Termination Notice (Action Girl Thrillers) Read online

  Termination Notice

  By A.D. Phillips

  Published by Action Girl Books (Manchester, UK)

  E-mail: [email protected]

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  Copyright Notice

  Termination Notice

  First Published in 2015 by Action Girl Books

  Copyright © A.D. Phillips 2015

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover design by Action Girl Books (using GIMP)

  Using Images Licensed from Shutterstock

  and Public Domain / Creative Commons Images

  Chapter One

  The killer was a woman. Her wide hips, smoothly-curved crotch, and busty figure left no room for doubt.

  Her silky, crimson-red outfit was impractically tight, with no folds or trapped air pockets. The woman was a ninja - the fictionalised, non-sneaky kind. Sharp-edged throwing stars dangled from her belt. Dagger hilts glinted in sheaths strapped to her knee-length leather boots. Her hood was Japanese in design, with a single elongated slit across her dark blue eyes and nose. Staring directly ahead with both hands gripping a katana, she looked ready for battle.

  A street lamp flickered, irregular flashes illuminating the advertising board. The extra light revealed tears and imperfections in the poster, making the ninja look even less realistic. The artwork was photographic, with a slim, athletic model playing the role of the female warrior. There was nothing on the pitch-black background except a superimposed title: Crimson Shadow. The letters were bright red and Asian-themed, sharpened to points like knife blades. The small print beneath was plain white: The Epic Adventure from Taurus Studios - Coming Soon.

  The advert was in far better condition than the decrepit warehouse on which it was posted. Constructed with crumbly bricks, eroded mortar, and dirt-blackened windows, the slope-roofed, three-story building was poorly maintained. The gate for freight vehicle access was shut tight, its locking rings secured with rusty, grime-smeared bolts. Beside that was a hinged metal door with a five-button, mechanical combination lock.

  The security device was relatively clean, one of the few indications the warehouse was in use. Other clues were an ever-so-slightly-lit, third-floor window and - more noticeably - thumping music. Loud enough to be heard across the secluded street, the overall tone and composition were Far Eastern. Frequent bursts in volume and sudden, dramatic changes in tempo added a modern twist.

  A wailing siren - too off-key to be part of the tune - got progressively louder. A white, glossy-bodied ambulance whizzed by, flashing emergency lights turning oily puddles pale red. The vehicle travelled at high speed. With no late night traffic to navigate, it was gone in mere seconds, and the siren noise faded shortly afterwards. Only music could be heard now. There were no pedestrians walking the pavement, very few parked cars, and the other warehouses - with dark, boarded-up windows - looked disused.

  A shadowy figure stepped from behind a bus shelter. Gloom-shrouded eyes - barely visible through oval-shaped holes in a leathery balaclava - moved slowly from right to left, scanning the warehouse opposite. There were no clues whatsoever to the person’s identity. A thin cloth veil was stitched around the mouth slit, allowing the figure to breathe without exposing lips or skin. The watcher was dressed entirely in black leather: a loose-fitting jacket with sleeves rolled down inside matching gloves, and leggings tucked into flat-soled boots.

  The watcher finished scanning the lower levels and checked the warehouse roof. Both eyes stopped moving, and simultaneously focused on a skylight at the far right end. Its frame was a few inches ajar, the exposed locking hinge within potential reach. The masked figure looked sharply one way, then the other, checking the street. Nobody else was in sight.

  The watcher broke cover and moved swiftly across the road, zigzagging between shadows. There were three brief moments when light reflected off shiny leather, but the stealthy, half-crouched approach suggested a well-trained individual with predatory instincts. The black figure moved into a darker patch between two street lights, took a deep breath through the veil, and scaled the warehouse wall.

  Fingertips and toe caps slotted neatly into gaps in the mortar. Using those for handholds, the cat-burglar-like climber reached the advertising board in under a minute. The masked figure was intermittently visible in flickering, amber light, spread flat beside the female ninja. After a brief look at the poster girl’s face, the climber proceeded up to the warehouse roof, demonstrating agility and precision worthy of a world-class gymnast.

