A Necessary Hell

by Nigel Price

  “Yet he lives off base in a nice big house?”

  “His family is back home. Colorado or something. Someone said they were out here for a while, didn’t like it and went back.”

  Harry reached for Tobacco Man’s. “Code?”

  Tobacco Man grunted and turned his face away. Ingrid gave a heavy sigh and went for the spanner.

  “Double O seven. And another O at the end.”

  Harry chuckled as he tried it and found it worked. “You guys really are a couple of jokers. Double O seven. Priceless. The originality. The self-delusion.”

  With a final check of the bindings, Harry gathered the phones, wallets and other bits and pieces, and opened the car door for Ingrid. She tossed the wheel spanner and lug wrench into the back of the car and got into the front passenger seat.

  “Be good,” Harry called out to the two men lashed to their trees. “I’ll get someone to come and get you as soon as this is over.” He pondered. “Though of course, if your friends kill us first, you’ll be in a bit of a pickle. Oh well. Bye bye.”

  “Hey!”

  He ignored the plaintive distress call, started the chunky black 4x4, and set off down the wooded lane back towards the main road. They had a long drive ahead of them, and an interview without coffee at the far end.

  Twenty Four

  Night was falling. Harry passed the address across to Ingrid who coaxed the satnav into life and punched in the details.

  “Are you tired?”

  She shook her head. He looked at her to check and wasn’t convinced. “Just worried?”

  “Of course I’m worried,” she said. “My son is at home wondering where his mother is. Of course I’m bloody worried.” She turned to him. “In fact I’m terrified, Harry. For him.”

  Harry reached across and squeezed her arm. It was the best he could do. He felt her hand on his. Then the other one too. “Just make this work, Harry. Please make this work.”

  He couldn’t see the details on the satnav. “How far is it to Fulda?”

  “You don’t want to know. Long drive.”

  “Then we need to stop somewhere and get something to eat,” he replied.

  “Won’t that turn on a light the moment you use your credit card?”

  Harry smiled. “Their wallets are flush with cash. They’d might as well buy us supper. They were fuck all use for anything else.”

  “I’d rather not think about that if you don’t mind.”

  Harry played with the controls. The dash board was a veritable smorgasbord of luminescent dials and switches. It was how he imagined a stealth fighter cockpit to be. “Who the hell makes these things?”

  “Toys for boys,” was all Ingrid could manage. “Do you prefer it to your Jaguar?”

  He had to think about that long and hard. “Different species. The Jag is a gentleman’s ride. This …” he said, sweeping a hand across the Star Ship Enterprise control panel, “… this is the stuff of boyhood dreams.”

  “So the Jag is reality?”

  “Achievable reality, yes. Just not achievable by me,” he conceded. “Through legal means, anyway.”

  “And this?”

  Harry smiled at the lights and bells and whistles. “This is what you take when you go to the mattresses.”

  “Go to the mattresses. For fuck’s sake, Harry, we are not in The Godfather. We could die doing this.”

  He put his hand on her arm again, just for a second. “I know how you feel about Thomas. I do.” For just a moment he took his eyes off the road. “We will get to them, Ingrid. We will do what we have to do and then I will get you back to your son. I promise.”

  “You promise?” she said, incredulous.

  “Insofar as I can, yes. I promise.”

  The road was a tunnel of light unfurling from their headlights. There was little other traffic around. It was now completely dark. Just the headlights, the glow from the instruments on the dashboard, and then from the faint lights of an approaching Gasthof.

  “Supper,” Harry announced. He swung the 4x4 into the car-park and selected a place among the vacant lots.

  The dining room was empty save for the waitress, a middle-aged hausfrau who observed them with bored scrutiny. Harry selected a table that enabled him to put his back to a wall. He had a view and clear fields of fire. What not to like?

  Ingrid asked for the menu and ordered two of the local beers.

  “How did you know I wanted a beer?” he asked.

  “They’re both for me,” she said, running her eyes down the menu’s offerings. She looked up and managed a tired smile. “But you can have one if you like.”

