by Tom Wood
He approached the closed kitchen door – quieter than a relaxed man walking, but not as quiet as a man trying to be quiet. The gravel driveway betrayed him, as he knew it would, before he got close enough to hear what was being said, but as he neared and his angle to the window changed he didn’t pause to read Leeson’s lips, because Hart looked his way.
Hinges quietly squealed as Victor pushed the door open. The conversation had already stopped before he stepped inside. All eyes focused his way. Eight of those eyes belonged to trained and experienced killers. Two belonged to a man armed with a gun, who employed those killers. The final two were the only pair Victor felt the need to look away from. He tossed Leeson the car keys before he could be asked for them and made his way to the sink, unconcerned about his back being to the room because there was no logical reason the crew would turn on him now when they had not done so earlier.
He helped himself to some water and as he drank it down individual conversations broke out behind him: Leeson talking to Hart and Francesca, Dietrich with Coughlin. Jaeger spoke to no one. His reflection in the window glass stared at Victor’s and nodded just once.
No one saw it but Victor. He turned around and examined the room. Jaeger was on the opposite side of the room. Hart, Francesca and Leeson formed a small triangle close to the door, to Victor’s left. Dietrich and Coughlin stood near the stove, to Victor’s right.
Victor circled around the table, moving past Coughlin and Dietrich. He bumped his shoulder into Dietrich’s – the shoulder that he had stabbed.
Dietrich grimaced. ‘Watch it, prick.’
‘Don’t tell me that little cut hurts a strong man like you?’
‘Not as much as it will hurt you when I cut your tongue from your mouth.’
‘Gentlemen,’ Leeson said. ‘Let’s not have a repeat of earlier.’
‘There won’t be,’ Victor said as he continued to stare at Dietrich. ‘He hasn’t got his knife.’
Dietrich smiled but anger raged in his eyes. Victor saw Jaeger’s reflection shift across the window as he neared Leeson. Hart saw Victor look.
‘Back off from each other,’ Leeson said. ‘Now, if you please.’
‘I thought you were a real tough guy, Dietrich,’ Victor said. ‘But you’re just a coward. Everyone in this room knows it. Without the knife, you’re nothing.’
Dietrich swung at him wildly. It was a powerful right hook that would have fractured Victor’s eye socket had he not slipped the punch. Victor caught Dietrich’s hand and wrist and twisted it into a lock. Dietrich responded with a left-handed uppercut to Victor’s stomach, but Victor knew it was coming and turned away, making Dietrich follow him in a semicircle to avoid his arm breaking. He roared – anger rather than pain.
‘That’s it,’ Leeson said and drew his SIG.
Jaeger went for it.
He got his hands on the weapon and wrenched it easily from Leeson’s grip.
It was a small gun and Jaeger’s hands were huge, and it took him a second of fumbling to get his finger into the small trigger guard. In that second Hart grabbed a mug from the table and threw it at Jaeger – a fast underarm toss aimed at the head, that wouldn’t induce unconsciousness or inflict major damage but would hurt.
Jaeger flinched. He lurched backwards and to his left, away from the incoming mug, which Hart had thrown at Jaeger from his right, herding him away from Leeson and into the open space.
Hart charged.
Jaeger was huge but he was fast for his size, and he recovered quickly enough to be ready before Hart reached him. The SIG was in his hand and he brought his arm up to point at Hart. Victor saw that though it would take a few more seconds to reach its conclusion, the attempt was already over.
In the same way Jaeger was fast for his size, so was Hart. But Hart was around one hundred pounds lighter. As the gun came up, Hart went low, below the muzzle, and Jaeger couldn’t react in time to stop Hart wrapping his arms around Jaeger’s thighs – thighs that were too close together because Jaeger’s feet were too squared.
Jaeger was huge and heavy but Hart was strong. He didn’t need to lift him high off the ground for his forward momentum to tip Jaeger backwards far enough for gravity to pull him crashing down to the floor.
Victor released Dietrich and Dietrich didn’t attack. He, like everyone else in the room, watched Hart and Jaeger.
Jaeger was on his back and his arms had gone up over his head. He’d kept hold of the gun despite the impact, but being thrown to the floor had momentarily stunned him. Hart used that brief window to go for the gun, standing up to do so, and Jaeger rolled his head backwards to keep him in view as he tried to angle the weapon.
Well played, Victor thought, because he saw what Hart had done. He didn’t go for the SIG, but stamped down with his heel on Jaeger’s now-exposed throat.
Then Hart stood back, because there was nothing else he needed to do.
Jaeger’s whole body seemed to tense. He sat up and whipped the gun around to track Hart, but let it fall from his fingers. Because he was trying to breathe.
Panic warped Jaeger’s face.
He grasped at his throat, eyes wide and staring at a point far beyond the kitchen. He opened his mouth and shoved fingers into it, but Victor knew he had no chance of getting them far enough into his throat to push open his windpipe, which had been crushed by Hart’s heel. Jaeger wheezed and wretched and spluttered, his face reddening with every second that passed.
Everyone just watched.
