Lights Out Read online

  ***

  “No, Prime Minister,” Essien says as he and Fowler make their way along a corridor in a distant, empty part of the mansion, “don't worry, London will never be my primary residence. I do, however, intend to spend several months here each year. That's why I've purchased the old Haverford building. It's a big tower. You must have seen it. I'm going to kit the whole thing out in state-of-the-art technology so that -”

  “Why the fuck are you here?” Fowler blurts out suddenly, stopping and turning to him.

  “Why shouldn't I be here?” Essien asks with a knowing smile.

  “People like you don't retire,” Fowler continues. “Do you realize how many governments around the world would like to get their hands on you?”

  “And yet none of them actually make their move,” Essien points out. “It's almost as if they're scared of what might come out. It's a funny thing, but powerful people always have powerful secrets to protect. I don't think a single good man ever ascended to any meaningful position in this rotten world.”

  “Did you come here tonight to blackmail me?”

  “Not at all. Blackmail is illegal, and I'm on the straight and narrow now.” Essien pauses. “I suppose I came to remind you of my existence.”

  “That's very kind of you, but it wasn't necessary.”

  “Still being talked about, am I?”

  “Your name is in a lot of different files.”

  “I've given up my old life,” Essien explains. “Guns and weapons can find other routes into shady hands from now on. I've made my money and I intend to sit back and enjoy myself. This might surprise you, but I'm rather good at writing poetry. I intend to put together a few collections of my work.”

  “You have to be joking.”

  “How are all your secrets holding up?” Essien asks. “Have you managed to find any of those official documents your government lost? I'm talking about the ones related to all the children who went into that house and never came out, although there are other documents I could mention. It'd be very embarrassing if any of them were to turn up on the desks of the big newspapers. What if the voters found out who and what they've really been voting for?”

  “We have agreements with -”

  “And then the information would seep out onto social media. Out into the world.” Essien pauses, enjoying the moment. “Some of your ministers,” he adds finally, “have done some rather awful things to young children over the years, haven't they? Again, it seems to be something of a trend. It's amazing that you keep finding places to put all the bodies.”

  “So it is to be blackmail, then,” Fowler replies. “You haven't turned over a new leaf after all.”

  “I'm just pointing out that I'm not the only bad nut in the sack.”

  “So what do you -”

  “I want to be left alone,” Essien tells him.

  “Right now, so do I.”

  “Leave me alone, and I'll leave you alone,” Essien continues. “I have enough enemies in the world, without having to worry about governments. Don't worry, I'm not going to do a James Wisden and start causing a fuss. He really lost his mind, didn't he? No, I merely want to sink into retirement, work on my poetry, maybe write a novel or two, and learn to play the piano.”

  “That doesn't sound very likely.”

  “I've changed, Prime Minister.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Such a foul mouth. You should have more faith in human nature.”

  “That's rich, coming from a snake.”

  “I was never a snake,” Essien tells him. “I was more a... I suppose I was a lion. A big beast. I still could be, if I wanted. Think of all the damage I could cause if I revealed everything I'd heard. I have Pandora's box in my possession, Mr. Fowler. Perhaps you should give the White House a call and remind them. While you're at it, have a word in some ears in Australia and Canada and a few other places as well. France, Germany...”

  “The Russians are after you,” Fowler tells him.

  “I've already made my peace with them.”

  “And the Saudis too?”

  “Even the Saudis.”

  “And the Ludvic Group? You're not going to tell me that the Ludvic Group are willing to forgive and forget, are you?”

  “You'd be surprised. The Ludvic Group can be very forgiving, especially when you already have them on their knees.”

  “And you seriously think you can just live a normal life?” Fowler asks. “Are you that deluded?”

  “Oh, I know I shall need protection for the rest of my life,” Essien replies, “but that is in hand. No-one'll ever get near me. And protection is my problem, not yours. All you need to do is forget about me.” Smiling, he takes a step back. “Don't look so scared, Mr. Prime Minister. I have no intention of joining the London social scene. Tonight was merely an exception, so that I'd be able to have a word in your ear. I considered calling your office, but would you really have spoken to me? Anyway, I doubt we shall see one another again. Cheers.”

  With that, he raises his glass and takes a sip, before turning and heading back toward the party.

  “Do you really expect people to believe that you've changed?” Fowler calls after him. “Men like you never change, Essien. It's not in your nature.”

  “Of course it is,” Essien replies, not even bothering to look back at him. “I've turned over a new leaf. I'm all civilized now.”

  Chapter ThirtyOne

  23.45pm, the present day

  “And this is for lying to my face!” Essien sneers, pulling Randall's head back before driving the tip of a screwdriver into his bloodied, bruised bare shoulder. “Have you no respect for your betters, man?”

  Randall lets out a pained gasp, but that's all he can manage. Having endured several hours of unrelenting torture, he's in no state to struggle. His face is almost entirely purple now, thanks to the severe beating he's received, and both his eyes are swollen shut. One socket is shattered, along with his left cheekbone, and several of his teeth have been ripped out. Blood is sloughing down his chin and splattering against the floor. His right ear has been torn away, taking with it a chunk of skin.

