Authors: Matthew Klein
‘What’s that?’
‘He’s here.’
‘Yes, I know. You told me. He’s in Florida.’
‘No, Mr Thane,’ he says, ‘you don’t understand. Ghol Gedrosian is here. Ghol Gedrosian works at Tao Software.’
‘At Tao?’ I try to make sense of his words. I shake my head. The anaesthesia, or the drug, or whatever it was that they gave me, is obscuring my thoughts – making me slow and
stupid. ‘At Tao?’ I say again.
From the corner of the room, just behind me, comes a groan. Mitchell looks towards the noise. Gordon Kramer’s limousine driver crawls into view. He’s down on the floor, pulling
himself with one arm, unable to lift his face from the wood. His cheek stretches along the hardwood as he pulls himself, making his face look like a mollusc on the side of an aquarium. He moans,
‘Help me, please.’
Mitchell takes a gun from his pocket – a huge gun with a giant phallic barrel – and points it at the man. He pulls the trigger. The driver’s head explodes in a cloud of grey
mist.
Mitchell turns back to me as if he has just brushed a piece of lint from his shirt. ‘Now, Mr Thane, I have to warn you, because I do like you. You’re a very funny man, and I
appreciate your waggish sense of humour, truly I do. But if you don’t tell me everything you know about Ghol Gedrosian, and where I can find him, I will have to carry out some rather
unpleasant interrogation techniques. Believe you me, neither of us wants that to happen.’
‘Why do you need to find him?’
‘That’s my concern,’ he snaps. But then he considers. His voice softens.
‘Do you think, Mr Thane, that Satan walks among us, pretending to be a man?’
‘I think,’ I say, ‘that I don’t give a shit. I have my own crap to deal with.’
He considers my answer. He purses his lips, thinks about it. Finally he smiles. ‘Maybe you’re right. Ghol Gedrosian is a man, then. Just an evil man. A man who has done horrible
things. A man who has hurt my friends. A man who has killed men and women that I love. His acts cry out for vengeance. I am vengeance. He thinks he can hide behind other people. He’s wrong,
Mr Thane. He’s at the end of the road now. There’s no one left to hide behind. That’s why he left California. That’s why he came to Florida. He’s running from
me
. He’s scared. Because I have found him.’
‘Yeah? If you’ve found him, why are you sitting here pointing a gun at me and asking me where he is?’
‘Well,’ he says, and smiles, as if I just caught him in a fib. ‘I should say I
almost
found him.
Almost
.’ His smile disappears. He raises his gun to my
face. ‘Where is Ghol Gedrosian, Mr Thane?’
‘I don’t have a clue.’
‘Let me ask it a different way. Where is your girlfriend? What’s the name she’s using nowadays?’
‘Who?’
‘Your so-called secretary.’
‘My assistant,’ I say, automatically, as though it matters. ‘Amanda.’
‘Amanda. Where is Amanda?’
So he didn’t find her. That’s good, at least. Amanda is safe.
‘Mr Thane, this is your final chance. Where can I find Ghol Gedrosian? Where can I find Amanda?’
My mind tries to process his questions. They seem disjointed – they make no sense when put together, side by side. Where is Ghol Gedrosian? Where is Amanda? Two plus two is five.
‘Cut off his hand,’ Mitchell says. The command is so sudden, that I’m not sure who he’s talking to, or what he means, until I turn and see Ryan Pearce holding up a junior
hacksaw, forged steel, a thin wire blade glinting like a wicked surgical instrument. He steps towards me, smiling.
‘Now wait a second,’ I say, but it’s too late. Pearce is a huge man – hugely strong – and he holds down my right hand – my free hand – against the
chair, so painfully tight, that I think he might actually be crushing the bones within it. He lays the saw blade against my wrist. He looks to Agent Mitchell, who is sitting, leaning comfortably
back in the leather seat, with his legs out, ankles crossed.
‘Mr Thane?’ Mitchell says. ‘Last chance. Where is Amanda? Where is Ghol Gedrosian?’
Before I can answer, there’s a tap on the glass of the window. Mitchell rises from his chair. He looks to Pearce. Pearce releases my hand. He puts down the hacksaw on the desk, and moves
with surprising grace to the window. He stands to the side. The wooden shutter is closed, with thin lines of sunlight pushing through.
Another tap on the glass outside. Mitchell nods to Pearce.
