Slow Burn (29 page)

 Malik felt strange. The anticipation of the sex that was to come always made him high. Melinda seemed to be compliant, which was unusual. She was stroking him without being told to, and that was giving him a rush, but something was wrong. His head felt numb for a moment, as if everything had stopped in time. When it restarted, it was in slow motion. The sex was his priority, and he wanted her to kneel down in front of him.

“Aaah,” Malik tried to speak, but it came out as a sound. It was an incoherent gurgle. It came as a surprise to him that he couldn’t speak. He could see Malinda look at his eyes, as if she was aware that something was wrong. She studied his face with interest. His muscles felt weak and they tingled. He wanted to move but he couldn’t. His eyes were open, but the world seemed to elongate as he looked around. A wardrobe throbbed like a giant heart against the wall, growing bigger and then smaller with every beat. Melinda pushed him backward slowly toward the bed. Somewhere in his mind, he thought she was going to have sex with him, but another part of his brain screamed that something was very wrong. In his peripheral vision, he could see the bed behind him. It seemed to be creeping up on him. He tried to speak again, but his jaw wouldn’t respond to his brain`s commands. His tongue seemed floppy and useless. Melinda was smiling now, and a look of contempt came over her face. She looked at him with a hatred in her eyes that he couldn’t understand right now. How dare she look at him like that, the bitch? He would make her suffer for that, if he could move his muscles, but he was immobile. What was going on?

 “You bastard!” Melinda slapped him across the face. His lip split and a trickle of blood dribbled at the corner of his mouth. He felt the slap, and he felt the pain, but he couldn’t respond. A part of his brain couldn’t comprehend what was happening to him, but another section knew exactly what was going on. She had drugged him. Something was in the wine. The bitch had drugged him. She was dead, her family were dead, and he would crucify them all to a telegraph pole. Melinda pushed him hard, and he flew backwards onto the bed. His muscles had no density to them and he felt like he was made from jelly. Melinda kneeled over him and punched him in the nose. He saw the punch coming but he couldn’t move out of the way. His eyes watered with the pain and he could feel his blood running down the back of his throat, but he couldn’t move. She moved out of his field of vision, but he could hear her dressing, and he could hear her breathing. Her breathing sounded like wind blowing through an alleyway, almost a whistle. Sound became exaggerated as the drug took hold of his mind. When the drug wore off, he would slit her throat.

 It was a strange feeling being aware of what was happening, but not being able to do anything about it. `Rohypnol,` his mind screamed. She has tipped you Rohypnol. How many times have you used that drug yourself? How many woman have you raped and abused using that drug? Their faces flashed through his mind, teenagers mostly, frightened confused expressions and tears, lots of tears. How many young lives did you shatter using Rohypnol? He`d lost count. One of them killed herself, the stupid Jewish slut, Bernstein. They all had her while the same drug that immobilised you now, paralysed her. Melinda had given him the date rape drug that was for sure. His mind now asked the question why. Why would the bitch drug him? It was then that he felt real fear.

 “It`s done, he`s on the bed,” he heard Melinda`s voice. She was calling someone on the telephone, but who? Was she talking to the people that paid her to drug him? Could it be her father? What about the men that had killed the others? Whatever the answer was, it wasn’t good. He heard her talking and tried to make sense of it. “Shall I call them now?”

 “Hello reception, I need an ambulance to room thirty-nine please, it`s an emergency,” she made another call to reception. Why drug him then call an ambulance? What was she doing? The room was spinning, but he could sense that she was still there. Time seemed to warp. He didn’t know how long he`d been on his back when a knock on the door came.

 “Tell me what happened?” A voice said.

“Thanks for getting here so quickly, I`ve only just placed the call,” the manager looked nervous. The idea of losing a customer on site had him in a panic. It was his first posting as a hotel manager, and he didn’t want any major incidents to mar his record.

 “That`s okay, sir, we were only around the corner when we responded.” 

