One False Move (a Mike Delaney thriller) Read online

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  One False Move

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  a Mike Delaney thriller

  a short story exclusive

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  by

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  David Callinan

  SECRET TECHNIQUES OF THE CIA

  G-FORCE ASSASSIN'S INSTRUCTION MANUAL

  Before the action in ONE FALSE MOVE or the full-length thriller THE IMMORTALITY PLOT (revised edition to be launched later this year), Major Mike Delaney was seconded from the ultra secret U.S assassination squad known as G-Force to the Hong Kong Police Force.

  This dossier, sections of which are redacted, records the techniques, skills and weapons used by members of the elite G-Force squad.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  The Monk faced the rising sun, his feet planted firmly on the rocky outcrop high above the monastery.

  Thoughts, memories and visions swirled through his mind unimpeded by conscious awareness. Mike Delaney meditated upon the golden orb of the Californian dawn spreading like shimmering treacle over the desert plain interspersed with swathes of dense chaparral.

  He experienced joy, elation, an intense loneliness, regret and helpless pain as he allowed his mind to free fall through his life and memories.

  Delaney would never be able to commit to a life of spiritual discipline with the esoteric Brothers of Light despite the times he had retreated here over the years. He would always be and remain a part-time novice. It was ironic that his code name on the crime busting website confess-confess was The Monk.

  Delaney watched his shadow stretching across the bare rocks, undulating over crags and crevices. His breathing became shallow as he began his Tai Chi routine and the intense breath control techniques that had honed his fighting skills to a level unknown outside the inner sanctum of the Order.

  He began to descend into a deep hypnogogic state when his cell phone rang.

  Delaney reacted as though electrocuted. He cursed himself for not switching off his phone before he had walked up to his favorite meditation spot. He slipped his hand beneath his full-length, dark blue habit and withdrew his cell. He paused for a moment to allow his mind to rise into the present before answering.

  "Delaney."

  "Mike, thank God I found you," the woman's voice sounded panic stricken.

  "Laura?" said Delaney.

  She didn't reply at first and Delaney could hear her voice catching between barely controlled sobs.

  "What's happened?"

  "It's Bob. He's been kidnapped."

  "Kidnapped?"

  "Taken. We're over from London visiting the Chicago office. Pandora was with us. Yesterday a truck pulled up as Bob and I were leaving the hotel and men wearing masks grabbed him and the wheelchair and pushed him up a ramp into the van and then they were gone. The whole thing took about three minutes. I couldn't stop them and nobody would help. I've been trying to reach you?"

  "Professionals," said Delaney. "I'm at the monastery in California. Have they contacted you?"

  "They sent a package to the confess-confess office this morning. Mike, it gets worse."

  "What do you mean?"

  There was a pause on the line.

  'Laura?"

  "They took Pandora from our hotel room. They're holding them both."

  "Pandora?"

  "She's only fifteen, Mike. What's going to happen to them?"

  "Have they made a ransom demand?" asked Delaney as he marched hard and fast back down along the track that led to the monastery,

  "That's just it," said Laura and her voice almost cracked. "Whoever they are, they don't want money."

  "I see," said Delaney. "Did they say what they do want?"

  "Yes, they did."

  Delaney waited.

  "It's you, Mike," Laura told him. "They want you."

  CHAPTER TWO

  Mike Delaney ducked to enter the Chicago offices of confess-confess, the website created by Bob Messenger after he and Delaney had been kicked out of the Hong Kong Police following a trumped-up charge.

  Since then the site had recruited an army of amateur volunteer investigators and sleuths bent on exposing scams, crimes, and double dealing official cover-ups and had become a thorn in the side of organised crime and government departments alike.

  He was greeted by John Farrell, head of the Chicago office. John was grim faced as he led Delaney into the board room. Laura was there. She ran to Delaney and hugged him. "Mike, thank God you've come."

