Tight Lies

by Ted Denton

  I moved fast. It wouldn’t be long before Bob Wallace’s body was discovered and I didn’t need heat from the Guardia Civil who would soon be crawling all over the course and examining the scene of the crime. I decided to move cross country in the twilight through this tract of undulating rural land that had been carved out to produce a notoriously testing golf course. I would approach the truck park from behind, thereby avoiding any unnecessary contact.

  The few kilometres back to the equipment truck enclave disappeared quickly. In the Regiment, we’d trained relentlessly. Despite incessant cuts from the Ministry of Defence, the British Army still retains some of the latest technologies and an impressive array of multi-purpose vehicles designed to transport soldiers across inhospitable war zone terrain. Sometimes, however, a soldier has no choice but to travel for miles on foot, often in adverse weather conditions and under the constant threat of ambush or engagement from a hostile enemy. It has always been the same throughout the ages and remains the case today even in these advanced times of robot soldiers and drone spy planes. Covering huge distances in double-quick time was referred to as a ‘yomp’. My feet had developed a hard leathery skin to them which obscured the sensitive nerve endings and blocked out the pain. Now muscle memory returned to me as I tracked over the course’s immaculate lush greenery. Solid legs and brisk rhythm propelling me forward at pace, eating up the ground beneath. Whoever we were up against had shown no compunction in the violent murder of Bob Wallace. The Target was still missing and it stood to reason that the longer it took to get to him, the less chance there was in bringing him back alive. Time was grinding forward relentlessly and I wasn’t prepared to wait on ceremony.

  Taking up an offensive position, shielded by the unwieldy branches of an aged sprawling olive tree, I checked over the Beretta. Turned it over carefully in my hands. Screwed on the silencer that Mickey had so kindly furnished. The oily looking guard remained on his crate, now whittling on a piece of wood with a fat curved blade used to slowly strip it of its bark. The rest of the man-made clearing between the trucks was empty. The hut beyond dark and lifeless. Ghosting silently from my vantage point, I was able to slip up to the guard unnoticed. It was only when almost upon him that he looked up from his handiwork, startled, eyes bulging wide. He rose fast to draw his weapon, triggering me in turn to spring at him hard. Leading with the butt of my gun, smashing into his nose, shattering cartilage against bone and into his face. He squealed like a stuck pig. Snorted in pain as blood spurted freely before crumpling onto the ground, squirming in agony. A sharp well-placed kick, steel toe-cap against temple, rendered him unconscious. Seconds later, his hands were secured together behind his back, cable ties biting tightly into fleshy wrists. I rolled him under an adjacent truck with the sole of my boot and on checking around me, gun muzzle primed, I pushed forward into the hut. I’d been expecting a golf equipment store or some kind of caddy shack but inside resembled more of a mission operations centre.

  A large central table, strewn with maps and papers filled the main part of the central room. The walls were encased in large cork notice boards, pinned with charts and lists. A long shelf ran along the back of the hut upon which a kettle and several chipped tea-stained mugs sat. Beneath it stood a small squat fridge. I leafed quickly through the papers on the table trying to find anything that might point to Daniel’s whereabouts. There was nothing seemingly pertinent to the job in hand. However, the extensive documentation revealed significant gambling and extortion activity, listing names with betting and payment activity detailed. This was coupled with neatly presented tables holding the names and addresses of local businesses and their ‘taxes’ payable week by week. The European Golf Tour travelled to a different country every seven days. This group increasingly looked like a network of sophisticated criminals shaking-down businesses at every stop of the merry-go-round, surreptitiously raking in hundreds of thousands of euros at each event.

  But I wasn’t a cop. I didn’t care what these scumbags did to make their money. All I cared about right now was getting a lock on Daniel Ratchet and hopefully getting him back alive. Like I said, if the Target is still breathing when it is brought to safety, it means a bonus payment on top of my standard engagement fee. And that meant more to me than saving a life or putting the world to rights.

