At the next junction I was hard on the brakes, flicking off the lights, using every inch of road as I turned left down a side street then immediately right, losing some paint on a stone column as I turned into one of the arched pedestrian shopping arcades. I kept going straight, parallel to the street I’d been travelling on. The BMW howled onwards, they’d missed me turning.
I could see its lights flashing between archways in the side mirror, then it shot past on my right. It was a Euro-spec motor, steering wheel on the left, so the driver and I got a decent look at each other between blinking archways as they overtook me. Her hair flapped in the glassless door, jaw locked in determination. The expression turned to surprise as her brain finally caught up with her eyes, she tapped her brakes just as we hit the next junction, but it was too late. I shot out of the arcade half a second later, swinging back into the main road directly behind them.
Places switched, hunter hunted. I flicked my headlights back on as she accelerated, deep exhaust reverberating in the narrow street.
A flash from one of the rear windows, but the gunshots were drowned out by the enraged engines. The bullets went wide, ricocheting off columns and walls, punching through shop windows. I shifted into third and buried the accelerator, surging after the BMW. She was a good driver and had brute force on her side, but my little estate had a lot more going for it. I shunted the bumper, bouncing her tyre against the kerb. I ground the pedal again, switched my lights to full beam, forcing her onwards, forcing her to accelerate.
She was going far too fast to turn, and I knew a ninety-degree corner was inbound. I waited as long as I dared then stood on the brakes and let her find out the hard way.
Her brake lights flared, the briefest squeal of tyres on slick cobbles. A heartbeat later there was a crunch as the whole car lifted in front of me. She’d caught the rear side on a wall; she might have been a good driver but you can’t fuck with physics. I flicked right, tyres protesting, Quattro four-wheel drive sorting out the corner for me and pouncing through the gap between the BMW’s bonnet and a patisserie.
Another gunshot from behind, a flash in the rear-view mirror, their crash hadn’t been the fatal blow I’d hoped for. The headlights lurched as they reversed then came after me again, damn she was good. At the end of the lane I turned towards the glowing lights of the old port, under the huge clock tower at the head of the marina, dripping with glimmering plastic icicles. The headlights in my mirror blazed again as the BMW limped to catch up. I turned away from the clock tower and accelerated hard down the harbour road. The lights strung between the trees reflected off shiny yachts on my left, in front the huge defensive tower at the mouth of the old harbour was growing rapidly. Next to it the gateway through the thick city walls looked far too narrow for a car. I glanced in the mirror: the BMW still hadn’t made the turn at the head of the marina, by the clock tower behind me.
I yanked the wheel right, up a curb, brushing another Christmas tree, through the lowered bollards into a pedestrianised zone. Threading the car down a tight side street stacked with cafes I turned again, completing a loop, pointing back at the twinkling lights of the marina. Hard on the brakes, off with the headlights, I slid to a stop and wound down all the windows.
Sirens echoed around the old town, impossible to judge distance as they chased through the medieval streets. The boats in front lit up, now the BMW was tearing fearlessly down the harbour road, following the route I’d taken seconds before.
I floored the accelerator, my car leapt from the side alley as the Beemer flashed past, metres from my bumper. I caught up almost instantly, shunting their back end, smashing their rear lights, but the bigger car refused to be bullied. I pulled right and floored it again, going for the overtake. Engines screaming, we raced for the tower and that tiny gateway in the city walls that I knew was just wide enough for one car. She shunted me, my front wheels found grip and fought back. She pulled over to try to block me out, edging me further right, forcing me onwards, towards that thick wall and a very messy death.
One of the passengers leaned out of a rear window with a submachine gun. No seatbelt on and we were doing near eighty, which, if you ask me, is just asking for trouble on wet cobbles.
Keeping the wheel straight with one hand, I grabbed the pistol with my left and leaned over the passenger seat, squeezing the trigger three times, braking hard.
