Den of Snakes

by Damian Vargas

  Mike glanced at Eddie. ‘You’re making a mistake, son’.

  ‘It won’t be the first,’ Eddie said, his pistol still pointing at Mike’s chest, his finger curled around the trigger. He nodded at Kenny, who took a length of electrical cable from his pocket and tied it around Mike’s wrists.

  Mike let out a resigned sigh, glanced at the apartment above - likely realising that he would not be returning to it again - and clambered into the back of the car.

  Eddie moved forward, reached for the hatchback and slammed it shut. ‘Move,’ he shouted to Kenny who was still fetching the keys from his trouser pocket.

  They drove to an industrial park on the northern outskirts of Estepona, pulling up to the roller shutter doors of a vehicle repair shop. A middle-aged man, with tattoos on both arms, beckoned them in as he lifted the steel curtain up. Kenny drove the Lancia into the darkened interior. After he closed the doors behind them, the man approached Kenny and Eddie and, speaking in a soft Liverpudlian accent, asked, ‘It’s all there. Just like you asked’. Kenny slipped the man a wad of banknotes. He checked the money before stuffing it into his back pocket.

  ‘Don’t come back today,’ said Kenny. ‘And not a fuckin’ word. Not to nobody’. As if to underwrite the verbal warning, Kenny lifted his shirt to expose the silver revolver poking out of his waistline. The Scouser nodded, collected a jacket from a nearby table and ambled towards a door to the outside. As soon as the man had closed it behind him, Eddie reached for the release catch on the back of the Lancia’s rear door. It lifted to reveal Mike laying in the foetal position, staring back up at him.

  ‘Get up,’ Eddie commanded, pointing his pistol at Mike who struggled to get out of the car’s sunken boot with both hands bound behind his back, whereupon Kenny shoved him towards a wooden chair positioned between an old Peugeot van and a rusty, red MGB Sportster.

  Mike shuffled forward, offering no resistance, and sat down, after which Kenny lashed his feet and arms to the chair with more electrical cable. Eddie strode around his prisoner, his gun held at the ready, until he was facing him. Mike seemed resigned to his plight - Eddie would have admired his calmness under different circumstances.

  ‘Get on with it,’ said Mike.

  ‘Oh, I intend to,’ said Eddie, his eyes fixed on Mike’s. Eddie placed the heavy pistol down on the bonnet of the MG, strolled towards Mike, and hit him on the side of the face, full-force, with a left hook. ‘Tell me why you did it,’ he growled.

  Mike blinked to regain his vision and spat out a mouthful of blood. He glared back at Eddie. ‘I didn’t do nothing, son,’ he said. He twisted his head to face Kenny, who remained standing behind him. ‘I ain’t no rat’. Eddie hit him again, this time with a right uppercut. A pain shot down his forearm and he had to grit his teeth to hide it.

  ‘They killed him. My brother. They shot him and left him to burn in that fucking truck’. Eddie struggled to contain his rage. He clenched his teeth and struck Mike once again with another right hook to the cheek. This time Mike could not hide his discomfort. He panted for a few seconds, eyes clenched shut as he fought the pain, and spat out more blood and with it, a molar. Kenny was grinning. He is enjoying it, Eddie thought. Too much.

  Mike lifted his head back up and sighed. ‘I know you ain’t gonna believe me, Ed. I probably wouldn’t neither. Not in your shoes’.

  ‘You going to tell me you know nothing again?’ said Eddie daring him, his fists clenched tight.

  ‘You’ve had this coming for a long time, you wanker,’ said Kenny, his finger tapping on the revolver’s trigger guard. Mike gave him a bloodied grin.

  ‘What’s so fucking funny?’ Kenny demanded, his finger working its way onto the trigger and his grip on the pistol tightening.

  ‘Feeling tough with a gun in your hand and me all tied up, huh?’ Kenny lifted the pistol. ‘Surprised you ain’t cum in your pants already you snivelling little shit’.

  ‘Keep calling me names. See what happens’. The pistol was now pointing at Mike’s thigh.

  ‘Now that’s funny,’ said Mike.

  ‘Yeah, how’s that?’ said Kenny. Mike grinned, releasing a two-foot-long string of blood and saliva from the side of his mouth. It landed on the floor at his feet.

  ‘It’s funny,’ said Mike, turning to look at Eddie. ‘Coz, I always figured he’d stab me. In the back’. Something in Mike’s eyes concerned Eddie. His bloodlust had diminished, being taken up instead by Kenny.

