A Necessary Hell

by Nigel Price

  The attack began. There was the blast of a second stun grenade, followed by a burst of shooting as the Colonel’s men entered the hall at the other end of the house.

  “Now!” Harry said, pushing her forward. “Go!”

  While she climbed over the balcony and lowered herself down, he covered her, switching from side to side in case not all the Colonel’s men were engaged in the attack. Ingrid hung for a second, then let herself drop. She landed on the grass with a grunt. Harry followed, coming down beside her.

  “Let’s get out of here!” He led the way across the front garden towards the gate. He undid the bolts and checked outside. In one direction sat the black 4x4. In the other was the team’s ride, another 4x4, but something brown and Japanese. It was facing away from the gate. A driver sat at the wheel. From what Harry could make out, his full attention was on the noise of the gunshots, the sound muffled inside the house. The engine was running. The other houses in the hamlet were comfortably distant. There was no way of knowing if anyone was home, but there was a chance someone might have heard the noise and called the police. A quick getaway was on hand in case the team needed it.

  “What are you waiting for?” Ingrid said.

  Harry took one look at the black 4x4 and decided. “Fancy a change of ride?”

  Before she could answer, he went briskly along the outer fence and down the side of the Japanese machine. The driver’s window was open. He only noticed Harry’s arrival when it was too late.

  Harry reached in and grabbed his head, then slammed it against the window frame repeatedly until the driver was deep in the land of dreams.

  He opened the door and hauled out the unconscious body, dumping it on the ground. A quick scan of the pockets gave him a Glock and spare mag, both of which he pocketed. Also a mobile which he hurled as far as he could. He had more than enough already. Lastly a wallet with no ID and a dollop of cash. Always nice to have so he trousered it.

  Ingrid ran to join him and got in. Harry got behind the wheel and scanned the controls. All straightforward. He put it in gear and slid away as quietly as he could. With all the noise in the house and attention on hunting down their quarry, clearing the building room by room, he hoped it would be a while before the Colonel’s men realised they were on their own.

  He reached into his pocket, took out the keys of the abandoned black 4x4 and tossed them into the back of the car. “I don’t know if those things can be hot-wired, but it should take them a while to figure it out.”

  Ingrid didn’t reply. He glanced over and saw she was staring blankly out of the window. “Are you okay?” It was a lame question considering what she’d just been through. Most people would be gibbering by now.

  He also knew that her overriding concern was for Thomas. Somehow he had to get her back to her son.

  “So.” He tried to sound upbeat. “Where am I headed?”

  Her face was blank for a moment. Then she got it. Krantz. She dug out her phone and found the note she had made of the address.

  “Nuremberg,” she said. “It should take a couple of hours. Perhaps a bit more.”

  Harry was playing with the satnav, trying to work out how yet another variant operated. Ingrid took over. “You drive. Keep your eyes on the road. I’ll do this.”

  “Which autobahn do I want?” They were approaching a junction. Huge blue road signs were throwing options at him.

  “Route Seven,” she said just in time. He swung the car across the lanes, drawing horn blasts from three other cars as he did so. Ingrid clung on tight.

  “We can then either keep on down to Würzburg, Route Seven all the way, and cut across through Neustadt an der Aisch.”

  “Or?”

  “Or we can switch to Route Seventy at Werneck and go via Bamberg and then Erlangen on Route Seventy Three.”

  He could hear the tiredness in her voice.

  “Which do you suggest?”

  For a moment he thought she was going to say she didn’t give a shit, or tell him to fuck off, or bury her face in her hands and weep. Instead she drew a deep breath, blew it out and said, “Not much in it. The Würzburg route looks shorter but uses a smaller road. The Bamberg-Erlangen route is longer but it’s autobahn all the way. You choose, Harry. I’m all out.”

  He slid onto the autobahn and hit the accelerator, taking them in the direction of Bad Brückenau. The kilometres rolled by. Neither he nor Ingrid had much appetite. Especially Harry after his two breakfasts.