After thirty seconds of fruitlessly trying to open up his windpipe with his fingers Jaeger barged across the kitchen, knocking aside anyone not quick enough to get out of his path. He wrenched open a drawer, then another because he didn’t find what he was looking for in the first.
Jaeger grabbed a pair of scissors, but dropped them because his heart rate was so high his fine motor skills were almost nonexistent. He fell to his knees to grab the scissors from the floor. He didn’t stand again – having been without oxygen for almost a minute, he had neither the strength to stand nor the time.
He directed his gaze at the ceiling by tilting his head back and with the fingers of his left hand found the groove at the top of his ribcage, where the clavicles met and only a thin layer of skin covered the oesophagus.
‘Look away,’ Victor said to Francesca.
She didn’t. At first Victor thought she was shocked and terrified and confused by his words and Jaeger’s actions, but he saw that she was none of those. She watched because she was curious. She watched as Jaeger used the scissors to stab himself in the throat.
The scissors were an ordinary kitchen utensil, not a surgical scalpel, and the tip of each blade was blunted for safety. Jaeger’s first stab drew blood and a breathless grunt but failed to pierce the cartilage.
Victor had no doubt Jaeger could have driven the scissors through a man’s skull in other circumstances, but he was weak and dying and with such an awkward manoeuvre could only employ a fraction of his depleted strength. Jaeger tried again, then again, stabbing at his throat with increasingly wild and inaccurate blows as oxygen deprivation escalated. Blood soaked his hand and cascaded over his shirt. Torn skin hung in strips from his neck.
He slumped from his knees onto his left side, his face swollen and blue, eyes bulging and red. He made a slow, weak stab at his neck, then stopped.
No one spoke for a long moment. Hart picked up Leeson’s gun and handed it back.
‘Would it have worked?’ Coughlin asked, eventually. He looked around, not certain who would know.
‘Yes,’ Victor said. ‘He could have opened the scissors a little to create a breathing hole.’
Hart nodded. ‘He never gave up. I respect that.’
Francesca said, ‘You’re an animal.’ It didn’t sound like an insult.
Hart nodded again. ‘I’m human.’
‘He paid the price for turning on me – for turning on us all,’ Leeson said. ‘He deserved everything that he received. He could have left here a ri
ch man. Now, he’ll never leave.’
‘He believed you were going to betray him,’ Victor said. Everyone looked at him. ‘He believed after the job was complete you would have Hart kill him – and the rest of us – to ensure there was no comeback.’
‘And how would you know what he believed?’
‘Because he told me.’
‘Then he had an overactive imagination.’
‘He thought Hart would kill him,’ Victor said, gesturing to where Jaeger lay unmoving on the floor, scissors still clutched in hand, blood pooling on the floor around his head. ‘Hart killed him.’
Leeson smiled a little. ‘Jaeger’s paranoia became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think there’s a lesson in there for each and every one of us. But, fortunately, we are able to continue without him. He’s already fulfilled his part.’
Victor thought about Jaeger working in the barn and the ceramic dust. ‘You said you’d tell us about the job after dinner.’
‘I did. So let’s go.’
‘Go where?’
‘Outside,’ Leeson said. ‘Jaeger’s corpse can stay here for now. Mr Dietrich will drive my limousine. Everyone else in the minivan. It’s time you knew what you were hired for.’
FIFTY-TWO
Coughlin drove. Leeson sat next to him. Francesca sat behind. Victor sat next to her. Hart sat on the back seat. Victor couldn’t see Hart, but he knew he was watching. The reason for that, however, Victor didn’t know. Maybe Hart was trying to decide if Victor really was Felix Kooi, like he claimed to be. Maybe he was wondering if Victor’s provocation of Dietrich had anything to do with Jaeger’s subsequent attempt to take Leeson’s gun.
They drove through the winding, narrow country lanes between the endless fields of olive trees before joining the motorway north to Rome. Dietrich followed in the Phantom. The drive took fifty minutes. Leeson directed Coughlin on which turnings to take when they reached the city, navigating through the industrial neighbourhoods and business developments of Rome’s southern sector.
Their destination stood between a massive structure housing self-storage units and the row after row of used cars in a dealership, a high chain-link fence surrounding the compound. Steel spikes like shark’s teeth protruded from a metal tube that ran along the top of the fence. Beyond the fence were two buildings. Coughlin stopped the minivan before a gate and Hart climbed out to unlock the padlock that secured it. He pushed it open and waved Coughlin through. The neighbourhood was quiet. An office block stood on the opposite side of the road. There were no residential buildings nearby and little through traffic. Units were shut down for the night.
Security lights illuminated the buildings inside the fence. Both were sizeable but one dwarfed the other. The larger was a prefabricated steel structure, modern and built purely for functionality. The smaller building looked at least a hundred years older, still practical but without disregard for its appearance. Its walls were of rendered brick, painted white. Red tiles formed a sloping roof.
