After watching the cars leave the business park, Einar had rushed down the stairs of the drill tower, but stopped at the door. He listened, but heard nothing and pulled it open. He had his new sniper rifle in a bag over his shoulder, and his hand in that bag, clutching his Bersa.
The courtyard ahead of him was empty all the way to the fence. But behind the tower he could hear voices. He slipped away, a fast stroll. A quick glance back showed a number of firemen near the main gate, which was opening. Some truck came in, carrying a busted old car on its back, which they'd use to put dummies inside and bash up so they could practice some daring rescue. Good. It kept them busy while he slipped away.
Same way he'd entered, Einar scaled the fence and dropped onto the street. Nobody about. He moved down the street, past a row of lock-up garages. He had parked a few feet down a side street between the last garage and a shop.
As he closed on his BMW, he noticed the demeanour of two guys leaning against the shop window. They were facing each other, but the guy facing towards Einar glanced over his mate's shoulder. Right at Einar. He said something to his pal and that guy straightened up, took his shoulder off the window. Just like a man getting ready for action.
Einar kept his eyes on the ground and his mouth grim, killing the smile he wanted to make. Marsh, the little bastard, had tricked everyone. These two guys were the proof. Marsh had had a lot of time to set something up here. If he suspected that Einar would be present, then he very well could have researched places where a sniper might hide. Einar had been to the business park last year to collect a fee and his brain, ever working, had noted the drill tower. The only viable place, apart from hiding in a tree, where a long-range gunman could set up. These two goons by the shop were proof that Marsh knew it, too. He didn't know if they had watched him park, or had found his car afterwards, but it didn't matter. What mattered was that they were here, waiting for him.
His BMW was parked on the shop-side of the side street, rear-facing outwards. He skipped around to the driver's side, out of sight of the two guys. He opened the driver's door and slammed it again, then moved up against the side wall of the shop. He was at the corner three seconds after vanishing out of sight. It took four seconds for the guys to get there, probably because they were giving him time to get inside the car.
The first guy rushed around the corner quickly, no care for what might be waiting for him. Right into his enemy. Einar grabbed his hair and at the same time thrust the Bersa into his mouth, cracking teeth. And like that the guy froze, just for a second, eyes wide with shock.
The second guy stepped around and bumped right into his pal. For a fraction of a second both men's heads were just inches apart, and that was when Einar fired. The bullet tore through the back of the first guy's neck with ease, no resistance there beyond a couple of cervical vertebra named Atlas and Axis. The bullet went straight through the guy and said hi to his pal. Guy one dropped straight down. Guy two fell back, blood and flesh erupting from his pulverised face.
The shot had been quite loud, despite the first guy's mouth acting like a weak silencer. Einar knew he had to get away, quick. But he took a second to stare down at the two dead men, noting their bright clothing and remembering his time at the abandoned swimming pool. These guys were dressed like those guys. Part of the same gang. Back then, that gang had wanted to harm Marsh. Now the gang was helping him. Something was going on and it wasn't good.
Einar kicked a loose arm aside to clear a path for his car and reversed the vehicle out of the side road.
He set his SatNav, but not with the postcode Hartbauer had sent him. If Marsh had laid a trap for Einar with the two dead goons back by the shops, then for sure he had one planned for Hartbauer and his men, too. And Hartbauer would be driving straight into it right about now. Einar wanted no part of it. It was only a semi-final. The endgame would take place elsewhere. And he had decided to allocate himself a bye right to the final.
Now, his eyes flicked open as he heard a noise. Einar rose from the chair and moved to the window. As he walked, he watched his feet step on the reflection of his feet on the mirrored floor. He opened down through the blinds. The house was at the end of a gravel driveway that weaved like a snake, flowery lawns either side. The gate at the end was open and Hartbauer's Toyota truck was racing along the drive, the driver going too fast to keep on the winding track. The vehicle's big wheels cut into the grass, throwing up mud. They threw up gravel as the vehicle skidded to a stop before the house. Einar heard the small stones strike the front door, below him.
