by Rob Ashman
Mechanic was still in the bathroom, he stepped across the living room to the bedroom and slipped inside.
‘Looks like someone’s been packing in a hurry,’ he said under his breath.
He reached out his hand and ran the zip down the bag. The butt of a 9mm poked out.
The officer went for his gun.
Mechanic blew a neat hole in the back of his head.
The suppressed spit threw him forward onto the bed. An arc of blood spattered the quilt and the wall.
‘Couldn’t leave it alone, could you?’ she said to the corpse lying face down in front of her.
Now it really was time to leave. The penance was waiting.
60
Harper spun off the dirt track and was relieved to be on the solid road again. He needed to get rid of the car fast for two reasons, firstly, Bonelli’s men might recognise it and, secondly, the back tail-light was missing and he was in danger of being pulled over by the police. Neither was a good option.
He reached the outskirts of Vegas and swung into the first shopping mall he came to. Harper selected the fullest car park and pulled over, resting his forehead on the steering wheel and breathing deeply. His whole body ached and when he moved his arms it felt as if red hot nails were being hammered through his shoulders.
Harper was hungry, thirsty and looked like shit. He had no money and two handguns, not a great combination. The driver’s door swung open and he stepped out looking towards the Strip. The MGM was about a mile and a half away, he had no choice but to make it on foot. He flicked up the trunk and fished out a cap and a brown leather coat and set off.
An hour and a half later Harper arrived at the Lucky 6. He’d kept to the side streets and alleyways as much as possible. Men in cars cruised around but he managed to keep himself out of sight. He couldn’t risk returning to his room – Bonelli knew his name, so there was a good chance he knew where he was staying. He also couldn’t turn up at Lucas or Bassano’s door with a cheery ‘Hello I’m back,’ because that might be followed by a hail of bullets.
Harper hid himself away against the back of a transformer which was tucked in the corner of the motel grounds from where he could see Lucas’s room. He would have to wait.
He heard Bassano before he saw him, he was coming around the upper-level walkway heading for Lucas. Harper broke cover and waved his arms as far as his damaged shoulders would allow. Bassano looked down and shouted, ‘Where the hell have you been?’ Nice one thought Harper putting his fingers to his lips with a ‘Shhh’ gesture. Bassano met him at the bottom of the steps.
‘Shit, what happened to you?’
‘I’ll explain later. Both of you pack your gear, we need to move out fast. The guys who did this to me want to do the same to you.’ Harper ran back to the transformer and out of sight.
Fifteen minutes later Lucas backed up the car and Harper flung himself onto the back seat.
‘What the fuck happened?’ Lucas looked back over the seat at his friend. Bassano tossed him a bag containing bottled water and a sandwich. Harper tore open the packaging and bit into the bread and meat.
‘The short answer is there’s a guy named Silverton and our pictures showed up in his place. There’s another man by the name of Bottelli or Bonelli or something, who looks like a drug lord and he’s mighty pissed at us. I have no idea why, but the bastard nearly killed me, twice.’
‘Where the hell have you been?’ asked Lucas.
‘They took me off the street at gunpoint, drove me to the desert and almost blew my head off. That’s when he showed me the photographs of all three of us. I wouldn’t talk, so he hung me from a fucking forklift.’
‘Jesus.’
‘His goons took me back to the desert to finish the job but I got away.’
‘Where are they now?’ asked Bassano.
‘The two who drove me are lying in the gravel being picked clean by buzzards and the rest of his crew will be looking for you two.’
‘You shot two of his guys?’
‘No. I shot one of his guys and beat the other to death with a tyre iron.’
‘Shit! We thought you’d gone on a bender,’ said Bassano.
‘Are you sure this wasn’t Mechanic using someone else to take you out?’
‘Not a chance. I have no idea why Bonelli is interested in us but it’s not about Mechanic.’
‘Where are we going?’ asked Harper, still lying between the front and back seats.
‘Moran is meeting us at the top of the Strip near the Sahara.’
‘What about the leak down at the station, is she playing that right?’
Lucas had forgotten all about the storyline of the investigation having a leak. With the stresses and strains of the last few days, it had completely slipped his mind.
‘Yes, that’s working well,’ he said trying to recover. ‘She’s placed the story that you’ll be meeting with a senior LVPD officer the day after tomorrow and is confident Mechanic will take the bait.’
Lucas bit his lip. He hoped Moran had remembered the storyline as well.
61
Lucas leaned against the wall watching the empty news-stand across the street. It was 5.45am and he hadn’t slept a wink. Moran had met them in a car park the previous evening and put them up in a rundown motel at the top of the Strip. In an attempt to keep Bonelli’s men off the scent they hadn’t checked out of the Lucky 6. Each one took enough clothes for two days and Harper had what he stood up in.
That evening, he had spent an hour soaking in the bath allowing the warm water to ease his aching muscles while he ate a mountain of food. Despite Bassano giving him a lecture on healthy eating, he washed it down with a bucket of Jack Daniels and Coke.