  I entered the smaller room. It was done out as a personal office with desk and chair, smart metallic filing cabinets lining the walls. A bone dry pot plant, sporting crinkled leaves framing limp petals, gamely struggled to add colour to the sterile environment. I tugged on the top drawer of the nearest cabinet. It was locked shut. From my boot I fetched out my Bowie knife from the hidden leather sheath. The cabinet drawer was tough, clearly reinforced. The spring lock stubbornly resisted the tension of my blade. I gripped the knife handle tighter and leaned my weight down on it hard, twisted my wrist to pry open a gap between cabinet drawer and sturdy metal frame. No dice.

  Heavy, thumping footsteps drummed into the hut, breaking my concentration. I dropped into an instinctive crouching position behind the partition wall of the small office. Hunkering down onto my haunches, balanced on my toes, primed to spring upwards leading with shoulder at first contact. Thinking fast: no windows in the hut and only one entrance meant no natural escape exits. I had company and unless I was going to pump a volley of holes into a wall and kick my way through, in the process alerting the whole world and the entire Guardia Civil to my movements, then the only option was to fight my way out.

  I’d experienced enemy engagements going in many different ways. But even with the element of surprise on my side this time, I just knew in the pit of my stomach that this wasn’t going to go the good way. I watched the massive hulking form of a lumbering mono-browed thug fill the space of the main room of the hut. He was shadowed closely by a skulking grey-hued figure, redolent of a sickly hyena looking for an easy meal. I recognised him as the caddy labelled as ‘Razor’ in the briefing notes Ella had compiled.

  Given the size of this place, there was no doubt that I’d be discovered in seconds. I double checked the ammo clip in my piece and exhaled deeply. A massive thigh waded across the floor towards the office, floorboards creaking under heavy boots. With my back to the partition, crouched on my haunches, I angled the barrel of the Beretta round the crack in the open door and fired, two soft thuds piercing just above the knee of that meaty leg. It was enough to bring the huge man crashing down, bouncing chairs out of his path as he fell.

  ‘What the hell?’ shouted the hyena as his powerful sidekick collapsed while clutching his leg in agony. I moved swiftly. Blazing a volley of shots in front to create some cover, I rolled out of the office and pushed into the main room of the hut. Better a moving target than a sitting duck. I was caught by a slug to my shoulder tearing through the flesh and knocking me into the wall. The wounded giant had pulled a Glock from his belt and, from his sprawled position, was letting rip a succession of rounds in my general direction. Razor was flush, backed up against the wall of the hut, keeping away from the gunfire. Figuring he wasn’t packing a weapon or it would already have been deployed in the tear up, I rolled hard to my right and threw myself forward at him. Dived face first over the large table in front of me, sliding, scattering papers like a speedboat’s wake through a still pond. The move bought me vital seconds. The mono-browed beast was unable to twist his injured body to meet my new position and get a line of fire on me with the Glock. I landed shoulder first on the other side of the table. Turned in a single motion and emptied my clip, riddling the assailant’s back and ribs with a scorching of hot lead. Razor fled from the hut in a blind panic.

  I had learned the hard way, through losing the closest of mates, that in the heat of theatre you should never leave a threat alive that may serve to later compromise you. That threat might be live ammo or weaponry which could be used against you later during a contact or it may simply be leaving an enemy alive who might recover from their injuries sufficiently to become the one who finally calls out you
r number. At least that’s how I justified it to myself. I crawled towards the slumped muscled torso of the beast, my shoulder soaked in claret from the bullet wound. Pain thumped through me. Adrenaline surged through my body. The blood was up.

  The freak lay slumped over moaning in pain and I pushed him onto his back on the floor. He wheezed. His thick muscular neck looked too thick to snap. I picked up a chair lying next to him, positioning one of the legs over his face. He looked up at me pitifully. I stamped down on the seat of the chair driving it into his eye socket and down through to the back of his skull.

  What the fuck was it with me and using impromptu pieces of furniture to kill scumbags? First tables and now chairs! I guess if the hostage recovery game ever stopped paying so well I could always take my uncanny product familiarity and make a new career move working at an Ikea store.

  I scrambled to my feet and piled down the steps of the hut. The hunt was on for a fleeing hyena.

  And it didn’t take long to spot him. In fact he hadn’t got far at all, making the basic strategic error of heading through the open space of the car park to escape when he could have covered his movements by cutting through the trucks back onto the golf course. Gripping my shoulder to try and stem the flow of blood, I started after him hard. Gaining ground, I shouted for him to stop, gesticulating ominously with the barrel of my empty gun.