Hartbauer's ample frame blundered out of the car and vanished out of sight under the sill. Einar opened the blinds, allowing bright light to wash over the room, and then moved away and sat back in the chair. As he reversed his journey, he watched his reflection again, but this time had to squint against the bright light bouncing off the floor. The mirrored floor seemed to make the whole room glow. He put his feet up again, next to the laptop computer. In front of both was his new rifle, a Falcon, handed over by a guy he knew in Peckham. Good old London, every part of it just minutes away from the next.
He heard the man rushing up the stairs with heavy thuds, fast at first and then slowing as his stamina left him.
Hartbauer stumbled in the door and froze with his hand on the handle. His face was soaked in sweat and patches had darkened his suit under the arms. His eye were wild, fear all over his face. And those eyes went from Einar to the gun, gun to Einar.
"At first I thought I was losing my touch," Einar said, moving his feet apart so he could see the other man properly. "Then I thought I was just careless. Didn't care. Now I know different."
"What are you doing here? Your car's not outside. How did you get in? There was a trap at the warehouse. Did you know about it? I managed to escape." Hartbauer puffed.
"To see you. Parked a street over. Back door. I figured. No. And I bet escape isn't the right word. I bet you sent your men inside while you watched from a nice, safe distance. You tore out of there the moment you heard trouble. Right back here, no doubt planning to flee. You came here to grab a few things and get out of Dodge. Maybe a long break in the Philippines, where you might have some respect, where people fear you maybe. Some jungle village where you can buy rather than earn fear."
Hartbauer just stared at him.
"I realised it wasn't carelessness or eroded skill," Einar said as he got up from the chair. He moved around the big table and took Hartbauer's arm, softly, without threat. "It was a kind of self-destruct in me. I'm bored of all this now. There's nothing new. Nothing to intrigue me. I don't need the money, and I don't need the respect." He led the bigger man around the table and sat him down in the chair. Pushed the chair as close to the desk as Hartbauer's big belly would allow. Slid the laptop closer, and lifted the man's arms, placed his fingers on the keyboard. He laid a piece of paper with some numbers on it next to the laptop.
"I'm done, just like you," Einar said as he walked to the window, giving Hartbauer his back as he stared out. "I was burning bridges, I think. That's what some psychiatrist would say. My face is on cameras, prints left everywhere, bodies lying in the street, weapons discarded for anyone to find. Self-destruct. Only way to avoid going down is to get out. Go home and live a quiet life in the sun. Same plan as yours. Only you got fucked over by a better man, while there's none better than me so I had to engineer my own fall from the top."
"What do you want, Einar?"
"Something that will take away the irritating itch. My time here has been a pain in the neck. I don't need the money, but I need something to show for my time. I want the money to pay for sweet things, just so I'll know it was worth all the headaches. You're going to transfer money to me, into that account number I gave you. Ten million pounds. That might just be enough to work as an analgesic."
"Ten Million?" Hartbauer spat. "For what? For lying to me, for failing to do your job? For running out when I needed you this morning?"
"James Marsh, serial killer, hit man,
supermarket manager, is coming here to kill you, Hartbauer. And I'm going to kill him. The only question is, how much do I allow him to achieve before I end his life? But that choice is yours, not mine. And I think you understand what I mean. So you pay ten million, or I go into standby for twenty minutes. Survive that long, you just saved ten million English pounds. Fastest money you ever made. Otherwise, I guess you lose all forty-six million that I know you're worth. Think you can survive twenty minutes without me?"
Both men perked up as they heard a car's engine rising in volume. Einar turned from the window and stared at Hartbauer. Both men locked eyes, listening as the whine grew louder. Then there was a skidding noise, wheels burning rubber. Einar smiled at the other man.
"Your life countdown is ticking," he said.
Hartbauer looked down at his laptop and started hitting the keys frantically.
