For Everything a Reason (19 page)

“What?” Joseph asked, needing
to know answers.

“Too dangerous,” the killer
said again. His gleaming teeth disappeared, replaced now by the macabre slash
of his mouth. The silenced weapon rose high, towards Joseph’s face.

Joseph just stood there
powerless.

“FREEZE!” Carter yelled.

The killer tensed noticeably.
His weapon wavered fractionally, his attention now split between the two of
them.

“Drop the weapon,” Carter
ordered. He pumped a round into the shotgun. “Do it now and nobody gets hurt.”

The Russian’s eyes stayed
focused on Joseph, but his arm whipped around towards Carter. The muzzle
coughed gently, two, three times. The attack caught both Joseph and Carter off
guard. Carter ducked low as the bullets tore into the wall above him. Each was
wide of its mark yet sufficiently close enough to knock Carter out of his
rhythm.

The killer’s weapon spun back
towards Joseph’s head. Joseph had little time to think. Reacting instinctively,
in the only way he knew how to, he threw a short jab towards the guy’s face. It
was fast, desperation and fear giving it more speed and power than expected. At
the same time, he slipped to his left and delivered a right hook. In contrast
to the lightning fast left jab, this punch was weak and slow. Still, the small
revolver that was clutched in his right hand gave it added weight.

Yurius’s head rocked back and
his gun went off, his finger jerking spasmodically around the trigger.

Mercifully, the bullet tore
harmlessly over Joseph’s shoulder. Instinctively, he shut his eyes, the bright
fire blinding him momentarily. The Russian barrelled past him, shouldering him
out of the way with ease, which spun Joseph around before sending him crashing
to the floor. When Joseph opened his eyes, the lobby was empty.

Neither his son nor the killer
were anywhere to be seen.

Chapter
Thirty-Five

The old Ford bucked and swayed like a
crazed mustang. Yurius gripped the steering wheel with both hands in an attempt
to keep this wild beast under his control. The road was little more than a
series of potholes and cracked asphalt. Up ahead he could see only the
occasional light, which streaked across the windscreen, warped and elongated by
the greasy glass surface.

The air inside
the Ford was a mixture of stale sweat and lemon-scented freshness. An air
freshener in the shape of an American football helmet swung eagerly from the
rear-view mirror. Yurius turned his attention away from the dark, desolate
streets, the swinging helmet acting like a hypnotist’s charm.

The dark road slipped away
before him, replaced now by the dilapidated husks from Yurius’s homeland. This
American industrial sector became the Russian’s playground from memories past:
the rundown shanty areas on the outskirts of Moscow, the very place where
Yurius and his half-brother had once played. His mother, a burnt-out addict,
who was a slave to morphine and poverty-stricken, had given birth to Yurius in
a near-empty high-rise, which had discarded its people like a fish sheds its
scales. War, economic collapse and crime had reduced those who remained, into
the vague shadows of a once proud people. 

Both Yurius and his brother had
worked tirelessly to escape from their desperate beginnings. While Yurius had
channelled his athletic capability towards success, his older brother had found
release through the acts of violence and criminal activity.

Yurius had come to America in
his early twenties: an athlete who excelled at everything he did. He was a
tall, well-built individual, and as bright as a burning star. Or had been. He’d
arrived here as a representative of the old USSR, the lead flag-bearer, who
proudly led his team into the Atlanta Arena on the first day of the Olympics.

Yurius had at that time been
the European champion at 200 metres sprint. He was unbeaten in over thirty
competitions, having gained many victories over the American world champion,
Tyrone Lewis. It had been the most anticipated event in the track and field
programme, and the final didn’t disappoint. Both made through the qualifiers
with considerable ease, and the stewards had lined them up side-by-side for the
final.

Yurius had won by a full two
metres.

Suddenly, this young man from
the mean streets of Moscow had become hot property. Showing an aptitude for
anything physical, Yurius had stayed in Atlanta, having had successful tryouts
for the Atlanta Falcons football team.

He’d completed his first season
with them, finishing in the top half of the national league. Then, that summer,
he had been involved in a training accident. He’d collided head-on with a
250-pound linebacker and, even though he’d been wearing his helmet, he’d
suffered a fractured skull.

Worse had followed. An
undetected bleed had subsequently damaged the frontal lobe of his brain,
nothing too dramatic or even noticeable at first. Nevertheless, Yurius’s
personality had started to change. He lost interest in football, his attention
turning now to the demons of drink and drugs. This had fuelled his change
rapidly. And, before long, he lost his contract with the Atlanta Falcons and turned
to other forms of contracts to survive.

