Ethan Justice: Origins (Ethan Justice #1) (26 page)

“But he knows we just have the one. Why would he ask you to check? I should call him.”

“That’s why he asked me to take care of it. You’re not in his best books. He blames you for letting Bradshaw take this one out. I wouldn’t bother him if I were you.”

The call went quiet. Wilson rested the phone on his shoulder and put his hands together in prayer. Then Simpson asked, “When can I expect you?”

“I’ll send Wilson, he’s closer. I think he can be with you in fifteen. Okay?”

“Okay,” Simpson said. “Tell your controller I was helpful, will you?”

“Sure thing,” Wilson said, ending the call and making for the window. He had to get to Kingston upon Thames before Johnson found the gun missing. It was doubtful, given his partner’s keenness to mop up messes without involving their controller, but if Johnson called HQ when he discovered the gun was gone, Wilson would be walking into certain disaster.

*

John winked at Savannah for at least the tenth time when the sound of the buzzer on Savannah’s desk sucked the romance from the air. Fisher was here. Savannah stared at John and took three deep breaths before pressing the intercom button.

“Justice Investigations, do you have an appointment?” John could detect the slightest tremor in her voice which hopefully the intercom would disguise.

“My name is Fletcher. I would like to hire your firm’s services.”

Savannah released the door lock remotely and the door swung inwards.

Fisher wore blue jeans, a red sweatshirt under an unbuttoned black Donkey type jacket, and newish black Adidas trainers. He was a good inch taller than John, at about six feet two, with a slim but solid build. He had short, light brown stubble for hair, grey eyes and a fairly everyman face which wouldn’t have stood out but for the paleness of his skin. It wasn’t that the man was an albino but he looked like the skin under a newly removed sticking plaster. It wasn’t a healthy look.

But for his body type and height, the man was nothing like the scarred figure John had spotted at Waterloo station. Fisher’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, and his mouth broke into a crooked smile. John’s eyebrows shot up even higher. He had seen the smile before. It was the man from outside Aphrodite’s Angels.

“Varushkin!” Fisher exclaimed.

John braced himself, expecting Wilson to burst through the door or a shot to smash through the window spraying glass and parts of Fisher around the room. Fisher approached the desks slowly, warily looking from side to side. No Wilson, no glass, no brains. John glanced at Savannah who stood up. Fisher turned his attention to her.

“Sit down Jones,” he said, barely moving his lips. “Varushkin and I have business to discuss.”

Savannah looked at John and John nodded. What was Wilson up to? John resurrected Varushkin’s speech patterns in his head.

“Yes, time to make business,” John said, hoping his accent would hold fast under greater stress than before. “The girl can go into back office, yes.”

Fisher waved his hand in uninterested agreement. Savannah didn’t need asking twice and quickly jumped up and headed to where Wilson would remove her from harm’s way. As she turned the handle, John tensed uncontrollably, preparing to take any necessary action, but when the door opened, it was apparent that unless Wilson was behind the door, he was no longer in the back office. Once Savannah was behind the closed door, John looked back to Fisher.

“Are you nervous, Varushkin? What were you expecting behind the door?”

John needed to think fast. This wasn’t supposed to go down like this. He remembered his premonition of disaster. If they were to survive, he had to dig deep into previously unreachable depths of confidence. He laughed out loud, a deep throaty laugh which might befit the toughest of Russians.

Fisher’s mouth turned down, and his eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What’s so funny?”

John rocked back on his chair.

“I think you are with Earthguard and have agent in back ready to take me in, but I recognise you now.”

“You do? You know who I am?”

“Sure, you are Fisher, no?”

The surprise on Fisher’s face was as obvious as if he’d been attacked physically. His eyes darted about the room as if he’d been trapped and needed an instant escape route. Seemingly satisfied, he rubbed his head with his knuckles. John stayed still, his forced smile starting to ache deep in his jaw bone. He had no idea what to expect. Finally Fisher sighed and patted John on the shoulder.

“I knew you were no pimp,” he said. “But how do you know who I am?”

“I know many people,” John said. “I hear you are good at the combat and the explosions.”

“Who told you about me?”

