All or Nothing (10 page)

Heather said nothing.

“I wasn’t joking though. Seeing another human is a godsend. It’s nice to meet you.”

Heather regarded her new acquaintance. He smiled and held out his hand. “Kieran Haas.”

“Heather....Mason, Heather Mason.” Heather ran a hand through her hair and forced a smile.

“Nice to meet you, Heather, and if you don’t mind me saying so, you are a stunner. I’m not coming on to you, I’m just saying it like it is. In the interest of full disclosure of course.”

Heather smiled.

“But who am I to talk about looks? I have human blood splattered across my face.”

Heather took his hand and stood up.

“I’ll refrain from a hug because we’ve just met,” he continued. “Needless to say, I think we should stick together, okay?”

“Fine, that's okay with me;I’m not a close-quarters type of person anyway.”

“How about a deal? I’ll feed you, if you tell me about yourself...It’ll pass the time?”

“Done.”

***

Pushing his wine aside the man leaned back in his expensive leather reclining chair and breathed out. His breath felt warm and smelled sweet and had the very familiar scent of booze on it. It wafted up his nostrils seconds after he emptied his lungs.

A smile broke out on his face and he leaned forward onto his desk and observed his screen closely. His nose was an inch from the bright LCD and the screen felt warm on its tip. The scene became fuzzy when he looked sideways.

He pulled away and straightened the monitor, as if the pressure of his nose had knocked it completely out of line. In reality it had knocked it only an inch away from its normal position. He tapped the screen and giggled under his breath, then stood up and left the room, closing the door behind him. On the screen, the two people had walked through three corridors and were now leaning down to look at a fallen body.

SIXTEEN

Francisco De Goya hadn’t made the decision. The fallen man remained silent for what he thought seemed hours, but in reality, he had remained quiet for nine minutes.

Nine long minutes.

Silence was his friend, his only companion in this unspeakable nightmare. Every family man’s worst nightmare had become horribly and viscerally true. Every muscle in his body had strained tight and taut, and he was aware of the pumping of his blood, making him feel light-headed at times, but also keeping him calm and somewhat sane, despite his dilemma.

The question he’d been asked: who would he sacrifice, his wife or his daughter, had reverberated through his head a million times, and a million times he had been unable to comprehend an answer. Not once had any part of him been able to consider a choice, or even to contemplate the consequences associated with such a decision. Then it dawned on him that it wasn’t exactly a question, but a statement, a statement that would ruin lives, provide bloodshed and most importantly, result in someone’s death.

His head hurt, throbbed, felt like it was going to explode at any second. He daren’t look up, for the sight that would greet him was something that he didn’t wish to acknowledge.

Francisco almost fell off his chair as the baseball bat crashed into his temple. He yelled loudly, blood dripped from the instant gash above his eyebrow and then slicked down his face, immediately splattering onto his leg.

The dark figure grabbed him by his hair and pulled his face up, made him observe his broken family. Tears welled in his eyes, but he couldn’t blink them away. Two strong hands held his face in place, one of them holding his eyes open.

Amy was unconscious, her skin a deathly pale, and her eyes were mere slits. Her right eye was a deep black and purple, and the swelling looked painful. The dried blood that covered her, both in her hair and on her torso, had turned black now, a contrast to her clammy skin. Her breast was still exposed after the bra’s cup had dropped away. Drool hung from her mouth and her arms shook violently. Francisco knew that his wife would die in the next few hours unless she received medical attention. The deep hole in her back would see to that. He wanted to vomit.

Sadie had retreated into herself, her head hung low, her eyes closed of their own accord, and Francisco knew that she would have had her arms and legs curled up underneath her if the restraining ropes hadn’t precluded this. Her hair was a mess, her face dark with tear streaks. She too was shaking violently.

“You are seeing this, aren’t you, you Spic fuck?” his abuser sneered.

The figure walked over to Amy and stood behind her. He brandished the knife that had already inflicted so much damage on her, and waved it around her head. Amy was oblivious to the threat.  The man then walked past Sadie and looked at her hair, moved his head close and made a sniffing noise. He then stood up again and returned to Amy, and ran his gloved hand through her hair. It then moved down and caressed her exposed breast. Amy moaned incoherently.

