No.
Wait.
Not…
“Koleermeer,” she seethed.
“Don’t blame him,” Grant said. “We kinda convinced him the whole thing was a set up to assassinate him.”
“And he squawked like a Throttlefinch. Perhaps I should have whacked him.”
Grant shrugged.
“Seems like a nice guy. As far as criminal scum go.”
“And what is it that you want? If you were Shen Mi I’d be dead already.”
“That,” he pointed to her computer.
Unfortunately none of the tech worked. It was a pretty standard set up because it was a good one. None of the technology worked without a key. Usually another computer though it could just be a chip. Something that completed the circuit, as it were. The down side was it meant those carrying the key were prone to kidnap and all sorts of other nasty things. He didn’t think it would matter anyway, he suspected all of the data he needed would be there on her portable computer.
“I don’t think so,” she smiled a tight smile.
So this was the man who had been messing with her plans. The one’s who were in Bangkok (she had to assume Grantok had failed and that she could erase his number from her phone) and probably the ones who took down her casino. And now? Now they’d gotten Koleermeer to tell them all he knew in return for protection and that was how the Shen Mi had gotten to her office so much quicker. But this man wasn’t working for the Shen Mi, she knew that by looking at him.
“I am curious though; I assume it was you at my casino.”
“What can I say? I love Kuutio and hate slave labour.”
“Hmm, very droll. But why? What are you getting out of all of this?”
“You see, that’s the problem with you guys…”
“Us guys? You mean criminal scum?”
“Exactly. You think everything is about what you can get out of it. That’s life for you, but that isn’t life.”
“Oh, pleeeease, spare me. You did all this just to give me a moral lesson?”
“Nope. I did all of this to get that computer.”
“And, valkswagon, why?”
“I want the Desards.”
She laughed.
“Seriously? Oh, and I thought you guys were serious. Clued in, but you’re not. I’m not fighting the Shen Mi, I’m setting them up to fight the Desards. I would’ve happily given them to you.”
She laughed incredulously.
“And how would your masters feel about that?” Grant asked calmly.
“I have no masters,” she screamed at him.
For a moment he thought she was going to throw the computer at him and then she calmed.
“Well, either way, that wasn’t going to happen and we both know it. So now we’re in a position to chat,” Grant smiled nicely at her.
“Yes. Yes, we are.”
“And I would love for that to happen,” Grant said pulling his gun, “but it’s not going to and we both know that too.”
He watched her eyes flick from the gun to him, to around the room. Judging the situation, judging him, looking for the best way to proceed. The best way to defeat him.
“We don’t have to do this,” Gothra said and was annoyed at the hint of pleading in her voice.
“Uh-hmm,” he said quietly.
“What?”
“No, you’re right,” Grant said brightly, “we should watch some TV.”
He used a remote to turn it on; the only thing that worked without the key. He flicked to a news channel and sure enough the news came on.
Showing her building with smoke pouring out of it.
Underneath was information telling them that it was a suspected bomb on a skyscraper that records said held a number of small businesses.
“That was my people. I tell you, I’m not that pleased they did it, but well… That’s a lot of Shen Mi and whoever you were given, off of the street.”
“I wasn’t given anyone,” she retorted crossly.
Grant held up his hands.
“Alright, alright. They were all your own people,” he ironicalised.
“I hate you already,” she seethed, her eyes slits of hate.
“Because I know more than you’d like,” Grant smiled at her. “What this serves to illustrate, Gothra, is we’re not above taking people out of the equation. Not always through a bomb though.”
He thought about it.
“Mostly not with bombs; I really need to have a word with them about that,” he frowned.
She smiled.
“You’re just stalling for time. I’m never coming with you; I’m never giving you this information and you’ll never crack the passcodes, so it’s all been for shabbus.”
“You underestimate us.”
“You’re weak,” she spat. “All your morals, but you don’t have the backbone to…”
He shot her between the eyes.
“You better be able to crack these passwords.”
“Nothing to it,” Gulch said rather too brazenly for Grant’s liking.
Gulch was a lot of things, but brazen wasn’t one of them.
“Where are you?”
“Five minutes away.”
Grant looked down at the body of Gothra. He too was many things and he would like to think a murderer wasn’t one of them, but you couldn’t argue with the facts. And he had chosen this path, had chosen to go after the Desards and in doing so had placed himself in a world above the InterG, one that was more in tune with the Regrette’s and Tsyrker’s of the Universe. You didn’t get to be nice, you didn’t get to let people go with a warning. You couldn’t send people like Gothra to the InterG, she’d be released before you got the engine running.
This was the first, and if he was going to put the Desards up against the wall then he had to have no mercy. They would show him none; they would rip him apart at the first hesitation, but at the same time, to do that meant to be like them. Criminals, and many non-criminals, ran on greed and there was no mercy, no compassion; no empathy for anyone who stood between them and what they wanted. By killing Gothra had he been the same? No mercy for her as she stood between him and his target. When you entered the Underworld; when you went after this type of evil; who was first against the wall? Them, or you?
“How dramatic,” Regrette said from the door and Grant turned and looked at him solemnly. Regrette became serious. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“Do you?”
“I’m not so cold.”
“No. Sorry,” Grant looked again at the body. “But how do you do it?”
“After a while you become so stained you can’t remember what you looked like clean.”
“No,” Grant shook his head. “That’s not it.”
“You take a picture, you keep it safe, remember what you looked like and promise you’ll get back there one day. Little by little you try to wash yourself free,” Regrette said, not looking at his friend.
“And can you?” Grant looked him in the eye.
Regrette met his gaze.
“You can.”
To be continued…
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