Helius Legacy

by S Alexander O'keefe

  Caine dropped to the other side of the fence just as a second cop dropped into the yard behind him. He could hear one of the cops screaming at the other “Get it off me, goddamn it,” as he ran across an enclosed parking lot behind a second warehouse.

  Caine looked down the three-foot space that separated the two buildings. Two squad cars were cruising the street out in front. They had the entire street lit up with their floodlights. Caine sprinted across the rear lot behind the second building to a steel fence on the far side. There was a steep concrete slope on the other side of the fence and a series of concrete structures at the bottom. For a second, Caine didn’t recognize what he was looking at, and then he realized it was a retention basin for storm runoff. The basin should run into a culvert at the other end. That might provide him a route past the police cordon.

  Caine looked up at the top of the fence. Unlike the last fence, this one had barbwire at the top. He ran along the fence trying to find an opening. About twenty yards away, the steel mesh had separated from the pipe at the bottom. He dropped to his knees, pulled up the fence, and slid underneath. When he reached the other side, he scrambled down the steep concrete slope into the retention basin and then ran in between the concrete structures. As he was running by one of the blocks, his left knee clipped the edge of the concrete. The pain in his knee was agonizing, slowing his gait to a hobbling run.

  The retention basin opened into a wide concrete culvert. Caine jogged along the bottom of the culvert until he found a narrow concrete stairway leading up the sloped wall. He jogged up the steps until he could see the street through the gated fence at the top. The street was clear, but he knew it wouldn’t stay that way as he grabbed the fence and prepared for yet another climb. It wasn’t necessary. The gate swung open.

  “Thank God for small favors,” Caine said aloud and jogged across the street, ignoring the pain in his knee. He continued his steady jog for another four blocks to the east, and then slowed as he approached a retail center and a busy city street. If he could grab a taxi or a bus, he would be out of the danger zone.

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-FOUR

  Austin, Texas

  December 7, 1999 / Tuesday / 1:00 a.m.

  Andrea’s wrists were handcuffed in front of her. That gave her some mobility, but escape was impossible. A three-foot chain connected the cuffs to a steel pipe, which passed from the wall behind her into the concrete floor.

  There were no windows in the room. The only light came from a single phosphorescent lamp hanging from the ceiling. Only one of the four light tubes was working, and the weak yellow light barely illuminated the center of the room. A folding chair was pushed against the wall at the far end of the room, and the area around the chair was littered with fast-food wrappers. The corner of the room where she was confined was almost completely dark, and the concrete floor that she was sitting on was cold and hard.

  Andrea stared at the dimly lit outline of the door at the other end of the room. What were they waiting for? The fear of the coming interrogation warred with her impatience. She rested the back of her head against the cold brick wall behind her and stared up at the corrugated steel ceiling fifty feet overhead. She had to get ready for this.

  Andrea knew she had to give her captors a reason to keep her alive. She could only think of one story that would get her there: she had to convince them that John Caine remained a deadly threat despite her capture, and that he cared enough about her to trade his silence for her life. The question was how to do it?

  Andrea finally settled on a simple stratagem. She would paint a picture using the facts that she knew, or could surmise, with almost absolute certainty—a picture that would scare the hell out of whoever was driving the bus at Helius. Andrea reviewed what she knew and prayed that it would be enough.

  Richie’s voicemail said that a property was at the core of the mystery—a property that had to be incredibly valuable. He also said that Caine was the rightful owner of the property, which meant there was some kind of title defect in the ownership chain. Although Andrea couldn’t be certain, she was convinced the defect had to be in an old deed, a very old deed; otherwise, it would have been discovered years ago. If Andrea could persuade them that Caine knew these facts, and that he was continuing to pull together the remaining pieces necessary to complete the picture, they’d have to deal with him.

  The next step in Andrea’s strategy was more complicated. She had to convince her captors that she was a vital playing card in any negotiation with Caine. To get there, Andrea needed to persuade them that John Caine was in love with her.

  An hour later, the lights in the room went off and the door opened. It was dark, but Andrea could tell that only one person had entered the room. She couldn’t see his features in the darkness, but she could see he was wearing a suit and that he had a full head of hair.

  The man picked up the folding chair from the opposite corner of the room, carefully brushed it off and then sat down about three yards away from her. For what seemed an eternity, he just sat watching her. Andrea desperately wanted to ask the man what he wanted and what they were going to do with her. She even thought about launching into her story, just in case he’d decided to kill her without an interrogation, but she didn’t. She forced herself to wait.

  Andrea knew from years of negotiations that patience was a powerful tool. If she spoke first, it would be a sign of weakness, desperation even. She had to wait for the man to begin the questioning process. Once it began, she had to limit her responses to the questions posed and give up nothing more.

  After five minutes that seemed like five hours, the man spoke, quiet admiration in his voice.

  “Very good, Ms. Marenna.”

  Andrea didn’t respond.

  “That is your name, correct?”

  She detected a slight European accent: Austrian or German. It was the man from the bar.

  “Yes,” she answered, trying not to show fear.

