Up ahead, Holy Cross Avenue, and his car.
He pushed with his legs, harder than before, his arms churning. A glance over his shoulder—no sign of his pursuers.
The leafy greens of the avenue within reach, he ran.
Now he heard the feet—one pair, he thought—beating the tarmac behind him. He ignored them, kept his pace, crossed Clonliffe Road and into the avenue, the car there, yards away.
Ryan skidded to the side of the Vauxhall, the key already in his hand, unlocked the door, in. He jammed the key into the ignition, turned, held it as the engine sputtered and finally kicked in. A dead end ahead, he jerked the gearstick into reverse, slammed his foot into the accelerator.
The pursuer, Wallace, sidestepped out of Ryan’s path, made a grab for the door handle as he passed. Ryan fought the steering as he gathered speed towards the end of the avenue, straining his neck as he peered out the rear windscreen.
By instinct, he jammed his foot onto the brake pedal as the Bedford van swung into the mouth of the avenue, blocking him. The car’s chassis groaned as it halted.
Wallace was there, at the driver’s window, a Browning in his hand. He hammered at the glass until it shattered, fragments spilling over Ryan. The pistol’s muzzle pressed against Ryan’s temple.
“Don’t fucking move,” Wallace said.
CHAPTER FORTY FOUR
HAUGHEY’S TONGUE SLIPPED across his lips as he read the letter, a deep line between his thin eyebrows. He let out a short crackle of a laugh.
“Cheeky fuckers,” he said.
Skorzeny had driven to the city first thing. The traffic had been light despite it being a Monday morning, and he had made good time. Even so, he had waited close to forty minutes for Haughey to appear in his office. The minister’s eyes looked heavy, and he had made a poor job of shaving, as if in a hurry.
“Are they serious?”
Skorzeny suppressed a sigh. “Minister, they have killed very many men to arrive at this stage in their plan. So yes, I think we can assume they are serious.”
“Holy Jesus.” Haughey snorted, shook his head. “The brass balls on them. One and a half million dollars in gold. How much is that in pounds? Christ, don’t tell me, you’ll make me cry.”
Skorzeny lifted the coffee from the desk, took a bitter sip, returned the cup to its place. “It is a considerable sum.”
Haughey looked over the top of the paper, his eyes narrow. “Can you really put your hands on that much?”
“That is hardly the question, Minister.”
“Fuck, then what is?” Haughey dropped the letter onto the desktop.
Skorzeny reached for the page. “Please mind your language, Minister. It offends me.”
“Fuck yourself,” Haughey said, the consonants wet. “This is my office. If you don’t like how I talk, you can fuck off.”
The fibres of the paper rasped against Skorzeny’s fingertips, the weight of it, the ink heavy on the page. He read it for the hundredth time.
SS-Obersturmbannführer Skorzeny,
You have seen our work. You have seen what we can do. You have seen that we can get to you.
The price for your life is $1,500,000 in gold kilobars, delivered in crates containing fifteen kilobars each.
Signal your intent to comply by placing a personal advertisement in the Irish Times, addressed to Constant Follower, no later than five working days from the date of this letter. If no advertisement is placed by this time, you will die as and when we choose.
Once your signal of compliance has been placed, you will be contacted by other means with instructions for delivery.
Your life hangs by a thread, SS-Obersturmbannführer Skorzeny. Do not test us. Do not run. We can get to you as easily in Spain or Argentina. No place on this Earth is safe for you now.
With Respect,
A large hand-drawn X criss-crossed the paper, a mockery of a signature.
“So?” Haughey leaned forward, his elbows on the desk. “Are you going to pay them?”
“Perhaps.” Skorzeny folded the page along its creases and set it on the desk next to the coffee cup. “Perhaps not.”
“You can’t be thinking of saying no, can you? My office has done all it can to protect you, but there’s a limit. These boys come after you, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
Skorzeny took another sip of coffee. “Minister, you must understand, this letter changes the nature of our situation.”
