Season One, Episode Twenty-Eight: 120 Dollars

‘I want to roast the little fella.’
Camry was sitting in the back of his 700 car. Looking sternly at his driver.
‘When you catch him, give him a neat shake before you leave him in my hands.’
‘He’s never gonna walk out on us again,’ said the driver.
‘Where will you find him?’
‘He’s a professor. He’s only got a couple of predictable places to run to.’

Four men at a table in an expensive hotel suite. The Brother Hotel? Maybe. Throwing down the cards. A guy with long ratty hair and scary tattoos. A biker without a bike. A Chinese man in a velvety suite with a wallet in obvious big Italian brand logo leather lying in front of him. A stylish white guy in a silk suit, like Pierce Brosnan but with a long wave of white hair over his head. And a bulky African-American guy, also in a suit. Inspector Mondeo.
‘You’re a cop, aren’t you?’ the biker asked.
Mondeo grinned.
‘You’re a cop, right?’
Mondeo shrugged like he was saying ‘What’s the matter with this guy?’ but he kept his mouth shut.
Pierce was the one who spoke instead. ‘He’s here to play the beautiful game with us. Stay relaxed and you’ll win.’
The biker calmed down.
The Chinese man called the game. He won. Mondeo took advantage of the break to walk off to the window and make a call.
‘No kidding. You’ve lost them. Again.’
He kept his facial expression hidden from his card partners.
‘What about our friend in the fancy car?’
‘Great. At least, one guy you didn’t lose today. Keep him in your sights and he’ll lead you to the professor. He’s the guy that counts.’
Mondeo put the phone away and brightened up his expression.
‘Gentlemen, are we ready for the next round?’
Pierce and the Chinese man nodded, the biker sneered.

‘You heard what I said. Stop the car,’ Markus Bentley repeated.
‘Sorry, Bent, but we need to move on if we want to get out of the hands of those people,’ Riot said, driving faster.
‘Who are they?’
‘They work for an enemy organization,’ Riot replied.
‘That’s convenient. But I don’t think you understood me. Stop the car.’
Markus produced a gun, which he directed at Riot but kept far enough from his head to be able to fire at Charlo’ in the passenger seat if needed.
‘Don’t leave us, Markus,’ she said.
‘So it’s Markus now and not Bent,’ he snapped back.
Riot parked the car by the side of the road.
‘Now what do you want here, Markus? There’s nothing here but the ocean and the mountains. I bet the next car passing here is those guys looking to hurt you.’
‘You misunderstood my message. I’m not leaving you. You are leaving me.’
Markus waved the gun at them.
‘Get out. Both of you.’
‘Markus,’ Charlo’ said. ‘You’re making a mistake.’
‘Not anymore. Out.’
Riot and Charlo’ got out, and so did Markus, standing on the left of the vehicle, keeping the gun on Riot.
‘Keep walking ahead, where I can see you.’
Markus got into the driver’s seat and roared away, leaving the two looking angry and abandoned.
‘Don’t worry, he left us our phones,’ Riot said, waiting until Markus rounded the bend before placing a call.
Markus drove for half an hour until he reached an intersection with a road going inland. He took that road and followed it alongside dry grass fields, patches of dry rock, and general abandonment. Until he came to a wooden structure that looked abandoned. He drove the car right into the building, obviously an old barn. Switched the engine off, and returned to the back seat, where he picked the box off the floor. The box from the Garden of Temerity.
He fiddled with the key for a minute before succeeding in opening the box. Inside sat two crisp brand new fifty-dollar notes and two equally clean ten-dollar notes.

NEXT: Markus discovers the secrets of the box in Episode Twenty-Nine before August 31.

Season One, Episode Fifteen: The Second Elder

Markus and Charlo' had to press themselves against the parked motorcycles as a small blue van squirmed through the alley.
‘What is it with your father?’ Charlo' asked.
A loud bang went off above their heads, on the second floor of the place they were passing. Charlo' ducked, but Markus stayed composed.
‘What the hell was that?’
‘Someone changing a gas bottle,’ Markus said.
The black BMW closed in but did not pass them.
‘Your father?’ she asked again.
Markus looked behind them.
‘What is it?’
‘The new BMW 5. No, let's go, now.’
He grabbed hold of her right arm and pulled her along, running out of the alley. Behind them, the doors of the car opened and three men in black shirts and dyed hair stepped out and ran after them.
One of the men produced a Beretta.
At the end of the alley, Markus turned left, dragging Charlo' with him. They heard the men shout. When they rounded the corner, a shot went off and planted itself in the rear window of the SUV they were just running by.
‘We'll never keep this up,’ Charlo' hissed as they scrambled into the next side alley, past parked motorcycles and a stand selling smelly stuff.
‘We have to,’ Markus hissed back.
Another bullet whizzed past their heads to end up lost somewhere with a clang.
An elderly man on a motorcycle ran into them as they veered left and the cyclist went right. The three pursuers appeared again, and this time the bullet missed Markus Bentley's left arm by an inch.
The next crossroads was easy to take. A noisy bustling street market on the right. Stands selling exotic foods in the center of the road, shoes and T-shirts spread out on plastic sheets on the sides. Markus pulled Charlo' over and together they dived into the crowd, jostling some of the onlookers and sightseers, but that was alright, they didn't seem to mind.
‘Keep your head low,’ he told her.
They kept bumping into people, but there was a system to it. The Taiwanese saw these two crazed foreigners come at them, they just gave way. Once that happened too late, when Charlo’ crashed into a young woman eating a squid on a stick, but she mumbled an apology as Markus pulled her away.
Once he felt they had created some distance, Markus dove into a dark gap between two shoe stores and ran hunched toward a metal box at the end. He crouched behind the box and told Charlo' to do the same.
They watched as almost a minute later, one of the pursuers in black passed by without looking at them. The two others followed just seconds behind, each on a different side of the road, no gun in sight.
Markus waited another five seconds, tapped his companion's shoulder, and off they went, further into the darkness until they reached another non-descript alley, the same motorcycles parked everywhere. Markus made sure there was no dark BMW looming around before he chose the direction.
‘Who were they?’ Charlo' asked.
‘I don't know, but I sure didn't want to wait for them to introduce themselves.’
‘Do you think Lassiter sent them?’
‘It's not important what I think. All I know is, we cannot go back to the Brother Hotel.’
‘Where are we heading then?’
Markus signaled her to keep silent. They reached the main road and hailed a cab, a yellow one like all the others. The cabbie didn't understand English but Markus knew the address in Chinese, or that's what Charlo' assumed anyway.
‘Are we going to look up the second elder?’ she asked as the car passed the last subway station and went uphill out of the urban jungle and into the green.
‘We're going to visit an old friend of mine.’
‘Is he as trustworthy as the last one?’
‘Stop questioning me. You get a free trip to Taiwan and all you do is moan.’
‘I didn't ask for this trip, remember. If I stay away too long, my job will be gone.’
The car turned into a dark tree-lined alley, where the houses stood away from the road, hidden from view behind walls topped with shards of glass. Markus waited until the cab had vanished from their sight before moving away. They had alighted in front of the third doorway in the alley, but Markus now crossed the road and marched deeper away from the main road.
‘What if there's nobody home?’ Charlo' asked.
‘We'll either have to scale the wall or spend the night in the bushes.’
‘You must be kidding. Aren't you? Are you?’
Markus checked the number on the next door. A shiny metal door set in a long wall which had once been white but now only showed off the humidity of the environment in black streaks all over.
There was a bell, no name. Markus rang, counted to six, and rang again.
‘Nobody home,’ Charlo' said.
Just when even Markus began to believe that, a light went on above the doorway.
A buzz and a click, and a youngish Taiwanese man with a crew cut stood grinning at them.
‘Hi, Trick,’ Markus said.
They didn't shake hands, but the Taiwanese man signaled them inside. Markus introduced Charlo' as a friend, and Trick gave her the same grin and the same silent welcome.
The trio walked across a dark grass lawn to reach a house that looked like something out of a fifties movie.
Inside, Charlo' had expected to find Chinese furniture and antiques, but instead all she saw were shag carpets, leather couches and garish plastic chairs, black-and-white pictures of Paris and London on the walls.
Trick offered them hot bitter tea in small green enamel cups.
Markus was the first to speak.
‘I want to show you this,’ he said as he produced the three elders out of his bag.
‘So you still hold on to the past,’ Trick said. ‘The furniture in this house is fifties, sixties, and seventies, but I'm a 21st century man. You should try it sometime, it feels a lot better.’
That was the longest time Trick had been speaking since they entered the house, Charlo' thought.
‘What else can I do for you?’ Trick asked.
‘Our hotel reservation has been canceled,’ Markus said, without irony.
‘My house is your house.’
He filled up their tea cups. A phone rang in an adjacent room, with a loud metallic sound like a dial model from decades ago. Trick walked off.
When he returned, the smile had vanished.
‘Someone in the States named Riot wants to have a word with you about your sister,’ Trick said.

