An Eye For Justice

  An Eye for Justice

  Mark Young

  Funky Ink Press

  Copyright © 2018 Mark Young

  The right of Mark Young to be identified as the Author

  of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All Rights Reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,

  places, and incidents either are the product

  of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to actual persons,

  living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental

  eISBN: 978-0-9955676-2-7

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  EPILOGUE

  Prologue

  April 9th 1943 – Eastern Poland

  The half-starved girl stood on the ramp as the sky above her cried and roiled with dark rolling thunder clouds. She peered around dazedly, her tired eyes moving slowly, searching for her grandfather’s familiar face. Her mother and father lay dead in the cattle truck behind her. In her arms she held her baby sister, Helena, who slept on peacefully.

  Strands of mist hung in the air as grey shapes flitted amongst those still living from the transport. As her gaze moved out she saw scattered uniformed figures with guns and dogs, and then further out, what looked like the edge of a forest, but then she could see it was just branches threaded through fencing; then there were barracks and a watchtower over a square.

  It had seemed silent before, no sound permeating her consciousness, but then it all came rushing in: guttural commands, shouts, whimpers and screams, the thud of a rifle butt against bone. Then they were in the square and she couldn’t remember moving, and she clung ever tighter to Helena in her arms who miraculously slept on. And now Grandpa was there as well, stooped over but mentally unbowed, his eyes clear. He handed her his small bundle of possessions and said: ‘live, child, live.’ Then he began to whisper the prayer for the dead.

  A uniformed figure loomed out of the mist screaming at her in a foreign tongue, gesturing that she relinquish the child. She clung tighter to Helena, and as she saw the rifle butt swinging at her she turned her shoulder to protect her sister, and then she was down on the ground, still clinging to the sleeping child. Now another figure was there, tall with epaulets on his shoulders, black aviator goggles and a peaked cap with deaths head insignia. He pulled her up, smiled and spoke in German. He pointed to a building at the side of the square and led them to it; it had a sign on the front saying it was the infirmary.

  But inside it was bare apart from a huge pit from which belched smoke and flame. The smell was indescribable. The tall soldier took Grandpa’s bundle and opened it. First he removed a rolled up canvas which he unfurled and studied closely. Then he took out the other item, a gold, diamond encrusted pendant. He ran his fingers over it lovingly, admiring the skill of the goldsmith and the beauty of the flashing diamonds.

  He seemed to nod to himself and straighten up his posture, his smile still affable. He turned to grandpa and made a small bow and as grandpa smiled in acknowledgement the soldier drew a pistol from his side holster and leisurely shot grandpa in the head, gently pushing him back into the pit of fire. And now the girl could see through the flickering flames that the pit was filled with silent corpses; mostly old men, women and babies, all smoking and burning. She teetered on the edge, ready to fall, but the warm helpless bundle in her arms held her rooted to the spot.

  She could see blood had sprayed onto the soldiers aviator goggles. He pulled them off and slowly began to clean them with a handkerchief, quietly humming to himself. Then she saw his eyes and it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

  He put the goggles back on, walked over and placed the barrel of the gun to the sleeping child’s head. Then he smiled again and fired. She felt the impact and then she was falling back into the abyss.

  Chapter 1

  I still didn’t quite know how I’d got myself into it but I wasn’t about to complain, not when I’m sitting on a B A flight quaffing scotch heading for New York City. I was going there on the off chance that a multi-billion dollar corporation was gonna take a meeting with me. Nothing strange in that you might think until you had a look at my credentials, or lack of them. You see these days my legal chops weren’t exactly smoking hot, and I was about as far removed from what you might call a big-hitter attorney as you could get. I was plain Jonas Calver, a pretty average criminal lawyer from East London with a law practice that nobody’d ever heard of.

  Yeah we had a case, or so they told me, but even to me it sounded pretty thin stuff - an 87 year old client who apparently couldn’t remember a damn thing – nada, nothing. And maybe that should have worried me a bit more than it did, or maybe I was just slipping.

  And the way we got the case? Flukesville: the client’s niece worked for me.

  Emma’d tried to run it herself for a while - she was studying to be an attorney at night school - but then when it had got complicated she’d roped me in. And then when it got real complicated she’d said I had to go to New York to meet the defendants, even though we didn’t know if they’d take the meeting. And then she played her ace card: if I didn’t go she’d look for another job. That was basically code for she would pull the plug on my law firm, because she was the string and glue that bound it all together, and without her, well……

  And so here I was, reluctantly eyeing up a three inch thick file of papers she’d handed me about five minutes before departure. It was hard to summon up real enthusiasm but the complimentary scotch helped. I slipped it down the hatch and hunkered down to read.

