Vitale

Klempner

Klempner

In one hand, I hold a single copper strand. In the other, a thread of brown.

My body freezes as my mind races through the possibilities.

I left my hotel room several hours earlier, slicking a hair into place over the crack between door and frame as I left. On my return, a hair was still in place and I entered my room assuming all was normal.

Now, however, in my left hand, I hold a hair just plucked from my own scalp: the mousy-brown shade of my current identity.

In the right hand, I hold the hair which dropped from my hotel room door as I returned, and which on casual inspection, I had taken to be the one I slicked into place as I left the room earlier.

But the right-hand hair is red.

And now I look at it, I recognise that shade: a deep burnished copper-auburn that many women aspire to, but few have.

But Mitch has it. Jenny too;

Could it come from one of them?

Probably, yes.

Jenny…

Juliana, or at least her cat’s-paws Baxter and Finchby, had Jenny unconscious as a prisoner for some while. They even trimmed a lock of her pubic hair and sent it to James along with her underwear. Plucking a few hairs from her scalp would never have been noticed.

So, this could be Jenny’s hair.

On the other hand, it might just be the hair of some local woman lucky enough to have the shade.

Does it matter? Where it comes from?

Or is it just the message that’s important?

Juliana and her games…

My hand is shaking, the copper hair vibrating between my fingers like a metronome.

Calm down…

Think…

Breathing deliberately deeply, I let out air. Take it in again. And once more.

My hand steadies once more.

How long have I been standing here? Frozen by surprise and indecision…

A minute? Two?

Time to get the hell out of here…

Making a sharp re-entry to my room, I sling essentials in a carry-bag: wallet, tablet, passport, that useless phone…

Must contact Dakho…

Get a replacement…

A glance around the suite…

… Anything else important?

Clothes, I abandon. Toiletries too. It’s all just stuff. Easily replaced.

I holster my Glock, check my knives are in place in their sheaths, sling the bag over my shoulder…

… That’s it, then…

… And making a u-turn, I head for the door…

On the threshold, I pause.

Would Juliana really have stopped at that?

A hair… A warning to me…

Only that?

It doesn’t ring true.

There’s surely something else.

Torn between the urge to leave and the desire to know… I vacillate. It’s under five minutes since I made my discovery, and everything inside screams that I should leave…

And Now…

Fuck!

I’ve got to know…

Carry-bag still slung across my shoulder, gun in hand, I pace the lounge…

… then the terrace…

… the bedroom…

… seeking… seeking what?

Whatever my first hasty charge around the apartment might have missed.

I find it in the bathroom.

Juliana… She’s consistent at least. Rigged up in the same way as when she abandoned Baxter, the lavatory seat is wired.

Hitching my pants at the knees to squat down, I peer in.

It’s an amateur job, the wiring crude, but it would still work. Lifting the seat is the trigger for the explosion. The technique has long been used as a booby-trap in situations where, typically, the intention is not to kill, but to maim. A corpse can be buried with honours. But a companion on a stretcher, carrying what’s left of his genitalia in a paper bag; that’s a drag on resources and morale.

On the other hand, the bowl, or maybe the cistern, could contain enough explosive to blow the room apart. I’m not about to put it to the test.

Shaking my head, I leave.

I make my way down the rear stairs, calling by the laundries in the basement. Dumping my suit, a rummage through the baskets produces some sort of uniform; one-piece, plain navy-blue, perhaps for a plumber or other maintenance man. Checking first that there’s no logo stitched in to link me back to the hotel, I put it on. It’s a little short in the arm but rolling up the sleeves hides that.

Then, carry-bag back in place, whistling a merry little tune, I exit the hotel via the service entrance.

Following the side-road brings me to an alley, then another alley. Finally, I spot a shady niche. There’s space for a dozen trash bins, but not all are taken. Ducking into the gap, I’m out of sight. One of the bins serves as a seat while I grab my breath and assemble my thoughts.

Now what?

Caught with my trousers down…

… like a complete f*****g amateur…

I believed I was safely hidden behind my fake ID. Now I’m going to have to change again. When the hotel discovers ‘Harry Hughes’ has an explosive lavatory, the police are bound to investigate.

I’m still not far from the hotel. I need to get further away than this, but there’s no point running at random.

Somewhere to stay?

To hide?

To think…

And I’m still faced with the obvious, and unpleasant, question.

How did Juliana know where I was?

Perhaps she made the link to Antonio’s? I was eating there regularly. Was I careless? Building up a habit I shouldn’t have?

She could have had me followed back from there? After all, I picked up on her messenger boy at the restaurant, when he was squeezing the old man for protection money.

Sauce for the goose? Sauce for the gander?

It still doesn’t feel right.

Antonio…

She wouldn’t go for him would she?

Just an innocent bystander that sold me a few meals?

Would she…?

My meandering thoughts are cut short…

Shattering noise ricochets down the alleyway, echoing and reverberating. Lids clatter on the bins around me. The bin I’m sitting on Whumphs! under me with the shockwave and reflexively, I drop to the ground, hands slamming over my ears, curling in on myself against the explosion,

Then catching up with my thoughts, I coil, springing up to dash back the way I came, towards the source of the sound.

I’m fighting against a stream of shrieking, panicking, fleeing people. Men and women alike, some carrying children in their headlong dash for escape. Some stopping to help others. Others simply pelt away.

And I know what they’re running from.

The blast wasn’t huge on the scale of things. But what was, only minutes ago, my hotel apartment, is history. So is the next apartment. A brick and plaster hole gapes where my bathroom window once looked out. The lounge window is the same along with several windows further along.