Haughey’s eyebrows climbed the folds of his forehead. “I’ll say it does.”
“But perhaps not the way in which you think.”
The minister raised his palms. “Then tell me.”
“Until I received this letter we believed we were dealing with fanatics, zealots, men driven by some misguided ideal. Now we know they are driven by greed. Now we know they are thieves.”
Haughey shrugged. “So?”
Skorzeny had predicted the politician would not understand. Because Charles J. Haughey spoke of ideas, dreams, noble goals, but—as is the case with most men who seek power—those words were a shroud, camouflage for the man’s true nature.
“A fanatic cannot be reasoned with,” Skorzeny said in slow, measured words, making sure their meaning penetrated Haughey’s skull. “A zealot has no concern for his own skin. He cannot be bargained with. He cannot be bought. He will have what he wants, or he will die, there is no other outcome. But a thief can be bargained with. A thief can be bought. A thief values his life above his honour.”
“So you’re going to bargain with them? You’re telling me you’re going to haggle with these fuckers?”
“No, Minister. They have shown their weakness. I will use it to destroy them.”
Haughey’s face stilled, became blank, as if he had slipped on a mask moulded from his own features.
“Colonel Skorzeny, there is a limit to my indulgence. I won’t have you starting some fucking war in my country. If you intend on taking these boys on, if you’re going to fight them, then you’d best get on a plane to Madrid and see if Franco feels like putting up with you. Because I won’t put up with it, I’ll tell you that for sweet fuck all.”
Skorzeny smiled. “Come, Minister, there’s no need to talk in such terms. This problem can be resolved with your help. And that of your man Lieutenant Ryan.”
Haughey shifted in his seat, his face mobile once more. “Yes. Ryan. He hasn’t turned up yet.”
“Of course not.”
“I’ll have a few words to say to the bastard when I get my hands on him. I’ll bury my toe up his hole.”
Skorzeny stood, lifted the letter from the desk, slipped it into his pocket. “Lieutenant Ryan will return in good time. He knows more than he has told us. A clever man, and dangerous. I will question him myself.”
Haughey leaned back in his chair. “Question him?”
“Good day, Minister.”
Skorzeny walked towards the door. He gripped the handle, turned it, smiled at the secretary in the outer office.
Haughey called from behind. “Colonel.”
Skorzeny turned. “Yes, Minister?”
“A zealot or a thief.” The politician smiled, his lips thin and slick. “Which are you?”
Skorzeny returned the smile.
“Both,” he said.
CHAPTER FORTY FIVE
RYAN BLINKED IN the darkness, jarred awake by something, his eyelids clicking wetly. The floor’s chill crept through his skin and into his cheekbone. His bare shoulder and hip ached with the coldness of the packed earth. The fingers of his right hand traced the lines of his face, as if the assurance of touch might confirm that he yet lived.
How long?
The stubble on his chin scratched at his fingertips, heavier than before.
At least a day, maybe thirty six hours.
Ryan searched his mind for the pieces, gathered them, set them in order.
Wallace had dragged him from the car, the Browning’s muzzle jammed hard against his neck. The van’s rear doors
had opened, swallowed him, then darkness as something slipped over his head.
They beat him.
First in the back of the van, clumsy blows, angry fists and feet landing on his body, his head, his thighs, his gut. He had tasted blood. He had gagged as it welled in his throat, coughed, felt the hot wetness on the material that covered his face.
Something, someone, had locked his hands behind his back. A bomb had landed on his temple. Buzzing, floating, suspended on the sickly wave of pain. Another explosion, then black nothing for a time that stretched out like spit clinging to a wall.
Vague smears of memories connected then to now. Being dragged from the van, his head still covered, across grass, into a building with wooden floors.
His clothes pulled from his body. A leather strap, maybe a belt, whipping across his naked shoulders and buttocks.
Then falling, weightless for a moment before the floor knocked all the air and sense from him.
He had woken where he fell. He had pulled the canvas sack from his head, looked around, saw nothing he could distinguish from the sea of black. On his hands and knees, he had explored the limits of the room, the dirt floor, the slimy damp of the brickwork.
