Shanghai Crossfire by John Hopton & David F Berens

Author:John Hopton & David F Berens [Hopton, John & Berens, David F]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tropical Thrillers Press
Published: 2020-01-30T22:00:00+00:00

20

The Man In The Mask

Elias Faust Landsdowne ran the rawhide skin of his fingertips along the smooth surface of his mahogany desk. Cigar smoke made the mucus in his windpipe crackle as he inhaled. He had stopped caring about his health long ago, and he believed that his good breeding made him indestructible. Despite the reality that his body was bloated and his features contorted, he was convinced he was a thoroughbred.

He growled out a cough and reached for the shiny new cell phone lying on the desk. He dialed the only number stored on it. As he waited for the answer, his eyes drifted across the maroon velvet walls of his plush office and landed on a photograph. It was an image of him with his buddies in Zambia, southern Africa.

They were kneeling beside the corpse of an elephant they had stalked and killed. Landsdowne remembered the thrill he had felt when he had seen life suddenly departing from the beast’s eyes as its huge body fell to the ground. He wished he could do the same to his human enemies: stalk them under his own steam, put a bullet in them, and watch as life disappeared from their eyes. His lawyer friends told him he should pay others to do his dirty work.

“Yes, my friend,” said a voice at the other end of the phone. The voice was as smooth as the mahogany desk.

“What’s happening with the boy?” Landsdowne asked, offering no pleasantries.

“It’s being taken care of.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means we’re doing what we need to do, but if you talk to me like that again we’ll stop what we’re doing and shoot the boy in the head.”

Landsdowne smiled. For most of his life, being spoken to like that would have prompted him to have someone killed. Painfully. But the man on the other end of the line had power of his own, and Landsdowne found that he strangely enjoyed the novel experience of someone speaking to him like they had cojones. He was usually surrounded by sycophants.

“Where is he?”

“He’s with the goon in the mountains. The work will be done. It takes time.”

“Your goon who always looks like a surgeon at a funeral?”

“If you say so.”

“Has the child outwitted him or intimidated him?”

“The kid is stubborn. We’ll get what we want from him, but we need him alive and functioning.”

“Well, get creative. As long as he’s alive and his eyes and fingers work, that’s all that’s required. We need that information. Get it done.” Both men tried to end the call before the other.

“Crazy fuck,” Landsdowne said as he dropped the phone on the desk. He turned his bloodshot eyes to the ceiling and slowly exhaled cigar smoke.

Some two thousand miles southwest, The Priest looked at the phone in his manicured hand.

“Ugly fuck,” he said out loud. Then, standing in short, tight swimming trunks next to his pool, he made another call.

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