In Your Name, page 7
Mechanic looked at Walker and smiled.
‘Vegas it is then.’
15
Lucas was in an enormous sulk. The rage he felt against Mechanic had been replaced by a dark morass of frustration which penetrated him to the core. His wife was gone, he was suspended from work and his so-called friend had turned out to be a total prick. Things could hardly be worse.
He’d been in this state for three days when he got a phone call from Harper.
‘What do you want?’
‘Meet me at Brightwood Country Club as soon as you can.’
‘Why would I do that? Do you have a whole crate of sugar for me this time?’
‘Just get there.’ Harper put the phone down.
‘Jerk off,’ Lucas said to no one.
Despite his anger Lucas had to admit Harper had a point – he had been going downhill and the envelope proved to be a wake-up call. He was firing on all cylinders now, even if they were firing in an unhealthy, morbid, obsessive kind of way. He had to acknowledge the letter had galvanised him into action, but he would never admit it to Harper.
Forty minutes later Lucas swung into a visitor’s parking space at the country club and got out of the car. He waited in the sunshine as Harper crossed the grounds towards him. Harper was all business and no apology.
‘There’s something you need to see.’
‘Have you got yourself a FedEx van now to make deliveries in person?’
Harper ignored the insult and walked to the outbuildings at the back of the club. This was the place where Mechanic had beaten Lucas half to death. If it wasn’t for Harper’s intervention, he would certainly be dead, that was for sure. His anxiety ratcheted up with every step.
He took Harper by the arm and pulled him back.
‘Why are we going there?’ He tilted his head in the direction of the block-walled building with bright red roller-shuttered doors.
‘You’ll see.’ Harper was obviously not in the mood for chitchat.
They entered a side door into a room containing hedge-clipping tools, lawn mowers and every type of gardening equipment. A set of narrow concrete steps spiralled down to the left, leading to the basement where Mechanic had taken Lucas.
Lucas hesitated at the top, staring down at the steps as they blurred into the darkness, beads of sweat standing proud on his top lip. He grasped the handrail tight to steady himself. Harper pushed past and disappeared from view. A light flickered at the bottom and the landing below was bathed in a square of pale yellow light.
Lucas’s breathing was erratic and shallow. His knuckles turned white and his whole body began to shake.
‘You okay?’ called Harper.
Lucas froze. He couldn’t put his foot onto the first step. His heart felt like it was about to burst in his chest.
‘You coming?’ Harper called again.
Lucas’s legs wouldn’t move.
He couldn’t breathe and his head swam in a collage of pain. His pulse thudded inside his head and the sound of water rushed in his ears.
He felt Harper grip his arm.
‘Hey it’s fine,’ he said gently. ‘There’s no one here, it’s only us. Look at me, Lucas. Look at me.’
Lucas tried to tear himself way from the images in his head. The snarling, spitting face of a killer who wanted to take his life. The sickening sound as Mechanic shattered his leg and broke his ribs. The searing pain of the cord biting into his wrists as he swung helplessly from the overhead steam pipe. The feeling of warm blood running down his arms as the rope cut deep into his flesh.
He could taste bile in his mouth. He was going to throw up.
‘Look at me, Lucas. Look at me.’ Harper was supporting him on the top step with his hands on his shoulders. Lucas swayed back and forth, his eyes staring straight through Harper. The whole world was swimming, his peripheral vision closing in.
‘Lucas!’ Harper shook him. ‘She’s not here. Try to focus.’
Lucas let out a rush of air and snapped back to reality. He shook his head to collect himself.
‘Sorry,’ he said catching his breath. ‘It’s just … it’s flooding back.’
‘It’s okay,’ said Harper. ‘It’s okay.’
Lucas’s breathing slowed and the pounding in his head and chest subsided. ‘I’m fine,’ he said tapping both hands on Harper’s shoulders. He was still a little unsteady but allowed Harper to lead him down to the basement.
He swallowed hard as the features of the room came into view. The place had been jet-washed clean and the workbenches were much less cluttered than he remembered. He felt the bile rise once more into his throat when he saw the steam pipe. The grey concrete floor below was discoloured where his blood had stained it dark red. Lucas closed his eyes and struggled to fight the rising panic.
Harper was next to him. ‘You want to go on?’
‘Yes.’
‘I got something to show you.’ Harper walked to the back of the room and turned to face Lucas. ‘I’m sorry about the sugar packets. I thought I was doing the right thing.’
‘You weren’t.’
‘I realise that now. I’m sorry.’
‘You’re a prick.’
Harper smiled. ‘Yes, you’re probably right.’
‘Why are we here anyway?’ Lucas was feeling a little more stable.
‘It’s what you said the other day.’
‘What did I say?’
‘That you couldn’t get your head around how Mechanic would know your return-to-work date.’
‘I don’t remember. I only remember it wasn’t her after all.’
‘You said that you invented all sorts of convoluted explanations to make it fit. You convinced yourself that somehow she knew. When you figured it out, there was no complex reasoning, it was straightforward. She didn’t know when you were returning to work, I did.’
‘Yes, I remember. What of it?’