  “I know you're still conscious,” Essien says, smiling as he admires his handiwork. “Believe me, I've got experience when it comes to treading this fine line. I know how to torture you without granting you the blessing of death or sleep. I know where to hurt you, to make sure that you never get used to the pain. This is my art.”

  Randall gasps again.

  “What was that?” Essien asks, before shoving him face-first against the floor and then getting to his feet. He pauses, and then he stamps on the back of Randall's head, breaking the man's nose. “Look at the mess you've made in my home,” he continues. “Who's going to pay to get all the blood out of everything? I suppose that'll be on me, won't it? You're going to leave a real stain after you're gone, Randall. Are you proud of that?”

  He waits, grinning as Randall lets out an agonized groan. A moment later, the bloodied man tries to crawl forward, only to slump down and start shaking violently.

  “Shit, there's blood all over my clothes, too,” Essien says with a sigh, before pulling his shirt off and tossing it to one side. Then he removes his trousers as well, and finally he strips almost completely naked while still towering above Randall. All he's wearing now is a pair of black boots. “This is all your fucking fault,” he continues. “I'm not like you, Randall. I don't wear cheap off-the-peg crap from high-street stores. I'll never be able to wear these clothes again, I'll have to have them burned. Do you have any idea how annoying that is?”

  Again he waits.

  Again, Randall doesn't respond.

  “Are you even listening to me?” Essien asks.

  He kicks Randall's shoulder, causing the man to immediately let out a terrified shriek and turn away.

  “Don't be so fucking pathetic,” Essien continues. “Are you seriously claiming that a little kick hurt you? Fuck, I didn't realize you were such a turd.”


  Rolling his eyes, he turns to walk away, but then he pauses for a moment. And then, in a moment of fury, he turns back around and kicks Randall hard in the side of the head, causing him to briefly cry out as he rolls onto his back.

  “Shit,” Essien says, “I forgot. After everything else, I don't want to get blood on my new shoes as well.”

  He crouches down and inspects the toe area.

  “Looks okay so far,” he mutters. “That's good, Randall. If you'd fucked my shoes up, I'd have had to make you feel some real -”

  Suddenly he stops as he realizes that Randall is trying to speak.

  “What are you saying?” he asks, before crawling closer to him. “What could you possibly think I want to hear come out of your mouth right now?”

  He listens for a moment, and then he tilts his head and listens some more.

  “I can't fucking understand you!” he shouts finally. “You're just gibbering like a fucking moron, Randall! Pull yourself together. If you've got something to say, take a moment and then say it clearly. Enunciate like a civilized human being! I wasn't planning to let you make some final grand speech, but I suppose I could listen if it's really important to you. Get on with it, man!”

  He listens again, and then he sighs.

  “You're impossible,” he continues. “You're wasting my time, Randall.”

  Sighing again, he grabs Randall by the shoulders and hauls him up, and then he starts dragging him across the room. After a few seconds, however, he stops and looks over at the window, and he stares at the rich red glow that's filling the sky.

  “It's even more beautiful than before,” he whispers, mesmerized by the sight as Randall continues to murmur. “We must be in the heart of the storm. I guess cameras aren't working too well right now. Maybe there'll be no record of the storm once it's gone, at least not in pictures. The world will need people like me, true poets, to convey the true sense of wonder that we're all feeling. This night might turn out to be the most important night of my life.”

  He pauses, before turning to Randall.

  “Isn't that nice for me?” he adds.

  Randall's face twitches slightly, but he can't even open his eyes.

  “You never were a very sensitive soul, were you?” Essien continues. “You should take time to appreciate beauty. Open your eyes, man. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” He grabs Randall's chin and turns him to face the window. “Come on, force those peepers open. It'll do you good.”

  He waits, and then he uses two fingers to try forcing Randall's left eye open. He has to really dig his fingertips under the swollen lids, and after a moment one of his nails slices against the eyeball.

  “You're a fucking mess, man,” he says finally, as Randall lets out a pained groan. “Where's your dignity? Why am I wasting my time on you, when I should be meditating and contemplating and thinking about my poetry? Huh? Tell me why. Why am I having to put up with your bullshit?”

  He turns Randall around and shoves him forward, sending him crumpling to the floor until he lands with his head in the open doorway that leads through to the kitchen.

  Essien stares at him for a moment, before stepping over and grabbing the door's handle.

  “I don't know what offends me more,” he continues. “The fact that you thought you could ever get the drop on me, or the fact that I actually hired someone so pathetic in the first place. Hell, Randall, this is not a good day. It's not a good day at all.”

  With that, he slams the door shut on Randall's neck, causing the man's body to jerk briefly.

  Pulling the door open, he sees that Randall's face is twitching.

  “That's your answer to everything,” Essien mutters, and then he slams the door against Randall's neck again.

  And again.

  And over and over, with increasing ferocity, finally resorting to kicking the door repeatedly. The rage continues for a few more seconds, and then suddenly the door slams shut.

  “What the fuck?” Essien says, as blood sprays from the neck area.

