Dead Line

by Chris Ewan

  Then he twisted at the waist and swung with everything he had, whipping his arms forwards, snapping his wrists, the shotgun buzzing the air, stock speeding round, burying itself deep in the middle of the guy’s throat. If the shotgun was a baseball bat, then the guy’s Adam’s apple was a ball on a stick. Trent hit it out of the park. He shunted the guy’s trachea somewhere close to his spine. The guy gurgled and went down like his knees had disintegrated. He was dead before he’d hit the ground.

  Trent stepped over the guy’s red and blistered face, steam eddying round his ankles, and moved towards the doorway at the rear of the kitchen. But he stopped before he got there. He’d heard movement upstairs. Footsteps on ceiling boards. Fast treads on a staircase.

  Trent veered sideways and ducked into the space behind the open door, shotgun clutched tight. His shoulder brushed something sharp. He turned and saw a rack of chef’s knives fitted to the wall. They were held in place by a magnetic bar. He scanned the blades on offer. Selected a boning knife. It had a sharp point and a narrow blade. Eight inches of uncompromising steel. He held it up by his sweat-drenched brow.

  A blurred form rushed into the room, then stopped fast when he saw the guy down on the floor, his feet skidding on spilled water and spaghetti. It was the muscular guy with the watch and the tattoos.

  He turned to his right and Trent came around from behind the door and punched the boning knife into his neck.

  The knife went down to the hilt, through tissue and muscle and ligaments. It stopped when it hit something solid. Probably the guy’s scapula. The guy bared his teeth and yelled and blasted the door with the heel of his hand. The door came fast at Trent. It bounced off his steel-capped boots.

  He reached for another knife. It had a wide, tapered blade. Good for prepping raw chicken. Equally good for stabbing a guy in the lung.

  Trent thrust the knife into the guy’s chest, somewhere just south of where he’d been aiming for, just below where the guy’s heart would be. Blood was pooling and bubbling up from the wound in his neck. It was frothing from his lips. One painted arm hung loose and aimless from his shoulder. He pawed weakly at the knife in his chest with the other.

  Trent grabbed a third knife. A shorter one this time. He was prepared to slice it across the guy’s throat. But there was no need. The guy slumped to the floor, hand slipping from the knife handle. He tipped backwards onto his spaghetti-strewn companion and writhed and twitched and bled out across the grubby linoleum floor.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  Trent hoisted up the cuff of his jeans and slipped the knife inside his sock. It fitted flush against his shinbone. He rolled his jeans back down, grabbed his shotgun and set about searching the rest of the property.

  He moved swiftly but methodically. Doorway by doorway. Room by room.

  He started with the ground floor. There was a corridor behind the kitchen leading to some public toilets. One set for women. One for men. There were cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling. The paper-towel dispensers and the toilet-roll holders were empty. Every stall was unoccupied. There was nobody inside.

  The corridor opened into a large public dining room. It was filled with laminate tables and plastic chairs. There was litter on the floor. There were fake plants coated in dust and vending machines stocked with dated confectionery and defunct soda brands.

  A long L-shaped counter occupied the front of the room, close to the patio doors. A cash register was positioned on it. The drawer was open. There was no money inside. Beneath the cash register was a smudged glass display case, also empty. Behind the counter was a serving hatch that gave access to the kitchen.

  There was nothing in the room for Trent. He doubled back into the corridor and mounted the stairs, one tread at a time, scanning the hallway above. He found a bathroom that had been used recently. There were gels and soaps in the shower stall. A damp towel behind the door. Rolls of spare toilet paper stacked up on the floor.

  On either side of the bathroom was a bedroom. Each bedroom contained two beds. They had metal frames and thin striped mattresses. They had stained pillows and expedition-style sleeping bags. Towels were drying on the ends of the frames. A black ski mask had been discarded on one of the mattresses.

  Four beds. Four men. Trent had two more to find. And they weren’t inside the building.

  He moved back downstairs, his shotgun prowling ahead of him, listening hard for any giveaway creaks or squeaks. The two corpses were tangled around one another on the kitchen floor. Trent didn’t believe either of the men was Xavier. They’d been too easy to overcome. The guy he’d talked to on the phone was smart and resourceful and cunning.