  ‘You still want to tell us you’re innocent?’ Eddie persevered. ‘That you had nothing to do with what happened to them?’ Mike’s head dropped a little lower. He rolled his lower jaw around, wincing as he did but offering no response.

  ‘Just fucking shoot him,’ said Kenny.

  Eddie ignored him. He took a step nearer Mike and lowered himself down to his knees, then thrust out a hand to clamp Mike’s throat. ‘You betrayed your best friend, my brother. Say it’.

  ‘Can’t say what ain’t true’.

  ‘Shoot the fucking bastard,’ Kenny snarled. Eddie tightened his grip, pressing his thumb and forefinger hard around Mike’s larynx.

  The older man coughed. ‘Do what you gotta do,’ he said, blood dribbling from his mouth. ‘But I can’t tell you what you want to hear, coz it ain’t what happened’.

  Eddie released his grip and stood up. He stood poised, ready to deliver a volley of blows on the man’s face, but his gut instinct was telling him that Mike was telling the truth. Could Mike be innocent? And if so, who was it that had betrayed them? He pushed the thought away and continued. ‘You’re the only one that knew the plan who weren’t there with us. Only you, Mike. How stupid do you think we are?’

  Kenny seemed agitated. Like his prize was slipping away. ‘C’mon, Ed. He’s the reason Charlie, Rog and Bill are dead. Fucking end it. Kill the bastard’. Kenny was egging Eddie on with the pistol in his hands, but Eddie would not be rushed.

  ‘Gimme one good reason why I shouldn’t put a bullet through your eye, Michael’. Mike simply shook his head once more and spat out more blood. ‘You are the only one that knew about the truck, the route. The whole fucking plan. You told someone, didn’t you? You sold us out? Why? What for? Money?’ He punched Mike again, but less hard than before. ‘At least have the decency to admit it before I shoot you’.

  ‘There ain’t nothing more I can tell you, son. It don’t matter, it’s all over now. It’s all gone’.

  Kenny pushed his revolver against the side of Mike’s head. ‘Let me fucking do it,’ he said.

  Eddie pushed the gun away. ‘Admit it,’ he shouted in Mike’s face.

  ‘Pull the trigger already. This is getting boring’.

  ‘I agree,’ said Kenny and raised his pistol again.

  Eddie stepped in between them and grabbed the gun out of Kenny’s hand.

  Kenny gawped at Eddie with consternation. ‘What the -’.

  ‘I’ll handle it,’ said Eddie.

  ‘Don’t tell me you believe him?’ said Kenny, shaking his head. ‘He’s lying. He fucking did it’. Eddie said nothing, but he was wavering and Kenny could see it. ‘For Christ’s sake, Eddie. Your face is still red from the heat of the fire. The fire that your brother fucking died in’.

  Eddie pushed Kenny away. He shifted back to Mike. ‘Who did you buy the radios from?’ he said.

  Mike seemed confused by the change of tack. ‘Some Israeli geezer…in Cadiz. Soparla took me to see the bloke. Charlie organised it, remember?’

  Kenny tried to interject once more. ‘What the fuck does it matter where the radios came from?’ Eddie ignored him.

  ‘What did you tell the bloke?’ asked Eddie.

  ‘Nuffin’.

  ‘You sure about that?’

  ‘Yeah, well, no’.

  ‘Yes or no? Which is it?’

  ‘I didn’t say nothing about the plan’. Mike was thinking hard now.

  ‘But?’ said Eddie.

  ‘But we said they had to work at long distance. And at sea’.<
br />
  ‘So this bloke. This dodgy, back street peddler of military kit knew that we were doing something “at sea” ’.

  ‘Yeah, but we could have just been going Pike fishing for all he knew’.

  ‘Pike are freshwater fish, you moron,’ said Eddie. Eddie’s head was racing. Had Charlie told Soparla what the crew were planning? Was the Romanian behind what had happened to Charlie and the others?

  Mike was not the sharpest tool in the box, but it was beginning to dawn on him he was not the only suspect now.

  ‘You think maybe Soparla did this?’

  Eddie lowered the pistol. ‘Seems possibly, don’t you think?’

  ‘So what? We’re not shooting him now?’ said Kenny, his jaw quivering in disbelief.

  ‘Nobody’s shooting nobody,’ said Eddie.

