by Ted Denton
‘Hold on boys. What’s all this?’ the call filtered back at us. ‘Fucking road-block, Tommy. Look lively.’
I peered up through the front seats and out of the windscreen. We were held in a small queue of cars on a narrow country road. Ahead of us two police cars were parked at angles across from each other on either side of the road. Officers of the Guardia Civil, buttoned up in full uniform and hats, were walking up and down the row of cars with clipboards, making enquiries of the drivers through their windows. It was too late to pull a U-turn and take another route without drawing unwarranted attention to ourselves.
‘You think this is for us, Mick?’ I said.
‘Couldn’t say. Don’t see how it could be, do you? How connected are those Ruskies anyway? Guess we’re about to find out. Not sure how I’ll explain that I can’t speak Spanish driving a van like this without them wanting to look in the back. If it goes tits up, mate, we’re going to have to fight our way out.’
I grabbed an M16 semi-automatic assault rifle from the rack and loaded a new clip in preparation. It had been a firm favourite of the US military since the early sixties, first adopted by the US Air Force and then by the Army where it was used heavily in Vietnam. It’s a lightweight shooter manufactured from a mix of steel, aluminium alloy, composite plastics and polymers so you can strap it to your back and go for miles without being slowed down. It’s gas-operated and air-cooled, with a rotating bolt. The use of direct impingement keeps the weight down further by doing away with an additional gas cylinder, piston and rod; cycling the action instead directly with gas which is fired from a cartridge straight to the bolt carrier. A lighter, simpler gun and fewer operating parts to worry about. Now that really flicks my switches. I checked Daniel over, he was looking comfortable enough for now. Traffic was starting to move up ahead.
The expected knock arrived on the glass window. Mickey dutifully wound it down, smiling. The policeman stooped. ‘Hola,’ he said dryly. Mickey nodded.
Up ahead another policeman was waving cars through with an impatient ferocity. He called down to his colleague and the message was relayed. A grunt. A tap of the clipboard on the bonnet of the van. Waved us through. Mickey half-turned, winked at me and weaved the old vehicle through the roadblock and out onto the open road. I shook my head, exhaled and placed the M16 to one side. Turned back to Ratchet and reapplied some wadding tightly down against the weeping bullet wound in his buttock, keeping the pressure on hard to stem the bleeding. Florence fucking Nightingale.
Less than five minutes down the road, the whoop of a siren and the flicker of blue lights alerted us to a squad car closing on us fast from behind. With no ability to outrun them, we reluctantly pulled over. The same policeman as before came to the window, a stern uncompromising look upon his face. He fired something in rapid Spanish at Mickey. No response. He tried again. Mickey looked back at him this time and simply said, ‘Do you speak English gov?’
‘English? Si, I speak some English. Please get out,’ he sniffed with a supercilious air of tangible distain.
Mickey dutifully did as he was asked and I strained to listen through the sides of the little van as they stood together on the hot tarmac.
‘Do you own this vehicle please?’
‘Um. No it’s a rental’
‘You rent this?’ The response incredulous.
‘Yes from a friend. I work for him running errands’.
‘We have reports of a vehicle being stolen with this description coming from Alicante this morning. Do you have papers?’
‘Yes. Surely. I’ll have to rummage around in the back for them though. That okay?’
Footsteps approached the back of the van and Mickey made a loud show of opening the back doors. I primed myself with the M16 cocked as the doors slowly swung open. Watched as the expression on the policeman’s face changed in sequence from sudden shock to serious concern as he absorbed the tangible threat of a machine gun pointed direct at his heart. It was probably the most action he’d encountered in his pen pushing, traffic counting career to date. It certainly didn’t look like he wanted to be there.
‘Tie him up, Mickey. Leave him by the side of the road. If we smoke him we’ll only draw more heat. We’re supposed to be on their side anyway.’
‘Haven’t worked out who we can trust on this one yet. Intelligence that Ella provided shows that these Russians have bought their way right up the establishment in a load of countries. Some local policeman who’s probably on the take from half the neighbourhood already can be easily bought. We can trust no one on this job, Hunter.’
