‘No offence, but I can see why.’
Lights from warehouses and forklift trucks glittered on the basin’s millpond surface, spotlights and amber flashers shimmering in the frigid air. At the far end, the lock gates were open ready for us. The high tide meant we could pass straight out, through the outer harbour and into the Atlantic; the time of our rendezvous and rapid departure was no accident or coincidence. No one gave us a second glance, or if they did, they didn’t give two fucks about it.
I pressed against the port-side window to watch the lights of the incoming container ships. ‘What was the name of your other boat?’
Miller gave a blast of the horn as we passed a trawler. ‘When I pulled you out of Somalia? The Aurora.’
‘That was it. Why the change?’
‘Christ, that was three boats ago. Uh, she went down off Cyprus.’
‘Don’t tell me, running arms into Syria? No, wait, running people out of Syria?’
Miller smirked and swigged his drink. ‘Why not both?’
A couple of miles beyond the breakwaters at the mouth of the harbour, the lights of the Île de Ré glimmered.
‘Aurora,’ I repeated. ‘Yeah, she was much nicer.’
‘Not a patch on Tiburon.’
‘At least she was built during my lifetime.’ I patted the cracked top of the console, a bank of lights and gauges winked out. ‘Electrics worked, too, if I’m remembering right.’
Miller leaned over and banged a fist on the console angrily, the gauges sprang back to life. ‘Converted trawlers have nowhere near the storage of this baby.’
‘Can’t get as much heroin in a fish hold, eh?’
Miller didn’t answer; much like me, he got touchy when his morals were called into question. Out of the harbour mouth he steered a hard ninety degrees to starboard, bringing us under the long bridge connecting the port city to the upmarket island just offshore. It didn’t look like we were going to make it, I instinctively ducked as we passed beneath it.
‘How’s Étienne?’ I asked, still hunched over, looking up at the underside of the road bridge. ‘I’ll go down and see him later.’
Miller pushed the throttles and the ship surged forward. Credit where it’s due, she’d some impressively smooth power delivery.
‘Étienne’s dead.’ He stared into the rain ahead.
‘Shit, I’m sorry.’
Miller grunted and grabbed the radio handset. ‘Doc, bridge, now.’
‘He was a good lad.’
Miller jerked a thumb at the rucksack of cash on the table. ‘You’re paying for his funeral.’
I thought about it for a second before the penny dropped. ‘When?’
‘Last week. Mugged outside a bar.’
‘And you didn’t think to tell me?’
He looked at me, all I could see were his eyes shining in the dim bridge lights. ‘My crew’s no concern of yours.’
‘It is if you’ve got new hands since I hired you. Who’s the replacement?’
‘They’re good men, I vouch for them all. It’s the passengers that worry me.’ He put a cigarette between his lips and muttered, ‘You and your friends are the killers for hire.’ He sparked it up and turned back to the sleet-crusted window.
I was about to press him further when the outside door swung inwards followed by Katanga. He slammed it behind him, peeling off a yellow slicker and hanging it on the door. With a wary glance at me he rubbed rain off his tight curls, grabbed a bottle from the fridge, and took a seat at the chart table.
‘You got Blofeld’s car secured good and tight?’
‘Ain’t going nowhere. That ghost’s back with us though.’
Robert Plant’s haunting wails crackled through the speaker in the ceiling.
Miller scowled. ‘Next man to mention ghosts can repaint the hold.’
‘I meant the car, Skip.’ Katanga smiled at me. ‘Makin’ some strange noises. Mustn’t like being shot, eh?’
Miller turned to me and frowned. I changed the subject. ‘What’s our course then?’ I left the window to look over Katanga’s shoulder.
He cracked the lid off his bottle of beer on the edge of the table and ran a finger over the map. ‘North-west 30 clicks to clear the island. Open up the engines, steam due west to the shelf. Weather gets hairy out there.’ He drained half the bottle in one go and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Then it’s north for 350 clicks, takes us to about midday tomorrow.’
‘Why not follow the coast?’
