The Mechanic Trilogy: the complete boxset

by Rob Ashman

  Mechanic scanned the room looking for possible exits. The two men opposite weren’t looking at Bonelli they were staring at Silverton.

  Bonelli continued, ‘that’s heavy shit, my friend. So I think to myself, who does Harry Silverton call upon when things go wrong?’ He snapped his fingers again, but instead of more champagne, the two gorillas in tuxedos dragged Ramirez into the room and dropped him on the floor. The men opposite pulled guns from beneath the table and levelled them at Harry and Mechanic.

  Ramirez was tightly shackled with chains around his naked torso, his hands behind his back. His left eye was closed and his right cheek protruded about two inches from his face. His hair was matted with blood and his body was covered in angry purple stripes which stood out from his flesh. Mechanic recognised the biting wounds of armoured electrical cable.

  ‘What the fuck!’ Silverton exploded and went to get up but Mechanic put her hands on his shoulders.

  They were seriously screwed.

  ‘You will be pleased to know that no matter how hard we beat him he remained silent. But he sang like a bird when we played this.’ Bonelli slid a camcorder across the table towards Silverton. ‘Press play.’

  Silverton fumbled with the buttons and the small screen flickered into life. It showed a woman with her arms wrapped around three children shouting in Spanish at whoever was taking the video.

  ‘Mi marido va a matar a todos ustedes,’ she screamed, as the kids burrowed into her, crying.

  ‘Ramirez has a family, which proved much more persuasive than we could ever be and now the mystery is solved.’

  Bonelli made a slight hand gesture and one of the men in tuxedos made a grab for Mechanic. She twisted sharply and elbowed him full in the face, then kicked his legs from under him. The second tuxedo man came in low and hard. Mechanic stepped to one side and cracked his head on the table. Silverton slid from his chair onto the floor.

  The place erupted with people shouting and guns being waved in the air. Mechanic knew she had to get a weapon if they were to survive this, and ran to the bar, hurling bottles of champagne from the table as she went. She could see the guns on a shelf.

  A metal stool cracked into the back of her head and she slumped down.

  It would appear that the bartender was capable of delivering more than a tray of expensive drinks.

  48

  Moran was parked in a side street a block away from Lucas’s hotel. She was staring ahead, deep in thought. Lucas opened the door and sat in the passenger seat, he was clutching a newspaper and was clearly agitated.

  ‘I don’t like you calling the office,’ Moran said angrily. ‘It’s too risky.’

  ‘It’s important.’

  ‘So is keeping this off the grid as far as my boss and dickhead of a partner is concerned.’

  Lucas accepted his scolding.

  ‘Do you have an address? We need to stop her fast.’

  ‘It’s apartment 3C, Welbourne Chase.’

  ‘That’s good. I’ll get Bassano and Harper and head over there now.’

  ‘I’ve already been to the place and it’s empty. I spoke to one of the neighbours and no one has been there for the past two days.’

  ‘She’s done a runner.’

  ‘Yeah, looks that way.’

  ‘Shit. That was our best lead.’ Lucas slumped back in the seat. ‘The Huxton woman must have told Mechanic she’d given her number to Bassano.’

  ‘That’s what I figured. At least we have a name for her now, Jessica Hudson. I got it from the rental agreement. Are we meeting so you can get an update?’

  ‘No, you need to see this.’ Lucas handed Moran the paper, carefully folded to show an ad in the personal column.

  Moran read the advert:

  PAY THE PENANCE

  THE OLD MAN OR THE ONE-ARMED BANDIT

  YOU CHOOSE

  YOU HAVE SEVEN DAYS

  ‘If you’re right, then my penance is to choose,’ he said. ‘Choose between Bassano and Harper. If I fail to make a choice, presumably there will be another dead couple in seven days’ time.’

  And what happens to the one you select?’ Moran asked the question but already knew the answer.

  ‘I think she’s going to kill him.’

  Mechanic couldn’t tell how long she’d been chained to the wall. She was hungry, thirsty and cold.