  Kenny shook his head and pointed a boney finger towards Mike. ‘You’re making a mistake,’ he said.

  ‘So people keep telling me,’ said Eddie as he untied Mike.

  ‘Lucian wouldn’t have sold us out,’ said Kenny. ‘He’s our man’.

  ‘Ain’t everyone?’ said Eddie. ‘Until they’re not’. He helped Mike to his feet. ‘I thought it was you’.

  Mike waved his apology away. ‘I weren’t there. I should have been’. He rubbed his jaw.

  ‘It wouldn’t have changed anything. Except you’d be dead too’. Eddie offered him a handkerchief. ‘Are you alright?’

  Mike snorted his derision at the question. ‘You hit like a girl. Don’t they teach you army blokes anything?’

  Eddie laughed. ‘Guess I’m rusty,’ said Eddie. ‘We could go again?’

  Mike wiped the blood from his face. ‘Thanks, but I’m off to find that bastard Soparla. You pussies coming?’

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Can Lucian Come Out To Play?

  Eddie pulled the Lancia up around the corner from the apartments where their new suspect, Lucian Soparla, lived.

  ‘That’s it,’ said Mike, pointing up to the second floor as he got out of the passenger seat. ‘There’s a staircase at the side of the building’. He lifted the seat forward for Kenny to get out of the car.

  ‘Let’s see if the bastard’s in,’ said Eddie, striding forward. They clambered up the concrete staircase and approached the door to the Romanian’s flat.

  ‘It’s open,’ said Mike. Mike lifted his sawn-off shotgun and pushed the door open, Eddie covering his back with his pistol. The three men tip-toed inside. The living room was a mess, but whether it had been the scene of a recent brawl or whether its occupant just lived like that, Eddie could not tell.

  ‘Fuck me, what’s that smell?’ said Kenny. Mike, who had opened the door to the flat’s only bedroom, answered.

  ‘I found Soparla’. His face was grim. He gestured at the others to look inside. Eddie prepared himself, moved to the door and peered in to see the Romanian’s dead body. His hands were bound behind his back and his mouth gagged. He had a bullet hole between his eyes.

  Eddie lowered his pistol. ‘Guess we can rule him out then,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, Christ,’ said Kenny, covering his nose and mouth with the back of hand. He pointed inside the small ensuite bathroom. There, crumpled up in the bathroom, was the naked body of a woman, her long blonde hair matted with blood.

  ‘Looks like she was in the shower when the shooter arrived,’ said Mike, shaking his head. He reached for a bathrobe and placed it gently over the woman’s body.

  ‘Who’d do this?’ said Mike.

  ‘Someone that wanted something,’ said Kenny. ‘Pickering’s crew. Has to be’.

  ‘I don’t know’ said Eddie. Kenny frowned.

  ‘Who else could it be?’ he asked. Eddie scanned the room. The front door showed no signs of damage - Soparla or his girlfriend might have willingly let the assailant in. The drawers and wardrobes were all still in place, the sheets remained on the bed and the furniture appeared unmoved. A suitcase sat on top of one wardrobe, still zipped shut.

  ‘It ain’t been searched,’ he said. ‘Looks to me like someone was tying up loose ends. Someone that knew what Lucian and his girlfriend did for Charlie, maybe. And the secrets they could tell’.

  ‘That Spanish politician Charlie squeezed?’ asked Mike. ‘Sophia Valázquez? Fernandez maybe? Or Daniel-fucking-Ortega?’

  ‘It could be any of them. Either way, we need to get out of here’. Kenny nodded, and they hurried outside, pulling the door behind them.

  Mike tapped Eddie on the shoulder and lowered his voice. ‘What if Charlie and Lucian were -’.

  Kenny’s panicked call from outside interrupted whatever it was Mike was about to ask.

  ‘We got company,’ Kenny said. He pointed to a red Fiat Panda on the street below from which were emerging several men.

  Eddie recognised them instantly. ‘It’s Pickering. There’s five of them’. He observed them for a few more seconds. ‘They’re coming up’.

  ‘Fuck,’ said Kenny in a panicked voice. ‘Is there another way out of here?’

  Eddie glanced back along the hallway. Lucian’s apartment was the last one on that floor - there was no other way down. ‘We’re cornered. Find cover’. He ducked down behind a wall-mounted air conditioning unit and raised his gun towards the staircase twenty feet away. ‘We’re gonna have to shoot our way out of this’. He braced himself against the concrete column behind him. He could hear the Cockney’s voices at the bottom of the staircase. He steeled himself - ready for the firefight to come - but then noticed Mike waving to catch his attention.