  The waitress returned and slapped two mugs of chilled fizzy froth on the table between them, leaving her customers to sort out who wanted what. Harry slid one finger down the menu then ordered a schnitzel and chips. Unoriginal but reliable. The worst they could do would be to fry it to leather. Ingrid opted for goulash and a side salad.

  When they were alone again, she said, “Why Franklin? Shouldn’t we have gone back to your friend Ernst? Why not break into Portland Aviation even?”

  Harry took a long drink of his beer. It wasn’t as insipid as he’d feared, but why did they serve it so cold? “Ernst could tell us something, sure. But what then? Do we kill him? Because if we don’t, everyone will know we’re alive. And the hunt is on. And Portland Aviation – what am I looking for? We can hardly search through all their offices and files, and for what?” He took another drink. “The offices would be alarmed too.”

  “The airport then. Why not go there? See if the plane is still there and find out what it was carrying?”

  Harry slumped back in his seat. Fatigue was creeping out of the woodwork and clawing at him. The image of a deep soft bed with feather duvet and fluffy pillow taunted like a chimera. “The plane, if it’s still there, will have been stripped by now. Yes, I could track down whoever cleared it through customs and beat the shit out of them until they tell me what was on board. Maybe it’ll come to that. But I’d need proof as well. And again, the moment we show up back in Soest, they’ll grab us. Next time they’d use someone more reliable to shut us up for good.” He watched her sadly. “We need to get to the bottom of this whole pile of shit. Find out what lies down there, deep in the foundations of the midden.”

  “Midden?”

  “Shit-pile.”

  “Okay.”

  “Colonel Franklin is our best bet. If he is importing stuff from Afghanistan or elsewhere around the region, then he’s our man. The one who’s been out there, on the ground actually acquiring the stuff. He will be Gutman’s link to the treasures of the mystic Orient. He’ll be a greedy son-of-a-bitch too. And those sorts of people are easy to bust open. Relatively speaking.”

  “Does that mean I’m going to have to use the wheel spanner again?”

  Harry smiled into his beer. The meals arrived. When they were alone again he said, “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  “Oh, you mean we just ask the Colonel nicely and he’ll tell us everything we want to know?”

  “It’ll be fine. Leave it to me.” He cut into his schnitzel wondering how ever he was going to make good on his promise.

  They were on the road again within the hour. Harry suggested that Ingrid get some sleep. She put her seat back as far as it would go and curled onto her side with head resting against the window in an attempt to turn out her lights.

  She was just succeeding when there was a rattling and buzzing sound in the car. She sat up. “Is that something in the engine?”

  Harry did a quick check of the dials. All normal. Then he saw that one of the two mobiles he had put in his door pocket was doing a little dance. The screen had lit up.

  He picked it up and had a look. The caller’s identity shone out. “I wonder if Colonel Franklin knows that his men call him ‘The Bitch’?”

  Ingrid leaned over to look. “How do you know that’s him?”

  “If I’d sent two dummies like those two to do a job,
I’d want to check it had been done.”

  “Couldn’t it be a Number Two? A second-in-command?”

  “Could be. But why not Franklin?” He let the phone buzz itself out. Ingrid watched him place it on his lap.

  “Won’t he be suspicious if it’s not answered?”

  “Eventually. For the moment there’s not much else we can do. I’m not going to answer it and tell him we’re on the way.”

  The phone gave two short buzzes. Harry glanced down. A text message. Ingrid reached for it. “What was the code again?”

  “Is that the one that belonged to the guy whose knee you busted?”

  “I think so.”

  “Double O seven O.”

  She opened the text. “What does ‘Sitrep’ mean? Is that a code for something?”

  “No. It just means he wants to know what’s going on. A Situation Report. Have they done the job or what?”

  She stared at the phone in her hand as if it was a live insect with a nasty sting. “What shall I do?”

  Harry tried to imagine how two wannabe Special Forces fantasists would answer the Colonel. “Reply, ‘Mission Accomplished’.” Then he added, “But spell ‘accomplished’ with only one ‘c’. Makes it more authentic.”