The BMW’s rear right tyre disintegrated, flapping at the cobbles. The left maintained a decent grip, dragging the car round. The driver corrected, the car slewed the other way, heading straight for the cast iron bollards along the harbour wall. The heavy car oversteered again, the back end finally broke all pretence of traction, and began to slide. The driver did her best but as she turned into the skid the rear wheel tapped a bollard, and at that speed it’s all that was required.
The car flipped onto its back in mid-air above the harbour, sailing upside down towards the sea but not managing to make it that far as it slammed into the superstructure of the last yacht in the row. Glass smashed, metal crunched, fibreglass splintered, the yacht tilted, grinding against the marina wall. I accelerated as the BMW slipped away in my rear-view mirror, dropping into the black.
Further behind, blue lights pulsed across the clock tower, sirens closing in. Keeping the speed up and the headlights off I screamed through the gateway in the town walls, into the car park overlooking the beach. Surprisingly, even at this time of year there were a few cars lined up in the bays. Further to the right the fairy-tale Tower of the Lantern was glowing blue as more police descended on the harbour.
I tucked into a spot between a Citroën and a Range Rover and turned the key, sliding down, still gripping my pistol. With my other hand I grabbed my phone from the door pocket, swiping to the fitness app. It showed a heightened heartbeat, a zigzag line panicking across the screen.
A distinctive French siren wailed past. They’d seal off the area soon. I dropped the phone and gun on the passenger seat, waited five seconds, turned the engine back on, reversing out of the space. Behind me flashing lights spilled through the city walls, the harbour aglow with the entire Commissariat de Police. I took the northern exit from the car park, keeping to the speed limit along the road that cut through the Parc Alcide d’Orbigny, heading west, hugging the coast all the way out to the industrial warehouses and boatyards of La Pallice.
At least the thudding from the boot had stopped.
Chapter Two
I’d left the Vieux Port de La Rochelle a couple of kilometres behind me, its marina, sirens, and blue flashing lights now hidden by the warehouses and repair yards of La Pallice. France’s only Atlantic deepwater port is well used to noise throughout the night, difference here is the flashing lights strobing the buildings are orange, the sirens those of reversing trucks, the shouting from dock workers. Crashing containers loading and unloading, big diesels revving, trucks and container ships, arguments echoing around back alleys at all hours.
I turned away from the noisy waterfront, crawling alongside an enormous corrugated-metal warehouse for what seemed like miles, hands shaking on the steering wheel, an adrenaline comedown. When I finally reached the far end, I found a barrier straddling an entrance to an industrial estate. I pulled up to it slowly, watching a shadow detach itself from those of the warehouse. It pulled up a collar and swung open the gate. I rolled through and stopped, watching in my rear-view mirror as the man closed the gate behind me and secured it. I grabbed my pistol from the passenger seat, angling up to push it into the front of my jeans. My eyes were fixed on the mirror, on the man jogging to the car. I pulled my hoody down over the gun, pressed the central locking button, he pulled open the door and climbed into the passenger seat.
The glow from the interior light briefly lit up a windburnt face like an eroded headland, dark eyes and a darker expression. Long hair fell from beneath a flat cap, merging with a beard sprouting out from the upturned collar of a peacoat. The light dimmed, I shuffled in my seat again and pulled away, driving past der
elict industrial buildings.
‘Mornin’ Blofeld, yer car break down or somethin’?’ He pronounced it ‘kaahh’, thirty-odd years since he’d left Cape Cod and Miller’s accent hadn’t softened a cent.
I looked at the clock. I was three minutes late. ‘Had to make sure I wasn’t followed.’
‘Lights off,’ he grunted, gesturing to the right.
I switched them off and turned, following his waving hand as the buildings thinned, revealing a wide, open space. No street lighting here, the Moon the only navigation aid. It glowed off a monumental slab of windowless black concrete at the end of the loading area, a huge, evil-looking fortress of brutalism.
‘Head for the far corner,’ he pointed.
I followed his finger. He leaned over and flashed my headlights twice, in the shadows beneath the building a torch winked in response.
I kept the revs low, crawling across the tarmac. As we drew closer to the ominous structure I could make out an opening at the base, the only break in the featureless monolith. Steel doors had been pulled aside for us, I pressed on through, driving straight into the old Nazi submarine pens.