Moran was not a happy woman. She hated shopping for herself, so the prospect of shopping for Harper did not go down well. He needed new clothes and toiletries. Lucas and Bassano were confined to the hotel, they couldn’t risk being spotted by Bonelli’s henchmen, so the purchasing duties fell to Moran. She bought the items, returned to the motel and threw it on the bed.
‘Does this mean we’re married?’ Harper called from the bathroom. Moran never missed not having children on account of the fact that she worked with them every day. It was the first time she had cracked a smile in a week.
Lucas leaned against a wall enjoying the early morning breeze and watched a spotty kid hop off his bike by the side of the road. He unloaded a stack of newspapers from the back, slit the string with a penknife and dropped the papers into the Perspex box. Lucas was on them in an instant. He spread the pages on the wall and skimmed through the columns.
PENANCE DAY TOMORROW – APRIL 28
CHRISTCHURCH MALL MULTISTORY
8TH FLOOR, BAY 864.
5am SHARP
His stomach turned over as he read the ad. This was it.
‘Moran has been in touch, it’s game on,’ Lucas lied marching into the motel room. Bassano emerged from the bathroom with a toothbrush sticking from his mouth.
‘What’s the plan?’
‘Christchurch mall, tomorrow morning at 5am. We are going to take that bitch down.’
‘Get Harper, we don’t have much time and there’s a lot to do,’ Bassano said spraying flecks of white paste onto the carpet. Lucas lifted the phone and called the station.
Moran was already in work and picked up straight away. She listened to Lucas read the advert.
‘That’s good. We have a situation here which means I won’t be with you till later. You know what to do.’ She hung up.
The station was in complete freefall.
An officer had been found shot through the head at a low-rent property on the east side of the city. He was one of the team doing the house-to-house calls on recently rented properties taken out on short-term leases. The alarm was raised when he failed to call in. Another cop went to investigate and found his patrol car parked outside his last known location but there was no sign of him. The investigating cop could hear the sound of a police radio coming
from inside the apartment, so he kicked the door in and found him dead. The rest of the place was empty.
Moran tried to stay focused. The morning briefing had been brought forward to 7am, which made Mills a very unpopular guy. The team gathered in the evidence room and went through the orders for the day. Lucas had been right. Despite every officer out looking for Mechanic there was not a single sighting. She’d vanished. When it came to Moran’s turn she reported a ton of activity but very little progress. The briefing was over in forty minutes and Moran rushed from the office to meet with Lucas.
She found the three of them at the mall checking out parking lot 864, on the eighth floor of Christchurch Mall multi-storey. Despite her distractions at work, Moran delivered a totally convincing performance describing how she had fed the storyline at the station about Harper talking to the police. The meeting was set for tomorrow at 5am. Mechanic was bound to show up to protect her sister.
Realisation was dawning on Harper that he had put his head well and truly into the lion’s mouth. Volunteering to be the bait to draw Mechanic into the open at some time in the future was completely different to the stark reality of actually being the bait tomorrow. The others rallied around him in support, each one relieved it wasn’t them.
Lucas was suffering crushing feelings of guilt. He’d offered up his friend to be killed and lied about it. He felt like shit. Moran was the only one not feeling bad about anything, all she could think about was that this was her big chance. Her career would be guaranteed when she took Mechanic down.
By 10pm all was set. No more strategies to formulate, no more contingency plans to rehearse, no more checking of comms equipment and guns. They were ready to go, all that stood between them and catching Mechanic was seven sleepless hours.
There was one more thing left to do.
Back in his motel room Lucas reached for the phone and dialled home. There was no answer.
Damn, he thought. Now he would have to navigate around Heather the Rottweiler. He dialled anyway.
‘Hello.’ Heather answered.
‘Hi Heather, is Darlene there please.’
‘Jesus, Edmund, do you not understand about time zones? It’s one in the morning. She is here but she doesn’t want to speak to you.’
Lucas clenched his fist to stop himself exploding.
‘Please, Heather, I’m begging you. It’s important, put her on.’
‘It’s not me you need to beg to, it’s Darlene. She’s the one who spends her evenings crying. She’s the one watching her marriage fall apart and all that’s down to you.’
‘That’s why I need to speak to her. I’m coming home soon and I want to put things right.’
‘She told me.’
‘Can I speak to her please?’
‘She doesn’t want to.’
‘Put her on the fucking phone!’ Lucas could hold back no longer.
The line went dead.
He slammed the receiver into the cradle and redialled. It was engaged. He tried again. It was permanently engaged. Once more, the phone ended up on the floor.
62
Mechanic was at the Huxtons’ house walking towards Jo’s bedroom. The pictures in the hallway told of a different life, before Mary-Jay was in a wheelchair. Images of a life full of church outings, eating ice-cream sundaes on the lawn, riding a bicycle … The framed photographs floated by as Mechanic reached Jo’s door and eased it open.
The room was ice cold despite the sun pouring through the window. A figure lay on the bed covered with a white linen sheet, Mechanic stood beside it and reached out her hand. The material felt slimy to the touch and she couldn’t grip the fabric. Try as she might the sheet slipped through her fingers.
The shape beneath the covers stirred.
Slowly the head lifted off the pillow and the body started to sit up. Mechanic grappled with the sheet but it glided through her hands. The cover slipped down the face. She was welded to the spot. Her legs wouldn’t work. Try as she might she couldn’t move.
