Blood Wine (33 page)

A door to the side swung open and Savage stepped into the room. He was wearing a light blue linen suit, rumpled in just the right way to accentuate the clean lines and expensive cut. His eyes were dark but lively with highlights from the light of the day streaming through the two-storey living room windows. He nodded graciously and motioned to them to sit. He sat opposite.

“Let us be civilized,” he said. “It is good to see you again, Detective Quin.”

“I don't remember our first meeting,” said Miranda. “I wasn't all there.”

“Indeed you weren't, but I assure you, the pleasure was mine.”

She refused to show emotion, apart from a hint of contempt in the curl of her upper lip. There was too much at stake to let him take the lead.

“It's over,” said Morgan. “Whatever your name is, do you have a name of your own? It is over.”

“For me, perhaps. But it is not over. As they say, Mr. Morgan, my name is legion. It is a long way from over.”

Miranda opened her handbag and slowly removed her diminutive Glock semi-automatic. She pulled back the action and grasped the gun firmly in one hand with her finger on the trigger.

“You will shoot me now, Ms. Quin? That is certainly an option.”

Miranda raised the Glock to a firing position, bracing one hand with the other. She aimed at his forehead, then lowered her sights until the gun was pointed directly at his crotch.

“That seems a reasonable course to take, Ms. Quin. You were humiliated, so humiliate me. It will be very painful, and that will give you great satisfaction.”

“Miranda,” said Morgan emphatically.

“What? You think I would give this twerp the satisfaction of directing his own retribution? If I kill him, Morgan, it will be on my terms.”

“In that case,” said Savage, crossing his legs, “perhaps we should talk.”

“Talk,” said Morgan.

“Well, you see, Mr. Morgan, if I may just open my jacket, there, you see I am wearing a belt with little gadgets and wires. What will happen, if I slump over, shall we say, with a bullet or bullets in my head or my groin, these wires will detonate materials in the bedrooms with an explosive equivalent to approximately fifty tons of TNT. I am afraid the damage to this part of Toronto would be quite extreme. But such is life. If it is time, it is time. I had been hoping to delay the inevitable. I have come to enjoy your city a great deal. It is very cosmopolitan, Toronto the Good — isn't that what you call it in your very smug way, Toronto the Good?”

“Hogtown,” said Morgan. “Closed on Sundays. That's all in the past. We're world-class now.”

“How sad. A city that defines itself as
world-class
never is.”

“You're not too good on irony, Mr. Savage.”

“Oh, but I am. Do you see? I live very well, I will die for a cause I no longer believe in. Do you see the irony? Death has no meaning, Mr. Morgan. Only life is worth dying for.”

“So are we at an impasse once again, Mr. Savage?”

“Not this time, I'm afraid. It is no longer about just you and me and the very attractive Ms. Quin. I am quite serious about the damage to be done. This is not a standoff, it is a rout. You will place your weapons on the coffee table, please.”

“Morgan?”

“He means it. I'm guessing these condos are an upscale warehouse. This is their arsenal. This is where the money has gone, into weapons of imminent destruction.”

“Very wise, Mr. Morgan. But only a small part of our income from the vineyards of corruption went into armaments. Much is being banked for future use, when Armageddon shall come to the Western world.”

“I thought you weren't a believer.”

“I am a leader. Leaders cannot afford to believe.”

“Well, you've led yourself into a dead end,” said Miranda. “Literally,” she added.

“Quite possibly I have. And I do see the irony. But this is just one of innumerable roads to the same end. There are other roads, others to travel them.”

“We all die?” Morgan asked with apparent disinterest.

“You die, Mr. Morgan. Your deaths will be heroic, I'm sure. For myself, there may still be time. We shall see.”

Miranda reached over and retrieved her Glock from where she had placed it on the coffee table. She cocked it and pointed it again at Mr. Savage.

“I understand your logic, Ms. Quin. If you are to die, at least you can take me with you. However, if you will think for a moment, it is not that simple.”

“You think for me.”

