Candleburn (5 page)

10

Blake punched the side of the elevator in frustration.

A
dull clang of metal reverberated through the shaft and the lift shook violently, grating against the sides as it lowered.

“Cock
suckers,” he grunted.

He
took several sharp breaths.

Shanghaied
again.

“I
would say I couldn’t believe it, except with these wankers...”

When
he pulled his fist back, the steel wall retained the indentation. His knuckles glowed red and warm from the impact. He blew across them to cool the skin.

Every
day he entered that office and he knew she would try to screw him. But each new trick she used, each new ploy, became harder to shrug off. He loved being a journalist, he enjoyed the hunt for a good story, the research and the piecing together of puzzles others wanted hidden.

He
couldn’t go on like this.

Just
shy of 41, he had been a reporter for a little over a decade. Never had he encountered such a viperous den of backstabbing and double-dealing.

And
there was nothing he could do. Complain to New York and they’d just see him as telling tales. They’d ask for proof his data files had been deleted maliciously and chalk up his broken equipment to mistakes or carelessness. They’d back her editorial judgement on his stories. They couldn’t whip the rug from underneath a woman they’d appointed. They’d also ignore the theft of his ideas, branding him a malcontent.

The
pulse in his neck thudded from the stress. The back of his skull felt too tight, as if the blood-flow to his brain were being slowly restricted by a wire tourniquet.

A
cigarette.

He
needed a smoke.

He
tapped down his pockets.

“Damn
it!” he swore, as he fumbled.

The
lift opened and Blake marched through the doors and outside. He found the packet and brought a single stick to his mouth. His hand shook as he tried to light it. He clicked the small metal wheel on his Zippo and missed, sending a faint orange spark into the air. He clicked again.

A
long, wavering flame flickered higher. He steadied himself and brought a faint glow to the tobacco.

He
sucked deeply until his lungs ached.

He
tilted his neck back.

For
an instant he felt himself gasping, drowning in emotion. He had no control of his body. As the flame of the lighter guttered and died, he felt some giant, invisible hand punch through his chest and grip his heart, tightening its clasp, squeezing until he choked.

Blake
exhaled.

His
head filled with nothing – a radio dial twisted to static – his vision vanished in a wall of snow.

He
leaned on the wall of the building to steady himself. Thirty seconds passed.

His
hearing was the first to return. His brain, computer rebooting, came online. His vision began to clear, first grey and white, then colours returned.

“You’re so weak,” he jeered. “Pull it together.”

He
found his head had been twitching, almost seizure like, as he finally came fully back to consciousness. He straightened himself, stood tall, and nervously looked around to see if anyone was staring.

N
o-one was.

Life
rolled on fine, with or without him, as he took a breather from this world and floated away.

“And
now to handle another bullshit story,” he said, taking another deep tug on the cigarette.

He
could still see Alice’s smiling face as she outlined the story he was to cover.

India
and the UK were having trade talks in Dubai because it was halfway between the countries. It was a fine story – doubtless with many noble quotable sources for a British newspaper, or even one in Bangalore. But for all of the Journal’s global pretentions, in its heart and soul it was an American news organisation.

No-one
in New York would care about Indian trade talks with Britain. He’d be lucky if his piece was picked up by anyone but a small group of devoted news junkies who read everything published online. Certainly, it would never make the paper. And as for filming it for the Web episodes...

“Who
wants to watch two minutes of dull grey men in suits?”

He
rubbed the back of his head in frustration and stared at his well-lined leather shoes as they began to tighten around his feet in the heat.

He’d
find something. Some way to make it interesting and work. He always did.

He
lifted his head, gazing off into the car park in front of the building, and sucked down hard on the cigarette one more time.

Then
he saw it.

He
scowled.

There:
parked in the first row, barely one hundred yards away.

At
first he wasn’t sure what his instincts, honed sharp long ago and now atrophied, had seen.

A
Toyota. Two men.

East
European in appearance, they were staring up at the Journal’s office window. One had a laser pointer in his hand and headphones lopsidedly straddling his head.

The
other was watching the revolving door – not Blake – the door.

Blake
edged across to the fountain. Partly obscured from the car park by the palms and leaves, he sat, his head still spinning, his leg jibbing as blood returned to his toes.

His
eyes were fixed on the Toyota.

