The Recipient (36 page)

Casey watched in horror as Fedele removed his belt and unbuttoned his trousers, allowing them to fall to his knees. He was naked underneath. His erection throbbed visibly as he stared at her.

“But you can't,” she repeated. Fedele frowned, tilting his head. “You have been exposed,” Casey continued. “Arlo was more formidable than you thought.”

She paused, to allow the import of her words to stop Fedele as he began to approach her.

“He kept notes, records and diaries. I saw them. He exposed you at length. About what you were really doing in Afghanistan. Your links to Jarsayah Sonmez. How you were harvesting organs from captured enemy combatants for profit and how you both agreed to continue the operation afterwards. He kept it all.” Casey noticed Fedele's features flicker involuntarily and he seemed to falter where he stood. “The clients Sonmez procured for you in Indonesia and South East Asia,” she continued, her voice taking on a note of bitter defiance. “How you facilitated Arlo's position with Elyria Medical Services so he could provide health checks for asylum seekers: your donors. How you used your connections with the government to secure those donors in exchange for payment. Arlo kept it all.”

Casey let her muscles relax.

“The police are coming for you, Fedele. You can't do anything more.”

A thick silence descended between them. Casey closed her eyes, the sound of the monitor above her head echoed distantly. Defeat began to seep into her.

Without warning, Fedele's expression changed and he snarled, swooping towards Casey until his face was centimetres from hers. Casey blinked in shock. His teeth ground together noisily, threateningly. The muscles in his jaw were so taut they quivered.

“Oh, but I can, Casey,” he seethed, peppering her chin with his spittle. “I can do
plenty
.”

Reaching down, Fedele traced a finger between her naked breasts and down over her belly to the top of her cotton briefs. Clutching the material in his fingers, he grimaced and with a surge of strength, Fedele tore the briefs from Casey's body, tossing them aside. He stood back and looked down upon her naked form. His hand dropped to his thickening penis and he stroked it while licking his lips.

Casey attempted to look away in revulsion.

She could see he was losing control; a state that she doubted he had rarely, if ever, experienced.

Her revelations had caused something to snap and he was now beyond reason, beyond the veneer of the powerful, charismatic and influential heart surgeon.

Leaning in again, Fedele lowered his hand to her chest and traced a finger across her right nipple toward the scar.

“I gave you a gift, Casey. All you had to do was move on with your life.”

“Saskia wouldn't let me,” Casey whispered with resignation. “From the moment you gave me her heart, her torment became mine.”

Fedele blinked. He withdrew from her, gazing upon her with revulsion.

“These
dreams
?”

He looked away, shaking his head incredulously, then turned to the medical cabinet along the wall. Slowly, methodically, Fedele opened a drawer and took out something from inside. “Perhaps then, it is time to end your torment.”

Without warning, the muffled sound of a smartphone rang out from an adjacent drawer. Fedele stopped what he was doing and wrenched the drawer open angrily, snatching the phone from inside and holding it up.

He glared at it as the sound of thrash metal rock music assailed him from the handset's tiny speaker. For the briefest of moments, Casey felt a surge of hope.

Sasquatch!

Fedele pressed the power button on the side of the handset to extinguish the noise but the phone kept spewing sound forth into the room. He thumped it against his palm, becoming apoplectic. Still the phone wouldn't silence.

Casey began silently counting to herself.

1…2…3…4…

Fedele wheeled around and glowered menacingly, thrusting the handset out at Casey. “How do I shut this fucking thing off!”

…6…7…8…9…

Infuriated by her silence, Fedele flung the phone across the room where it smashed against the wall opposite, disintegrating into several pieces. The offensive noise was silenced.

Casey turned her head away from Fedele as he continued to rage. Her eyes were drawn to the ruined remains of the smartphone which had fallen underneath the second surgical bed.

She smiled.

A small, bright green LED winked to life and blinked steadily.

___

Scott's van leapt over a fall in the freeway, becoming airborne for a moment before smashing down onto the bitumen in a shower of sparks. The City Link tunnel entrance loomed ahead with flashing signs warning drivers to slow down, but he ignored this, instead dropping back a gear and accelerating. The engine whined in protest and the van shot forward like a bullet.

“Get out of the bloody way!” he roared, mashing his hand on the horn as cars ahead weaved out of the way of the careening van.

Lionel clutched a handle above the door while bracing his other hand against the dashboard in front of him.

