picked her up in a decommissioned ambulance so we could drive her to a secure location. There we were to use various methods to dissuade her from further involvement in the debate. She could make up her own mind if I’d been in the employ of Vpower or her own party. Comfort deprivation and threats to her grandchildren proved to be more than sufficient. But she didn’t soil herself as quickly as your brother...”

  He saw Beth turn to where Jody had closed his eyes against the dark patch spreading from the crotch of his jeans.

  “Unfortunately for you, my associate hadn’t secured the gurney properly in the back of the ambulance, and on the way to the location, it got loose and started slamming against the sides. We pulled over in the middle of the Forêt Domaniale to secure it. My associate got out and was just opening the back doors when a camper came around the corner. You know how narrow the road was at the curve. I heard it braking, but he swerved to avoid us and struck a tree.”

  He pressed the pad of his forefinger against the trigger. One more tiny increment of pressure would burst her head apart.

  “We got out and found the car had rolled back into the road. The driver was semi-conscious. Then Christiane starts screaming through the gag and struggling to get herself free of the straps we’d restrained her with. I opened the doors and threatened her with a scalpel, and she piped down. But when I got back down from the ambulance, my associate was dealing with the driver of the trashed vehicle. He’d gotten out and had seen Christiane all trussed up. I told him I could explain everything and immobilised him by pushing the scalpel into his eye.”

  Jody wouldn’t look up at Beth as the liquid spread out from his lap. He had every right to be petrified. She knew his terror was more than justified. The gunman’s account wasn’t something that could be repeated.

  She swallowed, his connection to her briefly cutting out and then vibrating the hairs in her ear again. “Even though it was raining, I didn’t want his blood on the roadside. He was still alive when we dragged him into the ambulance, so I slit his throat there. We secured Christiane, shut the doors and were just about to drive off, when we heard your car hit the camper. Bam! I assessed the damage and made sure you and your husband couldn’t compromise us. Afterwards, we decided to leave with our two passengers, but as we pulled out, we could see the bus coming the other way. We pulled off into the trees and waited there, watched it stop at the side of the road and all the college kids get out with their iPhones.”

  Beth tried to estimate which one of them he would target first. Jody was semi-paralysed, so it was likely the first bullet was hers.

  “The only way out of the forest was to pull back onto the same road in an opening a little further down. We couldn’t be spotted, so we waited, but then the cops and ambulance turned up. I knew it wouldn’t be long until they worked out the driver of the camper was missing and searched the forest. We slipped back out while the helicopter taking off distracted the crowd. Just before we did, two men walking a dog strolled by us. It had to be a suspicious sight, an ambulance pulled into the forest and the two of us sitting up front, doing nothing. We drove by them and left.”

  Was he talking about Roland and Erik?

  “I located them. There weren’t many residences nearby they could have walked a dog from. Discovered one was an ex-journalist.”

  Beth saw a movement in the periphery of her vision. She knew what it was, but she didn’t raise her eyes to acknowledge it.

  “The driver of the camper was an illegal Bulgarian immigrant, which made disposing of his body easy. I dumped it in a storm drain along with my associate’s. I successfully concluded my business. Vipond announced her resignation two months before the election.”

  The movement continued gradually downward. It was the automated window-cleaning cradle and Beth knew she couldn’t allow him to see her register its presence.

  “I told my employers about the complications, attempted to extract remuneration, but they weren’t interested in prolonging our association.”

  She estimated it would reach the gunman’s window in a matter of minutes. He had to be using a telescopic sight. Would he have one eye closed against it? She recalled how his left had been injured in their struggle. He might not see the cradle until it had obscured his view.

  “Unfortunately, Vipond’s heart gave out and she died less than a week after my powwow with her. But she’d had a bedside meeting with her biographer beforehand. Nobody knew what was said. People started to get nervous. A month later, a document questioning the presence of a decommissioned ambulance at a crash site viewed by the entire Internet community winds up on the desk of the French Minister of the Interior. Suddenly, they’re trying to re-establish relations with me, entreating me to do whatever was necessary to supp
ress the party’s connection to the vehicle, because God only knew what else was lurking in the files of all those iPhone witnesses.”