‘It’s owned by a consortium,’ Leeson explained as the team disembarked from the minivan and Hart relocked the gate. ‘Growers from all over the region have their harvest processed here. Some of those families have been bringing olives to this mill for two centuries; one generation after the next following in their father’s footsteps. I think that’s quite beautiful. But it’s also similarly pathetic. We should strive to do better than our parents, not copy them.’
‘When’s the harvest?’ Victor asked, as though he was making conversation.
‘Not for some time.’
‘So the mill is empty?’
Leeson nodded. ‘We have it all to ourselves, yes.’
Victor saw that the white panel van Hart had driven to the farmhouse was parked in the six-metre corridor of space between the two buildings. Parked in front of it, further away from the gate, was another vehicle, almost as tall and wide as the panel van. A number of weatherproof sheets covered it, each tied down by ropes that ringed the vehicle. Victor would have recognised the dimensions even without the information supplied by Coughlin. This was the ambulance he and Dietrich had stolen, parked away from the road and hidden by sheets to ensure it wasn’t identified. It would make a good getaway vehicle, with room in the back for the entire team. Or it might be equally effective at providing a way of getting into a restricted area. He felt Hart watching him but didn’t look to confirm it.
‘One building for traditional production,’ Victor said, ‘and the other to utilise modern methods?’
‘That’s correct, Mr Kooi,’ Leeson answered. ‘There is a feeling – or prejudice, if you will – among some that the more machinery and technology involved in the production, the lower the quality of the oil. Hence one building to pander to such elitist nonsense and one for an efficient enterprise.’
He responded as if Victor was curious about olive oil production and Victor acted as if he was interested in such things and not the likely interior composition of the two buildings so he could begin strategising for his presence in either one. Something was wrong. There was an atmosphere between Leeson, Hart and Francesca that went beyond Jaeger’s recent demise. They all knew what Victor, Dietrich and Coughlin were going to discover and what was going to happen next. Dietrich and Coughlin were oblivious to it, but Victor saw the shift in posture and body language; Leeson’s enthusiasm wasn’t purely because of Victor’s seeming interest in the mill’s product. He was growing increasingly edgy and excited.
Victor thought back to the events of the past twenty-four hours, searching for some indication of what he was about to find. He thought back to the journey with Francesca from Gibraltar to the farmhouse, and further back to the conversation with Leeson on the phone and that first meeting in the back of the limousine.
‘What are we doing here?’ Coughlin whispered.
Victor didn’t answer, because he didn’t know. He saw cigarette stubs littering the ground near the grated drain.
‘Is this where we’re doing the job?’
Victor shook his head. He didn’t know the mill’s purpose, but he knew it wasn’t the strike point. He knew enough to know that. It was obvious. It didn’t need to be deduced. Coughlin should have known that too. That he didn’t meant he wasn’t very smart. Victor looked at him, then at Leeson, at Dietrich, then Francesca and finally Hart. Hart had asked Victor what he thought of his teammates, including Coughlin. Victor had said Coughlin must be good if Leeson had hired him. Because you’re good, Hart had said. Dietrich was good in a fight, and maybe he was good in the field too, but his attitude and mentality were just about as bad as they could be. Coughlin was stealthy but too young to have any significant experience, and he was no thinker. Victor didn’t know much about Jaeger, but he’d got himself killed and death was always the ultimate separator. Kooi had been a competent killer, but he had failed to kill Charters as requested and if not for the attention drawn by the watch merchant would have been killed without incident. Kooi, Dietrich, Jaeger and Coughlin. All average operators. All lacking. Except Hart. He had foiled Jaeger’s mutiny in a matter of seconds.
It didn’t make sense.
‘This way,’ Leeson said.
He led them down the corridor of space between the two buildings, past the white panel van, and to a door that led inside the bigger and newer of the two structures. Victor noted that the fluorescent ceiling lights were already switched on, illuminating the large interior. A corrugated metal roof stood ten metres above, supported by steel girders and pillars. Gleaming modern machinery filled the majority of the floor space. Victor saw conveyor belts and centrifuges, vats and tanks, pipes and chutes and massive presses. Everything was shut down and dormant and strangely silent. Ear defenders hung from hooks near the door for use when the mill was operational, but now the only noise was that of their footsteps on the hard flooring. The whole space was immaculate: diligently and meticulously cleaned after the last harvest had ended.
Coughlin and Dietrich shared an expression of curiosity a
nd Victor made sure to wear a similar one. In contrast Leeson was still excited, Hart relaxed yet purposeful, and Francesca ambivalent.
A door on the far side of the mill led to corridors and to other doors that would lead in turn to testing rooms and offices, changing rooms and toilets and other facilities. Leeson pushed open a door into some kind of meeting room, perhaps where managers and supervisors would discuss the day-to-day business of olive oil production. Whiteboards hung from the far wall. Flipcharts stood before them. A wastepaper bin sat nearby. Cheap plastic chairs, that during the harvest season would no doubt be arranged in uneven rows facing one wall where someone would stand in front of the whiteboards and flipcharts, were stacked against one wall to free up the room. There was another door at the far end.
‘Cool,’ Dietrich said.