Contract killings.

Something dark had awakened on
the day of the training accident. Something that had slowly taken him over – a
dark malignant cancer that had fixed itself to his soul, favouring the eternal spirit
rather than mortal flesh.

Yurius had once again been
reunited with his older half-brother. Together they had formed a secretive
partnership, where Yurius added muscle to an organisation that required a
necessity to work outside the law. Living under his mother’s maiden name, the
younger brother had operated as a ghost, working throughout New York state.
Untraceable, he was known by only a few as a dark presence that added substance
to an ever-expanding empire.

Now, Yurius
pulled the Ford to a halt. He popped the door open, pulled the keys from the
ignition and climbed out. Only a few buildings surrounded him. Most were
crumbling shadows. One or two lights burnt their way through the darkness, but
Yurius was confident that he was sufficiently alone.

Alone?

No, Yurius
thought, not alone.

He moved
around to the rear of the Ford. With one final check to make sure the coast was
clear, he activated a button on the key-ring. The Ford’s hazard lighting
flashed twice with an audible bleep, bleep.

The trunk popped
open.

Yurius pulled something from
his jacket. Its cylindrical shape caught what light there was available. He
cranked open the trunk to reveal Jake’s motionless body. The young boy was
curled up in a tight ball. He didn’t raise his head, move, flinch in terror, or
show any indication of life.

Yurius reached out to take
Jake’s limp wrist. He felt for a pulse. Then, as the hypodermic needle
punctured young flesh, Yurius grinned to reveal his shark-white teeth.

“Not monster,” he said, with
cold, soulless detachment.

Chapter
Thirty-Six

Joseph’s legs threatened to give. He
reached out with a trembling hand in an attempt to remain upright. He felt weak
and uncoordinated, as if he’d just suffered another sudden attack or bout of
dizziness. He filled his lungs and then nodded towards Detective Carter.

“You sure
you’re ready for this?” Carter asked.

They were
stood outside the hospital morgue. Only a set of double-doors separated them
from what lay beyond.

“I’m ready,”
Joseph responded. He sucked in another breath through gritted teeth. Then he
nodded once to Carter before pushing himself away from the wall.

The detective
opened the door nearest and allowed Joseph to slip through.

The morgue
appeared almost totally barren. There was nothing of an excessive nature on
display. White walls magnified the strip-lights above, which filled the area in
a cold glare. A reception desk occupied one side of the room. And, the window
that opened out to greet visitors or hospital staff was made up of frosted
glass, which added to the bitter harshness of the place.

Joseph
shuddered, although the room itself was deceptively warm.

“You don’t
have to do this now,” Carter said, drawing Joseph to a halt.

Their eyes
met.

Joseph’s eyes
held a combination of agony and anger. He already knew what lay ahead, and in
different circumstances, less desperate times, he may have simply been saddened
and angered by this. However, it was the uncertainty of his son’s safety that
fuelled Joseph’s emotions. His jaw had started to ache. The hatred towards the
man who had taken Jake was quickly in danger of consuming him.         

Carter
understood this clearly. He needed Joseph Ruebins to stay focused and, more
importantly, in control.

“We’ll get him
back, Joseph,” Carter began. “But we need to stay calm and try to figure out
what it is this guy wants us to do next.”

Joseph shook
his head. He reached up and rubbed his thumb and index finger over his closed
eyes. When he opened them, Carter saw that the anger had been put into check.

“Let’s get
this over with,” Joseph said, turning back towards the reception desk.

Carter took
the lead. He approached the half-opened window to find a middle-aged woman sat
behind. She looked away from the computer screen that occupied her attention.

“Can I help?”
she inquired.

The detective
flashed his identification. “Detective Thomas Carter. This is Joseph Ruebins.”
He flicked his head backward slightly in Joseph’s direction.

The woman had
to push herself out of her chair slightly to get a look beyond Carter. “Saw you
on TV,” she said, speaking directly towards him.

Joseph just
stood there silent, mute, numb.

“We’re here to
identify Eugene Profit,” Carter said. He turned towards Joseph and offered him
a considerate nod, hopeful that his directness had not pained the man stood
behind. Joseph simply offered the detective a slight wave of his hand. Carter
turned back to the woman.

“Is he ready
to be viewed?”

The
receptionist shifted back into her seat. She tapped out a few commands into her
keyboard.

“Yes,” she
relied simply. “Room Two.”