We'
re going die on this Godforsaken roadway.

“Do you even know where you're going, Scott?” he protested.

Scott glared at Lionel as he swerved around an SUV, then hesitated.

“I don't know! I never come to these millionaire suburbs.”

“You need to slow down,” Lionel countered evenly, trying to calm him.

Reluctantly, Scott tapped the brake, slowing only slightly. He shifted into the right-hand lane, which had been closed to traffic but he ignored the warning signs hanging down from the roof of the tunnel.

Adjusting the volume knob on his police scanner, Scott listened to the chatter they were following. Patrol cars had apparently converged on the Toorak residence of Simeera Fedele.

“Damn it. They beat us to the punch,” Scott cursed angrily.

“No,” Lionel countered suddenly, raising a finger. “Listen.”

“…Negative, negative Central. Suspect is nowhere to be found. Suspect is not at this address.”

Lionel and Scott glared at one another.

“Where else could he have taken her?” Scott protested.

Lionel's expression tightened.

“She could be anywhere,” he whispered.

Scott flicked his gaze at the phone sitting in the dashboard cradle.

“I've gotta try her again, Lionel. If there is any chance…”

Scott quickly tapped the screen, bringing up Casey's number then pressed the dial icon.

Both men waited.

Whereas before it had gone straight to her voicemail, this time, the phone rang through.

Lionel and Scott looked at one another intently. Then, suddenly, the phone went silent.

“Shit!” Scott hissed, grabbing the handset. He prepared to redial, but was interrupted when an app opened on-screen.

He blinked in confusion. Then disbelief.

“It's her!”

Lionel frowned and sat forward. “What? She's dialling you?”

Scott shook his head. “No. She's not dialling me. Her phone is…”

He didn't finish his sentence.

Shoving the phone at Lionel, Scott wrenched the gearstick back. The van fishtailed, its tyres screamed on the bitumen until they gained purchase.

Lionel held the phone in his hand, trying to focus on the screen as the van reached the limit of the tunnel's descent and was now rocketing back up towards the exit.

On the screen, an icon flashed on and off.

‘GPS signal acquisition pending.'

“What, Scott? What on Earth is it?”

Scott waved one arm insanely in the air. His face was as red as a beetroot.

“GPS! GPS!” he spluttered.

Lionel glared at Scott. “Bloody technology. I don't understand!”

“
We need a fucking GPS signal
!”

The tunnel exit came into view ahead of them, while the lane they were in became accessible again to the traffic ahead of them. Scott rammed his fist down on the horn and hollered out through his side window.

“MOVE OUT OF MY FUCKING WAY!”

The van erupted from the tunnel and into the Melbourne night. Scott yanked the steering wheel down, veering sharply across four lanes through a gap in the traffic. A massive rig loomed from behind as he entered the extreme left lane. Its air horn roared in protest. There was a piercing scream of metal on metal as the massive bull bar of the rig clipped Scott's taillight, obliterating it and crumpling the metal housing. The van shuddered and hopped violently but Scott quickly accelerated away from the truck as it braked.

“Jesus!” Lionel hissed as he struggled to hold onto the smartphone, nearly dropping it. “What is this? I don't get it!”

He squinted at the screen with its flashing message.

‘GPS signal acquisition pending.'

Suddenly, the message changed.

‘GPS signal acquired…Standby for location'

“It's Casey!” Scott blurted. “She put that on my phone ages ago. It's a tracking app that locks onto her phone if ever she's in trouble. She was worried that if her grey hat work ever went south, she might need it. It's like a failsafe thing.”

Lionel shook his head. “This will lead us right to her?”

“To her phone, yes. Just cross your fingers and hope she's got it with her.”

A satellite map of the city flashed up, with an orange dot in the centre and a blue dot that was mere millimetres above it.

“There!” Lionel snapped, pointing at the screen. He showed it to Scott. “We're practically on top of her.”

“Hang on,” Scott growled with a sardonic smile as he sped toward an exit ahead of them.

___

Fedele closed his eyes, exhaling slowly as he brought his rage under control.

Casey looked back towards him and flinched as he lowered his head and looked directly at her. The corners of his lips turned up in a beatific smile. Endorphins flowed through him, stimulating him, washing away his anger.

