Jonas Saul - The Kill

“This is H. H, this is my wife, Rosina.”

“H?” she asked. “What’s an H?”

“His name is Richard H, but we call him H.”

“Yeah.” H stepped in and extended his hand. Rosina took it.

“We heard about what happened in Rome and it pissed us off. We’re here to help and Darwin said he’d write a documentary about us.”

Rosina looked at Darwin. “You did?”

He nodded.

She shook herself, let out a long breath and stepped up to H. Then, with both arms wide, she hugged him and whispered a thank you in his ear. She stepped back and said, “You saved our lives today.”

H didn’t appear comfortable with compliments.

Darwin calculated everything. He had Rosina back. They could leave. But he couldn’t abandon his father. He could still meet with Fuccini. The driver had reported back that Darwin was alone. Fuccini wouldn’t have a problem coming to the hangar now.

“H, I’m going to walk back to the hangar. The meeting is still on. Can I trust you to take Rosina out of here?”

“I’m not going anywhere without you Darwin,” Rosina said.

“I understand, baby, but Fuccini is coming. H and his men and I need to deal with that. They have my father. If we don’t end this tonight, it never will. Just go with H to where they’ve parked their bikes. It’ll be far enough away that you can’t get hurt and we can deal with this guy.”

Rosina hugged Darwin. “You had better walk away from this or I will fucking well punch your corpse. Stay alive or you’ll feel it.”

“You got it baby.”

“She’s a fierce one,” H said. “Wouldn’t want to piss her off.”

“I wouldn’t advise it,” Darwin whispered.

H gestured for Rosina to get moving. Before they were lost to sight in the darkness, H turned and said, “Hey big D, you like how we stopped the car by shooting out the tires?”

“Yeah, H, brilliant.”

H smiled, as far as Darwin could tell in the dim light, and strode off with Rosina in tow.

Darwin realized that the dark wasn’t affecting him as much.

Maybe spending all this time in the dark is fixing the phobia.

He walked around the wrecked Crown Vic. As far as Darwin could tell, the driver wasn’t breathing.

“What happened?” Darwin asked the men gathered around.

“He wouldn’t talk. We asked him where they had your father. We asked him where that Fucconi guy was. He wouldn’t talk. We took it a little too far. Sorry.”

“Fuccini.”

“What?”

“Never mind. Have an eye. The Fuccini people will be here as soon as their boy doesn’t show. I’m going to call them, so I’m sure they’ll be along soon.”

“Got it.”

Darwin pulled out the cell phone and dialed the Fuccini number he’d committed to memory.

“Yeah?”

“You made a mistake.”

“Darwin. How nice.”

“You took my wife again. That was a mistake. You were supposed to trade me for my father. Because you didn’t show and you sent that FBI man as your messenger, he’s dead.”

“I had to make sure it was safe. You could’ve had the place crawling with FBI.”

“And that driver would’ve known if that were the case? He works for them.”

“Not if they were onto him. They would’ve kept it from him.”

“Enough chit chat. I’m at the hangar. I’m alone. I’ve got Rosina in a safe place. It’s all over. There’s just you and me.”

“I’ll be there shortly.”

Darwin hung up and dialed Rosina’s mother. She answered on the third ring again.

No doubt, the FBI are taping this call.

“Isabella, I need to talk to the FBI guy in charge.”

“Darwin there’s no…”

He knew she was told to deny that they were there. He waited.

“I’ll put him on.”

After a murmur, a man got on the phone.

“Darwin, where are you?”

“About to meet Fuccini himself. He’s got my father. We’re doing a trade.”

“What kind of trade? You can’t handle this alone.”

“Sure I can. Look, I’m at the abandoned hangar where it all started. Come as soon as you want. Oh, and that guy you had taking care of my wife is dead.”

“Alfred is dead? What are you talking about? Where’s Rosina?”

“She’s here now. Alfred brought her here to kidnap me too. I took Rosina back and now Alfred is dead. Come and collect the asshole’s body.”

“Okay, wait there for us.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Okay, bye.”

“Wait!” Darwin screamed into the phone. “Bring a couple coroners. You’re going to need them.”

He hung up and tossed the phone into the bush.

Darwin flicked on a switch to the lights in the hangar, but the building remained dark. He remembered lights were on during the night of the accident.

Must’ve been floodlights they had set up for the meeting.

The only lights that worked were the red ones behind the exit signs. Otherwise, the interior was black, and that was too dark for Darwin.

But he needed to be inside, so he steeled himself and turned on his flashlight. He walked to the back and stood behind a metal partition. No one would be able to readily see his flashlight, and if they came in shooting, he’d have some form of protection.

A car pulled up out front.

That’s fast.

Thinking about cars, he wasn’t sure when he’d want to be in one again anytime soon. In Rome, he was in the van that flipped on the highway. Then Greg’s car on the 401 last night. The FBI car fifteen minutes ago. They come in threes. Maybe that was his last car accident for a while.

A man in a long trench coat stepped into the front door of the hangar and moved a flashlight around.

“You in here?”

“Yeah,” Darwin called out. The flashlight moved to find him, but where he stood was too far back.

“I can’t see you.”

“Show me my father. Make sure it’s Fuccini who does it.”

“No way. He ain’t coming in here in the dark. You crazy? How do we know you don’t have a gun?”

“Okay, at least get my father out of the car and I will come out of the hangar.”

The man stepped away. A car door opened and closed. Then another.

Good. Richard’s men were told to make their move whenever they wanted. As soon as my father was seen, take everyone out with surgical precision. Beat them. Hurt them. But wait for my father to be seen.

Nothing happened.

Darwin waited. Still nothing.

“You coming?” he heard the man shout. “We aren’t waiting all night.”

Darwin stepped out from behind the metal partition. He walked along the inner wall of the hangar, ready to bolt at the sign of a weapon coming through the door.

The trunk opened and closed. He paused, then after a moment, continued on in the darkness.

This is fucking crazy. Something tells me there’s a problem.

He got to the open door of the hangar and peeked around.

In that one vision, Darwin knew the game was up.

It was over. There was no way to come back from this.

Fuccini stood in front of his car, the headlights basking him in an eerie glow. He had his arms crossed and he was smiling.

Four of his men stood with large weapons that looked like machine guns on steroids strapped over their shoulders. They too were smiling.

At their feet were seven members of the biker gang. Four were dead for sure. Darwin could see parts of their anatomy missing. One had half his face dangling off his jaw. The other three were bound and gagged, on their knees. Darwin held his stomach, hoping he’d be able to hold its contents.

“We thought we’d wait to execute these other three until you joined the party. So glad you could make it, Darwin. Oh, and your father. He’s over there,” Fuccini said, and pointed.