NEXT: Markus Bentley talks to Riot in Episode Sixteen before February 23.

Season One, Episode Fourteen: The First Elder

Charlo' returned to their room at the Brother Hotel at 9 p.m. She found Markus changing, preparing to go out.
‘How was Taipei 101?’
‘Awesome. The tallest building in the world. The mall was too expensive for me though. I thought everything in Taiwan was cheap.’
He let that one go.
‘There is one in Dubai that's taller. It's called the Burj Dubai, 160 floors high. But since it's not completed yet, this one is still officially the tallest one.’
‘I see you've done your research. Anything else while I was away?’
She picked up the book from the sofa. American Gods by Neil Gaiman.
‘So are you going somewhere?’ she asked as he was rifling through his bag. ‘Without me?’
He picked out the statuette of the three Chinese men, the thing he called the Three Elders.
‘We're going somewhere, so get ready,’ he said.
‘I only just got back. Can't I get some rest for a change.’
‘Later. We've got an appointment.’

Markus marched around the Renai Circle, looking into a side alley for a pub he used to know, but it was no longer around. Fancy French bakeries and Japanese design stores were the new standards around here. The circle was a major traffic intersection on Taipei's tony east side. Charlo' walked behind him, as if they were on separate trips. She had had no time to change, so she felt sweaty and self-conscious in her pink T-shirt and jeans. She wasn't dressed for an important visit, but maybe the target of their visit wouldn't mind.
Markus kept looking left and right, as if lost. Asian cities changed much faster than American ones, and Markus Bentley had been away from Taiwan for at least five years. He looked foolish, but then Charlo' couldn't know.
He stepped into an alley where local couples were leaving a restaurant through a garish red gate. Charlo' didn't read Chinese characters, and she wondered whether Markus could.
He turned right, she followed. He turned left, she followed. Several times, she had to press herself against parked motorcycles as some black limousine worked its way through the narrow alleys built for, well, motorcycles.
It was 10 o'clock sharp when she saw Markus stop outside the doorway to a five-floor apartment building and press the bell. She couldn't hear what he was saying, but she slowed down, as he had told her to. The buzzer rang, he went in, and turned around, motioning at her.
‘I'm in?’ she asked.
‘You're in. But don't say too much. Don't say anything about what we did back home together.’
A concierge in the marble and gilt lobby gave them a magnetic card that allowed them to take the elevator up to the fourth.
The welcome was warm. A bulky man in a Hawaiian shirt, about sixty, long gray hair and a beard covering his smile. He embraced Markus in the doorway and then let them in.
‘I am Lassiter, so you can call me Lass,’ he told Charlo' as he shook her hand.
The apartment had bright white walls, but dark wooden furniture, most of it Chinese, giving the place the appearance of an antiques store. Lassiter signaled them to sit down on a cream leather couch, while he disappeared out of view for a minute before coming back with three bowls filled with a dark brew.
‘Red bean soup, the best sweet in the world. Watch it, it's hot,’ he told Charlo' with a smile.
The conversation was thin, the brew wasn't. Lassiter and Bentley obviously were aficionados, Charlo' was the newcomer to Chinese food, the odd one out.
‘We have something in common,’ Markus said when the two men were reaching the bottom of their bowls.
He pulled the statuette out of his bag and put it in the middle of the table. Lassiter stared at it with an expressionless face and turned back into an adjacent room. He returned with what looked like a precise copy of the same Three Elders.
‘Where did you get yours from?’ Lass asked.
‘My sister gave it to me before she died.’
Lass looked taken aback but didn't say a word.
‘Your sister died, my condolences,’ he said, as an afterthought. ‘Who told you?’
‘A man came to my house one morning with a laptop showing what happened.’
‘You mean like on YouTube? What did he look like? Who was he?’
Markus gave the story of the man in the car who deposited the computer at his place, and continued with the visit later that morning.
‘He was really messed up. Blood all over, falling, moaning. He called himself Riot. Never seen him since.’
Lassiter didn't register any reaction.
‘So you think I can help you?’
‘My sister had this guy bring me the Three Elders. That must have been her way of telling me the solution lies here,’ Markus said.
‘Did this Riot guy pass on anything else?’
‘Nothing significant,’ Markus said.
‘Where are you staying? Just in case I can reach you with new information.’
‘At the Brother Hotel,’ Charlo' cut in, just too hastily. Bentley shot her a look of why don't you shut up you were doing so well.
Lassiter refilled their red bean soup. The conversation turned to memories of old Taipei from there on. Charlo' was fascinated.
‘The man looks like the pilot from Lost,’ she told Bentley after they had left the building.
Markus pulled out the Three Elders and pointed at the one wearing yellow.
‘That's Lassiter?’
‘That's Lass.’
‘Where are the others?’
‘We need to find one more,’ Markus said.
A dark BMW turned into the alley, careful not to scrape against the parked motorcycles.
‘What about the third one?’ Charlo' asked.
‘He's my father.’

NEXT: Markus Bentley looks for the second elder in Taiwan in Season One, Episode Fifteen before February 13.

