by Ted Denton
If I was going to find Daniel quickly I figured that a hostage could take me to him and provide some bargaining power to get us out alive. I pushed against a closed door and entered inside a games room hosting an empty drinks bar and full-sized pool table with balls scattered over an immaculate blue baize. A cinema-sized plasma screen on one wall was silently showing hardcore porn. On the other hung an enormous eight foot square mirror framed with heavy gold leaf painted on dark wood. I couldn’t shake the impression of encountering a ghost ship cast adrift without its crew. Turned to back out the way I had come. Suddenly a tall cupboard built into the wall sprang open and two men burst out at me shouting and waving pool cues. Seems they had been shooting a game together and enjoying the flick when the gun fight in the hallway alerted them to an intruder and they had holed up until now. The pool cues indicated they weren’t packing heat. I raised my gun and coolly squeezed the trigger. Nothing. Hadn’t changed the fucking clip. The bullets were totally spent and the timing couldn’t be worse. Now the first guy was on me and using the end of the pool cue to smash into my wrist, causing me to drop my piece, much use as it was anyway. I pivoted in a single deft turn and stamped down on the inside of his knee causing him to buckle. As he fell I caught him with a powerful uppercut hearing the crunch of teeth as jaw shattered against fist. I caught his shoulders as he slumped and slammed his face into the hard wooden frame of the pool table rendering him out cold. Three moves. Three seconds. Punishing and precise. His mate came at me with renewed vigour. He was a big solid lump, probably six foot four and heavy set with it. My guess was nineteen stones of fat and muscle. Soya meat, as I tended to call it.
Too many weights makes you slow, mate, I observed wryly to myself, remembering the words of a fearsome Maori hand-to-hand combat instructor that the Hand of God had used to drill us. Size and strength matters less than precision of action and taking the right decisions quickly. Hit first and above all hit hard. Do whatever it takes and get out alive.
But now he was close in, real close, and speed wasn’t a factor as he was able to force me over the pool table, choking me from behind with the cue he was wielding. He pinned me down and squeezed the grip of the wood against my neck. This was tight. I was exerting a massive effort of brute strength just to keep the cue from crushing my wind pipe. It was a fairly even match. If I didn’t wriggle free somehow before I blacked out then this was going to end very badly. I kicked out wildly but he used his massive thighs to pin my legs under the table, leaning every ounce of bulk over and on top of me. Snarling face inches from mine, so close I could smell the stench of tobacco on his breath. My right hand was wedged between the cue and my throat. I used my left to blindly grope around on the table for a ball. Checked myself. Given the position my body was trapped in, trying to smash a pool ball against his head wouldn’t do much damage and might only serve to really piss this animal off. So I gambled. Recoiling my left arm to generate leverage, I flung the ball as hard as I could up and into the mirror hanging behind us. It shattered instantly with a loud crash sending showers of razor sharp shards flying down onto the back of my assailant. The impact shocked him into loosening his grip for just an instant. The heavy mirror frame itself followed seconds later collapsing from its hook and crashing onto the Russian’s neck. Pieces of mirror had flung into my face and I could feel trails of warm blood snaking their way down my cheeks. I heaved the brute up, rolling to one side. He shook the mirror from his back and lumbered towards me. I wasn’t going to let myself get into another bear hug with fatty again, so I reached across him diagonally and grabbed the wrist of his right hand as he flung out a fist.
Now spun and bent at the knee to grab at the handle of my knife, left hand to left boot. Rose fast, pivoted in an arch on my toes and hurled a left hook stabbing the blade several inches inside my attacker’s right ear. He howled in agony and I thrust forward, relentlessly twisting and driving the knife deeper and deeper, working to bore it into his head. I kicked him in the stomach and watched him sag to the floor like a sack of wet cement. No way these guys were all just golf caddies. They know how to shoot and they know how to fight dirty. Got to be Russian ex-soldiers if you ask me.
Thus far I counted four-and-a-half to five bodies, depending on the fate of Machine Gun Harry upstairs. But still no eyes on the Target. I reloaded a fresh magazine clip into the gun, wiped my blade clean on the shirt of my recently deceased games partner. Slotted it back into the sheath inside my boot.
The sound of shouting and pounding feet alerted me to new company. Probably the guys from the card game, I figured. I exited from the games room and decided to break for the stairs. If Daniel was here after all then I knew now he must be on the upper floor. Three guys packing an assortment of revolvers and other small arms appeared in my line of vision, firing wildly. I crouched to one knee, exhaled to steady myself and returned fire managing to catch one of the group flush in the thigh. He flew backwards like a cigarette tossed from the window of a speeding car. I rolled another stun grenade towards them and, using the flash as cover, bounded sideways across to the stairs, shooting intermittently in their general direction. Checked for enemy contact around the stairwell and found none so I turned my attention back to the others. I took the steps three at a time, firing continuously ahead of me to ensure a clear path and pin back any prospective ambush in waiting. Reached the top deck. I dived flat onto my stomach, rolling to the side and away from the line of fire. Landed on the injured shoulder and it fucking hurt like hell, the pain masked until now by the rush of so much adrenaline. I just shrugged it off, growling. There were more urgent matters at hand.