  Ingrid punched in the text. “Are you sure about this?”

  “Send it.”

  She did so. She stared at the screen, waiting, but still jumped when a reply buzzed back. “He’s asking why the fuck I didn’t pick up.”

  “Say, ‘The target gave me a split lip and’ …” Harry fumbled for the wallet of Chunky Driver and balanced it against the rim of the steering wheel while he checked the ID. “… ‘and Warren’s sleeping in the back.’”

  Ingrid shook her head as she typed, not believing this could possibly work. Another pause, then another reply buzzing in. She read, “‘Confirm you’ve done it.’”

  “Say, ‘Confirmed’. No, say ‘Affirmative’.”

  “One ‘f’ or two?”

  “Give the guy a break.”

  As she texted the response she said, “I hope to God he believes this shit.”

  There was a longer pause this time, long enough for the two of them to imagine they had messed it up. Then another buzz.

  “‘Okay. Meet me at the yacht club at ten.’” She stared at Harry in a panic. “What bloody yacht club? And ten in the morning, the evening? Today, tomorrow?” Her fingers hovered over the screen.

  “Don’t ask him,” Harry said quickly. “If we haven’t blown it already, that would do. Just reply Okay. No, ‘Affirmative’, again.”

  “‘Affirmative’,” she recited as she typed. “‘Again.’”

  “What?” Harry spun to look at the screen as she hit Send. Instead he caught the smile. “Nice one,” he said.

  The satnav had brought them onto an autobahn and they were skimming along, making good progress. Car lights flashed past in the opposite direction. Harry settled down to a comfortable cruising speed. He could feel the fatigue getting stronger. “I’m going to need to get some sleep before we meet The Bitch.”

  Ingrid was at work on the phone’s search engine. “Well at least I think I’ve found the yacht club,” she said. “American Services Yacht Club. A few kilometres outside Fulda. And as we’re now into Saturday I suppose it makes sense.”

  “Yes, the good Colonel will be enjoying some water sports for relaxation after having two people murdered. Nice guy.”

  Ingrid could see the tiredness in Harry’s face. It was catching up with her too. She returned to the phone and searched. “There are plenty of woods down there. We should have several hours to spare before the rendezvous. If you like, I’ll get us to a car park somewhere so we can sleep. If that’s even possible.”

  Harry knew it would be for him. Like every soldier he had learned to sleep anywhere at any time. One glance at Ingrid told him she was so exhausted even her worry for Thomas wouldn’t keep her awake for long. Terror did that.

  He had a horrible feeling it was going to get a lot worse.

  Twenty Five

  Ingrid navigated to wooded lay-by and Harry chose a spot deep in the trees to park up. He put his seat back parallel with Ingrid’s though neither was as flat as it would have been without the metal cage behind them. Even so, they were both soon asleep.

  Harry woke with Ingrid’s head on his shoulder. She was murmuring something, deep in dreams. He watched some invisible struggle expressing itself in her face. When he saw it becoming intolerable he intervened, placing a hand on her shoulder, gently increasing the pressure until he saw her eyes blink open.

  “You okay?”

  She swallowed, struggling back to the surface like a diver. She nodded. Her mouth was dry and for a moment she couldn’t answer. She licked her lips. “Horrible dream,” she said thickly.

  “It’s gone now,” Harry answered. He knew it hadn’t gone at all, simply withdrawn to its corner. Whatever had troubled her would enter the ring in her next sleep to fight again. That was how it worked until you pinned it down and kicked the shit out of it.

  “I could use some coffee,” she said.

  “Well we’ve got time. Let’s look for somewhere.”

  He got out and walked into the bushes to pee. It was after first light and birdsong filled the forest. He got back in the car. “Do you need to …?” he said, waving a hand at the trees.

  She shook her head. “I’ll wait for the restaurant.” She sat upright and put on her seat belt. “I could use a shower.”

  “Me too. Let’s try to fit that into our busy schedule today.”