  It was time to take stock. Marius Krantz. The Colonel had called him the ‘Book-keeper’. The man with the details of Gutman’s whole operation. It would be afternoon by the time they hit Nuremberg. He would identify where Krantz lived and then decide how best to tackle him and when. It might be smarter to wait until after dark. Or perhaps hit him the following morning as they had done with the Colonel.

  He also had to consider whether Krantz would have had warning of his coming. It was likely, though that depended on how smoothly all parts of the business worked together. Who would the Colonel’s team tell of his death? Was there someone else they reported to? Maybe Gutman ran his organisation with a cell structure like a terrorist network, one person in each cell knowing only the next link in the chain, not the whole network. At the moment that would work to Harry’s advantage. However, the Colonel had known about Krantz, so it was possible his men would too. There might also be someone else to whom they were answerable apart from the Colonel. The next man in Gutman’s command structure perhaps. Maybe someone in the American military, higher up the food chain.

  On the other hand, if the Colonel had kept the identity of the higher echelons secret from them, then there was a chance that Harry would be able to surprise Krantz, just as he had surprised the Colonel. Now the Colonel was dead, maybe his men would do headless chicken impressions. They might run and hide or resume whatever their normal roles were, hoping the whole bloody mess would go away and leave them alone.

  Unlikely? Harry could only guess.

  He had a horrid suspicion that they would know exactly who to tell of the Colonel’s death. In which case Krantz would go into hiding. Reinforcements would be summoned and an extra special reception would be waiting for Harry and Ingrid if they went anywhere near the address that Ingrid had punched into the satnav, drawing them closer to the next encounter with Gutman’s organisation.

  Twenty Nine

  The road tripped on, mile after mile unfurling. The landscape was better to look at than the flat featureless northern plain.

  It was early afternoon when Ingrid pointed out a service station and asked Harry to stop. He pulled in, found a parking bay and turned off the engine. He could do with a pee himself.

  Inside there was only a handful of other travellers. The displays of food were bright and fresh, and the service came with a smile. Harry loved the autobahn network. Everything about it.

  He dug out coins for the lavatories, and he and Ingrid went their separate ways. Through the little turnstile, he did what he had to do, washed his hands in the spotless sink then exited. While he waited for Ingrid, he checked out the road maps. Then the souvenirs. Then the chocolates. He had never had a sweet tooth. At least his teeth were in good shape, even if the rest of him would start to creak some time in the next decade.

  A couple of men came in and went to help themselves to coffees and pastries. They paid and took seats away in a far corner. Both looked tired, like long-distance truckers.

  Ingrid returned looking as refreshed as possible in the circumstances. She made a face at Harry that said as much. The two of them inspected the various offerings at the three or four different food counters.

  “Fancy some lunch?”

  “Not really.” She picked up a tray all the same and continued to scout for something to put on it.

  Eventually a plate of salad occupied one corner, a roll and butter the centre ground, and a square of lasagne the rest. “Beer,” she stated, and completed her selection with a bottle of something or other.
r />   “Glass?” Harry offered her one.

  She shook her head.

  Harry went for the old reliable schnitzel and chips with a dollop of mayo on the side. A bottle of beer too, though another brand. He preferred the look of the label. Crossed axes and something suitably Teutonic emblazoned across the top. He added a glass. Drinking from the bottle was for the ladies and for men yet to become men.

  “Over there?” There was a private table next to a deserted play area for kids.

  They slid into the bench seats and slumped back, facing one another. The contents of their two plastic trays looked less appealing now it was no longer part of the colourful display on the bright counters. Marooned on white plates, it gawped sullenly back at them.

  They unloaded the trays onto the wooden table. They started with the beers, chinking them mid-table, eye to eye.

  “You okay?”

  Ingrid half nodded. “What do you think?”