Miller cleared his throat. ‘I’ll chance heavy seas over coastal patrols, especially with you on board. Besides, see these waves?’ he gestured out of the window. ‘Wind’s coming up from the south-west, we need to take these waves on an angle to the bow, can’t take them on the beam.’
‘Won’t it add to the time?’
‘Not much.’ Katanga took another swig and unfolded the map some more. ‘We kiss Ushant, landing in La Manche here at about seventeen-hundred hours,’ he jabbed a grimy, chewed finger somewhere south of Cornwall, ‘then an easy run to Poole.’
I nodded. A straight drive from there to RAF Boscombe Down.
The song finished, the speaker buzzed then went silent.
‘Kat, take the wheel,’ said Miller. ‘I’m gonna see where the hell Doc is.’
He stood; Katanga eased himself into his place.
Miller grabbed the rucksack of money and paused at the door. ‘Your friends below are getting pretty restless, ya know.’
‘They’re employees, technically. Do me a favour, could you send King up?’
He nodded and left, taking the internal stairs below rather than the treacherous route I’d taken to get to the bridge, via the outside stairways and slippery gangways.
‘You mind if I use your table?’
Katanga looked back over his shoulder. ‘Your charter, boss.’
I folded the chart and slipped my pistol out of the waist holster, laying it on the table.
‘What was that about a ghost?’
Katanga looked back at me, shaking his head. ‘Captain don’t like to talk about the curse.’
‘The captain’s not here.’
‘She doesn’t like taking passengers.’
‘The Tiburon?’
‘Uh huh.’ Katanga, who was leaning one arm across the wheel, turned in his seat, lit like a demon in the red lights of the dials. ‘Bad things happen.’
I supressed a laugh.
‘Why does the captain call you Blofeld?’ he asked.
I pointed at the jagged scar bisecting my right eyebrow, the slight trace of it continuing just below my eye. ‘He’s a comedian.’
He nodded, smiling. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you, Mr Tyler. Your appearance is exactly the way I imagined.’
‘He said he’d filled you in?’
Katanga nodded. ‘Yes indeed. He says having you on board is like picking a wasp out of a jam jar.’ He laughed, grabbing the radio handset from above his head. ‘Full ballast now, I think, Sébastien.’
‘Aye,’ the radio crackled back.
‘I thought we were running light, for speed?’
‘We didn’t expect to be carrying a car on deck.’ Katanga pointed ahead through the windows. ‘We’re heading towards the continental shelf, wind blows all the way from America. Cap’n told you about them waves.’
I looked at the flashing skies reflecting off white peaks. ‘Looks like it’s gonna get bumpy.’
He nodded. ‘They’ll be much worse when we clear the island. Storm’s coming in, we don’t take on more ballast, you see how bumpy it gets then.’ He spoke into the handset again. ‘And fill the aft peak tank, Sébastien.’ He looked back at me. ‘To offset the car, we set the stern lower in the water so the screws don’t get lifted out on the back of a wave. We lose momentum, get spun full broadside to those waves, you’ll know about it.’
He hung the handset above his head, a moment later a hum reverberated through the floor as the pumps started up, flooding the tanks at th
e keel with seawater.
I spent the next few minutes stripping my Heckler & Koch pistol down and reassembling it. Sliding the magazine out, I started to stand all the hollow points up in a row but stopped when the ship rolled, tipping them onto the floor. Katanga glanced round and chuckled as the boat slewed back, bullets rolling the other way across the metal floor. I sighed as I bent to pick them up, the boat rolling in deepening arcs as we moved into an ever-wider channel, heading for the open Atlantic.
Chapter Six
Château des Aigles
Thirteen days previously
I popped several pills and capsules from a packet, gulped them down, and tossed the box back in the glovebox. The woman in the passenger seat tutted. I ignored her and took a different coloured packet from the centre console, popped a tablet from its foil, and swallowed again. The woman in the passenger inhaled loudly.
I leaned over and pushed the second pack into the glovebox: she slammed it shut, almost catching my hand.
I looked at her. ‘Ready?’
