by Jason Dean
‘Nice try, Bishop. But why would Arquette tell you of all people? He—’
Without warning, a heel suddenly stamped into Bishop’s right wrist just before it got to the pocket, crushing it. Bishop grunted in pain and tried pulling it away, but it was held fast. After a few moments the weight was lifted and he yanked his hand back and held it to his chest. He felt a shoe tap the knife in his pants pocket.
‘What have you got in there, Bishop?’ Klyce said. ‘Another little surprise? You really don’t give up, do you?’ He chuckled. ‘But all good things come to an end.’
Bishop said nothing. And he’d been so close to the finish line. So close. The best he could hope for now was that Klyce would be satisfied with his death and maybe leave Amy and her family to live in peace.
He heard a hammer being cocked above him. He took a single breath. Held it.
The single shot was deafening in the enclosed space.
Bishop waited for the darkness to become total. But he could still see. And he still breathed. The flashlight fell to the floor. Bishop reached over and grabbed it, at the same time pulling the butterfly knife from his pocket with his left hand. He flipped it open and shone the light around until it landed on Klyce. The older man was on his knees, his body wavering like a drunk’s, a look of confusion on his face. One hand was pressed against his neck. The other hand still held the gun. It was still pointing in Bishop’s direction.
Bishop aimed the light directly into the man’s eyes and swung his left arm around towards Klyce’s head like he was delivering a roundhouse punch. The balisong blade entered Klyce’s temple almost all the way to the hilt. The dying man made a short ‘ugh’ sound and his body fell sideways from the impact. The gun clattered to the floor. Bishop held on to the knife and quickly twisted it one way, then the other. He pulled it out and shone the light on Klyce’s eyes again. There was no life behind them. He was history.
Bishop looked around, picked up the gun and aimed the light down the hallway.
Kidanu was about ten feet away. He was on his knees and leaning against the wall, his gun still pointing at the spot where Klyce had been. Bishop got up and went over to him.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘That’s two I owe you.’
Kidanu said nothing as he slid down to a sitting position. Bishop took his cell phone and called Doubleday and told him to get over to the front office. A minute later, he heard footsteps in the other room.
Doubleday called out, ‘Bishop? Where are you?’
‘In the corridor,’ Bishop said. ‘Just follow the light.’
The younger man jogged down the hallway and stopped when he saw Kidanu. ‘Oh, Jesus. He’s hurt bad.’
‘I will . . . be fine,’ Kidanu said, and smiled. It didn’t look very convincing.
Bishop said, ‘Doubleday, where’d you park the rental?’
‘In the next street down. Not far away. But what about the shooter?’
‘That’s him behind me. Now listen, earlier I remember passing a hospital a couple of miles northwest of here on Madison. So what I want you to do is bring the car round to the front, help Kidanu into it, then get him over to their emergency room ASAP.’
‘And what’ll you be doing during all this?’
‘Cleaning up here,’ Bishop said. ‘I got a lot to do before daylight.’
Which was something of an understatement. Bishop needed to erase as much evidence of tonight’s events as possible before he left here. He couldn’t do much about the shattered office windows, but the rest was manageable. He’d have to clean up the blood in here first, then find and collect all the weapons outside. Then he’d need to gather all the bodies together and place them in the two vehicles that had brought them here. After that, the crusher could get busy doing what it did so well.
‘Oh,’ Doubleday said, frowning. ‘Okay. But the hospital are bound to call the cops when they see gunshot wounds. What’ll I say?’
‘Say you found him by the side of the road and you don’t know him from Adam. Kidanu, you’ve still got your passport on you, right?’
Kidanu nodded.
‘Fine. Just say you were a victim of a drive-by shooting a few blocks from here, okay? You heard some racist taunts and then they started shooting. You don’t remember too much. Just keep it simple and use your diplomatic credentials on any cop who tries to make you talk. I’ll fill Bekele in on some of this and tell him where you are.’ He turned to Doubleday and said, ‘You’d better go get the car now.’
