Chemical Burn (33 page)
Authors: Quincy J. Allen
Tags: #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Science Fiction, #Literature & Fiction, #Contemporary Fiction, #Dystopian
Insurance Policy
“You look like shit, old man,” I smiled as I walked through the curtain with Mag behind me. She looked like a cougar again. I took off the black coat.
Yvgenny was taping a bandage to his forehead. He raised a condescending eyebrow at me and sized me up. “At least I having to work for mine. I could have sending Galina after that
tëlka
,” which I knew meant fat girl in Russian, “and I’m sure Bennie still gave you hard time. I am thinking you barely escaped with life.”
“Just like old times, eh, Yvgenny?” I smiled.
“Da.” Yvgenny nodded his head and looked around the room, “Only there are fewer dirty cops.”
I looked down at the remains of Tommy’s face. “Jesus, I guess I should have warned him about
your
right.”
Yvgenny chuckled. “Da. This thought occurred to me, too.”
“You got a cleaner on the way?” I asked, looking around the room at the bodies. “Or were you thinking of calling the cops?”
“My daughter will be calling Stanley. However, I’m having idea about what to do before he gets here.”
“What’s that?” I sat down.
Yvgenny slipped a cell phone out of his pocket and handed it to me. “It belonged to DiMarco. Is Bennie’s body someplace where you can taking picture with that?”
“It better be where I left it,” I said with a mildly confused look on my face.
“Good. Go photograph the
tëlka
and then come back and photograph these fellows. I will call Nikolov.”
I pondered the request for a few seconds and then got a huge grin on my face. “Oh, that’s perfect! Ready-made protection. You think Pyotr will go for it? Technically, you don’t work for him.”
“He’ll go for it. It gives him leverage for nothing, which is being best price in world.”
“Gino will have to leave you alone or risk his deal … and a war … with Nikolov …” I gave him an impressed look. “You clever bastard.”
Yvgenny smiled at me. “I’m having my moments. Now, toddle off child. Do your chores while I call Nikolov, and I might just give you your allowance.”
“I’ll be back before you can say ‘soiled diaper.’ And don’t tell him I’m the one who helped you, okay?”
“Don’t worry. I have story all ready. Meet me upstairs when you are done here.” I slipped my coat back on as I walked through the curtain.
O O O
I got two pictures of every corpse and headed up into Yvgenny’s bedroom. I listened in as he spoke Russian into his phone for a few minutes.
“So?” I asked when he hung up.
“I told him that he might finding situation useful, and he graciously offered protection. I expressed humble gratitude for his involvement, but he is being more than smart enough to know that I use him.”
“He is a smart son-of-a-bitch. I’m going to have to be careful.”
“It is rumored he is smartest and most dangerous in Solntsevskaya, and that he will lead the organization eventually. I do not doubt it … You have pictures?” I nodded. “And Gino’s number is on phone?”
“Yeah, I checked.” I held up the phone.
“Is Gino’s email?”
“Sure is,” I said wickedly.
“Then we are having what we need. Show me number,” Yvgenny said and handed me a piece of paper with Pyotr’s cell number on it. I memorized it for future reference. “I’ll compose email while you send pictures to both numbers at same time.” I worked on Bennie’s phone while Yvgenny opened an email client and put in both Gino and Pyotr’s emails. Then he typed while I sent. I planned on sending Bennie’s picture last. Bennie’s phone rang about halfway through the process. ‘Gino’ came up on the caller ID, but I ignored it and kept sending.
“Here, how does this look?” Yvgenny asked, leaning away from the computer for me to read. I sent the last picture and then leaned over. I read through it. “Perfect. It should be fine. You write English as bad as you speak it.” I selected Gino and Pyotr as recipients for one last text message and then typed out “check email.”
“Gino’s going to have a heart attack.” I said, and Yvgenny’s chuckle dripped malice. “Alright, send it.” We both hit send together and waited.
The email addressed to Gino DiMarco and Pyotr Nikolov read as follows:
Gentlemen,
It seems that members of the DiMarco organization took it upon themselves this evening to harming myself and my family. They invaded my place of business and taped my granddaughters to chairs, beat them, and threatened their lives. I will sending photos in morning of what was done to them. I have sent them someplace safe as precaution.
