Karma: A Blayne Mitchell Novel

10

Chapter 10
The older man's phone rang persistently. He paused a little before answering. He liked to make them wait.
"They know." Duncan said.
    "Good." The older man responded, satisfied. They had caught on faster than anticipated. But he was always ready. And he liked surprises. When he was ready for surprises, he did his best.
    "They think we don't know." Duncan added, more out of the need to spur conversation than to inform.
    "Good." The older man replied again, sending them back into the awkward silence.
    "When will you be back?" Duncan tried again to prompt conversation.
    "I just left. Maybe ten minutes, at the least." Another gap of uncomfortable silence. The older man could feel Duncan's restlessness pulsing through the phone.
    "Spill it, Duncan." The older man said irritably.
    "I know you don't think we need to, but please hear me out." Duncan paused for effect, "If we were to kill of Blayne, then we wouldn't have to worry about him."
    "And-and, hear me out." Duncan interjected before the older man could protest, "That would also make the others think he was telling the truth because it would seem like we were trying to cover up what he knew." The older man paused thoughtfully. It did sound very tempting.
    "Okay." He relented, "Send them in tomorrow. Quick and clean."
    The older man almost hung up, before Duncan hurriedly added, "Also, he says that Blayne is lying."
    "About what?" The older man asked curiously.
    "Vance. It turns out they mail each other every week or so." Duncan said.
"Interesting." The older man said, then ended the call. Interesting, indeed, he thought.

Duncan was right. I had lied to the Marysville Police Department about my brother. We had been close, and still were. About every week, or when I was preparing to leave, I would mail a postcard to my brother about a place where we would meet. We would meet and talk about the goings-on of today. I realized the last time I mailed him had been when I was going to leave Seattle. A few days ago at least.
Something interesting, though, was that Vance had never mentioned a wife, job, or the mortgage scam. I had never thought to ask. We just chatted. Meaningless talk about politics, celebrities, and new trends. Never once had we discussed anything of personal interest.
I knew that Vance lived in Seattle. That's why I had taken a longer stop there. He talked to me about a friend that day. A man by the name of Mr. McGrath. That was the first time we had talked about anything of personal interest. He said Mr. McGrath had helped him with a job two years ago, and they had stayed friends ever since. I never asked what the job was. Maybe it had been the mortgage scam, maybe it hadn't been. Because, if what the report said was true, my brother had been an important person. A very important person. The head of a huge department of the bank. And people that important didn't have time for a year long investigation. Maybe Andrew knew Mr. McGrath, and maybe Mr. McGrath knew why someone would frame Vance. Or why Vance would murder them.
I dismissed the thought as quickly as it had come. If I didn't believe that Vance was framed, who would?
"I'm heading to Applebee's. I'll be at the hotel if you need me." I called over my shoulder, walking out of the department. I didn't feel like driving the cruiser again, so I walked instead. Contrary to when I had walked there, the sun was now low, almost to the point where it was no longer visible. I made an internal bet that it was near 5:30 and checked my watch. It was six. I figured once I ate and got back, I would have at least two hours before the assassins came. If they came at all.
I had purposely explained my theory early, because usually people would want it covered up. So if anyone was listening in, they would know that I'd be at the hotel at about seven, and they'd send guys after me. How many depended on the scale of the operation. I wasn't a formidable looking guy. About 5'9" and 165 pounds, young and innocent looking, most people underestimated me. That was my greatest advantage. It had been for 12 years.
The operation seemed small enough. It was more of a small scale with intelligence then a large scale with brute force. Someone knew how we would think, hence the intelligence, and they had to hire a mercenary gang to do the dirty work, proving the small scale. I figured it was probably run by two people. Two was always a good number. There was no third wheel to mess things up, and a tight bond between two would have better, more organized results.
So that meant I would be dealing with the mercenary gang. The file said it had varying numbers, but averaged at around 10. A lot of men. Too many to throw against a scrawny nuisance like me. My guess is they would send three. One to get the job done, one as insurance, and one to clean up. Plus, if they were, for some reason, to fail, then they would only be down three men. Not a lot of men to lose. So three it would be.
They would probably arrive at midnight. Most try hard mercenaries liked to go in the cover of complete darkness. And most thought that midnight was complete darkness. Not entirely wrong, but far enough to show they were just try hards. So, at midnight, three men would try and murder me at the Holiday Inn.
The next question, how would they do it? Easy. They would either have silenced pistols or knives, preferably pistols. A pistol can miss easily. It's much harder to miss a moving target than most think. And the silencer wouldn't help the accuracy much, either. Knives, on the other hand, never usually missed. They were as accurate as the user.
If it were to be pistols, I had no doubt they would use Glocks. It would keep up the trend just in case the clean up guy didn't do a good enough job. I had used Glocks plenty of time. I personally preferred a 19 over a 17, but both worked good enough. So I had three guys with silenced Glocks approaching the Holiday Inn at midnight.
Now, using the earlier presumption that they were wannabes, they would enter through the back door. The clean up guy would stay in the car, the insurance guy would hang back with him. The real assailant would open the back door, scan around with his flashlight. He would see the missing keys and find the occupied rooms. He would search for the master key and use it to enter the rooms. He had a fifty-fifty of reaching Andrew or me. He would enter the room silently, shoot, and then send in the cleaning guy. The insurance guy would only be involved if the real assailant took too long. Which I planned on happening.
I entered Applebee's at 6:15 exactly and sat down to eat stale leftovers. Not the best food, but it did the job. Then I went to the hotel to set the trap.
I shuffled around the receptionist counter and found the master key. I placed it on Andrew's ring. No use in getting him killed because of my experiment, and it would also confuse the real assailant if he couldn't find the key. Then I took my key out of my pocket and placed it on the correct ring and took two other ones randomly. Then I went the first room, after a minute of searching, and arranged the pillows in a way that looked like a sleeping man. Convincing enough in the darkness, and even better since the assailant would be loaded with adrenaline. Then I went to the second room and pulled open the sheets. I also left the door open for easy accessibility. Then I went back to the first room, set my watch for 11:45, then fell asleep next to the human pillow shape.

