by Camilla Monk
I was in shambles.
Dries’s guards and Cue Ball started exchanging little hand signals and gripped their guns in anticipation. With good reason: March was coming up. He had called Dries back to accept his deal—me, with all four limbs in working order, against the genuine Cullinan—and every single pair of eyes in the room was locked on the penthouse’s entrance.
There was a faint click, and the doors opened. March was here, flanked by two guards on each side, with a third one following him for good measure. Over his bloody shirt the navy-blue jacket I was still wearing had been replaced by a black corduroy one, which I assumed possessed the same properties. I felt myself melt a little at the thought that even with his badass bulletproof jackets, March still managed to dress with a flair that rivaled only my grandpa’s.
He walked down the stairs and into Dries’s living room with a nonchalant, confident stride, his poker smile in place as if the men pointing their guns at him weren’t there. In his right hand, my mom’s metal case swung with each of his tranquil steps. On March’s right, a burly man with dark skin nodded at Dries. “He’s clean. No weapons.”
I cast March a worried glance. Did this mean no weapons that these guys had been able to detect or no weapons at all and butt-naked?
Dries opened his arms wide and walked to March with a warm smile on his face. He then pulled him into a heartfelt bro hug, the kind that had me wondering if I was going to discover these two had been working together from the start. God, I hoped not.
After March had returned Dries’s embrace, they broke the contact, and Dries patted him on the shoulder affectionately. “It’s been too long! My best disciple, my brother.”
“Far too long, indeed—” March smiled, but there was no joy in his eyes. Then he finally looked at me. “Are you all right, Island?”
“Yeah . . . great,” I murmured.
“Good.” His eyes traveled back to Dries, a hard gleam in their depths. “Brother, I take it this is what you were looking for.”
With this, March handed the case to Dries, who walked with it to the glass table we had lunched on, laid it down, and opened it. As Dries stared at “his” Cullinan the way a pedophile stares at a five-year-old, March took a few steps forward until he was standing by my side. I looked up at him, trying to decipher his expression, to no avail. A leather-gloved hand crept around my waist, and he glanced at his watch. As he did so, his grip tightened a little.
Then a little more.
Until it almost hurt.
Across the room, I saw Dries freeze and straighten slowly. His eyes met March’s, his brow twitched, and something changed in his expression, like a sense of realization. I barely had the time to see him move away from the table: I remember a deafening noise and flying behind the Star Trek couch in March’s arms, shielded by his body as Dries’s living room was blown to bits.
Men were moaning somewhere amid the dust and smoke surrounding us. The Star Trek couch had protected us well, but it was ruined, and one of the armrests was on fire. I couldn’t see much, but most of the area where Dries’s glass table had once been seemed completely destroyed. Since he was nowhere to be seen, I assumed he had been blown to bits. Still intact, the Cullinan was sitting in the debris, a few feet away from us.
I could tell my shoulder had been bruised upon my landing on the concrete floor, but the most difficult part was remembering how to breathe. I realized I was gripping March’s jacket manically, and he was trying to unclasp my fingers, one by one, so he could move. I had no idea what he planned on doing next, but he was indeed going to need both his hands. Around us, Dries’s men were recovering—well, the ones who were still alive, anyway, since I could make out several still figures resting on the floor. Ominous clicking sounds suggested that they were arming their weapons as they struggled to find their bearings in the smoke.
“Take a deep breath and relax. Everything is going to be all right.”
I cast a frightened look at March, who seemed entirely focused on his watch and kept pressing the chronograph buttons quickly. I realized that the glass had in fact lit up and turned into a small LCD screen. I managed to make out the word “GO” before March tapped on the screen once, apparently sending his laconic message. Why—or more exactly who—was he texting in a moment like this? Placing one of his hands on my head, he forced me farther down. “Thirty seconds, biscuit.”
Thirty seconds to what? God, not another bomb!