I scoped the surroundings. The centre of the upstairs landing was occupied by a figure slumped against the wall in a pool of blood, head resting upon chest, a redundant AK-47 submachine gun upon his thighs. The shooter from my earlier contact in the hallway had bled out from the bullets fired from underneath. Judging by his clothing and a congealed puddle of blood spooling around his groin area, death would have been as slow and painful as much as it would have been unexpected.
I took to my feet. Pressed on, ignoring the dull aching pain resounding in my shoulder. I fired a volley of bullets into the base of the closed door of the nearest bedroom to drive any inhabitants back. Kicked it open and entered the room. Beyond the bed and handcuffed to a thin metal pipe that ran the length of the skirting board sat two women huddled together on the floor. I say women but these were little more than emaciated teenagers, heavily made up and wearing tawdry see-through night dresses of the sort that might be found in the window of a grubby back-street sex shop. I recalled the name of this place scrawled on the address found in the caddy hut: Pussy Palace. From what I’d seen so far, this fine establishment was doing its best to comply rigorously with the Trade Descriptions Act. It was obvious that these girls were being kept locked up like this until their talents were again required by the guests of the house. It made me sick.
‘It’s okay. I’m gonna get you out of here. Don’t worry. Do you speak English? Engleese?’ I soothed.
‘Yes. God. Thank you,’ one of the girls replied behind pretty tear-stained eyes. ‘I’m American. She’s Russian. You’ve got to help us. They tricked us into coming here weeks ago from Puerto Banus. They had a yacht. Told us there was a party, told us there would be modelling scouts there.’ She scrambled to her knees reaching out her hands.
Moving fast and keeping one eye out on the door behind me I ushered the girls to scoot to the side before putting a single bullet through the pipe, shredding it. A hard stamp with a size fourteen combat boot broke it apart and I helped the girls to slide their cuffs off between the two broken pieces. They’d have to figure out how to get them off their wrists later for themselves but at least they could run and make a break for freedom now.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know,’ she replied shaking her head as the tears streamed down her cheeks. She looked pretty broken. The Russian girl kept her eyes to the floor.
‘There’s no one else here. This is a party house. We’ve been raped in every room of this shithole. The guests come and go. So do the whores. The guards aren’t sober enough to hold a prisoner here that isn’t for their own entertainment.’ Her face was contorted with disgust as she spoke and her hands involuntarily moved to cover her body as if to offer some kind of protection from the memory.
‘Fuck,’ I hissed under my breath. ‘This is the wrong place. I’ve got to move and move now. You girls make sure you get out of here. Run and don’t look back. You sure as hell don’t want to be here when these animals come looking.’
I’m not paid to be a hero. I’m paid to spring kidnap Targets and bring them back. Dead or alive. Focus on the job in hand, do whatever it takes. Don’t look back. Didn’t give it a second thought leaving those girls behind to fend for themselves. Perhaps I’m wired up the wrong way. Perhaps my sense of right and wrong has been eroded. What I do seems to be morally regarded as on the side of right, in the righteous biblical sense, that is. But not all the Targets we rescue necessarily deserve to be saved, nor are they wanted free for the right reasons. It’s not for me to make those calls. I’m nothing more than a wind-up toy moving forward relentlessly in the direction that I’m pointed. And I sure as fuck don’t consider myself a good person.
I ducked back onto the landing and made it across to a first floor window to peer out across the grass. A heavily muscled man in a black tank top and jeans was clutching a pump action shotgun to his chest. Standing with his back to a garden wall, illuminated by the light from the house and the brilliant silver crescent moon, he was casting anxious glances around him to all sides. My best guess was he’d heard the commotion, seen the litany of dead bodies and was now well and truly spooked. I didn’t know how many more of these guys there were but my priority now was getting out in one piece, getting the Range Rover, and finding a new lock on the Target’s whereabouts without wasting any more precious time. All I could do was pray that this wild goose chase hadn’t made me too late. Right now Tank Top Boy was in the way of my making a fast exit.
I eased open the window silently and, crouching to one side, nuzzled the barrel of the Beretta through the open gap. I whistled once. Loud and shrill. Tank Top Boy turned automatically to look and as he fractionally presented his torso to me square on. I double-squeezed slugs out in quick succession, tearing two adjacent holes into his stomach. He dropped the shotgun, clasping his hands across the gaping wounds in a desperate attempt to stem the blood which was beginning to seep down the paving cracks slowly in the direction of the swimming pool. The dying man sat down, a twisted look of bewilderment spreading across his face. He’d seen neither the gun nor the author of his fate.