***
Hartbauer's street was wide, the houses all set high on sloping lawns hidden behind knee-high walls with ornate fencing on top. The fencing was all uniform, but the owners had personalised their property with different kinds of gates. Most were wrought iron and basic, while some had gone for elaborate ornate ones, but for each one of those, there was another that was wooden or metal panels. Hartbauer's was the latter.
Jimmy checked the Google map and saw the pointer was close, right upon him on the left side. The icon denoting his car moved off the road as he turned into a driveway and was swallowed up by the destination marker. Not needed now, he swept the electronic tablet off his lap and into the passenger footwell. It had done its job, the software inside having tracked the Sim card he had affixed to Hartbauer's front bumper when he pretended to fall against the vehicle earlier.
The driveway wound left and right, as if it had been shipped here whole but was too long to fit between the gates and the house. He drove a straight line, cutting the corners, taking the line of a newel post through a spiral staircase.
There was only one car out front: Hartbauer's pickup truck.
The house was Neo-colonial, rectangular, pale faux brick siding. It had a portico with a pediment above, Palladian windows with cream shutters, and an extension on each side that made it look like some giant winners' podium. There was an outbuilding of brick to the right, probably for gardening gear since there was a lawn tractor parked alongside. To the right, a paved path led past the house. Not wide enough for a vehicle, but Jimmy drove along it anyway. There was a wooden fence than ran from the house and into the trees that blocked the view of the neighbour's house, but a wide sliding gate was open. Jimmy drove through, planning to hit the property's rear and infiltrate the house that way.
***
Einar rushed from the office, into a long hallway lined with doors. The floor here was mirrored, too, which made the number of doors seem double, even though half were upside down. There was too much visual input. He would get a headache living here for more than a day or two.
The doors were white wood, all the same, and the walls were bland. The house had no character. But he knew where he was going. The rectangular shape of Hartbauer's home made the layout easy to figure: all the rooms behind him, including the office, looked out over the front of the property, and therefore those across from him would give a view of the rear garden. So he chose the door right in front of him.
He found himself in a bedroom with en-suite bathroom. Brilliant white walls, and that same mirrored floor. The en-suite door was open and he could see a bath made of clear plastic.
He threw the window wide and stuck the barrel of the Falcon out. The garden was long. There was an archery range down the centre, and a long bed of vegetables against each side fence side, with just enough room to pass a car down each corridor. And right there was one of Hartbauer's blue Volkswagens tearing up the grass on the left side of the archery range. Einar aimed. Forty metres, then fifty, then eighty. Einar got his reticule on the back window, but the angle was wrong. Top of the back window, he might get his shot through the seat in the back and the driver's seat, but he'd probably only catch Marsh in the ass. So he waited. Beyond the vegetables and the mown grass of the archery range there was nothing but bare lawn with a shed at the bottom and a low rockery with a pond and a water feature - nowhere to hide.
The car started to turn right, slowly. The driver's window came into view, but still the angle was wrong, the upright metal section between that window and the one behind blocking where the driver's head would be. He waited.
The vehicle veered onto the far corner of the archery range, narrowly missing a free-standing target of black circles with a big yellow bullseye. It slowed. It hit a wheelbarrow some fool had left out in the open. Einar took his eye off the scope and watched from afar as the car trundled - speed now down to twenty - into the shed. When it hit the structure with a thud, he cursed. In anger, he put a lump of metal through a yellow bullseye and rushed from the bathroom.
Oldest trick in the book. A rolling car, no one inside. Marsh had tricked him - again. Einar had watched the car for valuable seconds while Marsh, having no doubt leaped out after throwing the gearstick into neutral, entered the house.
***
Jimmy waited ten seconds after the car stopped, then rose up from the passenger's footwell, threw open the door and climbed out. He slammed the door and peeked through two sets of windows. He saw no movement at the house, but he noted a window wide open. Too wide for ventilation. Einar. But he was gone now, assuming - Jimmy hoped - that Jimmy had leaped out of the car earlier and would be trying to gain entry into the house.