I heard gunshots coming from the hallway that led to the penthouse, and a new explosion made the living room tremble again, prompting me to hold on to March as small pieces of plaster and glass fell on our heads. He threaded his fingers into my hair, caressing it as he kept my head down. “Fifteen seconds. We’re going to be fine.”
Dries’s remaining men seemed to have taken cover, and we all waited—for different reasons, I suspected.
“Now.”
My head jerked at March’s confident whisper, and before I could ask what we were waiting for, something big flew across the living room in our direction that one of the men tried to shoot at. It landed behind the couch and into March’s welcoming hands. My immediate thought was that it was a grenade, and that I was going to be horribly maimed and die; I screamed. March’s black-gloved hand covered my mouth, and he pointed at the object.
His magic suitcase.
Someone had blasted Dries’s living room twice and thrown March his magic suitcase.
“I’ll let you take care of the rest, Sudafricano!” a cheerful voice called from the hallway.
A voice I knew. Against every single safety instruction March had ever given me, I raised my head from his chest where it had been buried and took a quick peek at the smoky hallway. My initiative was met by a round of bullets fired into the couch by Cue Ball, who was still standing near the French doors. March’s strong hands pulled me down again, and before he could complain that I needed to stay still, I beamed at him. “Antonio! Antonio is here!” I hissed excitedly at the memory of the killer who had almost taught me how to steal a Lexus.
Indeed, in the destroyed door frame stood Antonio, clad in a classy black suit, his sharp, tattooed features contorted in a sneer, and carrying a . . . bazooka. At least that explained why Dries’s living room looked like Ground Zero, and I was pretty sure that this was in fact the mysterious purchase March had made in Minas’s shop. More gunshots echoed in the hallway, and I gathered Antonio was making his escape. A new round of bullets was fired into the couch, and hurried footsteps could be heard around us. Now freed from the bazooka’s threat, Dries’s remaining men intended to take care of us.
Allow me to turn what will follow into a cautionary tale: if you’re pursuing a successful criminal career, and one day you find yourself aiming your M16 at a mints-munching guy who looks super pissed and has a magic suitcase, run away. Fast.
March opened the case and retrieved two scary-looking, suppressed black guns from the top layer, armed them, gobbled a mint, got up from behind the couch . . . and taught Cue Ball and his rifle a lesson about never hesitating before pulling the trigger. I covered my ears with my hands as bullets flew in all directions, some right over my head and into what was left of the penthouse’s tall bay windows. I popped my head once or twice to check March’s cleaning progress. Four . . . three . . . two guys still standing. One of them seemed more skilled than the others, forcing March to take cover because he couldn’t use his favorite hey-you’re-slow-I-shot-first technique.
They dueled for a good minute until March seemed to grow tired of wasting bullets and used his little black knife, throwing it between the guy’s eyes when he moved to shoot again. I winced as I caught sight of the dead man’s reflection in one of the last windows that were still intact. His eyes were wide open, as if he hadn’t expected it, which I suspect was precisely the reason March’s approach had worked. The last man standing was a young Japanese guy whose aim wasn’t so great, and he ran toward March in desperation, firing haphazardly until his magazine was empty.
I’ll never forget the look on that young guy’s face when he kept pulling the trigger and all that echoed in response were faint clicks indicating there was nothing left to fire. I squeezed my eyes when March shot. The idea of him killing a helpless guy made my chest heave unpleasantly, even if part of me knew that, had the tables turned, that man would have killed him without hesitation.
The Japanese guy fell, and I knew it was over. March walked back to the couch and helped me get up. I thought I had been pretty relaxed throughout this new gunfight, but in truth, I hadn’t. Once I stood up, I realized my legs were trembling so badly I couldn’t walk. We stood in front of each other for a few seconds in complete silence, surrounded by broken glass and destroyed furniture, still bodies, and the unmistakable smell of gunpowder. I was still a little shaken, and I could read in March’s eyes a mixture of tenderness and guilt. He couldn’t know what Dries had told me, but he must’ve gathered that the lies had come to an end.
