Cartel Fire

by Tom Riggs

  After a while he managed to sit up next to Anton, although still leaning against the cold machine for support. He looked down at the man who had been hunting him. Anton stopped screaming and looked at Munro.

  “Well Anton,” said Munro, “I’m afraid this is the end of your road. I don’t like to say it, but I did warn you.”

  Anton groaned and swore at him.

  “Your men are dead Anton,” said Munro. He looked over and saw his sniper rifle over ten feet away, lying in the heather. “Your men are dead and you’ve lost your weapon.” Munro looked down at Anton’s severed and broken legs.

  “It looks like your legs are out of action too. Your arm’s broken, your legs are gone, and you’re on a cold moor that is only getting colder.” Munro looked up at the sky. What low winter sun there was would be gone behind the huge horizon soon. Buzzards and eagles were beginning to circle.

  “Just kill me, you…” Anton trailed off, clearly struggling to speak.

  “Those buzzards look hungry,” said Munro drawing Anton’s attention to the sky. “My guess is that there’re a lot of hungry predators out here. Not much to eat on this moor, not at this time of year. Buzzards, eagles, foxes, maybe even the odd wolf. All these deer corpses you leave lying around should mean they all know where to come. I doubt our friends in the animal kingdom will discriminate against a nice juicy South African. It should make a nice change from venison.”

  Munro stood up, slowly, his shoulder burning with pain, his hands numb with cold. Anton went to speak, but he was clearly finding it difficult.

  “I know Anton,” said Munro smiling, “I know I promised to kill you, and normally I keep my promises. But here’s the thing. You’re a sadistic racist, who really should pay for your crimes. And I can’t think of a better punishment than being left out here to fend for yourself. Fend for yourself against the cold, against the wind, against the blood loss because those legs won’t heal out here. And most of all Anton, you’re going to have to fend for yourself against all those hungry animals.”

  Munro stood up straight now and climbed onto his ATV. He turned the ignition and put it into first. The sound of the engine gunning up the slope drowned out Anton’s cries.

  Five minutes later and Munro turned into the wood above Lipakos’ lodge. He had the shotgun holstered in front of him. Any pain or exhaustion that he had been feeling was gone now. The ATV took strength and concentration to drive, and mustering that strength had given Munro a second wind. The end was close, he knew it. There was just one thing left to do. Anna.

  Holding the shotgun Munro kicked in the back door, and came into a hall area. Cool and dark, flagstone floors, antlers on the wall. He felt a movement behind him and turned just in time to see a door open. Just in time; he was getting slow. Hudson was coming out of a kitchen, holding a mug of what looked like tea. He saw Munro and dropped his mug, attempted to turn and run. Munro was at him in a second. He turned the shotgun and smashed it into Hudson’s face, butt first. The bigger man went down heavy and fast, falling against a kitchen table. Munro followed him in. The kitchen was small and homely, light filled. Not unlike the kitchen in his cottage. He turned the shotgun and held it to Hudson’s head. Put his finger on the trigger.

  “Where is she?”

  Hudson crouched under the kitchen table, shrinking back like an animal. Munro put his other hand on the barrel of the gun, to hold it steady at his head. Hold his hands steady. He was beginning to shake, beginning to crash. He didn’t have long.

  “Where is she, Adrian?”

  Hudson looked at Munro, total fear in his eyes.

  “Top of the back stairs, first door on your left.” Munro lifted the gun slightly as if to shoot, and Hudson shrank back further under the table.

  “Stay there Adrian, you move and I’ll find you and shoot you, understand?”

  Hudson nodded and Munro turned. He came out of the kitchen and saw a small dark staircase to his left, past an open pantry. The servants’ quarters.

  He was up the stairs fast, shotgun out ahead of him. Munro was on autopilot now, relying on years of training. Gun first, be ready to shoot. Be just as ready not to shoot. Watch the corners, cover your back. But there was no need to worry. He was into the room, first door on the left, in seconds. It was dark and he tore open the curtains. The room was small, and he was faintly surprised to see only bunk beds. He looked down, his eyes quickly adjusting to the light. He almost cried out when he saw her. She was lying prone, her right arm exposed. Around it was a handcuff and chain. He crouched down and gently shook her.

  “Anna?” There was no response, so he shook her again. Again no response. He shook her again, harder this time.

  “Anna?” Still no response. He felt for a pulse, panic beginning to rise. She was warm and there was a beat. Slow and low, but there. He put his freezing hand to her warm cheek. Slowly her eyes opened.

  “Jack?”

  “Hello there,” he said, “have you missed me?”

  “Some men, they came to the cottage..”

  “Don’t worry about that, you just rest easy.”

  He looked at the handcuff. It did not look too tight, it could wait. She was drugged, heavily. But she would live. She would be alright.

  “You just stay here, I have to take care of one more thing, ok?”

  She did not say anything for a moment, just smiled a hazy narcotic smile.