John swung his legs up onto the desk. Where the hell was Wilson? He hoped to God that if Wilson had climbed out of a window that Savannah had the sense to do the same.

“Earthguard of course, who else?”

“You’re with Earthguard?”

“I’m with whoever can get weapon. Can you get weapon?”

A flash of anger crossed Fisher’s eyes. “Don’t mess with me, Varushkin. If you’ve talked to Earthguard, then you know they have the weapon.”

John felt the familiar speeding of his heart, and he fought to keep his breathing even. This man would kill him in an instant if he messed up. This was the man who had killed his best friend and attempted to blow up Savannah. Fear and hatred fuelled his resolve. “No amount of money was enough. They are, how do you say, incruptable.”

“Incorruptible.”

“Yes, incruptable,” John repeated, praying that his over the top accent was not becoming too theatrical. “You think you can get weapon?”

Fisher walked to Savannah’s desk and sat opposite John. He pulled out a red pack of Marlboro cigarettes and expertly tapped one from the packet. As he lit the cigarette, he continued to suck down smoke for the deepest of breaths. He picked up a file and flicked through it. When he spoke, his words were accompanied by clouds of smoke. “So what’s this place? Is it for real?”

“Sure. You not answer my question. You think you can get weapon?”

Fisher tossed the file back onto the desk. “I did, but I thought that the girl was the key.” He pushed himself backwards and forwards on the five-wheeled chair by pushing and pulling the front of the desk while the cigarette hung from his lips. “I saw a young man at Waterloo station. I think he can help. At first I thought he was homeless, but I think he was looking for Jones. He wore ripped blue jeans and an old blue anorak. Have you bumped into him?”

“No,” John said, a little too fast. Fisher didn’t seem to notice as he blew a long stream of smoke towards the ceiling. John suspected that Fisher was in need of a solution and that he needed to help push him in the right direction, whatever that might be.

“Girl is with me,” John said, feigning his own deep thought by pulling on his nose. “I think maybe she could persuade short one to make deal. Tall one is too like rock. No break easy. Wilson, I think, has feelings for girl.”

A twinkle of interest glistened in Fisher’s eyes. “You think we could still use her?”

“Perhaps. But she is gone now.”

Fisher emptied a metal paper clip holder and extinguished his cigarette. “She’s in the other office,” he said.

She’d better not be,
he thought. “I doubt it,” he said.

Fisher jumped to his feet and rushed to the door. John followed him, a huge lump stuck in his throat. What if she was still in there? A gust of air from the open window greeted both men. Wilson’s surveillance equipment was sitting on the table in the centre of the tiny office. John looked under the table to see the plugs had been removed from the electrical sockets and breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
Well done, Savannah.
But that wasn’t his main concern. John swallowed the lump in his throat.
Please don’t let her have fallen.

John went to the window and peered down at the flat roof which was on an equal level with the floor where they stood. A metal fire escape ladder at the far end of the flat roof provided access to ground level. Savannah was fine. John turned to Fisher, but Fisher spoke first.

“What happened to your limp?”

“What?”

“When I saw you leaving the agency, you had a limp.”

John almost sighed with relief. For once a lie was not required. “Girl, she kick me. She has big spirit.”

“So where is she?”

“Like I think, she is gone, but I know where she go,” he said, walking with Fisher side by side back towards the main office. Fisher observed the equipment on the desk, but without a live screen showing several viewpoints of the main office, there was nothing suspicious about surveillance gear in a private detective’s offices.

“Where is she?” Fisher asked again, raising his plastic lighter up to another cigarette.

Using all of his strength, John slapped Fisher’s back, catching him off guard and sending him stumbling forward, his cigarette and lighter tumbling onto the carpet. “First you tell me what you need weapon for, then we make deal, then we meet girl. This is how we do business in Moscow.”

Fisher righted himself and turned back to John, shrugging off the blow as if it were nothing. But there was no mistaking the confused expression in the weary eyes. It was a ‘do you know what I can do to you with my bare hands, so why are you messing with me?’ look. John returned with an equal measure of mock bewilderment which wasn’t too hard because his current behaviour bewildered the hell out of him. Who in their right mind manhandled a killer?

