Tight Lies

by Ted Denton

  There was little doubt. This was bad. The Target was in a right fucking mess. Couldn’t stand. Blood was soaking through his trousers. I bent down and using the fireman’s lift technique flopped him again over my heavily strapped shoulder. We made it through the same kitchen door which I had unnecessarily smashed in earlier. Over the patio now at a trot. I made a vain attempt at checking for contact as we ran but the truth is I was knackered from carrying a twelve stone deadweight on my back and from some pretty brutal fighting to get us outside. Plus, I was carrying a gunshot wound which was sapping my energy more than I had bargained for. There was no use pretending otherwise, if we were going to survive this we needed to get out of the compound and fast.

  Chapter 40

  SPAIN. SESEÑA. OUTSKIRTS OF FRANCISCO HERNANDO VILLAGE.

  By the time we reached the vast dry stone wall at the back of the garden, I was drenched in sweat. We’d threaded through lush vegetation and beds of vibrantly coloured and exotic smelling flowers. I rested briefly on several occasions to readjust the Target’s body, shifting the weight on my back, catching my breath. I kept talking to him as we went. The kid was worth more to me alive.

  ‘Keep it together man. You’re gonna be okay. Daniel, are you listening to me, mate?’ The occasional grunts returned back at intermittent intervals told me that at least he was still breathing. That’s all I needed. Tom Hunter is seeing this job home.

  I fished the pre-pay mobile phone from my pocket and dialled Mickey from the list of previous calls. He answered on the second ring.

  ‘Take your bloody time why don’t cha, Hunter? What you doing, making new friends in there or something?’

  ‘Something like that, Mick. Something like that.’

  ‘I’ve been keeping ‘em busy for ya, Tom. There’s three or four of them up there returning fire whenever I punch holes in that gaff.’

  ‘Yeah. So I heard. Good job. We’re by the back wall in the compound, Mickey. Target’s incapacitated. Living but he’s in bad shape. I can’t get us both over this wall with him on my back, it’s just too much weight with this wounded shoulder and what we’ve been through busting out of there.’

  ‘I’d make a nice fat hole for you to walk through, mate, but I’ve spent my wad on our little fireworks show. No rockets left I’m afraid.’

  ‘What do you have Mickey? They’ll be down here any second now.’

  Moments later, a thick, hairy old rope lashed over the wall about twenty metres down from where we were crouched. I jogged over to it and shouted back ‘Got it, Mick. Is it secured, mate?’

  ‘It’s on the front of the van. Tie the kid on and I’ll winch him over.’

  It was a pretty rudimentary plan but it was all we had. I pulled the rope across the top of the wall and secured it around Daniel’s waist. The engine revved from somewhere behind us and I helped push the limp body upwards, bent in half under the strain of the rope. It didn’t look comfortable but he made it to just before the top and I hollered. Mickey jammed on the handbrake keeping the van fixed. Our precious cargo hung precariously from the taught rope. A full minute later, Mickey’s head popped up furtively from the other side of the wall, the very image of a wizened meerkat on the Serengeti surveying its territory. He reached over and grabbed hold of the dangling body. Began hauling him over.

  Gun shots whistled into the wall. I hit the deck and rolled automatically, finding cover beneath an orange tree. Daniel was a sitting duck, he couldn’t have made an easier hit. A slug caught him flush in the buttock as Mickey pulled him finally over the wall. His cries were reminiscent of a wild animal in distress.

  ‘Tom he’s been hit! He’s been hit!’ came the urgent shout from beyond the wall.

  ‘Get him out of here. Now,’ I called back. ‘I’ll meet you in the town by that old casino. If I’m not there in fifteen, just go.’

  ‘Gottcha. Oh, and Tommy, think you might be needing this, mate.’

  A spare ammo clip landed softly on the grass ahead of me.

  Golden.

  Inside a minute I heard voices. From my vantage point amidst the orange grove, I scoped four guys. One was smartly dressed, immaculately presented in a fine suit. Judging by this and other factors such as body language, including his directive gesticulations to the others in the group, he was clearly in charge. Of the other three, two looked like local lads. Hired muscle. T-shirts, jeans, trainers, sun-darkened skin, hair slicked back. The fourth was cut from a style I’d encountered before. Bigger than the others by a head, skin a milky white, shoulders square as an aspirin bottle encased within a shiny black leather jacket wrapping. Agitated feet pawed at the ground. He wouldn’t be best pleased when he found out I’d pasted the face of his stunt double all over the cell wall. Or maybe he already had.

