Vigilante

by Brian Cain

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Stanton's plane was two hours late and at nine am it touched down. Masters had always stayed at the Sheraton, Karachi and when Stanton had booked a room the staff member seem to be familiar with his name. Political instability over the last thirty years had seen Karachi spiral into a landscape of slums. Industry had deserted the city finding it to difficult to operate, not knowing when the next coup would be staged. The political landscape had become a minefield. Life was cheap and death lurked in the streets from all directions. To a Karachi resident it was life as usual; for Stanton he could use the landscape to his advantage; money talked and dead people did not.

  He carefully watched the check in officials as he approached customs and on presenting his passport was directed straight through to the baggage carousel. He retrieved his baggage, hired a cab and directed the driver to the Sheraton. He said nothing to the cab driver who spoke good broken English and pointed out places of interest as they cruised along the busy city-bound National Freeway and under the Karsaz Flyover, then beneath the Finance and Trade Centre Flyover. The roads became slow and clogged at the Shahrah E Faisel and finally they pulled up at the Sheraton Karachi on Club Road.

  Stanton instructed the cab driver to park in the street on the other side of the road and keep the meter running. He handed the cab driver a wad of American dollars; the cab driver nodded with a smile. Stanton alighted from the ageing Mercedes Benz and carried his bag with him. The cab took off and Stanton checked in and was escorted to his top floor apartment; he had chosen a room opposite the lift access. He locked the door, removed a ceiling tile and stashed his bag in the roof cavity, carefully replacing the tile. He then accessed the balcony and climbed around the partition to the next apartment some six times bringing him to the end block with the glass doors open. He looked around the open glass doors from the balcony and saw no one and quietly began to open the main access door to the corridor. He had noticed the fire escape stairs were at that end of the corridor and directly opposite the end apartment. A tall, thin well dressed man was sitting on a chair outside the lifts; he waited until he was looking the other direction. He casually accessed the fire escape and began to descend; an armed security guard carrying an automatic weapon appeared from a lower level doorway. He enquired about Stanton's movements, Stanton stating he was going to the shopping Plaza for a meal and needed the exercise on the stairs. The guard checked his passport and let him go. When reaching the ground floor he checked the foyer. He observed he could walk along the wall from the stairwell directly to the entrance in a few seconds and make the taxi in thirty seconds.

  Stanton told the cab driver to move as soon as he got in; he watched behind as they drove off. They progressed a few blocks and Stanton assessed no one had followed him. He gave more instructions to the cab driver.

  "What is your name?" asked Stanton.

  "Claude."

  "Claude! How on earth did you get a name like that in Karachi?"

  My father was English, my mother Pakistani. I was taken to England when I was a baby and educated in London. I come back here only two years ago to see from where I come."

  "All that time in England and you still have a strong Pakistani accent."

  "What do you expect; my English teacher in England was a Pakistani. Where are we going?"

  "Take me to the worst bar in the city where I can get anything."

  "You have already paid me more than I would earn in one year, who are you?"

  "Call me John."

  "Okay John. If I take you to this place you will get in but probably not get out."

  "You get us in and I’ll get us out."

  "You are after women, drugs."

  "No weapons, small arms."

  "Ah… the peninsula commercial area is not far. The Karish bar you will need a bodyguard; I can find one for you."

  "Don't worry about it, just go there."

  Claude headed south and explained how things did not always look as they seem. He also spoke of his extended family living in the slums of area five, not fortunate enough to have had the education that he had. As they reached the peninsula commercial area adjacent to some of the Karachi ports the roads became quiet. The cab entered some side streets and pulled up outside a building that looked like a warehouse. "Walk inside the door and they will take you to the bar to the rear of the complex, I have got you in, I hope you can get us out. This is one of the most dangerous areas of Karachi although it looks quite passive. Life is cheap here."

  "Keep driving around the block, come past every five minutes till you see me waiting," said Stanton as he climbed out of the cab. Claude drove off and Stanton walked briskly through the door. He was confronted by an Arab man in a white thawb.

  "You want women?" he asked.

  "No, weapons." The man produced a pistol and silencer from under his thawb and poked it in Stanton's face.

  "Like this one?" he asked. Stanton disarmed him in a flash, forcing him to the ground with his arm up his back and taking the pistol from his hand. The man groaned as Stanton forced his hand back past his wrist breaking it.

