A Necessary Hell

by Nigel Price

  He came in then, hard and fast. His blade was everywhere. Slashing and lunging. He was like an Olympic fencer. On the balls of his feet, his speed was impressive.

  Harry felt like a dinosaur. He drew back to size up his opponent. The man was hardly out of breath. Harry cursed himself. He had let his anger take control. It had almost cost him his life. And Ingrid and Thomas theirs too. Time to calm down and steady things out.

  Lipman wasn’t going to play by Harry’s rules though. He saw him taking his time so dived in. His blade lashed out in front of him, aimed at Harry’s face, his eyes, his throat, his gut. Forehand and backhand slashes, wild and fast. Somehow Harry had to get inside Lipman’s reach. Only one of his slashes had to get lucky, and Harry would either be disembowelled or have his throat slit.

  After the next assault Harry feigned a slip. He went down on one knee then got up just in time to dart back out of range when another wild slash came within a centimetre of his eyes. Only this time he had a fist full of fine gravel. He flung it in Lipman’s face. Smack on target.

  He went in. Lipman blinked and spat and tried to spring back. But Harry was already there. As Lipman’s left leg moved back, instead of empty space it met Harry’s foot. The foot sweep knocked the leg from under him. He tried to recover, arms flying out for balance and started to go down.

  Harry wasn’t going to give him the chance. He knew he would just roll away out of range, regain his feet and recover to return to the attack. Harry launched himself at the sprawling body and landed on top. Lipman tried to jerk his body aside but Harry’s arms were around him. His hands had got Lipman in a vicious hold. Lipman managed to get onto his stomach. His knife had gone now. Harry had lost sight of it. So long as he could keep Lipman’s hands in view he knew he was safe.

  On Lipman’s back, he got his left arm round his throat. His left hand gripped the bicep of his right arm, as his right hand curled round the back of Lipman’s head. The perfect choke hold. With the right pressure Harry was going to be able to strangle Lipman. But he wasn’t interested in strangling the bastard. He was going to break his neck.

  Lipman’s arms thrashed at his sides, trying to reach round and get at the man on his back. His gun had gone, and now his knife too.

  Then he saw it. It was a metre away. His whole body convulsed into spasms as he tried to launch himself across the small space between him and his salvation.

  Harry had seen it too. Lipman wasn’t going anywhere. Harry settled on top of his quarry, tightened his hold, and with a massive burst of strength, snapped his neck.

  The body jerked then lay still. The eyes were wide open and staring. But no longer looking at anything that the living could see.

  Harry checked the pulse. Nothing. Lipman was dead.

  He got up, breathing hard. He stared down at the dead man. He hardly dared look round at the car and the two watching faces inside. He heard the car door open. Then Ingrid was standing at his side. He felt her hand on his shoulder.

  “Thank you.”

  He did a quick check around. They were alone and unobserved. He had chosen the spot well.

  “That’s his car over there,” Ingrid said. It was the red one that Lipman had used to follow her on her way to Thomas’s school.

  “Then we’d better give it back to him.” Harry hauled the body over to the car. The key was in Lipman’s pocket. He opened the boot and dumped the body inside. Then locked the car and flung the key as far away as he could, deep into bushes.

  They walked back to their own car. The bratwursts lay in a mess in the well in front of the driver’s seat. Harry gathered them up, found a bin and dropped them in it. Thomas sat silent in the back. Ingrid opened his door and hugged him.

  “Well done, Tom,” Harry said. “You saved your mum’s life. Mine too.”

  “And mine,” the boy said in a tiny, scared voice.

  Harry held out his hand. “Thank you. I owe you. We all do.” Thomas took his hand and shook it.

  Ingrid kissed Thomas on the cheek. This time he didn’t wipe it away.

  He looked up and smiled. Something caught his eye. The smile froze and died.

  “What?” Harry said.

  “There,” Thomas said, pointing across the car park towards the hotel. He slid down in his seat, face pale.

  Harry looked over and saw a big Mercedes AMG draw up outside the entrance. Figures were getting out.

