Chapter 14

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"Mr. Renauld, to what do I owe the pleasure of this phone call?"



The voice on the phone had the remnants of a Scottish accent. He was one of my most valuable contacts that I had acquired over the tumultuous course of my business. I remember meeting him on one of the most fateful days of my life, by a pure chance of destiny, if you believed in the powers of the universe. 



"I might require your expertise," I said. 



I heard a small puff of laughter on the other end. No doubt he had been expecting this call sooner rather than later. 



"What have you gotten yourself into now?" he asked. 



"Nothing particularly troubling as of now. But I might need you to . . . eliminate a problem for me at the opportune moment," I said.



"You're capable of getting your hands dirty just fine. Why do you need me?" he asked me. 



"I'll be needing a longer contract frame," I said cryptically. 



"Reconnaissance? Before killing your target?," he said. 



You could hear the interest my particular request had garnered. In our business, we usually kept the reconnaissance in house and gave a contract for target execution. Reconnaissance was a tiring and lengthy ordeal that costed valuable time and money. I usually let my junior employees handle it for me, but this particular target required delicate care. 



The man on the other end of the phone had come a long way from home. Once, nothing but a poor Scottish boy with ginger hair and lofty ambitions of breaking into finance, he had managed to flip his life around. Gone was the abashed adolescent, and what's left in its wake was a man who was revered within the Underworld community. Not many people knew how to reach him. I was one of the few who had been granted this honor. 



I stopped walking at the sign of the red light and waited among the pedestrians while the traffic slowly moved past me. Cars moved sluggishly, completely in pace with the motivation that spurred its driver. I contemplated once again if the move I was going to make was smart.



"I'd like to be as far away from this one," I said. 



There was a pause at the other end while the man digested this information.



"This will be a first. Is it anyone I may know of?," he said. 



"You don't know her. I'll send you the information with my guy. You should receive the manila by tomorrow evening," I said. My mind had been made up. There was no turning back. Things had to be done a certain way. When order was not maintained, chaos ensued. I needed to maintain order within my life and business. 



"I'll be at my usual spot," he said. 



The line went dead. A mere two minute call had sealed the fate for one unfortunate individual. Did destiny ordain this or was I solely responsible for my actions?



I walked three streets down to the black Mercedes that was parked next to a dilapidated building. Lorenzo appeared from the nearby alley as if sensing my presence and opened the door for me. I smoothly slid in as he took the drivers seat and turned on the ignition. 



"Good evening Renz," I said.



"Evening Boss," Lorenzo replied, putting the car into drive and easing into the Monday evening traffic. Everyone was on their way home to their families. A little reprieve before Tuesday morning rolled around and they were forced back to their cages of corporate drudgery. 



I opened my phone to the picture of the woman I was going to have contracted out. Unbeknownst to her, it had been taken while she was walking across the street. Her skirt was bellowing in the wind, one of her headphones dangling in her ear and the other swaying to the motion of her stride. I hope that when the time came, I wouldn't regret this decision. 



"How goes the search?" I asked Lorenzo as I locked my phone screen and saw the image of the woman vanish. 



Lorenzo waited a beat before responding. 



"It's going to be a lot harder to find a replacement for Alessandro than I originally thought," he said. 



"You've had two weeks," I said. 



Lorenzo looked at me through his rear view mirror. He must have seen the impatience etched within the lines of the scowl dawning my face.



"Society isn't churning men the way they used to," Lorenzo replied. 



I gave a scathing look to Lorenzo. He had been working for me long enough to know that I didn't take kindly to blithe excuses. 



"How much longer will you need?" I asked. 



"Boss, I've had my contacts within the DGSE and police force recommend a lot of men. None of them are what we're looking for," he said. 



"What exactly are they missing? They can't be totally useless if they're DGSE," I said, irritation seeping into my voice. Travelling with just Lorenzo was dangerous. I needed my Guard at full strength. Now that Ella had been targeted so brazenly in the open, I needed to consolidate my strength and show Daniel that I wasn't weak. The delay in finding Alessandro's replacement was an unnecessary burden. 



Lorenzo could tell that his Boss was losing his forbearance, and understandably so. Having a weak Guard was synonymous with signing a death warrant. It had become challenging to manage Mr. Renauld's security alone and another hire was not just necessary but crucial. The only problem was that Lorenzo hadn't been able to find a worthy replacement of Alessandro. The job didn't just require another highly trained DGSE operative, but a commander willing to step in, should Lorenzo meet his end. 



"You know Boss, I was once on a hostage rescue mission in Benghazi," Lorenzo said.



I looked up from my iPad to listen to Lorenzo.



