by A P Bateman
“DHL couriers, ma’am,” Stone said. “Signed package.”
The door clicked open and Stone walked through. He took the stairs and noticed the CCTV system. He was sure to look into the camera for long enough as he reached the top of the second flight of stairs. He would soon be growing the beard again, but he needed to be seen to be as close to the records and files held on him.
The door to the office read: Andrew Reece, Specialist Solutions & Private Security. Stone opened the door and saw the empty desk belonging to the secretary who was on her lunch break, and the small waiting area with a two-seater sofa and a coffee machine. The only other door was closed. He opened it, drew the 9mm Beretta from his waistband and stepped inside.
Reece was fast, but Stone was faster. The man had gone for his weapon, but Stone crossed the room in three strides and kicked the desk. The force pushed Reece backwards in his chair, pinching his gut and cannoning him into the wall where framed photographs and credentials dropped and smashed on the floor. Stone pressed the muzzle of the pistol under the man’s chin.
“Don’t do it,” Stone said calmly. “You know what the triggers are like on 92’s. I’ve already got two pounds of pull, it’s hit and miss whether it can take an ounce more…” Reece raised both hands and Stone reached inside the man’s jacket and retrieved a Smith & Wesson .357 magnum. It was a snub-nosed model with rubber grips. A professional’s choice. Stone pocketed it and stepped around the desk. “Got any other hidden surprises? I’m fresh out of patience and this gun is a Saturday night special. No links to anybody.”
“No.”
“Just the one weapon?”
Reece shrugged, shook his head. “9mm short in the filing cabinet. A Walther.”
“That’s more like it,” Stone pulled the desk back out, keeping the weapon aimed at him. “So, you got out,” he stated flatly. “Private security. You always said you might go do that. After you messed up that currency case. So now it’s Andrew Reece, PI.”
“Don’t knock it. I make twice what the service paid.”
“And how much did you make out of killing the President’s family?”
“Fuck you!”
Stone raised the pistol. “How much, Reece?”
“I never signed up for that!”
“But you betrayed the Secret Service.”
“I took money to fuck you over, sure.”
“You sold me down the river,” Stone said. “You got them into my cell phone, sold them the details they needed to work on me.”
Reece shook his head. “It wasn’t like that,” he glared. “I got shafted, took the rap for an operation that went south and spent the rest of my career on a desk. On a nightshift. A fucking nightshift! Do you know what it’s like to be standing at the President’s shoulder one minute and manning a telephone the next?” He shook his head. “Of course you don’t. Rob Stone, the President’s Man! Drop him in shit and he comes out smelling of roses…”
“So you sold me out?” Stone asked. “Because you fucked up and I hadn’t?”
Reece sneered. “Commendations, secret assignments,” he paused. “Tooling around in that stupid car of yours. You’re a tough act to follow. It wasn’t so hard to take some cash and wave you goodbye.”
“I don’t buy it,” Stone said. “There’s more to it. You said you never signed up for the killing of his family. What then? The people who took me weren’t the same people as those trying to kill me. I only knew for certain when they ran us off my bike and gunned down the men in the Ford Taurus. They were government men. I’ve dug about and they were with the Secret Service. Were they in it with you? Did your deal go wrong?”
Reece laughed. He scratched at his stomach, his fingers reaching under his jacket. Stone moved sideways, but not fast enough. Reece had a retractable baton out and flicked it as he swung and caught Stone on top of his hand. He dropped the weapon, his hand recoiling involuntarily. Reece was out of the chair and onto him with the baton. Stone blocked, felt his forearm almost shatter under the blow. He kicked Reece in the knee and the man flinched. Stone kicked again and then got his hand into Reece’s throat. He was strong and gripped tightly. But he knew the secret to completing the move was to drop the man’s head forwards using his other hand as leverage. Reece knew this too and was leaning his head out of the way. Stone countered using the man’s momentum and pushed his chin hard, smashing the back of his head into the wall. Reece sagged to the floor amongst the broken frames and glass.
Stone stepped backwards and picked up the pistol. He could see that one of the photographs was of Reece standing beside the President. He shook his head. “You’re not fit to display that.”
Reece looked up at him rubbing the back of his head. The man looked beaten. “I took money to sell you out, Rob. I’m not proud. I knew were getting set up for something, but I had no idea it would be that. I had no idea they were going to assassinate his family. They promised they’d set you up with something, that they would give me the details and that I would be able to make a connection, arrest you for something big and get my career back.”