It
had to be a listening device. There was no other call for two Europeans to be bouncing a laser off the window of the Journal’s office.

Blake
began massaging his own neck to boost the blood flow to his head.

Was
he seeing things?

No.

He stared at his feet. His brain began working at full speed again.

“Not
local intelligence. They don’t use Europeans – and they’ve got the Journal’s office bugged to within an inch of its life anyway... after all, I would if I were them. So, they’re outsiders. Freelancers? Not with that kind of kit.”

Laser
listening devices, which heard conversations in a room by measuring the reverberations of the glass in the windows caused by voices, were a technology around twenty years old – yet they weren’t freely available in a country like the Emirates. Even elsewhere they were a pricey piece of kit that tended to arouse questions.

Blake
opened his packet of menthols and withdrew another cigarette.

He
smoked it slowly, his blood pressure equalising as he watched intently.

The
Europeans didn’t leave the car. The engine was running. No-one sat in a car in Dubai unless they had no choice – even with the air-conditioning on full blast – it wasn’t a comfortable prospect.

“That
implies they’ve had no time to set anything up. They’ve put together this mission in hurry and so they have to be sitting exactly there, in an obvious place because they have no other alternative. So, are they spies? Or someone else? And what are they listening to the Journal’s office for – unless they want the inside scoop on what stories were big weeks ago and missed by my moronic boss?”

There
was only one thing to do.

Blake
stood and pulled his aviators from his pocket to shield his eyes from the harsh UV light.

He
smiled.

Just
like the old days.

He’d
go and politely ask them.

11

Blake circled around the parked vehicles and approached the car from its blind spot.

He
needn’t have bothered. The two occupants were firmly focused, one listening intently, the other staring so hard that phaser beams might be expected to light up from behind his sunglasses and streak towards the office.

Sloppy.
Very sloppy.

As
he drew nearer, Blake got a better look at the two men. They were both muscular. The one listening to the Journal office windows had sculpted blonde hair, fixed firm with industrial quantities of gel and spray. That explained why he had the headphones on at an angle. He was afraid of disturbing his expensive haircut. He wore a tight-fitting tee-shirt. The other, a square-jawed, dark-haired, sun-god with a beard, had on a black shirt and Versace jacket.

Blake
rapped his knuckles against the window.

Both
men jumped.

They
looked at one another.

The
bearded goon wound his window down. He said nothing.

“Scusilo,”
Blake motioned energetically with his hands. “Sono molto spiacente ma sono perso. Sto cercando la stazione di polizia più vicina?”

“Sorry,”
the bearded one said in a heavy Russian accent. “We don’t speak Italian.”

Blake
opened his arms out wide in shock and began gesticulating frantically.

“Quella
è una sorpresa!” he replied. “Entrambi sguardo avete vestito bene abbastanza per essere italiani. E certamente assomigliate voi avete visto la parte interna di una stazione di polizia!”

The
Russian jabbed a finger towards Blake.

“Piss
off. We’re busy.”

“My
apologies,” Blake said, maintaining the Italian flavour to his speech. “I just need directions. You’re Russian, eh? I thought you were Italian because you are so well dressed.”

The
Russian glanced at his friend. He jabbered a few sentences in his home language. It was hard to hear them fully. Blake heard the words ‘Italian’, ‘faggot’ and ‘beating’.

The
bearded thug lamented that ‘back home’ he’d simply beat Blake to a pulp.

The
blond said that would attract unwanted attention. He suggested that if Blake didn’t ‘fuck off’ quickly, they’d just start the car and drive around the block.

The
bearded Russian turned back to Blake.

“We
don’t speak Italian. You need to find someone else to talk to. Now fuck off.”

Blake
apologised again and left them.

***

“It’s very slightly possible I’ve not been clear enough,” Asp said, pacing across the room. “I want to speak to Chaiwat.”

“Mr
Chaiwat is unfortunately not available, sir.”

Asp
clasped his hands behind his back as he walked. He’d never met the Vietnamese man in front of him before and he was finding him to be as adept at not answering questions as a White House press secretary in the depths of a particularly sticky scandal.

“Then
let’s try a different approach,” Asp murmured. “Where is Chaiwat?”

“That
I cannot answer, sir.”

“Because
you do not know where he is or because you have been told not to reveal his location?” Asp persisted.