He sidestepped towards the cabinet and resumed his task, taking wrapped medical trays from the drawers and placing them on the stainless steel trolley. His still naked body began to glisten with sweat and Casey watched him in horror. Her right hand stiffened and flexed in the leather strap but she knew there was no hope of breaking it.

Fedele went to a sink and turned on the tap. He began washing his hands methodically, using a surgical sponge to soap his hands and arms, scrubbing them as thoroughly as he would as if he were preparing for the operating theatre. The process took minutes. He said nothing. He did not look at her. Casey could only watch.

The intense pain exploded once more from within the heart and ripped across her chest. It was ferocious enough that it took her breath away. She gasped, but stifled the sound in case Fedele heard. She squeezed her eyes shut.

Fedele finished his task then raised his arms, using his elbows to nudge the tap lever off. He turned and approached Casey, keeping his arms raised, waiting for the air to dry them.

“If you are not prepared to value the gift which I have given you,” he remarked coolly, “then you do not deserve it.”

He sat down on the stool once more and inspected his arms, satisfied that they were sufficiently dry. Drawing the trolley towards him with his foot, he began unwrapping the instruments and arranged the surgical tools on the sterile surface. He took a packet containing sterile surgical gloves and lay them open on the tray.

His practised movements were calm with no hint of impatience or fear. Pausing in his preparation, he turned and leaned in close to Casey, his intense eyes boring into her. She tensed, twisting her head away from him as best she could.

“You leave me no choice but to take the heart from you,” he breathed menacingly. “And
I will
take it from you.” He smiled and began applying the surgical gloves.

“You won't get away with this,” Casey snarled in a final, if hopeless, act of defiance.

Fedele merely chuckled. “I already have.”

Rotating on the stool, Fedele armed himself with a scalpel blade and held it in his right hand with the delicacy of an artist. Electric motors whirred underneath her as Fedele adjusted the bed's height. Casey felt herself lowering. He reached above her, taking a leather strap that was out of her view. Pulling it taut over her forehead, Casey felt her head snap down hard as he secured it to the bed.

“We're not going to need an anaesthetic this time,” he mused gleefully.

The tension in Casey's muscles grew, reaching their zenith in a final act of defiance. But she could no longer hold them. Her mind swirling, she let them go; her body slumped back into her bonds. She succumbed to the inevitable.

“Take it, you fuck,” she hissed. “I don't want it anymore.”

CHAPTER 35.

L
eft!” Lionel shouted at Scott as he held the smartphone in one hand while shaking his other hand through the window.

Scott weaved in and out of the traffic, ignoring the potential disasters as the van hopped crazily around one street corner after another. Once clear, it roared onward. Scott glanced over at the smartphone screen, checking the destination marked by the blinking dot.

“Christ! At this rate, we're gonna be led right back to where we started!” he growled. “Are you sure you're reading that thing right?”

Lionel threw his arms up, then just as quickly grabbed the base of his seat as they careened through yet another intersection. Cars, trucks and motorbikes skidded and swerved across the road while drivers punched their horns in anger.

Lionel squinted down at the screen. His eyes grew wide. “It's just ahead! We're closing to within 500 meters!” He showed Scott the screen.

“That doesn't make sense,” Scott growled. “Surely this can't be right.”

Suddenly, he jammed both feet on the brake pedal. Smoke poured from the van's tyres as it came to a screeching halt. Grabbing hold of his seatbelt, Lionel recoiled in horror then shut his eyes until he was sure they hadn't hit anything. Looking up, he saw traffic in front of them had squealed to stop. Several drivers had leaped from their cars and were shouting abuse.

“This is not good,” he murmured ruefully.

Ignoring the commotion, Scott wound down his window and peered out into the night, directly across from where they stood. He looked upon an ultramodern office complex of sandstone and tinted glass that stood back from the street on an elevated strip of land. A driveway rose up from the street alongside the building. The complex was flanked on either side by very grand and expensive residential properties.

Grabbing the phone from Lionel, Scott glared at the screen and confirmed that they were right on top of the location marked by the blinking dot. He scanned the darkened building desperately for signs of activity.

“This isn't Fedele's home,” Lionel remarked.

“No, it's not,” Scott replied.

He fired up the engine and shoved the van into reverse. The tyres squealed on the bitumen once more, forcing Lionel to brace himself.

“What on Earth?” he wheezed as the van leapt backwards and then sideways. Scott lined the van up so that it was facing the office building.