“And they didn’t tell you what?”
“I guessed it was bad,” Reece relented. He shifted and winced, some glass cutting into him. “They wanted to know so much about the nine-eleven memorial that I guessed what they were planning. Well, I figured they were going to try and kill the President. I never thought in a million years it would be his family. I told them I wanted out. Then they came for me one night. They shot me up with drugs and I woke up tied next to some Brit who was having his entire family fed to fucking alligators! They said my family would get the same. They drugged me and I woke up at the back of a bar in DC with an almighty hangover. I wasn’t even sure it had been real, that I hadn’t really dreamt it, but they sent photos to my phone. The sick fuckers! I got docked two weeks’ salary for going AWOL on what human resources thought was a massive bender.”
Stone shook his head. “But you had a change of heart,” he ventured. “At Kathy’s beach house. The men attacking us were contacts of yours with government connections. That’s why one of them tried to cover himself by picking up the spent shell cases.”
“I thought that they were planning to assassinate the President. I wasn’t going to let that happen, but I wasn’t going to risk my family’s lives either.” Reece looked at Stone. “Let me get back up, Rob.” Stone aimed the pistol between the man’s eyes and nodded. Reece shifted awkwardly on the glass, got back to his feet and collapsed into the chair. “I’m not proud of it, but I had taken enough money to know I wouldn’t be giving it back anytime soon.” He shrugged. “I’d spent so much of it, anyway. I thought that if I could get rid of you, then I could halt their plans. I’m sorry, but it was worth the collateral damage.”
“Thanks,” Stone said dryly. “So the guys at the beach…”
“Before that,” Reece interrupted. “The night you called in the killing at the house. The two guys in the Audi. They were private security. An ex-FBI agent and an ex-marine-turned bodyguard. Both as shit as each-other, so it turned out. The third, the guy impersonating the cop was one too. He was an ex-CIA hotshot, apparently. The people putting pressure on me knew that Kathy Newman had contacted you, they’d had your phone tapped for weeks. They knew that the time was right to make a move on you. It was a personal vendetta for the freak, the guy with the caved-in head and the artificial leg. He wanted you burned. It was so close to memorial day that I just knew it was POTUS. I never assumed it would be Marianne and the boys…”
“So you launched your own hit?” Stone shook his head. “So what then?”
Reece shrugged. “The security outfit wouldn’t play ball. You wasted three of their best men, so I made alternative arrangements. The men at the house were Secret Service, as you said. They followed you and the other lot wasted them on the road.”
“I never saw them before though.”
“You don’t walk the lower echelons anymore,” he paused, looking at him contemptuously. “I
don’t think you ever did.”
“So they turned guns for hire, just like that?”
“A two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand dollars to share as they saw fit, they turned pretty damned quick. Even joked that there might be a promotion or two in the chain once you were six feet under. One of them used his own civilian rifle. Generic ammo and no registration made it quite safe, but the other idiot used his service machine pistol. I think they thought it would be a quick in and out. Fire a few shots and they would be out of there.”
“What about Ramirez? I got the poor guy out of bed and into the office to help me with the internet data. Was he simply collateral damage?”
Reece shrugged. “I guess so. Sometimes it’s necessary. I needed to buy some time.”
“You did that?”
He nodded. “I was in deep.”
“His wife is due to give birth this week,” Stone said coldly. “She was five weeks pregnant. Now she’s got no husband, her child will have no father.”
“She was a good looker from what I remember. She’ll get her Puerto Rican claws into some guy sooner or later. It won’t take her long.”
Stone clenched his fist. The knuckle clicked. He wanted to break the knuckle on the man’s face. “How much did they give you to sell me out?”
“Three million,” Reece said. “They managed to hack a million back out of my offshore account when they guessed what I’d done. I paid those guys two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand, the first outfit two-hundred-thousand, then spent a fortune on relocating my family the three-thousand miles out here after leaving the service. That and setting up this venture.”
“That should still leave you a nice nest-egg,” Stone sneered. “What the hell did you think was happening on the island?”
“I don’t know. But that was some crazy shit they had going on there. The guy’s family were ripped apart. Those alligators were damned hungry.”
“What did they want from him?”
Reece shook his head. “Nothing. They didn’t ask him a damned thing. He told them he would sign over his bank, give them everything he had, but they weren’t interested.”
