by Dan Latus
The message was a surprise, as well as a bit of a worry. I hadn’t been checking. I hadn’t felt the need. Whatever was going on here, I was a clean face. Just another tourist. One who had hired a car, and now was off on a little outing to see the sights. There shouldn’t have been a reason for anyone to be following me — if, indeed, anyone was.
Was the warning credible? Had I really got a tail?
I began keeping a closer watch on the vehicles behind me. There wasn’t much else I could do at this stage. I didn’t want to start making evasive manoeuvres. If there really was someone behind me, it would be better if they didn’t know I knew they were there.
I stopped at a coffee shop, went inside and ordered an Americano. Then I sat at a table next to a window and watched and waited. A few cars came off the highway and parked outside either the coffee shop or the souvenir shack adjacent to it. There was nothing to arouse my suspicions about any of the vehicles or drivers. A couple of pickup trucks came in, and they too looked pretty normal.
Back on the road, I was more relaxed. It was a lovely day and I was in the beautiful countryside. I even began to feel I was lucky to be here. Puzzled as well, I have to admit. The reason for me being here didn’t make an awful lot of sense yet, and I was still finding it all a bit hard to take seriously. But here I was. On expenses, too. Might as well enjoy the trip.
Another hour down the road my perception changed. By then, I was past the city of Nanaimo and the traffic had thinned out even more. Cloud had moved in to blot out the sun. Slow drizzle had begun, soon turning to fast drizzle. I started the wipers, back and front.
A dirty grey car had been a little way behind me for a few miles, appearing occasionally in my rear-view mirror but never close enough to cause me concern. It was nothing special. Even so, given the anonymous text warning, I began to wonder about it.
Just before a junction with a side road, a big pickup truck overtook the grey car and sped on to pull in far too close behind me. I gave that my full attention.
I signalled and turned left onto a minor road. The truck followed. And the grey car. My pulse rate shot skywards.
Then it looked like the truck performed an emergency stop on the wet, greasy surface and went into a skid. It swivelled chaotically around on the tarmac and in doing so managed to knock the grey car off the road and into the woods. The car rolled over a couple of times, ending up upside down.
Shocked, I swore, and braked hard. My eyes were fixed on the rear-view mirror, thoughts automatically focused on the likelihood of injured people needing help. The Honda screeched to a stop. I flung the door open.
Then my phone buzzed and vibrated again. I grabbed it from the passenger seat.
You’re good to go now! I read.
I stared, hesitating.
Go, Frank! came a second message. Now!
Harry. It had to be.
I went.
Chapter Fifteen
I slammed the door shut and got moving. The truck followed as I turned the Honda round and got back onto the highway. I upped the speed. The truck stayed with me.
Another half hour down the road my phone beeped again, this time with a message directing me to turn into a provincial park that was coming up shortly. I did, and stopped in a big parking area. As I got out of the car, the truck pulled up alongside. A door on the far side swung open and I heard someone clamber out.
‘Thanks for coming, Frank!’
I sighed with relief, shook my head and tried not to grin at the figure coming round the back of the truck, hand held out.
‘I didn’t have much choice,’ I said, my own hand extended.
As soon as I saw him my reservations melted away. It had always been like that. His infectious enthusiasm and good humour were hard to resist.
‘How the hell are you, Harry?’ I asked.
He gave me a rueful grin. ‘I’ve been better. Seen better days. But we could all say that, couldn’t we?’
I nodded. He looked like he had seen better too. This wasn’t the fresh, carefree face I remembered. Now he looked well-worn. Lean and hard. He’d done some living. Some travelling too, no doubt. His hair was thinner and turning grey at the edges, and his lined face had the complexion that comes from a lot of exposure to the sun over a long, long time.
There was something else. At first, I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it came to me. He looked like he’d been living with fatigue and stress as well as the sun, and for the same length of time. That first glance tended to confirm what Henderson had told me. This was a man who was living on the edge and close to exhaustion.
