Cog in the Machine

by Nigel Shinner

  “I’m sorry that you feel that way. I didn’t know how you-”

  “Of course you didn’t know. You were too busy doing what you wanted to do. You didn’t give a fuck about me or Mum, or even Bob for that matter. It’s all about you. Well, not anymore.” With a straight arm, he aimed the firearm at the centre of Dom’s chest.

  “Don’t do this, Vincent,” Dom pleaded. It was not so much for the sake of his life. He had given up thinking of himself, but more for how his little brother would feel for the rest of his days knowing he had killed the last of his family.

  “Scared, are we?” The face was no longer that of Dom’s flesh and blood. It was the face of the Boss’s faithful stooge.

  “Only for you.” Dom meant it.

  “Don’t be, big brother, I’m all grown up now.”

  Dom threw his gun to the floor.

  Vinnie glanced down at the weapon as it clunked heavily against the bare boards.

  That was all the distraction Dom needed. He launched himself at the man with the gun. He could no longer think of the aggressor as his little brother, he had to think of removing the danger from his path. Vinnie was taken off guard.

  Dom slammed him into the door. There was swinging of the gun hand. It made contact. The defensive strike caught Dom on the cheek. It unbalanced him but rage was his ally. They struggled together, trading blows, toe-to-toe. Dom was the bigger, more physically able of the two. Vinnie was quicker and more agile. Anger, resentment, adrenalin all added to fuel the confrontation. There was a chance to win the gun. Dom took it. The pair grappled over the weapon. Four hands clawed at the illegal Beretta, putting it between them.

  A finger fell on the trigger.

  The sound of a single gunshot felt like an explosion in the enclosed space. It rattled the room. The searing pain of muzzle flash and hot lead melted instantly through Dom’s flesh. He fell to his knees as Georgia screamed her desperate concern. She could see the blood. Lots of it.

  Chapter 71

  Dom clawed at the bloodstained material of his ripped t-shirt. The red of his blood stained his hands where he had initially gripped the wound tightly. He lifted the hem to see the entry point. There was none, just an angry gash through the surface of the skin on his belly. Blood seeped out but not in a quantity that would be life threatening.

  Concerned for himself, he had neglected the others in the room. Dom looked at Georgia. She had tears rolling down her pale grubby cheeks. Other than the trauma of what she had experienced that day, there were no visible injuries.

  He turned his head toward Vinnie. This was a different story.

  He had collapsed at the foot of the wall. His breathing was rapid. Beads of sweat grew and fell from his forehead. His hands clenched across his mid-torso, clutching something as though it were the most precious item in the world. It was. It was his life.

  Dom leapt towards his brother but this was beyond him. The same bullet that had ripped through Dom’s epidermis had entered just below Vinnie’s ribcage and exited through his left shoulder blade. The 9mm round had clearly passed through a lung and caused other internal injuries on its relentless path through flesh and blood.

  “Vinnie!” Dom yelped.

  “You…” Vinnie’s words were punctuated by a series of rapid breaths. “Shot… me…”

  “I… I… didn’t mean to…”

  “You… never… do…” Vinnie’s eyes started to close; his pupils flickering against the light in the room as though it burned his eyes.

  “VINNIE!” Dom screamed, trying desperately to keep him this side of death, “we’re going to get you out of here.”

  “I… I’m… not…” The gaps between the words lengthened as the volume grew softer. “Go… ing… any… where.”

  As the last word fell into the room, the last breath of Vinnie Carver escaped with it. His body slumped and slide sideways down the wall.

  “NOOO!” Dom cried. The only blood relative he had left lay dead before him. All chance of redemption lost. The chasm in his soul opened a little wider. The pain of lost years stung a little harder. Sometimes family was all anybody had left in this life. Dom had nothing.