  He stepped around the spilled water and the coagulated spaghetti and the slowly pooling blood, and gathered up the assault rifle that was leaning against the wall. He emptied it of ammo, tossing the box magazine into the corner of the room, and moved out onto the sunlit patio, leaving the stove ring burning a livid red.

  He hurried at a stoop towards the cornfield, flung the rifle far out into the middle of the stalks, then ran in a crouch towards the timber building with the serving hatch. He flattened himself against the heated boards that smelt faintly of creosote. He swivelled fast and aimed his shotgun into the interior. But he saw only bare timber.

  There was a gravel pathway to his left, leading through some overgrown shrubbery. Black rubber cables ran along the path, connected to a set of electricity sockets fitted to the exterior of the timber outbuilding. Trent remembered what Viktor had said about the chamber where he’d been held. The arc lights and the heater he’d mentioned would need to be connected to an electricity supply somehow. The gang could use a generator, he supposed, but that would be noisy and dangerous inside a cave. This way made more sense. Trent wedged the shotgun stock into his shoulder and set off along the path, tracking the cables.

  The shrubs became more overgrown and tangled the further he went. The foliage hadn’t been trimmed back in a long time. He had to lever branches aside with the shotgun barrel, as if he was some kind of army grunt stalking through an exotic jungle.

  There was an unpredictable jitter in his hands. A fast hum in his ears. He’d killed two men. Killed them brutally. Without hesitation. Without mercy.

  He’d done it for Aimée. For himself, too. He had no regrets, felt no guilt, but he couldn’t pretend he was unfazed. There was a stale, acid taste in his mouth, a sickly bolus lodged in his throat. He was damp with sweat, short of breath. He had a sense of unreality, as if everything were happening too fast or too slow, his vision too sharp, his hearing too acute. Perhaps it didn’t help that he hadn’t slept properly in days. Maybe mental exhaustion was setting in, making the world around him appear oddly dreamlike.

  He eased aside a waxy, out-of-control fatsia bush with his body-weight and found himself in a small clearing. There was grass here. It was yellow and straggly and trampled underfoot. There was an old wooden noticeboard, completely blank. There was the entrance to a cave.

  The opening was wide and high and arched. The rock outside was a reddish tan. It was pocked and fragmented and powdery, fringed with greenery and stunted pines.

  The electricity cables weaved inside it.

  Trent paced towards the edge of the opening, his legs feeling stiff and ungainly, and squatted low. He rubbed his face on the top of his shirtsleeve. Then he leaned sideways and peered inside.

  To his left, beneath the cover of the overhanging rock, the cables snaked towards a pair of plastic extension reels. There were more plugs inserted into the sockets on the reels. More cables running away from them.

  Trent could track the cables for no more than ten feet before the darkness swallowed them entirely. He could see nothing else. Hear nobody close.

  He took a moment, then stepped into the cave. His fingers felt around the shotgun barrel for the torch, hunting for the recessed switch. He located it under the pad of his middle finger. Made sure his grip didn’t stray.

  He edged forwards. The cave interior was chill
and damp and the air tasted metallic and stale. The silence was mournful, like stepping into an empty cathedral. There was only blackness ahead and above, thick and absolute. It absorbed him completely.

  He tightened his finger on the shotgun trigger and risked a pulse of torchlight. It revealed glistening rock folds, pale white, like melted wax, and an iron handrail corroded with rust.

  He levered the shotgun upwards and flashed the torch again. A field of stalactites loomed overhead. They were long and thin and slick with mineral deposits. They looked like a rainstorm that had been frozen in time, or like some kind of medieval torture device that was waiting to drop down from above.

  Part of the show caves, Trent supposed. And not something Viktor had mentioned.

  He turned and walked steadily back towards the pearly sunlight at the entrance to the cave. He moved over to the electricity reels, then followed the cables until just after the darkness consumed them. He pointed his shotgun down at the floor. Flashed his torch. The cables weren’t there. He spun to his right. Switched the torch on briefly. No cables. Tried his left and fired the bulb and saw the wires winding away.