I am believing that Bennie DiMarco and his associates acted on their own, without the knowledge of his superiors, and will continue with this assumption so long as I have reason not to believing otherwise. I considering the matter closed, but I am communicating with both of you to ensure that everyone is aware of particulars. I have already spoken with Mister Nikolov, and he has graciously agreeing to offer his protection.
Should anything happen to me or anyone else in my family, he will be taking matters into his own hands. We will cleaning up mess ourselves.
We waited about ten minutes, and then two email responses came in, one from Pyotr and one from Gino. Both said the same thing: AGREED.
“Well, that should keep Gino off your back for a while, and once I finish up with what I’m working on, it won’t matter.”
“How close are you?”
“A week, maybe two. Most of the pieces are coming together, but there are a couple more I need to fit in before I move.”
“Don’t dawdle. This sort of thing will only work for a while. Eventually Gino will either get a chip to play, will get impatient, or both. The only reason this worked at all is because of the business deal. If that goes away, so does the protection.”
“I understand, old friend. Look, if you ever get nervous, call me, and I’ll set up anyone and everyone in a safe place till it’s all over.”
“As I said, we should being fine for a while.”
“Okay. I’m getting out of here. I’ll leave the way I came.” I turned and walked toward the door.
Yvgenny paused and then finally said, “About that, Justin …”
I stopped in my tracks.
“We will talk about who you really are when this is all over, yes?” he asked.
“You got it.” I said and walked out without turning around. “Don’t tell anyone about this, will you?”
“You’re secrets are mine,
old man
,” Yvgenny said sincerely. “I would die to keep them.”
I paused at the top of the stairs and tilted my head back, turning halfway. “Thank you, Yvgenny,” I said somberly. “I’ll tell you everything and more once I’ve buried DiMarco.”
I walked down the stairs, out the front door and onto the patio. Closing the door behind me, I walked over to the garden and dug away some of the dirt along the same wall as the door. I exposed the palm reader I had installed below the surface of the soil several years before, placed my hand on it and ran through the combination for my loft. I covered the spot up with dirt again, walked over to Yvgenny’s front door, pushed the door jam and stepped through it into my loft, with Mag close behind, and waited for Rachel to come home.
I had no doubt Yvgenny watched the whole thing on his security camera feed. I guess I really do trust him.
***
Where the Magic Happens
When we got back to the house, Xen was passed out in one of the lawn chairs by the pool. Rachel put a blanket over him and joined me in my room. We explored each other the way only lovers can and fell asleep.
I had set my internal alarm to five a.m. and woke up automatically. I went to the kitchen, not wanting to wake up Rachel, and fixed a pot of coffee while I waited for Marsha. At five-thirty she came out of the bedroom in a Grady’s t-shirt and jeans.
I held out a cup of coffee to her. “Good morning. Work?”
She smiled as she walked into the kitchen and accepted the cup of Kona. “Good morning, and yes. Kenny and Jennifer should have already opened up by now, but I want to help them get through the rush at seven.”
“Do you still go shooting regularly?” I asked bluntly.
“Every couple of weeks.” She looked a bit surprised at the subject change … and curious. “I joined the club at the LAX Shooting Range last year. I even made some money on the side betting against the other club members, but they stopped. No one was willing to cover the odds anymore.” She smiled. Her father had been a Seal sniper and taught her everything he knew about the use of firearms. She’d even proven it back in Vegas when I first met her.
“I have a favor to ask, but this one you have to feel completely free to turn down. It’s dangerous and could get you killed. I’m asking because I know you could do the job, but I can work any number of things out if you don’t want to do it.”
“Justin, you know I’d do anything for you. I’m still alive because of you.”
“I know, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. There’s really no reason for you to get involved in this.…”
“What do you need?”
“I need a sniper … one who can kill at least four men in cold blood … and quickly.”
“Friends of yours?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Gino DiMarco tried to have Xen killed, so I’m going to bring the world down around the bastard’s ears.”
“I’m in,” she said.
“Are you sure…?” I started.