  "Yeah just like this one, in fact this will do fine." Two more men of western appearance ran into the square, drab lobby area through the only other access door to Stanton's right and before they could level the automatic assault rifles at him he shot both of them in the hands and arms. They fell to the floor and Stanton picked up one of the assault rifles. "M16A4 5.56 mm automatic assault rifle with a grenade launcher and full magazines; now that's what I call luck," Stanton shouted. He hugged the wall with his back as he made his way to the doorway the two men had come through.

  The three were busy dragging themselves to the car park access through which Stanton had just come and Stanton assessed there must be a reason for that so he discharged a grenade from the assault rifle through the doorway. He followed the grenade directly after the flash and blast kneeling just inside the doorway, his assault rifle to his right eye with the safety disengaged ready for anything. He fanned the room but saw only bodies, some still twitching, a man staggered along the wall in the smoke haze moaning and holding his eyes, Stanton shot him in the head and he fell.

  He had entered what was left of a bar. Two doors were the only other access to the room on the back wall and Stanton took the left one, shooting the two way glass window in the door and launching another grenade through it. He did the same to the right door and took cover. The doors were blown from the hinges and flew across the bar in pieces. The bar filled with smoke and he returned to the lobby then the car park, shooting the three injured men dead with the silenced pistol where they stood next to a vehicle just outside the door. He returned to the lobby and stood with his back to the wall in the far left corner. Two more westerners staggered through the door and he shot them dead with the pistol. He levelled the assault rifle again and entered the bar making his way to the back rooms; a man of western appearance huddled in the corner in his blood-stained clothes in the right room. He was still coherent enough to show Stanton where the weapons were hidden in a cubicle with a door access hidden by a filing cabinet that swung off the wall.

  Stanton gathered a stash of arms and ammunition on a small table from the bar with wheels used to serve meals. Two Barrette auto pistols with one hundred rounds of ammunition, a Uzi 9 mm sub machine gun and four twenty round mags full of ammunition, four auto C4 explosive devices with detonators and timers. And finally an M24 Remington Sniper’s rifle and fifty rounds of ammunition. He shot the bleeding man dead and wheeled his stash to the car park. On the way he heard groans from behind the decimated bar, finding a man of Arab appearance with shrapnel wounds and shot him dead. He parked the arms in the car park and checked the building one final time finding no more people. Claude pulled up in the car park and Stanton loaded the weapons into the boot of the cab keeping the M16 assault rifle in his hands, he climbed in the passenger's seat and told Claude to go to the best place to buy a four wheel drive vehicle that was out of the way. Claude head
ed north back up the commercial peninsula along the waterfront.

  "You got what you was looking for there John?"

  "Yes you were right it's a good place to shop, seems they are not used to shoppers like me."

  "You are correct in your assumption you do not need a bodyguard. The women from upstairs fled down the rear stairs and along the streets; they are lucky to be free. You are going to kill me too John."

  "No. Those guys in there were about as Pakistani as I am, I didn't see a cricket bat in the entire place. I can get your family to England." Claude gave Stanton a serious look and smile.

  "My entire family?"

  "Yes."

  "Why should I trust you John?"

  "You have someone else to trust, like those guys in there pissing the country’s reputation and people up the wall?"

  "No."

  "Find me a vehicle." Claude drove them to a yard full of four wheel drives on the outskirts of Saba commercial area as they discussed the ethics of his family.

  "These are government vehicles; they will not miss one for a long time. I know the caretaker, the keys are in the vehicle’s glove boxes. Please do not kill anyone, the caretaker is my friend." Claude pulled up next to a Toyota Land Cruiser well away from where they could be seen, and Stanton found it had a GPS so retrieved the keys and loaded up the vehicle.

  "I’ll need to go to the airport and will call you, give me a number where I can contact you direct". Claude scribbled a mobile number on a taxi card and handed it to him. "Tell your friend to keep well clear of this area of the compound." They went their separate ways.

  Stanton had been gone long enough and headed back towards the south for a few kilometres on the vehicle GPS then shut the vehicle GPS down and switched to his own GPS, bouncing through his satellites to his phone. He made a beeline north for the Sheraton. A bit of extra insurance in case someone traced the vehicle’s GPS transmissions. Stanton parked the vehicle in the Pan House area grounds car park off Khan Road, about ten minutes walk from the Sheraton.

