From a small monitor inside a lavish villa, a lone man in his late sixties watched the feed from night vision cameras as the train containing the four people pulled into the tunnel. He waited until the family made it to the darkest possible place in the structure; a spot where ambient light didn’t even reach during the day.
Yes, this was the spot.
He pressed a few keys on his laptop and the train came to a full and complete stop. The woman was hysterical at this point but, no matter, it would all be over soon enough.
This was far easier than the man had expected and the costs not nearly as high as anticipated. He waited for a few moments, giving the woman time to calm down. This next part required her silence and the woman knew that she must silence herself—and her children—or face the consequences of disobedience. The man watched as the woman put forth a heroic effort to remain calm. The detective still sat with his head leaned back on the seat and his hands clenched into fists.
The time had come.
“Commence.”
He spoke the word into a Bluetooth headset, and leaned back in his custom-made seat to enjoy the show. A few moments later, months of planning began to bear fruit. A growing smile stretched across his meticulously maintained features. He took a sip from an expensive glass bottle of water. Eighteen dollars a bottle, he thought. Worth every damned penny.
Movement on the monitor caught the man’s eye and his smile grew wider. Three of his men slowly appeared out of darkness and approached the train. He had disabled the sensors along the sides of the track to allow his men unhindered access—free of alarm—and he’d looped the cameras in this section using images of an earlier, similarly occupied train coupled with the current timestamp to deter any curious security personnel who may be watching. He could just make out the small syringes the operatives carried in their hands. Only the best anesthetic would do for a glorious occasion such as this, and the man had spared no expense. Fast-acting and entirely nonlethal, these had become the newest craze in most modern medical establishments and triage units. To its less-savory users, the substance was nothing less than liquid gold.
The man watched, lightly chuckling to himself, as his men passed within inches of the brilliant detective—completely unseen.
They had reached the mother and daughters, and their work was nearly complete; the plan executed flawlessly.
The man heard the villa’s electronic door lock disengage. A large, clean-cut fellow in his late-twenties entered the room and took a seat beside the man. He was powerfully built, with a scar on the left side of his face and tattoos upon his knuckles. He silently watched the events on the screen, and his smile was almost as wide as that of his older companion. Finally, the drama onscreen was finished, and the man turned toward his companion.
“You have done well, Jeremy,” said the man calmly. “The woman has followed your instructions to the letter.”
“Thank you, sir,” said the younger man, graciously and respectfully.
“But...” said the man equally calmly. Jeremy flinched as if he had been struck. The single word was said no less warmly than the way in which grandparents might tell their grandchildren how much they loved them. Nonetheless, Jeremy tried not to recoil and shrink away from his employer.
“B-but what, sir?” asked Jeremy.
“I am always watching. Listening. I see everything and I know everything. However, that is irrelevant. Unfortunately, I was observing you. Do you know what I saw? Could you tell me what has me so perturbed? Or, perhaps, you are uncertain as to any transgressions that have occurred on your part?”
“Sir...I...” stammered Jeremy.
“Yes, I know, Jeremy,” he said in a soothing tone, stroking the younger man’s cheek with a gentle hand. “I know you didn’t mean to. I know you were just being young—oh, how I remember youth! Such an adventurous time in a man’s life, is it not?”
Jeremy didn’t answer.
“Is it not, Jeremy?” the man repeated.
“It...is,” he reluctantly agreed.
“It is...what, Jeremy? Has the education system been so cruel that you cannot speak in complete sentences? It is...what?”
Again, the man spoke very calmly and politely, with not a drop of malice to be detected in his voice. His tone did not match his words, though, for it was nothing short of cordial and warm. His words, on the other hand, carried more venom than the boy could bear.
“It is an adventurous time...in a man’s life, sir.” Jeremy seemed to be nearly on the verge of tears at this point, so fearful was he of this kind, gentle, elderly man.
