Deuces
Chapter 1
Detroit, Michigan, is an unremarkable city. It has some tolerable architecture, but no consistency, no obvious patterns to be drawn from its hotchpotch of influences, and no real help from nature in the beauty department. But from the 45th storey of a carefully placed building, even the commonplace can become breathtaking. In just such a building, the highest storey was occupied by 'Top Spin', a revolving restaurant with panoramic glass walls. The novelty of the slow rotation made it a favourite for pretentious suitors and quiet milestone celebrations, and somehow justified the exorbitant prices. Even at a Tuesday lunch, the tables were fully booked.
At a table for two adjoining the window, a pair of dark-haired men polished off the remains of a generous lunch.
'You've barely said a word all afternoon, Robert,' rumbled the older of the two, an American with a heavy beard and the cloying aroma of aftershave. 'I should have known better than to promote you in such grand surroundings.'
Despite the hint of sarcasm in his employer's voice, Robert was very pleasantly surprised, and did not hesitate to show it as his normally hard mouth turned to a broad grin.
'A promotion, sir?' he replied, as if to clarify, his eyes repeatedly drawn as if by interest to the pile of whiting bones in front of him. After only six months spent running errands for Astur Kennedy, Robert's services had become tremendously valuable. He had proven himself very capable, for an Englishman.
'Perhaps you thought this was a date,' Kennedy jested in his seismic bass voice. He was generally good-humoured, a trait appreciated in men of his stature. At six foot six, Kennedy was a colossus, an impressive sight in his tailored charcoal suit. He could have been a lumberjack were it not for his ashen skin, though little of it was visible above his chaotic beard and below his widow's peak hairline. Even when seated he peered down at Robert. After a brief, genuine laugh and ensuing silence, Kennedy became more serious.
'You know that I find it hard to trust people, Robert,' began Kennedy, and Robert gave a quick half-nod with the deference reserved for the ambitious and the servile. Kennedy became thoughtful, steepling his hands and displaying his powerful forearms. 'Nature, nurture, and all that. Because I can't be trusted, I don't give trust on a permanent basis. I can't trust my lieutenants, not unconditionally, anyway. They'd stick a flick knife in my kidneys given the right opportunity, every one of them. I know, because that's exactly what I'd do in their position, and I chose them because I'm who they remind me of. Do you follow?'
Robert indicated with a nod and mumbled assent that he did, and rearranged his discarded napkin. Kennedy enjoyed talking, and as Robert enjoyed having a job, the monologue continued.
'Hence your promotion,' continued Kennedy. He unsteepled his hands and, in a gesture pregnant with meaning, unlocked the aluminium briefcase that had not left his side for the last six months. He withdrew a DVD-R labelled "Hesperides", holding and motioning with it as he spoke. 'The business of deposing and electing governments is a diverse one, as I'm sure you've come to realise. And when it goes well, it can compensate a businessman for his risks. When it doesn't, we have to be sure of other sources of income.'
Robert had some idea of what this was all about, and secretly wished that Kennedy would drop the Godfather act and talk frankly. Only the week before, Robert had been sent on an 'errand' which involved putting a bullet in the General of the Angolan Armed Forces' head when he had refused to pay Kennedy for his part in securing martial law. The whole fiasco left Kennedy out of pocket some tens of millions of US dollars, with only the body of a dead traitor and a failed attempt at blackmail to show for it. Kennedy's financial position was precarious.
'Have you heard of the Garden of the Hesperides?' asked Kennedy, his rumbling voice relaxing and caressing the words as he himself took in the view.
'Hera's orchard from Greek mythology,' replied Robert with a nod. 'Her nymphs, the Hesperides, guarded the tree of golden apples, supposed to give the gift of immortality.'
'But she couldn't trust the nymphs,' continued Kennedy. 'When Hera was not looking, they would steal the apples for themselves. So she sent a dragon with a hundred heads, named Ladon, to keep a few eyes on them.'
'I'm the dragon, then,' deduced Robert, half-smiling. He leaned back, showing rare signs of relaxation, and looked up at the ceiling. 'But what's the tree?'
Kennedy laughed heartily. 'It's all on this disc.' He handed the DVD-R case to Robert, who slipped it into his inside jacket pocket. 'A beginner's guide to Astur Kennedy's uranium trade. Everything you'll need to know to keep my profits coming to me, and not finding their way into other offshore accounts. I want you to keep my nymphs in line. Apply pressure wherever you need to, and stay in contact with me. People are beginning to treat me like a soft touch. I need them to know what my touch really feels like.'
