Any Means Necessary - Shane Britten

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barely make the dog out, such was its manic motion, but I took it to be some type of Bull Terrier. I pulled out the small taser I carried as a backup, quickly changing the voltage so as not to kill the animal.

      A burst from the weapon made the dog let go with a yelp. A second burst and it slumped onto the ground, unconscious. Muttering a soft curse, I looked at my leg. It hurt like hell. There was a bit of blood on my skin, but nothing on the ground.

      Two doors down on the left, the noise continued so I quickly hobbled to the door and shoved it open, sweeping inside with taser poised. There was a man in the room, his face a mask of exertion, sweat pouring from his chubby face and dripping off the ends of a thin moustache. His fist was raised mid-blow, his other hand circling the throat of a girl that was so unnaturally immobile that I knew she was beyond my help. It was the girl Myers had singled out as a ‘trouble-maker’, though even recognising that was difficult with what the man had done to her face.

      The man started to draw a small blade from within his coat but I was already on him, slamming his head into the wall and bringing my fist down with enough force that the ulna bone in his forearm audibly snapped and he dropped the knife. In a smooth motion, I reached down for the blade and slammed it upwards under his chin at a forty-five -degree angle even as his scream of pain started to form. He was dead before the blade reached its final resting place within his skull.

      I took a step away and composed myself, tucking the taser back into its leather holster just behind my left hip. I’d seen plenty of dead bodies before, but this girl’s death was a waste of a young life. I packaged the thought away in the back of my brain to be dealt with over future sleepless nights. She had one more purpose to serve. I lifted his body, which had slumped over her, long enough to put the hilt of the knife in her hand. It was imperfect, but it would do and was likely to pass quick scrutiny. I assumed any investigator would be horrified that the girl had been literally beaten to death and would silently cheer that she had managed to grab a knife and kill the man before succumbing to her wounds. There wasn’t much I could do about his forearm that would be too convincing, but using one gloved hand, I pushed him off her and let him slump down hard on the floor, which tucked that arm beneath him. I fact-checked my proposed scenario: the man had beaten her and in the final moments of her life, she’d snatched his knife, buried it under his chin and he’d fallen onto the floor, breaking his arm in the process. His blood was on her face, her prints on the knife.

      I took a step back and looked over the room and myself, making sure I had left limited trace of my presence. With one last look at the two bodies, I left the room, walking with only a slight limp past the unconscious dog and to the lounge-room. I pulled Myers’ pants off and put one of his meaty hands on his crotch. A pornographic magazine replaced the exercise book of clients, which I tucked into the waistband of my suit pants. Death by asphyxiation caused in the pursuit of sexual pleasure.

      The dog was likely to be put down if left to the police and I knew someone who could look after the girls better than the authorities. With two calls, I ensured the girls would be collected by my reluctant, occasional ally, Sister Mary, and the dog by Eleanor, a no-nonsense inspector at the Royal Society For the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, before police even knew the scene existed. I wasn’t sure how it played into the ethical framework of both women, given their exposure to my violent tactics in the past, but they had both shown a willingness to ignore the messier side of the scenes I provided to remove victims from a system that would invariably fail them.

      While waiting for my two helpers to arrive, I was caught on the implausible nature of the crime. We were less than ten miles from the centre of Canberra, a small, sleepy government town of around 400,000 people. For such a bold, ongoing crime to take place in the city that housed Australia’s federal police and multiple other enforcement agencies defied belief. This enterprise should have been identified and shut down a long time before these particular girls were at risk. Who knew how many others had passed through Myers’ grimy hands, and so close to the nation’s political centre.

      Still, scratch the surface of any highly bureaucratic city and you were sure to find corruption and crime, usually fuelled by the scourge of modern society: drugs. I had lived in Canberra for most of my young life, working in clandestine operational roles for government agencies rarely spoken about in public, so knew only too well the murky underbelly of the place. If I was honest, I’d lurked on the fringes of that world for most of my life, both professionally and personally.

      Eleanor arrived about 15 minutes later, meeting me at the door with a silent nod and accepting the still-unconscious dog I carried out and passed into her care. Typically taciturn, she turned and left without a word. I knew the dog would go through a range of behavioural tests that it well may fail, especially with my recent experience with it, but it would have a far better chance in Eleanor’s care than with the police.

      Sister Mary was another half-hour and waited near the door. She was a petite woman, young enough to have shocked me when I first met her, given my assumption that all nuns were septuagenarians at best. She was barely 30 and from what I’d seen of her face under the traditional habit, she was pretty. As I opened the door and looked down at her, her features searched mine. I was sure Mary saw me as a soul to salvage, to bring me into the fold of her flock. I held up a hand to keep her where she was. One by one, I shepherded the mute, drugged and confused girls out to her, helping her load them into a Transit van discreetly parked alongside the house. There was substantial risk of exposure, but if we left the girls to be ‘rescued’ by the police, they would be questioned, statements taken and eventually put into care. Then, if they found the right care facility, right when they had started to heal and forget the ordeal, they’d be thrown out of the drastically under-resourced system and left on their own. At least with Sister Mary, the focus would be on finding their families at the same time as rehabilitation.

      With the last girl delivered into the Sister’s care, I relocked the padlocks I’d picked, exiting back through the side door. Outside, I peeled my Oakley gloves off and was tucking them into my coat pocket when I heard a noise near the front of the house. Quick, quiet footsteps carried me to the corner, only to see Sister Mary lingering. I smoothed my hands down over my suit coat so that, tears in the leg aside, I’d look like an early riser ready for work, and stepped towards her.

      She started as I approached and I could see her discomfort with my proximity as I drew close. It was only natural, given this was the third crime scene I’d called her to. ‘Are you alright?’ she murmured softly, bright green eyes looking me over. I smiled and nodded. ‘Take care of them, Sister,’ I replied in an equally quiet voice. ‘Make sure they get another chance at a normal life.’

      She nodded, her modern nun’s coif shifting a bit with the movement. ‘I will. God bless you.’ I didn’t reply, but ushered her to the driver’s seat of the van. Before she opened the door, she paused and looked back at me with a look of hesitant enquiry. ‘Valen, are you sure what you do is right? What would the Lord think?’ My normal response to such questions would be flippant, perhaps even insulting, but I respected her beliefs enough to bite my tongue.

      ‘Sometimes there is no other way,’ I replied. ‘Even your God is fond of vengeance, Mary. As for what he thinks, someday I’ll find out. Until then, I walk in the darkness to help others find their way back out.’

      I really didn’t want a religious debate with her, especially on the driveway of a house where I’d committed two murders. Her eyes searched mine for a moment or two more. ‘Don’t linger so long in darkness that you can’t be saved.’ She pressed her hands to my chest and stood up on her tip-toes to kiss my cheek. Without another word, she climbed into the van, now full of stunned girls who seemed on the verge of hysteria, and drove away.

      Once she was clear, I made the anonymous call to the police from my ghosted iPhone.

      CHAPTER 3

      Slumped in the hotel shower, I sighed. It was a far messier job that I was used to with plenty of opportunity for compromise. Proper reconnaissance would have shown the second man to be present, and perhaps sign of a dog as well. Yet it wasn’t more caution that I reflected on, but less. If I had acted on the first visit, the girl would still be alive. Even if I couldn’t make it

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