by James Becker
Marcus glanced back at the bound man, then looked again at Bronson.
“We’ve managed to persuade him to disclose everything of value that he knew, and now he’s of no more use to us. Or to anyone else, in fact. As you can see, our questioning had to be somewhat robust to persuade him to tell us what we wanted to know. He’s obviously suffering and your test, your initiation, if you like, is to ease his pain. We want you to kill him. Right here, and right now, in front of the camera.”
Marcus reached into his jacket and took out a clear plastic bag, much like the evidence bags used by the police, inside which was a semi-automatic pistol. He handed the bag to Bronson.
The weapon was an early model Walther P99, with the green polymer frame which was a characteristic of that pistol. He could tell immediately by the weight and balance of the Walther that either the magazine was empty or it wasn’t fitted at all. He quickly glanced down, half turning the weapon in his hand until he could see the base of the grip, and the empty black oblong that showed that the magazine was missing.
Bronson looked at the man in the chair, and then back at Marcus. The German seemed utterly unconcerned that he was ordering the death of another human being. If anything, he seemed slightly amused, and for the first time Bronson caught a glimpse of the kind of dispassionate and callous efficiency that had characterized the German administrators of the horrendous concentration and death camps of the Second World War.
As far as Marcus was concerned, the murder of the anonymous figure strapped to the wooden chair was of absolutely no consequence. It was simply a convenient tool, a device to guarantee Bronson’s loyalty, because the film of the execution would be all the proof that any jury, in any country, would need to convict him of cold-blooded murder.
“And if I refuse?” Bronson asked.
Marcus shrugged. “That’s entirely up to you,” he said, “but if you don’t do the job, I or one of my men will do it, and then you’ll replace that man in the chair.”
The German’s eyes betrayed no emotion whatsoever as he stared levelly at Bronson, the expression on his face unchanged. Despite the man’s meek and mild appearance—he was one of the most physically unthreatening people he had ever met—at that moment, Bronson knew that he was in the presence of sheer, calculating and unremitting evil.
Bronson also knew that there was only one thing he could do in the circumstances. He was hopelessly outgunned and outnumbered, and he had absolutely no doubt that if he failed to carry out Marcus’s instructions, he would be dead within minutes. He had killed before, in the heat and confusion of a fight, and in self-defense, which he’d always thought was justifiable, or at the very least excusable. But that was a lifetime away from the cold and clinical execution of another human being.
Bronson dropped his gaze from Marcus’s face and looked around the concrete chamber. Eight men stared back at him, their expressions ranging from simply neutral to overtly hostile. Three of the men, he noticed for the first time, carried pistols in their right hands, and he had no doubt whatsoever that, at the first sign of any aggressive move on his part against Marcus or any of his other men, he would find himself looking down the barrels of multiple weapons.
As far as he could see, there was only one way that he could get out of that chamber alive without killing the bound man, and it all depended upon what Marcus did next. If he handed Bronson a full magazine for the Walther—he thought the weapon had a maximum capacity of fifteen rounds, much like the Browning with which he was much more familiar—and then stayed within reach, there was just a chance. Bronson would have to insert the magazine and cock the pistol, grab Marcus and stick the gun to his head, and then use him as a human shield to get out of the house. It was a plan born of desperation, but it was the only one he had.
“So what do you want me to do with this?” he asked, taking the pistol out of the bag and hefting it in his hand. “Beat him to death with it?”
“Nothing so crude,” Marcus said. He reached into his right-hand jacket pocket and produced a pistol magazine, also inside a clear plastic bag, the black shape unmistakable. He took a couple of steps backward and then lobbed the bag to Bronson, who caught it easily in his left hand.
“As you can see, Mr. Bronson, there’s only one round in it, so you’ve got just one shot, and just one chance.”
Bronson had been outmaneuvered, and he knew it. Marcus was now about ten feet away, and the silent men lining the chamber like grim sentinels would be able to cut him down before he could cover even half that distance. Two more had now produced pistols, and they were all aiming their weapons at him. He opened the bag, removed the magazine and slid it into the butt of the Walther, racked the slide back and then let it go to chamber the single round he’d been given, then glanced back at Marcus.
“Suppose I miss?” he asked.
“You’re ex-army and a former policeman, and it’s quite obvious from the way you’re handling the pistol that you’ve had weapons training. If you miss, we’ll assume it was deliberate. And if you do miss, the man in the chair will still die, and so will you.” Marcus made an impatient gesture. “The camera’s running—in fact, it’s been running ever since you walked into this room—so get on with it.”
Bronson looked over to his right, toward the camera, and noticed the tiny red light illuminated on the front of it, showing that it was operating.
“So you’ve also recorded our conversation,” he said, “including you forcing me to do this?”
Marcus smiled again. “Yes,” he replied, “but that won’t matter. My men will cut out those bits and produce a disk containing the edited highlights, as they say in the vacuous world of the media. Any more questions?”
Bronson shook his head. He was fresh out of options. There was only one thing that he could do.
