by Marcus Wynne
"Where's the mayonnaise, Tim boy?" he asked.
"Piss off," Tim said. Alfie reached across the counter for the pot of mayonnaise where it sat in front of Tim. Tim struck Alfie's hand away, and as he did, Alfie moved quickly and neatly slashed the back of Tim's hand with the butcher knife.
"Fucking hell!" Tim shouted. He slapped one hand on the butcher-block counter as he began to rise to his feet and Alfie slammed the butcher knife point first through the back of Tim's hand and pinned him to the counter.
Tim screamed. Jay came running into the kitchen from his study.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Jay shouted. "Roy! Get in here!" he called to the other bodyguard, who came in and visibly paled at the sight of Alfie sitting down to eat, gazing mildly at Tim, who writhed in pain, pinned to the counter with a knife through the back of his hand.
"I'm eating me sandwich," Alfie said. "Bread's a bit off, though."
"I'm going to kill you!" Tim shouted. Tears of pain ran down his face and he twisted on his stool, trying to find a position that eased the shocking pain.
"You've got the talking bit done, mate," Alfie said, picking up his plate. "Best you clean yourself up before you put me off my lunch."
He walked through the kitchen, brushing past Roy, and disappeared into the study, where he sat down in a chair facing the big windows that looked out over the ocean. He settled into the chair and finished his sandwich. Jay came into the study and stood behind him, fists on hips. Alfie studied Jay's reflection in the window in front of him, raised one hand, and gave Jay a little wave.
"He's going to be useless, now," Jay said.
"He's always been useless except for kissing your arse," Alfie said mildly.
"This gets the rest of the staff upset."
"Need to get better staff, mate."
"I've been thinking of that."
"Need better than that to take my place. Have some pride in your operation. Like the Yanks say, you want someone who'll be all that he can be. Something like that. Good ham, by the way. Where did you get it, in town?"
"I've got people looking for this American," Jay said.
"You mean Charley Payne," Alfie said. "Ex-CIA, one of the wonder boys from the Special Activities Staff, who are bad news when you put them out in the field. Para with the 82d Airborne Division, saw action in the Gulf, and then went into the CIA paramilitary program where he got poached for the SAS. He was with them the same time I was with our SAS. Got a good reputation in the field, but considered hard to manage by his superiors."
"You've been reading up," Jay said. He dragged over another chair and set it facing out the window beside Alfie and sat down.
"You've got good connections," Alfie said. "Read mine in a while?"
"Paid good money to disappear it not long after you went off the reservation for me."
"Interesting psychological brief, what?"
"What are you going to do?" Jay said.
"Wait for him to show up. It won't be long."
"How do you know?"
"I just know," Alfie said, twisting restlessly in the chair. "You know better than to keep asking me that."
"In case you haven't noticed, this puts a real strain on our operation. This needs to be put to bed."
"Put to bed?" Alfie said, amused. "That's an interesting term you Americans use. Put to bed. What does that mean, really?"
"I have people checking the hotels in Cairns and in Brisbane for recent arrivals. It'll take a while, but it's getting done. I want you to take him someplace away from here. We don't need the attention."
"Jay?" Roy, the bodyguard, called from the door behind them. "I'm going to have to take him into hospital, he's bloody well fucked up."
"Do what you have to," Jay said.
"Right then, I'm off," Roy said.
Alfie looked at Roy's reflection in the glass and said, "Don't let the door hit you in the ass."
"Piss off," Roy said as he left.
"You may need their help, you know," Jay said.
"They're not going to be any help to me. And if this American is half as good as he is on paper, they're not going to be much good with him either."
"What are you going to do."
Alfie leaned back, and let the images of his home rise up in his mind.
"Wait," he said. "Dream a little dream."
3.10
On the long ride down from Laura, Charley told Kativa the story of the cave and the two old Law Men and what he'd felt there in the cave, deep in the heart of Quinkin country.
"It was like being in a spotlight of darkness in the light of day," he said.
"We're in a world where the normal rules don't apply," Kativa said.
