Ogrodnik

by Gary Coffin

  Rayce could already hear the sounds of movement from the floor above. He didn’t know if they suspected anything was amiss, but the next stage of his plan could not wait.

  He pulled a handgun and started upstairs. As he headed up the stairs, he heard the other two mercenaries calling out to him asking him what was going on in a language he didn’t understand or speak. He tried to mimic the big soldier's stomp as he came up the stairs and replied to their queries with unintelligible grunts in a voice that was meant to copy. The voices upstairs were coming from the TV area to the right of the staircase. All he had to do was make it to the top without them getting suspicious.

  Rayce came up to the top of the stairs framed by the ghostly glow from the emergency light. As soon as the others saw him, they reacted. The soldier sitting on the farther couch, facing the staircase, jumped up and reached for his sidearm. He was not nearly quick enough. Rayce’s muzzle flash seemed to freeze the action at a point in time like you might see on the front page on a pulpy police journal. With a single shot to the chest, he was slammed back into the couch where he came from, and where he would stay. The blast was deafening and threatened to blow the windows out with its sonic boom, its objective fully realized.

  Rayce had chosen his weapon well. He could have brought a silenced Glock that made a sound like a grandmother sneezing or used an automatic assault rifle that could empty a room of live bodies in a single three second burst. He had chosen a .44 caliber Colt Anaconda, a massive handgun that kicked like day old moonshine and had a discharge blast to match. In order to prevent the fourth soldier from retaliating, he had to make a statement. The Anaconda made that statement for him.

  The lone remaining soldier froze in mid-movement, still sitting on the couch but leaned over to free up the gun in his chest holster.

  “Don’t make a move or you’ll end up like your buddy,” Rayce growled with the gun sights squarely at the man’s head.

  “Take your gun out of the holster with two fingers, and throw it toward the television.”

  He hesitated for a second and then complied with a look of resignation on his face.

  “Now lie down on the floor, face down and put your hands behind your back.”

  Rayce cuffed his hands with nylon straps and flipped the man over to face him. “I have questions, and you have the answers.”

  “Fuck you,” he spat out.

  Rayce holstered the big gun and pulled out his knife. He heard the forced resolve on the man’s voice and knew it was only a thin hard veneer of defiance and failed to cover the fear he saw deep in the man’s eyes.

  He didn’t have time to waste. The clock was ticking, and Elliot was out there being chased by killers. He needed intel from this man quickly and knew how to get it. He was not proud of the things he knew. He sometimes wished he didn’t know them. He wished he could un-see them, erase them from his memory. But he’d never be able to do that. He still felt the scars from some of those things he knew. The physical scars he could deal with; it was the psychological scars beneath them that still hurt. Those memories were who he was. He could no more forget them than forget his own name.

  Rayce flipped the soldier face down and straddled him so he couldn’t move. He lowered the blade toward the corner of his eye, and the screaming started.

  Satisfied with the intel he had extracted, Rayce set about to finish the job.

  He went downstairs and dragged the first body out into the reception area where the large soldier’s corpse lay. He quickly hauled whatever furniture was within sight and piled it on top of the two bodies. He added the video recording device for the cameras to the pile, and then, on top of his makeshift pyre, he added his overalls, ski mask, gloves and weapons. From a jerry can out of his duffel bag, he poured the accelerant over the pile, and finally, from the duffel, he placed a pair of timed incendiary devices, set to go off and ignite the pile in three minutes. In the three minutes before ignition, the gas fumes would fill the open reception area and create a firebomb that would blow out the windows and swallow the entire building. Rayce knew that a building of this age and construction wouldn’t last more than a handful of minutes after the fire ignited.

  Three minutes gave him plenty of time to jog to his vehicle and make his getaway across the Victoria Bridge and southwards toward home.

  As he exited the bridge on the south side of the St Lawrence River, he thought he heard the distant sounds of a fire truck rushing to a fiery event.

  Ten minutes later, his cell phone chirped as he was making his way along the Richelieu River toward home. He checked the phone and stomped on the gas pedal.

  Elliot hefted the bag up on his shoulder and slipped out the back door without turning on any lights. Making as little fuss as possible, he backed out of his parking spot and slowly rolled down the back lane. He couldn’t do anything about his running lights, but he made it a point not to use his brakes or indicator lights until he was safely away from the house. Satisfied there was nobody following him, he made his way across the city to the bridge and then out to Rayce’s.

  He parked around back at Rayce’s and let himself in. Exercising caution, he did not turn any lights on and sat by the large window at the back of the house that overlooked the patio area. The chair he chose was off to the side of the window, in the shadows of what little light was coming in from the dark of night. He stared out into the inky darkness thinking about the case; the only visible light was the faint glow of a neighboring town up in the sky to the north. As his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he could make out the faint outline of the bordering trees against the sky, and every now and then, he’d see a reflection through the trees of a wave catching a flash of light from somewhere up the road. He sat there for some time contemplating all that had happened over the previous days.