  John Farrell moved to the highly polished board room table and pulled a cinema sized flat screen monitor towards them. All three sat down. Farrell inserted a usb stick.

  "We've already seen this many times," said Farrell. "Are you okay with this, Laura?"

  "Yes," she said.

  "The message said no police," said Laura. "Only you, Mike."

  The screen flickered into life. A grey-faced Bob Messenger was sitting in his wheelchair, a state-of-the-art machine that combined the functions of a paraplegic lifeline with a modern office incorporating mini computer screens, communications and satellite navigation systems. It also housed an extremely effective defence system that Messenger was unable to activate. His hands were strapped to a bar between his legs. He was immobile.

  Delaney stared at his friend and colleague. Then he saw something that sent a spike of ice through his entrails. A number of shielded, heavy duty electric cables twisted and uncoiled themselves from connectors clamped to the frame of the wheelchair and snaked behind Messenger into a three-phase power transmission control box. A long handled lever projected from side with a simple 'Off/On' setting. The lever was in the up, or off, position.

  Gripping the level casually was a figure Delaney recognised instantly.

  The curved nose with a glint of a dewdrop projected from a pallid, saturnine face that looked like it had been carved from limestone. The hair was thinner and the bent shoulders more pronounced but Delaney would have recognised Julius Schipp in the midst of a ball game crowd.

  Schipp regarded the camera with a mixture of sly derision and arrogant aggression. His fingers played a digit dance on the handle of the power supply. The camera pulled back to reveal a group of heavy set men in black suits and black polo neck sweaters. They stood staring implacably at the camera .

  "Julius Schipp," Delaney muttered.

  "You know him?" growled John Farrell.

  "Before your time at the site," said Delaney. "Julius Schipp groomed and abducted very young girls. He got what he deserved."

  "Of course. Now I remember. You played your part," said Laura.

  "So did Bob. He wasn't too pleased with the Monk or confess-confess. We caught him with his pants around his ankles. At his height he ran a sophisticated sex abduction ring. He got ten years five years ago. Many of the girls have never been found."

  Laura stifled a small cry. "Pandora," she moaned then forced herself to regain some composure. "Why isn't he still in jail?"

  John Farrell was searching on another computer. "Got it," he said. "Escaped from San Quentin last month."

  The soundtrack on the computer screen crackled as Schipp spoke. "My dear Mrs Messenger, no doubt you are worried about your husband. You have no need to fear. He will not be harmed as long as my instructions are carried out to the letter. No mistakes. No false moves. No talking to the authorities. Oh, and to make doubly sure?"

  The camera panned away from a rigid Bob Messenger holding his emotions in tight rein and the casually fearsome Julius Schipp who
walked towards his victim and revealed a young girl dressed in a yellow tee-shirt and blue jeans. Her blonde hair was tied into a pony tail. She was staring defiantly at the camera but it was clear she was bottling her fear and terror and trying to keep her expression upbeat. She was handcuffed to a wooden pillar and had tucked her feet under her.

  "I'm sure you are concerned about Pandora's future, Mrs Messenger," crooned Schipp in his thin voice. "You know, high school, college, career, marriage maybe, children. It's only natural, isn't it? Well, so that you will not worry about your daughter unduly, let me tell you that I've been taking Pandora's future life extremely seriously. I have not quite made up my mind what direction it might take. It rather depends on you."

  The camera picked up Schipp standing behind a simmering Bob Messenger. He rested his hands on the wheelchair.

  "Your husband has been warned not say a word until instructed. Should he forget or give some facial indication you recognise as a message then he will receive a low power electric reminder through his very impressive wheelchair. If you do not comply with my wishes without fail then we'll pretend we are back in San Quentin and, with a certain sense of ironic justice, have before us our very own electric chair.