Robert was half-expecting Kennedy to turn his hand into a mock pistol and fire it with a whooshing sound. Instead, Kennedy took his napkin from his lap and placed it on the table, a sign that he was ready to leave. 'If you'll excuse me, I have a meeting with the government of a certain nuclear power-in-waiting.'
'Do you need an escort?' asked Robert dutifully as they both stood.
'No, I'm using Royal. Besides, you have your own plane to catch.' Royal was Kennedy's favourite, a lean man with the senses of a pit bull and a conscience to match. Kennedy motioned toward a table at the opposite end of the room, where Royal was seated with a stranger. The two men, who judging from a lack of plates had not eaten, stood at a moment's notice. Royal, with a disturbingly confident stride, made his way to the foyer, while the stranger joined Kennedy and Robert. Kennedy made the necessary introductions.
'Robert Baylor, this is Quentin Fortune.'
Fortune extended a pale, but strong, hand. 'How do you do, Mr Baylor?'
Robert accepted it with a smile. 'Robert.'
Kennedy turned to Robert, and placed an uncharacteristic hand on his shoulder. 'Quentin will be joining you in Australia.' Robert assumed Fortune would be able to fill in the gaps, though it made sense for a uranium trader to run out of the country with the world's largest known uranium reserves.
Kennedy and Royal took the first lift down, with Robert and Fortune waiting for the second. Inside the lift, Robert sized Fortune up, and did not care if Fortune knew he was doing it. They were about the same height, though Robert figured he was probably giving away five years and twenty pounds of muscle to the athletic Fortune. He wore contact lenses, as Robert could tell from the second ring around his blue-green irises, had very neat, mousy hair, and a small, contemptuous mouth. His suit was an expensive fabric but ill-fitting, too short in the arms and legs, probably bought off a rack. Either he had no taste for clothes, or no time for appearances.
'So how did you score a ticket to Australia?' asked Robert, exuding professionalism. He hoped to learn more about his companion, who, standing with his arms behind his back, did not appear to share the interest.
'Same as you,' he replied, flicking his beady blue-green eyes toward Robert. 'I have a talent for crowd control.' Robert detected a Canadian accent in Fortune's reply.
'I should have known I wouldn't be the only dragon,' said Robert with a casual smile.
The conversation continued on the short walk to Robert's hotel to retrieve his belongings. Fortune, as Robert discovered, had worked for Kennedy for three years, and found him to be an agreeable employer, so long as the work suited his tastes. His tastes, it turned out, ran to bullying and blackmail, and he had been instrumental in deposing the already unstable government of Angola about ten months earlier. Robert invited Fortune up to his suite so that they might peruse the information on the Hesperides disc together.
Fortune, whose bags had been delivered to the hotel, perched over Robert's laptop while Robert folded his socks and put them in the suitcase on his bed. He relayed what was displayed on the screen to Robert. 'We have … a list of buyers, their codenames, and Kennedy's intelligence on them… a list of all Kennedy's lieutenants, accounts, transactions, everything. I'd say this puts us in the inner circle.'
'Remarkable,' commented Robert, not without genuine astonishment. He was amazed that he could so quickly have earned Kennedy's trust. Kennedy, who thought that if a man would kill for you, he might also die for you, was not so discerning as he imagined himself to be.
'That's unusual,' commented Fortune as his eyes remained fixed on the screen, but his torso turned slightly toward Robert. 'How's your laptop's security?'
'Anti-virus?'
'Anti-hacking.' The crisp sounds of clicking and typing had become urgent.
'I wouldn't know.'
'I think somebody's hacking your wireless connection to access these files. I'll pull the pin.'
Robert appeared shocked. 'Wait – perhaps we can trace it… if they've already taken information we have to clean up…'
'They must be nearby. Is there any sign of life outside?'
Robert, moving very swiftly, checked the corridor while Fortune shut down the laptop and removed the disc. Drawing a Walther P99 from a shoulder holster, Robert kept the gun at his side as he swung open the door. As he had predicted, he found the corridor empty. When he returned, he found himself staring at the barrel of Fortune's Colt Anaconda.
'Drop it,' Fortune commanded with a suppressed bark, and Robert let the Walther clatter to the floor.
'Kick it past me and shut the door, gently.' Again, Robert complied.
The accusations began. 'That was not a hacked connection. It was authorised access.' He paused. 'To the bed. Hands clasped behind your head.' Fortune guided him around, keeping a safe four feet from Robert at all times. He held the gun level with one arm. His pale hand was tremendously steady under the weight of the Colt.