Carter stepped
back from the desk and turned his attention towards the adjoining passageways.
He stood in indecision for a few seconds, unsure of which way to go.

“That way,”
the receptionist directed, her head poking out through the gap between windows.

“Appreciate
it,” Carter said, heading towards the correct passageway.

Joseph
followed dutifully, trying to put the picture from the old coach’s apartment
out of his mind. 

Profit had taken a horrendous
beating. Most of his facial bones had been shattered, so that both Joseph and
Carter were barely able to recognise him, and his body had been stomped on
until almost every rib had cracked. The paramedics had arrived on the scene
within minutes of Carter calling it in, but by then the old man had been taken
from them. Joseph had held the ex-pro in his arms as they waited for the
paramedics to arrive, feeling the weak beat of his heart grow ever slower and
less rhythmic. Just before he’d slipped away, Joseph had witnessed Eugene’s
eyes flutter open, briefly, and his battered and misshapen mouth form into a
weak smile. He’d whispered something, something so faint that Joseph hadn’t
been able to understand it at first. Then, as Eugene lay still, the single word
had become apparent.

“Elizabeth,” he’d said with his
dying breath.

Now, Joseph stood over his
friend’s body, his heart aching from the loss, his fists clenched tightly, and
his soul swearing solemnly that this atrocity would not go unpunished. 

***

Marianna was inconsolable. Detective Tyler sat next to
her, one arm draped over her shoulders and the other clasped tightly in the
distraught woman’s hand. The department was bustling with activity. Almost all
the available detectives were here, handsets clamped tightly between shoulder
and jaw, their hands a blur as they jotted down information.

Captain Mendoza was back in his
office, Carter with him, and they were talking animatedly and with conviction.
Soon the FBI would arrive, ready to take over the case of Jake’s abduction,
this being their jurisdiction, then both Mendoza and Carter would be forced
into taking a back seat.

This worried Joseph to the
core.

He sat at Carter’s desk,
Marianna and Tyler on the opposite side, the sound of his wife’s agony slicing
through him like a razor-sharp knife. His heart hadn’t stopped pounding since
identifying Eugene’s body, and a cold sweat had sodden his clothes.

Tears slipped down Joseph’s
cheeks. Underneath the table his fists were clenched, anger and hatred giving
him a strength he thought lost. He chanced a look towards Mendoza’s office to
see Carter throwing his hands up in exasperation. The detective turned his back
on Mendoza and then exited his office with a look of murder on his face.

“What now?” Joseph asked.

Carter looked down at him, and
the anger vanished from his features. “We have a name – a start.”

“Yurius,” Joseph said.

“Yes,” Carter agreed.

“So let’s find the bastard and
get my boy back!” 

“FBI are on their way,” Carter
said. “This is their case now. To negotiate the release of your son.”

Joseph looked deeply into the
detective’s eyes. “We both know there won’t be any negotiation. The killer
wants me – and me alone.”

“We don’t know that for sure,”
Carter said.

Joseph shook his head. “Yes we
do.” He took a deep breath to help gather his thoughts. “What about Amber
Alert? Should we notify the media now, and see if that helps get Jake back?”

It was an idea that the
detective had been considering. Would notifying all media channels help them,
or send the killer into a panic? For although Jake’s kidnapper had thus far
proven himself to be adequately capable, would he want to risk detection by
holding onto the boy, if Jake’s face and description was to flood the TV
channels and airwaves? Carter’s intuition told him not. The killer may simply
despatch Jake and take his chances with Joseph at a more opportune time.

Carter turned back to Mendoza’s
office. His professionalism held him firm. He was not willing to mess up any
chances of getting Jake back safe by overstepping his role as detective. The
FBI would be better equipped at handling such a thing: a detail that Captain
Mendoza had just made quite clear. Yet, the parent, father,
man
in him
demanded that he take action, and take action now.

“I’m not sure that would be
wise, just now,” Carter conceded. 

“I got the Devil on my back –
ain’t I?” Joseph said.

Marianna’s tear-stricken face
rose. “Shouldn’t we be getting home – in case the kidnapper phones?”

Carter shook his head. “We’ve
already got the lines running directly to here. Any contact and we’re right
onto it.” He pointed to a technician, who was staring ardently at a telephone
set. A recording device and tracking system sat next to the phone, and a set of
oversized earphones lay next to that.

Marianna shook her head. They
needed to be acting now – not waiting for a phone call. “Find this… Yurius,
whoever he is.”