  The room was a concrete box with no windows. The only light came from around the badly fitting door, leaving Mechanic in semi-darkness. She had explored the confines of her cell as much as the chain would allow and had located the walls with her feet. She could reach two sides but not the back. She was shivering and her joints were seizing up.

  She could hear distant voices occasionally, but the rest of the time it was silent. Her guess was she was being held underground somewhere. Despite her predicament, Mechanic remained calm and positive. After all, whoever had chained her to the wall were amateurs. They had made two fundamental mistakes.

  She estimated she’d been there two days when she heard the sound of voices and footsteps getting closer. She strained to hear and could make out the conversational tones of two men. A bolt slid across the door and it swung open, a shaft of light spilled across the floor.

  Mechanic was blinded. She hid her face in her forearm to protect her eyes. The men were standing close, she could make out their boots through her watery vision. Slowly she opened her eyes and tried to focus.

  ‘Ramirez said it was your idea to kill the other gang members using the same MO. Clever, I like it.’

  Mechanic recognised the voice of Enzo Bonelli and kept her head down, allowing her eyes to grow accustomed to the light.

  ‘He also said you killed Walker because you rumbled his kidnap plan. That’s a smart move as well. And your boss, Mr Silverton, confirms everything. Actually I think he would have confirmed anything we wanted, as we were hammering roofing nails into the tops of his fingers at the time. He held out well for a pen-pusher, but then we got bored and fed him into a meat grinder.’

  Mechanic looked up into Bonelli’s face for the first time. He was smiling as if he’d won on the horses. It must have been an enjoyable couple of days. A tall beefy man stood behind him.

  ‘Now the question is, what to do with you? I think you’re an asset and have proved yourself worth keeping alive. Under normal circumstances I would want you to work for me, but unfortunately it’s not solely my decision. You upset a lot of people and they are not happy. So with regret we’re going to kill you with a good old-fashioned public execution, because that way everyone gets the chance to enjoy it.’ He nodded his head and the other man pulled a set of keys from his pocket and reached for the lock connecting the chain to the wall.

  He fiddled around and the lock snapped open.

  The fundamental mistakes of Mechanic’s incarceration were twofold. First, they had secured her hands at the front rather than behind her back and second they hadn’t swept the cell before putting her in it. During her restricted walkabout Mechanic had found an empty Coke can in the corner. She’d bent it in the middle and repeatedly worked it back and forth until it split in two. The ragged aluminium edges would be put to good use when the time was right.

  When she heard the click of the lock, Mechanic struck.

  She reached under her leg, brought out one half of the Coke can and slashed the razored edge deep into beefy man’s neck. A shower of blood splattered across his shirt and his hands grasped at his lacerated throat. Blood spurted through his fingers as his severed jugular pumped him dry.

  Mechanic unclipped the chain and swung it hard as Bonelli was making a dash for the door. The heavy links smashed into his face, knocking him off his feet. He rolled on the floor screaming in pain. Mechanic leapt on his back and wrestled him onto his front. She wound the chain around his neck and leant back with all the strength she had left.

  Bonelli gurgled and choked as the links cut deep into his flesh. His hands clawed at the metal. Mechanic glanced across to see beefy guy keel
over as blood pulsed onto the floor. Bonelli’s eyes were bursting from their sockets as the chain crushed his windpipe. His head was blowing up with the increased pressure and his flesh was bright purple. Mechanic heaved with all her might and eventually his flailing body went limp and his hands dropped away.

  She slumped forward, exhausted, and unwound the chain. To her amazement, Bonelli let out a low groan and she could feel his lungs fill with air. He was moving below her.

  She leaned across his back to raise his head and stretched the chain tight across his forehead. Gripping it with both hands Mechanic leaned right back. There was a loud crack as Bonelli’s neck broke.

  Mechanic struggled to stand and fell to the ground. She unlocked the cuffs and took the gun from beefy guy’s belt. She went over to Bonelli and frisked him. No gun, schoolboy error, she thought.

