* * *
The elevator screeched, laboring under the weight of Marco and his platoon of escorts. The ancient light fixture flickered weakly, casting bizarre shadows across the five men and two pleasers. Unidentifiable stains spoiled the walls amidst the obscene graffiti. Marco made sure not to touch them, lest his impeccable white Grussberg suit suffer. Fortunately, the pungent aroma of his thick Cuban cigar hid the rank stench of the defiled elevator.
The elevator stopped without warning – its floor display long ago shattered by some turbo addict. The doors slid open and the four razors, each as impeccably attired as Marco, trained their impressive array of weaponry on the hallway that appeared, screening him and the women from any possible harm.
A thin man stood there, hefting a Mossberg 10 gauge combat shotgun. Shades hid his eyes despite the dimness of the hall, and a wire mike extended from his ear to his chin.
“Still clear, Mr. Vance,” he stated. The four guards advanced, weapons tracking together in a lethal choreography, covering any conceivable hiding place.
Marco followed them, a pleaser to each side, genetically engineered to perfection, their refined and flawless faces scanning the walls and ceilings, their curvaceous figures swaying professionally. The thin man fell in step at the rear.
Marco’s procession turned a bend in the decayed hall. Ahead, two hulking brutes flanked a battered doorway. One raised a hand to his mouth, muttering something. He opened the door and motioned to the newcomers.
Warily, Marco’s razors moved forward. Marco granted the guards a jowlish grin as he walked through the doorway. His pleasers winked at them seductively.
Inside, his men took positions near the door, their fields of fire professionally overlapped and easily covering every corner of the large room.
Marco walked out into the middle of the floor, his two female companions moving away to flank him at about two meters, striking catwalk poses. This room was in no better condition than the rest of the building: crumbling plaster walls, cracked and broken windows, stains on floors and ceilings, trash everywhere. He looked down to see a scuff on his shoe and grimaced. Blackzone. Not exactly the place Marco would have chosen for such a meet. But no matter. Any place would serve.
Easily visible with his enhanced optics, Marco noted the half-dozen gunmen lurking in the shadows of the dimly lit room. Armed with a bewildering array of firearms, he was sure they were just as deadly as his own guards. Fortunately, this was a friendly get-together. A meeting of two criminal powers. Detente.
Marco searched the room for his adversary but did not find him. He took a long puff on the cigar, stepped a few more meters into the room, and addressed one of the gunmen. “So, where is Mr. Giovanni?”
The man did not reply, but spoke into the headset he wore. Only a few seconds later Marco heard a distinctive whirring sound from the windows. Turning, he watched as a personal drone descended outside the shattered window, then delicately hovered inside. Papers and trash scattered around the room, throwing up dust and trash. Marco’s blonde raised her hand to keep her long hair from blowing; the other women’s pink pixie cut remained unaffected. The drone landed and an opaque screen lightened to transparency, revealing the emaciated torso and head of a balding old man. The drone’s whine died and the room quieted once again.
“Mr. Giovanni.” Marco advanced on the drone, gazing down at the old man, a smirk on his lips.
“Mr. Vance,” the old man responded, “you look just as you did ten years ago.”
Marco circled the drone, puffing appreciatively on his cigar. “And you look a hell of a lot worse. What’s this?” He rapped on the drone. “Can’t get around any more, eh? Old body finally giving out?”
“Is that why you requested this meeting, to insult me?”
Marco paced back to face Giovanni. “Of course not. I called this meeting to tell you to get the hell out of the metroplex.”
A weak grin spread across Giovanni’s face, creating chasms of wrinkles. He chuckled, but it soon turned to a racking cough. His thin hand pulled a tube from the drone and he sucked from it for several breaths. Finally he spoke. “Strong talk for a fat man, Marco. What makes you think I will do what you tell me?”
Marco continued to puff on his cigar. “By bowing out, you’ll save yourself a lot of lives, money, and headaches. Headaches can be fatal to someone your age.”
Giovanni’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t like threats, Marco.”
“I do.”
“Then listen to this.” Giovanni frowned. “I came to Atlanta after you were convicted. Within two months I controlled your operation, and within a year it was grossing thirty percent more than you ever made. I created a syndicate beyond your capabilities.”
“Who asked you to?”
Giovanni laughed, a hollow, pathetic sound. “Nature loathes a vacuum, Marco. And the departure of that fat bloated body of yours created one hell of a vacuum.”
“You sure moved in quickly, Giovanni. A little too quickly, if you ask me.”
Giovanni smirked. “I’m always ready for an opportunity. And your wallowing operation was ripe for good management, which I readily supplied. With my leadership, Atlanta has become an incredibly profitable venture.”
“Money isn’t everything.” Marco turned to look at Giovanni. “You should have stayed in the gambling business. Leave now, and we can still be friends.”
Giovanni shifted in his drone and a slight wheeze escaped his lips. “We were never friends, Marco. You were always an arrogant fat man with a lot of guts and little brains. A small-time fixer who got lucky and forged a fortuitous alliance between a bunch of street gangs. Then you got stupid and brash. I would have thought the time you spent inside would have tamed you.”
“As you can see, it did not.”
“No, it didn’t. How did you get out, Marco? I heard you were dead.”
“Close, but not quite.” Marco reached into his pocket. Giovanni’s men shifted suddenly, and two red dots appeared on Marco’s head. He slowed his movement and held up his free hand. “No problem, gentlemen.” He pulled a video scroll out of his pocket and hung it on a nearby column. It unrolled to a square meter in size, covering the illegible neon graffiti beneath it.