He ran past the car and back the way the vehicle had come. He ran upright and fast, no weaving. Bending over, covering his head, darting side to side - none of that would save him if his ploy hadn't worked and Einar was somewhere pointing that rifle at him. But he reached the patio out back of the house without losing his brains amongst the worms and ants.
There was a conservatory, all glass and glass-coloured framework, like a big silver box. Even the door handle was some kind of transparent plastic. He tried it and it opened. The French doors at the other side were locked, though. Beyond was a dining room. A set of batwing doors in the left wall led to the kitchen. There was a shut door, but an open serving hatch almost as wide as the room itself displayed a portion of a living room. Nobody there.
Then he saw the kitchen window. It was a sliding window but it was closed. The handle was vertical, which meant unlocked. Was this how Einar had gotten in?
Jimmy wasted no time. He took a brief look to make sure the kitchen was empty, then slid the window and fed himself through. He knew he was a dead man if Einar entered the kitchen while he was halfway through, but nobody did. Once he was on his feet on the linoleum, he went through a door that delivered him into the living room. Neat, more like a den than a living room. Two sofas facing a giant flat screen TV affixed to a wall. One side of it, a bookcase filled with DVDs. Nothing much else, as if Hartbauer were the sort of man who didn't spend much time at home, or at least much time in one room.
The ceilings were low, which puzzled him. The house was taller than a typical two-storey, yet he could have reached the ceiling with his fingertips by standing on his toes.
A door in the right wall was open and he could see part of a staircase. He went through, pistol in hand. There was another one in his jacket pocket, both found back at the warehouse.
***
Einar ran back into the office to find Hartbauer behind the door with a letter opener. As he shut the door, he jerked at seeing the big man standing there. Had a moment of anger as he realised that he'd left himself unguarded for a time. Hartbauer could have rammed that knife into his gut, or retrieved a hidden gun. Killed by an overweight, aging businessman. The shame. He slapped the knife away.
"He's here. God, he's inside, isn't he?" Hartbauer croaked.
"Good. I shouldn't be here long. Did you transfer my money?"
Hartbauer moved to the table and Einar followed. But the old man didn't bother with the laptop. He l
eaned into the desk and pushed it. It scraped along the floor, exposing a small rug beneath. Einar just stared as the old man kicked the rug aside to display a trapdoor made of some reflective material also, but with a recessed hand of metal that stuck out like a sore thumb.
"Use that," he said. "Kill that man and you're rich."
"I'm rich anyway," Einar said, waving Hartbauer away with his pistol. He waited until the old man had his back against the wall before kneeling and opening the trapdoor. He saw a portion of a plain carpet about three feet below. "What is this?"
He didn't wait for an answer. He stuck his head inside and looked around. When he looked up again, he grinned at the old man, who managed a half-smile back.
"You perverted old fuck," Einar said with a laugh. Then he climbed into the hole.
***
The foyer was small. There was the front door, the door he had entered through, and a door in the opposite wall, which would lead into one of the extensions. That door had glass panels. Some kind of hobby room beyond, full of full-sized video games and a pool table, with a thick carpet. There were pictures on the walls that looked like framed diplomas. No one in there, and no place to hide, and that now meant he'd searched all ground-floor rooms except those in the other extension, and he didn't think they'd be lurking in such a tiny space. So Jimmy turned to the staircase. Einar and Hartbauer had to be upstairs.
The staircase was more like two conjoined sets, because it had a balustrade running down the centre. It was steep and had a turn to the right after a half-landing. The final section was just three steps, so Jimmy reached the landing and knelt, aiming his gun low along a corridor. Plain white doors ran along both sides, and the floor was mirrored. None of the doors was open, and none showed any indication of what might lay beyond.
He noted that the half-landing lay level with the lower floor ceilings, and that the final flight of three steps covered the thickness of the gap between each storey. He was puzzled as to why the upper storey's floor was three feet thick.