  Beth’s curiosity overrode the situation. “Roland sent the document?”

  “No. I sent it. I gave Roland ample opportunity to break the story. I monitored his emails, hacked into his computer and was ready to inform my employers as soon as he started writing the story. But I got sick of waiting for him to climb off his lazy, has-been ass. Recently, I contacted him to let him know if they come forward as witnesses, they’d end up as meat for their dog. Regardless, I’m on my way there to make that happen as soon as I’m done here.”

  “Why leak the information yourself?”

  “Because it gave me the extended contract I wanted. It’s not in my interests to tie up loose ends unless they point to me or I’m being paid to do so. The party needed it to go away, whatever was necessary. I’m on the brink of retirement, so I needed to be retained by an administration that not only had access to generous donations but was completely running scared. And when my services have been secured, not even my clients can pull the plug. Although I know several attempts have already been made.”

  The cradle had reached the top edge of the gunman’s window.

  Beth had to keep him talking. When his view through the sight was blocked, she would know. “But the FBI already know what connects the people you’ve murdered.”

  “But not the reason why. Besides, it’s no longer my concern. And while my clients try and extricate themselves, I’ll have already disappeared. And you and your brother will be two more victims of the East Hill Sniper.”

  The cradle dropped farther down towards the lower open window. Could he hear its motor, or would it get lost in the noise of the traffic from the road below?

  “But I want to step back to the middle of events, to the moment that has the most relevance to you. I knew it would when I started tracking you via your social networking and found your little Facebook memorial to your husband. Luc, mh?”

  Beth kept her eyes fixed on the open window, tried not to let them flick up at the cradle. “Yes.” But she wasn’t just trying to extend his dialogue now.

  “After your car had struck the camper, we deliberated whether or not to leave immediately, which in retrospect would have been the correct decision. But I got back out of the ambulance and walked along the road to see if I had to deal with any more witnesses.”

  She listened, fighting her eyeballs’ instinct to roll upwards.

  “One vanished driver was going to arouse enough suspicion, so I was hoping to find corpses. The crash sounded like nobody would have survived, but when I walked around the curve, there you were, having crawled out of your car, face down in a puddle of water and barely conscious. That’s when Luc staggered out of the wreckage.”

  The cradle was at the edge of the open window, but Beth wasn’t seeing it.

  “His nose was bleeding and he appeared to be delirious, but he had real purpose. You lifted your head out of the puddle just in time for him to kick you so hard in the face I heard your jaw break from twenty yards away.”

  Chapter 87

  Beth shook her head, almost imperceptibly at first.

  “He’d done me a favour, put you out before you even knew I was there. But he’d seen me. I pulled my gun on him and told him to crawl back inside the car. He sat there on the ceiling and I told him to lie back. Then I reached in and broke his neck. It was awkward; he was barely breathing when I returned to the ambulance, but I knew he wouldn’t make it to the hospital alive.”

  The cradle must have been moving over the aperture now, but Beth was still processing what she was being told.

  “I thought he’d finished you, was surprised to find you’d survived his attack. When I wanted to find out who had contacted Trip Stillman, I was even more surprised when I saw what you’d said on Facebook about the man who tried to kill you. I realised you didn’t even know it was your husband who put you in a coma.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Why would I? I’m about to pull the trigger on you. It makes no odds to me.”

  “You’re punishing me.” But Beth didn’t have any memory that could disprove his story. It was inconceivable.

  “Don’t shoot the messenger, Beth. But then Brits love irony, and this is definitely an irony worth...”

  When he paused, Beth didn’t even look at the window but turned to Jody, knowing the cradle had briefly obscured his shot. “Move!”

  She darted towards her brother. It would probably only take the gunman seconds to realise what had happened and reposition himself. Jody opened his eyes but didn’t budge. “Now!” Beth grabbed him by his tee shirt and tried to heave his bulk up off the couch. He looked at her if she were mad, but she was relieved to feel his frame respond, his weight reducing as he tensed his legs and pushed himself up.