‘Right.’ Doubleday trod carefully around the corpse on the floor, then he pushed the door open and was gone.
Bishop sat down next to Kidanu. The clean-up could wait for a few more minutes. He looked down and noticed the wound in Kidanu’s side was leaking again. He took off his jacket, rolled it up and handed it to him. ‘Use this as a compress,’ he said.
Kidanu took it and pressed the material against his side. ‘I was . . . close, Bishop. To finding . . . The Scythe . . . And now . . . with Klyce’s death . . . he is out of my reach.’
Bishop thought about that as he sat back against the wall. He was remembering back to the conference in Klyce’s office earlier tonight. And that reference to a Mr Foster. If it was the same James Foster as the one on Amy’s CD, and he suspected it was, then he also had the man’s social security number. And once you had that, all things were possible.
Bishop smiled to himself and said, ‘Not necessarily.’
EPILOGUE
Sitting on the couch in the dark living room, she kneaded her feet and tried to work the aches out. Seemed like every day they got worse. She sure wasn’t looking forward to tonight’s shift. Still, the steady pay cheque was all that counted. At least she could sleep in tomorrow morning. In the last year, she’d learned to take life’s little pleasures where she could get them. And these days a few extra hours in bed was something to look forward to.
Life had to change for the better soon, though, she told herself again. It just had to. An opportunity would come her way and she’d grab it like she was supposed to, and things would start to improve. For both of them.
It was a mantra she told herself every day. Part of her even believed it.
There was a knock at the front door. She looked at the wall clock and saw it was just gone seven. Maybe Meg come to tell her she wouldn’t be able to babysit tonight. God, she hoped not. That was all she needed. She got up off the couch, trudged down the hallway and unlatched and opened the front door.
A young man in a FedEx uniform stood there. He was holding a power pad and a brown cardboard box covered in masking tape. ‘Mrs Janine Hernandez?’ he asked.
‘Yes?’
‘Package here for you. Sign at the bottom, please.’ He handed her the power pad and one of those electronic pens. Janine signed her name in the space and handed it back. The courier handed her the box, wished her a nice evening, and left.
Janine frowned at the box in her hand as she absently closed and latched the door. It was about twelve inches by fifteen and three inches deep. And quite heavy. It felt like a large book, maybe. Except she hadn’t ordered one recently. And there was no return address listed. She walked back down the hallway and carried the box into the kitchen.
Joel was sitting at the main table with one of his Mickey Mouse colouring books open in front of him, carefully filling in spaces with a look of deep concentration on his face. He probably hadn’t even heard the knock. Janine smiled and went over and pulled out a knife from a kitchen drawer. She laid the box on the counter, carefully made a slit down the middle and opened the flaps.
And just stared at the contents with her mouth open.
Inside the box were ten stacks of hundred-dollar bills, each one wrapped in a thick rubber band. She pulled one stack from the box and slowly flipped through it. It was a very thick wad. All non-sequential bills. Maybe four or five hundred of them. She shook her head and pulled out another pile. It was the same size. Which meant there could very well be half a million dollars lying there
on her kitchen counter. Jesus H. Christ.
Janine swallowed and checked the rest of the box, but it was empty. No note. Nothing. But she already knew who’d sent it. And she knew where he’d gotten it from. She just didn’t know how. Janine decided right then that maybe she was better off not knowing.
Opportunities are there to be grabbed.
She smiled and shook her head again, wondering which was the closest airport to Anaheim, California. She’d have to find out. She was also pondering on whether they should go first class or not. It was a nice conundrum to face. ‘Joel, honey?’ she called out.
Her son paused and looked up from his book. ‘Yeah, Mom?’
‘How would you feel about meeting Mickey Mouse in person?’
It was almost one thirty in the morning. The night was extremely humid. Almost tropical. It reminded him of nights in his home village all those years ago. Which was appropriate.
Kidanu entered the large second-storey bedroom and quietly locked the door behind him. Not that he really needed to. Nobody would disturb him. The two bodyguards he’d encountered downstairs had been complacent and slow. It had been reasonably easy to immobilize them and then put them out for a few hours before locking them in the cellar. Hardly any effort at all, in fact. Which was fortunate, as he still wasn’t fully fit.
