Remote (29 page)

“Then you know what I do to people like you.”

“But I—I’ve never killed anyone!  Everything I did, I did because he made me!”

“I’m not sure that’s true, Malcolm.  I’ve read Remote’s files on you.  You may not be a killer . . . but you’re not a good person. 
Sociopathic personality
is a much better fit for your resume, don’t you think?”

“No!  No, you can’t—“

The Closer held a finger to his own lips, and Malcolm stopped in mid-denial.  Even if he didn’t want to admit it, his own reflexes recognized who was in charge.

Who owned him.

 Nikki was studying him, her arms crossed, a look of contempt on her face.  “Yeah.  No, you should proud of yourself, Mal.  Me and Jack, we’ve had a pretty good setup going, just the two of us.  But you and your boss, you gave us some real problems.  Forced us to rethink a few things, take a look at our methods.  We actually had to fucking
outsource
, can you believe it?”

“I don’t understand,” Tanner said carefully.  “But that’s okay, I don’t have to know—“

“See,” Nikki continued, ignoring him, “we thought we ran an effective organization.  But going up against you and Remote—we felt like a mom-and-pop business taking on an established franchise.  You guys had some serious resources to draw on: high-tech equipment, cash reserves, well-defended base of operations—everything but a corporate logo.”

“But resources,” Jack said, “are about more than infrastructure.  Connections and contacts are just as important.  You’re in finance, you know what I’m talking about.”

Tanner nodded, not sure if he was being asked a direct question.  Not sure if he was being allowed to talk.

“A lot of movies and TV shows are shot in Vancouver,” Jack said.  “The kind of crowd I used to run with, there was a fair bit of overlap between that industry and mine.  I know a few people in the business, as they say.  One of them specializes in prosthetic effects—make-up for science-fiction and horror productions, mainly.  Lot of those shows shoot in the Lower Mainland.”

“So Jack called in a favor,” said Nikki.  “Got this guy to do a rush job on a short film in a very specialized genre,  what the critics call ‘torture-porn’. Did some very convincing work in a very short period of time—made it look like Jack was doing some really nasty, nasty things to me.”

“But it wasn’t real,” Jack said.  “In fact, it wasn’t even Nikki.  It was a woman called Eden Fawnsley, who was more than happy to fly in at short notice for a nice fat paycheque on the recommendation of her agent.”

“Of course,” said Nikki, “Eden’s agent may have been slightly biased.  Also married, horny, and not very observant about hidden cameras in motel rooms.”  Nikki smiled.  “See, Jack and I have no problem stealing ideas from other people’s playbook.  Extortion works for us, too.”

Tanner couldn’t keep quiet any longer.  “Why are you telling me this?  I—I don’t need to know any of this.  I don’t
want
to.”   

“Well,” said Jack.  “That’s the thing about information, isn’t it?  Sometimes knowing something is much more dangerous than not knowing it.  Remote kept himself at a distance from what he was doing through technology—you did so through willful ignorance.  No knowledge, no responsibility, right?  You got to play your games, and none of what you did was your fault.  The fact that you enjoyed what you did was just . . . convenient.”

“But I didn’t, I
couldn’t
know—“

“You didn’t
want
to know,” said Nikki.  “But you’re going to.”

The Closer leaned forward, his eyes intent.  “Let’s start with what’s happened to your former master. He’s working for me.  All his files, all his resources, all his money; all under my control.  Remote’s the one wearing a harness now, but it’s not one of his—it’s one of mine.  He’s already isolated, but now he can’t set foot off that island unless I say so, and without the passcode I provide every few hours, he’ll blow himself to smithereens.  I suppose you could consider what we’ve done to him as the equivalent of a hostile takeover.”

Tanner forced himself to laugh.  “Really?  You did to him what he did to everyone else?  Good for you.  Guess this means I work for you, now.”

“I suppose it does,” said Jack.  “Except, of course, that you’re not my employee.  You’re my possession.  Aren’t you?”

Tanner stared at him.  And then, slowly, he nodded.