Fisher’s eyes flashed between anger and uncertainty, and John’s survival mechanism hovered on the verge of flight. The only thing stopping him from running was the certainty of a bullet in his back before he reached the main door. He had no choice but to continue his tough guy act and pray that his bladder would hold out.

Fisher continued to glare at John who, unable to stand the tension for a second longer, broke into his most insane-looking grin - again not much of a stretch given his predicament. His smile was not returned, but it did result in a wary nod from the pale-faced man. Fisher picked up the dropped items and resumed the process of lighting his cigarette. John’s ploy had succeeded, and it was clear he had unnerved Fisher into a begrudging respect for Varushkin.

John’s insides more closely resembled those of a nervous ballerina before a first live performance than the edginess of a merciless Russian killer. He held his grin of madness until he turned towards the door and marched back into the front office. The short walk allowed him a few moments when only his back was on show to Fisher, and he used the time to catch his breath, which he realised he must have been holding for some time.

“Come,” John said. “Let us make deal.”

Fisher followed John back to the desks, both men sitting down and facing each other.

“So tell me plan with gun?” John said.

“I want to sell it to the highest bidder.”

John shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Is that what Earthguard told you?”

John stared directly into Fisher’s eyes. “No. But people like me buy weapons. Soldiers like you use them. So why you want weapon?”

“What’s it to you?”

“I think you have mission. I see it in eyes. If we get gun, maybe you can do mission and then I take gun? I can pay big, yes?”

A look of disgust spread across Fisher’s face, his pale nose twitching as if he’d breathed in a nasty smell. “I have no need of more money.”

John laughed. “Better for me then. When you need gun to do mission?”

“Tomorrow.”

“And how long it will take?”

“You can have the weapon back tomorrow evening, but the power will be depleted.”

“Depleted. What is this word?”

“The nuclear fuel will need replacing.”

“You plan to use full power of weapon?” John nearly lost his accent, his voice rising an octave with the surprise.
Shit, shit, shit.
Had he blown his cover?

“What do you care what I do with it?”

John breathed an inward sigh of relief. He had got away with it, but he needed to hold it together. “We already have nuclear weapons. We want gun for technology.”

“You know it can initiate a small nuclear explosion from four miles away?”

What would the Russians, his newly adopted people, want it for? “Of course, but it is not major concern to us. In Russia we need nuclear power, and this could solve energy crisis. It make us world power again.”

“And there was me thinking you wanted to kill people with it.”

“Just because I have killed many people, it not mean I am bad person. My country, it dies, and it needs the technology to save it.”

Fisher pulled the chair tight to the desk, leaned forward and regarded John carefully. John did his utmost to maintain a sincere expression, but, having never previously tried under such dire circumstances, he had no idea of what Fisher was seeing.

“Are you for real?” Fisher said, motionless.

This was it. The game was up. Why had he ever thought he could pull this off? John prepared his legs for action and looked at the main door to the office. He considered the best escape route - back room window or main door?

“You need to be somewhere?”

John spun his head back around, taking his gaze past Fisher, through the gaping back office door where the open window beckoned.
Window or door,
he asked himself again. He had the sinking feeling that if he bolted, Fisher would still hunt down Savannah as a means of getting to Wilson.

Fisher was still talking, although John’s mind wasn’t fully listening, assuming it was all a precursor to a gun being drawn.

“It’s refreshing to meet someone as adept in killing as yourself who does it for the right reasons.”

“Huh?” John said, his attention returning to Fisher.

A smile appeared on Fisher’s face, and John could see the scar, to the left of centre on his bottom lip which caused the smile to deform as it grew. The wages of war, he supposed. The kink vanished as Fisher spoke. “I’m impressed. I had imagined killing you once we had tracked down the gun, but I see no reason that we can’t work together.”

Calmness ran through John’s being like a huge injection of Valium, and the relief was so welcome he was tempted to reach out and shake Fisher’s hand. Words of gratitude hung on his lips, and only a handful of subconscious brain cells prevented the sudden loss of fear for his life from wreaking havoc with his adopted accent.