Tight Lies

by Ted Denton

  The other method of getting information, when taunted by the impatient demands of an officious ticking clock, is a little gentle persuasion fresh out of the ‘Tom Hunter School of Charm’. And of those two accepted methodologies, there is no doubt which route I’m more comfortable with.

  Experience has taught me many unsavoury lessons. The need to pause for a little strategic thinking before a tear up was one of them. According to an evaluation report made by the Hand of God to the top brass in the mob ‘Hunter possesses a positive predilection for preproperation’. Whatever that actually meant. But I do know that if I were to just go straight off wading in to try and extract information on the Target’s whereabouts from the key suspects on Ella’s list of caddies, such as Razor, Sharples, Sean, or Billy Boy there would simply be no guarantee of gaining reliable information. Even through interrogation at gunpoint or by waterboarding one of the bastards. We’ve learnt that the perpetrators of a kidnapping or crime of person-disappearance rarely talk quickly when initially confronted. Interrogation can take hours, sometimes days. Being a caddy was also a recognised position within the fabric of the European Golf Tour, which might serve as insulation against any suggestion of impropriety. The on-course security team would handle the fall-out from any immediate disturbances and if the local police were on the payroll, they would look the other way should matters escalate. Given these circumstances, I was well aware that if the authorities got involved, there was no doubt that I was the one who would end up in the clink. With the paucity of information we currently held surrounding the circumstances of Ratchet’s disappearance and with time at a major premium, a suspect being forced to talk might decide to deploy a strategy of misdirection. This would cost us crucial time. There’s no doubt that if you put the squeeze on someone for information and do it tight enough, they will eventually talk. I don’t care how tough you are the world over, it’s a rare man who won’t sing to me given enough time and the right tool kit. It’s the veracity and timeliness of the information provided, that you need to be careful with. And right now I still had other options to explore.

  Chapter 24

  ENGLAND. LONDON. CROWN SPORTS OFFICE.

  ‘Mr Flavini? It’s Daniel Ratchet’s father here.’ The broad Sheffield accent, firm and true down the telephone.

  ‘Yes, good morning, Mr Ratchet. And please do call me Silvio,’ oozed the warm response given between sips of rich Italian coffee.

  ‘Right oh. Er, Silvio then. Yes well, sorry to telephone you at the office, we did promise that we wouldn’t use the number except in emergencies, but I’m ringing because, well, to be frank, the boy’s mother is agitating. She’s concerned that we haven’t heard from him for a few days and we were expecting to hear all about the tournament and the ceremony of last week. We read in the paper of the golfer that he’s working with winning that big tournament and with that being such a big deal to the lad and the like, it just seems a little odd that we can’t reach him. The mobile number he gave us doesn’t work and we called the hotel who says that he’s up and checked out.’

  A pause for breath.

  ‘Mr Ratchet, I’m sure that there’s nothing to be concerned about.’ A smooth, unctuous response. ‘Daniel is working hard for us to put a contract in place and I expect that’s what he is focusing on at the moment. I haven’t heard from him myself but I’m sure it’s all perfectly normal. We all know that mothers like to fuss, Mr Ratchet. And I can myself testify to that, being a good Italian boy myself.’

  ‘Yes, well, that is true indeed. You’ll let us know when you hear from him won’t you?’

  ‘Of course, Mr Ratchet, of course,’ was the silken platitude. ‘Now please do try not to worry. Daniel’s a big boy. Working on the road as we do, there are the many days when we lose the communication. It’s really no problem.’ He replaced the receiver in its cradle and smoothed the soft silver hairs of his beard around the creases of his mouth as he considered matters. His next call was transatlantic, placed to the direct line of Randy Hughes, founder and autocratic owner of the Crown Sports Empire.

  ‘Randy, we have a problem. Our new agent, Daniel Ratchet, has gone missing—a few days now. There is the outstanding Aaron Crower agreement to be finalised with Rublex Corporation, part of the incentive programme. I think we may need someone else on the ground out in Europe.’

