Hunters: A Trilogy (34 page)

***

George smiled down upon them, he was happy. Things were progressing in a satisfactory manner, and he had time, all the time in the world. Time is a relative thing, you see? Every day is a new adventure, and George likes adventures, especially when they involve catching and killing ‘Old Mr Darkness’.

And Mike – well, let’s just say Mike is somewhere else. In a place that perhaps only exists next door. A parallel, the same place where a certain, oversized, red-haired foetus happened to be growing in the womb of his mother, his doomed mother…

It had been five years, sixty months and two days, to be exact, since the ‘big’ event. That wonderful night when he’d carried out the deed, an act that had changed his life forever. With a quick push of his forefinger, the man had altered his destiny, and altered it permanently. The feat had only been a little thing, a small, physical action, but the consequences had been enormous. In fact, and according to some, they had been catastrophic.

‘You have ruined the lives, hopes, chances and futures for hundreds of other people!’ the Judge had said, during her closing speech. ‘I hope that you’re proud of yourself, Mr McBride…’

That pathetic bitch! James didn’t need to be proud – he just needed to be rich. And now he was, very rich indeed. He laughed at the thought of her helpless fury. ‘Boy-oh-boy, she was really pissed off at me – the stupid cow!’ He remembered that particular night, remembered it like it was only yesterday. McBride allowed his mind to take him back to when everything had started to go right, the wonderful night when he’d finally made sure that his own fortunes had changed…

***

The spreadsheet flickered across the screen of his laptop, its final figures leaping out at him. Even though he tried to stop himself, James couldn’t prevent the guilty glance over his shoulder, it had become almost an automatic reaction of late, and one he intended to stop. Why he even looked was beyond him, it was gone midnight, he was on the eighteenth floor, and other than some security personnel in the lobby below, he was alone.

He turned back to the screen and looked at the figures, scanning the bottom line, his well-trained eye easily picking out the numbers he needed to see. With a final nod, he sat back and smiled, his calculations had been meticulous and unless he was very much mistaken, James knew that he had just become an extremely rich man. His softly-whispered words of glee echoed within the confines of his plush office.

‘Yes, that’s the one, the final deal, now they’re done for!’ he said, with a laugh. ‘By this time tomorrow, they’ll be crying into their chicken soup, oh dearie me – well, they’re going to have to get used to that on the menu!’ He laughed once more, and then pressed the enter button.

‘Please wait - transfer in progress…’ The little window flashed its message, the faint light reflecting in his eyes as he leaned back in the leather swivel chair. He enjoyed the moment and took his time to savour it, casually reaching across the desk to lift the heavy crystal tumbler, raising the glass and toasting the screen in front of him, before slurping back the malt in one gulp.

His thoughts were delirious with joy. ‘I’ve waited so long for this, and now finally I’m there! Years of hard graft, hours of wheeling and dealing, months of hiding the truth, and now at last it’s time – my time!’

James had endured endless nights of sleeplessness as he’d waited for the plan to materialise, it hadn’t been easy and two horrendous stomach ulcers still festering in his guts were the living proof of how stressful it had been. Yes, tonight was indeed the night. Tonight was payback time.

‘Now it’s my time!’ His teeth gleamed in the liquid light. The sound of his own voice soothed him, helping to rid his mind from those small grains of fear, atoms of brain-tearing guilt, which he unsuccessfully suppressed with arrogance and whiskey. He knew that his own greed paled to insignificance compared to that of the half-wits that had entrusted him with their funds. Their only goal was profit, an increase on their balance sheets.

More money was all they wanted, and McBride had given them some, a little drip here and a little drop there, just enough to keep them interested, whilst in the meantime, behind their backs, he’d been laying the big plan. His investment scam had entrapped many fools. They had come, like insects to fly paper, to taste the sweet nectar of his poisoned promises, the lies he’d learned how to tell whilst working at the bank.

James snarled as he thought of that place, lips twisting in anger. ‘That pissing bank… bastards!’ The place he had made so much money for. ‘Those pathetic little bastards, they fired me, me…’

He remembered that smug little prick, Rupert Charlton, mincing down the corridor with a notice of termination held in front of him, his woman-hands shaking the damned thing as though he were offering McBride a million-pound bonus. He’d wafted it in the air with his girlish voice deliberately raised so the rest of the staff would be able to hear McBride getting the good news. ‘Sorry, James, but you know how it is, old boy, times are hard and we all have to tighten our belts…’ That was a joke. It had felt more like a noose they’d tightened around James’ throat. The thought made him raise one hand to his neck and loosen the red silk tie.

He had taken the note and left the building that very same morning, his parting comments shattering the waiting silence of the office. They all knew he wouldn’t go quietly, and James didn’t disappoint them. ‘Shove that notice up your arse, Rupert! That’s if there’s any room left up there, you little wanker!’ Charlton had been unable to reply as there’d been too much blood filling his mouth. After all, there’s nothing quite like a good old-fashioned head-butt when it comes to saying goodbye.

Filled with vengeance and malice, no more working like a dog for other people to take the piss, McBride had decided he was now going to divert all his attentions, and considerable talents, into making money for himself. He’d devised a plan, and a very clever plan it had been too, one based on years of experience and the thorough knowledge of how this particular game was played. He’d done a lot of investing for charitable organisations before and he knew how easy a target they would be.

James had always silently laughed at them, because he knew the truth and they didn’t… ‘If only they knew how much of the money they donated actually made it to the needy recipients in the first place, most of it is just sucked away by bureaucracy and outright corruption, long before one poxy bag of rice was even purchased, nevermind shipped to some starving family in the middle of fucking nowhere!’ Yet they still threw cash at the idea. ‘They’re nothing but damned idiots, the whole lot of ‘em!’ The thought of them, all of them, angered James. He cursed them, he blamed them, and he hated them.