Tyler took Marianna’s arm.
“We’re looking.” Half of the department had already spent the last hour
trawling the police database in search of a Russian named Yurius. So far –
nothing.

“How long has it been?” Joseph
asked.

Carter glanced at his watch.
“Still less than two hours. It’s very early days yet.”

Carter and Joseph eyed each
other. Both had witnessed the killer’s intentions firsthand. Jake’s taking had
been a direct attempt to get at Joseph. It was only coincidence that they’d
arrived during the act.

“This waiting is unbearable,”
Joseph announced.

Silence worked its way between
them, both men turning towards their own thoughts. The quiet was shattered when
the phone near the recording device burst alive with a shrill of noise. A
collective gasp followed.

“Here we go…” Carter breathed.

It took all of Joseph’s will to
stop himself from throwing up, terror boiling away in the pit of his stomach.

The technician reached out to
activate the recording device. He slipped the earphones on and then sat
waiting.

Pick it up! Joseph screamed
silently. As if he’d heard, the young detective looked directly at him.

“Hurry,” the technician
ordered.

It was then that Joseph
realised the call had been rerouted from his home, so the caller would expect
either him or Marianna to pick up. He jumped to unsteady feet, and then quickly
made his way over to the desk.

“You ready?” Carter asked.

“Yeah,” Joseph replied.

“Keep him talking for as long
as you can,” the technician instructed.

The phone continued to demand
attention, ringing with grim determination.

Joseph reached out to take the
handset. “Yes?”

There was a pause on the other
end. Just the slight hiss of static played into Joseph’s ear. Marianna, who was
up and out of her chair, stood desperately close to her husband, her ear close
to his.

“Hello?” he asked.

“You big bear?”

Joseph almost hung up.

This was no time for crank
calls. The handset moved away from his ear by an inch, ready to be slammed back
into its cradle.

“You big bear?” the voice asked
again. The question had been laced with thick Slavic tones.

“Yeah,” Joseph said,
understanding the voice belonged to the killer.

“Little bear is safe.”

“Where is he?”

“Safe.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“It’s just business. Nothing
personal.”

“Give me back my son!” Joseph
demanded.

“Little bear will be returned
tomorrow, when big bear comes to meet me.”

“What the hell do you want,
Yurius?”

The phone line fell silent, but
still connected.

“Yurius?”

Click – the connection broke. 

“Hello?”

Marianna snatched the phone out
of his hands. “Let me hear him,” she pleaded.

Joseph took back the handset
and then wrapped his hands around her, gaining strength from the woman he
loved. “He said Jake’s alive. I’ll get him back – I promise.”

Carter turned to the
technician. “You get anything?”

The tech shook his head.
“Didn’t stay connected long enough.”

Carter moved away from the
recording and tracking equipment. He headed for Tyler’s desk and her computer.
“We should be looking beyond known felons. Maybe the internet can help us. This
guy may have just arrived from the old Eastern Bloc – here to graze pastures
new. Maybe Russian news archives or clips can help us.”

Joseph felt unbearably weak. He
ambled over to Carter’s desk and sat heavily. Marianna remained over by the
phone, as if her presence there would somehow force the kidnapper to call back
– this time making a fatal mistake, thus revealing Jake’s immediate
whereabouts. Joseph ran his hand over his eyes in an attempt to clear his head.
Opening them, his eyes came to rest on the thin folder which sat on Carter’s
desk. This was the same folder the detective had taken the unrecognisable
snapshot from earlier. Joseph opened the folder. The same blurred image of a
face lay inside. Instinctively, he reached out to take it. Nothing revealed
itself to Joseph, and the image stayed a mystery. With a heavy sigh, he tossed
the photo back. The air underneath caught the photo in flight for a second, and
it glided over the folder to land almost at the edge of the desk. Gingerly,
Joseph reached over to retake it. And, as he did so, another picture caught his
gaze.

“What’s this?” he murmured to
himself.

He took the snapshot and
brought it up to eyelevel. Understanding came to him immediately. This picture
was a clear image of the one he’d just tossed away. And this one now held a
recognisable profile within. The dark shadows of the previous photo had been
removed and the image brought into focus. The picture had lost some definition
– now looking more like a picture that had been photocopied many times over.
However, the contrast, brightness and gamma had been manipulated to reveal –
and quite clearly – the face hidden within the shadows.

The tech guys had done one hell
of a job.

His son’s kidnapper, Eugene
Profit’s killer stared back at Joseph with cold detachment.