A Necessary Hell

by Nigel Price

  “Please don’t say that again.” And Harry pushed the Colonel’s face into the water while he thought.

  He pulled him out and said, “Gutman must have some records. The whole thing can’t be totally invisible.”

  The Colonel started to sob, all defiance gone. “Then you need to meet the Book-keeper.”

  “Now that sounds more like it,” and Harry tightened his grip on the Colonel’s hair. “And the Book-keeper is … ?” He applied the slightest pressure to the back of the Colonel’s head, lowering it towards the water again.

  “Krantz! Marius Krantz! He takes care of all that. Not Gutman. Gutman likes to keep himself clean as a whistle.”

  Harry decided it was time to take a break. He lifted the Colonel clear and balanced him on the edge of the bath. Franklin put back his head and shook the water out of his eyes. He spat out soap and hairs. His whole frame was shaking. He looked at Harry, eyes pleading.

  There was a knock at the door and Ingrid put her head round. She looked horrified at what she saw.

  “We’ve finished in here,” Harry said. He leaned over and opened the window wide to let out the remainder of the steam. The Colonel tilted his face towards the inflow of cool, fresh air and gulped it down.

  “God damn you,” he sobbed. “I hope they fucking get you soon. You don’t know—”

  “Please, Colonel, spare me.” Looking at the man before him Harry felt ashamed. Mostly from what he had seen in Ingrid’s eyes. But he had what he needed.

  “What are you going to do with him?” Ingrid asked.

  Harry thought about it. “Not sure yet. I might lock him in the cellar.”

  “No. Don’t do that,” the Colonel said. “You’re going to need me to find Krantz.”

  “Where do I find him?”

  “He’s a hard man to pin down.”

  “And yet you can take me straight to him, is that it?” Harry said, pumping it full of sarcasm.

  “Yes.”

  “Harry,” Ingrid interrupted. “You’ve got blood on you.” She pointed. “The Colonel’s nose is bleeding again. It’s on …”

  She was going to put her finger to the spot. She pulled her hand away as if electrocuted. “Ow!”

  The Colonel was looking down at his soaked vest to see if his nose was dripping blood. He sniffed.

  “It moved,” she said.

  “What do you mean it moved?”

  “There it is again.”

  Harry flung himself sideways. With one hand he pushed Ingrid from the room as the laser sight marker slid from the back of his head and onto the next thing in line. Colonel Franklin.

  Twenty Seven

  The gunshot was silent. The effect was not. There was a sound like a large slab of raw meat being slapped onto a kitchen worktop. The smack was matched by a grunt from the Colonel as if he had been punched hard in the midriff. Which he had been. Only not with a fist.

  Harry was on his hands and knees, keeping below the level of the windowsill. He pulled out the Sphinx 3000. The Colonel’s body slumped towards the bath. With one hand, Harry caught hold of the running vest and yanked him onto the floor beside him. The bullet had drilled him neatly dead centre. There was no exit wound. So a low velocity weapon. Probably a silenced pistol. Harry pushed from his mind the thought that it had been meant for him. Without Ingrid’s accidental warning, he would now be slumped in the bath, his brains smashed inside his ruptured skull. And the Colonel would be a relieved and happy man.

  Instead, Harry could see the life vanishing from his eyes. They blinked a couple of times, and briefly tried to focus on Harry’s face. There was no coming back from the place the Colonel was going. His bus had already left the station. The next moment there was a long deep sigh as breath rasped from the body. Colonel Franklin slipped away.

  The red spot reappeared on the bathroom wall tiles. It moved to left and right as the firer angled for another shot, hoping Harry would do something stupid like stick his head out of the window to see who it was.

  Crawling onto the upstairs landing, Harry found Ingrid curled against the wall. She held the Smith & Wesson in her lap. The muzzle was pointing at Harry. He reached out and gently moved it aside. Noticing that the safety catch was applied, he took the weapon and showed her how to make it ready, then cocked it too.