  Razor wasn’t to know that I hadn’t been able to reload and I figured that a warning of impending violence may be sufficient to jolt him into compliance given that he couldn’t get away quick enough from the recent fire fight. He stood panting next to a gleaming, new red BMW, waiting for me to reach him with hands raised. I greeted him by throwing a hard right cross, catching him square on the jaw and knocking him backwards over the bonnet of the car. Picking him up by the lapels I shook him hard. Yelling into the contorted face before me, ‘What do you know about Daniel Ratchet you piece of shit? Where the fuck is he?’

  ‘Nufink man, I swear it. Please. Please don’t kill me,’ came the rasping reply. His hands feebly gripped my forearms in a vain attempt to free himself from my grasp. The gleam of an old fashioned gold watch on his wrist, incongruous with the trendy casual sports gear he wore, caught my eye. I followed a hunch, recalling Bob Wallace’s comments on Daniel’s distress at having had his grandfather’s watch stolen earlier that week.

  Intense. Aggressive. Inches from his face. ‘Tell me why you are wearing Ratchet’s watch then you pathetic little fuck? You want me to shoot you in the face right now you worthless runt? Don’t fucking lie to me unless you want to die.’

  I held my gun against his ear. Hot breath on his cheeks.

  ‘Okay, okay. I’m sorry. Please just ease up man. It wasn’t my idea, I swear. It was Andy what made me take it. Sergei wanted the pressure turned up to push through some player deal, to get the new agent in our pocket. And Andy likes to play games man. I just do what I’m told innit.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘I swear I don’t know nufink man, for real.’ I tightened the grip on his neck and squeezed.

  ‘Look I just hear bits and pieces alright. They don’t tell me the plans.’

  I figured he was probably telling the truth. I wouldn’t share vital information with this specimen either. I doubted he was part of the brains trust of some tight inner circle.

  ‘Tell me what you know and don’t hold back or you’re dead meat like that giant-carnival-side-show-freak back there. Understand?’

  ‘Daniel Ratchet was pissing off a bunch of people. He’s been here five minutes and he’s already sticking his nose in where it don’t belong. He was asking the wrong questions about tournament fixing and contracts and the like. He’s got Andy’s back up and was holding out on Sergei. All I know is that’s a silly mistake man, thems not to be fucked with them guys’.

  ‘Where the fuck is he now?’ I shouted. Patience draining fast.

  ‘He had some information about the player fixing that goes on out here on Tour. He was snooping about with that crazy coach Wallace. Had some kind of evidence on the scores and stats that prove a pattern apparently. Me and Sorlov had to find some fucking device, give him a slap. We couldn’t find it and we couldn’t find him neither.’ Razor was flustered. Babbling. ‘Listen mate. I swear, me and the caddies, we’re just into a bit of gambling, making a few shakedowns from town to town that’s all. It turns a nice trade and the bosses keep things organised so it doesn’t spill over and raise too much bother with the local roz. They all know it goes on but we’re just an irritant, a nuisance that can be put up with. They don’t want to cause a fuss or Rublex will pressure the Tour into ensuring that they don’t stop at that course next time. That’s a fortune lost to the local community from tourists and the like. They don’t want to miss out so they don’t go grumbling when we come knocking on a shakedown. Besides, we’ve gone an made sure that we got some of the senior local police in these places in real deep on the betting ledger—they like a flutter and then when we hold what they owe over their heads they tend to do what we tell ‘em. But honest, I didn’t know it was going to get heavy. I didn’t know they were gonna take him.’

  I leered down at the snivelling rat, giving up his mates as quickly as he could get it out. As much as I needed the intel to get to the Target quickly, I also hated squealers who’d grass given half a chance. If you didn’t have the balls to even make a pretence of holding out for your boys, then frankly that made me sick.

  I reached back and slapped Razor across the mouth with the back of my hand. It’s called a bitch slap for a reason. I’m right handed. The slug had hit my left shoulder so I was able to give it some real purchase. A whimper and then a trail of blood dribbling from the corner of his swollen mouth.