  The corridor outside was long and featureless with a door at the end. Mechanic reached it and placed her ear to the wood. She twisted the handle and it opened up onto a concrete stairwell. She climbed the steps and tried to control her breathing. At the top was another door with a window in it. She peered through.

  On the other side she could see an office with a female cleaner busying herself with polish and a duster. Mechanic slid the gun into the back of her waistband and stepped inside.

  The woman jumped as Mechanic came in.

  ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,’ she said in a husky voice.

  Mechanic started opening and closing desk drawers while the cleaner looked on with her mouth open and duster poised. In the fourth drawer she found her wallet and gun and stuffed them into her pockets.

  Outside the office was a trolley stacked with plates of curled-up sandwiches, the remnants of a lunch meeting. Mechanic grabbed a handful as she went by, along with a bottle of water. Leftover food never tasted so good.

  Through a few more doors and up a flight of stairs and she was outside in the warm Vegas air. She collapsed with her back against the wall to gather her strength. She was dehydrated and starving. The last of the food disappeared, washed down with the water. The sun warmed her face. Mechanic got to her feet, followed the road around the block and eventually recognised the bottom of Fremont Street.

  All her instincts screamed to go back into the Park Piazza and blow the rest of Bonelli’s men away, but she was in no fit state. Anyway she had more important things to take care of and a free newspaper to collect.

  49

  It’s disturbing to think of Las Vegas crawling with bad people, even worse to think they are all looking for you.

  Mechanic made it back to her newly acquired digs, a one-bedroom condo on a short-term rent. She missed her comfortable apartment but that was strictly off limits since the Huxton woman had given away her phone number to the one-armed idiot boy.

  She shouldered open the front door and stepped inside with her heavy bags. A quick trip to the supermarket while the taxi kept the meter running had been an urgent necessity. The bags contained food and isotonic drinks to replace the nutrients and salts her body so badly needed, along with a selection of silk and woven scarves, cheap children’s bracelets, hair dye, false tan and a veritable jumble sale of odd accessories.

  She went to work in the bathroom while the kettle boiled, emerging forty-five minutes later sporting jet black hair and eyebrows with a thin layer of fake tan on her face and neck. In two hours’ time she would repeat the process.

  Mechanic ate like she hadn’t seen food before and downed several bottled drinks. She lay on the sofa and drifted off. Thirty minutes later her alarm went off, she didn’t have time for deep sleep but needed to have some rest. She got up and began to assemble her new look.

  After twenty minutes of wrapping herself in scarves and pinning her new clothes in place, she was ready. Mechanic left the flat wearing a hijab and long skirts. She walked with a slightly lopsided gait and steadied herself with the aid of a brightly coloured hiking pole. Her skin was a little too pale for her ethnicity but that would develop later, it was the best she could do given the time. She carried a small rucksack slung over one shoulder and hailed a cab.

  The taxi dropped her off outside the Hacienda. Mechanic tipped the driver and said something incomprehensible to the bellhop who offered to take her bag. She ambled through reception to the lifts and hit the button for the twenty-first floor. The key to suite 8123 slid into the lock. Mechanic drew her gun and opened the door. She was amazed to find Silverton’s room untouched.

  How had the goons from Fremont Street missed this? They wouldn’t have done a fingertip search, they were far more likely to have torn the place apart looking for information. The condition of the room suggested no one had been there.

  Mechanic headed straight for Silverton’s office and as expected the drawers in the oversized desk were locked. She put down the gun and retrieved a combat knife from inside her wraps. Seconds later the first drawer slid open. Mechanic rifled through the contents looking for anything with her details on it. Similarly, with the next, and the one after that, until all the drawers were busted open. Nothing.