  Stanton had little problem with the car park security guard, passing him an American hundred dollar bill; the guard assuring him his vehicle would be safe. He armed himself with an auto pistol and the Uzi, holding them under his jacket and hiding the rest of the weapons under the rear seat and placing the keys on top of the front right hand wheel. Stanton walked briskly and accessed his room the way he had left it. He retrieved his bag from the ceiling and opened the door to the corridor, walked to the end window and studied the view. He then returned to his room to find the well dressed gentleman by the lifts using his mobile and attempting to shield the fact from Stanton. He climbed into the ceiling cavity above the bathroom shower exhaust fan which was big enough to stand in where it fed into the ventilation ducting, checked his weapons and waited.

  Fifteen minutes is a long time stuck in a vent shaft with no room to move. When Stanton finally heard the door latch click followed by rumbling movement of feet; he could not tell how many there were. The bathroom door slowly opened, it was to the right of the access inside the main door and a big black-haired, olive-skinned man of Middle Eastern appearance in a flash scanned the bathroom with his pistol raised at eye level, he was wearing a bullet proof over jacket. The man opened the glass shower door; Stanton didn't even breathe above him. The man withdrew from the bathroom and Stanton could hear conversation in Hebrew. He could not understand the details but listened carefully, then heard what he had been listening for; the use of the name Kadeem, alias Tali Mahir.

  He carefully removed the fan and roof tiles below him while the intruders began to trash the apartment looking for clues as he climbed down. The bathroom door had been left open and Stanton observed two men busy searching the planted bags and folders. They sat next to each other on the lounge facing the window with their backs to the entry door and bathroom access; they busily read the available paperwork pointing out things of interest to each other.

  Stanton quietly locked the access door and engaged the safety chain. The balcony was directly in front of where the men were sitting and they had opened the sliding doors during their search. The bed was to their right and Stanton was sure no one else was in the room but was aware someone could be outside as back up in the corridor. He carefully put the safety latch of his auto pistol and Uzi off; they were cumbersome with the silencers fitted. With complete silence he moved to within arms’ reach of the men. They had only papers in their hands as their weapons were on the table in front of them. Stanton carefully placed his pistol in his right hand and the Uzi in his left adjacent to the men's temples between them and spoke quietly.

  "Do exactly as I say or I paint the walls in here." The men stopped talking and froze. "Put your hands on your heads, stand up, walk to the glass windows and turn around." They followed his instructions and Stanton walked to the left side of the room with his back to the wall where he could see the main entrance and the two men. Stanton had already identified which one he thought was Tali Mahir. Stanton could vaguely remember the pictures of Kadeem Levi from years back. His height matched the one he had identified, the aged features matched; he also remembered Levi had the star of David tattooed on the back of both his hands and could see scarring where something had been removed on his suspect. He could also remember the voice that used the name Kadeem. His suspect spoke in a voice that was strikingly different to the large man who had checked the bathroom.

  "Who the hell are you and where is Marshall?" Stanton had enough lottery numbers and a dull thud resonated in the room as Stanton shot the larger man between the eyes, he fell backwards to the floor on the balcony motionless. Mahir's olive skin turned several shades lighter as he looked down at his friend.

  "My name’s John Stanton and I missed you in the early eighties but today at this range Mr Levi there is no chance of that." Mahir's eyes cringed.

  "Stanton. British Military Intelligence, murderer, assassin; I know of you. I heard you were dead."

  "Everybody in the west is entitled to their own opinion and you need to improve your information channels."

  "It was you earlier in the Peninsula district."

  "Yes, some of your friends were they?"

  "You fool, you will never leave Karachi." Stanton walked to Mahir with his pistol levelled and struck him beside the head with it and again on the back of the neck; Mahir fell to the floor losing touch with his senses but remaining conscious. Stanton took the weapons from the table and put them in his bag. He removed Mahir's armoured jacket and searched him. He found his ID clearly identifying him in English as Tali Mahir, Pakistani government official nuclear electrical power program.

  He checked the larger man’s body for ID; Stanton could not understand the writing but identified the seal of the Government of Afghanistan. He secured Mahir's hands behind his back with an electric kettle cord from the condiments cabinet and went to the main door of the room. He slowly opened it, peering through a small gap and could see an Arab in a white thawb in the lift bay opposite the room. Stanton walked outside the door leaving it open, checked the corridor either way; it was clear. He walked towards the Arab with a smile.

  "Kadeem would like to see you, he has some instructions." The Arab walked past Stanton and into the open door. Stanton pulled his pistol from his belt at the small of his back, shooting the Arab in the back of the head as he walked. Stanton dragged the Arab’s body clear of the entrance and locked the door behind him. He gave himself an hour.