Garrett & Petrus- The Complete Series

by C Marten-Zerf

  The group of Watchmen shook their heads.

  ‘Right then. Abraham,’ Daisy said to one of the Israelis. ‘You’ve got a pair of thermo goggles, put them on and check out that area that the old man showed us.’

  Abraham had the bulky goggles hanging around his neck. It took him a couple of minutes to switch them on, don them and adjust the focus. He scanned the area and then gasped. A quick intake of air.

  ‘What?’Asked Daisy.

  ‘There’s a whole bunch of them,’ answered Abraham. ‘Ten, fifteen. Maybe more. Lying prone. They’re hiding, but the goggles are picking them up fine.’

  ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ said Daisy.

  ‘Maybe it’s someone else,’ ventured Abraham.

  ‘No ways,’ denied Daisy. ‘The old man said that they’re there. It must be them. They must have gotten reinforcements. Here, give me those goggles.’

  Abraham handed them over and Daisy put them on, adjusting the focus to suit as he did so. He stared at the heat signatures for ages. They were faint but they were definitely there. He counted eighteen bodies, all prone, scattered seemingly arbitrarily around an area of maybe one acre or five thousand square yards.

  The area was mostly covered in trees, mature woodland. On the periphery he suddenly saw movement and he concentrated on it. Another large group of heat signatures. Forty plus. Moving together into the designated area.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’ He whispered to himself. Then it came to him. Deer. A herd of deer. What about the other heat signatures? He wondered, did deer ever lie down? Could the prone figures be sleeping deer?

  ‘Hey, guys,’ he stage whispered. ‘Who knows anything about deer?’

  A man came forward; Daisy knew him but couldn’t remember his name. Another South African, although an English speaker, not Afrikaans. Daniel, that was it.

  ‘Ja, Daniel, tell me. Do deer sleep lying down?’

  Daniel nodded. ‘Ja, they sleep and they lie down. But they mainly sleep in the day, not at night. Well, they do in South Africa. Not that sure about here.’

  ‘Take a look,’ Daisy passed the goggles to Daniel.

  After a few moments he gave them back. ‘Could be deer. There could be two herds. One feeding, the other sleeping. There aren’t any natural predators around here so their behavior will differ to the wild.’

  ‘So, they could all be deer?’

  ‘Ja.’

  ‘Or people lying in wait?’

  ‘Ja,’ agreed Daniel. ‘Except, the ones lying down, they’re spread all over the place. If they were lying in ambush surely there would be some sort of pattern. You know, a V formation or something.’

  ‘Unless it’s a series of smaller ambushes,’ mused Daisy. ‘There’s only one way to sort this out,’ he continued. ‘Form a line, twenty paces apart. We go soft and slow. When we get closer, go to ground, crawl forward. Let’s get some face time with these thermal images. If it’s a person and they’re armed, take them out. Do it quick and keep going. Right, guys, time to earn our ridiculously high salaries.’

  The Watchmen moved out.

  They blended into the night, quiet and unobtrusive. Moving slowly, they all scanned the ground in front of them, checking for twigs or piles of leaves that may give away their position by creating noise. They had all done this many times before, and they were all still alive. That fact in itself meant that they were all at the very pinnacle of their profession.

  The best of the best.

  And they outnumbered Garrett and Petrus almost five to one.

  Chapter 27

  Daisy moved slowly and smoothly. Each step gliding over the grass, only inches high and then placing each foot down softly and carefully, ensuring that no twigs or leaves lay underfoot. Or something less innocuous, like a pungi stick - a sharpened stick placed in a small deep hole, or a booby trap or even a landmine.

  His mind filled with the countless times that he had done this before, creeping through the bush in the dead of night. All senses on high alert. The sound of your own heartbeat thudding in your ears like Death’s final countdown. Fear nibbling rat-like at your courage. Eating away at your being, slowly eroding your will to live.

  Eroding your bravery.

  They approached the treed area where Abraham had seen all of the prone figures and Daisy went to ground signaling for the others to do so as well. They crawled forward on hands and knees, still moving slowly. Their progress became glacial. Daisy cast his gaze about frantically, searching for one of the figures. But he saw nothing.