“I told you to choose, yet you still disobey me!”

Francisco said nothing, the tears finally rolling down his face. He was a broken man.

“I said choose, I remember telling you on about seven occasions and yet, you still disobey me. I don’t think you’re getting the concept of this, are you? I give you a command and you answer, and by answering you save one of your family and you make this whole situation end sooner rather than later. But you haven’t done that.”

The knife-wielding man walked over to Francisco and knelt down in front of him.

“I'm going to ask you one more time, and this time you're going to give me an answer. If you don’t, you don’t even want to comprehend what I am going to do. And I don’t take responsibility for my actions very often, usually because they aren’t my fault. Now, let’s try this...”

Francisco remained silent.

“Choose.”

Francisco stared at the figure.

Then he spat in the man’s face.

There was silence.

A glove-covered hand came up and wiped the spittle from his mask. He wiped it on his leg and then he stood up. He sheathed his knife and stood with his hands on his hips. Francisco could feel the piercing gaze from beneath the mask and through the tinted glasses.

“That was a big mistake.”

The man turned round and reached for the shelf behind him. At first Francisco didn’t know why, but when his pistol came into view, cocked and loaded, he couldn’t say anything, his throat swelled and no noise came out. A metallic clank sounded and Francisco seemed to see everything in slow motion.

The first bullet tore through Sadie’s left leg, shattering the bone, sending skin and muscle splattering around the chair leg that she was tied to. The child’s scream pierced the night air, torturing Francisco’s ears. Amy awoke, her frail body seemingly shocked into life by the sound of her baby screaming in pain.

The second bullet obliterated Sadie’s face, her nose disappearing in a cloud of red mist and white fragments. The force of the shots sent her crashing backwards into the wall, where her body came to a lifeless rest. Blood pooled around the body as the figure walked up to it and pumped two more bullets into the child for good measure. The screams had stopped.

The man swung round and fired at Amy, brass shell cases flew from the gun’s breech and landed at Francisco’s feet. Amy’s torso shook as if she had been strapped to an electric chair as the gunshots smashed into her weakened body. Blood shot up from all directions, and erupted from under her gag again. Her limbs shook lifelessly as her body finally slumped back into the chair. The seat creaked once, and then her head slumped forward onto her naked chest. Blood oozed from her body’s multiple injuries.

Then the killer turned towards Francisco and fired once. The bullet shredded Francisco’s head and slammed him back into the wall, his legs gave way and he collapsed to the floor in a heap. His eyes closed, and he lapsed into lifelessness.

Next, the gunman wiped the Beretta on his sleeve and placed it in Francisco’s hand. He knew from the trajectory of the bullet that it would look like suicide. He switched off the light and left through the front door. The house was silent.

***

The man threw his wallet against the wall and his credit cards spilled out onto the floor with a small clatter. He pushed his chair over and kicked it across the office and screamed at the top of his lungs. He grabbed his monitor and picked it up, with the intention of throwing it against the wall, but decided not to.

He calculated within seconds that he probably owed near to quarter of a million pounds because of this. A massive loss of earnings, and most importantly, a huge loss of face were the results. He could guarantee that within a week he would lose his job, and within a month his three homes and seven cars would be gone. He had staked everything on this gamble, and for the first time in his life, he realised he had been naive, had not planned far enough ahead, had been reckless.

He had fucked up!

Or had he?

Picking up his landline phone, he dialled a number. He got an answer within twenty-seven seconds, longer than the norm. He nodded.

“You know what to do,” he muttered into the receiver. “Don’t let me down.”

Placing the phone back in its cradle, he waited.
This could take some time,
he thought.

But he had no choice.

SEVENTEEN

Kathryn was in the reception lobby of the big building she’d gained access to, the lobby providing her a relatively safe haven. For now.

The entrance was now behind her. A rack of chairs nearby acted as a very handy obstruction for the door. Picking them up, she placed them against the door itself. When she placed her ear to the panel she heard nothing. She doubted that the men had gone far, though.