Season One, Episode Thirteen: Taipei 101

‘What's that building there?’ Charlo' asked.
‘Taipei 101. The tallest building in the world.’
‘What's the view like?’
‘I don't know. The last time I was here, they were still building it. Some cranes fell off it during an earthquake. People got killed. It was Easter, I remember. I was in church.’
‘You don't strike me as the religious type.’
‘I must be getting old.’
‘Are you going to take me up there?’
‘Unlikely. Remember our deal. I only go out at night, you take care of the rest, you can go out as much as you like, day or night, unless I need you,’ Markus Bentley said.
They were staying at a Brother Hotel on the eastside of Taipei. Just like home. They had sat separately on the 12-hour flight. Wandered separately around Osaka Airport during the stopover. Gone separately through customs, but sat on the same bus into town. He had told her beforehand what to ask for.
The cab ride from the bus stop to the hotel had been quite an eye opener for her. She had never seen swarms of motorcycles fighting it out with yellow cabs and buses for the space closest to the traffic light.
‘That's funny,’ she had said of the green numbers counting down the seconds left to the red light for the pedestrians.
Charlo' had picked up some brochures at the airport, so she now had a vague idea of where to spend her days.
‘Are you going to creep out while I'm sightseeing?’ she asked, her back turned toward him as she contemplated Taipei 101.
‘Not a chance. I don't want to bump into someone I know.’
‘You must be a charmer, so many enemies in so many places.’
‘I need to stay in during the day. That's why you're with me. To represent me outdoors during daylight hours. We're fortunate things get dark early round here, at five o'clock,’ Markus said.
‘Anything else? Do you need me to do your laundry as well?’
He motioned her to go out.
She pursed her lips and looked away.
‘Sorry, I didn't mean it like that,’ he said as she passed by. Out she went.
He waited another twenty minutes before putting aside the Cormac McCarthy novel he had brought.
‘Am I going to be safe coming to your place?’ he asked on the cell phone he had picked up on the way into the hotel.
‘You know you'll always be welcome, as the son of your father,’ a gruff man's voice said on the other end.’
‘Would 9 o'clock be alright, in that spirit?’ Markus asked as he was wandering around his room.
‘Any time, any spirit,’ the man said.
Markus went to fetch his bag and produced the statuette of the three elders.
‘So here you are,’ he told the inanimate object.

Charlo' was strolling past the much too expensive fashion houses inside the mall at the foot of Taipei 101. She wasn't really focusing on the French and Italian brand names, but was juggling a green tea doughnut with a Blackberry. It worked in Taiwan, she was happy to find out.
‘Can you guess where I'm calling from?’
She didn't wait for the reply.
‘From Taiwan. He took me here, he's paying for everything, so he really trusts me.’
She stopped at Prada.
‘What do you mean I shouldn't be taking any measures against him? Of course, not, I'm just following him. I'm just worried he'll do something behind my back, but I can't stay with him all day long without him getting suspicious.’
A crumb fell from the doughnut on to the polished marble floor. She felt guilty not picking it up.
‘He says he's doing it for his sister. We'll see whether he ends up where we think he will,’ Charlo' said.
She giggled.
‘I'd better go up Taipei 101 because he will quiz me about the view. He's like that.’

NEXT: Markus Bentley meets the first elder in Taiwan in Season One, Episode Fourteen before February 3.

Season One, Episode Eleven: Goodbye Speedokiniland

‘Look, professor, I want you to see something down there that's more fun watching than your water.’
Camry was standing inside the window in room 615. Wearing a suit, tugging at the shirt collar. The professor was a thirtyish sandy-haired man wearing a white lab coat. He came out of the bathroom looking miffed.
Camry waved outside.
‘Down there, by the pool.’
The professor looked taken aback, but Camry grinned.
‘The guy down there, with his brain splattered all over the lounge chair, is Moskvitch. A nasty bugger if there ever was one, professor.’
Camry's smile faded to threat mode.

A man fired a handgun at the surface of the pool, kicked a woman out of the way, nearly tripped over one of his own dead colleagues.
Under water, Markus Bentley held Charlo' tighter as he saw a bullet pierce its way to the bottom of the pool. He shot another thug swimming toward him like a shark approaching its prey.
Charlo' surfaced first, looking right into the bodyguard's gun barrel. She screamed. Bentley was next, his hand with the Glock in front of him, firing. The man fired back, but missed.
‘Run out of here, but not with me,’ Bentley shouted at Charlo' as they climbed out of the pool, which was gradually coloring red with the blood of the dead swimmer.
Bentley didn't look back but ran away between the palms. On bare feet, the Glock and his swimming trunks his only possessions.
He tripped over a root. Landed with his face in the grass. Looked around him. The barman from the pool was behind him. Bentley could outrun him, so he wouldn’t have to kill anybody anymore.
He was approaching the front of the hotel. He came round the corner, saw the valet handling the car keys.

‘So there they go. Another exciting day at the Brother Hotel, don't you think, professor?’
The professor mumbled something and returned to the bathroom, while Camry picked a brandy from the refrigerator.
‘Seeing blood and water makes me thirsty,’ he said to no one in particular.

Markus rammed the valet and grabbed a set of keys at random. They showed the blue and white squares of the Bavarian flag. He ran around the parking lot pushing the remote. The lights flashed. On an X7X, a heavy dark SUV. Behind him, the barman also picked up some keys from the pavement.
Bentley screeched out of the parking lot, into the two-lane street in front of the hotel. Heading north like he'd planned.
As he was passing the intersection, he saw the car behind him. A Chevrolet Ganache. The women's version of the Corvette. Low, sexy, red, convertible. Top down, a good target if he wanted to have a go at his pursuer. The barman.
Markus felt silly driving a heavy vehicle wearing nothing but a pair of downsized swimming trunks, but hey, this situation was out of the ordinary. The barman wasn't exactly dressed for a hot pursuit either.
Bentley saw the guy swerving to the left and coming past him as they careened across an intersection. Bad idea. Bentley went left himself, hitting the sports car. The barman slowed down but stuck close.
Markus looked at the Glock on his dashboard, but thought it would be a bad idea to handle it while driving. Don't Glock and drive.
Instead, he tensed and watched the road ahead. There it was, the pedestrian crossing from the hotel zone to the beach.
Just as the lights turned red, he braked, turned the car left and went right on to the beachfront walk amid screams from the tourists. The barman was still chasing him.
Bentley turned on his headlights and honked like it was snowing in hell. The tourists dispersed alright, but not all of them as fast as he had expected. Scared parents pulled their kids into the sand, skaters went right into the boardwalk café and rammed the waiters, sending the hamburger and pizza plates shattering around.
Markus suddenly braked, forcing his pursuer into a maze of fruit stalls, paintings, fitness equipment and musical instruments left behind by buskers on the run.
The stuff was flying around, but Bentley wasn't watching, he was hurrying to get some distance between the barman in the red convertible and him.
The next pedestrian crossing over the main road was coming up. Markus picked up speed and saw the surprise on the face of the truck driver who was going parallel with him on the main road.
Bentley honked at the family ready to cross the beach path. They moved into the sand, good for them. He pulled the SUV to the right, left the path with just inches left, saw a bus coming but drove across the road to put himself short in front of the truck.
The barman followed him but he wasn't fast enough. The truck smashed him in the side. He careened back across the road and hit the bus. The red convertible was propelled onto the beach, but the barman was already flying through the air with the life out of him. Not wearing seat belts in a convertible. Bad idea.
Markus saw the wreckage in his rearview mirror. He would do anything to avenge his sister. Even shoot a thug like Moskvitch in a crowded swimming pool. Camry was right about that. But now he had to do things for himself.
‘Charlo', are you safe?’
‘As safe as things go.’
‘Are you still with me on Taiwan?’

NEXT: Markus Bentley recovers from the kill in Season One, Episode Twelve before January 12.