The concrete wall was thicker than the length of my car and led down into a low tunnel. The doors were already closing behind, dim moonlight snuffed out. Down the short ramp, Miller gestured left along a wide passageway.
‘Darker than a tomb in here, put your lights on. Sidelights only, mind. Don’t want my crew blinded.’
I switched them back on, the dim beams illuminated green and black algae-crusted walls. Empty light fittings were rusted in place along the low ceiling, their trailing wires brushing the roof as we crept deeper into the darkness.
‘There’s no other boats?’
He shook his head. ‘Place is off limits. Storage for the French Navy officially, but it’s a deathtrap.’
‘Reassuring.’ Chunks of concrete were missing from the walls here and there, revealing corroded steel reinforcement bars, snapped and bent out like winter branches where trucks and forklifts had been careless in days gone by. Brown stains ran from the wounds, mixing with God-knows-what on the dank floor. Seaweed and decay hung in what was likely the original 1940s air, I could almost hear the klaxons, the angry shouting, smell the diesel and sweat, fear and fury. A broken, rotting, disused temple to Nazism was a fitting place to end this job.
The rumbling exhaust bounced between the walls in the enclosed space, rising and falling as we passed openings through to the deepwater sub pens themselves.
‘You think you coulda picked a louder car?’ He pointed over to the right. ‘This one.’
I pulled through the opening into a soaring cathedral of concrete, edging along a narrow jetty with nothing but deep black sea on my right. A health and safety nightmare, there was barely enough room to drive on the greasy platform. As I crept along, my dim bulbs picked out rusting gantries hanging from the walls and discarded equipment dangling overhead, swinging into darkness.
A huge shadow loomed in front; the stern of a ship rising above the jetty, blocking the view out to the open sea. Sickly yellow work lamps lit the low deck and squat superstructure at the stern, oily davits holding a couple of dilapidated lifeboats that I prayed we wouldn’t have to use. The light from the deck spots spilled across the grimy concrete quay, ending on a stack of rotting pallets blocking the way.
I stopped alongside the brown-stained steel plates of the hull, straining my eyes down the length of the small cargo ship. It was a relic itself, a perfect match for these sub pens. I killed the engine, what light there was on the dock died, just the anaemic work lamps and a few jerking torch beams as crew members moved around up on the stern. A shape stepped out from behind the crates in front, striding towards the car. Even in the flickering lights it was impossible to mistake the silhouette of his Kalashnikov rifle.
Chapter Three
With a beam of ten metres and just sixty metres length, the forward two thirds of it flat-decked with nothing but a couple of cranes jutting above the railings, the Tiburon was an ungainly workhorse. Captain Miller had described her as the Millennium Falcon of the Med which, now I saw her, I presumed to mean she was a pile of shit and often broke down. Miller had been adamant it was a compliment, something to do with her under-the-radar transport capabilities and impressive turn of speed when the mood took her.
Until proven otherwise I was sticking with my original presumption, though tentatively hoped the dilapidation was a façade. It was almost impossible to tell what colour she was supposed to be, not only because of the dim lights in the black sub pens, but also thanks to layers of multi-coloured paint in various stages of peeling from the hull and squat superstructure.
Patches around the hawseholes were scuffed down to the original colour of fehgrau, or squirrel grey, betraying the ship’s true origins: the colour of the Volksmarine – the old East German Navy. Miller had told me she was an ex-light transport from the good old days of the Cold War, launched from the slipways of Rostock in the age of Ziggy Stardust.
A limp flag trailed threads down the stern, squares and stars of red, white and blue. Scabby white lettering across the rusty transom confirmed the Tiburon was registered in Panama, but I doubted she’d ever seen the place. To be honest, I wasn’t convinced she’d make it halfway.
‘Okay Blofeld, your henchmen are already aboard.’ Captain Miller was reaching for the door handle. ‘We cast off immediately.’