  He raised the shotgun, snatched a breath of cool air and aimed a brief yellow flare of torchlight into the clotted darkness. It showed a ragged, slanted fissure in the middle of the curving rock wall. The gap was very narrow. Trent had to twist sideways to fit through. Abrasive stone chewed at his arms and back. He worked the torch again. Saw that the way ahead was doglegged, the pinched channel kinking to the right, the cables kinking with it.

  Trent ducked his head and led with his shotgun, keeping his back pressed against the rock. The damp stone could be his guide. He didn’t want to use the torch too often. Coming through the black, not knowing the route ahead, it would be like painting a target on himself. And if he kept his movements fractional, his footsteps cautious, he could feel his way.

  But it wasn’t ideal. He had no idea how far he needed to go. And his progress was painfully slow. Too slow. He thought back to the kitchen. To the pan of boiling spaghetti. It had been a big pan. Plenty of pasta. Enough for four or five men. So he guessed that whoever was down here was expecting to be fed pretty soon. Maybe if the food took too long they’d come looking for it. And instead they’d find Trent, wedged inside the knotted passageway, unsure of his bearings.

  He stopped moving and held his breath and listened very hard. But all he could hear was the pounding of the blood in his ears.

  He jerked into movement again. The cotton of his shirt rasped against the rock. His boots crunched grit and stones.

  How far had he come? Ten feet? Fifteen? His body felt cramped. Pinned down. He wanted to straighten up and stretch out but he was afraid of bashing his skull. He wasn’t normally claustrophobic but he couldn’t help imagining himself getting stuck down here. There could be a steep drop right in front of him. A sheer ledge. He might fall and break a leg. Or maybe, he thought – and this was crazy, which worried him especially – the rock would begin to collapse or swell. Maybe it would envelop him. Crush him. Flatten him like some kind of fossilised insect.

  His pulse was up now. His entire body throbbed with it. The air he was inhaling tasted foul and toxic. Maybe there were gases down here. Maybe that’s why he was thinking strange thoughts.

  He squeezed his eyes tight shut, wringing the sweat from his lids. Then he opened them and blinked and saw something he hadn’t been prepared for. The pale yellow of the rock opposite.

  He flinched and gazed down at his torch. But it wasn’t switched on. The light was coming from another source.

  He could see from the ambient glow that he was in a small opening. The space was tight and confined but just tall enough for him to stand. The rock behind him curved away to the right, towards where the passage continued on. Towards where the light was originating from.

  The glow was arcing and swinging. It was spreading outwards in size, creeping up the slimy rock and sideways around the funnel-like chamber.

  And now Trent could hear humming. A carefree male voice, improvising an aimless tune. And behind it the steady crump of footsteps.

  Trent wedged himself into the rock, pressing his body into all the tiny crevices and knots he could find. His arms felt rigid, fingers slick on the shotgun.

  The torchlight spread and bounced, then flared, and a short, tubby guy rounded the corner. He had a torch and a ski mask in one hand. He was flattening his hair with the other.

  Trent reacted before the guy had even seen him. He stepped out from his cover and slammed the shotgun muzzle beneath the guy’s fatty chin and levered it upwards until his scalp was jammed against the sheer rock behind him.

  The guy gurgled. He let go of his ski mask and dropped his torch with a clatter. The bulb was extinguished. Trent compressed the button on his own torch and lit up the guy’s face from below. It glowed, pale and spectral, like it was floating in the darkness.

  ‘What the…?’ the guy said, then trailed off when Trent pushed his jaw up even harder with the shotgun muzzle.

  ‘Don’t,’ Trent hissed. ‘Don’t speak. Don’t yell. Don’t say a word. Understand?’

  The guy tried nodding, but he couldn’t move his head. He settled for blinking instead. His eyes were squinted and watering against the torch glare. His skin was flaccid and pasty amid the blackness all around, like an ugly sea creature from the very depths of the ocean. He didn’t have the build of any of the guys who’d attacked them from the Land Cruiser. Maybe he’d been the driver.

