Honorable Assassin (25 page)

Randy spent many of his evenings in the
Riggers Club. That august establishment had the finest of spirits
and tobacco available but women were not permitted and common drugs
were forbidden. The Riggers Club was a gentleman’s club and
gentlemen did not soil themselves with drugs. The club was not a
casino, though games could be played, often for high stakes. The
club had good security, better in that it was unobtrusive. The
front and back doors had security cameras but never the members’
areas. The thick velvet drapes were seldom held open and there were
complimentary beds upstairs for those members who could not go home
for one reason or another.

Randy was also a member of Bacchanalia, the
charter of which said it was a gentleman’s club. He did not visit
Bacchanalia often and he always went alone. It would not do to let
any of the men around him know he had interests in that arena. The
club was hidden underground with no sign on the door. The owner was
very careful to pay off the men who would have been in charge of
investigating him. Multiple locked doors needed to be opened before
a member could get into the entertainment area. The entertainment
area was a series of rooms where teenage boys were held captive,
prostituted, tortured and murdered. None of the boys came from the
Sydney area, most of them were from Indonesia. Occasionally a
runaway was brought in from another city but mostly it was
foreigners. They were promised a new and exciting life in Australia
and found torture and death.

Randy paid a great deal of money to be a
member of Bacchanalia. In turn, the owner paid protection to both
sides of the law. About twice a year Randy would go down to
Bacchanalia, all alone, and work out some of his sadistic
tendencies on the captive body of some poor immigrant. It cost more
if you wanted to torture and kill the boy but that service was
available as well. Nobody ever found the bodies because the manager
of the club also owned a crematorium.

Randy had been very careful not to let
anyone know he visited the underground perversion that called
itself a gentleman’s club, but it is hard to keep such a secret for
long. He had been marked a couple of years earlier and noted after
that. All Terry had needed to do to get this information was to
bring up Randy’s name then sit back and let the crew talk. The
Bacchanalia was not common knowledge so nobody was surprised when
the young man who had recently joined them didn’t know about it. It
was half legend and that half had grown to encompass whatever the
sordid minds of the age could envision. Many people brushed it off
as imaginary.

The Hall of Records had a charter for
Bacchanalia. The “gentleman’s club” was listed as being 4747
Oedipus Avenue. There was no Oedipus Avenue in the city, of course.
It took some asking around to determine that it was actually on
Euripides Avenue. Once he had the address, Terry paid a visit to
the neighborhood. It was seedy and run down. The buildings were
close together and some of them were deserted. As far as he could
tell, the club used a warehouse across the street as a parking
garage for its clientele. It would have been smart for the owner to
dig an underground passage to the warehouse but he never had. When
compared to the wide expanses of lawn, cameras and security around
the Riggers Club, this was a much more desirable location to plan a
shooting.

The apartment that Randy called home had
been discarded as a viable spot early in the game. It was a busy
building with armed security and hallway cameras. His apartment was
higher than the roofs of many of the nearby buildings so a shot
from afar was not really available.

Terry took his time planning this job. He
did not want to hurry it. He was actually enjoying watching,
plotting from the shadows. He had discarded most of the rumors
about the club as being fanciful fabrications, but as he observed
the building his curiosity was piqued. As was common with a
gentleman’s club, there were never any women entering the front
door. There were never any supplies delivered either. That meant
the delivery door was somewhere in the back, but a reconnaissance
of the area revealed no loading dock, just a pedestrian door.
Surveillance on the back alley had to be done from afar and it was
difficult to get a good look, but it became apparent that the
supplies were delivered next door after hours and that there must
be a connection below ground.

The real nature and horror of the club
revealed itself after a couple of weeks of observation. The crate
from Thailand was too large to go through the door and so, needed
to be broken down outside. When the side was pried off the crate,
there were three young boys, bound and gagged inside. The boys were
quickly carried inside and the door was closed.

Terry had heard of such perversions but had
never been able to believe that men really did these things. With
all the women in the world, what made a man want to fuck a little
boy? He was sickened by the prospect and quickly made it his
mission not to just to kill Randy Arganmajc but to clean out this
little piece of Hell in the process.

Bacchanalia had lots of security, most of
which did not speak much English. They had been recruited from the
Middle East and would just as soon shoot an Infidel as look at him.
The owner of record was a Greek corporation. It was plain that they
did not care or investigate the nature of the club. It was purely a
business deal for them. The real vermin were the men who managed
the day-to-day operations.

Having Randy Arganmajc in the building when
the assault was initiated was of importance to the young assassin.
But there was no backup on hand. Uncle Ginger could not desert the
farm and wait for months. Terry began to time things out. He was
figuring out how long each part of the plan took. He was having
trouble working it out so he could be on both sides of the building
at the same time. He needed backup and did not have it. He was
about to give up on trapping Randy inside the building. It was
simply too complicated, time sensitive, and impractical.

The last thing Terry Kingston expected was
to get a phone call from Gordon MacMaster. He had written the
Scotsman off as having left the country months earlier, never to be
seen again. Gordon wanted to meet with Terry outside of Sydney.
Terry suggested Richmond but Gordon preferred the Leura Railway
Station next to Katoomba on the Blue Mountain Railway Line. They
would meet there on Saturday. Gordon insisted that they bring no
one else to the meet.

It was less than two hours on the train to
Leura Station. Terry had never been there before and quite enjoyed
the trip. The flora and fauna were a fine change from the flat, dry
lands and the concrete of the city. He was displeased to find that
his manners were suffering from being trapped in the city. People
were more gracious outside the city limits.