I climbed out, adjusting the pistol in my waistband, relieved to be able to stretch my legs. Wary of the menacing silhouette with the Kalashnikov I reached up, ran my fingers over the hull of Miller’s ship, then looked at them, rubbing my fingers together. It was real rust all right. She certainly matched her captain, neither had aged particularly gracefully. Creaking and shifting in the light swell washing in from the harbour, she looked like she could tear a weld any minute.
‘Don’t you worry about her, she’ll deliver,’ said Miller, reading my mind. He gestured to the crew member, who stepped forward, brandishing his rifle, staring at me. ‘It’s cash up front.’
‘That wasn’t our agreement.’
‘It’s not that I don’t trust you,’ he said, throwing a thumb over his shoulder at his mate. ‘It’s my crew doesn’t trust you.’ The shadow behind him pointed the AK vaguely in my direction.
‘Half now, as agreed.’ I could feel my pistol beneath my T-shirt. ‘Bank transfer when we dock.’
‘I’ve known you too long, Blofeld. Trouble follows you around. What if you don’t make it that far? What if you slip on the stairs or fall overboard? Anything can happen at sea, then what’s in it for these hardworking sailors?’
‘It’s a dangerous business.’ I patted the hull of the ship and wiped my hand on my jeans. ‘I’ll rest well knowing you’re working so hard to keep me safe.’
I opened the rear door, moved my rifle out of the way. The AK twitched, I reached in and pulled out a backpack. I opened the flap at the top to show him the stacks of euro notes. ‘Half now, as agreed,’ I repeated.
Miller narrowed his eyes. He could never resist a punt, but he was right, he’d known me too long – too long to think I’d budge or be intimidated. It was all for show, he wanted to look like he’d at least tried.
He looked inside the bag then sighed. ‘We’re outta here in five. We discussed cargo?’ He pointed at my car’s boot.
I grabbed my Barbour motorbike jacket off the rear seat, swung the door shut, and blipped the key to lock it. ‘Load the whole car.’
He frowned, removed a pack of Lucky Strikes from his grubby shirt pocket and fished in his combat pants for a light. One appeared by his face, held in the muscular arm of the crew member behind him, who looked from me to the car and lowered his AK-47.
‘Hey Katanga,’ said Miller, looking over his shoulder and taking a long drag. ‘Load the car, he says.’
Katanga slung his rifle over his shoulder, took a cigarette from Miller, and laughed. ‘Impossible.’ He pronounced it the French way, sparking
up his cig and pointed it at my car. ‘Nic says the police are looking for a grey station wagon. Are those bullet holes?’ He rolled his vowels round in a heavy francophone accent that I recognised from my time in the Congo.
Miller shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t wanna know.’
I sat the backpack of money on the car roof and pulled on my jacket, wincing as it brushed my ribs. ‘Told you I’d be coming in hot. I had to make sure I wasn’t followed.’
Miller looked at his mate. ‘Fetch a gallon of fuel and a couple of flares.’
I shook my head. ‘The car is the cargo, it comes with us.’
There was a scrape on the ground, I turned to see another big guy ambling up behind me, another rifle slung over a shoulder. The man who’d opened the sub-pen doors for us.
‘Dusty Bin, how long’s it been?’
He gave a slight nod of greeting. ‘Never long enough.’ Difficult to tell if he was joking, but I suspected not.
Miller shouted past me. ‘Poubelle, tell this chowdahead why I don’t want his car on my boat.’
He shone his torch over the Audi. ‘Shame to burn it out.’
‘That’s gotta be a ten-ton crane,’ I said, nodding towards the big crane at the bow of the Tiburon.
‘Fifteen.’ Poubelle clicked off his torch and cupped his hands against the windows, frowning at a sound from the boot.
‘So the car’s less than two tons.’
‘It is,’ he said, standing up straight, ‘but the cargo hatches are only four metres square.’
Just over a week ago when we’d sat at the back of a dirty bar in Santander, Miller had told me his ship was big enough to carry anything I could bring by road. I reminded him of that.
‘Fuckin’ smartass,’ he said.
‘Okay, so it won’t go in the hold. You’ll have to strap it to the deck.’
Black Run Page 2