  "Now to business. If he is not already with you watching this then please inform the one they call the Monk that his presence is requested. The Monk, or should I say more correctly Mike Delaney, will find clues to this location in this video. Mr Delaney, you have until six o'clock tonight to find your way here alone and unarmed and to substitute yourself for your friend. It's that simple. You must offer your life in exchange for Bob Messenger - a family man, remember? Bob Messenger will be set free as soon as you arrive and give yourself up to your fate. One second late and Bob Messenger will never go to the ball," he said, "because he will be chargrilled. And Pandora will be forced to watch. Very unpleasant for a fifteen-year old, don't you think?"

  Delaney put his arm around Laura's shoulders. On screen, Schipp stood behind Bob Messenger and patted him on the cheek. "Your turn to say a few words, Bob. How does it feel to be on the receiving end for a change?"

  Messenger growled in response then stared directly into the camera. "Laura, whatever happens I want you to know that I love you. And I love you, Pandora. I promise I will keep you safe." He paused then said. "Mike, you know what you have to do."

  Messenger clammed up as Schipp patted his cheek once again.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Delaney glanced at his watch. "Four hours," he said. "I need to study that video." He sat down and found rewind with the mouse.

  "Can you save them?" asked Laura. "You and Bob have been like brothers ever since Hong Kong."

  "I'll do all I can," Delaney told her.

  "Bob wouldn't want you to give your life for his. But when it comes to it I don't know what I would feel."

  "I know exactly what you would feel," said Delaney. "And I wouldn't blame you. Let's not think about that scenario. First, I have to find him."

  "You're my only hope."

  "Tell me what happened while I check this video out in slow motion. Pandora was snatched while you and Bob were outside."

  "Yes, when they took Bob I ran back to our room and the door was open. She was gone, There were signs of a struggle. She would have put up a fight."

  "Could have been an inside job. Someone had to let them into your room."

  "There was someone; a waiter. He was paying us particular attention at lunch."

  "Okay, we'll get to him in a moment. For now?"

  Delaney stared at the screen until his eyeballs ached. He went through it frame by frame searching for something, anything that would give him a clue as to the whereabouts of Bob Messenger.

  At a deeper level he was recalling his life since he came to America from Ireland when he was twelve. Fast forward to the military and finally being seconded into the most secretive U.S department known only as G-Force. Few people outside the President of the United States knew its function. Delaney had been a government assassin, one of the best, before being was seconded to the Hong Kong Police as a martial arts enforcer, which is where he first met the Englishman with the clipped, John Gielgud voice and superlative IT and computing skills. When they had been kicked out on a spurious charge without a pension following a disastrous mission in which Bob Messenger had taken the bullet meant for Mike Delaney that had paralysed him from the waist down, both their lives changed forever. Messenger, after years of therapy, formed confess-confess, a website that had become a global phenomenon. And Delaney, a trained assassin and veteran of so many bruising fighting contests in the South-East Asia games, had vowed never to kill again unless forced to, when he joined the Brothers of Light, an esoteric order of monks.

  The slow motion images on the computer played across Delaney's cerebral cortex as he allowed his subconscious free rein.

  He stopped. He zoomed in onto a section of wooden wall behind the power supply box and cabling. The wooden planks that made up the structure of the building were cracked and warped. One of the cracks was wider than the others, wide enough to allow a glimpse of the view outside.

  Delaney's heart began to beat faster as he strained his twenty-twenty vision to form an image.

  A Ferris Wheel. Delaney sat back and rubbed his eyes.

  "Navy Pier," he breathed. He turned to the others. "Schipp is holding Bob and Pandora in a wooden building close to Navy Pier."

  "The only wooden buildings along from the pier on the waterfront are a few rundown warehouses," said John Farrell.

  Delaney said. "Laura, I need to talk to that waiter and see if he knows anything. In particular, which warehouse. We need to be sure. Would you recognise him?"

  "I certainly would," confirmed Laura.

  "Then let's go."

  They made the Hilton and Towers hotel on South Michigan in under fifteen minutes. They prowled the lobby, bars, restaurants and lounges until Laura stepped out from behind Delaney's looming frame and whispered to him. "That's him. I'm sure of it. He's the bald guy in street clothes heading for the car park."