Broken debris lies scattered all around. Glass shards like daggers, propelled three stories, down into the unknowing crowd below, slashing and maiming as they went. Bricks, concrete and chunks of plaster, ejected to rain down on the heads below.

People are screaming and running. Some sit, dazed, cradling wounds where the glass and metal shrapnel stabbed down. Others cough and choke, trying to clear airways of billowing dust. One woman lies still, a plastic carrier bag still clutched in her hand, but the contents burst free: tin cans and plastic bottles roll loose in the blood which pools around her,

A crazed glass jigsaw crunches under my feet, pocked with fragments of brick, cement and twisted metal. Above me, a plume of smoke, thick and black, chimneys up out of what was my bathroom, powering skyward, flames licking at its base.

Alarms are madly ringing. People pour out from the hotel, spilling down the steps, some in businesswear, others in casual holiday clothes. One woman tumbles out from the door with only a towel clutched around herself. Another sits on the steps, by the prone body of a man. Arms hugged around herself, her make-up streaked with soot and dust, she rocks to and fro.

I can only watch Hell’s drama unfolding.

I should have disarmed it…

I could have done it. There was nothing sophisticated about the lash up of wiring. A simple tug on a connection or two, and the explosive would have been so much plasticine. But I was too f*****g self-absorbed to consider the consequences of abandoning a primed bomb behind me.

The column of smoke is growing, flames rising and brightening…

How much f*****g explosive did she use?

From somewhere out of sight, sirens are sounding, the wail drawing nearer.

There’s nothing I can do here. I missed my chance to help. As blue lights flash into view, I merge with the fleeing crowd and run.

*****

A cheap hotel room, a miserable night, and the first poor cup of coffee I’ve had in this São Paulo:

A face stares out at me from the morning newspaper: a smiling boy, perhaps a school photograph, posted under a grim headline

Casualties are mounting in the aftermath of the explosion…

My eyes follow the text, but as I reach the end of the column, I realise I don’t know what it said…

Rodrigo… The hotel boy who served my breakfast each morning. So helpful to the nice cavalheiro inglês who sometimes tipped him, as much for the smile as for good service. He couldn’t have been more than fourteen.

And now dead because some vengeful little b***h missed her target.

I had to grow up quick at that age…

He never will…

Did she miss her target?

Or was it all part of some plan to implicate me?

Lawrence Klempner… Trafficker, murderer, and guilty of a thousand sins, now wanted for terrorism…

?

Who knows? I’m getting beyond guessing how much mayhem Juliana is willing to unleash in her crusade against me.

How did she find me?

She knows I’m here…

She knew where I was…

So… why take so long about showing her hand?

How did she find me?

And when?

As I entered the country?

Three weeks ago…

But our Juliana likes her games…

Gives her a sense of power perhaps…

Still playing cat and mouse?

A customs officer maybe? Who recognised me at the airport?

It’s possible.

Not likely though. If my face had flagged up any warning signals, ‘the system’ would have taken me in, not some random official.

Or perhaps they did simply spot me at Antonio’s? Or trace me back to the bar after I took out their heavy. And he knew who I was when he met me.

Maybe they all do.

If she put the word out on me…

That seems more likely.

And I made a habit of going to the restaurant… hoping to spot my quarry… Instead, they spotted me. She knew I’d turn up at some point, so of course, her thugs would know what I look like.

That all makes much more sense…

I think…

Somewhere under the surface, I’m picking at the scab…

Does it add up?

Really?

What’s missing?

Where does she fit into a gang of that sort?

Brazil…

‘Traditional’ values…

Not the kind of place you’d expect to find a woman heading a crime syndicate…

For that matter, how often do you ever find women in that kind of position?

On the other hand… the ‘Power Behind The Throne’? Find the man at the top and get control of him. That would tie in with what she’s done before; her preferred methods.

Femme fatale…

Wonder who he is?

Poor bastard…

That’s his life-expectancy down the chute…

But in the meantime, if they all know who I am… If Juliana has them all reeled in on her quest for vengeance…

Draining my cup, I run a mental replay of my visit to Juliana’s apartment. The coffee’s dreadful stuff, but at least the caffeine hit does its work. My mind is clearing.

How many were there?

A dozen certainly. And an uncertain number not present.

I set the newspaper to one side. But smiling, accusing eyes still stare out at me. After a moment, I turn the paper over, photo underneath.

What now?

Fade into the background?

Disappear?

How?

New ID. Contact Dakho and get him to fit me out with the paperwork.

Change that f*****g phone too…

Right now, I’m ‘English’. What else might work here?

In the bathroom, I regard my reflection; Fair-haired; Grey-eyed.

Not easy to make myself look convincingly local…

No point then…

The alternative: Act fast. Do the job. Get out.

That feels a better option. I know where to find Juliana.

Deal with her and go.

Back home.

Back to Mitch…

…

…

At least a dozen of them…

…

How to do it?

Take on the complete gang?

That’s a lot of opponents… And I’m not armed for it…

If I was in home territory anywhere, it wouldn’t be a problem. I have plenty of equipment stashed where I can easily get at it… But not here, in Brazil. I’m the new kid on the block here and I don’t have access to my usual facilities.

So… taking on the lot of them… not impossible, but very risky. And I don’t have a suicidal bone in my body.

Pick them off one at a time?

Peel off her defences until she’s left alone.

Easy for the first one or two. Not so easy after that. People get itchy when they see their associates dropping around them.

The alternative… Go directly to the source of the problem. Decapitate the organisation.

Cut off the head.

*****