  Showing no evidence of tiredness, the silhouetted figure crept toward the open skylight. Loud music helped conceal the light footsteps, effectively silencing them. The figure squatted in a nearby dark spot - as if by natural habit - and reached into an exterior jacket pocket. The partially obscured, gloved hand bulged behind the outer lining, clutching an unseen object. Its outline was thin, palm sized, and rectangular.

  ***

  The musician squinted with concentration as he adjusted a slider control, one of dozens on his desktop control panel. He turned a numbered knob a few notches anticlockwise, and nodded along to the music’s rhythm. Oriental inspiration had been ditched completely in favour of Western Rock. The pumping, never-dull score hinted at thrilling action and high-stakes drama. It was the sort of piece that would accompany a climatic battle scene from a blockbuster movie.

  The greasy-bearded composer looked about thirty and could pass for a biker. Long, blond hair fully obscured the back of his neck. His choice of clothing was appropriate, too: leather jacket with Proud to be Indie printed on the back, well-worn, dark brown jeans, and dusty cowboy boots. The musician’s bulky earphones covered the lobes and a good portion of his spotty cheeks, and his mirrored, metallic-blue shades reflected chains of indicator lights.

  The headset was fitted with rubber buffs designed to contain noise, but they did little to dampen the booming music. The screechy composition could be heard across the room: a spacious, concrete-walled area with dry-rotten pallets stacked under dirty windows. The converted loft was furnished with a steel-framed, wonky-sprung bed, and extended into an open-plan kitchen with the bare minimum of appliances. Empty beer bottles and cardboard pizza boxes had been dumped in overfilled waste bags. Flies could be seen - but not heard - swarming around the refuse.

  A newish mobile phone - on the control panel by an opened beer bottle - lit up. Its speaker played a retro computer game theme tune from the 1980s. The text displayed on the LCD screen was from the same era: rough-edged, low-resolution letters in vibrant, single-shade colours. Despite the blocky characters, the message was clearly legible: Unknown Caller.

  The musician lifted up an earphone and pressed the phone’s answer button. “Hello,” he said, without the slightest hint of enthusiasm.

  “The only limit… is ambition,” stuttered the caller.

  It was a man’s voice. Even with the composer’s music playing over the top, his accent was unmistakably American. There was a distinct, abrupt change in tone and loudness half-way through the sentence, as if the caller had stopped talking and started over. The first three words were spoken boisterously, the second two a lot more subdued.

  The musician turned down the music and leaned closer to his mobile. “Come again?” he queried. “Is this some kind—”

  “At Taurus studios…” the caller interrupted, “we expect… loyalty.” As before, the message was broken up and disjointed. Three snippets with jarring gaps in between.

  “Pryce?” the musician said, lips widening into a cheesy grin. “It’s you, isn’t it?” Th
ere was no response to his question. “Calling to say screw you? How you doin’, boss? Oh, that’s right. You ain’t my boss no more.”

  The musician turned the volume all the way to maximum. The throbs were so pounding a candy wrapper on the desk vibrated and slid off.

  “Hear that!?” the composer screamed rhetorically. “You’re listening to the work of a genius. This is what you missed out on. It’s the future, and you’re history.”

  The musician terminated the call with a fierce button jab, replaced his earmuff, and nodded to the rhythm while he moved sliders, flipped switches, and rotated dials. He didn’t so much as glance at the cellphone, and gave no apparent afterthought to his argument with the mysterious, jittery-speaking man. When the phone rang again, the composer let it go unanswered. He picked up the beer bottle without looking, leant back in his chair, and took a long swig.

  The loft’s bathroom was in a separate, concreted-off area. A mouldy toilet seat, sink, and cracked shower divider were visible through a riveted steel door that had been left half-open. Halogen lamps were installed high up on the warehouse ceiling. With the long distance and almost-vertical angle - and no lights on inside the bathroom - the illuminated floor segment only extended a few feet beyond the threshold.