  “That’s her. That’s Jamilla,” Thomas said.

  With her was Ernst Hafner, two guards and, getting out of the back, Heinz Gutman.

  Forty Five

  The guards were good. Once out of the car they split left and right, eyes everywhere, covering all the angles. Harry knew they would have handguns only, but they’d be good ones. And they’d know how to use them. They looked Middle Eastern. It was hard to tell but Harry could have sworn he recognised one of them as the Kalashnikov-toting shooter in the shemagh who had shot Good Cop in the assault on the police station. But Harry had seen him go down. Perhaps one of his comrades then?

  “Get down.” Ingrid and Thomas slid low in their seats.

  “When are you going to rescue Jamilla?” Thomas asked.

  “I’m working on it.”

  “Why not just go and get her? Shoot those men. Mr Gutman too. Shoot them all.”

  “That would be one way. But the guards know their business. If they shot me before I got close, that wouldn’t help Jamilla. Or me.”

  “What then?”

  “We wait for the handover to take place. Let Gutman leave, and then we’ll hit whoever’s left behind. Jamilla’s new ‘friend’. I doubt he’ll be so watchful. His mind will be on other things.”

  “Okay,” Ingrid said. “So we wait and watch? You think they’ll be coming here to the hotel?”

  “That’s what Thomas said. Right?”

  “I think so,” Thomas answered. “She didn’t say the hotel exactly. Just Eibsee. Here, the lake. I guess.”

  “Then we wait and watch.”

  And as they watched, Hafner sauntered in their direction. He was on his own and scanning the surrounding car parks.

  “He’s looking for Lipman,” Ingrid said.

  He set eyes on the red car and went across to it. He tried the door handles. Locked. Looked around some more. Then called Lipman by name. Harry could see his frustration. Some swearing. Then he returned to the hotel.

  A short while later the whole party emerged from the hotel. Jamilla was still with them and Gutman was speaking into his mobile. They walked past their Mercedes and across the car park heading straight for Harry’s Mustang.

  “Fucking hell.” Harry pulled out his gun. “Stay down.”

  Ingrid watched them getting closer. “What do we do? Shouldn’t we get out of here while we still can?”

  “We stay put. They can’t know we’re here. Something else has happened,” he said. His mind was churning through the possibilities. “There’s been a change of plan. A change of rendezvous perhaps. They haven’t taken the car so they can’t be going far.” He tried to see if there was another parked car with people in it. Nothing. All empty. “Where the fuck are they going?”

  He found out a moment later. They walked right past the Mustang and headed for the Seilbahn cable car station.

  “They’re going up the Zugspitze. Jamilla’s new pal’s waiting at the top of the bloody mountain.”

  They let Gutman, Hafner, Jamilla and the two guards enter the cable car station, then got out of the Mustang and followed them. Harry led them in a wide arc. The last thing he needed was to be spotted in the middle of an open car park with no cover in reach.

  As they mounted the steps his hand went into his pocket and found his gun. There was a surge of noise from the bowels of the station, a rattling of the hauling cables, and a large rectangular car rocked its way out of the open front and started on its ascent. Harry darted through to the interior in time to see Gutman and the others inside, all of them looking towards their destination up in the mist.


  “I’ll get in the next car,” Harry said. “You take Thomas back to the Mustang and wait for me there.”

  “No, I’m coming!” Thomas said. “Jamilla knows me. She trusts me. She won’t come with you. How will she know you’re not just another bad man?”

  “Ingrid, talk some sense into him. Please. Take Tom and go.”

  She was reading the timetable on the wall beside them. “The next car doesn’t go for half an hour. At twelve forty-five. And we’re both coming with you.”

  Harry stared at her. “We’ve only just got Thomas back and you want to put him in danger again?”

  “He is in danger if he and I stay here by ourselves. Lipman found us. You saved us. We’re staying with you.”

  “You’re mad. You’re staying—”

  “Harry, shut up. We’re all going. I’m going to watch your back. I don’t want to lose you. And I’m not leaving Thomas here on his own. So we all go.”