  I quickly assessed the options available to me. There was now one full magazine clip in the Kalashnikov, thanks to Mickey’s spare. The Beretta was spent, lying back on the kitchen floor. And I had my knife. They had shot Daniel and seen him flip over the wall. Perhaps they thought I had also managed to make it over and would divert all their efforts to outside the perimeter. But the group were fanning out now and that wasn’t a chance I could take. They were checking the bushes and trees, clearly hunting for unwelcome guests. I figured that most people pinned back in my situation would try to scale the wall or find a weakness in the fencing surrounding the compound. But I wasn’t most people and I’d been in tighter scrapes. This was no time to panic. If that’s what was expected, I was going to do the damn opposite. I’d breeze right out of the front gate, just like I owned the place.

  I skirted the orange grove and tracked back up towards the villa. Watched as the group split up, tracing the back wall, and spied one of the two hired Spanish goons as he half-heartedly used the barrel of his rifle to prod and poke into the foliage. Felt my blood rising the way I often did before a kill. I locked on him, enjoying the fact that I knew that these precious moments were the last he would experience, whilst he remained oblivious. His life was in my hands now and I would decide to take it in whichever manner I wanted. Concealed by the lush greenery, I stalked him to within only a few meters. I was so close now I could make out the thin slick of sweat which covered his biceps and hairless forearms. Muscles sculpted through hours in the gym, not natural strength, more for show than for hard work. He’d need a few years yet to put a bit of man on him but I wasn’t going to allow him that privilege. Abandoning his efforts, he skulked round the side of the building, studying the gaping hole in the brick work left by Mickey’s earlier bombardment like a ripped stage curtain left unsewn. I watched as he scuffed his way through the rubble, blazing a cigarette alight.

  And I’m breathing hard. Heart thumping. The blood pumping and coursing through me. I can feel my nerve ends tingling. Fuck, I feel so alive. And then I can’t contain it. Have to taste it. I pounce and I’m on him before he’s exhaled his first drag, punching my blade into his stomach and twisting it as I lift him off his feet. He bends double and as his feet scrabble for the ground I catch him with a left hook smashing into his temple. Leaving go of the knife handle, blade still embedded inside him, I follow up with a right uppercut driving into the underside of his nose with speed and force. He crumples at my feet pathetically, bloodied, motionless. Endorphins surging. Waves of serotonin flooding my brain. For a brief moment all pain is washed away.

  I’d seen this happen once before in a street fight, a man killed with a single punch to the nose, death from internal bleeding. I love ‘the sweet science’, as it is known. I’d trained myself to be a switch hitter in the boxing ring, unusual in being able to deliver equal force from both the orthodox and southpaw stances. I wasn’t ambidextrous, so it took practice. Hours on the heavy bag, setting the balance correctly, shifting the weight to administer power from the body core, not just arm punches. I’d trained myself to avoid injury as much as improve my boxing technique. If, like most sluggers, your stance is naturally conventional, it’s far easier to break a hand in the heat of
a tear up. You’ve thrown your hardest punch with spiteful intent, usually a straight right. If the feet aren’t correctly placed, this moves the body out of alignment and off balance. Should that first punch connect, depending on what is thrown back, then oftentimes you will want to follow up with a rapid second blow to drive home your dominance in the altercation. The new position now lends itself to you throwing an overhand left coming from the side. If you don’t focus on putting your fist in the right position, driving through with the first two knuckles, keeping the fifth metacarpal bone out of the way, then breaking a knuckle will occur nearly every time. There’s a reason why hand injuries (amongst other fight damage) are attended to so frequently on Accident and Emergency wards on a Saturday night. A common result from booze-fuelled wild swinging pub brawls, often just a lot of bluster and a few mistimed scrappy blows. Typically all over inside a minute, but a broken hand is an unnecessarily painful way to make your point, even if you do come out the victor.

  I looked down with disdain at the deflated sack of meat, discarded lifeless amongst the rubble. As far as punches went, that one was a hall of fame peach and one I would no doubt recall with relish from time to time in the dull moments of transit between jobs.

  A radio handset, fixed to the belt of the hired Spanish muscle who had just been on the receiving end of my best attentions, crackled into life. A thickly-accented voice speaking in syrupy English was moving through the channels asking the group to report activity. The stock response echoed over the airwaves twice: ‘Clear’. Then the name ‘Alejandro’ was called, a pause and then twice again in irritable succession. I scooped up the handset and issued a muffled response, same as the previous answers. Held my breath. Waited, uncertain if my brief impersonation had done the job. The radio crackled again: ‘Keep searching the grounds. Secure the area.’

  They wouldn’t be looking for anyone at the house for a while. Sticking close to the villa and slinking in the stretched-out pattern of hazy shadows, I soon made it around to the impressive frontage of the building. The yawning driveway stretched out ahead of me. No sign of patrols left or right. I furtively checked about me again and taking a deep breath set out straight ahead into open cover. Sprinting hard out across the drive, jinking as unpredictable a path as I could fathom in the quickest time possible towards the gate. It felt like I had a supersized luminous bullseye burning onto my back, and I was fully expecting to be taken down by a bullet at any moment. Any rudimentary marksman standing at the first floor window in the front of the house would have an easy shot and plenty of time. But it was a calculated strategy. The team was distracted, focused on searching the grounds and beyond the perimeter wall. My move was the least expected and I gambled against stacked odds that no one would think to be guarding the front door.

