We Are Death

by Douglas Lindsay

  ‘That thing,’ said the Israeli, gesturing dismissively at the book, ‘more than likely came from our country. It belongs there. It was stolen from there.’

  ‘See you in court,’ said Geyerson contemptuously, and he kept the scornful look on his face, as the Israeli quickly pushed his chair back, got up and walked to the door, one of his men slamming it on the way out.

  Geyerson turned back to the table, his eyes having followed the last man out the room. He quickly wiped the scorn from his face and replaced the look with one that was almost whimsical, as if this whole business was all stuff and nonsense, and why didn’t they just get it over with as quickly as possible.

  ‘This bores me, gentlemen,’ he said, words to accompany the dismissive hand gesture. ‘You can all walk out, you truly can. Do not think for one second that I will accept less than what I have demanded. If you care to become engaged in business, then I ask you to state your case. Otherwise, we might as well all go home.’

  ‘We pay fifty billion dollars,’ said the Chinese quickly, his eyes only briefly resting on those of Geyerson.

  ‘Crap,’ muttered the American. ‘You had to start.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Geyerson.

  He looked at the other two and made a small gesture.

  ‘You know what’s at stake, gentlemen. We all have things to do, so I’d ask that we conclude this business as quickly as possible. If either of you have any advance on fifty billion, then please... If not, then let me thank you for your attendance today and ask that you vacate the room to allow us to complete our business in private.’

  The Russian remained stone-faced at the end of the table. He was going nowhere until the American moved. The American checked his watch, shook his head. He knew there’d been discussion back in Washington about just taking Geyerson out of the game, and the decision had been made to let things play out.

  If they let the Chinese away with this, then that decision was something they would come to regret. It was one thing taking an individual businessman off the streets. Making a Chinese government official disappear however, was an entirely different type of Hollywood movie.

  ‘Fifty-five billion,’ he said, not lifting his eyes to meet Geyerson’s.

  52

  Morlock was ready. He too had been listening, the words from inside the room coming through quietly into his earpiece. No one had died yet, but it was time. He would have to start with the gate guard, the two men at the front door, and then he could begin with the attendees as they left in their ones and twos and threes. The numbers mattered little to Morlock.

  The Brazilian had just walked out of the room. Morlock didn’t have eyes inside the house so didn’t know if the man would be walking straight out, or whether there was anything else to detain him. He had to be ready in either event, and of paramount importance was making sure that word did not reach Geyerson inside before Morlock wanted him to know. He had no doubt that in an all-out firefight he would be the only one left standing, but he didn’t want it to come to that.

  He positioned himself in the bushes, darkness having fallen completely over the city. From where he was kneeling he could see the two guards at the front, and had a narrow line of vision to the single guard in the post by the gate.

  His original calculations had been based on the glass of the guardhouse being bulletproof. However, at some stage the door of the small building had been replaced, and no doubt for cost purposes the glass was thickened, but not impervious. Morlock recognised the change. His slender line of sight was through a corner of the window frame in the door.

  Morlock, completely in tune with everything going on around him, was aware of the drone flying overhead, and while he did not know which other players were in the game, he would be ready for them when they came. If it turned out to be the police officers who were also on his list, then that could make his evening even shorter and easier than he currently viewed it. Not that ease, for its own sake, was something he sought.

  It had been one minute since the door had closed behind the Brazilian delegate. It was possible that he would come straight out, likewise that he might linger to attempt to establish who would take possession of the book. Morlock had already calculated the odds and made his decision.

  He aimed his Glock at the guard at the gate, paused for one second to make sure he wasn’t moving, and then put a bullet in the back of his head, having allowed for the slight deviation caused by the window and the silencer attachment.

  The dull thud of the gun and the crack of the window had the two guards at the front door instantly on their toes, their guns drawn. In the same movement in which he’d killed the first guard, Morlock swivelled and quickly took out the next two, a bullet in the forehead of one, a bullet in the Adam’s apple of the other.

  The bodies slumped to the floor, the brief moment of action over. Silence fell once more over the front garden, the night and the trees and the bushes. Morlock paused for a moment, living in the silence. Waiting for the next sound or movement.

  In the distance he heard the sound of a van move off, and made the instant decision that the noise, coming so soon after he had killed three people, was likely to be related. The people watching from the drone, and by whatever other means, were coming.

  Gun held in front of him, he started to walk quickly towards the front door. It opened when he was no more than four yards away.

  He could have shot the Brazilian’s guard that instant, but he needed another moment to play out. The guard did not have his gun drawn, so there was no danger, and he needed the door opened a little further, he wanted clean sight of the Brazilian, before he could run back inside.

  The shock showed on the guard’s face. There was a further moment’s hesitation between drawing his weapon and slamming the door shut. The Brazilian moved partially into view, the two bullets were fired from Morlock’s gun, and the two men fell dead in the doorway.

  Quickly inside, two more guards running towards the door, and they were dead before they could unload in his direction.