"We were a team of five who'd been sent in to rescue a French journalist and his cameraman that had waded into dangerous territory and been captured by the local warlord. Contrary to what the Americans showcase the world, it's a beautiful city with beautiful people. Unfortunately, our mission was in a decrepit area few kilometres outside the city. There was a dilapidated house, half constructed, in the middle of the forest. Armed men patrolled the area. There was no internet or telephone signals. Every form of communication was jammed. We didn't know what exactly we were walking into. The only people who had my back were the four members who were right there on the ground with me," Lorenzo continued. 



I watched as he spoke with a sense of solemness. Lorenzo didn't share much of his past. I knew the details of a few publicly known missions, but I never knew the intricacy of the planning or execution that it entailed. That information was kept out of the eyes of even the Underworld. I was captured to the words tumbling out of his mouth. 



"Suffice to say that the mission was a bloody massacre. Do you know why, Boss?" Lorenzo asked me. 


"You tell me," I said. 



"We were unprepared — sure. No one is ever truly prepared for such missions. And ironically, we were expected to be prepared for the unexpected. But that wasn't why. When we surrounded the building and barged into the compound, there was heavy fire from all sides. We had specific positions that had been assigned and we stuck with the plan." 



He paused while he adeptly maneuvered the car into the basement of a warehouse. He parked the car and turned off the ignition. He spoke with his gaze trained straight ahead, his silhouette barely visible under the thick veneer of darkness that blanketed the basement. 



"The journalist and cameraman were held in two different rooms. We didn't have enough time to save them both. If we stayed there any longer, we'd all be killed. Or worse, captured and tortured or held as ransom. We picked a room and it turned out to be the cameraman's. He was elated to see us. We were hurrying out of the compound when he asked us where his partner, the journalist, was. When he realized that he wouldn't be saved, he took the gun from my holster and shot himself," Lorenzo said as he looked up and saw me through the rear view mirror. 



He pointed to his the area right underneath his chin, tracing his index finger along the smooth curve of where the face meshed with his neck. "Right through his face," he said.



"Before shooting, he told me that his partner had the story of a lifetime that would save countless lives. He didn't even hesitate before he pulled the trigger. We went in for the journalist and rescued him because we couldn't have two dead hostages on our hands. I also lost two of my team members. That one incident has stayed with me throughout because there's one thing I realized. You can train a person to hold a gun and kill people. That's easy. Humans are born with the ability to take life without remorse. But you can't train a person to be loyal. That cameraman was loyal to his partner and to his story. When you have only but a moment's decision, you react with your reflex, not with your mind. We need to hire someone who's loyal not to the paper he can earn or the prestige of this job, but to you. Till we find someone willing to step in front of a bullet for you, I'm afraid we're better off alone than hiring a liability."



He stepped out of the car and opened my door. I stepped out and buttoned my blazer. 



"I'm giving you two more weeks, Renz. I need you to find that someone by then," I said. I clapped my hand on his shoulder as a sign of acknowledgement of his painful past. Anything more would put both of us at discomfort.  



"Consider it done," Lorenzo replied. 



We walked across the basement and towards the meshed lift that was situated at the end of the hall. It was built three decades ago to transport heavy equipment from one floor to the other. Now, it was mainly used by a few unscrupulous men, such as ourselves, as my private headquarters. We stepped into the open iron car and were transported to the hidden floor below us. Not many people knew another layer existed beneath the publicly bereft basement, which made it convenient for me to do my business here. 



I stepped out of the car to the hallway that was sparsely furnished. The floor was adorned with nothing but a coating of cement. No fancy marble tiles enhanced the surface and the walls were as bare as a new born babe. Sixteen inch tube lights hung from the high ceiling above and bathed the entire surface of my headquarters with a piercing orange light. The first thing one noticed when they entered this space was a frail elderly woman, rapidly typing on a Dell laptop behind a modest looking desk. Behind her was a temporary wall that had been haphazardly constructed and ran along the length of one end of the room to the other. It might have offended the fashionable sensibilities of the Architectural Digest but it was a thick iron plated wall that was custom made for my office and built for sturdiness. It was bullet proof and protected my office from prying eyes, with a state of the art locking mechanism that put my home office's to shame.



"Jean, how goes your morning," Mrs. Linda Bethune looked up at me from behind her screen. 



"Never a dull moment, Linda," I said as I made my way to the bolted door of my office. After entering my passwords and passing my finger and retinal scans, I quickly assessed my office. It had a massive desk placed across one end with eight chairs surrounding it to double as my conference room. On the other end was my personal desk that I used with my state of the art Dell desktop. Every important detail about my Underworld business was housed within the server located in this basement and was kept absolutely separate from the corporate legal entity that owned my legal assets. 



I heard the thumping of Linda's thick heels as she knocked to enter my office.



"Come in," I said.