  ‘You fucked up, Silvio,’ came the booming American baritone, ‘You hired the wrong guy. A guy who couldn’t get the job done and you didn’t even fucking tell me that the agreement wasn’t signed. What’s wrong with you people? Can’t you manage to do what you’re told?’

  ‘Randy, please. The boy had some concerns about the terms of the agreement and I put him straight. It was due to be signed imminently.’

  ‘That’s sixteen fucking million fucking dollars, Silvio,’ he shouted. ‘Crown Sports doesn’t tolerate playing fast and loose with that kind of green’

  ‘I know Randy. I’m sorry, I truly am.’

  ‘It’s a good thing one of us is on the ball, you greasy Italian waste of space. I’ve been speaking with Sergei and Rublex directly. I’ve been through the agreement and it’s the usual format, same as all the others. I’ve authorised him to deal with Aaron and sign the paperwork in Spain. We can’t afford to leave the door open for some other agent to present him with a better offer and snatch him away from right under our beak. Crower is a hot property after that win and those slippery bastards will be all over him.’

  ‘Okay, great news Randy. Thank you. What about Daniel, any word on where he might be?’

  ‘The fuck do I care about that little limey bastard? He was sticking his nose in where it wasn’t wanted, Silvio, and from what I hear he was starting to piss off our wealthy Ruski friends. I’m just pleased he’s out the way and not obstructing the course of good business being done no more.’ The phone went dead. The conversation was very over.

  Daniel lay on his side. He’d been staring for hours at a single patch of flaking paint on the cell wall. His body ached. The throbbing in his head had abated but it was still tender and sore to the touch. If he turned his neck suddenly, he was overcome by a sickening dizziness. The cell was empty except for a split and stained pink child’s mattress partially spewing its dirty-ish yellow foam innards. A cracked green plastic bucket, presumably for use as a toilet, stood unloved in the corner.

  Each day he’d been there so far, a small plastic bottle of lukewarm water for him to drink had been lobbed into the cell. Nothing to eat for the first two days. On the third day, with his strength all but faded, a squashed service station sandwich of limp lettuce, rancid tomato and processed cheese was thrown inside. Daniel gagged as he crammed the food gratefully into his mouth. The stench of the dark heavy urine to which he had grown so accustomed was brought vividly alive to his senses again. The meagre sustenance he was attempting to swallow had a sudden vile impact on his olfactory system, reacting in a painful explosion of dormant taste buds awakened after the long period of neglect. He had been left untied in the cell, presumably considered no threat in being so weak. He was thoroughly secured under lock and key.

  Daniel had neither spoken to nor seen any of his captors since first arriving there. What do they want with me, he’d often wondered. It must have something to do with what I’d found out about the cheating on Tour. If they wanted to kill me, I’d already be dead, so there must be hope. There has to be some reason that I’m still alive. For now.

  He was awoken from a fitful slumber by the crunch of the key rattling in metal grate. Bad Breath Man stooped and entered the tiny room, watching closely as Daniel sat up and rubbed his eyes. He loped to the corner and then, in one sudden and aggressive motion, scooped up the plastic bucket, hurling both it and its foul contents at Daniel’s head. There was no time to roll to his side. The bucket caught him on the corner of the temple, cutting him sharply above the eyebrow and covering him, the bed and the wall, with an ugly slop of rancid shit and piss. Daniel reeled backwards in shock as the assailant s
tepped forward and screamed furiously into his face, ‘Where is computer tablet? Where is tablet you stupid fuck?’

  The door banged open on its hinges. A second man whom Daniel also recognised from his capture, roughly grabbed Bad Breath Man and forced him against the wall, jabbing a thick finger towards his face. ‘No fucking questions until, Avtorityet arrives. These are rules. Fucking understand?’ He pointed towards the door and the two filed out silently, leaving Daniel sitting on the mattress in soiled disbelief, choking on a torrent of frightened tears. Sorrowful, bleeding and dripping in piss.