‘You’re not the only one wrestling with unanswered questions. I could never work out how Mechanic and Jo simply disappeared, the roadblocks and search zones were in place for two weeks and they vanished into thin air. How could that be?’
‘I suppose she slipped through the net.’
‘I don’t buy it. The force threw everything at it and got nothing.’
‘She’s a clever bitch and somehow evaded us.’
‘Yes, that’s right, she is. But she’s not a magician. She’s a clever bitch with a working knowledge of building modifications,’ said Harper rapping the back wall with his fist. He picked up a screwdriver, removed two screws from the side of the plasterboard wall and levered its flat edge against the corner. A section of the wall moved, swinging towards them like a door. Lucas held his breath.
Harper opened it wide and stepped inside. There was a flicker and the interior flooded with light.
‘Take a look!’ he called.
Lucas stepped around the edge of the wall and stared at the concealed room within. It was fifty-feet square with three rows of shelving running around the walls. A military field bed was in one corner and a soiled mattress in the other. He could see pots, pans and cooking equipment along with articles of clothing folded into piles. Large blue polythene drums stood against one wall and sealed white buckets were stacked against the other. Canned and dried foods sat in rows on the shelves and black plastic bags tied at the top were scattered across the floor.
‘You were right.’ Harper broke the silence. ‘We both made the same mistake. We were looking for a complicated theory to explain how they managed to escape, when we should have been looking for the simple explanation. We couldn’t find them because they never left.’
‘How long do you think they were here?’
‘Don’t know but judging by the amount of preparation that went into this place they could have been here for weeks. While we were busy combing the basement for hair follicles, fibres and blood matches, they were here all the time.’
Lucas walked around inspecting the various items. He reached the sealed white buckets.
‘Careful with them,’ Harper said, ‘they’re full of shit.’
‘Much like you.’ Lucas retreated to a safe distance. ‘This is incredible, it’s like those people who prepare for doomsday.’
‘Yeah it is,’ replied Harper, ‘but here’s the best bit.’
Harper pointed to a stack of white boxes on the shelf.
‘Medical supplies,’ Harper said flipping through the boxes. ‘Loads of them. Saline drips, bandages, antibiotics, adrenaline pumps, intravenous lines – you name it, it’s here.’
‘Are those—’
‘Oxygen bottles, yes.’
‘It’s kitted out like a field hospital.’
‘That’s what I thought.’ Harper knelt beside a dark patch on the floor. ‘This is blood and lots of it. And take a look at this.’ He stood and opened up one of the bags pulling out a dressing stained brown with old blood. ‘There are sacks of used dressings and empty saline pouches. I shot one of the bitches but we don’t know which one, right?’
‘Right,’ said Lucas.
‘So let’s ask ourselves a question. Which one knew how to use this stuff?’
‘Not Jo, that’s for sure,’ replied Lucas. ‘She was a backroom girl. It has to be Mechanic.’
‘With her training and covert ops experience, that’s what I figured. This whole room has to be down to her. It’s her retreat, a place to run to when things get hot. It makes sense she would stock it with medical gear in case she was hurt and needed running repairs.’
‘Agreed.’
‘Mechanic wouldn’t stockpile this stuff if she didn’t know how to use it. And there are bags and bags of it.’
Lucas nodded and looked around him.
Harper continued, ‘So now let’s ask ourselves a second question—’
Lucas interrupted, ‘Why would you use so much?’
The obvious answer flashed between the two men.
To keep someone alive.
16
Staying in Vegas suited Mechanic. She was on home turf which put her at a distinct advantage over Walker. He still harboured misgivings about being taken hostage but the logic was overwhelming and the additional money was inspired. Anyway, it wasn’t as if he had a choice.
Harry was spending his time either yelling at someone on the phone or holding crisis meetings with a constant stream of worried staff dressed in suits. Hitting the casinos was off the agenda, which gave Mechanic time to complete the necessary planning.
She identified the location where the kidnap was to take place and scripted the sequence of events after the vehicle was hit. The warehouse near the Hoover Dam suggested by Walker was a sound choice and she identified the ideal place for the money drop. Mechanic drew up a detailed timing plan to synchronise the play, developed a comms strategy and built a set of contingencies to cover the what-if scenarios. She took out a short-term rental on a flea-infested condo on the outskirts of the city, it was the perfect place to hold Silverton and Walker while the negotiations were in progress. The block housed around twenty apartments which were rented out by the week – different people came and went all the time and it was dirt cheap, cash only. Walker was impressed. No wonder she thought his work was shoddy.
Today Mechanic had a little surprise for Walker.
‘We need to meet the others,’ she said, catching him off-guard.
‘But I thought I was to handle my guys?’
‘I want to brief them personally. I need to look them in the eye and be sure they understand what to do. We must move quickly and with Silverton embroiled in his business now is a good time.’
‘Okay, I’ll contact them, they’re both on standby awaiting my call. Have you figured out when we go?’
‘When Silverton decides the time is right to go back on the gambling trail, that’s when we strike.’
‘Where do you want to meet?’
‘At the warehouse – it’ll be good to take another look at it anyway.’
‘I’ll set it up,’ he said and left the room in search of the public call boxes.