  They were both in a stunned post-action stupor. Reason was denying what the senses were telling it had just happened. Reason was trying to polish the silverware, dust the windowsills and rearrange the furniture as if nothing had happened.

  “Ingrid?”

  She glanced up to see Harry studying her. “Drink,” he said, nudging her bottle. She put down her fork and took another, longer drink from the bottle.

  Harry too, from his smudged glass.

  “How could you do that for a living?” she asked after a while.

  He shrugged. “It was a job.”

  She stared at him, incredulous.

  “I know it’s different from eye tests or spreadsheets,” he said. “But strange as it sounds, that’s how it became. After a while.”

  “Madness,” she said. Then a moment later, “How the hell did you adjust to a life of spreadsheets?”

  “It wasn’t easy. Before I got into this line of work I tried sales.” He stared grimly out of the window as if an especially miserable time in his life was standing on the other side, sticking two fingers up at him. “People who have known only spreadsheets can’t understand that not everyone is as deeply moved by them as they are.”

  “By which you mean almost everyone.”

  He conceded the point. “The people I worked for got excited over a big sale, profit, a competitor going under. Money was all they lived for.”

  “Or the things the money could buy,” she said. “Like a family home, a holiday somewhere nice, perhaps a decent car, or something for the kids.”

  He smiled at her. “You’re right.”

  “You can’t condemn people for leading normal lives, Harry.”

  “I don’t.”

  She could see that he was struggling to get it right.

  “But trying to fit into that ordinary—”

  “Normal.”

  “Normal world, was fucking hard. I was pretending to be something I wasn’t. I’d sit in Board meetings listening to the discussion, and a big chunk of me was screaming in silence.”

  “What was it screaming?”

  “This doesn’t matter.”

  “It did to them.”

  “Yes, but in the grand scheme of things it didn’t.”

  “You mean in the grand scheme where we all die and rot and are forgotten?”

  “Yes.”

  She thought about it. “If that’s your take on life, then no, I suppose nothing matters.”

  He leaned towards her. “But some things do matter. How we live.”

  “And you think ordinary people don’t know that? That’s an incredibly arrogant thing to believe.”

  “I believe most people pay lip service to life. Most of them are dead. They just don’t know it.”

  He didn’t like the look she was giving him. A cynical appraisal that found him wanting.

  “And this current job is a halfway house between war and the spreadsheets, is that it?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Until you and I nearly collided because of a severed hand, and all the shit that’s followed ever since.”

  He smiled. They raised their beers and chinked them again.

  Though they never got to drink them as they were interrupted by the two tired truckers who had left their coffees and were now standing by the table where Harry and Ingrid were sitting.

  The truckers had produced guns and were pointing them in the faces of the two weary diners.

  Thirty

  Harry slowly put down his glass. He looked up at the trucker on the other end of the gun. “That’s not very friendly.”

  “Get up,” Trucker Number One said. He spoke English with a thick accent.

  Trucker Number Two moved to cover Ingrid, his gun close to her head as if she was the greater threat. As an afterthought he adopted a two-handed grip. Harry could see beads of sweat on his brow. Which told him all sorts of things.

  “Who are you and what do you want?” Harry said. He took another sip of his beer.

  “Leave the questions to us.”

  “You haven’t asked any yet.”

  This caused a certain confusion, whereupon Trucker Number Two conferred briefly with Trucker Number One and then took one hand off his gun and grabbed the back of Ingrid’s chair. He yanked it back.

  Harry went into action.

  His left hand came up and grabbed the gun wrist of Trucker Number One, twisting it down and away in a nasty great arc that went against its natural movement. Trucker Number One was faced with an instant decision. Fire and blow Harry’s brains out, or succumb and drop the gun. He did the latter. Harry had looked into his soul and seen all he needed. Number One was even less of a killer than his mate, Number Two. Number Two looked as if he would have been far happier putting up shelves or fitting a new washer on the tap. Anything but this.