Season One, Episode Ten: The Kill

‘Taiwan? Why would you want me to go there?’
Markus and Charlo' were sitting on a bench in the oceanside park.
‘Forget it, it's just something that guy said.’
‘That guy you killed at the hotel?’
‘I didn't kill him, remember? They shot him from a helicopter.’
‘From a helicopter? Are you serious?’
Markus nodded. He offered her a ball of marzipan before he dropped one in his mouth himself.
‘Why did you run away then? If the guy got shot from a helicopter, they'll know it wasn't you who did him,’ Charlo' said.
‘Still, I don't want to be around when someone gets shot. And I might have been the next one.’
‘Who are you?’ Charlo' asked in a lower tone of voice.
‘They killed my sister.’
Markus looked at the ground. She touched his arm.
‘I'm sorry to hear that. Who did it?’
‘Does the name Moskvitch mean anything to you?’
‘Sounds like Russian to me.’
‘I still don't understand all the details, but I know he's the one responsible for her death. I have to do something about it.’
‘Why don't you go to the police?’
Markus looked at the two male joggers passing by.
‘This is a problem the police cannot solve. Unless I do it myself, it will never get solved.’
Charlo' looked at the ground.
‘Can I call you Bent?’
‘I don't really like that, though you can call me anything you like.’
A panhandler was approaching, but Bentley's stare made sure he changed his itinerary.
‘Do you have any reason why you would to return to the Brother Hotel?’ he asked.
‘I've got friends who go there for the weekly Wednesday brunch and hang around the pool and the beach and the bar, anywhere young people hang.’
Markus nodded.
‘Wednesday. That's tomorrow.’
‘What are you planning?’ she asked.
‘I want to avenge my sister,’ he said.

Markus Bentley left his clothes in the car two miles away, at a safe distance from today's event, so it wouldn't be located as a suspect vehicle once the deed was done. He was only wearing tiny swimming trunks and carrying a towel and a bottle of suntan lotion. He walked over along the beach, lied down on the towel for half an hour. When he left without picking up the lotion, a gray-haired man with a straw hat shouted after him to complain. Markus pulled up his shoulders and picked up the plastic bottle only to deposit it further on a low wall between the path to the pool and the palm trees.
He wound his way through the palm trees. The deep house music told him which direction the pool was in. The mood was very different from his previous visit.
Bentley saw the young women on the left of the pool, but pretended not to notice. He let his eyes drift to the company across the water, on the right, a bunch of dark tan men with women swooning around them. Two retired couples at the far end of the pool, obviously trying to stay away as far as possible from the deep house drifting out of the pool bar, on his right before he hit the pool. Always put the pool bar at the front, so you get first choice of the arriving customers. Two middle-aged men were waiting for their orders right now.
Markus stuck to the left edge of the pool and the obviously predictable happened.
‘Hi, Bent,’ Charlo' called out from the bunch of young women.
‘Ola, chica.’
He wished she had remembered not to mention names. With a bit of luck, the sound of his name was drowned out by the house music and nobody would remember after the panic.
‘Bent.’
There, she did it again. He wanted to show off that little finger as a friendly warning, but he was worried he would drop that thing he was holding under the towel.
Bentley crouched next to the three young ladies and one young man in the group. He nodded vigorously at the end of a question. One of the women started talking. Bentley smiled at her and looked at the pool bar. One customer was staying on, the other one was wading across to this side. Not good. Bentley smiled back at the speaker and looked again. The guy with the pinacolada or whatever was sticking to the side of the pool like a jellyfish. Not good.
‘Bent, do you think they'll make a good couple?’
Charlo' was pointing at the young dude and the brunette sitting on his chair. Bentley nodded.
‘You're beautiful people. Sure.’
A brutally loud laugh resounded from behind them, from the other side of the pool. A perfect excuse for Bentley to turn his body half around and look at the source of the commotion.
The guy with the dark mustache and the gold-framed shades was having the time of his life, slapping the bikini babes and the shady guys crowded around him like shoppers around a market stall. Moskvitch. He was recognizable from the picture the Chinese man had given him in room 714.
Bentley counted three bodyguards around the man. One guy swimming down there in the pool could also be a member of their entourage. But Markus had no time to wait. Moskvitch was fondling one of his lady friends, gross.
Bentley turned to Charlo'.
‘Too bad but this is where my vacation ends, now I have to start working.’
He took hold of her, gently but convincingly. As he turned her around to face the opposite side of the pool, the towel slipped out of his hands. To reveal the Glock he had been holding awkwardly underneath.
The young people in his group screamed as they saw what he was doing. But he had no time for them.
He raised his arms around Charlo', pointing the gun straight at Moskvitch across the water. Fired as he stood still for a long second. Then pushed her forward. Fired some more as he saw the bodyguards around Moskvitch reach for the towels on their chairs. Where they had been hiding their own firepower.
Bentley pushed Charlo' forward as he kept firing at the men. Only the men, not the women, please. Those men treated them as decoration, so he didn't want to harm them. Around the pool, pinacoladas and other pseudotropical juice clattered against the ground.
Bentley held on to Charlo' while they jumped into the pool, still firing at Moskvitch and his men.

NEXT: Markus Bentley finishes off the kill in Season One, Episode Eleven before January 2, 2009

Season One, Episode Nine: Room 714

The Chinese man picked up his chopsticks and brought a white dumpling to his mouth without his eyes leaving Bentley's face.
‘Is that what he told you? That I would have a name for you?’ the man said in fluent English, without any trace of an Asian accent.
Markus nodded.
‘I have a lot more than that.’
‘What's your name?’
‘Didn't he tell you you're not supposed to ask that? You can call me Cadillac, for all I care. But I wouldn't drive any of the bleeding wrecks.’
He drank a cup of green tea.
Markus noticed the table had several plates on it. One with half a dozen of dumplings and soy sauce, one with a tuna sandwich and two with pieces of fruit. Pineapple, apple, watermelon. Fresh and symmetrical.
He walked over to the table.
‘Can I get some of your fruit?’ Markus asked.
‘Cadillac,’ as he called himself, shrugged his shoulders. ‘Do whatever you please.’
Markus used a toothpick to stab at a piece of pineapple. There were two cups of green tea.
‘Were you expecting me?’ Markus asked.
‘Cadillac’ looked out the window, at the beach.
‘Do you own a gun?’
‘You have one for me?’ asked Markus.
The Chinese man looked around before stepping to a corner chair below which a thick envelope was lying.
‘Everything you need to know is in here,’ he said while handing him the envelope.
It felt really heavy, but Markus didn't want to look inside in this man's presence.
‘Cadillac’ kept his eyes darting around, making him feel uncomfortable.

Riot left room 725 and walked toward the elevator, away from room 714. He went down to the underground car park and walked around looking for the vehicle. He drew a deep breath when he saw the dark BMW X7X.
‘I'm glad you made it out on time,’ he said to the woman behind the wheel.

‘Do you have the three elders?’ the Chinese man asked.
‘My sister gave them to me.’
‘You know the answer is in Taiwan,’ the man said.
‘But what is the question?’ Markus asked.
‘Cadillac’ paced near the window.
Markus recognized the noise, the vibration of the windows.
A helicopter flew past the hotel, doors sliding open. A man in a jumpsuit and goggles appeared, aiming a machinegun. At room 714.
Markus didn't remember who was the first to shout ‘Down,’ but the glass was already flying. He clutched the envelope and ran off into the hallway. The elevator was ten floors below. Markus rushed for the emergency exit, running down the stairway like there was a monster on his heels.
It took him a while to realize the sound was his cell ringing.
‘I'll meet you at the shopping mall downstairs,’ he told Charlo'.
‘Fine. There's a reception desk with some kind of silver Christmas tree on. I'll be waiting,’ she said.
He wiped the sweat off his face just before pushing open the door to the underground mall. He didn't want to look too flustered, just in case.
He found the silver tree but she was nowhere in sight. The tap on his shoulder made him jump. The envelope fell to the floor with a heavy thump.
‘What's wrong with you?’ Charlo’ asked.
‘I met a contact up there and he got himself killed.’
‘You killed him?’
‘No, of course not, but they might think I did, so we need to get out of here yesterday.’
He pulled her away by the arm.
‘Let's find your car, Charlo'. Are you up for a trip to Taiwan?’