  He lifted the lifeless form of his brother and attempted to hug him, as though all the lost love could be returned this close to death. Dom bumped his forehead against Vinnie’s, trying to feel the kindred bond one last time. All moments became precious. Even crouching on the filthy floor of an underground brothel, with a gunshot corpse in his arms had some resonance about it.

  Georgia joined him. Lifting her bound hands over Dom’s head, she pulled him in for comfort, both sitting on the floor for an undetermined amount of time, sobbing together.

  When Dom felt he could cry no more, he broke their embrace and laid his brother to the floor. He felt sure he would no doubt cry some more but for now, there were more important issues.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he pulled a lock-knife from his pocket and cut through the cable ties tethering Georgia’s wrists.

  She immediately pulled the tape from her mouth. “Ahh. What next?”

  “I don’t know,” he said honestly, “I’m making this up as I go.”

  “Where you go - I go,” she said, smiling for the first time in an eternity, although there was no happiness to be found in her expression.

  He knew she meant it. How long it would last was another question for another time. For now, it was just the two of them.

  Chapter 72

  “Do you think he’ll bring my little girl home?” McQuillan looked anything but the head of a crime syndicate. His middle-aged face had become ancient over the last few hours. Lines were deeper, features were softer, and the rings around his eyes were darker.

  “I’m sure he will.” Richards glanced at his watch. It was not his watch he wanted to look at. He wanted to pull out his phone and see if the job had been completed. Patience was the key. God knows, he had waited for so long already, a little longer wouldn’t hurt.

  “This is all too much now, Dick,” McQuillan said.

  “It’ll be fine. Just a blip, you’ll see.” Richards paced the office.

  “This is the last deal. I’m not doing anymore.”

  “You’ll change your mind in a month or two once the cash comes rolling in. The bigger the deal, the bigger the risk – isn’t that what you said?”

  “I know, I know, but I didn’t expect to risk my Georgia.”

  “You didn’t risk her.” Richards was throwing out conversation just to kill the time, and to ease McQuillan’s fragile conscience. “Carver risked her. We need to be rid of him.”

  “It was your idea to bring him in. Why are you saying this now?” McQuillan’s eyes narrowed. Some of his shrewd focus had been triggered.

  “Yeah, but you said he could drive.”

  “He can, but I thought that you had plans for him. I thought it was for the racing and not a money run.”

  “It needed to happen.”

  “Well thank God I intervened.” McQuillan had made the swap and sent someone else to deliver the cash.

  McQuillan sat back in his chair for the first time since Georgia had gone missing. His mind was overflowing with the details of the plan that had just been executed. There seemed to be too many contrived changes for something so relatively easy.

  “Why did you do it? How did you know?”

  “Somebody had gotten wind of the shipment and we needed to make some changes last minute. I know more about my business than you think,” said McQuillan.

  “I don’t think you do.” Richards’ reply was stone cold. “Not one little bit.”

  There was a knock at the door.

  Gary came in and whispered into Richards’ ear. Richards nodded at him, whispering something in return.

  Gary nodded and left the room.

  “What was that about?” McQuillan demanded, suddenly realising that some of the things happening within his organisation were no longer under his control.

  “There’s been some gun
fire at the meeting point. Somebody spilled to one of our local contacts. It doesn’t sound good.”

  “Georgia?” McQuillan stood. The concern was back on his craggy face.

  “What about her?” Richards muttered nonchalantly.

  “Is she ok?”

  “Who cares?” Richards drew his gun.

  McQuillan gazed at the ominous hole at the end of the weapon. It was not the first time a gun had been pointed at him, but it was the first time that he genuinely feared the person holding the gun. The fear didn’t last for long.

  The muzzle flash was the last thing McQuillan’s brain registered before the round made the short trip from the end of the barrel to the back wall of the office - via McQuillan’s forehead.

  Chapter 73

  All life had changed. There was nothing of the old life apart from a few shattered memories smeared with the crimson tang of blood. Every minute from here on in would feel like a victory that could be snatched away in an instant. Taken back and thrown away.