  She found a briefcase and prized open the locks. This too contained business documentation but nothing linking her to Harry. Mechanic opened a cupboard and inside was a safe with the buttons 0–9 illuminated with a pale green light. She unzipped her bag and removed a small spray can, flipped the top off and sprayed a fine mist onto the keypad. The chemicals in the spray reacted with the residue of oils and sweat left by Silverton’s fingertips and four of the buttons turned purple. Mechanic noted the digits: 0,1,3,6. Shit, it was a six-digit code and the permutations were too many to try.

  In frustration she twisted the handle and the safe opened. Silverton had forgotten to re-set the code in his excitement to get to the Fremont meeting. Mechanic pulled out neatly stacked bundles of bank notes and pushed them into her bag, there was nothing else of interest so she closed the door and wiped the keypad clean. The cash would come in useful.

  She made her way to the ornate writing desk and set about the drawers with her knife. They were all empty. She cursed under her breath.

  Mechanic then noticed the books in the bookcase weren’t in line, the ones on the left of the top shelf were sticking out about an inch proud of the others. Mechanic pulled them free and found what she was looking for, a plastic wallet containing a wad of paper. She immediately saw her passport-sized picture and a raft of personal details relating to her. Mechanic placed this in her bag and removed more books. She uncovered the photographs of Lucas, Harper and Bassano which she had given to Harry.

  Behind her she heard the metallic click of the lock and the suite door opened. Mechanic rolled across the floor and hid behind the desk. She reached out and slowly pulled her bag towards her out of sight. Two men entered the room, one much taller than the other. The tall one went into the living room and the other into the bedroom. Mechanic picked up her gun from the table and went to grab the photos from the bookcase. The taller man walked across the doorway forcing her to duck back behind the desk. She was trapped.

  One man called to the other and she saw him cross the doorway once again. This was her chance. Mechanic moved towards the bookcase.

  She stopped in her tracks as the man reappeared in the doorway with his back to her, she could see the long silenced barrel of his gun. Mechanic changed direction and hid behind the open door as both men entered the room.

  ‘Hey take a look at this,’ one said in a deep southern drawl. ‘Someone’s forced open the drawers.’

  The desk was at the far side of the room. Mechanic peeked around the door. Both men were sifting through the paperwork.

  ‘There’s a safe,’ one said.

  Both of them knelt down, peering into the cupboard at the safe.

  ‘Try and force it.’

  Mechanic made her move and dashed out into the hallway. She opened the front door and ran down the corridor. The sound of the handle turning made both men look around but all they saw was the door closing.

>   Mechanic heard them burst out of the hotel suite, footsteps running, but she was already hurtling down the fire escape. Her robes flowing behind her as she fled. She opened a door to the eighteenth floor and mingled with the tourists entering the elevator. No one followed her.

  The elevator pinged open at the ground floor. Mechanic kept in the middle of the group and pulled her scarf tight across her face as they spilled out into the lobby. She crossed the floor, weaving her way through the melee of tourists and stepped outside. The two men bundled their way out of a second elevator and were frantically scanning the crowds of people. Mechanic put her head down, hunched her shoulders and ambled off towards the Strip.

  She cursed and gritted her teeth.

  That was too close for comfort and a major screw-up.

  The money and the documents were a good result but leaving the photographs behind presented her with a massive problem.

  50

  ‘How in hell’s name am I supposed to choose?’ Lucas was in a bad way.

  ‘Because that’s what you have to do,’ Moran replied. ‘If you don’t, more people will die and we’ve had enough body bags with your name on them to last a lifetime.’

  ‘Is that supposed to help?’

  ‘No. It’s what you must do.’

  ‘I have another suggestion.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I share the dilemma with Harper and Bassano. Tell them about the penance and explain what Mechanic is demanding. We can use it to lure her into the open, she thinks she’s hunting us when actually we’re hunting her.’

  ‘That’s horseshit. Not a chance,’ Moran said. ‘What if neither of them goes for it? What if they say no? After all, you’re effectively asking one of them to volunteer to be the sacrificial lamb in the vague hope that you get to her first. I don’t think that works.’

  ‘But I can’t choose one of them to be slaughtered by Mechanic either.’