No Cry For Help

by Grant McKenzie

  The third man. The thought stabbed into Wallace’s brain with such force it almost took him to his knees.

  Wallace knew there had to have been at least three men involved in the abduction of his family. The border guard. The detective. And the one who had actually taken Alicia and his boys from the mall.

  Wallace stopped, his chest heaving, and looked back at the condo.

  “Come on!” said Laurel. “My car’s right here.”

  Wallace shook his head again. “I need to go back,” he said. “He knows where my family is.”

  “Too risky. I don’t know how hard I was able to hit him. He’s armed and he’s a professional. We have to go.”

  Wallace stuck the shotgun between his knees to free his hand and pulled the metal box from behind his back. He stacked it on top of the laptop and offered both items to Laurel.

  “Take these and wait for me. I’ll get some rope and hogtie the bastard.”

  “I don’t—”

  “We’ll take him somewhere where he can scream as loud as he wants and no one will care. I have to get him to talk. I’m all out of options.”

  “It’s a mistake,” said Laurel.

  “I’ve no choice.”

  As Laurel reluctantly accepted the items, Wallace turned and ran back toward the condo.

  CHAPTER 42

  Mr. Black groaned as he rolled onto his side and opened his eyes. Instantly, he felt vulnerable, exposed and angry.

  He forced himself to sit up, to lean his weight against the narrow doors of the hall closet. From this position, he could at least see any attack and respond with some measure of lethal force. His childhood had taught him to never sleep on his stomach; never leave his back exposed.

  Mr. Black touched the back of his head and his hand came away bloody. He probed deeper, ignoring the pain as his fingers pressed into the swollen, torn lump. His skull felt intact. No loose shrapnel from shattered cranium. A lousy flesh wound, nothing more.

  But inflicted by who? That was the question.

  He found his gun on the floor and slipped it into his pocket. Then, suppressing another groan, he grabbed onto the short decorative railing that edged the first three stairs and pulled himself to his feet.

  His vision swam and his stomach churned in protest. His head was pounding and his ears felt stuffed with cotton wool, but the main source of pain was his tongue. He had given it a severe bite.

  He spat a wad of fresh blood onto the floor, stretched his neck and rolled his shoulders, just as—

  Wallace appeared at the top of the stairs and froze in place. A deer in headlights. Roadkill.

  Mr. Black grinned, showing bloody teeth. “You should have kept running while you had the chance.”

  Wallace couldn’t disguise the nervous glance over his shoulder, obviously calculating his chances of being able to flee, before he snapped the Defender hard against it. He had a white bandage, spotted with fresh blood, under his left arm and yet the shotgun’s gaping muzzle was aimed unwaveringly at Mr. Black’s chest, center mass, showing he meant business.

  It was a good choice of weapon, too. Practically idiot proof if you had the balls to pull the trigger.

  Mr. Black studied Wallace’s eyes. They were hard and focused into needle-point slits. He was wounded and full of rage, but it wasn’t enough to disguise his true fear.

  “Where’s my goddamn family?” Wallace seethed. “Why are you doing this to us?”

  And there it was. How could Wallace threaten when he didn’t really want to kill? He wanted answers, not bloodshed. Never a good bargaining position.

  Relishing the moment, Mr. Black slipped the curved knife from his belt and settled it in his hand. He waved it slowly, allowing its polished surface to catch the light.

  “Why don’t I show you exactly where they are?” Mr. Black grinned wider as he began to move forward.

  “Fuck you!” Wallace yelled and squeezed the trigger.

  The shotgun blast reverberated in the hallway and a deadly swarm of lead wasps tore giant holes in the walls and made chalk and pink-insulation clouds bloom.

  Mr. Black, although surprised, still had the lightning-quick instincts to abandon his attack and roll into the living room before the pellets could render his flesh.

  A second violent blast quickly followed, tearing through the hall closet and removing a manhole-sized chunk of the doorway. The pellet spread was so wide that a large mirror above the butter cream couch shattered into a million pieces.