But no door.
Eventually, it could have been minutes or hours, he slept. Until now, woken by a sound he could not remember. There, a key turning in a lock.
Ryan’s gaze darted left and right, searching for the door he had been unable to find with his hands.
A creak, and light trickled in.
He struggled through the confusion, the disorientation, until he looked up and saw the open doorway strangely suspended eight feet above the floor. In the feeble light, he made out the zig-zag that cut down through the wall’s faded whitewash, the remnants of a staircase that had been removed to make this cellar a pit.
“He’s awake.”
Ryan recognised Wallace’s southern African accent.
A ladder descended until its feet rested on the floor in front of him. He looked back up to the doorway. Wallace held the Browning pistol, levelled the suppressor at Ryan.
“On your feet.”
Ryan pushed himself up onto his knees. Nausea rolled up from his belly and through his head. He retched and spat on the floor.
“Up,” Wallace said.
Ryan hauled himself upright, listed to the side, found his balance. He placed his left hand over his genitals, feeling like a child caught in some shameful act.
“Back against the far wall.”
Ryan did as he was told, keeping his eyes on Wallace, until the cold damp brickwork pressed against his shoulders. He coughed and shivered.
Wallace kept the pistol’s aim on Ryan as he stepped back to allow Carter to pass, turn, and climb down the ladder. The tall man followed, then finally Wallace slipped the Browning into his waistband and joined them in the cellar.
The three men faced Ryan, each staring hard.
Wallace took the pistol in his grip once more, brought it up two-handed, finger on the trigger.
Carter said, “Take one step forward.”
Ryan obeyed.
“Put your hands on your head.”
Ryan breathed what little air the room had left in it. He placed his fingers on his scalp, felt his testicles retreat from the chill.
Wallace smirked. The tall man kept his gaze on Ryan’s face.
“Legs apart,” Carter said.
Ryan shuffled his feet on the packed earth, his stomach already tightening against what he knew was coming.
Carter made him wait for it, the only sound in the room the air ripping in and out of Ryan’s chest. Then Carter took one long stride and swung his boot upwards.
A fleshy slap followed by numbness in Ryan’s groin. The heavy heat came after, the pressure in his bowel, the molten lead in his stomach. His knees folded and he sprawled on the floor. His gut clenched, sending bile into his mouth and nostrils. He coughed it out. A long groan rose from the hot pit of his abdomen and gurgled in his throat.
Carter and the tall man went to work. Not the florid rage of the beatings they had given him before, but precise blows, sharp knuckles and booted toes delivering pain to the most tender parts of Ryan’s body.
They asked no questions and he screamed until his voice cracked. After a time, Ryan’s consciousness withdrew so that the pain belonged to someone else, some other man crawling and bleeding in the dirt of some other cellar.
RYAN DRIFTED INTO waking, back to darkness again, the tide ebbing to reveal the pain that had sunk beneath the surface. He lay still, listening to his own heart, the thudding in his ears. When he could resist no longer, he inhaled.
His sides and his back shrieked. The clamour of it reached his mouth as a whimper, and his mind retreated to the darkness.
Time dissolved and reformed, the sediment of minutes and hours settling on the cellar floor. Ryan became dimly aware of lying in a cold wetness, and a sour odour. He knew it was his own urine tainted by the smell of blood. The thought of lying in his own waste got him moving. He fought to bring his elbows and knees under him, every movement punished by a new stab of pain in his midsection.
Three feet of crawling and he lay flat on the floor, his shaking limbs unable to carry him further. When the tremors and the nausea eased, he moved again, kept crawling until he felt the wall with his fingertips. He rested there, he had no idea how long, before tracing the brickwork to the corner.
Once there, Ryan squatted, his back pressed into the angle formed by the meeting of the walls. He hissed through his teeth as the stinging heat sputtered between his legs, gagged when the smell rose to him. As dizziness rushed over him, he placed his hands on the walls to steady himself, desperate not to pass out and collapse in his own foulness.