The station was actually perfect for a
sniper to take out a target. It was an island with tracks going
each way around it and a tree-covered cliff on the other side of
one track. If MacMaster had wanted to eliminate his witness, Terry
would have been a dead man. He started asking himself what he
thought he was doing while he hustled to the stairs that would take
him over the tracks and into town. The stairs were even more
exposed but, he reasoned, if he had been targeted he would have
already been dead.

Leura was a charming and picturesque town.
In another month there could well be snow on the mountains around
it, but it was clear and cold that day.

Terry’s phone rang and he got directions to
a restaurant, which turned out to be a charming old establishment
that had been a post office at one time. Inside he found Gordon
MacMaster having a cup of coffee.

“G’day mate, mind if I join you?”

“Mr. Kingston, please be seated.”

Terry froze. He had never revealed his
identity to anyone in the city. He was certain that he had not been
targeted or he would already be dead but he could not help the
shock that gripped him. It was not that he was surprised that the
secret was out or that a man such as MacMaster could have divined
it, it was simply the naked feeling that comes with such a
declaration. He felt, and was in fact, exposed.

“Don’t worry, I’m not here to throw your
secret to the wind. In fact, I’m here to congratulate you on your
powers of manipulation. Please, be seated.” The Scotsman was
smiling and doing his best to put Terry at ease.

“When did you find out?” Terry asked after
he took a chair.

“Oh, not until afterward. You see, you
managed to fool everyone to some extent. I was relatively sure I
was looking in the right direction until the actual moment the
truck was stopped. I had studied the prior attacks and while they
had been different from each other, they all displayed a level of
finesse that Lee Pierce did not possess.”

The waitress came to the table and Terry
ordered coffee and a pastry. He was charmed by his associate’s
choice of locations and by his associate as well.

“I should have been put on guard by some of
the things you said and some of the questions you asked, but I was
focused externally and did not pick it up until I had divorced
myself from the situation. I wanted to make sure you got your
bonus, but I could not take the chance that you were planning to
kill me as well.” There was a smile on the Scotsman’s lips that did
not extend to his eyes.

The waitress came back around with the
coffee and pastry. When she had left, Terry replied earnestly, “I
had no intention of killing you. What would have given you that
impression?”

“Oh, nothing did, I was just being
cautious.”

“You fooled me completely in the hotel. I
was waiting for you and you were already in the room and gone.”

“That was simple. What you did with Lee and
his ex-wife was better. In fact, it was brilliant. That, by the
way, is how I found out what you were up to. If you had been able
to cut the woman off clean or eliminate her, I would never have
discovered you.”

“I think you would have. Once your
suspicions were raised you followed through. You would have kept
going until you were satisfied. That’s the sort of man you
are.”

“True. You fooled me, if only for a moment.
That doesn’t happen often and it most often leads to a body bag.
Oh, by the way, leaving the Mauser in the trailer was not the best
idea. With all the guns Lee had, he would have chosen a more modern
weapon. It seemed to work for the police, but not for me.”

“So why are you here? What I mean is, why am
I here?”

“I recognize talent when I see it and while
I think you need a lot of work, I also think you are a
natural.”

“And that means what?”

“There is a lot of work out there that needs
to be done and a limited number of men who can do it. There are
plenty who are willing, but the secret is to get out alive. You are
a survivor and I have friends that employ survivors. I would like
to take you away from here and introduce you to the world. The
world will, of course, never be introduced to you.”

“Can’t do it, mate. I have things I need to
do here.”

“Let’s go for a walk and we can continue
this conversation outside.”

The town of Leura has many vistas and
beautiful outlooks. The two men walked until the reached a secluded
area.

“I know you have a business in Orange,”
Gordon continued. “That business will eventually lead anyone
seeking you right to your doorstep.”

Terry was floored, now. His respect for the
Scotsman was continually increasing. His stomach was also starting
to tighten up. “How did you determine all this?” he asked, trying
not to give anything away.

“It was not that difficult once I knew where
you went on the odd weekend. This is the point, however, if I can
do it, anyone can. You have played a game with dreadful
consequences and it will come back to bite you eventually. If you
cut and run now, nobody will be the wiser, but if you stay, you
seal your doom. Not all of the thugs you are associating with are
complete morons. Eventually they will ask the same questions I did
and they will not be happy when they discover your secret second
life.”

“What do you intend to do?”

“Me? Nothing. I will simply disappear. As
far as they know I have gone back to Scotland and I’m fishing in
Loch Ness.”

“I must say your proposal is intriguing. I
enjoyed that little cruise you arranged for me.”

“I thought you would. I must say, bombing
the plastics factory while you were in Europe was a stroke of
genius. It threw suspicion off yourself masterfully. I suggested
the cruise because I had my suspicions of you, but you handled that
very well.”

“Thank you, but there are a couple of things
I really feel I must do before I leave. If I did not know about
them I would probably be able to take you up on the offer. But I do
know and I must fix them or suffer for it.”

“Are they actions or personal items?”

“Personal.”

“You do know the danger of pursuing personal
items; the danger involved with vendettas?”

“Yes, I’m aware of the rules but my whole
life has been vendetta. That is why I am where I am. That is why I
have done what I have done.”

“Outline it for me and I will see what
qualifies.”

“How do I know who you are working for?”

“I already told you. I’m working for no one.
If I wished you any ill will, I would have exposed you as soon as I
knew you were the Irishman. You’re working both sides and not as a
copper. You think you’re some kind of comic book super hero,
fighting for truth and justice. You have more honor than all those
blighters you work with and still manage to cover it up. That takes
natural skill and talent. I suspect that is why you want to stay
now. Honor. Tell me what it is you want to do and perhaps I’ll
throw in a free hand.”