After three weeks, two of them spent recuperating in hospital, the wound in his side was mostly just a memory now. But he still walked with a slight limp. He should have waited until he was completely healed, but the need for vengeance burned inside him like a fever. Had done ever since Bishop told him about ‘James Foster’, and the luxury house he’d bought in West Palm Beach, Florida, only eight months before. With cash, apparently. The fever burned even brighter when Bishop had shown him photos of the man. He looked different now, of course, but no amount of cosmetic surgery could change those black eyes. Kidanu would never forget those eyes. Never.
Kidanu noticed the windows were open and went over and shut them. Then he walked over to the king-sized bed and placed his knapsack on the floor.
The hunter looked down at his prey.
He’d waited a lifetime for this. Whatever debts Bishop felt he owed him, he’d paid off tenfold. Now Kidanu could finally honour the oath he’d made to his family’s spirits.
The faint moonlight coming through the windows allowed him to see Erasto Badat was a little fatter than before, but not overly so. His hair was greying, and receding at the temples. He was also alone for once. Usually he had female company brought in. He had the last three nights. But not tonight. Kidanu watched him for a few more moments. He was in no rush. Just the opposite. Badat’s face looked very peaceful. He almost seemed to be smiling. Kidanu briefly wondered what he was dreaming about.
He opened the bag and pulled out a cotton handkerchief and a small bottle of chloroform. He removed the stopper, placed a tiny amount of the liquid on the handkerchief and held the material against Badat’s nose and mouth for five seconds. When he took it away, the only difference was Badat’s breathing was a little deeper. He’d be out for several minutes at most. That would be more than enough.
Kidanu got to work.
Two minutes later, he backhanded the man’s right cheek. Hard.
Erasto Badat’s eyes snapped open and he looked up at Kidanu, uncomprehending. Kidanu had drawn the drapes and turned on the lights and now he could see Badat’s eyes were exactly as he remembered. Badat was breathing deeply through his nose. He couldn’t breathe through his mouth because of the duct tape Kidanu had pressed over it. He couldn’t move his arms, as his wrists were handcuffed to the headboard, while rope bound his feet to the foot of the bed. He was wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts. It wasn’t a pleasant sight.
Kidanu was wearing a thin, disposable polyethylene coverall over his own clothes. He’d brought it along specially. The next few hours were going to get very messy.
‘Dehaando amsikee, presidente,’ he said, wishing Badat a good evening in Tigrinya, the language of Ksaneta. In English, he added, ‘Also your last, I might add.’
Badat was breathing very rapidly and making muffled sounds under the tape. Kidanu reached down for his knapsack, slowly pulled out a long machete, and laid it on the bed. At the sight of it Badat began struggling frantically against his bonds. Kidanu let him. He reached into the bag again and began pulling out various other metallic implements and laying them out in a row. They were all very sharp. Badat’s black eyes followed Kidanu’s every movement and his own struggles got wilder. Globules of sweat were already trickling down his face.
As Kidanu pulled out more items, he spoke the words he’d wanted to say for so long.
‘Fifteen years ago, presidente. A small town called Ksaneta, near the border. You have not forgotten, I hope? I would be offended if you had. You spent the whole day there enjoying yourself, butchering my people one after the other with a machete just like this one. And at noon you slaughtered my two children and my wife, then cut them into small pieces, simply because it amused you to do so. But you made one very big mistake. You left me alive.’
Pulling the last of the knives from his bag, Kidanu tested its point on his thumb. A tiny pinprick of blood appeared. He sucked at it and nodded in satisfaction. ‘And now I have found you,’ he said, ‘and it is my turn to be amused.’
Badat’s eyes were almost popping out of his head now. Kidanu gave the mass murderer the smile he’d been practising for years, and played the knife point lightly down Badat’s large stomach until it rested between his legs.
‘Now,’ Kidanu said, ‘let us begin.’