  Three hours later I snapped the file shut and sat for a while staring out of the window at the fluffy white clouds as they zipped by below. Later as we began our descent I looked down and noticed the short note Emma had appended to the back of the file. It reminded me that our client’s daughter, Helena, would be arriving in New York to meet me, imminently - she would text me - and finally the note confirmed that Emma would notify me if the defendants were going to take the meeting.

  * * * *

  On the 58th floor of the K building on Water Street in the financial district of New York City, Charles Browder IV, general counsel for the Kurrilick Corporation, looked up at the founders son, 45 year old David Milken, and said, ‘this is bullshit, yes?’

  Browder tossed the letter he had been reading onto the massive oaken desk top and drew the bifocals off the end of his nose, then looked down at the letter again. It was from Jonas Calver Associates LLP, a small obscure London law firm, and the letter was signed by a paralegal called Emma Calthorp.

  Milken shrugged, unconcerned. ‘We thought it was done, Charlie, but maybe it ain’t. New kids on the block. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss,’ he purred. Milken was fond of quoting lines from old rock songs whenever he could.

  �
�So what do you want to do about it, boss?’ Browder asked, moving to place the letter back in his folder.

  ‘Nothing, yet,’ Milken said, turning to look out of the grand bank of office windows at the skyscrapers that surrounded them. ‘Let ‘em sweat it while we do some digging. Schmidt’s on it. Then maybe we’ll take the meeting.’

  Browder looked surprised for a millisecond, then his inscrutable lawyer look shuttered back down over his face like the drop hatch coming down on a rabbit hutch.

  * * * *

  After a sleepless night in a midtown hotel I got a text that my clients daughter, Helena was on her way, so I said I’d meet her in the hotel bar mid-morning. As I waited, sipping orange juice, my mind drifted back, fastening onto a subject that lately I couldn’t seem to let go of: Carmen, my wife.

  She’d said the separation would be temporary, so I could get my head together, but I knew she wouldn’t be coming back any time soon. But then I guess waking up with my hands around her throat wasn’t the best way to make a marriage work. I’d started to black-out and that throttling incident really broke the camels back. She’d called the cops, but we’d managed to smooth things over for a while, but I think I had scared her, and that first small fissure soon turned into a crack. And now I couldn’t stop thinking about her, going over it all in my head, again and again.

  Emma’d told me get my act together or I could kiss Carmen goodbye for good. Pretty sound advice I suppose but not much help to me stuck thousands of miles away in America. I checked my watch again whilst mulling on the vicissitudes of romantic longing, but also thanking the fates that had endowed me withe one valuable skill that hadn’t deserted me: the ability to compartmentalise. So that’s what I tried to do. Shove my problems with Carmen into a box marked ‘later’, and then start trying to think about Helena Palmer.

  I ran through what I knew about her, which wasn’t much. She was the 49 year old daughter of our client, Hannah Palmer, née Cohen, who was 87. As I happened to glance up I saw the bartender whispering to a rather attractive looking woman and pointing over at me, and a few moments later she stood at my table, looking down at me with a shy smile.

  She took a seat and then there was a pause whilst we waited for the waiter to bring her coffee. I cast a look at her; pretty, milky skin with freckles, grey eyes and copper coloured hair, maybe looking younger than her 49 years; maybe not; who knew these days.

  After a few stilted pleasantries she tapped her smart phone off and turned it face down on the table, and said, ‘so tell me, Mr Calver, what d’you make of mums case? ‘Cause frankly, what I know about the law you could print on the head of a pin.’

  She sounded slightly nervous, and maybe she was still grieving.

  ‘I was sorry to hear about your brother,’ I said, subtly trying to divert the conversation away from case detail. ‘Were you close?’

  She snorted and almost laughed. ‘God, no. Not for years. We may have been twins but we were strangers,’ she said, sipping some coffee and looking pensive. ‘They’re hinting it was suicide, which is bullshit. Can’t get my head around it.’

  She looked like she wanted to talk, so I decided not to interrupt. I sat back and waited.

  ‘I guess you probably know that brother John had been handling the case for mum with the US attorneys, and I basically had nothing to do with it. Then John died, and that’s when mum turned to me and cousin Emma to sort it out. John was the one who started it all, and then pushed it. I don’t think mum was ever very keen, mostly because she couldn’t really remember anything, and from what I gathered, didn’t really want to. I didn’t speak to John because of our estrangement and only heard odd snippets about the case, which I think had been going on for around three years and not really getting anywhere. But then a few months ago they got the offer of $2.5 million to settle it with no admissions of liability, and mum said take it - she’d had enough, and even her US attorneys said settle as they were adamant she couldn’t prove ownership.’

  I watched her for a beat. Her eyes were turned inwards and she was biting her lip. ‘But,’ I chipped in, guessing it had got to the stage where she needed a nudge.