  ‘This is impossible,’ he said to himself. ‘They were right here.’

  He edged forward again and then stopped. Something felt wrong. Odd. He paused and let the night flow over him as he opened his senses.

  And then it hit him…warmth. Close by. A human body? He stared at the area around him but still couldn’t see anything. A superstitious thrill rippled through him. Now that he concentrated he could definitely feel a living warmth right next to him.

  He drew his blade from his belt, a Leatherneck SF, six and a half inches of cold steel death. Then he waved it over the heat. Nothing there. He plunged the blade into the turf. Nothing. But he could still feel the heat. Plucking up his courage he crawled directly over it. Then he saw it. A row of silver packets. He grabbed one. Hot.

  Hand warmers.

  ‘Shit,’ he said to himself. ‘It’s a trap.’

  At that same moment, about thirty yards away to Daisy’s right, Abraham was coming to a similar conclusion. As he crawled forward, his thermo-vision goggles showed heat spots that could only be a person lying prone. But as he got closer he lifted his goggles and peered around. There was nothing. He lowered the device and the image appeared again. He forced down the panic that was starting to rise within him.

  There must be some sort of logical explanation.

  So, with his heart hammering in his chest, he kept the goggles on and crawled forward.

  He didn’t notice the fishing line that he placed his hand onto as he crawled onwards. The taut line triggered the trap that Garrett had set earlier and the four foot length of sapling whipped out and around, converting potential energy to kinetic energy.

  By the time the six inch steel nail struck Abraham, it was traveling at a speed of roughly two hundred and twenty feet per second. This imparted an energy of around one hundred feet pounds. In other words it was traveling with enough energy to fell a small bear. The point of the nail pierced the right hand lens of the thermo-goggles , shattered the glass and continued onwards, puncturing the eyeball, shattering the sphenoid bone and burying itself another four inches into the brain.

  The pain was beyond anything that Abraham had ever come close to experiencing.

  A high pitched scream tore itself from his throat as he scrabbled ineffectually at his face. But the nail was lodged firmly in him and the pressure of the sapling ensured that he couldn’t pull it out.

  And then the shadows around him coalesced into a human shape.

  Daisy heard the blood curdling scream. Then it was cut off, fading to a strangled gurgle. The unmistakable sound of someone drowning in their own blood.

  The next scream was further away. On the left at the very end of the line. This one ended more abruptly with the sound of steel striking flesh.

  Then the sound of a Skorpion on full auto. A frantic rattle of sound. Four seconds. The sound of someone burning off an entire mag at once. Like a child using a rattle to scare away the monsters.

  The men on each side of Daisy ran over, seeking support. An Israeli by the name of Maxim and an American ex Ranger named Stewart.

  ‘What the fuck is going on?’ Asked Maxim.

  ‘Stay cool,’ commanded Daisy. ‘There’s only two of them. Look,’ he held up a hand warmer. ‘Heat packs. They used them to baffle our optics. Eyes skinned, boys. They’re out there and they’ll be moving. Get down.’

  The three men lay prone, scanning the surrounds.

  On the left another burst of automat
ic fire tore through the night followed by another gargled scream.

  ‘You two,’ said Daisy. ‘Go left. I’ll keep going forward and then flank left, maybe we can trap these buggers between us.’

  Daisy moved forward, keeping a look out for booby traps as he did so.

  Stewart and Maxim leopard crawled off to the left, keeping low and propelling themselves with their knees and elbows, weapons cradled in their arms and ready to fire.

  Stewart took point with Maxim about five yards behind him. Neither man had the thermo imaging goggles, trusting to their natural senses instead.

  As they moved forward Stewart thought that he heard a sound to his rear. A muted scuffle. He turned around to confer with Maxim.

  But the Israeli was no longer there.

  Stewart frantically scanned around for him, crawling back along their tracks. It was no good, his fellow mercenary had simply disappeared.

  He heard another vague sound to his right and he snapped off a quick burst of fire in the general direction.

  Another sound behind him. Fire, fire. Change magazines. Wait.