  “They came to the cottage…”

  “I know they did, but they’re gone now.” He rested her back down, and watched as she fell back into her drugged slumber. Munro felt the rage rise in him. He remembered the pictures of Richard from Venezuela, his head pounded in like burger meat. He thought of the atrocities in Brazil, Hector, the South Africans. Death, pain and cruelty. All from one man and all because of one man. He picked up his shotgun and stood up. It was a pump action, held five cartridges. Two fired, three left. More than enough. He walked out of the small bedroom and into the narrow servant’s corridor. Holding the shotgun, covered from head to toe in mud and blood, the cuts across his back raw to the air around him, he marched down the corridor. It was dark, curtained at one end. He burst through the curtain and found himself on a thickly carpeted landing. A wide staircase slowly spiralled down to the floor below. A chandelier hung above it. Oil paintings showing wooded glades and long dead potentates were hung along the landing and down the stairs. He was out of the servants’ quarters.

  “LI-PA-KOS” yelled Munro as he cocked the shotgun.

  The house was silent, but he sensed movement behind one of the doors. He marched towards it and kicked it open. Gun raised, ready to shoot.

  Munro burst in and found himself in a library. Book lined, with a large desk in a large bay window. The view outside was beautiful, a river, a flat valley and then steep purple moor. Looking out of the window, at the moor, was Constantine Lipakos. He turned slowly as Munro came in. His face registered nothing as he took in Munro, not the shotgun pointing at him, not the blood and not the black mud. Munro looked at him, in his right hand was a pistol. Six shooter, it looked like an antique, something from the American old west. Munro aimed the shotgun at him.

  “Put the gun down Lipakos, the game is over. You lose.”

  Lipakos said nothing but instead looked out of the window down the valley. A road hugged the river. Munro followed Lipakos’ gaze and saw blue flashing lights. A convoy of police cars, some marked, some unmarked, was making its way down the valley. Fast. Lipakos looked at Munro, his face slightly confused. Munro smiled and held up his left hand.

  “There’s a GPS locator in my watch Lipakos, high street stuff nowadays. If you didn’t employ such incompetents, you might have thought that one through. My partner can find me any time he wants to. Now put the gun down. I’ll put in a good word for you, testify that you’re insane.” He paused as Lipakos just looked at him blankly, his eyes dead, his hair ruffled. The smooth boat owner was gone, replaced by a confused old man. Munro extended his arms, the barrels of the shotgun n
ow pointing straight at Lipakos’ head.

  “Put the gun down Lipakos… now.”

  Lipakos looked at the road again, at the rapidly approaching blue lights and then turned back to Munro.

  “I loved him you know…like a son…” He raised his pistol and Munro shouted, put his finger onto the shotgun trigger. In a split second Lipakos turned the pistol, jutted it under his chin. He looked at Munro for a beat, as Munro ran towards him shouting at him. Too late, a shot fired. Munro was so close it deafened him. He caught Lipakos’ body as it fell. A gaping hole where there had once been smoothed back silver hair.

  Later, Munro sat in the back of an ambulance, his back and shoulder covered in bandages. He had a blanket around him, a medic was injecting him with something to ease the pain. Even so, it hurt, a lot. His body felt battered all over. The adrenalin was leaving his body. All that was left was a dull slow pain. Rudd stood beside him, drinking tea from a small plastic cup.

  “You were right, FTP Supply was shipping out of Peru. Sending the ore straight to one of Lipakos’s mines in Central Asia. A brilliant scam, all in all. It meant his mine in Asia looked profitable, sent the share price soaring. He avoided any Brazilian duties, they were making a fortune.”

  “What will happen to the Lipakos empire now?” said Munro wincing slightly as the needle went into his shoulder.

  “Nothing,” replied Rudd shrugging and looking around him. “His sons, his real sons that is, were already making moves to get rid of him. His Brazilian escapade was a massive potential embarrassment for them. I think they’ll be mighty relieved he’s gone, saves them a lot of trouble. I don’t think they were very impressed to hear that he had tried to commit their mother to an insane asylum either. No, the Lipakos empire will continue, just with a new king.”

  “Oedipus Rex,” said Munro, almost to himself. They both paused as they watched Hudson being led out, handcuffed, by two men in plain clothes. He was bundled into an unmarked black car.

  “And Hudson?” asked Munro.

  “There’s a private jet waiting for him at Inverness airport. When I called SIS and told them the situation, they were very appreciative. Should help us smooth out any rough edges here. Your old pal Youngman said they would take him ‘off-site’ for interrogation, God knows where that means.”

  “I hear Djibouti is the current favourite,” said Munro, “I don’t think we’ll be seeing Adrian Hudson for a while.” He closed his eyes as he felt the morphine pulse through his blood, deadening the rising pain. He let the adrenalin go, fall away, and waited for the drug to soften the inevitable crash. It was over. Mrs Stanfield would have her answers, however unpalatable they might be. Lipakos was gone, his henchmen dead. Anna was safe, on her way to a Scottish hospital. Still drugged, but safe, the terror behind her.

  “And what about you Jack?” said Rudd, verbalising Munro’s train of thought, “where now? Back to the office?”

  Munro paused and looked around. The police, the medics, Rudd. He thought of the moor, of Mexico, of Venezuela.

  Where now?

  “I don’t know,” he replied eventually, “but it won’t be the office.”

  The End