‘Agreed. But I’m not killing him for the hell of it when it’ll cause problems later getting back to London. We leave him tied up out here in the sun to work on his tan and crack on.’
We left the policeman, gagged with one of his own socks, hands and feet tightly bound with rope, sitting in his underwear in a dried out ditch as we clattered away towards the city. Our destination was the central hospital. Whilst waiting for me to turn up at the old casino, Mickey had been on the phone to Ella back at HQ. Given Daniel’s critical state of health and the fact that he remained in a perilous situation, until his kidnappers were either apprehended or neutralised for good, Charles Hand had secured private treatment in the city hospital at Barcelona. We weren’t to stop until we got there under any circumstances whatsoever, not even for the Spanish police.
We drove for an hour in near silence. The Target was slipping in and out of consciousness. There was little that could be done to ease his discomfort. Even so my fist gripped his clothing willing him to hold on until we reached Barcelona. The heat was thick and oppressive inside the van, choking already parched throats even drier. Every bump and pot hole on the neglected road surface jolted through us like electricity, serving as a merciless reminder of each painful niggle and injury carried by my exhausted body. The elixir of adrenaline which had previously coursed so flagrantly through my veins was now dissipating. Mickey drove us forward in solemn silence as if steering a hearse at the head of a funeral cavalcade. Guiding us steadily closer towards our destination, eyes fixed upon the road.
The open countryside narrowed and the battered bakery van crawled up a winding road rocking gently from side to side as it made the tight turns. We pulled into a village. Passed squat sandy coloured houses. An old woman bowed with age and dressed head-to-toe in black lace inched slowly up the road, relying on the aid of a homespun crooked stick which looked as if it had been whittled and shaped from a severed branch. The centre of the village was dominated by an austere looking church. Its size and ornate architecture entirely incongruous against the backdrop of such simple dwellings in the surround. Turning a dusty corner the van slowed. Mickey cursed under his breath. Ahead of us, police cars of the Guardia Civil stretched across the road, uniformed policemen flanked their vehicles, guns drawn. A welcoming committee.
Chapter 42
GERMANY. MUNICH. EICHENREID GOLF CLUB.
Michael stretched his muscled body out and rolled uncomfortably on the couch inside the physio-truck. He was restless and unable to sleep. A lot had been going on around the Tour since Spain and, whilst gossip had been rife in the last few days, few of the facts had been substantiated. The circus had inevitably left town on schedule following the conclusion of the tournament and the players and their entourages were now starting to reappear in dribs and drabs at the course on the outskirts of Munich for the BMW Championship. It was cooler in Germany than the searing heat of Spain. Time never stood still on the Tour. There was always the next event, always another trophy to play for, always another cheque.
One of the old golf swing coaches was reported in the media as having passed away at the last event, natural causes. Talk amongst the players was that it may have been a robbery gone wrong but the story had been carefully managed by the European Tour Public Relations team. Police reports were obscured and the media had played ball. The last thing these luxury resorts hosting their prestigious events with high paying sponsors w
anted was any negativity which may be generated through a perceived association with criminality. Matilda had taken some time off from travelling with the Tour. Michael had always been protective of the beautiful, vulnerable girl whom, in many ways, he regarded as a younger sister figure. It had been an unspoken bond between them and Matilda had often depended on him as a deflector to the multitude of testosterone-fuelled chancers who came sniffing around as she tried to do her job. The only time she had trusted anyone, allowed anyone to really get close to her, was her new boyfriend Daniel Ratchet, a fresh player manager to whom Michael had also taken a shine. But no sooner had he arrived on the scene than he had gone missing. She was clearly very upset and it had all got a bit too much for her to be around the events.
