Brown, Dale - Independent 04 (48 page)

 
          
“Forget
Cazaux,” Fell said. “Is there a way out of here? I think you need medical
attention.”

 
          
“I
cannot leave here,” the woman said. “There is no way out for me while Henri
lives—but you can leave.” Her eyes no longer reflected the extreme pain she was
suffering, but locked firmly on his, riveting him. A plan came instantly to
mind—she just hoped she’d be there to watch it. “You are my only hope. You must
stop Cazaux before he flies this last mission.”

 
          
“What
last mission? What do you mean?” The thought of he, Ted Fell, trying to stop
Cazaux from doing anything was both laughable and terrifying. “Hey, I’m trying
to help you, miss, but I’m not going to try to get in Cazaux’s way. The last
guy who crossed Cazaux—well, there’s a human heart on the coffee table
downstairs. I’d like to keep mine for a while longer.”

 
          
Vega
didn’t know about the heart, and she had to force herself to suppress a smile.
My God, Henri really
has
gone over the edge!
She hoped she could
see the heart, see the knife that he did it with, maybe listen to him describe
how he did it. But she forced a horrified expression on her face. “Ted Fell,
listen to me,” the woman said. “You must kill Henri Cazaux.”

 
          
“What.. . ?”

           
“You must do it, Ted Fell,” she
said. She reached under her mattress and came up with a tiny .22 caliber
automatic pistol. “I’m too weak to do it. If he comes back for me, he’ll kill
me, I know he will.” Vega let the remains of her blouse fall away, revealing
her breasts to him, and she noticed with a tiny smile that, despite her face
and the beating she took, he was admiring her chest.
A typical male,
she thought,
wanting
to suck tits and screw pussy without one single thought regarding the woman.
He was going to do just fine, she thought—this little tit-sucking weasel was
going to pull a gun on Henri Cazaux, and when he did she was going to watch
Henri, Townsend, and Ysidro chop him up into fish food. She pressed the gun
into his hands. “You must do it, Ted . . . for me. You want to help me, don’t
you?”

 
          
She
brushed her breasts against him, averting her eyes and letting a few wisps of
hair fall innocently across her face—and he was hooked. He took the pistol,
hefted it, then set his jaw and stuck the pistol in his pants pocket. Even if he
never pulled it oufi Vega thought, someone would notice it. She would be
listening, and the first sense of commotion she heard, she’d rush downstairs
and hopefully be just in time to watch. “Go, Ted. Save me—please!” She pushed
him off the bed with surprising strength, but Fell didn’t need too much
prompting—he was already racing for the door. “Do not stop!” Her voice was cut
off by another fit of coughing, but by then Fell was taking the steps three at
a time, landing on each step on tiptoes.

 
          
He
reached the first floor without anyone seeing him. He glanced back upstairs, wondering
if any guards were chasing him or had heard him stomping down the stairs, and
had just walked past the double doors to the billiards room when he ran
headlong into Thomas Ysidro. The Mexican executioner pushed him away, but held
him tightly by his jacket. “Where the fuck did you go, asshole?” Ysidro
growled.

 
          
Fell’s
mouth flapped open and closed like a dying fish— he was so scared he couldn’t
answer. Ysidro’s expression went from suspicious to angry to murderous, and he
grabbed Fell by the lapel and pulled him closer, shaking him like a dirty
throw-rug. “I said, where the fuck did you... ?” Then he noticed the green and
yellow stain on Fell’s shirt, then sniffed at the same smell coming from the
billiards room. With Fell still in his grasp, he peeked around the comer and
saw the mess on the carpet. “Shit, bean-counter, you barfed on my fuckin’ rug!”

 
          
“I...
I couldn’t help it...”

 
          
“Well,
clean it the fuck up!” Ysidro said, pushing Fell onto the floor in front of the
vomit. Fell waited for the follow-up kick, but all he heard was another
“Shee-it” as Ysidro left. Fell found some rags in the cue rack on the wall, and
used his hankerchief to mop up the rest and take out as much of the stain as he
could. He stayed on his hands and knees after cleaning up the mess, thinking
hard.

 
          
Could
he do it? Could he kill Henri Cazaux? No doubt the world would be better
without that psychopathic woman-beating bastard, but certainly Ysidro and the
others would execute him right away ... or would they? It did not take a genius
to see the power struggle going on in Cazaux’s organization. Maybe he’d be
doing them a big favor ... yes, maybe . ..

 
          
“Hey,
asshole, on your feet,” Fell heard a voice say behind him. He struggled to his
feet, feeling his knees wobble and his fingers shake. The guard had a small,
mean-looking submachine gun in his hands, held at port-arms in front of him. He
noticed the vomit on Fell’s jacket and sneered. “Back in the other room, the
others are leaving.”

           
Fell was prodded back into the foyer
outside the den where the meeting was held, only to find the meeting breaking
up and Cazaux’s officers putting on coats, preparing to depart. Fell caught
Cazaux’s gaze on him, a mixture of hatred and suspicion.
Jesus, does he know I made contact with his captive upstairs?
But
Cazaux’s eyes only glanced down at the vomit stain, and his eyes told Fell that
he was being dismissed as too weak to be a threat to him. He was so smug, so confident,
ignoring the little weak guys simply because they were smaller and less
imposing. Cazaux was an animal, a human animal. He deserved to die, the
bastard, he
deserved
to die, long and
hard and painfully. Ysidro might even reward him for daring to do something
that he obviously wanted very badly to do himself.