“Indeed I will. If you shoot me, a thousand people will perish in the flash of an eye. But if you let me go, there is a chance you may avert disaster. Perhaps you can disarm the explosives, perhaps you can evacuate the buildings in this vicinity — I warn you, you will need to clear a very wide radius. But no, I do not think there will be time. Disarming the explosives is probably your best bet. Except you know me too well, you know I will not allow this stockpile to go to waste. Therefore, it is logical, you shoot me and our bodies explode into each other. Imagine that.”

Morgan rocked back and forth on the sofa and Miranda passed her gun from one hand to the other, without taking it off Savage.

“It is possible, just possible,” said Savage, “if you let me go you might be able to do something to save yourselves and your beloved world-class city. People like you cannot resist grasping at the chance to survive, no matter how miserable the odds.”

“He's playing with us,” Miranda said with disdain.

“No,” said Morgan. “It's a game. We're playing each other.”

“It's not a game of chance,” said Miranda. “Chess, not poker. I'm betting we win.”

“And if you don't! Of course, there is another possibility,” said Savage. “Since I am the detonator, you have to be wondering, if I leave the premises, will my little gadgets broadcast this far? Now there is an irony, indeed. For me to reach safety, my weaponry might be disarmed. It is possible. Then you will be safe as well. Of course, knowing me as you do, you know there might be no explosives at all. But is there time to look? That is the question.”

He stood up.

“I really must go. At the very least, my departure will delay certain death by a few minutes. It has been a pleasure, once again, Ms. Quin.” His dark eyes flashed and she felt a chill to the bone. “Goodbye, Mr. Morgan.”

Morgan stood up.

The two men faced each other, less than an arm's length apart. Morgan leaned to the side and picked up his semi-automatic. He held it in the open palm of his hand. Both men examined it as some sort of fossil, extinct and useless. He tossed it onto the sofa beside Miranda.

“Mr. Savage,” said Morgan. “We prefer you stay for the signing.”

Savage looked at him quizzically then pressed his lips in a sneer. “The signing, my signature, of course. Blood on the walls, an interesting diversion. This particular version of the Apocalypse should undoubtedly carry my name.”

“Miranda,” Morgan said, “use my weapon, it's bigger. Shoot Mr. Savage in the right leg.”

Both men held their ground. Miranda tucked her own gun into the waistband of her skirt and moved on the edge of their range of vision. The eyes of the two men locked, as if they were in deadly combat without moving a muscle.

Suddenly a shot exploded from the gun in Miranda's hands. Mr. Savage lurched but remained standing. Morgan stood close enough to feel the man's minty breath on his face.

“This is an interesting turn of events,” said Savage, grimacing from the pain in his thigh. “Perhaps we shall die together, then.” He drew in a deep breath. “Mr. Morgan, I'm sorry about your friends. It was unavoidable.”

“My friends?”

“In England. Miss Sturmberg? I believe she was a friend of yours. And the old mullah, Professor Ali Rashid Izzadine Al Sayyed, you visited his chambers in Cambridge. I believe you spent several nights with Miss Sturmberg, one in a sleazy hotel near Victoria Station and then in a rather pleasant B&B in Cambridge, with twin beds. From that I surmise you were lovers for a night and thought better of it the day after.”

“What about my friends?” Morgan demanded.

“Ah, yes, it is difficult to be dispassionate when you do not have the training, Mr. Morgan. Your work is so much different from ours, Miss Sturmberg's and mine. We had much in common, I think, though she was a Jew. I had more in common with her than I did with the venerable Kurd. He was a true Peshmerga, a samurai, a knight. He was a Muslim and a scholar, he believed with his brain and his heart. I believe nothing. He was not trained, so he had to rely on education and passionate intelligence. That is not enough, or too much, perhaps. Still, he died without flinching. They held him by the beard and slit his throat. Ms. Sturmberg, on the contrary, she went down like a fighter. She died first, but she murdered two of ours in the process. There are many ways to be brave, I suppose. Cambridge chambers will never be the same. I'm told it was all quite messy. It is difficult to wash blood from such beautiful rugs.”

Morgan remembered the rugs. “Miranda,” he said.