Scott jabbed a finger towards the front of the office complex, where it met the street. Lionel followed the direction of his finger until he found himself looking at a polished chrome sign attached to a sandstone column.

‘Mr. S. Fedele MBBS, MS, FRAC, FCSANZ - Heart and Lung Transplant Surgeon.'

Revving the engine, Scott glanced across at Lionel.

“Hang on!”

The van pounced, screaming up onto the driveway. As soon as they were clear of the road, Scott jerked the steering wheel. The van lurched sideways, aiming it at the massive glass window.

Lionel gulped, but he had no time to react as the wall of glass rushed up to meet them.

___

Fedele snarled as he wrenched down on the leather strap securing Casey's right wrist, then he leaned across her, pressing his naked body against her as he repeated the action with the strap on her left. Pain knifed down the length of her arm from her shattered collarbone and tears bulged in her eyes. Her terror gave way to despondent grief.

Fedele pounced up onto the bed, straddling her and glaring at her with a maniacal grin. Any remaining vestiges of the consummate clinician she had known him to be had disappeared into this monstrosity.

Glowering with a primal intensity, he rubbed his muscular body against hers as he grasped the scalpel, dragging the flat surface of the blade down her cheek. Casey began to sob.

The strap holding her head slipped backwards, but Fedele did not react. He was drunk in his experience. He so treasured harvests like this one: young, beautiful, alive in his arms. Saskia, Casey and countless, nameless others. He cherished his gift; to take life and to give it. And it gave him immense pleasure to savour this last, final moment.

Casey shut her eyes as she shook uncontrollably, feeling his slick erection pressing hard against her hip, moving across her belly and coming to rest between her legs.

And then…

An apocalyptic explosion erupted above their heads.

The van smashed through the window, obliterating the huge glass panel as it powered deep into the interior of Fedele's consulting suite. It ploughed into the long leather couch, splintering it into a dozen ragged pieces and pitching the ruin into the air before it crashed down onto the glass coffee table. As Scott reacted, planting his foot on the brakes, the van smashed into Fedele's desk, catapulting it backwards into the bookcase which exploded and opened a deep cavity in the wall panelling behind it.

The van finally and abruptly shuddered to a stop. Lionel and Scott were flung forward in their seats. Scott yelped as his large, muscular frame struck the steering wheel while Lionel gasped as the seatbelt locked against his chest and ricocheted him back in his seat.

As the chaos subsided, both men looked up at each other, then through the windshield at the destruction they had wrought. In the wall cavity, electrical wires flashed and sparked. A ruptured gas line erupted in flame.

Scott's eyes bulged as he flung his arm out at Lionel and grabbed his shoulder.

“Duck!”

At, that moment, a second explosion ripped through the chamber, causing it to shake violently. Fedele fumbled on top of Casey as a fireball belched from the elevator shaft and flames crawled hungrily across the ceiling above. He thrust his head back to see the doors of the elevator rip open as their electric mechanism failed. The elevator carriage itself had fallen downwards as debris fell from above.

He lifted his head and listened to the unfolding chaos. In doing so, he extended his neck directly over Casey's face and she found herself looking at his glistening skin and bulging veins.

All thought left her mind in that instant.

Except one.

Unleashing an ear-splitting scream, Casey jerked her head up, biting hard and deep into Fedele's flesh, locking her jaw like a vice around his neck. Fedele howled, first in shock and then in terror as he struggled against her, his arms flailing on either side. Reflexively, he dropped the scalpel from his hand where it clattered uselessly to the floor as he clawed at the sides of the bed in an effort to pull himself free.

Casey would not let go.

Conjuring as much hatred and fury as she could muster, Casey sank her teeth deeper, tasting blood, feeling his skin and flesh tearing. A sudden rush of maniacal exhilaration flooded through her and she smiled gleefully, shaking her head from side to side.

Fedele was impotent, unable to free himself. His cries of anger reverberated around his evil chamber, bouncing off the concrete walls, echoing into the air vents, carrying themselves up the elevator shaft.

Blood welled around Casey's lips. It poured into her mouth, over her tongue. The taste was unbearable. She sensed she must be close to his jugular vein.

Fedele began to hyperventilate, hissing between clenched teeth as the room began to spin. He felt his own blood pumping from his neck and he wailed like a stricken animal, caught in the fatal grip of a predator.