  “Yes,” Thomas added for good measure.

  Harry knew it was pointless arguing but some swearing seemed reasonable so he got on with that.

  A sign board told them that the ride to the top took ten minutes. The half hour wait for the next car was excruciating. There was a map of the mountain beside the timetable. Ingrid studied it. “There’s a cog railway that goes to Garmisch-Partenkirchen from the summit. Do you think Gutman’s client used that?”

  “That’s the more usual route to the top,” Harry said. “We haven’t seen any likely candidates go up in the cable car since we’ve been here. So yes. With luck they’ll sit around and have lunch up there, enjoying the view until we arrive.”

  A nice lunch in the fine restaurant at the summit might fit Gutman’s warped scheme. An opportunity for introductions then the two parties would go their separate ways. And the moment Gutman and his thugs were clear Harry would move in, rescue the girl and hope to god she had the information he needed.

  He bought tickets for the cable car and they waited. The cloud overhead shrouded the mountaintop and hid it from them. At last twelve forty-five came and they were ushered aboard the car. There was one other group – a family of half a dozen Scandinavians with cameras and cagoules. The door closed, the station’s motor surged, and the car shook its way out of the building and into clear space.

  Ingrid held tight to Thomas. He stood at the front of the car, looking up at the sheer rocky mountainside. The ascent was almost vertical. The hauling cables swung and lurched as the car was dragged upwards. The Scandinavians chattered excitedly and posed in a variety of combinations for numerous photographs taken from every angle and with every possible backdrop.

  Five minutes passed and they entered cloud. They clattered over the first of the two pylons and the car swung violently. Thomas clutched the handrail by the windowsill.

  Then, out of the thick mist the car’s twin appeared, heading in the opposite direction down the mountain. It drew closer and clattered past. There had been no warning. One moment they were completely alone in the mist. The next, the twin cable car was passing beside them, heading back for the station at Eibsee.

  Standing in the car was Gutman, Hafner and the two guards. All of them were at the front looking down in the direction of travel. Harry just had time to snatch hold of Ingrid and pull her down. They ducked behind the Scandinavians, spoiling one of their photos.

  Thomas remained holding on to the side. Staring out of the window, right at the twin car. At that moment Gutman turned towards the rattling noise of the other car and stared straight at Thomas. The next second Harry could see him barking at his companions. All eyes were on them. Gutman was reaching for his mobile. Punching numbers into it. And then they had gone, their car swallowed by the mist.

  “Jamilla wasn’t there,” Thomas said. “She must be at the top still. We can rescue her now!”

  “Yes but Gutman’s calling them,” Harry said. “We’ve got another four minutes to the top. Let’s hope to God he can’t get a signal. Or they don’t pick up. Or something.”

  “What do you think Gutman will do?” Ingrid said.

  “Don’t know. He can’t come back up for another half an hour until the next cable car runs. He could wait for us down below. So I guess we’re going to have to take another route down like the cog railway. Or he might just leave. He doesn’t know why we want Jamilla. Presumably she hasn’t told him about a second set of records. So why wait around, apart from to kill us?”

  “Which for him is reason enough,” Ingrid said.

  “True. So we’ll take another route down.”

  “And steal another car?” Thomas asked.

  “Afraid so.”

  “Will you show me how to hot-wire it?”

  “You bet.”

  A moment later the mountain-top station loomed above them, a vast building of concrete and glass that seemed to grow out of the sheer grey rock-face as if a natural part of it.

  Harry pulled Ingrid and Thomas behind the tourists. “If Gutman got through they might have a reception committee waiting for us.” It would only take one man with a gun to shoot all three of them. Right now they were fish in a barrel.

  The car rocked to a halt, steadied. The door slid open. A blast of icy air struck them. Only then did Harry realise that none of them were dressed for the occasion. The Scandinavians with their cagoules and woolly hats looked at them with disapproval. Thomas glared back, his thin T-shirt and jeans appallingly inadequate in the conditions at almost ten thousand feet.