In less than an hour Mechanic and Walker crunched the tyres of the limo over the dirt track and parked at the disused warehouse. It was a vast building which had once been used for grain storage but was now a derelict shell. Its location in the middle of nowhere was perfect: about three miles west of the main road to the dam, an ideal place to switch vehicles after the drop.
Walker pulled aside a section of metal sheeting and they squeezed through. The floor was a patchwork of broken concrete lit by blinding shafts of sunlight where the roof was missing.
Mechanic looked around, the place was empty.
‘Where are the others? I thought you said they were here?’
She turned to find Walker holding a gun.
‘There are no other guys. The same as there was never a plan to take Silverton. You played me for a fool and you lost, big time.’
‘Put the gun down, Walker, and stop screwing around. We got business to attend to here. There’s three million dollars at stake and I don’t play games with that amount of money.’
‘Drop the pretence, Jessica Hudson, or whoever the hell you are. Your acting stinks. Now take your gun out real slow and toss it over here.’
‘Walker, what is this all about? You and I are working together. What are you playing at?’
‘Just do it.’
‘What the fuck is this about, Walker?’
‘Do it now.’
Mechanic shook her head, withdrew her gun and slid it across the floor.
‘The way you took out my boys you have got to be a professional. So I did a little digging and guess what? You’re not ex-military or ex-police and you have no record of any weapons training. Nor do you appear on any search on close protection training. You come up as plain Jessica Hudson and that doesn’t figure. By all accounts you’re an office worker, well I don’t buy it. You don’t get that good practising on a firing range.’
‘You’re talking shit, Walker,’ Mechanic protested. ‘I got lucky with those guys, that’s all. Now can we get back to business?’
‘Bullshit. There was nothing lucky about what you did and you know it. No, Jessica Hudson, you’re well-trained and for some reason you got a watertight cover story. And therein lies the difficulty.’ He circled around Mechanic, the gun pointing at her head. ‘If you’re what I think you are then we both have a massive problem.’
‘I don’t get it. What problem? What are you talking about?’
‘You figured out the kidnap plan and wasted my team, so my obvious next step is to take you out because you’re a risk. You’re a loose end. My problem is you’ll want to strike first. This is all about loose ends, Jess, and who gets to tidy them up first.’
‘Walker, where are you getting off on this?’ Her voice was shaking.
‘You didn’t fool me for one minute with the ‘we need to kidnap Silverton’ routine. It was too obvious. You were playing me in order to get close enough and pull the trigger.’
‘Walker, we’re in this together. What happened in the past has gone. I don’t like you but that doesn’t mean we can’t work together to get rich.’ She was pleading with him.
‘That’s horseshit. Your only target is me, I saw through it straightaway. I have to congratulate you though on your meticulous planning. It’s a work of art. Shame we won’t be using it.’
‘Walker, put the fucking gun down. We can work something out. I don’t want to kill you, we can get rich together.’
‘It’s been a pleasure working with you.’
Walker squeezed the trigger.
There was a metallic click.
He pulled it again – click! He looked at his gun and flicked the safety catch on and off – click!
Mechanic put her hand to the back of her head and removed the 9mm revolver which was duck-taped in place between her shoulder blades. She blew a hole in Walker’s left knee. He screamed and fell to the ground clutching his shattered leg.
‘It doesn’t work without this.’ She reached into her pocket and held up the firing pin between her fingers. ‘I did say you were sloppy.’
She picked up her gun from the floor and replaced it in its holster. Walker was writhing around in the dust with both hands on his knee trying to stop the blood.
‘You should take your gun into the shower with you. Leaving it around your hotel room, you don’t know who might mess with it.’
‘You fucking bitch!’ Walker made a grab for his right ankle where he kept his snub-nose revolver. She fired and his ankle exploded in a shower of blood and bone. The gun spun across the floor.
‘You are so predictable,’ she walked around him, ‘very predictable. Not even you are stupid enough not to work things out. And you are pretty dumb, Walker, pretty dumb.
‘I’ll fucking kill you.’
‘I doubt that.’
Walker was crippled on the floor and sobbing with pain, his legs covered in blood. Mechanic removed her jacket and placed both guns on the ground.
‘What do you want?’ hissed Walker. ‘I have money, I can pay.’
‘I don’t want your money,’ she said moving towards him. ‘Money is nice but sometimes silence is better.’ She drew an eight-inch serrated hunting knife from under the back of her shirt. Walker’s eyes flicked between Mechanic’s face and the blade as it circled in the air glinting in the light. She knelt by his side.
‘But sometimes to fully appreciate the quality of silence you need to first endure some noise.’ She plunged the blade into his thigh. The force of the blow lifted Walker off the floor and the point exited the other side of his leg. He screamed and squirmed on the ground clutching the handle.
Walker dragged himself across the concrete to get away from Mechanic, leaving a bloody trail in the dust. She brought her boot down hard on the back of Walker’s head smashing his face into the floor. His head bounced back. She stomped again.
He cried out and rolled onto his back spitting blood and saliva into the air. Mechanic lay down next to him and cradled his head against her chest in a lover’s embrace.