  Eddie darted across to peer over the edge to see two sturdy-looking, cast iron drain pipes attached behind one of the building’s concrete columns. There were sturdy-looking support brackets every two feet, making for a half-decent ladder. ‘Get going,’ he urged Mike, but the older man shook his head.

  ‘You first. I’ll cover you’. Mike strode away and pointed the shotgun towards the stairs. ‘Go, now!’

  Eddie shoved Kenny towards the edge. The short man did not need a second telling and flung a leg over the concrete wall, grabbed hold of one of the pipes, then started to climb down as fast as he could. ‘Mike!’ Eddie called out.

  ‘Find out who did this, Ed,’ Mike said, his eyes reddening. Pickering and his crew were almost upon them. Mike pushed Eddie towards the pipes. ‘Get the fuck out of here. And make sure my Veronica is safe’. He spun on his heel and strode towards the stairs.

  Eddie climbed over the edge, lowered a heel down onto one of the support brackets and grasped hold of a pipe. As he did so, his Browning slipped out from his belt and plummeted to the ground below. It landed on a patch of dirt and weeds right next to the startled Kenny. ‘Shit’.

  He looked back to see Mike raising the shotgun to his shoulder. The first of the East Enders appeared on the staircase. The man could not have had any idea what was about to happen to him. A lick of flame burst from Mike’s gun, filling the unlucky man’s leg with of a cloud of metal pellets. His blood splashed onto the whitewashed walls behind him, and he fell backwards down the stairs.

  The other East Londoners were now taking evasive action. A second man attempted to raise a machine pistol towards Mike, who was still moving towards them, but a second blast caught the man in his shoulder and face, and he too crumpled to the floor.

  Mike flung himself behind a column and attempted to reload the shotgun. He inserted two fresh cartridges from his pocket, cracked the gun closed again and stepped out into the hallway, but a bullet struck him in his side, stopping him in his tracks. Another shot hit him in his thigh. He dropped to one knee and tried to lift the shotgun up, but then a third round hit him in the right shoulder. The gun fell from his hand, and he let out an agonised roar.

  Pickering strode forward, aiming his weapon at Mike’s head. He kicked Mike’s sawn-off away. ‘Where’s the others?’ he demanded, but Mike was saying nothing. The East Londoner barked an order at his men. ‘Search it. Careful. They’re around somewhere’.

  Eddie lowered h
imself out of the men’s view, burying his head between the two pipes. The sensible thing to do would be to escape, but he had to bear witness to what was about to happen. For Mike’s sake.

  The two men, who had just kicked open the door to Soparla’s flat, emerged back onto the walkway. One of them looked about ready to vomit.

  ‘Anything?’ said Pickering. The shorter of the two men shook his head.

  ‘Someone else got here first. They’re both dead. The geezer and his bird. Both shot’.

  ‘Fresh?’ asked Pickering.

  The man shook his head. ‘Nah. At least a day. Fucking stinks’.

  ‘Check on the other two’. Pickering lowered himself down to his knees and glared at Mike who was panting, exhausted and spent. ‘How are you, Micheal?’

  ‘I’ve had…better days’.

  Pickering waved his gun towards the apartment door. ‘Know who did that?’ he asked.

  Mike lifted his head to look Pickering in the eyes. ‘Figured you did’.

  Pickering grinned. ‘He ain’t no use to me dead. Some Spanish geezer came to see me wanting to know what the Romanian knew. He was going to pay well. Very well’.

  ‘Guess we’re all…in the dark then,’ said Mike, now struggling for breath.

  ‘Seems that way’.

  One of Pickering’s men returned, having checked on their fallen colleague. ‘Sam’s okay. Just needs patching up. Keith’s in a bad way though. Don’t reckon he’ll make it’.

  ‘Get them to the car,’ said Pickering, his voice assertive but calm. He shifted back to Mike. ‘Any last words?’

  ‘I wanna fuck your mum again,’ said Mike.

  Pickering snorted with laughter. ‘She’d have enjoyed that, the old slag’. He thrust his pistol into Mike’s chest and two shots rang out. Mike’s body slumped to the floor as the East Ender spun away and marched back towards the stairs. Eddie could see the dead man’s face. It displayed no sign of fear or suffering.

  ‘Quite the opposite,’ thought Eddie.