Day 198 - What more could he do?

 What more could he do?

Matthew Ryan Fischer

 

He was only one man. There was already too much blood on his hands. The memories, the nightmares, they were never going to go away. He was only one man. He couldn’t stand up to Von. He couldn’t stop a coming gang war. He had lost his focus and somewhere along the way he had lost the man he was meant to be and forgot the man he was. He told himself that killing the fake 22 would mean something. He would be defending his honor, the significance of the brand. But in actually it was a meaningless fool’s quest. One more murder, one more sacrifice for no good reason. Another ounce of himself lost and gone.

47 was half asleep, or at least he was pretending to be. He hadn’t said anything since they had left the club. Von had been disappointed in them both, angered that they hadn’t made a better impression with Gideon. 66 didn’t care about that, but he did consider the fact that he was surrounded by Von’s men and they were all armed. There would be plenty of time to disagree with Von later. Right now, it was time to survive. But then Von made them get in the car with him. They were all going for a ride.

They drove to a boutique hotel, La Grandia Jakarta. 66 remembered the La Grandia Bandung and a job from a long time ago that ended in blood and the death of one of the few women he ever cared about. He hadn’t thought of her in a long time. Seeing this hotel, built to look much the same as the other, a sick feeling came over him. More blood would flow; he was almost certain of it.

They passed two palm trees as they entered the semi-circle drive. The front was several floors of glass and 66 could see a spiral staircase going from a corner of the lobby up several floors. People on a balcony looked down at the street. Probably an outdoor bar, he thought. Nightclub and dance-floor and drunks who accidentally fell into rooftop bars. Too much chaos for a secure location, and no place for a rival gang to be running any business worth busting up. But 66 knew Von brought them here for an important reason.

47 rubbed his eyes and pretended he had been awake and alert the whole time. 66 was fairly certain he was in the dark as well. Both men waited for Von to speak.

“You move in tomorrow. We take over the seventh floor. We’ll be bringing in cameras and microphones along with a few other upgrades. But you two will need to scout the rest of the building. We may be on the seventh, but we need to own the whole thing.”

“What do we need to prepare for?” asked 47. “Assassination? Or are we prepping to protect you during a meeting?”

“Both. All of it. More. Anything and everything. I said we need to own the building. This weekend will be the most important gathering of our lives.”

“This weekend? That’s not enough time.”

“If I had been given more time, you’d know it. So shut up and do your job.”

66 knew this type of operation took weeks to scout and prep. Whatever could happen would. Being under-prepared got people killed. He thought of the blood on the bed back at La Grandia Bandung. Nothing ever went as planned.

Living here also meant twenty-four-hour surveillance. He wasn’t going to escape that way. Maybe before everything was set up and running. But that would mean in the next day. After that, he’d be surrounded by soldiers and every step he took would be recorded and observed.

“Can you tell us more about this meeting? Numbers, how long? We need to know what to expect.”

But Von was already on a phone call. After a moment he leaned forward and spoke to the driver. The car began to move.

“Seems like you’ll move in tomorrow. Gideon needs us tonight.”