“I said I’m in. I like Xen. Guys like him are rare. Almost as rare as you. He and I were talking last night while you and Rachel were cooking dinner. He told me a lot about what happened to him the past few weeks. No one should have to go through that, especially the bit about Natalia. DiMarco did that, too, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then count me in. That’s why you set me and Rachel up to train so hard this week, isn’t it? To prep us for this hit on DiMarco.”
“You’re a smart lady.” I said, smiling at her.
“I’ve been hanging out with you too long,” she said.
“By the way, there’s a bit of a bonus for you.”
“Oh yeah? What’s that?”
“DiMarco is the one who sent those guys after me. Essentially, DiMarco is responsible for trashing the gambling parlor.”
As thanks, she grabbed me, pulled me down, and kissed me on the lips quickly but firmly. Then she let me go and said, “I have to get going. You can tell me more when I get back tonight. Is it okay if I spend the week here?”
“I hoped you’d be willing. Bring over whatever you need.
Mi casa es tu casa
.”
“Thanks, babe. I’ll see you tonight.” She went out the front door and closed it quietly behind her.
I stared at the door for a long while, thinking back to how the two of us had met. Marsha was one of the toughest people I’d ever known. Her father would have been proud of her. Thinking of Las Vegas reminded me of something. I’d have to call Papa Balducci in Vegas before I dropped the hammer on DiMarco. Balducci ran the Vegas operation for the Five Families, and Balducci had a soft spot for me. I had, after all, found the psychopath that killed Balducci’s niece. The same psychopath that had almost gotten Marsha, which is how we’d met.
Balducci hated DiMarco, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Papa would be happy to take DiMarco’s little corner of America under his esteemed care.
With Marsha brought into the fold, most of the players were in place. We simply needed to get ready for DiMarco. I headed outside, sat in my favorite spot by the fountain, and worked through the plan again to see if there were any gaps in it.
***
Eavesdropper
Albert Zajac opened the front door of the condo and walked in. “It’s just me,” he said. His subordinate lay under a blanket on the couch. A bed, the couch, and some office furniture were all that adorned the small, otherwise empty rental. Albert had won the coin-toss, so he got the day shift to listen in on the subject’s house.
He saw the form under the blanket move and heard the quiet snick of a hammer being carefully lowered. He had just gone to the café around the corner to get a large cup of coffee and some breakfast. He’d slept all night, gotten up around four, and greeted his partner on the way out.
“Did you hear anything?” he asked. An arm pointed out of the blanket at a notepad and pen on the table. He walked up to the console, sat down, and read through it.
It detailed the highlights of a conversation between Case and the woman from Grady’s. Albert was surprised to learn that the woman was a sniper of some skill. He was even more surprised to learn that Case intended to use her in his assault on the plant. He finished reading the whole conversation, drinking his coffee as he went along. When he finished, he pulled out one of the two breakfast sandwiches he’d bought and chewed thoughtfully.
As he ate, he heard Justin say something through the speakers. The receiver automatically started recording. Albert grabbed the jack, slid it into the port and put the headphones over his ears to listen in on the house a quarter-mile away from the condo.
“Xen? How’s the research coming?” Justin’s voice came in clear.
Grateful his partner had had the forethought to place the bug when the opportunity presented itself Albert listened in and took notes.
O O O
“Well, I have to admit,” Xen said, peeling his eyes away from the computer, “What Shao came up with is truly revolutionary. I had no idea he was this good. It’s a shame, really.”
“That you ratted him out?” I offered, smiling.
“No,” Xen said chuckling. “That he had such an appetite for illegal drugs. He probably could have ended up naming his price at any of the major pharmaceuticals, if he’d stayed the course anyway. He took a shortcut, and it cost him.”
“Shortcuts usually do,” I said, remembering one of my early teachers. “So what have you found?”
“How it works,” Xen said simply.
“Tell me,” I said enthusiastically, stepping into the kitchen and starting another pot of coffee.
Xen set the laptop on the coffee table, took his glasses off, rubbed his eyes and stood up. He walked over to the kitchen, took a coffee cup off the small hanging rack and set it on the counter. “You have creamer?”
“In the fridge,” I replied.