Michael squirmed and twisted uncomfortably, squashing his face deeper into the stiff cushioning of the couch. More worries danced through his mind. In the process of trying to bolster his meagre pay packet and support his family, he had lost a lot of money to a certain unpleasant group of caddies who ran a book gambling on tournaments. He’d had a few early wins using inside knowledge of the players’ physical conditions. He’d doubled-up backing some nailed-on favourites only to see the results slip out of his grasp at the very last moment of the final day of action. Unheralded performances and he’d lost large. Failure to pay up had seen him sink deeper on the interest payments. Recently he’d been on the receiving end of some beatings and scare tactics and, frankly, it frightened him. Things were getting out of hand and no one seemed to be in a position to do anything about it. The caddies were acting like a law unto themselves.
Trouble seemed to be escalating too. Apparently some big tough looking guy with a nasty looking scar had stuck a gun in Matilda’s face in the car park back in Spain, asking questions and scaring the crap out of her. It had been the last straw and she had taken sick leave for the next couple of weeks. He couldn’t help but worry about her. On top of all of this, right before Daniel had gone missing, he had left his personal tablet for Matilda, stashed secretly right here in the truck. Michael had discovered it whilst cleaning up at the end of the Spanish leg of the Tour and with all the recent goings on, he had of course been curious, particularly given that the guy had then vanished into thin air. Michael liked Daniel. He was different to the other player managers they encountered out here who were arrogant and brash, treating them like the hired help or, in Matilda’s case, some cheap whore they could paw or gawp at. So he had wanted to help him and, with all the recent goings on, it was apparent that he needed all he could get. Unable to give Matilda the computer for safe keeping as yet, seeing as she had left in such a hurry, Michael had dutifully taken care of things. The way he always did, in his efficient and dependable way.
The dark plays tricks on the mind when you are sleeping alone in a truck within the isolation of an empty green field site during the set-up of Tournament Week. No fancy comfortable hotel for him. Over time one got conditioned to the sounds of the nocturnal wild animals calling to each other at night. The lonely lament of the wind. But now a different noise from somewhere outside the truck held the attention of the big German. A chill ran down his spine. Sitting bolt upright, rubbing his eyes. T-shirt soaked in sweat. Head groggy. There it was again. Almost imperceptible. Persistent. Deliberate. The sound of a light yet aggressive filing at a level that wouldn’t have woken him if he had been asleep. Michael threw the blanket to one side and levered his chunky frame down onto his bare feet. The noise continued unabated. There could be no doubt anymore. Someone was trying to get in.
A nine iron leaning at a jaunty angle against the table, casually discarded by one of the players, was snatched up shakily as a ready weapon.
Gripping the club in his meaty left hand, the sleepy giant padded over to the door. He waited in the stillness. Breath held tight, a silent prayer on his lips. Each thump of his heart was simply deafening. And the scraping just kept on and on tormenting him until finally a solid clunk and a satisfying click as metal slotted gently against metal linking the machine manufactured components into place. The handle turned.
Michael stammered, ‘Wer ist dort bitter?’ and then after a short time, ‘Who’s there please?’
Silence. He called out again. A split second later, the door was kicked open violently and two masked men charged up the little metal steps in close succession and piled into the truck interior amidst a clatter of noise and fury. Michael didn’t even have time to swing the club. He jabbed it into the ribs of the first man, slowing him down but the second was on him instantly, clawing at him, grappling round his broad chest and knocking him backwards. It was enough to keep him occupied whilst the lead assailant rallied and catching him flush with a well-timed shoulder charge slammed against his legs, bringing him down.
Michael was overwhelmed by both the suddenness of the attack and the combination of aggression and sustained force from the two men. Working together, they pinned him to the floor. A black sack was roughly forced over his head and its cord pulled tight. Punches rained down on his face and ribcage to the point where Michael Hausen eventually gave up struggling, instead curling up his knees and using those big hands and solid forearms to shield himself. Within a further couple of minutes, a skipping rope, borrowed hastily from the training kit in the truck, was tied tightly at each end around his wrists and ankles which were forced behind his back. Hausen was bound immobile, left trussed up and writhing helplessly on the floor.