  Morlock was quicker than everyone. If someone was going to kill him, they would have to come at him from behind. And even then, they were going to have to hope he didn’t sense them, because that was what had always happened in the past.

  There was no question now that the van was on its way towards him. He could hear it as the tyres squealed around the corner.

  He quickly looked around the entrance hall, checked the silence and knew there was no one else coming, then put two quick bullets in the entrance system, disabling the doorbell and the communication with the front gate.

  He had already gauged that the meeting was taking place in a room at the back of the house, on the top floor. There was a little time yet.

  He did not bother closing and locking the front door. When whoever was coming managed to get over the front gate, they were welcome to come in. He would deal with them when he had to.

  He took a few steps up the winding staircase on the right, and paused, listening. Made the call that there were no more of Geyerson’s people, other than those in the room with him. He passed no judgement on it, but if it had been him, he would have had about a hundred guards or more.

  Geyerson, he thought, may have had a lot of money, but he was still small time.

  He heard the door open and quickly ran up the stairs, two steps at a time, his footfalls completely silent. He paused on the first floor, backing off along the corridor to the right, listening to the sound of the footsteps on the upper floor, as the latest man to walk out on Geyerson left the auction with his hired help in tow.

  Now that he was a floor closer to the meeting, Morlock was wary of making too much noise with a kill. As he heard the first footsteps on the stairs above, he quickly checked the room opposite. A few comfy chairs, a drinks cabinet. He walked quickly into the room, two sidelights on, main light off, a warmer feel, before stepping back to the door and out into the corridor just as the Indian appeared with his two men.


  Morlock, dressed completely in black, his gun tucked into the back of his trousers, did not look out of place.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘if you would like to step in here while we make sure that it is clear for you to leave.’

  The Indian naturally hesitated.

  ‘I can assure you that the other gentleman who recently left the meeting is waiting in a different area of the house,’ said Morlock, as though that might have been the problem.

  The first guard stepped in front of the Indian, as his boss nodded towards the room. The guard glanced warily at Morlock, stepped into the room, then appeared a second later at the door, nodding.

  ‘Help yourself to a drink,’ said Morlock. ‘We should be clear in a couple of minutes.’

  ‘What’s the hold up?’ asked one of the guards.

  They were all in the room now.

  ‘There are a lot of important people here,’ said Morlock. ‘We just need to be sure there’s no one watching.’

  He closed the door, and the gun was in his hands in the same movement. The bodyguards never had a chance to draw their weapons. The Indian never even got to turn around and know that something was wrong. His last thought was to the quality of the whisky.

  Three bullets. Two in the heart, and the Indian in the back of the head. The bodies fell to the floor.

  Morlock felt the movement as the next delegate left the room upstairs. He was aware of the people who had arrived outside and were now clambering over the gate. There was little sound from the latter, but he could sense it. Morlock was trained. There was only one presence Morlock couldn’t quite place, but it wasn’t a problem yet. He would deal with it when it was necessary.

  He put the gun back in his trousers, brought the small knife he held in his wrist down into his right hand. The whole thing was about to explode, but he didn’t want to give the room any more warning – even five seconds worth – than he had to.

  He stood inside the door until he heard the footsteps on his level, then he was out onto the landing in a quick, silent movement. Three more men in front of him, each one surprised. They all reacted quickly, yet they all died, the knife dragged across all three throats. If anyone watching had thought that Morlock had rehearsed killing three men in a confined space with a knife, then they would have been right. In such situations the reactions of men varied only slightly, their movements predictable and desperate.

  The bodies fell close to one another. Morlock stepped to the side, making sure no blood stained the front of his top or trousers. It was unlikely that he was going to need to repeat his pretence of officially working here, as he had with the Indian’s party, but he had to leave the option open.

  There was a noise downstairs, the front door being pushed back against the weight of a body. Morlock glanced up the stairs, still not in a position for his eyes to fall on the door behind which negotiations were taking place, and made a quick calculation of how many men would still be in there.

  Too many for him to burst into the room and take them all out at once. He’d get most of them, but in that kind of situation the risk was just too great.

  For the moment it was time to disappear and see how things played out without him. His presence would be called for soon enough.

  *

  ‘Seventy-five billion.’

  They were rising steadily in fives, the amounts barely seeming to matter. Monopoly money. Money to burn.

  Geyerson wasn’t preening, he wasn’t celebrating. He didn’t trust any of these people, and they wouldn’t trust him. Until he was out of here, until the book was in their possession and he had absolute confirmation that the money was in the bank, he was still going to be worried.

  The fact that two of them had stayed in and were now bidding to a preposterous level, worried him more than anything else. Were they just making up numbers, now? Did it matter to either of them where this stopped? Would they ever actually stop, or just keep going and going?

  That wasn’t supposed to happen either.

  ‘Eighty billion.’

  ‘Eighty-five.’

  One of the guards touched Geyerson on the shoulder.

  ‘Thought I heard something downstairs.’