  With his right hand, Harry gripped the edge of the table and up-ended it in one mighty heave. The food, plastic trays, cutlery, beers went flying. It left clear space for Harry’s feet to come into play. Pivoting on his left, he flipped his right leg up and out, kicking Trucker Number Two in the midriff with the ball of his foot. Chusoku. Or was it Kakato? No, that was the heel. What the hell.

  Trucker Number Two had the wind kicked out of him. He dropped his gun which landed on the floor and went off. In the peace and quiet of the diner the retort was ear-slapping.

  There was no time to worry about the ache. Trucker Number One was struggling upright. So Harry punched him on the side of the throat with an open hand chop. The Shuto hand edge. Classic karate. The stuff of movies. A whip-snap rabbit punch to the brachial plexus.

  Number One’s lights went out. Harry caught hold of his jacket and helped him to the floor. He left him there while he retrieved the two guns.

  Somewhere in his head the tiny old alarm bell started tinkling, sweet and gentle. They were Heckler & Koch P7’s. German police issue. Old school.

  A quick check of pockets produced wallets and, yes, Police ID’s. Nothing fancy like the BKA. Just bog standard state coppers. Hence the sweat-beaded forehead. Something like this was outside their comfort zone.

  And then the whole service station burst into life. The sound of the gunshot had triggered the end of the world. Heavily armed police poured in through every available orifice. Doors, windows, even the lavatory turnstiles. In they came. It was like a competition to see how many grown men could be crammed into the available space in the shortest time.

  Harry took it all in and held up his hands. High. He reached for the ceiling and kept it that way. With a single look at Ingrid he told her to do the same. She didn’t need telling. Her hands were already up in the clouds.

  The next second Harry’s feet were swept from under him and he was spread on the floor like a rug, a knee in his back, hands twisted behind him, cuffs snapped on the wrists. Textbook stuff. He was sorry to see Ingrid being treated the same way.

  She barked German at them which seemed reasonable. Harry could only guess at the content. Her face was scarlet with outrage. After all she had been throug
h, her own police protectors were arresting her. Harry just kept shtum. He was trying to figure out if these were like his old friend Ernst, police in the pay of Gutman, or bona fide coppers who might actually be of some use once the whole horrible misunderstanding had been cleared up.

  With wrists secured they were hauled to their feet and bundled towards the main door with shouting and shoving every step of the way. Harry felt it was all a bit unnecessary, seeing as neither he nor Ingrid were offering the slightest resistance beyond Ingrid’s abuse which had now dried up. It seemed a gross overreaction. Unless …

  Harry started to get the gist of what might be happening.

  The moment they were outside, hoods were put over their heads plunging them into blackness. From then on they were dependent on their handlers. Guided and propelled, Harry’s feet barely touched the floor. He could feel hands under his armpits carrying him along. If he picked up his feet he remained smoothly in motion. It was quite pleasant.

  Until his head collided with the doorframe of a car. For a second he was stunned. There were angry shouts which seemed to be aimed more at the men guiding him, rather than at Harry himself. He felt a hand on his forehead, forcing him to stoop. He ducked low and allowed himself to be pushed into a car.

  He felt himself squash up against someone, and then another body pushed in against him on the other side, squidging him in the middle.

  “Ingrid?”

  There was no reply. So separate cars. Not surprising. He imagined it was standard procedure.

  The engine revved and he was pushed back in his seat by the force of the acceleration. It was quite dramatic. A big scoop on the part of the police. A significant operation.

  His mind was racing. They had been seen. That much was obvious. Someone had tipped off the police. But what about? They were victims of the fire-fight at the Colonel’s house, not the perpetrators. He started to get a feel for what might have happened. Still, there was no point worrying about it now. There was nothing he could do trussed up like an oven-ready bird. All would be made clear soon enough. Either that or another forest clearing was waiting for them. This time there would be no moronic lugs to mess it up. Just a neat little bullet in the back of the head, followed by oblivion.