  "Go back to the office," said Delaney. "Leave the rest to me." He didn't wait for her reply but strode off in pursuit of the disappearing figure. He stepped quickly through the door that led to the car park and down some concrete steps into the large, mainly empty, hotel parking lot. The waiter was standing by a mid price Chevrolet coup?.

  "Excuse me," Delaney called out. "Sorry to trouble you, pal but I'm a little lost. I recognise you from the hotel. You're a waiter, right? So you probably know your way around town. I'm looking for Buddy Guy's blues club. It's somewhere on Wabash but, hell, I don't know which end."

  The man turned and stared bleakly at Delaney as the big man ambled over, smiling and friendly; just another lost visitor.

  "Go ask the hotel, pal," he said. "I can't help you and I'm in a hurry, okay?" He pressed the remote on his key and the car lock clicked open just as Delaney arrived to stand next to him. Delaney took a photograph of Pandora from his inside pocket and shoved in front of the waiter's face.

  "I need to know if you saw this girl in the hotel in the last few days."

  "Look, man, I don't know what your game is but I ain't playin'". For your information, I'm an agency waiter. I never worked here before except for one shift."

  "I think you know this girl," said Delaney. "Think. Her name is Pandora Messenger and someone let some bad people into her hotel room and they abducted her. Better you tell me than the cops."

  "Fuck you, man." Delaney knew the waiter was weighing up his options taking into account Delaney's size and physique. A trickle of oily sweat appeared on his forehead. He took a deep breath and made his move.

  Delaney was ready.

  He sank his weight, leaned back and swayed to his left to avoid the flailing fist that flew harmlessly over his shoulder. The waiter was unbalanced and unable to prevent Delaney from striking deep into his kidneys with stiff fingers. With his other hand Delaney looped under his opponent's s
till outstretched arm and folded his wrist into a simple arm lock, forcing the waiter to the ground between two parked cars.

  The man was panting with exertion.

  "You have everything to gain and nothing to lose by telling me exactly which warehouse near Navy Pier the girl is being held. You're a small cog in a very big wheel hired to do a job. I'll take that into consideration when it comes to how much pain to inflict. I only have to move my hand a fraction of an inch and a small bone will snap and then another and another. Do you fully understand?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  Delaney tightened the arm lock and knelt on the man's spine. He cried out in pain and started to blub.

  "Stop, Jesus!" He screamed with his mouth pressed into the concrete.

  "I don't have much time. Shall I start to count?" asked Delaney quietly.

  "Okay, okay." The waiter gulped back a huge intake of air and concrete dust.

  "Three warehouses on the south waterfront. Last one is rundown, not derelict but close. It has barriers around it."

  Delaney started to rise and as he did so he delivered a blow to the man's temple fast and hard. He bundled his supine body into the back seat of the Chevrolet, locked the door and threw the key into a nearby garbage bin.

  As he power walked from the parking lot, out through the lobby of the hotel and onto South Michigan Avenue heading for the Chicago River his brain began to process information. What was Schipp playing at? What was his game? He claimed to have kidnapped Bob Messenger in order to tempt the Monk into revealing himself. But Delaney was not in hiding. This Monk business was something that happened by accident. He wasn't any kind of full-time vigilante. He had just become involved with cases where the downtrodden or those unable to fight back against injustice or crime needed a helping hand. He was not a committed member of confess-confess in the way that many others were.

  Schipp knew his real identity. They had come face-to-face in a courtroom five years ago. So why the elaborate charade? Maybe it was his sense of the dramatic. Maybe he felt Delaney would have no interest unless he did something that really got to him.

  And why take Pandora? Unless. Unless he had no intention of releasing her. Maybe Schipp fancied making a comeback in the underage sex and porn business. Since the video recording had been made on the day of her abduction Pandora could already be on her way to a pimp bar somewhere in the world.