A voice. ‘You’ve got something we want, Michael.’ The ensuing swift boot to the ribs generated a muffled grunt by way of response. ‘Where’s the tablet, you Kraut bastard? Don’t waste our time or you will be in for some real trouble,’ threatened a cockney sneer.
Michael said nothing. The kicking continued. Legs, torso, head. Finally, tired out from their exertions, the interrogation began again in earnest. ‘Where’s the fucking computer? We know you’ve got it, Sausage Meat, we’ve been told,’ screamed an enraged Scottish tirade just inches away from the hooded head. This could only have been Sean.
Michael gritted his teeth, his eyes tightly shut too. He hated that voice with a passion. Sean had tormented him, burnt him. Now he was being beaten on again. He may have been helpless but he had something that they wanted. And he knew how important it was, what it meant. He wouldn’t betray Daniel. And he wouldn’t betray himself again. Not to these bullies. There was clearly too much at stake. The German swallowed hard. And right there within the darkness of the hood and the restrictions of his bonds, shrouded in fear, Michael fought against the instincts of his natural disposition and silently he took his bravest decision.
Streams of sunlight cut through the branches of the canopy of proud overhanging trees. The truck park was contained, sealed off with ribbons of thick blue tape. Swarms of uniformed police clustered together writing notes and taking photographs, bagging evidence and interviewing passers-by. Michael Hausen’s lifeless body, bound and trussed like a sucking pig prepared for roasting on the spit at a medieval banquet, had been discovered at mid-morning the next day. Except that when the policemen were finally able to untie and un-hood the victim, they had been unable to make an immediate positive identification of the body. Every bone and tooth in its face was smashed and broken into a messy bloodied pulp. The body lacerated and grotesquely smeared with green greying bruising. The ruptured skin and crushed ribcage, which had apparently been jumped gleefully upon like a child’s trampoline, depicted a swollen purple tapestry of pain.
But Michael had chosen not to utter another word. The coveted tablet had not been surrendered. He had neither betrayed Matilda nor broken Daniel’s trust. Picked on for his prodigious size and exploited for a sorry lack of bravado since he was a boy, the lifelong victim had chosen this moment to display the true courage which always slumbered within him. In the stoic acceptance of his death the man had at last found the strength that made himself complete.
Chapter 43
SPAIN. NEAR ESTANYOL. VILOBI D’ONYAR.
‘Only seve
nty kilometres to Barcelona and this has to bloody ‘appen. Another pissin’ roadblock. We can’t afford to sit here idling forever. I might have to even switch the engine off and push it through mate, we are that low on blinkin’ petrol now. If we don’t find a gas station soon, we are going nowhere fast, Tom.’ Mickey slammed his hand against the steering wheel of the bakery truck in frustration. ‘Hold up. This looks serious, Hunter. The roz have come mob-handed. How’s the patient doing back there?’ he enquired twisting his neck birdlike to peer into the back.
‘Target’s not in good shape. We haven’t got long, I reckon. He’s still bleeding. We can’t bloody stop for this lark, we just haven’t got the time, mate. Besides, they’ve probably found that cop in the ditch by now. We ain’t getting through this one without a scrap.’
‘Take it easy for now. Let’s suss them out. They might be on the lookout for a lost cat for all we know. We’re miles away from the Russians by now, it’s probably not even related.’
‘I’m telling you I don’t like it,’ I replied, grimacing as I picked up the assault rifle and yet again checked the magazine was fully stocked. Pure habit.
Mickey rolled the van up closer towards the three police cars which were blocking the road in zigzag fashion, beaming a broad and unconvincing smile. A tall, mahogany-skinned policeman, proudly sporting a bushy moustache, waved us forward insistently. We coasted to a proximity of around fifteen feet in front of him when the powerful rattle and snap of machine gun fire tore into the windscreen of the van, shattering it instantly, pouring a shimmering waterfall of glittering broken glass over the front seats. Mickey was pinned back into his seat, body shaking and contorting as it was riddled with bullets. He stood no chance. Torn full of holes. We were compromised, trapped in the jaws of a deadly ambush.