Bishop was smiling.
He’d been smiling a lot in the past couple of hours. Basically, ever since he got the phone call from Lisa that morning, telling him breathlessly that Mom had woken from her coma and to get over to the hospital as soon as possible.
Bishop had arrived half an hour before and was now sitting in the waiting room, reading a copy of USA Today. Waiting for the kids to finish with Amy. And her husband too, of course. He didn’t want to intrude on an intimate family moment. He could be patient.
But he was also smiling at the two-column story he’d been re-reading in the paper. The one that said the West Palm Beach PD in Florida still hadn’t found any clues or motive for the savage killing and dismemberment of a James Foster at his luxury home three days before. Apparently, it had been a real mess, with body parts and blood everywhere.
What goes around comes around, Bishop thought. He was just glad he’d stayed on Kidanu’s good side through all this. That was one guy you did not want to piss off.
He looked up and saw Lisa, Pat and Gerry come through the doors. They looked happy. Bishop dropped the paper on the chair and stood up. They saw him and came over.
‘What are you doing out here, James?’ Lisa asked. ‘Mom’s been asking for you. You should have come in with us. I mean, we’re family, aren’t we?’
‘We sure are, kiddo,’ Bishop said, and ruffled Pat’s hair. ‘I just figured you all deserved to be with her first. It’s okay, I’ll go in now.’
Gerry was watching Bishop and gave him an amiable nod.
Bishop nodded back. These days they were merely polite with each other, and that was enough for Bishop. It seemed Gerry had learned something through all this, at least.
His brother-in-law had reappeared the day after the junkyard incident and finally explained why he’d been acting the way he had. He’d told Bishop his previous night watchman job had been for a Russian-owned import business and that one night he’d overheard a conversation he shouldn’t have. It seemed the company had a nice little sideline of smuggling in premium vodka direct from the homeland and then selling it on to reputable wholesalers at cost. Unfortunately, Gerry made the mistake of mentioning this to a colleague, who took it upstairs to the boss, who immediately fired Gerry and warned him that if he ever mentioned his suspicions to anybody else he’d regret it. Gerry had taken the warning seriously.
Then a few weeks
later came the assault on Amy. When Gerry learned one of the perpetrators was Russian he freaked out, thinking he might have been partially responsible for Amy’s condition, despite not telling anybody about the black market vodka scam. Consumed with guilt, Gerry had killed Yuri partly out of revenge and partly in the hope that Bishop would never learn of his involvement in Amy’s attack, even though he hadn’t been involved at all. That’s also why he’d steered clear of Bishop as much as possible in the following days, little realizing that he was making Bishop’s job even harder.
Bishop couldn’t really blame him, though. After all, hadn’t he felt exactly the same way upon learning Amy might have tried to ask him for help beforehand?
As for the Artemis connection, the reason was very simple: Gerry had simply been looking for work. Before the assault he’d been in regular contact with Graham, the office manager at Artemis, using his relationship with Amy as leverage to get some temporary work. He’d even tried contacting Klyce himself, which is why he had the man’s office number on his cell. He’d listed him under an alias simply because he didn’t know how Amy would react to the possibility of the two of them living and working together. But when it became obvious they weren’t interested in hiring him, he soon gave up and tried elsewhere.
After the assault, Gerry spent even more time contacting old associates in order to find employment. With Amy in hospital, he still had to pay the mortgage and bills somehow. Fortunately, an old colleague of his had come to the rescue and found him an assistant accounts manager position at a paper manufacturers on Lexington. The pay wasn’t great, but they liked his work and said a full managerial position wouldn’t be too long in coming.
Bishop was glad things had worked out for him. And Amy, too, of course. With Artemis no longer an option for her, at least the family had a regular income again.
He gave Lisa a final smile, then turned away and walked through the doors into the next hallway. When he reached the door to room 32, he looked through the glass panel and saw his sister sitting up in bed, her back resting against two pillows. She was staring sadly out the window. She looked tired and pale and thin. Her blond hair was still damp and lifeless. But the bruises had gone.