Thrusting downwards with his palms, he searched desperately for the edge of the bed. He found it and, with a huge convulsion, he tore himself free from Casey's grip. A chunk of flesh remained between her teeth and a huge spray of blood blossomed between them both.

Fedele fell from the bed and crashed to the floor. Crying out in agony, he flailed uselessly as blood poured from the gaping wound. He slapped a hand to his neck in a vain effort to stop the flow. Casey spat the disgusting flesh from her mouth and craned her neck to look at Fedele's naked form writhing on the floor. She then did something unexpected.

She laughed out loud.

Fedele tried to stagger to his feet in front of the elevator shaft, but he slipped on the slick floor and fell, hitting his head hard against the concrete. He lay back, adjusting his grip on his ruined neck while trying to slow his breathing. He could feel himself slipping into unconsciousness.

He had to finish this.

As he rolled onto his side, his body turned towards the ruined elevator shaft where flames continued to lick from the interior and into the room.

Fedele grabbed at a wheeled trolley and pulled. The trolley upended, its contents crashing to the floor. The glass jar containing the diseased, worm-infested heart smashed beside Fedele, splashing liquid all over his outstretched arm. The flames from the elevator shaft touched the preserved organ and the flammable liquid and to his horror, Fedele's hand and forearm were instantly consumed by flames.

Fedele screamed, watching as the skin of his hand blistered and begin to melt like a wax candle. His fingers stuck together, forming an angry mass of burning flesh that resembled a macabre mitten. Shaking himself from his shock, he desperately slapped the limb on the floor over and over in a futile effort to extinguish flames that would not yield. The skin blackened and hissed as the flames licked hungrily at his arm, then jumped across his flank and abdomen as he tried to get away from the pool of liquid. Fedele continued to roll, howling as the fire threatened to consume him until, finally, he managed to smother the flames under his own body.

Scrambling into a sitting position on the floor, he held up his arm and glared at it stupefied. His left hand been reduced to a blackened, melted stump that continued to hiss and smoke.

Fedele shrieked at the ruined limb.

Panting wildly, Casey peered over the sides, searching for him as she suddenly heard new noises above her head.

“HELP ME!”

Cradling his ruined limb, Fedele's head lolled to one side and he blinked, spying a glint of metal on the floor across the room.

He managed a smile.

The scalpel.

With great effort, he rolled over and scrabbled to his knees, pausing to steady himself before rising to his full and formidable height. He staggered to the bed, supporting himself against it. Then he lurched towards the scalpel.

Casey watched in stunned horror as Fedele bent down, snatched up the surgical instrument in his functioning hand, then turned to face her. Blood cascaded from the wound on his neck.

Casey blinked.

Fedele grinned once more.

“Oi!
Fuck face
!”

A large shadow fell across Fedele. In an instant, a wooden beam held in a pair of massive, tattooed arms, swung and struck Fedele in the centre of his chest. There was a sickening crack of breaking bone as the impact lifted the surgeon off his feet and threw him back against a pair of oxygen cylinders on the wall.

Scott lunged forward, placing himself between Casey and Fedele. The shocked surgeon looked up through bulging eyes. Flipping the length of hardwood deftly in his hand, Scott adjusted his grip then leapt forward unleashing a devastating swing that crashed into the side of Fedele's head, snapping it sideways. He slumped to the floor unconscious.

He turned in time to see Lionel come to Casey's side, and Scott flung the length of timber aside and went to them, helping Lionel undo the leather straps.

Emotion overwhelmed Casey all at once.

She broke down in wracking sobs, wrenching her arm free and reaching out for her grandfather who embraced her tightly. He kissed her forehead tenderly.

“It's all right, Casey. It's all right, it's over now,” he repeated softly, as tears filled his eyes.

Scott released the last of the straps then grabbed a blanket from a shelf. He wrapped it around Casey's shoulders as she sat up and collapsed into her grandfather's arms, allowing the exhaustion, the grief and the relief to rush forth.

On the floor, Fedele began to gurgle softly. His head lolled back, but none of them reacted.

From the ruined elevator shaft, several heavily-armed tactical response officers dropped into view and fanned out into the chamber, their weapons drawn. Upon seeing the trio at the bed and the unconscious form slumped on the floor across from them, the lead officer signalled to his men to hold.

Casey looked into the helmeted face, but she did not react. Instead, she watched as Scott stood in front of them and pointed the squad to Fedele's inert form against the far wall.

It was over.