'By who? You've been in here the whole time…'
'I need an explanation, Mr Baylor, immediately, or Kennedy will hear of this and sort it out himself. You've seen how he repays betrayal. Hell, you've made the deposit yourself. I need to know who took the information…'
Robert spoke abruptly, cutting off Fortune, who was not about to say anything surprising or original. 'The connection must have been authorised by somebody else, somebody must have broken in while we were out, accessed the laptop…'
'Even if that were plausible, you'd still be at fault. You should take adequate measures…'
'Adequate measures?' Robert was incredulous, and it took some willpower to keep his hands clasped behind his head and not wrapped around Fortune's obnoxious throat.
'You're a professional, Robert. You need to keep your equipment secure.' Fortune had moved from menacing to patronising, but his grip on the revolver remained sure.
'How do you expect me to believe that you could tell that was authorised, anyway? How do I know you're not framing me?'
'You weren't watching the screen. And I have no reason to frame you.'
'Unless you're a mole and you need me out of the picture for this Australia assignment. You could have planted the software to allow the connection. Like you say, I wasn't watching the screen.' Robert's tone was brisk but calm, his eyes trained on Fortune as much as Fortune's were on him.
'A moot point,' replied Fortune, his mouth barely moving.
'Just trying to show you that either one of us could be seen as guilty, or even accomplices.'
'The only thing is I know I'm not guilty. And I'm the one holding the gun.'
'A fortunate coincidence.'
'Indeed.'
'Will Kennedy buy it?'
'We're about to find out.'
Fortune reached into his pocket with his left hand and withdrew a mobile phone. Robert kept his eyes on Fortune, waiting for a glance away so he could gain the upper hand. It did not come. Fortune dialled Kennedy's number without looking down.
Seconds passed, but Kennedy's phone did not ring. It was turned off. Fortune replaced the phone and prepared for a more detailed questioning.
'Wait,' said Robert, his clasped hands falling back from his head as an explanation occurred to him. 'If I didn't want you to know about the connection, why did I invite you to my room? And why did I leave you alone with the computer?'
'Perhaps you're an idiot.'
Silence. Fortune's mouth twitched.
'But I don't think your incompetence extends that far.' Fortune lowered his gun. 'I hope you can forgive my suspicious nature.'
'Of course,' replied Robert. 'If you can forgive my idiocy. My gun?'
Fortune carelessly tossed the Walther back to Robert. 'A fine weapon.'
'I'm glad you approve,' Robert replied as he stood and clubbed Fortune's gun hand with the butt of the Walther. It dropped to the floor, and Fortune instinctively fell forward on Robert's gun arm before he could withdraw, seizing Robert's right arm with his left. With his free left, Robert landed a punch to Fortune's kidneys, but Fortune held on with a death-grip to wrest the Walther from his hand. As Fortune struggled to find the trigger, Robert garrotted him from behind with his left arm, and continued to struggle for control of the weapon with his right. Fortune's head reared back and made solid, but muted, contact with Robert's nose, blinding him temporarily. Robert stubbornly refused to give Fortune a chance to breathe. Using all his strength, Fortune charged backward, knocking the laptop to the floor as he sent Robert crashing through the wall.
Both men tripped as the cloud of dust rose, but the Walther stayed in Robert's suite as they fell. Fortune was caught with his legs in Robert's suite and his upper body through the wall, and he retreated into Robert's suite only just soon enough to avoid a kick aimed at his head.
Diving back through the hole in the wall, Fortune gained control of both weapons and fired three harmless shots from each into the neighbouring room. He looked through the hole to try and gain sight of Robert, but the traitor had disappeared. He stepped back through the hole in the wall, and spotted, behind a half-closed curtain, a glass door leading out to a balcony on his right as it slid shut.
Fortune fired twice into the external wall, hoping for a lucky shot with the Walther, but the gun lacked the power to penetrate it and the shots stuck harmlessly in the timber frame. Realising that his quarry could use the balconies for a climbing escape, Fortune slid the door open quickly, but as he moved out to the balcony, he noticed Robert charging him from behind the curtain. The sliding door ruse became obvious to him as Robert hit him with a heavy tackle before he could react, slamming him into the doorframe. As both guns fell from Fortune's hands, Robert grabbed his opponent's head with both hands and threw him toward the balcony's edge. With the wind knocked out of him, it was all Fortune could do to keep from being thrown over and falling five storeys to the concrete below.
By the time he had regained his balance, Robert had seized him by the lapels, with the barrel of the Walther jammed painfully against the base of his jaw.
Fortune pleaded, his eyes staring down at the gun, and unable to catch his breath. 'We should talk.'
'Only after a proper introduction. The name's Bond. And I'm going to need your plane ticket.'