  Chapter 25

  ENGLAND. SURREY. RIVER THAMES. SHEPPERTON LOCK.

  Two men approached each other guardedly. Their backdrop, a narrow stretch of the wizened river Thames. Grey choppy waters swirled.

  ‘Simon, it’s been a very long time’.

  ‘Good of you to come, dear boy’.

  ‘I don’t recall having much choice in the matter,’ came the stiff reply.

  ‘From what I remember of you, Charles, there was apparently always a choice,’ punctuated with a deliberate and humourless chuckle.

  ‘Not when the safety of my people is involved, Simon, or perhaps you have forgotten that?’

  The two men stared into each other’s eyes. Hand’s steely glare unbreakable, unflinching. The aura still surrounded him. The man who had transcended into army folklore. Some men didn’t just command respect, it was a natural and implicit reaction induced on entering their orbit. Simon Prentice finally cast his eyes downward and carefully scratched at a dull mark on the sleeve of his smart, navy overcoat.

  ‘Please, there is no need to dredge up the past. No one will ever forget what happened, Charles. I was compelled to think of the greater good. There was more at stake than just the lives of three British soldiers left back in Pakistan.’

  ‘My greater good was saving those boys. It was my command. I sent them into that village to reconnoitre. MI6 deliberately withheld vital information regarding insurgent activity in the vicinity.’

  ‘Charles, please, you were operating under the radar. Officially deniable. We couldn’t share intelligence with you or we would have risked exposing the whole operation during a highly sensitive political climate. We were risking an all-out war if the Pakistani government had rumbled what we were up to.’

  ‘The simple fact is you cut a deal behind our backs, Simon. You left those boys there to die in exchange for the freedom of some low-level turncoat informant, bartering information on a nonexistent weapons dump for his life.’

  ‘We didn’t know it was non-existent at the time did we? How were we to know? The local intel had been inaccurate.’

  Hand glowered, fists tightening by his side. ‘When our team went in deep behind enemy lines to capture Mahood in his brother-in-law’s village, you had already bloody cut a deal and spirited him away. It was a death trap and you let us walk right into it.’

  ‘We couldn’t have known that they would lay such a heinous ambush. No one meant for those soldiers to get hurt. It was a very difficult time for us all.’

  ‘My boys nearly died. I lost my job, Simon’. Again came that stare.

  ‘Hardly old boy. An honourable discharge. A very healthy Army pension. More medals than you can shake a stick at. It was your time to go anyway. And regardless, my people tell me that you’ve created a highly lucrative enterprise freeing kidnap victims on the private market whilst leveraging a pretty powerful network to boot. Doing well for yourself it seems, Charles, and probably only thanks to the top brass sweeping the fact that you went rogue under the carpet. An MI6 recommendation, I may add.’ Prentice looked pleased with himself.

  ‘I did what needed to be done and I’d do the same again in a heartbeat.’ Voice raised. Stark.

  ‘Charles. You commandeered a bloody US Apache helicopter at gunpoint and flew it into a burning enemy village.’

  ‘We all know the story’. Tense. Fractious.

  ‘Yes. The Hand of God. The type of story some men’s reputations are built upon.’

  Both men now simmering on the edge of fury. Hand continued unapologetic.

  ‘I saved three lives which you had put at unnecessary risk. Three of our finest men.’

  ‘The ends justify the means? You were lucky things worked out, Hand, or the blowback from a buggered up rescue mission on an operation that didn’t exist would have been totally catastrophic.’

  ‘You should have told us what you knew.’

  ‘Do I need to remind you that we were at war? Tough decisions have to be taken, Charles.’

  Hand breathed in deeply, checked his watch and turned to go.

  ‘What do you know about Boris Golich?’ Simon called after him searchingly.

  Charles stopped and turned around. The question hung between them for a while.