The cover fell away to reveal the body beneath, it was Lucas.
He threw his head back and laughed. Mechanic’s legs refused to move, she couldn’t get away. His head jerked backwards and forwards, the inside of his cavernous mouth was black and his breath reeked of rancid meat. He raised his hand and pointed to the corner of the room. Jo was sitting in her chair and behind her stood Harper. He reached around with one hand and grabbed her forehead pulling it back against his chest. In his other hand was a long serrated knife. Lucas filled the room with manic laughter. The foul smell coming from his gaping mouth was overpowering.
Mechanic felt her legs come to life and slowly she slid one foot in front of the other edging towards her sister, Jo’s eyes were pleading with Mechanic to help. She was mouthing words but Mechanic couldn’t hear what she was saying. Laughter echoed off the walls.
Mechanic’s feet inched along the floor, moving her ever closer. Then she found her voice and screamed at Harper, ‘No!’
Jo’s eyes were bursting from her head, she mouthed the words ‘Please, please help me.’
Harper raised the knife and the serrations ripped through Jo’s throat. Her mouth still moved as a gaping slash opened up across her neck. Her head rolled back. Her mouth still moving – ‘Please help me. Please …’
Mechanic jumped and gasped for air. She sat bolt upright gripping the bedcover, her arms and chest glistened with beads of sweat. She focused on the surroundings and her head flopped down.
She took a moment to steady herself, threw back the covers and sat on the edge of the bed. It was early and the alarm hadn’t gone off yet. She reached for the remote and flicked on the TV. The morning news was full of an employment bill not being passed in Congress and forest fires raging in California. The tickertape headlines ran across the bottom of the screen telling of a celebrity who had been found dead from a suspected drug overdose at the age of thirty-one. Mechanic walked to the bathroom.
The programme didn’t include the most important news item of the day.
Today was penance day.
Mechanic pulled up next to the black SUV and looked out at the multi-storey opposite. There was a clear view of her target. She got out of her car and groped around under the back wheel-arch of the SUV. She removed the keys, pushed the button, and the indicator lights flashed. Next she went to the back and let down the tailgate, which cleared the metal crash rail against the outer wall. She slid open the side door and climbed inside closing it behind her.
Harper was late. The traffic was awful and he swerved and honked his way to Christchurch mall. It was 4.45am and this was not going well for a 5am rendezvous. Where the hell were all these people going, shouldn’t they still be tucked up in bed? Lucas, Moran and Bassano were already in position. Moran and Bassano were in separate cars parked on the eighth floor and Lucas was on the ground floor by the lifts.
The back seats of the SUV were missing, replaced instead by a raised wooden bed about six feet long and four feet wide. Mechanic reached underneath and pulled out a long black case. She placed it in front of her, snapped open the clasps and lifted the lid to reveal a military sniper rifle.
The gun was long and matt black, with a cut-out metal stock and precision telescopic sight. A silencer was screwed into the muzzle. Mechanic removed it from the soft foam interior and rotated the bipod feet into place. She took a box containing 0.3 Winchester centre-fire cartridges, picked one out and slid it into the chamber with a soft metallic click. The rifle smelled of fresh gun oil.
Harper could see the multi-storey and began to relax, he would make it with time to spare after all. Moran popped the clip from her gun, confirmed it was loaded for the umpteenth time and snapped it back in place before placing it on the passenger seat. Bassano flicked the gun safety on and off and watched the entry and exit ramps. Lucas was trying not to think of the terrible consequences which might unfold in the next fifteen minutes. He felt like throwing up.
Mechanic lay on her stomach with h
er legs apart, her toes digging into the wooden surface. She pushed the butt of the rifle into her shoulder and rested against the cheek piece. Her non-trigger hand supported the stock as she looked through the telescopic sight. Through the back of the vehicle she had a clear line to the car park opposite. She checked the rangefinder, it read 210 yards.
Harper didn’t wait for the lights to turn green. He sped over the pedestrian crossing, to howls of protest from the people halfway across. Moran checked her watch, it was 4.56am.
Where the hell was Harper?
Mechanic scanned the car park, the crosshairs dancing along the empty parking bays. She trusted the sight was accurately calibrated to the distance, and with very little wind drift it should be a clean shot. She slowed her breathing and could feel her heart rate drop as she relaxed into the rifle. Mechanic released the safety catch.
Harper roared up the ramp to the eighth floor and circled around the one-way system. He spotted the parking bay and skidded into it. He unfastened his seatbelt and looked around. The floor was empty apart from Moran parked in one corner and Bassano in the other.
Mechanic saw the front of the car pull into the space. There was movement inside the vehicle then the driver’s door opened. Sunlight glinted off the window. She zoned everything out and focused on the target.
Harper gripped his gun in his belt and stepped from the car. The ceiling was low, which amplified every sound. He looked around him. Nothing.
Mechanic saw the head emerge, then the shoulders. Her breathing was slow and shallow. The crosshairs bounced slightly in time with her heartbeat. Up and down, up and down, always fire at the bottom of the down stroke.
