Chapter 18. Scramble
As soon as Ploof started to flop, Lucas called Isaac. He doubted Isaac's fealty, and wondered if the scrapper had lied. If Isaac was in fact guilty, then the only option for Lucas was to get blood money to compensate for the act. The death of Ploof marred the entire plan to sack Talbot. A difficult decision lay before Lucas: one of cut-and-run or stay the course. He called Isaac into the office to read his mind.
The first thing Lucas said made their conversation a rude interaction. "Where was your partner today, Isaac? Did you pulse Ploof somehow? What did you do?"
"Me? I'm raking up the money for your master plan, which apparently is broken now, or you wouldn't be acting like this." Isaac scratched at the USB ports sticking out of his forearms.
Lucas said, "Look at you. You're a freak. Where's your partner? Did you..."
"Don't yell at me. I didn't kill Ploof." Isaac smiled. "But you have to admit, it was a perfect Block."
"Yes, it was," Lucas said. "That's why I suspect you had a hand in it. Who else would know the technology well enough to figure out when and how to shock Ploof to death...using electro-magnetic - whatever the hell it was."
Isaac said, "It wasn't me."
"Then why don't you know where your partner is? She was in town just yesterday."
He shrugged. "We never know where the other is operating."
Lucas paused and turned the radio on in his office, flipping the volume knob to the maximum tick mark. He grabbed Isaac's neck and whispered harshly into his ear. "I met her, and she was lugging around a suitcase full of money, like it was no big deal. Like she was some kind of amateur."
Isaac pulled the hand off his neck. "I think you need some fresh air, Lucas. Back off, or you'll get no money. We have checkins with one another, and if I don't checkin, then she's gone, with the briefcase of money."
Lucas moved behind his desk. He packed the gun in his briefcase and said, "Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're right. I'm getting out of here for a while." After putting on his sunglasses and his baseball cap, Lucas snatched his briefcase with a violent jerk and walked to his office door. "And God dammit! Get that money moved!"
On his way out the door, Lucas did not send for his usual company car. Instead, he ran to the cab stand outside of the main entrance and hopped in the back seat of the first available cab. A sudden yearning to get home stretched his chest. He said to the driver, "An extra hundred dollars for every traffic law you break." He stuffed two C-notes through the seat to the cabbie.
"Hey man, relax. We'll get there fast enough."
"Faster."
After a half-hour of dodging through traffic, Lucas fondled the gun inside his briefcase. During the ride, his phone kept ringing.
The driver said, "Ain't you gonna answer it one of these times?"
Lucas said, "Just drive."
When the cab stopped, Lucas handed the driver the wad of money while simultaneously muttering epithets.
The offended driver got out of the cab to face Lucas. He threw the money at Lucas's chest. "Hey, keep your money asshole. Who the hell do you think you are, calling me..."
Lucas pointed the gun to the cab driver's chest. The driver put up his hands and backed away.
"Woah. I'm cool," the driver said. "No need for that."
"Don't say another word," Lucas said, waving the gun around at the money. "Take your money and drive."
The driver moved toward the car.
"I said take the money. Are you deaf or just stupid? I already know you're stupid given your occupation, so really only your hearing is in question."
Keeping an eye on Lucas and the gun, the driver picked up a few of the hundred dollar bills and jumped when Lucas's phone started to ring again. He jumped into his cab and departed with squealing tires.
Lucas felt himself losing control, but he lowered the gun to his side because hope of revenge still remained. Pelius could weather the death of Ploof and move forward, but only with the money stolen from Talbot.
Lucas rushed up to his apartment, fumbled with his keys to unlock the door, but when he grabbed the knob to go inside, he looked down at his feet, at a briefcase that was pressed neatly against the base of the door. Seeing the case, he nearly broke down and cried. On his knees, he picked up the heavy briefcase and laid it flat on its side. The latches popped and he lifted the cover, expecting to see stacks of green, but instead he saw red.
There was no money. Twelve red bricks filled the briefcase. On top of the bricks sat a small piece of paper, a receipt. Lucas picked up the receipt and read it.
"Home Depot. Four dollars and twenty-five cents."
The receipt floated to the floor.
In a trance, he opened the door, walked inside his apartment, and left the door swinging open behind him. He sat on the couch and turned on his TV, an enormous monstrosity that filled much of his small apartment. Alone, with gun in hand, he watched the scrolling headlines that pronounced Marshall Ploof dead. Every channel replayed the death of Ploof and aired Arrica Pelius making her emotional explanation for the tragedy.
Arrica spoke on MSNBC. "The product apparently malfunctioned when Dr. Ploof tried to use it. We will carry out a full investigation in our quality assurance areas. Marshall Ploof was a dear, dear friend to so many of us..."