  ‘But, John didn’t want to settle. He said they’d go to US$5 million. I think just before he died he spoke to the defendant’s lawyer, Browder I think his name was, over the phone, probably trying to be clever, hinting a deal could be done at a higher price and he would persuade mum to accept it. But I don’t think it came to anything because he died. It all seems a bit up in the air, and maybe they’re as confused as we are, so I guess that’s why we’re here, to clarify it. Do I have that about right?’ she said, looking at me with a wan smile.

  ‘On the nail, and you’re doing beautifully. Say, maybe you should come work for me,’ I quipped, but she didn’t smile. ‘The thing is, Helena, you’re right,’ I said, turning serious again. ‘There was an offer on the table of US$ 2.5 million, and we thought it was simple. Did Hannah want to accept it, or not, but then they went quiet, John died, and now we don’t know what’s happening. They don’t respond to any approaches and for all we know, the offers off the table. Hence Emma suggesting a meeting which we’re still waiting on. Oh, and those US attorneys she was using seem useless. I can’t get a response from them either. You call, they say they’ll get back to you, but they never do?’

  Helena frowned. ‘It’s funny. Mum was so clear she wanted to settle, but then with John, I don’t know. She said we should decide what to do, and she will go with it. I know that’s not much help.’

  ‘What do you think, Helena?’

  ‘I think losing John crushed her. If we go on with the case she’ll have to dig up stuff that’s probably better staying buried. But,’ she said with a quick smile and glance at me, ‘what d’you think – you’re the lawyer.’

  As I pondered that one, the one that no lawyer ever really wants to answer, I got a reprieve, my cellphone vibrating on the table with an incoming text from Emma. ‘Saved by the bell,’ I murmured as I looked down and read it. ‘Whatever I think, Helena,’ I said, tapping the screen, ‘K Corp want the meeting.’ I handed her the phone so she could read the text, and then I added, ‘you’ve come all this way, so lets go see them, see what we can shake loose. Then we can decide. After all, you’ve got nothing to lose.’

  As it turned out, I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  Chapter 2

  As our cab approached K Tower the traffic was snarled up, engines idling, vehicles crawling, making the city feel like a growling beast. I didn’t think it would do our credibility much good to turn up late so we got out the cab and walked the last bit down the sidewalk, trying not to sniff the engine fumes.

  Then we were in the supercharged lift, gliding up the slick sleek building. Even the elevator looked like it was fitted out in gold leaf. I felt shaky and I needed a drink. I took a peek at Helena; she looked apprehensive, maybe wondering what the hell she was doing coming into a place like this with just a guy like me.

  * * * *

  In another part of the building, in a hidden observation hub, John Schmidt, K Corp’s head of security stood and watched the banks of flat screens as they flickered around him. They showed interior views from all over the building, including the restrooms. He listened as information came in through his earpiece, his eyes lazily traversing the imagery.

  Schmidt wasn’t tall but you’d never call him small either. He was built like a bulldog with a face to go with it, all swarthy harsh planes riven over with pockmarks from old acne scars. Growing up in Saudi Arabia with a native mother and a sadistic German father hadn’t been kind to Schmidt, but it had given him certain skills; an uncommon low cunning and a penchant for explosive violence.

  Now he turned and glanced over at the man sitting to his right in a high-tech wheelchair. The man was clearly old and yet still seemed to exude a sense of authority. He had fine, short blonde hair cut in a military style and his one grey eye gleamed with intelligence and vigor. He sat ramrod straight, the black patch cov
ering his other eye giving him a rakish look.

  At the back of the hub, David Milken stood leaning against the wall sipping his coffee and listening to soft rock through an elaborate audio head rig.

  Schmidt tilted his head to a crackling sound from his earpiece, listened and grunted. He nodded at the old man, then picked up a remote control and pointed it at a large central screen affixed to the wall at shoulder height. He pressed a button and an empty conference room materialized on the screen and then the door opened into it.

  * * * *

  As we took our seats around a large mahogany table I studied Charles Browder. In house counsel are a strange breed of lawyer; usually fuck-ups who can’t cut it in private practice, so they become kept men with one client they don’t have to bust a gut to keep. Browder had that kind of washed out pseudo distinguished look that every lawyer on Wall Street seemed to have. Cadaver like craggy face with a shock of spiky grey hair sprouting out the top of his head, but his suit looked cheap.

  He noticed me looking at a camera that was perched up in the corner of the room. ‘Hope you don’t mind,’ he said. ‘A precautionary safeguard, for both sides.’

  ‘Not at all. We’ve got nothing to hide,’ I said.

  ‘Good. So lets cut to the chase shall we?’ he said. ‘We thought we had a deal. $2.5 million. We were expecting to receive heads of agreement for signature from you, but we got nothing. So, Mr. Calver, simple question: why exactly are we here? We appreciate that you and Miss Palmer are new to the case and are perhaps feeling your way in, after the sad and tragic death of John Palmer, but what exactly has changed?’