  Dom pointed the car toward the clearest lane and accelerated. He was not driving. He was aiming. Taking aim at the target he wanted to kill. It was a pointless effort. He wouldn’t find the target. The target would find him. Eventually.

  The sting in his gut from the flesh wound burned with each movement. Blood-soaked fabric clung to the raw patch, occasionally peeling away as the momentum of the vehicle forced him to move, constantly reminding him of his own mortality in the game of life and death.

  He played to win but he was short on available moves.

  Georgia hunched in the passenger seat, oblivious of the journey. Her feet were curled onto the seat as her arms hugged them tight, her beautiful face pale and gaunt with grubby marks on both cheeks and forehead. If the eyes were the windows to the soul, her soul was now a black featureless hole, devoid of any light. Something had died inside her.

  “I’m taking you home.” Dom kept his tone low and light.

  There was no response.

  “Or do you want me to take you to your father.”

  A grunt.

  “I’ll take you to the warehouse.”

  A single nod.

  He reached out to touch her hand. She flinched in anticipation of his contact.

  She’d been through a lot. They both had.

  Dom concentrated on the road, weaving the car effortlessly through the traffic. The city he stared out at, through the dirt-smeared windscreen, had also changed. It was no longer the city he had grown up in. The city where he had gone to school, made friends, made a name for himself. Such a big name. The city of his first drunken night out, of his first sexual encounters with a local girl, his first brawl in the street which ended with his nose being broken. These roads were familiar, so were the landmarks, the Clifton Suspension Bridge, the SS Great Britain, the Avon Gorge; familiar but they were no longer relevant. Maybe prison had robbed him of all the fond memories he had been longing to relive upon his release. Prison seemed like another lifetime ago, like this city. All that was once alive was now rotting flesh. Dead, and to be mourned over once the world stop turning. Whenever that was.

  The fast-moving urban roads had given way to slower, speed-calming suburban streets. Mach Tech was not far away. Dom made a detour.

  He stopped the car outside yet another familiar place. A place where too many memories had lived and died, and there were so many more yet to be extinguished.

  Switching off the ignition, he gazed at Georgia. She had barely moved, almost as though he was transporting a marble statue. Would she even be able to step out of the car when the time came?

  Dom did get out. He walked up the drive past the tired old Vauxhall, its paintwork scratched and dulled with age. His mind went back to when it had been brand new, with only thirty miles on the clock. In the following years, Bob would bundle him and his mother into the car and take day trips down to Western-Super-Mare and the Gower, or long weekends to Devon, Cornwall and Pembrokeshire. Anywhere there was a beach to dip a toe into the sea. Good times, fun times. Dom was in his early twenties back then and still a wild young man who liked fast cars and faster women, but those trips away would allow him to escape from himself, to leave the pressure of city life behind. To leave behind the pressure on him to impress those who knew of his skill behind the wheel and wanted to exploit it. The trick wasn’t to escape from the bad influences around him but to escape from his own ego. How he would like to walk on a beach once more.

  Approaching the door, he noticed it wasn’t shut properly. Probably left open when Bob was taken.

  Dom pushed the door and saw some brief signs of a scuffle. The hallway table was knocked over. The bowl where Bob kept his keys had smashed; the keys sitting within a circle of broken Willow Pattern china.

  Reaching down he picked them up. Maybe there was a move to be gained here. There was a chance. He decided to take it. He might not get another.

  Chapter 74

  The black BMW covered the length of the car park before stopping directly outside the main doors to Mach Tech, in case a swift exit was necessary. The likelihood of which was high. He admitted.

  Dom switched off the engine and turned toward Georgia.

  She didn’t move. She didn’t say anything. She just stayed where she was.

  “It’s time to get out of the car now.” Dom spoke to her as though speaking to a strange child, trying to encourage without frightening her.