"Vincent has been trying to get in touch with you the whole morning. He says he has an update on Alexa Durham's case," Linda read from a small pocket book she carried whenever she entered my office. 



"Odette has been in and she said she's updated the cyber security as per your orders. The caterers for your annual corporate retreat have been shortlisted and emailed. I think we should go with Courbis, but I'll let you have the final say," Linda continued.



"Just book the Courbis'. I trust your taste," I replied, while simultaneously catching up on my emails that were encrypted to my personal email ID.



"You messaged that I needed to have an envelope ready?" Linda asked. Her tone was always laced with professionalism. She was in her late 70s, and the widow of a reasonably successful painter. She lived on a meager pension he had left behind after he had passed away and had joined me five years back to fund her unhealthy gambling habit. She seemed fragile and senile to any passerby, but I prized her detail oriented spirit and her work ethic to a fault. Also, I kept her illegal underground poker games afloat, which guaranteed me her silence. 



"Yes, I'll email it to you. Have it printed, sealed and cleaned of any traces. Hand it over to Vincent when he comes over today," I said.



"Hand me what?" I heard Vincent's voice through the door of my office.



"I'll leave you boys to it," Linda murmured and exited the room.



"You got an update on Alexa's case?" I asked.



"I spoke to the Inspector Général. They found a witness to corroborate the story that you were there the night of her death," Vincent said with a graveness that confirmed my darkest beliefs that a storm was brewing our way.



"Who is this witness?" I asked.



 "The doorman," Vincent answered.



I frowned, trying to remember if I had passed any doormen on my way out of the building. I always exited through the back alley kitchen. It was possible that the doormen might have seen me leaving if he left his post for a quick cigarette break.



"The DNA test warrant finally has a probable cause," I confirmed, more to myself than Vincent.



"Yes, they plan to get a written statement from the doorman tomorrow and then get a warrant signed for your DNA test. If that's a match --," Vincent said.



"When that's a match," I corrected Vincent.



"When that's a match, you will be arrested. I spoke with Alceste and the Durham's have already assigned themselves with an army of lawyers. Alexa's father apparently attended Harvard Business School with Francois Allard," Vincent said. 



The gravity of the situation pierced me sharply at the mention of his name.



"Francois Allard," I whispered. "I didn't know the Durham's had an ex-Prime Minister of France as a political ally," I said.



"They have never mingled before in public. My best guess is Mr. Durham must have promised a sizable contribution to his party now that his nephew is entering the political sphere," Vincent said.



"Fuck!" I yelled out loud.



"It gets worse," Vincent said.



I recollected myself from my outburst long enough to hear my closest friend deliver a sharp blow to my already precarious situation.



"I spoke to my men by the dock. Apparently wind of your imminent arrest and media spotlight has reached the officers who handle our imports at Customs. They're threatening to report our shipments to the authorities if we don't increase their cut," Vincent said.



"How much are they asking?" I asked with irritation. I could not afford to delay my imports. The news of Alexa's scandal would soon reach my clients, if it had not already. I couldn't afford to have my shipments delayed. If I did, my clients would vanish into the darkness and be scooped up by Daniel without a moment's hesitation. The years of hard work and sacrifice would have all been for nothing.



"50% increase," Vincent said.



"Are they barking mad?!" I yelled at Vincent. He stood with a placid expression, used to seeing my outbursts, more than perhaps even Anna.



I opened the pack of cigarettes across my desk and lit one up. I inhaled a long drag of smoke that burned my throat and lungs with its carcinogenic smoke. The pain seared my insides with a familiar blaze that had the ability to calm me better than any drug. I took another long drag while I stared into the abyss, my mind working through the various scenarios that could be potentially played out to get my business back on track.



After a few moments of deliberation, I turned to Vincent. 



"Find out the names of these Custom agents that have suddenly grown a pair of balls overnight and have it sent to me within the next hour. Call up Alceste and get him to delay the warrant. I don't particularly care what he has to do. Also, tell him to get in touch with Durham's lawyers and see if we can settle this outside the courts. Our first priority is the business. Nothing else. Got it?" I turned to Vincent.



"I'm already on it, Boss," Vincent assured me. He marched outside the office when I called him back.



"I need you to deliver a manila to Raonull," I said.



"When did we hire Raonull?" Vincent asked with suspicion.



"I hired him today," I said. The firmness in my voice was strong enough to let Vincent know that I didn't need to justify my reasons.



"Okay," Vincent said, still unsure with the nature of my plans.



"Linda!" I yelled, which caused the scurrying of footsteps and her petite frame to enter my room.



"Here you go, Vincent," Linda handed a thick yellow envelope to Vincent and left the room.



"May I?" Vincent asked, gesturing if he could open the envelope.



I nodded. Vincent was my number two in command. He needed to be in the loop, especially now that my position in the company was threatened by this

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