‘Good to see you again, Harry,’ I said. ‘It’s been years, hasn’t it?’
‘It sure has. Too many.’
His face broke into the smile that had always been his signature, the one he always wore when I thought of him. It was a relief. The old Harry was still in there somewhere, no matter what had been happening to him.
‘No time to do catch-up now, though,’ he added. ‘That’ll have to wait. We need to get out of here. Come on, Frank! Ride with me.’
I gestured at my hire car.
‘Leave it!’ he snapped. ‘We don’t have time. Gotta get moving.’
So I grabbed my stuff out of the car and threw it in the cab of his truck. Then I hoisted myself up to join him. We were moving, spraying gravel and dust out behind us even before I’d slammed the door shut. That was Harry’s way. Always had been.
‘Where are we headed?’ I asked, having to shout over the roar of the truck’s engine.
‘My place.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Up north — the far end of the island. A couple of hundred miles or so. You OK with that?’’
‘Fine by me,’ I assured him.
I decided to let him tell me in his own time about the grey car he had left upside down in the woods. For now, I would just assume he’d had good reason, and that his intervention had been justified.
The truck growled and roared as Harry took it through the gears and wound the speed up, slinging us around the curves in the road. It could certainly do a decent rate of knots, but it wasn’t a fine-tuned racing machine, nor did it deliver a lot of comfort to its passengers. This was a vehicle that I guessed would come into its own in the mountains, and on the gravel roads — logging roads, I assumed — that I could see occasionally joining the highway.
The truck had two sets of gears, each with its own gearstick. One for the highway and one for when the going got tough. Genuine, good old-fashioned four-wheel drive, in other words. Not the “all-wheel-drive” system you get on a lot of modern cars that are unlikely ever to leave the highway. This was a powerful working vehicle that put my old Land Rover to shame. This one would climb a near-vertical rock wall if needs be.
‘I like your truck, Harry.’
‘You do? This old thing?’
I nodded approvingly. ‘I could do with something like this back home.’
‘Not if you knew how much gas it uses. I’ve never had as much as twenty miles to the gallon out of it. Usually it’s more like ten or twelve.’
‘Ouch! That would be a snag.’
‘At UK prices? You’re telling me.’
Still, I did like the truck. With the winch rig I’d seen on the front end, it would be ideal for pulling our fishing boat — a Whitby coble — around. Jimmy Mack’s fishing boat, that is. It was still his, even if it was mostly me that used it these days.
‘Tired, Frank?’
‘No, I’m OK. Mostly I’m puzzled about what I’m doing here. It’s all been a bit of a rush, and I haven’t had much time to think.’
‘Outside your comfort zone, eh?’
‘Just a little,’ I admitted with a chuckle.
‘I understand. Like I said, I’m grateful you could make it.’
I waited for more, but it didn’t come. Harry was focused on driving the truck hard, which meant the cab was pretty noisy. This certainly wasn’t travelling in comfort, nor was it conduciv
e to prolonged conversation. Bearing in mind what Henderson had said, I waited as patiently as I could for Harry to divulge what he wanted me to know in his own time.
‘Henderson tell you what’s going on?’ he asked eventually.
‘A bit. Not a lot, to be honest.’
‘But enough to persuade you to come,’ he added with a grin.
I nodded. ‘Something about you being in trouble and needing help. He said you asked for me specifically.’
‘I did. I needed someone I could trust.’
‘I always welcome flattery, Harry. Tell me more.’
‘I will,’ he said, giving me another grin.
But he didn’t. Not then. Again, the conversation just petered out.
Well, fair enough. The full story could wait, but I did want to know about the grey car, and it looked like I was going to have to ask.
‘What about the car back there in the woods? They were definitely tailing me?’
‘Oh yes!’ He gave a bitter little laugh and shook his head. ‘What? You worried they were innocent tourists?’
‘It had crossed my mind.’