  At length, a measured reply. ‘He’s a very dangerous man.’

  ‘Walk with me.’

  The two men walked along Shepperton Lock in silence for half a mile or so. It was a quiet and picturesque piece of river flanked on one side by a number of elegant houses with large glass frontages designed so the owners could derive optimum pleasure from expansive and scenic views. Across the narrow, undulating river lay Pharaoh’s Island. An unusual free standing island in the Thames, it was home to a cluster of glorious houses, often of unique architectural design, and accessible only by boat. Moored in front of these properties bobbed a succession of powerful looking motorboats and over-designed gin palaces. On their side of the river, the two men passed a number of gaily painted house boats and barges. They walked in silence along the grass until they reached two barges conjoined to each other. The first, a working functional house boat, charming in springtime but, Simon noted, not particularly practical for an unrepentant British winter. Or indeed for those in need of plenty of standing closet space to hang their best Savile Row suits. The boat tethered to the port side of the river was sheathed in a heavy white tarpaulin. The men paused to read a sign which had been erected on the river bank. It read:

  The little boats of Dunkirk project. This boat is being renovated to its former glory. It is estimated that this boat served on over 350 missions and during the Dunkirk rescues saved an estimated 165 lives. Please give generously to help with the cost of this privately funded renovation project so that future generations can enjoy the majesty of our brave and historic boats.

  Hand stuffed a crisp twenty pound note into the plastic envelop stapled to the sign.

  ‘There will always be wars, Charles. It’s incumbent on us as servants of the nation to pick the right battles.’ And then, deliberately catching his eye, ‘We’re on the same side you know, old boy. Men like us need to work together for the common good. So I suppose you’d better tell me, Charles, why are you looking into Boris Golich?’

  Hand raised his eyebrows quizzically. Feigning a practiced bafflement.

  ‘Come don’t deny. Don’t do me that disservice. We know you still have contacts. You’ve been using an encrypted security clearance traced back to your old job to find out everything you can about Golich and his Rublex Corporation. In addition there’s a certain inquisitive lady named Ella Philips, who we’ve tied to your operation, who has been putting herself around to find out what she can.’

  A gravid pause. ‘Where’s all this going, Simon? Why should you care who we look into? We’re a private business and this is a private matter.’

  ‘I was rather hoping we may be able to help each other out. I’ve had a favour pulled from an old colleague in government who needs help fast. He’s trying to shine a light on uncovering shady money trails stemming from Rublex and this Golich character before he binds the British government to an embarrassing commitment which could damage relations with some of our overseas trading partners and stain our good name in the international money markets.’

  ‘You’re talking about Russian Mafia money. The Vory’.

  ‘So you do know about this then. I was rather hoping you would be able to help. What have
your people been able to find out, Charles? We know Golich has become “Pakhan” now, the criminal mastermind who pulls the strings and a man whose reach is so far inside the Kremlin he only needs to sneeze and the Russian president gets bloody haemorrhoids. If we leverage the usual channels to follow the money and Moscow gets so much as a sniff of it, we risk closing down our whole operation. We practically operate over there under licence these days anyway. We can’t bet the farm and risk upsetting years of careful contact grooming and intelligence gathering on this one, Hand.’

  ‘And if we choose to assist your colleague, to furnish him with what we’ve found?’

  ‘Then I shall ensure that Her Majesty’s Secret Service ”misplaces” certain evidence accrued against one Tom Hunter following the siege at the Nigerian Embassy last October. I believe you two are still professionally acquainted are you not?’

  Charles Hand gripped his fist tightly. Fingernails turning white as they dug into his palm. He was backed into a corner, outflanked. Practically invited it upon himself. Hand stepped away and after a few moments of composed consideration he turned and spoke quietly. ‘We’ll trade. Set up the meet.’

  Chapter 26

  SPAIN. BAYFIELD MANDARIN GOLF RESORT. EUROPEAN TOUR: DAY FIVE. 17.27 HRS.