She glared back at me, swept her blonde hair from her face, and nodded. I turned off the ignition. As soon as the wipers stopped the windscreen was thick with snow. I opened the door and climbed out, swapping the heated bucket seat for a minus-five blizzard.
‘Ay, stay there!’ came a shout from the darkness, English for my benefit.
The Christmas Wonderland had been heaving when we’d driven up earlier, the huge tree at the back of the car park dripping with strings of twinkling lights. Now it was an impenetrable black mass, holding us in its menacing shadow. I pulled up my hood and held my hands out, squinting at the two cars pulled close beneath it.
Lights blazed on from one of them, I raised a hand to my eyes. When the spots had faded I kept my hand over my eyes and tried to look beyond the beam. An old Mercedes saloon, three men, a fourth standing next to a shiny Porsche hybrid SUV pulled in close to the pines at the edge.
One of the men broke away from the others and crunched through the snow.
‘You are George Kaplan?’ he asked, breath swirling with the flakes in the headlights.
I nodded. Not the most original of names but hey, I’m a sucker for the classics.
‘You are late,’ he said with a frown. ‘This means I am already angry.’
Lowlife gobshite in a leather jacket and trackie pants, the right pocket clearly weighed down with something heavy. The guy wasn’t a poker player, then.
‘The car is ready,’ he continued, stopping just short of my bonnet and making a grabbing motion with a fat hand. ‘Show me the money.’
I opened the back door and picked a shopping bag off the back seat, holding it up. ‘You put the plates on?’
‘Cloned from same model of car in Nice, there will be no problems.’ His fat hand was still beckoning at the air, after the money.
I tossed the bag back on the seat. ‘We’ll test drive it first.’
He frowned again, cocking his head on one side. ‘You want a test drive, there is a Porsche dealership in Geneva.’
‘Car’s no good to me if the immobiliser kicks in as soon as we leave the département.’
‘I tell you we disabled the tracker and immobiliser as discussed.’ He rubbed his shaved head and glanced behind, the group of men shuffled forward nervously. ‘You do not trust us?’
‘I trust a gang of car thieves as much as you trust a couple who need a stolen car.’ I gestured to the woman in the passenger seat, she opened the door and climbed out, leaning against the roof. I gave her a nod.
‘I will take the Porsche for ten minutes,’ she said in clipped, German-accented English. ‘He will stay with the money.’
‘This is not what we agreed.’ Gobshite glanced behind again. ‘This is not…’
‘This is what is happening,’ she said with a sigh. ‘If you have a problem, we will take our money elsewhere.’
He held his hands up, walking backwards to his associates. They conferred for a moment. The woman reached into the passenger footwell and reappeared with a small rucksack.
The gobshite walked forward again, holding the keys out. She took them from him, flashing me a look. I started to walk forward with her but the man pulled his other hand from his pocket. A pistol glinted in the lights of the Mercedes.
‘We will count the money now.’ He waved the gun at my car.
I gave the woman a nod, she walked over to the Porsche, throwing her rucksack in and climbing after it. It started with a hum, shed the snow from its windscreen and pulled forward, almost silent but for the crunching, squeaking snow beneath its chunky BF Goodrich off-road tyres. Four-wheel drive and nearly 700 horsepower when required, but on electric mode it was quieter than a skateboard, perfect for what we had in mind. She pulled past us, red tail lights disappearing down the access road behind me.
We’d agreed she’d blast it for a couple of miles, get a feel for it and check the modifications had been made to her specs, before pulling into a layby we’d already scoped. There she’d use the tools in the rucksack to look over the electronics, check the bypass job on the alarm and immobiliser, the disabled tracker. Ten minutes was tight, but she was bloody good.
The gobshite motioned again towards my car, I grabbed the bag and carried it round, placing it on the bonnet.
He reached in greedily, thumbing wads of euro notes.
‘It’s all there.’
I was paying well for a hot Porsche but with the mods, the plates, the fact it was the range-topping Turbo S model, and of course the added short-notice tax, it was worth it. Besides, it’s not like I was paying. He waved me away as he carried on counting. I took my keys from the ignition, pocketed them, strolling off to the side of the car park, out of the headlights, letting my eyes adjust so I could get a better look at the three men still huddled by the Merc.