Without even appearing to aim, he swung the pistol up toward the seated man and squeezed the trigger.
22
23 July 2012
The noise of the shot was deafening in the confined space, the concrete walls seeming to concentrate and amplify the sound. The Walther kicked in his hand, the slide instantly locking back as the spent cartridge case was ejected, the glittering brass case spinning out of the open breech to land on the concrete floor with a metallic tinkling noise.
The bound man grunted once as the copper-jacketed bullet slammed into the center of his chest, then slumped forward, killed instantly by the single shot. The front of his T-shirt turned red as blood flooded out of the entry wound. Below the chair, more blood began to pool on the floor from the ruptured vessels and ripped flesh of the exit wound that Bronson knew the bullet would have torn in his back. Behind the chair, the rubberized sheets of the movable bullet trap swung gently backward and forward, having done their job in stopping the nine-millimeter slug after it had performed its deadly task.
Bronson’s mind suddenly filled with images of Baghdad. He’d done two tours of duty in Iraq as an army officer, and had been involved in several firefights during that time. But that was a very different environment: contesting ownership of the streets of the battered city with heavily armed insurgents, clearing rebel-held houses using grenades and automatic weapons, the enemy dimly seen shapes flitting from one piece of cover to another as they fired long bursts from their Kalashnikov assault rifles. For a while, the whole city had become a single killing zone, and Bronson genuinely had no idea how many Iraqis had fallen to bullets fired from his SA-80 or his pistol. Anonymous men fighting for their country or for their leader, and dying in droves as a result. Urban warfare was perhaps the bloodiest and most unpleasant form of conflict.
But even that hadn’t left the same kind of sick feeling in his stomach that Bronson was now experiencing. He’d just carried out an execution—the cold-blooded killing of a man he’d never seen before—and he’d done it as much as anything to save his own skin. Because he was absolutely certain that if he’d refused to pull the trigger, Marcus would have carried out his threat without a second thought. The
man lashed to the chair would still be dead, and Bronson would have been lying beside him.
The only sliver of comfort Bronson could take from what had just happened was that at least the man had been killed instantly by the single bullet and hadn’t suffered. And he, Bronson, was still alive, and that meant that he still had the ability to bring Marcus and his gang of thugs to justice.
“Good shot, Mr. Bronson,” Marcus said, stepping forward and holding out the plastic bag for Bronson to drop the Walther into.
Bronson handed over the weapon—again, there was nothing else he could do because of the watchful armed men in the room, and the pistol was useless to him now that it was unloaded—as he stared across at the dead man in the chair. Even as he watched, a couple of Marcus’s men stepped forward and began to release the leather straps that still held the corpse in place. Released from his bonds, the dead man tumbled untidily to the floor to lie facedown on the discolored concrete, the exit wound on his back now clearly visible.
Any vestige of hope that Bronson might have harbored that he was part of an elaborate theater, that the man’s injuries had been faked and that the cartridge was a blank, was dashed in that instant. He’d seen dead men before, and the unmistakable limpness of the body as it thudded on to the concrete floor told its own story. He was in no doubt whatsoever that he’d just committed murder.
“Who was he?”
“What?”
Bronson pointed at the figure lying on the floor. “The man I just executed for you,” he said. “I’d like to know his name.”
Marcus nodded. “Yes,” he replied, “I suppose we owe you that, at least. His name was Herman Polti, and perhaps I ought to clarify one small point. I told you that he was in contact with the Berlin police, and that was not entirely true. In fact, I should say it was wholly untrue. Polti was actually an undercover police officer, much as Georg feared you might be when you first made contact with his group.”
As Marcus’s words sank in, another wave of revulsion swept through Bronson. Police officers everywhere were accustomed to putting their lives on the line and, rightly or wrongly, killing a policeman was always considered to be one of the worst possible crimes. And arguably the worst possible way for any police officer to die was at the hand of a fellow policeman. What just happened had put Bronson beyond the pale. Way, way beyond it.
The German smiled coldly at Bronson. “So now we have you on film shooting a bound and helpless police officer, and we have a pistol with your fingerprints all over it. When we dump Polti’s body, we’ll ensure that the bullet and the cartridge case are found with it. The Walther and the film from the camera will be stored away in a safe place, but the moment you do something we don’t like, or we suspect that you might even be thinking of running off to the authorities, I’ll make sure that all the evidence is handed to the police. As of this moment, Mr. Bronson, we own you.”
And that, Bronson thought, was a pretty reasonable summary of the situation. But as he looked into the German’s cold eyes, Bronson made himself a promise. No matter what happened, someday, somehow, he would come back, find Marcus and kill him.
For a few seconds, Bronson stared at the scene in front of him. One of the men had brought in a rigid stretcher, the top covered with a plastic sheet, and he and another man were in the process of placing the body of the dead man on it. A third man was standing near the chair, a bucket of some kind of granular material, possibly sawdust, in his hand, and he was sprinkling it over the bloodstains.
Bronson looked back at Marcus. “So what happens now?” he asked.