NEXT: Markus Bentley goes for the kill in Episode Ten before December 25.

Season One, Episode Eight: Room Service

Markus Bentley first walked over to the beach like a customer worried about the temperature of the sea water. He just stopped from dipping his toe in the water.
He wandered around the gardens before entering the lobby. There wasn't much movement here that early, but still he hoped he wouldn't be noticed too much.
He descended to the underground shopping mall, had a look through the windows of the upscale boutiques selling bags from Fendi and Prada, watches, jewelry. Most of them weren't even open yet at his hour. There was warm lighting and cream white sofas inviting him to stay longer. This was not his environment.
Purely on a hunch, he took the elevator up. You needed an electronic room card to give the thing a destination, but he was in with a Japanese couple up to the eighth floor. He mumbled something about also having a room on the 8th and they smiled. He let them out first and turned in the opposite direction. They went left so he turned right. Luckily the hotel didn't have the system from communist countries like China and the Soviet Union where you had a babushka on every floor checking the comings and goings, Markus thought.
He didn't really care about the 8th floor. He just wanted to understand the lay of the land. At the end of the hall was the emergency exit. Markus pulled the door open with some difficulty and peered inside. Hardly any lighting in there, a good place to hide or to move about relatively unnoticed.
The 7th floor, the guard at his sister's office building had said. Markus let the door bang shut behind him and hoped there was a way out one floor lower.
There was. He shoved the door from the inside with some difficulty, but it worked. He was in the hallway of the seventh. Straight ahead, he saw the cart the room service people used to take breakfast to the rooms. He hadn't counted on that. He had thought about the cleaning crew going round the rooms to do the sheets, but that would happen much later, once the guests had been expected to complete breakfast and go out to whatever they were staying here for, meet local business people or lounge out at the pool or beach. Markus wasn't expecting anybody out in the hallways at this time.
His eyes were jumping from door to door. This was room 738 but he was looking for 714.
The breakfast cart was standing five rooms away from him when he heard the voice saying ‘You're welcome, sir.’ He jumped aside into a doorway just as the waiter came out into the hall to push his cart away. Markus pressed himself flat against the door of room 728.
The room service guy, a young Asian man, continued to what had to be room 724, Markus estimated. He looked out from his hiding place in short bursts, but didn't dare to move until the hotel employee had rung the bell at a door and moved inside with the mushroom omelet.
He advanced to 726, but he couldn't well move beyond the breakfast cart without getting himself noticed.
Fact is, he already was. Across the hallway, inside room 725, a man was watching him. Riot stepped back to what he saw as a safe distance from the door to make his phone call without Markus Bentley hearing him.
‘He's approaching your room. Get out of there, now.’
The room service guy was on the move again. Judging from his cart, he had about three more rooms to service.
Each time he entered a room, Markus slid a few doorways forward.
Room 714 had ordered breakfast too.
Saves me from having to knock, Markus thought. He waited until he heard the end of the conversation and rushed forward. With a smile, he brushed his way past the waiter and entered the room.
A middle-aged Chinese man who was losing his hair fast stood in the middle of the room with luggage at the ready. He looked queasy when he saw the intruder.
‘Do you have a name for me?’ Markus asked.

NEXT: Markus Bentley continues his quest for his sister's killers in Episode Nine, online before December 14.

Season One, Episode Seven: The Brother Hotel

Markus Bentley was munching the marzipan he had brought with him in the bag. He was lying in bed, Charlo' by his side.
‘What do you know about the Brother Hotel?’ he asked.
‘That's the place we met, remember? The Q bar? The hotel was just across the road.’
‘Right.’
He was reflecting.
‘You're not awake yet, are you?’ she asked.
‘You didn't answer my question. What do you know about the Brother Hotel?’
‘I know it's expensive. I know I have out-of-town friends who can actually afford to stay there once a year. I know they have a restaurant that's supposed to have quite a reputation.’
‘What about the people there? Do you know any of them?’
‘I used to have an aunt there who cleaned the rooms. Who ironed clothes for guests. She died five years ago. What is it, are you going to rob the hotel, like Ocean's Eleven?’
‘I just want to know who works there. Who stays there a lot.’
‘Was it something that guy said you just visited?’
Markus took another bite out of the marzipan.
‘He said I should be looking at the hotel.’
‘Looking for what? You've got issues, haven't you?’
She looked away from him and reached out for the Chinese statuette of the three old men.
‘Don't touch that,’ Markus said.
‘What is it? I'm not going to break it, they're cute,’ Charlo' said while she lifted the object off the night table.
‘Put that back,’ he ordered. ‘It's not a plaything. It's not a toy. It's the only thing my sister left me.’
‘Your sister? What happened to her?’
She put back the statuette, he stopped eating.
‘She was killed.’
Charlo' touched his arm.
‘Why? By whom?’
‘That's what I'm trying to find out,’ he mumbled. ‘Let's head back to the Brother Hotel.’
‘I need to go and put that gun back at the range or they'll start asking annoying questions,’ she said.
‘You go to the range, I'll go to the hotel.’
‘Can't it wait? It's like five in the morning, the hotel will be dead, even the party animals will have gone to bed.’
Markus sat upright in bed, his head between his hands.
‘This is something I have to do, do you understand. It's like a woman having to give birth at the end of her pregnancy. It has to happen, so please, don't stop me.’
Charlo' mumbled something but she let him prepare first. He waited for her and they left the motel together before splitting up.

Markus had been sitting outside the Brother Hotel for an hour before the sun rose. The cleaners, gardeners and breakfast waiters had arrived already, some of them by bus, some in cheap and second-hand, sorry, pre-owned, cars. None of them had paid a lot of attention to this man with scruffy blonde hair sitting on a bench under a palm tree on the street. They often had partygoers sleeping off the alcohol here before heading for cooler climes.
Markus looked up at the hotel. The only thing memorable about it was the flat panel fixed to the side of its top floor with a whole in the middle. Markus felt like he didn't want to stand underneath when an earthquake hit.
Otherwise the hotel was just another modern building. A concrete box with glass windows. Nothing more. And yet it held the secret to his sister's death. He needed to visit it on his own. Without Charlo' breathing down his neck. He'd better do so before she returned from the shooting range.
He had left the bag in the car, afraid a man with a bag walking in would attract too much attention, especially from hotel staff looking for tips.
Markus walked behind the hotel, in the direction of the pool. A couple of workers were fishing leaves out of the water, while a woman was rearranging the lounge chairs. None of them nodded a greeting to him, he guessed because he looked too cheap to be a guest at the Brother Hotel.

NEXT: Markus Bentley enters the Brother Hotel in Episode Eight, on this blog before December 2.

Season One, Episode Five: Charlo'

The man who emerged from the car was obviously wearing reinforcement under his cheap suit. He had a motorcycle helmet on, as if he had taken the wrong vehicle. The gear made him look fatter, heavier and slower than he actually was. His arms hung straight along his body.
Instead of heading for the desk and demanding the cash, he paid no attention to the clerk who thought better not to complain about the damage.
‘Moses, man.’
Markus felt the man's gaze on him. The driver came right for him, he knew it.
Markus needed a weapon now. A gun. This wasn't O.J. coming to get his memorabilia back.
The man wasn't brandishing a gun, he was one of those Marine types with big fists. He was obviously unaware of Markus Bentley's past. If he thought he could tackle Markus with his bare hands, he was wrong.
Bentley ran backward as he saw the driver approach. He looked behind him, but there was no exit at the back.
He grabbed one of the big, yellow, plastic-coated flashlights. His pursuer didn't grin, but kept pressing on without running.
Markus didn't want to run either. Look composed, even when you know you're staring death in its grubby face. At the back end of the store, he turned right. The gardening section. He pulled a bag of organic chicken feed or whatever into the middle of the walkway behind him.
His pursuer stepped over it like he would've done over pigeon shit. And a lot faster.
Markus began to lose it. He started grabbing objects off the shelves and throwing them at the hulk. Cans of pet food, wooden bird cages, plastic flower pots made in China. What a waste of good material. Markus dove for an outsize pair of scissors which looked good to trim the hedge, if he had any. Markus turned back and decided he had the weapon to fight the enemy.
The driver of the destructive car finally moved his arms, and it was to stop Markus Bentley's brazen attack in its tracks. He took the scissors sideways with his left arm and pulled them away to the left, out of Bentley's control. Markus put up his leg to kick his assailant in the groin, but the man swung sideways, ripping the scissors out of his hands and out of his reach.
‘Who the hell are you and what do you want from me?’ Markus finally found the courage to ask his pursuer the question he didnt understand.
The hulk remained silent and grabbed Markus by the pulses, flinging him around with his head in the middle of the flower pots. Just as the driver was about to get hold of his legs for some more nasty gymnastics, Markus leaped forward like a frog, taking half the rack down with him. He swung around, keeping his back against the floor, and kicked both legs into the oncoming attacker. That was tough. He felt like he was pushing up a truck with his legs. But he managed to stop the man's trajectory and then change it around, kicking him back onto the walkway.
Markus retraced his steps and nearly tripped over the feed bag.
‘You called the police yet?’ he shouted out to the store clerk or to whoever had the misfortune of still hanging around inside.
He heard a vague grunt which sounded like it belonged to the Moses freak. Not that Bentley wanted the police to become aware of his existence, especially with what he was about to do.
If the cops didn't come, there was only one solution left. The row of glass cases at the back of the store. The shock at the front when the car rammed the store hadn't damaged them.
Markus stood defiantly in front of the frozen fish as if they were worth defending with his life.
His pursuer came around the corner from the gardening section. Carrying a fresh pair of scissors. So that's why it had taken him so long. The man snapped the scissors as if to show Markus and himself they were working.
The hulk pulled his right arm back and then struck the scissors forward as if he wanted to knock a bull off its feet. But the bull ran. Markus jumped away to one side and the arm with the scissors landed in the freezer window instead. The glass shattered and showered both men. The driver was the least affected, he dropped the scissors but just turned around and grabbed Markus by his shirt and pulled him toward the glass.
Precisely at that moment, when the two men approached each other in front of the freezer, Markus launched both his fists and pulled the helmet over his pursuer's eyes. He then rammed his elbow into the man's stomach. Not a brilliant idea, because he had pads under his suit protecting that vital part of his anatomy.
The man took Bentley's right arm in his left and pulled it toward the freezer. Some shards of glass were still left in the window frame. The man was tugging Bentley's hand ever closer to the glass, as if he wanted him to pick up a coin from the floor. Markus licked his lips. He could do with some marzipan. He was sweating. His attacker was staring him right in the eyes from under his helmet.
‘Moses,’ Markus shouted out.
He didn't know why. He heard a grunt. His hand was touching the glass. Five more seconds and it would be cutting into his body.
They both heard the gun's safety. The man looked away and that was what Bentley didn't do. Instead he kicked his pursuer in the shins, rammed his knee up between the guy's legs, and worked his left arm free from his grip.
Markus pulled off the guy's helmet completely, revealing a bald-shaved head and the tattoo of a dragon in his neck. The vulnerable part. As the man was getting himself together again and pressing Bentley's arm against the glass, Markus was going for the jugular, literally. With his left hand, he grabbed the man's throat and pushed it back. Back against the frame, against the glass. With his final residue of power, Markus pulled back. Reculer pour mieux sauter, as the French saying goes. Take one step back so you can leap further forward. Markus applied all of his power to pushing the guy's thick neck back into the shards of glass, in one go. The man screamed. Markus nearly let go but he knew he couldn't. He bumped the man repeatedly into the glass until the blood streamed off the back of his head. Markus hoped this was the last time he would ever have to do something like this.
He stood up and turned around to see the clerk standing with the gun pointing at the floor.
‘Sorry for the mess,’ Markus said. ‘Was that gun loaded?’
‘Moses, man.’ The clerk shook his head. ‘It's just to scare people like him.’
Bentley went for his Honda and drove off without bothering to put a clean shirt on. He looked for a motel or a restaurant on the way where he could change into something fresh, but he still needed to hit the Q before midnight.

Markus didn't exactly fit in with the line of mostly young, wealthy-looking females on their night out, but this was the place Riot had mentioned to him. The Q bar across the street from the Brother Hotel before midnight.
He looked up at the hole in the middle of the roof structure, like the country bumpkin he had pretended to be for the past two months would've done.
Inside the place was a lot smaller than he had expected. A bar with one row of stools, most of them occupied. A wide dance floor and booths on the outside and on a second floor. He would be an easy target if there were a hitman in the house, he thought. The house was pulsating with funky house or with whatever they called disco nowadays. The public was mostly young, 60 percent female, half Caucasians, one third Hispanic and the rest African American. Bentley wasn't here to do an ethnic profile study.
He found himself the only free barstool, between a Hispanic couple in a lovey-dovey mood, and two women engaging in an enthusiastic conversation. He ordered a cider because he wanted to start the evening on a low key. The Long Island ice tea was for later, if he ever got there.
‘I got a four out of five this morning.’
Markus didn't have a clue what the woman on his right was talking about, but he was interested. She wasn't tall, but had a slender body and long dark hair. She looked slightly Hispanic but not markedly so.
‘Wow, you're getting better,’ the other woman, a truly American blonde, replied.
‘Drag racing?’ Markus ventured.
The two ladies turned around as if a deadly insult had been fired off. But they relaxed when they saw Bentley's smile. His oldest trick.
‘Guns,’ the darker woman said. ‘A woman's got to be prepared for everything.’
‘Markus Bentley,’ he introduced himself.
‘Bentley, like the car?’ the blonde asked.
Markus nodded. The conversation started, swung around the place and the latest city news, until it got more personal.
‘By the way, I've been rude. My friends call me Charlo' and you can too,’ the dark woman said.
‘Charlowhat?’
‘Charlotte, but it sounds too French, too medieval, too guillotine,’ she told him.
The other woman was called Ingrid but she left another ten minutes into the night.
‘To be honest with you, I'm here looking for someone who owes me money,’ Markus whispered into Charlotte's ears.
‘That's funny. I think he's more the type who thinks others owe him everything.’
‘Where can I find him?’
‘You can't. Not without me.’
‘You know him so well,’ Markus said, smiling his magic smile.
‘He's got something with women. We all know where he lives, but none of us has ever been inside,’ Charlo' said.
‘Why don't you point out to me where he lives, so I know where to find him if he doesn't pay.’
‘You wouldn't hurt him, would you?’ she asked.
‘Do I look like the hurtin' kind?’
She smiled, they finished their drinks and went for the exit. As they left the club, Charlo’ touched his shoulder.
‘Wait for me outside, I need to go back.’
She walked off to the ladies' restrooms, found a free booth, locked the door, sat down and flipped open her cell.
‘We're on our way to the kill.’

NEXT: Markus Bentley looks for his sister's killer in Episode Six of Concentric before November 1.

Season One, Episode Three: Camry

'Hitchcock it ain't, but it will do,' said the man.
He looked at the fading image of the woman looking up at the camera in the parking lot, and then clapped the laptop shut.
He was sitting in the back of the Mercedes F700, only barely acknowledging the presence of the bulky man in the front passenger seat who was trying to face him.
'Do you know how to get this to him?' he asked.
'The old-fashioned way, Mr. Camry.’
Camry disliked strangers using his name. Or using names anywhere, for that matter. Camry looked away to the chauffeur's neck, then to the passing cityscape outside. Five-lane highways.
He was wearing a nice Italian suit, but he still looked like the scrawny Eastside punk he grew up as. He'd rather be lounging around the house in shorts and Hawaiian shirt at his private pool, but today it just wasn't possible. There was work to do. The Brother Hotel wouldn't take types like him in half underwear.
'Make sure it's clean ten out of ten,' he said as he reached across the car to hand the laptop to the passenger.
The fat guy mumbled something. In another place, Camry would've slapped him for being disrespectful, if not worse. But he needed his suit to be immaculate for the meeting. So all he allowed himself was a look of disdain. Make the guy feel like he's shit, Camry thought.
He waved so the chauffeur caught the gesture. The car left the highway and stopped at the next intersection. Out stepped the passenger, clutching the laptop as if it were a treasure. It was.

Markus Bentley was reaching for a stick of marzipan on the plate next to his laptop. He was going through one of those forums for whining and homesick expats in an Asian country. He had never liked the word expat, it made him think of spoiled brats in suits, living in luxury apartments with swimming pool and chauffeur-driven cars paid for by the company back home. If they had kids, they sent them to astronomically expensive schools where they grew into the perfect copy of the spoiled brat their father was. Bentley had never been an expat of this type, and he didn't miss the life. He just wanted to stay aware of what was happening on his former home turf.
The sound of the car penetrated his spatial awareness like a fly suddenly turns up in your peripheral sight. You know there's something there, but it's only later you notice what it is and you know you don't like it. He looked up at the window on his right, even though you couldn't see the road from there.
Dry fields with lines of dry knob trees stretching between them, providing his place with a false sense of privacy. That was the reason he had chosen this place. Fortunately, he was not the one who had to get up early and toil in those fields all day long. That was the task of the farmer who lived across the road and who owned this place.
The farmer drove a truck and a couple of nasty-looking vehicles farmers drive on the fields. None of those machines produced the type of rhythm he was hearing now.
Bentley folded the laptop screen and stood up while munching on the marzipan.
At the end of the lane he could spot the mailbox. The farmer's house was hidden by apple trees and brushwork, a natural screen to stop curious looks in both directions.

'Here comes Mister Paranoia,' Markus said to noone in particular.
The dark red car drove up to his mailbox. With the engine still running, a fat guy in a suit stepped out, carrying a rectangular black object. Markus kept himself in the background, so the guy couldn't spot him. Even from inside, he could tell the guy was carrying a laptop or something like it. The fat man seemed to be checking the number on the mailbox, and then deposited the object at its foot. Before Markus had the chance to recover from his surprise, the man turned around and drove off.
Markus waited until the car had vanished and counted to ten. Then he grabbed a knife from the kitchen and walked out, digesting the last of his marzipan.
He approached the mailbox like it was a snarling mountain lion. With one more look in the direction of the empty road, he crouched on the dusty ground and looked at the object. It was a laptop alright, without a bag. Just sitting there in the dust. What kind of freak dumped a laptop like this on a stranger's front step, in the middle of the countryside? He must have driven here especially for him, otherwise he just could have dumped in a river or in the sea, or somewhere behind the bushes. Markus looked around once more and did the human thing. He picked up the thing, turned it around to see if it wasn't boobytrapped, and took the thing home. The battery had been taken out, so he had to plug it in.
While the thing warmed up, he went for another stick of marzipan in the fridge. If this were a movie, the laptop would blow up and smash his house into a fireball. Instead, it went on forever loading up. No password requested, but it ended with the arrow of the forward sign for a video recording. Was this guy going to share his exploits on YouTube?
Markus took another bite and risked it. He clicked the arrow.
Bentley swore and sat down. His appetite for marzipan was taking a break.
What was she doing, and what was that fat guy showing him this? Was this a new way of delivering a ransom note for a kidnap victim? He watched as the woman walked around the office and started packing up everything in sight. Markus had never been to her office. In fact, he hadn't met up with her in years. A phone call here and there, around Christmas if he remembered, because that was the old way of doing things.
One thing was certain. The laptop wouldn't blow up, not before the ending anyway. The fat guy in the car wanted him to see all of this.
Just like the guard at the office block had done before him, Markus peered at the screen trying to discern the objects the woman was taking away with her. Office equipment, pictures, but then there were the knickknacks to think about. Bentley leaned closer.
He froze when he saw the guard in his room watching the woman on camera. He tried to memorize his face, but there was not that much to go on.
He recognized the small porcelain effigy of the three men which the woman put in her cloth bag. He didn't recognize the faceless red doll. Was that a cat, or a red snowman, or what other creature. The thing wore Chinese characters on its chest.
He saw the guard reach for his gun. The woman in the elevator. Not getting out through the front door. The woman alone in the parking lot. The camera turned away.
Markus pushed his chair backward and slammed his fist on the table next to the laptop. The screen returned to the arrow. He could watch it all again if he wanted to.

A low buzz reached him from under the table. He had installed the sensors in the middle of the night, to avoid attracting his only neighbor's attention. Country folks could be nosy. The sensors didn't cover the mailbox and the side of the street, only the immediate vicinity of the house.
Markus stood up and pressed himself against the wall, near the same window from where he had watched the fat guy dump the laptop. Was he coming to take back his prized possession?
Bentley moved ever so slightly forward. The door bell rang. It sounded like a waterfall compared to the whisper of the alarm buzzer. Why hadn't hear the car approaching?
Markus edged closer to the window. Until he saw his uninvited visitor. Definitely not the fat guy with the laptop. A wiry thin guy, shaking, holding an object in his left hand. The porcelain figurine of the three men Bentley had seen his sister remove from her office.

NEXT: A Riot comes down in Episode Four of Concentric before October 12.