 “I`m the manager, is there anything we can do?” Another voice spoke, but he couldn’t see any of them.

“No, thank you, we`ll take it from here,” the first voice spoke again. Malik was feeling worse. His hearing was echoing, and the voices distorted. The ambulance men were here now. He would be safe. That bitch was dead when he came around.

“You can leave it to us now, Melinda,” a man`s voice said. There was the hint of an accent, just a faint one, but he couldn’t place it. “It`s all over, go home, Melinda.”

What was over? Who was telling the bitch to go home? Malik felt nauseous, and he was frightened that if he vomited he would choke. Rough hands pulled him into a sitting position. Two men held him upright. They wore lime green paramedic jumpsuits and hi-viz waistcoats. He watched Melinda reach the door. She turned and looked at him. It was the first time he`d ever seen her smile, and he was surprised how pretty she was. There was a sparkle in her eyes that he`d never seen before. A voice called him.

“Malik,” the voice echoed. He looked toward the voice and a fat medic was talking to him through the drug-induced haze. “Malik.” He said again. The fat man held him while the second man pushed a trolley toward the edge of the bed. Between them, they lifted him onto it, half sitting half lying. “Malik.”

 Malik looked to the voice again as they strapped him to the gurney. The fat paramedic grinned at him, and the grin warped in his mind to a nightmare clown face. “Hello, Malik, remember me?”

Malik was confused. The words echoed through his mind, `remember me?` `remember me?` `remember me?`. The drugs were slowing his thoughts, but his instincts screamed that he was in terrible danger. The fat face filled his vision. It was familiar, but it was in a part of his brain that handled distant memories.

 “I`m Richard Bernstein, do you remember me?” the medic whispered in his ear as they pushed the trolley across the hotel room. “Sarah`s brother, Richard, do you remember?”

Malik tried to get up but his muscles were useless. His head lolled to one side and his tongue poked out of the corner of his mouth. His memory cells sparked and the names rang through his brain like a peel of bells. Bernstein, Bernstein, Bernstein. The fat Jew that they battered in the park, and his sister, a little slut she was.

 “You remember Sarah, Malik?” The fat medic tormented him as they trundled down the corridor. “You raped her, remember?”

 `Remember?` Remember?` Remember?`

 He remembered the bitch killed herself, and the inquest, and he remembered that the older brother and his friend had killed his cousin, Saj. The friend went down for life and Malik paid money for him to be hit while he served his sentence, but the hit man ended up dead himself, and Malik lost interest as his empire began to make demands on his time.

 “Hello Malik,” the other medic smiled at him as they reached the corridor. His face morphed into a long scream, the eyes were black holes and the mouth a gaping black hole. “I`m David,” He said. “David Bernstein, you remember?”

 Malik tried to shout for help, but he couldn’t. He could hear other voices as he past reception and then he felt the breeze as they exited the hotel.

 “Will he be okay?” the hotel manager asked as they left. Malik wanted to shout to him, and tell him that he wasn’t okay at all. He was far from okay. His mouth flopped open and nothing came out.

 “Oh, he`ll be fine. We`ll look after him well, wont we, Mr Shah,” David Bernstein said as they lifted him into the back of an ambulance. They switched on the siren and drove out of the car park with their patient on board. Nick followed them off the car park in Malik Shah`s BMW.

The hotel manager was relieved that the guest was in safe hands, but his relief only lasted for a short time. It was fifteen minutes later when the real ambulance crew arrived.

MIT

CHAPTER 52

The Divisional Commander sat at his desk and listened intently to what his Detective Superintendent was telling him. The press were right, someone was targeting Shah`s people, but not because of their religion, it was a purely personal motive. That was the way the evidence that MIT had uncovered was looking.

 “So you think that the Bernstein family are responsible for the bombing campaign?” The Commander found it hard to take in.

 “I wasn’t sure until we traced their current whereabouts,” Alec explained. “It adds up if you look at the evidence.”

“Run it by me, what changed your mind?”