  Elliot’s attention was drawn to the tree line on the right where he thought he saw movement. The blackness was so complete that, as he stared at the area, he imagined he saw shapes. He knew that in order to see in extremely low light conditions, the trick was to not look directly at your subject. Half a million years of evolution had produced a multi-purpose viewing organ ideally suited to the needs of the evolving human. The types of cells in the center of the cornea are used for direct viewing and are good for distinguishing color and detail; the types of cells used for peripheral vision are found off center and although poor at distinguishing detail were effective for detecting movement in low light conditions. He set his gaze 20 feet to the left of his target and didn’t move it.

  There it was again—a movement, a change in the depth of blackness in the shadows, a momentary glint from something metallic. It’s not an animal; it’s a man, he thought. Whoever it was, he was moving slowly. It was almost imperceptible, certainly undetectable if you weren’t looking for it. Over the background roll of the river, he heard the sound of a small branch snapping and all movement stopped. Minutes later, Elliot wondered if maybe he’d lost track of the lurking shadow. If maybe the shadow was now beside the house looking for entry. He reached down slowly, mimicking the caution of the shadow, to pull his gun from the overnight bag at his feet, and he did so without taking his gaze from the window. It took minutes before Elliot had the gun in his hand and still no movement from outside, only imagined sounds and false shadows. The shadow shifted again. This was a very cautious man, he thought, but Elliot was as cautious as the shadow he watched. He sat perfectly still as the shadow advanced slowly and was now no more than 10 feet from the window and about to disappear from his view. Elliot still did not move. The gun handle sweaty in his grip, he strained to hear any sign of the shadowed stalker. He thought he heard a scuff against the house coming from the side where the entrance was. He imagined the fabric of a jacket scraping against the house's stone exterior.

  There was a soft sliding sound from behind him. He slowly turned in his chair to find its source. He heard it clearly now. It was the sound of a doorknob turning, slowly and gently so as not to make a sound.
He was relieved that he had locked the door behind him. The sound at the door stopped. Elliot waited for the next attempt, gun held out at arm’s length, ready to shoot. The crack of door window glass shattering brought him out of his chair and into a crouch, gun held straight out aiming at the broken window on the door. He heard another scuff sound from outside the door and what sounded like an intake of breath, and then an arm came through and turned the knob to let the door swing open.

  Everything slowed down for Elliot as if the world were in slow motion. His body, frozen in time, unable to move, unable to even apply the ounce of pressure the trigger was calling for. He crouched by the chair, mesmerized, soaking in every detail of the scene as it unfolded before him. He heard a voice in the distance yelling, “I’m coming in,” but Elliot had no control over his physical form. Half of a torso leaned in through the open door, and he saw the darkened silhouette of a monster wielding a knife half the size of his arm. The silhouette then retreated immediately.

  “Forsman, it’s Rayce. Stand down! Put your weapon away. Do you hear me?”

  Elliot pulled out of his trance and snapped back to the present.

  “Forsman, do you hear me?” Rayce yelled again.

  “I hear you,” he said with cheerless relief.

  “I’m coming in.”

  “I thought you were stalking me. I thought you were one of Yilmaz’s men.”

  “Sorry to disappoint. You’ll find Yilmaz’s guy outside. We need to get rid of him.”

  Elliot got up out of his crouch and moved to the door. Lying on the ground just outside the door was a body. In the low light, his black clothing and ski mask made him look like a two-dimensional outline of a man. He saw a shiny patch of black on the man’s upper back and knew it was the end product of a killing knife.

  “What are you going to do?” Elliot asked.

  “I don’t want to get caught with a body on my property. I’ve got a roll of plastic wrap in the garage on the work bench. You get that, and I’ll find some tape.”

  By the time Elliot came back with the wrap, Rayce was already there with a roll of duct tape and in the process of looking through the man’s pockets.

  “I want to wrap some heavy rocks in with his body, and then we’ll let the river take him downstream where he’ll settle into the basin. Leave his head, feet, and hands exposed so we give the fish something to nibble on until he gets dredged up, if he gets dredged up.”

  The two worked silently for the next couple of minutes until the man was trussed as per Rayce’s instructions. Rayce picked up a knife sticking in the garden and wiped it clean. He then pushed it deep in between the wrap and the man’s body so it wouldn’t fall out; they carried the bundle down to the river. Rayce pulled the body through the rocky shore and out beside a large boulder that was on the edge of the fast moving water. From there he pushed the body into the torrent and let the current take it away.

  As he walked up to the house, Rayce made a phone call.

  “Hello, Gaetan. Rayce here. I have a gift for you that needs to be picked up tonight. “

  “How hot is it?” the voice on the other end replied.

  “It’s not hot tonight, but by mid-morning, I expect it will be.”

  “Leave it on Rue Chene. My guys can be there in an hour.”

  “Okay,” he said and hung up.

  Rayce looked at Elliot. “Get your car, and drive me up the road to this guy’s car,” as he pointed farther east.

  Elliot didn’t ask questions and drove Rayce to the car hidden in an overgrown access road to a farm that was long gone.

  “Follow me, not too close.”

  Rayce led them to a secondary road that wound up a shallow hill at the foot of a mountain and pulled into the cleared area beside an abandoned granary. He didn’t dally and got into the car as soon as Elliot stopped.