"I know he bleeds," Charley said. "And as long as that rule applies, that's all I care about."
"All this feels so out of control… I don't know what to do and yet I feel as though I'm doing something I'm supposed to be doing, like I'm part of a plan…" Kativa began.
"I know exactly what you mean," Charley said. "I know exactly what you mean."
When they arrived at the hotel, Kativa went straight to the room. Charley spent a few minutes with the concierge and then went to a builder's supply house with the directions from the concierge. He bought a seventy-five-foot coil of rope and some carabiners and some lengths of strapping and returned to place it all in the locked tool locker in the bed of the pickup truck. In the cab, after a careful look around, he took out the Browning High Power and checked the chamber to make sure there was a round in place, then dropped the magazine and tested the strength of the spring with his thumb.
All was well.
He drove back to the hotel, then went up to the room, where Kativa sat on the edge of the bed, combing out her hair.
"I need a shower," he said.
"I left you plenty of hot water," she said.
Charley stripped and showered, the hot water stinging the fresh abrasions on his back, buttocks, and shoulder blades. He let the hot water beat on him till it began to run cold, then he turned off the water, his skin tingling, and dried himself with the heavy terry-cloth towels. He studied himself in the mirror. There were bags under his eyes and he hadn't shaved. He used the soap and the provided razor and scraped his face clean as best he could. Then he came out and quietly slipped into fresh shorts so as not to wake Kativa, curled into a loose ball on the still made bed. Charley stood there for a moment and looked at her, and a fierce wave of some emotion akin to affection and protectiveness rose up in him. He watched her breathing easily, then slipped into clean blue jeans and a T-shirt and let himself out, the ice bucket in hand. He padded barefoot down the hallway to the ice machine, noting and nodding to the burly man he passed in the hallway who was studying the key in his hand and the room numbers. After Charley brushed by him, the big man turned and watched him go into the alcove where the ice machine was. When he heard the rattle of ice cubes, he continued down the hall to the elevators and returned to the lobby. The big man stopped and said to the bell captain, "Which room did you say my mate Charley was in?"
"Room 304," the bell captain said.
"I knocked and there wasn't any answer."
"I could ring up for you?"
"No," the big man said. He handed the man a twenty-dollar note. "I'll drop by for him later. Thanks for your help."
"No worries, mate."
The big man went out the lobby door into the long driveway and took out his cell phone. "I've got him in the Radisson downtown, boss. Saw him myself in the hallway. It's the American for sure."
"Good work, Roy," Jay Burrell said. "What about Tim?"
"They're keeping him in hospital overnight; one of his ligaments is severed and he's going to have to have surgery to reattach it. Couldn't get him in today, so it will be first thing in the morning."
"You hang tight there," Jay said. "Get you a room there."
"As long as you're paying, boss."
"Stick close and keep an eye on the American. Find out wh
at he's driving. We'll send someone else along to lend you a hand."
"Just don't send that bloody Abo, boss. That fella gives me the creeps and I won't put up with this bit about Tim."
"That's my worry to sort that out, Roy. Are you heeled?"
"Too right, boss."
"Don't take matters into your own hands, Roy. Wait for help. Just wait for help. Understand?"
"Got ya, boss."
"We'll speak soon," Jay said. He hung up first.
Roy went back into the hotel, nodding to the bell captain, and said, "Don't mention it to me mate if you see him, will ya? I want to surprise him."
Then he went to the check-in counter and asked the girl, "Got any rooms left?"
3.11
Alfie double-tied the laces of his low-cut chukka boots and tugged his socks up. He replaced his shirt with one the same color of his battered and worn khaki pants. A light bush jacket went over the shirt. Then Alfie opened up his weapons locker and took a look at what he had handy. He took up, then replaced a H&KPDW with a suppressor, then took it out again and laid it on the bed. He took out two magazines and several boxes of 9mm ammunition, and loaded the magazines with twenty-nine rounds each, pressing down on the last round to check the springs. He quickly stripped down the miniscule submachine gun and checked the parts, lightly oiling them with Break Free before reassembling the weapon. He took out a canvas sling for the weapon and attached it, then removed it and replaced it with a simple bungee cord. With his Leatherman tool, he crimped the ends of the bungee cord fitting round the folded stock of the weapon and the forearm grip. He took a roll of black gaffer tape and carefully wrapped the metal fittings where the bungee cord was attached and made sure that when it flexed and moved it made no noise with the metal parts all covered in layers of black tape.
That would do as his main arm.
One last thing was needed before the weapon was ready. He took a brass catcher bag fitted with a metal frame that held the bag close, but not too close, to the ejection port of the submachine gun. It would catch all the ejected cases and not leave anything for the cops to work with other than the hollow points in his target. The customized attachments with the silencer made the miniscule submachine gun a bit awkward to carry with the stock folded, but when the stock was extended it was a handy weapon for an assassination.
Which was the whole purpose of this night's operation.
He took out a .38 caliber revolver, a four-inch Smith & Wesson, and loaded it with fresh shells. That he tucked into his waistband, with two speed loaders bristling with hollow point Federal Nyclad bullets tucked into the strong side pocket of his bush jacket. In the front right pocket of his pants he clipped an Emerson Commander, the big folding fighter he favored over most other knives, and in his left pocket he shoved the Leatherman tool.
Alfie stood in front of the mirror in his bathroom and inspected himself. He flexed up and down on the balls of his feet, listening to see if any of the metal on him clicked or made noise. He was satisfied that he was dressed for silence. He took a moment, and let his brain settle and sort out the quiet in the house. He could hear stirrings in the next room, the metallic clack of a bolt being retracted and then let forward on a firearm, murmuring voices. Jay was sending one other man with Alfie to deal with the American. The other man was to be the wheel-man on a Toyota minivan. The minivan reminded Alfie of the matutu buses in Africa, except this one had no windows.
There was a tap at the door.
"Come," Alfie said.
Jay opened the door and stuck only his head into the room. "You ready to go?"
"Yes," Alfie said. "I am. Who's the driver?"
"Stevie. He'll keep his mouth shut and do what you tell him."
"That will be something to see."
"If you can do it elsewhere than the hotel, that would be good."
"I don't like working with someone else."
"If you and Roy can get him into the van, take him away out bush. That would be best."
"I'll have a look around, see what we can do."
"Don't look around. Get the job done."
Alfie tugged gently on the door handle, pulling Jay slowly into the room. "Don't use that tone with me, Jay. I told you, I'll take care of it. And this is the last time. No more of this. I don't need it."
Jay stepped back into the hall. "You like the money too much."
"Not this much," Alfie said. He stepped into the hallway and brushed past Jay. "Let's go."
A short, squat, and heavily muscled man with sandy blond hair came into the hallway from the room next door to Alfie's. He had on a long black leather car coat that came to his fingertips, a white T-shirt and black Levi's and heavy boots.
Alfie looked him up and down.
"Nice outfit," he said. "What are you carrying?"
The blond man held open his jacket. Slung round his shoulder beneath the coat was a sawed-off Remington 1100 automatic shotgun. The barrel had been removed forward of the tubular magazine and the butt of the shotgun was missing after the pistol grip. Tucked into the right side of his waistband was some kind of large caliber revolver.
"Got the Remy for heavy and the Python for light," Stevie said.
"Nice," Alfie said. "Did you wipe off the brass in the Remy before you loaded it?"
Stevie looked chagrined. "No, mate, I didn't."
Alfie grinned at Jay and said, "Well, get to it, Stevie my lad, because we don't want to leave the hallways littered with shotgun shells with your prints on them, now do we?"
Alfie watched the other shooter empty the magazine of the shotgun, carefully working the action, then put on thin surgical gloves and wipe each brass shell with a handkerchief before reinserting them into the magazine.
"That's better, isn't it?" Alfie said. "Now we can go, Stevie."
Alfie brushed past his big backup and led the way toward the minivan parked outside the kitchen door. Stevie followed in his wake.
"Do as he says," Jay said to Stevie's back.
Stevie turned back and dropped a wink to Jay as Alfie went out the kitchen door.
"I got it all covered," Stevie said.
"We'll see," Jay said.
He watched the two men get into the van, Stevie in the driver's seat, and he hoped that Stevie did have it all covered. He didn't want any comeback from this, and he hoped the shotgun and the element of surprise would be enough to take Alfie off the books forever.
3.12
It was late, and Charley, lying beside Kativa in the big bed, felt restless. He'd lain down beside her to rest but couldn't sleep. Kativa stirred, then turned away from him, one hand flung over her head. She'd been sleeping since they'd returned while Charley, still abuzz with his emotions since his exploration of the cave, hadn't slept at all. He slipped out of the bed, careful not to wake her. He stood in the moonlight filtering in through the curtains and let the air-conditioning raise goose pimples on him. Outside he saw boats harbored in the hotel marina and watched the running lights of boats come and go in the harbor. Charley quietly lifted an armchair into place before the window and sat in it, propping his feet up on the windowsill. He wished for a cigar, or even a cigarette, and settled for a small bottle of Courvoisier cognac from the minibar poured into a water glass. He enjoyed the drink; it served to put his mind at rest for a short time and let his unconscious sort through his options and formulate some kind of plan.
The glowing face of the clock radio showed it to be almost 11:00 P.M.
He set his empty glass down and enjoyed the mild buzz he got from drinking on an empty stomach. He looked at Kativa, still deep in sleep, and considered calling room service but decided to wait despite the pang in his stomach. From the hallway outside his door he heard the rattle of a trolley cart. He got up and went to the door and opened it and saw a maid pushing a cart down the hall.
"Excuse me," he said. "Is room service still working?"
"Yes, sir," she said. "All night. The menu changes at eleven, though. You can get sandwiches and sala
ds all night. There's a menu in your dresser drawer. Would you like me to…"
"No, thank you," Charley said. "I'll take a look at it. Thanks."
She smiled and nodded and continued pushing her cart down the hallway. Charley shut the door and went into the bathroom. He studied his face in the mirror. There were new lines there. He sluiced cold water from the sink over his face till he lifted the fog in his mind.
There was a knock at the door.
Charley reached for a towel and ran it quickly over his face and hands. "Just a minute," he called from the bathroom.
They entered hard. A sharp kick to the door, just under the door-knob, cracked and shattered the doorjamb and a heavy shoulder crashed the door open. The point man entered, stumbling, his short shotgun caught for just an instant on a piece of the broken jamb.
That was all Charley needed.
He let his startled jump of surprise transmute itself into a leap of anger, and he went for the shotgun, gripping the barrel and the pistol grip and levering it up toward the ceiling, tying the first man up with his own weapon. The shotgun went off as the muzzle went past Charley's head and blew a sizable hole in the ceiling, dazzling Charley with the flash and the sound. Plaster descended like fog. There was another figure behind the point man and Charley continued to maneuver the first man's body so that he was between the second man and Charley.
Charley drove a bare foot hard against the first man's lead knee, buckling his stance, and then drove his own knee hard into the man's groin and midsection, driving and driving with the knee to get him to loosen one hand. When the attacker's hand came off the forearm of the shotgun, Charley levered it round on the short strap so it was pointed backward at the head of the attacker, who saw what was coming and began to strike with his free hand at Charley. Charley struggled to put the shotgun muzzle onto the big man's body. The man was strong; he pushed as though in a rugby scrum and drove Charley back into the room. The second attacker was nowhere to be seen. For an instant the muzzle crossed the big man's shoulder and that was close enough for Charley; he pressed the trigger and a charge of buckshot tore a massive wound into the man's shoulder. The point man screamed and bucked away, pulling the shotgun with him. Charley levered the shotgun into the soft part of the man's throat and pulled the trigger. The shot blew the front of the man's skull away, and he dropped cross-legged in a heap on the floor.