  I made it onto a dusty main road a few hundred meters beyond the main gate before I finally stopped moving. Hands on knees. Panting for breath. Sucking hot heavy air into my lungs. Sweat dripping from every pore in my shaking body, stinging my eyes. Shoulder opened up and starting to bleed again. Not what I needed right now.

  I set off, striding down the road, still breathing raggedly. A mile or so down, an unwashed, red Fiat Punto chugged by, travelling at around twenty kilometres an hour. I let it pass before stepping out into the empty road behind it and, crossing my arms above my head, waved and shouted at the driver flagging him down. It came to a gentle stop fifty meters ahead of me and I bounded up to it. In fairness to the rather concerned looking driver, the sight of a battered ugly mug like mine, scarred and stained with sweat and blood looming into the car mirror would make most people uneasy. Smiling in through the mud-splattered window, my best lopsided grin in place, I could barely get a greeting out before the studious looking young man with horn rimmed glasses and perfectly groomed hair looked up anxiously and began very slowly moving to deploy the central locking and secure the car doors.

  ‘Do you speak English?’ I asked louder and slower than was really polite, trying not to let an increasingly fraught expression show across my face.

  ‘No Ingleses. Perdóname,’ came the response accompanied by a flapping of hands. The nervous man clearly regretting having stopped at all.

  ‘I need a lift please,’ I shouted simultaneously trying the door handle. The engine revved. Sensing that I was about to lose my ride I pulled out the Kalashnikov, smashing it through the glass window. The driver froze, sweaty palms held submissively in the air, a contortion of fear carved into the fixed mask of his face. I swiped out the excess jagged glass around the door frame with the gun barrel and flipped up the plastic lock. Motioned to the driver to get out on his side and followed him round the vehicle as he moved, weapon trained perpetually upon him. I motioned for him to lie down on the road and as he did so I sprang into the empty driver seat, revving the high pitched engine before shunting off down the road towards the local town.

  I reached the old casino just a few minutes later. I’d miscalculated. On foot it would have taken me at least twenty minutes to cover the ground plus I’d had some action to contend with. Pulling into the deserted car park, I looked around for activity, signs of Mickey and the van. The old casino had fallen from grace since its heyday in the nineteen fifties when it must have been quite a grand affair. A tattered sign, paint peeling and framed by a chain of bare circular light bulbs worn from years under the baking sun, depicted silhouettes of girls in fishnet stockings, high heels and bodices bending provocatively with hands on knees. Faded glory or not, you couldn’t mistake what this place had once been. Now it stood empty, boarded up with plain wooden planks and rusting nails. The car park was a dusty vacant lot, typically deserted in daylight but frequented by whores and their clientele after dark, a fitting use perhaps given its somewhat racy past. I checked my watch a second time. It was seventeen minutes since I had seen Mickey disappear with Daniel over the wall and I had instructed them leave without me on fifteen. I was getting twitchy. Could I have been followed? Those guys were known to be connected, probably had eyes everywhere on the payroll. A moving shadow suddenly caught the corner of my eye. Startled, I jerked sharply around to find a quizzical face only inches from my own, staring straight back in at me through the car window.

  ‘You’re always fucking late, Hunter,’ Mickey scoffed at me. ‘Get in the back of the van with the Target sharpish and stay the bloody hell out of sight. We’ve got to move out right now.’

  Chapter 41

  SPAIN. COUNTRYSIDE.

  In the back of the old bakery van, Daniel was burning up. I poured water into his mouth from a plastic bottle and mopped hot sweat from his brow. He was murmuring something incomprehensible. Something about Matilda. Of course I’d read in the briefing notes that she was his recent girlfriend but didn’t reckon that the unhelpful woman I’d interrogated at the golf course car park warranted that much concern. Still, whatever it took to get him through. He was in a bad way. Beaten, tortured, mauled by a savage dog and shot. Doubted that he’d had much in the way of food, water or sleep during his ordeal. If I wanted good money, then I needed him to make it. He had to stay awake.

  The van trundled through the rolling Spanish countryside, Mickey driving, a flat cap pulled down low on his head. Concealed in the back, Ratchet and I were keeping out of sight. We knew these guys were connected and that they’d be coming after us at high speed. Hiding in plain sight, we were gambling on the fact that they wouldn’t figure on us trying to outrun them by pootling along in a battered bakery van with a top speed of fifty kilometres an hour. We passed golden fields knitted together like a patchwork quilt. Sturdy hedgerows and trees neatly lined the roads providing layers of never-ending symmetry. Mickey flicked on the radio and the whine of sickly bubble gum Europop filled the van. Twenty minutes or more passed without seeing another car.