Pearce reaches out, pulls on the vertical lever in the middle of the shutter, opening the slats and letting sunlight flood the room. The sun forms bright yellow rectangles on the dark wooden
floor. One of the rectangles highlights Doc Curtis’s skull, a chunk missing from the side.
Everyone stares at the window. I am bound to the chair, seated too low to see anything outside the house, other than bright Florida sky; but Pearce turns to Mitchell and says,
‘There’s no one there. It’s completely emp—’
The sound of cracking glass. Pearce alone stands bravely in the middle of the window, without reacting to the sound of the breaking glass, while Mitchell and I both flinch. Pearce stands
motionless for a long time. He turns to Tom Mitchell, and opens his mouth, as if to speak. Then we see the black bullet hole, like a tiny cigarette burn, in the middle of his forehead. He collapses
to the ground.
Mitchell scrambles from the centre of the room, towards the wall, out of view of the shooter outside. His gun is out, moving quickly back and forth, searching for a target. He swings it to me. I
think he’s going to shoot, but he says very calmly, ‘I think we have company out there, Mr Thane.’
He sidles along the wall, to the second window. He pops his head up, looks out quickly, then ducks back down.
I remember the pistol in Dr Liago’s drawer. My eyes flit to the desk. What’s the probability that it’s still there? That it’s actually loaded? That the safety is off ?
Can I reach for the drawer, pull it open, grab the gun, and turn it upon Mitchell, with one free hand, before he can react? It seems unlikely. But it may be my only chance.
‘Mr Thane,’ Mitchell says politely, still crouching low beneath the window. ‘I’d like you to do me a personal kindness. I’m going to fire this gun, just once,
thereby making a loud gunshot noise. After I do that, I’d like you to shout out that you’re fine, and that you’ve killed me. I’ll hide right over there, in that
corner.’ He points to the side of the room. From that vantage, he’ll be able to line up a perfect shot at whoever enters Liago’s study through the only door. ‘When your
friend comes running to help, I’ll solve our problem, and then we can continue our conversation. Does that sound like a plan, partner?’
‘Why would I help you?’
‘Remember how I said that I’m going to fire this gun, just once, to make a loud gunshot noise?’
‘Yes.’
‘The “just once” part is negotiable.’
He points his gun at my leg, which is strapped to the chair. He pulls the trigger. Everything happens out of sequence. There’s a kick at my leg, as if someone has swung a mallet at my
shin, cracking bone; and then there’s an orange flame of gas shooting out of the gun muzzle, and then there’s the report of a gunshot, loud in my ears. The pain comes later, a
tremendous white hot burst of it, starting at my ankle and exploding up into my thigh.
I scream and wrench against the restraints of the chair.
Mitchell crawls along the floor, past me, ignoring my yells, and he hides in the corner of the room, down low, where no one can see him through the windows. From this new position he’ll be
able to shoot at whoever comes to my rescue.
‘Ready, Mr Thane?’ he says. ‘I need you to shout out that you’ve killed me, and that you can’t move, and that you need help, right away. Put a little melodrama into
it, if you don’t mind.’
‘No,’ I grunt.
‘Mr Thane, I have more bullets than you have legs. I assure you, I do. And then let’s not forget about that hacksaw sitting right over there.’ He gestures with his chin to the
desk. ‘It takes a very special man to last more than a minute, when there’s bladework involved. Remember, you’re just a software man.’ He emphasizes
soft
.
‘You understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then in the spirit of partnership, if you could just shout out as I have suggested. Say, “I shot him!” or something like that. Maybe a “Hurry!” or two for dramatic
effect.’
I clear my throat. ‘Help!’ I shout. I eye the desk drawer, where Liago’s gun is within reach – surely it must be.
‘Help!’ I scream. ‘I’ve killed him. I shot Mitchell. He’s dead. I need your help. Please!’
‘Very nicely done, Mr Thane,’ he whispers. ‘Now we’ll just wait...’ He stands up and turns his gun to the open door, ready to blast whoever steps through. Outside
Liago’s study, I hear the sound of the house door opening.
‘Jim?’ comes a voice from the foyer. Amanda’s voice. ‘Are you in there?’
With my free hand, I reach to Liago’s desk, and I pull open the drawer. The pistol is there. I wrap my fingers around it, and point it at Agent Mitchell. I pull the trigger.
There’s a
click
– but no more – just the sound of metal striking metal. No bullet in the chamber. No magazine in the grip.
Mitchell turns to me – his smile gone, his eyes soulless – and points his gun at my face.