  The ambient light brightened - a slight change only hawk-eyed observers would notice. The black, leather-clad figure dropped silently through the open skylight, knees bent to absorb the impact of the fall. Shortly after landing, the masked intruder shuffled sideways into the shadow cast by the door. Almost unnoticeable in the dark, the figure remained still, mouthpiece veil fluttering in response to slow, steady breaths.

  Without looking down, the intruder reached into the left jacket pocket and removed a long, flexible cable. The quarter-inch thick, plastic insulation was as black as the figure’s outfit. Its loose dangling strip ended in a hard-cased, gold-pinned connector designed to fit an electrical device such as a television or computer. There was a similar attachment at the other end, but it was mostly hidden by the intruder’s glove.

  The masked figure stepped into the warehouse proper, and closed in on the musician from behind. Fisted gloves gripped the two connectors and stretched the cable taut. The plastic probably creaked, but the noise couldn’t be heard over the music. Now brightly lit, there was nowhere for the black-clad figure to hide. Despite being in the open, the intruder remained calm and methodical on approach, treading gently on the concrete even though the background noise and rubber soles would almost certainly mask any footsteps.

  The musician took another swig of beer, completely unaware of the stalker’s presence. The intruder lifted the cable above the composer’s head, forced it into a U-bend, and brought it sharply down. Black plastic blurred past, briefly reflected in the musician’s shades. The assassin snapped the makeshift garotte tight around the startled man’s neck, and pulled so hard the connectors came within a finger’s width of touching.

  Taken by surprise, the musician opened his mouth wide, coughing a mouthful of frothy beer over his control panel. Sparks flew from a short-circuited speaker. Synthesised music continued to play from the others, drowning out the man’s strangled gasps.

  The musician gripped the bottleneck tight and swung his arm violently back. Glass smashed on contact with the intruder’s head, striking a blow just below the right eye. Beer trickled down the balaclava, but there was no sign of any damage, and the killer’s grip on the cable remained strong. The composer stared despairingly at the shattered bottle head - jagged-edged and still useful as a weapon - but before he could get in a second swing, the intruder kicked the chair out from underneath him.

  The assassin had no trouble maintaining the stranglehold as the stumbling drunk floundered to regain his footing. In retaliation, the victim stabbed backward. The killer twisted aside, and the composer missed his target, elbow knocking his mobile phone off the desk. Swayed off balance, the musician could do nothing to prevent the intruder forcing him face-down on the ground.

  The strangler stepped on the hand that held the broken bottleneck, crushing glass and finger bones with a single, well-placed stomp. Choked gasps turned to shrill whimpers. Hand shaking, the composer reached for the mobile phone and dialled the emergency number. The murderer watched but did nothing to stop him. Instead, the masked figure knelt over the weakened victim’s back and tightened the deathly grip on the computer cable.

  A female operator answered the musician’s call for help. “911. What’s your emergency?” was the standard, calmly-voiced response.

  The musician - trapped under the assailant and growing weaker by the second - could only gurgle and scrape the floor. Using his uninjured hand, he reached for the broken bottle and collected a long, sharp-edged piece of brown glass.

  “I can’t hear you,” the operator said, raising her voice. “You need to turn the music down.”

  Cut thumb dripping blood, the musician rubbed the glass shard against the computer cable in hope of severing it. But his sawing motion was weak, and he only succeeded in smearing his neck with bloody fingerprints.

  “Are you there?” the operator asked. “Are you able to respond?”

  The glass dropped from the composer’s limp hand. He stopped moving, eyes staring vacantly down at the floor. The intruder gripped both cable connectors with one hand. Keeping the plastic loop tightly closed, the strangler picked up the cellphone.

  “Are you able to—”

  The intruder terminated the call, silencing the operator in mid-sentence. Letting the cable go slack, the killer wiped it on the dead man’s jacket until it gleamed black and all visible traces of blood had been removed.