‘Hey!’ shouted Gobshite.
I looked back at my car.
He grinned, gripping the bag of money tightly in his hammy fist. ‘The price is another ten thousand.’
‘I’m already paying too much.’
He shrugged and held up the bag. ‘This is for the car. The extra is for the test drive.’
‘I don’t have any more.’ I sighed, walking back towards him, arms out in a placatory fashion. I had plenty of cash for expenses but I wouldn’t be handing over any more to this scumbag chancer.
He withdrew a pistol from his jacket. ‘Let’s check what you have…’
Too late, I’d closed the distance. Reaching behind my back, under my hoody, I pulled out my own pistol. The extra length of the suppressor swung down, breaking his wrist as I continued to close the gap between us. He howled, dropping his pistol into the snow. The other three were slow to react; by the time they had their own guns on me I had Gobshite in front of me, arms pinned, grinding the business end of that suppressor into his flabby neck.
He yelped, one of the men started walking forward, waving a gun stupidly, shouting French obscenities. The other two fanned out, sidestepping with their guns held firm, so maybe they weren’t quite as dense. From the look of their stances, the way they moved and held their weapons, I guessed ex-military, whereas the vocal guy was a street thug.
‘Please, I am just here to translate,’ the man in my arms whimpered. ‘You understand, he is the, the… Je ne connais pas les mots.’
I pressed the gun harder into his neck. ‘Shut the fuck up.’
The other man was striding forward in the headlights now, big ugly head like a block of ice carved by that chainsaw sculptor from the village, and he had a pistol in each hand, waving them out wide thinking he was in a John Woo film. He started to count down loudly. The two ex-military types had me perfectly flanked from either side of the car park. Over a hundred-degree angle between the three of them, too spread out for me to pick off easily, plus the two flanking guys had taken cover now, one behind a plywood Father Christmas’s sleigh and the other round a happy elf workshop.
‘He will kill you, he doesn’t care about me,
’ screamed Gobshite.
The man stopped, his count reached un, both pistols swung in my direction. I didn’t see many options. His fingers were on the triggers, already squeezing, though two pistols meant the idiot wasn’t really aiming either.
I let go of Gobshite, dropping down behind him as the first gun fired. He didn’t get a chance to fire the second, my pistol snapped once, the man dropped. Two more gunshots rang out from either side of the car park, and the ex-military guys slumped in my peripheral vision.
Silence in the falling snow.
That the thug’s bullet had missed me was no real surprise given his ridiculous gun discipline, but I was thankful it’d missed my car, too. I reached forward to pick up Gobshite’s pistol then trudged through the snow to the thug’s body, picking up his cheap Chinese Beretta copies from beside his ruined head, which sank deeper into the snow as the red mess melted down.
I turned to look back at Gobshite, still whimpering on the ground, clutching his wrist. He looked from one body to another. Over on the right, on the small hill overlooking the car park, a snowdrift shuddered. It grew, and the snow fell off to reveal a figure in arctic camo gear holding a stubby Ruger Ranch Rifle.
Another camo-clad figure walked out of the woods on the left holding my HKG28 marksman, all sprayed up in white and hung with torn strips of sheet. The two of them swept towards the car park, picking up the weapons then heading for the gang’s Merc to check it out.
Snow crunched on the access road behind, the Porsche’s headlights came round the corner. She slowed, pulling up alongside my Audi, winding the window down.
‘You can’t even do the simplest job, can you Tyler?’ she said without a trace of a smile.
‘How’s the car?’ I asked.
She gave me a nod and a chef’s kiss, wound the window back up, started a three-point turn. The camo guys were crunching through the snow towards us, rifles slung over their shoulders.
The first guy pulled his hood down and opened the Porsche’s boot. ‘It’s a real nice rifle,’ he said with a Scottish accent, ‘but I’ll stick with my Ruger.’ He unslung my HK and placed it in the boot.
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