“I’m very good at asking questions,” said Jack.  “But sometimes, I get  . . . tired.  Weary.  If confession is good for the soul, then constantly listening to confessions—especially the ones I hear—is bad for it.  I don’t have a lot of my soul left, Malcolm.  So there’s something I’d like you to do—something you’re already doing, in fact.”

“What—what is it?”

“I want you to listen.”  Jack stared at Tanner, his eyes intent.  “I need to tell someone about all the things I’ve done.  In detail.”

Tanner swallowed.  “But . . .that means—“

“Yeah,” said Nikki.  “New methods, like we said.  Can’t run an operation the way Jack and I do without a little psychological maintenance, right?  Consider yourself lucky; you get to be first.  Try to be patient--we may need to tinker with the process to get it just right.”

“But—that’s all I have to do?  Listen?”  Tanner’s voice held a note of desperate optimism.

Nikki shrugged.  “Well, Jack might have to demonstrate a few things just to make sure you really
understand
the full scope of what he’s been through. . . but I wouldn’t worry about it too much.  Remote’s files on you are pretty extensive; we don’t need to ask you any questions.  And once Jack’s done talking, I’m sure he’ll make it quick . . .”

***

And once he’d finished with Tanner, Jack went for a walk.

It was late November now, and the Christmas decorations were in full green-and-red bloom: even the grungy tavern on the corner had silver and gold tinsel wrapped around the neon glow of the beer signs in the window.  No snow on the ground, not here, but a cold wind tugged at Jack’s hair, sent shivers down his spine. 

As he walked, he thought about Goliath.  He deeply regretted the giant’s death--not because he had any compassion for the biker, but because now Goliath’s crimes would have no resolution.  His victims—the women he’d raped, the people who’d died in the fires he’d set, whoever else he’d harmed—would get no further justice.  Jack would notify whatever family members he could find that the monster who’d destroyed part of their lives was now gone, but that was all he could give them. 

It wasn’t enough.

They wouldn’t know what had been going through Goliath’s head when he started those fires, or how he’d felt afterward.  They wouldn’t know if he’d ever had a moment of remorse, if he’d ever thought about the consequences of what he’d done.  Jack doubted he had, but now he’d never know.  

A new year was coming.  Changes were coming with it, changes in the way he and Nikki operated.  Remote had opened Jack’s eyes to new possibilities, new ways of doing things. 

Maybe even new targets.

Remote’s resources offered a wealth of potential: money for equipment or bribes, a fortified, isolated location with easy entry to two countries, maybe even access to government databases. Information had always been central to Jack’s methods, but he’d been restricted to what he could obtain personally; Remote’s reach was considerably greater.

And all it would cost Jack would be a little more of his soul.

It wasn’t just Goliath’s victims that were going unavenged.  Remote’s body count had included innocents, too—and Jack couldn’t give any of them justice, either.  Revealing Remote’s manipulations to the world would eliminate his usefulness, as well as exposing the people he’d blackmailed to further persecution.  Nikki had been right; there was no clear win here.  Not for the dead. . . or for the living.

Killing Tanner had been easy.  Too easy.

Strangely enough, Jack felt little animosity toward Remote.  Despite the man’s crimes, he wasn’t evil, not in the sense that most of Jack’s targets were, not even like Tanner was.  He was simply a badly damaged human being trying to make the world a better place, one emotionally incapable of seeing the horror that he produced as a result.  For all Remote’s talk of precision, he was a hammer trying to fix a hole—and he simply wasn’t able to care about the lives he smashed as a result.

Jack knew about fixing holes.  It was delicate work, requiring patience and insight.  You had to go slow, you had to be sure.  Most of all, you had to be aware—aware of every bit of pain you were inflicting.  You couldn’t afford armor, couldn’t put anything between you and your victim.  As much as he hated to admit it, torture was an art—an art that destroyed as it created, extracting truth while eroding compassion.  Jack had known exactly what sort of price he’d pay by heading down the path he’d chosen, and he’d never hesitated.  Becoming a monster himself seemed a small price to pay for the chance to save others from the hell he’d gone through. 

He’d accepted the horror of destroying others.  Now he had to accept the guilt of compromise, the very same lesson Remote had been trying to teach him.  One more step down the dark path he’d chosen, all in the name of the greater good.