  “Yeah. Right.”

  The road into Fulda was quiet, the town barely awake. On the far side, as they neared the exit road that would lead them towards the yacht club, Harry pulled into a drive-through. A couple of other cars were queuing in front of them. Instead of joining on behind, he parked up and turned off the engine.

  “Let’s eat properly.”

  “You call this eating properly?”

  “At a table.”

  “Thanks. Got that.”

  There was a placard set by the front door. “There you go,” Harry said. “I’m sure their ‘Big Breakfast’ will be the stuff of dreams.”

  As they went inside he did a quick check around. They were off the main road and he had parked the big 4x4 out of sight round the back. He didn’t want to be surprised by friends of the car’s rightful owners, spotting it and deciding to join them for coffee and bagels.

  They ordered two Big Breakfasts. A plastic tray was put on the counter and over the following weeks was filled by a tired, disinterested youth who was trying to grow a wispy beard in between his teen spots. Paper cups of coffee eventually completed the banquet and Harry paid with Tobacco Man’s cash.

  Once again he selected a table that gave him the views and fields of fire. Old habits. They set to, eating in silence. When the food had gone and the coffees were warming their hands, Ingrid voiced the fear that had been troubling her.

  “There are going to be a lot of people about. The moment he sees us get out of the car instead of his two thugs he’s going to run or shoot or shout or … whatever. We can’t just bundle him into the back and abduct him in front of everyone. Especially if it’s a service club. There’ll be other military personnel all over the place. Even if they’re not his own men, they’d come to his help.”

  “I was wondering just that. Which is why I think we don’t RV with him at the yacht club at all. We’ve got his home address. It’s in the phone’s Contacts list. It’ll only take him fifteen or twenty minutes to drive to the club, so he won’t be leaving for a couple of hours yet. He’s probably still in bed.” Harry warmed to the idea. “His guys said he lives alone. What say we give the Colonel a wake-up call? We could even take him some breakfast.”

  “They said his family is back home. Not that he lives alone.”

  “Okay. Worst case he’s got a live-in mistress,” Harry said.

  “Or he’s having a house party for half a do
zen Special Forces friends, and the yacht club is just a first stop on the way to the ranges cos they’ve all got their guns with them, and—”

  “You’ve got a lively imagination.”

  “Not especially. It’s just that I can think of a much worse ‘worst case’ than you can.”

  “Either way, his house is a better prospect than the yacht club. Agreed?”

  She considered it then nodded without any great enthusiasm.

  “Then drink up. We’d might as well get this done now. You never know. The two lugs in the wood might manage to work themselves loose.”

  The road to Colonel Franklin’s quarter led them out of town and up into the low hills that surrounded it. Harry was familiar with the routine. The American army operated the same system as the British. They hired houses from German owners, the size increasing with the rank of the officer assigned to it. It was the system at their military bases throughout the world, so long as the security situation allowed. In Germany it did. What could possibly go wrong in a place so civilised and law abiding? From what the lugs had said, the Colonel had secured his hiring based not just on his rank but on being accompanied by his family too. The fact that they had now gone home would sometimes have meant that the officer would be expected to move into the Officers’ Club on base. But if he was senior enough, and could pull enough strings, call in enough favours, then it was not unusual for him or her to be allowed to stay put, nicely ensconced out in the countryside in some quiet little hamlet. And few officers were able to call in more favours than those who worked in the supply chain. The rear echelon boys knew better than anyone how to play the system. It was the same in armies the world over.

  So with the rank of Colonel and with a family in tow, Harry was expecting something grand. He was not disappointed.

  They found the address on the far side of a picturesque little hamlet, about half a kilometre outside the main cluster of dwellings. Private. Comfortably isolated. It was going to be perfect for Harry’s purposes.

  The house was set back from the road, nicely secluded in deep gardens of mature trees and bordered with a high fence and an even higher hedge immediately to the rear of it. Colonel Franklin clearly liked his privacy, assuming he’d had a say in the selection of the property.