  The whisper of steel. A blinding flash of red light exploded behind his eyes.

  Blood. Pain.

  Death.

  Garrett checked Stewart’s pulse.

  Still.

  He slid off into the night. A silent hunter. Death on gossamer steps.

  A few hundred yards away another man died as he crawled through the long grass. A sliver of moonlight on sharpened iron. A muscled arm lunging forward out of the shadow. The shredded whisper of steel rending flesh. The gentle sigh of a soul escaping its earthly bonds.

  Daisy could hear the sounds of his men dying all around him but there was nothing that he could do to stop it. The Beast and his companion were running free and it was far beyond a normal man’s capacity to put a stop to them.

  So he lay low and waited, sweat trickling down his ice-cold face like a liquid distillation of his innermost fears.

  And then he was there. Standing in front of him, his head cocked to one side. An old Sten gun grasped loosely in his right hand. A blooded machete tucked into his belt.

  Van Staden stood up. Slowly.

  Another man appeared next to Garrett. A black man. He held an assegai in his right hand. His face was blank. Devoid of expression.

  Then the black man spoke.

  ‘It is done,’ he said. ‘They are no more. There is only this one.’

  Garrett continued to stare. Eventually he said. ‘Daisy?’ A genuine question. Not a statement.

  Daisy nodded. ‘Yes, boss. It’s me.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Hunting you, boss.’

  Garrett smiled. Daisy was always the one to take every question as completely literal. ‘Fair enough. What now?’

  Daisy shrugged.

  ‘Tell you what, Daisy,’ said Garrett. ‘Drop the weapon. Turn around and leave. There’s no need to die.’

  ‘I don’t mind dying,’ said Daisy, his face a mask of acceptance. ‘It’s the living that has become too hard to take.’

  Tears started to run unbidden down the huge Afrikaner’s face. The moonlight picked them up and turned them into blue sparkling tracks of liquid beauty.

  Garrett shook his head. ‘No, Daisy. Don’t.’

  Daisy shook his head, his eyes filled with emotion. A bitter sadness of a life that could have been. Of an existence lost to war and destruction. Friendless, without family. No future beyond the next kill. The next slaying.

  And he moved. He was fast.

  The only reason that he had stayed alive so long was the fact that he was preternaturally quick. The Russian Val whipped up and Daisy’s finger tightened on the trigger.

  But before he could squeeze off a shot the Sten barked. Three 9mm rounds struck the big man high up on his chest, punching him backwards and throwing him to the ground.

  Garrett ran up and knelt next to him.

  ‘Oh no, Daisy,’ he whispered. ‘Why?’

  ‘I didn’t know what else to do,’ coughed the big man.

  ‘You could have walked away.’

  He shook his head and smiled. ‘No I couldn’t. You know that better than anyone.’

  Garrett smiled back. Nodded his understanding.

  ‘Are you in pain?’

  ‘No. I’m dying though.’

  Garrett nodded. ‘Yes, you are.’

  ‘Boss, why did you leave us? Back in Sierra Leone. Why did you go? Our world went to shit after you left. The army fell apart and we had to high tail it to the border. Lost half of the guys fighting our way out.’

  ‘I know,’ said Garrett. ‘I’m sorry. I had to go. I could no longer handle what I had become.’

  ‘Popobawa,’ whispered Daisy. ‘The Beast.’

  Garrett nodded.

  ‘You shouldn’t have left us, boss.’

  Garrett stroked Daisy’s forehead. He said nothing. There was nothing to say. He had abandoned them. He knew that.

  ‘Boss,’ said Daisy, his voice a mere movement of air. Almost a sigh.

  ‘Yes, I’m here.’

  ‘I work for a company called The Custodian Group. International hit squad. The CEO is a guy called Nigel Taylor. Canada Square, Canary Wharf. I don’t know why there’s a hit out on you. I have no idea what this is all about. Mister Taylor will tell you.’

  ‘Thank you, my friend,’ said Garrett. ‘Petrus and I will pay him a visit.’