There’s a
thwip
sound.
Mitchell looks surprised. He stares at me with a questioning look, as if he wants to ask me something that has been on his mind a lot lately.
Then he crumples. He’s dead before he hits the ground.
Amanda stands in the doorway, with a gun out, a long cylindrical silencer on the end of the barrel, pointing at the spot where Mitchell just stood.
She studies his body. Then she looks around at the rest of the room, taking in the carnage, with a strange clinical detachment that surprises me.
She sees the hacksaw on the desk. She goes to it, and she brings it to where I sit. She cuts through the tape binding me to the chair.
I try to stand.
I do stand, for exactly one second.
Then something in my leg gives way, and I crumble. Down I go, and my chin slams against the wooden desk drawer, still open, directly under the path of my head, and for the fourth time in one
day, I’m out cold.
She wakes me, and this time I know I haven’t been out long. Maybe a minute or two. Maybe five. In the slatted window, the sun hasn’t moved from its place high in the east. It is
still Florida morning.
‘Are you OK?’ she asks.
I’m lying with my head in her lap, and she’s stroking my hair.
‘Fine,’ I say. Which is not exactly true. My leg throbs. My vision is hazy, as if I am peering at her through an inch of cobwebs. I feel confused, dim, forgetful. My mouth is
dry.
‘We need to leave here,’ she says.
I try to sit up. Pain shoots through my leg, into my back. My jaw aches. I taste blood where I bit my tongue.
I ignore the pain, and scuttle away from her, to put distance between us. ‘Who are you?’ I ask.
‘You know who I am.’
‘What’s your name? Your real name?’
‘My real name?’ she says. She thinks about this for some time, as if she long ago forgot what she was once called. Finally, she says,
‘Katerina.’
A man groans. Amanda grabs her pistol. We turn to see Dr Liago slumped against the far wall, his eyes fluttering open. ‘Help me,’ he says, softly.
I struggle to my feet. My head swims. I see a burst of light, and I feel myself losing consciousness. I grab a chair to keep my balance.
I say to her, ‘Give me your gun,’ and hold out my hand.
She looks at my open palm, considering. She clicks the safety off, and hands me the pistol.
I limp with it to Liago, slinging my weight from one chair to the next, keeping my shattered leg raised above the floor.
‘I’m dying,’ Liago says.
‘Yes,’ I say. I lower myself into the chair in front of him. I stick the gun against his chin. ‘Tell me what you did to me.’
‘Please, call an ambulance.’
‘Who the fuck am I?’
‘You’re Jim Thane—’ he starts.
I swing the gun an inch from his head and pull the trigger. The silencer muffles the shot, but the bullet slams into the wall near his head, and the sound of metal striking wood is loud, like
the kick of a steel-toed boot beside his face. The wood splinters, and flies into his cheek. A drop of blood wells from the gash, and drips down his jaw. Liago shrinks away from me.
‘Tell me what you’ve done,’ I say.
Behind me, Amanda – or Katerina – or whatever her name is – says,
‘Jim, we have to leave this place now.’
‘Soon,’ I say to her, and turn again to Liago. ‘Dr Liago—’ I begin. I think about it. ‘Are you even a doctor?’
‘Oh yes,’ he says.
‘What did you do? In our sessions? Our hypnosis sessions? What did you do to me?’
‘I did what I was told.’
‘
What
were you told?’ No answer.
‘Who told you?’
‘He’ll kill me if I say.’
‘
I’ll
kill you, asshole,’ I whisper, and I realize for the first time that I mean it. I will kill him. It doesn’t matter what he tells me, or doesn’t tell
me. I will kill him for what he has done.
He shakes his head. ‘You still don’t understand what’s happening to you, do you?’
‘Enlighten me.’
He looks from me, to Amanda, and then back to me.
‘The folder,’ he says. ‘Top drawer.’ He looks at the filing cabinet across the room.
To Amanda, I say: ‘Bring it.’ She hesitates.
‘Bring it,’ I growl.
She goes to the filing cabinet. She opens the drawer and removes the single green folder that I found long ago, when I was alone in Liago’s office. The folder is thick with paper. She
hands it to me. Her expression says,
You’re not going to like this
.
‘Read it,’ Liago says. ‘Then you’ll know.’
I lay the gun in my lap. I open the folder and flip through the pages. Inside are the notes that I saw before – the tight cursive writing, the lines packed with blue ink. It’s
exactly as I remember – a chronological list of important events from my life: