Predictably, Rob Linley was one of the first to hear about the immediate injunction preventing any further operation on the Silvertown site. The news reached him via phone; a frantic call from one of the contractors. For an hour or so, Rob wondered what to do with the information. Of course he knew what he should do with the information – he should call David Carter immediately to discuss damage limitation. But, though he hated to admit it to himself, he was scared. David Carter had a nasty habit of shooting the messenger – sometimes literally – and Rob didn't feel like being on the receiving end of his temperamental boss's wrath. But in reality he knew he was just postponing the inevitable. Sitting at his desk, sweating profusely, he grabbed the phone and dialled.

David was eerily calm when he heard the news. He spoke in a flat monotone, thanked Rob for letting him know, and reassured him that it would be okay. They would sort it out. In a way, Rob found this more disturbing than one of David's meltdowns. When the call was over, Rob sat back in his chair and sighed. He had known it would be something like this, but all along he had been hoping he would be able to worm his way out of it somehow. That he might be able to achieve the best of both worlds, with neither party knowing that he was really playing for both teams. He looked down at the little finger of his right hand, which was still bound to a splint. He was taking painkillers regularly, as the finger still hurt a lot, and the drugs were making him drowsy. In spite of that, he was only too aware that the collapse of the Silvertown development was irrevocable. There was nothing he could do to stop it.

*

When David Carter heard that the deal which had cost him months of his life and most of his sanity had hit another roadblock – at what seemed like the last possible moment – his whole body coursed with a fury that enveloped him like a plume of white flame. He had bitten his tongue while he was talking to Rob on the phone, but even while he heard himself spout idle platitudes, the rage was building. He didn't know what to do with himself. As soon as he hung up on Rob, he hurled the telephone against the wall and watched it splinter into several pieces that clattered pathetically to the floor. Then he put his fist through the glass door of his office, which caused a spurt of blood, but he felt no pain. The adrenaline rush was too powerful. Rochelle did her best to calm him; she swathed his bloodied hand in a tea towel and told him she would do whatever she could to help. He just told her to fuck off, that she was fired and he never wanted to see her face again. She merely raised her eyebrows at him and left his office. She’d put up with enough of his tantrums.

After about fifteen minutes – fifteen of the darkest minutes of his life – David Carter finally managed to regain control of himself. He knew it was bad to let the anger take him over like that. It was important to remain in control at all times. He could not let the mask slip. That would put him on the road to ruin.

Breathing in and out deeply, he assessed the situation. The deal which had cost himself and his associates a grand total of five billion pounds had still not yielded anything. It was falling away from him. Now he was lumbered with a five billion pound insect reserve, packed with drug addicts and derelict buildings. There might be a way to save this, but he didn’t know what that was.

But there was an aspect of the situation which he had not yet considered. The news had not yet been made public. That was something, at least.

The phone at Rochelle’s desk rang, and after a moment, the intercom in his office blared. "It's a Mr. McMinn for you, sir," she said, her cool professional demeanour uncracked.

“Put him through,” David said, a little brusquely. Then he paused. “And why don’t you bunk off early? Get yourself a spa day? On the company card of course. My way of apology for… you know.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said, and he was satisfied to hear a note of pleasure in her voice.

Before David picked up the line, he gritted his teeth. George "The Fucker" McMinn. One of the money men who had sunk several million into Silvertown. Bad news travels fast.

McMinn had begun his long career as a stick-up man, before graduating to more sophisticated endeavours. Somewhere along the way he had recruited a young David Carter as his ambitious and bloodthirsty lieutenant, and that was when the organisation really began to make money. Over the years, McMinn had become reckless. He had begun to delegate more and more to David until the younger man was doing the job virtually single-handed. The natural solution would have been to “retire” McMinn with a bullet to the back of the head and take control permanently. But McMinn still had a lot of men in the organisation loyal to him. And killing him would have created warring factions in the organisation. So in this regard, McMinn was the only man David Carter truly feared. Instead, David had a quiet word with the aging gangster, paid him off, and George McMinn discreetly retired to Buenos Aires to run a resort for British expats.

But as the old saying went: once you're in the game, you never really retire. David Carter had approached him with the proposition of Silvertown, and not only had he leapt at the chance to invest, he had opted to double his initial stake.

McMinn was a perfectly ordinary-seeming, affable kind of guy. But they didn't call him The Fucker for nothing. And now he was on the other end of the phone.

"George, how are you?" David said, as he answered the phone.

"Funny you should ask." McMinn’s voice had a low, baritone throb to it – like an engine chugging itself slowly toward entropy. "I was alright when I woke up this morning. Nice weather an' that. But now, all of a sudden, out of fucking nowhere, I find myself really fucking angry."

"I don't know what you've heard," David said quickly, "but whatever it is, it's not the whole story..."

"No? Well, I've heard that Silvertown is up shit creek. In other words, all my lovely money has bought me a patch of mud that nobody can build on. Am I wrong, David?"

"No," said David. "You're not wrong. But there's still time. We might be able to turn this around."

"How?"

"The story hasn't broken yet. We will put a cap on it before it goes public. It’s a fucking fly, George. Who’s ever heard of a city council voting to torpedo a billion-pound project over a fly?"

"Alright.” Truthfully, McMinn did sound mollified. “So what? We buy off the right people, rouse public opinion with word that the environmentalists are standing in the way of good jobs, higher real estate prices and community betterment?”

“That sounds about right.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Hmm. Sounds like a plan.” McMinn paused. “So where did the leak come from?"

"There's only one person I can think of."

"And who's that?"

"Carnaby."

"I saw his name in the paperwork. He's the environmentalist bloke, isn't he?"

"Right. And if my hunch is on the money, he's had a sudden attack of conscience about annihilating the Judas Fly. I might just be able to put a stop to it before he signs his name to anything. Before it's too late to go back."

"Well what are you waiting for?" McMinn growled.

"I'll call you later," said David, before hanging up the phone.

*

Rob Linley's mobile made him jump. A lump rose in his throat when he saw it was David Carter calling him. "David! Listen, I..."

"Shut it, Rob. I need you to bring your car around. We've got to pay a mutual friend of ours a visit."

Rob drove. David sat in the back seat with a couple of bodyguards. By this point, the afternoon was turning gradually to evening, and they surmised that Doctor Carnaby would most likely be at home.

*

The doctor had just finished brewing himself a soothing green tea (he was prone to anxiety, what with his mounting debts and his ex-wife who wouldn't leave him alone) when the doorbell rang. He swore to himself and went out into the hall of his terraced north London home.

When he saw who had come calling, he could scarcely conceal his surprise. "Mr. Carter! I..."

The bodyguards flanking David reached in through the doorway and seized hold of the doctor as though he were little more than a rag doll. They hoisted him out onto the pavement, then into the boot of Rob's car. The mug of green tea shattered on the pavement, sending its contents spilling out in a messy, sad-looking puddle.

Rob sat behind the wheel, struggling to keep his cool.

*

"Where am I?" Doctor Carnaby asked when he woke up. David Carter had heard this question so many times before, and he never quite knew how to answer. So he just stood there, looking down at the feeble academic, who was now tied to a wooden chair.

Carnaby tried to fidget in his seat, but when he realised his hands were tied he began to panic. He moaned. Blood dribbled from his nose where one of the guards had punched him.

"We're friends, aren't we doc?" David said quietly.

"What? I, I don't understand..."

"I said, we're friends, aren't we? I mean, I've never done anything to offend you, have I? In fact, I've done you a favour or two in my time. I've given you a hefty wod of green, haven't I? If anything, I'd say you owed me a good turn."

Carnaby burbled something. His panic was taking over. He looked around frantically. They seemed to be in some kind of dark cellar. A single lightbulb hung overhead, casting long and moody shadows. Plastic sheets rustled beneath their feet. You didn't need to be a doctor to know this was bad news.

"David, have I done something to offend you?" Carnaby asked. He spoke in slow, measured tones, as though he were trying to reason with a petulant child.

"Yes," David answered, "you have, but I'm a fair man. I'm going to give you the chance to make things right."

"Please, you must tell me what it is I've done..."