“His competitors wanted him to suffer,” said Stone. “They tendered bids to get the job done, have it streamed live to them through the internet. They would have sat in their snug with beers and popcorn. Or wontons and rice wine, whatever Chinese billionaires eat and drink in their snugs.”
“Jesus…” Reece trailed off. He looked at Stone and asked, “If you’re here, does that mean they’re shut down?” He seemed more confident at the thought of the prospect. “Look, I do have a nest-egg. There’s three-quarters of a million in an off-shore account. It’s all yours if you walk away and say nothing.”
Stone said nothing. He kept the pistol on him, but edged towards the window where he could see a collection of shiny black sedans and SUV’s pulling up outside the coffee shop. He was down to just a few minutes now. He reached into his pocket and took out the Taser. Without a further word he fired and two darts attached to wires shot out and stuck into Reece’s chest. He arced the current and Reece jolted in his chair, his feet kicking out wildly. Stone took his finger off the trigger and the current ceased. He put the Taser on the desk and took out the handcuffs. Stone cuffed his right wrist, pulled his arm around his back then cuffed the left wrist. He then used two cable ties on the man’s ankles and secured him to the chair. Reece was starting to protest and Stone picked up the Taser and shocked him again. He dropped it back down onto the desk and thumbed the screen of his iPhone. It was a non-contract phone, and there were only three pieces of stored information on it. One was the recording of his entire time in the office through the concealed fish-eye lens and built-in microphone in the button of his shirt. The second was a video recording of his full statement accounting for the events through to leaving the island. In the statement he gave details of a locker where he had stored a USB drive containing the bank details and IP addresses of those involved in the dark web bidding. It was his defence, proof of his innocence. The iPhone had already automatically backed up the film to iCloud. Stone had contacted Max Power and given him the passcode to retrieve the information and set about uploading it to various websites. The film of Reece’s confession was to be loaded to YouTube multiple times, under various guises. Max’s work would be done from a laptop Stone had purchased solely for the task and using only Wi-Fi from places Max would reconnoitre first. Max had been adamant about maintaining anonymity, and Stone had both agreed and respected that. The third piece of information on the iPhone was a detailed video report by Kathy Newman. This was also destined for the same treatment and Max had already uploaded to a pulse server where it would complete the upload when a metatag used in Stone’s upload was activated. Kathy had not only corroborated his story on film, but had agreed to tell everything she knew in person to the FBI and the Secret Service when the time came.
Reece was unconscious. He was perspiring and his breathing was shallow. Stone looked back at the street. Agents wearing blue vests with FBI written on them in yellow were gathering, and two plain clothed agents were crossing over the street, both talking animatedly on cell phones. Stone took out the envelope and dropped the iPhone inside. He had already addressed it for the attention of the FBI lead officer and he sealed it with the pre-sealed tape strip.
He slipped the pistol back into his waistband and left the office without looking back. He had earlier reconnoitred the rear of the building and had noted the fire escape and drain downpipes. He knew he needed what he had assumed to be a lavatory window on the third floor, so he crossed the corridor and climbed the flight of stairs and made for the rear of the building. The lavatory was mixed sex and consisted of three cubicles. Stone figured it was a communal affair, one on each floor. However, he needed to put some distance between himself and the FBI, and it had been a good call as he could already hear several sets of feet bounding up the stairs and voices shouting orders on the lower floors.
Stone opened the window, and this was the other reason for choosing this floor. This window backed onto the fire escape and looked large enough to climb through. The lower two floors were half-tilt windows. He eased himself out and onto the metal fire escape. He walked to the end and climbed over the rails, caught hold of the stanchion and slid down a floor. Next, he got his feet onto the lower window sill and climbed hand-over-hand to the drain downpipe. It was a thirty-foot drop to the alleyway below, and he kept his feet against the wall and lowered himself down, part climbing, part sliding until he dropped the last few feet to the ground.
He unlocked the eight-year-old Ford pickup truck and climbed inside. Behind the seats were two holdalls. One full of money and the other with everything to his name. He was going to lose himself in Alaska for the summer. There was every chance he would be vindicated soon, once the FBI and Secret Service had the USB and the video confession of Andrew Reece and the corroboration of Stone’s statement by Kathy Newman. But for now, he needed to put distance between himself and the life he once had. He couldn’t face the President yet. Doubted he would ever return to his previous life. He had recalled once hearing that everyone in Alaska was running from something. And the thought was appealing to him more and more. Even if deep down he knew he was only running from himself.
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A P Bateman