“That’s much better!” admitted the man. “We will make a true gentleman out of you yet, Jeremy! Though not before discussing this little issue.”
He paused for a moment, savoring the wave after wave of unmasked fear radiating from the boy. With Jeremy’s athletic physique, the man knew that, should the boy assault him, he would be easily bested. After all, a man of his age—while in excellent shape—could never hope to hold his own against a man in Jeremy’s condition, but the man took comfort in knowing that a man, even with the fewest of physical capabilities, can be any man’s intellectual superior. The brain can be a more terrifying weapon than anything a man with three hundred pounds of muscle could ever hope to wield. History has shown, time and time again, that fortune favors the brilliant, and that all men eventually bow before those of a higher intellect. To kill a man is one thing; to destroy him, another. It was the threat of destruction that the man used to his benefit for countless years, awarding him success that grew at an exponential rate.
“Now, Jeremy,” the man cooed. “You have played your part perfectly in gaining the woman’s compliance. I commend you on your performance—truly splendid. However, you committed one grievous error, which could possibly have ruined everything we worked so hard to accomplish. Luckily, the detective was thinking practically, instead of critically, or right now you would be in a Disney holding room waiting for the Orange County sheriff’s department to come for you, and I would be transferring money into a certain law enforcement officer’s account to make sure that you were never heard from again.”
“Sir, I—” started Jeremy, but the man calmly held up his hand for silence and obedience was immediate.
“I will tell you this one time, Jeremy, and one time only. If you must spend your time ogling the asses of other men’s wives, make damn well sure that you choose someone other than the wife of our target.” The man’s calm was eerily absolute as he continued, “As you know, people who commit such appalling acts of selfishness in my presence—especially those in my employ—are fed through the finest wood chipper money can buy.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I’m truly sorry. I didn’t know what I was doing; it’ll never happen again...” Jeremy’s apologies trailed off into silence as he waited for the axe to fall.
Never one to miss taking advantage of a dramatic moment, the man waited, calmly glaring at his subordinate. Jeremy was so thoroughly terrified at this point that he had begun to tremble. The man took another sip from his exquisite bottle of water, savoring the taste of the ultra-purified, mineral-enriched substance. Gently clearing his throat, he decided Jeremy’s fate.
“You may go,” he declared.
The boy looked up, his astonishment clear. He knew better than to reply, for a single grammatical error could mean the end of his life. He had seen it happen countless times in the past—as the weapon that had taken those lives. Nodding, Jeremy stood and calmly exited the room.
After another few moments, the man leaned back in his chair and allowed himself a small chuckle at the boy’s expense. How could he waste such a valuable asset by eliminating young Jeremy? The boy did his job well enough. Jeremy was afraid of his employer, and this fear kept the other subordinates in line. Should he lose poor Jeremy, he would have to assert his dominance personally over anyone he employed. That would not do—that would not do, at all. The older man was above these petty obligations; occupying his beautiful mind with such tedious tasks would dull his senses and muddle his extremely valuable and profound thoughts. No, Jeremy would survive and play a key role in the events to come.
Never before had the man known an intellectual equal as that which he found in Detective Charlie Walker. He’d observed the ingenious detective’s methods for many months now and was continually impressed by the results this young man had achieved. Had the older man not been so meticulous and careful in his Detroit endeavors, he had no doubt that young Walker would have discovered his involvement, and the coming battle of the minds would have taken place much sooner. No, the older man was not so easily found. Events that occurred in this life did so on his terms, not those of anyone else.
Finally, the time for the man to test the detective’s mettle had come. The game was about to begin. The detective’s prize: his family’s lives. The man’s prizes: the glorious death of the promising young detective and the blissful knowledge that there was not a single man left on the planet who could challenge his masterful mind.
Movement on the monitor had caught his eye, pulling him from his sweet reverie. The time to initiate the next phase of the game had come. Cracking his knuckles and smiling brightly, the man leaned close to his laptop and began tapping keys.