"Alright. The Judas Fly. Ring a bell?"

Carnaby looked up at him in utter bemusement. "This is about Silvertown?"

"Bingo. You're good at guessing games."

"But I thought that was a done deal? The Judas Fly didn't even enter the equation."

"Well, now it has. Somebody posted photos online of the Judas Fly, and now the Mayor is trying to put the kibosh on the whole development. Everything I've worked for. Five billion pounds."

"What!" Carnaby was horrified. "My God, that's monstrous. And you think it was me? David, I swear to you I would never. I mean, you can check online! I never posted anything.”

“The account is clearly a fake,” David spat. “It would have been easy for even a man like you to create.”

Carnaby’s eyes bulged. “But I didn’t do it! It wasn’t me!”

"It seems to me I made a mistake bringing you into the operation," David said. "I make it a rule never to trust outsiders, but we needed someone with the credentials to sign off on the site. Otherwise our paths would never have crossed. Just a quirk of fate." David studied the doctor for a moment. "How much are they paying you?"

"No one is paying me."

"Wrong answer." David swung his fist at the doctor – it connected with his chin and knocked his head back. But it was just a light punch. An hors d'oeuvre, before the main course.

Carnaby grunted, more blood spouting from his nose. "Please, David," he said, his voice an almost comical whine on account of his blocked nostrils.

“Okay Mike,” David said. One of the bodyguards approached carrying a long, heavy metal object. An industrial power-drill. With a flip of a switch, the tool began to emit a horrendous shriek. David gave his bodyguard a nod, and Mike inched the drill closer and closer to Doctor Carnaby.

Carnaby’s scream would haunt Rob Linley’s nightmares. Rob had to look away as the drill reached the academic’s left kneecap. The squelch and tear of flesh were truly horrific.

Then, all at once, the drill ceased.

Carnaby was sobbing and twitching as blood pooled around him. His left leg was a ruined, twisted husk of flesh. He would never walk on it again.

“Last chance,” said David. But the doctor had nothing to say. David turned to the bodyguard. “What are you waiting for, Mike? He’s got one good leg left hasn’t he?”

Mike nodded and flipped the switch.

Rob could not bear it. He had to duck into the adjoining bathroom, his guts heaving, whereupon he puked into the sink. He looked at himself in the mirror as the shrill sound of the power drill commingled with Doctor Carnaby’s screams.

When Rob Linley went back out to join the others, Doctor Carnaby was still sobbing and sniffling, staring down in disbelief at what was left of his bloodied legs, with slivers of bone and chunks of flesh protruding through the tattered remains of his suit trousers.

David had a gun in his hand. “Alright,” he said softly, as though trying to comfort the academic. He rested the muzzle of the weapon against the bound man’s temple.

“Please…” Carnaby managed to say.

David pulled the trigger. There was a flash and a pop and Doctor Carnaby slumped forward. David dropped the gun to the floor and headed toward Rob.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said. “These two can clear everything up.”

The bodyguards immediately got to work rolling up the plastic sheeting and readying the corpse for removal.

Rob could not stop shaking as he ascended the stairs. When he was outside the building, gratefully breathing the fresh air once more, he tried to light a cigarette but the lighter kept going out.

All the same, he could not help but feel somewhat relieved. With the doctor dead, maybe this meant David would stop asking questions. Perhaps he was safe.

“You drive, Rob,” said David.

They clambered into the car and Rob fired up the engine. “It’s a shame,” David continued, “but I couldn’t leave him like that. An act of mercy, really.”

Rob nodded without a word.

“You’d better take me back to the office,” David instructed. “I’ve got more work to do.”

Rob finally dared to venture a question: “Who do you think hired him?”

“Him? No one. He wasn’t the source.”

“What? But…”

“If he’d known anything, he would have told me,” David said. “No man could live through that and keep his mouth shut. Especially not the poor old doc.”

Rob felt as if he were about to have a heart attack. “Then who was it?”

David shrugged. “Remains to be seen. But like I say, I’ve got more work to do.”

They drove in silence for a minute or two, before David spoke once again. “By the way, Rob, what happened to your finger?”