McBride had decided to get some of that action for himself – in fact, James had decided to get all of it. The charities had come to him in their droves, leaving him with the hard-earned cash that the pathetic do-gooders had so willingly donated. The returns he promised would enable them to achieve so much more… He scoffed at their naivety. ‘Easy come and easy go, well…perhaps they should’ve read the small print just that little bit more carefully!’ His laughter rolled across the room again.

As if prompted by his thoughts, the laptop beeped once and a small pop-up window displayed the two words that were to change everything. ‘Transfer Complete!’ McBride touched the keypad and then watched as the machine went into shut-down mode. Leaning back, he ran his hands through the gelled hair that slicked its way back from his pale forehead. Laughing loudly, he shoved the chair away from the desk and stayed sitting whilst it rolled across the oak floor, the rubber-wheeled castors rumbling as he spun like a two-year-old in the park. Stepping out of the chair, he walked to the window and looked down on the city lights sparkling below him, his thoughts shining with their own, perfect clarity.

‘Yes, indeed, they should’ve been more careful! Definitely they should have – a lot, lot more careful!’ He grinned, whispering to himself: ‘That, I’m afraid to say, is not my fucking problem!’ The words had come easily to him at the time, and they still did. Four years of planning and five years of living with the results had given him all he’d ever wished for, including the plush apartment he was currently sitting in.

As he sat, lounging on the leather couch with a cosy fire smouldering in the hearth, he let his thoughts meander idly through the recent past. James smiled when he thought about the money, of how much he’d managed to squirrel away, the millions he’d managed to hide. The figures involved gave him a feeling of intense satisfaction. They were all his, every penny of them, all cleverly hidden within his indecipherable web of deceit and ingenious accounting.

He smiled to himself once more as he thought about how perfectly everything had turned out. The stupid investors had all gone down, hand-in-hand he had pushed them over the precipice, overnight their worlds had been flushed down the deep, financial toilet that he, James McBride, had opened the lid on. All of their silly little ideas and poncey charitable plans, all poured down the bloody bog. ‘Well, that’s just tough shit, isn’t it?’ he whispered, with a bitter smile. The irony amused him.

The investigation had gone on for months – years even – but they couldn’t pin anything on him. It was all part of the global credit crisis, hedge funds being mismanaged, sub-prime borrowers endlessly defaulting – the wicked, twisted web in which the entire financial world had become entangled only served to provide a perfect camouflage for one who was so deviously cunning as James McBride.

The best bit by far was in the blatant anguish and bitterness of the prosecutors who knew that he’d fooled them, they knew it absolutely and yet they couldn’t prove a single, damned thing. His footwork had been way too fancy for them – they’d been much too busy looking for a Waltz, whilst in the meantime, McBride had been doing the Tango. They never even came close to getting in time with his devious rhythm. The Judge herself had said as much, looking down at him in anger as she announced her decision. ‘Case dismissed!’ It didn’t matter what she thought, what anyone thought, the defence team had proved that there had been no case to answer, and that, as they say, was that. James McBride had walked away scot-free and, to be honest, he’d walked away laughing.

The biggest whiners had been those losers from the children’s charity, crying and wailing, berating him outside the court house. Their screams still rang in his ears. ‘People will lose their lives because of you, innocent children, for God’s sake! They’re ill and they needed that money, they needed it to stay alive! Without us they’re as good as dead, you heartless bastard!’ McBride had ducked just in time to narrowly avoid the egg which some prick at the back of the crowd had hurled. It smashed against the lamp post next to him, spattering his fine mohair coat with yellow goo and little pieces of fractured shell. He’d turned to smile at them and then hurriedly climbed into the Mercedes. Flash bulbs ignited the interior of the car, even the darkened windows couldn’t hide the howls of protest from the idiots he had duped. The hollow splat of a second egg, destroying itself against one of those windows, had been the signal to send them on their way.

James had laughed, saying: ‘Take me to the club, Charlie – I need a stiff one!’ The driver’s eyes had acknowledged him in the rear-view mirror, with its tyres squealing in protest the car had sped away from the distraught crowd and into the early evening traffic.

***

McBride thought about the present and it made him spit with anger, these days he spent even more time than was usual talking to him-bloody-self. Still, at least it made him feel better. ‘That was five years ago, five years and I’m still taking shit from those pillocks!’ he whispered. Feeling better for the release of some spoken words, he bent forward and opened a slim folder. As he lifted it, several newspaper cuttings escaped their cardboard prison and fell onto the glass top of the table below. There were more inside the folder, lots more – he kept all of them, and the hate mail too. McBride was getting bored with this endless game, and in a bid for the final big move, had called his lawyer, Julian, earlier in the day.

Their meeting was due in an hour and James would make sure those pricks received the message this time. ‘A fat lawsuit will shut those fuckers up, shut them up once and for all!’ he said, maliciously. Picking up one of the cuttings, he glanced down at the libellous headline. Eyes swimming with tears of anger, he read the words once more.
‘McBride’s Legacy – Third transplant-dependent child dies. Charities say missing funds would have made the difference!’

He blinked the bitter tears away and whispered to himself once more, his thin lips tight with resentment. ‘I’ll make sure that bastard editor is first in the queue!’ With an angry shake of his head, McBride slid the newspaper cuttings back into the folder, then rose to his feet and gathered some other pieces of paper from the sideboard. He placed the folder into his briefcase, looked at his watch and lifted the telephone to his ear, punching one of the numbers with his forefinger.