Xen grabbed the cream and sat back down with it in front of him. “Okay … as I said before, it’s a five-step process, but only four of them take place at the plant.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It’s really clever, too. What leaves the plant, if someone tried to ingest it somehow, would almost certainly kill them, or at least put them in a hospital for a long time.” He put his glasses back on and continued. “In stage one they take the meth and coke and heat them separately to almost two hundred degrees Celsius, which is just past the melting point of both. In stage two, the two liquids are mixed together carefully, because both components are extremely flammable. Stage three requires heating the mixture further to two-hundred-twenty degrees and then gradually adding it to dichloroethylene that has been heated to the same temperature. The dichloro acts as a stabilizing agent to the coke and meth blend, reducing its volatility considerably. It’s still dangerous, but not nearly as much as the original drugs at that temperature. Essentially, if you heated the drug mix by itself to around two-hundred-fifty degrees, it would simply ignite. With the dichloro, it can take more heat. Stage four is where the magic happens. The whole mix is heated to three-ninety-five and allowed to cook for a few hours under pressure and with a low electrical current running through it. This is essentially a distillation process, and everything they want joins together into a clever combination of loosely bonded but separate molecules. They distill this off, and that’s what goes into the tankers.”
“So, is that the T-Rex?” I set out coffee cups for us.
“No. That’s what’s really clever about all this. What they’re shipping isn’t drugs.”
“So where do the drugs happen.” I put in several heaping tablespoons of sugar as Xen smiled knowingly at the excess.
“At the dry cleaners.”
“No shit?”
“Yeah. These guys have to have some kind of specially built cooling unit. Basically, you pour this mix into one end, cool the liquid to about negative ten degrees Celsius, and
voila
!” Xen snapped his fingers, “T-Rex crystallizes out of the liquid. The liquid is siphoned off and can be used as regular dry cleaning fluid. It’s a little different, but probably just as effective. What’s left over goes into west coast party-hounds as T-Rex.”
“And soon the world, with Pyotr’s help,” I said filling Xen’s cup with fresh coffee.
“Yep.” Xen added cream, a little sugar and took a sip. “Like I said, it’s brilliant. I couldn’t have come up with it. It’s given me some ideas, though. I think I understand why they wanted me dead, though.”
I smiled. I’d already pieced that together, but I wanted to hear Xen’s version. “Why’s that?”
“Well, your stuff, the silicon-based molecule …”
“Yeah?”
“Well it’s cheaper to make, totally non-flammable, more effective, easier to dispose of and, if my calculations are correct, non-damaging to the environment. Silicon is basically sand, and your stuff would simply return to Mother Earth.”
“Yeah. So?” I asked.
“Well, it would revolutionize the dry cleaning industry. Every state in the country would legislate requiring it, since your stuff probably isn’t cancer causing either. It most certainly wouldn’t contaminate ground water and soil the way the tetrachloroethylene does. DiMarco would be out of business.”
“Exactly,” I said, smiling.
“But what about Nikolov at SolCon? If he is who you say he is, then he’d have even more to lose with the silicon-based version.”
“He’s a very cool customer, that one. And he used it exactly the way he always intended. Leverage. He’s all about leverage. With the threat of the new cleaning liquid, he could force DiMarco into a business deal whether the Italian wanted to or not. You ever read Sun Tzu?”
“Back in college,” Xen said, “but I don’t really remember any of it. Not my bag.”
“Yeah? Well I’ve read
The Art of War
, and I like it. I’m absolutely certain Nikolov not only read it, he memorized it. Probably could have written something like it. That son-of-a-bitch doesn’t make a move against someone until he’s certain he’s got his victim by the balls with a gun to his head. Then he lets the guy choose between having dinner or getting his testicles cut off. It’s an easy choice every time, and Nikolov always wins.”
“I bet he’d kill to get his hands on this data,” Xen said ominously.
“I’m certain of it.” I looked thoughtful for a while as I calculated the implications of Nikolov in the picture. I suspected that Nikolov had orchestrated most of what was going on from way behind the scenes. He also funneled the information about Natalia’s project to DiMarco. If I was right, Nikolov was even more dangerous than anyone suspected. “Look, I’ve got to go do some thinking. Can you start digging into that data and see if you can pull out anything related to where they were shipping to and any other logistics?”
“Yeah. I was just getting into that stuff. I focused on the chemical data first ’cause I figured it was more important.”
“You figured right. Now find out anything you can about the operation. I’ll be up in a few hours.”