  “Back home.”

  “Why drive the car here?”

  “The people who will be taking the car want to make sure that there are no active GPS or transponder services running before they move the car to the chop shop.”

  “And they’ll come tonight to take it?”

  “They’ll be here soon. They’ll disable any locator technology and then take the car back to their shop. The parts from that car will be en route to a dozen different auto body shops by mid-morning.”

  “It sounds like you’ve done this before?”

  “I do what I need to do. “

  “How did you find Yilmaz’s guy? Were you waiting for him?”

  “My phone told me. I have a perimeter alarm that keeps me posted on any movement in the area surrounding the house. When I saw the car hidden in the old driveway, I knew you must have been followed. I ditched my truck farther up the road and backtracked. It didn’t take long for me to see where he was and where he was going. I took a shortcut and was waiting for him near the back door.”

  They drove for another couple of minutes before speaking again. “Why did you put your knife in with the body?”

  “Weapons are cheap. I’d rather buy another knife or gun than get caught with a weapon that can be traced back to a body.”

  “There’s my truck. Let me off here,” said Rayce as he pointed to the backend of a truck in a roadside pull-off.

  “I’ll meet you back at the house.”

  * * * * * * *

  “You can take the room at the end of the hallway on the left. They’re coming for us now, so get some sleep while you can. ”

  “Are you going to sleep?”

  “I’ll grab some when I’m finished. I have a call to make,” said Rayce as he made his way to a circular metal staircase off to the side of the kitchen area.

 

  Rivka returned from her sister's, entered the house and secured the door behind her as she always did. It had been a long time since she had spent time with her sister. She told herself that was because she was too busy but knew that she’d been subconsciously avoiding her since the Stungun episode. She thought about the recent developments in the Stungun case and how it would change her life if she could close the case. She sensed something that she couldn’t identify at first, something good but recently unfamiliar. It took her a few moments to recognize the feeling of serenity, a feeling that her life was moving in a positive direction, and she smiled.

  She draped her jacket over the back of a kitchen chair making sure she wouldn’t leave a crease and headed straight for the fridge even though it was already 1:00 a.m. As she stood looking at what might slake her gnawing hunger, she paused, making no movement or sound at all. She wouldn’t be able to say what caused her to shift into high alert, only that she sensed that something was amiss. There had been no noise, and nothing seemed to be out of place, but her instincts were screaming. She closed the fridge door quietly and un-holstered her gun. Feeling the gun in her hand filled her with confidence, and she carefully moved toward the adjoining rooms. As she entered the living room, she recognized her alert. There it was again: a faint, almost imperceptible smell of body odor, a smell that didn’t belong in her house. It was the unsanitary smell of a person who did not bathe regularly and didn’t care. It was the smell of the big man, Ogrodnik. Rivka crouched down to three quarters' height and entered the room gun first. The gun swept across the dark shadows of the dining room finding only table and chairs. She tiptoed across the living room area as if the floor was wet ice. The smell was stronger now, or was it? She thought he must be close. The sunroom entrance lay before her. It was a square room at the side of the house with a few pieces of furniture along the house wall. There would be no place to hide if he was in there. She stopped at the entrance, straining to detect even the slightest movement, a muted breath or foot scuff along the floor to confirm her intuition. There was nothing, only the sporadic, drifting scent of an unwashed man: little enough to make her think she might be imagining it but just enough to think she may not be. She contemplated backing off, retreating to the outside and phoning Elliot
for backup. A dozen years on the force had taught her the dangers of acting alone, especially against someone as dangerous as Ogrodnik, but years of obsessing about the Stungun Killer took precedence. She controlled her breathing and prepared herself for the confrontation to come; she’d shoot first and ask questions later. Rivka lunged in through the door at half height and swept her weapon across the sunroom. The incoming moonlight offered a perfect view of the empty room. Damn! she muttered to herself. 

  A rustle of clothing alerted her to the movement behind, but it was too late. A huge arm swept across her torso and picked her up as the other arm reached out and grabbed her gun wrist. The gun wrist was smacked against the door jamb with bone cracking force, and the gun skidded off into a dark corner of the room. The big man gathered both of Rivka’s arms and torso in a one-armed hold from behind and brought the other hand up to cradle her face to still her thrashing. He held her head still and whispered directly into her ear, “I told you we would meet again, my petite cyclamen.”

  Rivka struggled but could not escape his crushing hold. She was suspended six inches off the floor and could not move her arms, torso, or head. Her thrashing legs found his shin with her heels but to no apparent effect. He applied strength to his hold and forced the air from her lungs until she stopped. 

  “Better, this will go smoother for both of us if you come along agreeably. That way I won’t have to hurt you,” and then added, “before I’m ready, that is.”

  Rivka was totally helpless, and she could feel his erection pressing into the back of her thigh. He removed his hand from her face and applied the Taser. Rivka spasmed and then slid into the dark.

  Elliot awoke to the sound of activity in the kitchen. 6:45 a.m. No nightmares. Time to get up.

  “Morning.”

  “Forsman,” Rayce acknowledged without looking up. “There’s cereal and bread in the pantry and fruit in the fridge. Help yourself.”