  Geyerson hadn’t heard anything and knew they were well covered below. Wondered if his man was just looking for an excuse to nip outside for a cigarette. Hesitated for a moment, then nodded.

  The guard moved away, didn’t look at his boss – the one of the eight in the room who was nominally in charge of the detachment – opened the door, closed it again behind him as he left.

  He stood for a moment, listening. He could hear movement downstairs. Movement, in itself, didn’t mean anything. There were other guards, there were the other bidders, who had left without bidding. He contemplated putting his head back round the door and getting someone to go with him, but was never really going to do it.

  Down the stairs quickly, his gun drawn, waiting to shoot the first person he saw who shouldn’t have been there.

  *

  They moved in, stepping over the bodies, only making a cursory check to see if they were still alive. If this was the work of the man who had killed the previous four members of Geyerson’s climbing team, as they assumed it was, there would be little need to check if any of the victims lying here were breathing.

  ‘I think we have enough dead bodies here to make the morning news,’ said Markussen quietly, stepping over a guard at the foot of the stairs, his weapon already drawn.

  He hesitated briefly before heading up the stairs. He had already called for more back up, but wasn’t of a mind to wait for it, not when they were in the middle of an active situation.

  There were three further officers with them, alongside Haynes, Badstuber and Jericho. Only Haynes and Jericho weren’t armed.

  ‘You know how to handle a weapon, gentlemen?’ asked Markussen. ‘It might be an idea to pick one up. You can take it from me that you’re authorised.’

  Haynes looked quickly at Jericho, who nodded. That was the only authorisation of any use to him. Jericho, who had never in his life used a gun in the course of an investigation, did not follow.

  Markussen barked an order in Norwegian to one of his men, who turned to the destroyed control panel, quickly accepted that there was nothing to be done with it at this stage, and then he was out the front door, back down towards the gate.

  ‘You should have a weapon,’ said Badstuber, touching Jericho on the arm.

  He shook his head but didn’t offer any platitudes on the likelihood of his being all right without it. He might well not be. His chances in a gunfight, even if he’d had a gun, weren’t all that much better.

  Markussen started moving up the stairs, one of his men at his side, Haynes next in line. They hesitated when they saw the bodies lying on the first floor landing, then moved quickly up the last few stairs to the next level.

  Three more corpses, throats slashed.

  The bullet that hit Markussen came out of nowhere. The guard coming down from above, seeing the bodies on the floor, assuming the worst, fired without thinking. The bullet struck Markussen in the shoulder, travelling from above, and continued down, deep inside his body.

  Shots rang out, the guard coming down the stairs grabbing desperately at his moment of frantic, bloody fame, and in not waiting to establish who exactly it was he was shooting at, saving Morlock quite a lot of work. Just as Morlock had thought might happen.

  He let off three more bullets before his fire was returned. A quick, frenzied burst of noise, guns blasting, bodies falling or diving, and then finally the man who had started it all taking two bullets in the chest and crumbling noisily and awkwardly down the stairs, his neck breaking in the fall.

  Markussen lay dying, his head resting on the legs of one of Morlock’s earlier victims. The police officer who’d been climbing the stairs beside him had also been hit. A bullet in the face, one in the leg. He was not yet dead, but was definitely out the game. Haynes had been hit in the arm. Badstuber, Jer
icho and the other police officer were unharmed.

  ‘Fuck,’ said Haynes, gripping the place high on his right arm where the bullet had passed through.

  Badstuber and Jericho backed against the wall of the stairs and looked up. There would likely be more coming.

  ‘We need to get out,’ said Jericho. ‘We’re not armed for this.’

  The Norwegian officer moved ahead, his weapon held out in front of him. Badstuber glanced at Jericho, indicating that she couldn’t really leave him on his own.

  ‘Sergeant,’ said Jericho to the Norwegian, ‘lower your weapon and get back downstairs. These people are just going to be firing blindly, and we have no idea how many of them there are...’

  Footsteps on the landing upstairs, voices raised.

  ‘Police!’ shouted Jericho. ‘Hold your fire!’

  The noise upstairs stopped. They could hear voices, lowered now, as there was some discussion on how to proceed.

  Jericho was standing with his back to the wall, three steps below the first floor landing. Badstuber and Haynes were kneeling, guns ready, on the steps above him. The Norwegian sergeant was leaning over Markussen.

  There was a moment of calm, everybody knowing that it could go either way. Jericho suddenly felt out of his depth. Old. He was a detective anyway, it wasn’t as though he’d been happily doing this kind of thing in his youth. He’d never been involved in a shoot-out in his life. How absurd that it should happen now, three weeks before he retired.

  If they backed off and met up outside with the arriving law enforcement, they could end up in some sort of Waco-style stand-off, which would be bad for everyone. The alternative, getting into a gunfight here on the stairs, was liable to leave most, if not all, of them dead.

  ‘There’s someone else here, taking your people out,’ shouted Jericho. ‘We need to get you out of the house to safety. Lower your weapons, come downstairs, and... let’s just get the fuck out of here. Come on!’