"A dear friend." Lucas laughed. He swore and threw the remote control at the TV, where it smashed and the plastic pieces ricocheted off the screen. Arrica kept talking. Lucas managed a smile, a fake one, because he knew the necessity of wearing the smile through this unexpected downturn.
As he sat there watching the replay of Ploof's death, he looked closely and saw a face in the crowd that announced his betrayal. Near Ploof, in a row of reporters, stood the woman with the briefcase, the one he had just met with the day before.
"Julia."
Again, his phone started to ring. He looked down at the phone. It was four o'clock in the afternoon. It continued to ring. The calls were coming from Arrica, Basil, and the media, but he ignored them all. Now that he knew the call would not be about money, he decided to turn the phone off. Sooner or later, he knew that someone would find him. Going home offered no more asylum than the office, and now that he was at home, the place looked foreign to him - empty and sickening.
He watched the replay on TV once again. From another angle, he watched Julia run away from the scene, as if horrified by the seizure, but Lucas knew the truth. Isaac and Julia had orchestrated the death of Ploof. There was no money coming.
The loaded gun rested between his knees. The insubordinate Blockers needed to make restitution. Several options came to mind, but the best way to correct their mistake was a simple action. With his Argus hit men still on the GRAIN ship, he could arrange payback.
Like an empty pan sitting too long on a hot stove, his mind felt like it was cracking, fragmenting, as sharp pains lanced between his ears. To get a grip he tried to think of what he still had working in his favor. He still had the ship. He still had Argus, who understood loyalty down to the last man.
The answer to these types of problems was always Argus, the company that ran the GRAIN ship. Lucas had reorganized the surveillance company after his father discarded it. They were always more than happy to receive work orders. Whoever he wanted to undermine or ruin, they would do it. The only problem was that Lucas could not have everyone killed.
His contemplation was interrupted when he heard footsteps coming toward his door. The door was open and he lowered the gun quickly so that the person entering would not see it.
Arrica Pelius rushed in and raised her voice.
"Care to answer your phone? What happened, Lucas? Or should I
call you Jude, you lying piece of shit. Guess what? I got tipped off. I know who you are."
"Have you mentioned this to anyone?" Lucas asked solemnly.
"Not yet," Arrica said breathlessly. "I wanted to give you a chance to tell me the truth. You're Marcus Jovan's son?"
That was all he needed to hear. Unless he could clean up this mess, all was lost.
He lifted the gun, pulled the trigger, and shot Arrica.
The bullet drove her backwards. Arrica reeled and fell onto the floor, where she slid almost all the way back to the front door. For a moment, she sat wide-eyed and stunned, trying to catch her breath. The bullet landed in the upper right side of her chest. Near her shoulder, the white shirt slowly turned red. She put one hand on her shoulder and with her other hand tried to lift herself back to her feet.
With the gun hanging at his side, Lucas approached her. "Who tipped you?"
Arrica gasped at him and shook her head. "How..." She tried to speak but couldn't draw enough breath. "How..." The rest of her question never came.
"Don't hurt yourself, Arrica. Just bleed, you little bitch. See if you can last longer than your old man. Yeah, that's right. I had the pleasure of watching him die, too."
Lucas pulled out his cell phone and dialed his Argus contact. The phone rang ten times and Lucas was about to hang up when someone answered.
Lucas said, "Vindico?"
A man said, "Yes?"
"This is Tectus. Are you experiencing any problems?"
"None."
"Just to be safe, prepare for code orange. It might be time to sink the operation."
"Yes?"
"Also, I need you to write down some names for me. For disposal. Ready?"
"Go ahead."
"Isaac Blackwell. Basil Jackson. Julia."
The man waited. "What's her last name?"
"I don't know her last name. I'll get her picture to you."
"Ok."
"And Marcus Jovan."
"Marcus Jovan. Really?"
Lucas paused to think about the project. "Yeah, bring him in alive. He won't do any work, but we'll waterboard him for a few years. The other names I gave you can be zeroed."
The man paused.
Lucas asked, "Are you still there?"
"I am," the man said. "Anything else I can do?"
The voice did not sound right. This was not Vindico, he suddenly realized. Something was different. Lucas hung up the phone and paced around the couch. He set the phone and the gun down on the coffee table.
Lucas said to Arrica, "Pelius is in trouble."
Arrica wheezed and mouthed at Lucas for help.
After two trips around his couch, Lucas picked up the gun and stuffed it down the front of his pants. He decided to try calling Argus one more time.
As the connection was being made, he walked over to Arrica and squatted beside her.
"I think your company is done for, Arrica." He pushed his fingers through her hair. "You really fucked up. The media is going to burn you alive. You're a KillJoy and a Blocker now. I'm going to make sure of that."
After two rings, the man answered again. "Tectus?"
Lucas said, "Who is this?"
"Vindico," the man stammered.
"No, it's not. Who am I speaking to?"
"Excuse me?"
Lucas screamed into the phone. "Tell me now!"
