Trevor Scott
Without Options
1
A few minutes before midnight, in an isolated area along the eastern bank of the Spree River, Dominik stepped silently toward the water, a consciously subdued spring in his step. He could smell it already, a pungent odor of industrialism, the result of urban expansion and overindulgence. Chemicals mixed with dead fish and aquatic bird feces. He loved it all now. In the last few days he never felt so alive.
Dominik laughed inside as he thought about all the reports of climate change and environmental shock and horror, yet the people still threw their cigarette butts, fast food wrappers and urinated on the streets when they couldn’t find a better place to relieve themselves. They drove cars like maniacs on the Autobahns, spewing exhaust into the air and polluting with sound. And all of that ended up somewhere on the Earth. Probably in the Spree, Dominik thought. He normally mused of these things when he had nothing else to do — when he was bored and alone like now — but he knew he should have been concentrating more on this meeting and the result. It wasn’t every day that a man got rich, especially a man who had struggled all of his life growing up in a small town in northern Poland. After six years in the army, he’d gone from job to job until he realized what he did best was shoot a gun. Not much calling for that in the private sector…until recently. One million Euros was a lot of money. More than Dominik Gorski would expect to see in a lifetime. And now he’d earned this much in a few days. He loved capitalism.
As he stopped at the edge of the river, a light breeze picked up, bringing more of the odor and a chill to his exposed skin. He flipped up the collar on his wool jacket and shoved his hands into his pockets, his right hand grasping the handle of his Glock 19. He’d cut out the backside of his pocket allowing easy access to his gun. Didn’t expect he’d need it. But with that kind of money, who knew?
He heard the car coming before he saw it. Cruising in slowly, a dark Audi A3 came to a stop about twenty feet from Dominik, lights off. He’d never met anyone involved with this whole case until now. Everything had been handled over the internet. And that had been a concern to him. What if it had simply been a joke by some thirteen-year-old boy who was mad at his father? Just have him killed. Perhaps worse, it could’ve been the German Polizei setting him up. No. They wouldn’t have allowed the man from Mainz to die like that.
When the driver’s door opened, Dominik’s grip on his gun tightened. Settle down, he pressed into his mind. All is right. The man getting out of the Audi had described himself perfectly, right down to the watch cap and the cast on his right arm. He said on the phone he’d fallen from his bike and broken his arm. The man’s left hand held a briefcase with the money. Both hands were occupied. A good sign.
Letting out a deep breath, Dominik stepped forward a few feet and stopped as the man came around the front of the car.
The contact smiled and in German said, “Hope you didn’t have to walk too far from the U-Bahn station.”
That was their code phrase. His answer? “The shadows of Berlin are darker than any on Earth,” he said in his best German.
“Glad you found the spot,” his contact said. “I’d shake your hand for a job well done, but…” He tried to raise both hands.
“I understand.” On the phone Dominik had tried to guess the accent of the man, and now in person he knew this one was a Russian. He’d served in the army with many Russians.
“Tell me about the man you killed,” the Russian said.
“It was no problem,” Dominik answered. “He was right where you said he would be. Walking home from Sunday mass to his apartment near the Rhine. I drove up, asked for directions, as he leaned toward my open window, I put five rounds in him. People are easy. What did he do?”
The Russian smiled. “It’s not so much what he did, as what he used to do. It’s not important.”
Dominik was confused. He’d speculated all along that the man he killed was a businessman or someone who owed this man money. He was sure a man didn’t have a hit out on him unless he’d done something to deserve it. But a million Euros. That dissolved all questions. His anxiety now was his anticipation to see the money. He’d never seen more than a thousand Euros at one time.
“Could I see the money?” Dominik asked excitedly.
The Russian nodded his head. “You’ll have to help me open the case, though.” He raised his broken arm, which looked thicker than most casts.
“Sure.” Dominik took hold of the bottom of the case with his left hand and pulled his right hand from his pocket to unlock the latch.
As the case lid rose up, Dominik’s eyes first went to inside the briefcase. When all he saw was newspapers, his gaze went toward the Russian, whose right arm, the one with the cast, pointed directly at Dominik’s head, just a foot away.
The bullet struck the Pole in his left eye. He wouldn’t hear the sound. Wouldn’t feel a thing as he dropped to the gravel like a bag of rocks.
The Russian smiled broadly and closed the case. Then he checked to make sure the Pole was dead. Truly was. Next he walked back to his car, unstrapped the fake cast and set it onto the floor of the passenger side, slipped on latex gloves, and went back to the dead man.
He searched the man, finding the gun, which he flung into the river, and took the man’s identification. He grabbed the man by his feet and dragged him to the river, trying not to get any blood on himself. Mustering great strength from his muscular body, he flung the dead man, and with a final kick, the man’s limp body slipped over the bank and into the river. By the time the plop from the water struck the Russian’s ears, the body had slipped out of sight, swallowed in the murky liquid like a stone into a pool of oil.
Taking a moment to assess his work, the Russian gazed out at the river, the cold October breeze caressing his face. He loved the fall. There was death everywhere — the smell in the air and the fallen leaves whisked about his feet. Even the bugs had died by now. Everything dies in the fall, he thought, a slight smile at the corner of his lips.
Now the Russian got back into his Audi and sat for a second, thinking again if he’d gotten everything right. He took off the latex gloves and made a quick call on his cell phone.
“It’s done,” he said in Russian. Then he hung up.
Satisfied, he lit a cigarette and started his car. Just as slowly as he’d come there, he cruised away below the speed limit, wondering where that body would finally show up.
2
With great deference to The Wasteland, Jake Adams thought that October was the cruelest month. Everything must die in October. Leaves turn from various shades of green to bright orange and yellow and red, before falling to the wet ground and starting the decaying process before being covered by a heavy layer of snow. Cruel and beautiful is how Jake always considered the changes of Autumn. Dichotomous change.
Yet this October was even more cruel for Jake Adams. He’d spent nearly two months in the Austrian hospital — a visit that should have lasted no more than three weeks, but which he had no great desire to cut short — so they could patch his bullet wounds and build his strength from massive blood loss. The worst of it was the infection that nearly kicked his butt into the ground. Unfortunately it wasn’t his first time in a hospital recovering from bullet wounds.
Now, dressed in clothes purchased for him, Jake shuffled out the front door into the crisp morning air, his gait hampered by his new synthetic left knee. He stopped and took in a deep breath, his dark, intense eyes glancing about at cars passing by on the road. A raven swooped across the Inn River and landed in a maple tree. He loved the smell of fall. Fresh death.