  ‘Is Moreau down there?’ Trent asked. ‘Blink once if the answer is yes.’

  The guy’s eyelids fluttered.

  ‘How many men are—’

  But the guy was done listening. Done waiting, too.

  He lashed out with his right hand, swinging fast against the shotgun, trying to jab it free from beneath his chin.

  It was a mistake. A major one.

  The blow wasn’t strong enough. The muzzle was wedged good and solid in the cushioned hollow beneath his jaw. Plus Trent was concentrating very hard. He was fiercely alert.

  The moment the guy realised that the shotgun hadn’t moved, his moist eyes opened right up in the full glare of the torch. Then his lip curled and he whined and trembled and exerted a more urgent pressure on the shotgun, and Trent sensed he couldn’t wait any longer and he pulled the trigger.

  In hindsight, Trent knew that he couldn’t have seen all that he thought he had. For one thing, it must have happened too fast. For another, he’d turned away and snapped his eyes tight closed the moment his finger had ratcheted down. But even so, a part of him believed that he’d watched the guy’s face illuminated by the spark in the shotgun barrel. A part of him believed the muzzle flicker had strobed his features, like the flash on a camera lens, only lighting his face from within. The guy’s skin had flushed pink. His nostrils and lips had glowed white. Then his head had detonated and erupted outwards into a hail of rock and debris.

  The explosion was huge. It boomed and shook and reverberated. It rushed up into the high, thin chamber, then struck uncompromising stone and returned in a percussive wave that howled through the crooked fissure like a raging storm.

  Trent had heard nothing like it before. It was angry. It was rabid. It tore at his hair by the roots and thrashed around inside his skull.

  His face and hair and arms and parts of his torso were spattered. They were soaked with blood and gunk.

  The guy had dropped to the ground. He was slumped backwards under collapsed rock and stone and dust.

  Trent clamped a palm to his ear. The madly hurling din was swamping his other senses and it took a few seconds before he realised that he couldn’t breathe. His mouth was caked in dust and debris. The powder was on his tongue, filling his throat. He bent down and spat rubble and scooped grit from his nostrils.

  When the air finally came it was hot and dusty and singed his lungs. His every instinct told him to turn and bolt for the exit. But his will told him to go on. It was as hard and uncom
promising as the rock that surrounded him.

  Stealth was no use to him now. He’d made his presence very clear. All that was left to him was speed and aggression and fury.

  So he staggered on down the channel, his shotgun by his hip, his torch lighting the way, a grim rictus of hatred and determination and mania contorting his blood-glazed face.

  Chapter Fifty-three

  The cavern, when Trent reached it, was lit brightly from within. There was an arc light at the entrance, leading off from the slanted tunnel. The vaulted ceiling was bathed in the startling glow.

  Trent lurched round the corner, no hesitation, and took in the rest. The low fold-up bed with the knotted sleeping bag. The second arc light on the far side of the chamber and the portable heater beside it, glowing orange, the air smelling of burning filaments and dust. The pair of camp chairs and the card table and the plastic cooler and the bucket of waste.

  There were two men.

  They were standing one behind the other.

  Trent recognised the guy in front, tottering backwards on his heels. Jérôme Moreau. He was wearing his tuxedo trousers and dress shoes, dirtied and scuffed. His velvet blazer had been replaced with a red fleece jacket, zipped high to his chin. Both hands were clasped together in front of his waist, wrists bound and pinched with cable ties. Stubble grazed his jaw and his grey hair was greasy and unkempt, knotted in the other guy’s fist. His face was strained and bloodless, eyes brimming with fear.

  The guy standing behind Moreau was wearing a ski mask and a black sweater top with a raised hood. Trent could only see one of his eyes. His teeth were clenched. The hand gripping Moreau’s hair was adorned with several silver rings. His other hand drilled an automatic pistol hard into Moreau’s ear.

  ‘Stay back,’ the guy growled.

  Even through the blast distortion in Trent’s ears, the voice was recognisable. It was low and rumbling. A bass roar. The straining rasp was there, like his throat was constricted in some way and he was having to force the words out.