Season One, Episode Twenty-Two: The Water

‘If it’s another key, I’ll kill you with my bare hands,’ Charlo’ said.
Markus was driving her car along the coast, away from the city.
‘How do you know where to find the car?’
‘It’s a long story.’
‘Once you have the car, where are you going to take it?’
‘It will tell me.’
‘I followed you half way around the world and I still can’t figure you out.’
‘That’s the beauty of me,’ Markus said.
‘You got away with killing your sister’s killer, what more do you want?’
‘She left me those messages from beyond her death.’
‘The Three Elders?’
Markus nodded as he steered the car round a sharp bend.
‘Leaving me the three elders told me I had to go to their source, Taiwan. There I found the one surviving elder, Lass, and the son of the other, Trick. The red doll then told me to travel to Macau, to find the key.’
‘But where is the end of the journey? Or isn’t there one?’
‘There it is.’
Markus pointed at an empty space to the left of the road, above the ocean. A dark blue car was parked under the trees. He braked hard and swung the car across the main road on to a dusty track.
‘What is it?’
‘An Italian luxury car.’
‘What’s so special about that?’
‘It’s rare, so it’s easy to find. And it’s preprogrammed to take us to our destination.’
Markus parked their car right next to their target. The Italian car was obviously brand new, but it had gained a layer of dust standing here exposed to the wind from the sea.
‘You’ll think Riot will find us?’ Charlo’ asked.
‘If he does, we’ll be ready.’
Markus flashed the key at the car and the doors popped open. He took the driver’s seat, crammed his bag behind his feet, and turned his attention to the screen at the center of the leathery dashboard.
‘You know what a GPS is, right?’ he asked her.
‘It’s not because I don’t need one that I don’t know what it is.’
An intricate web of streets flashed up on the screen.
‘This baby will tell us where our destination is.’
‘I hope it’s somewhere closer than Macau.’
‘Stop.’
A heavy sports ute screeched to a halt right behind the car, blocking their exit. The car they had come in was to their left, trees to their right, and the ocean straight ahead.
Markus saw a man walk up to his side of the car. The face that leaned down against the window was Riot’s.
Markus rolled down the window.
‘So I finally caught up with you,’ Riot said, without a look at Charlo’. ‘Are you shock-resistant?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean? First, you do your dying-man routine, give me my sister’s things. How do I know you didn’t kill her and this is all a conspiracy to use me to get at your enemies?’
‘What did you tell Mondeo?’
‘Who?’
‘The black cop.’
‘How do you know?’ Markus asked.
‘I had friends at the airport.’
‘Show me what I gave you,’ Riot said.
Markus pulled the bag from behind his feet and put it across the mid-section, out of Riot’s reach. He started taking his things out of the bag. His sister’s things. He pulled out the red faceless doll, the Three Elders, the bottle of water.
‘Did you drink from this?’ Riot asked.
Markus shook his head.
‘Just like we thought. You’re very conscientious …’
‘Who is we?’ Markus asked.
Riot grinned. ‘You’re smart. My friends and I.’
‘Do I get to meet them?’
Riot’s grin vanished.
‘Do you know a man named Camry?’ he asked.

NEXT: Riot tells Markus Bentley about Camry in Episode Twenty-Three before June 3.

Season One, Episode Twenty-One: The Second Tile

Markus and Charlo’ were stepping across a campus. Palm trees, camphor trees, parks, stately buildings not old enough to be historic, but imposing nonetheless.
‘Have you ever thought that maybe he just wanted to talk to you?’
‘The Riot character?’
‘He didn’t look that threatening to me.’
‘You’ve got a character coming at you who knows where you are even if you’ve never told him, you better get moving.’
‘You know the meaning of the word paranoia?’
‘I never studied French.’
Charlo’ giggled.
Markus took her by the arm and led her into the garden. A large square garden enclosed on all sides by a covered walkway. He pulled her under the roof.
‘Anything looks familiar?’
She looks around, up at the ceiling, down at the walls beneath the pillars. At regular intervals, tiles showing buildings are mixed with regular colored ones.
‘How did you know?’
‘Family secrets.’
‘Those three elders again, right? Did your father tell you to find all this after your sister’s death?’
Markus frowned.
‘This is my own destiny. Let’s find the tile.’
He walked rapidly along the pillars and tiles, looking at them one by one.
‘Which one are you looking for? Let’s split up and each take half the area,’ Charlo’ suggested.
Markus shook his head.
‘I know where to look.’
He pointed at the first corner.
‘Round that way, it’s close.’
A tile showing the Montmartre basilica in Paris. The next one showed medieval European buildings in white and brown.
‘Where is that?’
‘It doesn’t matter, all I care about is what’s behind it.’
He pulled a knife out of a pocket in his cargo pants and hit at the cement surrounding the tile. Charlo’ looked around, expecting scandalized teachers to shout abuse at them. They were the only people around. In the distance, she saw a young man play guitar under a tree in the park.
Markus ripped the tile out and laid it out on the floor, face up. He reached his hand inside the cavity and pulled out a red cloth, similar to the one they found in Macau.
‘Surprise, surprise, what’s the mystery object this time?’
Charlo’ crouched by Bentley’s side, but he waved her away.
‘Keep a look out. We don’t want to be jumped on.’
She stood back up and looked around. The young man with the guitar had gone. She watched Markus untie the cloth, and carefully deposit an object in his left hand.
‘Another key? Boy, this is getting predictable. So now, we have a second key, and no doubt, we now have to look for a third key hidden behind another tile somewhere.’
Markus didn’t smile.
‘Let’s leave,’ he said.
‘What’s the hurry?’
‘We have what we want, let’s go to the next stage.’
‘Ever considered I might be getting tired of following you around the world and not getting any answers? Someone killed your sister, you killed them, but now you’re still hopping around. What is your aim?’
‘I’ll tell you when we find the car.’
‘What car?’
Markus waves the key in front of her face.
‘This is a car key. You’re driving us to find that car.’
‘You’re not as charming as you used to be.’
‘Believe me, if Riot is on to us, we’re better off completing this as fast as we can.’

Three blocks away, along a tree-lined avenue, a BMW X7X moved into a shaded parking slot.
Riot cut off the engine and took a PDA-like device from the breast pocket of his jacket. He touched the screen with his right index three times.
‘So that’s where you are, my dear friend. Playtime is almost over now.’
Riot immediately started the engine up again and drove off.

NEXT: Markus Bentley runs riot in Episode Twenty-Two before May 15.