  “There you go,” he said, making the tiny adjustment that meant the difference between life and death. “Just point and fire.”

  He could see her struggling to hear him through the confusion and horror. “What was that you said in the car about grouping?”

  “Well remembered.” He was impressed. “Don’t worry about that. Just aim for centre chest, the largest target area, and keep pulling the trigger. Okay?”

  She nodded.

  He scuttled into the next room, a spare bedroom with a window that looked out onto the rear of the house, same as the bathroom. He imagined the firer’s attention was still on the open bathroom window. There was no sign of the telltale red dot on the bedroom walls which seemed to confirm it, so he risked standing. Keeping well back from the window, he scanned the ground outside.

  He saw him. The firer was not in the garden, but on the high ground that rose steeply at the back of the house. It had been an impressive shot for a pistol. Though it would have been even more so if he had hit the intended target and not his own man.

  Harry could see him jinking this way and that, trying to figure out if he’d hit the bullseye. He had no way of knowing that he had just drilled his Colonel. He was standing clear of cover and staring hard at the bathroom, growing more confident that he’d made the right kill. He probably expected the Colonel to appear at any moment and congratulate him.

  Harry thought it would be a shame to disappoint him.

  He went back into the bathroom and without showing himself, put his face close to the open window.

  “Good shot!” he shouted. He didn’t want to risk any more. He was no actor and knew that too much of his crap attempt at an American accent would blow it.

  Then quickly downstairs to the kitchen. The firer would be making his way down the slope. Harry judged he would come into the garden by the back gate so that was where he would meet him. Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Except for the Colonel’s underpants on the washing line.

  He racked back the slide of his pistol and checked the safety was off. He’d never fired a Sphinx before so this could be interesting. Pistols were all much the same though. The marksmanship principles applied to them all.

  The kitchen door was fastened in three places: a lock to one side of the handle and bolts top and bottom. Keeping out of sight, Harry slid the two bolts, turned the key in the lock and gripped the handle. He cracked open the door and prepared to move.

  He watched through the slit and waited for his target to arrive. Seconds passed and nothing happened.

  More seconds and more nothing.

  “Fuck sake,” he muttered, and launched himself into the garden. He crouched as if on an urban close-quarter battle range. Training. Like riding a bike. The pistol was in a two-handed grip. He moved away from the open door to the right, keeping his pistol aimed in the direction of the rear gate which was invisible beyond the washing that moved in the breeze. Everything was silent.

  He considered calling again. He could try to call in the firer, but now he was out in the open the chance of his accent blowing it was even greater. And who was the guy? How had he arrived on the scene and known to take a shot at Harry?

  There must have been an alarm system. Harry tried to replay everything that had happened since he had punched his way into the house. He had been so sure the Colonel had been unable to press any button or call in help. Unless he had come to while Harry had been out at the car getting the plastic ties, then pretended to come round afterwards. Was that possible? Harry reckoned he’d been duped. If so, then the Colonel had missed his true calling as a triple A movie actor.

  Maybe that explained why he had been so happy to sing like a canary. Because
he knew help was on the way and reckoned that Harry would never get to use any of the information he was giving away.

  What had he said about his ‘old guys’? “They’ll be on to you soon enough.” Of course they would. He had already called them in.

  Or before that. Before Harry had introduced himself with the world-class smart-arse gag about the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Perhaps he had seen the car and guessed what had happened. But then why open the door when Harry rang the bell? Because he was confident he could stall. Inviting Harry inside was also the best way of keeping him there until back-up arrived.

  Pointless to try and guess. The fact was, someone had come to kill him. It was that simple.

  “Is he dead?”

  Harry spun towards the voice. There was no one to be seen. His finger was on the trigger. He had a full mag and was ready to pour it into anyone at the end of his gun sight.

  He moved in a wide arc, around the outside of the washing where the voice seemed to have come from.