  Mr. Black cursed and rolled deeper into the room to escape the flying shrapnel. In the same smooth movement, he slipped his knife back onto his belt and retrieved his gun.

  He heard the distinct and guttural click-clack of a new round being chambered into Wallace’s shotgun and he waited, patiently giving his ears time to stop ringing and his full senses to return.

  Aiming at the open doorway, elbows locked, he focused on his breathing, bringing his pulse rate down to a calm level.

  Wallace just had to take one step into the room for it to be his last.

  AFTER A full minute had elapsed, Mr. Black cautiously and silently made his way closer to the opening.

  With his ear to the wall, he listened for any movement, knowing the driver couldn’t possibly understand the art of breathing.

  When he heard nothing, he rolled across the opening and aimed his gun down the stairs.

  There was no need.

  Wallace was gone.

  CHAPTER 43

  “You did the right thing.”

  Inside the car, Wallace held on for dear life as Laurel pressed the accelerator to the floor. Her eyes were constantly flicking to the rearview mirror, watching for any sign of the black SUV as she put as much distance between them and the condo as possible.

  “He would have killed you,” Laurel continued. “You know that, right?”

  “Fucker moved like a ghost,” said Wallace. “What the hell am I up against? This is madness.”

  Laurel tapped the metal box sitting between them. “Maybe this will have answers.”

  Wallace glanced down at the box and then quickly looked away. It seemed too little for all he had endured.

  “If it doesn’t, I’ll need to step up my game,” he said. “Fuck baseball bats. If they want to play with knives, I’ll need to come at them with something even worse.”

  “You don’t have the stomach for that,” said Laurel gently.

  Wallace stared out the window. His face was hard.

  “I do now,” he said.

  CHAPTER 44

  Mr. Black stood in the living room and peered out the front window. His SUV was still in the driveway, which meant Wallace’s truck was still trapped in the garage.

  Curious.

  No other vehicles were travelling on the quiet street and no nosey neighbors had rushed out to see what all the noise was about.

  Desensitization of society, thought Mr. Black, was a truly wonderful thing.

  Mr. Black removed his cellphone from his pocket, inserted the wireless earpiece into his left ear, and tapped on an icon labeled Scanner. When the program launched, he opened the menu and double-checked that it was still monitoring Bellingham PD. When he clicked OK, the chatter of the local emergency band immediately came alive in his ear.

  If anyone did decide to report the gunshots, he would know instantly when the police were on their way.

  An agitated thump drew Mr. Black’s attention away from the window. When he turned to face the dining room, the bound man in the wrought-iron chair eyed him warily.

  The guard’s normally handsome face was a mess: bloodshot eyes and a battered nose beneath a badly swollen and discolored brow. He looked as though he had attempted to head butt an anvil.

  Nasty.

  Mr. Black purposely ignored him a little longer as he crossed the room and snatched a discarded towel from the couch. He found a clean corner and pressed it into his mouth.

  The towel soaked up the blood from his lacerated tongue, but it was dry
and uncomfortable. Mr. Black removed it from his mouth and dropped it to the floor.

  He moved into the dining room and walked around the guard’s chair, examining the bonds. He was amused by the pink fur-lined cuffs around the man’s ankles. The cheap chain between the cuffs was broken, but his legs were still bound firmly to the chair by rope.

  The guard’s left knee was swollen to the size of a softball. Someone had obviously battered it with the same instrument that had later struck the back of his own head. As a pain center, however, it was an odd choice. There were larger nerve clusters in much easier to access places.

  “This is quite the mess, Desmond.”

  To his ear, his words sounded slightly thicker, the edges of the consonants more rounded, less sharp, but he was relieved the injury to his tongue hadn’t impaired his over-all elocution. He had worked hard on his enunciation for years and prided himself on the clarity of his diction.