No more innocents would die at the hands of Goliath or Remote—but the ones that had still lay silent in their graves.  No one would speak for them.

Or for Tanner.

He stopped for a moment, his breath hanging hazy in the air, looking at an enormous inflated Santa on someone’s front yard, a bearded giant grinning at the world.  Jack didn’t see Goliath, though.

  When the Patron had killed Jack’s father, he’d dressed the corpse in a Santa suit. 

Jack hadn’t been able to look at the familiar icon since without seeing his father lying dead in front of him—but now, just for a second, he saw his father alive, smiling, wearing the dollar-store Santa suit he’d worn one Christmas when Jack was five.  Jack hadn’t been fooled—he just thought it was the coolest thing ever that his Dad was really Santa, like finding out your father was Superman. 

The image vanished as quickly as it had appeared.  Jack tried to bring it back, to remember his father’s smile, peeking out from beneath the fake white beard, but couldn’t.   He was just staring up at an oversize grin painted on inflated vinyl, a thin veneer of commercial jolliness stretched tight over the emptiness inside.

He came to a decision. Turning around, he headed back to the house.

***

Nikki was almost finished packing by the time he got back.  “Hey,” she said.  “You weren’t gone long.”

“I know what we have to do.”

“Yeah?  Okay.”  She regarded him coolly, zipping closed the duffel bag on the bed.  “In regards to what?”

“The warehouse.  The art.  Everything the Patron—induced.”  Jack refused to say
inspired
.

“Why do I get the feeling I’m not gonna like this?”

“We have to give it all back, Nikki.  Back to the people who made it, or their next of kin.”

She studied him for a second.  Jack thought she might say
that’s a dumb fucking idea
, or
C’mon, Jack, we’re talking about millions of dollars here
, or even just
no fucking way
. 

What she said was, “Good.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.  I would have gone with whatever you decided, Jack, but it’s fucking blood money.  It’s one thing to spend some cash to set Remote up, but we can’t use it for anything else.  It’d be like—like turning a concentration camp into a theme park and living off the profits.”

“That’s how I feel, too.”  Jack paused.  “We can use Remote’s money to fund a search.  Maybe hire some investigators, get them to track down the rest of the Patron’s victims.  The ones that didn’t survive the process.”

“We’ll have to be careful.  Can’t have it be traced back to us.”

“We’ll have Remote on our side.  He’s a master at keeping things at arm’s length.”

Nikki nodded, then slung the duffel bag over her shoulder.  “That’s another thing.  You really think we can work with this guy?”

“I do.  He’s dangerous, but he honestly wants the same thing that we do: a world with fewer monsters in it.  He just needs some . . . redirection.”

“And that’s us?  Jesus, Jack, the guy’s a psychopath—I don’t think they can be fixed.”

“We’re not going to fix him, Nikki.”  Jack shook his head.  “We’re just going to give him a place in the world to exist.  To be useful.  That’s all some people need.”

Nikki studied her partner for a moment, and her eyes softened.  “Yeah, I guess I can’t argue with that.  But listen, he’s
your
pet.  You’re gonna have to feed him and clean up after him, okay?  And I’m not getting stuck walking him every goddamn day, either.”

“He’ll be fine.  I think he’ll actually be happier with someone else in control—he already sees himself as a cog in a machine.  When you come right down to it, we’re giving him exactly what he wanted all along: a chance to work beside us.”

“Bet he didn’t plan on doing it with a belt full of C4 strapped to his gonads, though.”

Jack gave her a weary smile.  “Yeah, well.  Things don’t always turn out the way you expect, do they?  Not everyone gets to have closure.”

She nodded, understanding in her eyes.  “But as long as we’re out there, at least a few will.”

“Yes,” said Jack.  “As long as we’re out there.”

AUTHOR
BIO

Donn Cortez is a pseudonym for Don DeBrandt. He's written five CSI: Miami novels, two CSI: Vegas novels, a murder mystery set at Burning Man (The Man Burns Tonight) and a thriller (The Closer) which became a bestseller in Germany. Remote is a sequel to THE CLOSER.