The man paused. When he spoke again, his voice changed. "This is Agent Riggins, FBI. Your ship is a little out of order at the moment, if you can imagine. You won't need that code orange after all."
Lucas felt his jaw fall. From his squatting position, Lucas put one knee on the floor and turned to look at the front door, which was still wide open. He saw a man come into the doorway. Lucas went to reach for the gun in his belt, but another hand beat him to it. Arrica reached for the gun. Before Lucas could react, he heard the gun go off, smelled gunpowder fumes, and then felt a warm flow of blood running down his legs.
With her uninjured arm, Arrica had grabbed the handle of the gun. When Lucas heard the hammer click, he wanted to scream before the pain started. A single shot was fired.
Lucas wailed and rolled onto his back. Closing his eyes, he forgot about the image he saw in the doorway, but when he opened them, he wished Arrica had shot him in the face.
A man in full police gear and a bullet-proof vest stood in the doorway with his gun drawn. He moved inside the room with his elbows in the shape of a spearhead. "Don't move!" When he was close enough, Pazzo changed shape and pistol-whipped Lucas in the forehead, knocking Lucas backwards. Pazzo ripped the gun away from Lucas's belt and then tossed it toward the corner of the room.
Looking down at the wound on Lucas, Pazzo said to Arrica, "Hell of a shot, Miss Pelius."
As if time didn't matter, Pazzo casually pulled out a set of handcuffs. Because Lucas had both hands pressed against his wounded crotch, his wrists were situated just right for the cuffing.
Once the cuffs were on, Pazzo turned to inspect Arrica.
"Looks like he got you in the shoulder. Sorry about that. You got here too fast, Miss Pelius. I was right behind you." He touched a radio that hung on his shoulder and spoke. "This is Pazzo. Perth's room is clear, but we have two wounded."
A scratchy voice of a dispatcher replied. "We're sending two ambulances right now."
"Miss Pelius," Pazzo said, "we're going to get you on the first stretcher." He pulled out a white handkerchief and wiped the sweat away from Arrica's eyes. After drying her face, he looked at her shoulder and said, "You'll be ok, Arrica."
Two teams of paramedics arrived. One team assembled Arrica onto a gurney, the other team manhandled Lucas. In less than a minute, the first team of paramedics had Arrica transported out of the room. The second team took more time with Lucas because of the location of the gunshot wound. He screamed in pain several times, until one of the paramedics gave him a shot of morphine. His muscles relaxed, but with the pain gone, Lucas became aware of a strange quiet in the room. The paramedics stopped working on his midsection and took off his handcuffs.
"Feels good, huh?" Agent Pazzo said. "Yes, it does. I had some morphine when I was in the Marine Corps. It was a good learning experience. Made me understand why junkies do what they do. Ok, are you listening, Lucas? Now that you are listening, on behalf of the FBI, let me be the first to tell you that your GRAIN ship has been, shall we say, reaped by US Marshals. You are a blessing to me. I got a tip about you and suddenly everything, I mean everything, came together. It's like someone rolled a rock over and showed me where the bugs were." He whispered into Lucas's ear, "Right, Mr. Jovan? The Talbot letterheads on the ship didn't throw me off-track either, because your Argus sap, alias Vindico, told us all about your Pelius arrangement."
Lucas felt a strap on his right arm. The paramedics tied him down to the stretcher. He felt a sudden jerk as the stretcher was lifted.
"Sir," said one of the paramedics, "we are putting straps on you to keep your hands away from the wound."
Lucas nodded.
Ignoring the paramedics, Pazzo whispered into Lucas's ear. "I know that you are not only a degenerate, but also a Blocker. Therefore, Mr. Jovan, it is in everyone's best interest that I disallow you to horrify the public. I know the drill. Once exposed, horrify. Not going to happen for you. But before I put you back underneath a rock, I am going to hear the details from you. One thing is for sure, I can't wait to hear about you and your dear old Dad."
Lucas screamed and convulsed until he freed his arms from the straps and leaped off the stretcher. Standing in the room and bleeding, he put one hand on his belt to ease the pain and used his other to brandish Pazzo and the paramedics. He looked around frantically for an escape route, but saw none. Under his feet, he f
elt something crunch. The shattered TV remote lay in pieces under his feet. He looked at the TV and then at Pazzo.
"You have nowhere to run." Pazzo drew his gun and pointed it at Lucas's face. "It's over, Jude. Unless you want your knee to look like your dick, I'd suggest kissing the floor and putting your hands on your head."
Lucas disagreed. Like a rabid dog, he bawled and lunged toward his enormous TV. With each step toward the big screen, he lowered his face toward the floor, and in a furious final burst of speed, he dashed his head against the TV screen, crowning himself on the picture tube. Sparks flew out of the display, glass landed around him, and right before he lost consciousness he felt shards enter the subdural space near his brain.