  In his younger days, he had known a boy who spoke with a lisp. The boy had endured incredible torment from the other children before he set their foster home on fire and disappeared into the night. Everyone in the home died in their beds. Mr. Black could recall their screams behind locked doors and bolted windows, but . . . strange, he could no longer remember the means of his own lucky escape.

  The guard bristled and strained against the rope, making his muscles bulge and ripple. His lips were stretched so tightly over the red rubber ball that the flesh looked ready to split.

  Mr. Black flashed crimson teeth.

  He touched the back of the guard’s head and flicked the steel buckle on the leather strap with his fingernail.

  “Kinky,” he said.

  He loosened the strap and pulled the gag from the guard’s mouth.

  “Thank, God,” said the guard. He moved his mouth in a circle and shifted his jaw from side to side. “Untie me. We need to catch that fucker and peel the skin from his bones.”

  Mr. Black nodded agreeably. “I love the sentiment.” He absently touched the back of his own bloody head. It was achingly tender. “But there’s one small hitch.”

  “What?”

  The man was irritated. Understandably so, but . . .

  “I need to know what you told him first.”

  The guard’s face folded into a brutal snarl like a pitbull in the ring. He spat bloody phlegm onto the floor.

  “I didn’t say a goddamn thing. You know better than to ask me that.”

  “I do, Desmond. I do.” Mr. Black couldn’t keep the soft, condescending chuckle from his voice. “But you know our friend? A stickler for details.”

  “Fuck you, T-Bone.”

  Mr. Black sprang forward, his claw-like knife suddenly in his hand. The blade was turned around so that it curved downward and the needle-like tip quivered a fraction of an inch above the guard’s wide, bulbous left eye.

  “That name is dead,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “You ought to know better.”

  “Sorry, sorry, Geesus!”

  The guard’s eyes widened even further as Mr. Black dipped the tip of the knife into his skin and carved a razor thin line around his cheek.

  The guard screamed, but more in anger than pain. “What the fuck?”

  “The cheek is the tastiest part of any animal,” said Mr. Black casually. “Haven’t I taught you that?”

  The guard bared his own bloody teeth. “Cut me the fuck loose, you goddamn freak. You don’t have the right to touch me.”

  Mr. Black guided the knife gently across the guard’s face until he reached his neck. The man’s thick carotid artery, pumped full of rich, oxygenated blood, stood out against his pale, straining skin. The curved knife tip pierced the flesh above the artery. A tiny, opening incision. The guard barely flinched.

  “What did you tell Wallace?”

  “Nothing. I told you already.”

  “If you were uncooperative, why did he leave you alive?”

  “’Cause he’s a goddamn civilian pussy.”

  Mr. Black tilted his head in contemplation. “How did he even know you existed?”

  “How the fuck should I know?”

  Mr. Black slowly moved his head in the other direction. “Interesting question though, isn’t it? How did he know? You were not to have any contact with him.”

  “I didn’t. I swear.”

  Mr. Black glanced at the floor, distracted by another thought. “Is that his blood on the towels?”

  “Yeah, I clipped him when he nabbed me at Paul’s.”

  “Paul? The cop?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your lover?”

  The guard wrinkled his nose. “Just someone I was fucking.”

  “Your lover?” repeated Mr. Black. He pressed the knife a little deeper.

  The guard sighed rather than groaned, more frustrated than frightened. “Yes. OK? You happy?”

  Mr. Black nodded, but it wasn’t in response to the guard’s concession. “He came back for the cop.” His eyes and voice drifted. “That makes sense. Maybe the accident with the van . . . he guessed something wasn’t right . . .”

  His eyes flicked back to the guard. “Is he still alive?”

  “Paul?” The guard shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “That could be a problem.”

  “I can take care of it.”

  “Really?” Mr. Black emphasized his incredulity.

  The guard sighed again. Heavier.

  “I was taking care of it before Wallace busted in.”