  She reached for the door handle. All her movements seemed to be in slow motion. Her climb from the car was even slower.

  Dom was reluctant to aid her but gently gripped her by the arm all the same. Georgia didn’t react. She allowed it to happen.

  With everything that had happened over the last twenty-four hours, Dom was surprised to be able to just stroll right through the front door. There had been gunfire, betrayal, mistrust, kidnap and murder, but somehow the place was still open for business as if nothing had happened.

  Opting for the lift instead of the stairs, Dom guided Georgia toward the glass box.

  Her head lifted to take in her surroundings. Maybe the familiarity of the place would help bring her back. It was a slim chance but still a chance.

  The lift opened onto the mezzanine of the reception area. Dom made Georgia sit in one of the black faux leather and chrome chairs in the waiting area. He felt it would be better to bring her father to her and not the other way around.

  Tapping in the entry code for the security doors, he headed straight to McQuillan’s office.

  The office door was slightly ajar. Already, Dom was on guard. This somehow disturbed him further. McQuillan’s office door was always closed.

  With some trepidation, Dom pushed the door. His hand was gripping the gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans. While he was prepared, he would never be ready enough. He was not hardened to this way of life. In criminal terms, he had just levelled up.

  The office was empty. No McQuillan in situ perched behind his desk riding the bridge of his empire.

  There was something else - something new - something disturbing.

  On the dark paintwork to the rear wall behind the desk was a splatter pattern. Dom flicked on the main light, recognising the stain as blood and brain matter. His gag reflex tripped. He held the meagre contents of his stomach down but he was suddenly aware that he was no longer alone. The door slammed shut.

  “I’m surprised to see you,” Richards said. There was no surprise in his tone.

  “What the fuck has happened here?” The intrusion shifted Dom’s focus from the debris on the wall to the pistol Richards was pointing.

  “Tommy has retired from the business.”

  “What?”

  “You know… retired. No longer in employment. Put out of his misery.”

  “Why?”

  Richards casually sauntered around the desk and flopped down into his former employer’s seat, putting his feet up on the glossy surface. The handgun was placed on the desk. “Well, he wanted out of all the smuggling,
shipping and wrongdoing but wanted to keep his machinery business going. That effectively puts me out of a job and so I decided to change the situation.”

  “What, and kill McQuillan? That’s extreme. And stupid.” Dom’s defiance was surfacing.

  “Why do you think it’s stupid?”

  “You can’t just shoot a man and expect to get away with it.”

  “You killed young Callum. Do you expect to get away with it?”

  Dom paced uncomfortably. “That was self-defence.”

  “You spiked him with the forklift truck and carried his body up the road. That’s a hit and run at best.” The retort was delivered with a laugh.

  “Did you kill McQuillan yourself or did you order one of your minions to do it?”

  “Most pleasurable trigger-pull of my life.” Richards was unrepentant.

  “You fucking bastard-”

  “I WOULD HOLD THE INSULTS, IF I WERE YOU.” The rage swelled into the corners of the room.

  Dom was silenced. A one hundred percent psychopath was sitting before him.

  “You have no idea the lengths I’ve had to go to for that fucking man. Always playing second fiddle to him. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Well, all that has changed now. He’s dead and gone and both businesses are mine to do with as I please.”

  “Are you the brains of this operation?” Dom risked the question.

  “You bet I am. More than you could possibly imagine.”

  Dom was completely out of moves. His next act could be his last.

  Chapter 75

  “Take a seat, but first, take the gun from your waistband. I wouldn’t want you to shoot your cock off,” Richards said, his hand hovering over his own gun as he asked.

  Dom reached for the firearm.

  “Slowly!” Richards picked up his gun and aimed at Dom. “Use the fingertips of your left hand and place it on the desk.”

  Dom did as he was told and took a seat.

  “So, what next?” Dom asked, but he wasn’t expecting an answer that would end with him walking away.

  “Who for, you or me?”