‘Then set your mind at rest. I know who the occupants of that car are and they’re seriously bad people, believe me.’
‘What sort of state are they in now, though, I wonder?’
Harry chuckled. ‘Don’t worry about them. Given the opportunity, they would cheerfully cut both our throats. They’re in better shape than they should be. What we have to concentrate on now is getting the hell away from them.’
That made me break the rule I had imposed on myself, the one about not pressing him with questions. ‘You’re going to have to tell me what’s going on, Harry.’
‘I will. In the right time and place.’
‘I can’t wait.’
He chuckled. ‘You’re good for me, Frank. You always were. I feel better already.’
‘Nice to know. Now would you just shut up and concentrate on the road? You’re in danger of scaring me to death on these bloody bends!’
Chapter Sixteen
I had begun to wonder if Henderson’s concern about Harry might be misplaced after all. This didn’t seem like a man weighed down by fear and depression, anxiety and paranoia. This just seemed like Harry. Older, tired, but on the inside pretty much as I remembered him. Close to exhaustion, perhaps, but still with plenty of energy and self-confidence. Ready to take on the world. It made me wonder again what I was doing here.
Then, suddenly, I had to re-calibrate. Harry jammed his foot down and the truck took off at alarming speed, the engine screaming.
‘What?’ I shouted.
‘It’s them!’
I glanced at the mirror and saw nothing behind us for a considerable distance. I spun round in my seat and looked back. Still nothing, nothing remotely threatening.
‘For chrissake, Harry!’ I yelled as we went into another bend at lunatic speed. ‘There’s nothing there. Slow down!’
Somehow, we got through the bend without turning over and leaving the road. Harry took his foot off the gas and we began to slow down and straighten up.
‘Sorry, Frank,’ he said after a few moments. ‘I thought I saw them coming.’
I just sat there, grim-faced. There hadn’t been a thing behind us for as far back as I could see.
A little further on, Harry pulled off the road and said, ‘You drive for a bit, Frank. I’m tired. I need a rest.’
I was only too ready to oblige. Another episode like the one we’d just experienced, and we could be upside down ourselves and going nowhere, ever again.
‘Sure. Let me have a go,’ I said in as calm a tone as I could manage. ‘I need to get some practice on these roads, and I’d like to try the truck out as well.’
Harry was looking grim-faced himself now. My attempt to lighten the mood hadn’t worked, but we changed seats and I got us rolling again.
‘I do like this thing,’ I announced after a few minutes of experimental driving. ‘It handles well. A lot better than my old Land Rover, anyway. Tell me about it.’
‘Dodge RAM 2500,’ Harry said, coming out of his malaise.
‘Big engine, obviously.’
‘5.9 litre, 6 cylinder in-line engine, 250 horsepower.’
The truck was something safe to talk about. Facts and figures. Nothing difficult or controversial. Nothing secret.
‘Dodge, eh? So, the US motor industry is still in business. I thought Detroit had been pretty well wiped out years ago.’
‘Definitely still in business, and pretty much back to where they once were. The city of Detroit isn’t doing so well, but American vehicles get good reviews. The cars are mostly smaller and more fuel efficient now, and there’s a lot more foreign vehicles on the road, but the trucks haven’t changed much. They’re still the best.’
‘I’m seeing a lot of them,’ I said to keep the conversation going. ‘Trucks, that is.’
It seemed safer to talk about vehicles than imaginary people who might possibly be following us.
‘Half the vehicles on the road are trucks in these parts,’ Harry said, warming to the subject. ‘Without one, you’re confined to the highway. No way can you take a modern lightweight car on a logging road, or up into the mountains. And that’s without even mentioning the winters and snow.’
‘You get a lot of snow here?’ I asked, thinking of the big, chunky tyres I’d noticed on the truck.
‘Some.’
‘How much?’
He shook his head and muttered something about it depending where you were. ‘Plenty in the mountains,’ he added, losing interest.