  A featureless, dome-headed shadow passed over the musician’s body as the assailant moved away. The mobile phone was tossed on the red-trailed concrete, followed by the cleaned-up murder weapon. Without a composer to direct the music, it came to a deafening crescendo, and then stopped.

  Chapter Two

  A brilliant white camera flash lit up the musician’s body. Then gloom returned to the crime scene. It was broad daylight outside, but the dirty windows only allowed a few faint sunbeams to shine in. Particles of dust floated through the pale yellow rays, making them seem smoky. The lights on the musician’s control panel - far more red than green now - appeared bright in the shady warehouse. Conditions weren’t optimal for the forensics team, and two strong-armed workmen were already setting up portable floodlights to provide much-needed illumination.

  The woman with the camera strapped around her neck was a moderately attractive redhead in her early thirties. Other technicians gave her a wide berth as she paced slowly around the dead man’s body and studied the crime scene with attentive eyes. Her plain black work shoes were wrapped in blue plastic to match her surgical gloves. A laminated name badge clipped to her white labcoat identified her as Dr. Teresa Vickers. Like her practically antique, film-loaded camera, much about Vickers appeared old-fashioned: fountain pens clipped to her breast pocket, well-worn grey trousers below her coattail, and white marble, mosaic-patterned earrings set in plain silver.

  “The victim’s been dead for some time,” Vickers assessed, her voice clear despite speaking through a facemask.

  The doctor knelt down, and used tweezers to take a dried blood sample from the composer’s broken finger. She worked quickly but precisely, depositing the flake in a plastic evidence bag which she immediately sealed to shut out the dust. Her steady hands and calm professionalism suggested a lot of prior experience.

  A man by the control panel - a detective with a brass, number-etched shield clipped on his belt - wafted the air under his nose. He gulped, lips sealed as he held his breath. The policeman’s neatly-trimmed, dark brown moustache was a shade lighter than his balding hair. His cheap, dark purple suit and spot-patterned tie had collected a lot of feathery fluff. The shirt he wore was plain white, bulging around the stomach area. At least ten years older than anyone on the forensics team, he looked far less comfortable.

  The de
tective stepped back and turned away to breathe. “I gathered that,” was his sarcastic reply to Vickers’ analysis. He coughed before continuing. “Could you be a little more precise, Doc? You are supposed to be our forensic expert.”

  “Just giving you a moment to get settled, Ron,” Vickers joked back. She paused a moment, then dipped her tweezers in a pool of liquefied flesh under the musician’s flattened cheek. “As you’d probably noticed, the decomposition’s well under way. It’ll be like moving a milkshake. I’d put the time of death three to four days ago.”

  “Not a bad estimate,” Ron said, looking a touch less pale. A wry smile suggested he wasn’t finished with the banter. “That fits with the time he called 911.”

  Vickers gave Ron a hard, cold-eyed stare. Her lower face was hidden behind the mask, but it was unlikely she was amused.

  Ron placed both hands in his trouser pockets and stood upright. The smile was gone. In the joker’s place was a morbid, businesslike detective. “So Mister Handsome here didn’t have any close friends?” he probed. “Three days, and nobody cared enough to report the guy missing.”

  “The puzzles I leave to you.” Vickers moved away and pulled down her face mask. “You are supposed to be a detective.”

  Ron and the forensics woman shared a grin. Their smiles disappeared as a tall, physically fit woman walked into the studio. The late arrival took out a black leather wallet and flashed her detective shield at a uniformed cop by the door. She paid little attention to him after that, and proceeded directly to the body.

  The workmen - now finished setting up the equipment - made way for the humourless, icy-eyed blonde. She didn’t deviate from her straight path once. Bathed in industrial-strength floodlights, her formal trouser suit and flat-bottom shoes remained as black as night. The newcomer didn’t require high heels to bolster her presence.