Season One, Episode One: Speedokiniland

Markus Bentley was sweating. Admittedly, it was hot. Sun shining, brewing hot. But he was only wearing tiny swimming trunks and carrying a towel. Like most people here outside the Brother Hotel. Welcome to Speedokiniland.
He stayed on the path winding its way through the palm trees and the other subtropical vegetation he knew nothing about. Smiled cheesily at the couple of young girls drifting by in the opposite direction.
The deep house music told him which direction the pool was in. The mood was very different from his previous visit.
Bentley saw the young women on the left of the pool, but pretended not to notice. He let his eyes drift to the company across the water, on the right, a bunch of dark tan men with women swooning around them. Two retired couples at the far end of the pool, obviously trying to stay away as far as possible from the deep house drifting out of the pool bar, on his right before he hit the pool. Always put the pool bar at the front, so you get first choice of the arriving customers. Two middle-aged men were waiting for their orders right now. Markus didn’t recognize the barman.
He stuck to the left edge of the pool and the obviously predictable happened.
'Hi, Bent.’
'Ola, chica.’
He wished she had remembered not to mention names. With a bit of luck, the sound of his name was drowned out by the house music and nobody would remember after the panic. He looked back at the other guests, she thought he was checking out the ladies. He preferred Markus or Bentley, but the stupid abbreviation had stuck.
'Bent.’
There, she did it again. He thought about showing off that little finger as a friendly warning, but that would have meant revealing what he was holding under the towel.
Bentley crouched next to the three young ladies and one young man in the group. Joking and bantering, that’s what he was here for. So they had to think. She introduced her friends but he forgot their names as soon as he was letting his eyes wander away from them. They were gorgeous people, but that was not what he was here for.
He nodded vigorously at the end of a question. One of the women started talking. Bentley smiled at her and looked at the pool bar. One customer was staying on, the other one was wading across to this side. Not good. Bentley smiled back at the speaker and looked again. The guy with the pinacolada or whatever was sticking to the side of the pool like a jellyfish. Not good.
'Bent, do you think they’ll make a good couple?’
Fortunately, the woman speaking was pointing at the young dude and the brunette sitting on his chair. Bentley nodded.
'You’re beautiful people. Sure.’
A brutally loud laugh resounded from behind them, from the other side of the pool. A perfect excuse for Bentley to turn his body half around and look at the source of the commotion.
The guy with the dark mustache and the gold-framed shades was having the time of his life, slapping the bikini babes and the shady guys crowded around him like shoppers around a market stall.
Bentley counted three bodyguards around the man. One guy swimming down there in the pool could also be a member of their entourage. But Markus had no time to wait. The loud laugher was fondling one of his lady friends, gross.
Bentley shot another look at the pool bar. An elderly woman was inquiring for the specialty of the day.
Bentley turned to the young woman closest to him.
'Too bad but this is where my vacation ends, now I have to start working.’
He took hold of the woman, gently but convincingly. As he turned her around to face the opposite side of the pool, the towel slipped out of his hands. To reveal the Glock he had been holding awkwardly underneath.
The young people in his group screamed as they saw what he was doing. But he had no time for them.
He raised his arms around the woman, pointing the gun straight at the loud bozo across the water. Fired as he stood still for a long second. Then pushed the woman forward. Fired some more as he saw the bodyguards around the man reach for the towels on their chairs. Where they had been hiding their own firepower.
Bentley pushed the woman forward as he kept firing at the men. Only the men, not the women, please. Those men treated them as decoration, so he didn’t want to harm them.
Around the pool, pinacoladas and other pseudotropical juice clattered against the ground.
The guy who had gotten his drink from the pool bar just minutes ago dropped the glass into the pool and clambered out, slipping back in again.
Bentley didn’t pay him any attention. He held on to the woman, whispered something into her ear, and together they jumped into the pool, still firing at the men.
Just in time, because one of the bodyguards had finally gotten hold of his 9 millimeter, and was firing it at the surface of the pool, where Bentley and his companion had been just seconds before.
The guy kicked a woman out of the way, nearly tripped over the blood of one of his colleagues, and fired into the pool.
Under water, Bentley held his lady friend tighter as he saw the bullet pierce its way to the bottom of the pool.
The swimmer looked at them and saw the gun. Instead of being scared to death, the guy headed straight for Bentley. Keeping low, trying to place the woman between them.
Markus let go of his friend, fired the gun at the approaching shark. To his amazement, things worked like they had told him. The bullet found its target, and blood started leaking out of the man’s head into the water.
Bentley turned his attention up and fired a couple more rounds out of the pool.
When there was no reaction, he took the woman’s hand and made a sign to go up. Enough water for today. The woman surfaced first, gagged, and saw the remaining bodyguard point his gun at her head. She screamed.
Bentley was next, his hand with the Glock in front of him, firing. The man fired a bullet into the side of the pool, millimeters clean over the woman’s head. Bentley’s bullet didn’t miss. The bodyguard joined his colleagues.

'Run out of here, but not with me,’ Bentley shouted at the woman as they climbed out of the pool, which was gradually coloring red with the blood of the dead swimmer.
Bentley didn’t look back but ran away between the palms. On bare feet, the Glock and his swimming trunks his only possessions.
He tripped over a root. Landed with his face in the grass. Looked around him. The barman from the pool was behind him.
How could he have been so stupid. That’s why he hadn’t recognized him. It wasn’t the regular barman. At least, the guy didn’t look like he was armed.
Bentley could outrun him, so he wouldn’t have to kill anybody anymore.
He was approaching the front of the hotel. He came round the corner, saw the valet handling the keys.
Bentley rammed the guy, sending him against the pavement and his keys all over the place. He grabbed a key straight blind, hoping it wouldn’t be a Smart. Nope. The keys had the blue and white squares from the Bavarian flag.
He ran under the straw roof protecting the cars from the sun. he flashed the remote around, trying to find the right car as the barman arrived at the front door.
The lights flashed. On an X7X, a heavy dark SUV. Thank God for that. From the corner of his eyes as he climbed into the vehicle, he saw the barman grab a set of keys from the pavement.
Bentley screeched out of the parking lot, into the two-lane street in front of the hotel. Heading north like he’d planned.
As he was passing the intersection, he saw the car behind him. A Chevrolet Ganache. The women’s version of the Corvette. Low, sexy, red, convertible. Top down, a good target if he wanted to have a go at his pursuer. The barman.
The SUV was an automatic, that was fine with Markus. Less time needed to be spent on shaking around. Keep your eyes on the road and on your pursuer.
He felt silly driving a heavy vehicle wearing nothing but a pair of downsized swimming trunks, but hey, this situation was out of the ordinary. The barman wasn’t exactly dressed for a hot pursuit either.
Bentley saw the guy swerving to the left and coming past him as they careened across an intersection. Bad idea. Bentley went left himself, hitting the sports car. The barman slowed down but stuck close.
Markus looked at the Glock on his dashboard, but thought it would be a bad idea to handle it while driving. Don’t Glock and drive.
Instead, he tensed and watched the road ahead. There it was, the pedestrian crossing from the hotel zone to the beach.
Just as the lights turned red, he braked, turned the car left and went right on to the beachfront walk amid screams from the tourists. The barman was still following him.
Bentley turned on his headlights and honked like it was snowing in hell. The tourists dispersed alright, but not all of them as fast as Markus had expected. Scared parents pulled their kids into the sand, skaters went right into the boardwalk café and rammed the waiters, sending the hamburger and pizza plates shattering around.
As he was guiding the car around a fountain, his swimming trunks were emitting an electronic noise. He grabbed into his crotch and pulled out a cell phone.
'I did what you told me to, how you told me to. What more do you want?’
His lips tightened. He threw the cell on the passenger seat. The barman was still following.
Bentley suddenly braked, forcing his pursuer into a maze of fruit stalls, paintings, fitness equipment and musical instruments left behind by buskers who had seen him coming.
The stuff was flying around, but Bentley wasn’t watching, he was hurrying to get some distance between the barman in the red convertible and him.
The next pedestrian crossing over the main road was coming up. Markus picked up speed and saw the surprise on the face of the truck driver who was going parallel with him on the main road.
Bentley honked at the family ready to cross the road. They moved into the sand, good for them. He pulled the SUV to the right, left the beach path with just inches left, saw a bus coming but drove across the road to put himself short in front of the truck.
The barman followed him but he wasn’t fast enough. The truck hit him with a full broadside. He careened back across the road and hit the bus. The red convertible was propelled onto the beach, but the barman was already flying through the air with the life out of him. Not wearing seat belts in a convertible. Bad idea.
Bentley saw the wreckage in his rearview mirror. He shook his head.
He would do anything for his sister. Even shoot a thug in a crowded swimming pool. Camry thought he would. He was right. But now he had to do things for himself.

NEXT: Find out what happened Four Weeks Earlier in the next episode of Concentric before September 20.