  ‘Another thing, Boss.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A man who releases the beast in himself often does it so that he can get rid of the pain of being a man,’ whispered Daisy. ‘Be careful, my friend. Being a man is pain. To be human is pain. The pain means that we are alive.’

  He squeezed Garrett’s hand and smiled.

  ‘Pretty philosophical for an old soldier, hey boss?’ laughed the big man, weakly.

  Garrett knelt next to Daisy for another five minutes.

  Eventually Petrus spoke. ‘He is dead.’

  ‘I know,’ breathed Garrett. ‘I know.’ He stood up and shouldered his Sten gun. ‘We’re going to have to do something about all of these bodies. As soon as they’re found all hell will break loose. The cops will mobilize everyone, including the boy scouts and the girl guides.’

  ‘So what do we do?’ Asked Petrus.

  ‘Come on, first we pick them up and put them there,’ Garrett pointed to a natural depression in the ground. Then I have a plan.’

  It took the two men just under half an hour to lay all of the dead mercenaries into the depression. After that, Garrett used his machete to cut down some tree branches that he laid over the bodies. Then he cut some lengths of rope and bent a few saplings over, tying them to form a natural looking copse.

  Petrus was impressed. From a few yards away the bodies were completely hidden. And the depression was well off the usual tracks so he doubted that any casual passerby would see the mass grave.

  Then Garrett took a small can out of his pocket. It was the blue aerosol can of Doggy-go-Away dog deterrent that he had purchased earlier. He sprayed the whole area around the bodies with a liberal dose of the chemical, keeping his finger on the nozzle until the can ran empty.

  ‘There,’ he said. ‘That will stop any dogs paying attention. Should hopefully give us a few days, with any luck. Now, go and fetch Lindsey,’ he continued. ‘I’m going to cut the unused traps that I set. Can’t have members of the public skewering themselves.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Petrus. ‘We’ll see you at the gate.’

  Garrett walked off into the night and Petrus jogged to the foot of Lindsey’s tree hide.

  ‘Hey, Princess,’ he called. ‘It’s done. Come on down.’

  There was a noise and the young girl came shinning down the tree, landing lightly at Petrus’ side.

  ‘Are you alright?’ She asked with concern.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘And Garrett?’

  ‘He’s fine. No wounds. Let’s go, he’s meetin
g us at the gate.’

  The two of them walked back towards the entrance. Lindsey walked in silence, almost like an automaton, seemingly oblivious of her surroundings. And then suddenly she started to shake violently, so much so that her teeth were starting to chatter together.

  Petrus put his arm around her. ‘Are you alright, Princess?’

  She nodded. ‘Cold. That’s all.’

  The Zulu knew that she was starting to react to shock and he cursed himself for not being more gentle with her. Her wit and upbeat demeanor meant that he was guilty of treating her more like an adult than a little girl.

  He knelt next to her and put his arms around her, holding her tight until the shivers died down.

  ‘Thanks,’ she whispered. ‘Better now.’

  Petrus stood up and they continued on their way.

  When they were close to the gate Petrus motioned for Lindsey to stop.

  ‘I’m just going to have a quick chat to someone,’ he said. ‘You wait here. Don’t be nervous, you’re safe. There’s no one left to cause a problem. Trust me.’ He grinned.

  Lindsey stood still and Petrus went over to the old tramp’s hideaway.

  ‘Hey, old man,’ he called.

  No one answered.

  ‘Hey,’ repeated Petrus. ‘Just wanted to tell you that it’s over. If you want to move around you can.’

  The Zulu pushed his way into the bush. He could see the old man lying on the ground. Still.

  Petrus nudged him, pushing his shoulder with his right hand.

  The old man stayed still.

  Petrus moved forward and knelt over him, rolling him onto his back as he did so.

  In the very center of the old man’s forehead was a ragged hole. A stray round from the fire fight had hit him right between the eyes. Killing him instantly.

  Petrus took in a deep breath, holding it for a while as he tried to control the rage that washed over him like a tsunami.

  He had told the old man not to move. He had told him that he would be safe.

  He had lied.

  The Zulu stood up.

  Someone was going to pay for this.

  He went back to Lindsey and walked her to the entrance.