  Harry took off his jacket and draped it round the boy’s shoulders, first putting his Smith & Wesson deep in his trouser pocket. Ingrid hugged her son to her. They stepped out of the car and onto the mountain-top. Outside the station they looked upon an alien world of rock and ice and cloud. They might have alighted at a space station on the Moon. Harry guessed that on a clear day the view would be spectacular. Today they might as well have been at ground level in thick fog.

  “Right. Let’s find Jamilla.”

  “Restaurant?” Ingrid suggested.

  “Good place to start.”

  They found it soon enough. There wasn’t a lot to explore. A souvenir shop. Toilets. Coffee bar. And the restaurant. They stood in the entrance and did a quick scan of the few people in it.

  “Thomas?”

  Thomas shook his head. “She’s not here.”

  “Okay. Let’s try the viewing terrace.”

  They went outside and were again struck by the icy wind. “We can’t stay out here long,” Ingrid said. She was shivering violently.

  “We don’t need to,” Harry said. Apart from the Scandinavians who had travelled up with them in the cable car, there was no one else out there. No view. Just thick, swirling cloud. They went back inside and started through the building, searching as they went.

  “Where is she? And who did Gutman hand her to?”

  “There!”

  Thomas was pointing through a window. A gravel path led away from the building complex, heading towards the cog railway station further down the mountain. A girl was walking at the side of a large man. He was holding her hand. Behind them, two men followed at a distance of about ten metres.

  “Whoever the bastard is, he’s got bodyguards too.”

  “We have to save her!” Thomas said.

  “Don’t worry. We’re going to.” Harry saw an exit door and went for it, Ingrid and Thomas close behind. Again the blast of wind struck them. They set off down the path. The small group ahead of them had a good two hundred metres start. There was no one else about, though Harry guessed that there might be people around the cog railway station. A fight anywhere near there wouldn’t be smart.

  He thought about boarding the train, descending to Garmisch-Partenkirchen and taking them on there. But Gutman and his men had probably guessed the plan and might be there to meet them, more than doubling the numbers Harry would have to take on.

  “We do it now,” he said, quickening the pace to close the gap. “Then we’ll walk off the mountain.”
>
  “What? How?” Ingrid stared at him.

  “With this.” Harry held up a small folded tourist map. “I snatched it off the information counter. There are footpaths off the mountain. We’ll walk off the Zugspitze.”

  “But we don’t have any equipment.”

  “We can do without it. It’s cold but dry. Every minute of descent will take us lower and the temperature will rise. If we keep up a good pace, the exercise will keep us warm enough. More importantly, there are paths criss-crossing the whole mountainside. Gutman won’t have any idea which way we’ll come down. With the couple of guys he’s got with him he can’t cover them all. It’s our best chance.”

  “What if he calls in reinforcements?”

  “He won’t have time. And in any case, he’d need his whole fucking army. And we’d still slip through them. Trust me. I can do it. If you know how to use ground, it’s the hardest thing on earth to find someone who doesn’t want to be found.”

  They were closing on Jamilla and her companions. From his angle of approach, Harry could only see her back. Her shoulders were hunched. She was dressed in a bulky shapeless coat and a woolly hat. The man holding her hand was looking down at her as he walked. Talking all the time. Behind them, the two bodyguards sauntered side by side chatting. One would say something and the other would reply. Then silence until the next gem of wisdom was transmitted.

  Time for some fist work.

  Harry closed the distance. He settled on the left-hand bodyguard for his first assault. The larger of the two men.

  He came towards his back. Chose the point to strike. His foot slipped and he went over on his ankle.

  The man turned.

  It was Skoda Man of the BKA. The Bundeskriminalamt.

  Forty Six

  No time to change plan. Harry went for it.

  “Harry Brown?” Skoda Man just had time to get it out before Harry’s fist crashed into his jaw. Next to him, Sidekick spun to face the threat. His hands were fumbling at his waist for the Heckler Koch P7 clipped in its holster. Harry kicked him in the gut. Then a fist to the side of his head as he doubled over. Neither of them would be getting up in a hurry.