  She anticipated the bullets as they ran to the lounge door. Had she mistimed it? Maybe he would allow them to reach it before he pulled the trigger.

  They staggered into the passage. Jody was in front of her as she heard the bullet hiss through the doorway and thud into the wall beside them. She locked her arms around his waist and dragged him down, quickly twisting onto her back, flattening herself and looking back through the doorway. She could see the smoked windows of the office block through the fractured glass of the bay but no sign of the cradle. She was looking at a higher floor. They were out of his line of fire.

  Another two bullets puffed plaster out of the wall farther along, the pane of glass in the lounge collapsing and shattering onto the carpet. If they stayed down and crawled the length of the landing, they would drop down two steps to the kitchen level. “Keep moving.” She hissed back to Jody. But he didn’t. “Just a few more feet.” She used her heels to push herself back against him.

  A fourth bullet embedded itself into the wall inches above their heads.

  “Go!” She felt Jody move as she rammed him.

  He squirmed away on his front and slid his body down the two stairs to the lower landing. Beth came down backwards and followed him on all fours around the corner of the kitchen wall.

  Once they were inside, Beth grabbed a small knife from the magnetic strip on the tiles.

  “What are you doing?” Jody was crouching by the fridge.

  “He can’t shoot us here.” She had second thoughts and swapped the small blade for the carving knife.

  Jody got uncertainly to his feet and snatched the receiver from the unit on the wall. “I’ll call the police.”

  Beth was already heading for the stairs.

  “Beth, stay here!”

  As her bare feet slapped the steps, she told herself she had to intercept him. If she didn’t, Beth knew she’d always be anticipating his bullet. She couldn’t allow him to sow that fear again.

  Having failed to kill them, it was unlikely he would linger very long. Could she reach the ground floor before he did? Maybe the rifle was the only weapon he thought he needed. If it was, she had a chance to put the knife in him.

  Beth was out of the front door and descending the stone steps to the street. The road was busy with traffic. She looked up at the open window expecting to see him there with the barrel trained on her, but the frame was empty. He wouldn’t be expecting her to come out of the house so soon. Probably thought she was still taking cover inside. He had to be on his way down.

  Beth ran into the road, tyres squealing and cars swerving as she weaved between them. She scarcely realised she was only wearing her nightshirt and leapt up onto the opposite kerb in front of the building. The doors were propped open and fine dust floated out. A young woman dragged two children back behind her as they saw the blade in Beth’s hand. Men in facemasks were working inside, the soon-to-be reception area draped with polythene sheeting.

  Beth didn’t doubt she could push the knife into him. But it wasn’t just the spectre of him stalking her beyond today that drove her through the open doors. It was what he’d said a
bout Luc, the notion he’d implanted that she knew she’d never be able to refute.

  Standing in reception, the carving knife gripped firmly in her fist, Beth counted three workmen obliviously sanding down the newly plastered walls. The elevator doors were propped open and out of action. She could already feel the dust in her throat. Squinting through it, she deliberated whether to take the door to the car park or the one to the stairs.

  Beth yanked open the door to the stairs and found an expression of surprise waiting the other side. It was a young man in a business suit with cropped silver hair. She pushed past him and headed up the first flight, turning and looking up the stairwell for movement above. There was no sign of the gunman’s descent, but she flattened herself to the wall and raised the knife in readiness as she hastily climbed.

  Chapter 88

  Beth reached the top of the first flight and halted, listening – just the vibration of the sanders below and still no footfalls. Perhaps he’d already gone. Maybe he was, at that moment, screeching out of the underground car park. Had a man his age really managed to clear these stairs in the time it took her to cross the road from the house?

  She padded up the second slowly, the steps cold against the soles of her bare feet. When she reached the double doors leading to the first floor, she ducked to one side and briefly peered through the glass panels into the corridor beyond. No sign of movement. Whitening her knuckles around the knife, she cautiously tugged the door handle with her other hand, and it squealed as she eased it back. If the gunman were still here, he would certainly know somebody else was.