 “We traced them and pulled their personal records,” Alec began. “Richard Bernstein went to university and became a PHD in chemical engineering. He holds several patents for fertiliser based mass crop production. His second subject for his Honours degree was the history of Irish politics and terrorist mentality.”

“You think he`s our bomb maker?” the Commander asked.

“He`s a chemical expert with a detailed knowledge of terrorist tactics. The van bomb was made by someone with an intricate knowledge of Irish republican explosive devices.”

“Okay Richard Bernstein has motive, and the knowhow. I`ll accept that part of your theory for now.”

“His older brother, David went to Israel when he left school,” Alec changed the page he was reading notes from. “He joined the military on a commission, and became a Captain, in the Special Operations Unit known as the Sayeret Duuvedevan.”

 “That means nothing to me, Alec,” the Commander shook his head. His double chins folded over his crisp white collar, and Alec noticed that the grey hairs, which grew from his ears, were out of control.

 “They infiltrate enemy states, identify, track and then neutralise terrorist leaders.”

 “Bloody hell!” the Commander raised his bushy eyebrows. “Assassins?”

 “Israel`s finest, Commander.”

“I`m assuming that he is still in the army?”

“They never really leave, they become reservists, but David Bernstein is listed as being on active duty, whereabouts unknown,” Alec raised his hands as he spoke. “The Israeli military were not very forthcoming I`m afraid.”

 “I bet,” the Commander, agreed. “So he could be here.”

 “We`re checking flight lists into the country for the last six months. Nothing so far, but I think he`s here.”

  “Is that it?” the Commander mulled over the information. It was compelling evidence and definitely put the Bernstein family on the suspect list. MI5 had nothing on extremists or rival gunrunners and the organised crime units had drawn a blank too. The only tangible evidence of a suspect was the events of decades ago.

“Not quite,” Alec sat forward and showed the Commander a picture of Nick Cross. “This is Nick Cross. He went down for the murder of Saj Shah, the cousin of Malik Shah after a fight over Sarah`s death.”

“I read that bit in the report,” the Commander wasn’t sure what the relevance of Cross was.

“He was released on licence seven months ago from HMP Kennet,” Alec said. The Commander looked up from the picture. “We checked his visitation records and the only visitor he had outside of his immediate family, was Richard Bernstein. He saw him every month without fail, all the way through his sentence.”

“He was young when he went to prison.”

“Yes, he was. The only blip on his record was the death of Asian prisoner three years into his term. The prisoner was found hanging in his cell, but there were concerns that it may not have been suicide. There were rumours that he`d been paid to kill Cross, but he got wind of it and took the guy out before he could try anything. There was an investigation, but nothing proven.”

“Why wait so long to avenge what happened to their sister?”The Commander asked.

 “I think they were waiting for Nick Cross to be released from jail,” Alec replied. 

The commander sat back in his chair, He placed his palms together in a praying position, and he leaned his chin on the top. The motives were plain to see now they had the information in front of them. Nick Cross`s release from incarceration, coincided with David Bernstein`s disappearance from the military radar, and both were a matter of a few months before the trouble started. That would account for a detailed planning phase.

“Do you know where Bernstein is?”

 “We have an address for Richard. It`s a farm on the outskirts of the city. I`m guessing we`ll find all three of them there,” Alec said confidently.

 “If they are responsible for this, Alec you`ll need armed backup and the bomb squad with you.”

 “They are on standby, Commander.”

 “Bring them in, Alec,” the Commander slapped his fist on the desk. The death and destruction over the last ten days was unprecedented. It brought an unprecedented number of headaches along with it. Alec stood up and headed for the door. “Superintendent,” the Commander called as he left.

 “Yes, Sir?” Alec turned.

 “You be careful.”

 Alec nodded but he didn’t reply. They were going to walk into the lion’s den, and he had a sneaking suspicion that the Bernsteins would be ready for them when they arrived. He had a hunch that they were working to a timetable, and time was running out.