The German looked slightly surprised at the question. “You’re one of us now,” he replied, “but there’s nothing for you to do in Germany. I have a full team here and in any case you don’t speak the language, or so I’ve been told. I’ll tell Georg that you passed our little test, and that he can trust you to do the right thing. And we both know exactly why he can trust you. Then it’s up to him to decide how best to make use of your talents in London before the Laternenträger gets there.”
Bronson’s face reflected the confusion he was feeling. “The what?” he asked. “What are you talking about?”
Marcus shook his head, and for the first time looked a little uncomfortable. “It’s just a German expression,” he replied. “Forget I said it. Now,” he continued briskly, “I’ll get one of my men to drive you back to your car. By the time you reach London I’m sure Georg will have organized some jobs for you to do.”
The German reached into his jacket pocket and took out an envelope, which he handed to Bronson. Inside were six five-hundred-euro notes.
“What’s this?” Bronson asked. “Blood money?”
“No. You’re now on our payroll, and so you can call that an advance of salary.”
Three minutes later, having retraced his steps, Bronson was back in the garage, accompanied by two of the Germans, neither of whom seemed inclined to speak to him, not that he was interested in holding a conversation. Marcus had told him that he’d be driven back to his car by one man, which had immediately suggested to Bronson the possibility of taking the initiative and overpowering him, and then somehow getting back inside the building to find the pistol and the incriminating film footage. But against two armed men, Bronson knew he wouldn’t have a chance.
In the garage, one of the men stood opposite the double metal doors and used the remote control to open them, while the other walked over to one of the BMWs, opened the driver’s door, gestured to Bronson to get in the back, and then sat down. As soon as the doors were open, to reveal the midevening gloom, he drove the car out of the garage, pausing to allow his companion to walk over to the car and sit down in the front passenger seat.
The second man waited until the car had driven out of the garage before again using the remote to close the doors. As he did so, he looked back at Bronson and gestured for him to replace the heavily tinted sunglasses over his eyes. They were clearly much more relaxed about their security now that he had been fatally compromised by Polti’s execution. They knew that he daren’t approach the authorities to inform on them—if that was his intention—because of the consequences to him personally if he did.
Bronson nodded agreement, removed the glasses from his pocket and put them on, because as before he had no other choice. But he’d already taken a long look around him as the car had pulled out of the garage. Lights were shining in various windows, and there was still enough natural light for him to get a good idea of the appearance of the property. The house looked smaller from the outside than the interior had suggested, but it was still obviously a substantial building.
The double garage doors were set in the lowest level of the structure, a few feet below ground level, and were approached by a well-tended gravel drive. These doors appeared to form the only opening to the house on that level, at least as far as Bronson could see, and it looked as if most of the lower-ground-floor area was given over to garaging, so presumably the occupants and their guests tended to arrive by car rather than on foot. Bronson guessed that there would be other entrances at ground level on the back or sides of the building, and he could see a wide veranda on the level directly above the garage, with a half-glazed door set in its center.
The property rose for two stories, probably built of brick, though the white painted walls made it impossible to be certain, under a roof that was notable for its shallow pitch and wide overhang at the eaves, clearly intended to cope with the heavy snowfalls the area experienced every winter. All the windows Bronson could see were fitted with shutters stained light brown to match the beams and trusses of the roof. It looked, in short, much like many of the other large houses he’d seen since entering Germany.
But in the few brief seconds before he’d been told to replace the sunglasses, Bronson had committed the appearance of the house to his memory, because knowing where to find the place again was now his highest priority. He had not the slightest intention of just trotting obediently back to London, as Marcus had tol
d him to do. He believed that if he could find his way back, there was at least a chance that he could break in somehow and find what he needed.
And unlike the meeting places chosen by Georg in and around London, the house he’d just left was clearly a permanent residence for at least some of the people in the group—the room that had been used for the torture and execution of the unfortunate Polti demonstrated that clearly enough.
The last—and perhaps the most important—part of the puzzle was to find a street name or some indication of the district or town where the property was located, and Bronson hoped he would be able to do that as the car drove away, simply because he was sitting by himself in the backseat.
He had put on the sunglasses, as he’d been ordered, but as he’d done so he’d snapped off a tiny section of the plastic lens on the left-hand side, which gave him a small but usable window on the steadily darkening world outside the car.
The BMW drove slowly over the gravel and then crossed rougher ground before coming to a halt between a pair of stone gateposts. He heard the sound of an approaching vehicle—a car or small van, he guessed—which passed directly in front of the car and then continued on its way. As soon as it had passed, the BMW accelerated across the road and turned left.
Through the tiny gap that he had created in the lens of the sunglasses, Bronson tried to take note of the terrain the vehicle was passing. He had hoped he might see a street sign or something else that would positively identify the location, but the car seemed to be driving along a fairly straight but narrow country road bordered, at least on the left-hand side, by woods and without any turnings or junctions as far as he could see. That single fact would help him find the house again, but only after he’d somehow managed to identify the district where it was located, and for that a road sign, a road number, or a village name—something concrete that he could remember—was essential.