I went downstairs and stripped down. I grabbed a blindfold off of the wall and placed it over my eyes. I stepped to the center of the mat and proceeded to go through my forms. There were fifteen of them, and I completed the first cycle at a very slow speed, the motions resembling Tai Chi. I repeated the cycle, increasing the pace. I rotated through them, getting ever faster until my body became a blur of motion.
I let the old me, the predator, take hold and kept the pace for another thirty minutes until my skin turned dark gray and hot to the touch. My skin would turn pitch black if I went long enough. Breathing deeply, I stopped and stood motionless for a few minutes, not feeling anything other than my own heartbeat. My thoughts were crystal clear, and the rational, sensible Justin burned away, leaving Jalin burning like a hot spike within me.
I removed the blindfold, stepped over to the nearest kick-bag and worked it with blurring speed. Elbows, fists, knees, shins, and feet flew into the bag from every direction. I hammered away at it in a hailstorm of blows. The sound became a mantra for me, a rhythm that cleared my mind and allowed the gears to flow freely. I stopped thinking about my body after the second or third rotation of the forms, and motions took on a life of their own, my body doing what it had been designed to do—inflict injury.
Finally, the blows came in slower and weaker. My body ached from the exertion, and I slowly became aware of my surroundings once again. Jalin faded, and Justin drifted back into phase. It’s always a strange sensation shifting between the killer and what I’ve come to realize is the real me. There was a time when those roles were reversed—Jalin had been the real me, and Justin nothing more than a veneer. But the past couple of decades had allowed me to shift them, and that shift is what allowed me to have a relationship with Rachel.
I stepped away from the bag and lowered my arms, my breath coming in hard, fast pants that blew off the excess heat.
“Good lord!” Xen said from the stairs.
Jalin leapt into my consciousness. My fists came up fast, and my head snapped like lightning towards the intrusion. My face contorted into a mask of rage, my eyes wide, bloodshot, almost crazed. I stared at Xen for second upon second, my face slowly drifting from rage to one of calm as I forced Jalin back down and Justin came completely to the forefront. My body paled slowly as well, my breathing expending the excess heat.
“What are you?” he asked, a touch of fear and awe carried in his voice. He stepped up to me slowly.
I relaxed my shoulders and lowered my fists finally, stepping away from the bag and facing Xen. “I am what they made me, Xen.” A deep, troubled sadness clutched at my insides. It’s what Rachel had seen on the patio and what Xen saw now. It was that part of me that had been harnessed by tyrants and used to inflict agony and death upon any who got in their way. “There’s something I wanted to ask you.”
“What’s that?”
“Do you think those Russians we killed deserved it?” I asked.
Xen looked surprised.
“Especially the last one …” I added, “and what I did to him?”
Xen thought about it for a while and then he nodded his head. “Yeah, I guess they did. He certainly did.”
“You want to hear something funny?” I looked into his eyes, and he could tell there wasn’t any humor there. “The funny thing is that the part of me that killed him … is just like him.” I stole my gaze away and looked down, ashamed. “I used to be that guy, Xen. A long time ago, but it was me just the same.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You wanna know why I do what I do? Why I keep going after guys like DiMarco and Nikolov and the people that work for them?” He looked at me expectantly. “It’s because of a word not used that often where I come from.”
I looked at him again, and I’m sure he could see the guilt in my face. “
Repentance
.” He still didn’t say anything as he tried to understand. “Xen, please don’t be afraid when you see me do what I do. This is as much a part of me as my arm or heart. I could no more change this than you could your gift for chemistry. I’ve just learned to control it. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah. It does,” Xen said, putting his hand on my shoulder in an attempt to comfort me. He pulled it back immediately, astonished at the heat coming off my body. “You’re cooking!” he exclaimed and then put his hand back. He peered closely at my face and skin. “You’re not sweating.”
“Nope. They wrote out sweat glands. Unnecessary with my metabolism.”
“Amazing,” he said in disbelief. “Remind me to never piss you off.”
“I will,” I said, running up the stairs. “Come on, let’s go for a swim. I need to cool off.”
“Excellent idea,” he said, jogging after me and pulling off his shirt. “Although I do want to get back at that data.”
“Deal.”
***