Empty, drained, Ryan crawled as far away from it as he could before his arms and legs gave out. The coarse floor grazed his cheek. He sank into it, let it swallow him whole.
As his mind fell into blackness, Ryan swore he would kill them all.
THE LIGHT STIRRED him.
“Jesus, he stinks.”
Ryan looked up, saw Wallace blurred in the doorway. The squat man held something in his hand, not a pistol, something else.
“Stand up,” Wallace said.
Ryan got to his feet, trapping his cries behind his teeth as pain shot through his groin and midsection. He blinked, tried to focus on what lay in Wallace’s hand. His mind grasped what he saw just as the stream of cold water hit him.
A howl escaped him as the shock coursed through his body. He fell and scrambled back.
“Get back here,” Wallace said, flicking the hose so the water lashed at Ryan.
Ryan crawled forward and got to his feet. He hunched his shoulders against the cold as Wallace ran the water over his body.
“Turn around.”
Ryan did so and felt the freezing punch of the water against his back. Wallace focused the stream on Ryan’s buttocks and thighs, washing away the stench.
“Dirty bastard,” he said. “Take a drink if you want it.”
Ryan turned back to the doorway. He opened his mouth and lapped at the stream, swallowing more air than water. He coughed, and doubled over as the spasm seemed to tear him in two.
The flow of water died and a tin bucket clattered to the floor, rolled across the sodden earth.
“Use that next time.”
Something small and solid struck Ryan’s chest and bounced away. He looked for it in the puddles at his bare feet. There, a chocolate bar.
“Eat that. It’s all you’re getting.”
The door closed, sealing out the light, locking in the darkness. Shivers rippled through Ryan’s torso. He dropped to his knees on the wet earth, ran his fingers over the slick floor, found the chocolate bar.
He ate in the blackness, blinded, swallowing despite the pain it caused.
THEY BEAT HIM again, Carter and the tall man, as Wallace kept the pistol trained on him.
Every time the light faded, a hard slap dragged Rya
n back to its harsh glow. Carter’s open hand left stinging shadows on Ryan’s cheek. An anchor in the waking world, mooring him to the pain.
When they were done, Carter crouched over Ryan’s shaking body. He reached out and grabbed a handful of Ryan’s hair.
“Get some rest, son. Tomorrow, you and me are going to have a talk. And we’ll settle this. Now, you have a good long think about what you’re going to tell me. Because if you don’t tell me what I want to know, you’re going to think everything up to now was just a tickle fight. Understand?”
With his free hand, Carter gave Ryan one last slap to the cheek.
“Good boy,” he said, and released his grip on Ryan’s hair.
He stood and went to the ladder. Wallace and the tall man followed him up to the doorway. The tall man pulled the ladder up behind them and closed the door.
In the darkness, Ryan wept.
CHAPTER FORTY SIX
SKORZENY FINISHED THE cigarette and stubbed it out in the crystal ashtray. He heard the rustling of a newspaper at the other end of the line.
“Here it is,” Haughey said. “Exactly like you wrote it.”
“It’s done, then,” Skorzeny said.
“I don’t like it. These boys are dangerous, and you’re goading them.”
“I am simply playing them at their own game. Their weakness is greed. It will destroy them.”
“I pray you’re right,” Haughey said.
Skorzeny smiled. “Minister, I have never been wrong.”
He returned the receiver to its cradle.
It was as if Haughey believed no one had ever attempted to blackmail Skorzeny before. Several had tried over the eighteen years since the war had ended, and none had succeeded. Indeed, none had survived.
Though Luca Impelliteri had almost escaped death. Almost, but not quite.
A tour of Tarragona’s Roman amphitheatre, undergoing restorations since the previous decade, had been arranged for Skorzeny and the rest of Franco’s guests, with the mayor himself acting as guide. The guests clambered across the arced stone seating, built eighteen hundred years ago, where the region’s wealthy would have watched gladiators spar or Christians burn.
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