  He cautiously opens the door, only to find that he's managed to separate Randall's head from the rest of his body, decapitating him and sending the head rolling over toward the bottom of the counter.

  “Seriously?” Essien gasps in disbelief. “Why does this always happen to me? Why do the fucking heads always end up coming off? It's like I'm fucking cursed!”

  He stares for a moment longer.

  “This doesn't happen to other people,” he continues. “Other people don't have heads flying off all around them. It's not like I'm some kind of strongman. Am I accidentally hiring people with fragile necks? What the fuck is going on?”

  He stares for a few more seconds.

  Finally he slams the door shut again and turns, sighing as he walks back over toward the window.

  “I sensed something bad was coming today,” he mutters to himself as he stands, bathed in the flickering red light. “It was in my gut. Even before all this bullshit started with the storm, my gut was telling me that danger was coming for me, and I was right. Damn it, I was totally right.”

  He pauses, staring at the red lights, and then a flicker of doubt crosses his face.

  “I was right,” he continues, “but I still feel it. That means it wasn't Randall.”

  He pauses again, his mind racing with the possibilities, and then he starts looking around.

  “So it must be something else,” he says, his voice filled with concern. “Randall, you might have been an idiot, but you were no real threat to me. No, the real threat is coming from something else, and it's...”

  Again he pauses, and slowly he turns and looks at the window. Stepping over to the glass, he looks down toward the dark streets, and then he looks up toward the roof. His eyes are filled with a growing sense of fear, and then he turns and looks through to the farthest, darkest part of the apartment.

  “It's getting closer,” he whispers finally. “Whoever and whatever it is, the danger is getting much, much closer.”

  Chapter ThirtyTwo

  12:05am

  “Finally!” Anders says as he clambers over the top of the tower and then stumbles onto the roof. “We actually made it!”

  Nearby, Cassie is staring straight up. Above, huge ribbons of red are drifting and flickering. It's as if the heavens are ablaze. Deep, rich shades of red run into and across one another, blanketing the entire night sky.

  “It's beautiful,” Cassie whispers. “I hope Steve's let Emily stay up to watch. And I hope he's let Milo stay in the house. Emily loves dogs so much.”

  “It's weird,” Anders mutters as he, too, looks up at the sky. “I'm not a fan of weird. I will be very happy when everything goes back to normal.”

  “Look!”

  Cassie holds a hand out, trying to touch thin wisps of pinkish-white that are drifting all around.

  “I don't understand the science behind any of this,” she says after a moment, “but it's amazing. It's as if the stars themselves have dropped down here for one night.”

  “I hope it's not dangerous,” Anders replies, as he tries to dodge the wisps. “I don't want to get cancer or something from this stuff. I cough enough as it is.”

  “They said it's safe. On the news, before it started. They said not to worry.”

  “I prefer to worry,” he says. “Worrying has kept me alive thus far, and I trust worrying to keep me alive for a while longer too. And in this case, we need to get into the building as fast as possible. It must be gone midnight. We only have three hours left, at most, before the storm passes, and a few hours after that before the power grid is turned back on. We need to be far from here by that time any of that happens.”

  He steps past Cassie and goes over to the air-conditioning vents. As he starts examining the various panels, he's still muttering to himself about how much he wants to leave, and then finally he takes a small screwdriver from his pocket and starts loosening the main vent. The job takes him a few minutes, but eventually he's able to take the vent'
s covering away, revealing a dark void that leads down and into the building.

  “Ordinarily there'd be sensors all over this thing,” he mutters, as he reaches up and touches some small black dots around the vent's entrance. “On any other day, we'd have been noticed by now.”

  He pauses, before turning to see that Cassie is still mesmerized by the colored wisps that are floating all around.

  “Will you keep your mind on the task at hand?” he hisses. “Come on, get over here! There'll be time to fart around later!”

  Cassie heads across to join him, and for a moment she stares down into the pitch-black vent.

  “We're going in there?” she asks, before turning to him. “How do you know that we won't just end up stuck somewhere inside the building? This could be suicide.”

  “I already told you,” he replies, “I studied this place for years. I familiarized myself with the possible air-conditioning systems they might have, and I know exactly how this particular one will be arranged. There'll be a drop of about five feet, into a lateral section that forms one of four sides of a square central layout with arms spreading out to different rooms on the upper floor. That's the easy part. The hard part is going to be getting through the vents without making a noise, so we're going to have to move slowly. We're going to need a little luck, especially when it comes to selecting a location for our entry into the penthouse flat. I want to retain the element of surprise.”

  “This is starting to sound crazy,” Cassie tells him.

  “It was always crazy,” he replies. “It's okay. We've done crazy before. Unless you think you're getting out of shape?”

  “I'll go first.”

  “No, I'll go first. I'm the one who knows the layout, after all. If we go wrong, we could end up wedged in the vents forever.” He turns to climb in, but then he glances back at her. “Aren't you going to ask me if I'm sure that this will work?”

  “I'm assuming you're sure,” she tells him. “You always were in the past.”

  He smiles, before starting to clamber into the vent.