The
man rolled his tongue around his mouth and looked at Mehr Zain, standing like a centurion, tip of the sword resting on the floor as his hands clasped its handle. The man gulped. His gaze dropped to the floor.

“Both,
sir.”

Asp
saw the man’s nervousness as he took in Zain.

“Then
we have a problem,” he said slowly. “My colleague here, the one with the sword, is – I think somewhat justifiably – still just a little pissed off at being attacked by your friends. Given that we pay Chaiwat a large sum of money to be available to talk to us when we want to have a little chat, my colleague regards the behaviour of your friends outside as, frankly: rude.”

“I
understand, sir. But we have had to raise security here since Mr Chaiwat was taken.”

“Taken?”

“Yes, sir.”

“By
whom?”

The
man was hesitant to reply. Mehr lifted the sword a few centimetres from the ground and let it fall. The tip dug into the floor with a ‘thunk’. The Vietnamese man mumbled beneath his breath.

“What?”
Asp asked curtly.

Silence.

The
man bit his lip. When he looked up there was a tear on his cheek.

“Ash-Shumu’a.”

Mehr tipped his head to the side, perplexed.

“Who?”
Asp asked.

“It
means ‘The Candle’,” Zain replied. “But he might as well have said he was taken by the Yeti.”

“Why’ve
I never heard of Ash-Shumu’a?”

“They’re
a rumour – a legend. After the other terrorist groups in the region got progressively crushed, the story goes that a different faction sprang up operating on new lines, a new ideology,” Mehr said.

“Radical
Islamists?” Nate asked, surprise in his voice.

“No.
Nor some kind of retro-throwback to socialism; it’s difficult to describe and since they’re a figment, their real purpose is just pure conjecture.”

“Why
haven’t you told me about them before?”

Mehr
had a pained expression.

“You
want me to tell you about the Gruffalo and other fictional monsters too?”

Asp
turned to face the Vietnamese man, who seemed almost ashamed to have uttered the words Ash-Shumu’a.

“Tell
me what happened. If you don’t, what we did to the men outside, we do to you.”

The
man’s shoulders slumped.

“Please,
they will find me and kill me. They take Mr Chaiwat. He is important man. I am nobody. If they take him, they will take me. I cannot tell you more. He did not arrive at work this morning. A man called in and said they had him and he was now the property of Ash-Shumu’a. If we wanted him back we were to find and send one of our girls to the creek to be picked up at noon.”

Success.

The
girl: Asp knew there had to be a connection between the dead prostitute and this affair. That meant there was a tie in to the murder of his friend Jim, too. It had to have been the same woman.

“So
why was this girl found dead?” he asked.

“It
was not us, sir. We wanted her alive to trade for Mr Chaiwat. I receive orders from the big bossman to get her and make the deal. No-one wants to anger Ash-Shumu’a – even bossman is scared of them.”

“So
who killed her?”

“That
I don’t know. Everyone was looking for her. I don’t know why.”

“Everyone?”

“The Wolves and Onyx. All of us seek her at the same time. I think the Wolves maybe found her first.”

That
made no sense.

There
was no reason for Dubai’s other two criminal gangs to stray from their turf and interfere in Euphoric’s business. This wasn’t like any other city. Each mafia group could only operate so long as it had a local family protecting it.

Just
as legitimate businesses run by foreigners had to have a local investor – not only for legal reasons but also to serve as both a protector and a guide to cultural sensitivities – so did the underworld.

Of
course, most of Dubai’s leading families were straight and honourable; which explained why, given that there were fourteen principle power-broking clans within the Emirate, there were only three criminal enterprises.

Any
unaffiliated organization would be crushed, not only by mafia rivalries, but also by the full force of the state. It also explained why it was worth the time of the existing three operations to get along smoothly with one another.

In
a perverse way it also had to be the way these organizations did business. After all, if you needed 150 visas for Romanian or Ukrainian or Bulgarian girls, no questions asked, only a local family had the clout to push them through the byzantine bureaucracy.

Mehr
broke the silence.

“If
the Russians killed that girl, for whatever reason, it means they’ve declared war on Euphoric,” he said. “That means a fight could break out between Dubai’s kingmaker families. The entire country could destabilize.”

The
full implications of the situation began to dawn on Asp.

“What
the hell have we become mixed up in?”