  Shouting came from across the car park. I jerked my head backwards to see two uniformed hotel security guards running at speed towards where I held Razor over the Beema. They were obviously concerned at the altercation and intent in breaking up a fight in the grounds of this high-class establishment. That could mean possibly detaining us until the Guardia Civil arrived and that was not a chance I was prepared to take.

  I met the first of the two uniforms with a scything right elbow to the side of his neck knocking him out cold. With my left hand still gripped around Razor’s collar I pivoted and kicked the second skinnier guard hard under the ribcage. A liver shot. I felt his ribs crack under the heavy tread of my combat boot. The authority drained out of his face and a moment later he was groaning, contorted in pain and fighting for breath, as he squirmed on the tarmac.

  I turned back to Razor. ‘Who has got him? Where could they have taken him, rat?’

  ‘I’m not sure, really I’m not. The boys have talked about a villa outside Madrid. A fat place where they enjoy whores and piles of coke when we’ve had a good run. It’s like a reward for us to let our hair down now and again.’ Nervously he looked up at me. A sideways glance. ‘I’ve not been allowed to go yet.’

  ‘Where is it? Exactly where?’ I repeated slowly, bending him further over the bonnet so his back arched steeply, accentuating his vulnerable position.

  ‘There’s an address inside the hut’.

  I grabbed Razor by his hair and spun him so he was bent over the car bonnet face down. Roughly pinned his arms behind his back and looped his hands and then ankles in turn with cable ties pulled from my pocket, cruelly pulling them tight to pinch off the circulation in his arms and legs. Slammed his face into the car hood with a single crack and let him slump unconscious to the asphalt, heaped between the two parked vehicles. Clutching my shoulder to apply pressure through the blood sodden shirt I jogged back towards the hut.

  There was work to do. And now Hunter was on the scent.

  Chapter 27

  SPAIN. SESENA. OUTSKIRTS OF FRANCISCO HERNANDO VILLAGE.

  Daniel Ratchet was broken. A hollow shell. Confidence shattered, now taken beyond any level of pain and suffering he could have imagined. Beaten, tied up, starved and humiliated. No resoluti
on offered itself. He couldn’t reason with these men given they barely spoke English. Besides, they treated him no better than an animal. Nothing existed behind the darkness of their eyes. He’d probably be dead now if Black Leather Jacket Man hadn’t put Bad Breath Man on a leash when he did. His mind raced over the decisions he had taken in the last few days. Beseeching questions pressed to which there were no good answers. Why had he been drawn in to looking into corruption on the Tour? What place was it of his? Why had he questioned the Aaron Crower contract and believed Bob Wallace when no one else had batted an eyelid about player fixing despite it probably going on right under their noses for years? He scratched at the walls in anguish. Couldn’t he just be sodding happy for once? How could he not have taken this life-changing career opportunity without screwing it up? He wondered if he would ever see his sweet vulnerable Matilda again.

  Daniel languished in the dank lonely wallows of despair for an indeterminable period. The once significant and finely calibrated increments of time now blended together into a single, meaningless void. Bitter remorse licked mercilessly at his soul. Hope seeping into the deep pit of abject darkness where only the ashes of his dreams remained. The pitiful remnants of his life. And in macabre tandem to the grip of his misery, a sticky pungent film formed and tightened on his skin; the drying remains of excrement, left unwiped from his face.

  Alone with his thoughts. Deafened with silence. He could hear the blood throbbing round his head and pulsating in his ears. Haunting kaleidoscopic images of his worried parents and life back home in Sheffield cascaded through his mind’s eye. And then Matilda. His beautiful, brave Matilda who had somehow tried to warn him of the impending danger with that email. So close to happiness. How he yearned to see her again.

  He awoke from a period of fitful sleep. Sat up, pulling cold knees close to his chest. The fact was that the choices he had made had got him into this mess. He couldn’t change that. He was here and in this situation. He either lived or he died. They wanted his computer and presumably the incriminating evidence about Rublex and the golf Tour on it. They’d now made that clear. Wily old Bob Wallace had been right all along. If that was what they wanted he could just tell them where it was and perhaps they’d let him go?