  Mr. Black nodded. “A lone bus driver against a United States Marine with how many kills to his name?”

  The guard sneered. “He laid you out, t—”

  The guard’s words were cut off as Mr. Black’s knife sliced through his large artery and across his throat. The man’s heart, sensing the massive trauma, pumped furiously in panicked response, a futile gesture to seal the fatal wound.

  Mr. Black jumped back to avoid the spurting arterial spray, angry at himself for the impulsive loss of control.

  Despite all his hours of meditation and inner reflection, he was still a helpless victim to raw emotion.

  And he didn’t even get to ask his last question: Who was helping Wallace?

  WHILE THE guard bled out, Mr. Black walked through the condo. When one overlooked the bullet holes, blood spatters and shattered mirror, it was actually decorated quite beautifully. Sparse, yet comfortable.

  In its own way, it was not unlike a barracks. Larger, naturally, but everything in its place. No clutter. No sentimentality. Clean, cold and efficient.

  Mr. Black could see himself in just such a place if he ever settled down.

  Upstairs in the master bedroom, he studied the mess. The room had been ransacked, but in a panicked frenzy rather than a controlled search. No part of the room appeared untouched, which meant Wallace hadn’t found whatever he was looking for.

  Mr. Black smiled appreciatively. Desmond must have played him.

  It was the extension of an idea their sergeant had when they were all first in the sand. Desmond had begun his obsession with tattooing the snake on his back and the Sarge had suggested he incorporate GPS co-ordinates into the design.

  That way, he reasoned, if Desmond was ever captured and needed a break from the inevitable torture they all knew would be their due, he could break down and reveal that a set of co-ordinates pinpointed a secret stash of stolen treasure or weapons, whatever he deemed his enemy craved more desperately.

  It became a game, something to occupy their down time and prevent boredom from finding a home. Desmond’s tattoo contained the co-ordinates to six secret locations across three countries, each one equipped with enough tripwire explosives to obliterate a small unit and blow a hole in the sand large enough to be noticed by orbiting satellite.

  It was a pity, then, after all that effort, Desmond wasn’t the one who ended up in the interrogator’s chair.

  At least he had remembered the basics and tried to buy some time by leading Wallace on a frustrating ch
ase through his underwear drawer.

  Mr. Black was about to leave the bedroom when he caught a glimpse of himself in the full-length, oak-framed mirror. His face and hands were splattered with blood.

  He walked into the adjoining bathroom and washed. The bathroom was large with an oversized glass shower that could easily accommodate two people, and something you rarely saw outside of Europe — a bidet.

  When he returned to the full-length mirror, Mr. Black adjusted his tie, making sure the strings were of equal length. He could still see faint splashes of blood on his clothes, but that was one of the beautiful things about black cloth. You had to really look close for bloodstains to matter.

  A pair of greasy handprints on the mirror bothered him. The rest of the house was kept so clean. He stepped closer to the mirror and examined the marks. The ring finger on the left hand showed an absence of smudge, precisely where a wedding band would sit.

  Mr. Black positioned his hands on top of the handprints and pressed down.

  The mirror clicked and swung open.

  Mr. Black frowned. Desmond had talked. He must have.

  Inside the hidden compartment, stacks of money lined the shelves. But they appeared untouched.

  Curious.

  Surely, if Wallace had discovered this, he would have been tempted? How could he not?

  Perhaps Desmond told the truth after all.

  Mr. Black flipped through one of the stacks of bills and conducted a quick mental calculation. He nodded his approval. Desmond had been frugal but not anal. That’s something he wouldn’t have expected.

  He returned the bound stack of bills to the shelf. Desmond wouldn’t be needing it, but in the meantime it was in as safe a place as any.

  He moved to the next shelf and picked up the Zippo lighter. He recognized it. It didn’t belong to Desmond.

  Curiouser and curiouser.

  He swung the mirror back into place, grabbed a T-shirt off the floor and wiped away the greasy handprints.