I drove steadily for a while, letting the conversation die naturally, and allowing Harry to calm down and relax. I observed the speed limit meticulously. The last thing I wanted was to draw the attention of the Mounties, or whoever the law enforcement was out here. It was something of a miracle that Harry hadn’t done that already today.
‘Sorry, Frank,’ he said eventually, breaking what had been a long silence.
‘For what?’
‘I got spooked back there. It happens a lot. I’m too tired, I guess.’
‘Don’t worry about it. No need to explain.’
‘It’s just—’
‘Harry, I can imagine what it’s been like for you. It’s tough on your own. I know that much, at least. Never a minute when you can safely close your eyes. It wears you down.’
Harry nodded. ‘You’ve got that right, buddy.’
Then he rallied and gave me a grin. ‘Welcome aboard the SS Crazy Horse!’
I laughed, but I was wondering again about the car he’d forced off the road. Had it really been full of hostiles tailing me? Had it really been a threat? I didn’t like to think about the possibility that some innocents had fallen foul of Harry’s paranoia, but I had to.
‘We’d better call in the . . . the accident, back there, Harry. Do you want to do it, or me?’
He shook his head. ‘Forget it. They were waiting at the airport for you. I recognised them. And I followed them, following you. They’re an assassination squad. People like that have no trouble surviving a car wreck, unfortunately — believe me!’
Maybe. A little reluctantly, I let it go. Harry wasn’t really bonkers, I decided all over again. He was just tired.
‘Let’s stop for the night,’ he said suddenly, surprising me.
‘Change of plan?’
‘Yeah. There’s a good place I know not too far ahead. No need to press on all the way today.’
That suited me. Perhaps over a meal and a beer I could get him to talk about what was happening, and what we could do about it.
‘I have a gun for you,’ he added, dispelling any illusion that we might have a peaceful evening ahead of us, happily reminiscing about old times.
I glanced at him, about to decline the offer.
‘You’ll need it,’ he said grimly. ‘Believe me. Probably sooner rather than later.’
Chapter Seventeen
Kiev, Ukrai
ne. June 2018.
She was alone most of the time. Once, Petrov came to see her, accompanied by two guards. He never went anywhere without his personal protection detail.
He told her she was being held as a hostage because her partner had stolen something of his and he wanted it back. If she could do anything to have the stolen property returned, then of course she would be released. Otherwise . . . Well, otherwise, she didn’t have a future. It was as simple as that.
‘I don’t have a partner,’ she said flatly. ‘What are you talking about?’
Petrov hit her then, hard across the face. ‘Don’t waste my time!’ he snapped. ‘We know everything about you.’
She sprang at him automatically when he hit her, but the guards stepped forward and held her easily.
‘Where is Harry Williams?’ Petrov demanded. ‘That is what I want to know from you.’
To avoid another blow, she held her tongue. Williams was the name she knew Harry had been using in this country.
‘You will tell me,’ Petrov said, his eyes glinting. ‘Everyone talks in the end.’
He pulled out a gun and casually levelled it at her. She steeled herself.
He let the tension stretch out before lowering the gun. ‘Unfortunately,’ he said, ‘I haven’t time at the moment to deal with you properly but let me tell you something. The next time I come here, either you will tell me what I want to know, or I will put a bullet in your head.’
She believed him. She had heard too much about him not to.
Apart from Petrov’s visit, she had little human contact. Two men took it in turns to bring her food and water twice a day. They didn’t speak. They just left what they brought for her to eat and drink, or not. It was up to her. They were the only people she saw.
The food was very basic, and a long way from being appetising, but she ate what they brought regardless. She needed to retain her strength.
The first few days she was in too much pain to think about much at all. Her head was the worst. At times it was hard to cope with the pulsing waves of agony. She feared that she might have a fractured skull, and possible brain damage. Being struck hard with a gun butt — which was probably what it had been — caused that kind of damage. But there was nothing she could do about it. Except suffer.