“Do nothing, Ms. Quin. We will be dead soon enough. Then your flesh and mine will be one, once again.”

“Savage,” said Morgan, “Disarm the bomb.”

“It is many bombs.”

“Miranda, shatter his kneecap.”

Another shot exploded and the room shook like thunder. Savage whirled, and as he did so Morgan flung his arms under the other man's flailing arms, pinning him against his own body so the man could not fall to set off the detonator.

Miranda lunged forward and held Morgan's Glock to Savage's forehead.

The man sneered through the pain. “Too late,” he said. “We are dead.”

“Not yet. Miranda, would you mind cutting in?” She looked at the two men, embraced in a tottering
danse macabre
.

“What do you want me to do?”

“If I've learned one thing through all this, it's that high tech is limited by the mind that controls it.”

“Morgan?”

“Under his jacket, the Batman utility belt, Velcro. I'm betting it comes off easily. Don't tilt it.”

“You're betting!”

“Yeah, go for it. He's a dead weight.”

Miranda crouched down and fumbled around, then found tabs, but with her hands still encased in greasy surgical gloves she could not get a grip. She leaned forward, clasped a tab between her teeth, and pulled. Then another pull and the belt released.

“Keep it upright, keep it upright.”

“Morgan, I am. I've got it, you can drop him.”

Morgan let Savage slide to the floor. The man rolled over on his side and lay still. Morgan took his gun back from Miranda. He was tempted to finish Savage off but thought better of it. They might need him, and he wasn't going very far.

“What do I do with this?” Miranda demanded. She held the ominous contraption between them, examining the wires and webbing and tabs. Morgan reached out and touched a wire.

“It's always the red one,” he said.

“What?”

“In the movies. It's always the red one. The hero gets set to cut blue or yellow, then in a leap of intuition at the last second switches and cuts the red.”

“Morgan.”

“Yeah.”

“There are four wires and they're all red.”

“You know what?”

“What.”

“Drop it.”

“What, the belt? Don't be insane.”

“Give it to me.” He took hold of it but she would not release her grip.

“Morgan, what are you doing, for God's sake?”

“Don't swear.”

“Pardon.”

“Don't swear.”

“Shit, Morgan. If there was ever a time —”

“It's a decoy.”

“You think?”

“Yeah.”

“Here, you take it, you put it down — if we go up in a fiery inferno, it's your fault.”

He took the belt and gingerly set it in an upright position on a chair.

“I thought it was a fake?”

“Just in case it isn't. So far, so good. So, what now?”

“You're asking me? You seem to be reading the situation pretty well.”

“Miranda, I'm guessing there's a real detonator. Savage knew we were coming. He monitored us in the lobby or out in the foyer. I think we're inside a time bomb. I think that's what we've walked into. And he set it going when we came through the door. He might have tried to escape but it isn't his style. This Mr. Savage is all about style. I'm guessing we're on a short fuse — he knew he wouldn't have time to get away. He decided to pay us the ultimate compliment of sharing our deaths.”

“How nice.”

“Very good,” said Savage from the floor. His voice was surprisingly clear, as if he had dissociated from the agony of his shattered knee, as if they were friends in a conversation he had just dropped out of for a few minutes.

Miranda looked down at him with utter contempt, not spitting because she knew from her mother's knee it would reflect badly on her own self-respect.

“We've got about four minutes left,” said Savage.

“Why so long?” said Morgan. “Why not just press the button and take us out from the start?”

“Because I did want to talk to you both, to renew my acquaintance with Ms. Quin and to chat about old times with you, Mr. Morgan.”

“Morgan,” Miranda snapped, “don't you believe him. You're wrong about style, he's gutless. He still thinks he can get out of here. The service elevator is closed, I'll bet you anything. The emergency stairs are sealed off. They did it themselves to protect their storehouse. He needs time to get by us. If we're inside a time bomb, I'm betting it's got fifteen minutes to go, maybe more. He needs time to get away.”

“I am not afraid of dying, Ms. Quin. Surely you know that.”

“Bullshit, you're petrified.”

“Miranda?”