  “You and Mr. Caine have led us on quite a chase. Mr. Caine, in particular, has been quite an adversary.”

  Andrea waited.

  “That is his name, correct? John Caine?”

  “Yes.”

  Although Andrea could not see him smile in the dark at her restraint, she could almost feel it. This man had interrogated people before. She could sense it. The realization shook her. There were only two kinds of people who regularly interrogated people: Law enforcement people and professional torturers.

  “Where is Mr. Caine now?”

  “I don’t know. As you may recall, I wasn’t given a lot of time to say good-bye when we left the bar.”

  Her interrogator chuckled, an urbane, likable sound. “Indeed. Now, Ms. Marenna, I need to find out certain things. If you tell me what I need to know voluntarily, we will both be much happier. Do you understand that?”

  The threat was quiet and polite, but it was crystal clear. Andrea hesitated, and then answered, “Yes.”

  Over the next hour and a half, the man asked Andrea a series of questions without a break. She stayed as close as possible to her predetermined script. Yes, they had figured out the basic parameters of Helius’s problem. There was a title defect in a key Helius property. If the defect came to light, Helius would lose the property. They had figured out that Caine must have an interest in the property, directly or indirectly, and that Helius intended to prevent him from asserting that interest. No, Caine did not know which property it was, but he was working on that angle. She intimated that it wouldn’t take him long, noting that Helius had recently filed a reporting document with the Securities and Exchange Commission listing every material asset the company owned. With that starting place, Caine could run down the major properties on the list and pull whatever reports were necessary to find the deed. It was only a matter of time.

  Where did she fit into all of this? From what she could figure out, it had something to do with Richard Steinman. He apparently discovered the deed and was going to publish the whole story in the
newspaper. No, she hadn’t received anything from Steinman, but then she’d had very little time to check her mail lately. Then he hit her with it directly.

  “Now, what about you, Ms. Marenna? Where do you fit in Mr. Caine’s grand scheme?”

  She knew this is where she had to step lightly. She couldn’t overplay or underplay her hand. Success or failure would depend on how good her interrogator was. She framed her response based upon the assumption that he was the best.

  “John … I mean Caine … He … We obviously don’t know each other very well. There hasn’t been time. John … Mr. Caine will do whatever is best for John Caine.”

  Her voice had started out haltingly, but then she’d rushed ahead as if she wanted to distance herself from the brief emotional window that she had unintentionally opened in the first part of her answer.

  Although her interrogator continued to question her on other minor matters, after this exchange she detected a change. He was less interested in her answers. About ten minutes later, he ended the session.

  “Is there anything you need, Ms. Marenna?”

  “Yes. I need to go to the bathroom.”

  “Very well.”

  Then he left the room.

  Austin, Texas

  December 7, 1999 / Tuesday / 2:15 a.m.

  Paquin closed the door to the darkened room and slowly walked across the dirty gray concrete floor of the warehouse toward the office on the far side. Caine and the woman had figured out the key facts. They knew there was a potential title defect in one of Helius’s most valuable properties. They also knew that John Caine was somewhere in the chain of title. Armed with this knowledge, the two of them were a deadly threat to Helius. If Caine went public with the knowledge, a swarm of investigative reporters would scour the public records until they found the title defect.

  Mason had told him that the disclosure of a potential title defect would derail Helius’s upcoming bond issuance, costing the company $100 million in annual interest savings. Although Paquin could understand why Mason would be willing to kill Caine and the woman, and the reporter as well, over that amount of money, he suspected there was more to it than that. Whatever else was in play had something to do with Mason personally—something that could bury him.

  Caine’s knowledge left Mason with only two options. He could try to buy Caine and Marenna’s silence, or he could have them both killed. Paquin knew that Mason would never accept the first option. The risk was too great. That meant he had to figure out a way to find and kill John Caine, and he had do it quickly. The question was whether Andrea Marenna could be used, willingly or unwillingly, to help them accomplish that objective.

  During the interrogation, Paquin had tried to piece together the relationship between Caine and the woman, without revealing what he was after. The woman’s answers to the more direct questions had been evasive but revealing. It was clear she had feelings for the man. She tried to convince him that Caine wouldn’t put himself at risk to try to save her, despite the fact that this could result in her own death. Her answers could have been a clever effort at reverse psychology, but even if that was the case, there was something there. Paquin could hear it in her voice.

  Paquin recognized that Caine might not have similar feelings for the woman, but the evidence suggested he did. Caine had probably learned everything he needed to know from the woman in their first day together. Yet he’d stayed with her. Even more telling, on two occasions Caine had put himself in harm’s way to rescue her. His conduct could have been motivated by an old-fashioned sense of chivalry, instead of a romantic interest, but in either case it didn’t matter. Paquin was all but certain that Caine would be looking for an opportunity to rescue the woman. He just needed to be sent the right invitation.

  As he worked through the outline of a plan, Paquin realized that the rogue variable in the whole equation was Caine’s background. His source in the Pentagon had been unable to provide him with any additional information, and the inquiries he’d made through other sources had all come back with nothing. At this point, all they knew was that Caine had the skills of a professional killer.