  “I take it he is. That’s too bad. Too fucking bad. You’re next, pal.”

  A burst of automatic fire raked through the washing and blazed at Harry. He threw himself onto the ground. Whoever had fired the pistol through the bathroom window had just got the big stuff out of the goody bag.

  There was a crack, then another, but from a different direction. A pistol again. More than one firer.

  Then everything was let loose, incoming fire from all over the place. On his belly, Harry skittered and slithered back towards the kitchen door, chased by the spat and thump of bullets slapping into the grass around him. He glanced up and saw a man on the hillside behind and above the fence. Not the man he had first seen. This one had an M16 and it was pointed in his direction. Even in his rattled state, Harry could see it was the A4 variant. Latest model. So these were Colonel Franklin’s ‘old guys’ after all.

  Shit.

  The question was how many of them? Harry slid through the open door and slammed it shut behind him. All of which was pretty pointless as a fusillade of bullets peppered right through it. Shattered glass sprayed across the room. He drew up his knees and hugged himself into a ball.

  So far he had counted three. The voice by the gate with an automatic. Pistol Man off at an angle. The M16A4 up on the slope. Perhaps there would be a driver out on the road, keeping the engine warm. A four-man team made sense. And somehow called in by the Colonel. Now on target with one aim. To kill Harry once and for all. Ingrid too.

  Ingrid. He had forgotten all about her.

  He slithered towards the door into the hall and shouted through it. “Keep down!” Probably unnecessary but best say it just in case she was thinking of trying to be a hero. He was also telling her he was alive. And it gave his own courage a boost, to be giving an order however pointless. He’d done it in fire-fights before. There had been an instructor at Sandhurst. All shit had broken loose on a training exercise. Harry had been in the command appointment, clinging to the ground, rabbit in headlights. “It doesn’t matter what you do, sir,” the Colour Sergeant had screamed at him, his face inches from Harry’s ear. “But do something! Even if it’s only to wave goodbye!”

  There were going to be no goodbyes today. At least not from him or Ingrid.

  It would be dumb to try and return fire through the kitchen window. There would be at least two or three weapons trained on it, waiting. Instead he inched towards the outside door and slid the ground-level bolt shut. It would hold for a second or two. Which was all that was needed. The noise of them kicking it in would tell Harry when they had made entry.

  Options. He could try to shoot it out. He was in a strong position. A cornered Harry-sized rat with a good gun and another one upstairs with Ingrid. If he was facing only a four-man team, the odds weren’t too bad. However, in sticking it out he was risking not just his own life but Ingrid’s too. And what if the Americans were able to call in reinforcements? They could already be on the way.

  There was a phone and mobiles. He could call the police and hold out until they arrived. But his most recent experience of The Law had not been a good one. True, he was now in another state, Hesse. Different police force. But what of the over-arching BKA involvement? If police arrived on the scene, he would have to surrender to them. What if they handed him straight over to the Americans as Ernst had done? Was that a chance he was prepared to take? Difficult one.

  And then he and Ingrid could break out and make a run for it. Fraught with danger. He didn’t know where the firers were. At the moment three of them were at the back of the house, but they could change their positions in seconds. If they were preparing for entry it was likely they were moving round the house at that moment, looking for the best way in. And what state was Harry’s 4x4 in? They might have disabled it. It was possible. More importantly, would Harry and Ingrid even get that far? And how to exit the building? As far as Harry was aware there were only two doors. So not difficult for the Americans to have both of them covered.

  The decision was made for him by the sound of the kitchen door being kicked in. It was followed by a burst of automatic fire raking the interior. Harry had a shrewd guess what would come next. A stun grenade thrown into the hall followed by multiple entries, one from the kitchen, probably one from behind him as well, straight through the French windows that let out from the sitting room onto a terrace stretching along one whole side of the house. Assuming they were as good as the Colonel had boasted, they would try to overwhelm him with numbers and shock effect. It would probably work.