 
          
But
even more fearful than Cazaux’s questioning stare was Harold Lake’s face—he
looked horrified, shocked* as white and colorless as if he had been dead for
several hours. He nearly stumbled into Fell as Fell tried to help him on with
his coat.

 
          
“Harold,
what is it?” he whispered as they headed outside. “What’s going on?”

 
          
“Just
go,” Lake said. “Out.”

 
          
“My
briefcase,” Fell said, hesitating as long as he could. “I’ll get it.”

 
          
Fell
went back into the conference room for the briefcase and picked it up. He was
alone. The nearest guard was back in the hallway, almost completely out of
sight, and Henri Cazaux was standing on the opposite side of the room, his back
turned to him, looking out the window. The perfect opportunity. There was an
inside slit in his raincoat that allowed Fell to access his pants pocket. Fell
reached into the slit, then into his pants pocket...

 
          
“Look
out, Henri!” he heard a voice—a female voice- shout behind him. “Look out, he’s
got a gun!”

 
          
Cazaux
spun, crouched, a knife appearing in his hands as if by magic. Fell turned. It
was the woman, dressed in a red silk robe, the blood cleaned off her face, even
wearing makeup. She was pointing toward him. Cazaux hesitated, seeing who it
was threatening him, then he chuckled softly and lowered the knife from its
throwing position. Fell was confused—why was she doing this?

 
          
Three
guards pounced on Fell, wrestling him to the ground, pinning his arms behind
his back so hard and so high that Fell thought they’d snap off. Hands were all
over him, searching him, then dragging him up to his feet before Cazaux. The
big Belgian mercenary looked at Fell with an amused expression.

 
          
“Nothing,
Captain,” the guards said. Ted Fell had lost his nerve after rushing downstairs
and had placed the gun underneath a large tree planter in the second-floor
hallway. The guards released Fell, then turned toward the darkhaired woman. She
looked momentarily confused.

 
          
“He
is not armed, Madame Vega,” Cazaux said. “Why did you think he had a gun?”

 
          
“I...
I’m sorry, I guess I’m just too keyed up,” she said. “I’ve never seen this man
before. He scared me.”

 
          
“He
was just leaving,” Cazaux said. He gave Fell one last menacing look, and Fell
felt sweat pop out on his forehead and felt urine uncontrollably rush out of
his bladder. He barely caught it in time before he wet himself. Fell was
escorted out of the house by the two guards and virtually dumped into the
duallie with Lake.

 
          
Lake
refused—or was unable—to say anything until they were outside and back into the
six-passenger pickup with the security glass between the front and rear seat
closed. Fell waited several minutes for his heart to start hammering in his
chest.
The damn bitch tried to get me
killed
, Fell thought.
Who in hell is
she?
But soon the curiosity of what was happening with his boss, Lake,
finally took over. “Harold, what happened? What’s going on?”

 
          
“We’re
folding up shop,” Lake said finally. “First thing tomorrow morning, we put stop
orders on all outstanding contracts, negotiate for cash closings. We need to
arrange for a cash-asset transfer—probably use Win Millions Casino again.”

 
          
“Sure,
sure, Harold, they’ll give us whatever we want,” Fell said. “So we’re bugging
out? Time to see what Brazil is like in the wintertime?”

 
          
“We’ll
be out of the country by tomorrow night... two nights, tops. While Henri is
counting the cash, we’ll be on the
Challenger
to Belo Horizonte.”

 
          
“Great,
great,” Fell said. That was a relief—the farther he was away from that
dark-haired bitch, the better. “I’ve been checking on the plane and the crew
every day for a week, making sure they’re ready to blast off. Flight plans are
no problem if you’re
leaving
the
country. One stop in Belize for gas and maybe a few senoritas, and we’re out of
here with twenty million dollars in cash at our disposal, all nice and safe in
numbered bank accounts. We’ll live like kings in that little town, what’s its
name, Abaete or something ... ?” Lake wasn’t sharing in the image one bit—in
fact, he looked as if he were turning to stone, or wax. “What the hell’s the
problem, Harold? Cazaux will never find the cash we’ve been siphoning off from
the Asian contracts. Did he accuse you of something? What—”

 
          
“There’s
going to be one more operation,” Lake said. “One more big strike ...”

 
          
“As
long as we’re out of it, I don’t really care,” Fell said. “We close up shop and
we’re done ... right?”

 
          
Lake
said nothing else during the rest of the ride to the garage, where their limo
was waiting-for them. The image of them relaxing on the red-tiled veranda of
their two-thousand-acre ranch in central Brazil was gone ... replaced by the
woman’s struggled plea to stop Cazaux. Obviously he was planning something so
deadly, so monstrous, so devastating, that not even Lake could talk about it.

 
          
It
didn’t matter, Fell decided. In two days they were going to be out of the
country. Twenty million dollars and a Gulfstream bizjet bought a lot of
comfort, especially in Brazil—it bought a lot of forgetfulness, too. He was
going to have to forget the woman’s piercing eyes, her plea that reached down
to the core of his soul.. .

 
          
.
. . and remember, if he could ever forget, what happened to experienced
mercenary soldier^ who crossed Henri Cazaux. Remember that bloody bag, the
black mass dangling from an artery, remember Ysidro’s sick grin. What chance
did an attorney from Springfield, Massachusetts, have? Silence and a life of
luxury in equatorial Brazil, or go to the authorities and face Henri Cazaux,
Tomas Ysidro, Gregory Townsend, and almost certain death.

 
          
Ted
Fell didn’t need to be a
Harvard
Law
School
grad to figure that one out.

 
          
Mojave,
California
Two Days Later