  The knowledge gap bothered Paquin because it created a risk. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about it, except prepare an ironclad trap, which is exactly what he intended to do. Whatever John Caine’s abilities, he would not escape this time.

  Paquin walked by Julian Anders as he approached the office. The big man was sitting in an old chair just outside the office drinking a bottle of Coke.

  “Why hide your face, Boss? You know the bitch is toast,” Anders said, a grin playing across his face.

  Paquin continued walking, but he knew where Anders was going with the question. He wanted to rape and brutalize the woman. Paquin was a killer, but he considered himself a gentleman. Anders needed to know that the girl was off limits until John Caine was dead.

  “People who know they are ‘toast,’ Mr. Anders, are generally not inclined to cooperate, or alternatively, they are too cooperative. The captive who believes that he has a chance of survival is always a better source of information.”

  “Why, you don’t have to worry about that. Y’all just leave it to me. I’ll have that little honey singing like—”

  Paquin stopped and cut off Anders’s comment.

  “No, Mr. Anders, you will not. No one will touch the prisoner, or cause the prisoner one moment of discomfort, without my say-so. We need her alive and well, both physically and psychologically, until Mr. Caine is a confirmed kill.”

  Paquin stopped, turned, and looked directly at Anders.

  “I trust that we’re clear on that,” Paquin said, his voice quiet and without inflection.

  Anders colored a little, but he continued to smile.

  “For sure, Boss. For sure.”

  Paquin turned to the Nicaraguan, Juan, who was resting on a cot outside the office.

  “Juan, bring the portable toilet to the woman. Put the longer chain on the cuffs so she can use it.”

  Then Paquin retrieved his valise from the office and left the warehouse.

  Anders intercepted Juan when he was carrying the small portable toilet over to the room where Andrea was confined.

  “I’ll bring it to the woman, Juan, don’t trouble yourself,” Anders said and took the toilet away from Juan before he could answer. Juan shrugged and walked back to the office.

  A smile played across Anders’s face as he opened the door to the room where the woman was locked up. Anders liked hurting people. He liked the fear in their eyes when he came after them, especially when the victim was a woman.

  In this case, Anders had a particular desire to humiliate and abuse Andrea Marenna. He was still enraged about the fight in the garage with Caine, and Vargas had made a point of not letting him forget it. Anders intended to make the woman pay for the slight, inch by painful inch. As for Caine, Anders would get to him later—after he’d told him about every single nightmare the woman had suffered before he killed her.

  Anders turned the light off when he entered the room, but left the door open, allowing a path of weak light to cross the room. He strolled across the darkened room and placed the portable toilet in the middle of the strip of light, but stayed in the dark himself.

  “Well, ma’am, it seems you have some business to do on this fine throne that I have so graciously delivered.”

  Then he stood there as if waiting for her to come over to the toilet and sit down.

  Andrea could only see the outline of the man’s big form in the dark, but the guttural drawl, now laced with a disgusting leer, was unforgettable. It was the monster who’d tried to kidnap her in the apartment building.

  Where Andrea had sensed a calculated ruthlessness in the man who’d interrogated her earlier, this man was different. For him, cruelty was an end in itself. It was something he enjoyed. For the first time since the bar, she was terrified. Her terror mounted as he began to push the plastic toilet closer to her with his foot.

  “Oh, t
hat’s right, you can’t reach this, can you? Well, let me just give you a hand,” the man said, a smile in his voice.

  When he was within a step of her, another figure entered the room. The second man stepped through the light coming from the door and stood in the shadows at the far end of the room. The big man turned to look at the newcomer. Andrea could sense his anger at the interruption.

  She couldn’t see the other man’s features in the dark, but his outline was visible. He was half a foot shorter than the man in front of her, but he was wider, with a weightlifter’s physique. Andrea suspected it was the Hispanic man who’d chased them after they’d escaped from Richie’s apartment building.

  “You forgot the key and the longer chain,” the man near the door said. The voice had an undercurrent of amused provocation.

  “So drop the fucking thing right there. I’ll deal with it.”

  “No can do. Juan asked me to take over his job, and you know me. I take my orders seriously, particularly when they come from the big boss,” the Hispanic man said.

  Andrea could sense the tension between the two men. They hated each other. For a second, she thought the big man was going to start toward the other man, even turn it into a fight, but he restrained himself. She had an idea that the only thing holding him back was the other man’s reference to the “big boss.” Somehow she knew that the Hispanic man was referring to the man with the European accent.

  The big man kicked the portable toilet over on its side and walked toward the door.

  “That’s fine by me, Mex. This work fits you.”

  Andrea could almost feel the antagonism as the two men passed each other in the dark.

  The Hispanic man made a point of staying in the shadow. He disconnected the chain from her manacles and dropped it on the floor. Then he reconnected a second chain that was almost twice as long as the first. It would allow her to stand and move around about three feet in either direction. When the Latino man finished, he reached over, righted the portable toilet, and pushed it within her reach. Although the man was respectful, Andrea didn’t sense any willingness to help her.