  Instead of waiting for that to happen, he threw himself towards the stairs. As he went, he saw a mobile on a side table next to a landline. He snatched it as he passed and tore up to where Ingrid stared at him wide-eyed.

  “Get an address for Marius Krantz,” he said, tossing the mobile at her.

  She caught it and tried to do so. “It’s locked. I need the code.”

  “Use the Colonel’s finger print.”

  She stared at him for only a second then slid through to the bathroom. She took the Colonel’s hand and pressed the tip of his forefinger to activate the touch ID. Harry shut her in to protect her from the shock wave that was about to hit them, then took post lying flat on the landing, ears covered, mouth open, waiting.

  He saw it coming through the door, a small cylinder rolling across the hall. He closed his eyes. The next second he felt as if his head has been slapped by Farmer Müller’s overgrown son.

  Twenty Eight

  True to his boast, the Colonel’s men were professionals. The break-in was executed to perfection. With one exception. No one had told them that the glass in the French windows was reinforced. As the first firer came out of the kitchen hot on the heels of the stun grenade, his partner threw a large piece of garden furniture at the French windows, prior to launching himself through them.

  It bounced off.

  Which left the first member of the team looking very lonely. He sprayed most of the contents of one magazine around the hallway and into the sitting room beyond, searching for Harry. Unfortunately he didn’t look up. Harry shook his head clear, ignored the ferocious ringing in his ears, and blazed four rounds down into the hall. The smoke from the stun grenade saved his target’s life, though not his leg. Harry saw the floret of crimson flesh erupt as one of his bullets struck the firer in his left quad muscle. There was a lot of cursing and the man scuttled back into the kitchen shouting about everything he was going to do to Harry the moment he got his hands on him.

  The garden table hit the French windows a second time, harder, but with the same result. Too late Garden Man thought to help it out with a couple of shots from his pistol. Two small holes punched through the glass. Apart from a web of cracks the glass held. Giving up, he disappeared. Harry guessed he had returned to the back of the house to use the kitchen door together with his wounded friend who was still shouting.

  Seeing his moment, Harry opened the bathroom door and grabbed Ingrid by the arm. “Got it?”

  �
��I think so. But without the Colonel’s fingerprint, I’m not going to be able to open the phone once it’s shut down.”

  Harry got the point. For a moment he thought about sawing off the finger with his knife. The print would quickly degrade. And he didn’t especially want to walk around with a dead man’s finger in his pocket. Apart from anything else, it wouldn’t look good if he was arrested by the police.

  “I’ve made a note of it,” Ingrid said. “At least we’ve got that.”

  Harry took the phone and dropped it in the bath. It had done its job.

  He led the way along the landing to a bedroom at the furthest end. It looked like the Colonel’s own room. A big double bed sat against one wall, fitted cupboards facing it. All the standard bedroom contents. Along the far wall, a glass door opened onto a balcony. Harry opened it and looked out. The view was towards mountains at the front of the house. Down below and off at angle he could just make out the roof of the chunky black 4x4 parked up the road where he had left it.

  He guessed they had at most a minute or two before the Colonel’s men attempted a second entrance. Garden Man would be there now. Probably the M16 man from the hillside too. Knowing Harry was upstairs, they wouldn’t make the same mistake again. They would spray the landing at the top of the stairs as they came in.

  Ingrid could see the thoughts churning through his brain. She looked at the ground below. “You’re not going to ask me to jump, are you?”

  “No. Just let yourself down as far as you can and then drop.” Basic assault course technique. Jumping was the quickest way to bust an ankle and kill any chance of escape. By letting themselves down until hanging by their arms at full stretch, the distance to the ground was halved. Then drop and land with feet together like a parachutist.

  Ingrid started towards the railing.

  “Not yet,” Harry said, holding her back. “Wait for the attack to start.” That way he would know they weren’t going to be interrupted halfway through the manoeuvre.