“You and I . . . are gonna have to talk,” I gritted out. “But not now.”
He nodded once as the poker smile returned to his lips. “Understood. Are you good to go?”
“Yes.”
With this, we turned to the area where Antonio’s first rocket had struck, scanning for Dries and the Cullinan among the wreckage. It was a strange sensation: I expected to see his body, and at the same time, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. After a few seconds spent inspecting the half-burned, empty case and the various debris surrounding it, I turned to March, a cold sweat dampening my back.
“March . . . I can’t see—”
His eyes narrowed. There were bodies, there was glass . . . but two things were missing from the ruins of that Blofeld-style living room: Dries and the diamond.
THIRTY-ONE
Like Lions
“Kusukela Kudala Kuloku Kuthiwa Uyimbube.”
—Solomon Linda, Mbube
Antonio had done a number on the long hallway before retreating. Those bulky guys I had seen guarding the penthouse’s entrance were all dead, and half of the elegant crystal wall lamps had been shot. Dries was looking at a huge quote from his contractor to fix up his crib.
For all their differences, March seemed to respect Antonio’s skills, and appeared convinced that his mentor wouldn’t have been able to make it past the bazooka and into the elevator. A brief text on March’s watch confirmed this, along with the fact that Antonio had made it safely out of the building and to March’s car. Barely ten seconds after this, the LCD screen lit up again, indicating that another text had arrived. I wasn’t able to read it, but I think I know what Antonio asked. We made our way back to the living room to start searching the place, I managed to peek just long enough to see March’s answer scroll on his watch: “NO U CAN’T KEEP IT.”
We checked the evil lair’s rooms one by one, and I followed March around, freezing whenever he gestured for me to do so. We found nothing in that cathedral of a kitchen, and those spaceship-like bathrooms were clear as well—we even checked the toilets. Soon the only room left to explore was Dries’s bedroom, whose French doors were ajar.
March approached the doors in silence before he slammed them open with his foot, gun in hand. The room was just as empty as the rest of apartment. A massive four-poster bed with gorgeous white silk sheets stood in the center—I gathered thread count was of great importance to Dries—and the only piece of furniture that really stood out was a big golden Napoleon III mirror against the wall opposite to the door. It looked even taller than March, and I stared at our reflection in the cool glass for a few seconds—at him, bruised, with his bloody shirt and wrinkled black jacket, and me, disheveled, covered in plaster, floating in his navy-blue jacket so deep that my hands weren’t visible and my jeans-clad legs looked like sticks.
We were about to leave when a detail caught my attention on the smooth concrete floor on which the mirror rested. There were faint scrape marks on the surface. Pursing my lips, I walked to the antique. It was a truly remarkable piece, with its intricate golden leaves twirling around the frame.
“Can you help me move it?” I asked March, who took hold of the frame while I pulled on it as well.
That thing was heavy! Even March seemed to struggle a little at first, but soon the elegant mirror had moved enough to reveal a locked door. He took a few steps back, pushing me aside. Before I could blink, he casually fired a few shots into the lock. The gray metal door gave way, revealing a narrow security staircase that I figured led to the building’s roof.
“Wait for me here, biscuit. If you hear gunshots, run away,” March said as he started climbing the stairs.
Struggling to keep calm, I watched him disappear up the staircase.
How long had it been? Seconds? Minutes already? I waited and waited. There weren’t any sounds coming from the stairs, but March wasn’t coming down either. I turned my head to the bedroom’s bay windows. A light October drizzle had started to fall, covering the translucent surface with thousands of shiny drops. Soon it intensified into rain, but there was still no sight of March.
Unable to resist any longer, I took a series of tentative steps toward the security door until I was almost on the stairs. March had said to wait, and, according to the rules of our arrangement, I had to comply. But what if he was . . . dead? I couldn’t stand here like this. I needed to know what was going on up there. I entered the concrete spiral staircase and made my way up.