Kathryn stayed alert as she stepped into the entrance foyer.

She approached the reception desk. Finding the chair behind it, she took a seat and felt a release of tension as she breathed out. The lobby was of moderate size with two lifts side by side to the rear. Two rows of sofas lined the wall opposite the desk, a perfect observation point for whoever was on duty. The entrance took up the left wall. The floor was clear and tidy. A thriving pot plant stood in the corner. Beside the reception desk, a Coke-vending machine was placed under the stairs that led to the upper floors. The lobby would have seemed welcoming in a normal situation.

However, today it seemed just creepy and in no way ordinary.

Kathryn studied the desk for anything she could use. She found a stack of pads and pens which she initially ignored. A pink purse was placed in front of a modern monitor. The monitor was hidden to visitors below a wooden alcove in the desk. No keyboard was anywhere to be found. A mouse mat stood lonely, the mouse missing.

Kathryn opened the purse and found about three pounds worth of change, and looked at the Coke machine, suddenly feeling thirsty. She then placed the purse back on the desk.

She rolled the chair back from the desk and looked under the work surface. There was a pink shoulder bag that matched the purse. Hoisting it onto her lap, she rifled through it. She found various women’s bits and pieces and dropped them on the floor. Opening a cupboard nearby revealed a set of keys. They were labelled VENDING and OFFICE. A keycard, probably a master key, was also attached to them. There was also a hammer and a screwdriver. Finally she found a key labelled LOCKER. Looking up, she spotted a set of lockers hidden in an alcove beyond the lifts.

She pocketed the keys. Kathryn grabbed a pad and pen and stared scribbling a rough map. She threw both of these items into the pink bag, as well as the hammer. Taking the locker key, Kathryn headed to the alcove.

Once beyond the wall she saw several sets of lockers. She tried the key in the first one. Empty. She opened the second one. Also empty. The key was a master, allowing her to try all of the lockers in turn, which took her about half an hour. It was time well spent.

Kathryn had found a variety of clothes, shoes, underwear and other items. She laid them on the bench that sat between the ranks of lockers. A changing bench sat in the centre of the room. She selected a black shirt, long sleeved with buttons. It fitted her snugly. She collected a grey hoodie and put it in the bag, to keep for later. She also found some blue jeans and put them on, doing the same with some socks and panties. She couldn’t find a bra that was her size, but she was at least much better dressed then she had been. Sometimes women being fussy about their appearances had its benefits, she thought. Afterwards she left the rest of the clothes behind and exited the locker room.

Kathryn fumbled with the bundle of keys and approached the Coke machine, successfully managing to open its door. She bundled five cans of Coke into the pink bag and shut the machine behind her. Surveying the room once more, she decided against using the lifts. She approached the stairs and started to climb.

***

The man finished his bourbon and sat back. He smiled.

Within the hour his plan would come to fruition. It meant he was in the lead and was looking forward to taking the winnings. He poured some more bourbon and stood up. He walked to the window. The bourbon sloshed around in his glass as he walked.

Looking out on the city before him, he smiled to himself. Below him he knew was a world of hell, where people existed to supplement their precious lives with indulgence and consumerism that didn’t enhance or benefit their presence on the planet. Buying luxuries that they could never afford. They let their lives spiral out of control on loans and high interest credit cards. That wasn’t life, he thought, it was barely an existence. He was seventy storeys up and he knew the people in the offices below him were average normal people. He earned more in a day than they did in a month. He paid more for his wardrobe than most of them paid for their education. His preferred brand of bourbon wasn’t even available in Tesco or Asda or any standard chain supermarket. He liked the highlife and this ‘experiment’, as he liked to call it, was one such luxury he could afford.

He smiled, knowing that what he was involved in was only experienced by a handful of people. The bourbon and Ecstasy running around his body gave him a feeling of superiority and invincibility. He finished his glass in one gulp and turned back to his desk. He fell into his chair and gazed at the screen. He reached for the bottle to pour another glass.

Let’s finish this!