“What’s this?” Giovanni scrutinized the portable video screen.
“The answer to your question. You asked how I got out of prison. A mutual acquaintance helped me. Name of Johnson.”
“Never heard of him.” Giovanni frowned in annoyance at the ubiquitous and useless name.
“He heard of you. You might say he’s my silent partner, something of a cash cow. He doesn’t take a percentage, and leaves all the action to me. A very altruistic man. The only thing he wants is for me to play this recording for you. Odd, eh?”
“What kind of game is this, Marco?”
“No game, just listen.” Marco reached out and touched the scroll’s play button. It blinked to life, revealing the refined face of Mr. Johnson.
“Good evening, Mr. Giovanni,” the deep, resonant voice of Mr. Johnson began, but Marco noted that Giovanni did not recognize the voice or the face. “At last we have a chance to meet, in a manner of speaking. But this is the only manner I could arrange. You are a very hard man to get an appointment with.
“You do not know me. Mr. Vance has probably told you my name is Johnson. Obviously, that is not true. My name is Henry Brailler.” Giovanni’s eyes widened. “You might remember my father, Tony. He was your friend, before you murdered him.”
Giovanni looked up at Marco, then to his guards.
Brailler continued: “Your only mistake was not killing me as well. But you’ve made no others. I have tried for years to get near you, to avenge my father’s murder. I’ve hired five assassins and all have failed in their efforts.”
A slight sheen appeared on Giovanni’s forehead.
“You let no one near you. You hide in that fortress you call a home in the Blue Ridges, never coming out except for important business matters. As luck
would have it I was able, with Mr. Vance’s unknowing help, to provide just such an important business matter for you.”
“Kill them!” Giovanni yelled. “Kill them all!”
His guards opened fire, as did Marco’s escorts. Sharp staccato bursts of gunfire filled the room. The two door guards smashed in through the doors with heavy machine guns, spitting death. Marco’s two joy-girls pulled out small pistols but were soon ripped apart. The air was thick with bullets, smoke, chunks of plaster, drops of blood.
The firefight lasted only seconds. Bodies lay everywhere, ruptured and torn. Dead. One door guard slipped down against the wall, his neck nothing but ravaged flesh and bone, squirting blood. The other limped around the room, panning his heavy machine gun. One of Marco’s escorts struggled to rise, and the guard caressed him with a burst of fire. Another of Giovanni’s men appeared, uninjured, from the darkness. The rest were dead or dying.
Marco pulled himself to his feet, blood seeping through his white coat in at least three places. He noted the corpses of his men, and his two female companions looked like dolls ripped apart by an angry little girl. He grimaced and turned on the drone. Giovanni grinned behind the protection of his armor, completely unharmed.
“Too bad, Marco!” He laughed, motioning for his remaining guards to approach. “Looks like Brailler’s little plan didn’t work. You should have known better.”
Marco frowned deeply, his face pale and wet. Blood seeped from a gash on his forehead. “I had nothing to do with this, Giovanni. That wasn’t the recording he gave me.”
“Of course not. You were tricked, a dupe.” Giovanni’s teeth glittered in the flickering light. “What will you do now, Marco, drop to your knees and beg?”
Marco’s face darkened.
“Don’t worry, Marco. I won’t make you beg. Nothing you can do will keep me from killing you. But I will make it quick if you tell me where Brailler is.”
“I have no idea.”
“That’s too ba–”
The video scroll buzzed from where it had fallen during the firefight. The crumpled and bullet-ridden scroll folded Brailler’s image into a bizarre Picasso-like portrait. “I’m very far away, Giovanni. I don’t want to get caught in the blast radius.”
Giovanni’s eyes widened. His skeletal hands frantically operated the controls of the drone and the turbofans slowly whirred to life.
“You might be wondering why I went to all the trouble of using Marco Vance,” said Brailler, his voice projecting clearly over the whine of the drone. “You’d be amazed at the amount of radiation shielding you can hide in a 200 kilo body. Enough to conceal the nuclear material required for a bomb that will incinerate the building and everything in it. That armored drone won’t protect you from a micro-nuke.”
Marco stared in disbelief at the video scroll, then back down at his cybernetic body. Somewhere deep inside his flesh and metal, Brailler had hidden a nuclear bomb!
The drone lifted off the floor toward the window. The big goon dropped his machine gun and sprinted out the door. The other gunman jumped on the drone, grasping for a hold on its smooth surface, forcing it to drag across the floor. Marco took a step toward the door, then toward the departing drone.
“Good bye, Giovanni,” Brailler said. “Thanks for your help, Marco.”
Marco bent down and clumsily straightened out the video scroll. “Wait! You can’t do this! I helped you! I did what you asked!”
“And in return you get a very quick death.”
Giovanni struggled to escape under the weight of the bodyguard. The drone scudded across the floor.
“But you’ve made an investment!” Marco pleaded, screaming at the scroll. “You’ve put a lot of money into me! Hundreds of thousands!”
“More like tens of millions. Nukes aren’t easy to procure or smuggle.”
“Yes, right! See? You’ve spent too much on me!”
Giovanni screamed at the man clinging to the drone, ordering him to let go.
Brailler said, “Money isn’t everything, Marco.”
Marco screamed. But only for a microsecond.