When I reached the last step, I found myself standing in front of a roof door that looked a lot like the previous one, except March hadn’t needed to shoot this one. It was ajar already. I flattened my body against a cold and humid wall, trying my best to peek through the door without risking being seen. Through the rain, I could hear voices. March and Dries. He was still alive.
I pressed a hand on my chest in an attempt to calm my racing heart, and I strained my ears.
“I have no idea why Léa suddenly decided to try to return the stone to the Board. She wrote she didn’t want me to have it no matter what . . . I thought she understood what kind of power we could become. Our strength, our honor, imagine these at the scale of a country, perhaps even several! Millions of men like you, men we could train and educate!” Dries was evidently trying to make a point, talking heatedly to his former disciple.
“Our honor? Really, Dries?” March spat.
Undeterred, Dries went on, and I risked a peek. They were standing in front of each other under the rain, March less than a dozen feet away from the door I was leaning against, Dries much farther to the right, golden eyes boring into blue ones, guns lowered in rigid hands, so engrossed in their exchange that neither of them had noticed me yet. Dries had the Cullinan in his left hand, holding it with an iron grip. “Don’t you want to be more than this? I see you teaming up with a piece of trash like Antonio Romos, risking everything to fix old mistakes . . . and it breaks my heart, March. This”—Dries pointed at him—“is not the man I carved!”
“Then so be it! You betrayed the Board, nearly got your own daughter killed—she is, am I right? I can’t believe I didn’t realize it ten years ago when I first looked at her! All this for some insane dream!” March shouted.
Dries seemed to choke in astonishment. “A dream? Can’t you see this is so much more?”
“Yes, a dream! The Lions are a necessary evil, nothing else. We feed on beasts worse than ourselves because someone has to; we’re never going to rule anything, Dries!” March roared.
“We already are! And the Cullinan is just another resource for this dream to come true! Come back with me, let me show you what we’ve accomplished. Don’t go wasting your talent when there’s so much to fight for, March.”
Okay. Dries believed that he and his pals—whoever they might be—were God’s gift to the world, and March thought he was just a beast meant to clean up after other beasts: that broke my heart.
“You’re the one who taught me that Lions didn’t need a cause because their honor mattered more than any sort of creed,” M
arch told Dries through gritted teeth as he started circling away slowly, his index finger tightening on the trigger of his gun. “I don’t care about your dream. My honor is to always finish the job.”
With this, Dries seemed to figure he was going nowhere fast with his former protégé, and he raised his gun. March plunged to his side in time, shooting back at his old mentor as he did so. The man had indeed taught him everything: I did see March’s first shot impact Dries’s gray jacket before he took refuge behind one of the roof’s vents, but the projectile accomplished nothing otherwise. Did these two share the same tailor for bulletproof jackets on top of the rest?
After the first two bullets had been fired, both men managed to establish sufficient distance between each other, March having disappeared behind a roof vent as well. I couldn’t see them anymore; I only heard occasional gunshots that seemed to be getting closer. Footsteps resounded to my right. One of them had, in fact, moved and taken cover against one of the sides of the roof exit. My lungs contracted in my chest when that someone took a few cautious steps forward, and I realized it was Dries. He was now inches from me, just outside the door I was hiding behind.
I took a chance.
My shoulder hit the metal hard as I rammed into the door with all my strength, slamming it against Dries’s back. Taken aback—quite literally so—he dropped the Cullinan, which landed a few feet away from me. March ran toward the source of the noise, and there was a moment of confusion during which both men froze, registering my presence. I ignored them to lunge for the stone, grab it, and curl my body around it protectively.
I heard two more gunshots, a clicking sound, and I peeked up to see that the game was over. March was pointing his gun at Dries, whose own weapon was empty. I cast a pleading look in March’s direction, begging him not to end my father like this.