The watch buzzed silently, and I jerked awake. Time to get to work. I crept outside, grabbed the wooden plank I had once seen walking into the hotel. And then I crouched into the gutter to wait. It took 20 minutes for them to show. 5 minutes behind schedule. A black '85 Porsche 928 rumbled along the road and pulled into the visitors' lot. It was a beautiful machine. The headlights were off for maximum stealth, but nothing could disguise its unmistakable roar. The engine cut off, and the still silence returned. One man dressed in casual clothing stepped out of the back seat. He scanned the hotel with a flashlight attached to a silenced Glock 17. Then he stepped around the corner and out of sight. Presumably heading towards the back entrance. I stepped out of the gutter quietly and looped around the opposite direction. I arrived just in time to see the assailant open the back door and step inside. I followed silently. I watched him check the key rings, then search for the master key. I watched him give up, then head towards the first room. I followed silently.
He broke open the room noisily and blundered inside. I heard him shoot the human pillow shape, then I stepped in and slammed the wooden plank down on his skull. Just enough to keep him alive but knock him out. He crumpled to the ground soundlessly. I lifted his limp body onto my shoulder and carried it out of the room, I set it down in the hallway, walked to the receptionist counter, and put that room's key back in its place. Then, I carried the assailant's body up to the second room. I tucked it under the open sheet, then waited again. Ten minutes later, the insurance guy stepped inside. He had seen only one occupied room, and headed straight for it. He shot his unconscious buddy's body, then stepped forward to check the pulse.
None.
I held my breath, nervous that he may recognize the body.
He didn't.
I breathed out slowly and waited for the next step.
The insurance guy pulled out his phone and dialed for the cleaner to come clean up. I waited longer, until he hung up the phone, then stepped in and swung the board viciously. Fueled by the anger that he didn't even think twice about killing a person, I swung harder than intentionally. It didn't kill him, but got really close. He gave a guttural cry, then folded to the floor. I dragged him out of the doorway and then I waited more. I kept waiting until the cleaning guy stepped into the room. And then I pounded his head with the plank. He fell on top of the insurance guy. Three guys, with silenced Glocks, approaching at midnight. I had gotten three for three. Four for four, if you counted that I predicted that one would be the real assailant, one would be for insurance, and the other for clean up.

And I liked their car. It was the kind that had headlights that would pop up and shine outwards. So I took the cleaning guy's keys. The spoils of war.

I made sure to clean up the mess as best I could. It is bafflingly difficult to wash blood out of sheets, and my best efforts still left beige stains. I used the cleaning guy's solvent to wash the walls and the floor. After cleaning, I emptied each of the Glocks, except for one. And then I piled the bodies and the empty Glocks into the Porsche's trunk. I kept the full Glock, just in case, and drove the car down to the police station.

Upon arriving, I stalked inside and searched tediously for handcuffs. Then, I went back to the car, opened the trunk, dragged the limp bodies out, and handcuffed the two that were still alive. The dead one had bled all over the inside of the trunk. Something I would have to clean later. I also had to constantly remind myself that I didn't kill the guy, but his partner did. Just for the sake of conscience. After handcuffing the two and carefully disposing of the third, I locked the handcuffed in the interview room. When, or if, they woke up, they would be secure until morning.

One mistake many people make is that they believe they are truly and absolutely right. People are volatile and unpredictable. It is imperative to understand that one cannot predict the exact actions of another. Working under this assumption, I switched hotels. One cannot predict the exact actions of another, so I didn't know if Duncan would send more guys for extra insurance. It's what I would have done. Besides, that hotel was going to get boring soon.

I slept in my car. Correction, I slept in their car. I was borrowing it for the time being. It was comfortable enough, I had slept in worse. I also didn't want to go to another hotel. For all I knew, Duncan would have placed men in each hotel. A crazy assumption, but a perfectly rational one. I considered myself a rational person person. In the least, a crazy person who made rational decisions. When you face people who try to kill you it is best to take precautions. You have to prepare. In my line of work, nothing can be surprising. If someone were to randomly try and shoot me, I was trained to think it is perfectly rational that this unknown stranger would try to shoot me. It made my reactions quicker. Instead of puzzling why someone was shooting me, I simply accepted it and dealt with it. Fast but efficient, crazy but rational.

 If you were prepared for everything, how could anything surprise you?