I flipped open the window and assessed the drop. Twelve, maybe fifteen feet at my best guess. I arched my body, levering through the gap onto the window ledge, so that my legs hung dangling below like an oversized child perched precariously on a playground swing. The grounds were deserted. I pushed myself off and landed on the soft grass below, rolling in a textbook parachute landing. Sprinted out across the well-tended gardens, keeping relatively low until I found the section of bent metal fence that had folded under my weight earlier. It was harder doing it in reverse with the metal grill bending towards me. With no toeholds to power off, I had to jump up vertically and grab the very top of the fence, using brute strength to pull my body up and eventually to swing a leg over the top in the most lamentably graceless of efforts. Something to work on, for sure. Gravity did the rest. I landed on the other side of the fence and steadied myself on my feet. Checked around me in all directions, all senses alert for enemy pursuit coming after me in the darkness. Clear. Time for Hunter to move out.
Chapter 36
SPAIN. SESEÑA. OUTSKIRTS OF FRANCISCO HERNANDO VILLAGE.
‘Please relax. May I offer you a glass of cold water to refresh yourself?’ Sergei Krostanov stood over Daniel Ratchet, bathing him in the warmth of his most benevolent of smiles. The disenfranchised body was upright on a hard back chair bound with rope across feet, thighs and upper torso. Hands were tied tightly behind back. The body was exhausted, limp save for the support of its bonds.
‘It’s good to see you again, Daniel. My colleagues tell me you have been on a little, how shall we say, excursion? What is it Daniel? You want to leave us is that it? Don’t you like our hospitality? It’s a little rude to repay such generous hosting in this way don’t you think? To leave, without even so much as a goodbye.’
The face remained impassive. Noise was being received by the ears but the words washed over them, like waves lapping at the seashore. The brain didn’t know if it could induce the vocal cords to respond, for the lips to form words. The victim didn’t know if he could or how he was supposed to react.
‘Dan-i-el,’ Sergei cooed softly, like his name was a nursery rhyme. A lullaby in his ear. ‘Daniel. You have something that I need and I’m afraid I will have to insist that you tell me where it is.’
The mouth opened. Throat straining to speak. The biological mechanisms sought to respond to the command sent from the brain. But the mouth was dry. No sound came out. He tried again. Finally his throat croaked. And then:
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Daniel. I know that you and the incorrigible Mr Wallace have been spreading dreadful lies about me.’ He spoke calmly, measured. Impeccable English with an irrefutable and ever-present thread of hard-boned Russian accent cutting through it. That unblinking cold stare. Piercing blue eyes so pale they could be mistaken for grey. Shark’s eyes. No window to the soul. Perhaps he has no soul.
‘No honestly. I haven’t Sergei.’
‘Liar.’ The retort was sharp and followed by a sudden crisply delivered slap striking Daniel hard across the cheek. His face stung hot with a crimson flush of shame.
‘You have been seeking to implicate me in the corruption of players and the manipulation of tournament outcomes. I’m sure you appreciate that this cannot be tolerated.’
‘It was Bob’s idea. I wasn’t sure. I just wanted to check. Things didn’t add up.’
‘You have some documents and a video I believe, purporting to substantiate this, Daniel. They are stored remotely on your personal tablet device. We cannot find this. I want you to tell me where it is. I do not wish to be forced to hurt you.’ The words were even, measured in tone.
The eyes stared blankly back towards the figure pacing before them. ‘Daniel, your parents have been calling and calling. They are very worried, Daniel. They are also very annoying. They have been upsetting my friend, Mr Randy Hughes, wanting to know what is going on. Have you been found yet? What are we doing to help? Boo hoo. Do you think we should give them some news Daniel? Good news perhaps? Or maybe some bad news? Maybe send them an appendage from your worthless little body to shut them up? Do you think that might work?’
The torso twisted and strained on the chair.
Sergei’s face suddenly softened. His tone now gentle and calm. ‘Come now. I merely wish to clear my name, Daniel. You can understand this, can you not my friend? I need to see what information you have in this respect so that I may simply defend my honour and prove that I am a worthy ambassador for our great game of golf. Do you remember how kind, how generous I was towards you when you needed help?’
‘You’ve kidnapped me and half fucking killed me to get that computer. It’s obvious I was right all along. You’re a freaking psycho.’
‘Where is tablet?’ Sergei flashed loudly in a surge of anger, his immaculate diction briefly slipping.
‘I can’t tell you,’ Daniel said, half pleading.
‘Stubborn boy,’ he murmured, shaking his head. And then, almost as a throwaway afterthought, ‘You will pay for your insolence and you will tell us.’ He casually lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, surveying the
captive tied to the chair like a hungry predator looming over a newly discovered burrow of helpless newborns. He circled around the back of the chair and bent down so his face was uncomfortably close. He held the angry ember of the lit cigarette tip aloft, moving it to within a centimetre of Ratchet’s left eye. Unable to recoil, fixed tightly by his bonds, Daniel blinked wildly as smoke spiralled into his eyeball, tears trickling freely down his cheek.
‘Is this so important that it is worth losing an eye for, Daniel?’ Sergei enquired, appearing genuinely interested.
